Moliere alone passed his hand across his eyes.
Why?
Perhaps to wipe away a tear, perhaps to smother a sigh.

Alas! we know that Moliere was a moralist, but he was not a philosopher.

"'Tis all one," he said, returning to the topic of the conversation, "Pelisson has insulted you." "Ah, truly! I had already forgotten it." "And I am going to challenge him on your behalf." "Well, you can do so, if you think it indispensable." "I do think it indispensable, and I am going to--" "Stay," exclaimed La Fontaine, "I want your advice." "Upon what?
this insult ?" "No; tell me really now whether _lumiere_ does not rhyme with _orniere_." "I should make them rhyme." "Ah! I knew you would." "And I have made a hundred thousand such rhymes in my time." "A hundred thousand!" cried La Fontaine.

"Four times as many as 'La Pucelle,' which M.Chaplain is meditating.

Is it also on this subject, too, that you have composed a hundred thousand verses ?" "Listen to me, you eternally absent-minded creature," said Moliere.
"It is certain," continued La Fontaine, "that _legume_, for instance, rhymes with _posthume_." "In the plural, above all." "Yes, above all in the plural, seeing that then it rhymes not with three letters, but with four; as _orniere_ does with _lumiere_." "But give me _ornieres_ and _lumieres_ in the plural, my dear Pelisson," said La Fontaine, clapping his hand on the shoulder of his friend, whose insult he had quite forgotten, "and they will rhyme." "Hem!" coughed Pelisson.
"Moliere says so, and Moliere is a judge of such things; he declares he has himself made a hundred thousand verses." "Come," said Moliere, laughing, "he is off now." "It is like _rivage_, which rhymes admirably with _herbage_.