they attain in its undefiled essence.  And then, to induce us to make the same effort ourselves, they contrive to make us see something of what they have seen:  by rhythmical arrangement of words, which thus become organised and animated with a life of their own, they tell us—­or rather suggest—­ things that speech was not calculated to express.  Others delve yet deeper still.  Beneath these joys and sorrows which can, at a pinch, be translated into language, they grasp something that has nothing in common with language, certain rhythms of life and breath that. are closer to man than his inmost feelings, being the living law—­ varying with each individual—­of his enthusiasm and despair, his hopes and regrets.  By setting free and emphasising this music, they force it upon our attention; they compel us, willy-nilly, to fall in with it, like passers-by who join in a dance.  And thus they impel us to set in motion, in the depths of our being, some secret chord which was only waiting to thrill.  So art, whether it be painting or sculpture, poetry or music, has no other object than to brush aside the utilitarian symbols, the conventional and socially accepted generalities, in short, everything that veils reality from us, in order to bring us face to face with reality itself.  It is from a misunderstanding on this point that the dispute between realism and idealism in art has arisen.  Art is certainly only a more direct vision of reality.  But this purity of perception implies a break with utilitarian convention, an innate and specially localised disinterestedness of sense or consciousness, in short, a certain immateriality of life, which is what has always been called idealism.  So that we might say, without in any way playing upon the meaning of the words, that realism is in the work when idealism is in the soul, and that it is only through ideality that we can resume contact with reality.

Dramatic art forms no exception to this law.  What drama goes forth to discover and brings to light, is a deep-seated reality that is veiled from us, often in our own interests, by the necessities of life.  What is this reality?  What are these necessities?  Poetry always expresses inward states.  But amongst these states some arise mainly from contact with our fellow-men.  They are the most intense as well as the most violent.  As contrary electricities attract each other and accumulate between the two plates of the condenser from which the spark will presently flash, so, by simply bringing people together, strong attractions and repulsions take place, followed by an utter loss of balance, in a word, by that electrification of the soul known as passion.  Were man to give way to the impulse of his natural feelings, were there neither social nor moral law, these outbursts of violent feeling would be the ordinary rule in life.  But utility demands that these outbursts should be foreseen and averted.  Man must live in society, and consequently submit to rules.  And what interest advises, reason