PREFACE.
There are two ways of arousing the enthusiasm of the public at the theatre: by the great and by the true. The great captivates the masses, the true impresses the individual spectator.
The aim of the dramatic poet, whatever his general ideas concerning art, should be therefore, first of all, to seek the great, like Corneille, or the true, like Molière; or, better still,—and this is the highest elevation that genius can attain,—to aspire to both the great and the true, the great in the true, the true in the great, like Shakespeare.
For, let us observe in passing, it was given to Shakespeare—and therein consists the sovereignty of his genius—to reconcile, to unite, to amalgamate constantly in his work these two qualities, truth and greatness,—qualities almost the opposite of each other, or, at all events, so distinct that the defect of either of them constitutes the opposite of the other. The stumbling-block of the true is the petty; the stumbling-block of the great is the false. In all of Shakespeare's works there is greatness which is true, and there is truth which is great. At the centre of all his creations, we find the point of intersection of greatness and truth; and where these great things and these true things meet, art is complete. Shakespeare, like Michelangelo, seems to have been created to solve that strange problem of which the mere enunciation seems absurd: to remain always within the limits of nature, while going outside of them now and again.—Shakespeare exaggerates proportions, but he maintains the relations of things. Marvellous omnipotence of the poet! he makes things higher than ourselves, which live as we do. Hamlet, for example, is as true as any one of us, and greater. Hamlet is colossal, yet real. It is because Hamlet is not you, or I, but all of us. Hamlet is not a man, he is man.
Constantly to distinguish the great through the true,
