“Oh, of course! I ought never to have indulged my wishes, but have
grown gray in the same dull manner in which I was brought up! Because I
once venture a step beyond the drear monotony of my past life, and look
around me to see whether there be not some new source of enjoyment in
store for me--because I--”
“If it was but a trial, gracious sir, I have no more to say; for the
experience you have gained would not be dearly bought at three times the
price it has cost. It grieves me, I confess, to think that the opinion
of the world should be concerned in determining the question--how are
you to choose your own happiness.”
“It is well for you that you can afford to despise the world’s opinion,”
replied he, “I am its creature, I must be its slave. What are we
princes but opinion? With us it is everything. Public opinion is our
nurse and preceptor in infancy, our oracle and idol in riper years, our
staff in old age. Take from us what we derive from the opinion of the
world, and the poorest of the humblest class is in a better position
than we, for his fate has taught him a lesson of philosophy which
enables him to bear it. But a prince who laughs at the world’s opinion
destroys himself, like the priest who denies the existence of a God.”
“And yet, gracious prince--”
“I see what you would say; I can break through the circle which my birth
has drawn around me. But can I also eradicate from my memory all the
false impressions which education and early habit have implanted, and
which a hundred thousand fools have been continually laboring to impress
more and more firmly? Everybody naturally wishes to be what he is in
perfection; in short, the whole aim of a prince’s existence is to appear
happy. If we cannot be happy after your fashion, is that any reason why
we should discard all other means of happiness, and not be happy at all?
If we cannot drink of joy pure from the fountain-head, can there be any
reason why we should not beguile ourselves with artificial pleasure--
nay, even be content to accept a sorry substitute from the very hand
that robs us of the higher boon?”
“You were wont to look for this compensation in your own heart.”
“But if I no longer find it there? Oh, how came we to fall on this
subject? Why did you revive these recollections in me? I had recourse
to this tumult of the senses in order to stifle an inward voice which
embitters my whole life; in order to lull to rest this inquisitive
reason, which, like a sharp sickle, moves to and fro in my brain, at
each new research lopping off another branch of my happiness.”
“My dearest prince”--He had risen, and was pacing up and down the room
in unusual agitation.
[I have endeavored, dearest O------, to relate to you this
remarkable conversation exactly as it occurred; but this I found
impossible, although I sat down to write it the evening of the day
it took place. In order to assist my memory I was obliged to
transpose the observation of the prince, and thus this compound of
a conversation and a philosophical lecture, which is in some
respects better and in others worse than the source from which I
took it, arose; but I assure you that I have rather omitted some of
the prince’s words than ascribed to him any of my own; all that is
mine is the arrangement, and a few observations, whose ownership
you will easily recognize by their stupidity.--Note of the Baron
von F------]
“When everything gives way before me and behind me; when the past lies
in the distance in dreary monotony, like a city of the dead; when the
future offers me naught; when I see my whole being enclosed within the
narrow circle of the present, who can blame me if I clasp this niggardly
present of time in my arms with fiery eagerness, as though it were a
friend whom I was embracing for the last time? Oh, I have learnt to
value the present moment. The present moment is our mother; let us love
it as such.”
“Gracious sir, you were wont to believe in a more lasting good.”
“Do but make the enchantment last and fervently will I embrace it. But
what pleasure can it give to me to render beings happy who to-morrow
will have passed away like myself? Is not everything passing away
around me? Each one bustles and pushes his neighbor aside hastily to
catch a few drops from the fountain of life, and then departs thirsting.
At this very moment, while I am rejoicing in lily strength, some being
is waiting to start into life at my dissolution. Show me one being who
will endure, and I will become a virtuous man.”
“But what, then, has become of those benevolent sentiments which used to
be the joy and the rule of your life? To sow seeds for the future, to
assist in carrying out the designs of a high and eternal Providence”--
“Future! Eternal Providence! If you take away from man all that he
derives from his own heart, all that he associates with the idea of a
godhead, and all that belongs to the law of nature, what, then, do you
leave him?
“What has already happened to me, and what may still follow, I look upon
as two black, impenetrable curtains hanging over the two extremities of
human life, and which no mortal has ever yet drawn aside. Many hundred
generations have stood before the second of these curtains, casting the
light of their torches upon its folds, speculating and guessing as to
what it may conceal. Many have beheld themselves, in the magnified
image of their passions, reflected upon the curtain which hides futurity
from their gaze, and have turned away shuddering from their own shadows.
Poets, philosophers, and statesmen have painted their fancies on the
curtain in brighter or more sombre colors, according as their own
prospects were bright or gloomy. Many a juggler has also taken
advantage of the universal curiosity, and by well-managed deceptions
led astray the excited imagination. A deep silence reigns behind this
curtain; no one who passes beyond it answers any questions; all the
reply is an empty echo, like the sound yielded by a vault.
“Sooner or later all must go behind this curtain, and they approach it
with fear and trembling, in doubt who may be waiting there behind to
receive them; _quid sit id, quod tanturn morituri vident_. There have
been infidels who asserted that this curtain only deluded mankind, and
that we saw nothing behind it, because there was nothing there to see;
but, to convince them, they were quickly sent behind it themselves.”
“It was indeed a rash conclusion,” said I, “if they had no better ground
for it than that they saw nothing themselves.”
“You see, my dear friend, I am modest enough not to wish to look behind
this curtain, and the wisest course will doubtless be to abstain from
all curiosity. But while I draw this impassable circle around me, and
confine myself within the bounds of present existence, this small point
of time, which I was in danger of neglecting in useless researches,
becomes the more important to me. What you call the chief end and aim
of my existence concerns me no longer. I cannot escape my destiny; I
cannot promote its consummation; but I know, and firmly believe, that I
am here to accomplish some end, and that I do accomplish it. But the
means which nature has chosen to fulfil my destiny are so much the more
sacred to me; to me it is everything; my morality, my happiness. All
the rest I shall never learn. I am like a messenger who carries a
sealed letter to its place of destination. What the letter contains is
indifferent to him; his business is only to earn his fee for carrying
it.”
“Alas!” said I, “how poor a thing you would leave me!”
“But in what a labyrinth have we lost ourselves!” exclaimed the prince,
looking with a smile at the table on which the rouleaus lay. “After all
perhaps not far from the mark,” continued he; “you will now no doubt
understand my reasons for this new mode of life. I could not so
suddenly tear myself away from my fancied wealth, could not so readily
separate the props of my morality and happiness from the pleasing dream
with which everything within me was so closely bound up. I longed for
the frivolity which seems to render the existence of most of those about
me endurable to themselves. Everything which precluded reflection was
welcome to me. Shall I confess it to you? I wished to lower myself, in
order to destroy this source of my griefs, by deadening the power of
reflection.”
Here we were interrupted by a visit. In my next I shall have to
communicate to you a piece of news, which, from the tenor of a
conversation like the one of to-day, you would scarcely have
anticipated.