Page:On the Sublime 1890.djvu/59

X soul, body, ears, tongue, eyes, colour, all fail her, and are lost to her as completely as if they were not her own? Observe too how her sensations contradict one another—she freezes, she burns, she raves, she reasons, and all at the same instant. And this description is designed to show that she is assailed, not by any particular emotion, but by a tumult of different emotions. All these tokens belong to the passion of love; but it is in the choice, as I said, of the most striking features, and in the combination of them into one picture, that the perfection of this Ode of Sappho's lies. Similarly Homer in his descriptions of tempests always picks out the most terrific circumstances. The poet of the "Arimaspeia" intended the following lines to be grand—

All must see that there is more of ornament than of terror in the description. Now let us turn to Homer. One passage will suffice to show the contrast.