round it; and the wider
the scope of its glance, and the vaster the truths into which it obtains
an insight, the more fantastic their distortion is likely to be, as the
winds and vapors trouble the field of the telescope most when it reaches
farthest.

Sec. LXII. Now, so far as the truth is seen by the imagination[42] in
its wholeness and quietness, the vision is sublime; but so far as it is
narrowed and broken by the inconsistencies of the human capacity, it
becomes grotesque; and it would seem to be rare that any very exalted
truth should be impressed on the imagination without some grotesqueness
in its aspect, proportioned to the degree of _diminution of breadth_ in
the grasp which is given of it. Nearly all the dreams recorded in the
Bible,--Jacob's, Joseph's, Pharaoh's, Nebuchadnezzar's,--are grotesques;
and nearly the whole of the accessary scenery in the books of Ezekiel
and the Apocalypse. Thus, Jacob's dream revealed to him the ministry of
angels; but because this ministry could not be seen or understood by him
in its fulness, it was narrowed to him into a ladder between heaven and
earth, which was a grotesque. Joseph's two dreams were evidently
intended to be signs of the steadfastness of the Divine purpose towards
him, by possessing the clearness of special prophecy; yet were couched
in such imagery, as not to inform him prematurely of his destiny, and
only to be understood after their fulfilment. The sun, and moon, and
stars were at the period, and are indeed throughout the Bible, the
symbols of high authority. It was not revealed to Joseph that he should
be lord over all Egypt; but the representation of his family by symbols
of the most magnificent dominion, and yet as subject to him, must have
been afterwards felt by him as a distinctly prophetic indication of his
own supreme power. It was not revealed to him that the occasion of his
brethren's special humiliation before him should be their coming to buy
corn; but when the event took place, must he not have felt that there
was prophetic purpose in the form of the sheaves of wheat which first
imaged forth their subjection to him? And these two images of the sun
doing obeisance, and the sheaves bowing down,--narrowed and imperfect
intimations of great truth which yet could not be otherwise
conveyed,--are both grotesque. The kine of Pharaoh eating each other,
the gold and clay of Nebuchadnezzar's image, the four beasts full of
eyes, and other imagery of Ezeki