in these notes—whose indefinite dwelling seems to say, "I pause for a reply." Fate confronts man—a being repleto di virtù; a being bound by will, but with an unique sense of freewill: here she meets consciousness-and-conscience. Her blows are hard; but "a soft answer (the p ensuing) turneth away wrath"—Beethoven turns her blows (her blows) into beauty. I am also here struck by the reflection, that we may consider these as the blows of death (cum æquo pede)—that form of fate; and they are answered by the soft whisper—"immortality." This soft whisper rises into storm-loudness, at its grandest (further on), that is, where man cries, "Aye, and though personal immortality be a vain dream, I will be immortal here, and thus answer thee, thou bug-bear, Death! Suffice it for me to be here great and good!"
Mark especially, somewhat further on, after the stormy passage, the strain in the major (E flat). I have no words for its beauty (especially if played andante); it is like star-dew fallen into the bosom of a lily. Or, again, "deep answering unto deep," he rises and strikes her back with power. Every depth into which her blows fell him, only confers on this Antæus new power. Though o'er him, in the words of the Greek Beethoven (Aiskulos—in the Greek Macbeth, Agamemnon)—
"Billow-like, woe rolls on woe,
In the light of heaven,"
they
"Cannot bring him wholly under, more
Than loud south-westerns, rolling ridge on ridge,
The buoy that rides at sea, and dips and springs
For ever;"
—to use our own poet's magnificent image—(type, as here applied, of character; or of immortality—the eternal hope of it in man). Such we figure the conduct of this Titan in the stupendous conflict—Titan, who made the very gods tremble:—
"Fialte.—La nome; e fece le gran prove,
Quando i giganti fer paura ai Dei."—
He conquers, because
"Soleva la lancia
D'Achille e del suo padre esser cagione
Prima di triste e poi di buona mancia,"