Le plaisir de la societe entre les amis se cultive par une ressemblance
de gout sur ce qui regarde les moeurs, et par quelque difference
d’opinions sur les sciences; par la ou l’on s’affermit dans ses
sentiments, ou l’on s’exerce et l’on s’instruit par la dispute.--La
Bruyere.
There was a party at Monsieur de V--e’s, to which Vincent and myself
were the only Englishmen invited: accordingly as the Hotel de V. was in
the same street as my hotel, we dined together at my rooms, and walked
from thence to the minister’s house.
The party was as stiff and formal as such assemblies invariably are,
and we were both delighted when we espied Monsieur d’A--, a man of much
conversational talent, and some celebrity as an ultra writer, forming a
little group in one corner of the room.
We took advantage of our acquaintance with the urbane Frenchman to join
his party; the conversation turned almost entirely on literary subjects.
Allusion being made to Schlegel’s History of Literature, and the
severity with which he speaks of Helvetius, and the philosophers of his
school, we began to discuss what harm the free-thinkers in philosophy
had effected.
“For my part,” said Vincent, “I am not able to divine why we are
supposed, in works where there is much truth, and little falsehood, much
good, and a little evil, to see only the evil and the falsehood, to
the utter exclusion of the truth and the good. All men whose minds are
sufficiently laborious or acute to love the reading of metaphysical
inquiries, will by the same labour and acuteness separate the chaff
from the corn--the false from the true. It is the young, the light, the
superficial, who are easily misled by error, and incapable of
discerning its fallacy; but tell me, if it is the light, the young, the
superficial, who are in the habit of reading the abstruse and subtle
speculations of the philosopher. No, no! believe me that it is the very
studies Monsieur Schlegel recommends, which do harm to morality and
virtue; it is the study of literature itself, the play, the poem, the
novel, which all minds, however frivolous, can enjoy and understand,
that constitute the real foes to religion and moral improvement.”
“Ma foi,” cried Monsieur de G., (who was a little writer, and a great
reader of romances) “why, you would not deprive us of the politer
literature, you would not bid us shut up our novels, and burn our
theatres.”
“Certainly not!” replied Vincent; “and it is in this particular that I
differ from certain modern philosophers of our own country, for whom,
for the most part, I entertain the highest veneration. I would not
deprive life of a single grace, or a single enjoyment, but I would
counteract whatever is pernicious in whatever is elegant; if among my
flowers there is a snake, I would not root up my flowers, I would kill
the snake. Thus, who are they that derive from fiction and literature
a prejudicial effect? We have seen already--the light and
superficial;--but who are they that derive profit from them?--they who
enjoy well regulated and discerning minds. Who pleasure?--all mankind!
Would it not therefore be better, instead of depriving some of profit,
and all of pleasure, by banishing poetry and fiction from our Utopia,
to correct the minds which find evil, where, if they were properly
instructed, they would find good? Whether we agree with Helvetius, that
all men are born with an equal capacity of improvement, or merely go
the length with all other metaphysicians, that education can improve the
human mind to an extent yet incalculable, it must be quite clear, that
we can give sound views instead of fallacies, and make common truths as
easy to discern and adopt as common errors. But if we effect this,
which we all allow is so easy, with our children; if we strengthen their
minds, instead of weakening them, and clear their vision, rather than
confuse it, from that moment, we remove the prejudicial effects of
fiction, and just as we have taught them to use a knife, without cutting
their fingers, we teach them to make use of fiction without perverting
it to their prejudice. What philosopher was ever hurt by reading the
novels of Crebillon, or seeing the comedies of Moliere? You understand
me, then, Monsieur de G., I do, it is true, think that polite literature
(as it is termed,) is prejudicial to the superficial, but for that
reason, I would not do away with the literature, I would do away with
the superficial.”
“I deny,” said M. D’A--, “that this is so easy a task--you cannot make
all men wise.”
“No,” replied Vincent; “but you can all children, at least to a certain
extent. Since you cannot deny the prodigious effects of education, you
must allow that they will, at least, give common sense; for if they
cannot do this, they can do nothing. Now common sense is all that is
necessary to distinguish what is good and evil, whether it be in life
or in books: but then your education must not be that of public teaching
and private fooling; you must not counteract the effects of common sense
by instilling prejudice, or encouraging weakness; your education may
not be carried to the utmost goal: but as far as it does go you must see
that the road is clear. Now, for instance, with regard to fiction, you
must not first, as is done in all modern education, admit the disease,
and then dose with warm water to expel it; you must not put fiction into
your child’s hands, and not give him a single principle to guide his
judgment respecting it, till his mind has got wedded to the poison, and
too weak, by its long use, to digest the antidote. No; first fortify his
intellect by reason, and you may then please his fancy by fiction. Do
not excite his imagination with love and glory, till you can instruct
his judgment as to what love and glory are. Teach him, in short, to
reflect, before you permit him full indulgence to imagine.”
Here there was a pause. Monsieur D’A--looked very ill-pleased, and poor
Monsieur de G--thought that somehow or other his romance writing was
called into question. In order to soothe them, I introduced some subject
which permitted a little national flattery; the conversation then turned
insensibly on the character of the French people.
“Never,” said Vincent, “has there been a character more often
described--never one less understood. You have been termed superficial.
I think, of all people, that you least deserve the accusation. With
regard to the few, your philosophers, your mathematicians, your men
of science, are consulted by those of other nations, as some of their
profoundest authorities. With regard to the many, the charge is still
more unfounded. Compare your mob, whether of gentlemen or plebeians,
to those of Germany, Italy--even England--and I own, in spite of my
national prepossessions, that the comparison is infinitely in your
favour. The country gentlemen, the lawyer, the petit maitre of England,
are proverbially inane and ill-informed. With you, the classes of
society that answer to those respective grades, have much information
in literature, and often not a little in science. In like manner, your
tradesmen, your mechanics, your servants, are, beyond all measure, of
larger, better cultivated, and less prejudiced minds than those ranks in
England. The fact is, that all with you pretend to be savans, and this
is the chief reason why you have been censured as shallow. We see your
fine gentleman, or your petit bourgeois, give himself the airs of a
critic or a philosopher; and because he is neither a Scaliger nor a
Newton, we forget that he is only the bourgeois or the pelit maitre,
and set down all your philosophers and critics with the censure of
superficiality, which this shallow individual of a shallow order
may justly have deserved. We, the English, it is true, do not expose
ourselves thus: our dandies, our tradesmen, do not vent second rate
philosophy on the human mind, nor on les beaux arts: but why is this?
Not because they are better informed than their correspondent ciphers
in France, but because they are much worse; not because they can say
a great deal more on the subject, but because they can say nothing at
all.”
“You do us more than justice,” said Monsieur D’A--, “in this instance:
are you disposed to do us justice also in another? It is a favourite
propensity of your countrymen to accuse us of heartlessness and want of
feeling. Think you that this accusation is deserved?”
“By no means,” replied Vincent. “The same cause that brought on the
erroneous censure we have before mentioned, appears to me also to have
created this; viz. a sort of Palais Royal vanity, common to all your
nation, which induces you to make as much display at the shop window as
possible. You show great cordiality, and even enthusiasm, to strangers;
you turn your back on them--you forget them. ‘How heartless!’ cry we.
Not at all! The English show no cordiality, no enthusiasm to strangers,
it is true: but they equally turn their backs on them, and equally
forget them! The only respect, therefore, in which they differ from
you, is the previous kindness: now if we are to receive strangers, I can
really see no reason why we are not to be as civil to them as possible;
and so far from imputing the desire to please them to a bad heart, I
think it a thousand times more amiable and benevolent than telling them,
a l’Anglaise, by your morosity and reserve, that you do not care a pin
what becomes of them. If I am only to walk a mile with a man, why should
I not make that mile as pleasant to him as I can; or why, above all, if
I choose to be sulky, and tell him to go and be d--d, am I to swell out
my chest, colour with conscious virtue, and cry, see what a good heart I
have?
“Ah, Monsieur D’A----, since benevolence is inseparable from all
morality, it must be clear that there is a benevolence in little
things as well as in great; and that he who strives to make his fellow
creatures happy, though only for an instant, is a much better man than
he who is indifferent to, or, (what is worse) despises, it. Nor do I, to
say truth, see that kindness to an acquaintance is at all destructive
to sincerity to a friend: on the contrary, I have yet to learn, that
you are (according to the customs of your country) worse friends, worse
husbands, or worse fathers than we are!”
“What!” cried I, “you forget yourself, Vincent. How can the private
virtues be cultivated without a coal fire? Is not domestic affection
a synonymous term with domestic hearth? and where do you find either,
except in honest old England?”
“True,” replied Vincent; “and it is certainly impossible for a father
and his family to be as fond of each other on a bright day in the
Tuilleries, or at Versailles, with music and dancing, and fresh air, as
they would be in a back parlour, by a smoky hearth, occupied entirely by
le bon pere, et la bonne mere; while the poor little children sit at the
other end of the table, whispering and shivering, debarred the vent of
all natural spirits, for fear of making a noise; and strangely uniting
the idea of the domestic hearth with that of a hobgoblin, and the
association of dear papa with that of a birch rod.”
We all laughed at this reply, and Monsieur D’A----, rising to depart,
said, “Well, well, milord, your countrymen are great generalizers in
philosophy; they reduce human actions to two grand touchstones. All
hilarity, they consider the sign of a shallow mind; and all kindness,
the token of a false heart.”