Chapter XLIX

He compares the "random influences" of Art, Nature, and the Schools, to light breaking in shivered lances on the dappled water. For even so does "the sullen surface" of the mind become "crisp" and curled with the wave of thought, the eddy of fancy, the air of song.

The transient passenger may look and go on his way, but must not blame such mental perturbations: for

"Beneath all fancied hopes and fears,
Ay me,[30] the sorrow deepens down,
Whose muffled motions blindly drown
The bases of my life in tears."