Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 16.djvu/722

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BACHEL. 634 KACINE, one said of her. Her Phidrc was a portrayal of human agon.v never to be forgotten. JIatthew Arnold's three sonnets upon her are well known. Consult the Memoirs of Rachel, by Madame de B (Eng. trans., New York, 1858), which are not, however, altogether re- liable; Janin, Rachel et la ii-agedie (Faris, 18.58) ; D'Hevlli. Rachel d'apris sa correspondancc (Paris, 1882) ; Kennard, Rachel (Boston, 1888) ; De Jlircoourt, "Rachel," in Les cont&nporoAns (Paris, 1854). KACHITIS, ra-kl'tis. See Rickets. BACINE, ra-sen'. A city and the county-seat of Racine County, Wis., 23 miles south-southeast of Milwaukee and 02 miles north of Chicago, on Lake Michigan, at the moutli of the Root River, and on the Chicago and Northwestern and the Chicago, Milwaukee and Saint Paul railroads (Jfap: Wisconsin, F 6). It has a jjleasant site, some 40 feet above tlie lake, and is regularly laid out. Among the institutions of the city are Saint Luke's Hospital and the Taylor Orphan Asylum, a public library with more than 7500 volumes, and several other libraries, two of which belong to Racine College (Protestant Episcopal) and Saint Catherine's Academy (Roman Catholic). The post-office, erected at a cost of .$100,000, is one of the finest edifices in the city. Racine possesses a good harbor, and is connected by steamship lines with other lake ports. Its trade is chiefiy in farm produce and in the principal manufac- tured products. As an industrial centre, Racine ranks second among the foremost cities of the State, the ouput of its various manufactories in the census year 1900 having had an aggre- gate value of ,$12,503,000, and the invested cap- ital having amounted to $10,753,000. The lead- ing manufactures iiTclude agricultural imple- ments, carriages and wagons, foundry and machine-shop products, boots and shoes, leath- er, trunks and valises, steel springs for ears and carriages, liardware. lumber products, etc. Settled in 1834, Racine was incorporated as a village in 1843, and in 1848 it obtained a city charter. The government, under a revised charter of 1891, is vested in a nuiyor, elected every two years, and a unicameral council. Of the administrative officers, the fire and police commissioners are appointed by the mayor, and the school board by the mayor with the consent of the council. Population,' in 1890, 21,014; in 1900, 29.102. KACINE, ra'sen', Jean ( 1039-99) . The great- est of French tragic poets, born December 21, 1039, at La Fert^-Milon. He received his pri- mary education in Beauvais, at a .school affiliated ■with the .Tansenists of Port-Royal ; then he passed at fifteen to the more immediate direction of the Port-Royalist teachers at I'Ecole des Granges, where he was taught by the noted Gircek scholar Lancelot, and the Latinist Nicole, who was a distinguished moralist, and others skilled in the pedagogy of their time. They left indelible marks, not alone on Racine's mind, but On his character, for the great fact that dominates his whole life is his relation, intellectual and moral, to those solitaries of Port-Royal in whom persisted the Puritan element in the French Church. Sometimes an obedient, some- times a revolting disciple, he was never indifl'er- ent to these influences of his youth. He died in their fold, and his grave bore the inscription, 'Poet, Reehise of Port-Royal.' At I'Ecole des Granges and later at the Col- l&ge d'Harcourt Racine 'read and annotated all the ancient classics.' He learned by heart long passages from Greek romances and declaimed to astonished friends the choruses of Sophocles, who, with Euripides, remained his dramatic model. He acquired also a puritanic tenacity of mind, and uncompromising uprightness and a reasoned devotion. Yet he had brilliant social gifts, and on his graduation (1058) worldly attractions so prevailed on him that his kindred took alarm. They sent him into a kind of exile at Uz6s in Languedoc, where he hoped for a benefice from his uncle, Vicar-General of the diocese. His faults, from a .Jansenist point of view, appear to have been intimacj' with La Fontaine, Chapelain, other men of letters, and some actors and actresses, and the directing of his talent to dramatic composi- tion and to jjoems for the Court, especially La nymphe de la Heine on the marriage of Louis XIV. Fifteen months in Languedoc brought Racine no benefice, but he completed his literary educa- tion. He read diligently the Greek, Latin, and Italian poets and historians, and the Church Fathers. He returned to Paris (1002) an accom- plished scholar, dominated by social and poetic ambition. He was presented to the King, became a fashionable poet, and the intimate of Chapelle, Fureti&re, Molifere, and, above all, of Boileau, who formed in the successful poet a new and fruitful theory of dramatic art. In 1004 he ob- tained a pension and he was a frequent recipient through life of 'gratifications' from the Court. His earliest play, La Theba'ide, on the strife of Eteocles and Polynices, was acted by Molifere's company in 1004. His second play, Alexandre le Grand, was first perfonned December 4, 1065, by the comedians of the Palais Royal. Decem- ber 18th they were astonished to find out that it was being given by a rival company at the Hotel de Bourgogne. How this came about is unknown, but it ended in a complete breach be- tween ^lolifere and Racine, the latter of whom seems to have been in the wrong, and who pres- ently showed himself as an unfriendly rival to Corneille, and as an unseemly satirist of his old teachers, the Port-Royalists, in a reply to Nicole's Lettres visiomuiircs nn the evils of the stage. He wrote also a second reply which Boileau saved him from printing, telling him that it might be a credit to his wit, but was surely none to his heart. He later repented deeply this most dis- creditable incident in his life. But his irritation at the attitude of his kinsfolk at Port-Royal made his thought more tragically sombre, and while the poet in him was wrestling with the Puritan he wrote Audromaque (1607), the first of his seven great plays. Of Racine's life from 1007 to 1077 we know very little. He lived in close intimacy with at least one actress and produced his only comedy, Les plaidctirs (1668), and the tragedies Britan- nicns (1669), Ber&nice (1670). Baja~et (1672), Miihridate {1G73) . Iphigi'nie {lG7-i) , and Phddre (1677). This last was opposed by a cabal who supported a rival and worthless I'hcdre by Pra- don. Nettled at this or because of a moral dis- satisfaction with the result of his theory of dra- matic art, Racine withdrew from the stage, made his peace with Port-Royal, and married a worthy woman with more money than culture, and more