Page:Compromises (Repplier).djvu/240

 224 before our eyes. He assigns to each assassin his post, shows where the wretched young king concealed himself until the deed was done, and points out the exact spot in the Cabinet Vieux where the first blow was struck. "Behold the perfect tableau!" he winds up enthusiastically, and we are forced to admit that, as a tableau, it lacks no element of success. Mr. Henry James's somewhat cynical appreciation of this "perfect episode"—perfect, from the dramatist's point of view—recurs inevitably to our minds:—

"The picture is full of light and darkness, full of movement, full altogether of abominations. Mixed up with them all is the great theological motive, so that the drama wants little to make it complete. The insolent prosperity of the victim; the weakness, the vices, the terrors of the author of the deed; the admirable execution of the plot; the accumulation of horror in what followed,—render it, as a crime, one of the classic things."

Classic surely were the repeated warnings, so determinedly ignored. Cæsar was not more plainly cautioned of his danger than was the