grateful acknowledgement that scholars are making in their recent tributes to his genius and noble aspirations. A Homer, Dante, Shakespeare or Goethe does not come among us every year! Small praise it be to detract from the merits of the lesser geniuses because they do not always attain the object of their aspiration. To Scherer and Grimm we owe largely the misunderstanding as to Schiller's purpose and message that grew up in Germany and spread from Strassburg and Berlin to other countries. Many of us are the heirs of this cumulative condemnation in criticism. Germany, however, awoke and became alive to its monstrous error; for, as Calvin Thomas says in writing of Schiller's first play, "Extravagant it is, no doubt; but while there are always hundreds of critics in the world who can see that and say it more or less cleverly, there is but one man in a century who can write such scenes. At the moment of greatest depreciation in Germany when it seemed as if Schiller must descend from the Rietschl statue, robbed of his well-earned laurels through an extravagant Goethe worship, sane and wholesome Gottfried Keller, far off in Switzerland, wrote, "If this exaggeration of Goethe at the expense of Schiller continues, I'll form a conspiracy." No conspiracy was necessary; and out of this grievous time came a host of young men deploring their defection. Foremost among these was Otto Brahm, whose words I shall quote in closing in order to give what I believe will always be the final estimate of this man of whom the sculptor Dannecker said: "The godlike man stands continually before my eyes. I will make him lifelike. Schiller must live in sculpture as a colossal form. I intend an apotheosis." Brahm's words are these: "As a student I was a Schiller-hater. I make this preliminary confession not because I attach personal importance to it, but because on the contrary I think I see in my attitude one that is typical of our time. Every one of us, it seems to me, travels this road. After a period of early veneration which is awakened in us by tradition. and by the earliest impressions of youth, there comes, as a reaction against an uncritical overestimate and under the influence of changed ideals of art, a defection from Schiller which parades itself in a one-sided and unhistorical emphasis of his weak points. Then gradually this negative attitude corrects itself to a positive one, and we recognize the folly of that young-and-verdant bumptiousness which would think of consigning the greatest of German dramatists to the realms of the dead. And now at last, after it has passed through doubt, our enthusiasm is imperishable; with clear eye we look up to the greatness of the man, and to the splendid model for all intellectual work which is exhibited in that life of passionate striving for the ideal." The University of the South. GLEN LEVIN SWIGGETT THE CHARACTERS IN VICTOR HUGO'S "HERNANI" SECOND PAPER1 Don Ruy Gomez, the principal antagonist or opposing force in Victor Hugo's "Hernani," is, like the hero, a complex individual man, having contradictory qualities. He is represented in the drama as a man of varied experience and of numerous characteristics. He is proud, bombastic, loquacious, inquisitive, impulsive, melancholy, jealous, revengeful, inexorable, avid of honor, lover-like, sympathetic, courteous, loyal, given to hospitality, and possessed of a high sense of honor. We are also informed as to his age, physical qualities, political position, and social standing. He is more than sixty years old, and has not enough hair on his head to fill the hand of the executioner. Though old and rich, he would give all he has for youth, if only to be a shepherd of the fields. Though his body is withered and head bowed, his soul is young, for there are never, he declares, any wrinkles in the heart, which is always young and can always bleed. He is count and grandee of the Castle of Figuère, high counsellor of Aragon, and Duke of Pastraña. The old duke is proud of his old ancestral name of Silva, on which there is no stain. He is the uncle and betrothed of Doña Sol, who lives with him in his castle. This feeble and venerable old man is rich and lives in a patriarchal state far from the court. Princes and pilgrims visit his castle, seek his counsel, obtain his sympathy, and enjoy his splendid hospitality. The character of the old duke is striking and subtle. At times it appears more lyric or epic than dramatic. It represents an older heroism, when men were possessed of honor and loyalty. It evokes the good old times of the great old men before the decadence of youth. It recalls the heroic manners and virtues of the Cornelian heroes. The old knight is proud of his ancestors who honored old men, protected girls, and were never guilty of treachery. His artificial pride, as seen in the famous portrait scene, recalls the lofty Spanish family pride exhibited by the 'See former article on "The Character of Victor Hugo's Hernani” in THE SEWANEE REVIEW, April 1905, pp. 209–215. Prince of Aragon, in "The Merchant of Venice," who, in choosing his casket, said: I will not jump with common spirits, And rank me with the barbarous multitudes. As long, however, as Gomez makes love or any other passion yield to his feudal pride, we feel that he is great and deserving of our sympathy. While he would give all he The old duke is in love with Doña Sol, his niece, who does not return his love. The melancholy love of the rejected old lord is touching. His love is not ludicrous, it is a weakness. While the love of the old man is lyrical and rhetorical, at the same time it is natural and appropriate, for Gomez loves not like a young man but as an old man. He says that one is not master of one's self when one is old and in love. possesses for youth, yet he maintains that his love is not changeable like that of frivolous young men. His love is not like some fragile toy; it is severe, deep, sure, paternal, friendly, solid as the oak of his ducal chair. Characteristically and pathetically he tells Doña Sol that it would be a sacred work for her, a young girl, to care for him, an old man, that she would be to him an angel with a woman's heart. With lyric fervor he declares that he loves her as one loves the aurora, or the flowers, or the skies, and that to see her every day would be to him a perpetual feast. Such love as this, then, does not provoke our laughter, but rather excites our pity, and in that it is truly tragic. Don Ruy Gomez has also said that when one is old and in love, one is jealous. At first his jealousy is the touching jealousy of the discarded old lover, but when he learns that the king is his rival in love, his jealousy turns to hate and a desire for revenge. His passion then becomes epic, for there is no longer any struggle represented. He is first all love, then all hate. As soon as Gomez learns that Doña Sol has been carried off by his royal rival, his hatred becomes furious, and from that time on he thinks only of hate and revenge. He pursues the king until Carlos surrenders Doña Sol to Hernani, and then he relentlessly pursues the bandit until Hernani is dead. As with Shylock money was nothing in comparison with revenge, so with the old duke the desire for vengeance is stronger than his sense of honor. As the infamous Templar, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, declared to Rebecca that he had broken many a law and many a commandment, but his word never, so Gomez lays fantastic stress upon one virtue at the expense of another, as when honor in the climax is made to yield to vengeance in the catastrophe. The old feudal lord wants the privilege of striking the fatal blow at the king, for nothing is sweeter to his eyes than to see one's enemies brought low. Like one of the characters of Euripides, he regards revenge as the fairest prize the gods can bestow upon mankind. As soon as Gomez determines on revenge, he becomes terrible and inflexible, and his doings become mysterious. He adopts the mask of a black domino, in which he presents a spectre-like figure, whose step is like the step of the dead, whose eyes flash forth flames, whose journey is, as he himself confesses, not from hell but to hell, and whose voice is sepulchral. sort of dark figure of destiny hovering in the background. In the final scene he becomes inexorable, exulting like a fiend over his victim, no touching appeals for mercy being able to move him in his determination not to yield. He forgets, until overtaken by remorse, that Revenge, at first though sweet, He becomes a Were the old duke not hedged about by certain redeeming qualities, his intense, passionate hatred and his Promethean inexorableness would make him a monster, a caricature. Gomez is not only jealous and revengeful, he is also courteous, loyal, given to hospitality, and possessed of a high sense of honor. The courtesy of the proud and dignified duke is seen when he recognizes that the king is one of the two young men he finds in the room of Doña Sol. Though appearances are against Carlos, Gomez, like a courtly gentleman of the old school, accepts the king's doubtful explanation of his unexpected visit and promptly begs his pardon. In the portrait-scene he declares that the family of Silva has always been loyal. To him the rites of hospitality are sacred and inviolable, and he declares he would protect his guest even against the king. He entertains the king and welcomes |