"That is true," said the very foreign count; "her acting is not acting."
"No," replied Cecil, "it is suffering."
The bony Miss Harridale nodded approval of the epigram, and then informed the company that for her part she saw nothing in French tragedy.
"Surely," said Cecil, "Racine is an exquisite writer."
"No," replied the confident young lady, "he has no ideas!"
There was something so vague yet so crushing in this dictum, which was delivered with amazing aplomb, that no one replied for a few seconds.
"I fancy," said Sir Frederick Winter, "we are scarcely inclined to do justice to French tragedy, because we always compare it with that which it least resembles—our own."
"For my part, I never presume to have an opinion on so delicate a subject," said Mrs. Vyner, who hated Miss Harridale, and never lost an opportunity of saying something disagreeable; "because I feel we English do not understand the language sufficiently to judge of that which depends upon the grace and beauty of language. I do not, of course, mean to imply Miss Harridale in that observation—she is such a Frenchwoman!"
Miss Harridale looked daggers, and said, "I do not pretend to feel the graces of Racine, about which they talk so much. I dare say they are all very well. I only speak of the substance: he has no ideas; and what is a poet without profound ideas? I am for ideas above everything."
"But how Racine understood the heart—especially woman's heart!" said the count. "What insight into the passions! what tenderness! what subtlety! what sublimity!"