ling of the imagination with its separate
conceptions, and endeavor to understand not only its principles of
selection, but its modes of apprehension with respect to what it
selects.

Sec. 2. Milton's and Dante's description of flame.

When Milton's Satan first "rears from off the pool, his mighty stature,"
the image of Leviathan before suggested not being yet abandoned, the
effect on the fire-wave is described as of the upheaved monster on the
ocean stream.

"On each hand the flames,
Driven backwards, slope their pointing spires,
and rolled
In billows, leave in the midst a horrid vale."

And then follows a fiercely restless piece of volcanic imagery.

"As when the force
Of subterranean wind transports a hill
Torn from Pelorus, or the shattered side
Of thundering Aetna, whose combustible
And fuell'd entrails thence conceiving fire,
Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds,
And leave a singed bottom, all involved
With stench and smoke; such resting found the sole
Of unblest feet."

Yet I think all this is too far detailed, and deals too much with
externals; we feel rather the form of the fire-waves than their fury, we
walk upon them too securely, and the fuel, sublimation, smoke, and
singeing, seem to me images only of partial combustion; they vary and
extend the conception, but they lower the thermometer. Look back, if you
will, and add to the description the glimmering of the livid flames; the
sulphurous hail and red lightning; yet altogether, however they
overwhelm us with horror, fail of making us thoroughly, unendurably hot.
The intense essence of flame has not been given. Now hear Dante:--

"Feriami 'l Sole in su l'omero destro
Che gia raggiando tutto l'Occidente
_Mutava in bianco aspetto di eilestro.
Ed io_ facea _con l'ombra piu rovente
Parer la flamma_."

That is a slight touch; he has not gone to Aetna nor Pelorus for fuel;
but we shall not soon recover from it--he has taken our breath away and
leaves us gasping. No smoke nor cinders there. Pure, white, hurtling,
formless flame; very fire crystal, we cannot make spires nor waves of
it, nor divide it, nor walk on it, there is no question about si