"Methinks it should have been impossible Not to love all things in a world so filled; Where the breeze warbles, and the mute, still air Is music slumbering in her instrument."
This innate nobleness of the simile checks our smile, and if we feel any hilarity it belongs to that delighted health which mantles all through us when we recognize beauty. Perhaps the mind soared,
"By means of that mere snatch, to many a hoard Of fancies: as some falling cone bears soft The eye, along the fir-tree spire, aloft To a dove's nest."
The simile gives us such a new perception of the mysterious relations of mind and Nature that we should not be surprised if the object designated had really, in the great involvement of all things, some secret affinity with the thought; perhaps the thought has recognized the family mark and claimed kinship. This is an exalted claim because it sets free our personality. We become superior to Nature, and are made aware that we can vivify her as the Creator can; but, as we also are creatures, we admit her to a tender and refining confidence. "Daffodils, that come before the swallow dares," "take the winds of March with beauty."
"The centre-fire heaves underneath the earth, And the earth changes like a human face." "Earth is a wintry clod, But spring-wind, like a dancing psaltress, passes Over its breast to waken it." "The winds Are henceforth voices, in a wail or shout, A querulous mutter, or a quick, gay laugh,-- Never a senseless gust now man is born."
The imagination thus proclaiming the banns between spirit and matter reminds us of Wordsworth's dear maiden, of whom he says,--
"She was known to every star in heaven, And every wind that blew."
The impression of surprise which a perfect simile produces is transferred from the understanding back to the imagination before the former can venture to be amused. But sometimes the surprise lingers there long enough to have a narrow escape from smiling; as when Sir Thomas Brown, finding that midnight has overtaken him at his desk, says, "To keep our eyes open longer, were to _act_ the antipodes." His wakefulness is not only like the antipodal day, but dramatizes it; and this is a simile that imparts the shock of wit.