A Drama, he feels, should not aim at the
inculcation of any definite maxim; the moral of it lies in the
action and the character. It must be drawn out of them by the heart
and experience of the reader, not forced upon him by the author.
The men and women whom he presents are not to be his spokesmen; they
are to utter themselves freely in such language, grave or mirthful,
as best expresses what they feel and what they are. The age to
which they belong is not to be contemplated as if it were apart from
us; neither is it to be measured by our rules; to be held up as a
model; to be condemned for its strangeness. The passions which
worked in it must be those which are working in ourselves. To the
same eternal laws and principles are we, and it, amenable. By
beholding these a poet is to raise himself, and may hope to raise
his readers, above antiquarian tastes and modern conventions. The
unity of the play cannot be conferred upon it by any artificial
arrangements; it must depend upon the relation of the different
persons and events to the central subject. No nice adjustments of
success and failure to right and wrong must constitute its poetical
justice; the conscience of the readers must be satisfied in some
deeper way than this, that there is an order in the universe, and
that the poet has perceived and asserted it.
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