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 gentleman121 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 Erasmus125 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 Trophime128 to become a cardinal.
(27.) You tell me that Philemonʼs129 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 profuse131 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.) Æmilius139 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 siege141 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.
(34.) Short-sighted men, I mean those whose minds are limited and never extend beyond their own little sphere, cannot understand that universality of talent one sometimes observes in the same person. They allow no one to possess solid qualities when he is agreeable; or, when they think they have perceived in a person some bodily attractions, such as agility, elasticity, and skill, they will not credit him with the possession of those gifts of the mind, perspicacity, judgment, and wisdom; they will not believe what is told in the history of Socrates, that he ever danced.
(35.) There exists scarcely any man so accomplished, or so necessary to his own family, but he has some failing which will diminish their regret at his loss.
(36.) An intelligent man, of a simple and straightforward character, may fall into some snare, for he does not think that anybody would spread one for him or select him in order to deceive him. This assurance makes him less cautious, and he is caught by some rogues through this failing. But the latter will not be so successful when they attempt it a second time; such a man can only be deceived once.
If I am a just man, I will be careful not to offend any one, but above all not to offend an intelligent man, if I have the smallest regard for my own interests.
(37.) There exists nothing so subtle, so simple, and so imperceptible which is not revealed to us by a something in its composition. A blockhead cannot enter a room, nor leave it, nor sit down, nor rise, nor be silent, nor stand on his legs like an intelligent man.
(38.) I made the acquaintance of Mopsus147 through a visit he made me without knowing me previously; he asks people whom he does not know to present him to others to whom he is equally unknown; he writes to ladies whom he only knows by sight. He introduces himself into a company of highly respectable people, though he is a perfect stranger to them, and without waiting till they address him, or feeling that he interrupts them, he often speaks, and that in an absurd manner. Another time he enters a public meeting, sits down anywhere, without paying any regard to others or to himself; and if removed from a place destined for a Minister of State, he goes and seats himself in the seat of a duke and peer of the realm; he is the laughing-stock of the whole company, yet the only person who keeps his countenance. He is like a dog that is driven out of the kingʼs chair and jumps into the pulpit. He looks with indifference, without any embarrassment or without any shame, upon the worldʼs opinion; he and a blockhead have the same feelings of modesty.
(39.) Celsus148 is not of a very high birth, but he is allowed to visit the greatest men in the land; he is not learned, but he is acquainted with some learned men; he has not much merit, but he knows people who have a great deal of it; he has no abilities, but he has a tongue that serves him to be understood, and feet that carry him from one place to another. He is a man made to run backwards and forwards, to listen to proposals and to talk about them, to do this officially, to exceed the duties of his post, and even to be disowned; to reconcile people who fall out the first time they see one another; to succeed in one affair and fail in a thousand; to arrogate all the honour of success to himself, and cast all the blame of a failure on others. He knows all the scandal and the tittle-tattle of the town; he does nothing but only repeats and hears what others do; he is a newsmonger, he is even acquainted with family secrets, and busies himself about the greatest mysteries; he tells you the reason why a certain person was banished and another has been recalled; he knows why and wherefore two brothers have quarrelled,149 and why two ministers have fallen out.150 Did he not predict to the former the sad consequences of their misunderstanding? Did he not tell the latter their union would not last long? Was he not present when certain words were spoken? Did he not enter into some kind of negotiation? Would they believe him? Did they mind what he said? To whom do you talk about those things? Who has had a greater share in all court intrigues than Celsus? And if it were not so, or if he had not dreamed or imagined it to be so, would he think of making you believe it? Would he put on the grave and mysterious look of a man newly returned from an embassy?
(40.) Menippus151 is a bird decked in various feathers which are not his. He neither says nor feels anything, but repeats the feelings and sayings of others; it is so natural for him to make use of other peopleʼs minds that he is the first deceived by it, and often believes he speaks his own mind or expresses his own thoughts when he is but the echo of some man he just parted with. He is bearable152 for a quarter of an hour, but a moment after he flags, degenerates, loses the little polish his shallow memory gives him, and shows he has nothing more left.153 He alone ignores how very far he is from the sublime and the heroic; and having no idea of the extent of his intelligence, ingenuously believes that he possesses as much as it is possible for any man to have, and accordingly assumes the air and manners of one who has nothing more to wish for nor to envy any one. He often soliloquises, and so little conceals it, that the passers-by see him and think he is always making up his mind, or is finally deciding some matter or other. If you bow to him at a certain time, you perplex him as to whether he has to return the bow or not; and, whilst he is deliberating, you are already out of his sight. His vanity, which has made him a gentleman, has raised him above himself, and made him what naturally he is not. When you behold him, you can judge he has nothing to do but to survey himself, so that he may perceive everything he wears suits him, and that his dress is not incongruous; he fancies all menʼs eyes are upon him, and that people come to look on him one after another.
(41.) A man who has a palace of his own, with apartments for the summer and the winter season, and yet sleeps in an entresol in the Louvre,154 does not act thus through modesty; another, who, to preserve his elegant shape, abstains from wine and eats but one meal a day, is neither sober nor temperate; whilst it may be said of a third, who, importuned by some poor friend, finally renders him some assistance, that he buys his tranquillity, but by no means that he is liberal. It is the motive alone that gives merit to human actions, and disinterestedness perfects them.
(42.) False greatness is unsociable and inaccessible; as it is sensible of its weakness, it conceals itself, or at least does not show itself openly, and only allows just so much to be seen as will carry on the deceit, so as not to appear what it really is, namely, undoubtedly mean. True greatness, on the contrary, is free, gentle, familiar, and popular; it allows itself to be touched and handled, loses nothing by being seen closely, and is the more admired the better it is known. Out of kindness it stoops to inferiors, and recovers, without effort, its true character; sometimes it unbends, becomes negligent, lays aside all its superiority, yet never loses the power of resuming it and of maintaining it; amidst laughter, gambols, and jocularity it preserves its dignity, and we approach it freely, and yet with some diffidence. It is noble, yet sympathetic, whilst inspiring respect and confidence, and makes us view princes as of lofty, nay, of very lofty rank, without making us feel that we are of inferior condition.155
(43.) A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune, and favour cannot satisfy him. He sees nothing good and sufficiently efficient in such a poor superiority to engage his affections and to render it deserving of his cares and his desires; he has to use some effort not to despise it too much. The only thing that might tempt him is that kind of honour which should attend a wholly pure and unaffected virtue; but men but rarely grant it, so he does without it.
(44.) A man is good who benefits others: if he suffers for the good he does, he is still better; and if he suffers through those to whom he did good, he has arrived at such a height of perfection that nothing but an increase of his sufferings can add to it; if he dies through them, his virtue cannot stand higher; it is heroic, it is complete.
III.
OF WOMEN.
(1.)THE male and female sex seldom agree about the merits of a woman, as their interests vary too much. Women do not like those same charms in one another which render them agreeable to men: many ways and means which kindle in the latter the greatest passions, raise among them aversion and antipathy.
(2.) There exists among some women an artificial grandeur depending on a certain way of moving their eyes, tossing their heads, and on their manner of walking, which does not go farther; it is like a dazzling wit which is deceptive, and is only admired because it is superficial. In a few others is to be found an ingenuous, natural greatness, not beholden to gestures and motion, which springs from the heart, and is, as it were, the result of their noble birth; their merit, as unruffled as it is efficient, is accompanied by a thousand virtues, which, in spite of all their modesty, break out and display themselves to all who can discern them.
(3.) I have heard some people say they should like to be a girl, and a handsome girl, too, from thirteen to two-and-twenty, and after that age again to become a man.
(4.) Some young ladies are not sensible of the advantages of a happy disposition, and how beneficial it would be to them to give themselves up to it; they enfeeble these rare and fragile gifts which Heaven has given them by affectation and by bad imitation; their very voice and gait are affected; they fashion their looks, adorn themselves, consult their looking-glasses to see whether they have sufficiently changed their own natural appearance, and take some trouble to make themselves less agreeable.
(5.) For a woman to paint herself red or white is, I admit, a smaller crime than to say one thing and think another; it is also something less innocent than to disguise herself or to go masquerading, if she does not pretend to pass for what she seems to be, but only thinks of concealing her personality and of remaining unknown; it is an endeavour to deceive the eyes, to wish to appear outwardly what she is not; it is a kind of “white lie.”
We should judge of a woman without taking into account her shoes and head-dress, and, almost as we measure a fish, from head to tail.156
(6.) If it be the ambition of women only to appear handsome in their own eyes and to please themselves, they are, no doubt, right in following their own tastes and fancies as to how they should beautify themselves, as well as in choosing their dress and ornaments; but if they desire to please men, if it is for them they paint and besmear themselves, I can tell them that all men, or nearly all, have agreed that white and red paint makes them look hideous and frightful; that red paint alone ages and disguises them, and that these men hate as much to see white lead on their countenances as to see false teeth in their mouths or balls of wax to plump out their cheeks;157 that they solemnly protest against all artifices women employ to make themselves look ugly; that they are not responsible for it to Heaven, but, on the contrary, that it seems the last and infallible means to reclaim men from loving them.
If women were by nature what they make themselves by art; if they were to lose suddenly all the freshness of their complexion, and their faces to become as fiery and as leaden as they make them with the red and the paint they besmear themselves with, they would consider themselves the most wretched creatures on earth.
(7.) A coquette is a woman who never yields to the passion she has for pleasing, nor to the good opinion she entertains of her own beauty; she regards time and years only as things that wrinkle and disfigure other women, and forgets that age is written on her face. The same dress, which formerly enhanced her beauty when she was young, now disfigures her, and shows the more the defects of old age; winning manners and affectation cling to her even in sorrow and sickness; she dies dressed in her best, and adorned with gay-coloured ribbons.
(8.) Lise158 hears that people make fun of some coquette for pretending to be young and for wearing dresses which no longer suit a woman of forty. Lise is as old as that, but years for her have less than twelve months; nor do they add to her age; she thinks so, and whilst she looks in the glass, lays the red on her face and sticks on the patches, confesses there is a time of life when it is not decent to affect a youthful appearance, and, indeed, that Clarissa with her paint and patches is ridiculous.
(9.) Women make preparations to receive their lovers, but if they are surprised by them, they forget in what sort of dress they are, and no longer think of themselves. They are in no such confusion with people for whom they do not care; they perceive that they are not well dressed, bedizen themselves in their presence, or else disappear for a moment and return beautifully arrayed.
(10.) A handsome face is the finest of all sights, and the sweetest music is the sound of the voice of the woman we love.
(11.) Fascination is despotic; beauty is something more tangible and independent of opinion.
(12.) A man can feel his heart touched by certain women of such perfect beauty and such transcendent merit that he is satisfied with only seeing them and conversing with them.
(13.) A handsome woman, who possesses also the qualities of a man of culture, is the most agreeable acquaintance a man can have, for she unites the merits of both sexes.
(14.) A young lady accidentally says many little things which are clearly convincing, and greatly flatter those to whom they are addressed. Men say almost nothing accidentally; their endearments are premeditated; they speak, act, and are eager to please, but convince less.
(15.) Handsome women are more or less whimsical; those whims serve as an antidote, so that their beauty may do less harm to men, who, without such a remedy, would never be cured of their love.
(16.) Women become attached to men through the favours they grant them, but men are cured of their love through those same favours.
(17.) When a woman no longer loves a man, she forgets the very favours she has granted him.
(18.) A woman with one gallant thinks she is no coquette; she who has several thinks herself but a coquette.
A woman avoids being a coquette if she steadfastly loves a certain person, but she is not thought sane if she persists in a bad choice.
(19.) A former gallant is of so little consideration that he must give way to a new husband; and the latter lasts so short a time that a fresh gallant turns him out.
A former gallant either fears or despises a new rival, according to the character of the lady to whom he pays his addresses.
Often a former gallant wants nothing but the name to be the husband of the woman he loves; if it was not for this circumstance he would have been dismissed a thousand times.
(20.) Gallantry in a woman seems to add to coquetry. A male coquette, on the contrary, is something worse than a gallant. A male coquette and a woman of gallantry are pretty much on a level.
(21.) Few intrigues are secret; many women are not better known by their husbandsʼ names than they are by the names of their gallants.
(22.) A woman of gallantry strongly desires to be loved; it is enough for a coquette to be thought amiable and to be considered handsome. This one seeks to form an engagement; that one is satisfied with pleasing. The first passes successively from one engagement to another; the second has at one and the same time a great many amusements on her hands. Passion and pleasure are predominant in the first; vanity and levity in the second. Gallantry is a weakness of the heart, or perhaps a constitutional defect; coquetry is an irregularity of the mind. A woman of gallantry is feared; a coquette is hated. From two such characters might be formed a third worse than any.
(23.) A weak woman is one who is blamed for a fault for which she blames herself; whose feelings are struggling with reason, and who should like to be cured of her folly, but is never cured, or not till very late in life.
(24.) An inconstant woman is one who is no longer in love; a giddy woman is one who is already in love with another person; a flighty woman neither knows if she loves or whom she loves; and an indifferent woman is one who loves nobody.
(25.) Treachery, if I may say so, is a falsehood told by the whole body; in a woman it is the art of arranging words or actions for the purpose of deceiving us, and sometimes of making use of vows and promises which it costs her no more to break than it did to make.
A faithless woman, if known to be such by the person concerned, is but faithless; if she is believed faithful, she is treacherous.
The benefit we obtain from the perfidy of women is that it cures us of jealousy.
(26.) Some women in their lifetime have a double engagement to keep, which it is as difficult to violate as to conceal; in the one nothing is wanting but a legal consecration, and in the other nothing but the heart.
(27.) If we were to judge of a certain woman by her beauty, her youth, her pride, and her haughtiness, we could almost assert that none but a hero would one day win her. She has chosen to fall in love with a little monster deficient in intelligence.159
(28.) There are some women past their prime, who, on account of their constitution or bad disposition, are naturally the resource of young men not possessing sufficient wealth. I do not know who is more to be pitied, either a woman in years who needs a young man, or a young man who needs an old woman.160
(29.) A man who is looked upon with contempt at court, is received amongst fashionable people161 in the city, where he triumphs over a magistrate in all his finery,162 as well as over a citizen wearing a sword; he beats them all out of the field and becomes master of the situation; he is treated with consideration and is beloved; there is no resisting for long a man wearing a gold-embroidered scarf163 and white plumes; a man who talks to the king and visits the ministers. He kindles jealousy amongst men as well as amongst women; he is admired and envied; but in Versailles, four leagues from Paris, he is despised.164
(30.) A citizen is to a woman who has never left her native province what a courtier is to a woman born and bred in town.
(31.) A man who is vain, indiscreet, a great talker and a mischievous wag, who speaks arrogantly of himself and contemptuously of others, who is boisterous, haughty, forward, without morality, honesty, or commonsense, and who draws for facts on his imagination, wants nothing else, to be adored by many women, but handsome features and a good shape.
(32.) Is it for the sake of secrecy, or from some eccentricity, that a certain lady loves her footman and Dorinna her physician?165
(33.) Roscius treads the stage with admirable grace: yes, Lelia, so he does; and I will allow you, too, that his limbs are well shaped, that he acts well, and very long parts, and that to recite perfectly he wants nothing else, as they say, but to open his mouth. But is he the only actor who is charming in everything he does? or is his profession the noblest and most honourable in the world? Moreover, Roscius cannot be yours; he is anotherʼs, or, if he were not, he is pre-engaged. Claudia waits for him till he is satiated with Messalina. Take Bathyllus, then, Lelia. Where will you find, I do not say among the knights you despise, but among the very players, one to compare with him in rising so high whilst dancing or in cutting capers? Or what do you think of Cobus, the tumbler, who, throwing his feet forward, whirls himself quite round in the air before he lights on the ground? But, perhaps, you know that he is no longer young? As for Bathyllus, you will say, the crowd round him is still too great, and he refuses more ladies than he gratifies. Well, you can have Draco, the flute-player; none of all his profession swells his cheeks with so much decency as he does whilst playing on the hautboy or the flageolet; for he can play on a great number of instruments; and he is so comical that he makes even children and young women laugh. Who eats or drinks more at a meal than Draco? He makes the whole company intoxicated, and is the last to remain comparatively sober. You sigh, Lelia. Is it because Draco has already made his choice, or because, unfortunately, you have been forestalled? Is he at last engaged to Cesonia, who has so long pursued him, and who has sacrificed for him such a large number of lovers, I might even say, the entire flower of Rome? to Cesonia, herself belonging to a patrician family, so young, so handsome, and of so noble a mien? I pity you, Lelia, if you have been infected with this new fancy which possesses so many Roman ladies for what are called public men, whose calling exposes them to the public gaze. What course will you pursue, then, since the best of their kind are already engaged? However, Brontes, the executioner,166 is still left; everybody speaks of his strength and his skill; he is young, broad-shouldered and brawny, and, moreover, a negro, a black man.167
(34.) A woman of fashion looks on a gardener as a gardener, and on a mason as a mason; but other women, who live more secluded, look upon a mason and a gardener as men. Anything is a temptation to those who dread it.168
(35.) Some ladies are169 liberal to the Church as well as to their lovers; and being both gallant and charitable, are provided with seats and oratories within the rails of the altar, where they can read their love-letters, and where no one can see whether they are saying their prayers or not.
(36.) What kind of a woman is one who is “spiritually directed”? Is she more obliging to her husband, kinder to her servants, more careful of her family and her household, more zealous and sincere for her friends? is she less swayed by whims, less governed by interest, and less fond of her ease? I do not ask if she makes presents to her children who already are opulent, but if, having wealth enough and to spare, she provides them with the necessaries of life, and, at least, gives them what is their due? Is she more exempt from egotism, does she dislike others less, and has she fewer worldly affections? “No,” say you, “none of all those things.” I repeat my question again: “What kind of a woman is one who is ‘spiritually directed’?” “Oh! I understand you now; she is a woman who has a spiritual director.”170
(37.) If a father-confessor and a spiritual director cannot agree about their line of conduct, what third person shall a woman take to be arbitrator?
(38.) It is not essential that a woman should provide herself with a spiritual director, but she should lead such a regular life as not to need one.
(39.) If a woman should tell her father-confessor, among her other weaknesses, those which she has for her director, and the times she wastes in his company, perhaps she might be enjoined as a penance to leave him.
(40.) Would I had the liberty of shouting, as loud as I could, to those holy men who formerly suffered by women: “Flee from women; do not become their spiritual directors, but let others take care of their salvation!”
(41.) It is too much for a husband to have a wife who is a coquette and sanctimonious as well; she should select only one of those qualities.
(42.) I have deferred it for a long time, but after all I have suffered it must come out at last; and I hope my frankness may be of some service to those ladies who, not deeming one confessor sufficient to guide them, show no discrimination in the choice of their directors. I cannot help admiring and being amazed on beholding some people who shall be nameless; I open my eyes wide when I see them; I gaze on them; they speak and I listen; then I inquire, and am told certain things, which I do not forget. I cannot understand how people, who appear to me the very reverse of intelligent, sensible, or experienced, and without any knowledge of mankind, or any study of religion and morality, can presume that Heaven, at the present time, should renew the marvels of an apostolate, and perform a miracle on them, in rendering such simple and little minds fit for the ministry of souls, the most difficult and most sublime of all vocations. It is to me still more incomprehensible if, on the contrary, they fancy themselves predestined to fill a function so noble and so difficult, and for which but few people are qualified, and persuade themselves that in undertaking it they do but exercise their natural talents and follow an ordinary vocation.
I perceive that an inclination of being intrusted with family secrets, of being useful in bringing about reconciliations, of obtaining various appointments, or of procuring places to people,171 of finding all doors of noblemenʼs houses open, of eating frequently at good tables, of driving about the town in private carriages, of making pleasant excursions to charming country-seats, of seeing several persons of rank and quality concern themselves about our life and health, and of employing for others and ourselves every worldly interest,—I perceive, I say so again, that for the sake of those things solely has been invented the specious and inoffensive pretence of the care of souls, and an inexhaustible nursery of spiritual directors planted in this world.
(43.) Devotion172 with some people, but especially with women, is either a passion, or an infirmity of age, or a fashion which must be followed. Formerly such women divided the week in days for gambling, for going to a theatre, a concert, a fancy-dress ball, or a nice sermon. On Mondays they went and lost their money at Ismenaʼs; on Tuesdays their time at Climèneʼs, and on Wednesday their reputation at Célimèneʼs; they knew overnight what amusements were going on the next day, and the day after that; they thus enjoyed the present, and knew what pleasures were in store for them; they wished it were possible to unite them all in one day, for this was then the sole cause of their uneasiness and all they had to think about; and if they sometimes went to the Opera, they regretted they had not gone to any other theatre. But with other times came other manners; now, they exaggerate their austerity and their solitude; they no longer open their eyes, which were given them to see; they do not make any use of their senses, and what is almost incredible, but little of their tongues; and yet they think, and that pretty well of themselves and ill enough of others; they compete with each other in virtue and reformation in a jealous kind of way; they do not dislike being first in their new course of life, as they were in the career they lately abandoned out of policy or disgust. They used gaily to damn themselves through their intrigues, their luxury and sloth, and now their presumption and envy will damn them, though not so merrily.173
(44.) Hermas, were I to marry a stingy woman, she will be sure not to ruin me; if a woman fond of gambling, she may enrich me; if a woman fond of learning, she may teach me; or if prim and precise, she will not fly into a rage; if a passionate one, she will exercise my patience; if a coquette, she will endeavour to please me; if a woman of gallantry, she will perhaps be so gallant as to love me; but tell me, Hermas, what can I expect if I were to marry a devout woman174 who would deceive Heaven, and who really deceives herself?
(45.) A woman is easily managed if a man will only give himself the trouble. One man often manages a great many; he cultivates their understanding and their memory, settles and determines their religious feelings, and undertakes even to regulate their very affections. They neither approve nor disapprove, commend or condemn, till they have consulted his looks and his countenance. He is the confidant of their joys and of their sorrows, of their desires, jealousies, hatred, and love; he makes them break with their gallants, embroils and reconciles them with their husbands, and is useful during the intervals. He looks after their business, solicits for them when they have lawsuits, and goes and sees the judges;175 he recommends them his physician, his tradesmen, his workmen; he tries to find them a residence, to furnish it, and he orders also their carriages. He is seen with them when they drive about in the streets, and during their walks, as well as in their pew at church and their box at the theatre; he goes the same round of visits as they do, and attends on them when they go to the baths, to watering-places, and on their travels; he has the most comfortable apartment at their country-seat. He grows old, but his authority does not decline; a small amount of intelligence and the spending of a good deal of leisure time suffice to preserve it; the children, the heirs, the daughter-in-law, the niece, and the servants, are all dependent on him. He began by making himself esteemed, and ends by making himself feared. This old and necessary friend dies at last without being regretted, and about half a score of women he tyrannised over recover their liberty at his death.
(46.) Some women have endeavoured to conceal their conduct under a modest exterior; but the most any one of them has obtained by the closest and most constant dissimulation has been to have it said, “One would have taken her for a Vestal virgin.”
(47.) It is a proof positive that a woman has an unstained and established reputation if it is not even sullied by the familiar intercourse with some ladies who are unlike her, and if, with all the inclination people have to make slanderous observations, they ascribe a totally different reason to this intimacy than similarity of morals.
(48.) An actor overdoes his part when on the stage; a poet amplifies his descriptions; an artist who draws from life heightens and exaggerates passions, contrasts, and attitudes; and he who copies him, unless he measures with a pair of compasses the dimensions and the proportions, will make his figures too big, and all parts of the composition of his picture by far larger than they were in the original. Thus an imitation of sagacity becomes pretentious affectation.
There is a pretended modesty which is vanity, a pretended glory which is levity, a pretended grandeur which is meanness, a pretended virtue which is hypocrisy, and a pretended wisdom which is affectation.
An affected and pretentious woman is all deportment and words; a sensible woman shows her sense by her behaviour. This one follows her inclination and disposition, that one her reason and her affections; the one is formal and austere, the other is on all occasions exactly what she ought to be. The first hides her weaknesses underneath a plausible outside; the second conceals a rich store of virtue underneath a free and natural air. Affectation and pretension shackle the mind, yet do not veil age or ugliness, but often imply them; common-sense, on the contrary, palliates the imperfections of the body, ennobles the mind, gives fresh charms to youth, and makes beauty more dangerous.
(49.) Why should men be blamed because women are not learned? What laws, edicts, or regulations prohibit them from opening their eyes, from reading and remembering what they have read, and from introducing this in their conversation and in their writings? Is their ignorance, on the contrary, not owing to a custom introduced by themselves; or to the weakness of their constitution, or to the indolence of their mind, or the care of their beauty, or to a certain flightiness which will not allow them to prosecute any continuous studies, or to a talent and aptitude they only have for needlework, or to an inattention caused by domestic avocations, or to a natural aversion for all serious and difficult things, or to a curiosity quite distinct from that which gratifies the mind, or to a wholly different pleasure from that of exercising the memory? But to whatever cause men may ascribe this ignorance of women, they may consider themselves happy that women, who rule them in so many things, are inferior to them in this respect.
We look on a learned woman as we do on a fine piece of armour, artistically chiselled, admirably polished, and of exquisite workmanship, which is only fit to be shown to connoisseurs, of no use whatever, and no more apt to be used for war or hunting than a horse out of a riding-school is, though it may be trained to perfection.
Whenever I find learning and sagacity united in one and the same person, I do not care what the sex may be, I admire; and if you tell me that a sensible woman hardly thinks of becoming learned, or that a learned woman is hardly ever a sensible woman, you have already forgotten what you have just read, namely, that women are prevented from studying science by certain imperfections. Now you can draw your own conclusions, namely, that those who have the fewest imperfections are most likely to have the greatest amount of common-sense, and that thus a sensible woman bids fairest to become learned; and that a learned woman could never be such without having overcome a great many imperfections, and this is the very best proof of her sense.176
(50.) It is very difficult to remain neutral when two women, who are both our friends, fall out through some cause or other in which we are not at all concerned; we must often side with one or lose both.
(51.) There are certain women who love their money better than their friends, and their lovers better than their money.
(52.) We are amazed to observe in some women stronger and more violent passions than their love for men, I mean ambition and gambling. Such women render men chaste, and have nothing of their own sex but the dress.177
(53.) Women run to extremes; they are either better or worse than men.
(54.) Most women have hardly any principles;178 they are led by their passions, and form their morals and manners after those whom they love.
(55.) Women exceed the generality of men in love; but men are their superiors in friendship. Men are the cause that women do not love one another.
(56.) There is some danger in making fun of people. Lise, who is more or less in years, in trying to render a young woman ridiculous, has changed so much as to become frightful. She made so many grimaces and contortions in imitating her, and now has grown so ugly, that the person she mimicked cannot have a better foil.
(57.) In the city many male and female nincompoops have the reputation of being intelligent; at court many men who are very intelligent are considered dolts; and a beautiful woman who has some intelligence will hardly escape being called “foolish” by other women.
(58.) A man keeps another personʼs secret better than his own; a woman, on the contrary, keeps her own secrets better than any other personʼs.
(59.) There is no love, however violent, raging in the heart of a young woman, but there is still some room left for interest and ambition.
(60.) There comes a time when the wealthiest women ought to marry; they seldom let slip the first opportunity without repenting it for many a day; it seems that the reputation of their wealth diminishes in the same proportion as their beauty does. On the contrary, every thing is favourable to young girls, even menʼs opinions, for they attribute to them every accomplishment, to render them still more desirable.
(61.) To how many girls has a great beauty been of no other use but to make them expect a large fortune!
(62.) Handsome girls are apt to gratify the revenge of the lovers they have ill-treated, by giving their hand to ugly, old, or unworthy husbands.
(63.) Most women judge of the merits and good looks of a man by the impression he makes on them, and very rarely allow either of those qualities to a person who is indifferent to them.
(64.) A man who is anxious to know whether his appearance is changed, and if he begins to grow old, needs only to consult the eyes of any fair one he addresses, and the tone of her voice as she converses with him, and he will then learn what he dreads to know. But it will be a severe lesson to him!
(65.) A woman who always stares at one and the same person, or who is for ever avoiding to look at him, makes us conclude but one and the same thing of her.
(66.) Women are at little trouble to express what they do not feel; but men are still at less to express what they do feel.
(67.) It sometimes happens that a woman conceals from a man the love she feels for him, while he only feigns a passion he does not feel.
(68.) Suppose a man indifferent, but intending to declare to a woman a passion he does not feel, it may be doubted whether it would not be easier for him to deceive179 a woman who loves him than one to whom he is indifferent.
(69.) A man may deceive a woman by a pretended inclination, but then he must not have a real one elsewhere.
(70.) A man storms and rails at a woman who no longer cares for him, but he finds consolation; a woman is not so vociferous when she is forsaken, but she remains unconsolable for a longer time.
(71.) Sloth in women is cured either by vanity or love; though, in vivacious women, it is an omen of love.
(72.) It is certain that a woman who writes letters full of passion is agitated, though it is not so sure that she is in love. A deep and tender passion is more likely to become dejected and silent; and the greatest and most stirring interest a woman can feel whose heart is no longer free, is less to convince her lover of her own affection than to be assured of his love for her.
(73.) Glycera180 does not love her own sex; she hates their conversation and their visits; she gives orders to be denied to them, and often to her male friends, who are not many, whom she treats very abruptly, keeps within limits, and whom she never allows to transgress the bounds of friendship. She is absent-minded when they are present, answers them in monosyllables, and seems to seek every opportunity of getting rid of them; she dwells alone, and leads a very retired life in her own house; her gates are better guarded and her rooms are more inaccessible than those of Montauron or dʼEsmery.181
Only Corinna is expected and admitted at all hours, embraced several times, caressed, and addressed with bated breath, though they are alone in a small room; whatever she says is attentively listened to; complaints are poured into Corinnaʼs ears about another person; everything is told her, though nothing is new to her, for she possesses the confidence of that other person as well. Glycera is seen with another lady and two gentlemen at a ball, in the theatre, in the public gardens, on the road to Venouse,182 where people eat fruit early in the season; sometimes alone in a sedan-chair on the way to the grand suburb,183 where she has a splendid fruit-garden, or else at Canidiaʼs184 door, who possesses so many rare secrets, promises second husbands to young wives, and tells them also when and under what circumstances they will obtain them. Glycera appears commonly in a low and unpretentious head-dress, in a plain morning gown, without any stays, and in slippers; she is charming in this dress, and wants nothing but a little colour. People remark, nevertheless, that she wears a splendid brooch, which she takes special care to conceal from her husbandʼs eyes. She cajoles and caresses him, and every day invents some new pretty names for him; the “dear husband” and his wife have but one bedroom, and would not sleep in any other room. The morning she spends at her toilet and in writing some urgent letters; a servant185 enters, and speaks to her in private; it is Parmenion, her favourite, whom she upholds against his masterʼs dislike and his fellow-servantsʼ jealousy. Who, indeed, delivers a message or brings back an answer better than Parmenion? who speaks less of what should not be mentioned? who opens a private door with less noise? who is a more skilful guide up the back-stairs? or more cleverly leads a person out again the same way?
(74.) I cannot understand how a husband who gives way to his freaks and his temper, who, far from concealing his bad qualities, shows, on the contrary, only his worst, who is covetous, slovenly in his dress, abrupt in his answers, impolite, dull and taciturn, can expect to defend successfully the heart of a young wife against the attacks of a gallant who makes the most of dress, magnificence, complaisance, politeness, assiduity, presents, and flattery.186
(75.) A husband seldom has a rival who is not of his own making, and whom he has not introduced himself to his wife at one time or other; he is always praising him before her for his fine teeth and his handsome countenance; he encourages his civilities and allows him to visit at his house; and next to the produce of his own estate, he relishes nothing better than the game and the truffles his friend sends him. He gives a supper, and says to his guests: “Let me recommend this to you; it is sent by Leander and costs me nothing but thanks.”
(76.) A certain wife seems to have annihilated or buried her husband, for he is not so much as mentioned in this world;187 it is doubted whether such a man be alive or dead. In his family his only use is to be a pattern of timid silence and of implicit submission. He has nothing to do with jointure or settlement; if it were not for that, and his not lying-in, one would almost take him for the wife and her for the husband. They are for months in the house together without any danger of meeting one another; in reality they are only neighbours. The master of the house pays the cook and his assistants, but the supper is always served in my ladyʼs apartment. Often they have nothing in common, neither bed, board, nor even the same name; they live in the Greek or Roman fashion; she keeps her name, and he has his; and it is only after some time, and when a man has been initiated in the tittle-tattle of the town, that at last he comes to know that Mr. B ... and Madam L ... have been man and wife these twenty years.188