ugh Moliere had put him
forth for an absolute example of misanthropy; whereas Alceste is only a
misanthrope of the circle he finds himself placed in: he has a touching
faith in the virtue residing in the country, and a critical love of
sweet simpleness. Nor is he the principal person of the comedy to which
he gives a name. He is only passively comic. Celimene is the active
spirit. While he is denouncing and railing, the trial is imposed 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 Celi