at
painter whose works have since perished. Still, in spite of the
glamour of the style to which she aspires, and poetess though she is
by nature, her plays reflect the handiwork of the moralist rather than
that of the artist, for though beauty charms her by the way, her goal
is moral truth, and to this all else must yield. If we would see the
beauty of holiness as she saw it, we must enter in spirit within the
shrine of her thought and feeling, just as the traveller, standing
without the simple brick exterior of the tomb of Galla Placidia, at
Ravenna, must penetrate within if he would know of the beauty there
enshrined. "Il faut etre saint, pour comprendre la saintete."

The subject which dominates her horizon is that of Chastity. Treated
by her with didactic intent, this really resolves itself into a
conflict between Christianity and Paganism,--in other words, between
Chastity and Passion,--in which Christianity triumphs through the
virtue of Woman. But at the same time Roswitha neither contemns
marriage nor generally advocates celibacy. She merely counsels, as the
more blessed, the unmarried state. Yet even so, we feel that beneath
her nun's garb there beats the heart of a sympathetic woman, whose
emotional self-expression is but tempered by the ideals of her time
and her surroundings.

Another important element to be taken into account in her plays is the
part she assigns to the supernatural. It is impossible to develop
character with any continuity when the supernatural, like some sword
of Damocles, hovers continually overhead, ready to descend at any
moment and sever cause from effect. Such a sword was the Divine
Presence to Roswitha. When her plot requires it, she introduces a
miracle, converting a character, at a moment's notice, and in a way
that no evolution could possibly effect, into one of a totally
different kind. Still to her audience such a _denouement_ would be
quite satisfactory. With her, sudden changes and conversions but
reflect the ideas which possessed the minds of her contemporaries, who
realised God more in deviations from, than in manifestations of, law
and order.

Were her plays ever performed? To this question no certain answer can
be given, since no record has yet been found of their performance, and
the best critics are at variance on the subject. But judging from
analogy, there seems to be no reason why they should not have been. We
know that as early as the fifth and sixth centuries t