[257] This metaphor appears to me rather confused, and in fact I do not pretend wholly to understand its meaning. I suppose the idea is that beyond the clouds of soul-life there are the clouds that obscure Providence. In all this passage Hegel shows his limitations as an art student.
[258] Näher. That is our love of God is mainly through Christ.
[259] Ein bloss eingelnes Moment. A phase that passes or becomes relatively insignificant.
[260] Innigste, most intimate. A curious but characteristic conclusion of Hegel.
[261] This analysis must be accepted of course mainly as an analysis of the ideal proposed to us by the profoundest Christian art. It is obviously not true of much Italian art, Titian's work for example, and it is equally remote from many of the most probable facts of history.
[262] Die Starrheit. The rigid or unyielding character.
[263] Der Gehalt ihres Gemüths. It is possible to see in this analysis something rather capricious and far-fetched, and yet to appreciate its value as an analysis of Christian love for the deceased beloved as contrasted with pagan sentiment. The finest illustration I myself can recollect of this is not the mother Mary at all, but the figure of the Magdalene in Tintoret's "Deposition" in the S. Giorgio Maggiore Church in Venice. As a matter of fact the divine mother in sacred art is almost invariably depicted in a state of swoon under the stress of her grief, though Tintoret's Pietà in the Brera is a notable exception.
[264] I do not know this painter. For pathos I know no finer conception of the death than that of Rembrandt's etching. Blake's drawing, exhibited recently at Cambridge, shows us the tranquillity and dignity of the scene more finely than any other representation.
[265] I presume Hegel means this by the words die Menschheit, but it is a difficult passage.
[266] It is impossible in English to preserve the antithesis between bitten and beten.