Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/46

 vitality which must overflow, spill itself upon Nature, appropriate her, senseless as she may seem and incapable of reflecting our subtilties of mind and heart. Often there is something very noble and tender in this process of imagination, which converts surprise into emotion: as when Coleridge says,—

"Methinks it should have been impossible Not to love all things in a world so filled; Where the breeze warbles, and the mute, still air Is music slumbering in her instrument."

This innate nobleness of the simile checks our smile, and if we feel any hilarity it belongs to that delighted health which mantles all through us when we recognize beauty. Perhaps the mind soared,

"By means of that mere snatch, to many a hoard Of fancies: as some falling cone bears soft The eye, along the fir-tree spire, aloft To a dove's nest."

The simile gives us such a new perception of the mysterious relations of mind and Nature that we should not be surprised if the object designated had really, in the great involvement of all things, some secret affinity with the thought; perhaps the thought has recognized the family mark and claimed kinship. This is an exalted claim because it sets free our personality. We become superior to Nature, and are made aware that we can vivify her as the Creator can; but, as we also are creatures, we admit her to a tender and refining confidence. "Daffodils, that come before the swallow dares," "take the winds of March with beauty."