that to compose social poetry, human poetry, popular poetry; to grumble against the evil and laud the good, to be the spokesman of public wrath, to insult despots, to make knaves despair, to emancipate man before he is of age, to push souls forward and darkness backward, to know that there are thieves and tyrants, to clean penal cells, to flush the sewer of public uncleanness,--is not the function of art! Why not? Homer was the geographer and historian of his time, Moses the legislator of his, Juvenal the judge of his, Dante the theologian of his, Shakespeare the moralist of his, Voltaire the philosopher of his. No region, in speculation or in fact, is shut to the mind. Here a horizon, there wings; freedom for all to soar. To sing the ideal, to love humanity, to believe in progress, to pray toward the infinite. To be the servant of God in the task of progress, and the apostle of God to the people,--such is the law which regulates growth. All power is duty. Should this power enter into repose in our age? Should duty shut its eyes? And is the moment come for art to disarm? Less than ever. Thanks to 1789, the human caravan has reached a high plateau; and, the horizon being vaster, art has more to do. This is all. To every widening of the horizon, an enlargement of conscience corresponds. We have not reached the goal. Concord condensed into felicity, civilization summed up in harmony,--that is yet far off. The theatre is a crucible of civilization. It is a place of human communion. All its phases need to be studied. It is in the theatre that the public soul is formed."