Page:Rolland - People's Theater.djvu/141

Rh daily life, and extract from it the eternal elements, the mystery, the music of the soul. The greatest of our French dramatists—Balzac, a novelist by the way!—affords us a splendid example of this. Our modern life is teeming not only with tragic beauty, but with poetically fantastic forces, close akin to the legends of antiquity. Says Gabriele d'Annunzio: "One has only to watch the confusing whirlwind of living things pass by, watch them in that spirit of fancy Leonardo speaks of when he advises his disciples to observe the cracks in the wall, the ashes on the hearth, the clouds, the mud, and to listen to the bells—to discover invenzioni mirabilissime and infinite cose." Life is for everyone, but how few know how to use it!