Part 16

Horace and Boileau have said all this before. I take your word for it; but may I not, after them, "think a true thought," which others will think after me?

There are more tools than workers, and among the latter, more bad than good ones.

There is, in this world, no task more painful than that of making a name for oneself; we die before having even sketched our work. It takes, in France, much firmness of purpose and much broadmindedness to be indifferent to public functions and offices, and to consent to remain at home and do nothing.

Hardly anyone has enough merit to assume that part in a dignified manner, or enough brains to fill the gap of time without what is generally called business.

All that is required is a better name for idleness; and that meditation, conversation, reading, and repose should be called work.

You tell me that there is gold sparkling on Philémon's clothes. So there is on the clothes at the draper's. He is covered with the most gorgeous fabrics. I can see those fabrics in the shops. But the embroidery and ornaments on Philémon's clothes further increase their magnificence. If so, I praise the embroiderer's workmanship. If someone asks him the time, he takes from his pocket a jewelled watch; the hilt of his sword is made of onyx; he displays a dazzling diamond on his finger and wears all the curious and pretty trifles of fashion and vanity. You arouse my interest at last. I ought to see those precious things. Send me the clothes and jewels of Philémon; I don't require to see _him_.

It is difficult to tell the hero from the great man at war. Both have military virtues. However, the former is generally young, enterprising, gifted, self-controlled even in danger, and courageous; the latter has much judgment, foresees events, and is endowed with much ability and experience. Perhaps one might say that Alexander was only a hero and that Cæsar was a great man.

Ménippe is a bird adorned with feathers which are not his own. He has nothing to say; he has no feelings, no thoughts. He repeats what others have said, and uses their ideas so instinctively that he deceives himself, and is his first victim. He often believes that he is expressing his own thoughts, while he is only an echo of someone whom he has just left. He believes childishly that the amount of wit he possesses is all that man ever possessed. He therefore looks like a man who has nothing to desire.

_II.--On Women and Wealth_

From the age of thirteen to the age of twenty-one, a girl wishes she were beautiful; afterwards she wishes she were a man.

An unfaithful woman is a woman who has ceased to love.

A light-hearted woman is a woman who already loves another.

A fickle woman is a woman who does not know whether she loves or not, and who does not know what or whom she loves.

An indifferent woman is a woman who loves nothing.

There is a false modesty which is vanity; a false glory which is light-mindedness; a false greatness which is smallness; a false virtue which is hypocrisy; a false wisdom which is prudishness.

Why make men responsible for the fact that women are ignorant? Have any laws or decrees been issued forbidding them to open their eyes, to read, to remember what they have read, and to show that they understood it in their conversations and their works? Have they not themselves decided to know little or nothing, because of their physical weakness, or the sluggishness of their minds; because of the time their beauty requires; because of their light-mindedness which prevents them from studying; because they have only talent and genius for needlework or house-managing; or because they instinctively dislike all that is earnest and demands some effort?

Women go to extremes. They are better or worse than men.

Women go farther than men in love; but men make better friends.

It is because of men that women dislike one another.

It is nothing for a woman to say what she does not mean; it is easier still for a man to say all what he thinks.

Time strengthens the ties of friendship and loosens those of love.

There is less distance between hatred and love than between dislike and love.

One can no more decide to love for ever than decide never to love at all.

One comes across men who irritate one by their ridiculous expressions, the strangeness and unfitness of the words they use. Their weird jargon becomes to them a natural language. They are delighted with themselves and their wit. True, they have some wit, but one pities them for having so little of it; and, what is more, one suffers from it.

Arrias has read and seen everything, and he wants people to know it. He is a universal man; he prefers to lie rather than keep silent or appear ignorant about something. The subject of the conversation is the court of a certain northern country. He at once starts talking, and speaks of it as if he had been born in that country; he gives details on the manners and customs, the women and the laws: he tells anecdotes and laughs loudly at his own wit. Someone ventures to contradict him and proves to him that he is not accurate in his statements. Arrias turns to the interrupter: "I am telling nothing that is not exact," he says. "I heard all those details from Sethon, ambassador of France to that court. Sethon returned recently; I know him well, and had a long conversation with him on this matter." Arrias was resuming his story with more confidence than ever, when one of the guests said to him: "I am Sethon, and have just returned from my mission."

Cléante is a most honest man. His wife is the most reasonable person in the world. Both make everybody happy wherever they go, and it were impossible to find a more delightful and refined couple. Yet they separate to-morrow!

At thirty you think about making your fortune; at fifty you have not made it; when you are old, you start building, and you die while the painters are still at work.

Numberless persons ruin themselves by gambling, and tell you coolly they cannot live without gambling. What nonsense! Would it be allowed to say that one cannot live without stealing, murdering, or leading a riotous existence?

Giton has a fresh complexion, and an aggressive expression. He is broad-shouldered and corpulent. He speaks with confidence. He blows his nose noisily, spits to a great distance, and sneezes loudly. He sleeps a great deal, and snores whenever he pleases. When he takes a walk with his equals he occupies the centre; when he stops, they stop; when he advances again, they do the same. No one ever interrupts him. He is jovial, impatient, haughty, irritable, independent. He believes himself witty and gifted. He is rich.

Phédon has sunken eyes. He is thin, and his cheeks are hollow. He sleeps very little. He is a dreamer, and, although witty, looks stupid. He forgets to say what he knows, and when he does speak, speaks badly. He shares the opinion of others; he runs, he flies to oblige anyone; he is kind and flattering. He is superstitious, scrupulous, and bashful. He walks stealthily, speaks in a low voice, and takes no room. He can glide through the densest crowd without effort. He coughs, and blows his nose inside his hat, and waits to sneeze until he is alone. He is poor.

_III.--On Men and Manners_

Paris is divided into a number of small societies which are like so many republics. They have their own customs, laws, language, and even their own jokes.

One grows up, in towns, in a gross ignorance of all that concerns the country. City-bred men are unable to tell hemp from flax, and wheat from rye. We are satisfied as long as we can feed and dress.

When we speak well of a man at court, we invariably do so for two reasons: firstly, in order that he may hear that we spoke well of him; secondly, in order that he may speak well of us in his turn.

To be successful and to secure high offices there are two ways: the high-road, on which most people pass; and the cross-road, which is the shorter.

The youth of a prince is the origin of many fortunes.

Court is where joys are evident, but artificial; where sorrows are concealed, but real.

A slave has one master; an ambitious man has as many as there are persons who may be useful to him in his career.

With five or six art terms, people give themselves out as experts in music, painting, and architecture.

The high opinions people have of the great and mighty is so blind, and their interest in their gestures, features, and manners so general, that if the mighty were only good, the devotion of the people to them would amount to worship.

Lucile prefers to waste his life as the protégé of a few aristocrats than to live on familiar terms with his peers.

It is advisable to say nothing of the mighty. If you speak well of them, it is flattery. It is dangerous to speak ill of them during their lifetime, and it is cowardly to do so after they are dead.

Life is short and annoying. We spend life wishing.

When life is wretched, it is hard to bear; when it is happy, it is dreadful to lose it. The one alternative is as bad as the other.

Death occurs only once, but makes itself felt at every moment of our life. It is more painful to fear it than to suffer it.

There are but three events for man: birth, life, and death. He does not realise his birth, he suffers when he dies, and he forgets to live.

We seek our happiness outside ourselves. We seek it in the opinions of men whom we know are flatterers, and who lack sincerity. What folly! Most men spend half their lives making the other half miserable.

It is easier for many men to acquire one thousand virtues than to get rid of one defect.

It is as difficult to find a conceited man who believes himself really happy as to discover a modest man who thinks himself too unhappy.

The birch is necessary to children. Grown-up men need a crown, a sceptre, velvet caps and fur-lined robes. Reason and justice devoid of ornaments would not be imposing or convincing. Man, who is a mind, is led by his eyes and his ears!

_IV.--On Customs and Religion_

Fashion in matters of food, health, taste and conscience is utterly foolish. Game is at present out of fashion, and condemned as a food. It is to-day a sin against fashion to be cured of the ague by blood-letting.

The conceited man thinks every day of the way in which he will be able to attract attention on the following day. The philosopher leaves the matter of his clothes to his tailor. It is just as childish to avoid fashion as to follow its decrees too closely.

Fashion exists in the domain of religion.

There have been young ladies who were virtuous, healthy and pious, who wished to enter a convent, but who were not rich enough to take in a wealthy abbey the vows of poverty.

How many men one sees who are strong and righteous, who would never listen to the entreaties of their friends, but who are easily influenced and corrupted by women.

I would like to hear a sober, moderate, chaste, righteous man declare that there is no God. At least he would be speaking in a disinterested manner. But there is no such man to be found.

The fact that I am unable to prove that God does not exist establishes for me the fact that God does exist.

Atheism does not exist. If there were real atheists, it would merely prove that there are monsters in this world.

Forty years ago I didn't exist, and it was not within my power to be born. It does not depend upon me who now exist to be no more. Consequently, I began being and am going on being, thanks to something which is beyond me, which will last after me, which is mightier than I am. If that something is not God, pray tell me what it is.

Everything is great and worthy of admiration in Nature.

O you vain and conceited man, make one of these worms which you despise! You loathe toads; make a toad if you can!

Kings, monarchs, potentates, sacred majesties, have I given you all your supreme names? We, mere men, require some rain for our crops or even some dew; make some dew, send to the earth a drop of water!

A certain inequality in the destinies of men, which maintains order and obedience, is the work of God. It suggests a divine law.

If the reader does not care for these "characters," it will surprise me; if he does care for them, it will also surprise me.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Imaginary Conversations

Walter Savage Landor, writer, scholar, poet, and, it might almost be said, quarreller, said of his own fame, "I shall dine late, but the dining-room will be well lighted, the guests few and select." A powerful, turbulent spirit, he attracted great men. Emerson, Browning, Dickens, and Swinburne travelled to sit at his feet, and he knew Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth, Lamb, and Southey. Born at Warwick, on January 30, 1775, he was dismissed from Rugby School at the age of fifteen, and from Oxford at the age of nineteen; was estranged from his father; several times left the wife whom he had married for her golden hair, and spent the last years of his life, lonely but lionised, at Florence. To the last--which came on September 17, 1864--he wrote both prose and verse. Landor appears, to the average appreciator of English literature, an interesting personality rather than a great writer, though his epic, "Gebir" (1798), and his tragedy, "Count Julian" (1812), like some of his minor verse, contain passages of great beauty. But it was in the "Imaginary Conversations," written between 1821 and 1829, and first sampled by the public in review form in 1823, that he endowed the English language with his most permanent achievement. Nearly 150 of these "Conversations" were written in all, and we epitomise here five of the best-known.

_I.--Peter the Great and Alexis_

PETER: And so, after flying from thy father's house, thou hast returned again from Vienna. After this affront in the face of Europe, thou darest to appear before me?

ALEXIS: My emperor and father! I am brought before your majesty not at my own desire.

PETER: I believe it well. What hope hast thou, rebel, in thy flight to Vienna?

ALEXIS: The hope of peace and privacy; the hope of security, and, above all things, of never more offending you.

PETER: Didst thou take money?

ALEXIS: A few gold pieces. Hitherto your liberality, my father, hath supplied my wants of every kind.

PETER: Not of wisdom, not of duty, not of spirit, not of courage, not of ambition. I have educated thee among my guards and horses, among my drums and trumpets, among my flags and masts. I have rolled cannon balls before thee over iron plates; I have shown thee bright new arms, bayonets, and sabres. I have myself led thee forth to the window when fellows were hanged and shot; and I have made thee, in spite of thee, look steadfastly upon them, incorrigible coward! Thy intention, I know, is to subvert the institutions it has been the labour of my lifetime to establish. Thou hast never rejoiced at my victories.

ALEXIS: I have rejoiced at your happiness and your safety.

PETER: Liar! Coward! Traitor! When the Polanders and the Swedes fell before me, didst thou congratulate me? Didst thou praise the Lord of Hosts? Wert thou not silent and civil and low-spirited?

ALEXIS: I lamented the irretrievable loss of human life, I lamented that the bravest and noblest were swept away the first, that order was succeeded by confusion, and that your majesty was destroying the glorious plans you alone were capable of devising.

PETER: Of what plans art thou speaking?

ALEXIS: Of civilising the Muscovites. The Polanders in parts were civilised; the Swedes more than any other nation.

PETER: Civilised, forsooth? Why the robes of the metropolitan, him at Upsal, are not worth three ducats. But I am wasting my words. Thine are tenets that strike at the root of politeness and sound government.

ALEXIS: When I hear the God of Mercy invoked to massacres, and thanked for furthering what He reprobates and condemns--I look back in vain on any barbarous people for worse barbarism.

PETER: Malignant atheist! Am I Czar of Muscovy, and hear discourse on reason and religion--from my own son, too? No, by the Holy Trinity! thou art no son of mine. Unnatural brute, I have no more to do with thee. Ho there! Chancellor! What! Come at last! Wert napping, or counting thy ducats?

CHANCELLOR: Your majesty's will, and pleasure!

PETER: Is the senate assembled?

CHANCELLOR: Every member, sire.

PETER: Conduct this youth with thee, and let them judge him; thou understandest?

CHANCELLOR: Your majesty's commands are the breath of our nostrils.

PETER: If these rascals are amiss, I will try my new cargo of Livonian hemp upon 'em.

CHANCELLOR (_returning_): Sire! Sire!

PETER: Speak, fellow! Surely they have not condemned him to death without giving themselves time to read the accusation, that thou comest back so quickly.

CHANCELLOR: No, sire! Nor has either been done.

PETER: Then thy head quits thy shoulders.

CHANCELLOR: O sire! he fell.

PETER: Tie him up to thy chair, then. Cowardly beast! What made him fall?

CHANCELLOR: The hand of death.

PETER: Prythee speak plainlier.

CHANCELLOR: He said calmly, but not without sighing twice or thrice, "Lead me to the scaffold; I am weary of life. My father says, too truly, I am not courageous, but the death that leads me to my God shall never terrify me." When he heard your majesty's name accusing him of treason and attempts at parricide, he fell speechless. We raised him up: he was dead!

PETER: Inconsiderate and barbarous varlet as thou art, dost thou recite this ill accident to a father--and to one who has not dined? Bring me a glass of brandy. Away and bring it: scamper! Hark ye! bring the bottle with it: and--hark ye! a rasher of bacon on thy life! and some pickled sturgeon, and some krout and caviar.

_II.--Joseph Scaliger and Montaigne_

MONTAIGNE: What could have brought you, M. de l'Escale, other than a good heart? You rise early, I see; you must have risen with the sun, to be here at this hour. I have capital white wine, and the best cheese in Auvergne. Pierre, thou hast done well; set it upon the table, and tell Master Matthew to split a couple of chickens and broil them.

SCALIGER: This, I perceive, is the ante-chamber to your library; here are your every-day books.

MONTAIGNE: Faith! I have no other. These are plenty, methinks.

SCALIGER: You have great resources within yourself, and therefore can do with fewer.

MONTAIGNE: Why, how many now do you think here may be?

SCALIGER: I did not believe at first that there could be above fourscore.

MONTAIGNE: Well! are fourscore few? Are we talking of peas and beans?

SCALIGER: I and my father (put together) have written well-nigh as many.

MONTAIGNE: Ah! to write them is quite another thing. How do you like my wine? If you prefer your own country wine, only say it. I have several bottles in my cellar. I do not know, M. de l'Escale, whether you are particular in these matters?

SCALIGER: I know three things--wine, poetry, and the world.

MONTAIGNE: You know one too many, then. I hardly know whether I know anything about poetry; for I like Clem Marot better than Ronsard.

SCALIGER: It pleases me greatly that you like Marot. His version of the Psalms is lately set to music, and added to the New Testament of Geneva.

MONTAIGNE: It is putting a slice of honeycomb into a barrel of vinegar, which will never grow the sweeter for it.

SCALIGER: Surely, you do not think in this fashion of the New Testament?

MONTAIGNE: Who supposes it? Whatever is mild and kindly is there. But Jack Calvin has thrown bird-lime and vitriol upon it, and whoever but touches the cover dirties his fingers or burns them.

SCALIGER: Calvin is a very great man.

MONTAIGNE: I do not like your great men who beckon me to them, call me their begotten, their dear child, and their entrails; and, if I happen to say on any occasion, "I beg leave, sir, to dissent a little from you," stamp and cry, "The devil you do!" and whistle to the executioner.

SCALIGER: John Calvin is a grave man, orderly, and reasonable.

MONTAIGNE: In my opinion he has not the order nor the reason of my cook. Mat never twitched God by the sleeve and swore He should not have his own way.

SCALIGER: M. de Montaigne, have you ever studied the doctrine of predestination?

MONTAIGNE: I should not understand it if I had; and I would not break through an old fence merely to get into a cavern. Would it make me honester or happier, or, in other things, wiser?

SCALIGER: I do not know whether it would materially.

MONTAIGNE: I should be an egregious fool, then, to care about it. Come, walk about with me; after a ride you can do nothing better to take off fatigue. I can show you nothing but my house and my dairy.

SCALIGER: Permit me to look a little at those banners. They remind me of my own family, we being descended from the great Cane della Scala, Prince of Verona, and from the House of Hapsburg, as you must have heard from my father.

MONTAIGNE: What signifies it to the world whether the great Cane was tied to his grandmother or not? As for the House of Hapsburg, if you could put together as many such houses as would make up a city larger than Cairo, they would not be worth his study, or a sheet of paper on the table of it.

_III.--Bossuet and the Duchesse de Fontanges_

BOSSUET: Mademoiselle, it is the king's desire that I compliment you on the elevation you have attained.

FONTANGES: O monseigneur, I know very well what you mean. His majesty is kind and polite to everybody. The last thing he said to me was, "Angélique! do not forget to compliment monseigneur the bishop on the dignity I have conferred upon him, of almoner to the dauphiness. I desired the appointment for him only that he might be of rank sufficient to confess you, now you are duchess." You are so agreeable a man, monseigneur, I will confess to you, directly.

BOSSUET: Have you brought yourself to a proper frame of mind, young lady?

FONTANGES: What is that?

BOSSUET: Do you hate sin?

FONTANGES: Very much.

BOSSUET: Do you hate the world?

FONTANGES: A good deal of it; all Picardy, for example, and all Sologne; nothing is uglier--and, oh my life! what frightful men and women!

BOSSUET: I would say in plain language, do you hate the flesh and the devil?

FONTANGES: Who does not hate the devil? If you will hold my hand the while, I will tell him so--"I hate you, beast!" There now. As for flesh, I never could bear a fat man. Such people can neither dance nor hunt, nor do anything that I know of.

BOSSUET: Mademoiselle Marie Angélique de Scoraille de Rousille, Duchesse de Fontanges! Do you hate titles, and dignities, and yourself?

FONTANGES: Myself! Does anyone hate me? Why should I be the first? Hatred is the worst thing in the world; it makes one so very ugly.

BOSSUET: We must detest our bodies if we would save our souls.

FONTANGES: That is hard. How can I do it? I see nothing so detestable in mine. Do you? As God hath not hated me, why should I? As for titles and dignities, I am glad to be a duchess. Would not you rather be a duchess than a waiting-maid if the king gave you your choice?

BOSSUET: Pardon me, mademoiselle. I am confounded at the levity of your question. If you really have anything to confess, and desire that I should have the honour of absolving you, it would be better to proceed.

FONTANGES: You must first direct me, monseigneur. I have nothing particular. What was it that dropped on the floor as you were speaking?

BOSSUET: Leave it there!

FONTANGES: Your ring fell from your hand, my lord bishop! How quick you are! Could not you have trusted me to pick it up?

BOSSUET: Madame is too condescending. My hand is shrivelled; the ring has ceased to fit it. A pebble has moved you more than my words.