Molière's genius was many-sided; he was a master not only of the smile, but of the laugh. He is the gayest of writers, and his farces, in their wild hilarity, their contagious absurdity, are perfect models of what a farce should be. He has made these light, frivolous, happy things as 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 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.