explain things, and to our modes of faith.

"Of the scene with the parents, in which Eve at last curses the
speechless Cain, which our western neighbour lifts into such striking
prominence, there remains nothing more for us to say: we have to
approach the conclusion with astonishment and reverence.

"With regard to this conclusion, an intelligent and fair friend, related
to us through esteem for Byron, has asserted that everything religious
and moral in the world was put into the last three words of the piece."
{143}

We have now heard enough from Goethe to prove that Mr. Arnold's
interpretation of "so bald er reflectirt ist er ein Kind" is not
Goethe's interpretation of Byron. It is to be remembered that Goethe
was not a youth overcome by Mr. Arnold's "vogue" when he read Byron. He
was a singularly self-possessed old man.

Many persons will be inclined to think that Goethe, so far from putting
Byron on a lower level than that usually assigned to him, has over-
praised him, and will question the "burning spiritual vision" which the
great German believed the great Englishman to possess. But if we
consider what Goethe calls the "motivation" of Cain; if we reflect on
what the poet has put into the legend; on the exploration of the
universe with Lucifer as a guide; on its result, on the mode in which
the death of Abel is reached; on the doom of the murderer--the limitless
wilderness henceforth and no rest; on the fidelity of Adah, who, with
the true instinct of love, separates between the man and the crime; on
the majesty of the principal character, who stands before us as the
representative of the insurgence of the human intellect, so that, if we