the average play may be traced straight back to their source in the
dominating genius of Molière.

If he fell short of the classical ideal in his workmanship, if he
exceeded it in the breadth and diversity of his mind, it is still true
that the essence of his dramatic method was hardly less classical than
that of Racine himself. His subject-matter was rich and various; but his
treatment of it was strictly limited by the classical conception of art.
He always worked by selection. His incidents are very few, chosen with
the utmost care, impressed upon the spectator with astonishing force,
and exquisitely arranged to succeed each other at the most effective
moment. The choice of the incidents is determined invariably by one
consideration--the light which they throw upon the characters; and the
characters themselves appear to us from only a very few carefully chosen
points of view. The narrowed and selective nature of Molière's treatment
of character presents an illuminating contrast when compared with the
elaborately detailed method of such a master of the romantic style as
Shakespeare. The English dramatist shows his persons to us in the round;
innumerable facets flash out quality after quality; the subtlest and
most elusive shades of temperament are indicated; until at last the
whole being takes shape before us, endowed with what seems to be the
very complexity and mystery of life itself. Entirely different is the
great Frenchman's way. Instead of expanding, he deliberately narrows his
view; he seizes upon two or three salient qualities in a character and
then uses all his art to impress them indelibly upon our minds. His
Harpagon is a miser, and he is old--and that is all we know about him:
how singularly limited a presentment compared with that of
Shakespeare's bitter, proud, avaricious, vindictive, sensitive, and
almost pathetic Jew! Tartufe, perhaps the greatest of all Molière's
characters, presents a less complex figure even than such a slight