eternal as the severest and the weightiest works of man. He has filled
them with a wonderful irresponsible wisdom, condensing into single
phrases the ridiculousness of generations: 'Nous avons changé tout
cela.'--'Que diable allait-il faire dans cette galère?'--'Vous êtes
orfèvre, Monsieur Josse.' So effectually has he contrived to embalm in
the spice of his humour even the momentary affectations of his own time
that they have come down to us fresh as when they first appeared, and
the _Précieuses Ridicules_--a skit upon the manners and modes of speech
affected by the fops of 1650--still raises to-day our inextinguishable
laughter. This is the obvious side of Molière; and it is hardly in need
of emphasis.

It is the more remote quality of his mind--his brooding melancholy, shot
through with bitterness and doubt--that may at first sight escape the
notice of the reader, and that will repay the deepest attention. His
greatest works come near to tragedy. _Le Tartufe_, in spite of its
patched-up happy ending, leaves an impression of horror upon the mind.
_Don Juan_ seems to inculcate a lesson of fatalistic scepticism. In
this extraordinary play--of all Molière's works the farthest removed
from the classical ideal--the conventional rules of religion and
morality are exposed to a withering scorn; Don Juan, the very embodiment
of the arrogance of intellect, and his servant Sganarelle, the futile
and superstitious supporter of decency and law, come before us as the
only alternatives for our choice; the antithesis is never resolved; and,
though in the end the cynic is destroyed by a _coup de théâtre_, the
fool in all his foolishness still confronts us when the curtain falls.

_Don Juan_--so enigmatic in its meaning and so loose in its
structure--might almost be the work of some writer of the late
nineteenth century; but _Le Misanthrope_--at once so harmonious and so