For a moment—a single moment—leave out the Ditches, and say merely, "The rain falls over the fields—the rivers swell roaring." No picture at all. You must have the fall over the surface—the gathering in the narrower artificial—the delivery into the wider natural channels—the fight of spate and surge at river mouth—
"Fervetque fretis spirantibus æquor."
The Ditches are indispensable in nature and in Virgil.
BULLER.
Put this glass of water to your lips, sir—not that I would recommend water to a man in a fit of eloquence—but I know you are abstinent—infatuated in your abjuration of wine. Go on—half-minute time.
NORTH.
I swear to defend—at the pen's point—against all Comers—this position—that the line
"Diluit: implentur fossæ, cava flumina crescunt
Cum sonitu—"
is, where it stands—and looking before and after—a perfect line; and that to strike out "implentur fossæ" would be an outrage on it—just equal, Buller, to my knocking out, without hesitation, your brains—for your brains do not contribute more to the flow of our conversation—than do the Ditches to that other Spate.
BULLER.