(121.) Gnathon571 lives for no one but himself, and the rest of the world are to him as if they did not exist. He is not satisfied with occupying the best seat at table, but he must take the seats of two other guests, and forgets that the dinner was not provided for him alone, but for the company as well; he lays hold of every dish, and looks on each course as his own; he never sticks to one single dish until he has tried them all, and would like to enjoy them all at one and the same time. At table his hands serve for a knife and fork; he paws the meat over and over again, and tears it to pieces, so that if the other guests wish to dine, it must be on his leavings. He does not spare them any of those filthy and disgusting habits which are enough to spoil the appetite of the most hungry; the gravy and sauce run over his chin and beard; if he takes part of a stew out of a dish, he spills it by the way over another dish and on the cloth, so you may distinguish him by his track. He eats with a great deal of smacking and noise, rolls his eyes, and uses the table as a manger, picks his teeth and continues eating; he makes every place his home, and will have as much elbow-room in church and in a theatre as if he were in his own room. When he rides in a coach, it must always be forward, for he says that any other seat will make him fall in a swoon, if we can believe him. When he travels he is always in advance of his companions, so as to get first to the inn, and choose the best room and the best bed for himself; he makes use of everybody, and his own and other peopleʼs servants run about and do his errands; everything is his he lays his hands on, even clothes and luggage; he disturbs every one, but does not inconvenience himself for anybody; he pities no one, and knows no other indispositions but his own, his over-feeding and biliousness; he laments no personʼs death, fears no oneʼs but his own, and to redeem his own life, would willingly consent to see the entire human race become extinct.
(122.) Clito572 never had but two things to do in his life, to dine at noon and to eat supper in the evening;573 he seems only born for digestion, and has only one subject of conversation, namely, the entrées of the last dinner he was present at, and how many different kinds of potages574 there were; he then talks of the roasts and entremets; remembers precisely what dishes were brought up after the first course, does not forget the side-dishes, the fruit and the assiettes;575 names all the wines and every kind of liquor he has drunk; shows himself as well acquainted as a man can possibly be with culinary language, and makes his hearer long to be at a good dinner, provided he were not there. He prides himself on his palate which cannot be imposed upon, and has never been exposed to the terrible inconvenience of being compelled to eat a wretched stew or to drink an indifferent wine. He is a remarkable person in his way, who has brought the art of good living to the highest perfection; there never will be another man who ate so much and so nicely; he is, therefore, the supreme arbiter of dainty bits, and it would hardly be allowable to like anything he did not approve of. But he is no more! When he was almost dying he still would be carried to the table, and had guests to dinner on the day of his death. Wherever he may be he is sure to eat; and should he rise from the grave it will be to eat.
(123.) Ruffinusʼ hair begins to turn grey, but he is healthy; his ruddy cheeks and sparkling eyes promise him at least twenty years more; he is lively, jovial, familiar, and does not care for anything; he laughs heartily, even when he is alone, and without any cause; he is satisfied with himself, with his family, his little fortune, and calls himself fortunate. Some time since he lost his only son, a young man of great promise, who might have become an honour to his family; other people shed tears, but he did not, and merely said, “My son is dead, and his mother will soon follow him,” and then he was comforted. He has no passions, no friends nor enemies; no one troubles him; everybody and everything suits him; he speaks to those he never saw before with the same freedom and confidence as to those he calls his old friends, and very soon tells them his bad jokes and stories. Some people address him and then leave him, but he does not mind it, and the tale he began to one person he finishes to another who has just come.
(124.) N ... is less worn with age than disease, for he is not more than threescore and eight, but he has the gout and suffers from nephritic colic; he looks quite emaciated and has a greenish complexion, which forebodes no good; yet he has his lands marled, and reckons he has no need to manure them these fifteen years; he has some young wood planted, and hopes that in less than twenty years it will afford him a delicious shade. He has a house built of free-stone, and at the corners are iron clasps to make it stronger; he assures you, coughing, and in a weak and feeble tone of voice, that it will last for ever. He walks every day among the workmen, leaning on one of his servantsʼ arms, shows his friends what he has done, and tells them what he purposes to do. He does not build for his children, for he has none, nor for his heirs, who are scoundrels and who have quarrelled with him; he only builds to enjoy it himself, and to-morrow he will be dead.
(125.) Antagoras has a familiar576 and popular countenance; he is as well known to the mob as the parish beadle or as the saint carved in stone adorning the high altar. Every morning he runs up and down the courts and the offices of parliament,577 and every evening up and down the streets and highways of the town. He has had a lawsuit these forty years, and has always been nearer his death than the end of his legal troubles. There has not been any celebrated case or any long and difficult lawsuit tried that he has not had something to do with; his name is in the mouth of every barrister, and agrees as naturally with such words as “plaintiff” or “defendant” as an adjective does with a substantive. He is everybodyʼs kinsman, and disliked by all; there is scarcely a family of whom he does not complain, or who does not complain of him; he is perpetually engaged in seizing some property, in asking for an injunction578 to prevent the sale of an office579 or some stocks, in using the privilege of pleading in certain cases580 or of seeing some judgments put into execution; besides this, he is every day at some meeting of creditors, is appointed chairman of their committee,581 and loses money by every bankruptcy; he finds some spare moments for a few private visits, and like an old gossip582 talks about lawsuits, and tells you all the news about them. You leave him one hour at one end of the town and find him the next at another end,583 where he arrived before you, and has been giving again all the details of his lawsuit. If you yourself are engaged in a lawsuit and wait early the next morning on your judge,584 you are sure to meet Antagoras, who must first leave before you can be admitted.585
(126.) Some men pass their long lives in defending themselves and in injuring other people, and die at last, worn out with age, after having caused as many evils as they suffered.
(127.) There must, I confess, be seizures of land, distraint on furniture, prisons, and punishments; but without taking into consideration justice, law, and stern necessity, it has always astonished me to observe with what violence some men treat other men.
(128.) Certain wild animals, male and female, are scattered over the country, dark, livid, and quite tanned by the sun, who are chained, as it were, to the land they are always digging and turning up and down with an unwearied stubbornness; their voice is somewhat articulate, and when they stand erect they discover a human face, and, indeed, are men. At night they retire to their burrows, where they live on black bread, water, and roots; they spare other men the trouble of sowing, tilling the ground, and reaping for their sustenance, and, therefore, deserve not to be in want of that bread they sow themselves.
(129.) Don Fernando resides in his province, and is idle, ignorant, slanderous, quarrelsome, knavish, intemperate, and impertinent; but he draws his sword against his neighbours, and exposes his life for the smallest trifle; he has killed several men, and will be killed in his turn.586
(130.) A provincial nobleman, useless to his country, his family and himself, often without a roof to cover himself, without clothes or the least merit, tells you ten times a day that he is of noble lineage, despises all graduates, doctors, and presidents of parliaments587 as upstarts, and spends all his time among parchments and old title-deeds, which he would not part with to be appointed chancellor.588
(131.) Power, favour, genius, riches, dignity, nobility, force, industry, capacity, virtue, vice, weakness, stupidity, poverty, impotence, plebeianism, and servility generally are combined in men in endless variety. These qualities mixed together in a thousand various manners, and compensating one another in many ways, form the different states and conditions of human life. Moreover, people who are acquainted with each otherʼs strength and weakness act reciprocally, for they believe it their duty; they know their equals, are conscious that some men are their superiors, and that they are superior to some others; and hence familiarity, respect or deference, pride or contempt. This is the reason why, in places of public resort, we see each moment some persons we wish to accost or bow to, and others we pretend not to know, and still less desire to meet; and why we are proud of being with the first and ashamed of the others. Hence it even happens that the very person with whom you think it an honour to be seen, and with whom you are desirous to converse, deems you troublesome and leaves you; and that often the very person who blushes when he meets others, receives the same treatment when others meet him, and that a man who treated others with contempt is himself disdained, for it is common enough to despise those who despise us. How wretched is such a behaviour; and since it is certain that in this strange interchange we gain on one side what we lose on another, should we not do better to abandon all haughtiness and pride, qualities so unsuited to frail humanity, and make an arrangement to treat one another with mutual kindness, by which we should at once gain the advantage of never being mortified ourselves, and the happiness, which is just as great, of never mortifying others?
(132.) Instead of being frightened, or even ashamed, at being called a philosopher, everybody in this world ought to have a strong tincture of philosophy;589 it suits every one: its practice is useful to people of all ages, sexes, and conditions; it consoles us for the happiness of others, for the promotion of those whom we think undeserving, for failures, and decay of strength and beauty; it steels us against poverty, age, sickness, and death, against fools and buffoons; it will help us to pass away our life without a wife, or to bear with the one with whom we have to live.
(133.) Men are one hour overjoyed at trifles, and the next overcome with grief for a mere disappointment; nothing is more unequal and incoherent than the emotions stirring their hearts and minds in so short a time. If they would set no higher value on the things of this world than they really deserve, this evil would be cured.
(134.) It is as difficult to find a vain man who believes himself as happy as he deserves, as a modest man who believes himself too unhappy.
(135.) When I contemplate the fortune of princes and of their Ministers, which is not mine, I am prevented from thinking myself unhappy by considering, at the same time, the fate of the vine-dresser, the soldier, and the stone-cutter.
(136.) There is but one real misfortune which can befall a man, and that is to find himself at fault, and to have something to reproach himself with.
(137.) The generality of men are more capable of great efforts to obtain their ends than of continuous perseverance; their occupation and inconstancy deprives them of the fruits of the most promising beginnings; they are often overtaken by those who started some time after them, and who walk slowly but without intermission.
(138.) I almost dare affirm that men know better how to plan certain measures than to pursue them, how to resolve what they must needs do and say than to do or to say what is necessary. A man is firmly determined not to mention a certain subject when negotiating some business; and afterwards, either through passion, garrulity, or in the heat of conversation, it is the first thing which escapes him.
(139.) Men are indolent in what is their particular duty, whilst they think it very deserving, or rather whilst it pleases their vanity, to busy themselves about those things which do not concern them, nor suit their condition of life or character.
(140.) There is as much difference between a heterogeneous character a man adopts and his real character as there is between a mask and a countenance of flesh and blood.
(141.) Telephus has some intelligence, but ten times less, if rightly computed, than he imagines he has; therefore, in everything he says, does, meditates, and projects, he goes ten times beyond his capacity, and thus always exceeds the true measure of his intellectual power and grasp. And this argument is well founded. He is limited by a barrier, as it were, and should be warned not to pass it; but he leaps over it, launches out of his sphere, and though he knows his own weakness, always displays it; he speaks about what he does not understand, or badly understands; attempts things above his power, and aims at what is too much for him; he thinks himself the equal of the very best men ever seen. Whatever is good and commendable in him is obscured by an affectation of doing something great and wonderful; people can easily see what he is not, but have to guess what he really is. He is a man who never measures his ability, and does not know himself; his true character is not to be satisfied with the one that suits him, and which is his own.
(142.) The intelligence of a highly cultivated man is not always the same, and has its ebbs and flows; sometimes he is full of animation, but cannot keep it up; then, if he be wise, he will say little, not write at all, and not endeavour either to draw upon his imagination, or try to please. Does a man sing who has a cold? and should he not rather wait till he recovers his voice?
A blockhead is an automaton,590 a piece of machinery moved by springs and weights, always turning him about in one direction; he always displays the same equanimity, is uniform, and never alters; if you have seen him once you have seen him as he ever was, and will be; he is at best but like a lowing ox or a whistling blackbird; I may say, he acts according to the persistence and doggedness of his nature and species. What you see least is his torpid soul, which is never stirring, but always dormant.
(143.) A blockhead never dies; or if, according to our manner of speaking, he dies at one time or other, I may truly say he gains by it, and that, when others die, he begins to live. His mind then thinks, reasons, draws inferences and conclusions, judges, foresees, and does everything it never did before; it finds itself released from a lump of flesh, in which it seemed buried without having anything to do, and without any motion, or at least any worthy of that name; I should almost say, it blushes to have lodged in such a body, as well as for its own crude and imperfect organs, to which it has been shackled so long, and with which it could only produce a blockhead or a fool. Now it is equal to the greatest of those minds which animated the bodies of the cleverest or the most intellectual men, and the mind of the merest clodhopper591 is no longer to be distinguished from those of Condé, Richelieu, Pascal, and Lingendes.592
(144.) A false delicacy in familiar actions, in manners or conduct, is not so called because it is simulated, but because it is really employed in things and on occasions where it is utterly out of place. On the other hand, a false delicacy in taste or temper is only so when it is feigned or affected. Emilia screams as loud as she can when a trifling accident happens, and when she is not a bit afraid; another lady affectedly turns pale at the sight of a mouse, or is fond of violets, and swoons at the scent of a tuberose.
(145.) Who would venture and flatter himself to satisfy mankind? Let no prince, however good and powerful, pretend to do so. Let him promote their pleasures,593 let him open his palace to his courtiers, and even admit them amongst his own followers; let him show them other spectacles in those very places of which the mere sight is a spectacle;594 let him give them their choice of games, concerts, and refreshments, and add to this magnificent cheer, amidst the most complete liberty; join with them in their amusements; let the great man become affable, and the hero humane and familiar, and this would not be sufficient. Men finally tire of the very things which at first enraptured them; they would forsake the table of the gods; and nectar, in time, would become insipid. Through vanity and wretched over-refinement, they do not hesitate to criticise things which are perfect; in spite of every exertion, their taste, if we may believe them, can never be gratified, and even regal expenditure would be unsuccessful; malice prompts them to do what they can to lessen the joy others may feel in satisfying them. These same people, commonly so sycophantic and complaisant, are liable to forget themselves; sometimes they are scarcely to be recognised, and we see the man even in the courtier.
(146.) Affectation in gesture, speech, and manners is frequently the outcome of indolence or indifference; whereas a great passion or matters of importance seem to compel a man to become natural.
(147.) Men have no characters, or if they have, it is that of having no constant and invariable one, by which they may at all times be known; they cannot bear to be always the same, to persevere either in regularity or license; and if they sometimes forsake one virtue for another, they more often get disgusted with one vice through another vice. Their passions run counter to another, and their foibles contradict each other; extremes are easier to them than a regular and natural conduct would be; they dislike moderation, and are extravagant in good as well as evil things; and when they no longer are able to stand excesses they relieve themselves by change. Adrastes was such a profligate libertine that he found it comparatively easy to comply with the fashion and to become devout; he would have found it much more difficult to become an honest man.595
(148.) What is the reason that some people, who can meet the most trying disasters with coolness, lose all command over themselves and fly into a passion at the least inconvenience? Such conduct is not wise, for virtue is always the same and does not contradict itself; it is a vice, then, and nothing else but vanity, roused and stirred up by those events which make a noise in the world and when there is something to be gained, but which is negligent in all other things.
(149.) We seldom repent talking too little, but very often talking too much; this is a common and well-known maxim, which everybody knows and nobody practises.
(150.) To say things of our enemies which are not true, and to lie to defame them, is to avenge ourselves on ourselves, and give them too great an advantage over us.
(151.) If men knew how to blush at their own actions, how many crimes, and not only those that are hidden, but those that are public and well known, would never be committed!
(152.) If some men are not so honest as they might be, the fault lies in their bringing up.
(153.) There exists in some people a happy mediocrity of intelligence which contributes to keep them discreet.
(154.) Rods and ferulas are for children;596 crowns, sceptres, caps, gowns, fasces, kettledrums, archersʼ dresses for men.597 Reason and justice, without their gewgaws, would neither convince nor intimidate; man who has intelligence, is led by his eyes and his ears.
(155.) Timon, or the misanthrope, may have an austere and savage mind, but outwardly he is polite, and even ceremonious; he does not lose all command over himself, and does not become familiar with other men; on the contrary, he treats them politely and gravely, and in a manner that does not encourage any freedom to be taken; he does not desire to be better acquainted with them nor to make friends of them, and is somewhat like a lady visiting another lady.598
(156.) Reason is ever allied to truth, and is almost identical with it; only one way leads to it, but a thousand roads can lead us astray. The study of wisdom is not so extensive as that of fools and coxcombs; he who has seen none but polite and reasonable men, either does not know men, or knows them only by halves. Whatever difference may be noticed in disposition and manners, intercourse with the world and politeness produce the same appearance in all, and externally make men resemble one another in some way which mutually pleases, and being common to all, leads us to believe that everything else is in the same proportion. A man, on the contrary, who mixes with the common people, or retires into the country, will, if he has eyes, in a short time make some strange discoveries, and see things which are new to him, and which he never before imagined existed; gradually and by experience he increases his knowledge of humanity, and almost calculates in how many different ways man may become unbearable.
(157.) After having maturely considered mankind and found out the insincerity of their thoughts, opinions, inclinations, and affections, we are compelled to acknowledge that stubbornness does them more harm than inconstancy.
(158.) How many weak, effeminate, careless minds exist without any extraordinary faults, and who yet are proper subjects for satire! How many various kinds of ridicule are disseminated amongst the whole human race, which by their very eccentricity are of little consequence, and are not ameliorated by instruction or morality. Such vices are individual and not contagious, and are rather personal than belonging to humanity in general.
XII.
OF OPINIONS.
(1.)NOTHING is more like a deep-rooted conviction than obstinate conceit; whence proceed parties, intrigues, and heresies.
(2.) We do not always let our thoughts run on one and the same subject without varying them: infatuation599 and disgust closely follow on one another.
(3.) Great things astonish and small dishearten us; custom familiarises us with both.
(4.) Two qualities quite opposed to one another equally bias our minds: custom and novelty.
(5.) There is nothing so mean and so truly vulgar as extravagantly to praise those very persons of whom we had but very indifferent opinions before their promotion.
(6.) A princeʼs favour does not exclude merit, nor does it even suppose its existence.
(7.) We are puffed up with pride and entertain a high opinion of ourselves and of the correctness of our judgment, and yet it is surprising we neglect to make use of it in speaking of other peopleʼs merit; fashion, the fancy of the people or of the prince, carry us away like a torrent; we extol rather what is praised than what is praiseworthy.
(8.) I doubt whether anything is approved and commended more reluctantly than what deserves most to be approved and praised; and whether virtue, merit, beauty, good actions, and the best writings produce a more natural and certain impression than envy, jealousy, and antipathy. A pious person600 does not speak well of a saint, but of another pious person. If a handsome woman allows that another woman is beautiful, we may safely conclude she excels her; or if a poet praises a brother poetʼs verses, it is pretty sure they are wretched and spiritless.
(9.) Men do not easily like one another, and are not much inclined to commend each other. Neither actions, behaviour, thoughts, nor expression please them nor are satisfactory; they substitute for what is recited, told, or read to them what they themselves would have done in such a circumstance, or what they think and have written on such a subject; and are so full of their own ideas that they have no room for anotherʼs.
(10.) Men are generally inclined to become dissolute and frivolous, and such a large number of pernicious or ridiculous examples is to be found in this world, that I should feel inclined to believe that eccentricity, if kept within bounds and not gone too far, would almost be like correct reasoning and regular behaviour.
“We must do as others do” is a dangerous maxim, which nearly always means “we must do wrong” if it is applied to any but external things of no consequence, and depending on custom, fashion, or decency.
(11.) If men were not more like bears and panthers than men, if they were honest, just to themselves and to others, what would become of the law, the text and the prodigious amount of commentaries made on it; what of petitions and actions,601 and everything people call jurisprudence? And to what would those persons be reduced who owe all their importance and pride to the authority with which they are invested for seeing those laws executed? If those very men were honest and sincere, and had no prejudices, the wrangles of the schoolmen, scholasticism, and all controversies would vanish. If all men were temperate, chaste, and moderate, what would be the use of that mysterious medical jargon, a gold-mine for those persons who know how to use it? What a downfall would it be for all lawyers, doctors, and physicians if we could all agree to become wise!
We would have been obliged to do without many men great in peace and war. Several arts and sciences have been brought to a high degree of exquisite perfection, which, so far from being necessary, were introduced into the world as remedies for those evils only caused by our wickedness.
How many things have sprung up since Varroʼs602 times, of which he was ignorant! Such a knowledge as Plato or Socrates possessed would now not satisfy us.
(12.) At a sermon, a concert, or in a picture gallery, we can hear in different parts of the room quite contrary opinions expressed upon the very same subject; and hence I draw the conclusion that in all kinds of works we may venture to insert bad things as well as good ones; for the good please some and the bad others; and we do not risk much more by putting in the very worst, for it will find admirers.
(13.) The phœnix of vocal poetry rose out of his own ashes, and in one and the same day saw his reputation lost and recovered. That same judge so infallible and yet so decided—I mean the public—changed his views regarding him, and either was, or is now, in error. He who should say to day that Q ... is a wretched poet would pronounce as bad an opinion as he who formerly said he was a good one.603
(14.) Chapelain was rich and Corneille was not; La Pucelle and Rodogune deserved a different fate;604 therefore, it has always been a question why, in certain professions, one man makes his fortune and another fails? Men should look for the reason of this in their own whimsical behaviour, which, on most important occasions, when their business, their pleasures, their health, and their life are at stake, often makes them leave what is best and take what is worst.
(15.) The profession of an actor was considered infamous among the Romans, and honourable among the Greeks: how is it considered amongst us? We think of them like the Romans, and live with them like the Greeks.
(16.) It was sufficient for Bathyllus to be a pantomimist to be courted by the Roman ladies; for Rhoe to dance on the stage, or for Roscia and Nerina605 to sing in the chorus to attract a crowd of lovers. Vanity and impudence, the consequences of being too powerful, made the Romans lose a taste for pleasures secretly and mysteriously enjoyed; they were fond of loving actresses, without any jealousy of the audience, and shared with the multitude the charms of their mistresses; they only cared to show they loved not a beauty nor an excellent actress, but an actress.606
(17.) Nothing better demonstrates how men regard science and literature, and of what use they are considered in the State, than the recompense assigned to them, and the idea generally entertained of those persons who resolve to cultivate them. There is not a mere handicraft nor ever so vile a position, that is not a surer, quicker, and more certain way to wealth. An actor lolling in his coach607 bespatters the face of Corneille walking on foot. With many people learning and pedantry are synonymous.
Often when a rich man speaks and speaks of science, the learned must be silent, listen, and applaud, at least if they would be considered something else besides learned.
(18.) A certain boldness is required to vindicate learning before some persons strongly prejudiced against learned men, whom they call ill-mannered, wanting in tact, unfit for society, and whom they send back, stripped in this way, to their study and their books. As ignorance is easy, and not difficult to acquire, many people embrace it; and these form a large majority at court and in the city, and overpower the learned. If the latter allege in their favour the names of dʼEstrées, de Harlay, Bossuet, Séguier, Montausier, Wardes, Chevreuse, Novion, Lamoignon, Scudéry, Pellisson,608 and of many other personages equally learned and polite; nay, if they dare mention the great names of Chartres, Condé, Conti, Bourbon, Maine, and Vendôme,609 as princes who to the noblest and loftiest acquirements add Greek atticism and Roman urbanity, those persons do not hesitate to reply that such examples are exceptional; and the sound arguments brought forward are powerless against public opinion. However, it seems that people should be more careful in giving their decisions, and at least not take the trouble of asserting that intellects producing such great progress in science, and making persons think well, judge well, speak well, and write well, could not acquire polite accomplishments.
No very great intelligence is necessary to have polished manners, but a great deal is needed to polish the mind.
(19.) A politician says: “Such a man is learned, and therefore not fit for business; I would not trust him to take an inventory of my wardrobe;” and he is quite right, Ossat, Ximenes, and Richelieu610 were learned, but were they men of ability and considered able ministers? “He understands Greek,” continues our statesman, “he is a pedant,611 a philosopher.” According to this argument an Athenian fruit-woman who probably spoke Greek was a philosopher, and the Bignons and Lamoignons612 are mere pedants, and nobody can doubt it, for they know Greek. How whimsical and crack-brained was the great, the wise, and judicious Antoninus to say: “That a people would be happy whose ruler was philosophising, or who should be governed by a philosopher or a scribbler.”613
Languages are but the keys or entrance-gates of sciences, and nothing more; he that despises the one slights the other. It matters little whether languages are ancient or modern, dead or living, but whether they are barbarous or polite and whether the books written in them are good or bad. Suppose the French language should one day meet with the fate of the Greek and Latin tongues; would it be considered pedantic to read Molière or La Fontaine some ages after French had ceased to be a living language?
(20.) If I mention Eurypilus, you say he is a wit.
You also call a man who shapes a beam a carpenter, and him who builds a wall a bricklayer. Let me ask you where this wit has his workshop, and what is his sign? Can we recognise him by his dress? What are his tools? Is it a wedge, a hammer, an anvil? Where does he rough-hew or shape his work, and where is it for sale? A workman is proud of his trade; is Eurypilus proud of being a wit? If he is proud of it, he is a coxcomb, who debases the natural dignity of his intellect, and has a low and mechanical mind, which never seriously applies itself to what is either lofty or intellectual; and if he is not proud of anything, and this I understand to be his real character, then he is a sensible and intelligent man. Do you not bestow the title of “wit” on every pretender to learning and on every wretched poet? Do you not think you have some intelligence, and if so, no doubt a first-rate and practical one? But do you consider yourself, therefore, a wit, and would you not deem it an insult to be called so? However, I give you leave to call Eurypilus so, and this ironically, as fools do, and without the least discrimination, or as ignorant people do who console themselves by irony for the want of a certain culture which they perceive in others.
(21.) I do not wish to hear anything more about pen, ink, or paper, style, printer, or press! Venture no more to tell me: “Antisthenes, you are a first-rate author; continue to write. Shall we never see a folio volume of yours? Speak of all the virtues and vices in one connected and methodical treatise, without end,” and they should also add, “without any sale.” I renounce everything that either was, is, or will be a book! Beryllus swoons when he sees a cat,614 and I on beholding a book. Am I better fed or warmer clothed; is my room sheltered against northern blasts; have I so much as a feather-bed,615 after having had my works for sale for more than twenty years? You say I have a great name and a first-rate reputation: you may just as well tell me that I have a stock of air I cannot dispose of. Have I one grain of that metal which procures all things? The low pettifogger616 swells his bill, get costs paid which never came out of his pocket, and a count or a magistrate becomes his son-in-law. A man in a red or filemot-coloured dress617 is changed into a secretary, and in a little time is richer than his master, who remains a commoner whilst he buys a title for hard cash. B ...618 enriches himself by some waxwork show; B ... by selling some bottled river-water.619 Another quack620 arrives with one trunk from the other side of the Pyrenees; it is scarcely unpacked when pensions rain on him, and he is ready to return whence he came with plenty of mules and cartloads full of property. Mercury is Mercury,621 and nothing else; and as gold alone cannot pay his go-betweens and his intrigues, he obtains, moreover, favour and distinctions. To confine myself to lawful gain, you pay a tiler for his tiles and a workman for his time and labour; but do you pay an author for his thoughts and writings? and if his thoughts are excellent, do you pay him liberally? Does he furnish his house or become ennobled by thinking or writing well? Men must be clothed and shaved,622 have houses with doors that shut close; but where is the necessity of their being well informed? It were folly, simplicity, stupidity, continues Antisthenes, to set up for an author or a philosopher! Get me, if possible, some lucrative post which may make my life easy, enable me to lend some money to a friend, and give to those who cannot return it; and then I can write for recreation or indolently, just as Tityrus623 whistles or plays on the flute; Iʼll have that or nothing, and will write on those conditions; I will yield to the violence of those who take me by the throat and exclaim, “You shall write!” I have the title of my new book ready for them: “Of beauty, goodness, truth, ideas, of first principles, by Antisthenes, a fishmonger.”
(22.) If the ambassadors of some foreign princes624 were apes who had learned to walk on their hind-legs, and to make themselves understood by interpreters, it could not surprise us more than the correctness of their answers, and the common sense which at times appears in their discourse. Our prepossession in favour of our native country and our national pride makes us forget that common sense is found in all climates, and correctness of thought wherever there are men. We should not like to be so treated by those we call barbarians; and if some barbarity still exists amongst us, it is in being amazed on hearing natives of other countries reason like ourselves.
All strangers are not barbarians, nor are all our countrymen civilised; in like manner every country is not savage,625 nor every town polished. There exists in Europe, in a large kingdom, a certain place in a maritime province where the villagers are gentle and affable, and, on the contrary, the burgesses and the magistrates coarse, with a boorishness inherited from their ancestors.626
(23.) In spite of our pure language, our neatness in dress, our cultivated manners, our good laws and fair complexion, we are considered barbarians by some nations.
(24.) If we should hear it reported of an Eastern nation that they habitually drink a liquor which flies to their head, drives them mad, and makes them very sick, we should say they are barbarians.
(25.) This prelate seldom comes to court, lives retired, and is never seen in the company of ladies: he neither plays grand nor little primero,627 is not present at feasts or spectacles, is not a party man, and does not intrigue; he is always in his diocese, where he resides, devotes himself to instructing his people by preaching and edifying them by his example; spends his wealth in charity, and wastes away through doing penance; he is strict in the observance of his duties, but his zeal and piety are like those of the apostles. Times are changed, and in the present reign he is threatened with a higher clerical dignity.628
(26.) Persons of a certain position, and members of a profession of great dignity, to say no more,629 should understand that they are not to gamble, sing, and be as jocular as other men, so that the world may talk about them; if they see them so pleasant and agreeable, it will not be believed that they are elsewhere staid and severe. May we venture to hint that by acting in such an undignified manner they offend against those polished manners upon which they pride themselves, and which, on the contrary, modify outward behaviour and make it suit any condition of life, cause them to avoid strong contrasts, and never show the same man in these various shapes as a compound of eccentricity and extravagance.
(27.) At a first and single glance we ought not to judge of men as of a picture or statue; there is an inner man, and a heart to be searched; a veil of modesty covers merit, and a mask of hypocrisy covers wickedness. Few there are whose discernment authorises them to decide; it is but gradually, and even then, perhaps, compelled by time and circumstances, that perfect virtue or absolute vice show themselves in their true colours.
(28.) A Fragment.... “He said that the intelligence of this fair lady was like a diamond in a handsome setting,” and, continuing to speak of her, he added: “Her common sense and agreeable manners charm the eyes and hearts of all who converse with her, so that they do not know whether to love or to admire her most; she can be a perfect friend, or produce such an impression that her admirers feel inclined to transgress the bounds of friendship. Too young and healthy-looking not to please, but too modest to affect it, she esteems men only for their merit, and believes she has only friends; her vivacity and sentiment surprise and interest us, and though she knows perfectly the delicacies and niceties of conversation, she sometimes suddenly makes some happy observations, which give a great deal of pleasure and need not be answered. She speaks to you like one who is not learned, who is not certain of anything, and wants to be informed; and she listens to you as a person who knows a great deal, highly values what you say, and on whom nothing of what you say is lost. Far from pretending to be witty by contradicting you, and by imitating Elvira, who had rather be thought sprightly than a woman of sense and sound judgment, she adopts your thoughts, thinks they are her own, enlarges on them, and embellishes them; and makes you pleased you have thought so correctly and expressed yourself better than you believed you did. She shows her contempt for vanity in her conversation and in her writings, and never employs witticisms instead of arguments, for she is aware that true eloquence is always unaffected. If it is to serve any one and to induce you to do the same, Arténice leaves to Elvira all pretty speeches and literary phraseology, and only tries to convince you by her sincerity, ardour, and earnestness. What she likes above everything is reading, as well as conversing with persons of merit and reputation, and this not so much to be known to them, as to know them. We may already commend her for all the wisdom she will have one day, and for all the merit she will have in time to come; her behaviour is without reproach; she has the best intentions, and principles which cannot be shaken, and are very useful to those who, like her, are exposed to be courted and flattered. She rather likes to be alone, without, however, altogether shunning society, and indeed without even being inclined to retirement, so that perhaps she wants nothing but opportunities, or, as some would call it, a large stage for the display of all her qualities.630
(29.) The more natural a handsome woman is, the more amiable she appears; she loses nothing by being not in full dress, and without any other ornaments than her beauty and her youth. An artless charm beams on her countenance and animates every little action, so that there would be less danger in seeing her adorned in splendid and fashionable apparel. Thus an honest man is respected for his own sake, independent of any outward deportment by which he endeavours to give himself a graver appearance and to make his virtue more apparent. An austere look, an exaggerated modesty, eccentricity in dress, and a large skull-cap, add nothing to his probity nor heighten his merit;631 they conceal it, and perhaps make it appear less pure and ingenuous than it is.
Gravity too affected becomes comical; it is like extremities which join one another, and of which the centre is dignity; this cannot be called being grave, but acting the part of a grave man; a person who studies to assume a serious appearance will never succeed. Either gravity is natural, or there is no such thing, and it is easier to descend from it than to attain it.
(30.) A man of talent and of good repute, if he is peevish and austere, frightens young people and gives them a bad opinion of virtue, as they are afraid it requires too much austerity, and is too tiresome. If, on the contrary, he is cheerful and easily accessible, his example is instructive to them, for it teaches them that men may live happy, do a good deal of work, and yet be serious without giving up decent diversions; he thus is an exemplar they can follow.
(31.) We should not judge of men by their countenance; but it may serve to make a guess at their character.
(32.) A clever look in men is the same as regularity of features among women; it is a kind of beauty which the vainest endeavour to acquire.
(33.) When a man is known to have merit and intelligence, he is never ugly, however plain he may be; or if even he is ugly, it leaves no bad impression.632
(34.) A good deal of art is needed to return to nature; a good deal of time, practice, attention, and labour to dance with the same freedom and ease we walk with; to sing as we speak; to throw as much vivacity, passion, and persuasion in a studied speech to be publicly delivered as in one which we sometimes naturally use, without any preparation, and in familiar conversation.
(35.) They who without sufficient knowledge have a bad opinion of us, do not wrong us; they do not attack us, but a phantom of their own imagination.
(36.) Some trifling regulations have to be followed in certain places, some duties have to be fulfilled at certain times, and some decorum has to be observed by certain persons, which could not be divined by the most intelligent people, and which custom teaches without any trouble: we should, therefore, not condemn men who omit these things, as they have not been taught them, neither should we decide their characters by the shape of their nails or the curl of their hair; if we do form such a judgment we shall soon find out our error.
(37.) I doubt whether it be lawful to judge of some men by a single fault, or if extreme necessity, a violent passion, or a sudden impulse prove anything.
(38.) If we wish to know the truth about certain affairs or certain persons, we should believe the very opposite of the reports circulated about them.
(39.) Unless we are very firm and pay continual attention to what we utter, we are liable to say “yes” and “no” about the same thing or person in an hourʼs time, induced to do this merely by a sociable and friendly disposition, which naturally leads a person not to contradict men who hold different opinions.
(40.) A partial man is exposed to frequent mortifications; for it is as impossible for his favourites always to be happy or wise as for those who are out of his favour always to be at fault or unfortunate; and, therefore, he often is put out of countenance either through the failure of his friends, or some glorious deed done by those whom he dislikes.
(41.) A man liable to be prejudiced who ventures to accept an ecclesiastical or civil dignity is like a blind man wishing to be an artist, a dumb man who would be an orator, or a deaf man desiring to judge a symphony; these are but faint comparisons imperfectly expressing the wretchedness of prejudice. Besides, prejudice is a desperate and incurable disease, contaminating all who approach the patient, so that his equals, inferiors, relatives, friends, and even the doctors abandon him; it is past their skill to work any cure if they cannot make him confess what is his disease, and acknowledge that the remedies to heal it are to listen, to doubt, to inquire, and to examine. Flatterers, rogues, and slanderers, those who never open their mouths but to lie or to advance their own interests, are the quacks in whom he trusts, and who make him swallow all they please; they thus poison and kill him.
(42.) Descartesʼ rule never to decide on the slightest truth before it is clearly and distinctly understood is sufficiently grand and correct to extend to the judgment we form of persons.
(43.) Some men have a bad opinion of our intellect, morals, and manners; but we are well revenged when we see the worthless and base character of their favourites.
On this principle a man of merit is neglected and a blockhead admired.
(44.) A blockhead is a man without enough intelligence to be a coxcomb.
(45.) A blockhead thinks a coxcomb a man of merit.
(46.) An impertinent man is an egregious coxcomb; a coxcomb wearies, bores, disgusts, and repels you; an impertinent man repels, embitters, irritates, and offends; he begins where the other ends.
A coxcomb is somewhat of an impertinent man and of a blockhead, and is a medley of both.
(47.) Vices arise from a depraved heart; faults from some defect in our constitution; ridicule from want of sense.
A ridiculous man is one who, whilst he is so, has the appearance of a blockhead.
A blockhead is always ridiculous, for that is his character; an intelligent man may sometimes be ridiculous, but will not be so long.
An error in conduct makes a wise man ridiculous.
Foolishness is a criterion of a blockhead, vanity of a coxcomb, and impertinence of an impertinent man; ridicule seems sometimes to dwell in those who are really ridiculous, and sometimes in the imagination of those who believe they perceive ridicule where it neither is nor can be.
(48.) Coarseness, clownishness, and brutality may be the vices of an intelligent man.
(49.) A stupid man is a silent blockhead, and is more bearable than a talkative blockhead.
(50.) What is often a slip of the tongue or a jest from a man of sense is a blunder when said by a blockhead.
(51.) If a coxcomb would be afraid of saying something not exactly right he would no longer be a coxcomb.
(52.) One proof of a commonplace intellect is to be always relating stories.
(53.) A blockhead does not know what to do with himself; a coxcomb is free, easy, and confident in his manners; an impertinent man becomes impudent; and merit is always modest.
(54.) A conceited man is one in whom a knowledge of certain details, dignified by the name of business, is added to a very middling intellect.
One grain of sense and one ounce633 of business more than there are in a conceited man, make the man of importance.
While people only laugh at a man of importance he has no other name; but when they begin to complain of him he may be called arrogant.
(55.) A gentleman is between a clever man and an honest man, though not as distant from the one as from the other.634
The difference between a gentleman and a clever man diminishes each day, and will soon disappear altogether.
A clever man does not blaze forth his passions, understands his own interests, sacrifices many things to them, has acquired some wealth, and knows how to keep it.
A gentleman is not a highwayman, commits no murders, and, in one word, has no flagrant vices.
It is very well known that an honest man is a gentleman; but it is comical to think that every gentleman is not an honest man.
An honest man is neither a saint nor a pretender in religion, but has only confined himself to being virtuous.
(56.) Genius, taste, intelligence, good sense, are all different, but not incompatible.
Between good sense and good taste there is as much difference as between cause and effect.
Intelligence is to genius as the whole is in proportion to its part.
(57.) Shall I call a man sensible who only practises one art, or even a certain science, in which I allow him to be perfect, but beyond that displays neither judgment, memory, animation, morals, nor manners; does not understand me; thinks not, and expresses himself badly; a musician, for example, who, after he has enraptured me with his harmony, seems to be shut up with his lute in the same case, and when he is without his instrument is like a machine taken to pieces, in which there is something wanting and from which nothing more is to be expected?
Again, what shall I say of a certain talent for playing various games, and who can define it to me? Is there no need of foresight, shrewdness, or skill in playing ombre635 or chess? And if there is, how does it happen that we see men of hardly any intellect excel in these games, and others of great talent scarcely show moderate ability, and get confused and bewildered when they have to move a pawn or play a card?
There is something in this world, which, if possible, is still more difficult to understand. Some person seems dull, heavy, and stupefied; he knows neither how to speak, nor to relate what he has just seen; but, if he puts pen to paper, he can tell a tale better than any man; he makes animals, stones, and trees talk, and everything which does not speak; his works are light, elegant, natural, and full of delicacy.636
Another is simple, timorous, and tiresome in conversation; he mistakes one word for another, and judges of the excellence of his work merely by the money it brings him; he cannot read this work aloud, nor decipher his own handwriting. But let him compose, and he is not inferior to Augustus, Pompey, Nicomedes, and Heraclius; he is a king, and a great king, a politician and a philosopher; he undertakes to make heroes speak and act; he depicts the Romans, and in his verse they are greater, and more like Romans, than in their own history.637
Should you like to have an outline of another prodigy? Imagine a man, easy, gentle, affable, yielding, and then all of a sudden violent, enraged, furious, and capricious; represent to yourself a man simple, artless, credulous, sportive, and flighty, a grey-haired child; but let him recollect himself, or rather give himself up to the genius dwelling within him, and perhaps quite independent of him and without his knowledge, he will display rapture, lofty thoughts, splendid imagery, and pure latinity. You may well ask if I speak of one and the same man? Yes, of Theodas,638 and of no one else. He shrieks, is quite agitated, rolls on the ground, rises, shouts, and roars; and yet amidst this whirlwind of words shines forth a brilliant effulgence which delights us. To speak plainly, he talks like a fool and thinks like a wise man; he utters truth in a ridiculous way, and sensible and reasonable sayings in a foolish manner; people are surprised to hear common sense arise and bud amidst so much buffoonery, so many grimaces and contortions. I may say also that he speaks and acts better than he understands; he has within him, as it were, two souls, which are unconnected and do not depend on one another, but act each in their turn and have quite distinct functions. This astonishing picture would want another touch should I omit to state that he is anxiously craving for praise, has never enough of it, and is ready to fly at any of his critics, but in reality is docile enough to profit by their censure. I begin to imagine I have drawn the portraits of two wholly different persons; and yet to find a third in Theodas is not quite impossible, for he is kind-hearted, agreeable, and has excellent qualities.
Next to sound judgment, diamonds and pearls are the rarest things to be met with.
(58.) One man is well known for his abilities, and is honoured and cherished wherever he goes, but he is slighted by his household and his own family, whom he cannot induce to esteem him; another man, on the contrary, is a prophet in his own country, has a great reputation among his friends, which does, however, not extend beyond his house, and prides himself on the rare and singular merit his family—whose idol he is—believe he is possessed of, but which he leaves at home every time he goes out, and takes nowhere with him.639
(59.) Every one attacks a man whose reputation is rising; the very persons he thinks his friends hardly pardon his growing merit, or that early popularity which seems to give him a share of the renown they already enjoy; they hold out as long as they can, until the king declares himself in his favour and rewards him; then they immediately gather in crowds round him, and only from that day he ranks as a man of merit.
(60.) We often pretend to praise immoderately some men who hardly deserve it, and to raise them, if it were possible, on a level with those who are really eminent, either because we are tired of admiring always the same persons, or because their fame, being divided, is less offensive to behold, and seems to us less brilliant and easier to be borne.
(61.) We see some men carried along by the propitious gale of favour, and, in one moment, they lose sight of land, and continue their course; everything smiles on them, and they are successful in whatever they undertake; their deeds and their works are extolled and well rewarded, and when they appear they are caressed and congratulated. A firm rock stands on the coast, and breakers dash against its base; all the blasts of power, riches, violence, flattery, authority, and favour cannot shake it. The public is the rock against which these men are dashed to pieces.
(62.) It is usual, and, as it were, natural to judge of other menʼs labour only by the affinity it bears to our own. Thus a poet, filled with grand and sublime ideas, does not greatly prize an oratorʼs speech, which is often merely about simple facts; and a man who writes the history of his native land cannot understand how any person of sense can spend his whole life in contriving fictions or hunting after a rhyme; and a divine, immersed in the study of the first four centuries,640 thinks all other learning and science sad, idle, and useless, whilst he perhaps is as much despised by a mathematician.
(63.) A man may have intelligence enough to excel in a particular thing and lecture on it, and yet not have sense enough to know he ought to be silent on some other subject of which he has but a slight knowledge; if such an illustrious man ventures beyond the bounds of his capacity, he loses his way, and talks like a fool.
(64.) Whether Herillus talks, declaims, or writes, he is continually quoting; he brings in the prince of philosophers641 to tell you that wine will make you intoxicated, and the Roman orator642 to say that water qualifies it. When he discourses of morals, it is not he, but the divine Plato who assures us that virtue is amiable, vice odious, and that both will become habitual. The most common and well-known things, which he himself might have thought out, he attributes to the ancients, the Romans and Greeks; it is not to give more authority to what he says, nor perhaps to get more credit for learning, but merely for the sake of employing quotations.
(65.) We often pretend that a witticism is our own, and by doing this we run the risk of destroying its effect; it falls flat, and witty people, or those who think themselves so, receive it coldly, because they ought to have said it, and did not. On the contrary, if told as anotherʼs, it would meet with a better reception; it is but a jest which no one is obliged to know; it is related in a more insinuating manner, and causes less jealousy; it offends nobody; if it is amusing it is laughed at, and if excellent is admired.
(66.) Socrates was said to be insane, to be “an intelligent madman;” but those Greeks who gave such a name to so wise a man passed for madmen themselves. They exclaimed, “What odd portraits does this philosopher present us with! What strange and peculiar manners does he describe! In what dreams did he discover and collect such extraordinary ideas! What colours and what a brush has he! They are only idle fancies!” They were mistaken—all those monsters and vices were painted from life, so that people imagined they saw them, and were terrified. Socrates was far from a cynic; he did not indulge in personalities, but lashed the morals and manners which were bad.643
(67.) A man who has acquired wealth by his knowledge of the world is acquainted with a philosopher, and with his precepts, morals, and conduct; but not imagining that mankind can have any other goal in whatever they do than the one he marked out for himself during his whole lifetime, he says in his heart, “I pity this rigid critic; his life has been a failure; he is on a wrong track, and has lost his way; no wind will ever waft him to a prosperous harbour of preferment;” and, according to his own principles, he is right in his arguments.
Antisthius says: “I pardon those I have praised in my works, if they will forget me, for I did nothing for them, as they deserved to be commended. But I will not so easily pardon forgetfulness in those whose vices I have attacked, without touching their persons, if they owe me the invaluable boon of being amended; but as such an event never happens, it follows that neither the one nor the other are obliged to make me any return.”