y, our prose, and our whole conception of the art of
writing have fallen under the dominion of the emphatic, the
extraordinary, and the bold. No one in his senses would regret this, for
it has given our literature all its most characteristic glories, and, of
course, in Shakespeare, with whom expression is stretched to the
bursting point, the national style finds at once its consummate example
and its final justification. But the result is that we have grown so
unused to other kinds of poetical beauty, that we have now come to
believe, with Mr. Bailey, that poetry apart from 'le mot rare' is an
impossibility. The beauties of restraint, of clarity, of refinement, and
of precision we pass by unheeding; we can see nothing there but coldness
and uniformity; and we go back with eagerness to the fling and the
bravado that we love so well. It is as if we had become so accustomed to
looking at boxers, wrestlers, and gladiators that the sight of an
exquisite minuet produced no effect on us; the ordered dance strikes us
as a monotony, for we are blind to the subtle delicacies of the dancers,
which are fraught with such significance to the practised eye. But let
us be patient, and let us look again.

Ariane ma soeur, de quel amour blessee,
Vous mourutes aux bords ou vous futes laissee.

Here, certainly, are no 'mots rares'; here is nothing to catch the mind
or dazzle the understanding; here is only the most ordinary vocabulary,
plainly set forth. But is there not an enchantment? Is there not a
vision? Is there not a flow of lovely sound whose beauty grows upon the
ear, and dwells exquisitely within the memory? Racine's triumph is
precisely this--that he brings about, by what are apparently the
simplest means, effects which other poets must strain every nerve to
produce. The narrowness of his vocabulary is in fact nothing but a proof
of his amazing art. In the following passage, for instance, what a sense
of dignity and melancholy and power is conveyed by the commonest words!

Enfin j'ouvre les yeux, et je me fais justice:
C'est faire a vos beautes un triste sacrifice
Que de vous presenter, madame, avec ma foi,
Tout l'age et le malheur que je traine avec moi.
Jusqu'ici la fortune et la victoire memes
Cachaient mes cheveux blancs sous trente diademes.
Mais ce temps-la n'est plus: je regnais; et je fuis:
Mes ans se sont accrus; mes honneurs sont detruits.

Is that wonderful 'trente' an 'epi