Reading and Re-Reading

Except that I'm reading books instead of burning them, I'm going through them like a horde of fanatic Christians lately. First stop--a thorough re-reading of La Double Inconstance. What is it I love so much about Marivaux? I've thought and thought. What I think it is is the same as with Goldoni--whom after all in perfect sweetness of temper he so much resembles--his utter, unaffected, absolutely genial (in both senses) originality. You'd think, by the loose way people sneer about "Marivaudage," that it was something that anybody could do--but name even one who ever did! Cynicism, after all, doesn't mean you're smart. So why aren't Marivaux and Goldoni admired and acknowledged as the unexampled, freshest and purest psychologues of the 18th century (in the tradition, of course of Molière)? Because, unlike Rousseau and de Sade, they were men, not nasty beasts.