Page:Euripides the Rationalist.djvu/15

Rh Euripides, read as they were by Schlegel and are by the modern world in general. Scarcely even the adoration of the admirer pourtrayed [sic] by Philemon is too much for Euripides, read as he was read certainly by Lucian and presumably by the ancient world in general. The works of Euripides, almost all of them, depend for their interpretation on a certain broad conventional principle, probably not ever applicable to many writings except his, and applicable to no others now extant. This principle is stated (as we shall see before we conclude) by an excellent authority in the clearest terms; but nevertheless it has never in modern times been steadily applied, and for the most part has been simply ignored. The effect of this one error can be compared only to that of changing, in a mathematical expression, the positive sign for the negative; and the result is a body of criticism, of which a large part is really not more pertinent or more reasonable than it would be to put a statue upon its head, and then to complain of the statuary for representing a man with his feet in the air.