Recollections of My Youth Part 13

PARIS, _September 5th_, 1846.

I thank you, my dear friend, for your kind letter. It afforded me great pleasure and comfort during this dreary vacation, which I am spending in the most painful isolation you can possibly conceive.

There is not a human being to whom I can open my heart, nor, what is still worse, with whom I can indulge in conversations which, however commonplace, repose the mind and satisfy one's craving for company.

One can be much more secluded in Paris than in the midst of the desert, as I am now realizing for myself. Society does not consist in seeing one's fellow-men, but in holding with them some of those communications which remind one that one is not alone in the world.

At times, when I happen to be mixed up in the crowds which fill our streets, I fancy that I am surrounded by trees walking. The effect is precisely the same. When I think of the perfect happiness which used to be my lot at this season of the year, a great sadness comes over me, especially when I remember that I have said an everlasting farewell to these blissful days. I don't know whether you are like me, but there is nothing more painful to me than to have to say, even in respect to the most trifling matter, "It is all over, for once and all." What must I suffer, then, when I have to say this of the only pleasures which in my heart I cared for? But what can be done? I do not repent anything, and the suffering induced in the cause of duty brings with it a joy far greater than those which may have been sacrificed to it. I thank G.o.d for having given me in you one who understands me so well that I have no need even to lay bare the state of my heart to him. Yes, it is one of my chief sorrows to think that the persons whose approbation would be the most precious to me must blame me and condemn me. Fortunately that will not prevent them from pitying and loving me.

I am not one of those who are constantly preaching tolerance to the orthodox; this is the cause of numberless sophisms for the superficial minds in both camps. It is unfair upon Catholicism to dress it up according to our modern ideas, in addition to which this can only be done by verbal concessions which denote bad faith or frivolity. All or nothing, the Neo-Catholics are the most foolish of any.

No, my dear friend, do not scruple to tell me that I am in this state through my own fault; I feel sure that you must think so. It is of course painful for me to think that perhaps as much as half of the enlightened portion of humanity would tell me that I am hateful in the sight of G.o.d, and to use the old Christian phraseology, which is the true one, that if death overtook me, I should be immediately d.a.m.ned.

This is terrible, and it used to make me tremble, for somehow or other the thought of death always seems to me very close at hand. But I have got hardened to it, and I can only wish to the orthodox a peace of mind equal to that which I enjoy. I may safely say that since I accomplished my sacrifice, amid outward sorrows greater than would be believed, and which, from perhaps a false feeling of delicacy, I have concealed from every one, I have tasted a peace which was unknown to me during periods of my life to all appearance more serene. You must not accept, my dear friend, certain generalities in regard to happiness which are very erroneous, and all of which a.s.sume that one cannot be happy except by consistency, and with a perfectly harmonized intellectual system. At this rate, no one would be happy, or only those whose limited intelligence could not rise to the conception of problems or of doubt. It is fortunately not so; and we owe our happiness to a piece of inconsistency, and to a certain turn of the wheel which causes us to take patiently what with another turn of the wheel would be absolute torture. I imagine that you must have felt this. There is a sort of inward debate going on within us with regard to happiness, and by it we are inevitably influenced in the way we take a certain thing; for there is no one who will deny that he contains within himself a thousand germs which might render him absolutely wretched. The question is whether he will allow them free course, or whether he will abstract himself from them. We are only happy on the sly, my dear friend, but what is to be done? Happiness is not so sacred a thing that it should only be accepted when derived from perfect reason.

You will perhaps think it strange that, not believing in Christianity, I can feel so much at ease. This would be singular if I still had doubts, but if I must tell you the whole truth, I will confess that I have almost got beyond the doubting stage. Explain to me how you manage to believe. My dear friend, it is too late for me to exclaim to you. "Take care." If you were not what you are, I should throw myself at your feet, and implore of you to declare whether you felt that you could swear that you would not alter your views at any period of your existence.... Think what is involved in swearing as to one's future thoughts!... I am very sorry that our friend A---- is definitely bound to the Church, for I feel sure that if he has not already doubted he will do so. We shall see in another twenty years. I hardly know what I am saying to you, but I cannot help wishing with St. Paul, that "all were such as I am," thankful that I have no need to add "except these bonds." With respect to the bonds which held me before, I do not regret them. Philosophy bids us say, _Dominus pars_.

When I was going up to the altar to receive the tonsure, I was already terribly exercised by doubt, but I was forced onward, and I was told that it was always well to obey. I went forward therefore, but G.o.d is my witness, that my inmost thought and the vow which I made to myself, was that I would take for my part the truth which is the hidden G.o.d, that I would devote myself to its research, renouncing all that is profane, or that is calculated to make us deviate from the holy and divine goal to which nature calls us. This was my resolve, and an inward voice told me that I should never repent me of my promise. And I do not repent of it, my dear friend, and I am ever repeating the soothing words _Dominus pars_, and I believe that I am not less agreeable to G.o.d or faithful to my promise, than he who does not scruple to p.r.o.nounce them with a vain heart, and a frivolous mind.

They will never be a reproach to me until, prost.i.tuting my thought to vulgar objects, I devote my life to one of those gross and commonplace aims which suffice for the profane, and until I prefer gross and material pleasures to the sacred pursuit of the beautiful and the true. Until that time arrives, I shall recall with anything but regret the day on which I p.r.o.nounced these words.

Man can never be sure enough of his thoughts to swear fidelity to such and such a system which for the time he regards as true. All that he can do is to devote himself to the service of the truth, whatever it may be, and dispose his heart to follow it wherever he believes that he can see it, at no matter how great a sacrifice.

I write you these lines in haste, and with my head full of the by no means agreeable work which I am doing for my examination, so you must excuse the want of order in my ideas. I shall expect a long letter from you which will have on me the effect of water on a thirsty land.

PARIS, _September 11th_, 1846.

I wish that I could comment on each line of your letter which I received an hour ago, and communicate the many different reflections which it awakens in me. But I am so hard at work that this is impossible. I cannot refrain, however, from committing to paper the princ.i.p.al points upon which it is important that we should come to an immediate understanding.

It grieved me very much to read that there was henceforward a gulf fixed between your beliefs and mine. It is not so--we believe the same things; you in one form, I in another. The orthodox are too concrete, they set so much store by facts and by mere trifles. Remember the definition given of Christianity by the Proconsul (_ni fallor_) spoken of in the Acts of the Apostles, "Touching one Jesus, which was dead, and whom Paul declared to be alive." Be upon your guard against reducing the question to such paltry terms. Now I ask of you can the belief in any special fact, or rather the manner of appreciating and criticising this fact, affect a man's moral worth? Jesus was much more of a philosopher in this respect than the Church.

You will say that it is G.o.d's will we should believe these trifles, inasmuch as He had revealed them. My answer is, prove that this is so. I am not very partial to the method of proving one's case by objections. But you have not a proof which can stand the test of psychological or historical criticism. Jesus alone can stand it. But He is as much with me as with you. To be a Platonist is it necessary that one should adore Plato and believe in all he says?

I know of no writers more foolish than all your modern apologists; they have no elevation of mind, and there is not an atom of criticism in their heads. There are a few who have more perspicacity, but they do not face the question.

You will say to me, as I have heard it said in the seminary (it is characteristic of the seminary that this should be the invariable answer), "You must not judge the intrinsic value of evidence by the defective way in which it is offered. To say, 'We have not got vigorous men but we might have them,' does not touch intrinsic truth."

My answer to this is: 1st, good evidence, especially in historical critique, is always good, no matter in what form it may be adduced; 2nd, if the cause was really a good one, we should have better advocates to cla.s.s among the orthodox:

1. The men of quick intelligence, not without a certain amount of finesse, but superficial. These can hold their own better; but orthodoxy repudiates their system of defence, so that we need not take them into account.

2. Men whose minds are debased, aged drivellers. They are strictly orthodox.

3. Those who believe only through the heart, like children, without going into all this network of apologetics. I am very fond of them, and from an ideal point of view I admire them; but as we are dealing with a question of critique they do not count. From the moral point of view, I should be one with them.

There are others who cannot be defined, who are unbelievers unknown to themselves. Incredulity enters into their principles, but they do not push these principles to their logical consequences. Others believe in a rhetorical way, because their favourite authors have held this opinion, which is a sort of cla.s.sical and literary religion. They believe in Christianity as the Sophists of the decadence believed in paganism. I am sorry that I have not the time to complete this cla.s.sification.

You mistrust individual reason when it endeavours to draw up a system of life. Very good, give me a better system, and I will believe in it. I follow up mine because I have not got a better one, and I often mutiny against it.

I am very indifferent with regard to the outward position in which all this will land me; I shall not attempt to give myself any fixed place.

If I happen to get placed, well and good. If I meet with any who share my views we shall make common cause; if not, I must go alone. I am very egotistical; left wholly to myself, I am quite indifferent to the views of other people. I hope to earn bread and cheese. The people who do not get to know me well cla.s.s me as one of those with whom I have nothing in common; so much the worse, they will be all in the wrong.

In order to gain influence one must rally to a flag and be dogmatic.

So much the better for those who have the heart for it. I prefer to keep my thoughts to myself and to avoid saying the thing which is not.

If by one of those revulsions which have already occurred this way of putting things comes into favour, so much the better. People will rally to me, but I must decline to mix myself up with all this riffraff, I might have added another category to the cla.s.sification I made just now: that of the people who look upon action as the most important thing of all, and treat Christianity as a means of action.

They are men of commonplace intelligence compared to the thinker. The latter is the Jupiter Olympius, the spiritual man who is the judge of all things and who is judged of none. That the simple possess much that is true I can readily believe, but the shape in which they possess it cannot satisfy him whose reason is in proper proportion with his other faculties. This faculty eliminates, discusses, and refines, and it is impossible to quench it. I would only too gladly have done so if I could. With regard to the _cupio omnes fieri_, my ideas are as follows. I do not apply it to my liberty. One should, as far as possible, so place oneself as to be ready to 'bout ship when the wind of faith shifts. And it will shift in a lifetime! How often must depend upon the length of that lifetime. Any kind of tie renders this more difficult. One shows more respect to truth by maintaining a position which enables one to say to her, "Take me whither thou wilt; I am ready to go." A priest cannot very well say this. He must be endowed with something more than courage to draw back. If, having gone so far, he does not become celestial, he is repulsive; and this is so true that I cannot instance a single good pattern of the kind, not even M. de Lamennais. He must therefore march ever onward, and bluntly declare, "I shall always see things in the same light as I have seen them, and I shall never see them in a different light." Would life be endurable for an hour if one had to say that?

With regard to the matter of M. A----, and putting all personal consideration upon one side, my syllogism is as follows. One must never swear to anything of which one is not absolutely sure. Now one is never sure of not modifying one's beliefs at some future time, however certain one may be of the present and of the past. Therefore ... I, too, would have sworn at one time, and yet....

What you say of the antagonists of Christianity is very true. I have, as it happens, incidentally made some rather curious researches upon this point which, when completed, might form a somewhat interesting narrative ent.i.tled _History of Incredulity in Christianity_. The consequences would appear triumphant to the orthodox, and especially the first, viz., that Christianity has rarely been attacked hitherto except in the name of immorality and of the abject doctrines of materialism--by blackguards in so many words. This is a fact, and I am prepared to prove it. But it admits, I think, of an explanation. In those days, people were bound to believe in religions. It was the law at that time, and those who did not believe placed themselves outside the general order. It is time that another order began. I believe too that it has begun, and the last generation in Germany furnished several admirable specimens of it: Kant, Herder, Jacobi, and even Goethe.

Forgive me for writing to you in this strain. But I do for you what I am not doing for those who are dearest to me in the world, to my sister, for instance, to whom I yesterday wrote less than half a page, so overburdened am I with work. I solace myself with the antic.i.p.ation of the conversation which we shall have after my examination, for I mean to take a holiday then. There is, however, much that I should like to write to you about what you tell me of yourself. There, too, I should attempt to refute you, and with more show of being ent.i.tled to do so. Let me tell you that there are certain things the mere conception of which entails one's being called upon to realise them.

Good-bye, my very dear friend.... Believe in the sincerity of my affection.