I call it a _bravura_, as being
intentionally a passage of display and elaborate execution; and
in this sense I may call it partly 'my own,' that at twenty-five years'
distance, (after one single reading,) it would not have been possible
for any man to report a passage of this length without greatly
disturbing [Footnote: _'Disturbing;'_--neither perhaps should I
much have sought to avoid alterations if the original had been lying
before me: for it takes the shape of a dream; and this most brilliant
of all German writers wanted in that field the severe simplicity, that
horror of the _too much_, belonging to Grecian architecture, which
is essential to the perfection of a dream considered as a work of art.
He was too elaborate, to realize the grandeur of the shadowy.] the
texture of the composition: by altering, one makes it partly one's own;
but it is right to mention, that the sublime turn at the end belongs
entirely to John Paul.
'God called up from dreams a man into the vestibule of heaven, saying,
--"Come thou hither, and see the glory of my house." And to the
servants that stood around his throne he said,--"Take him, and undress
him from his robes of flesh: cleanse his vision, and put a new breath
into his nostrils: only touch not with any change his human heart--the
heart that weeps and trembles.
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