st varied surroundings, so as to
reproduce, under ever fresh circumstances, one and the same series of
incidents or accidents more or less symmetrically identical.

In several of Moliere's plays we find one and the same arrangement of
events repeated right through the comedy from beginning to end. Thus,
the Ecole des femmes does nothing more than reproduce and repeat a
single incident in three tempi: first tempo, Horace tells Arnolphe of
the plan he has devised to deceive Agnes's guardian, who turns out to
be Arnolphe himself; second tempo, Arnolphe thinks he has checkmated
the move; third tempo, Agnes contrives that Horace gets all the benefit
of Arnolphe's precautionary measures. There is the same symmetrical
repetition in the Ecole des marts, in L'Etourdi, and above all in
George Dandin, where the same effect in three tempi is again met with:
first tempo, George Dandin discovers that his wife is unfaithful;
second tempo, he summons his father--and mother-in-law to his
assistance; third tempo, it is George Dandin himself, after all, who
has to apologise.

At times the same scene is reproduced with groups of different
characters. Then it not infrequently happens that the first group
consists of masters and the second of servants. The latter repeat in
another key a scene already played by the former, though the rendering
is naturally less refined. A part of the Depit amoureux is constructed
on this plan, as is also Amphitryon. In an amusing little comedy of
Benedix, Der Eigensinn, the order is inverted: we have the masters
reproducing a scene of stubbornness in which their servants have set
the example.

But, quite irrespective of the characters who serve as pegs for the
arrangement of symmetrical situations, there seems to be a wide gulf
between classic comedy and the theatre of to-day. Both aim at
introducing a certain mathematical order into events, while none the
less maintaining their aspect of likelihood, that is to say, of life.
But the means they employ are different. The majority of light comedies
of our day seek to mesmerise directly the mind of the spectator. For,
however extraordinary the coincidence, it becomes acceptable from the
very fact that it is accepted; and we do accept it, if we have been
gradually prepared for its reception. Such is often the procedure
adopted by contemporary authors. In Moliere's plays, on the contrary,
it is the moods of the persons on the stage, not of the audience, that
ma