ed into language, they grasp
something that has nothing in common with language, certain rhythms of
life and breath that. are closer to man than his inmost feelings, being
the living law--varying with each individual--of his enthusiasm and
despair, his hopes and regrets. By setting free and emphasising this
music, they force it upon our attention; they compel us, willy-nilly,
to fall in with it, like passers-by who join in a dance. And thus they
impel us to set in motion, in the depths of our being, some secret
chord which was only waiting to thrill. So art, whether it be painting
or sculpture, poetry or music, has no other object than to brush aside
the utilitarian symbols, the conventional and socially accepted
generalities, in short, everything that veils reality from us, in order
to bring us face to face with reality itself. It is from a
misunderstanding on this point that the dispute between realism and
idealism in art has arisen. Art is certainly only a more direct vision
of reality. But this purity of perception implies a break with
utilitarian convention, an innate and specially localised
disinterestedness of sense or consciousness, in short, a certain
immateriality of life, which is what has always been called idealism.
So that we might say, without in any way playing upon the meaning of
the words, that realism is in the work when idealism is in the soul,
and that it is only through ideality that we can resume contact with
reality.

Dramatic art forms no exception to this law. What drama goes forth to
discover and brings to light, is a deep-seated reality that is veiled
from us, often in our own interests, by the necessities of life. What
is this reality? What are these necessities? Poetry always expresses
inward states. But amongst these states some arise mainly from contact
with our fellow-men. They are the most intense as well as the most
violent. As contrary electricities attract each other and accumulate
between the two plates of the condenser from which the spark will
presently flash, so, by simply bringing people together, strong
attractions and repulsions take place, followed by an utter loss of
balance, in a word, by that electrification of the soul known as
passion. Were man to give way to the impulse of his natural feelings,
were there neither social nor moral law, these outbursts of violent
feeling would be the ordinary rule in life. But utility demands that
these outbursts should be foreseen and a