- "I reached here on Wednesday, February 13, had to discontinue on account of the sight of my left eye"[1]
The work was broken off for ten days. On February 23 (which was his birthday) he wrote in:
- "Feel a little better. Resumed work";
and he wrote the music to those foreboding words:
- "Grief follows joy as night the day."
He took hardly five days to finish this chorus, which is really sublime. He stopped then for four months.[2] On June 18 he resumed the third act. He was again interrupted in the middle.[3] The last four airs and the final chorus took more time than a whole oratorio usually occupied. He did not finish it until August 30, 1751. His sight was then gone.
. . . . . .
After that, all was ended. Handel's eyes were closed for ever.[4] The sun was blotted out, "Total eclipse. . . ." The world was effaced.
He had never suffered so much as in the first year of his illness, when he was not yet completely blind. In 1752 he was unable to play the organ at the productions of his oratorios, and the public, moved by sympathy, saw him tremble and blanch in
- ↑ Page 182 of MS.
- ↑ To occupy himself he directed two performances of the Messiah for the funds of the Foundling Hospital—on April 18 and May 16, "with an improvisation on the organ." He also tried the cure at Cheltenham.
- ↑ Page 244 of MS.
- ↑ He underwent an operation for cataract, the last time on November 3, 1752. A newspaper stated in January, 1753: "Handel has become completely blind."
