not until he meets with Silvia,
the shepherdess, that love is seen to be more potent than all the charms
of fairy-land to make of simple Harlequin, as of Hawthorne's Faun, a man.
The developing influence of love is the theme of the comedy, and, although
the development is rapid, as befits a play, it is nevertheless by
graduated stages. Each meeting of the lovers fans the flame, and the need
of secrecy but stimulates their wit, until, at last, by a cunning wile,
Harlequin gains possession of the fairy's wand and with it, of her power.
This, of course, brings about the natural denouement, and the play ends to
the satisfaction of the lovers.

Many of the scenes are characterized by an artlessness and grace that
recall Florian's _les Deux Billets_ or Musset's _A quoi revent les jeunes
Filles_. It is the poetry of an epoch of prose. "All the poetry of the
first half of the eighteenth century is in Marivaux, as all the poetry of
the second half is in Jean-Jacques Rousseau and in Bernardin de Saint-
Pierre."[64] The first two plays of Marivaux presented to the public were
performed upon the stage of the Theatre-Italien, and throughout his life
he showed a marked preference for that theatre.

His success was brilliant, and _Arlequin poli par l'Amour_ had twelve
representations. At last Marivaux appears to have found his true sphere;
but no, he has still to feel his way, and to experience another check,
before entrusting himself to the promptings of his genius. His was not a
talent to blossom in a night, and only an over-zealous friend could say of
him: "Il ne se decida point pour les lettres, il fut entraine par elles.
Il ne chercha point a devenir auteur, il fut etonne de l'etre devenu."[65]

At this time tragedy still held sway over the hearts of the French,
although the period of its glory was past. As nearly every writer of the
century had produced his tragedy, not to mention the immediate friends of
Marivaux, Fontenelle with his _Aspar_ and La Motte with his _Oedipe_ and
_Romulus_, it is not strange that Marivaux felt tempted to try his wings
in this upper sphere. His _Annibal_, a tragedy in five acts and in verse,
was produced at the Theatre-Francais on December 16, 1720. In this play
the very qualities, destined later to procure for the author such splendid
successes in his comedies, were either lacking or out of place. It
survived four representations, three at the Theatre-Francais and one at
Court, and then disappear