d that too.

It is not that the flawless serenity of marble cannot bear the burden of
the modern intellectual spirit, or become instinct with the fire of
romantic passion--the tomb of Duke Lorenzo and the chapel of the Medici
show us that--but it is that, as Theophile Gautier used to say, the
visible world is dead, le monde visible a disparu.

Nor is it again that the novel has killed the play, as some critics would
persuade us--the romantic movement of France shows us that. The work of
Balzac and of Hugo grew up side by side together; nay, more, were
complementary to each other, though neither of them saw it. While all
other forms of poetry may flourish in an ignoble age, the splendid
individualism of the lyrist, fed by its own passion, and lit by its own
power, may pass as a pillar of fire as well across the desert as across
places that are pleasant. It is none the less glorious though no man
follow it--nay, by the greater sublimity of its loneliness it may be
quickened into loftier utterance and intensified into clearer song. From
the mean squalor of the sordid life that limits him, the dreamer or the
idyllist may soar on poesy's viewless wings, may traverse with fawn-skin
and spear the moonlit heights of Cithaeron though Faun and Bassarid dance
there no more. Like Keats he may wander through the old-world forests of
Latmos, or stand like Morris on the galley's deck with the Viking when
king and galley have long since passed away. But the drama is the
meeting-place of art and life; it deals, as Mazzini said, not merely with
man, but with social man, with man in his relation to God and to
Humanity. It is the product of a period of great national united energy;
it is impossible without a noble public, and belongs to such ages as the
age of Elizabeth in London and of Pericles at Athens; it is part of such
lofty moral and spiritual ardour as came to Greek after the defeat of the
Persian fleet, and to Englishman after the wreck of the Armada of Spain.

Shelley felt how incomplete our movement was in this respect, and has
shown in one great tragedy by what terror and pity he would have purified
our age; but in spite of The Cenci the drama is one of the artistic forms
through which the genius of the England of this century seeks in vain to
find outlet and expression. He has had no worthy imitators.

It is rather, perhaps, to you that we should turn to complete and perfect
this great movement of ours, for there is