of Rachel that she restores the original Greek grandeur to the drama.
We no longer wonder at Racine's idea of Phedre, but we are confronted
with Phedre herself. From the moment she appears, through every change
and movement of the scene until the catastrophe, a sense of fate, the
grim, remorseless, and inexorable destiny that presides over Greek
story, is stamped upon every look and nod and movement of Rachel. It
is stated that, since the enthusiasm produced in Paris by Ristori,
Rachel's Italian rival, the sculptor Schlesinger has declared that his
statue of Rachel which he had called Tragedy was only Melodrama after
all. If the report be true, it does not prove that Rachel, but
Schlesinger, is not a great artist.

It is this simplicity and grandeur that make the excellence of Rachel
in the characters of Racine. They cease to be French and become Greek.
As a victim of fate, she moves, from the first scene to the last, as
by a resistless impulse. Her voice has a low concentrated tone. Her
movement is not vehement, but intense. If she smiles, it is a wan
gleam of sadness, not of joy, as if the eyes that lighten for a moment
saw all the time the finger of fate pointing over her shoulder. The
thin form, graceful with intellectual dignity, not rounded with the
ripeness of young womanhood, the statuesque simplicity and severity of
the drapery, the pale cheek, the sad lips, the small eyes--these are
accessory to the whole impression, the melancholy ornaments of the
tragic scene. Her fine instinct avoids the romantic and melodramatic
touches which, however seductive to an actor who aims at effect, would
destroy at once that breadth and unity which characterize her best
impersonations. Wherever the idea of fate inspires the tragedy, or can
properly be introduced as the motive, there Rachel is unsurpassed and
unapproachable. Her stillness, her solemnity, her intensity; the want
of mouthing, of ranting, of all extravagance; the slight movement of