The Durham daily globe. (Durham, N.C.) 1889-1894, 1891-10-20
TRAGIC MUSE.

genuine tragedy in actual life, we might
wonder that mankind in all ages of the
world whether highly civilized or rude,
should have delighted SO much in the Gre
~ationslof the Tragic Muse. If this earthly
life was not made up of so many alterna-
tions, of joy and sorrow, Of felicities and
bereavements, we might be amazed that
the highest forms of poetry are those in
which the genius of tragedy evokes the
most narrowing scenes, lays bare the
profoundest depths of the soul, pours
out its saddest wailings, and portrays in
most somber colors, "man'sinhumanitYto
man" Human life is indeed so COM
posed of a mingled web of exaltations
and depressions, conflicts and doubts,
that the hearts of all are deeply moved
at the sad story of some hopeless n
whose young life, doomed to misery was
closed in horror, or at the breaking of
some great heart under accumulated dis
appointments and agonies. So well is
this known to all that the divinely in
spired writer's of old whilst telling of
glory and fame, of blessings and hopes,
failed not to speak too, of the transitory
joys and inevitable disappointments,
sufferings and woes of the present life.
LORD BACON with almost poetic grace,
says, that "in the Old Testament, If you
listen to DAv1D's harp, you shall hear as
manu- hno rcn1iHo afrc &c no-n1c onH tho
pencils of the Holy Ghost have labored
more in describing the Affections of JOB,
than the felicities of SOLOMON" 1t has
been finely said that "the upper air Of
poetry is the atmosphere of sorrow"
The grandest strains of HOMER, DANTE,
MILTON, SHAKESPEARE and TENNYsoN,
have rung out with a funeral melody,
showing that their great souls were not
unused to communing with the spirit Of
sorrow. 1t is altogether natural, then,
that tragic poetry, whether cast in dra-
matte elegiac Or epic form, which con
fines itself to the struggles and sufferings
of gods invested with the attributes and
failings of fallen humanity, or has to do
only with humanity itself in it's expert
ences ofsorrow and misfortune should ex-
cite q ~profounder interest than that class
of writings which appeals, not to our
emotions, sympathies and experiences,
but to our intellectual faculties only.
No man who has ever felt a tremendous
human sorrow, such a sorrow as whelms
the soul with a very tide of loneliness
and leaves it stranded and naked upon
bleak and inhospitable shores can sit un-
moved in the presence of a great misfor-
tune, OF intense mental suffering, or
severe. physical pain whether revealed to
him by the living power of genius as it
speaks from the printed page, or as it is
represented on the quickened canvass,
or as it is personated on the stage with
that perfection of histrionic art that
makes fiction seem reality. "We are
fellows still serving alike in sorrow"
From the time when HOMER sang Of
ACHILLES wrath and the achievements
Of Greeks and Trojans, with all of the
attendant horrors, men have delighted
in those compositions that speak to US of
tribulations and sufferings and death.
When Athens was in it's splendor-
Athens, that famous city of antiquity,
which was "native or hospitable to ia
nous WITS" and whose people were so
highly cultivated nothing so pleased the
taste and gained the most raptuous ap-
plause as the great productions of "the
lofty grave tragedians," to use another
expression of MILTON, and no career
was surer Of the rewards of fame than
that of the playwright. 1t is said that
from twenty to thirty thousand people
attended the Dionysiac theatre when one
of those wonderful tragedies was to be
presented, the creation of the sublime
and sombre genius EsCHYLUs, or of the |
serene and matchful powers of SoPHo-
Giles, or of the pathetic and plastic art of
EUR1PIDEs in whose writings there is
so much philosophic thought as we'll as
"the. sweet human voice, the futtering
human heart" All down the centuries,
whenever there has been genius to pro-
duce, there have been hearts to throb,
and tears to glisten. The Tragic Muse
has had a peculiar and potential charm
over all nations that have since -four
ished. T. B. K~INGsBURY.
AS TO HAIR.