external conditions; it has its source
in the soul of the artist. It is the
immortal quality in the human spirit
playing like sunshine on the hardest
and most tragic facts of experience.
It often suggests no explanation of
these facts; it is content to present
them with relentless veracity; but
even when it offers no solution of the
tragic problem, the tireless interest
which it feels, the force with which it
illustrates and describes, the power of
moral organisation and interpretation
which it reveals, carry with them the
conviction that the spirit of man, how-
ever baffled and beaten, is superior to
all the accidents of fortune, and inde-
structible even within the circle of the
blackest fate. As Oedipus, old, blind,
and smitten, vanishes from our sight,
we think of him no longer as a great
figure blasted by adverse fate, but as a

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v?