Is quite prepared to spend
The inconceivably imperial sum of twice three hundred times five
hundred thousand pounds,”
shows the grave difficulty of wedding the verse to the music. The last line is intolerably clumsy, when read without the air accompanying it; and the whole illustrates very well my contention that music should be the chief thing in the composition of an ode, and that the libretto should be entirely subservient to it.
A still better example is found in the great chorus “Pretoria,” which begins—
“Pretoria with her hundred towers
Acknowledges his powers,”
and “Johannesburg,” which ends—
“Heil! heil! hoch! heil! du ubermenslich’ wohl-gebornen Graf