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Huxley, had he not been the greatest intellectual duellist of his age, might have been its greatest satirist. Bismarck, pursuing the gruesome trade of politics, concealed the devastating wit of a Molière; his surviving epigrams are truly stupendous.
Love is to say to one's self: 'She whom I love is infamous; she deceives me, she will deceive me; she is an abandoned creature, she smells of the frying of hell-fire; but we rush to her, we find there the blue of heaven, the flowers of Paradise. That is how Moliere loved, and how we, scamps that we are! how we love. As for me, I weep at the great scene of Arnolphe.
The Ecole des Femmes, the Impromptu de Versailles, the Critique de l'Ecole des Femmes, began the bellicose period in the great comic poet's life. Accused of impiety, attacked in the honor of his private life, Moliere, returning insult for insult, delivered over those amongst his enemies who offered a butt for ridicule to the derision of the court and of posterity.
He placed it respectfully behind his aunt, and resumed his position on her left. This bold act was received by the judiciary with a frown, by the other spectators with a murmur of applause, and by the beautiful daughter of the house of Mancini with one of those bewitching smiles which have been celebrated in the sonnets of Benserade, Corneille, Moliere, St. Evremont, and La Fontaine.
Socrates and Molière only touched the skin. He carried fire and rage to the very marrow. But it was also just that this great master of irony should pay for his triumph with his life. Even in Galilee, the Pharisees sought to ruin him, and employed against him the manoeuvre which ultimately succeeded at Jerusalem.
The play ran for a hundred and thirty nights. Tennyson had found out that "the worst of writing for the stage is, you must keep some actor always in your mind." To this necessity authors like Moliere and Shakespeare were, of course, resigned and familiar; they knew exactly how to deal with all their means.
For a satirist so variously endowed, the stage was the best field, and for Molière especially, gifted as he was with histrionic genius. The vices and abuses, the follies and absurdities, the hypocrisies and superficialities of civilized life, these were the game for his faculties.
Many lines are at once witty sallies and characteristic traits; and some of the jokes have that apparently aimless drollery, which genuine comic inspiration can alone inspire. Racine would have become a dangerous rival of Moliere, if he had continued to exercise the talent which he has here displayed.
One does not like to think that she said, "The true comedian finds his success in himself, and can do without the dramatic author. He easily utilizes his own comic or tragic gifts, as is witnessed in Shakespeare, Molière, and a hundred others." To think that we do not know whether Shakespeare was "a true comedian," and that it is not unlikely that he was a poor actor!
"I raised my left arm in the air, the forearm gracefully bent, the ruffle drooping, and my wrist curved, while my right arm, half extended, securely covered my wrist with the elbow, and my breast with the wrist." "Yes," said D'Artagnan, "'tis the true guard the academic guard." "You have said the very word, dear friend. In the meanwhile, Voliere " "Moliere." "Hold!
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