Yet these
considerations must fairly enter into our decision of another side of the
question, and one that has much to do with the true quality of the man,
with his character as distinguished from his talent, and therefore with
how much he will influence men as well as delight them. We may reckon up
pretty exactly a man's advantages and defects as an artist; these he has
in common with others, and they are to be measured by a recognized
standard; but there is something in his _genius_ that is incalculable. It
would be hard to define the causes of the difference of impression made
upon us respectively by two such men as Aeschylus and Euripides, but we
feel profoundly that the latter, though in some respects a better
dramatist, was an infinitely lighter weight. Aeschylus stirs something in
us far deeper than the sources of mere pleasurable excitement. The man
behind the verse is far greater than the verse itself, and the impulse he
gives to what is deepest and most sacred in us, though we cannot always
explain it, is none the less real and lasting. Some men always seem to
remain outside their work; others make their individuality felt in every
part of it; their very life vibrates in every verse, and we do not wonder
that it has "made them lean for many years." The virtue that has gone out
of them abides in what they do.
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