did. The conduct of the two last is eminently unreasonable and yet it

is those two that we admire. (Sagan, 1813.)

[1] See the Spanish and Danish romances of the thirteenth century. French taste would find them dull and coarse.

[2] [ "My God! He is gone.... You have sent him.... And he had the heart?"--Tr.]

[3] ["What do I hear? I am deceived? Where now are all your vows?"--Tr.]

[4] ["It is not his banishment I desire; it is his death. Let him die!"--Tr.]

[5] Grimm, Vol. III, p. 107.

CXXVIII

The likelihood of constancy when desire is satisfied can only be foretold from the constancy displayed, in spite of cruel doubts and jealousy and ridicule, in the days before intimate intercourse.

CXXIX

A woman is in despair at the death of her lover, who has been killed in the wars--of course she means to follow him. Now first make quite sure that it is not the best thing for her to do; then, if you decide it is not, attack her on the side of a very primitive habit of the human kind--the desire to survive. If the woman has an enemy, one may persuade her that her enemy has obtained a warrant for her imprisonment. Unless that threat only increases her desire of death, she may think about hiding herself in order to escape imprisonment. For three weeks she will lie low, escaping from refuge to refuge. She must be caught, but must get away after three days.

Then people must arrange for her to withdraw under a false name to some very remote town, as unlike as possible the one in which she was so desperately unhappy. But who is going to devote himself to the consolation of a being so unfortunate and so lost to friendship? (Warsaw, 1808).

CXXX

Academical wise-heads can see a people's habits in its language. In Italy, of all the countries in the world, the

[Pg 314] word love is least often spoken--always "amicizia" and "avvicinar" (_amicizia_ or friendship, for love; _avvicinar_, to approach, for courtship that succeeds).

CXXXI

A dictionary of music has never been achieved, nor even begun. It is only by chance that you find the phrase for: "I am angry" or "I love you," and the subtler feelings involved therein. The composer finds them only when passion, present in his heart or memory, dictates them to him. Well! that is why people, who spend the fire of youth studying instead of feeling, cannot be artists--the way _that_ works is perfectly simple.

CXXXII

In France far too much power is given to Women, far too little to Woman.

CXXXIII

The most flattering thing that the most exalted imagination could find to say to the generation now arising among us to take possession of life, of public opinion and of power, happens to be a piece of truth plainer than the light of day. This generation has nothing to _continue_, it has everything to _create_. Napoleon's great merit is to have left the road clear.

CXXXIV

I should like to be able to say something on consolation. Enough is not done to console.

The main principle is that you try to form a kind of crystallisation as remote as possible from the source of present suffering.

In order to discover an unknown principle, we must bravely face a little anatomy.

[Pg 315] If the reader will consult Chapter II of M. Villermé's work on prisons (Paris, 1820), he will see that the prisoners "si maritano fra di loro" (it is the expression in the prisoners' language). The women also "si maritano fra di loro," and in these unions, generally speaking, much fidelity is shown. That is an outcome of the principle of modesty, and is not observed among the men.

"At Saint-Lazare," says M. Villermé, page 96, "a woman, seeing a new-comer preferred to her, gave herself several wounds with a knife. (_October_, 1818.)

"Usually it is the younger woman who is more fond than the other."

CXXXV

Vivacità, leggerezza, soggettissima a prendere puntiglio, occupazione di ogni momento delle apparenze della propria esistenza agli occhi altrui: Ecco i tre gran caratteri di questa pianta che risveglia Europa nell 1808.[1]

Of Italians, those are preferable who still preserve a little savagery and taste for blood--the people of the Romagna, Calabria, and, among the more civilised, the Brescians, Piedmontese and Corsicans.

The Florentine bourgeois has more sheepish docility than the Parisian. Leopold's spies have degraded him. See M. Courier's(12) letter on the Librarian Furia and the Chamberlain Puccini.

[1] ["Vivacity, levity, very subject to pique, and unflagging preoccupation with other people's view's of its own existence--these are the three distinguishing points in the stock which is stirring the life of Europe in 1808."--Tr.]

CXXXVI

I smile when I see earnest people never able to agree, saying quite unconcernedly the most abusive things of each other--and thinking still worse. To live is to feel life--to have strong feelings. But strength must be rated for each individual, and what is painful--that is, too strong--for

[Pg 316] one man is exactly enough to stir another's interest. Take, for example, the feeling of just being spared by the cannon shot in the line of fire, the feeling of penetrating into Russia in pursuit of Parthian hordes.... And it is the same with the tragedies of Shakespeare and those of Racine, etc., etc.... (Orcha, _August_ 13, 1812.)

CXXXVII

Pleasure does not produce half so strong an impression as pain--that is the first point. Then, besides this disadvantage in the quantity of emotion, it is certainly not half as easy to excite sympathy by the picture of happiness as by that of misfortune. Hence poets cannot depict unhappiness too forcibly. They have only one shoal to fear, namely, things that disgust. Here again, the force of feeling must be rated differently for monarchies and republics. A Lewis XIV increases a hundredfold the number of disgusting things. (Crabbe's Poems.)

By the mere fact of its existence a monarchy _à la_ Lewis XIV, with its circle of nobles, makes everything simple in Art become coarse. The noble personage for whom the thing is exposed feels insulted; the feeling is sincere--and in so far worthy.

See what the gentle Racine has been able to make of the heroic friendship, so sacred to antiquity, of Orestes and Pylades. Orestes addresses Pylades with the familiar "thou."[1] Pylades answers him "My Lord."[1] And then people pretend Racine is our most touching writer! If they won't give in after this example, we must change the subject.

[1] ["_Tu_" and "_Seigneur_."]

CXXXVIII

Directly the hope of revenge is possible, the feeling of hatred returns. Until the last weeks of my imprisonment it never entered my head to run away and break the solemn oath I had sworn to my friend. Two

[Pg 317] confidences these--made this morning in my presence by a gentleman cut-throat who favoured us with the history of his life. (Faenza, 1817.)

CXXXIX

All Europe, put together, could never make one French book of the really good type--the _Lettres Persanes_, for example.

CXL

I call pleasure every impression which the soul would rather receive than not receive.[1]

I call pain every impression which the soul would rather not receive than receive.

If I want to go to sleep rather than be conscious of my feelings, they are undoubtedly pain. Hence the desire of love is not pain, for the lover will leave the most agreeable society in order to day-dream in peace.

Time weakens pleasures of the body and aggravates its pains.

As for spiritual pleasures--they grow weaker or stronger according to the passion. For example, after six months passed in the study of astronomy you like astronomy all the more, and after a year of avarice money is still sweeter.

Spiritual pains are softened by time--how many widows, really inconsolable, console themselves with time!--_Vide_ Lady Waldegrave--Horace Walpole.

Given a man in a state of indifference--now let him have a pleasure;

Given another man in a state of poignant suffering--suddenly let the suffering cease;

Now is the pleasure this man feels of the same nature as that of the other? M. Verri(66) says Yes, but, to my mind--No.

Not all pleasures come from cessation of pain.

[Pg 318] A man had lived for a long time on an income of six thousand francs--he wins five hundred thousand in the lottery. He had got out of the way of having desires which wealth alone can satisfy.--And that, by the bye, is one of my objections to Paris--it is so easy to lose this habit there.

The latest invention is a machine for cutting quills. I bought one this morning and it's a great joy to me, as I cannot stand cutting them myself. But yesterday I was certainly not unhappy for not knowing of this machine. Or was Petrarch unhappy for not taking coffee?

What is the use of defining happiness? Everyone knows it--the first partridge you kill on the wing at twelve, the first battle you come through safely at seventeen....

Pleasure which is only the cessation of pain passes very quickly, and its memory, after some years, is even distasteful. One of my friends was wounded in the side by a bursting shell at the battle of Moscow, and a few days later mortification threatened. After a delay of some hours they managed to get together M. Béclar, M. Larrey and some surgeons of repute, and the result of their consultation was that my friend was informed that mortification had not set up. At the moment I could see his happiness--it was a great happiness, but not unalloyed. In the secret depth of his heart he could not believe that it was really all over, he kept reconsidering the surgeons' words and debating whether he could rely on them entirely. He never lost sight completely of the possibility of mortification. Nowadays, after eight years, if you speak to him of that consultation, it gives him pain--it brings to mind unexpectedly a passed unhappiness.

Pleasure caused by the cessation of pain consists in:--

1. Defeating the continual succession of one's own misgivings:

2. Reviewing all the advantages one was on the point of losing.

Pleasure caused by winning five hundred thousand

[Pg 319] francs consists in foreseeing all the new and unusual pleasures one is going to indulge in.

There is this peculiar reservation to be made. You have to take into account whether a man is too used, or not used enough, to wishing for wealth. If he is not used enough, if his mind is closely circumscribed, for two or three days together he will feel embarrassed; while if he is inclined very often to wish for great riches, he will find he has used up their enjoyments in advance by too frequently foretasting them.

This misfortune is unknown to passion-love.

A soul on fire pictures to itself not the last favour, but the nearest--perhaps just her hand to press, if, for example, your mistress is unkind to you. Imagination does not pass beyond that of its own accord; you may force it, but a moment later it is gone--for fear of profaning its idol.

When pleasure has run through the length of its career, we fall again, of course, into indifference, but this is not the same indifference as we felt before. The second state differs from the first in that we are no longer in a position to relish with such delight the pleasure that we have just tasted. The organs we use for plucking pleasures are worn out. The imagination is no longer so inclined to offer fancies for the enjoyment of desire--desire is satisfied.

In the midst of enjoyment to be torn from pleasure produces pain.

[1] Maupertius.

CXLI

With regard to physical love and, in fact, physical pleasure, the disposition of the two sexes is not the same. Unlike men, practically all women are at least susceptible in secret to one kind of love. Ever after opening her first novel at fifteen, a woman is silently waiting for the coming of passion-love, and towards twenty, when she is just over the irresponsibility of life's first flush, the suspense

[Pg 320] redoubles. As for men, they think love impossible or ridiculous, almost before they are thirty.

CXLII

From the age of six we grow used to run after pleasure in our parents' footsteps.

The pride of Contessina Nella's mother was the starting-point of that charming woman's troubles, and by the same insane pride she now makes them hopeless. (Venice, 1819.)

CXLIII

ROMANTICISM

I hear from Paris that there are heaps and heaps of pictures to be seen there (Exhibition of 1822), representing subjects taken from the Bible, painted by artists who hardly believe in it, admired and criticised by people who don't believe, and finally paid for by people who don't believe.

After that--you ask why art is decadent.

The artist who does not believe what he is saying is always afraid of appearing exaggerated or ridiculous. How is he to touch the sublime? Nothing uplifts him. (_Lettera di Roma_, Giugno, 1822.)

CXLIV

One of the greatest poets the world has seen in modern times is, to my mind, Robert Burns, a Scotch peasant, who died of want. He had a salary of seventy pounds as exciseman--for himself, his wife and four children. One cannot help saying, by the way, that Napoleon was more liberal towards his enemy Chénier. Burns had none of the English prudery about him. His was a Roman genius, without chivalry and without honour. I have no space here to tell of his love-affairs with Mary Campbell and their

[Pg 321] mournful ending. I shall merely point out that Edinburgh is on the same latitude as Moscow--a fact which perhaps upsets my system of climates a little.

"One of Burns' remarks, when he first came to Edinburgh, was that between the men of rustic life and those of the polite world he observed little difference; that in the former, though unpolished by fashion and unenlightened by science, he had found much observation and much intelligence; but that a refined and accomplished woman was a being almost new to him, and of which he had formed but a very inadequate idea." (London, _November 1st_, 1821, Vol. V, p. 69.)

CXLV

Love is the only passion that mints the coin to pay its own expenses.

CXLVI

The compliments paid to little girls of three furnish exactly the right sort of education to imbue them with the most pernicious vanity. To look pretty is the highest virtue, the greatest advantage on earth. To have a pretty dress is to look pretty.

These idiotic compliments are not current except in the middle class. Happily they are bad form outside the suburbs--being too easy to pay.

CXLVII

Loretto, _September 11th_, 1811.

I have just seen a very fine battalion composed of natives of this country--the remains, in fact, of four thousand who left for Vienna in 1809. I passed along the ranks with the Colonel, and asked several of the soldiers to tell me their story. Theirs is the virtue of the republics of the Middle Age, though more or less debased by the

[Pg 322] Spaniards,[1] the Roman Church,[2] and two centuries of the cruel, treacherous governments, which, one after another, have spoiled the country.

Flashing, chivalrous honour, sublime but senseless, is an exotic plant introduced here only a very few years back.

In 1740 there was no trace of it. _Vide_ de Brosses. The officers of Montenotte(67) and of Rivoli(67) had too many chances of showing their comrades true virtue to go and _imitate_ a kind of honour unknown to the cottage homes from which the soldiery of 1796 was drawn--indeed, it would have seemed to them highly fantastic.

In 1796 there was no Legion of Honour, no enthusiasm for one man, but plenty of simple truth and virtue _à la_ Desaix. We may conclude that honour was imported into Italy by people too reasonable and too virtuous to cut much of a figure. One is sensible of a large gap between the soldiers of '96, often shoeless and coatless, the victors of twenty battles in one year, and the brilliant regiments of Fontenoy, taking off their hats and saying to the English politely: _Messieurs, tirez les premiers_--gentlemen, pray begin.

[1] The Spaniards abroad, about 1580, were nothing but energetic agents of despotism or serenaders beneath the windows of Italian beauties. In those days Spaniards dropped into Italy just in the way people come nowadays to Paris. For the rest, they prided themselves on nothing but upholding the honour of the king, _their master_. They ruined Italy--ruined and degraded it.

In 1626 the great poet Calderon was an officer at Milan.

[2] See _Life of S. Carlo Borromeo_, who transformed Milan and debased it, emptied its drill halls and filled its chapels, Merveilles kills Castiglione, 1533.

CXLVIII

I am ready to agree that one must judge the soundness of a system of life by the perfect representative of its supporters. For example, Richard Cœur-de-Lion is the perfect pattern on the throne of heroism and chivalrous valour, and as a king was a ludicrous failure.

[Pg 323] CXLIX

Public opinion in 1822: A man of thirty seduces a girl of fifteen--the girl loses her reputation.

CL

Ten years later I met Countess Ottavia again; on seeing me once more she wept bitterly. I reminded her of Oginski. "I can no longer love," she told me. I answered in the poet's words: "How changed, how saddened, yet how elevated was her character!"

CLI

French morals will be formed between 1815 and 1880, just as English morals were formed between 1668 and 1730. There will be nothing finer, juster or happier than moral France about the year 1900. At the present day it does not exist. What is considered infamous in Rue de Belle-Chasse is an act of heroism in Rue du Mont-Blanc, and, allowing for all exaggeration, people really worthy of contempt escape by a change of residence. One remedy we did have--the freedom of the Press. In the long run the Press gives each man his due, and when this due happens to fall in with public opinion, so it remains. This remedy is now torn from us--and it will somewhat retard the regeneration of morals.

CLII

The Abbé Rousseau was a poor young man (1784), reduced to running all over the town, from morn till night, giving lessons in history and geography. He fell in love with one of his pupils, like Abelard with Héloïse or Saint-Preux with Julie. Less happy than they, no doubt--yet, probably, pretty nearly so--as full of passion as Saint-Preux, but with a heart more virtuous, more refined and also more courageous, he seems to have sacrificed himself to the object of his passion. After dining in a

[Pg 324] restaurant at the Palais-Royal with no outward sign of distress or frenzy, this is what he wrote before blowing out his brains. The text of his note is taken from the enquiry held on the spot by the commissary and the police, and is remarkable enough to be preserved.

"The immeasurable contrast that exists between the nobility of my feelings and the meanness of my birth, my love, as violent as it is invincible, for this adorable girl[1] and my fear of causing her dishonour, the necessity of choosing between crime and death--everything has made me decide to say good-bye to life. Born for virtue, I was about to become a criminal; I preferred death." (Grimm,