Let it do what it will, it is shut in between grammar and prosody, between Vaugelas and Richelet.

For its most capricious creations, it has formulas, methods of execution, a complete apparatus to set in motion.
For genius there are delicate instruments, for mediocrity, tools.
It seems to us that someone has already said that the drama is a mirror wherein nature is reflected.

But if it be an ordinary mirror, a smooth and polished surface, it will give only a dull image of objects, with no relief-faithful, but colourless; everyone knows that colour and light are lost in a simple reflection.

The drama, therefore, must be a concentrating mirror, which, instead of weakening, concentrates and condenses the coloured rays, which makes of a mere gleam a light, and of a light a flame.

Then only is the drama acknowledged by art.
The stage is an optical point.