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The two informants, it is true, are not equally trustworthy. Perception often deceives us, but consciousness, never. We often fancy we perceive what we do not perceive. We may fancy we see a ghost, when we are merely mocked by an optical illusion, or we may mistake the impalpable imagery of the Fata Morgana for solid objects, or the rumbling of a cart for thunder. But consciousness is infallible.
The Fata Morgana are further illustrations of this optic delusion. This phenomenon is seen at the Pharo of Messina, in Sicily, under certain circumstances.
M. Collot advised Murat to lose no time, but to go to the First Consul and formally demand the hand of his sister. Murat followed his advice. Did he do well? It was to this step that he owed the throne of Naples. If he had abstained he would not have been shot at Pizzo. 'Sed ipsi Dei fata rumpere non possunt!
For the higher kinds of poetry he has no sense, and his talk on that subject is delightfully and gorgeously absurd. He sometimes stops a minute to laugh at it himself, then begins anew with fresh vigor; for all the spirits he is driving before him as Fata Morgana, ugly masks, in fact, if he can but make them turn about; but he laughs that they seem to others such dainty Ariels.
This picture has the merit, along with "Fata Morgana," of combining the teaching element with one of the finest representations of woman's form that came from Watts' brush. He was one of those who vigorously defended the painting of the nude.
And so, to condense all that Jeremy has recorded in the matter, Blood ended by yielding to external and internal pressure, abandoned himself to the stream of Destiny. "Fata viam invenerunt," is his own expression of it. If he resisted so long, it was, I think, the thought of Arabella Bishop that restrained him.
Soon they through dim, bewildering mediums saw her sidelong fading phantom, as in the gaseous Fata Morgana; only the uppermost masts out of water; while fixed by infatuation, or fidelity, or fate, to their once lofty perches, the pagan harpooneers still maintained their sinking look-outs on the sea.
I thought I saw a kind of Fata Morgana, green meadows, waving groves, a rustic home; but in the far distance I stared I stared a Fata Morgana it was gone. . . .
On the other hand it was spoken of by the satellites of the disgruntled Herder as a 'singular fata morgana', and a 'shocking monstrosity'; while F.H. Jacobi characterized it as a 'disgusting spook made by mixing heaven and hell'. And these discordant voices, in all their vehemence of expression, have been echoed by later critics; so that in the case of this particular drama, as Bellermann observes, it is hardly possible to speak of a settled average opinion.
So be it; well, destiny now could harm him little more! His eyes gleamed; a reckless light shone out, a daredevil luster. He continued to look at her, then threw back his head. "I had hoped you would never know; but the gods, it seems," he could even laugh, "have ordained otherwise. 'Fata obstant." Still that startled, uncomprehending look on the girl's white face!
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