Classic French Course in English Part 4

PETRONIUS, c. 128.

["The mind desires what it has lost, and in fancy flings itself wholly into the past."]

Let childhood look forward, and age backward: is not this the signification of Ja.n.u.s' double face? Let years haul me along if they will, but it shall be backward; as long as my eyes can discern the pleasant season expired, I shall now and then turn them that way; though it escape from my blood and veins, I shall not, however, root the image of it out of my memory:--

"Hoc est Vivere bis, vita posse priore frui."

MARTIAL, x. 23, 7.

["'Tis to live twice to be able to enjoy former life again."]

Harmlessly, even engagingly, pensive seems the foregoing strain of sentiment. Who could suppose it a prelude to detailed reminiscence on the author's part of sensual pleasures--the basest--enjoyed in the past?

The venerable voluptuary keeps himself in countenance for his lascivious vein, by writing as follows:--

I have enjoined myself to dare to say all that I dare to do; even thoughts that are not to be published, displease me; the worst of my actions and qualities do not appear to me so evil, as I find it evil and base not to dare to own them....

...I am greedy of making myself known, and I care not to how many, provided it be truly.... Many things that I would not say to a particular individual, I say to the people; and, as to my most secret thoughts, send my most intimate friends to my book.... For my part, if any one should recommend me as a good pilot, as being very modest, or very chaste, I should owe him no thanks [because the recommendation would be false].

We must leave it--as, however, Montaigne himself is far enough from leaving it--to the imagination of readers to conjecture what "pleasures"

they are, of which this worn-out debauchee (nearing death, and thanking G.o.d that he nears it "without fear") speaks in the following sentimental strain:--

In farewells, we oftener than not heat our affections towards the things we take leave of: I take my last leave of the pleasures of this world; these are our last embraces.

Mr. Emerson, in his "Representative Men," makes Montaigne stand for The Sceptic. Sceptic Montaigne was. He questioned, he considered, he doubted. He stood poised in equilibrium, in indifference, between contrary opinions. He saw reasons on this side, but he saw reasons also on that, and he did not clear his mind. "_Que scai-je?_" was his motto ("What know I?"), a question as of hopeless ignorance,--nay, as of ignorance also void of desire to know. His life was one long interrogation, a balancing of opposites, to the end.

Such, speculatively, was Montaigne. Such, too, speculatively, was Pascal. The difference, however, was greater than the likeness, between these two minds. Pascal, doubting, gave the world of spiritual things the benefit of his doubt. Montaigne, on the other hand, gave the benefit of his doubt to the world of sense. He was a sensualist, he was a glutton, he was a lecher. He, for his portion, chose the good things of this life. His body he used to get him pleasures of the body. In pleasures of the body he sunk and drowned his conscience,--if he ever had a conscience. But his intelligence survived. He became, at last,--if he was not such from the first,--almost pure sense, without soul.

Yet we have no doubt Montaigne was an agreeable gentleman. We think we should have got on well with him as a neighbor of ours. He was a tolerably decent father, provided the child were grown old enough to be company for him. His own lawful children, while infants, had to go out of the house for their nursing; so it not unnaturally happened that all but one died in their infancy. Five of such is the number that you can count in his own journalistic entries of family births and deaths. But, speaking as "moral philosopher," in his "Essays," he says, carelessly, that he had lost "two or three" "without repining." This, perhaps, is affectation. But what affectation!

Montaigne was well-to-do; and he ranked as a gentleman, if not as a great n.o.bleman. He lived in a castle, bequeathed to him, and by him bequeathed,--a castle still standing, and full of personal a.s.sociation with its most famous owner. He occupied a room in the tower, fitted up as a library. Over the door of this room may still, we believe, be read Montaigne's motto, "_Que scai-je?_" Votaries of Montaigne perform their pious pilgrimages to this shrine of their idolatry, year after year, century after century.

For, remember, it is now three centuries since Montaigne wrote. He was before Bacon and Shakspeare. He was contemporary with Charles IX., and with Henry of Navarre. But date has little to do with such a writer as Montaigne. His quality is sempiternal. He overlies the ages, as the long hulk of "The Great Eastern" overlay the waves of the sea, stretching from summit to summit. Not that, in the form of his literary work, he was altogether independent of time and of circ.u.mstance. Not that he was uninfluenced by his historic place, in the essential spirit of his work. But, more than often happens, Montaigne may fairly be judged out of himself alone. His message he might, indeed, have delivered differently; but it would have been substantially the same message if he had been differently placed in the world, and in history. We need hardly, therefore, add any thing about Montaigne's outward life. His true life is in his book.

Montaigne the Essayist is the consummate, the ideal, expression, practically incapable of improvement, of the spirit and wisdom of the world. This characterization, we think, fairly and sufficiently sums up the good and the bad of Montaigne. We might seem to describe no very mischievous thing. But to have the spirit and wisdom of this world expressed, to have it expressed as in a last authoritative form, a form to commend it, to flatter it, to justify it, to make it seem sufficient, to erect it into a kind of gospel,--that means much. It means hardly less than to provide the world with a new Bible,--a Bible of the world's own, a Bible that shall approve itself as better than the Bible of the Old and New Testaments. Montaigne's "Essays" const.i.tute, in effect, such a book. The man of the world may,--and, to say truth, does,--in this volume, find all his needed texts. Here is _viatic.u.m_--daily manna--for him, to last the year round, and to last year after year; an inexhaustible breviary for the church of this world! It is of the gravest historical significance that Rabelais and Montaigne, but especially Montaigne, should, to such an extent, for now three full centuries, have been furnishing the daily intellectual food of Frenchmen.

Pascal, in an interview with M. de Saci (carefully reported by the latter), in which the conversation was on the subject of Montaigne and Epictetus contrasted,--these two authors Pascal acknowledged to be the ones most constantly in his hand,--said gently of Montaigne, "Montaigne is absolutely pernicious to those who have any inclination toward irreligion, or toward vicious indulgences." We, for our part, are prepared, speaking more broadly than Pascal, to say that, to a somewhat numerous cla.s.s of naturally dominant minds, Montaigne's "Essays," in spite of all that there is good in them,--nay, greatly because of so much good in them,--are, by their subtly insidious persuasion to evil, upon the whole quite the most powerfully pernicious book known to us in literature, either ancient or modern.

V.

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD: 1613-1680 (La Bruyere: 1646 (?)-1696; Vauvenargues: 1715-1747).

In La Rochefoucauld we meet another eminent example of the author of one book. "Letters," "Memoirs," and "Maxims" indeed name productions in three kinds, productions all of them notable, and all still extant, from La Rochefoucauld's pen. But the "Maxims" are so much more famous than either the "Letters" or the "Memoirs," that their author may be said to be known only by those. If it were not for the "Maxims," the "Letters"

and the "Memoirs" would probably now be forgotten. We here may dismiss these from our minds, and concentrate our attention exclusively upon the "Maxims." Voltaire said, "The 'Memoirs' of the Duc de La Rochefoucauld are read, but we know his 'Maxims' by heart."

La Rochefoucauld's "Maxims" are detached sentences of reflection and wisdom on human character and conduct. They are about seven hundred in number, but they are all comprised in a very small volume; for they generally are each only two or three lines in length, and almost never does a single maxim occupy more than the half of a moderate-sized page.

The "Maxims," detached, as we have described them, have no very marked logical sequence in the order in which they stand. They all, however, have a profound mutual relation. An unvarying monotone of sentiment, in fact, runs through them. They are so many different expressions, answering to so many different observations taken at different angles, of one and the same persisting estimate of human nature. 'Self-love is the mainspring and motive of every thing we do, or say, or feel, or think:' that is the total result of the "Maxims" of La Rochefoucauld.

The writer's qualifications for treating his theme were unsurpa.s.sed. He had himself the right character, moral and intellectual; his scheme of conduct in life corresponded; he wrote in the right language, French; and he was rightly situated in time, in place, and in circ.u.mstance. He needed but to look closely within him and without him,--which he was gifted, with eyes to do,--and then report what he saw, in the language to which he was born. This he did, and his "Maxims" are the fruit. His method was largely the sceptical method of Montaigne. His result, too, was much the same result as his master's. But the pupil surpa.s.sed the master in the quality of his work. There is a fineness, an exquisiteness, in the literary form of La Rochefoucauld, which Montaigne might indeed have disdained to seek, but which he could never, even with seeking, have attained. Each maxim of La Rochefoucauld is a "gem of purest ray serene," wrought to the last degree of perfection in form with infinite artistic pains. Purity, precision, clearness, density, point, are perfectly reconciled in La Rochefoucauld's style with ease, grace, and brilliancy of expression. The influence of such literary finish, well bestowed on thought worthy to receive it, has been incalculably potent in raising the standard of French production in prose. It was Voltaire's testimony, "One of the works which has most contributed to form the national taste, and give it a spirit of accuracy and precision, was the little collection of 'Maxims' by Francois Duc de La Rochefoucauld."

There is a high-bred air about La Rochefoucauld the writer, which well accords with the rank and character of the man La Rochefoucauld. He was of one of the n.o.blest families in France. His instincts were all aristocratic. His manners and his morals were those of his cla.s.s. Brave, spirited, a touch of chivalry in him, honorable and amiable as the world reckons of its own, La Rochefoucauld ran a career consistent throughout with his own master-principle, self-love. He had a wife whose conjugal fidelity her husband seems to have thought a sufficient supply in that virtue for both himself and her. He behaved himself accordingly. His illicit relations with other women were notorious. But they unhappily did not make La Rochefoucauld in that respect at all peculiar among the distinguished men of his time. His brilliant female friends collaborated with him in working out his "Maxims." These were the labor of years.

They were published in successive editions, during the lifetime of the author; and some final maxims were added from his ma.n.u.scripts after his death.

Using, for the purpose, a very recent translation, that of A. S. Bolton (which, in one or two places, we venture to conform more exactly to the sense of the original), we give almost at hazard a few specimens of these celebrated apothegms. We adopt the numbering given in the best Paris edition of the "Maxims:"--

No. 11. The pa.s.sions often beget their contraries. Avarice sometimes produces prodigality, and prodigality avarice: we are often firm from weakness, and daring from timidity.

No. 13. Our self-love bears more impatiently the condemnation of our tastes than of our opinions.

How much just detraction from all mere natural human greatness is contained in the following penetrative maxim!--

No. 18. Moderation is a fear of falling into the envy and contempt which those deserve who are intoxicated with their good fortune; it is a vain parade of the strength of our mind; and, in short, the moderation of men in their highest elevation is a desire to appear greater than their fortune.

What effectively quiet satire in these few words!--

No. 19. We have strength enough to bear the ills of others.

This man had seen the end of all perfection in the apparently great of this world. He could not bear that such should flaunt a false plume before their fellows:--

No. 20. The steadfastness of sages is only the art of locking up their uneasiness in their hearts.

Of course, had it lain in the author's chosen line to do so, he might, with as much apparent truth, have pointed out, that to lock up uneasiness in the heart requires steadfastness no less--nay, more--than not to feel uneasiness.

The inflation of "philosophy" vaunting itself is thus softly eased of its painful distention:--

No. 22. Philosophy triumphs easily over troubles pa.s.sed and troubles to come, but present troubles triumph over it.

When Jesus once rebuked the fellow-disciples of James and John for blaming those brethren as self-seekers, he acted on the same profound principle with that disclosed in the following maxim:--

No. 34. If we had no pride, we should not complain of that of others.

How impossible it is for that Proteus, self-love, to elude the presence of mind, the inexorable eye, the fast hand, of this incredulous Frenchman:--

No. 39. Interest [self-love] speaks all sorts of languages, and plays all sorts of parts, even that of disinterestedness.

No. 49. We are never so happy, or so unhappy, as we imagine.

No. 78. The love of justice is, in most men, only the fear of suffering injustice.

What a subtly unsoldering distrust the following maxim introduces into the sentiment of mutual friendship!--

No. 83. What men have called friendship, is only a partnership, a mutual accommodation of interests, and an exchange of good offices: it is, in short, only a traffic, in which self-love always proposes to gain something.

No. 89. Every one complains of his memory, and no one complains of his judgment.

How striking, from its artful suppression of strikingness, is the first following, and what a wide, easy sweep of well-bred satire it contains!--