The Life of Thomas Hardy
in the Agamemnon. Nor does the motif of terror play any minor part in The Dynasts. Perhaps the acme of "fear" of the usual tragic kind is reached in the presentation of the retreat of the Grand Army from Moscow through Lithuania and over the Beresina. There are not many effects that can equal the horror of the mad soldiers' song found in this section of the work. Aside from scenes of a similar nature, it will be observed that a note of terror is the ground-tone of the whole trilogy—and a deeper terror by far than any mere fear for the fate of the characters in a play could possibly inspire—a terror at the complete abandonment of the whole human race to its unknown and sinister destiny. It is a terror that strikes us all, concerns each individual personally, and all that he loves most in the world. The Dynasts was intended by its author not as an illusive stage-spectacle, but as a drama wherein we can see ourselves most nearly concerned. And Hardy at certain inspired moments can present it in its most ghastly aspects with overwhelming sincerity. No human feeling is quite so terrible as that of utter helplessness in the face of the unknown. But just as in reading Æschylus, one cannot emerge from the tremendous experience which a surrender of one's self to the charm of the work amounts to, without feeling that a genuine betterment and enlargement of the soul have taken place. As Mr. Abercrombie has put it:
Even more than the finest among the tragic novels, the tragic poem is full of a great pity and a great patience. It cannot comfort; but it does better. Like all great tragedy, it is "Kathartic," purging those who learn to love it of meanness and impatience and self-pity. Like all great art, it exalts and enlarges.
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