The three types.

— There are in the world three types that will be eternal. These three types, great men have painted them just as they were in their time; and they divined that they would always exist. These three types are, first, Hamlet, n who says to himself: To be or not to be, that is the question [Ser ou não ser, eis a questão]; then Tartuffe, n who mutters prayers while he meditates on evil; finally Don Juan, who says to all: I believe in nothing. Molière found, by himself, two of these types; he debased Tartuffe and struck down Don Juan. Without truth man remains in doubt like Hamlet, without conscience like Tartuffe, without heart like Don Juan. Hamlet is in doubt, it is true, but he seeks, he is unhappy, incredulity overwhelms him, his sweetest illusions move further and further away, and that ideal, that truth which he pursues falls into the abyss like Ophelia n and is lost forever. Then he goes mad and dies like a man in despair; but God will forgive him, because he had heart, he loved, and it was the world that robbed him of that which he wished to preserve. The other two types are atrocious, because egoistic and hypocritical, each in his own way. Tartuffe takes on the mask of virtue, which renders him odious; Don Juan believes in nothing, not even in God: he believes only in himself. Have you never had the impression of seeing, in that famous symbol that is Don Juan and in the statue of the Commander, skepticism before the turning tables? The corrupted human Spirit in the face of its most brutal manifestation? Until the present the world has seen in them nothing but an entirely human figure. Do you believe that one should not see and feel in them something more? How the inimitable genius of Molière did not have, in this work, the feeling of the good sense of spiritual facts, as he always had of the defects of this world! Gérard de Nerval. n

THE THREE TYPES.

(CONTINUATION.)

[Review of February 1861.]

Note — In the three following dictations, the Spirit develops each of the three types sketched in the first. (See the number of January 1861.)

I.

Here in your world, interest, egoism, and pride stifle generosity, charity, and simplicity. Interest and egoism are the two evil geniuses of the financier and the newly rich; pride is the vice of him who knows and, above all, of him who can. When a heart that truly thinks examines these three horrible vices, it suffers, because the man who thinks about the nothingness and the wickedness of this world is, in general — do not doubt it — a creature whose sentiments and instincts are delicate and charitable. And, as you well know, the delicate are unhappy, as La Fontaine said, whom I forgot to place beside Molière. Only the delicate are unhappy, because they feel. Hamlet is the personification of this unhappy part of Humanity, which suffers and weeps always and which avenges itself, avenging God and morality. Hamlet had to chastise horrible vices in his family: pride and lust, that is, egoism. Aspiring to truth, that tender and melancholy soul was dimmed by the breath of the world, like a mirror that cannot reflect what is good and what is just. And that soul so pure shed the blood of its mother and avenged its honor. Hamlet is impotent intelligence, profound thought in struggle against stupid pride and against maternal unchastity. The man who thinks and who avenges a vice of the Earth, whatever it may be, is guilty in the eyes of men, but, many times, he is not so before God. Do not think that I wish to idealize despair: I have already been chastised enough, but there is so much mist before the eyes of the world! Note. — Urged to give his appraisal of La Fontaine, of whom he had just spoken, the Spirit added:

La Fontaine is no better known than Corneille and Racine. You know only your own men of letters, whereas the Germans know Shakespeare as much as Goethe. To return to my subject, La Fontaine is the Frenchman par excellence, concealing his originality and his sensibility under the name of Aesop and of cheerful thinker. But, be assured, La Fontaine was a delicate one, as I told you a little while ago; seeing that he was not understood, he affected that simplicity which you call false. In your days he would have been enrolled in the regiment of the falsely modest. True intelligence is not false, but many times we have to howl with the wolves; and it was this that ruined La Fontaine in the opinion of many people. I do not speak to you of his genius: this is equal, if not superior, to that of Molière. II.

To return to our very familiar little literature course, Don Juan is, as I already had the honor to tell you, the most perfectly painted type of depraved and blasphemous gentleman. Molière raised him to drama, because, in truth, the punishment of Don Juan was not to be human, but divine. It is by the unexpected blows of celestial vengeance that proud heads fall. The effect is all the more dramatic the more unforeseen it is.

I said that Don Juan was a type; but, in truth, he is a rare type, because, really, one sees few men of that temper, since almost all are cowards; I refer to the class of the indifferent and the corrupt.

Many blaspheme; few, however — I assure you — dare to blaspheme without fear. Conscience is an echo that returns to them the blasphemy, and they listen to it trembling with fear, although they smile before the world. They are what today we call the braggarts of vice. This type of libertine is numerous in your days, but they are very far from being sons of Voltaire.

To return to our subject, Molière, as the wisest author and the most profound observer, not only chastised the vices that attack Humanity, but those that dare to address themselves to God.

III.

Until now we have seen two types: one generous and unhappy; the other happy, according to the world, but quite miserable before God. It remains for us to see the ugliest, the most ignoble, the most repugnant: I refer to Tartuffe.

In Antiquity, the mask of virtue was already hideous, because, without having purified itself by Christian morality, paganism also had virtues and sages. But before the altar of Christ that mask is even uglier, being that of egoism and hypocrisy. Perhaps paganism had fewer Tartuffes than the Christian religion. To exploit the heart of the wise and good man, to flatter him in all his actions, to deceive trusting persons by an apparent piety, to carry profanation so far as to receive the Eucharist with pride and blasphemy in the heart, this is what Tartuffe does, what he has done, and what he will do, always. O imperfect and worldly men! who condemn a divine principle and a superhuman morality because you wish to abuse it, you are blind when you confound men with that principle, that is, God with Humanity. It is because he conceals his baseness beneath the sacred mantle that Tartuffe is hideous and repugnant. A curse upon him, because he cursed when he was forgiven and meditated a betrayal when he preached charity. Gérard de Nerval.

[1]

[Hamlet, drama in five acts by William Shakespeare.]

[2]

[Tartuffe, comedy in five acts and in verse, written by Molière in 1667.]

[3] [Ophelia, character in the drama Hamlet by William Shakespeare.]

[4] [v.

Gérard de Nerval.]