Classic French Course in English Part 5

No. 93. Old men like to give good advice, to console themselves for being no longer able to give bad examples.

No. 119. We are so much accustomed to disguise ourselves to others, that, at last, we disguise ourselves to ourselves.

No. 127. The true way to be deceived, is to think one's self sharper than others.

The plain-spoken proverb, "A man that is his own lawyer, has a fool for his client," finds a more polished expression in the following:--

No. 132. It is easier to be wise for others, than to be so for one's self.

How pitilessly this inquisitor pursues his prey, "the human soul, into all its useless hiding-places!--

No. 138. We would rather speak ill of ourselves, than not talk of ourselves.

The following maxim, longer and less felicitously phrased than is usual with La Rochefoucauld, recalls that bitter definition of the bore,--"One who insists on talking about himself all the time that you are wishing to talk about yourself:"--

No. 139. One of the causes why we find so few people who appear reasonable and agreeable in conversation, is, that there is scarcely any one who does not think more of what he wishes to say, than of replying exactly to what is said to him. The cleverest and the most compliant think it enough to show an attentive air; while we see in their eyes and in their mind a wandering from what is said to them, and a hurry to return to what they wish to say, instead of considering that it is a bad way to please or to persuade others, to try so hard to please one's self, and that to listen well is one of the greatest accomplishments we can have in conversation.

If we are indignant at the maxims following, it is probably rather because they are partly true than, because they are wholly false:--

No. 144. We are not fond of praising, and, without interest, we never praise any one. Praise is a cunning flattery, hidden and delicate, which, in different ways, pleases him who gives and him who receives it. The one takes it as a reward for his merit: the other gives it to show his equity and his discernment.

No. 146. We praise generally only to be praised.

No. 147. Few are wise enough to prefer wholesome blame to treacherous praise.

No. 149. Disclaiming praise is a wish to be praised a second time.

No. 152. If we did not flatter ourselves, the flattery of others could not hurt us.

No. 184. We acknowledge our faults in order to atone, by our sincerity, for the harm they do us in the minds of others.

No. 199. The desire to appear able often prevents our becoming so.

No. 201. Whoever thinks he can do without the world, deceives himself much; but whoever thinks the world cannot do without him, deceives himself much more.

With the following, contrast Ruskin's n.o.ble paradox, that the soldier's business, rightly conceived, is self-sacrifice; his ideal purpose being, not to kill, but to be killed:--

No. 214. Valor, in private soldiers, is a perilous calling, which they have taken to in order to gain their living.

Here is, perhaps, the most current of all La Rochefoucauld's maxims:--

No. 218. Hypocrisy is a homage which vice renders to virtue.

Of the foregoing maxim, it may justly be said, that its truth and point depend upon the a.s.sumption, implicit, that there is such a thing as virtue,--an a.s.sumption which the whole tenor of the "Maxims," in general, contradicts.

How incisive the following!--

No. 226. Too great eagerness to requite an obligation is a kind of ingrat.i.tude.

No. 298. The grat.i.tude of most men is only a secret desire to receive greater favors.

No. 304. We often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive those whom we bore.

No. 318. Why should we have memory enough to retain even the smallest particulars of what has happened to us, and yet not have enough to remember how often we have told them to the same individual?

The first following maxim satirizes both princes and courtiers. It might be ent.i.tled, "How to insult a prince, and not suffer for your temerity":--

No. 320. To praise princes for virtues they have not, is to insult them with impunity.

No. 347. We find few sensible people, except those who are of our way of thinking.

No. 409. We should often be ashamed of our best actions, if the world saw the motives which cause them.

No. 424. We boast of faults the reverse of those we have: when we are weak, we boast of being stubborn.

Here, at length, is a maxim that does not depress,--that animates you:--

No. 432. To praise n.o.ble actions heartily, is in some sort to take part in them.

The following is much less exhilarating:--

No. 454. There are few instances in which we should make a bad bargain, by giving up the good that is said of us, on condition that nothing bad be said.

This, also:--

No. 458. Our enemies come nearer to the truth, in the opinions they form of us, than we do ourselves.

Here is a celebrated maxim, vainly "suppressed" by the author, after first publication:--

No. 583. In the adversity of our best friends, we always find something which does not displease us.

Before La Rochefoucauld, Montaigne had said, "Even in the midst of compa.s.sion, we feel within us an unaccountable bitter-sweet t.i.tillation of ill-natured pleasure in seeing another suffer;" and Burke, after both, wrote (in his "Sublime and Beautiful") with a heavier hand, "I am convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others."

La Rochefoucauld is not fairly cynical, more than is Montaigne. But, as a man, he wins upon you less. His maxims are like hard and sharp crystals, precipitated from the worldly wisdom blandly solute and dilute in Montaigne.

The wise of this world reject the dogma of human depravity, as taught in the Bible. They willingly accept it,--nay, accept it complacently, hugging themselves for their own penetration,--as taught in the "Maxims"

of La Rochefoucauld.

Jean de La Bruyere is personally almost as little known as if he were an ancient of the Greek or Roman world, surviving, like Juvenal, only in his literary production. Bossuet got him employed to teach history to a great duke, who became his patron, and settled a life-long annuity upon him. He published his one book, the "Characters," in 1687, was made member of the French Academy in 1693, and died in 1696. That, in short, is La Bruyere's biography.

His book is universally considered one of the most finished products of the human mind. It is not a great work,--it lacks the unity and the majesty of design necessary for that. It consists simply of detached thoughts and observations on a variety of subjects. It shows the author to have been a man of deep and wise reflection, but especially a consummate master of style. The book is one to read in, rather than to read. It is full of food to thought. The very beginning exhibits a self-consciousness on the writer's part very different from that spontaneous simplicity in which truly great books originate. La Bruyere begins:--

Every thing has been said; and one comes too late, after more than seven thousand years that there have been men, and men who have thought.

La Bruyere has something to say, and that at length unusual for him, of pulpit eloquence. We select a few specimen sentences:--