But these objections do not touch the main issue. Here is the story of the loss of Eden, told enchantingly, musically, and in the grand style. ‘Who,’ says M. Scherer, in a passage quoted by Mr. Arnold, ‘can read the eleventh and twelfth books without yawning?’ People, of course, are free to yawn when they please, provided they put their hands to their mouths; but in answer to this insulting question one is glad to be able to remember how Coleridge has singled out Adam’s vision of future events contained in these books as especially deserving of attention. But to read them is to repel the charge.
There was no need for Mr. Arnold, of
all men, to express dissatisfaction with Milton:
‘Words which no ear ever to hear in heaven
Expected; least of all from thee, ingrate,
In place thyself so high above thy peers.’
The first thing for people to be taught is to enjoy great things greatly. The spots on the sun may be an interesting study, but anyhow the sun is not all spots. Indeed, sometimes in the early year, when he breaks forth afresh,
‘And winter, slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of spring,
we are apt to forget that he has any spots at all, and, as he shines, are perhaps reminded of the blind poet sitting in his darkness, in this prosaic city of ours, swinging his leg over the arm of his chair, and dictating the lines:
‘Seasons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom or summer’s rose,
Or flocks or herds, or human face divine.
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me—from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off; and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank
Of nature’s works, to me expunged and razed
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather, Thou, Celestial Light,
Shine inwards, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate—there plant eyes; all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.’
Coleridge added a note to his beautiful poem, ‘The Nightingale,’ lest he should be supposed capable of speaking with levity of a single line in Milton. The note was hardly necessary, but one loves the spirit that prompted him to make it. Sainte-Beuve remarks: ‘Parler des poètes est toujours une chose bien délicate, et surtout quand on l’a été un peu soi-même.’ But though it does not matter what the little poets do, great ones should never pass one another without a royal salute.