It seems impossible to deny that something of this sort existed in the case of Corneille, for as we read his works, while we constantly receive the already mentioned impression of seriousness and severity, there is another impression that is sometimes mingled with these and suggests the disquieting presence of men firmly fixed and rooted in an ideal. When faced with his predilection for deliberation and resolution, the figure of the Aristophanic Philocleon sometimes returns to the memory. This Philocleon was a "philoheliast," that is to say he was the victim of a mania for judging, τοὔ δικάζειν. His son locked him up, but he climbed out of window, in order to hasten to the tribunal and satisfy his vital need of administering justice! The consequences of this excess of practical passionality in the case of Corneille, of its exclusive domination in him, was that he either did not love or refused to allow himself to love anything else in the world, and lost interest in all the rest of life. He did not surpass it ideally, in which case he would have remained trembling and living in its presence, although it was combated and suppressed, but he drove it out or cut it off altogether. He acted as one, who for the love of the human body, should eliminate from his picture, landscape, sky, air, the background of the picture, upon and from which the figure rises and with which it is conj nected, although separated from it in relief, and should limit himself to the delineation of bodies and attitudes of bodies. Corneille, having abolished all other forms of life, found nothing before him but a series of situations for deliberation, vigorously felt, warmly expressed, sung with full voice, and illustrated with energetic yet becoming gestures.