e melodramas calculated to excite a passing
emotion in the multitude, but in the multitude alone, and for a few
days; just as by dragging along without originality in the classical
system you will satisfy only that cold literary class who are
acquainted with nothing in nature which is more important than the
interests of versification, or more imposing than the three unities.
This is not the work of the poet who is called to power and destined
for glory: he acts upon a grander scale, and can address the superior
intellects as well as the general and simple faculties of all men. It
is doubtless necessary that the crowd should throng to behold those
dramatic works of which you desire to make a national spectacle; but
do not hope to become national, if you do not unite in your
festivities all those classes of persons and minds whose well-arranged
hierarchy raises a nation to its loftiest dignity. Genius is bound to
follow human nature in all its developments; its strength consists in
finding within itself the means for constantly satisfying the whole of
the public. The same task is now imposed upon government and upon
poetry: both should exist for all, and suffice at once for the wants
of the masses and for the requirements of the most exalted minds.

Doubtless stopt in its course by these conditions, the full severity
of which will only be revealed to the talent that can comply with
them, dramatic art, even in England, where under the protection of
Shakespeare it would have liberty to attempt anything, scarcely
ventures at the present day even to try timidly to follow him.
Meanwhile England, France, and the whole of Europe demand of the drama
pleasures and emotions that can no longer be supplied by the inanimate
representation of a world that has ceased to exist. The classical
system had its origin in the life of its time: that time has passed;
its image subsists in brilliant colors in its works, but can no more
be reproduced. Near the monuments of past ages, the monuments of
another age are now beginning to arise. What will be their form? I can
not tell; but the ground upon which their foundations may rest is
already perceptible.

This ground is not the ground of Corneille and Racine, nor is it that
of Shakespeare; it is our own; but Shakespeare's system, as it appears
to me, may furnish the plans according to which genius ought now to
work. This system alone includes all those social conditions and all
those general o