Juan_ hides his
head when contrasted with Voltaire's _Pucelle_: Juan's biographer,
with all his zeal, is but an innocent, and a novice, by the side of
this arch-scorner.

Such a manner of considering the Maid of Orleans is evidently not the
right one. Feelings so deep and earnest as hers can never be an object
of ridicule: whoever pursues a purpose of any sort with such fervid
devotedness, is entitled to awaken emotions, at least of a serious
kind, in the hearts of others. Enthusiasm puts on a different shape in
every different age: always in some degree sublime, often it is
dangerous; its very essence is a tendency to error and exaggeration;
yet it is the fundamental quality of strong souls; the true nobility
of blood, in which all greatness of thought or action has its rise.
_Quicquid vult valde vult_ is ever the first and surest test of mental
capability. This peasant girl, who felt within her such fiery
vehemence of resolution, that she could subdue the minds of kings and
captains to her will, and lead armies on to battle, conquering, till
her country was cleared of its invaders, must evidently have possessed
the elements of a majestic character. Benevolent feelings, sublime
ideas, and above all an overpowering will, are here indubitably
marked. Nor does the form, which her activity assumed, seem less
adapted for displaying these qualities, than many other forms in which
we praise them. The gorgeous inspirations of the Catholic religion are
as real as the phantom of posthumous renown; the love of our native
soil is as laudable as ambition, or the principle of military honour.
Jeanne d'Arc must have been a creature of shadowy yet far-glancing
dreams, of unutterable feelings, of 'thoughts that wandered through
Eternity.' Who can tell the trials and the triumphs, the splendours
and the terrors, of which her simple spirit was the scene! 'Heartless,
sneering, god-forgetting French!' as old Suwarrow called them,--they
are not worthy of this noble maiden. Hers were errors, but errors
which a generous soul alone could have committed, and which generous
souls would have done more than pardon. Her darkness and delusions
were of the understanding only; they but make the radiance of her
heart more touching and apparent; as clouds are gilded by the orient
light into something more beautiful than azure itself.

It is under this aspect that Schiller has contemplated the Maid of
Orleans, and endeavoured to make us contemplate her