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His wit flies out on clear-cut, swallow-like wings as when he said, in speaking of Paul Alexis' book "Le Besoin d'aimer," "Vous avez trouvez un titre assez laid pour faire reculer les divines étoiles." I know not what instrument to compare with his verse. I suppose I should say a flute; but it seems to me more like a marvellously toned piano.
"Chose étrange d'aimer, et que pour ces maitresses, Les hommes soient sujets
In Sertorius, a much later work, Corneille has contrived to make the great Pompey appear little, and the hero ridiculous. Sertorius on one occasion exclaims Que c'est un sort cruel d'aimer par politique! This admits of being applied to all the personages of the piece. In love they are not in the least; but they allow a pretended love to be subservient to political ends.
Could it be the thought is painful that they did not quite understand L'Age d'Aimer and imagined that all the people were married? This idea is simply humiliating to one of the craft. "Ne rien comprendre, c'est tout pardonner" is a very novel view of a famous phrase.
Gabrielle, without a heart how safe we should be, how dangerous to our lovers! But cursed with sensibility, we must, alas! submit to our fate. The habit of loving, le besoin d'aimer, is more powerful than all sense of the folly and the danger. Nor is the tempest of the passions so dreadful as the dead calm of the soul. Why did R suffer my soul to sink into this ominous calm?
The point is, not that those who understand these plays or those who do not are affected in their moral ideas by them, but that they give a deplorable picture of French life and in such a guise as to suggest that it is a picture of normal French life; unfortunately L'Age d'Aimer is only one of many. It is a great pity to use such a powerful vehicle as the stage for slandering a nation.
That there is a certain amount of truth in works of the Zaza, Sapho, Les Demi-Vierges and L'Age d'Aimer type is incontestable; yet so far as they are true to general life one can find their parallel in this holy island.
Les Dames de B , happier than many of the spinsters of their age, have an estimable object to bestow their affections on; but those who are less fortunate should rather excite our pity than ridicule, for many and severe must have been the trials of that heart which turns at last, dans le besoin d'aimer, to the bird, dog, or cat, that renders solitude less lonely.
A lovesick girl finds, in the captain with whom she is in love, all the courage and all the graces of the tender and accomplished Oroondates: and many a grown-up, sentimental lady, talks delicate Clelia to the hero, whom she would engage to eternal love, or laments with her that love is not eternal. "Ah! qu'il est doux d'aimer, si Pon aimoit toujours!
"What a magnificent touch that child has!" said Du Meresq, pausing to listen. "She has quite a genius for music;" and, mentally, she commented, "I never heard her play better." "She plays," said Bertie, "as if she were desperately in love." "With Mr. Vavasour?" laughed Cecil. "With no one, I dare say. It indicates, however, a besoin d'aimer."
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