worthy of the sentiment of scholarly esteem prompting the visit,
behaved (if we exclude the dagger) with the vindictive jealousy of

an injured Spanish beauty. After a short prelude of gloom and
obscure explosions, he discharged upon his faithlessadmirer the

bolts of passionate logic familiar to the ears of flighty
caballeros: --'Either I am a fit object of your admiration, or I am

not. Of these things one--either you are competent to judge, in
which case I stand condemned by you; or you are incompetent, and

therefore impertinent, and you may betake yourself to your country
again, hypocrite!' The admirer was for persuading the wounded

scholar that it is given to us to be able to admire two professors
at a time. He was driven forth.

Perhaps this might have occurred in any country, and a comedy of The
Pedant, discovering the greedyhumanity within the dusty scholar,

would not bring it home to one in particular. I am mindful that it
was in Germany, when I observe that the Germans have gone through no

comic training to warn them of the sly, wise emanation eyeing them
from aloft, nor much of satirical. Heinrich Heine has not been

enough to cause them to smart and meditate. Nationally, as well as
individually, when they are excited they are in danger of the

grotesque, as when, for instance, they decline to listen to
evidence, and raise a national outcry because one of German blood

has been convicted of crime in a foreign country. They are acute
critics, yet they still wield clubs in controversy. Compare them in

this respect with the people schooled in La Bruyere, La Fontaine,
Moliere; with the people who have the figures of a Trissotin and a

Vadius before them for a comic warning of the personal vanities of
the caressed professor. It is more than difference of race. It is

the difference of traditions, temper, and style, which comes of
schooling.

The French controversialist is a polished swordsman, to be dreaded
in his graces and courtesies. The German is Orson, or the mob, or a

marching army, in defence of a good case or a bad--a big or a
little. His irony is a missile of terrifictonnage: sarcasm he

emits like a blast from a dragon's mouth. He must and will be
Titan. He stamps his foe underfoot, and is astonished that the

creature is not dead, but stinging; for, in truth, the Titan is
contending, by comparison, with a god.

When the Germans lie on their arms, looking across the Alsatian
frontier at the crowds of Frenchmen rushing to applaud L'ami Fritz

at the Theatre Francais, looking and considering the meaning of that
applause, which is grimly comic in its political response to the

domestic moral of the play--when the Germans watch and are silent,
their force of character tells. They are kings in music, we may say

princes in poetry, good speculators in philosophy, and our leaders
in scholarship. That so gifted a race, possessed moreover of the

stern good sense which collects the waters of laughter to make the
wells, should show at a advantage" target="_blank" title="n.不利(条件)；损失">disadvantage, I hold for a proof,

instructive to us, that the discipline of the comic spirit is
needful to their growth. We see what they can reach to in that

great figure of modern manhood, Goethe. They are a growing people;
they are conversable as well; and when their men, as in France, and

at intervals at Berlin tea-tables, consent to talk on equal terms
with their women, and to listen to them, their growth will be

accelerated and be shapelier. Comedy, or in any form the Comic
spirit, will then come to them to cut some figures out of the block,

show them the mirror, enliven and irradiate the social intelligence.
Modern French comedy is commendable for the directness of the study

of actual life, as far as that, which is but the early step in such
a scholarship, can be of service in composing and colouring the

picture. A consequence of this crude, though well-meant, realism is
the collision of the writers in their scenes and incidents, and in

their characters. The Muse of most of them is an Aventuriere. She
is clever, and a certain diversion exists in the united scheme for

confounding her. The object of this person is to reinstate herself
in the decorous world; and either, having accomplished this purpose

through deceit, she has a nostalgie de la boue, that eventually
casts her back into it, or she is exposed in her course of deception

when she is about to gain her end. A very good, innocent young man
is her victim, or a very astute, goodish young man obstructs her

path. This latter is enabled to be the champion of the decorous
world by knowing the indecorous well. He has assisted in the

progress of Aventurieres downward; he will not help them to ascend.
The world is with him; and certainly it is not much of an ascension

they aspire to; but what sort of a figure is he? The triumph of a
candid realism is to show him no hero. You are to admire him (for

it must be supposed that realism pretends to waken some admiration)
as a credibly living young man; no better, only a little firmer and

shrewder, than the rest. If, however, you think at all, after the
curtain has fallen, you are likely to think that the Aventurieres

have a case to plead against him. True, and the author has not said
anything to the contrary; he has but painted from the life; he

leaves his audience to the reflections of unphilosophic minds upon
life, from the specimen he has presented in the bright and narrow

circle of a spy-glass.
I do not know that the fly in amber is of any particular use, but

the Comic idea enclosed in a comedy makes it more generally
perceptible and portable, and that is an advantage. There is a

benefit to men in taking the lessons of Comedy in congregations, for
it enlivens the wits; and to writers it is beneficial, for they must

have a clear scheme, and even if they have no idea to present, they
must prove that they have made the public sit to them before the

sitting to see the picture. And writing for the stage would be a
corrective of a too-incrusted scholarly style, into which some great

ones fall at times. It keeps minor writers to a definite plan, and
to English. Many of them now swelling a plethoric market, in the

composition of novels, in pun-manufactories and in journalism;
attached to the machinery forcing perishable matter on a public that

swallows voraciously and groans; might, with encouragement, be
attending to the study of art in literature. Our critics appear to

be fascinated by the quaintness of our public, as the world is when
our beast-garden has a new importation of magnitude, and the

creatures appetite is reverently consulted. They stipulate for a