noble state,
according to the force of the emotion which has induced it. For it is
no credit to a man that he is not morbid or inaccurate in his
perceptions, when he has no strength of feeling to warp them; and it
is in general a sign of higher capacity and stand in the ranks of
being, that the emotions should be strong enough to vanquish, partly,
the intellect, and make it believe what they choose. But it is still a
grander condition when the intellect also rises, till it is strong
enough to assert its rule against, or together with, the utmost
efforts of the passions; and the whole man stands in an iron glow,
white hot, perhaps, but still strong, and in no wise evaporating; even
if he melts, losing none of his weight.

So, then, we have the three ranks: the man who perceives rightly,
because he does not feel, and to whom the primrose is very accurately
the primrose, because he does not love it. Then, secondly, the man who
perceives wrongly, because he feels, and to whom the primrose is
anything else than a primrose: a star, or a sun, or a fairy's shield,
or a forsaken maiden. And then, lastly, there is the man who perceives
rightly in spite of his feelings, and to whom the primrose is for
ever nothing else than itself--a little flower, apprehended in the
very plain and leafy fact of it, whatever and how many soever the
associations and passions may be, that crowd around it. And, in
general, these three classes may be rated in comparative order, as the
men who are not poets at all, and the poets of the second order, and
the poets of the first; only however great a man may be, there are
always some subjects which _ought_ to throw him off his balance; some,
by which his poor human capacity of thought should be conquered, and
brought into the inaccurate and vague state of perception, so that the
language of the highest inspiration becomes broken, obscure, and wild
in metaphor, resembling that of the weaker man, overborne by weaker
things.

Sec. 9. And thus, in full, there are four classes: the men who feel
nothing, and therefore see truly; the men who feel strongly, think
weakly, and see untruly (second order of poets); the men who feel
strongly, think strongly, and see truly (first order of poets); and
the men who, strong as human creatures can be, are yet submitted to
influences stronger than they, and see in a sort untruly, because what
they see is inconceivably above them. This last is the usual condition
of prophe