The spirit of literature and the spirit of society.--The Inventors.
--Society offers seduction and not reward to men of genius.--The notions
of persons of fashion of men of genius.--The habitudes of the man of
genius distinct from those of the man of society.--Study, meditation, and
enthusiasm, the progress of genius.--The disagreement between the men of
the world and the literary character.
The Inventors, who inherited little or nothing from their predecessors,
appear to have pursued their insulated studies in the full independence of
their mind and development of their inventive faculty; they stood apart,
in seclusion, the solitary lights of their age. Such were the founders of
our literature--Bacon and Hobbes, Newton and Milton. Even so late as the
days of Dryden, Addison, and Pope, the man of genius drew his circle round
his intimates; his day was uniform, his habits unbroken; and he was never
too far removed, nor too long estranged from meditation and reverie: his
works were the sources of his pleasure ere they became the labours of his
pride.
But when a more uniform light of knowledge illuminates from all sides, the
genius of society, made up of so many sorts of genius, becomes greater
than the genius of the individual who has entirely yielded himself up
to his solitary art. Hence the character of a man of genius becomes
subordinate. A conversation age succeeds a studious one; and the family of
genius, the poet, the painter, and the student, are no longer recluses.
They mix with their rivals, who are jealous of equality, or with others
who, incapable of valuing them for themselves alone, rate them but as
parts of an integral.
The man of genius is now trammelled with the artificial and mechanical
forms of life; and in too close an intercourse with society, the
loneliness and raciness of thinking is modified away in its seductive
conventions. An excessive indulgence in the pleasures of social life
constitutes the great interests of a luxuriant and opulent age; but of
late, while the arts of assembling in large societies have been practised,
varied by all forms, and pushed on to all excesses, it may become a
question whether by them our happiness is as much improved, or our
individual character as well formed as in a society not so heterogeneous
and unsocial as that crowd termed, with the sort of modesty peculiar to
our times, "a small party:" the simplicity of parade, the humility of
pride engendered by the egotism which multiplies itself in proportion to
the numbers it assembles.
It may, too, be a question whether the literary man and the artist are not
immolating their genius to society when, in the shadowiness of assumed
talents--that counterfeiting of all shapes--they lose their real form,
with the mockery of Proteus. But nets of roses catch their feet, and a
path, where all the senses are flattered, is now opened to win an
Epictetus from his hut. The art of multiplying the enjoyments of society
is discovered in the morning lounge, the evening dinner, and the midnight
coterie. In frivolous fatigues, and vigils without meditation, perish the
unvalued hours which, true genius knows, are always too brief for art, and
too rare to catch its inspirations. Hence so many of our contemporaries,
whose card-racks are crowded, have produced only flashy fragments.
Efforts, but not works--they seem to be effects without causes; and as a
great author, who is not one of them, once observed to me, "They waste a
barrel of gunpowder in squibs."
And yet it is seduction, and not reward, which mere fashionable society
offers the man of true genius. He will be sought for with enthusiasm, but
he cannot escape from his certain fate--that of becoming tiresome to his
pretended admirers.
At first the idol--shortly he is changed into a victim. He forms,
indeed, a figure in their little pageant, and is invited as a sort of
_improvisatore_; but the esteem they concede to him is only a part of the
system of politeness; and should he be dull in discovering the favourite
quality of their self-love, or in participating in their volatile tastes,
he will find frequent opportunities of observing, with the sage at the
court of Cyprus, that "what he knows is not proper for this place, and
what is proper for this place he knows not." This society takes little
personal interest in the literary character. HORACE WALPOLE lets us into
this secret when writing to another man of fashion, on such a man of
genius as GRAY--"I agree with you most absolutely in your opinion about
Gray; he is the worst company in the world. From a melancholy turn, from
living reclusely, and from a little too much dignity, he never converses
easily; all his words are measured and chosen, and formed into sentences:
his writings are admirable--he himself is not agreeable." This volatile
being in himself personified the quintessence of that society which is
called "the world," and could not endure that equality of intellect which
genius exacts. He rejected Chatterton, and quarrelled with every literary
man and every artist whom he first invited to familiarity--and then hated.
Witness the fates of Bentley, of Muntz, of Gray, of Cole, and others. Such
a mind was incapable of appreciating the literary glory on which the
mighty mind of BURKE was meditating. WALPOLE knew BURKE at a critical
moment of his life, and he has recorded his own feelings:--"There was a
young Mr. BURKE who wrote a book, in the style of Lord Bolingbroke, that
was much admired. He is a sensible man, but has not _worn off his
authorism yet_, and thinks there is nothing so charming as writers, and to
be one: _he will know better one of these days_" GRAY and BURKE! What
mighty men must be submitted to the petrifying sneer--that indifference of
selfism for great sympathies--of this volatile and heartless man of
literature and rank!
That thing of silk,
Sporus, that mere white curd of ass's milk!
The confidential confession of RACINE to his son is remarkable:--"Do not
think that I am sought after by the great for my dramas; Corneille
composes nobler verses than mine, but no one notices him, and he only
pleases by the mouth of the actors. I never allude to my works when with
men of the world, but I amuse them about matters they like to hear. My
talent with them consists, not in making them feel that I have any, but in
showing them that they have." Racine treated the great like the children
of society; CORNEILLE would not compromise for the tribute he exacted, but
he consoled himself when, at his entrance into the theatre, the audience
usually rose to salute him. The great comic genius of France, who indeed
was a very thoughtful and serious man, addressed a poem to the painter
MIONARD, expressing his conviction that "the court," by which a Frenchman
of the court of Louis XIV. meant the society we call "fashionable," is
fatal to the perfection of art--
Qui se donne à la cour se dérobe à son art;
Un esprit partagé rarement se consomme,
Et les emplois de feu demandent tout l'homme.
Has not the fate in society of our reigning literary favourites been
uniform? Their mayoralty hardly exceeds the year: they are pushed aside to
put in their place another, who, in his turn, must descend. Such is the
history of the literary character encountering the perpetual difficulty of
appearing what he really is not, while he sacrifices to a few, in a
certain corner of the metropolis, who have long fantastically styled
themselves "the world," that more dignified celebrity which makes an
author's name more familiar than his person. To one who appeared
astonished at the extensive celebrity of BUFFON, the modern Pliny replied,
"I have passed fifty years at my desk." HAYDN would not yield up to
society more than those hours which were not devoted to study. These were
indeed but few: and such were the uniformity and retiredness of his life,
that "He was for a long time the only musical man in Europe who was
ignorant of the celebrity of Joseph Haydn." And has not one, the most
sublime of the race, sung,
--che seggendo in piuma,
In Fama non si vien, nè sotto coltre;
Sanza la qual chi sua vita consuma
Cotal vestigio in terra di se lascia
Qual fummo in aere, ed in acqua la schiuma
For not on downy plumes, nor under shade
Of canopy reposing, Fame is won:
Without which, whosoe'er consumes his days,
Leaveth such vestige of himself on earth
As smoke in air, or foam upon the wave.[A]
[Footnote A: Cary's Dante, Canto xxiv.]
But men of genius, in their intercourse with persons of fashion, have a
secret inducement to court that circle. They feel a perpetual want of
having the reality of their talents confirmed to themselves, and they
often step into society to observe in what degree they are objects of
attention; for, though ever accused of vanity, the greater part of men of
genius feel that their existence, as such, must depend on the opinion of
others. This standard is in truth always problematical and variable; yet
they cannot hope to find a more certain one among their rivals, who at all
times are adroitly depreciating their brothers, and "dusking" their
lustre. They discover among those cultivators of literature and the arts
who have recourse to them for their pleasure, impassioned admirers, rather
than unmerciful judges--judges who have only time to acquire that degree
of illumination which is just sufficient to set at ease the fears of these
claimants of genius.
When literary men assemble together, what mimetic friendships, in their
mutual corruption! Creatures of intrigue, they borrow other men's eyes,
and act by feelings often even contrary to their own: they wear a mask on
their face, and only sing a tune they have caught. Some hierophant in
their mysteries proclaims their elect whom they have to initiate, and
their profane who are to stand apart under their ban. They bend to the
spirit of the age, but they do not elevate the public to them; they care
not for truth, but only study to produce effect, and they do nothing for
fame but what obtains an instant purpose. Yet their fame is not therefore
the more real, for everything connected with fashion becomes obsolete. Her
ear has a great susceptibility of weariness, and her eye rolls for
incessant novelty. Never was she earnest for anything. Men's minds with
her become tarnished and old-fashioned as furniture. But the steams of
rich dinners, the eye which sparkles with the wines of France, the
luxurious night which flames with more heat and brilliancy than God has
made the day, this is the world the man of coterie-celebrity has chosen;
and the Epicurean, as long as his senses do not cease to act, laughs at
the few who retire to the solitary midnight lamp. Posthumous fame is--a
nothing! Such men live like unbelievers in a future state, and their
narrow calculating spirit coldly dies in their artificial world: but true
genius looks at a nobler source of its existence; it catches inspiration
in its insulated studies; and to the great genius, who feels how his
present is necessarily connected with his future celebrity, posthumous
fame is a reality, for the sense acts upon him!
The habitudes of genius, before genius loses its freshness in this
society, are the mould in which the character is cast; and these, in spite
of all the disguise of the man, will make him a distinct being from the
man of society. Those who have assumed the literary character often for
purposes very distinct from literary ones, imagine that their circle is
the public; but in this factitious public all their interests, their
opinions, and even their passions, are temporary, and the admirers with
the admired pass away with their season. "It is not sufficient that we
speak the same language," says a witty philosopher, "but we must learn
their dialect; we must think as they think, and we must echo their
opinions, as we act by imitation." Let the man of genius then dread to
level himself to the mediocrity of feeling and talent required in such
circles of society, lest he become one of themselves; he will soon find
that to think like them will in time become to act like them. But he who
in solitude adopts no transient feelings, and reflects no artificial
lights, who is only himself, possesses an immense advantage: he has not
attached importance to what is merely local and fugitive, but listens to
interior truths, and fixes on the immutable nature of things. He is the
man of every age. Malebranche has observed, that "It is not indeed thought
to be charitable to disturb common opinions, because it is not truth which
unites society as it exists so much as opinion and custom:" a principle
which the world would not, I think, disagree with; but which tends to
render folly wisdom itself, and to make error immortal.
Ridicule is the light scourge of society, and the terror of genius.
Ridicule surrounds him with her chimeras, which, like the shadowy monsters
opposing æneas, are impalpable to his strokes: but remember when the sibyl
bade the hero proceed without noticing them, he found these airy nothings
as harmless as they were unreal. The habits of the literary character
will, however, be tried by the men and women of the world by their own
standard: they have no other; the salt of ridicule gives a poignancy to
their deficient comprehension, and their perfect ignorance, of the persons
or things which are the subjects of their ingenious animadversions. The
habits of the literary character seem inevitably repulsive to persons of
the world. VOLTAIRE, and his companion, the scientific Madame DE CHATELET,
she who introduced Newton to the French nation, lived entirely devoted to
literary pursuits, and their habits were strictly literary. It happened
once that this learned pair dropped unexpectedly into a fashionable circle
in the _château_ of a French nobleman. A Madame de Staël, the _persifleur_
in office of Madame Du Deffand, has copiously narrated the whole affair.
They arrived at midnight like two famished spectres, and there was some
trouble to put them to supper and bed. They are called apparitions,
because they were never visible by day, only at ten at night; for the one
is busied in describing great deeds, and the other in commenting on
Newton. Like other apparitions, they are uneasy companions: they will
neither play nor walk; they will not dissipate their mornings with the
charming circle about them, nor allow the charming circle to break into
their studies. Voltaire and Madame de Chatelet would have suffered the
same pain in being forced to an abstinence of their regular studies, as
this circle of "agréables" would have at the loss of their meals and their
airings. However, the _persifleur_ declares they were ciphers "en
société," adding no value to the number, and to which their learned
writings bear no reference.
But if this literary couple would not play, what was worse, Voltaire
poured out a vehement declamation against a fashionable species of
gambling, which appears to have made them all stare. But Madame de
Chatelet is the more frequent victim of our _persifleur_. The learned lady
would change her apartment--for it was too noisy, and it had smoke without
fire--which last was her emblem. "She is reviewing her _Principia_; an
exercise she repeats every year, without which precaution they might
escape from her, and get so far away that she might never find them again.
I believe that her head in respect to them is a house of imprisonment
rather than the place of their birth; so that she is right to watch them
closely; and she prefers the fresh air of this occupation to our
amusements, and persists in her invisibility till night-time. She has six
or seven tables in her apartments, for she wants them of all sizes;
immense ones to spread out her papers, solid ones to hold her instruments,
lighter ones, &c. Yet with all this she could not escape from the accident
which happened to Philip II., after passing the night in writing, when a
bottle of ink fell over the despatches; but the lady did not imitate the
moderation of the prince; indeed, she had not written on State affairs,
and what was spoilt in her room was algebra, much more difficult to
copy out." Here is a pair of portraits of a great poet and a great
mathematician, whose habits were discordant with the fashionable circle in
which they resided--the representation is just, for it is by one of the
coterie itself.
Study, meditation, and enthusiasm,--this is the progress of genius, and
these cannot be the habits of him who lingers till he can only live among
polished crowds; who, if he bear about him the consciousness of genius,
will still be acting under their influences. And perhaps there never was
one of this class of men who had not either first entirely formed himself
in solitude, or who amidst society will not be often breaking out to seek
for himself. WILKES, no longer touched by the fervours of literary and
patriotic glory, suffered life to melt away as a domestic voluptuary; and
then it was that he observed with some surprise of the great Earl of
CHATHAM, that he sacrificed every pleasure of social life, even in youth,
to his great pursuit of eloquence. That ardent character studied Barrow's
Sermons so often as to repeat them from memory, and could even read twice
from beginning to end Bailey's Dictionary; these are little facts which
belong only to great minds! The earl himself acknowledged an artifice he
practised in his intercourse with society, for he said, "when he was
young, he always came late into company, and left it early." VITTORIO
ALFIERI, and a brother-spirit, our own noble poet, were rarely seen amidst
the brilliant circle in which they were born. The workings of their
imagination were perpetually emancipating them, and one deep loneliness of
feeling proudly insulated them among the unimpassioned triflers of their
rank. They preserved unbroken the unity of their character, in constantly
escaping from the processional _spectacle_ of society.[A] It is no trivial
observation of another noble writer, Lord SHAFTESBURY, that "it may happen
that a person may be so much the worse author, for being the finer
gentleman."
[Footnote A: In a note which Lord BYRON has written in a copy of this work
his lordship says, "I fear this was not the case; I have been but too much
in that circle, especially in 1812-13-14."
To the expression of "one deep loneliness of feeling," his lordship has
marked in the margin "True." I am gratified to confirm the theory of my
ideas of the man of genius, by the practical experience of the greatest of
our age.]
An extraordinary instance of this disagreement between the man of the
world and the literary character, we find in a philosopher seated on a
throne. The celebrated JULIAN stained the imperial purple with an author's
ink; and when he resided among the Antiochians, his unalterable character
shocked that volatile and luxurious race. He slighted the plaudits of
their theatre, he abhorred their dances and their horse-races, he was
abstinent even at a festival, and incorrupt himself, perpetually
admonished the dissipated citizens of their impious abandonment of the
laws of their country. The Antiochians libelled their emperor, and
petulantly lampooned his beard, which the philosopher carelessly wore
neither perfumed nor curled. Julian, scorning to inflict a sharper
punishment, pointed at them his satire of "the Misopogon, or the
Antiochian; the Enemy of the Beard," where, amidst irony and invective,
the literary monarch bestows on himself many exquisite and characteristic
touches. All that the persons of fashion alleged against the literary
character, Julian unreservedly confesses--his undressed beard and
awkwardness, his obstinacy, his unsociable habits, his deficient tastes,
while at the same time he represents his good qualities as so many
extravagances. But, in this Cervantic pleasantry of self-reprehension, the
imperial philosopher has not failed to show this light and corrupt people
that the reason he could not possibly resemble them, existed in the
unhappy circumstance of having been subject to too strict an education
under a family tutor, who had never suffered him to swerve from the one
right way, and who (additional misfortune!) had inspired him with such a
silly reverence for Plato and Socrates, Aristotle and Theophrastus, that
he had been induced to make them his models. "Whatever manners," says the
emperor, "I may have previously contracted, whether gentle or boorish, it
is impossible for me now to alter or unlearn. Habit is said to be a second
nature; to oppose it is irksome, but to counteract _the study of more than
thirty years_ is extremely difficult, especially when it has been imbibed
with so much attention."
And what if men of genius, relinquishing their habits, could do this
violence to their nature, should we not lose the original for a factitious
genius, and spoil one race without improving the other? If nature and
habit, that second nature which prevails even over the first, have created
two beings distinctly different, what mode of existence shall ever
assimilate them? Antipathies and sympathies, those still occult causes,
however concealed, will break forth at an unguarded moment. Clip the wings
of an eagle that he may roost among domestic fowls,--at some unforeseen
moment his pinions will overshadow and terrify his tiny associates, for
"the feathered king" will be still musing on the rock and the cloud.
The man of genius will be restive even in his trammelled paces. Too
impatient amidst the heartless courtesies of society, and little practised
in the minuter attentions, he has rarely sacrificed to the unlaughing
graces of Lord Chesterfield. Plato ingeniously compares Socrates to the
gallipots of the Athenian apothecaries; the grotesque figures of owls and
apes were painted on their exterior, but they contained within precious
balsams. The man of genius amidst many a circle may exclaim with
Themistocles, "I cannot fiddle, but I can make a little village a great
city;" and with Corneille, he may be allowed to smile at his own
deficiencies, and even disdain to please in certain conventional manners,
asserting that "wanting all these things, he was not the less Corneille."
But with the great thinkers and students, their character is still more
obdurate. ADAM SMITH could never free himself from the embarrassed manners
of a recluse; he was often absent, and his grave and formal conversation
made him seem distant and reserved, when in fact no man had warmer
feelings for his intimates. One who knew Sir ISAAC NEWTON tells us, that
"he would sometimes be silent and thoughtful, and look all the while as if
he were saying his prayers." A French princess, desirous of seeing the
great moralist NICOLLE, experienced an inconceivable disappointment when
the moral instructor, entering with the most perplexing bow imaginable,
silently sank into his chair. The interview promoted no conversation, and
the retired student, whose elevated spirit might have endured martyrdom,
shrunk with timidity in the unaccustomed honour of conversing with a
princess and having nothing to say. Observe Hume thrown into a most
ridiculous attitude by a woman of talents and coterie celebrity. Our
philosopher was called on to perform his part in one of those inventions
of the hour to which the fashionable, like children in society, have
sometimes resorted to attract their world by the rumour of some new
extravagance. In the present, poor HUME was to represent a sultan on a
sofa, sitting between two slaves, who were the prettiest and most
vivacious of Parisians. Much was anticipated from this literary
exhibition. The two slaves were ready at repartee, but the utter
simplicity of the sultan displayed a blockishness which blunted all edge.
The phlegmatic metaphysician and historian only gave a sign of life by
repeating the same awkward gesture, and the same ridiculous exclamation,
without end. One of the fair slaves soon discovered the unchangeable
nature of the forlorn philosopher, impatiently exclaiming, "I guessed as
much, never was there such a calf of a man!"--"Since this affair," adds
Madame d'Epinay, "Hume is at present banished to the class of spectators."
The philosopher, indeed, had formed a more correct conception of his own
character than the volatile sylphs of the Parisian circle, for in writing
to the Countess de Boufflers, on an invitation to Paris, he said, "I have
rusted on amid books and study; have been little engaged in the active,
and not much in the pleasurable, scenes of life; and am more accustomed to
a select society than to general companies." If Hume made a ridiculous
figure in these circles, the error did not lie on the side of that
cheerful and profound philosopher.--This subject leads our inquiries to
the nature of _the conversations of men of genius_.