We have dilated on the effect produced by this faithful and, we may say, literal translation of "Othello," because this effect seemed to us to augur very favorably for the French theatre. The piece was better played than any of the master-pieces of our dramatic writers is at this time; it has been better judged than any other piece, so far as we know, ever has been; for it has been judged sincerely, without prejudice, without any spirit of partisanship, and each scene has been estimated according to its true value.
If the public will resolutely maintain this freedom of mind, if they will continue henceforth, on every renewed attempt, to applaud only what seems to them to be good, to condemn that which strikes them as bad, to take up an attitude of indifference to things which are in themselves indifferent, it will, by these means, do much for art, and still more for its own gratification. It will save us the annoyance of an inundation of those imitations of the romantic school of the drama which already threaten to supersede the imitations of the classical school. After we have tried, for a hundred years, under a thousand different names, endless variations on the "Andromaque," the "Mérope," and the "Zaïre"—variations, however, which are devoid of all the beauties which belong to the originals—we shall be preserved from the misfortune of experiencing, under a thousand other names, and perhaps during another hundred years, mere repetitions of "Macbeth," "Othello," or "William Tell," minus the real beauties of "Macbeth," "Othello," and "William Tell."
The beautiful can never be the result of imitation: what is really imitated are the defects, the exterior forms, the mannerism of great poets; and when the public, in its unreflecting enthusiasm for great poets, allows itself to applaud even their faults, or merely their mannerism, it is sure to have very soon more than enough of these.
Let those who are attached to the romantic school be well assured that this school will not establish itself among us by means of reversed reproductions of old works of art in a thin, transparent disguise, nor by counterfeits foisted upon us under the pretense of being borrowed. Let them traduce the beautiful productions of foreign literature, line by line; their work will not be thrown away; but, in Heaven's name, let them not produce these as novelties, and present them before us as fruits which are indigenous to their soil. They would not even have the excuse of their colleagues—originality must always be original. And let not the public allow themselves to be duped—never let them applaud a modern author merely because he can dress himself up in the plumage of a great master.
And let the friends of the classic school be well assured, in their turn, that their only chance of safety is in being able to rival the romantic school. It is now already dead—it has been slain by the copyists; imitations at second and third hand have filled us with an insurmountable disgust. It will revive—of this there can be no doubt; but its revival must be under a new and transformed appearance, released from the shackles by which it has been unreasonably entangled, free in its movements, prepared to enter upon a new career.
This service must be rendered to it by the existing romantic school.
That will be a happy time when we shall be able to see these two schools flourishing in the presence of each other, in a reasonable degree of independence, governed, each for itself, by the laws appropriate to its true nature, and distributing with lavish hand the beauties which are their own native growths.