During a dramatic performance at St. Cyr, the youthful representative of Esther suddenly forgot her part; the agitated poet exclaimed, “Oh, mademoiselle, you are ruining my piece!” Terrified at this reprimand, the young actress wept; the poet flew to her, wiped away her tears, and with contagious sympathy shed tears himself.  “I do not hesitate,” says Louis Racine, “to relate such minute circumstances, because this facility of shedding tears shows the goodness of the heart, according to the observation of the ancients—­

      [Greek:] “agathohi d aridakryes andres.”

This morbid state of feeling made his whole literary life uneasy; unjust criticism affected him as much as the most poignant, and there was nothing he dreaded more than that his son should become a writer of tragedies.  “I will not dissimulate,” he says, addressing his son, “that in the heat of composition we are not sometimes pleased with ourselves; but you may believe me, when the day after we look over our work, we are astonished not to find that excellence we admired in the evening; and when we reflect that even what we find good ought to be still better, and how distant we are still from perfection, we are discouraged and dissatisfied.  Besides all this, although the approbation I have received has been very flattering, the least adverse criticism, even miserable as it might be, has always occasioned me more vexation than all the praise I received could give me pleasure.”  And, again, he endeavours to impress on him that the favour he received from the world he owed not to his verses.  “Do not imagine that they are my verses that attract all these kindnesses.  Corneille composes verses a hundred times finer than mine, but no one regards him.  His verses are only applauded from the mouths of the actors.  I do not tire men of the world by reciting my works; I never allude to them; I endeavour to amuse them with matters which please them.  My talent in their company is, not to make them feel that I have any genius, but to show them that they possess some themselves.  When you observe the duke pass several hours with me, you would be surprised, were you present, that he frequently quits me without my having uttered three words; but gradually I put him in a humour of chatting, and he leaves me more satisfied with himself than with me.”  When Rochefoucault said that Boileau and Racine had only one kind of genius, and could only talk about their own poetry, it is evident that the observation should not have extended to Racine, however it might to Boileau.  It was Racine’s excessive sensibility which made him the finest dramatic reciter.  The celebrated actress, Mademoiselle Champmesle,[A] the heroine of his tragedies, had no genius whatever for the stage, but she had beauty, voice, and memory.  Racine taught her first to comprehend the verses she was going to recite, showed her the appropriate gesture, and gave her the variable tones, which he even sometimes noted down.  His pupil, faithful to her lessons, though a mere actress of art, on the stage seemed inspired by passion; and as she, thus formed and fashioned, naturally only played thus effectively in the dramas of her preceptor, it was supposed that love for the poet inspired the actress.