Let us terminate here, and sum up this defence of the national art. There are in arts, as well as in letters and philosophy, two contrary schools. One tends to the ideal in all things,--it seeks, it tries to make appear the spirit concealed under the form, at once manifested and veiled by nature; it does not so much wish to please the senses and flatter the imagination as to enlarge the intellect and move the soul. The other, enamored of nature, stops there and devotes itself to imitation,--its principal object is to reproduce reality, movement, life, which are for it the supreme beauty. The France of the seventeenth century, the France of Descartes, Corneille, and Bossuet, highly spiritual in philosophy, poetry, and eloquence, was also highly spiritual in the arts. The artists of that great epoch participate in its general character, and represent it in their way. It is not true that they lacked imagination, more than Pascal and Bossuet lacked it. But inasmuch as they do not suffer imagination to usurp the dominion that does not belong to it, inasmuch as they subject its order, even its impetuosity, to the reign of reason and the inspirations of the heart, it seems that it is not so strong when it is only disciplined and regulated. As we have said, they excel in composition, especially in expression. They always have a thought, and a moral and elevated thought. For this reason they are dear to us, their cause interests us, is in some sort our own cause, and so this homage rendered to their misunderstood glory naturally crowns these lectures devoted to true beauty, that is to say, moral beauty. May these lectures be able to make it known, and, above all, loved! May they be able also to inspire some one of you with the idea of devoting himself to studies so beautiful, of devoting to them his life, and attaching to them his name! The sweetest recompense of a professor who is not too unworthy of that title, is to see rapidly following in his footsteps young and noble spirits who easily pass him and leave him far behind them.[186] FOOTNOTES: [128] One is reminded of the expression of the great Conde: "Where then has Corneille learned politics and war?" [129] It would be a curious and useful study, to compare with the original all the passages of Britannicus imitated from Tacitus; in them Racine would almost always be found below his model. I will give a single example. In the account of the death of Britannicus, Racine thus expresses the different effects of the crime on the spectators: Juez combien ce coup frappe tous les esprits; La moitie s'epouvante et sort avec des cris; Mais ceux qui de la cour ont un plus long usage Sur les yeux de Cesar composent leur visage.