Romance is not improperly contrasted with “classicism,” but as few Greek or Roman writers are classical in the rigid sense it is not surprising to find romantic features outcropping at every period of their literature. Euripides himself is the most romantic author between Homer and Appuleius, whatever our definition of romance may be. R. L. Stevenson’s remark that “romance is consciousness of background,” Hegel’s doctrine that “romantic art is the straining of art to go beyond itself,”[843] and a more recent _dictum_ that “romance is only the passion which is in the face of all realism,”[844] each of them definitely recalls some feature of Euripides’ work already discussed. A modern writer with whom he can be fruitfully compared, at this point especially, is Mr Bernard Shaw. In many characteristics these two dramatists are notably alike: their ruthless insistence upon questioning all established reputations, whether of individuals, nations, or institutions; their conviction that there is no absolute standard of conduct; their blazing zeal for justice; their mastery of brilliant lithe idiom. But in their feeling about romance they diverge violently. Perhaps the largest ingredient in Mr. Shaw’s strength is his hatred and distrust of emotion and of that spirit, called romance, which organizes emotion and sees in it a basic part of life. But Euripides appreciates it all the more highly that he is not enslaved by it. Even in such ruthless dramas as the _Medea_ and the _Iphigenia in Tauris_ one remarks how the thrill and beauty of life gleams out, if only as a bitter memory or a present pain of contrast—the magic fire-breathing bulls and the heapy coils of the glaring dragon in the remote land where Jason won his quest, the strange seas, deserted beaches, and grim savages among whom Iphigenia cherishes her thoughts of childhood in Argos. The same sense of glamour which inspires early in his life such a marvellous flash as the description of Rhesus’ steeds: στίλβουσι δ’ ὥστε ποταμίου κύκνου πτερόν,[845] and indeed the whole dashing buoyant drama—this passion survives the shames and disillusionment wrought by twenty-five years of tyranny and war; it persists even in those black but glorious hours when he wrote the _Troades_ and at the close of his life culminates in the splendours of the _Bacchæ_. No attentive student of his work can ignore this effect, but if we possessed all his plays we should be in no danger of accepting the idea that Euripides is beyond all other things a bitter realist. The _Andromeda_ and the _Phaethon_ would have redressed the balance.