with a Trumpet." It is a breathless, rushing narrative of a swift
succession of events, told with the most straight-forward
simplicity. In the "Princess Maleine," on the other hand, the
narrative is so charged with subjective feeling, the world in which
the action takes place is so deeply tinged with lights that never
rested on any actual landscape, that all sense of reality is lost.
The play depends for its effect mainly upon atmosphere. Certain
very definite impressions are produced with singular power, but
there is no clear, clean stamping of occurrences on the mind. The
imagination is skilfully awakened and made to do the work of
observation.

The note of the popular ballad is its objectivity; it not only takes
us out of doors, but it also takes us out of the individual
consciousness. The manner is entirely subordinated to the matter; the
poet, if there was a poet in the case, obliterates himself. What we
get is a definite report of events which have taken place, not a
study of a man's mind nor an account of a man's feelings. The true
balladist is never introspective; he is concerned not with himself
but with his story. There is no self-disclosure in his song. To the
mood of Senancour and Amiel he was a stranger. Neither he nor the
men to whom he recited or sang would have understood that mood.
They were primarily and unreflectively absorbed in the world outside
of themselves. They saw far more than they meditated; they recorded
far more than they moralized. The popular ballads are, as a rule,
entirely free from didacticism in any form; that is one of the main
sources of their unfailing charm. They show not only a childlike
curiosity about the doings of the day and the things that befall
men, but a childlike indifference to moral inference and
justification. The bloodier the fray the better for ballad