visit the greatest men in the land; he is not learned, but he is
acquainted with some learned men; he has not much merit, but he knows
people who have a great deal of it; he has no abilities, but he has a
tongue that serves him to be understood, and feet that carry him from
one place to another. He is a man made to run backwards and forwards,
to listen to proposals and to talk about them, to do this officially,
to exceed the duties of his post, and even to be disowned; to reconcile
people who fall out the first time they see one another; to succeed
in one affair and fail in a thousand; to arrogate all the honour of
success to himself, and cast all the blame of a failure on others.
He knows all the scandal and the tittle-tattle of the town; he does
nothing but only repeats and hears what others do; he is a newsmonger,
he is even acquainted with family secrets, and busies himself about
the greatest mysteries; he tells you the reason why a certain person
was banished and another has been recalled; he knows why and wherefore
two brothers have quarrelled,[149] and why two ministers have fallen
out.[150] Did he not predict to the former the sad consequences of
their misunderstanding? Did he not tell the latter their union would
not last long? Was he not present when certain words were spoken? Did
he not enter into some kind of negotiation? Would they believe him?
Did they mind what he said? To whom do you talk about those things?
Who has had a greater share in all court intrigues than Celsus? And
if it were not so, or if he had not dreamed or imagined it to be so,
would he think of making you believe it? Would he put on the grave and
mysterious look of a man newly returned from an embassy?
(40.) Menippus[151] is a bird decked in various feathers which are
not his. He neither says nor feels anything, but repeats the feelings
and sayings of others; it is so natural for him to make use of other
peopleʼs minds that he is the first deceived by it, and often believes
he speaks his own mind or expresses his own thoughts when he is but
the echo of some man he just parted with. He is bearable[152] for a
quarter of an hour, but a moment after he flags, degenerates, loses the
little polish his shallow memory gives him, and shows he has nothing
more left.[153] He alone ignores how very far he is from the sublime
and the heroic; and having no idea of the extent of his intelligence,
ingenuously believes that he possesses as much as it is possible
for any man to have, and accordingly assumes the air and manners of
one who has nothing more to wish for nor to envy any one. He often
soliloquises, and so little conceals it, that the passers-by see him
and think he is always making up his mind, or is finally deciding some
matter or other. If you bow to him at a certain time, you perplex
him as to whether he has to return the bow or not; and, whilst he is
deliberating, you are already out of his sight. His vanity, which has
made him a gentleman, has raised him above himself, and made him what
naturally he is not. When you behold him, you can judge he has nothing
to do but to survey himself, so that he may perceive everything he
wears suits him, and that his dress is not incongruous; he fancies all
menʼs eyes are upon him, and that people come to look on him one after
another.
(41.) A man who has a palace of his own, with apartments for the
summer and the winter season, and yet sleeps in an _entresol_ in the
Louvre,[154] does not act thus through modesty; another, who, to
preserve his elegant shape, abstains from wine and eats but one meal
a day, is neither sober nor temperate; whilst it may be said of a
third, who, importuned by some poor friend, finally renders him some
assistance, that he buys his tranquillity, but by no means that he is
liberal. It is the motive alone that gives merit to human actions, and
disinterestedness perfects them.
(42.) False greatness is unsociable and inaccessible; as it is sensible
of its weakness, it conceals itself, or at least does not show itself
openly, and only allows just so much to be seen as will carry on the
deceit, so as not to appear what it really is, namely, undoubtedly
mean. True greatness, on the contrary, is free, gentle, familiar, and
popular; it allows itself to be touched and handled, loses nothing by
being seen closely, and is the more admired the better it is known. Out
of kindness it stoops to inferiors, and recovers, without effort, its
true character; sometimes it unbends, becomes negligent, lays aside
all its superiority, yet never loses the power of resuming it and of
maintaining it; amidst laughter, gambols, and jocularity it preserves
its dignity, and we approach it freely, and yet with some diffidence.
It is noble, yet sympathetic, whilst inspiring respect and confidence,
and makes us view princes as of lofty, nay, of very lofty rank, without
making us feel that we are of inferior condition.[155]
(43.) A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so
exalted that riches, office, fortune, and favour cannot satisfy him. He
sees nothing good and sufficiently efficient in such a poor superiority
to engage his affections and to render it deserving of his cares and
his desires; he has to use some effort not to despise it too much. The
only thing that might tempt him is that kind of honour which should
attend a wholly pure and unaffected virtue; but men but rarely grant
it, so he does without it.
(44.) A man is good who benefits others: if he suffers for the good he
does, he is still better; and if he suffers through those to whom he
did good, he has arrived at such a height of perfection that nothing
but an increase of his sufferings can add to it; if he dies through
them, his virtue cannot stand higher; it is heroic, it is complete.
[Illustration]
III.
OF WOMEN.
(1.) The male and female sex seldom agree about the merits of a woman,
as their interests vary too much. Women do not like those same charms
in one another which render them agreeable to men: many ways and means
which kindle in the latter the greatest passions, raise among them
aversion and antipathy.
(2.) There exists among some women an artificial grandeur depending on
a certain way of moving their eyes, tossing their heads, and on their
manner of walking, which does not go farther; it is like a dazzling wit
which is deceptive, and is only admired because it is superficial. In a
few others is to be found an ingenuous, natural greatness, not beholden
to gestures and motion, which springs from the heart, and is, as it
were, the result of their noble birth; their merit, as unruffled as it
is efficient, is accompanied by a thousand virtues, which, in spite
of all their modesty, break out and display themselves to all who can
discern them.
(3.) I have heard some people say they should like to be a girl, and a
handsome girl, too, from thirteen to two-and-twenty, and after that age
again to become a man.
(4.) Some young ladies are not sensible of the advantages of a happy
disposition, and how beneficial it would be to them to give themselves
up to it; they enfeeble these rare and fragile gifts which Heaven has
given them by affectation and by bad imitation; their very voice and
gait are affected; they fashion their looks, adorn themselves, consult
their looking-glasses to see whether they have sufficiently changed
their own natural appearance, and take some trouble to make themselves
less agreeable.
(5.) For a woman to paint herself red or white is, I admit, a smaller
crime than to say one thing and think another; it is also something
less innocent than to disguise herself or to go masquerading, if she
does not pretend to pass for what she seems to be, but only thinks of
concealing her personality and of remaining unknown; it is an endeavour
to deceive the eyes, to wish to appear outwardly what she is not; it is
a kind of “white lie.”
We should judge of a woman without taking into account her shoes and
head-dress, and, almost as we measure a fish, from head to tail.[156]
(6.) If it be the ambition of women only to appear handsome in their
own eyes and to please themselves, they are, no doubt, right in
following their own tastes and fancies as to how they should beautify
themselves, as well as in choosing their dress and ornaments; but if
they desire to please men, if it is for them they paint and besmear
themselves, I can tell them that all men, or nearly all, have agreed
that white and red paint makes them look hideous and frightful; that
red paint alone ages and disguises them, and that these men hate as
much to see white lead on their countenances as to see false teeth in
their mouths or balls of wax to plump out their cheeks;[157] that they
solemnly protest against all artifices women employ to make themselves
look ugly; that they are not responsible for it to Heaven, but, on the
contrary, that it seems the last and infallible means to reclaim men
from loving them.
If women were by nature what they make themselves by art; if they were
to lose suddenly all the freshness of their complexion, and their faces
to become as fiery and as leaden as they make them with the red and the
paint they besmear themselves with, they would consider themselves the
most wretched creatures on earth.
(7.) A coquette is a woman who never yields to the passion she has for
pleasing, nor to the good opinion she entertains of her own beauty; she
regards time and years only as things that wrinkle and disfigure other
women, and forgets that age is written on her face. The same dress,
which formerly enhanced her beauty when she was young, now disfigures
her, and shows the more the defects of old age; winning manners and
affectation cling to her even in sorrow and sickness; she dies dressed
in her best, and adorned with gay-coloured ribbons.
(8.) Lise[158] hears that people make fun of some coquette for
pretending to be young and for wearing dresses which no longer suit a
woman of forty. Lise is as old as that, but years for her have less
than twelve months; nor do they add to her age; she thinks so, and
whilst she looks in the glass, lays the red on her face and sticks on
the patches, confesses there is a time of life when it is not decent to
affect a youthful appearance, and, indeed, that Clarissa with her paint
and patches is ridiculous.
(9.) Women make preparations to receive their lovers, but if they are
surprised by them, they forget in what sort of dress they are, and
no longer think of themselves. They are in no such confusion with
people for whom they do not care; they perceive that they are not well
dressed, bedizen themselves in their presence, or else disappear for a
moment and return beautifully arrayed.
(10.) A handsome face is the finest of all sights, and the sweetest
music is the sound of the voice of the woman we love.
(11.) Fascination is despotic; beauty is something more tangible and
independent of opinion.
(12.) A man can feel his heart touched by certain women of such perfect
beauty and such transcendent merit that he is satisfied with only
seeing them and conversing with them.
(13.) A handsome woman, who possesses also the qualities of a man of
culture, is the most agreeable acquaintance a man can have, for she
unites the merits of both sexes.
(14.) A young lady accidentally says many little things which are
clearly convincing, and greatly flatter those to whom they are
addressed. Men say almost nothing accidentally; their endearments are
premeditated; they speak, act, and are eager to please, but convince
less.
(15.) Handsome women are more or less whimsical; those whims serve as
an antidote, so that their beauty may do less harm to men, who, without
such a remedy, would never be cured of their love.
(16.) Women become attached to men through the favours they grant them,
but men are cured of their love through those same favours.
(17.) When a woman no longer loves a man, she forgets the very favours
she has granted him.
(18.) A woman with one gallant thinks she is no coquette; she who has
several thinks herself but a coquette.
A woman avoids being a coquette if she steadfastly loves a certain
person, but she is not thought sane if she persists in a bad choice.
(19.) A former gallant is of so little consideration that he must give
way to a new husband; and the latter lasts so short a time that a fresh
gallant turns him out.
A former gallant either fears or despises a new rival, according to the
character of the lady to whom he pays his addresses.
Often a former gallant wants nothing but the name to be the husband of
the woman he loves; if it was not for this circumstance he would have
been dismissed a thousand times.
(20.) Gallantry in a woman seems to add to coquetry. A male coquette,
on the contrary, is something worse than a gallant. A male coquette and
a woman of gallantry are pretty much on a level.
(21.) Few intrigues are secret; many women are not better known by
their husbandsʼ names than they are by the names of their gallants.
(22.) A woman of gallantry strongly desires to be loved; it is enough
for a coquette to be thought amiable and to be considered handsome.
This one seeks to form an engagement; that one is satisfied with
pleasing. The first passes successively from one engagement to another;
the second has at one and the same time a great many amusements on her
hands. Passion and pleasure are predominant in the first; vanity and
levity in the second. Gallantry is a weakness of the heart, or perhaps
a constitutional defect; coquetry is an irregularity of the mind.
A woman of gallantry is feared; a coquette is hated. From two such
characters might be formed a third worse than any.
(23.) A weak woman is one who is blamed for a fault for which she
blames herself; whose feelings are struggling with reason, and who
should like to be cured of her folly, but is never cured, or not till
very late in life.
(24.) An inconstant woman is one who is no longer in love; a giddy
woman is one who is already in love with another person; a flighty
woman neither knows if she loves or whom she loves; and an indifferent
woman is one who loves nobody.
(25.) Treachery, if I may say so, is a falsehood told by the whole
body; in a woman it is the art of arranging words or actions for the
purpose of deceiving us, and sometimes of making use of vows and
promises which it costs her no more to break than it did to make.
A faithless woman, if known to be such by the person concerned, is but
faithless; if she is believed faithful, she is treacherous.
The benefit we obtain from the perfidy of women is that it cures us of
jealousy.
(26.) Some women in their lifetime have a double engagement to keep,
which it is as difficult to violate as to conceal; in the one nothing
is wanting but a legal consecration, and in the other nothing but the
heart.
(27.) If we were to judge of a certain woman by her beauty, her youth,
her pride, and her haughtiness, we could almost assert that none but
a hero would one day win her. She has chosen to fall in love with a
little monster deficient in intelligence.[159]
(28.) There are some women past their prime, who, on account of their
constitution or bad disposition, are naturally the resource of young
men not possessing sufficient wealth. I do not know who is more to be
pitied, either a woman in years who needs a young man, or a young man
who needs an old woman.[160]
(29.) A man who is looked upon with contempt at court, is received
amongst fashionable people[161] in the city, where he triumphs over a
magistrate in all his finery,[162] as well as over a citizen wearing
a sword; he beats them all out of the field and becomes master of the
situation; he is treated with consideration and is beloved; there is
no resisting for long a man wearing a gold-embroidered scarf[163] and
white plumes; a man who talks to the king and visits the ministers.
He kindles jealousy amongst men as well as amongst women; he is
admired and envied; but in Versailles, four leagues from Paris, he is
despised.[164]
(30.) A citizen is to a woman who has never left her native province
what a courtier is to a woman born and bred in town.
(31.) A man who is vain, indiscreet, a great talker and a mischievous
wag, who speaks arrogantly of himself and contemptuously of others,
who is boisterous, haughty, forward, without morality, honesty, or
common-sense, and who draws for facts on his imagination, wants
nothing else, to be adored by many women, but handsome features and a
good shape.
(32.) Is it for the sake of secrecy, or from some eccentricity, that a
certain lady loves her footman and Dorinna her physician?[165]
(33.) Roscius treads the stage with admirable grace: yes, Lelia, so he
does; and I will allow you, too, that his limbs are well shaped, that
he acts well, and very long parts, and that to recite perfectly he
wants nothing else, as they say, but to open his mouth. But is he the
only actor who is charming in everything he does? or is his profession
the noblest and most honourable in the world? Moreover, Roscius cannot
be yours; he is anotherʼs, or, if he were not, he is pre-engaged.
Claudia waits for him till he is satiated with Messalina. Take
Bathyllus, then, Lelia. Where will you find, I do not say among the
knights you despise, but among the very players, one to compare with
him in rising so high whilst dancing or in cutting capers? Or what do
you think of Cobus, the tumbler, who, throwing his feet forward, whirls
himself quite round in the air before he lights on the ground? But,
perhaps, you know that he is no longer young? As for Bathyllus, you
will say, the crowd round him is still too great, and he refuses more
ladies than he gratifies. Well, you can have Draco, the flute-player;
none of all his profession swells his cheeks with so much decency as he
does whilst playing on the hautboy or the flageolet; for he can play
on a great number of instruments; and he is so comical that he makes
even children and young women laugh. Who eats or drinks more at a meal
than Draco? He makes the whole company intoxicated, and is the last
to remain comparatively sober. You sigh, Lelia. Is it because Draco
has already made his choice, or because, unfortunately, you have been
forestalled? Is he at last engaged to Cesonia, who has so long pursued
him, and who has sacrificed for him such a large number of lovers,
I might even say, the entire flower of Rome? to Cesonia, herself
belonging to a patrician family, so young, so handsome, and of so noble
a mien? I pity you, Lelia, if you have been infected with this new
fancy which possesses so many Roman ladies for what are called public
men, whose calling exposes them to the public gaze. What course will
you pursue, then, since the best of their kind are already engaged?
However, Brontes, the executioner,[166] is still left; everybody speaks
of his strength and his skill; he is young, broad-shouldered and
brawny, and, moreover, a negro, a black man.[167]
(34.) A woman of fashion looks on a gardener as a gardener, and on a
mason as a mason; but other women, who live more secluded, look upon
a mason and a gardener as men. Anything is a temptation to those who
dread it.[168]
(35.) Some ladies are[169] liberal to the Church as well as to their
lovers; and being both gallant and charitable, are provided with seats
and oratories within the rails of the altar, where they can read their
love-letters, and where no one can see whether they are saying their
prayers or not.
(36.) What kind of a woman is one who is “spiritually directed”? Is she
more obliging to her husband, kinder to her servants, more careful of
her family and her household, more zealous and sincere for her friends?
is she less swayed by whims, less governed by interest, and less fond
of her ease? I do not ask if she makes presents to her children who
already are opulent, but if, having wealth enough and to spare, she
provides them with the necessaries of life, and, at least, gives them
what is their due? Is she more exempt from egotism, does she dislike
others less, and has she fewer worldly affections? “No,” say you, “none
of all those things.” I repeat my question again: “What kind of a woman
is one who is ‘spiritually directed?’” “Oh! I understand you now; she
is a woman who has a spiritual director.”[170]
(37.) If a father-confessor and a spiritual director cannot agree
about their line of conduct, what third person shall a woman take to be
arbitrator?
(38.) It is not essential that a woman should provide herself with a
spiritual director, but she should lead such a regular life as not to
need one.
(39.) If a woman should tell her father-confessor, among her other
weaknesses, those which she has for her director, and the times she
wastes in his company, perhaps she might be enjoined as a penance to
leave him.
(40.) Would I had the liberty of shouting, as loud as I could, to those
holy men who formerly suffered by women: “Flee from women; do not
become their spiritual directors, but let others take care of their
salvation!”
(41.) It is too much for a husband to have a wife who is a coquette and
sanctimonious as well; she should select only one of those qualities.
(42.) I have deferred it for a long time, but after all I have suffered
it must come out at last; and I hope my frankness may be of some
service to those ladies who, not deeming one confessor sufficient to
guide them, show no discrimination in the choice of their directors.
I cannot help admiring and being amazed on beholding some people who
shall be nameless; I open my eyes wide when I see them; I gaze on them;
they speak and I listen; then I inquire, and am told certain things,
which I do not forget. I cannot understand how people, who appear to me
the very reverse of intelligent, sensible, or experienced, and without
any knowledge of mankind, or any study of religion and morality, can
presume that Heaven, at the present time, should renew the marvels of
an apostolate, and perform a miracle on them, in rendering such simple
and little minds fit for the ministry of souls, the most difficult and
most sublime of all vocations. It is to me still more incomprehensible
if, on the contrary, they fancy themselves predestined to fill a
function so noble and so difficult, and for which but few people are
qualified, and persuade themselves that in undertaking it they do but
exercise their natural talents and follow an ordinary vocation.
I perceive that an inclination of being intrusted with family secrets,
of being useful in bringing about reconciliations, of obtaining various
appointments, or of procuring places to people,[171] of finding all
doors of noblemenʼs houses open, of eating frequently at good tables,
of driving about the town in private carriages, of making pleasant
excursions to charming country-seats, of seeing several persons of
rank and quality concern themselves about our life and health, and of
employing for others and ourselves every worldly interest,—I perceive,
I say so again, that for the sake of those things solely has been
invented the specious and inoffensive pretence of the care of souls,
and an inexhaustible nursery of spiritual directors planted in this
world.
(43.) Devotion[172] with some people, but especially with women, is
either a passion, or an infirmity of age, or a fashion which must be
followed. Formerly such women divided the week in days for gambling,
for going to a theatre, a concert, a fancy-dress ball, or a nice
sermon. On Mondays they went and lost their money at Ismenaʼs; on
Tuesdays their time at Climèneʼs, and on Wednesday their reputation at
Célimèneʼs; they knew overnight what amusements were going on the next
day, and the day after that; they thus enjoyed the present, and knew
what pleasures were in store for them; they wished it were possible to
unite them all in one day, for this was then the sole cause of their
uneasiness and all they had to think about; and if they sometimes went
to the Opera, they regretted they had not gone to any other theatre.
But with other times came other manners; now, they exaggerate their
austerity and their solitude; they no longer open their eyes, which
were given them to see; they do not make any use of their senses, and
what is almost incredible, but little of their tongues; and yet they
think, and that pretty well of themselves and ill enough of others;
they compete with each other in virtue and reformation in a jealous
kind of way; they do not dislike being first in their new course of
life, as they were in the career they lately abandoned out of policy or
disgust. They used gaily to damn themselves through their intrigues,
their luxury and sloth, and now their presumption and envy will damn
them, though not so merrily.[173]
(44.) Hermas, were I to marry a stingy woman, she will be sure not
to ruin me; if a woman fond of gambling, she may enrich me; if a
woman fond of learning, she may teach me; or if prim and precise, she
will not fly into a rage; if a passionate one, she will exercise my
patience; if a coquette, she will endeavour to please me; if a woman of
gallantry, she will perhaps be so gallant as to love me; but tell me,
Hermas, what can I expect if I were to marry a devout woman[174] who
would deceive Heaven, and who really deceives herself?