Lionel Trilling’s ‘The Middle of the Journey’

Critics are like eunuchs: they know how to do it but can’t. This hoary crack has consoled me more than once, along with the lines of Yeats on those who hated The Playboy of the Western World.

Once when midnight smote the air,Eunuchs ran through hell and metOn every crowded street to stareUpon great Juan riding by:Even like these to rail and sweatStaring upon his sinewy thigh.