surrenders himself to his theme, and his personality shines clear and
luminous through speech, articulation, and gesture. The unconscious
nature of the man subordinates his skill wholly to its own uses. In
like manner, in every kind of self-expression, the student who puts
imagination, vitality, and sincerity into the work of preliminary
education, comes at last to full command of himself, and gives
complete expression to that which is deepest and most individual in
him. Time, discipline, study, and thought enrich every nature which is
receptive and responsive.




Chapter XIX.

The Teaching of Tragedy.


No characters appeal more powerfully to the imagination than those
impressive figures about whom the literature of tragedy
moves,--figures associated with the greatest passions and the most
appalling sorrows. The well-balanced man, who rises step by step
through discipline and work to the highest place of influence and
power, is applauded and admired; but the heart of the world goes out
to those who, like OEdipus, are overmatched by a fate which pursues
with relentless step, or, like Hamlet, are overweighted with tasks too
heavy or too terrible for them. Agamemnon, OEdipus, Orestes, Hamlet,
Lear, Père Goriot, are supreme figures in that world of the
imagination in which the poets have endeavoured both to reflect and to
interpret the world as men see it and act in it.