Page:Life of Thomas Hardy - Brennecke.pdf/293

 premonitions, ominous happenings, and similar astrological "business" is not disdained by either. There are no old-fashioned, frank, outspoken ghosts in The Dynasts, as there are in The Eumenides and The Persians, except for their occasional appearance in visions, such as the apparition of the Duke of Enghien to Napoleon before Waterloo. Both the "Shade of Darius" and the "Ghost of Clytemnestra" are invoked by Æschylus at opportune moments and act their parts without the scene to lose either dignity or dramatic effect. The same is not completely true of the scene in The Dynasts in which an enamel portrait of Marie Antoinette falls down on its face as Marie Louise of Austria consents to become Napoleon's wife. It is very dexterously explained, however, as having been caused by a natural shudder of the "Shade of the Earth" upon hearing the news. Cassandra's incoherent and blood-curdling prophecy before and during the murder of Agamemnon is paralleled by the visions and premonitions of the spirits created by Hardy. On the day of Sir John Moore's death, for instance, the Spirit of the Pities has a vision of his monument in the Garden of San Carlos.

If the excitation of the emotions of fear and pity in the audience is regarded as the ultimate aim of all tragedy, it will readily be seen how this requirement is satisfied by Hardy. At the first glance it may seem that the element of fear is stronger in Æschylus while that of pity is the dominant note in all of Hardy's work. But we must not forget the pathos of The Suppliants, of Prometheus, and of The Persians in our admiration for the skill with which the atmosphere of impending doom is evoked