brilliant, so lucid and so profound--could only have been produced in
the age of Louis XIV. Here, in all probability, Molière's genius reached
its height. The play shows us a small group of ladies and gentlemen, in
the midst of which one man--Alceste--stands out pre-eminent for the
intensity of his feelings and the honesty of his thoughts. He is in love
with Célimène, a brilliant and fascinating woman of the world; and the
subject of the play is his disillusionment. The plot is of the
slightest; the incidents are very few. With marvellous art Molière
brings on the inevitable disaster. Célimène will not give up the world
for the sake of Alceste; and he will take her on no other terms. And
that is all. Yet, when the play ends, how much has been revealed to us!
The figure of Alceste has been often taken as a piece of
self-portraiture; and indeed it is difficult not to believe that some at
any rate of Molière's own characteristics have gone to the making of
this subtle and sympathetic creation. The essence of Alceste is not his
misanthropy (the title of the play is somewhat misleading), it is his
sensitiveness. He alone, of all the characters in the piece, really
feels intensely. He alone loves, suffers, and understands. His
melancholy is the melancholy of a profound disillusionment. Molière, one
fancies, might have looked out upon the world just so--from 'ce petit
coin sombre, avec mon noir chagrin'. The world! To Alceste, at any rate,
the world was the great enemy--a thing of vain ideals, cold hearts, and
futile consolations. He pitted himself against it, and he failed. The
world swept on remorselessly, and left him, in his little corner, alone.
That was his tragedy. Was it Molière's also?--a tragedy, not of kings
and empires, of vast catastrophes and magnificent imaginations; but
something hardly less moving, and hardly less sublime--a tragedy of
ordinary life.