The man of letters, usually unable to conceive loftier services to
mankind or more attractive aims to persons of capacity than the
composition of books, has treated these pretensions of Voltaire with a
supercilious kind of censure, which teaches us nothing about Voltaire,
while it implies a particularly shallow idea alike of the position of
the mere literary life in the scale of things, and of the conditions
under which the best literary work is done. To have really contributed
in the humblest degree, for instance, to a peace between Prussia and
her enemies in 1759, would have been an immeasurably greater
performance for mankind than any given book which Voltaire could have
written. And, what is still better worth observing, Voltaire's books
would not have been the powers they were, but for this constant desire
of his to come into the closest contact with the practical affairs of
the world. He who has never left the life of a recluse, drawing an
income from the funds and living in a remote garden, constructing
past, present, and future, out of his own consciousness, is not
qualified either to lead mankind safely, or to think on the course of
human affairs correctly. Every page of Voltaire has the bracing air of
the life of the world in it, and the instinct which led him to seek
the society of the conspicuous actors on the great scene was
essentially a right one.
[Footnote 63: From "Voltaire."]
The book-writer takes good advantage of his opportunity to assure men
expressly or by implication that he is their true king, and that the
sacred bard is a mightier man than his hero. Voltaire knew better. Tho
himself perhaps the most puissant man of letters that ever lived, he
rated literature as it ought to be rated below action, not because
written speech is less of a force, but because the speculation and
criticism of the literature that substantially influences the world,
make far less demand than the actual conduct of great affairs on
qualities which are not rare in detail, but are amazingly rare in
combination,--on temper, foresight, solidity, daring,--on strength, in
a word, strength of intelligence and strength of character. Gibbon
rightly amended his phrase, when he described Boethius not as
stooping, but rather as rising, from his life of placid meditation to
an active share in the imperial business. That he held this sound
opinion is quite as plausible an explanation of Voltaire's anxiety to
know persons of station and importance, as the current theory that he
was of sycophantic nature. "Why," he asks, "are the ancient historians
so full of light? It is because the writer had to do with public
business; it is because he could be magistrate, priest, soldier; and
because if he could not rise to the highest functions of the state, he
had at least to make himself worthy of them. I admit," he concludes,
"that we must not expect such an advantage with us, for our own
constitution happens to be against it;" but he was deeply sensible
what an advantage it was that they thus lost.
In short, on all sides, whatever men do and think was real and alive
to Voltaire. Whatever had the quality of interesting any imaginable
temperament, had the quality of interesting him. There was no subject
which any set of men have ever cared about, which, if he once had
mention of it, Voltaire did not care about likewise. And it was just
because he was so thoroughly alive himself, that he filled the whole
era with life. The more closely one studies the various movements of
that time, the more clear it becomes that, if he was not the original
center and first fountain of them all, at any rate he made many
channels ready and gave the sign. He was the initial principle of
fermentation throughout that vast commotion. We may deplore, if we
think fit, as Erasmus deplored in the case of Luther, that the great
change was not allowed to work itself out slowly, calmly, and without
violence and disruption. These graceful regrets are powerless, and on
the whole they are very enervating. Let us make our account with the
actual, rather than seek excuses for self-indulgence in pensive
preference of something that might have been. Practically in these
great circles of affairs, what only might have been is as tho it could
not be; and to know this may well suffice for us.