rfectly
easy, is it not? Yes, for Dante. But for the ordinary writer it would
have been no more than "A rain of fire." But what manner of rain, O thou
ordinary and inadequate writer? We do not, indeed, want scorching
rhetoric and verse piled on verse. We want the "inevitable" word, the
simple and the home-coming, the Dantesque. Byron now and again exhibits
the power. Mazeppa is bound naked on the wild horse, and--

The skies spun like a mighty wheel,
I saw the trees like drunkards reel,
And a slight flash sprang o'er my eyes,
Which saw no further....

* * * * *

With the consummate literary artists the picture, whether it be of a
real scene, an imagined scene, or a feeling, is given in few but
effective strokes. And it is so given simply because they see it all so
distinctly. As Longinus says of Sappho's famous ode of passion, the
supreme writer seizes upon the essential and salient features, combines
them, and trusts to your and my imagination to supply the rest. When a
writer welters in words and lines, when he elaborates touch upon touch,
you may be sure that he is trying to fill the picture into his
imagination, instead of being possessed by an imagination which
determine the picture.

In the _Ancient Mariner_ Coleridge describes the passing of the spectral
ship:--

The western wave was all aflame,
The day was well-nigh done!
Almost upon the western wave
Rested the broad bright Sun,
When that strange shape drove suddenly
Betwixt us and the Sun.

And straight the Sun was fleck'd with bars,
(Heaven's Mother send us grace!)
As if through a dungeon-grate he peer'd
With broad and burning face.

Are those her ribs through which the Sun
Did peer, as through a grate?
And is that Woman all her crew?
Is that a Death? and are there two?
Is Death that Woman's mate?

and then--

The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out;
At one stride comes the dark;
With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea,
Off shot the spectre-bark.

For my own part those words make me see it all fully, vividly. I do not
merely behold the scene: I feel the peculiar awe of the narrator. Can
you doubt that Coleridge saw this in his brain exactly as if it were
real?

When Keats in his mind's eye saw Madeline praying under that Gothic
window which was so "innumerable of stains and splendid dyes" he beheld
the scene as if he were positively on the spot to paint it. And h