ment, which touch me most deeply. Though soaring, they hold on with a stress which almost breaks the chains of matter to the hearer. O, how refreshing, after polemics and philosophy, to soar thus on strong wings! Yes, Father, I will wander in dark ways with the crowd, since thou seest best for me to be tied down. But only in thy free ether do I know myself. When I read Beethoven’s life, I said, “I will never repine.” When I heard this symphony, I said, “I will triumph.”’
‘To-day I have finished the life of Raphael, by Quatremere
de Quincy, which has so long engaged me. It
scarce goes deeper than a catalogue raisonnée, but is
very complete in its way. I could make all that
splendid era alive to me, and inhale the full flower of
the Sanzio. Easily one soars to worship these angels
of Genius, To venerate the Saints you must well nigh
be one.
‘I went out upon the lonely rock which commands so delicious a panoramic view. A very mild breeze had sprung up after the extreme heat. A sunset of the melting kind was succeeded by a perfectly clear moon-rise. Here I sat, and thought of Raphael. I was drawn high up in the heaven of beauty, and the mists were dried from the white plumes of contemplation.’
‘Only by emotion do we know thee, Nature. To lean upon thy heart, and feel its pulses vibrate to our own; — that is knowledge, for that is love, the love of infinite beauty, of infinite love. Thought will never make us be born again.
‘My fault is that I think I feel too much. O that my friends would teach me that “simple art of not too
