restricted. It was natural to suppose that in perfecting and multiplying
avenues of information, a better understanding would be brought about.
Nations would learn to love each other as they became acquainted;
citizens of one country would feel themselves bound in closer
brotherhood as more light was thrown on what concerned their common
life. When printing was invented, the cry arose: _fiat lux!_ and with
better cause when the habit of reading and the taste for newspapers
increased. Why should not men have reasoned thus:--"Two lights illumine
better than one, and many better than two: the more periodicals and
books there are, the better we shall know what happens, and those who
wish to write history after us will be right fortunate; their hands will
be full of documents"? Nothing could have seemed more evident. Alas!
this reasoning was based upon the nature and capacity of the
instruments, without taking into account the human element, always the
most important factor. And what has really come about is this: that
cavilers, calumniators, and crooks--all gentlemen glib of tongue, who
know better than any one else how to turn voice and pen to account--have
taken the utmost advantage of these extended means for circulating
thought, with the result that the men of our times have the greatest
difficulty in the world to know the truth about their own age and their
own affairs. For every newspaper that fosters good feeling and good
understanding between nations, by trying to rightly inform its neighbors
and to study them without reservations, how many spread defamation and
distrust! What unnatural and dangerous currents of opinion set in
motion! what false alarms and malicious interpretations of words and
facts! And in domestic affairs we are not much better informed than in
foreign. As to commercial, industrial, and agricultural interests,
political parties and social tendencies, or the personality of public
men, it is alike difficult to obtain a disinterested opinion. The more
newspapers one reads, the less clearly he sees in these matters. There
are days when after having read them all, and admitting that he takes
them at their word, the reader finds himself obliged to draw this
conclusion:--Unquestionably nothing but corruption can be found any
longer--no men of integrity except a few journalists. But the last part
of the conclusion falls in its turn. It appears that the chroniclers
devour each other. The reader has under his eyes a spectacle somewhat
like the cartoon entitled, "The Combat of the Serpents." After having
gorged themselves with everything around them, the reptiles fall upon
each other, and there remain upon the field of battle two tails.
And not the common people alone feel this embarrassment, but the
cultivated also--almost everybody shares it. In politics, finance,
business--even in science, art, literature and religion, there is
everywhere disguise, trickery, wire-pulling; one truth for the public,
another for the initiated. The result is that everybody is deceived. It
is vain to be behind the scenes on one stage; a man cannot be there on
them all, and the very people who deceive others with the most ability,
are in turn deceived when they need to count upon the sincerity of their
neighbors.
The result of such practices is the degradation of human speech. It is
degraded first in the eyes of those who manipulate it as a base
instrument. No word is respected by sophists, casuists, and quibblers,
men who are moved only by a rage for gaining their point, or who assume
that their interests are alone worth considering. Their penalty is to be
forced to judge others by the rule they follow themselves: _Say what
profits and not what is true._ They can no longer take any one
seriously--a sad state of mind for those who write or teach! How lightly
must one hold his readers and hearers to approach them in such an
attitude! To him who has preserved enough honesty, nothing is more
repugnant than the careless irony of an acrobat of the tongue or pen,
who tries to dupe honest and ingenuous men. On one side openness,
sincerity, the desire to be enlightened; on the other, chicanery making
game of the public! But he knows not, the liar, how far he is misleading
himself. The capital on which he lives is confidence, and nothing equals
the confidence of the people, unless it be their distrust when once they
find themselves betrayed. They may follow for a time the exploiters of
their artlessness, but then their friendly humor turns to hate. Doors
which stood wide open offer an impassable front of wood, and ears once
attentive are deaf. And the pity is that they have closed not to the
evil alone, but to the good. This is the crime of those who distort and
degrade speech: they shake confidence generally. We consider as a
calamity the debasement of the currency, the lowering of interest, the
abolition of credit:--there is a misfortune greater than these: the loss
of confidence, of that moral credit which honest people give one
another, and which makes speech circulate like an authentic currency.
Away with counterfeiters, speculators, rotten financiers, for they bring
under suspicion even the coin of the realm. Away with the makers of
counterfeit speech, for because of them there is no longer confidence in
anyone or anything, and what they say and write is not worth a
continental.
You see how urgent it is that each should guard his lips, chasten his
pen, and aspire to simplicity of speech. No more perversion of sense,
circumlocution, reticence, tergiversation! these things serve only to
complicate and bewilder. Be men; speak the speech of honor. An hour of
plain-dealing does more for the salvation of the world than years of
duplicity.
* * * * *
A word now about a national bias, to those who have a veneration for
diction and style. Assuredly there can be no quarrel with the taste for
grace and elegance of speech. I am of opinion that one cannot say too
well what he has to say. But it does not follow that the things best
said and best written are most studied. Words should serve the fact, and
not substitute themselves for it and make it forgotten in its
embellishment. The greatest things are those which gain the most by
being said most simply, since thus they show themselves for what they
are: you do not throw over them the veil, however transparent, of
beautiful discourse, nor that shadow so fatal to truth, called the
writer's vanity. Nothing so strong, nothing so persuasive, as
simplicity! There are sacred emotions, cruel griefs, splendid heroisms,
passionate enthusiasms that a look, a movement, a cry interprets better
than beautifully rounded periods. The most precious possessions of the
heart of humanity manifest themselves most simply. To be convincing, a
thing must be true, and certain truths are more evident when they come
in the speech of ingenuousness, even weakness, than when they fall from
lips too well trained, or are proclaimed with trumpets. And these rules
are good for each of us in his every-day life. No one can imagine what
profit would accrue to his moral life from the constant observation of
this principle: Be sincere, moderate, simple in the expression of your
feelings and opinions, in private and public alike; never pass beyond
bounds, give out faithfully what is within you, and above all,
watch!--that is the main thing.
For the danger in fine words is that they live from a life of their own.
They are servants of distinction, that have kept their titles but no
longer perform their functions--of which royal courts offer us example.
You speak well, write well, and all is said. How many people content
themselves with speaking, and believe that it exempts them from acting!
And those who listen are content with having heard them. So it sometimes
happens that a life may in the end be made up of a few well-turned
speeches, a few fine books, and a few great plays. As for practicing
what is so magisterially set forth, that is the last thing thought of.
And if we pass from the world of talent to spheres which the mediocre
exploit, there, in a pell-mell of confusion, we see those who think that
we are in the world to talk and hear others talk--the great and hopeless
rout of babblers, of everything that prates, bawls, and perorates and,
after all, finds that there isn't talking enough. They all forget that
those who make the least noise do the most work. An engine that expends
all its steam in whistling, has nothing left with which to turn wheels.
Then let us cultivate silence. All that we can save in noise we gain in
power.
* * * * *
These reflections lead us to consider a similar subject, also very
worthy of attention: I mean what has been called "the vice of the
superlative." If we study the inhabitants of a country, we notice
differences of temperament, of which the language shows signs. Here the
people are calm and phlegmatic; their speech is jejune, lacks color.
Elsewhere temperaments are more evenly balanced; one finds precision,
the word exactly fitted to the thing. But farther on--effect of the sun,
the air, the wine perhaps--hot blood courses in the veins, tempers are
excitable, language is extravagant, and the simplest things are said in
the strongest terms.
If the type of speech varies with climate, it differs also with epochs.
Compare the language, written or spoken, of our own times with that of
certain other periods of our history. Under the old _régime_, people
spoke differently than at the time of the Revolution, and we have not
the same language as the men of 1830, 1848, or the Second Empire. In
general, language is now characterized by greater simplicity: we no
longer wear perukes, we no longer write in lace frills: but there is one
significant difference between us and almost all of our ancestors--and
it is the source of our exaggerations--our nervousness. Upon
over-excited nervous systems--and Heaven knows that to have nerves is no
longer an aristocratic privilege!--words do not produce the same
impression as under normal conditions. And quite as truly, simple
language does not suffice the man of over-wrought sensibilities when he
tries to express what he feels. In private life, in public, in books, on
the stage, calm and temperate speech has given place to excess. The
means that novelists and playwrights employ to galvanize the public mind
and compel its attention, are to be found again, in their rudiments, in
our most commonplace conversations, in our letter-writing, and above all
in public speaking. Our performances in language compared to those of a
man well-balanced and serene, are what our hand-writing is compared to
that of our fathers. The fault is laid to steel pens. If only the truth
were acknowledged!--Geese, then, could save us! But the evil goes
deeper; it is in ourselves. We write like men possessed: the pen of our
ancestors was more restful, more sure. Here we face one of the results
of our modern life, so complicated and so terribly exhaustive of energy.
It leaves us impatient, breathless, in perpetual trepidation. Our
hand-writing, like our speech, suffers thereby and betrays us. Let us go
back from the effect to the cause, and understand well the warning it
brings us!
What good can come from this habit of exaggerated speech? False
interpreters of our own impressions, we can not but warp the minds of
our fellow-men as well as our own. Between people who exaggerate, good
understanding ceases. Ruffled tempers, violent and useless disputes,
hasty judgments devoid of all moderation, the utmost extravagance in
education and social life--these things are the result of intemperance
of speech.
* * * * *
May I be permitted, in this appeal for simplicity of speech, to frame a
wish whose fulfilment would have the happiest results? I ask for
simplicity in literature, not only as one of the best remedies for the
dejection of our souls--_blasés_, jaded, weary of eccentricities--but
also as a pledge and source of social union. I ask also for simplicity
in art. Our art and our literature are reserved for the privileged few
of education and fortune. But do not misunderstand me. I do not ask
poets, novelists, and painters to descend from the heights and walk
along the mountain-sides, finding their satisfaction in mediocrity; but,
on the contrary, to mount higher. The truly popular is not that which
appeals to a certain class of society ordinarily called the common
people; the truly popular is what is common to all classes and unites
them. The sources of inspiration from which perfect art springs are in
the depths of the human heart, in the eternal realities of life before
which all men are equal. And the sources of a popular language must be
found in the small number of simple and vigorous forms which express
elementary sensations, and draw the master lines of human destiny. In
them are truth, power, grandeur, immortality. Is there not enough in
such an ideal to kindle the enthusiasm of youth, which, sensible that
the sacred flame of the beautiful is burning within, feels pity, and to
the disdainful adage, _Odi profanum vulgus_, prefers this more humane
saying, _Misereor super turbam_. As for me, I have no artistic
authority, but from out the multitude where I live, I have the right to
raise my cry to those who have been given talents, and say to them:
Labor for men whom the world forgets, make yourselves intelligible to
the humble, so shall you accomplish a work of emancipation and peace; so
shall you open again the springs whence those masters drew, whose works
have defied the ages because they knew how to clothe genius in
simplicity.
V
SIMPLE DUTY
When we talk to children on a subject that annoys them, they call our
attention to some pigeon on the roof, giving food to its little one, or
some coachman down in the street who is abusing his horse. Sometimes
they even maliciously propose one of those alarming questions that put
the minds of parents on the rack; all this to divert attention from the
distressing topic. I fear that in the face of duty we are big children,
and, when that is the theme, seek subterfuges to distract us.
The first sophism consists in asking ourselves if there is such a thing
as duty in the abstract, or if this word does not cover one of the
numerous illusions of our forefathers. For duty, in truth, supposes
liberty, and the question of liberty leads us into metaphysics. How can
we talk of liberty so long as this grave problem of free-will is not
solved? Theoretically there is no objection to this; and if life were a
theory, and we were here to work out a complete system of the universe,
it would be absurd to concern ourselves with duty until we had clarified
the subject of liberty, determined its conditions, fixed its limits.
But life is not a theory. In this question of practical morality, as in
the others, life has preceded hypothesis, and there is no room to
believe that she ever yields it place. This liberty--relative, I admit,
like everything we are acquainted with, for that matter--this duty whose
existence we question, is none the less the basis of all the judgments
we pass upon ourselves and our fellow-men. We hold each other to a
certain extent responsible for our deeds and exploits.
The most ardent theorist, once outside of his theory, scruples not a
whit to approve or disapprove the acts of others, to take measures
against his enemies, to appeal to the generosity and justice of those he
would dissuade from an unworthy step. One can no more rid himself of the
notion of moral obligation than of that of time or space; and as surely
as we must resign ourselves to walking before we know how to define this
space through which we move and this time that measures our movements,
so surely must we submit to moral obligation before having put our
finger on its deep-hidden roots. Moral law dominates man, whether he
respects or defies it. See how it is in every-day life: each one is
ready to cast his stone at him who neglects a plain duty, even if he
allege that he has not yet arrived at philosophic certitude. Everybody
will say to him, and with excellent reason: "Sir, we are men before
everything. First play your part, do your duty as citizen, father, son;
after that you shall return to the course of your meditations."
However, let us be well understood. We should not wish to turn anyone
away from scrupulous research into the foundations of morality. No
thought which leads men to concern themselves once more with these grave
questions, could be useless or indifferent. We simply challenge the
thinker to find a way to wait till he has unearthed these foundations,
before he does an act of humanity, of honesty or dishonesty, of valor or
cowardice. And most of all do we wish to formulate a reply for all the
insincere who have never tried to philosophize, and for ourselves when
we would offer our state of philosophic doubt in justification of our
practical omissions. From the simple fact that we are men, before all
theorizing, positive, or negative, about duty, we have the peremptory
law to conduct ourselves like men. There is no getting out of it.
But he little knows the resources of the human heart, who counts on the
effect of such a reply. It matters not that it is itself unanswerable;
it cannot keep other questions from arising. The sum of our pretexts for
evading duty is equal to the sum of the sands of the sea or the stars of
heaven.
We take refuge, then, behind duty that is obscure, difficult,
contradictory. And these are certainly words to call up painful
memories. To be a man of duty and to question one's route, grope in the
dark, feel one's self torn between the contrary solicitations of
conflicting calls, or again, to face a duty gigantic, overwhelming,
beyond our strength--what is harder! And such things happen. We would
neither deny nor contest the tragedy in certain situations or the
anguish of certain lives. And yet, duty rarely has to make itself plain
across such conflicting circumstances, or to be struck out from the
tortured mind like lightning from a storm-cloud. Such formidable shocks
are exceptional. Well for us if we stand staunch when they come! But if
no one is astonished that oaks are uprooted by the whirlwind, that a
wayfarer stumbles at night on an unknown road, or that a soldier caught
between two fires is vanquished, no more should he condemn without
appeal those who have been worsted in almost superhuman moral conflicts.
To succumb under the force of numbers or obstacles has never been
counted a disgrace.
So my weapons are at the service of those who intrench themselves
behind the impregnable rampart of duty ill-defined, complicated or
contradictory. But it is not that which occupies me to-day; it is of
plain, I had almost said easy duty, that I wish to speak.
* * * * *
We have yearly three or four high feast days, and many ordinary ones:
there are likewise some very great and dark combats to wage, but beside
these is the multitude of plain and simple duties. Now, while in the
great encounters our equipment is generally adequate, it is precisely in
the little emergencies that we are found wanting. Without fear of being
misled by a paradoxical form of thought, I affirm, then, that the
essential thing is to fulfil our simple duties and exercise elementary
justice. In general, those who lose their souls do so not because they
fail to rise to difficult duty, but because they neglect to perform that
which is simple. Let us illustrate this truth.
He who tries to penetrate into the humble underworld of society is not
slow to discover great misery, physical and moral. And the closer he
looks, the greater number of unfortunates does he discover, till in the
end this assembly of the wretched appears to him like a great black
world, in whose presence the individual and his means of relief are
reduced to helplessness. It is true that he feels impelled to run to the
succor of these unfortunates, but at the same time he asks himself,
"What is the use?" The case is certainly heartrending. Some, in despair,
end by doing nothing. They lack neither pity nor good intention, but
these bear no fruit. They are wrong. Often a man has not the means to do
good on a large scale, but that is not a reason for failing to do it at
all. So many people absolve themselves from any action, on the ground
that there is too much to do! They should be recalled to simple duty,
and this duty in the case of which we speak is that each one, according
to his resources, leisure and capacity, should create relations for
himself among the world's disinherited. There are people who by the
exercise of a little good-will have succeeded in enrolling themselves
among the followers of ministers, and have ingratiated themselves with
princes. Why should you not succeed in forming relations with the poor,
and in making acquaintances among the workers who lack somewhat the
necessities of life? When a few families are known, with their
histories, their antecedents and their difficulties, you may be of the
greatest use to them by acting the part of a brother, with the moral and
material aid that is yours to give. It is true, you will have attacked
only one little corner, but you will have done what you could, and
perhaps have led another on to follow you. Instead of stopping at the
knowledge that much wretchedness, hatred, disunion and vice exist in
society, you will have introduced a little good among these evils. And
by however slow degrees such kindness as yours is emulated, the good
will sensibly increase and the evil diminish. Even were you to remain
alone in this undertaking, you would have the assurance that in
fulfilling the duty, plain as a child's, which offered itself, you were
doing the only reasonable thing. If you have felt it so, you have found
out one of the secrets of right living.
In its dreams, man's ambition embraces vast limits, but it is rarely
given us to achieve great things, and even then, a quick and sure
success always rests on a groundwork of patient preparation. Fidelity in
small things is at the base of every great achievement. We too often
forget this, and yet no truth needs more to be kept in mind,
particularly in the troubled eras of history and in the crises of
individual life. In shipwreck a splintered beam, an oar, any scrap of
wreckage, saves us. On the tumbling waves of life, when everything seems
shattered to fragments, let us not forget that a single one of these
poor bits may become our plank of safety. To despise the remnants is
demoralization.
You are a ruined man, or you are stricken by a great bereavement, or
again, you see the fruit of toilsome years perish before your eyes. You
cannot rebuild your fortune, raise the dead, recover your lost toil, and
in the face of the inevitable, your arms drop. Then you neglect to care
for your person, to keep your house, to guide your children. All this is
pardonable, and how easy to understand! But it is exceedingly dangerous.
To fold one's hands and let things take their course, is to transform
one evil into worse. You who think that you have nothing left to lose,
will by that very thought lose what you have. Gather up the fragments
that remain to you, and keep them with scrupulous care. In good time
this little that is yours will be your consolation. The effort made will
come to your relief, as the effort missed will turn against you. If
nothing but a branch is left for you to cling to, cling to that branch;
and if you stand alone in defense of a losing cause, do not throw down
your arms to join the rout. After the deluge a few survivors repeopled
the earth. The future sometimes rests in a single life as truly as life
sometimes hangs by a thread. For strength, go to history and Nature.
From the long travail of both you will learn that failure and fortune
alike may come from the slightest cause, that it is not wise to neglect
detail, and, above all, that we must know how to wait and to begin
again.
In speaking of simple duty I cannot help thinking of military life, and
the examples it offers to combatants in this great struggle. He would
little understand his soldier's duty who, the army once beaten, should
cease to brush his garments, polish his rifle, and observe discipline.
"But what would be the use?" perhaps you ask. Are there not various
fashions of being vanquished? Is it an indifferent matter to add to
defeat, discouragement, disorder, and demoralization? No, it should
never be forgotten that the least display of energy in these terrible
moments is a sign of life and hope. At once everybody feels that all is
not lost.
During the disastrous retreat of 1813-1814, in the heart of the winter,
when it had become almost impossible to present any sort of appearance,
a general, I know not who, one morning presented himself to Napoleon, in
full dress and freshly shaven. Seeing him thus, in the midst of the
general demoralization, as elaborately attired as if for parade, the
Emperor said: _My general, you are a brave man!_
* * * * *
Again, the plain duty is the near duty. A very common weakness keeps
many people from finding what is near them interesting; they see that
only on its paltry side. The distant, on the contrary, draws and
fascinates them. In this way a fabulous amount of good-will is wasted.
People burn with ardor for humanity, for the public good, for righting
distant wrongs; they walk through life, their eyes fixed on marvelous
sights along the horizon, treading meanwhile on the feet of passers-by,
or jostling them without being aware of their existence.