2] on him.

He is furious, and tries "Glicerie" (the form might be more Greek), an
_ingenue_ of fifteen, who was "like a rose," who had attracted already
the vows of the most gallant youths, etc. The most brilliant of these
youths instantly retire before the invincible Alcibiades. But in the
first place she wishes that before "explanations"[393] take place, a
marriage shall be arranged; while he, oddly enough, wishes that the
explanations should precede the hymen. Also she is particular about the
consent of her parents: and, finally, when he asks her whether she will
swear constancy against every trial, to be his, and his only, whatever
happens, she replies, with equal firmness and point, "Never!" So he is
furious again. But there is a widow, and, as we have seen in former
cases, there was not, in the French eighteenth century, the illiberal
prejudice against widows expressed by Mr. Weller. She is, of course,
inconsolable for her dear first, but admits, after a time, the
possibility of a dear second. Only it must be kept secret as yet. For a
time Alcibiades behaves nobly, but somehow or other he finds that
everybody knows the fact; he is treated by his lady-love with obvious
superiority; and breaks with her. An interlude with a "magistrate's"
wife, on less proper and more Crebillonish lines, is not more
successful. So one day meeting by the seashore a beautiful courtesan,
Erigone, he determines, in the not contemptible language of that
single-speech poetess, Maria del Occidente, to "descend and sip a lower
draught." He is happy after a fashion with her for two whole months: but
at the end of that time he is beaten in a chariot race, and, going to
Erigone for consolation, finds the winner's vehicle at her door.
Socrates, on being consulted, recommends Glicerie as, after all, the
best of them, in a rather sensible discourse. But the concluding words
of the sage and the story are, as indeed might be expected from
Xanthippe's husband, not entirely optimist: "If your wife is well
conducted and amiable, you will be a happy man; if she is ill-tempered
and a coquette, you will become a philosopher--so you must gain in any
case." An "obvious," perhaps, but a neat and uncommonly well-told story.

[Sidenote: _Soliman the Second._]

_Soliman the Second_ is probably the best known of Marmontel's tales,
and it certainly has great merits. It is hardly inferior in wit to
Voltaire, and is entirely free from the smears of uncomeliness