Although Gogol writes that "we have not taken a virtuous man as our hero, " he has made Chichikov, though vile and petty in so many ways, oddly sympathetic.

WSJ: Surveying the Surging Immensity of Life | Dead Souls | Nikolai Gogol | By Joseph Epstein

Like an honest man or a virtuous woman, it gives us a standard against which to measure our shortcomings.

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