When we come upon a passage like this we know, so to speak, that the
hunt is up and the whole field tearing after the quarry. But Racine, on
other occasions, has another way of writing. He can be roundabout,
artificial, and vague; he can involve a simple statement in a mist of
high-sounding words and elaborate inversions.

Jamais l'aimable soeur des cruels Pallantides
Trempa-t-elle aux complots de ses frères perfides.

That is Racine's way of saying that Aricie did not join in her brothers'
conspiracy. He will describe an incriminating letter as 'De sa trahison
ce gage trop sincère.' It is obvious that this kind of expression has
within it the germs of the 'noble' style of the eighteenth-century
tragedians, one of whom, finding himself obliged to mention a dog, got
out of the difficulty by referring to--'De la fidélité le respectable
appui.' This is the side of Racine's writing that puzzles and disgusts
Mr. Bailey. But there is a meaning in it, after all. Every art is based
upon a selection, and the art of Racine selected the things of the
spirit for the material of its work. The things of sense--physical
objects and details, and all the necessary but insignificant facts that
go to make up the machinery of existence--these must be kept out of the
picture at all hazards. To have called a spade a spade would have ruined
the whole effect; spades must never be mentioned, or, at the worst, they
must be dimly referred to as agricultural implements, so that the entire
attention may be fixed upon the central and dominating features of the
composition--the spiritual states of the characters--which, laid bare
with uncompromising force and supreme precision, may thus indelibly
imprint themselves upon the mind. To condemn Racine on the score of his
ambiguities and his pomposities is to complain of the hastily dashed-in
column and curtain in the background of a portrait, and not to mention