"Whether this quality is to be ascribed to the cause above-mentioned in particular; or whether it is the effect of that fiery impetuosity of Imagination, which, breaking through the legal restraints of criticism, or overleaping the mounds of authority and custom, sometimes loses sight of the Just and Natural, while it is in pursuit of the New and Wonderful, and, by attempting to rise above the sphere of Humanity, tumbles from its towering height; or lastly, whether it is to be ultimately derived from the unavoidable imperfection of the human faculties, which admit not of perpetual extension, and are apt to flag in a long, though rapid flight; whichsoever of these may be the cause of the phenomenon above-mentioned, or whether all of them may contribute to produce it, certain it is, that an irregular greatness of Imagination, implying unequal and disproportioned grandeur, is always discernible in the compositions of an original Genius, however elevated, and is therefore an universal characteristic of such a Genius."
— Duff, William (1732-1815)
Metaphor
"Whether this quality is to be ascribed to the cause above-mentioned in particular; or whether it is the effect of that fiery impetuosity of Imagination, which, breaking through the legal restraints of criticism, or overleaping the mounds of authority and custom, sometimes loses sight of the Just and Natural, while it is in pursuit of the New and Wonderful, and, by attempting to rise above the sphere of Humanity, tumbles from its towering height; or lastly, whether it is to be ultimately derived from the unavoidable imperfection of the human faculties, which admit not of perpetual extension, and are apt to flag in a long, though rapid flight; whichsoever of these may be the cause of the phenomenon above-mentioned, or whether all of them may contribute to produce it, certain it is, that an irregular greatness of Imagination, implying unequal and disproportioned grandeur, is always discernible in the compositions of an original Genius, however elevated, and is therefore an universal characteristic of such a Genius."
Metaphor in Context
Whether this quality is to be ascribed to the cause above-mentioned in particular; or whether it is the effect of that fiery impetuosity of Imagination, which, breaking through the legal restraints of criticism, or overleaping the mounds of authority and custom, sometimes loses sight of the Just and Natural, while it is in pursuit of the New and Wonderful, and, by attempting to rise above the sphere of Humanity, tumbles from its towering height; or lastly, whether it is to be ultimately derived from the unavoidable imperfection of the human faculties, which admit not of perpetual extension, and are apt to flag in a long, though rapid flight; whichsoever of these may be the cause of the phenomenon above-mentioned, or whether all of them may contribute to produce it, certain it is, that an irregular greatness of Imagination, implying unequal and disproportioned grandeur, is always discernible in the compositions of an original Genius, however elevated, and is therefore an universal characteristic of such a Genius.
(pp. 165-6)
