Part 23

While people only laugh at a man of importance he has no other name; but when they begin to complain of him he may be called arrogant.

(55.) A gentleman is between a clever man and an honest man, though not as distant from the one as from the other.[634]

The difference between a gentleman and a clever man diminishes each day, and will soon disappear altogether.

A clever man does not blaze forth his passions, understands his own interests, sacrifices many things to them, has acquired some wealth, and knows how to keep it.

A gentleman is not a highwayman, commits no murders, and, in one word, has no flagrant vices.

It is very well known that an honest man is a gentleman; but it is comical to think that every gentleman is not an honest man.

An honest man is neither a saint nor a pretender in religion, but has only confined himself to being virtuous.

(56.) Genius, taste, intelligence, good sense, are all different, but not incompatible.

Between good sense and good taste there is as much difference as between cause and effect.

Intelligence is to genius as the whole is in proportion to its part.

(57.) Shall I call a man sensible who only practises one art, or even a certain science, in which I allow him to be perfect, but beyond that displays neither judgment, memory, animation, morals, nor manners; does not understand me; thinks not, and expresses himself badly; a musician, for example, who, after he has enraptured me with his harmony, seems to be shut up with his lute in the same case, and when he is without his instrument is like a machine taken to pieces, in which there is something wanting and from which nothing more is to be expected?

Again, what shall I say of a certain talent for playing various games, and who can define it to me? Is there no need of foresight, shrewdness, or skill in playing ombre[635] or chess? And if there is, how does it happen that we see men of hardly any intellect excel in these games, and others of great talent scarcely show moderate ability, and get confused and bewildered when they have to move a pawn or play a card?

There is something in this world, which, if possible, is still more difficult to understand. Some person seems dull, heavy, and stupefied; he knows neither how to speak, nor to relate what he has just seen; but, if he puts pen to paper, he can tell a tale better than any man; he makes animals, stones, and trees talk, and everything which does not speak; his works are light, elegant, natural, and full of delicacy.[636]

Another is simple, timorous, and tiresome in conversation; he mistakes one word for another, and judges of the excellence of his work merely by the money it brings him; he cannot read this work aloud, nor decipher his own handwriting. But let him compose, and he is not inferior to Augustus, Pompey, Nicomedes, and Heraclius; he is a king, and a great king, a politician and a philosopher; he undertakes to make heroes speak and act; he depicts the Romans, and in his verse they are greater, and more like Romans, than in their own history.[637]

Should you like to have an outline of another prodigy? Imagine a man, easy, gentle, affable, yielding, and then all of a sudden violent, enraged, furious, and capricious; represent to yourself a man simple, artless, credulous, sportive, and flighty, a grey-haired child; but let him recollect himself, or rather give himself up to the genius dwelling within him, and perhaps quite independent of him and without his knowledge, he will display rapture, lofty thoughts, splendid imagery, and pure latinity. You may well ask if I speak of one and the same man? Yes, of Theodas,[638] and of no one else. He shrieks, is quite agitated, rolls on the ground, rises, shouts, and roars; and yet amidst this whirlwind of words shines forth a brilliant effulgence which delights us. To speak plainly, he talks like a fool and thinks like a wise man; he utters truth in a ridiculous way, and sensible and reasonable sayings in a foolish manner; people are surprised to hear common sense arise and bud amidst so much buffoonery, so many grimaces and contortions. I may say also that he speaks and acts better than he understands; he has within him, as it were, two souls, which are unconnected and do not depend on one another, but act each in their turn and have quite distinct functions. This astonishing picture would want another touch should I omit to state that he is anxiously craving for praise, has never enough of it, and is ready to fly at any of his critics, but in reality is docile enough to profit by their censure. I begin to imagine I have drawn the portraits of two wholly different persons; and yet to find a third in Theodas is not quite impossible, for he is kind-hearted, agreeable, and has excellent qualities.

Next to sound judgment, diamonds and pearls are the rarest things to be met with.

(58.) One man is well known for his abilities, and is honoured and cherished wherever he goes, but he is slighted by his household and his own family, whom he cannot induce to esteem him; another man, on the contrary, is a prophet in his own country, has a great reputation among his friends, which does, however, not extend beyond his house, and prides himself on the rare and singular merit his family—whose idol he is—believe he is possessed of, but which he leaves at home every time he goes out, and takes nowhere with him.[639]

(59.) Every one attacks a man whose reputation is rising; the very persons he thinks his friends hardly pardon his growing merit, or that early popularity which seems to give him a share of the renown they already enjoy; they hold out as long as they can, until the king declares himself in his favour and rewards him; then they immediately gather in crowds round him, and only from that day he ranks as a man of merit.

(60.) We often pretend to praise immoderately some men who hardly deserve it, and to raise them, if it were possible, on a level with those who are really eminent, either because we are tired of admiring always the same persons, or because their fame, being divided, is less offensive to behold, and seems to us less brilliant and easier to be borne.

(61.) We see some men carried along by the propitious gale of favour, and, in one moment, they lose sight of land, and continue their course; everything smiles on them, and they are successful in whatever they undertake; their deeds and their works are extolled and well rewarded, and when they appear they are caressed and congratulated. A firm rock stands on the coast, and breakers dash against its base; all the blasts of power, riches, violence, flattery, authority, and favour cannot shake it. The public is the rock against which these men are dashed to pieces.

(62.) It is usual, and, as it were, natural to judge of other menʼs labour only by the affinity it bears to our own. Thus a poet, filled with grand and sublime ideas, does not greatly prize an oratorʼs speech, which is often merely about simple facts; and a man who writes the history of his native land cannot understand how any person of sense can spend his whole life in contriving fictions or hunting after a rhyme; and a divine, immersed in the study of the first four centuries,[640] thinks all other learning and science sad, idle, and useless, whilst he perhaps is as much despised by a mathematician.

(63.) A man may have intelligence enough to excel in a particular thing and lecture on it, and yet not have sense enough to know he ought to be silent on some other subject of which he has but a slight knowledge; if such an illustrious man ventures beyond the bounds of his capacity, he loses his way, and talks like a fool.

(64.) Whether Herillus talks, declaims, or writes, he is continually quoting; he brings in the prince of philosophers[641] to tell you that wine will make you intoxicated, and the Roman orator[642] to say that water qualifies it. When he discourses of morals, it is not he, but the divine Plato who assures us that virtue is amiable, vice odious, and that both will become habitual. The most common and well-known things, which he himself might have thought out, he attributes to the ancients, the Romans and Greeks; it is not to give more authority to what he says, nor perhaps to get more credit for learning, but merely for the sake of employing quotations.

(65.) We often pretend that a witticism is our own, and by doing this we run the risk of destroying its effect; it falls flat, and witty people, or those who think themselves so, receive it coldly, because they ought to have said it, and did not. On the contrary, if told as anotherʼs, it would meet with a better reception; it is but a jest which no one is obliged to know; it is related in a more insinuating manner, and causes less jealousy; it offends nobody; if it is amusing it is laughed at, and if excellent is admired.

(66.) Socrates was said to be insane, to be “an intelligent madman;” but those Greeks who gave such a name to so wise a man passed for madmen themselves. They exclaimed, “What odd portraits does this philosopher present us with! What strange and peculiar manners does he describe! In what dreams did he discover and collect such extraordinary ideas! What colours and what a brush has he! They are only idle fancies!” They were mistaken—all those monsters and vices were painted from life, so that people imagined they saw them, and were terrified. Socrates was far from a cynic; he did not indulge in personalities, but lashed the morals and manners which were bad.[643]

(67.) A man who has acquired wealth by his knowledge of the world is acquainted with a philosopher, and with his precepts, morals, and conduct; but not imagining that mankind can have any other goal in whatever they do than the one he marked out for himself during his whole lifetime, he says in his heart, “I pity this rigid critic; his life has been a failure; he is on a wrong track, and has lost his way; no wind will ever waft him to a prosperous harbour of preferment;” and, according to his own principles, he is right in his arguments.

Antisthius says: “I pardon those I have praised in my works, if they will forget me, for I did nothing for them, as they deserved to be commended. But I will not so easily pardon forgetfulness in those whose vices I have attacked, without touching their persons, if they owe me the invaluable boon of being amended; but as such an event never happens, it follows that neither the one nor the other are obliged to make me any return.”

This philosopher continued saying: “People may envy my writings or refuse them their reward, but they are unable to diminish their reputation; and if they did, what should hinder me from scorning their opinions?”

(68.) It is a good thing to be a philosopher, but it does not much benefit a man to be thought one. It will be considered an insult to call any one a philosopher till the general voice of mankind has declared it otherwise, given its true meaning to this beautiful word, and granted it all the esteem it deserves.

(69.) There is a philosophy which raises us above ambition and fortune, and not only makes us the equals of the rich, the great, and the powerful, but places us above them; makes us contemn office and those who appoint to it; exempts us from wishing, asking, praying, soliciting, and begging for anything, and even restrains our emotion and our excessive exultation when successful. There is another philosophy which inclines and subjects us to all these things for the sake of our relatives and friends; and this is the better of the two.

(70.) It will shorten and rid us of a thousand tedious discussions to take it for granted that some persons are not capable of talking correctly, and to condemn all they have said, do say, or will say.

(71.) We only approve in others those qualities in which we imagine they resemble us; thus, to esteem any one seems to make him an equal of ourselves.

(72.) The same faults which are dull and unbearable in others are in their right place when we have them; they do not weigh us down, and are hardly felt. One man, speaking of another, draws a terrible likeness of him, and does not in the least imagine that at the same time he is painting himself.

If we could see the faults in other people, and could be brought to acknowledge that we possess the same faults, we would more readily amend them; it is when we are at a right distance from them, and when they appear what they really are, that we dislike them as much as they deserve.

(73.) A wise manʼs behaviour turns on two pivots, the past and the future. If he has a good memory and a keen foresight, he runs no danger of censuring in others what perhaps he has done himself, or of condemning an action which, in a parallel case, and in like circumstances, he sees it will be impossible for him to avoid.

(74.) Neither a soldier, a politician, nor a skilful gambler[644] create luck, but they prepare it, allure it, and seem almost to fix it. They not only know what a fool and a coward ignore, I mean, to make use of luck when it does come, but by their precautions and measures they know how to take advantage of a lucky chance, or of several chances together. If a certain deal or throw succeeds, they gain; if another happens, they also win; and often profit by one and the same in various ways. These sharp men may be commended both for their good fortune and prudent conduct, and they should be rewarded for their luck as other men are for their virtue.

(75.) I place nobody above a great politician but a man who does not care to become one, and who is more and more convinced that it is not worth troubling himself about what is going on in the world.

(76.) In the best of counsels there is something to displease us; they are not our own thoughts; and, therefore, presumption and caprice at first cause them to be rejected, whilst we only follow them through necessity or after having reflected.

(77.) This favourite has been wonderfully fortunate during his whole lifetime; he enjoyed an uninterrupted good fortune, was never in disgrace, occupied the highest posts, was in the kingʼs confidence, had vast treasures, perfect health, and died quietly. But what an extraordinary account he will have to render of a life spent as a favourite, of advice given, of advice which was not tendered or not listened to, of good deeds omitted, and, on the contrary, of evil ones committed, either by himself or his instruments; in a word, of all his prosperity.[645]

(78.) When we are dead we are praised by those who survive us, though we frequently have no other merit than that of being no longer alive; the same commendations serve then for Cato and for Piso.[646]

“There is a report that Piso is dead; it is a great loss; he was an honest man, who deserved to live longer; he was intelligent and agreeable, resolute and courageous, to be depended upon, generous and faithful;” add: “provided he be really dead.”

(79.) The way in which we exclaim about certain persons being distinguished for their good faith, disinterestedness, and honesty is not so much to their praise as to the disrepute of all mankind.

(80.) A certain person relieves the necessitous, but neglects his own family and leaves his son a beggar; another builds a new house though he has not paid for the lead of the one finished ten years before; a third makes presents and is very liberal, but ruins his creditors. I would fain know whether pity, liberality, and magnificence can be the virtues of a man without sense, or whether eccentricity and vanity are not rather the causes of this want of sense.[647]

(81.) If we wish to be essentially just to others, we should be quick and not dilatory; to let people wait is to commit an injustice.

Those persons do well, or do their duty, who do what they ought. A man who allows the world to speak always of him in the future tense, and to say he will do well, behaves really very badly.

(82.) People say of a great man who has two meals a day, and spends the rest of his time in digesting what he has eaten, that he starves; all that they mean to express by this is that he is not rich, or that his affairs are not very prosperous; the remark about starving might be better applied to his creditors.

(83.) The culture, good manners, and politeness of persons of either sex, advanced in years, give me a good opinion of what we call “former times.”[648]

(84.) Parents are over-confident in expecting too much from the good education of their children, and commit a grievous error if they expect nothing from it and neglect it.

(85.) Were it true, as several persons affirm, that education does not alter the heart and constitution of man, and that in reality the changes it produces transform nothing and are merely superficial, yet I would still maintain that it is beneficial to him.

(86.) He who speaks little has this advantage, that he is presumed to have some intelligence, and if he really is not deficient in it, it is presumed to be first-rate.

(87.) To think only of ourselves and of the present time is a source of error in politics.

(88.) Next to being convicted of a crime, it is often the greatest misfortune for a man his being accused of having committed one, and being obliged to clear himself from the charge. He may be acquitted in a court of justice and yet be found guilty by the voice of the people.[649]

(89.) One man faithfully observes certain religious duties and discharges them carefully, yet he is neither commended nor censured, he is not so much as thought of; another, after ten yearsʼ utter neglect of such duties, attends again to them and is commended and extolled. Every person has a right to his own opinion; I, for my part, blame the second man for having so long neglected those duties, and think his reformation fortunate for himself.

(90.) A flatterer has not a sufficiently good opinion of himself or others.

(91.) Some men are forgotten in the distribution of favours, and we ask what can be the reason of this; if they had not been forgotten we should have raised the question why they had received them. Whence proceeds this dissimilitude? Is it from the character of these persons, or the instability of our opinions, or rather from both?

(92.) We often hear the question asked, “Who shall be chancellor, primate,[650] pope?” People go even farther, and, according to their own wishes or caprice, often promote persons more aged and infirm than those who at present fill certain posts; and as there is no reason why any post should kill its occupant, but, on the contrary, often makes him young again, and reinvigorates his body and soul, it is not unusual for an official personage to outlive his appointed successor.[651]

(93.) Disgrace extinguishes hatred and jealousy. As soon as a person is no longer a favourite, and when we do not envy him any more, we admit that his actions are good, and we can pardon in him any merit and a good many virtues; he might even be a hero, and not vex us.

Nothing seems right that a man does who has fallen into disgrace; his virtues and merit are slighted, misinterpreted, or called vices. If he is courageous, dreads neither fire nor sword, and faces the enemy with as much bravery as Bayard and Montrevel,[652] he is called a “braggadocio,” and they make fun of him, for there is nothing of the true hero about him.

I contradict myself; I own it; do not blame me, but blame those men whose judgments I merely give, and who are the very same persons, though they differ so much and are so variable in their opinions.

(94.) We need not wait twenty years to see a general alter his opinion on the most serious things as well as on those which appear most certain and true. I shall not venture to maintain that fire in its own nature, and independent of our sensations, is void of heat,[653] that is to say, nothing like what we feel in ourselves on approaching it, lest some time or other it may become as hot as ever it was thought; nor shall I advance that one straight line falling on another makes two right angles, or two angles equal to two right angles, for fear something more or less be discovered, and my proposition be laughed at; nor, to mention something else, shall I say, with the whole of France, that Vauban is infallible, and that this is an undoubted fact,[654] for who will guarantee me but that in a short time it may be hinted that even in sieges, in which lies his peculiar pre-eminence, and of which he is considered the best judge, he does not make some blunders, and is as liable to mistakes as Antiphilus is?[655]

(95.) If you believe people who are exasperated against one another, and swayed by passion, a scholar is a mere sciolist,[656] a magistrate a boor or a pettifogger,[657] a financier an extortioner, and a nobleman an upstart; but it is strange these scurrilous names, invented by anger and hatred, should become so familiar to us, and that contempt, though cold and inert, should dare to employ them.

(96.) You agitate yourself, and give yourself a good deal of trouble, especially when the enemy begins to fly, and the victory is no longer doubtful, or when a town has capitulated; in a fight or during a siege you like to be seen everywhere in order to be nowhere; to forestall the orders of the general for fear of obeying them, and to seek opportunities rather than to wait for them or receive them. Is your courage a mere pretence?

(97.) Order your soldiers to keep some post where they may be killed, and where nevertheless they are not killed, and they prove they love both honour and life.

(98.) Can we imagine that men who are so fond of life should love anything better, and that glory, which they prefer to life, is often no more than an opinion of themselves, entertained by a thousand people whom either they do not know or do not esteem?[658]

(99.) Some persons who are neither soldiers nor courtiers make a campaign and follow the court; they do not assist in besieging a town, but are merely spectators,[659] and are soon cured of their curiosity about a fortified place, however wonderful; about trenches; the effects of shells and cannon, about surprises, and the order and success of an attack of which they catch a mere glimpse. The place holds out, bad weather comes on, fatigues increase, the mud has to be waded through, and the seasons have to be encountered as well as the enemy; the lines may be forced, and we may find ourselves between the town and an army, and reduced to dire extremities. The besiegers lose heart, begin to murmur, and ask if the raising of the siege will be of such great consequence, and if the safety of the State depends on one citadel. They further add “that the heavens themselves declare against them; and that it is best to submit, and put off the siege until another season.” They no longer understand the firmness, and, if they may say so, the obstinacy of the general, who is not to be overcome by obstacles, but is stimulated by the difficulty of his undertaking, and watches by night and exposes his life by day to accomplish his design. But as soon as the enemy has capitulated, the very men who lost heart boast of the importance of the conquest, foretell the consequences it will have, exaggerate the necessity there was in undertaking it, as well as the danger and shame there would have been in raising it, and prove that the army opposed to the enemy was invincible.[660]