intrusion of a comic element is to be feared. On this account, the
hero in a tragedy does not eat or drink or warm himself. He does not
even sit down any more than can be helped. To sit down in the middle
of a fine speech would imply that you remembered you had a body.
Napoleon, who was a psychologist when he wished to be so, had
noticed that the transition from tragedy to comedy is effected
simply by sitting down. In the "Journal inedit" of Baron Gourgaud--
when speaking of an interview with the Queen of Prussia after the
battle of Iena--he expresses himself in the following terms: "She
received me in tragic fashion like Chimene: Justice! Sire, Justice!
Magdeburg! Thus she continued in a way most embarrassing to me.
Finally, to make her change her style, I requested her to take a
seat. This is the best method for cutting short a tragic scene, for
as soon as you are seated it all becomes comedy."

Let us now give a wider scope to this image of THE BODY TAKING
PRECEDENCE OF THE SOUL. We shall obtain something more general--THE
MANNER SEEKING TO OUTDO THE MATTER, THE LETTER AIMING AT OUSTING THE
SPIRIT. Is it not perchance this idea that comedy is trying to
suggest to us when holding up a profession to ridicule? It makes the
lawyer, the magistrate and the doctor speak as though health and
justice were of little moment,--the main point being that we should
have lawyers, magistrates and doctors, and that all outward
formalities pertaining to these professions should be scrupulously
respected. And so we find the means substituted for the end, the
manner for the matter; no longer is it the profession that is made
for the public, but rather the public for the profession. Constant
attention to form and the mechanical application of rules here bring
about a kind of professional automatism analogous to that imposed
upon the soul by the habits of the body, and equally laughable.