ures of the
composition--the spiritual states of the characters--which, laid bare
with uncompromising force and supreme precision, may thus indelibly
imprint themselves upon the mind. To condemn Racine on the score of his
ambiguities and his pomposities is to complain of the hastily dashed-in
column and curtain in the background of a portrait, and not to mention
the face. Sometimes indeed his art seems to rise superior to its own
conditions, endowing even the dross and refuse of what it works in with
a wonderful significance. Thus when the Sultana, Roxane, discovers her
lover's treachery, her mind flies immediately to thoughts of revenge and
death, and she exclaims--

Ah! je respire enfin, et ma joie est extreme
Que le traitre une fois se soit trahi lui-meme.
Libre des soins cruels ou j'allais m'engager,
Ma tranquille fureur n'a plus qu'a se venger.
Qu'il meure. Vengeons-nous. Courez. Qu'on le saisisse!
Que la main des muets s'arme pour son supplice;
Qu'ils viennent preparer ces noeuds infortunes
Par qui de ses pareils les jours sont termines.

To have called a bowstring a bowstring was out of the question; and
Racine, with triumphant art, has managed to introduce the periphrasis in
such a way that it exactly expresses the state of mind of the Sultana.
She begins with revenge and rage, until she reaches the extremity of
virulent resolution; and then her mind begins to waver, and she finally
orders the execution of the man she loves, in a contorted agony of
speech.

But, as a rule, Racine's characters speak out most clearly when they are
most moved, so that their words, at the height of passion, have an
intensity of directness unknown in actual life. In such moments, the
phrases that leap to their lips quiver and glow with the compressed
significance of character and situation; the 'Qui te l'a dit?' of
Hermione, the 'Sortez' of Roxane, the 'Je vais a Rome' of Mithridate,
the 'Dieu des Juifs, tu l'emportes!' of Athalie--who can forget these
things, these wondrous microcosms of tragedy? Very different is the
Shakespearean method. There, as passion rises, expression becomes more
and more poetical and vague. Image flows into image, thought into
thought, until at last the state of mind is revealed, inform and
molten, driving darkly through a vast storm of words. Such revelations,
no doubt, come closer to reality than the poignant epigrams of Racine.
In life, men's minds are not sharpened,