d duty stifles in my heart all other claims; and I would
sacrifice to it friend, wife, relations, and myself with them.

ELMIRE. The impostor!

DOR. With what treacherous cunning he makes a cloak of all that men
revere!...

TAR. (_to the_ OFFICER). I beg of you, sir, to deliver me from all
this noise, and to act according to the orders you have received.

OFFICER. I have certainly put off too long the discharge of my
duty, and you very rightly remind me of it. To execute my order,
follow me immediately to the prison in which a place is assigned to
you.

TAR. Who? I, sir?

OFFICER. Yes, you.

TAR. Why to prison?

OFFICER. To you I have no account to render. (_To_ ORGON.) Pray,
sir, recover from your great alarm. We live under a king [Louis
XIV.] who is an enemy to fraud,--a king who can read the heart, and
whom all the arts of impostors cannot deceive. His great mind,
endowed with delicate discernment, at all times sees things in
their true, light.... He annuls, by his sovereign will, the terms
of the contract by which you gave him [Tartuffe] your property. He
moreover forgives you this secret offence in which you were
involved by the flight of your friend. This to reward the zeal
which you once showed for him in maintaining his rights, and to
prove that his heart, when it is least expected, knows how to
recompense a good action. Merit with him is never lost, and he
remembers good better than evil.

DOR. Heaven be thanked!

PER. Ah! I breathe again.

EL. What a favorable end to our troubles!

MAR. Who would have foretold it?

ORG. (to TARTUFFE, _as the_ OFFICER _leads him off_). Ah, wretch!
now you are--

Tartuffe thus disposed of, the play promptly ends, with a vanishing
glimpse afforded us of a happy marriage in prospect for Valere with the
daughter.

Moliere is said to have had a personal aim in drawing the character of
Tartuffe. This, at least, was like Dante. There is not much sweet
laughter in such a comedy. But there is a power that is dreadful.

Each succeeding generation of Frenchmen supplies its bright and
ingenious wits who produce comedy. But as there is no second Shakspeare,
so there is but one Moliere.

VIII.

PASCAL.

1623-1662.

Pascal's fame is distinctly the fame of a man of genius. He achieved
notable things