t think that this too is
what sometime makes bashfulness somewhat ridiculous. The bashful man
rather gives the impression of a person embarrassed by his body,
looking round for some convenient cloak-room in which to deposit it.

This is just why the tragic poet is so careful to avoid anything
calculated to attract attention to the material side of his heroes. No
sooner does anxiety about the body manifest itself than the intrusion
of a comic element is to be feared. On this account, the hero in a
tragedy does not eat or drink or warm himself. He does not even sit
down any more than can be helped. To sit down in the middle of a fine
speech would imply that you remembered you had a body. Napoleon, who
was a psychologist when he wished to be so, had noticed that the
transition from tragedy to comedy is effected simply by sitting down.
In the "Journal inedit" of Baron Gourgaud--when speaking of an
interview with the Queen of Prussia after the battle of Iena--he
expresses himself in the following terms: "She received me in tragic
fashion like Chimene: Justice! Sire, Justice! Magdeburg! Thus she
continued in a way most embarrassing to me. Finally, to make her change
her style, I requested her to take a seat. This is the best method for
cutting short a tragic scene, for as soon as you are seated it all
becomes comedy."

Let us now give a wider scope to this image of THE BODY TAKING
PRECEDENCE OF THE SOUL. We shall obtain something more general--THE
MANNER SEEKING TO OUTDO THE MATTER, THE LETTER AIMING AT OUSTING THE
SPIRIT. Is it not perchance this idea that comedy is trying to suggest
to us when holding up a profession to ridicule? It makes the lawyer,
the magistrate and the doctor speak as though health and justice were
of little moment,--the main point being that we should have lawyers,
magistrates and doctors, and that all outward formalities pertaining to
these professions should be scrupulously respected. And so we find the
means substituted for the end, the manner for the matter; no longer is
it the profession that is made for the public, but rather the public
for the profession. Constant attention to form and the mechanical
application of rules here bring about a kind of professional automatism
analogous to that imposed upon the soul by the habits of the body, and
equally laughable. Numerous are the examples of this on the stage.
Without entering into details of the variations executed on this theme,
let us quote two