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Page 37
I am not the first who has dared to approach you in the Shades; for just after
your own death the author of 'Les Dialogues des Morts' gave you Paracelsus as
a companion, and the author of 'Le Jugement de Pluton' made the 'mighty
warder' decide that 'Molie're should not talk philosophy.' These writers, like
most of us, feel that, after all, the comedies of the _Contemplateur_, of the
translator of Lucretius, are a philosophy of life in themselves, and that in
them we read the lessons of human experience writ small and clear.
What comedian but Molie're has combined with such depths--with the indignation
of Alceste, the self-deception of Tartufe, the blasphemy of Don Juan--such
wildness of irresponsible mirth, such humour, such wit! Even now, when more
than two hundred years have sped by, when so much water has flowed under the
bridges and has borne away so many trifles of contemporary mirth (_cetera_
_fluminis ritu feruntur_), even now we never laugh so well as when Mascarille
and Vadius and M. Jourdain tread the boards in the Maison de Molie're. Since
those mobile dark brows of yours ceased to make men laugh, since your voice
denounced the 'demoniac' manner of contemporary tragedians, I take leave to
think that no player has been more worthy to wear the _canons_ of Mascarille
or the gown of Vadius than M. Coquelin of the Come'die Francaise. In him you
have a successor to your Mascarille so perfect, that the ghosts of play-goers
of your date might cry, could they see him, that Molie're had come again. But,
with all respect to the efforts of the fair, I doubt if Mdlle. Barthet, or
Mdme. Croizette herself, would reconcile the town to the loss of the fair De
Brie, and Madeleine, and the first, the true Ce'lime'ne, Armande. Yet had you
ever so merry a _soubrette_ as Mdme. Samary, so exquisite a Nicole?
Denounced, persecuted, and buried hugger-mugger two hundred years ago, you are
now not over-praised, but more worshipped, with more servility and
ostentation, studied with more prying curiosity than you may approve. Are not
the Molie'ristes a body who carry adoration to fanaticism? Any scrap of your
handwriting (so few are these), any anecdote even remotely touching on your
life, any fact that may prove your house was numbered 15 not 22, is eagerly
seized and discussed by your too minute historians. Concerning your private
life, these men often write more like malicious enemies than friends;
repeating the fabulous scandals of Le Boulanger, and trying vainly to support
them by grubbing in dusty parish registers. It is most necessary to defend you
from your friends--from such friends as the veteran and inveterate M. Arse'ne
Houssaye, or the industrious but puzzle-headed M. Loiseleur. Truly they seek
the living among the dead, and the immortal Molie're among the sweepings of
attorneys' offices. As I regard them (for I have tarried in their tents) and
as I behold their trivialities--the exercises of men who neglect Molie're's
works to write about Molie're's great-grandmother's second-best bed--I
sometimes wish that Molie're were here to write on his devotees a new comedy,
'Les Molie'ristes.' How fortunate were they, Monsieur, who lived and worked
with you, who saw you day by day, who were attached, as Lagrange tells us, by
the kindest loyalty to the best and most honourable of men, the most
open-handed in friendship, in charity the most delicate, of the heartiest
sympathy! Ah, that for one day I could behold you, writing in the study,
rehearsing on the stage, musing in the lace-seller's shop, strolling through
the Palais, turning over the new books at Billaine's, dusting your ruffles
among the old volumes on the sunny stalls. Would that, through the ages, we
could hear you after supper, merry with Boileau, and with Racine,--not yet a
traitor,--laughing over Chapelain, combining to gird at him in an epigram, or
mocking at Cotin, or talking your favourite philosophy, mindful of Descartes.
Surely of all the wits none was ever so good a man, none ever made life so
rich with humour and friendship.
XIX.
To Robert Burns.
Sir,--Among men of Genius, and especially among Poets, there are some to whom
we turn with a peculiar and unfeigned affection; there are others whom we
admire rather than love. By some we are won with our will, by others conquered
against our desire. It has been your peculiar fortune to capture the hearts of
a whole people--a people not usually prone to praise, but devoted with a
personal and patriotic loyalty to you and to your reputation. In you every
Scot who _is_ a Scot sees, admires, and compliments Himself, his ideal self--
independent, fond of whisky, fonder of the lassies; you are the true
representative of him and of his nation. Next year will be the hundredth since
the press of Kilmarnock brought to light its solitary masterpiece, your Poems;
and next year, therefore, methinks, the revenue will receive a welcome
accession from the abundance of whisky drunk in your honour. It is a cruel
thing for any of your countrymen to feel that, where all the rest love, he can
only admire; where all the rest are idolators, he may not bend the knee; but
stands apart and beats upon his breast, observing, not adoring--a critic. Yet
to some of us--petty souls, perhaps, and envious--that loud indiscriminating
praise of 'Robbie Burns' (for so they style you in their Change-house
familiarity) has long been ungrateful; and, among the treasures of your songs,
we venture to select and even to reject. So it must be! We cannot all love
Haggis, nor 'painch, tripe, and thairm,' and all those rural dainties which
you celebrate as 'warm-reekin, rich!' 'Rather too rich,' as the Young Lady
said on an occasion recorded by Sam Weller.
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