“To love and cherish Moliere, is to detest all mannerism in language and expression; it is, not to take pleasure in, or to be arrested by, petty graces, elaborate subtlety, superfine finish, excessive refinement of any kind, a tricky or artificial style.

“To love Moliere, it is to be disposed to like neither false wit nor pedantic science; it is to know how to recognize at first sight our Trissotins[6] and our Vadius even under their rejuvenated jaunty airs; it is, not to let one’s self be captivated at present any more than formerly by the everlasting Philaminte, that affected pretender of all times, whose form only changes and whose plumage is incessantly renewed; it is, to like soundness and directness of mind in others as well as in ourselves.  I only give the first movement and the pitch; on this key one may continue, with variations.

    [6] Trissotin, Vadius, and Philaminte, are personages in Moliere’s
        comedy of Les Femmes Savantes (The Blue-Stockings).

“To love and openly to prefer Corneille, as certain minds do, is no doubt a fine thing, and, in one sense, a very legitimate thing; it is, to dwell in, and to mark one’s rank in, the world of great souls:  but is it not to run the risk of loving together with the grand and sublime, false glory a little, to go so far as not to detest inflation and magniloquence, an air of heroism on all occasions?  He who passionately loves Corneille cannot be an enemy to a little boasting.

“On the other hand, to love and prefer Racine, ah! that is, no doubt, to love above all things, elegance, grace, what is natural and true (at least relatively), sensibility, touching and charming passion; but at the same time is it not also, to allow your taste and your mind to be too much taken with certain conventional and over-smooth beauties, a certain tameness and petted languidness, with certain excessive and exclusive refinements?  In a word, to love Racine so much, it is to run the risk of having too much of what in France is called taste, and which brings so much distaste.

“To love Boileau—­but no, one does not love Boileau, one esteems him, one respects him; we admire his uprightness, his understanding, at times his animation, and if we are tempted to love him, it is solely for that sovereign equity which made him do such unshaken justice to the great poets his contemporaries, and especially to him whom he proclaims the first of all, Moliere.

“To love La Fontaine, is almost the same thing as to love Moliere; it is, to love nature, the whole of nature, humanity ingenuously depicted, a representation of the grand comedy “of a hundred different acts,” unrolling itself, cutting itself up before our eyes into a thousand little scenes with the graces and freedoms that are so becoming, with weaknesses also, and liberties which are never found in the simple, manly genius of the master of masters.  But why separate them?  La Fontaine and Moliere—­we must not part them, we love them united.”