who perceives rightly,
because he does not feel, and to whom the primrose is very accurately
the primrose,[61] 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.

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
prophetic inspiration.

I separate these classes, in order that their character may be clearly
understood; but of course they are united each to the other by
imperceptible transitions, and the same mind, according to the
influences to which it is subjected, passes at different times into
the various states. Still, the difference between the great and less
man is, on the whole, chiefly in this point of _alterability_. That is
to say, the one knows too much, and perceives and feels too much of
the past and future, and of all things beside and around that which
immediately affects him, to be in any wise shaken by it. His mind is
made up; his thoughts have an accustomed current; his ways are
stedfast; it is not this or that new sight which will at once
unbalance him. He is tende