Part 3

(27.) Experience tells us, that if there are ten persons who would strike a thought or an expression out of a book, we could easily find a like number who would insist upon its being put back again. The latter will exclaim: “Why should such a thought be suppressed? it is new, fine, and wonderfully well expressed.” The former, on the contrary, will maintain, “that they would have omitted such an idea, or have expressed it in another way.” “In your work,” say the first, “there is a very happy phrase which depicts most naturally what you meant to say.” The second maintain “that a certain word is venturesome, and moreover does not give the precise meaning you perhaps desired to give.” It is about the same thought and the same word those people argue; and yet they are all critics, or pass for such. What then can an author do but venture, in such a perplexity, to follow the advice of those who approve of the passage.

(28.) A serious-minded author is not obliged to trouble his head about all the foolish sayings, the obscene remarks, and bad words that are uttered, or about the stupid constructions which some men put on certain passages of his writings; much less ought he to suppress them. He is convinced that let a man be never so careful in his writings, the insipid jokes of wretched buffoons are an unavoidable evil, since they often only turn the best things into ridicule.

(29.) If certain men of quick and resolute mind are to be believed, words would even be superfluous to express feelings; signs would be sufficient to address them, or we could make ourselves be understood without speaking. However careful you may be to write closely and concisely, and whatever reputation you may have as such, they will think you diffuse. You must allow them to supply everything and write for them alone. They understand a whole phrase by reading the first word, and an entire chapter by a single phrase. It is sufficient for them to have heard only a bit of your work, they know it all and understand the whole. A great many riddles would be amusing reading to them; they regret that the wretched style which delights them becomes rare, and that so few authors employ it. Comparisons of a river flowing rapidly, though calmly and uniformly, or of a conflagration which, fanned by the winds, spreads afar in a forest, where it devours oaks and pine-trees, gives to them not the smallest idea of eloquence. Show them some fireworks[60] to astonish them, or a flash of lightning to dazzle them, and they will dispense with anything fine or beautiful.

(30.) What a prodigious difference is there between a fine work and one that is perfect or regular. I am not aware whether a single one of the latter kind still exists. It is perhaps less difficult for uncommon minds to hit upon the grand and the sublime than to avoid all kinds of errors. The _Cid_, at its first appearance, was universally admired; it rose in spite of power and politics, which attempted in vain to crush it. People of rank and the general public, though always divided in their opinions and feelings, were in favour of it; they learned it by heart so as to anticipate the actors who were performing it. The _Cid_, in short, is one of the finest poems ever written, and one of the best criticisms on any subject is that on the _Cid_.[61]

(31.) When, after having read a work, loftier thoughts arise in your mind and noble and heartfelt feelings animate you, do not look for any other rule to judge it by; it is fine and written in a masterly manner.[62]

(32.) Capys,[63] who sets up for a judge of style and fancies he writes like Bouhours[64] and Rabutin,[65] disagrees with public opinion, and is the only person who says that Damis[66] is not a good author. Damis is of the same opinion as a large number of people, and says artlessly, as well as the public, that Capys is a dull writer.

(33.) It is the business of a newsmonger to inform us when any book is published; if it is printed by Cramoisy,[67] and with what type; if it is well bound, and on what paper, and at what price it is sold; he ought even to know what the booksellerʼs sign is; but it is foolish in him to pretend to criticise it.

The highest point a newsmonger can reach is to reason in a vague manner on politics.

A newsmonger lies down at night quietly, after having received some information, but it is spoiled overnight, and he is obliged to throw it away when he wakes in the morning.[68]

(34.) A philosopher[69] wastes his life in observing men, and wears himself out in exposing vice and folly. If he shapes his thoughts into words, it is not so much from his vanity as an author as to place entirely in its proper light some truth he has discovered, that it may make the desired impression. Yet some readers think they repay him with interest if they say, with a magisterial air, “that they have read his book, and that there is some sense in it;” but he does not mind their praise, for he has not laboured and passed many sleepless nights to obtain it: he has higher aims, and acts from nobler motives: he demands from mankind greater and more uncommon results than empty praise, and even than rewards; he expects them to lead better lives.

(35.) A fool reads a book and does not understand it; a man of ordinary mind reads it and fancies he perfectly understands it; a man of intelligence sometimes does not wholly understand it; he perceives what is really obscure and what is really clear, whilst witlings[70] imagine those passages obscure which are not so, and think they do not understand what is really intelligible.

(36.) In vain an author endeavours to obtain admiration by his works. A fool may sometimes admire him, but then he is only a fool; an intelligent man has within him the germs of all truth and of all sentiments; nothing is new to him; he admires few things, but he finds that many things deserve some praise.

(37.) I question if it be possible to write more clever letters in a more agreeable manner and in a better style than those of Balzac[71] or Voiture;[72] but they are void of those sentiments which have swayed us since their time and originated with the ladies. That sex excels ours in this kind of writing; from their pens flow naturally those turns and expressions which often are with us the effects of tedious labour and troublesome research; they are fortunate in the selection of their wordings, which they employ so cleverly, that though they are not new, they have all the charm of novelty, and seem only designed for the use they put them to; they alone can express an entire sentiment in a single word, and render a delicate thought as delicately; their arguments are connected in an inimitable manner, follow one another naturally, and are only linked together by the sense. If the ladies wrote always correctly, I might affirm that perhaps the letters of some of them would be among the best in our language.[73]

(38.) Terentius[74] wanted nothing but to be less cold. What purity! what preciseness! what polish! what elegance! what characters! Molière wanted nothing but to avoid the vulgar tongue and barbarisms and to write elegantly.[75] What fire! what artlessness! what original and good jokes! how well he imitates manners! what imagery! and how he lashes what is ridiculous! But what an author might have been formed of these two comic writers!

(39.) I have read Malherbe and Théophile.[76] They both understood nature, with this difference: the first, in a nervous and uniform style, displays at one and the same time whatever is beautiful, noble, ingenuous and simple, and depicts or describes it; the other, without choice or accuracy, with a loose and uneven pen, some times overloads his descriptions, goes into too many details, and analyses too much; sometimes he imagines certain things,[77] exaggerates, outstrips what is true in nature, and becomes a romancer.

(40.) In both Ronsard[78] and Balzac, each in their kind, are found a sufficient number of good and bad things to form after them very great men either in verse or prose.

(41.) Marot,[79] by his phraseology and style, seems to have written after Ronsard wrote; there is very little difference, except in a few words, between the style of the former and our present style.

(42.) Ronsard and his contemporaries have done more harm than good to style; they delayed its progress towards perfection, and exposed it to the danger of being always defective and of never becoming perfect again. It is astonishing that Marotʼs works, which are so natural and easy, have not made of Ronsard, so full of rapture and enthusiasm, a greater poet than he or Marot ever were; and that, on the contrary, Belleau, Jodelle, and du Bartas[80] were soon followed by a Racan[81] and a Malherbe, and that the French language was no sooner vitiated than it recovered.

(43.) Marot and Rabelais[82] are inexcusable for scattering so much filth in their writings: they both had genius and originality enough to be able to do without it, even for those who seek rather what is comical than what is admirable in an author. Rabelais above all is incomprehensible: his book is a mystery, a mere chimera; it has a lovely womanʼs face, with the feet and tail of a serpent or of some more hideous animal; it is a monstrous jumble of delicate and ingenious morality and of filthy depravation. Where it is bad, it excels by far the worst, and is fit only to delight the rabble; and where it is good, it is exquisite and excellent, and may entertain the most delicate.

(44.) Two writers have condemned Montaigne[83] in their works. I am of their opinion, and believe him not always free from blame; but it seems that none of these two can see anything good in him. One of these thinks too little to enjoy an author who thinks a great deal; the other thinks with too much subtlety to be pleased with thoughts that are natural.[84]

(45.) A grave, solemn, and correct style will go a long way. Amyot and Coëffeteau[85] are read, but who else of their contemporaries? The phraseology and the expression of Balzac have become less antiquated than those of Voiture; but if the style, the intelligence, and originality of the latter are not modern nor in anything resemble our present writers, it is because it is easier not to pay any attention to him than to imitate him, and because the few who follow him could never overtake him.

(46.) The H ... G ...[86] is distinctly less than nothing, and there are a good many works like it. There is as much trickery required to grow rich by a stupid book as there is folly in buying it; a man would never know the peopleʼs taste if he did not venture sometimes on some great piece of silliness.

(47.) We perceive that an opera is an outline of a magnificent spectacle, of which it serves to give an idea.

I cannot understand how the opera, with such perfect music and quite a regal expenditure, has been able to tire me.[87]

There are some passages in an opera which make us long for others; it sometimes happens we wish it was all over: this is the fault of the decorations, or of a want of action or interest.

An opera is not even to this day a poem, for it contains nought but verses; nor is it a spectacle, since machinery has disappeared through the dexterous management of Amphion and his kindred;[88] it is a concert of voices assisted by instruments. We deceive ourselves and acquire a bad taste when we state, as has been done, that machinery is only an amusement fit for children and suitable for puppet-shows.[89] Machines increase and embellish poetical fiction and maintain among the spectators that gentle illusion in which the entire pleasure of a theatre consists, to which it also adds a feeling of wonder. There is no need of flights, or cars, or changes when _Bérénice_ or _Pénélope_[90] are represented, but they are necessary in an opera, as the characteristic of such a spectacle is to enchant the mind as well as the ear and the eye.

(48.) Some busybodies[91] have erected a theatre and machinery, composed ballets, verses, and music; theirs is the whole spectacle, even to the room where the performance was held, from the roof to the very foundation of the four walls. Who has any doubt that the hunt on the water,[92] the delights of “La Table,”[93] the marvels of the Labyrinth[94] were also invented by them? I think so, at least, by the agitation they are in and by the self-satisfied air with which they applaud their success. Unless I am deceived, they have not contributed anything to a festival so splendid, so magnificent, and so long kept up, and which one person planned and paid for; so that I admire two things: the ease and quietness of him who directed everything, and the fuss and gesticulations of those who did nothing.[95]

(49.) The critics, or those who, thinking themselves so, decide deliberately and decisively about all public representations, group and divide themselves into different parties, each of whom admires a certain poem or a certain music and damns all others, urged on by a wholly different motive than public interest or justice. The ardour with which they defend their prejudices damages the opposite party as well as their own set. These men discourage poets and musicians by a thousand contradictions, and delay the progress of arts and sciences, by depriving them of the advantages to be obtained by that emulation and freedom which many excellent masters, each in their own way and according to their own genius, might display in the execution of some very fine works.[96]

(50.) What is the reason that we laugh so freely in a theatre but are ashamed to weep? Is it less natural to be melted by what excites pity than to burst into laughter at what is comical? Is it the alteration of our features that checks us? It is more visible in immoderate laughter than in the most passionate grief; and we avert our faces when we laugh or weep in the presence of people of rank, or of all those whom we respect. Is it because we are reluctant to let it be seen we are tender-hearted, or to show any emotion, especially at an imaginary subject, and by which it seems we are imposed upon? But without quoting those austere men, or those who do not care for the opinions of the world,[97] who think that excessive laughter or tears betray weakness, and who forbid both, what is it that we look for in tragedy? Is it to laugh? Is truth not depicted there as vividly as in comedy? And have we not to feel that those things are realities in either case before we are moved? Or is it so easily to be pleased, and is no verisimilitude needed? It is not thought odd to hear a whole theatre ring with laughter at some passage of a comedy, but, on the contrary, it implies that it was funny, and very naturally performed; therefore the extreme restraint every one puts on himself not to shed tears and the affected laughter with which one tries to disguise them, clearly prove that the natural result of lofty tragedy should be to make us all weep without concealment and publicly, and without any other hindrance than wiping our eyes; moreover, after we have agreed to indulge in our passion, it will be found there is often less room to fear we should weep in a theatre than that we should be tired out there.

(51.) Tragedy, from its very beginning, oppresses the spectatorʼs feelings, and, whilst being acted, scarcely allows him liberty to breathe and leisure to recover, or if it leaves him some respite, it is only to be plunged again into fresh abysses and new alarms. Through pity he is led to terror, or reciprocally through terror to pity; it leads him through tears, sobs, uncertainty, expectation, fear, surprises and horror to a catastrophe. It should not, therefore, be a collection of pretty sentiments, tender declarations, gallant conversations, agreeable pictures, soft words, or something comical enough to produce laughter, followed, in truth, by a final scene in which the “mutineers” do not listen to reason,[98] and in which for decencyʼs sake there is at last some blood spilled, and some unfortunate manʼs life taken.[99]

(52.) It is not sufficient for the manners of the stage not to be bad; they should be decent and instructive. Some comical subjects are so low, so mean, or even so dull and so insignificant, that a poet should not be permitted to write about them, nor could an audience by any possibility be diverted by them. A peasant or an intoxicated man may furnish some scenes for a farce writer; but they can scarcely be personages of true comedy; for how can they be the basis of the main action of a comedy? Perhaps it may be said that “such characters are natural.” Then, according to a similar rule, the attention of an entire audience may be occupied by a lackey whistling, or a sick person on his bed-chair, or by a drunken man snoring and being sick; for can anything be more natural?[100] An effeminate dandy rises late, spends part of the day at his toilet, looks at himself in the glass, perfumes himself, puts patches on his face, receives his letters and answers them. But such a character brought on the stage, made to stop for any length of time, during one or two acts, and depicted as natural and as like the original as possible, will be as dull and as tedious as it well can be.[101]

(53.) Plays and novels, in my opinion, may be made as useful as they are pernicious. They exhibit so many grand examples of constancy, virtue, tenderness and disinterestedness; so many fine and perfect characters, that when young people cast their eyes on what they see around them and find nothing but unworthy objects, very much inferior to those they just admired, it is not to be wondered at that they cannot have the least inclination for them.

(54.) Corneille cannot be equalled where he is excellent; he shows then original and inimitable characteristics, but he is unequal. His first plays[102] are uninteresting and heavy, and did not lead us to expect that he would afterwards soar to such a height, just as his last plays make us wonder at his fall from such a pinnacle. In some of his best pieces there are unpardonable errors in the characters of the drama[103]—a declamatory style which arrests the action and delays it, and such negligence in his versification and in his expressions that we can hardly understand how so great a man could be guilty of them. His highest individual quality is his sublime genius, to which he is beholden for some of the most beautiful verses ever read; for the plots of his plays, in which he sometimes ventures to transgress the rules of the ancients; and finally, for his catastrophes. In this he does not always follow the taste of the Greeks and their grand simplicity; on the contrary, he delights in crowding the stage with events, which he almost always disentangles successfully; and is above all to be admired for his great variety and the little similarity of his plots in the large number of dramas he has written. It seems that Racineʼs plays are more like one another, and that they lead up a little more to the same ending; but he is uniform, lofty in style, and everywhere the same, as well in the plots and incidents of his plays, which are sound, regular, rational and natural, as in his versification, which is correct, rich in its rhythm, elegant, melodious,[104] and harmonious. He is an exact imitator of the ancients, whom he carefully follows in their distinctness and simplicity of action, and like Corneille, not lacking the sublime and marvellous, the moving and the pathetic. Where can we find greater tenderness diffused than in _Le Cid_, _Polyeucte_, and _Les Horaces_?[105] What grandeur do we not observe in Mithridates, lʼorus, and Burrhus![106] Both poets were well acquainted with terror and pity, those favourite passions of the ancients, which the dramatic authors were fond of producing on the stage; as Orestes in the _Andromaque_ of Racine, _Phèdre_ of the same author, as well as _Œdipus_ and the _Horatii_ of Corneille clearly prove. If, however, it is allowable to draw some comparison between them, and distinguish what are the peculiarities of each of them, as is generally discovered in their writings, I should probably say: Corneille enthralls us by his characters and ideas; Racineʼs coincide with ours; the one represents men as they ought to be, the other as they are. There is in the first more of what we admire and what we ought even to imitate; and in the second more of what we perceive in others or feel within ourselves. Corneille elevates, surprises, controls and instructs us; Racine pleases, affects, moves and penetrates us. The former employs the most beautiful, the most noble, and the most commanding arguments; the latter depicts the most praiseworthy and the most refined passions. One is full of maxims, rules, and precepts; the other of taste and feeling. Our mind is kept more occupied by Corneilleʼs tragedies, but by Racineʼs we are more softened and moved. Corneille is more moral, Racine more natural.[107] The one seems to imitate Sophocles, the other Euripides.[108]

(55.) What the people call eloquence is the facility some persons have of speaking alone and for a long time, aided by extravagant gestures, a loud voice, and powerful lungs. Pedants also will not recognise eloquence except in public orations, and can see no distinction between it and a heap of figures, the use of big words and flowing periods.

It seems that logic is the art of making some truth prevail, and that eloquence is a gift of the soul which renders us master of the hearts and minds of other men, so that we suggest to them, or persuade them, to do whatever we please.

Eloquence may be found in conversations and in all kind of writings; it is rarely found when looked for, and sometimes discovered where it is least expected.

Eloquence is to the sublime what the whole is to its part.

What is the sublime? It does not appear to have been defined. Is it a figure of speech? Does it spring from figures, or at least from some figures of speech?[109] Does the sublime enter into all kinds of writings, or are grand subjects only fit for it?[110] Can an eclogue display anything but fine simplicity, and familiar letters as well as conversation anything but great delicacy? Are simplicity and delicacy not the sublime of those works of which they are the perfection? What is this sublime? Where does it begin?[111]

Synonyms are several words or various phrases which are the precise equivalents of each other. An antithesis is an opposition of two truths which throw light on one another. A metaphor or a comparison borrows from a foreign matter a sensible and natural image of a truth.[112] A hyperbole exaggerates truth to enable the mind to understand it better. The sublime paints nothing but the truth, and that only in noble subjects; it depicts all its causes and effects; it is the most meritorious expression or image of this truth. Ordinary minds cannot find the only right expression, and, therefore, use synonyms. Young men are dazzled by the lustre of an antithesis, and employ it. Sensible people, who delight in exact imagery, of course, are led away by comparisons and metaphors. Sharp people, full of fire, and carried away by a lively imagination beyond all bounds and accuracy, cannot be satiated with hyperboles. As for the sublime, even among the greatest geniuses, only the highest can reach it.

(56.) Every author who wishes to write clearly should put himself in the place of his readers, examine his own work as something new to him, which he reads for the first time, is not at all concerned in, and which has been submitted to his criticism; and then be convinced that no one will understand what is written merely because the author understands it himself, but because it is really intelligible.