The most beautiful of all such scenes is the tale of the maiden-
wife in the stable at Bethlehem, with the pain and horror and shame
of the tragic experience, in all its squalid publicity, told in
those simple words, which I never hear without a smile that is full
of tears, BECAUSE THERE WAS NO ROOM FOR THEM IN THE INN. We poor
human souls, knowing what that event has meant for the race, make
the bare, ugly place seemly and lovely, surrounding the Babe with a
tapestry of heavenly forms, holy lights, rapturous sounds; taking
the terror and the meanness of the scene away, and thereby, by our
clumsy handling, losing the divine seal of the great mystery, the
fact that hope can spring, in unstained and sublime radiance, from
the vilest, lowest, meanest, noisiest conditions that can well be
conceived.
November 20, 1888.
I wonder aimlessly what it is that makes a book, a picture, a piece
of music, a poem, great. When any of these things has become a part
of one's mind and soul, utterly and entirely familiar, one is
tempted to think that the precise form of them is inevitable. That
is a great mistake.
Here is a tiny instance. I see that in the "Lycidas" Milton wrote:--
"Who would not sing for Lycidas? He WELL knew
Himself to sing and build the lofty rhyme.
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