[5] I believe, however, that when Pegasus strikes forth this fountain, he is to be regarded, not as springing from Medusa’s blood, but as born of Medusa by Neptune; the true horse was given by Neptune striking the earth with his trident; the divine horse is born to Neptune and the storm-cloud.
[6] I have been often at great heights on the Alps in rough weather, and have seen strong gusts of storm in the plains of the south. But, to get full expression of the very heart and meaning of wind, there is no place like a Yorkshire moor. I think Scottish breezes are thinner, very bleak and piercing, but not substantial. If you lean on them they will let you fall, but one may rest against a Yorkshire breeze as one would on a quickset hedge. I shall not soon forget,—having had the good fortune to meet a vigorous one on an April morning, between Hawes and Settle, just on the flat under Wharnside,—the vague sense of wonder with which I watched Ingleborough stand without rocking.
[7] When there is a violent current of wind near the ground, the rain columns slope forward at the foot. See the Entrance to Fowey Harbor, of the England Series.
[8] See Part IX. chap. 2, “The Hesperid Æglé.”
[9] The reader must remember that sketches made as these are, on the instant, cannot be far carried, and would lose all their use if they were finished at home. These were both made in pencil, and merely washed with gray on returning to the inn, enough to secure the main forms.
[10] I do not say this carelessly, nor because machines throw the laboring man “out of work.” The laboring man will always have more work than he wants. I speak thus, because the use of such machinery involves the destruction of all pleasures in rural labor; and I doubt not, in that destruction, the essential deterioration of the national mind.
[11] You may see the arrangement of subject in the published engraving, but nothing more; it is among the worst engravings in the England Series.
[12] Hosea xiii. 5, 15.
[13] Hosea xiv. 4, 5, 6. Compare Psalm lxxii. 6-16.
[14] I believe few sermons are more false or dangerous than those in which the teacher professes to impress his audience by showing “how much there is in a verse.” If he examined his own heart closely before beginning, he would often find that his real desire was to show how much he, the expounder, could make out of the verse. But entirely honest and earnest men often fall into the same error. They have been taught that they should always look deep, and that Scripture is full of hidden meanings; and they easily yield to the flattering conviction that every chance idea which comes into their heads in looking at a word, is put there by Divine agency. Hence they wander away into what they believe to be an inspired meditation, but which is, in reality, a meaningless jumble of ideas; perhaps very proper ideas, but with which the text in question has nothing whatever to do.