upon her to make the best of him, and control herself, as much as a witty woman, eagerly courted, can do.  By appreciating him she practically confesses her faultiness, and she is better disposed to meet him half .way than he is to bend an inch:  only she is une ame de vingt ans, the world is pleasant, and if the gilded flies of the Court are silly, uncompromising fanatics have their ridiculous features as well.  Can she abandon the life they make agreeable to her, for a man who will not be guided by the common sense of his class; and who insists on plunging into one extreme—­equal to suicide in her eyes—­to avoid another?  That is the comic question of the Misanthrope.  Why will he not continue to mix with the world smoothly, appeased by the flattery of her secret and really sincere preference of him, and taking his revenge in satire of it, as she does from her own not very lofty standard, and will by and by do from his more exalted one?

Celimene is worldliness:  Alceste is unworldliness.  It does not quite imply unselfishness; and that is perceived by her shrewd head.  Still he is a very uncommon figure in her circle, and she esteems him, l’homme aux rubans verts, ‘who sometimes diverts but more often horribly vexes her,’ as she can say of him when her satirical tongue is on the run.  Unhappily the soul of truth in him, which wins her esteem, refuses to be tamed, or silent, or unsuspicious, and is the perpetual obstacle to their good accord.  He is that melancholy person, the critic of everybody save himself; intensely sensitive to the faults of others, wounded by them; in love with his own indubitable honesty, and with his ideal of the simpler form of life befitting it:  qualities which constitute the satirist.  He is a Jean Jacques of the Court.  His proposal to Celimene when he pardons her, that she should follow him in flying humankind, and his frenzy of detestation of her at her refusal, are thoroughly in the mood of Jean Jacques.  He is an impracticable creature of a priceless virtue; but Celimene may feel that to fly with him to the desert:  that is from the Court to the country

‘Ou d’etre homme d’honneur on ait la liberte,’

she is likely to find herself the companion of a starving satirist, like that poor princess who ran away with the waiting-man, and when both were hungry in the forest, was ordered to give him flesh.  She is a fieffee coquette, rejoicing in her wit and her attractions, and distinguished by her inclination for Alceste in the midst of her many other lovers; only she finds it hard to cut them off—­what woman with a train does not?—­and when the exposure of her naughty wit has laid her under their rebuke, she will do the utmost she can:  she will give her hand to honesty, but she cannot quite abandon worldliness.  She would be unwise if she did.

The fable is thin.  Our pungent contrivers of plots would see no indication of life in the outlines.  The life of the comedy is in the idea.  As with the singing of the sky-lark out of sight, you must love the bird to be attentive to the song, so in this highest flight of the Comic Muse, you must love pure Comedy warmly to understand the Misanthrope:  you must be receptive of the idea of Comedy.  And to love Comedy you must know the real world, and know men and women well enough not to expect too much of them, though you may still hope for good.