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 it 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."