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Untitled Article
perish , as we are told on authority , in their cold twilight chambers beneath . ' The material . beauty of the sketch is in these multitudinous Ondines , with their flowing hair , lovely faces ,
outstretched arms , and earnest unity of purpose . They are one and many ; every wave and ripplet is alive ; it is one expanse of floating locks which are flowing waters . The stream lives , and is a conscious whirlpool of loveliness , drawing down the bard into its vortex . Or rather , perhaps , receiving him in the fall which from such a steed , over such a ford , was inevitable . There is no
confusion in their multitude . The artist has combined , in a most extraordinary manner , the simplicity of elemental action , with the distinctions of individual exertion and emotion . Some are clinging round the affrighted horse , lashing him like the waves , pulling him like the quicksands , in which he is plunging and floundering ; others are pushing , but with hands that make no
more pressure than the viewless wind , against the form of the poet , who is almost blown from his horse by the blast ; while others , on the opposite side , hanging on him by their arms , are drawing him down to the closer embrace of the waters ; and his very cloak , dragged from , his shoulders by the hands of the more distant nymphs , is floating away on the breeze . Never did pencil make
more palpable , and yet preserve so ethereal , the spiritual version of the material catastrophe . Mrs . Jameson is , we think , somewhat at fault in her exposition of the author . It is true that the poet is wrong in abandoning the winged steed that would have borne him on the lofty region of which genius is the denizen , and employing a meaner agency for a lower purpose ; if he will ride an
earthly Pegasus , he must encounter earth ' s mischances . He might have soared above the deceitful stream or the flooded marsh ; but if he will venture in them and upon them , he must encounter , as he can , their perils . Becoming the partizan and the worldling , he forfeits his invulnerability ; will be as roughly handled , in that rough warfare , as the coarser natures fitted for
such conflict ; and feel that handling far more deadly . But even though he should ; if there be the poetic spirit in him , that spirit will reveal the beauty , even of the absorbing and crushing material elements ; will render his sufferings musical ; and can only destroy him by the swan ' s death , so that his last sigh is itself a song .
Indeed , Mrs . Jameson , they are not the Ondines that destroy him ; they destroy him ! look at her , who is swinging on his arm , look at her full , soft eyes , and those parted lips of eager intensity ; or that other form whose arms will receive "him as he falls ; are already receiving him ; and whose face says with supernal fondness , —come rest thee here— 4 Quiet consummation have , And renowned be thy grave . ' These spirits do indeed pervade the destructive elements ; but
Untitled Article
680 Retzsch ' s Fancied .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1834, page 680, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2638/page/4/
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