Page:Studies of a Biographer 3.djvu/88

 Æsop's Fables, offers delightful suggestions. One of his most singular passages relates to the well-known fact (used also in his Progress of the Soul) that the mouse is a deadly enemy of the elephant. It creeps up the elephant's trunk and 'gnaws the life-cords.' This is applied to the relations between man and the Being who made him out of nothing, 'which is infinitely less than a mathematical point.' Can man dare to be at enmity with his Creator, 'who is not only a multiplied elephant, millions of elephants multiplied into one, but a multiplied world, a multiplied all, all that can be conceived by us, infinite many times over?' Do modern preachers regret, I wonder, that they are not allowed such extravagances, which at least would be fatal to slumbers, or rejoice that such efforts are not expected of them? Anyway, with so wide a field, Donne had ample opportunities for startling his hearers and stimulating their attention. Whatever the eccentricities, each sermon plays round some definite central thought, and has a certain unity through the endless ramifications of exuberant illustration. Such performances might be amazing feats of intellectual juggling; but could they produce 'raptures' and 'tears'? I can manage to believe it, though I