(54.) Corneille cannot be equalled where he is excellent; he shows then original and inimitable characteristics, but he is unequal. His first plays[102] are uninteresting and heavy, and did not lead us to expect that he would afterwards soar to such a height, just as his last plays make us wonder at his fall from such a pinnacle. In some of his best pieces there are unpardonable errors in the characters of the drama[103]—a declamatory style which arrests the action and delays it, and such negligence in his versification and in his expressions that we can hardly understand how so great a man could be guilty of them. His highest individual quality is his sublime genius, to which he is beholden for some of the most beautiful verses ever read; for the plots of his plays, in which he sometimes ventures to transgress the rules of the ancients; and finally, for his catastrophes. In this he does not always follow the taste of the Greeks and their grand simplicity; on the contrary, he delights in crowding the stage with events, which he almost always disentangles successfully; and is above all to be admired for his great variety and the little similarity of his plots in the large number of dramas he has written. It seems that Racineʼs plays are more like one another, and that they lead up a little more to the same ending; but he is uniform, lofty in style, and everywhere the same, as well in the plots and incidents of his plays, which are sound, regular, rational and natural, as in his versification, which is correct, rich in its rhythm, elegant, melodious,[104] and harmonious. He is an exact imitator of the ancients, whom he carefully follows in their distinctness and simplicity of action, and like Corneille, not lacking the sublime and marvellous, the moving and the pathetic. Where can we find greater tenderness diffused than in Le Cid, Polyeucte, and Les Horaces?[105] What grandeur do we not observe in Mithridates, lʼorus, and Burrhus![106] Both poets were well acquainted with terror and pity, those favourite passions of the ancients, which the dramatic authors were fond of producing on the stage; as Orestes in the Andromaque of Racine, Phèdre of the same author, as well as Œdipus and the Horatii of Corneille clearly prove. If, however, it is allowable to draw some comparison between them, and distinguish what are the peculiarities of each of them, as is generally discovered in their writings, I should probablyŒ say: Corneille enthralls us by his characters and ideas; Racineʼs coincide with ours; the one represents men as they ought to be, the other as they are. There is in the first more of what we admire and what we ought even to imitate; and in the second more of what we perceive in others or feel within ourselves. Corneille elevates, surprises, controls and instructs us; Racine pleases, affects, moves and penetrates us. The former employs the most beautiful, the most noble, and the most commanding arguments; the latter depicts the most praiseworthy and the most refined passions. One is full of maxims, rules, and precepts; the other of taste and feeling. Our mind is kept more occupied by Corneilleʼs tragedies, but by Racineʼs we are more softened and moved. Corneille is more moral, Racine more natural.[107] The one seems to imitate Sophocles, the other Euripides.[108]
(55.) What the people call eloquence is the facility some persons have of speaking alone and for a long time, aided by extravagant gestures, a loud voice, and powerful lungs. Pedants also will not recognise eloquence except in public orations, and can see no distinction between it and a heap of figures, the use of big words and flowing periods.
It seems that logic is the art of making some truth prevail, and that eloquence is a gift of the soul which renders us master of the hearts and minds of other men, so that we suggest to them, or persuade them, to do whatever we please.
Eloquence may be found in conversations and in all kind of writings; it is rarely found when looked for, and sometimes discovered where it is least expected.
Eloquence is to the sublime what the whole is to its part.
What is the sublime? It does not appear to have been defined. Is it a figure of speech? Does it spring from figures, or at least from some figures of speech?[109] Does the sublime enter into all kinds of writings, or are grand subjects only fit for it?[110] Can an eclogue display anything but fine simplicity, and familiar letters as well as conversation anything but great delicacy? Are simplicity and delicacy not the sublime of those works of which they are the perfection? What is this sublime? Where does it begin?[111]
Synonyms are several words or various phrases which are the precise equivalents of each other. An antithesis is an opposition of two truths which throw light on one another. A metaphor or a comparison borrows from a foreign matter a sensible and natural image of a truth.[112] A hyperbole exaggerates truth to enable the mind to understand it better. The sublime paints nothing but the truth, and that only in noble subjects; it depicts all its causes and effects; it is the most meritorious expression or image of this truth. Ordinary minds cannot find the only right expression, and, therefore, use synonyms. Young men are dazzled by the lustre of an antithesis, and employ it. Sensible people, who delight in exact imagery, of course, are led away by comparisons and metaphors. Sharp people, full of fire, and carried away by a lively imagination beyond all bounds and accuracy, cannot be satiated with hyperboles. As for the sublime, even among the greatest geniuses, only the highest can reach it.
(56.) Every author who wishes to write clearly should put himself in the place of his readers, examine his own work as something new to him, which he reads for the first time, is not at all concerned in, and which has been submitted to his criticism; and then be convinced that no one will understand what is written merely because the author understands it himself, but because it is really intelligible.
(57.) People write only to be understood, but they should, at least, in their writings produce very beautiful things. They ought to have a pure style, and, in truth, employ a suitable phraseology; moreover, their phrases should express noble, intense, and solid thoughts, and contain a very fine meaning. A pure and clear style is thrown away on a dry, barren subject, without either spirit, use, or novelty. What avails it to any reader to understand easily and without any difficulty some frivolous and puerile subject, not seldom dull and common, when he is less in doubt about the meaning of the author than tired with his work?