_Plato_.--Welcome to Elysium, O thou, the most pure, the most gentle, the
most refined disciple of philosophy that the world in modern times has
produced! Sage Fenelon, welcome!--I need not name myself to you. Our
souls by sympathy must know one another.
_Fenelon_.--I know you to be Plato, the most amiable of all the disciples
of Socrates, and the philosopher of all antiquity whom I most desired to
resemble.
_Plato_.--Homer and Orpheus are impatient to see you in that region of
these happy fields which their shades inhabit. They both acknowledge you
to be a great poet, though you have written no verses. And they are now
busy in composing for you unfading wreaths of all the finest and sweetest
Elysian flowers. But I will lead you from them to the sacred grove of
philosophy, on the highest hill of Elysium, where the air is most pure
and most serene. I will conduct you to the fountain of wisdom, in which
you will see, as in your own writings, the fair image of virtue
perpetually reflected. It will raise in you more love than was felt by
Narcissus, when he contemplated the beauty of his own face in the
unruffled spring. But you shall not pine, as he did, for a shadow. The
goddess herself will affectionately meet your embraces and mingle with
your soul.
_Fenelon_.--I find you retain the allegorical and poetical style, of
which you were so fond in many of your writings. Mine also run sometimes
into poetry, particularly in my "Telemachus," which I meant to make a
kind of epic composition. But I dare not rank myself among the great
poets, nor pretend to any equality in oratory with you, the most eloquent
of philosophers, on whose lips the Attic bees distilled all their honey.
_Plato_.--The French language is not so harmonious as the Greek, yet you
have given a sweetness to it which equally charms the ear and heart. When
one reads your compositions, one thinks that one hears Apollo's lyre,
strung by the hands of the Graces, and tuned by the Muses. The idea of a
perfect king, which you have exhibited in your "Telemachus," far excels,
in my own judgment, my imaginary "Republic." Your "Dialogues" breathe
the pure spirit of virtue, of unaffected good sense, of just criticism,
of fine taste. They are in general as superior to your countryman
Fontenelle's as reason is to false wit, or truth to affectation. The
greatest fault of them, I think, is, that some are too short.
_Fenelon_.--It has been objected to them--and I am sensible of it
myself--that most of them are too full of commonplace morals. But I
wrote them for the instruction of a young prince, and one cannot too
forcibly imprint on the minds of those who are born to empire the most
simple truths; because, as they grow up, the flattery of a court will try
to disguise and conceal from them those truths, and to eradicate from
their hearts the love of their duty, if it has not taken there a very
deep root.
_Plato_.--It is, indeed, the peculiar misfortune of princes, that they
are often instructed with great care in the refinements of policy, and
not taught the first principles of moral obligations, or taught so
superficially that the virtuous man is soon lost in the corrupt
politician. But the lessons of virtue you gave your royal pupil are so
graced by the charms of your eloquence that the oldest and wisest men may
attend to them with pleasure. All your writings are embellished with a
sublime and agreeable imagination, which gives elegance to simplicity,
and dignity to the most vulgar and obvious truths. I have heard, indeed,
that your countrymen are less sensible of the beauty of your genius and
style than any of their neighbours. What has so much depraved their
taste?
_Fenelon_.--That which depraved the taste of the Romans after the ago of
Augustus--an immoderate love of wit, of paradox, of refinement. The
works of their writers, like the faces of their women, must be painted
and adorned with artificial embellishments to attract their regards. And
thus the natural beauty of both is lost. But it is no wonder if few of
them esteem my "Telemachus," as the maxims I have principally inculcated
there are thought by many inconsistent with the grandeur of their
monarchy, and with the splendour of a refined and opulent nation. They
seem generally to be falling into opinions that the chief end of society
is to procure the pleasures of luxury; that a nice and elegant taste of
voluptuous enjoyments is the perfection of merit; and that a king, who is
gallant, magnificent, liberal, who builds a fine palace, who furnishes it
well with good statues and pictures, who encourages the fine arts, and
makes them subservient to every modish vice, who has a restless ambition,
a perfidious policy, and a spirit of conquest, is better for them than a
Numa or a Marcus Aurelius. Whereas to check the excesses of luxury--those
excesses, I mean, which enfeeble the spirit of a nation--to ease the
people, as much as is possible, of the burden of taxes; to give them the
blessings of peace and tranquillity, when they can he obtained without
injury or dishonour; to make them frugal, and hardy, and masculine in the
temper of their bodies and minds, that they may be the fitter for war
whenever it does come upon them; but, above all, to watch diligently over
their morals, and discourage whatever may defile or corrupt them--is the
great business of government, and ought to be in all circumstances the
principal object of a wise legislature. Unquestionably that is the
happiest country which has most virtue in it; and to the eye of sober
reason the poorest Swiss canton is a much nobler state than the kingdom
of France, if it has more liberty, better morals, a more settled
tranquillity, more moderation in prosperity, and more firmness in danger.
_Plato_.--Your notions are just, and if your country rejects them she
will not long hold the rank of the first nation in Europe. Her
declension is begun, her ruin approaches; for, omitting all other
arguments, can a state be well served when the raising of an opulent
fortune in its service, and making a splendid use of that fortune, is a
distinction more envied than any which arises from integrity in office or
public spirit in government? Can that spirit, which is the parent of
national greatness, continue vigorous and diffusive where the desire of
wealth, for the sake of a luxury which wealth alone can support, and an
ambition aspiring, not to glory, but to profit, are the predominant
passions? If it exists in a king or a minister of state, how will either
of them find among a people so disposed the necessary instruments to
execute his great designs; or, rather, what obstruction will he not find
from the continual opposition of private interest to public? But if, on
the contrary, a court inclines to tyranny, what a facility will be given
by these dispositions to that evil purpose? How will men with minds
relaxed by the enervating ease and softness of luxury have vigour to
oppose it? Will not most of them lean to servitude, as their natural
state, as that in which the extravagant and insatiable cravings of their
artificial wants may best be gratified at the charge of a bountiful
master or by the spoils of an enslaved and ruined people? When all sense
of public virtue is thus destroyed, will not fraud, corruption, and
avarice, or the opposite workings of court factions to bring disgrace on
each other, ruin armies and fleets without the help of an enemy, and give
up the independence of the nation to foreigners, after having betrayed
its liberties to a king? All these mischiefs you saw attendant on that
luxury, which some modern philosophers account (as I am informed) the
highest good to a state! Time will show that their doctrines are
pernicious to society, pernicious to government; and that yours, tempered
and moderated so as to render them more practicable in the present
circumstances of your country, are wise, salutary, and deserving of the
general thanks of mankind. But lest you should think, from the praise I
have given you, that flattery can find a place in Elysium, allow me to
lament, with the tender sorrow of a friend, that a man so superior to all
other follies could give into the reveries of a Madame Guyon, a
distracted enthusiast. How strange was it to see the two great lights of
France, you and the Bishop of Meaux, engaged in a controversy whether a
madwoman was a heretic or a saint!
_Fenelon_.--I confess my own weakness, and the ridiculousness of the
dispute; but did not your warm imagination carry you also into some
reveries about divine love, in which you talked unintelligibly, even to
yourself?
_Plato_.--I felt something more than I was able to express.
_Fenelon_.--I had my feelings too, as fine and as lively as yours; but we
should both have done better to have avoided those subjects in which
sentiment took the place of reason.