on, 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, recognized as such,
or no longer recognized; still fluid and florid, or now solid-grown and
colorless? 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
lies here: some styles are le