Goethe says in a little poem[A] that “Poems are stained glass windows”--“_Gedichte sind gemalte Fensterscheiben_”--to be seen aright not from the “market-place” but only from the interior of the church, “_die heilige Kapelle_”: and that “_der Herr Philister_” (equivalent for “indolent Reviewer”) glances at them from without and gets out of temper because he finds them unintelligible from his “market-place” standpoint. This comparison is a pretty conceit, and holds good as a half truth--but not more than a half: for while the artist who paints his “church windows” needs only to make them beautiful from within, the maker of poems must so shape and colour his work that its outer side--the techn…
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