Germany was a scarcely less enthusiastic admirer, and even so severe a critic of French literature, as was Lessing, could find words of commendation for Marivaux; but the latter was less prodigal in his admiration of the works of foreign literatures. “and preferred unhesitatingly our writers to those of any nation, ancient or modern,” says d’Alembert.[75]

The journal is composed of a series of feuilles or leaflets, more or less closely connected, familiar and conversational in character.  Most of the sketches are characterized by that intuitive and feminine delicacy of perception and that subtlety sometimes lacking in Addison, and, while perhaps too often they appear over quintessenced or subtilized, at times they attain an eloquent and virile tone.  Aside from their literary value, they are of great interest in the study of the author’s character.

The humanity of the man and his sensitiveness to the wrongs of others are manifest in the description of a young girl forced to beg for a mother, sick and in want, or to accept dishonor with the assistance of a rich man, whose aid is offered at so dear a price.  The concluding words of this sketch contain a confession of his own weakness, but with an eloquent and vigorous attack upon those who basely sacrifice the happiness of others for the gratification of their own pleasures.  “Homme riche, vous qui voulez triompher de sa vertu par sa misere, de grace, pretez-moi votre attention.  Ce n’est point une exhortation pieuse, ce ne sont point des sentiments devots que vous allez entendre; non, je vais seulement tacher de vous tenir les discours d’un galant homme, sujet a ses sens aussi bien que vous; faible, et, si vous voulez, vicieux; mais chez qui les vices et les faiblesses ne sont point feroces, et ne subsistent qu’avec l’aveu d’une humanite genereuse.  Oui, vicieux encore une fois, mais en honnete homme, dont le coeur est heureusement force, quand il le faut, de menager les interets d’autrui dans les siens, et ne peut vouloir d’un plaisir qui ferait la douleur d’un autre."[76]

Perhaps in no other writing has he attained the eloquence, sustained throughout the description, that characterizes the letter[77] from a father self-impoverished for his son’s advancement and then abandoned by that same son.

One is not accustomed to think of Marivaux as a moralist, yet this frilled and powdered representative of the beau monde, this courtly gentleman, this graceful writer, was one of the powers for good of his time.  Throughout his plays and novels, and particularly in his journals, may be seen this nobler side of the man’s nature.  He was a practical moralist, with little love for abstract theories, and a morality far from asceticism, but, with profound unselfishness and pity for his fellow-man, he strove to right the wrongs and correct the abuses of a cruelly indifferent and light-hearted society.  He once said of himself:  “Je serais peu flatte d’entendre dire