But the moment the mind of the speaker becomes cold,
that moment every such expression becomes untrue, as being for ever
untrue in the external facts. And there is no greater baseness in
literature than the habit of using these metaphorical expressions in
cool blood. An inspired writer, in full impetuosity of passion, may
speak wisely and truly of "raging waves of the sea foaming out their
own shame";[62] but it is only the basest writer who cannot speak of
the sea without talking of "raging waves," "remorseless floods,"
"ravenous billows," etc.; and it is one of the signs of the highest
power in a writer to check all such habits of thought, and to keep his
eyes fixed firmly on the _pure fact_, out of which if any feeling
conies to him or his reader, he knows it must be a true one.
To keep to the waves, I forget who it is who represents a man in
despair desiring that his body may be cast into the sea,
_Whose changing mound, and foam that passed away_,
Might mock the eye that questioned where I lay.
Observe, there is not a single false, or even overcharged, expression.
"Mound" of the sea wave is perfectly simple and true; "changing" is as
familiar as may be; "foam that passed away," strictly literal; and the
whole line descriptive of the reality with a degree of accuracy which
I know not any other verse, in the range of poetry, that altogether
equals.
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