But let us note somewhat further the difference of structure.  Now the Classic Drama, as we have it in Sophocles, though exquisitely clear and simple in form, and austerely beautiful withal, is comparatively limited in its scope, with few characters, little change of scene, no blending or interchanging of the humourous and the grave, the tragic and the comic, and hardly exceeding in length a single Act of the Shakespearian Drama.  The interest all, or nearly all, centres in the catastrophe, there being only so much of detail and range as is needful to the evolving of this.  Thus the thing neither has nor admits any thing like the complexity and variety, the breadth, freedom, and massiveness, of Shakespeare’s workmanship.  There is timber enough and life enough in one of his dramas to make four or five Sophoclean tragedies; and one of these might almost be cut out of Hamlet without being missed.  Take, for instance, the Oedipus at Colonos of Sophocles and King Lear, each perhaps the most complex and varied work of the author.  The Greek tragedy, though the longest of the author’s pieces, is hardly more than a third the length of King Lear.  The former has no change of scene at all; the first Act of the other has five changes of scene.  The Sophoclean drama has eight characters in all, besides the Chorus; King Lear has twenty characters, besides the anonymous persons.  To be sure, quantity in such things is no measure of strength or worth; but when we come to wealth, range, and amplitude of thought, the difference is perhaps still greater.

And so, generally, the Classic Drama, like the Classic Architecture, is all light, graceful, airy, in its form; whereas the Gothic is in nature and design profound, solemn, majestic.  The genius of the one runs to a simple expressiveness; of the other to a manifold suggestiveness.  That is mainly statuesque, and hardly admits any effect of background and perspective; this is mainly picturesque, and requires an ample background and perspective for its characteristic effect.  There the mind is drawn more to objects; here, more to relations.  The former, therefore, naturally detaches things as much as possible, and sets each out by itself in the utmost clearness and definiteness of view; while the latter associates and combines them in the largest possible variety consistent with unity of interest and impression, so as to produce the effect of indefiniteness and mystery.  Thus a Shakespearian drama is like a Gothic cathedral, which, by its complexity of structure, while catching the eye would fain lift the thoughts to something greater and better than the world, making the beholder feel his littleness, and even its own littleness, comparison of what it suggests.  For, in this broad and manifold diversity struggling up into unity, we may recognize the awe-inspiring grandeur and vastness of the Gothic Architecture, as distinguished from the cheerful, smiling beauty of the Classic.  Such is the difference between the spirit of Classic Art and the spirit of Gothic Art.[13]