simply announced, played with awhile, then the second follows--a
tremendous phrase to the words "The government shall be upon His
shoulders"; suddenly the inner parts begin to quicken into life, to
ferment, to throb and to leap, and with startling abruptness great
masses of tone are hurled at the listener to the words "Wonderful,
Counsellor." The process is then repeated in a shortened and
intensified form; then it is repeated again; and finally the principal
theme, delivered so naïvely at first, is delivered with all the pomp
and splendour of full chorus and orchestra, and "Wonderful,
Counsellor" thundered out on a corresponding scale. A scheme at once
so simple, so daring and so tremendous in effect, could have been
invented by no one but Handel with his need for working rapidly; and
it is strange that a composer so different from Handel as Tschaikowsky
should have hit upon a closely analogous form for a symphonic
movement. The forms of the other choruses are dissimilar. In "He
shall purify" there are two big climaxes; in "His yoke is easy" there
is only one, and it comes at the finish, just when one is wondering
how the splendid flow of music can be ended without an effect of
incompleteness or of anti-climax; and "Surely He hath borne our
griefs" depends upon no climactic effects, but upon the sheer
sweetness and pathos of the thing.

Handel's secular oratorios are different from anything else in the
world. They are neither oratorios, nor operas, nor cantatas; and the
plots are generally quaint.

Some years ago it occurred to me one morning that a trip by sea to
Russia might be refreshing; and that afternoon I started in a
coal-steamer from a northern seaport. A passport could hardly be
wrested from hide-bound officialdom in so short a time, and, to save