THE MODERN DRAMA.
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| Dire rebel though he was, |
| Yet with a noble nature and great gifts |
| Was he endowed: courage, discretion, wit, |
| An equal temper and an ample soul, |
| Rock-bound and fortified against assaults |
| Of transitory passion, but below |
| Built on a surging subterraneous fire, |
| That stirred and lifted him to high attempts, |
| So prompt and capable, and yet so calm; |
| He nothing lacked in sovereignty but the right, |
| Nothing in soldiership except good fortune. |
That was the grandeur of the character, that its calmness had nothing to do with slowness of blood, but was “built on a surging subterranean fire.”
Its magnanimity is shown with a fine simplicity. To blame one’s self is easy, to condemn one’s own changes and declensions of character and life painful, but inevitable to a deep mind. But to bear well the blame of a lesser nature, unequal to seeing what the fault grows from, is not easy; to take blame as Van Artevelde does, so quietly, indifferent from whence truth comes, so it be truth, is a trait seen in the greatest only.
| ELENA. |
| Too anxious, Artevelde, |
| And too impatient are you grown of late; |
| You used to be so calm and even-minded, |
| That nothing ruffled you. |
| ARTEVELDE. |
| I stand reproved; |
| ’T is time and circumstance that tries us all; |
| And they that temperately take their start, |
| And keep their souls indifferently sedate, |
| Through much of good and evil at the last, |
| May find the weakness of their hearts thus tried. |
| My cause appears more precious than it did |
| In its triumphant days. |
I have ventured to be the more lavish of extracts that, although
