BEAUTIFUL LINES.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18461, 15 August 1925, Page 11

BEAUTIFUL LINES.

PREFERENCES OF GREAT AND OBSCURE. (speqaixy wetton fob "the press.") (BY " CYRA-VO.") 'What is the most beautiful single line?" sounds a rather foolish question. There are many •'most beautiful" lines, and no haL-dozen critics would agree on one I as being better than all the others. An unprofitable discussion, therefore, you may say. It is no t. Often the most fascinating discussions aro about a subject like this, which leads to no finality. Good talk need not necess rily 'ead to a goal, and there is no talk more delightful than that of lovers of literature when they compare preferences, lou learn something from another's .ludgment, and the more finely equipped . r . as 11 cr itic the better teacher he is. jlind flows into mind; new delights are opened up; new standards set. Sueh questions as "'Who are the six best English novelists?" "What are the twelve best novels?" "What is the most moving passage in literature?" are always worth discussing if yuu have any knowledge and taste to'bring to them. A proof of this is the extent to_ which they have engaged great minds. 'Dmed with the Club," runs an entry of one of Macaulay's friends. Something led* to my reminding Lord Aberdeen that we both put 'Macbeth' first of Shakespeare's great plays. Lord Lansdowno quite concurred. Macaulay thinks it may be a little owing to our recollections of Mrs Siddons. 110 is inclined to rank them thus: 'Othello,' 'Lear,' 'Macbeth,' 'Hamlet'" These men, others before and after them, spent hours in such talk. It is not always for its politics that one reads Morley's "Life of Gladstone." There are fascinating passages in which Gladstone and Morley discuss their preferences. In his choice of the finest line in poetry, Gladstone was divided between three —one in Milton, which Morley did not remember when he came to chronicle the conversation; Wordsworth's "Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn"; and one from Homer. Is it not interesting that Morley himself chose as "the most melting and melodious single line verse" in all English the words from "Macbeth"— "After life's fitful fever he sleeps well"'? What suggested this articlo was the selection from replies sent into the "Literary licvicw," New York, which "The Press" published a fortnight ago. In making such a choice one should ask lirst what is meant by beauty in line. A "moving"' lme may not be quite the same -thing as a "beautiful'' one. The definition of beauty should be wide, but it can hardly include certain forms of realism, including terror. Shakespeare's "To lie in cold corruption and to rot" is a marvellous line, but I would not say it was beautiful. Further, to be perfect, to give what Sir Arthur QuillerCouch calls the Great Thrill—"the sudden shiver, the awed surprise of the magic of poetry"—a line should be beautiful to a superlative degree in both sound and sense. It should make an instant and almost illimitable appeal to the imagination. On© or two lines in "The Press" list ara not really beautiful lines. "An honest man's the noblest work of God" is a moral idea felicitously expressed, but there is no thrill, no wonder in it. Compare it with Wordsworth's line, which Tennyson thought "almost the grandest in the English language"— "Whose dwelling is tho light of setting suns," or the first line of the Sonnet on Venice —"Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee," or "Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears," or what.l always think is the most magical line in all Wordsworth —"And beauty born of murmuring sound Ehall pass into her face." Nor is "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever" the most beautiful line in Keats. It is much inferior to the famous Charmed magic casements opening on tho foam Of perilous seas in fairy lands forlorn. There aro many lines that are hauntingly beautiful without attaining to this supremo quality. Tennyson said in his old age that he thought the most beautiful lines he had written, and he hoped they would be regarded as the most beautiful linos in Bng-' lish poetry, were: Myriads of rivulets, hurrying' thro' the lawn, The moan of doves in immemorial elms Andj muimuring of innumerable bees. They are beautiful, but they stop a little short of the Great Thrill. Their appeal to the imagination is less intense and more finite in its results than that of the supreme lines in poetry. The thought is not equal to Isle music. Compare it with the perfect blending of music and imagination in:— The running waters at their priest-like task, Of puro ablution round earth's human shores. That I have been compelled to quote passages of more than one line points' to the limitations of this kind of test. It is much easier to find arresting passages of two or more lines than to pick out single lines. In Iboking over Tentyson again, and browsing among poets our own time, for the purpose of this article, I have been struck by this difficulty. It is not easy for me to choose, from among the many _ outstanding passages in Tennyson, single lines that do justice to his quality. ' Tears, Idle Tears" is poignantlv beautiful to a degree; it has the Great Thrill, or something very like it; but which line shall one choose ?_ Marvellous and haunting is the picture in which "in dark summer dawns," "unto dying eyes the casement slowly grows * glimmering square," but it is four lines, not one. When a poet uses a short line he is handicapped in such a competition as this. "In Memoriam," for example, the lovely line, "The lark becomes a sightless song," needs r its full appreciation tho words that Co before, "And high in yonder living blue. The white magic of "The Ancient Mariner" is brought out in verses. fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, farrow followed free; ? wtr f the first that ever burst that silent sea. ~ Sotpetimeß the length of a line is ar„;Knry- In his poem on Viigil. a magnincent fruit of his old age, Tennyson "warned wonderful results in a line "ah poet might have divided, ful the charm of all the Muses often a i one ly word." "Thou j- in thy sadness at the doubtful . df human kind." English writer who was asked to atn» passages in English liter3o£ W* Scripture. '"There is one tliA' sun > and another £»ory of sand another glory of the ■ othfij.' J or one star differeth from antrvfA ria Elorv." Those of us who kwwr*v° rt out our preferences should wfel] in mind. Also it is . litera*,n 0 considering that in our glories are being created. selertSJ®? writers drawn upon in the o&eWu. the Library Review is who Poet, Mr Edmund Blunden, . been compared with Keats, bo hence, lovers of poetry «^ a y • for the literature of to-day , has dul,? 1168 - A leading English actor in Uws? 053 the most moving passage mc. or one of the most mov- ( Joha of the burial of bir in "The Dynasts" of Mr KkWaaid It foot of next colnmnj

Thomas Hardy. I offer you the fallowing lines by uving poets, not with the assurance that they are equal to tno best of the above, out in the belief that they are in the truo tradition And beauty in the heart broa&s like a ilower. And I thai] have some peaco there, for peace comes dropping f.iow. l»iko the palo waters in their wintry race, Leaping across tie bosom of the urgent West. O Some bell-like evening the May's in bloom. The Bp ring's superb Qdventuro caiis. And hod for vassal the obeequiona eea. 'file hour-glass fills with weathor like a wine of slow oontent--Coniing in solemn beauty Jikfl clow old tuiica of Spain. It may please you to Jitter these or add to them. One, by the way, is >"ew j Zoatiad. '