But how can a man with little English understand the art of Milton? How translate
"But O the heavy change, now thou art gon,
Now thou art gon, and never must return!"
And, equally, how translate into English the awful poetry of
"C'était pendant l'horreur d'une profonde nuit
or the poignant loveliness of
"Dieux! Que ne suis-je assise à l'ombre des forêts!"
Listen again to the music first impatient, then languorous, then desperate of Phèdre:
"Que ces vains ornements, que ces voiles me pèsent!
Quelle importune main, en formant tous ces noeuds,
A pris soin sur mon front d'assembler mes cheveux?
Tout m'afflige et me nuit, et conspire à me nuire."
Here we are presented with the almost comic fact that our greatest spiritual distresses may be enormously aggravated by some small physical discomfort which but for them we should not notice. Did Shakespeare ever invest psychological realism with a whiter flame of poetical intensity?
Admiration for Racine has swept me helplessly away from criticism of Mr Strachey. But I return from him with renewed admiration. Queen Victoria is a delightful fiction; the criticism on Racine a more delightful truth.
