164 LITERARY VALUES 



for three hundred years, there was silence in the 

 world ; no muttering was heard ; no eye winked be- 

 neath the wing. Winds of hostility might still rave 

 at intervals, but it was on the outside of the mighty 

 empire, it was at a dreamlike distance ; and, like 

 the storms that beat against some monumental castle, 

 ' and at the doors and windows seem to call,' they 

 rather irritated and vivified the sense of security, 

 than at all disturbed its luxurious lull." 



Contrast with this a passage from Emerson's first 

 prose work, " Nature," wherein the poetic element 

 is more conspicuous : — 



" The poet, the orator, bred in the woods, whose 

 senses have been nourished by their fair and appeas- 

 ing changes, year after year, without design and 

 without heed, shall not lose their lesson altogether, 

 in the roar of cities or the broil of politics. Long 

 hereafter, amidst agitation and terror in national 

 councils, — in the hour of revolution, — these sol- 

 emn images shall reappear in their morning lustre, 

 as fit symbols and words of the thoughts which the 

 passing events shall awaken. At the call of a noble 

 sentiment, again the woods wave, the pines murmur, 

 the river rolls and shines, and the cattle low upon 

 the mountains, as he saw and heard them in his in- 

 fancy. And with these forms, the spells of persua- 

 sion, the keys of power are put into his hands." 



Or this passage from Carlyle's " French Eevolu- 

 tion," shall we call it eloquent prose or poetic prose ? 



"In this manner, however, has the Day bent 

 downwards. Wearied mortals are creeping home 



