ge that flying still before me gleamed
Upon the glassy plain."

The whole description may have been written with great rapidity, or
with anxious and tentative labour: the memories of boyish days may have
been kindled with a sudden illumination, or they may have grown slowly
into the requisite distinctness, detail after detail emerging from the
general obscurity, like the appearing stars at night. But whether the
poet felt his way to images and epithets, rapidly or slowly, is
unimportant; we have to do only with the result; and the result
implies, as an absolute condition, that the images were distinct. Only
thus could they serve the purposes of poetry, which must arouse in us
memories of similar scenes, and kindle emotions of pleasurable
experience.

III.

Having cited an example of bad writing consequent on imperfect Vision,
and an example of good writing consequent on accurate Vision, I might
consider that enough had been done for the immediate purpose of the
present chapter; the many other illustrations which the Principle of
Vision would require before it could be considered as adequately
expounded, I must defer till I come to treat of the application of
principles. But before closing this chapter it may be needful to
examine some arguments which have a contrary tendency, and imply, or
seem to imply, that distinctness of Vision is very far from necessary.

At the outset we must come to an understanding as to this word "image,"
and endeavour to free the word "vision" from all equivoque. If these
words were understood literally there would be an obvious absurdity in
speaking of an image of a sound, or of seeing an emotion. Yet if by
means of symbols the effect of a sound is produced in us, or the
psychological state of any human being is rendered intelligible to us,
we are said to have images of these things, which the poet has
imagined. It is because the eye is the most valued and intellectual of
our senses that the majority of metaphors are borrowed from its
sensations. Language, after all, is only the use of symbols, and Art
also can only affect us through symbols. If a phrase can summon a
terror resembling that summoned by the danger which it indicates, a man
is said to see the danger. Sometimes a phrase will awaken more vivid
images of danger than would be called up by the actual presence of the
dangerous object; because the mind will more readily apprehend the
symbols of the phrase than interpret the i