It has become a trite saying that French genius lacks the sense of
Nature, that the French tongue is colourless, and therefore wants the
most striking feature of poetry. If we abandoned for one moment the
domain of letters and took a comprehensive view of the field of art, we
might be permitted to express astonishment at the passing of so summary
a judgment on the genius of a nation which has, in the real sense of the
term, produced two such painters of Nature as Claude Lorrain and Corot.
But even in the realm of letters it is easily seen that this mode of
thinking is due largely to insufficient knowledge of the language's
resources, and to a study of French literature which does not extend
beyond the seventeenth century. Without going back to the Duke of
Orleans and to Villon, one need only read a few of the poets of the
sixteenth century to be struck by the prominence given to Nature in
their writings. Nothing is more delightful than Ronsard's word-paintings
of his sweet country of Vendome. Until the day of Malherbe, the didactic
Regnier and the Calvinistic Marot are the only two who could be said to
give colour to the preconceived and prevalent notion as to the dryness
of French poetry. And even after Malherbe, in the seventeenth century,
we find that La Fontaine, the most truly French of French writers, was
a passionate lover of Nature. He who can see nothing in the latter's
fables beyond the little dramas which they unfold and the ordinary moral
which the poet draws therefrom, must confess that he fails to understand
him. His landscapes possess precision, accuracy, and life, while such is
the fragrance of his speech that it seems laden with the fresh perfume
of the fields and furrows.

Racine himself, the most penetrating and the most psychological of