Part 4

(57.) People write only to be understood, but they should, at least, in their writings produce very beautiful things. They ought to have a pure style, and, in truth, employ a suitable phraseology; moreover, their phrases should express noble, intense, and solid thoughts, and contain a very fine meaning. A pure and clear style is thrown away on a dry, barren subject, without either spirit, use, or novelty. What avails it to any reader to understand easily and without any difficulty some frivolous and puerile subject, not seldom dull and common, when he is less in doubt about the meaning of the author than tired with his work?

If we aim at being profound in certain writings, if we affect a polite turn, and sometimes too much delicacy, it is merely because we have a good opinion of our readers.

(58.) The disadvantage of reading books written by people belonging to a certain party or a certain set is that they do not always contain the truth. Facts are disguised, the arguments on both sides are not brought forward in all their strength, nor are they quite accurate; and what wears out the greatest patience is that we must read a large number of harsh and scurrilous reflections, tossed to and fro by serious-minded men, who consider themselves personally insulted when any point of doctrine or any doubtful matter is controverted. Such works possess this peculiarity, that they neither deserve the prodigious success they have for a certain time, nor the profound oblivion into which they fall afterwards, when the rage and contention have ceased, and they become like almanacks out of date.[113]

(59.) It is the glory and the merit of some men to write well, and of others not to write at all.

(60.) Some persons have been writing regularly for the last twenty years; they have faithfully observed all rules of composition, enriched the language with new words, thrown off the yoke of Latinism, and given to style a pure French phraseology; they have almost recovered that harmony which Malherbe and Balzac first discovered, and which since then so many authors allowed to be lost; they have, in short, given to our style all the clearness it is capable of, and this will gradually lead to it becoming easily understood.[114]

(61.) There are some artists[115] or men of ability whose intelligence is as extensive as the art or science they profess; they repay with interest, through their genius and inventive powers, what they borrowed from it and from its first principles; they stray from art to ennoble it, and deviate from its rules if they do not make use of them to attain the grand and the sublime; they walk alone and unaccompanied, but they soar very high and are very penetrating, always certain of the advantages sometimes to be obtained by irregularity, and assured of their success. Careful, timorous, and sedate minds not alone never obtain those advantages, but they do not admire them nor even understand them, and are much less likely to imitate them; they dwell peaceably within the compass of their sphere, go up to a certain point, which is the limit of their capacity and knowledge, but penetrate no farther, because they see nothing beyond it; they are at best but the first of a second class and excel in mediocrity.

(62.) If I may venture to say so, there are certain inferior or second-rate minds, who seem only fit to become the receptacle, register, or storehouse of all the productions of other talents;[116] they are plagiarists, translators, compilers; they never think, but tell you what other authors have thought; and as a selection of thoughts requires some inventive powers, theirs is ill-made and inaccurate, which induces them rather to make it large than excellent. They have no originality, and possess nothing of their own; they only know what they have learned, and only learn what the rest of the world does not wish to know; a useless and dry science, without any charm or profit, unfit for conversation, nor suitable to intercourse, like a coin which has no currency. We are astonished when we read them, as well as tired out by their conversation or their works. The nobility and the common herd mistake them for men of learning, but intelligent men rank them with pedants.

(63.) Criticism is often not a science but a trade, requiring more health than intelligence, more industry than capacity, more practice than genius. If it is exercised by a person of less discernment than culture, and treats of certain subjects, it will spoil the readerʼs judgment as well as that of the author criticised.

(64.) I would advise an author who can only imitate,[117] and who is modest enough to tread in the footsteps of other men, to choose for his models writings that are full of intelligence, imagination, or even learning: if he does not come up to his originals, he may at least come somewhat near them, and be read. He ought, on the contrary, to avoid, as a rock ahead, the imitation of those authors who have a natural inclination for writing, employ phrases and figures of speech which spring from the heart, and who draw, if I may say so, from their inmost feelings all they express on paper. They are dangerous models, and induce those who endeavour to follow them to adopt a cold, vulgar, and ridiculous style. Indeed, I should laugh at a man who would seriously imitate my tone of voice, or endeavour to be like me in the face.

(65.) A man born a Christian and a Frenchman is constrained when he uses satire, for he is forbidden to exercise it on great subjects; sometimes he commences to write about them, but then turns to trifling topics, which he enhances by the splendour of his genius and style.[118]

(66.) The turgid and puerile style of Dorilas and Handburg[119] should always be avoided. In certain writings, on the contrary, a man sometimes may be bold in his expressions, and use metaphorical phrases which depict his subject vividly, whilst pitying those who do not feel the pleasure there is in employing and understanding them.

(67.) He who only writes to suit the taste of the age, considers himself more than his writings. We should always aim at perfection, and then posterity will do us that justice which sometimes our contemporaries refuse us.

(68.) We ought never to turn into ridicule a subject that does not lend itself to it; it spoils our taste, vitiates our judgment as well as other menʼs; but we should perceive ridicule where it does exist, show it up delicately, and in a manner which both pleases and instructs.

(69.) “Horace or Boileau have said such a thing before you.”—“I take your word for it, but I have used it as my own. May I not have the same correct thought after them, as others may have after me?”

II.

OF PERSONAL MERIT.

(1.) What man is not convinced of his inefficiency, though endowed with the rarest talents and the most extraordinary merit, when he considers that at his death he leaves a world that will not feel his loss, and where so many people are ready to supply his place?

(2.) All the worth of some people lies in their name; upon a closer inspection it dwindles to nothing, but from a distance it deceives us.

(3.) Though I am convinced that those who are selected to fill various offices, every man according to his talents and his profession, perform their duties well, yet I venture to say that perhaps there are many men in this world, known or unknown, who are not employed, and would perform those duties also very well. I am inclined to think so from the marvellous success of certain people, who through chance alone obtained a place, and from whom until then no great things were expected.

How many admirable men, of very great talent, die without ever being talked about! And how many are there living yet of whom one does not speak, nor ever will speak!

(4.) A man without eulogists and without a set of friends, who is unconnected with any clique, stands alone, and has no other recommendations but a good deal of merit, has very great difficulty in emerging from his obscurity and in rising as high as a conceited noodle who has a good deal of influence!

(5.) No one hardly ever thinks of the merit of others, unless it is pointed out to him. Men are too engrossed by themselves to have the leisure of penetrating or discerning character, so that a person of great merit and of greater modesty may languish a long time in obscurity.

(6.) Genius and great talents are often wanting, but sometimes only opportunities. Some people deserve praise for what they have done, and others for what they would have done.

(7.) It is not so uncommon to meet with intelligence as with people who make use of it, or who praise other personsʼ intelligence and employ it.

(8.) There are more tools than workmen, and of the latter more bad than good ones. What would you think of a man who would use a plane to saw, and his saw to plane?

(9.) There is no business in this world so troublesome as the pursuit of fame: life is over before you have hardly begun your work.

(10.) What is to be done with Egesippus who solicits some employment? Shall he have a post in the finances or in the army? It does not matter much, and interest alone can decide it, for he is as able to handle money or to make up accounts as to be a soldier. “He is fit for anything,” say his friends, which always means that he has no more talent for one thing than for another, or, in other words, that he is fit for nothing. Thus it is with most men; in their youth they are only occupied with themselves, are spoiled by idleness or pleasure, and then wrongly imagine, when more advanced in years, that it is sufficient for them to be useless or poor for the commonwealth to be obliged to give them a place or to relieve them. They seldom profit by that important maxim, that men ought to employ the first years of their lives in so qualifying themselves by their studies and labour, that the commonwealth itself, needing their industry and their knowledge as necessary materials for its building up, might be induced, for its own benefit, to make their fortune or improve it.

It is our duty to labour in order to make ourselves worthy of filling some office: the rest does not concern us, but is other peopleʼs business.

(11.) To make the most of ourselves through things which do not depend on others but on ourselves alone, or to abandon all ideas of making the most of ourselves, is an inestimable maxim and of infinite advantage when brought into practice, useful to the weak, the virtuous, and the intelligent, whom it renders masters of their fortune or their ease; hurtful to the great, as it would diminish the number of their attendants, or rather of their slaves, would abate their pride, and partly their authority, and would almost reduce them to the pleasures of the table and the splendour of their carriages; it would deprive them of the pleasure they feel in being entreated, courted, solicited; of allowing people to dance attendance on them, or of refusing any request; of promising and not performing; it would thwart the disposition they sometimes have of bringing fools forward and of depressing merit when they chance to discern it; it would banish from courts plots, parties, trickery, baseness, flattery, and deceit; it would make a court, full of agitation, bustle, and intrigue, resemble a comedy, or even a tragedy, where the wise are only spectators; it would restore dignity to the several conditions of men, serenity to their looks, enlarge their liberty, and awaken in them their natural talents as well as a habit for work and for exercise; it would excite them to emulation, to a desire for renown, a love for virtue; and instead of vile, restless, useless courtiers, often burdensome to the commonwealth, would make them clever administrators, exemplary heads of families, upright judges or good financiers, great commanders, orators, or philosophers; and all the inconvenience any of them would suffer through this would be, perhaps, to leave to their heirs less treasures, but excellent examples.

(12.) In France a great deal of resolution, as well as a widely cultivated intellect, are required to decline posts and offices, and thus consent to remain in retirement and to do nothing. Almost no one has merit enough to play this part in a dignified manner, or solidity enough to pass their leisure hours without what is vulgarly called “business.” There is, however, nothing wanting to the idleness of a philosopher but a better name, and that meditation, conversation, and reading should be called “work.”

(13.) A man of merit, and in office, is never troublesome through vanity. The post he fills does not elate him much, because he thinks that he deserves a more important one, which he does not occupy, and this mortifies him. He is more inclined to be restless than to be haughty or disdainful; he is only uncomfortable to himself.

(14.) It goes against the grain of a man of merit continually to dance attendance, but for a reason quite the opposite of what some might imagine. His very merits make him modest, so that he is far from thinking that he gives the smallest pleasure by showing himself when the prince passes, by placing himself just before him, and by letting him look at his face; he is more apt to fear being importunate, and he needs many arguments based on custom and duty to persuade himself to make his appearance; while, on the contrary, a man who has a good opinion of himself, and who is usually called a conceited man,[120] likes to show himself, and pays his court with the more confidence as it never enters into his head that the great people by whom he is seen may think otherwise of him than he thinks of himself.

(15.) A gentleman[121] repays himself for the zeal with which he performs his duty by the pleasure he enjoys in acting thus, and does not regret the praise, esteem, and gratitude which he sometimes does not receive.

(16.) If I dared to make a comparison between two conditions of life vastly different, I would say that a courageous soldier applies himself to perform his duty almost in the same manner as a tyler goes about his work; neither the one nor the other seeks to expose his life, nor are diverted by danger, for to them death is an accident of their callings, but never an obstacle. Thus the first is scarcely more proud of having appeared in the trenches, carried some advanced works or forced some intrenchment, than the other of having climbed on some high roof, or on the top of a steeple. Both have but endeavoured to act well, whilst an ostentatious man gives himself endless trouble to have it said that he has acted well.

(17.) Modesty is to merit what shade is to figures in a picture; it gives it strength and makes it stand out. A plain appearance is to ordinary men their proper garb; it suits them and fits them, but it adorns those persons whose lives have been distinguished by grand deeds; I compare them to a beauty who is most charming in _négligé_.

Some men, satisfied with themselves because their actions or works have been tolerably successful, and having heard that modesty becomes great men, affect the simplicity and the natural air of truly modest people, like those persons of middling size who stoop, when under a doorway, for fear of hurting their heads.

(18.) Your son stammers; do not think of letting him make speeches; your daughter, too, looks as if she were made for the world, so never immure her among the vestals.[122] Xanthus, your freedman, is feeble and timorous; therefore do not delay, but let him instantly leave the army and the soldiers.[123] You say you would promote him, heap wealth on him, overwhelm him with lands, titles, and possessions: make the most of your time, for in the present age they will do him far more credit than virtue. “But this will cost me too much,” you reply. “Ah, Crassus, do you speak seriously? Why, for you to enrich Xanthus, whom you love, is no more than taking a drop of water from the Tiber; and thus you prevent the bad consequences of his having entered a profession for which he was not fit.”

(19.) It is virtue alone which should guide us in the choice of our friends, without any inquiry into their poverty or riches; and as we are resolved not to abandon them in adversity, we may boldly and freely cultivate their friendship even in their greatest prosperity.

(20.) If it be usual to be strongly impressed by things that are scarce, why are we so little impressed by virtue?

(21.) If it be a happiness to be of noble parentage, it is no less so to possess so much merit that nobody inquires whether we are noble or plebeian.

(22.) From time to time have appeared in the world some extraordinary and admirable men, refulgent by their virtues, and whose eminent qualities have shone with prodigious brilliancy, like those uncommon stars of which we do not know why they appear, and know still less what becomes of them after they have disappeared. These men have neither ancestors nor posterity; they alone are their whole race.

(23.) A sensible mind shows us our duty and the obligation we lie under to perform it, and if attended with danger, to perform it in spite of danger; it inspires us with courage or supplies the want of it.

(24.) He who excels in his art, so as to carry it to the utmost height of perfection, goes in some measure beyond it, and becomes the equal of whatever is most noble and most transcendental: thus V ... is an artist, C ... a musician, and the author of _Pyrame_ a poet; but Mignard is Mignard, Lulli is Lulli, and Corneille is Corneille.[124]

(25). A man who is single and independent, and who has some intelligence, may rise above his fortune, mix with the world, and be considered the equal of the best society, which is not so easily done if encumbered. Marriage seems to place everybody in their proper station of life.

(26.) Next to personal merit, it must be owned that from eminent dignities and lofty titles men derive the greatest distinction and lustre; and thus a man who will never make an Erasmus[125] is right when he thinks of becoming a bishop.[126] Some, to spread their fame, heap up dignities, decorations,[127] bishoprics, become cardinals, and may want the tiara; but what need for Trophime[128] to become a cardinal.

(27.) You tell me that Philemonʼs[129] clothes blaze with gold, but that metal also shone when they were in the tailorʼs shop. His clothes are made of the finest materials; but are those same materials less fine in the warehouse or in the whole piece? But then the embroidery and trimmings make them still more magnificent. I praise, therefore, the skill of his tailor. Ask him what oʼclock it is, and he pulls out a watch, a masterpiece of workmanship; the handle of his sword is an onyx,[130] and on his finger he wears a large diamond which dazzles our eyes and has no flaw. He wants none of all those curious nicknacks which are worn more for show than service, and is as profuse[131] with all kinds of ornaments as a young fellow who has married a wealthy old lady. Well, at last you have excited my curiosity: I should, at least, like to see all this finery: send me Philemonʼs clothes and jewels; but I do not wish to see him.

You are mistaken, Philemon, if you think you will be esteemed a whit the more for your showy coach, the large number of rogues who follow you, and those six horses that draw you along; we mentally remove all splendour which is not properly yours, to reach you personally, and find you to be a mere conceited noodle.

Not but that a man is sometimes to be forgiven who, on account of his splendid retinue, his rich clothes, and his magnificent carriage, thinks himself of more noble descent and more intelligent than he really is; for he sees this opinion expressed on the countenances and in the eyes of those who speak to him.[132]

(28.) At court, and often in the city, a man in a long silken cassock or one of very fine cloth,[133] with a broad cincture tied high upon his stomach, shoes of the finest morocco leather, and a little skull-cap of the same material, with well-made and well-starched bands, his hair smoothed down, and with a ruddy complexion; who, besides, remembers some metaphysical distinctions, explains what is the _lumen gloriæ_, and what it is to behold God face to face,[134] is called a doctor.[135] A man of humble mind, who is immured in his study, who has meditated, searched, compared, collated, read or written all his lifetime, is a man of learning.[136]

(29.) With us a soldier is brave, a lawyer learned; we proceed no farther. Among the Romans a lawyer was brave and a soldier learned; a Roman was a soldier and a lawyer.

(30.) A hero seems to have but one profession, namely, to be a soldier, whilst a great man is of all professions—a lawyer, a soldier, a politician or a courtier; put them both together and they are not worth an honest man.[137]

(31.) In war it is very difficult to make a distinction between a hero and a great man, for both possess military virtues. It seems, however, that the first should be young, daring, unmoved amidst dangers and dauntless, whilst the other should have extraordinary sense, great sagacity, lofty capacities, and a long experience. Perhaps Alexander was but a hero, and Cæsar a great man.[138]

(32.) Æmilius[139] was born with those qualities which the greatest men do not acquire without guidance, long study, and practice. He had nothing to do in his early years but to show himself worthy of his innate talents, and to give himself up to the bent of his genius. He has done and performed deeds before he knew anything; or rather, he knew what was never taught him. I dare say it: many victories were the sport of his childhood. A life attended by great good fortune as well as by long experience, would have gained renown by the mere actions of his youth.[140] He embraced all opportunities of conquest which presented themselves, whilst his courage and his good fortune created those which did not exist; he was admired for what he has done, as well as for what he could have done. He has been looked upon as a man incapable of yielding to an enemy, or giving way to numbers or difficulties; as a superior mind, never wanting in expediency or knowledge, and seeing things which no one else could see; as one who was sure to lead to victory when at the head of an army; and who singly was more valuable than many battalions; as one who was great in prosperity, greater when fortune was against him,—the being compelled to raise a siege[141] or to beat a retreat have gained him more honour than a victory, and they rank before his gaining battles or taking of towns,—as one full of glory and modesty. He has been heard to say, “I fled,” as calmly as he said, “We beat the enemy;” he was a man devoted to the State,[142] to his family, to the head of that family;[143] sincere towards God and men, as great an admirer of merit as if he had not been so well acquainted with it himself; a true, unaffected, and magnanimous man, in whom none but virtues of an inferior kind were wanting.[144]

(33.) The offspring of the gods,[145] if I may express myself so, are beyond the laws of nature, and, as it were, an exception to them. They expect almost nothing from time or age; for merit, in them, precedes years.[146] They are born well informed, and reach manhood before ordinary men abandon infancy.