"The vocation of the Muse is a religious mission; she loses not her spiritual prerogative, though shorn of her stately pageantry and despoiled of her festive robes. Her power to convert and to enlighten, to purify and to raise, depends not on the splendor of her appearance, but on the truths that she proclaims." AUTHOR'S ADVERTISEMENT. In writing from memory these Lectures, delivered during two years at the Faculty of Letters in Paris, upon the employment of the passions in the drama, I did not intend to make a book; I only wished to fix the remembrance of some of those meetings which the kindness of my hearers, for nearly fifteen years, rendered so agreeable to me. I endeavored in these Lectures to show how the ancient authors, and especially those of the seventeenth century, expressed the sentiments and passions most natural to the human heart, such as paternal and maternal tenderness, love, honor, jealousy, and the like; and how these sentiments and these passions are expressed in our own days. On such a subject, moral reflections naturally succeed to literary ones; and I have desired to show as well as I could the union which exists between good taste and good morals. I certainly ought not to fail in this duty, which is the noblest part of the functions of a Professor. May I take the liberty to add that, in speaking thus, I have reason to believe that I do not offend my young friends, and that the best way to obtain their applause is always to merit their esteem! |