The moon--one must admit that, at least--rather than the sun, was ever the mistress of El Greco's genius. He will come more and more to represent for us those vague uneasy feelings that certain inanimate and elemental objects have the power of rousing. It is of him that one must think, when this or that rock-chasm cries aloud for its Demon, or this or that deserted roadway mutters of its unreturning dead. There will always be certain great artists, and they are the most original of all who refuse to submit to any of our logical categories, whether scientific or ideal. To give one's self up to them is to be led by the hand into the country of Pure Imagination, into the Ultima Thule of impossible dreams. Like Edgar Allan Poe, this great painter can make splendid use of the human probabilities of Religion and Science; but it is none of these things that one finally thinks, as one comes to follow him, but of things more subtle, more remote, more translunar, and far more imaginative. One may walk the streets of Toledo to seek the impress of El Greco's going and coming; but the soul of Domenico Theotocopoulos is not there. It is with Faust, in the cave of the abysmal "Mothers." MILTON It is outrageous, the way we modern world-children play with words. How we are betrayed by words! How we betray with words! We steal from one another and from the spirit of the hour; and with our phrases and formulas and talismans we obliterate all distinction. One sees the modern god as one who perpetually apologises and explains; and the modern devil as one who perpetually apologises and explains. Everything has its word-symbol, its word-mask, its word-garment, its word-disgrace. Nothing comes out clear into the open, unspeakable and inexplicable, and strikes us dumb! That is what the great artists do--who laugh at our word-play. That is what Milton does, who, in the science and art of handling words, has never been equalled. Milton, indeed, remains, by a curious fate, the only one of the very great poets who has never been "interpreted" or "appreciated" or "re-created" by any critical modern. And they have left him alone; have been frightened of him; have not dared to slime their "words" over him, for the very reason that he is the supreme artist in words! He is so great an artist that his creations detach themselves from all dimness--from all such dimness as modern "appreciation" loves--and stand out clear and cold and "unsympathetic"; to be bowed down before and worshipped, or left unapproached.