that ideal personage comic, ironical and ex-
travagant, if the poet did not for his part think
and feel it to be altogether serious. A subtle
flaw, therefore, permeates every part of the
play, which lacks fusion and unity of fundamen-
tal motive. This is doubtless a grave defect,
but a defect which adds weight to the psycho-
logical document that it contains, proving the
absolute power which the ideal of the delibera-
tive will was acquiring in Corneille.

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