sacrificing his love for Chimene.

We do not see how much

Don Diego loves his son, until when, avenged by him, he can enjoy victory; when he has no longer the dishonor of the insult or the fear of battle before his eyes. It is then that paternal tenderness bursts forth with such emphasis in Don Diego:

Do not mingle sighs with my joy,

Permit me to take breath, in order that I may praise you.
My valor has no room to disavow you;

You have well imitated it, and your heroic courage

Causes to revive in you the heroes of my race.

It is from them that you descend, it is from me that you come;

Your first attempt with the sword is equal to mine,
And your youth, animated with glorious ardor

By this great effort, equals my renown.

Prop of my old age and consummation of my happiness,
Touch these white locks of him whom you honor!
Come and kiss this cheek, and recognize the place
Where once was the insult which your courage effaced.
Act iii. scene 5.

And do not believe that this son, this adored avenger, with difficulty saved from the perils of battle-do not believe that this Don Diego loves him afterwards with a weaker and more timorous love. No; he loves the honor and renown of his son even more than the life of his son; or rather, he believes in the invincible ascendant of his glory. Who then can conquer him after he has vanquished the Count? We are aware that when his son, in despair of the anger of Chimene, tells him that he seeks death, Don Diego replies to him, that he must go to combat the Moors who have just disembarked: There, if you wish to die, find a glorious death.

Act iii. scene 6.

But we do not take these words as a triumph of love of country over paternal love; nor do we take it farther for these terrible words of the first act: "Die or kill." There honor prompts the father to consign to death or to vengeance without groaning; there Don Diego does not believe that his son hastens to death; he hastens to victory; he has the presentiment and the confidence in it; and if he still speaks to him of finding a glorious death, it is with that knowledge of the human heart, which the old man has acquired during his long life; he knows that the best way of relieving the

human heart overcome by passion, is to excite in it another passion, and which can be more easily distracted than consoled. To him who wishes to die on account of love, offer the prospect of a great danger and an opportunity to die with glory, he will joyfully seize it, and then he will rather seek to conquer than to die. This what the old Don Diego did; and this is the reason why he left no repose to Rodrigo, and cast him in the midst of dangers with a kind of pride, which shows how much he loves his son and in what manner he loves him, in sending him to combat the Moors after the Count, Don Sancho after the Moors, and when the king upon the challenge accepted by Don Diego for his son, wishes to put off the combat until the morrow,

No, sire, [says the old man,] it must not be deferred;
One is always ready, when one has courage.

Act iii. scene 5.

We have analyzed the character of the old Horace and Don Diego, in order to make it clearly understood how Corneille conceived of paternal love, and how he expressed it. Don Diego and the old Horace love their sons, but they love them with a firm and exalted love; they experience the emotions of paternal love, but they place them in subjection to a feeling more elevated and more noble; here honor, and there the love of country.

Do not believe that it is the grandeur of sentiments adapted to tragedy which has given to the fathers of Corneille this elevation and this firmness. In the Comedy of The Liar,* the paternal character preserves this firmness which is so near akin to tenderness. Geronte is an affectionate and an indulgent father. He believes the stories which his son tells him of a forced marriage which he has contracted at Poitiers; he pardons him; he is so much af. fected as to hope to see himself revived in his grandchildren. But this credulity, which springs from his tenderness and which exhibits it, does not lessen in him the grandeur of the paternal character. Geronte is not the imbecile father and dupe of the old Comedy. If he permits himself to be deceived for a moment, hear him when he learns that his son has lied. See what nobility in his anger! with what a tone

* Le Menteur, by Corneille.

owed to his white locks, The old Horace is not son, whom he believes

he attests the respect which his son which he has outraged by his lies! greater in his indignation against his to be a coward, than Geronte in his anger against his son, who had become a liar; and when Don Diego to avenge his injury, appeals to the honor of Rodrigo, he has not words more burning and more severe than Geronte when he reproaches Dorante for having forfeited his honor.

Geronte. Are you a gentleman ?

Dorante (aside). Ah! unfortunate meeting!

(aloud.) Being descended from you, the matter is a little doubtful.
Ger. Do you believe that it suffices to be descended from me?
Dor. With all France, I willingly believe it.
Ger. And do you not know, with all France,
Whence this title of honor has derived its origin,
And that virtue alone has placed in this high rank,
Those who have, with me, made it pass in my blood?
Dor. I cannot be ignorant of what every body knows,

That virtue acquires it as blood gives it.

Ger. If, where blood fails, virtue acquires it,

So, where blood has given it, vice may lose it.

What springs from one source, perishes by the contrary.
All that one has done, the other can undo;

And in the degradation in which I see you,

You are no longer a gentleman, although descended from me.
Dor.

Me!

Act v. scene 3.

This blunt apostrophe, "Are you a gentleman ?" is equal to the words of Don Diego, "Rodrigo, have you a heart?" It is the same appeal made to the sentiment of honor. And see how the old gentleman feels the dishonor of his son, and with what tone he reproaches him for it, often repeating the words. which are the most cruel for a man of honor to hear, the words coward and liar; so much so, that becoming irritated at these insulting expressions, and almost forgetting that it is his father who speaks to him, Dorante exclaims with anger, and, ready to reply to the insult: I am not a gentleman!— But this angry exclamation does not appease the old man, and he replies with the authority of an enraged father:

Permit me to speak, you whose imposture
Shamefully soils the gift of nature.

Act v. scene 3.

Very soon, however, after these first outbreaks of outraged honor, Geronte resumes the tone of an affectionate and indulgent father, so much the more afflicted by the deceptions of his son, as he had treated him with more kindness. Had he not pardoned him his pretended clandestine marriage? And it is by a lie that he returned his kindness! Thus, always in Geronte, as in Don Diego, and in the old Horace, paternal love exhibited itself mingled with tenderness and firmness, with strength and weakness, such as it really is. But in this mixture, Corneille always took care to keep the weak sentiment in subjection to the strong, tenderness in subjection to duty; and the moral law remains superior to man, whose impulses it restrains, without extinguishing them. There are between Geronte and Don Diego, or the old Horace, differences which distinguish comic personages from tragic ones; but the basis of their sentiments and ideas is the same in both.

We will now examine if paternal love has preserved on the stage this character of dignity, and if fathers, in the modern drama, are still what Corneille made them.

If we are not deceived, the part of paternal love on the stage has degenerated; and it has degenerated, as in literature, ideas and sentiments degenerate, by exaggeration. When the sentiments become weak in society, they become exaggerated by way of set-off in literature. Instead of representing paternal love mingled with tenderness and firmness, as Corneille has made it, they have represented it, violent, ardent, excited, and even jealous; they have attributed to it some of the virtues or some of the faults of another kind of love.

There is, for example, in paternal love, as in all kinds of love, something egotistic, which it is excusable to show; instead of which they have exaggerated it, by placing it in bold relief. In Don Diego, and in the old Horace, there is something of this paternal egotism, but it is confounded in their soul with another sentiment, less contracted and less personal; with family pride. This haughtiness of the race purifies and transforms egotism; it takes from it what would, otherwise, make this sentiment seem mean and contemptible. When the old Horace believes that his son has, by flight, soiled the glory of his family, what ardent and sublime anger is exhibited!

Mourn over the dishonor of all our race,
And the eternal disgrace which is placed on
The name of the Horatii !

Act iii. scene 6.

These are the sentiments of a father, who, feeling that he lives again in his children, as his ancestors are revived in him, knows that he and all his family will be disgraced by the dishonor of his son! When Don Diego sees Rodrigo again, who has just avenged the honor of his house, his joy is expressed by the same sentiment as the anger of the old Horace.

Yes, your illustrious valor

Causes the heroes of my race to revive in you.

It is from them that you are descended, it is from me
That you come!

Act iii. scene 6.

It is in this manner, in families which have permanency, as the Roman and feudal families, that paternal egotism appears elevated and ennobled by the pride of family.

In societies, on the other hand, where the inconstancy of public institutions strikes at the family itself, and loosens its ties, paternal egotism does not lose its rights. Instead of attaching itself to a long succession of ancestors, as this egotism can only be allowed to one's self individually, it takes another character and expression; it is more jealous, more suspicious and contracted. It no longer proceeds from some superior idea, as that of family dignity; it arises, if we may so speak, from the instinctive joy which the father experiences in having a child. In the fathers of Corneille, we have a glimpse of this paternal egotism; but this egotism becomes elevated, and very soon disappears in the dignity of their sentiments of honor and hereditary pride. In our days, paternal egotism can scarcely any longer be elevated by leaning upon such sentiments. The customs and institutions of society refuse such aid, even should he desire to have it. It is also, if we may so speak, collected and concentrated in itself by taste and by necessity; it is elevated by its own strength, and endeavors on the stage to interest us alone, and without the aid of any idea or any affection which are superior to it. It is this new character of a father, introduced in our days on the stage, which we propose to examine in the character of Triboulet, by Victor Hugo.