The literary and the personal character.--The personal dispositions of an
author may be the reverse of those which appear in his writings.
--Erroneous conceptions of the character of distant authors.--Paradoxical
appearances in the history of Genius.--Why the character of the man may be
opposite to that of his writings.
Are the personal dispositions of an author discoverable in his writings,
as those of an artist are imagined to appear in his works, where Michael
Angelo is always great, and Raphael ever graceful?
Is the moralist a moral man? Is he malignant who publishes caustic
satires? Is he a libertine who composes loose poems? And is he, whose
imagination delights in terror and in blood, the very monster he paints?
Many licentious writers have led chaste lives. LA MOTHE LE VAYER wrote two
works of a free nature; yet his was the unblemished life of a retired
sage. BAYLE is the too faithful compiler of impurities, but he resisted
the voluptuousness of the senses as much as Newton. LA FONTAINE wrote
tales fertile in intrigue, yet the "bon-homme" has not left on record a
single ingenious amour of his own. The Queen of NAVARRE'S Tales are
gross imitations of Boccaccio's; but she herself was a princess of
irreproachable habits, and had given proof of the most rigid virtue; but
stories of intrigues, told in a natural style, formed the fashionable
literature of the day, and the genius of the female writer was amused in
becoming an historian without being an actor. FORTIGUERRA, the author of
the Ricciardetto, abounds with loose and licentious descriptions, and yet
neither his manners nor his personal character were stained by the
offending freedom of his inventions. SMOLLETT'S character is immaculate;
yet he has described two scenes which offend even in the license of
imagination. COWLEY, who boasts with such gaiety of the versatility of his
passion among so many mistresses, wanted even the confidence to address
one. Thus, licentious writers may be very chaste persons. The imagination
may be a volcano while the heart is an Alp of ice.
Turn to the moralist--there we find Seneca, a usurer of seven millions,
writing on moderate desires on a table of gold. SALLUST, who so eloquently
declaims against the licentiousness of the age, was repeatedly accused in
the senate of public and habitual debaucheries; and when this inveigher
against the spoilers of provinces attained to a remote government, he
pillaged like Verres. That "DEMOSTHENES was more capable of recommending
than of imitating the virtues of our ancestors," is the observation of
Plutarch. LUCIAN, when young, declaimed against the friendship of the
great, as another name for servitude; but when his talents procured him a
situation under the emperor, he facetiously compared himself to those
quacks who, themselves plagued by a perpetual cough, offer to sell an
infallible remedy for one. Sir THOMAS MORE, in his "Utopia," declares that
no man ought to be punished for his religion; yet he became a fierce
persecutor, flogging and racking men for his own "true faith." At the
moment the poet ROUSSEAU was giving versions of the Psalms, full of
unction, as our Catholic neighbours express it, he was profaning the same
pen with infamous epigrams; and an erotic poet of our times has composed
night-hymns in churchyards with the same ardour with which he poured forth
Anacreontics. Napoleon said of Bernardin St. Pierre, whose writings
breathe the warm principles of humanity and social happiness in every
page, that he was one of the worst private characters in France. I have
heard this from other quarters; it startles one! The pathetic genius of
STERNE played about his head, but never reached his heart[A]. Cardinal
RICHELIEU wrote "The Perfection of a Christian, or the Life of a
Christian;" yet was he an utter stranger to Gospel maxims; and FREDERICK
THE GREAT, when young, published his "Anti-Machiavel," and deceived the
world by the promise of a pacific reign. This military genius protested
against those political arts which, he afterwards adroitly practised,
uniting the lion's head with the fox's tail--and thus himself realising
the political monster of Machiavel!
[Footnote A: See what is said on this subject in the article on Sterne in
the "Literary Miscellanies," of the present volume.]
And thus also is it with the personal dispositions of an author, which may
be quite the reverse from those which appear in his writings. Johnson
would not believe that HORACE was a happy man because his verses were
cheerful, any more than he could think POPE so, because the poet is
continually informing us of it. It surprised Spence when Pope told him
that ROWE, the tragic poet, whom he had considered so solemn a personage,
"would laugh all day long, and do nothing else but laugh." Lord Kaimes
says, that ARBUTHNOT must have been a great genius, for he exceeded Swift
and Addison in humorous painting; although we are informed he had nothing
of that peculiarity in his character. YOUNG, who is constantly contemning
preferment in his writings, was all his life pining after it; and the
conversation of the sombrous author of the "Night Thoughts" was of the
most volatile kind, abounding with trivial puns. He was one of the first
who subscribed to the assembly at Wellwyn. Mrs. Carter, who greatly
admired his sublime poetry, expressing her surprise at his social
converse, he replied, "Madam, there is much difference between writing and
talking."
MOLIERE, on the contrary, whose humour is so perfectly comic, and
even ludicrous, was thoughtful and serious, and even melancholy. His
strongly-featured physiognomy exhibits the face of a great tragic, rather
than of a great comic, poet. Boileau called Molière "The Contemplative
Man." Those who make the world laugh often themselves laugh the least. A
famous and witty harlequin of France was overcome with hypochondriasm, and
consulted a physician, who, after inquiring about his malady, told his
miserable patient, that he knew of no other medicine for him than to take
frequent doses of Carlin--"I am Carlin himself," exclaimed the melancholy
man, in despair. BURTON, the pleasant and vivacious author of "The Anatomy
of Melancholy," of whom it is noticed, that he could in an interval of
vapours raise laughter in any company, in his chamber was "mute and
mopish," and at last was so overcome by that intellectual disorder, which
he appeared to have got rid of by writing his volume, that it is believed
he closed his life in a fit of melancholy.[A]
[Footnote A: It is reported of him that his only mode of alleviating his
melancholy was by walking from his college at Oxford to the bridge, to
listen to the rough jokes of the bargemen.]
Could one have imagined that the brilliant wit, the luxuriant raillery,
and the fine and deep sense of PASCAL, could have combined with the most
opposite qualities--the hypochondriasm and bigotry of an ascetic?
ROCHEFOUCAULD, in private life, was a conspicuous example of all those
moral qualities of which he seemed to deny the existence, and exhibited in
this respect a striking contrast to the Cardinal de Retz, who has presumed
to censure him for his want of faith in the reality of virtue; but DE RETZ
himself was the unbeliever in disinterested virtue. This great genius was
one of those pretended patriots destitute of a single one of the virtues
for which he was the clamorous advocate of faction.
When Valincour attributed the excessive tenderness in the tragedies of
RACINE to the poet's own impassioned character, the son amply showed that
his father was by no means the slave of love. RACINE never wrote a single
love-poem, nor even had a mistress; and his wife had never read his
tragedies, for poetry was not her delight. Racine's motive for making love
the constant source of action in his tragedies, was from the principle
which has influenced so many poets, who usually conform to the prevalent
taste of the times. In the court of a young monarch it was necessary that
heroes should be lovers; Corneille had nobly run in one career, and Racine
could not have existed as a great poet had he not rivalled him in an
opposite one. The tender RACINE was no lover; but he was a subtle and
epigrammatic observer, before whom his convivial friends never cared to
open their minds; and the caustic BOILEAU truly said of him, "RACINE is
far more malicious than I am."
ALFIERI speaks of his mistress as if he lived with her in the most
unreserved familiarity; the reverse was the case. And the gratitude and
affection with which he describes his mother, and which she deserved,
entered so little into his habitual feelings, that, after their early
separation, he never saw her but once, though he often passed through the
country where she resided.
JOHNSON has composed a beautiful Rambler, describing the pleasures which
result from the influence of good-humour; and somewhat remarkably says,
"Without good-humour learning and bravery can be only formidable, and
confer that superiority which swells the heart of the lion in the desert,
where he roars without reply, and ravages without resistance." He who
could so finely discover the happy influence of this pleasing quality was
himself a stranger to it, and "the roar and the ravage" were familiar to
our lion. Men of genius frequently substitute their beautiful imagination
for spontaneous and natural sentiment. It is not therefore surprising if
we are often erroneous in the conception we form of the personal character
of a distant author. KLOPSTOCK, the votary of the muse of Zion, so
astonished and warmed the sage BODMER, that he invited the inspired bard
to his house: but his visitor shocked the grave professor, when, instead
of a poet rapt in silent meditation, a volatile youth leaped out of the
chaise, who was an enthusiast for retirement only when writing verses. An
artist, whose pictures exhibit a series of scenes of domestic tenderness,
awakening all the charities of private life, I have heard, participated in
them in no other way than on his canvas. EVELYN, who has written in favour
of active life, "loved and lived in retirement;"[A] while Sir GEORGE
MACKENZIE, who had been continually in the bustle of business, framed a
eulogium on solitude. We see in MACHIAVEL'S code of tyranny, of depravity,
and of criminal violence, a horrid picture of human nature; but this
retired philosopher was a friend to the freedom of his country; he
participated in none of the crimes he had recorded, but drew up these
systemized crimes "as an observer, not as a criminal." DRUMMOND, whose
sonnets still retain the beauty and the sweetness and the delicacy of the
most amiable imagination, was a man of a harsh irritable temper, and has
been thus characterised:--
Testie Drummond could not speak for fretting.
[Footnote A: Since this was written the correspondence of EVELYN has
appeared, by which we find that he apologised to Cowley for having
published this very treatise, which seemed to condemn that life of study
and privacy to which they were both equally attached; and confesses that
the whole must be considered as a mere sportive effusion, requesting that
Cowley would not suppose its principles formed his private opinions. Thus
LEIBNITZ, we are told, laughed at the fanciful system revealed in his
_Theodicée_, and acknowledged that he never wrote it in earnest; that a
philosopher is not always obliged to write seriously, and that to invent
an hypothesis is only a proof of the force of imagination.]
Thus authors and artists may yield no certain indication of their personal
characters in their works. Inconstant men will write on constancy, and
licentious minds may elevate themselves into poetry and piety. We
should be unjust to some of the greatest geniuses if the extraordinary
sentiments which they put into the mouths of their dramatic personages are
maliciously to be applied to themselves. EURIPIDES was accused of atheism
when he introduced a denier of the gods on the stage. MILTON has been
censured by CLARKE for the impiety of Satan; and an enemy of SHAKSPEARE
might have reproached him for his perfect delineation of the accomplished
villain Iago, as it was said that Dr. MOORE was hurt in the opinions of
some by his odious Zeluco. CREBILLON complains of this:--"They charge me
with all the iniquities of Atreus, and they consider me in some places as
a wretch with whom it is unfit to associate; as if all which the mind
invents must be derived from the heart." This poet offers a striking
instance of the little alliance existing between the literary and personal
dispositions of an author. CREBILLON, who exulted, on his entrance into
the French Academy, that he had never tinged his pen with the gall of
satire, delighted to strike on the most harrowing string of the tragic
lyre. In his _Atreus_ the father drinks the blood of his son; in his
_Rhadamistus_ the son expires under the hand of the father; in his
_Electra_, the son assassinates the mother. A poet is a painter of the
soul, but a great artist is not therefore a bad man.
MONTAIGNE appears to have been sensible of this fact in the literary
character. Of authors, he says, he likes to read their little anecdotes
and private passions:--"Car j'ai une singulière curiosité de connaître
l'âme et les naïfs jugemens de mes auteurs. Il faut bien juger leur
suffisance, mais non pas leurs moeurs, ni eux, par cette montre de leurs
écrits qu'ils étalent au théatre du monde." Which may be thus translated:
"For I have a singular curiosity to know the soul and simple opinions of
my authors. We must judge of their ability, but not of their manners, nor
of themselves, by that show of their writings which they display on the
theatre of the world." This is very just; are we yet sure, however, that
the simplicity of this old favourite of Europe might not have been as much
a theatrical gesture as the sentimentality of Sterne? The great authors of
the Port-Royal Logic have raised severe objections to prove that MONTAIGNE
was not quite so open in respect to those simple details which he imagined
might diminish his personal importance with his readers. He pretends that
he reveals all his infirmities and weaknesses, while he is perpetually
passing himself off for something more than he is. He carefully informs us
that he has "a page," the usual attendant of an independent gentleman, and
lives in an old family château; when the fact was, that his whole revenue
did not exceed six thousand livres, a state beneath mediocrity. He is also
equally careful not to drop any mention of his having a _clerk with a
bag_; for he was a counsellor of Bordeaux, but affected the gentleman and
the soldier. He trumpets himself forth for having been _mayor_ of
Bordeaux, as this offered an opportunity of telling us that he succeeded
_Marshal_ Biron, and resigned it to _Marshal_ Matignon. Could he have
discovered that any _marshal_ had been a _lawyer_ he would not have sunk
that part of his life. Montaigne himself has said, "that in forming a
judgment of a man's life, particular regard should be paid to his
behaviour at the end of it;" and he more than once tells us that the chief
study of his life is to die calm and silent; and that he will plunge
himself headlong and stupidly into death, as into an obscure abyss, which
swallows one up in an instant; that to die was the affair of a moment's
suffering, and required no precepts. He talked of reposing on the "pillow
of doubt." But how did this great philosopher die? He called for the more
powerful opiates of the infallible church! The mass was performed in his
chamber, and, in rising to embrace it, his hands dropped and failed him;
thus, as Professor Dugald Stewart observes on this philosopher--"He
expired in performing what his old preceptor, Buchanan, would not have
scrupled to describe as an act of idolatry."
We must not then consider that he who paints vice with energy is therefore
vicious, lest we injure an honourable man; nor must we imagine that he who
celebrates virtue is therefore virtuous, for we may then repose on a heart
which knowing the right pursues the wrong.
These paradoxical appearances in the history of genius present a curious
moral phenomenon. Much must be attributed to the plastic nature of the
versatile faculty itself. Unquestionably many men of genius have often
resisted the indulgence of one talent to exercise another with equal
power; and some, who have solely composed sermons, could have touched on
the foibles of society with the spirit of Horace or Juvenal. BLACKSTONE
and Sir WILLIAM JONES directed that genius to the austere studies of law
and philology, which might have excelled in the poetical and historical
character. So versatile is this faculty of genius, that its possessors
are sometimes uncertain of the manner in which they shall treat their
subject, whether gravely or ludicrously. When BREBOEUF, the French
translator of the Pharsalia of Lucan, had completed the first book as it
now appears, he at the same time composed a burlesque version, and sent
both to the great arbiter of taste in that day, to decide which the poet
should continue. The decision proved to be difficult. Are there not
writers who, with all the vehemence of genius, by adopting one principle
can make all things shrink into the pigmy form of ridicule, or by
adopting another principle startle us by the gigantic monsters of their
own exaggerated imagination? On this principle, of the versatility of the
faculty, a production of genius is a piece of art which, wrought up to
its full effect with a felicity of manner acquired by taste and habit, is
merely the result of certain arbitrary combinations of the mind.
Are we then to reduce the works of a man of genius to a mere sport of his
talents--a game in which he is only the best player? Can he whose secret
power raises so many emotions in our breasts be without any in his own? A
mere actor performing a part? Is he unfeeling when he is pathetic,
indifferent when he is indignant? Is he an alien to all the wisdom and
virtue he inspires? No! were men of genius themselves to assert this, and
it is said some incline so to do, there is a more certain conviction than
their misconceptions, in our own consciousness, which for ever assures us,
that deep feelings and elevated thoughts can alone spring from those who
feel deeply and think nobly.
In proving that the character of the man may be very opposite to that of
his writings, we must recollect that the habits of the life may be
contrary to the habits of the mind.[A] The influence of their studies over
men of genius is limited. Out of the ideal world, man is reduced to be the
active creature of sensation. An author has, in truth, two distinct
characters: the literary, formed by the habits of his study; the personal,
by the habits of his situation. GRAY, cold, effeminate, and timid in his
personal, was lofty and awful in his literary character. We see men of
polished manners and bland affections, who, in grasping a pen, are
thrusting a poniard; while others in domestic life with the simplicity of
children and the feebleness of nervous affections, can shake the senate or
the bar with the vehemence of their eloquence and the intrepidity of their
spirit. The writings of the famous BAPTISTA PORTA are marked by the
boldness of his genius, which formed a singular contrast with the
pusillanimity of his conduct when menaced or attacked. The heart may be
feeble, though the mind is strong. To think boldly may be the habit of the
mind, to act weakly may be the habit of the constitution.
[Footnote A: Nothing is more delightful to me in my researches on the
literary character than when I find in persons of unquestionable and high
genius the results of my own discoveries. This circumstance has frequently
happened to confirm my principles. Long after this was published, Madame
de Staël made this important confession in her recent work, "Dix Années
d'Exil," p. 154. "Je ne pouvais me dissimuler que je n'étais pas une
persoune courageuse; j'ai de la hardiesse dans _l'imagination,_ mais de la
timidité dans la _caractère_."]
However the personal character may contrast with that of their genius,
still are the works themselves genuine, and exist as realities for us--and
were so, doubtless, to the composers themselves in the act of composition.
In the calm of study, a beautiful imagination may convert him whose morals
are corrupt into an admirable moralist, awakening feelings which yet may
be cold in the business of life: as we have shown that the phlegmatic can
excite himself into wit, and the cheerful man delight in "Night Thoughts."
SALLUST, the corrupt Sallust, might retain the most sublime conceptions of
the virtues which were to save the Republic; and STERNE, whose heart was
not so susceptible in ordinary occurrences, while he was gradually
creating incident after incident and touching successive emotions, in
the stories of Le Fevre and Maria, might have thrilled--like some
of his readers. Many have mourned over the wisdom or the virtue they
contemplated, mortified at their own infirmity. Thus, though there may be
no identity between the book and the man, still for us an author is ever
an abstract being, and, as one of the Fathers said--"A dead man may sin
dead, leaving books that make others sin." An author's wisdom or his folly
does not die with him. The volume, not the author, is our companion, and
is for us a real personage, performing before us whatever it inspires--"He
being dead, yet speaketh." Such is the vitality of a book!