This question,
so clear in itself but so skilfully obscured by casuists, was again put
forward in open daylight. The _Theatre_ re-established religious
morality which had been so endangered in the _Churches_.

The author of the _Tartuffe_ chose his subject, not in society in
general, but in a more limited space, in the family circle, the
fireside, the holy of holies of modern life. This dramatist, this
impious being was, of all men in the world, the one who had most at
heart the religion of the family, though he had no family himself. He
was both tender and melancholy, and sometimes, in speaking of himself
and his domestic griefs, he would utter this grave but characteristic
sentence: "I ought to have foreseen that one thing made me unfit for
family society; which is my austerity."

The _Tartuffe_, that grand and sublime picture, is very simple in its
outline. Had it been more complicated it had been less popular.
_Mental restriction_ and the _direction of intention_, which everybody
had laughed at since the "Provincial Letters," were sufficient matter
for Moliere. He did not venture to bring the new doctrine of mysticism
on the stage, being as yet too little known or too dangerous.

Had he employed the jargon of Desmarets and the earlier quietists, and
put into the mouth of Tartuffe their mystic tendernesses, the result
would have been the same as that of his ridiculous sonnet in the
_Misanthrope_--the pit would have wondered what it meant.

The evening before the first representation of Tartuffe, Moliere read
the piece to Ninon; "and to pay him back in his own coin, she related
to him a similar adventure she had had with a wretch of that species,
whose portrait she drew in such lively and natural colours, that if the
piece had not been composed, he said he never would have undertaken it."

What, then, could be wanting to this master-piece, this drama of such
profound conception and powerful execution? Nothing, certainly, but
what was excluded by the state of religion at that time, and by the
customs of our theatre.

Still one thing was wanting, which was impossible to be shown in so
short a drama (though, in fact, it constitutes the real essence of the
characters), I mean the preparatory management, the long windings by
which he makes his approaches, his patience in stratagems, and his
gradual fascination.

Everything is strongly told, but rather abruptly. This man, received
into the house out of chari