Poetry, with all its obscurity, has a more general, as well as a more
powerful, dominion over the passions, than the other art. And I think
there are reasons in nature, why the obscure idea, when properly
conveyed, should be more affecting than the clear. It is our ignorance
of things that causes all our admiration, and chiefly excites our
passions. Knowledge and acquaintance make the most striking causes
affect but little. It is thus with the vulgar; and all men are as
the vulgar in what they do not understand. The ideas of eternity and
infinity, are among the most affecting we have: and yet perhaps there
is nothing of which we really understand so little, as of infinity and
eternity.