The Plot, then, is the first principle, and, as it were, the soul of a tragedy: Character holds the second place.
In the case of oratory, this is the function of the Political art and of the art of rhetoric: and so indeed the older poets make their characters speak the language of civic life; the poets of our time, the language of the rhetoricians.
Largely a matter of Emotion is the Personal Sympathy of the author for his characters, while Intellect has a large share in Dramatic Sympathy, whereby the author enters truly into the situations and feelings of any character, whether he personally likes him or not.
Dramatic power, in general, means the presentation of life with the vivid active reality of life and character which especially distinguishes the acted drama.
But let us assume that what is called science can harmonize all contradictions and possesses an unchanging standard of good and bad by which to try historic
characters and events; let us say that Alexander could have done everything differently; let us say that with guidance from those who blame him and who profess to know the ultimate aim of the movement of humanity, he might have arranged matters according to the program his present accusers would have given him- of nationality, freedom, equality, and progress (these, I think, cover the ground).
To pass from the
Characters to the Story, it will be seen that the narrative related in these pages has been constructed on a plan which differs from the plan followed in my last novel, and in some other of my works published at an earlier date.
But in commencing to describe scenes, and perhaps he may add
characters, that were so familiar to his own youth, there was a constant temptation to delineate that which he had known, rather than that which he might have imagined.
Character is this moral order seen through the medium of an individual nature.
Without inquiring into the accuracy of the distinction on which the objection is founded, it will be necessary to a just estimate of its force, first, to ascertain the real
character of the government in question; secondly, to inquire how far the convention were authorized to propose such a government; and thirdly, how far the duty they owed to their country could supply any defect of regular authority.
When you have studied the
character, I am sure you will feel it suit you.
Plato is most true to the
character of his master when he describes him as "not of this world." And with this representation of him the ideal State and the other paradoxes of the Republic are quite in accordance, though they can not be shown to have been speculations of Socrates.
Perhaps the correct way of viewing the whole subject, would be, to look at the inheritance of every
character whatever as the rule, and non-inheritance as the anomaly.
We should say that the author's special ethical gift lay in a delicately intuitive sympathy, not, perhaps, with all phases of
character, but certainly with the very varied class of persons represented in these volumes.
Though, as we have good authority for all our
characters, no less indeed than the vast authentic doomsday-book of nature, as is elsewhere hinted, our labours have sufficient title to the name of history.
"Podkoleosin" [A
character in Gogol's comedy, The Wedding.] was perhaps an exaggeration, but he was by no means a non-existent
character; on the contrary, how many intelligent people, after hearing of this Podkoleosin from Gogol, immediately began to find that scores of their friends were exactly like him!
