On one single
occasion, I saw her violate the harmony of the character, to produce
effect at a particular moment; but, almost invariably, I found her
a true artist, worthy Greece, and worthy at many moments to have her
conceptions immortalized in marble.
Her range even in high tragedy is limited. She can only express the
darker passions, and grief in its most desolate aspects. Nature has
not gifted her with those softer and more flowery attributes, that
lend to pathos its utmost tenderness. She does not melt to tears, or
calm or elevate the heart by the presence of that tragic beauty that
needs all the assaults of fate to make it show its immortal sweetness.
Her noblest aspect is when sometimes she expresses truth in some
severe shape, and rises, simple and austere, above the mixed elements
around her. On the dark side, she is very great in hatred and revenge.
I admired her more in Phedre than in any other part in which I
saw her; the guilty love inspired by the hatred of a goddess was
expressed, in all its symptoms, with a force and terrible naturalness,
that almost suffocated the beholder. After she had taken the poison,
the exhaustion and paralysis of the system,--the sad, cold, calm
submission to Fate,--were still more grand.
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