You must not violate your gifts, you must simply study their
possibilities. It is what we do with trees and animals in which we are
able to instil virtues they do not seem to possess at all naturally.
However humble your position in society may be, however great your
poverty, in the crude sense men give to this word, you may none the
less become rich and successful without so much as leaving the room
where you are in conversation with your comrade, your wife or your
favorite adversary. Find your study there. You have observed that when
two men meet they begin by sacrificing to the old custom of enquiring
briefly about one another’s health and affairs, after which, without
waiting for the other’s reply, each one begins to speak of himself.
This is such an old usage that they do not even know they are doing it.
Each one speaks of himself for a few moments, then allows the other
to talk about himself for about the same length of time. When this has
gone on long enough they separate, and each preserves for his partner
a vague feeling of gratitude, not so much because he has listened as
because he has made a pretense of listening to matters that were of no
concern to him.
This fact suggests a great lesson. The majority of men suffer from a
sort of neglect, they suffer from not being possessed by anyone, from
offering themselves in vain. Stretch out your hand and seize them.
Learn to say the word that will assure you the mastery, the domination.
It is inconceivable that so many spirits, tormented by the need for
power, by the passion for authority, should waste and sterilize
themselves in order to hoard money, win rank, obtain a title. They gain
nothing from it but a pride that withers them; they clasp only the
shadow of what they pursue.
Seek a little and you will soon find that they are legion who ask
nothing better than to cast themselves into your nets. Do not believe
that they are always the mediocre victims. It is not only the wretched
who wish to be understood and consoled. There are many sceptics who
await with anguish the touch of a hand to deliver them from their
scepticism. There are many happy men, too, who cannot bear to be alone
with their happiness, for man has even more need of help in joy than
in sorrow.
It has often happened, while walking with a comrade, a stranger or
an adversary, that I would find him hard, defiant, rebellious at
every touch. Thereupon, I would set out openly, under his very eye,
to capture him. I would begin to speak to him about himself. I would
say to him: “The unique things about you are....” And I would confide
to him everything I thought about him, being particularly careful to
say nothing more about myself. I would interest myself in him, not
fictitiously--that is a barren and a perilous game--but with all my
heart, with all my intelligence. I would tell him what I knew, what
I already possessed of him, his virtues and his faults. Confused or
irritated, he would come to my feet, he would appear as if before a bar
to give thanks or to plead, to show his claws or to purr. The things I
had said to him might be very severe; I still felt that he was grateful
to me for having cared about him, even in order to attack him. No
longer was he in any haste to leave me. Often he would come back on
the days that followed and make me unexpected visits; though I could
see that he was provoked, I knew nevertheless that he had come to pay
homage, to attest that he was a faithful subject.
“The unique things about you are”.... That is a chance phrase. There
are others, there are a thousand of them. When you are ready, a grip
of the hand or some other human sign may take its place. I remember the
story of a certain prefect who, having no worse enemy than a traitor in
his department, had the happy thought one day of asking him to have a
drink and going away without paying for it. This extraordinary proof of
confidence attached the man to him forever.
Not that all your victims will be so tremblingly easy. There are proud
souls who set a high price on their conquest, fantastic and sick souls
whom one has to seize suddenly and overthrow almost before they are
aware of it.
You must set the time and choose the hour of the attack.
Do not accost the business man in the roar of the Exchange; attempt
the field rather at the hour when, wearied, he is counting over and
reckoning his disillusionments. Do not seize the man of action on the
battlefield, but in the moment of leisure when he does not know what to
do with his solitude.
What marvelous opportunities must the shy Las Casas have glimpsed at
Saint Helena, even though he was pursuing other aims!
I once saw a simple soul publicly congratulate a master surgeon whose
skill had for long years placed him above all felicitations. And the
celebrated man blushed, bowed, gave in.
A successful lawyer said to me one day: “Each one of my clients
imagines that I think only of him, that I occupy myself exclusively
with him.”
Remember, too, that certain women never capitulate twice: they never
forgive themselves for having yielded completely even for a moment. The
same thing is true with others who are offended with you because you
have “taken” them by force. Do not regret this sacrifice too much: it
leaves a beautiful jewel in your casket.
Truly the whole vast race of men belongs to you.
Take and eat, you cannot find more noble food.
See, there is the world you must conquer. It is not that for whose
possession proud peoples are driven to declare war; it is indeed quite
another world than that which Satan showed Jesus from the summit of the
mountain.
IV
ON DISCOVERING THE WORLD
I
The world contains not one single object that might not be a source
of happiness. Sorrow springs from this, that man outdoes himself in
misusing everything. He turns against his own body or his own spirit
all sorts of things that seem well made for his joy.
Every being contains an unbelievable store of happiness, and this one
virtue reveals the angle from which he ought to be judged.
Your true business man makes a practice of weighing everything in terms
of gold: a human being, a field of wheat, a beam, a precious stone.
His tables of value are false, but the principle of valuation remains
none the less efficacious, fundamental. The mistake of these persons
is in testing everything by a single measure, in reducing everything
to this gold which enables them to seek their chosen pleasure. If it
is drink, or woman, they transmute an orchard into wine or into women,
losing terribly by the exchange. They thus produce a sort of analogy
to what the physicists call the degradation of energy: little by
little, the traffickers degrade their pleasures until they obtain those
they prefer. But happiness is higher than this: it cannot be degraded,
bought, transmuted. It is a pure relationship between the soul and the
world. It will never be the mere object of a transaction. Many are the
men who have fastened their hope, their future upon the acquisition
of some material good only to experience after years of effort and
privation a burning disillusion. That is because happiness is too proud
and free a thing to obey the commands of merchants. It follows laws of
its own that seem like inspirations, it does not come at the bidding
of business men. The castle we have coveted so long may open at the
appointed hour; joy will not take up its abode there unless we have
deserved it.
It must be repeated again: the principle of evaluation is at the base
of our moral life. But each thing should be valued in itself and for
itself.
A tuft of violets is worth a great deal for its perfume and its beauty,
it can bring joy or consolation to a great many hearts. But it has only
the slightest commercial value; estimated in terms of building lumber
or freestone it signifies nothing, or virtually nothing.
That so many men should cut and sell wood, shape and barter the stone
of which our houses are built, go gathering violets through the May
thickets to sell them to townsfolk, is undoubtedly right and necessary.
The real question is quite a different one: we must first possess
for their own sakes all the blessings that are offered us, and not
obstinately transform them, without an important reason, beyond our
strict needs, at the risk of forever losing our understanding and our
true possession of them.
It is almost a truism that men who are obliged by their profession
to handle, store or sell substances famous for their power of giving
pleasure, perfumes, fruits, silks, end by losing all appreciation of
them and even by contracting a disgust and contempt for them. Cooks
have no appetite. Let us not be cooks, then, in the presence of this
vast world; let us know how to preserve or restore to each object its
original savor and significance.
I say “restore” intentionally, for the world seems to be more and more
turning from its true sense, that is to say, its human sense, the only
one for us.
A stone is a beautiful thing, beautiful from all points of view; its
grain, its color, its brilliancy, its hardness are all so many virtues
that exercise and satisfy our senses, excite our reflections. We have a
thousand noble uses, speculative or practical, to which we can put such
an object. We shall be the kings of the universe if we assert boldly
that we find in these uses and in our joy the very destiny of the
stone.
I remember seeing hills that had been disemboweled by a bombardment
and were sown with long splinters of twisted iron; the base of a
monstrous shell appeared before me, one day, under these conditions,
and it seemed to me truly inhuman, this product of the work of men: the
noble metal, with which so many good and beautiful things can be made,
took on a hateful appearance. Man had achieved the mournful miracle of
denaturing nature, rendering it ignoble and criminal.
Truly, we are equally guilty every time we turn an object aside from
its mission, which is altogether one of happiness. We are guilty again
every time we fail to extract, for others and for ourselves, all the
happiness an object holds in store and only asks to be allowed to yield.