I
In one of his _Paradoxes_, where he at times has a touch of
Heine's irony or of Schopenhauer's wit, Max Nordau has sketched
the Machiavellian plan of a school of success. The reverse of the
usual morality would be taught there, and not virtue, but the art of
arriving. This school already exists. It is life. Precocious eyes and
ears take in its teachings from adolescence. There are young men who
consecrate themselves to success, like others to the priesthood or
to glory. Are they unreasonable? No. And contemptible? Why? Writing,
singing, sculpturing are acts. Thinking, even in the silence of the
night and in the depth of a dungeon, is an act. But what act is there
that has not for its end its own accomplishment? The reasoner who has
convinced himself will necessarily wish to persuade others; and the
poet who admires himself, to force others to share his enthusiasm.
Those who are contented with an intimate or restricted approbation are
perhaps wise, but they will not be numbered among the strong. Though
timid, though disdainful, the dreamer wishes the glory of dreaming, and
he would dream with delight before throngs rapturously contemplating
his eyes lost in an ocean of dreams and of nonsense. That would be
success. Success has something precise which soothes and nourishes. It
is a repast. It is a fact. It is the final goal.
Success is a fact in itself, and quite aside from the word or the act
which it accompanies. The assassin who has accomplished his crime, step
by step, experiences other joys than that of slaked avidity. He finds,
in short, that success has declared for him; and, all pursuit thrown
off his track, we understand very well the state of mind that Barbey
d'Aurevilly has dared to describe. Yet crime, unless of a political
order, is seldom publicly applauded in our civilizations, as among
the Dyaks of Borneo, or the subjects of the Old Man of the Mountain.
That is why, in spite of the celebrated irony, we shall not consider
assassination "as one of the fine arts." It should at least be classed
among the arts whose success is their one and only end, and which
attach much less importance to their initial designation than to what
they are called at the end. But that is not the subject of this essay,
which is very serious, and whose words will all be carefully weighed.
It will deal exclusively with works of art and, in particular, with
literary works.
Success, then, is a fact; but, in the case of those acts which concern
us here, it is a contingent fact and one that does not change the
essence of the act itself. In this respect, I should be inclined to
compare success to consciousness--a torch which, lighted within us,
illumines our actions and our thoughts, but has no more influence on
their nature than, when the moon is shining, the shadow of a passing
train has on its speed. Consciousness determines no act. Success
does not create a work, but sheds such light upon it that some trace
of it almost always remains in the memory of men. A writer does not
become Racine because he has been applauded before the footlights,
and he remains Racine, even if _Phèdre_ be played six nights in
succession to empty boxes;[1] but he becomes Pradon, and that is a
good deal. To be Pradon through the centuries is to live with a glory
dark and disagreeable, sad and vain. Quite so, but it is scarcely
less precarious than the life which we call real. Pradon is at once
ridiculous and illustrious. It is impossible to tell the story of
Racine's career without bringing his name into it. We search his
works in order to understand that renown of a day which has been
prolonged over so many morrows. It cannot be doubted; Pradon had almost
no talent, though he was fairly adroit in his trade as a dramatic
constructor. He was, as the journalists say, a man of the theatre.
Critics have even gone so far as to claim[2] that, in order to have
a perfect _Phèdre_, the play should have been written by Racine on
Pradon's plan. That is absurd; but every success has its cause. The
cabal explains nothing. The Duchesse de Bouillon would not have
risked the battle on a worthless card. Pradon was known. His tragedy
of _Pyrame et Thisbé_ had been applauded. Ten years after _Phèdre_,
and without any cabal, his _Régulus_ was praised to the skies. He was
therefore destined to enjoy a moderate reputation, such as _Solyman_,
for example, brought its author, the Abbé Abeille, about the same date.
Was it fortunate for this commonplace poet to have encountered the
Duchesse de Bouillon? Anticipating our modern methods, this terrible
woman had hired the boxes of the two theatres, filling those at one and
leaving the others empty. To-day, she would have bought the newspapers
in addition, but no one knows how much she paid the cackling of the
newsmongers and the pamphleteers. It was a masterpiece in its way,
since it succeeded marvellously; but what did Pradon gain by it? After
much abuse, an ocean of posthumous blame. Not a day passes that some
professor does not treat him as if he were a Damiens or a Ravaillac.
Is immortality a sufficient reward for such treatment? Is shameful
immortality preferable to oblivion? First of all, we should dismiss
the shame, and ignore the abuse. Every success inflames the fire of
hatred and deepens the descending smoke. That does not matter. Hate is
an opinion. So is abuse; and so are the words that cast infamy. Success
is a fact. The Duchesse de Bouillon could not change the essential
value of the two Phèdres, any more than she could transmute "vile
lead" into pure gold; but she could veil the gold and gild the lead,
and she could force posterity to repeat her favourite's name. That was
her work. It was well done and it has remained memorable. No one knew
at the time which to admire of these two paintings with like frames.
Pradon's friends were as powerful as Racine's. The latter had Boileau,
the former Sanlecque, his sometimes successful rival. But Boileau's
authority faded before that of Madame des Houlières, representing
polite society and the _ruelles_. Thanks to the quarrel of the Sonnets,
even wit ranged itself on Pradon's side, for the Duc de Nevers' still
conserves to-day the most amusing malice. Molière, who detested Racine,
and had already lent his theatre to a parody of _Andromaque_, would,
no doubt, have favoured Pradon. His death spared the friends of sound
letters that scandal. It was, therefore, a reasonable illusion around
which success crystallized, and the witlings had no cause to blush
for the part which they played. It is a pious lie on the part of the
historians of French literature to pretend that the true public avenged
Racine for the desert organized by Madame de Bouillon. The boxes of the
Hôtel de Bourgogne had been hired for six days, while Racine's _Phèdre_
had but seven performances. The public had understood. It obeyed
success as dogs obey the sound of the whistle.
The reason is that success, though organized by fraudulent means,
possesses a powerful attraction for the throng, even the literary
throng. Assuredly, the theatrical public was, in 1677, far superior,
in point of intelligence, education and taste, to the average public
to-day. Yet it is seen applauding decidedly commonplace plays, while
disdaining those of the first quality. The reason is that success,
and especially theatrical success, can spring spontaneously from an
accident,--from the agreeable face of an actress, from a fine gesture,
from a well-timed bit of applause, from the caprice or emotion of a
small group of spectators. The herd follows--since all men who come
together are herds--and history numbers one more name and date.
The Americans--of the North, for in the South they have more
finesse--never hesitate before success. What dramatic poem is it
whose success has surpassed the enthusiasm aroused even by the _Cid_
and by _Hernani_? _Cyrano de Bergerac_. Then this work is worthy of
admiration, and they have it, as well as _l'Aiglon_, learned by heart
in the schools where, though themselves illiterate, they cultivate
learned wives. To repeat once more my real thought, I do not find
that unreasonable. Let us not confound history, which is a complete
or at least a consecutive novel, with the present, which appears to
us in fragments, like a newspaper torn into a thousand pieces. How
are these to be arranged, in what order? We have not the slightest
idea. Our wisest and sanest contemporary judgment will be ridiculous
in twenty years, because we lacked patience to reconstitute the entire
sheet, or because the fire or the wind snatched away a number of the
tiny squares. In this hazy state of our ideas, success gleams like an
electric moon. Something undeniable is shining--something that the
professors of philosophy call a criterium. But let us call it simply a
fact, just as a flower is a fact, or a shower, or a conflagration. And
what can be opposed to this fact, to contradict it? Almost nothing--the
product of a judgment, certain men's notion of literary beauty.
Moreover, this opposition is not radical, since beauty does not at all,
in principle, exclude the chances of success. No bets should be placed
on beauty. It would be imprudent to back her on even terms; but there
are historic instances where the most beautiful work has also been the
most warmly welcomed. In such cases success is adorable, like the sun
which comes at just the right moment to ripen the crops, or the storm
to fill the brooks and springs to overflowing. What is a beautiful book
of which not a single copy remains known to us? What was an armless
Venus before M. de Marcellus had summoned her from the abysses? Success
is like daylight and, once again, if it does not create the work, it
completes it by rending the shadowy veil by which it is encompassed.
There is another consideration which enhances still further the value
of success, namely that, if the purpose of a work of art be to please,
the greater will be the number of its conquests and the better this
purpose will have been accomplished. Art has certainly a function,
since it exists. It satisfies a need of our nature. To say that this
need is, precisely, the artistic taste, is to say that a man likes
coffee or tobacco because they satisfy his taste for coffee or tobacco.
It is to say nothing at all--not even nonsense. It is to utter words
without any meaning whatsoever. Things do not correspond with this
simplicity in life--with this amiable relation of the kettle to its
cover. Let us leave such explanations to the Christian philosophy of
final causes. The purpose of art being to please, success is at least
a first evidence in favour of the work. The idea of pleasing is very
complex. We shall see later what it contains; but the word may serve
us provisionally. Then this work pleases. A tower has suddenly arisen
accompanied by the passionate plaudits of the crowd. That is the fact.
This tower should be demolished. That is not easy, since by a singular
magic almost all the battering-rams brought against it turn into
buttresses which add their weight to the solidity of the monument. This
monument must be convinced that it does not exist, this crowd that its
admiration has not moved all those stones, that it lies; that it is
hallucinated, or that it is imbecile. This cannot be done. It finds the
tower beautiful. What can we answer, except "Yes, it is beautiful"?
The priest takes a wafer on the corporal and elevates it to divine
dignity. He places it in the monstrance and shows it to the people, who
during this ceremony kneel, bow, pray and believe. The work exalted
by success is no less chosen by chance than the wafer by the priest's
fingers; but its divinity, also, is no less certain the moment this
choice has been made. The decrees of destiny must be respected, and
popular piety not thwarted.