almost be said, quarreller, said of his own fame, "I shall dine
late, but the dining-room will be well lighted, the guests few
and select." A powerful, turbulent spirit, he attracted great
men. Emerson, Browning, Dickens, and Swinburne travelled to sit
at his feet, and he knew Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth, Lamb, and
Southey. Born at Warwick, on January 30, 1775, he was dismissed
from Rugby School at the age of fifteen, and from Oxford at the
age of nineteen; was estranged from his father; several times
left the wife whom he had married for her golden hair, and spent
the last years of his life, lonely but lionised, at Florence. To
the last--which came on September 17, 1864--he wrote both prose
and verse. Landor appears, to the average appreciator of English
literature, an interesting personality rather than a great
writer, though his epic, "Gebir" (1798), and his tragedy, "Count
Julian" (1812), like some of his minor verse, contain passages
of great beauty. But it was in the "Imaginary Conversations,"
written between 1821 and 1829, and first sampled by the public
in review form in 1823, that he endowed the English language
with his most permanent achievement. Nearly 150 of these
"Conversations" were written in all, and we epitomise here five
of the best-known.
_I.--Peter the Great and Alexis_
PETER: And so, after flying from thy father's house, thou hast returned
again from Vienna. After this affront in the face of Europe, thou
darest to appear before me?
ALEXIS: My emperor and father! I am brought before your majesty not at
my own desire.
PETER: I believe it well. What hope hast thou, rebel, in thy flight to
Vienna?
ALEXIS: The hope of peace and privacy; the hope of security, and, above
all things, of never more offending you.
PETER: Didst thou take money?
ALEXIS: A few gold pieces. Hitherto your liberality, my father, hath
supplied my wants of every kind.
PETER: Not of wisdom, not of duty, not of spirit, not of courage, not
of ambition. I have educated thee among my guards and horses, among
my drums and trumpets, among my flags and masts. I have rolled cannon
balls before thee over iron plates; I have shown thee bright new arms,
bayonets, and sabres. I have myself led thee forth to the window when
fellows were hanged and shot; and I have made thee, in spite of thee,
look steadfastly upon them, incorrigible coward! Thy intention, I know,
is to subvert the institutions it has been the labour of my lifetime to
establish. Thou hast never rejoiced at my victories.
ALEXIS: I have rejoiced at your happiness and your safety.
PETER: Liar! Coward! Traitor! When the Polanders and the Swedes fell
before me, didst thou congratulate me? Didst thou praise the Lord of
Hosts? Wert thou not silent and civil and low-spirited?
ALEXIS: I lamented the irretrievable loss of human life, I lamented
that the bravest and noblest were swept away the first, that order
was succeeded by confusion, and that your majesty was destroying the
glorious plans you alone were capable of devising.
PETER: Of what plans art thou speaking?
ALEXIS: Of civilising the Muscovites. The Polanders in parts were
civilised; the Swedes more than any other nation.
PETER: Civilised, forsooth? Why the robes of the metropolitan, him at
Upsal, are not worth three ducats. But I am wasting my words. Thine are
tenets that strike at the root of politeness and sound government.
ALEXIS: When I hear the God of Mercy invoked to massacres, and thanked
for furthering what He reprobates and condemns--I look back in vain on
any barbarous people for worse barbarism.
PETER: Malignant atheist! Am I Czar of Muscovy, and hear discourse on
reason and religion--from my own son, too? No, by the Holy Trinity!
thou art no son of mine. Unnatural brute, I have no more to do with
thee. Ho there! Chancellor! What! Come at last! Wert napping, or
counting thy ducats?
CHANCELLOR: Your majesty's will, and pleasure!
PETER: Is the senate assembled?
CHANCELLOR: Every member, sire.
PETER: Conduct this youth with thee, and let them judge him; thou
understandest?
CHANCELLOR: Your majesty's commands are the breath of our nostrils.
PETER: If these rascals are amiss, I will try my new cargo of Livonian
hemp upon 'em.
CHANCELLOR (_returning_): Sire! Sire!
PETER: Speak, fellow! Surely they have not condemned him to death
without giving themselves time to read the accusation, that thou comest
back so quickly.
CHANCELLOR: No, sire! Nor has either been done.
PETER: Then thy head quits thy shoulders.
CHANCELLOR: O sire! he fell.
PETER: Tie him up to thy chair, then. Cowardly beast! What made him
fall?
CHANCELLOR: The hand of death.
PETER: Prythee speak plainlier.
CHANCELLOR: He said calmly, but not without sighing twice or thrice,
"Lead me to the scaffold; I am weary of life. My father says, too
truly, I am not courageous, but the death that leads me to my God shall
never terrify me." When he heard your majesty's name accusing him of
treason and attempts at parricide, he fell speechless. We raised him
up: he was dead!
PETER: Inconsiderate and barbarous varlet as thou art, dost thou recite
this ill accident to a father--and to one who has not dined? Bring me a
glass of brandy. Away and bring it: scamper! Hark ye! bring the bottle
with it: and--hark ye! a rasher of bacon on thy life! and some pickled
sturgeon, and some krout and caviar.
_II.--Joseph Scaliger and Montaigne_
MONTAIGNE: What could have brought you, M. de l'Escale, other than a
good heart? You rise early, I see; you must have risen with the sun, to
be here at this hour. I have capital white wine, and the best cheese in
Auvergne. Pierre, thou hast done well; set it upon the table, and tell
Master Matthew to split a couple of chickens and broil them.
SCALIGER: This, I perceive, is the ante-chamber to your library; here
are your every-day books.
MONTAIGNE: Faith! I have no other. These are plenty, methinks.
SCALIGER: You have great resources within yourself, and therefore can
do with fewer.
MONTAIGNE: Why, how many now do you think here may be?
SCALIGER: I did not believe at first that there could be above
fourscore.
MONTAIGNE: Well! are fourscore few? Are we talking of peas and beans?
SCALIGER: I and my father (put together) have written well-nigh as many.
MONTAIGNE: Ah! to write them is quite another thing. How do you like my
wine? If you prefer your own country wine, only say it. I have several
bottles in my cellar. I do not know, M. de l'Escale, whether you are
particular in these matters?
SCALIGER: I know three things--wine, poetry, and the world.
MONTAIGNE: You know one too many, then. I hardly know whether I know
anything about poetry; for I like Clem Marot better than Ronsard.
SCALIGER: It pleases me greatly that you like Marot. His version of
the Psalms is lately set to music, and added to the New Testament of
Geneva.
MONTAIGNE: It is putting a slice of honeycomb into a barrel of vinegar,
which will never grow the sweeter for it.
SCALIGER: Surely, you do not think in this fashion of the New Testament?
MONTAIGNE: Who supposes it? Whatever is mild and kindly is there. But
Jack Calvin has thrown bird-lime and vitriol upon it, and whoever but
touches the cover dirties his fingers or burns them.
SCALIGER: Calvin is a very great man.
MONTAIGNE: I do not like your great men who beckon me to them, call me
their begotten, their dear child, and their entrails; and, if I happen
to say on any occasion, "I beg leave, sir, to dissent a little from
you," stamp and cry, "The devil you do!" and whistle to the executioner.
SCALIGER: John Calvin is a grave man, orderly, and reasonable.
MONTAIGNE: In my opinion he has not the order nor the reason of my
cook. Mat never twitched God by the sleeve and swore He should not have
his own way.
SCALIGER: M. de Montaigne, have you ever studied the doctrine of
predestination?
MONTAIGNE: I should not understand it if I had; and I would not break
through an old fence merely to get into a cavern. Would it make me
honester or happier, or, in other things, wiser?
SCALIGER: I do not know whether it would materially.
MONTAIGNE: I should be an egregious fool, then, to care about it. Come,
walk about with me; after a ride you can do nothing better to take off
fatigue. I can show you nothing but my house and my dairy.
SCALIGER: Permit me to look a little at those banners. They remind me
of my own family, we being descended from the great Cane della Scala,
Prince of Verona, and from the House of Hapsburg, as you must have
heard from my father.
MONTAIGNE: What signifies it to the world whether the great Cane was
tied to his grandmother or not? As for the House of Hapsburg, if you
could put together as many such houses as would make up a city larger
than Cairo, they would not be worth his study, or a sheet of paper on
the table of it.
_III.--Bossuet and the Duchesse de Fontanges_
BOSSUET: Mademoiselle, it is the king's desire that I compliment you on
the elevation you have attained.
FONTANGES: O monseigneur, I know very well what you mean. His majesty
is kind and polite to everybody. The last thing he said to me was,
"Angélique! do not forget to compliment monseigneur the bishop on
the dignity I have conferred upon him, of almoner to the dauphiness.
I desired the appointment for him only that he might be of rank
sufficient to confess you, now you are duchess." You are so agreeable a
man, monseigneur, I will confess to you, directly.
BOSSUET: Have you brought yourself to a proper frame of mind, young
lady?
FONTANGES: What is that?
BOSSUET: Do you hate sin?
FONTANGES: Very much.
BOSSUET: Do you hate the world?
FONTANGES: A good deal of it; all Picardy, for example, and all
Sologne; nothing is uglier--and, oh my life! what frightful men and
women!
BOSSUET: I would say in plain language, do you hate the flesh and the
devil?
FONTANGES: Who does not hate the devil? If you will hold my hand the
while, I will tell him so--"I hate you, beast!" There now. As for
flesh, I never could bear a fat man. Such people can neither dance nor
hunt, nor do anything that I know of.
BOSSUET: Mademoiselle Marie Angélique de Scoraille de Rousille,
Duchesse de Fontanges! Do you hate titles, and dignities, and yourself?
FONTANGES: Myself! Does anyone hate me? Why should I be the first?
Hatred is the worst thing in the world; it makes one so very ugly.
BOSSUET: We must detest our bodies if we would save our souls.
FONTANGES: That is hard. How can I do it? I see nothing so detestable
in mine. Do you? As God hath not hated me, why should I? As for titles
and dignities, I am glad to be a duchess. Would not you rather be a
duchess than a waiting-maid if the king gave you your choice?
BOSSUET: Pardon me, mademoiselle. I am confounded at the levity of your
question. If you really have anything to confess, and desire that I
should have the honour of absolving you, it would be better to proceed.
FONTANGES: You must first direct me, monseigneur. I have nothing
particular. What was it that dropped on the floor as you were speaking?
BOSSUET: Leave it there!
FONTANGES: Your ring fell from your hand, my lord bishop! How quick you
are! Could not you have trusted me to pick it up?
BOSSUET: Madame is too condescending. My hand is shrivelled; the ring
has ceased to fit it. A pebble has moved you more than my words.
FONTANGES: It pleases me vastly. I admire rubies. I will ask the king
for one exactly like it. This is the time he usually comes from the
chase. I am sorry you cannot be present to hear how prettily I shall
ask him. I am sure he will order the ring for me, and I will confess
to you with it upon my finger. But, first, I must be cautious and
particular to know of him how much it is his royal will that I should
say.
_IV.--The Empress Catharine and Princess Dashkof_
CATHARINE: Into his heart! Into his heart! If he escapes, we perish!
Do you think, Dashkof, they can hear me through the double door? Yes,
hark! they heard me. They have done it! What bubbling and gurgling!
He groaned but once. Listen! His blood is busier now than it ever was
before. I should not have thought it could have splashed so loud upon
the floor. Put you ear against the lock.
DASHKOF: I hear nothing.
CATHARINE: My ears are quicker than yours, and know these notes better.
Let me come. There! There again! The drops are now like lead. How now?
Which of these fools has brought his dog with him? What trampling and
lapping! The creature will carry the marks all about the palace with
his feet! You turn pale, and tremble. You should have supported me, in
case I had required it.
DASHKOF: I thought only of the tyrant. Neither in life nor in death
could any one of these miscreants make me tremble. But the husband
slain by his wife! What will Russia--what will Europe say?
CATHARINE: Russia has no more voice than a whale. She may toss about in
her turbulence, but my artillery (for now, indeed, I can safely call it
mine) shall stun and quiet her.
DASHKOF: I fear for your renown.
CATHARINE: Europe shall be informed of my reasons, if she should ever
find out that I countenanced the conspiracy. She shall be persuaded
that her repose made the step necessary; that my own life was in
danger; that I fell upon my knees to soften the conspirators; that only
when I had fainted, the horrible deed was done.
DASHKOF: Europe may be more easily subjugated than duped.
CATHARINE: She shall be both, God willing! Is the rouge off my face?
DASHKOF: It is rather in streaks and mottles, excepting just under the
eyes, where it sits as it should do.
CATHARINE: I am heated and thirsty. I cannot imagine how. I think
we have not yet taken our coffee. I could eat only a slice of melon
at breakfast--my duty urged me _then_--and dinner is yet to come.
Remember, I am to faint at the midst of it, when the intelligence comes
in, or, rather, when, in despite of every effort to conceal it from
me, the awful truth has flashed upon my mind. Remember, too, you are
to catch me, and to cry for help, and to tear those fine flaxen hairs
which we laid up together on the toilet; and we are both to be as
inconsolable as we can be for the life of us.
Come, sing. I know not how to fill up the interval. Two long hours yet!
How stupid and tiresome! I wish all things of the sort could be done
and be over in a day. They are mightily disagreeable when by nature one
is not cruel. People little know my character. I have the tenderest
heart upon earth. Ivan must follow next; he is heir to the throne.
But not now. Another time. Two such scenes together, and without some
interlude, would perplex people.
I thought we spoke of singing. Do not make me wait. Cannot you sing as
usual, without smoothing your dove's throat with your handkerchief, and
taking off your necklace? Sing, sing! I am quite impatient!
_V.--Bacon and Richard Hooker_
BACON: Hearing much of your worthiness and wisdom, Master Richard
Hooker, I have besought your comfort and consolation in this my too
heavy affliction, for we often do stand in need of hearing what we
know full well, and our own balsams must be poured into our breasts by
another's hand. Withdrawn, as you live, from court and courtly men,
and having ears occupied by better reports than such as are flying
about me, yet haply so hard a case as mine, befalling a man heretofore
not averse from the studies in which you take delight, may have touched
you with some concern.
HOOKER: I do think, my lord of Verulam, that the day which in his
wisdom he appointed for your trial was the very day on which the
king's majesty gave unto your ward and custody the great seal of his
English realm. And--let me utter it without offence--your features and
stature were from that day forward no longer what they were before.
Such an effect do rank and power and office produce even on prudent and
religious men. You, my lord, as befits you, are smitten and contrite;
but I know that there is always a balm which lies uppermost in these
afflictions.
BACON: Master Richard, it is surely no small matter to lose the respect
of those who looked up to us for countenance; and the favour of a right
learned king, and, O Master Hooker, such a power of money! But money
is mere dross. I should always hold it so, if it possessed not two
qualities--that of making men treat us reverently, and that of enabling
us to help the needy.
HOOKER: The respect, I think, of those who respect us for what a fool
can give and a rogue can take away, may easily be dispensed with; but
it is indeed a high prerogative to help the needy, and when it pleases
the Almighty to deprive us of it, he hath removed a most fearful
responsibility.
BACON: Methinks it beginneth to rain, Master Richard. What if we
comfort our bodies with a small cup of wine, against the ill-temper of
the air. Pledge me; hither comes our wine.(_To the servant_) Dolt! Is
not this the beverage I reserve for myself?
Bear with me, good Master Hooker, but verily I have little of this
wine, and I keep it as a medicine for my many and growing infirmities.
You are healthy at present: God, in His infinite mercy, long maintain
you so! Weaker drink is more wholesome for you. But this Malmsey, this
Malmsey, flies from centre to circumference, and makes youthful blood
boil.
HOOKER: Of a truth, my knowledge in such matters is but sparse. My
lord of Canterbury once ordered part of a goblet, containing some
strong Spanish wine, to be taken to me from his table when I dined by
sufferance with his chaplains, and, although a most discreet, prudent
man, as befitteth his high station, was not so chary of my health as
your lordship. Wine is little to be trifled with; physic less. The
Cretans, the brewers of this Malmsey, have many aromatic and powerful
herbs among them. On their mountains, and notably on Ida, grows that
dittany which works such marvels, and which perhaps may give activity
to this hot medicinal drink of theirs. I would not touch it knowingly;
an unregarded leaf dropped into it above the ordinary might add such
puissance to the concoction as almost to break the buckles in my shoes.
BACON: When I read of such things I doubt them: but if I could procure
a plant of dittany I would persuade my apothecary and my gamekeeper to
make experiments.
HOOKER: I dare not distrust what grave writers have declared in matters
beyond my knowledge.
BACON: Good Master Hooker, I have read many of your reasonings, and
they are admirably well sustained. Yet forgive me, in God's name my
worthy master, if you descried in me some expression of wonder at your
simplicity. You would define to a hair's breadth the qualities, states,
and dependencies of principalities, dominations, and powers; you would
be unerring about the apostles and the churches, and 'tis marvellous
how you wander about a pot-herb!
HOOKER: I know my poor, weak intellects, most noble lord, and how
scantily they have profited by my hard painstaking. Wisdom consisteth
not in knowing many things, nor even in knowing them thoroughly, but
in choosing and in following what conduces the most certainly to our
lasting happiness and true glory.
BACON: I have observed among the well-informed and the ill-informed
nearly the same quantity of infirmities and follies; those who are
rather the wiser keep them separate, and those who are wisest of all
keep them better out of sight. I have persuaded men, and shall persuade
them for ages, that I possess a wide range of thought unexplored by
others, and first thrown open by me, with many fair enclosures of
choice and abstruse knowledge. One subject, however, hath almost
escaped me, and surely one worth the trouble.
HOOKER: Pray, my lord, if I am guilty of no indiscretion, what may it
be?
BACON: Francis Bacon.
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Reflections and Moral Maxims
Rochefoucauld's "Reflections, or Sentences and Moral Maxims,"
were published in 1665. In them his philosophy of life is
expressed with a perfection of form which still remains
unrivalled and unequalled. The original work contains only 314
short sentences; the last edition he published contains 541; but
when one examines the exquisite workmanship of his style, one
does not wonder that it represents the labour of twenty years. La
Rochefoucauld (see Vol. X, p. 203) is one of the greatest masters
of French prose, as well as one of the great masters of cynicism.
He has exerted a deep influence both on English and French
literature, and Swift and Byron were among his disciples.
_I.--Of Love and of Women_
To judge love by most of its effects, it seems more like hatred than
kindness.
In love we often doubt of what we most believe.
As long as we love, we forgive.
Love is like fire, it cannot be without continual motion; as soon as it
ceases to hope or fear it ceases to exist.
Many persons would never have been in love had they never heard talk of
it.
Agreeable and pleasant as love is, it pleases more by the manners in
which it shows itself than by itself alone.
We pass on from love to ambition; we seldom return from ambition to
love.
Those who have had a great love affair find themselves all their life
happy and unhappy at being cured of it.
In love the one who is first cured is best cured.
The reason why lovers are never weary of talking of each other is that
they are always talking of themselves.
Constancy in love is a perpetual inconstancy which makes our heart
attach itself in succession to all the qualities of our beloved, and
prefer, now this trait and now that; so that this constancy is only a
kind of inconstancy fixed and enclosed in a single object.
If there is a love pure and exempt from all mixture with our other
passions, it is that which is hidden in the depth of our heart and
unknown to ourselves.
The pleasure of love consists in loving, and our own passion gives us
more happiness than the feelings which our beloved has for us.
The grace of novelty is to love like the fine bloom on fruit; it gives
it a lustre which is easily effaced and never recovered.
We are nearer loving those who hate us than those who love us more than
we desire.
Women often fancy themselves to be in love when they are not. Their
natural passion for being beloved, their unwillingness to give a
denial, the excitement of mind produced by an affair of gallantry, all
these make them imagine they are in love when they are in fact only
coquetting.
All women are flirts. Some are restrained by timidity and some by
reason.
The greatest miracle of love is the reformation of a coquette.
A coquette pretends to be jealous of her lover, in order to conceal her
envy of other women.
Most women yield more from weakness than from passion, hence an
enterprising man usually succeeds with them better than an amiable man.
It is harder for women to overcome their coquetry than their love. No
woman knows how much of a coquette she is.
Women who are in love more readily forgive great indiscretions than
small infidelities.
Some people are so full of themselves that even when they become lovers
they find a way of being occupied with their passion without being
interested in the person whom they love.
It is useless to be young without being beautiful, or beautiful without
being young.
In their first love affairs women love their lover; in all others they
love love.
In the old age of love, as in the old age of life, we continue to live
to pain long after we have ceased to live to pleasure.
There is no passion in which self-love reigns so powerfully as in love;
we are always more ready to sacrifice the repose of a person we love
than to lose our own.
There is a certain kind of love which, as it grows excessive, leaves no
room for jealousy.
Jealousy is born with love, but it does not always die with it.
Jealousy is the greatest of all afflictions, and that which least
excites pity in the persons that cause it.
In love and in friendship we are often happier by reason of the things
that we do not know than by those that we do.
There are few women whose merit lasts longer than their beauty.
The reason why most women are little touched by friendship is that
friendship is insipid to those who have felt what love is.
_II.--Friendship_
In the misfortunes of our best friends we always find something that
does not displease us.
Rare as true love is, it is less rare than true friendship.
What makes us so changing in our friendships is that it is difficult to
discern the qualities of the soul, and easy to recognize the qualities
of the mind.
It is equally difficult to have a friendship for those whom we do not
esteem as for those we esteem more than ourselves.
We love those who admire us, not those whom we admire.
Most of the friendships of the world ill deserve the name of
friendship; still, a man may make occasional use of them, as in a
business where the profits are uncertain and it is usual to be cheated.