Voila de l'erudition.
--Les Femmes Savantes.
I found, on my return, covered with blood, and foaming with passion, my
inestimable valet--Bedos!
"What's the matter?" said I.
"Matter!" repeated Bedos, in a tone almost inarticulate with rage; and
then, rejoicing at the opportunity of unbosoming his wrath, he poured out
a vast volley of ivrognes and carognes, against our Dame du Chateau, of
monkey reminiscence. With great difficulty, I gathered, at last, from his
vituperations, that the enraged landlady, determined to wreak her
vengeance on some one, had sent for him into her appartement, accosted
him with a smile, bade him sit down, regaled him with cold vol-au-vent,
and a glass of Curacoa, and, while he was felicitating himself on his
good fortune, slipped out of the room: presently, three tall fellows
entered with sticks.
"We'll teach you," said the biggest of them--"we'll teach you to lock up
ladies, for the indulgence of your vulgar amusement;" and, without one
other word, they fell upon Bedos, with incredible zeal and vigour. The
valiant valet defended himself, tooth and nail, for some time, for which
he only got the more soundly belaboured. In the meanwhile the landlady
entered, and, with the same gentle smile as before, begged him to make no
ceremony, to proceed with his present amusement, and when he was tired
with the exercise, hoped he would refresh himself with another glass of
Curacoa.
"It was this," said Bedos, with a whimper, "which hurt me the most, to
think she should serve me so cruelly, after I had eaten so plentifully of
the vol-au-vent; envy and injustice I can bear, but treachery stabs me to
the heart."
When these threshers of men were tired, the lady satisfied, and Bedos
half dead, they suffered the unhappy valet to withdraw; the mistress of
the hotel giving him a note, which she desired, with great civility, that
he would transmit to me on my return. This, I found, inclosed my bill,
and informed me that my month being out on the morrow, she was unwilling
to continue me any longer, and begged I would, therefore, have the bonte
to choose another apartment.
"Carry my luggage forthwith," said I, "to the Hotel de Mirabeau:" and
that very evening I changed my abode.
I am happy in the opportunity this incident affords me of especially
recommending the Hotel de Mirabeau, Rue de la Paix, to any of my
countrymen who are really gentlemen, and will not disgrace my
recommendation. It is certainly the best caravansera in the English
quartier.
I was engaged that day to a literary dinner at the Marquis D'Al--; and as
I knew I should meet Vincent, I felt some pleasure in repairing to my
entertainer's hotel. They were just going to dinner as I entered. A good
many English were of the party. The good natured (in all senses of the
word) Lady--, who always affected to pet me, cried aloud, "Pelham, mon
joli petit mignon, I have not seen you for an age--do give me your arm."
Madame D'Anville was just before me, and, as I looked at her, I saw that
her eyes were full of tears; my heart smote me for my late inattention,
and going up to her, I only nodded to Lady--, and said, in reply to her
invitation, "Non, perfide, it is my turn to be cruel now. Remember your
flirtation with Mr. Howard de Howard."
"Pooh!" said Lady--, taking Lord Vincent's arm, "your jealousy does
indeed rest upon 'a trifle light as air.'"
"Do you forgive me?" whispered I to Madame D'Anville, as I handed her to
the salle a manger. "Does not love forgive every thing?" was her answer.
"At least," thought I, "it never talks in those pretty phrases."
The conversation soon turned upon books. As for me, I never at that time
took a share in those discussions; indeed, I have long laid it down as a
rule, that a man never gains by talking to more than one person at a
time. If you don't shine, you are a fool--if you do, you are a bore. You
must become either ridiculous or unpopular--either hurt your own self-
love by stupidity, or that of others by wit. I therefore sat in silence,
looking exceedingly edified, and now and then muttering "good!" "true!"
Thank heaven, however, the suspension of one faculty only increases the
vivacity of the others; my eyes and ears always watch like sentinels over
the repose of my lips. Careless and indifferent as I seem to all things,
nothing ever escapes me: the minutest erreur in a dish or a domestic, the
most trifling peculiarity in a criticism or a coat, my glance detects in
an instant, and transmits for ever to my recollection.
"You have seen Jouy's 'Hermite de la Chaussee D'Antin?'" said our host to
Lord Vincent.
"I have, and think meanly of it. There is a perpetual aim at something
pointed, which as perpetually merges into something dull. He is like a
bad swimmer, strikes out with great force, makes a confounded splash, and
never gets a yard the further for it. It is a great effort not to sink.
Indeed, Monsieur D'A--, your literature is at a very reduced ebb;
bombastic in the drama--shallow in philosophy--mawkish in poetry, your
writers of the present day seem to think, with Boileau--
"'Souvent de tous nos maux la raison est le pire.'"
"Surely," cried Madame D'Anville, "you will allow De la Martine's poetry
to be beautiful?"
"I allow it," said he, "to be among the best you have; and I know very
few lines in your language equal to the two first stanzas in his
'Meditation on Napoleon,' or to those exquisite verses called 'Le Lac;'
but you will allow also that he wants originality and nerve. His thoughts
are pathetic, but not deep; he whines, but sheds no tears. He has, in his
imitation of Lord Byron, reversed the great miracle; instead of turning
water into wine, he has turned wine into water. Besides, he is so
unpardonably obscure. He thinks, with Bacchus--(you remember, D'A--, the
line in Euripides, which I will not quote), that 'there is something
august in the shades;' but he has applied this thought wrongly--in his
obscurity there is nothing sublime--it is the back ground of a Dutch
picture. It is only a red herring, or an old hat, which he has invested
with such pomposity of shadow and darkness."
"But his verses are so smooth," said Lady--.
"Ah!" answered Vincent.
"'Quand la rime enfin se trouve au bout des vers,
Qu'importe que le reste y soit mis des travers.'"
"Helas" said the Viscount D'A--t, an author of no small celebrity
himself; "I agree with you--we shall never again see a Voltaire or a
Rousseau."
"There is but little justice in those complaints, often as they are
made," replied Vincent. "You may not, it is true, see a Voltaire or a
Rousseau, but you will see their equals. Genius can never be exhausted by
one individual. In our country, the poets after Chaucer in the fifteenth
century complained of the decay of their art--they did not anticipate
Shakspeare. In Hayley's time, who ever dreamt of the ascension of Byron?
Yet Shakspeare and Byron came like the bridegroom 'in the dead of night;'
and you have the same probability of producing--not, indeed, another
Rousseau, but a writer to do equal honour to your literature."
"I think," said Lady--, "that Rousseau's 'Julie' is over-rated. I had
heard so much of 'La Nouvelle Heloise' when I was a girl, and been so
often told that it was destruction to read it, that I bought the book the
very day after I was married. I own to you that I could not get through
it."
"I am not surprised at it," answered Vincent; "but Rousseau is not the
less a genius for all that: there is no story to bear out the style, and
he himself is right when he says 'ce livre convient a tres peu de
lecteurs.' One letter would delight every one--four volumes of them are a
surfeit--it is the toujours perdrix. But the chief beauty of that
wonderful conception of an empassioned and meditative mind is to be found
in the inimitable manner in which the thoughts are embodied, and in the
tenderness, the truth, the profundity of the thoughts themselves: when
Lord Edouard says, 'c'est le chemin des passions qui m'a conduit a la
philosophie,' he inculcates, in one simple phrase, a profound and
unanswerable truth. It is in these remarks that nature is chiefly found
in the writings of Rousseau: too much engrossed in himself to be deeply
skilled in the characters of others, that very self-study had yet given
him a knowledge of the more hidden recesses of the heart. He could
perceive at once the motive and the cause of actions, but he wanted the
patience to trace the elaborate and winding progress of their effects. He
saw the passions in their home, but he could not follow them abroad. He
knew mankind in the general, but not men in the detail. Thus, when he
makes an aphorism or reflection, it comes home at once to you as true;
but when he would analyze that reflection, when he argues, reasons, and
attempts to prove, you reject him as unnatural, or you refute him as
false. It is then that he partakes of that manie commune which he imputes
to other philosophers, 'de nier ce qui est, et d'expliquer ce qui n'est
pas.'"
There was a short pause. "I think," said Madame D'Anville, "that it is in
those pensees which you admire so much in Rousseau, that our authors in
general excel."
"You are right," said Vincent, "and for this reason--with you les gens de
letters are always les gens du monde. Hence their quick perceptions are
devoted to men as well as to books. They make observations acutely, and
embody them with grace; but it is worth remarking, that the same cause
which produced the aphorism, frequently prevents its being profound.
These literary gens du monde have the tact to observe, but not the
patience, perhaps not the time, to investigate. They make the maxim, but
they never explain to you the train of reasoning which led to it. Hence
they are more brilliant than true. An English writer would not dare to
make a maxim, involving, perhaps, in two lines, one of the most important
of moral truths, without bringing pages to support his dictum. A French
essayist leaves it wholly to itself. He tells you neither how he came by
his reasons, nor their conclusion, 'le plus fou souvent est le plus
satisfait.' Consequently, if less tedious than the English, your
reasoners are more dangerous, and ought rather to be considered as models
of terseness than of reflection. A man might learn to think sooner from
your writers, but he will learn to think justly sooner from ours. Many
observations of La Bruyere and Rochefoucault--the latter especially--have
obtained credit for truth solely from their point. They possess exactly
the same merit as the very sensible--permit me to add--very French line
in Corneille:--
"'Ma plus douce esperance est de perdre l'espoir.'"
The Maquis took advantage of the silence which followed Vincent's
criticism to rise from table. We all (except Vincent, who took leave)
adjourned to the salon. "Qui est cet homme la?" said one, "comme il est
epris de lui-meme." "How silly he is," cried another--"how ugly," said a
third. What a taste in literature--such a talker--such shallowness, and
such assurance--not worth the answering--could not slip in a word--
disagreeable, revolting, awkward, slovenly, were the most complimentary
opinions bestowed upon the unfortunate Vincent. The women called him un
horreur, and the men un bete. The old railed at his mauvais gout, and the
young at his mauvais coeur, for the former always attribute whatever does
not correspond with their sentiments, to a perversion of taste, and the
latter whatever does not come up to their enthusiasm, to a depravity of
heart.
As for me, I went home, enriched with two new observations; first, that
one may not speak of any thing relative to a foreign country, as one
would if one was a native. National censures become particular affronts.
Secondly, that those who know mankind in theory, seldom know it in
practice; the very wisdom that conceives a rule, is accompanied with the
abstraction, or the vanity, which destroys it. I mean that the
philosopher of the cabinet is often too diffident to put into action his
observations, or too eager for display to conceal their design. Lord
Vincent values himself upon his science du monde. He has read much upon
men, he has reflected more; he lays down aphorisms to govern or to please
them. He goes into society; he is cheated by the one half, and the other
half he offends. The sage in the cabinet is but a fool in the salon; and
the most consummate men of the world are those who have considered the
least on it.