That is awful: for, ask yourself, reader, how a constable or an
inspector of police would be received who had been stationed at No. 6, on
a secret information, and spent the night in making love at No. 15.
Through the regular surveillance at the gates, Satan passes without
objection; and he is first of all detected by a purely accidental
collision during the rounds of the junior angels. The result of this
collision, and of the examination which follows, is what no reader can
ever forget--so unspeakable is the grandeur of that scene between the two
hostile archangels, when the _Fiend_ (so named at the moment under
the fine machinery used by Milton for exalting or depressing the ideas of
his nature) finally takes his flight as an incarnation of darkness,
'And fled
Murmuring; and with him fled the shades of night.
The darkness flying with him, naturally we have the feeling that he
_is_ the darkness, and that all darkness has some essential relation
to Satan.
But now, having thus witnessed his terrific expulsion, naturally we ask
what was the sequel. Four books, however, are interposed before we reach
the answer to that question. This is the reason that we fail to remark the
extraordinary oversight of Milton. Dislocated from its immediate plan in
the succession of incidents, that sequel eludes our notice, which else and
in its natural place would have shocked us beyond measure.
Pages:
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328