contemplation, and even the self-abandoned indifference of exhaustion, or
at another, the most tumultuous emotions, the most violent storm of the
passions. With respect to theatrical fitness, however, it must not be
forgotten that much must always depend on the capacities and humours of
the audience, and, consequently, on the national character in general, and
the particular degree of mental culture. Of all kinds of poetry the
dramatic is, in a certain sense, the most secular; for, issuing from the
stillness of an inspired mind, it yet fears not to exhibit itself in the
midst of the noise and tumult of social life. The dramatic poet is, more
than any other, obliged to court external favour and loud applause. But of
course it is only in appearance that he thus lowers himself to his
hearers; while, in reality, he is elevating them to himself.

In thus producing an impression on an assembled multitude the following
circumstance deserves to be weighed, in order to ascertain the whole
amount of its importance. In ordinary intercourse men exhibit only the
outward man to each other. They are withheld by mistrust or indifference
from allowing others to look into what passes within them; and to speak
with any thing like emotion or agitation of that which is nearest our
heart is considered unsuitable to the tone of polished society. The orator
and the dramatist find means to break through these barriers of
conventional reserve. While they transport their hearers into such lively
emotions that the outward signs thereof break forth involuntarily, every
man perceives those around him to be affected in the same manner and
degree, and those who before were strangers to one another, become in a
moment intimately acquainted. The tears which the dramatist or the orator
compels them to shed for calumniated innocence or dying heroism, make
friends and brothers of them all. Almost inconceivable is the power of a
visible communion of numbers to give intensity to those feelings of the
heart which usually retire into privacy, or only open themselves to the