ss, shoreless flood of Action, and lives through perpetual
metamorphoses. The withered leaf is not dead and lost, there are
Forces in it and around it, though working in inverse order; else how
could it _rot_? Despise not the rag from which man makes Paper, or the
litter from which the earth makes Corn. Rightly viewed no meanest
object is insignificant; all objects are as windows, through which the
philosophic eye looks into Infinitude itself.'

Again, leaving that wondrous Schwarzwald Smithy-Altar, what vacant,
high-sailing air-ships are these, and whither will they sail with us?

'All visible things are emblems; what thou seest is not there on its
own account; strictly taken, is not there at all: Matter exists only
spiritually, and to represent some Idea, and _body_ it forth. Hence
Clothes, as despicable as we think them, are so unspeakably significant.
Clothes, from the King's mantle downwards, are emblematic not of want
only, but of a manifold cunning Victory over Want. On the other hand,
all Emblematic things are properly Clothes, thought-woven or
hand-woven: must not the Imagination weave Garments, visible Bodies,
wherein the else invisible creations and inspirations of our Reason
are, like Spirits, revealed, and first become all-powerful;--the
rather if, as we often see, the Hand too aid her, and (by wool Clothes
or otherwise) reveal such even to the outward eye?

'Men are properly said to be clothed with Authority, clothed with
Beauty, with Curses, and the like. Nay, if you consider it, what is
Man himself, and his whole terrestrial Life, but an Emblem; a Clothing
or visible Garment for that divine ME of his, cast hither, like a
light-particle, down from Heaven? Thus is he said also to be clothed
with a Body.

'Language is called the Garment of Thought: however, it should rather
be, Language is the Flesh-Garment, the Body, of thought. I said that
Imagination wove this Flesh-Garment; and does not she? Metaphors are
her stuff: examine Language; what, if you except some few primitive
elements (of natural sound), what is it all but Metaphors, recognised
as such, or no longer recognised; still fluid and florid, or now
solid-grown and colourless? If those same primitive elements are the
osseous fixtures in the Flesh-Garment, Language,--then are Metaphors
its muscles and tissues and living integuments. An unmetaphorical
style you shall in vain seek for: is not your very _Attention_ a
_Stretching-to_? The difference