_Il n'est point de serpent, ni de monstre odieux_ _Qui, par l'art imité, ne puisse plaire aux yeux._ _D'un pinceau délicat l'artifice agréable_ _Du plus affreux object fait un objet aimable;_ _Ainsi, pour nous charmer, la tragédie eut pleurs_ _D'Œdipe tout-sanglant fit parler les douleurs._
Each horrid shape, each object of affright, Nice imitation teaches to delight; So does the skilful painter's pleasing art Attractions to the darkest form impart; So does the tragic Muse, dissolved in tears. With tales of woe and sorrow charm our ears.
Aristotle says: "Imitation and harmony have produced poetry. We see terrible animals, dead or dying men, in a picture, with pleasure--objects which in nature would inspire us only with fear and sorrow. The better they are imitated the more complete is our satisfaction."
This fourth chapter of Aristotle's reappears almost entire in Horace and Boileau. The laws which he gives in the following chapters are at this day those of our good writers, excepting only what relates to the choruses and music. His idea that tragedy was instituted to purify the passions has been warmly combated; but if he meant, as I believe he did, that an incestuous love might be subdued by witnessing the misfortune of Phædra, or anger be repressed by beholding the melancholy example of Ajax, there is no longer any difficulty.
This philosopher expressly commands that there be always the heroic in tragedy and the ridiculous in comedy. This is a rule from which it is, perhaps, now becoming too customary to depart.
It is worthy of consideration that there have been and still are, upon the earth societies without armies. The Brahmins, who long governed nearly all the great Indian Chersonesus; the primitives, called Quakers, who governed Pennsylvania; some American tribes, some in the centre of Africa, the Samoyedes, the Laplanders, the Kamchadales, have never marched with colors flying to destroy their neighbors.
The Brahmins were the most considerable of all these pacific nations; their caste, which is so ancient, which is still existing, and compared with which all other institutions are quite recent, is a prodigy which cannot be sufficiently admired. Their religion and their policy always concurred in abstaining from the shedding of blood, even of that of the meanest animal. Where such is the regime, subjugation is easy; they have been subjugated, but have not changed.