"It is often obscure, often half-told; for he who wrote it, in his clear seeing of the things beneath, may have been impatient of detailed interpretations; for if we choose to dwell upon it and trace it, it will lead us always securely back to that metropolis of the soul’s dominion from which we may follow out all the ways and tracks to its farthest coasts."
— Ruskin, John (1819-1900)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Smith, Elder, and Co.
Date
1848
Metaphor
"It is often obscure, often half-told; for he who wrote it, in his clear seeing of the things beneath, may have been impatient of detailed interpretations; for if we choose to dwell upon it and trace it, it will lead us always securely back to that metropolis of the soul’s dominion from which we may follow out all the ways and tracks to its farthest coasts."
Metaphor in Context
There is in every word set down by the imaginative mind an awful undercurrent of meaning, and evidence and shadow upon it of the deep places out of which it has come. It is often obscure, often half-told; for he who wrote it, in his clear seeing of the things beneath, may have been impatient of detailed interpretations; for if we choose to dwell upon it and trace it, it will lead us always securely back to that metropolis of the soul’s dominion from which we may follow out all the ways and tracks to its farthest coasts.
(vol. ii, pp. 156-7)
(vol. ii, pp. 156-7)
Provenance
Reading T.E. Hulme's "Romanticism and Classicism"
Citation
John Ruskin, Modern Painters, vol. ii "Of The Imaginative and Theoretic Faculties," 2nd ed. (London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 1848). <Link to Google Books>
Date of Entry
12/07/2012
