inverse order; else how could it rot? Despise not the rag from which man
makes Paper, or the litter from which the earth makes Corn. Rightly viewed
no meanest object is insignificant; all objects are as windows, through
which the philosophic eye looks into Infinitude itself."

Again, leaving that wondrous Schwarzwald Smithy-Altar, what vacant,
high-sailing air-ships are these, and whither will they sail with us?

"All visible things are emblems; what thou seest is not there on its own
account; strictly taken, is not there at all: Matter exists only
spiritually, and to represent some Idea, and _body_ it forth. Hence
Clothes, as despicable as we think them, are so unspeakably significant.
Clothes, from the King's mantle downwards, are emblematic, not of want
only, but of a manifold cunning Victory over Want. On the other hand, all
Emblematic things are properly Clothes, thought-woven or hand-woven: must
not the Imagination weave Garments, visible Bodies, wherein the else
invisible creations and inspirations of our Reason are, like Spirits,
revealed, and first become all-powerful; the rather if, as we often see,
the Hand too aid her, and (by wool Clothes or otherwise) reveal such even
to the outward eye?

"Men are properly said to be clothed with Authority, clothed with Beauty,
with Curses, and the like. Nay, if you consider it, what is Man himself,
and his whole terrestrial Life, but an Emblem; a Clothing or visible
Garment for that divine ME of his, cast hither, like a light-particle, down
from Heaven? Thus is he said also to be clothed with a Body.

"Language is called the Garment of Thought: however, it should rather be,
Language is the Flesh-Garment, the Body, of Thought. I said that
Imagination wove this Flesh-Garment; and does not she? Metaphors are her