Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/132

102. It follows the method of life itself, which The drama an imaginitive transcript of life. to the unthinking so often seems blind chance, so often unjust; and of which philosophers, reviewing the past, are scarcely able to form an ethical theory, and quite helpless to predicate a future. Scientifically, they doubt not,—they must not doubt,—that

Right prevails in the end; crime brings punishment, though often to the innocent. We have seen that, if poets, they deal with phenomena, with the shows of things, and, as they see and faithfully portray these, the chances of life seem much at haphazard. Hamlet, for all his intellect and resolve, is the sport of circumstance. Rain still falls upon the just and the unjust. The natural law appears the wind of Its ethics the law of Nature. destiny. Man, in his conflicts with the elements, with tyranny, with superstition, with society, most of all with his own passions, is still frequently overthrown. It seems as if the good were not necessarily rewarded except by their own virtue, or, if self-respecting, except by their own pride, holding to the last; the evil are not cast down, unless by their own self-contempt, and the very evil flourish without conscience or remorse. The pull of the universe is upon us, physically as well as morally. When all goes well, and a fair ending is promised, then