§ 7. For a very simple reason. They are not a _pathetic_ fallacy at all, for they are put into the mouth of the wrong passion--a passion which never could possibly have spoken them--agonized curiosity. Ulysses wants to know the facts of the matter; and the very last thing his mind could do at the moment would be to pause, or suggest in anywise what was _not_ a fact. The delay in the first three lines, and conceit in the last, jar upon us instantly, like the most frightful discord in music. No poet of true imaginative power could possibly have written the passage.[33] [33] It is worth while comparing the way a similar question is put by the exquisite sincerity of Keats:-- He wept, and his bright tears Went trickling down the golden bow he held. Thus, with half-shut, suffused eyes, he stood; While from beneath some cumb’rous boughs hard by, With solemn step, an awful goddess came. And there was purport in her looks for him, Which he with eager guess began to read: Perplexed the while, melodiously he said, ‘_How cam’st thou over the unfooted sea?_’ Therefore, we see that the spirit of truth must guide us in some sort, even in our enjoyment of fallacy. Coleridge’s fallacy has no discord in it, but Pope’s has set our teeth on edge. Without farther questioning, I will endeavour to state the main bearings of this matter. § 8. The temperament which admits the pathetic fallacy, is, as I said above, that of a mind and body in some sort too weak to deal fully with what is before them or upon them; borne away, or overclouded, or over-dazzled by emotion; and it is a more or less noble state, according to the force of the emotion which has induced it. For it is no credit to a man that he is not morbid or inaccurate in his perceptions, when he has no strength of feeling to warp them; and it is in general a sign of higher capacity and stand in the ranks of being, that the emotions should be strong enough to vanquish, partly, the intellect, and make it believe what they choose. But it is still a grander condition when the intellect also rises, till it is strong enough to assert its rule against, or together with, the utmost efforts of the passions; and the whole man stands in an iron glow, white hot, perhaps, but still strong, and in no wise evaporating; even if he melts, losing none of his weight.