"Elpenor! How camest thou under the shadowy darkness? Hast thou come
faster on foot than I in my black ship?"[59]

Which Pope renders thus:--

O, say, what angry power Elpenor led
To glide in shades, and wander with the dead?
How could thy soul, by realms and seas disjoined,
Outfly the nimble sail, and leave the lagging wind?

I sincerely hope the reader finds no pleasure here, either in the
nimbleness of the sail, or the laziness of the wind! And yet how is it
that these conceits are so painful now, when they have been pleasant
to us in the other instances?

For a very simple reason. They are not a _pathetic_ fallacy at all,
for they are put into the mouth of the wrong passion--a passion which
never could possibly have spoken them--agonized curiosity. Ulysses
wants to know the facts of the matter; and the very last thing his
mind could do at the moment would be to pause, or suggest in anywise
what was _not_ a fact. The delay in the first three lines, and conceit
in the last, jar upon us instantly like the most frightful discord in
music. No poet of true imaginative power could possibly have written
the passage.[60]

Therefore we see that the spirit of truth must guide us in some sort,
even in our enjoyment of fallacy. Coleridge's fallacy has no discord
in it, but Pope's has set our teeth on edge. Without farther
questioning, I will endeavour to state the main bearings of this
matter.

The temperament which admits the pathetic fallacy, is, as I said
above, that of a mind and body in some sort too weak to deal fully
with what is before them or upon them; borne away, or over-clouded,
or over-dazzled by emotion; and it is a more or less 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