QUOTE : But wise men pierce this rotten diction and fasten words again to visible<br />things; so that picturesque language is at once a commanding certificate that he<br />who employs it, is a man in alliance with truth and God. The moment our<br />discourse rises above the ground line of familiar facts, and is inflamed with<br />passion or exalted by thought, it clothes itself in images. A man conversing in<br />earnest, if he watch his intellectual processes, will find that a material<br />image, more or less luminous, arises in his mind, cotemporaneous with every<br />thought, which furnishes the vestment of the thought. Hence, good writing and<br />brilliant discourse are perpetual allegories. This imagery is spontaneous. It is<br />the blending of experience with the present action of the mind. It is proper<br />creation. It is the working of the Original Cause through the instruments he has<br />already made.