pick a flaw, and the elocutionist in raptures at the sublime
possibilities of his art, it was Rachel, not Hermione, the genius of the
performer, not the reality of the character, that won the earnest
attention, and woke the constant plaudits. [A] That over-consciousness
which belongs to the French nature, so evident in their 'Confessions,'
their oratory, their manners, their conversation, and their life, and
which is the great reason of their want of persistence and
self-dependence in political affairs, modifies their ideal
representations on the stage as well as in literature. The process
described so philosophically by Coleridge, to lose 'self in an idea
dearer than self,' is the condition of all greatness. It sublimated the
life of Washington, and made it unique in the annals of nations; it
enabled Shakspeare to incarnate the elements of humanity in dramatic
creations, and Kean to reproduce them on the stage; it is the grand law
of the highest achievements in statesmanship, in letters, and in art,
without which they fall short of wide significance and enduring
vitality.

[Footnote A: The very description of her enthusiastic admirers suggests
that such were the original traits and the special character of Rachel.
At first we are told by the patron who earliest recognized her genius,
'a delirious popularity surrounded the young _tragedienne_, and with her
the antique tragedy which she had revived.' How different from the
original relation of Kemble, Kean, or Siddons to the Shaksperian drama!
Then the manner in which she prepared herself for artistic triumph is
equally suggestive of the artificial and the conventional: 'Elle se
drape,' we are told, 'avec un art merveilleux; au theatre elle fait
preuve d'études intelligentes de la statuaire antique.' It was in the
external form rather than by sympathetic emotion that she wooed the
tragic muse. Véron compares her to Thiers. 'C'est la même netteté de