Page:On the Sublime 1890.djvu/52

 It is only natural that their words should be full of sublimity whose thoughts are full of majesty. Hence sublime thoughts belong properly to the loftiest minds. Such was the reply of Alexander to his general Parmenio, when the latter had observed, "Were I Alexander, I should have been satisfied"; "And I, were I Parmenio"…

The distance between heaven and earth —a measure, one might say, not less appropriate to Homer's genius than to the stature of his discord. How different is that touch of Hesiod's in his description of sorrow—if the Shield is really one of his works: "rheum from her nostrils flowed" —an image not terrible, but disgusting. Now consider how Homer gives dignity to his divine persons—

He measures their speed by the extent of the whole world—a grand comparison, which might reasonably lead us to remark that if the divine steeds were to take two such leaps in succession, they would find no room in the world for another. Sublime also are the images in the "Battle of the Gods"—

Rang through the air, and shook the Olympian height; Then terror seized the monarch of the dead,