a certain science, in which I allow him to be perfect, but beyond that
displays neither judgment, memory, animation, morals, nor manners; does
not understand me; thinks not, and expresses himself badly; a musician,
for example, who, after he has enraptured me with his harmony, seems
to be shut up with his lute in the same case, and when he is without
his instrument is like a machine taken to pieces, in which there is
something wanting and from which nothing more is to be expected?
Again, what shall I say of a certain talent for playing various games,
and who can define it to me? Is there no need of foresight, shrewdness,
or skill in playing ombre[635] or chess? And if there is, how does it
happen that we see men of hardly any intellect excel in these games,
and others of great talent scarcely show moderate ability, and get
confused and bewildered when they have to move a pawn or play a card?
There is something in this world, which, if possible, is still more
difficult to understand. Some person seems dull, heavy, and stupefied;
he knows neither how to speak, nor to relate what he has just seen;
but, if he puts pen to paper, he can tell a tale better than any man;
he makes animals, stones, and trees talk, and everything which does not
speak; his works are light, elegant, natural, and full of delicacy.[636]
Another is simple, timorous, and tiresome in conversation; he mistakes
one word for another, and judges of the excellence of his work
merely by the money it brings him; he cannot read this work aloud,
nor decipher his own handwriting. But let him compose, and he is not
inferior to Augustus, Pompey, Nicomedes, and Heraclius; he is a king,
and a great king, a politician and a philosopher; he undertakes to make
heroes speak and act; he depicts the Romans, and in his verse they are
greater, and more like Romans, than in their own history.[637]
Should you like to have an outline of another prodigy? Imagine a man,
easy, gentle, affable, yielding, and then all of a sudden violent,
enraged, furious, and capricious; represent to yourself a man simple,
artless, credulous, sportive, and flighty, a grey-haired child; but
let him recollect himself, or rather give himself up to the genius
dwelling within him, and perhaps quite independent of him and without
his knowledge, he will display rapture, lofty thoughts, splendid
imagery, and pure latinity. You may well ask if I speak of one and
the same man? Yes, of Theodas,[638] and of no one else. He shrieks,
is quite agitated, rolls on the ground, rises, shouts, and roars; and
yet amidst this whirlwind of words shines forth a brilliant effulgence
which delights us. To speak plainly, he talks like a fool and thinks
like a wise man; he utters truth in a ridiculous way, and sensible and
reasonable sayings in a foolish manner; people are surprised to hear
common sense arise and bud amidst so much buffoonery, so many grimaces
and contortions. I may say also that he speaks and acts better than
he understands; he has within him, as it were, two souls, which are
unconnected and do not depend on one another, but act each in their
turn and have quite distinct functions. This astonishing picture would
want another touch should I omit to state that he is anxiously craving
for praise, has never enough of it, and is ready to fly at any of his
critics, but in reality is docile enough to profit by their censure.
I begin to imagine I have drawn the portraits of two wholly different
persons; and yet to find a third in Theodas is not quite impossible,
for he is kind-hearted, agreeable, and has excellent qualities.
Next to sound judgment, diamonds and pearls are the rarest things to be
met with.
(58.) One man is well known for his abilities, and is honoured and
cherished wherever he goes, but he is slighted by his household and his
own family, whom he cannot induce to esteem him; another man, on the
contrary, is a prophet in his own country, has a great reputation among
his friends, which does, however, not extend beyond his house, and
prides himself on the rare and singular merit his family—whose idol he
is—believe he is possessed of, but which he leaves at home every time
he goes out, and takes nowhere with him.[639]
(59.) Every one attacks a man whose reputation is rising; the very
persons he thinks his friends hardly pardon his growing merit, or
that early popularity which seems to give him a share of the renown
they already enjoy; they hold out as long as they can, until the king
declares himself in his favour and rewards him; then they immediately
gather in crowds round him, and only from that day he ranks as a man of
merit.
(60.) We often pretend to praise immoderately some men who hardly
deserve it, and to raise them, if it were possible, on a level with
those who are really eminent, either because we are tired of admiring
always the same persons, or because their fame, being divided, is less
offensive to behold, and seems to us less brilliant and easier to be
borne.
(61.) We see some men carried along by the propitious gale of favour,
and, in one moment, they lose sight of land, and continue their course;
everything smiles on them, and they are successful in whatever they
undertake; their deeds and their works are extolled and well rewarded,
and when they appear they are caressed and congratulated. A firm rock
stands on the coast, and breakers dash against its base; all the blasts
of power, riches, violence, flattery, authority, and favour cannot
shake it. The public is the rock against which these men are dashed to
pieces.
(62.) It is usual, and, as it were, natural to judge of other menʼs
labour only by the affinity it bears to our own. Thus a poet, filled
with grand and sublime ideas, does not greatly prize an oratorʼs
speech, which is often merely about simple facts; and a man who writes
the history of his native land cannot understand how any person of
sense can spend his whole life in contriving fictions or hunting
after a rhyme; and a divine, immersed in the study of the first four
centuries,[640] thinks all other learning and science sad, idle, and
useless, whilst he perhaps is as much despised by a mathematician.
(63.) A man may have intelligence enough to excel in a particular thing
and lecture on it, and yet not have sense enough to know he ought to be
silent on some other subject of which he has but a slight knowledge; if
such an illustrious man ventures beyond the bounds of his capacity, he
loses his way, and talks like a fool.
(64.) Whether Herillus talks, declaims, or writes, he is continually
quoting; he brings in the prince of philosophers[641] to tell you that
wine will make you intoxicated, and the Roman orator[642] to say that
water qualifies it. When he discourses of morals, it is not he, but the
divine Plato who assures us that virtue is amiable, vice odious, and
that both will become habitual. The most common and well-known things,
which he himself might have thought out, he attributes to the ancients,
the Romans and Greeks; it is not to give more authority to what he
says, nor perhaps to get more credit for learning, but merely for the
sake of employing quotations.
(65.) We often pretend that a witticism is our own, and by doing this
we run the risk of destroying its effect; it falls flat, and witty
people, or those who think themselves so, receive it coldly, because
they ought to have said it, and did not. On the contrary, if told as
anotherʼs, it would meet with a better reception; it is but a jest
which no one is obliged to know; it is related in a more insinuating
manner, and causes less jealousy; it offends nobody; if it is amusing
it is laughed at, and if excellent is admired.
(66.) Socrates was said to be insane, to be “an intelligent madman;”
but those Greeks who gave such a name to so wise a man passed for
madmen themselves. They exclaimed, “What odd portraits does this
philosopher present us with! What strange and peculiar manners does he
describe! In what dreams did he discover and collect such extraordinary
ideas! What colours and what a brush has he! They are only idle
fancies!” They were mistaken—all those monsters and vices were painted
from life, so that people imagined they saw them, and were terrified.
Socrates was far from a cynic; he did not indulge in personalities, but
lashed the morals and manners which were bad.[643]
(67.) A man who has acquired wealth by his knowledge of the world is
acquainted with a philosopher, and with his precepts, morals, and
conduct; but not imagining that mankind can have any other goal in
whatever they do than the one he marked out for himself during his
whole lifetime, he says in his heart, “I pity this rigid critic; his
life has been a failure; he is on a wrong track, and has lost his way;
no wind will ever waft him to a prosperous harbour of preferment;” and,
according to his own principles, he is right in his arguments.
Antisthius says: “I pardon those I have praised in my works, if they
will forget me, for I did nothing for them, as they deserved to be
commended. But I will not so easily pardon forgetfulness in those whose
vices I have attacked, without touching their persons, if they owe
me the invaluable boon of being amended; but as such an event never
happens, it follows that neither the one nor the other are obliged to
make me any return.”
This philosopher continued saying: “People may envy my writings or
refuse them their reward, but they are unable to diminish their
reputation; and if they did, what should hinder me from scorning their
opinions?”
(68.) It is a good thing to be a philosopher, but it does not much
benefit a man to be thought one. It will be considered an insult to
call any one a philosopher till the general voice of mankind has
declared it otherwise, given its true meaning to this beautiful word,
and granted it all the esteem it deserves.
(69.) There is a philosophy which raises us above ambition and
fortune, and not only makes us the equals of the rich, the great, and
the powerful, but places us above them; makes us contemn office and
those who appoint to it; exempts us from wishing, asking, praying,
soliciting, and begging for anything, and even restrains our emotion
and our excessive exultation when successful. There is another
philosophy which inclines and subjects us to all these things for the
sake of our relatives and friends; and this is the better of the two.
(70.) It will shorten and rid us of a thousand tedious discussions
to take it for granted that some persons are not capable of talking
correctly, and to condemn all they have said, do say, or will say.
(71.) We only approve in others those qualities in which we imagine
they resemble us; thus, to esteem any one seems to make him an equal of
ourselves.
(72.) The same faults which are dull and unbearable in others are in
their right place when we have them; they do not weigh us down, and are
hardly felt. One man, speaking of another, draws a terrible likeness
of him, and does not in the least imagine that at the same time he is
painting himself.
If we could see the faults in other people, and could be brought to
acknowledge that we possess the same faults, we would more readily
amend them; it is when we are at a right distance from them, and when
they appear what they really are, that we dislike them as much as they
deserve.
(73.) A wise manʼs behaviour turns on two pivots, the past and the
future. If he has a good memory and a keen foresight, he runs no
danger of censuring in others what perhaps he has done himself,
or of condemning an action which, in a parallel case, and in like
circumstances, he sees it will be impossible for him to avoid.
(74.) Neither a soldier, a politician, nor a skilful gambler[644]
create luck, but they prepare it, allure it, and seem almost to fix it.
They not only know what a fool and a coward ignore, I mean, to make use
of luck when it does come, but by their precautions and measures they
know how to take advantage of a lucky chance, or of several chances
together. If a certain deal or throw succeeds, they gain; if another
happens, they also win; and often profit by one and the same in various
ways. These sharp men may be commended both for their good fortune and
prudent conduct, and they should be rewarded for their luck as other
men are for their virtue.
(75.) I place nobody above a great politician but a man who does not
care to become one, and who is more and more convinced that it is not
worth troubling himself about what is going on in the world.
(76.) In the best of counsels there is something to displease us; they
are not our own thoughts; and, therefore, presumption and caprice at
first cause them to be rejected, whilst we only follow them through
necessity or after having reflected.
(77.) This favourite has been wonderfully fortunate during his whole
lifetime; he enjoyed an uninterrupted good fortune, was never in
disgrace, occupied the highest posts, was in the kingʼs confidence,
had vast treasures, perfect health, and died quietly. But what an
extraordinary account he will have to render of a life spent as a
favourite, of advice given, of advice which was not tendered or not
listened to, of good deeds omitted, and, on the contrary, of evil ones
committed, either by himself or his instruments; in a word, of all his
prosperity.[645]
(78.) When we are dead we are praised by those who survive us, though
we frequently have no other merit than that of being no longer alive;
the same commendations serve then for Cato and for Piso.[646]
“There is a report that Piso is dead; it is a great loss; he was
an honest man, who deserved to live longer; he was intelligent and
agreeable, resolute and courageous, to be depended upon, generous and
faithful;” add: “provided he be really dead.”
(79.) The way in which we exclaim about certain persons being
distinguished for their good faith, disinterestedness, and honesty is
not so much to their praise as to the disrepute of all mankind.
(80.) A certain person relieves the necessitous, but neglects his own
family and leaves his son a beggar; another builds a new house though
he has not paid for the lead of the one finished ten years before; a
third makes presents and is very liberal, but ruins his creditors. I
would fain know whether pity, liberality, and magnificence can be the
virtues of a man without sense, or whether eccentricity and vanity are
not rather the causes of this want of sense.[647]
(81.) If we wish to be essentially just to others, we should be quick
and not dilatory; to let people wait is to commit an injustice.
Those persons do well, or do their duty, who do what they ought. A man
who allows the world to speak always of him in the future tense, and to
say he will do well, behaves really very badly.
(82.) People say of a great man who has two meals a day, and spends the
rest of his time in digesting what he has eaten, that he starves; all
that they mean to express by this is that he is not rich, or that his
affairs are not very prosperous; the remark about starving might be
better applied to his creditors.
(83.) The culture, good manners, and politeness of persons of either
sex, advanced in years, give me a good opinion of what we call “former
times.”[648]
(84.) Parents are over-confident in expecting too much from the good
education of their children, and commit a grievous error if they expect
nothing from it and neglect it.
(85.) Were it true, as several persons affirm, that education does
not alter the heart and constitution of man, and that in reality the
changes it produces transform nothing and are merely superficial, yet I
would still maintain that it is beneficial to him.
(86.) He who speaks little has this advantage, that he is presumed to
have some intelligence, and if he really is not deficient in it, it is
presumed to be first-rate.
(87.) To think only of ourselves and of the present time is a source of
error in politics.
(88.) Next to being convicted of a crime, it is often the greatest
misfortune for a man his being accused of having committed one, and
being obliged to clear himself from the charge. He may be acquitted
in a court of justice and yet be found guilty by the voice of the
people.[649]
(89.) One man faithfully observes certain religious duties and
discharges them carefully, yet he is neither commended nor censured, he
is not so much as thought of; another, after ten yearsʼ utter neglect
of such duties, attends again to them and is commended and extolled.
Every person has a right to his own opinion; I, for my part, blame the
second man for having so long neglected those duties, and think his
reformation fortunate for himself.
(90.) A flatterer has not a sufficiently good opinion of himself or
others.
(91.) Some men are forgotten in the distribution of favours, and we
ask what can be the reason of this; if they had not been forgotten we
should have raised the question why they had received them. Whence
proceeds this dissimilitude? Is it from the character of these persons,
or the instability of our opinions, or rather from both?
(92.) We often hear the question asked, “Who shall be chancellor,
primate,[650] pope?” People go even farther, and, according to their
own wishes or caprice, often promote persons more aged and infirm than
those who at present fill certain posts; and as there is no reason why
any post should kill its occupant, but, on the contrary, often makes
him young again, and reinvigorates his body and soul, it is not unusual
for an official personage to outlive his appointed successor.[651]
(93.) Disgrace extinguishes hatred and jealousy. As soon as a person is
no longer a favourite, and when we do not envy him any more, we admit
that his actions are good, and we can pardon in him any merit and a
good many virtues; he might even be a hero, and not vex us.
Nothing seems right that a man does who has fallen into disgrace; his
virtues and merit are slighted, misinterpreted, or called vices. If
he is courageous, dreads neither fire nor sword, and faces the enemy
with as much bravery as Bayard and Montrevel,[652] he is called a
“braggadocio,” and they make fun of him, for there is nothing of the
true hero about him.
I contradict myself; I own it; do not blame me, but blame those men
whose judgments I merely give, and who are the very same persons,
though they differ so much and are so variable in their opinions.
(94.) We need not wait twenty years to see a general alter his opinion
on the most serious things as well as on those which appear most
certain and true. I shall not venture to maintain that fire in its own
nature, and independent of our sensations, is void of heat,[653] that
is to say, nothing like what we feel in ourselves on approaching it,
lest some time or other it may become as hot as ever it was thought;
nor shall I advance that one straight line falling on another makes
two right angles, or two angles equal to two right angles, for fear
something more or less be discovered, and my proposition be laughed at;
nor, to mention something else, shall I say, with the whole of France,
that Vauban is infallible, and that this is an undoubted fact,[654] for
who will guarantee me but that in a short time it may be hinted that
even in sieges, in which lies his peculiar pre-eminence, and of which
he is considered the best judge, he does not make some blunders, and
is as liable to mistakes as Antiphilus is?[655]
(95.) If you believe people who are exasperated against one another,
and swayed by passion, a scholar is a mere sciolist,[656] a magistrate
a boor or a pettifogger,[657] a financier an extortioner, and a
nobleman an upstart; but it is strange these scurrilous names, invented
by anger and hatred, should become so familiar to us, and that
contempt, though cold and inert, should dare to employ them.
(96.) You agitate yourself, and give yourself a good deal of trouble,
especially when the enemy begins to fly, and the victory is no longer
doubtful, or when a town has capitulated; in a fight or during a siege
you like to be seen everywhere in order to be nowhere; to forestall
the orders of the general for fear of obeying them, and to seek
opportunities rather than to wait for them or receive them. Is your
courage a mere pretence?
(97.) Order your soldiers to keep some post where they may be killed,
and where nevertheless they are not killed, and they prove they love
both honour and life.
(98.) Can we imagine that men who are so fond of life should love
anything better, and that glory, which they prefer to life, is often no
more than an opinion of themselves, entertained by a thousand people
whom either they do not know or do not esteem?[658]
(99.) Some persons who are neither soldiers nor courtiers make a
campaign and follow the court; they do not assist in besieging a town,
but are merely spectators,[659] and are soon cured of their curiosity
about a fortified place, however wonderful; about trenches; the effects
of shells and cannon, about surprises, and the order and success of an
attack of which they catch a mere glimpse. The place holds out, bad
weather comes on, fatigues increase, the mud has to be waded through,
and the seasons have to be encountered as well as the enemy; the lines
may be forced, and we may find ourselves between the town and an army,
and reduced to dire extremities. The besiegers lose heart, begin to
murmur, and ask if the raising of the siege will be of such great
consequence, and if the safety of the State depends on one citadel.
They further add “that the heavens themselves declare against them; and
that it is best to submit, and put off the siege until another season.”
They no longer understand the firmness, and, if they may say so, the
obstinacy of the general, who is not to be overcome by obstacles, but
is stimulated by the difficulty of his undertaking, and watches by
night and exposes his life by day to accomplish his design. But as soon
as the enemy has capitulated, the very men who lost heart boast of the
importance of the conquest, foretell the consequences it will have,
exaggerate the necessity there was in undertaking it, as well as the
danger and shame there would have been in raising it, and prove that
the army opposed to the enemy was invincible.[660]
They return with the court, and as they pass through the towns and
villages, are proud to be looked upon by the inhabitants, who are all
at their windows, as the very men who took the place; thus they triumph
all along the road and fancy themselves very courageous. When they
are home again they deafen you with flanks, redans, ravelins, counter
breastworks,[661] curtains, and covert-ways; give you an account of the
spots where curiosity led them, and where it was pretty dangerous, and
of the risks they ran on returning of being killed or made prisoners;
but they do not say one word about the mortal terror they were in.
(100.) It is no great disadvantage for a speaker to stop short in
the middle of a sermon or a speech; it does not deprive him of his
intelligence, good sense, imagination, morals, and learning; it
robs him of nothing; but it is very surprising that, though it is
considered more or less disgraceful and ridiculous, some men will
expose themselves to so great a risk by tedious and often unprofitable
discourses.
(101.) Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to
complain of its brevity; as they waste it in dressing themselves, in
eating and sleeping, in foolish conversations, in making up their minds
what to do, and, generally, in doing nothing at all, they want some
more for their business or for their pleasures, whilst those who make
the best use of it have some to spare.
There is no minister of State so busy but he knows he loses two hours
every day, which amounts to a great deal in a long life; and if this
waste is still greater among other conditions of men, what a large loss
is there of what is most precious in this world, and of which every one
complains he has not enough.
(102.) There exist some of Godʼs creatures called men, who have a
spiritual soul, and who spend their whole lives in the sawing of
marble, and devote all their attention to it; this is a very humble
business and of not much consequence; there are other people who are
astonished at this, yet who are of no use whatever, and spend their
days in doing nothing, which is inferior to sawing marble.