nally gnawing, and the chain eternally galling it; never complaining, never undignified, and ever seeing beyond the present suffering the scintillations of distant sunrises, and hearing the music of invisible plumes "winnowing the crimson dawn," or the silver spikes of the aurora lace the hemisphere with crackling whispers. As to Wuthering Heights I can't find in my heart to criticise the book. If I were walking with you over those empurpled fells for an autumn day, startling the moor sheep and the lapwing with passionate talk, I could not criticise what I said or what you said. It would become sacred. The remembrance of it would make my heart swell and the tears come to my eyes in the midst of the stern, hard life of the city. And yet, if I could see it to be a duty, I should greatly enjoy shutting myself up in a lone farmhouse for three days in the winter to write a criticism on it. It is a wild, wailing, moorland wind, full of that unutterable love and anguish and mystery and passion which form the substratum of high natures. Turner has a landscape which is it. It is those wild hills, and a storm is wuthering over them, and the molten lightning is licking the heather, and nobody knows it but the one solitary soul, which he has not put there, who is watching it from a window in the waste. Handel's gods are like Homer's, and his sublime never reaches beyond the region of the clouds. Edward FitzGerald (1809-1883) "Crōme-Crōme-Crōme!' blows the solemn wind of Fame, eerier than ever." James Smetham (1821-1889) "The fault of all German culture and the weakness of all German genius." Sidney Lanier (1842-1881) HANDEL'S GODS ARE LIKE Homer's, and HIS SUBLIME one. it NEVER REACHES BEYOND THE REGION OF THE CLOUDS Edward FitzGerald to F. Tennyson London, February 6, 1842. You talk of your Naples: and that one cannot understand Theocritus without having been on those shores. I tell you, you can't understand Macready without coming to London and seeing his revival of Acis and Galatea. You enter Drury Lane at a quarter to seven: the pit is already nearly full: but you find a seat, and a very pleasant Box doors open and shut; ladies take off their shawls and seat themselves: gentlemen twist their side curls: the musicians come up from under the stage one by one; 'tis just upon seven. Macready is very punctual: Mr. T. Cooke is in his place with his marshal's baton in his hand: he lifts up: and off they set with old Handel's noble overture. As it is playing, the red velvet curtain (which Macready has substituted, not wisely, for the old green one) draws apart and you see a rich drop scene, all festooned and arabesqued with River Gods, Nymphs, and their emblems; and in the centre a delightful large, good copy of Poussin's great landscape (of which I used to have a print in my rooms) where the Cyclops is seen seated on a mountain, looking over the sea-shore. The overture ends, the drop scene rises, and there is the sea-shore, a long curling bay: the sea heaving under the moon, and breaking upon the beach, and rolling the surf down-the stage! This really |