edy
apparently makes a part of art. Tartuffe is not handsome, Pourceaugnac
is not noble, but Pourceaugnac and Tartuffe are admirable flashes of
art.

If, driven back from this entrenchment to their second line of
custom-houses, they renew their prohibition of the grotesque coupled
with the sublime, of comedy melted into tragedy, we prove to them
that, in the poetry of Christian nations, the first of these two types
represents the human beast, the second the soul. These two stalks of
art, if we prevent their branches from mingling, if we persistently
separate them, will produce by way of fruit, on the one hand abstract
vices and absurdities, on the other, abstract crime, heroism and
virtue. The two types, thus isolated and left to themselves, will go
each its own way, leaving the real between them, at the left hand of
one, at the right hand of the other. Whence it follows that after
all these abstractions there will remain something to represent--man;
after these tragedies and comedies, something to create--the drama.

In the drama, as it may be conceived at least, if not executed, all
things are connected and follow one another as in real life. The
body plays its part no less than the mind; and men and events, set
in motion by this twofold agent, pass across the stage, burlesque and
terrible in turn, and sometimes both at once. Thus the judge will say:
"Off with his head and let us go to dinner!" Thus the Roman Senate
will deliberate over Domitian's turbot. Thus Socrates, drinking the
hemlock and discoursing on the immortal soul and the only God,
will interrupt himself to suggest that a cook be sacrificed to
_AEsculapius_. Thus Elizabeth will swear and talk Latin. Thus Richelieu
will submit to Joseph the Capuchin, and Louis XI to his barber, Maitre
Olivier le Diable. Thus Cromwell will say: "I have Parliament in my
bag and the King in my pocket"; or, with the hand that signed the
death sentence of Charles the First, smear with ink the face of a
regicide who smilingly returns the compliment. Thus Caesar, in his
triumphal car, will be afraid of overturning. For men of genius,
however great they be, have always within them a touch of the beast
which mocks at their intelligence. Therein they are akin to mankind
in general, for therein they are dramatic. "It is but a step from the
sublime to the ridiculous," said Napoleon, when he was convinced that
he was mere man; and that outburst of a soul on fire illumines art and
hi