No epicurean lover of the subtler delicacies in poetic rhythm or of
the more exalted and translunar harmonies in the imaginative
suggestiveness of words, can afford to leave Milton untouched. In
sheer felicity of beauty--the beauty of suggestive words, each one
carrying "a perfume in the mention," and together, by their
arrangement in relation to one another, conveying a thrill of absolute
and final satisfaction--no poem in our language surpasses Lycidas, and
only the fine great odes of John Keats approach or equal it.
There are passages, too, in Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and
Samson Agonistes, which, for calm, flowing, and immortal loveliness,
are not surpassed in any poetry in the world.
Milton's work witnesses to the value in art of what is ancient and
traditional, but while he willingly uses every tradition of antiquity,
he stamps all he writes with his own formidable image and
superscription.
11. SIR THOMAS BROWNE. RELIGIO MEDICI AND URN BURIAL. _In the "Scott
Library" Series_.
The very spirit of ancient Norwich, the mellowest and most historic of
all English cities, breathes in these sumptuous and aromatic pages.
After Lamb and Pater, both of whom loved him well, Browne is the
subtlest adept in the recondite mysteries of rhythmic prose who can be
enjoyed in our language. Not to catch the cadences of his peculiar
music is to confess oneself deaf to the finer harmonies of words.
12. GOETHE. FAUST, _translated in English Poetry by Bayard Taylor_.
WILHELM MEISTER, _in Carlyle's translation_. GOETHE'S CONVERSATIONS
WITH ECKERMAN, _translation in Bohn's Library_.
No other human name, except Da Vinci's, carries the high associations
of oracular and occult wisdom as far as Goethe's does. He hears the
voices of "the Mothers" more clearly than other men and in heathen
loneliness he "builds up the pyramid of his existence."
The deep authority of his formidable insight can be best enjoyed, not
without little side-lights of a laconic irony, in the "Conversations";
while in Wilhelm Meister we learn to become adepts in the art of
living in the Beautiful and True, in Faust that abysmal doubt as to
the whole mad business of life is undermined with a craft equal to his
own in the delineation and defeat of "the queer son of Chaos."
15. NIETZSCHE. ZARATHUSTRA, THE JOYFUL WISDOM, AND ECCE HOMO _are
all translated in the English edition of Foulis and published in
America by Macmillan. Lichtenberger's exposition of his doctrines is
in the same series. The most artistic life of him is by Daniel Halêvy,
translated from the French_.
Nietzsche's writings when they fall into the hands of Philistines are
more misunderstood than any others. To appreciate his noble and tragic
distinction with the due pinch of Attic salt it is necessary to be
possessed of more imagination than most persons are able to summon up.
The dramatic grandeur of Nietzsche's extraordinary intellect overtops
all the flashes of his psychological insight; and his terrific
conclusions remain as mere foot-prints of his progress from height to
height.
18. HEINE. HEINE'S PROSE WORKS WITH THE "CONFESSIONS," _translated
in the "Scott Library." A good short life of Heine in the "Great
Writers" Series_.
Heine's genius remains unique. Full of dreamy attachment to Germany he
lived and died in Paris, but his heart was always with the exiles of
Israel. Mocker and ribald, he touches depths of sentimental tenderness
sounded by none other. He fooled the philosophers, provoked the pious,
and confused the minds of his free-thinking friends by outbursts of
wilful reaction. He sticks the horns of satyrish "diablerie" on the
lovely forehead of the most delicate romance; and he flings into his
magical poems of love and the sea the naughty mud-pellets of an
outrageous capriciousness.
19. SUDERMANN. SONG OF SONGS. _Translation into English published by
Huebsch of New York_.
Sudermann is the most remarkable and characteristic of modern German
writers. His massive and laborious realism, his firm and exhaustive
exposition of turbulent and troubled hearts, his heavy sledge-hammer
style, his comprehension of the shadowy background of the most
ponderous sensuality, are all found at their best in this solemn and
sordid and pitiable tale.
20. HAUPTMANN. THE FOOL IN CHRIST, _translation published by
Huebsch, New York_.
Hauptmann seems, of all recent Teutonic authors, the one who has in
the highest degree that tender imaginative sentiment mixed with rugged
and humorous piety which one finds in the old German Protestant
Mystics and in such works of art as the engravings of Albert Durer and
the Wooden Madonna of Nuremburg. "The Fool in Christ"--outside some of
the characters in Dostoievsky--is the nearest modern approach to a
literary interpretation of what remains timeless and permanent in the
Christ-Idea.