any antique Mythology as ready-made sources or channels of Causation,
even in verse, and excluded the celestial machinery of, say,
_Paradise Lost_, as peremptorily as that of the _Iliad_ or
the _Eddas_. And the abandonment of the Masculine pronoun in
allusions to the First or Fundamental Energy seemed a necessary and
logical consequence of the long abandonment by thinkers of the
anthropomorphic conception of the same." Accordingly he arranged a
group of Phantom Intelligences that supply adequately a Chorus and a
philosophical basis for his world-drama.

Like Browning in the original preface to _Paracelsus_, our author
expressly disclaims any intention of writing a play for the stage. It
is "intended simply for mental performance," and "Whether mental
performance alone may not eventually be the fate of all drama other
than that of contemporary or frivolous life, is a kindred question not
without interest." The question has been since answered in another
way than that implied, not merely by the success of community drama,
but by the actual production of _The Dynasts_ on the London stage
under the direction of the brilliant and audacious Granville Barker. I
would give much to have witnessed this experiment, which Mr. Barker
insists was successful.

"Whether _The Dynasts_ will finally take a place among the
world's masterpieces of literature or not, must of course be left to
future generations to decide. Two things are clear. The publication of
the second and third parts distinctly raised public opinion of the
work as a whole, and now that it is ten years old, we know that no man
on earth except Mr. Hardy could have written it." To produce this
particular epic required a poet, a prose master, a dramatist, a
philosopher, and an architect. Mr. Hardy is each and all of the five,