s. 'Tis pity!

But these are the wretched quibbles with which mediocrity, envy and
routine has pestered genius for two centuries past! By such means the
flight of our greatest poets has been cut short. Their wings have been
clipped with the scissors of the unities. And what has been given us
in exchange for the eagle feathers stolen from Corneille and Racine?
Campistron.

We imagine that someone may say: "There is something in too frequent
changes of scene which confuses and fatigues the spectator, and which
produces a bewildering effect on his attention; it may be, too, that
manifold transitions from place to place, from one time to another
time, demand explanations which repel the attention; one should
also avoid leaving, in the midst of a plot, gaps which prevent the
different parts of the drama from adhering closely to one another, and
which, moreover, puzzle the spectator because he does not know what
there may be in those gaps." But these are precisely the difficulties
which art has to meet. These are some of the obstacles peculiar to
one subject or another, as to which it would be impossible to pass
judgment once for all. It is for genius to overcome, not for treatises
or poetry to evade them.

A final argument, taken from the very bowels of the art, would of
itself suffice to show the absurdity of the rule of the two unities.
It is the existence of the third unity, unity of plot--the only one
that is universally admitted, because it results from a fact: neither
the human eye nor the human mind can grasp more than one _ensemble_ at
one time. This one is as essential as the other two are useless. It
is the one which fixes the view-point of the drama; now, by that very
fact, it excludes the other two. There can no more be three unities in
the drama than three horizons in a picture. But let us be careful not
to confound unity with simplicity of plot. The former does not in
any way exclude the secondary plots on which the principal plot
may depend. It is necessary only that these parts, being skilfully
subordinated to the general plan, shall tend constantly toward the
central plot and group themselves about it at the various stages, or
rather on the various levels of the drama. Unity of plot is the stage
law of perspective.

"But," the customs-officers of thought will cry, "great geniuses have
submitted to these rules which you spurn!" Unfortunately, yes. But
what would those admirable men have done if they had