ss a
revelation of history than it is a revelation of the poet. His choice
of themes was dictated less by a careful search after what was most
characteristic of each epoch than by his own strong predilections. He
loved the picturesque, the heroic, the enormous, the barbarous, the
grotesque. Hence _Eviradnus_, _Ratbert_, _Le Mariage de Roland_. He
loved also the weak, the poor, the defenceless, the old man and the
little child. Hence _Les Pauvres Gens_, _Booz endormi_, _Petit Paul_. He
delighted in the monstrous, he revelled in extremes, and he had little
perception of the lights and shades which make up ordinary human
character. Neither his poems nor his romances show much trace of that
psychological analysis which is the peculiar feature of so much modern
literature. Child of the nineteenth century, as he was in so many
respects, in many of the features of his art he belongs to no era, and
conforms to no tendency, except that of his own Titanic genius. He could
see white and he could see black, but he could not see grey, and never
tried to paint it. He does not allow Philip II even his redeeming
virtues of indefatigable industry and unceasing devotion to duty, while
in his Rome of the decadence would assuredly be found scarce five good
men. His vision is curiously limited to the darker side of history; he
hears humanity uttering in all ages a cry of suffering, and but rarely
a shout of laughter. He sees the oppression of the tyrant more vividly
than the heroism of the oppressed. Has he to write of the power of
Spain? It is in the portrayal of the tyrant of Spain rather than the men
who overcame Spain that his genius finds scope. Does he wish to paint
the era of religious persecution? It is the horror of the Inquisition
rather than the heroism of its victims that is pictured on his canvas.
Delineations of heroic virtue there are indeed in the _Legende_, but it
is noteworthy that they occur usually in fictions such as _Eviradnus_,
_Le Petit Roi de Galice_, and _La Confiance du Marquis Fabrice._[1] He
has given us no historical portraits of noble characters which can be
put side by side with those of Philip II and Sultan Mourad. As in his
dramas, his kings and rulers are always drawn in dark colours. His
heroes belong to the classes that he loved, poor people, common
soldiers, old men, children, and, be it added, animals. He is always the
man of great heart and strong prejudices, never the dramatist or the
philosopher.