You must know, dearest friend, that, just as in common life nothing is great whose despising is great, like riches, honours, reputations, sovereignties, and the like, all of which carry much outward dramatising; for the wise man would not deem them excessive goods, when the very ability to look down on them is no slight good. Indeed men admire those who can possess such things and through greatness of soul disregard them, more than those who actually possess them. So in poems and prose-elevations one must look to see whether some piece of greatness is not really an empty appearance with a great deal of accidental fancywork heaped on it, which when unfolded turns out hollow; for to despise such things is more noble than to admire them. §1
For the soul is somehow naturally raised up by true sublimity, and, taking on a proud elevation, is filled with joy and exaltation, as though it had itself given birth to what it has heard. §2
When, therefore, a man of sense and experience in literature, on hearing some passage many times, finds his soul not disposed by it toward great-mindedness, nor leaving in his thought more for him to revolve than what was actually said, but, the more he scans it as a whole, finds it shrinking, this can no longer be the truly sublime, surviving only as long as it is heard. That is great in truth whose reflection bears much weight, whose dislodgment is difficult, indeed impossible, and whose memory is strong and hard to wipe away. §3
In a word, count those sublimities fine and genuine that please continually and please all. For when, of men differing in pursuits, lives, ambitions, ages, and language, all alike form one and the same judgement at the same time about the same things, then the verdict and concurrence reached out of such discordant materials lends to the object of admiration a strong and unquestionable confidence. §4