our knowing how they obtained their knowledge, have not obtained it
with impunity. This unwise teaching, which can have no honourable
object, stains the imagination of those who receive it if it does
nothing worse, and it inclines them to the vices of their instructors.
This is not all; servants, by this means, ingratiate themselves
with a child, gain his confidence, make him regard his tutor as a
gloomy and tiresome person; and one of the favourite subjects of
their secret colloquies is to slander him. When the pupil has got
so far, the master may abandon his task; he can do no good.
But why does the child choose special confidants? Because of the
tyranny of those who control him. Why should he hide himself from
them if he were not driven to it? Why should he complain if he had
nothing to complain of? Naturally those who control him are his
first confidants; you can see from his eagerness to tell them what
he thinks that he feels he has only half thought till he has told
his thoughts to them. You may be sure that when the child knows you
will neither preach nor scold, he will always tell you everything,
and that no one will dare to tell him anything he must conceal from
you, for they will know very well that he will tell you everything.
What makes me most confident in my method is this: when I follow
it out as closely as possible, I find no situation in the life of
my scholar which does not leave me some pleasing memory of him.
Even when he is carried away by his ardent temperament or when he
revolts against the hand that guides him, when he struggles and is
on the point of escaping from me, I still find his first simplicity
in his agitation and his anger; his heart as pure as his body, he
has no more knowledge of pretence than of vice; reproach and scorn
have not made a coward of him; base fears have never taught him
the art of concealment. He has all the indiscretion of innocence;
he is absolutely out-spoken; he does not even know the use of
deceit. Every impulse of his heart is betrayed either by word or
look, and I often know what he is feeling before he is aware of it
himself.
So long as his heart is thus freely opened to me, so long as he
delights to tell me what he feels, I have nothing to fear; the danger
is not yet at hand; but if he becomes more timid, more reserved,
if I perceive in his conversation the first signs of confusion and
shame, his instincts are beginning to develop, he is beginning to
connect the idea of evil with these instincts, there is not a moment
to lose, and if I do not hasten to instruct him, he will learn in
spite of me.
Some of my readers, even of those who agree with me, will think
that it is only a question of a conversation with the young man at
any time. Oh, this is not the way to control the human heart. What
we say has no meaning unless the opportunity has been carefully
chosen. Before we sow we must till the ground; the seed of virtue
is hard to grow; and a long period of preparation is required before
it will take root. One reason why sermons have so little effect is
that they are offered to everybody alike, without discrimination
or choice. How can any one imagine that the same sermon could be
suitable for so many hearers, with their different dispositions,
so unlike in mind, temper, age, sex, station, and opinion. Perhaps
there are not two among those to whom what is addressed to all is
really suitable; and all our affections are so transitory that perhaps
there are not even two occasions in the life of any man when the
same speech would have the same effect on him. Judge for yourself
whether the time when the eager senses disturb the understanding
and tyrannise over the will, is the time to listen to the solemn
lessons of wisdom. Therefore never reason with young men, even
when they have reached the age of reason, unless you have first
prepared the way. Most lectures miss their mark more through the
master's fault than the disciple's. The pedant and the teacher say
much the same; but the former says it at random, and the latter
only when he is sure of its effect.
As a somnambulist, wandering in his sleep, walks along the edge
of a precipice, over which he would fall if he were awake, so my
Emile, in the sleep of ignorance, escapes the perils which he does
not see; were I to wake him with a start, he might fall. Let us
first try to withdraw him from the edge of the precipice, and then
we will awake him to show him it from a distance.
Reading, solitude, idleness, a soft and sedentary life, intercourse
with women and young people, these are perilous paths for a young
man, and these lead him constantly into danger. I divert his senses
by other objects of sense; I trace another course for his spirits
by which I distract them from the course they would have taken; it
is by bodily exercise and hard work that I check the activity of
the imagination, which was leading him astray. When the arms are
hard at work, the imagination is quiet; when the body is very weary,
the passions are not easily inflamed. The quickest and easiest
precaution is to remove him from immediate danger. At once I take
him away from towns, away from things which might lead him into
temptation. But that is not enough; in what desert, in what wilds,
shall he escape from the thoughts which pursue him? It is not
enough to remove dangerous objects; if I fail to remove the memory
of them, if I fail to find a way to detach him from everything,
if I fail to distract him from himself, I might as well have left
him where he was.
Emile has learned a trade, but we do not have recourse to it; he
is fond of farming and understands it, but farming is not enough;
the occupations he is acquainted with degenerate into routine; when
he is engaged in them he is not really occupied; he is thinking of
other things; head and hand are at work on different subjects. He
must have some fresh occupation which has the interest of novelty--an
occupation which keeps him busy, diligent, and hard at work, an
occupation which he may become passionately fond of, one to which
he will devote himself entirely. Now the only one which seems to
possess all these characteristics is the chase. If hunting is ever
an innocent pleasure, if it is ever worthy of a man, now is the
time to betake ourselves to it. Emile is well-fitted to succeed in
it. He is strong, skilful, patient, unwearied. He is sure to take
a fancy to this sport; he will bring to it all the ardour of youth;
in it he will lose, at least for a time, the dangerous inclinations
which spring from softness. The chase hardens the heart a well as
the body; we get used to the sight of blood and cruelty. Diana is
represented as the enemy of love; and the allegory is true to life;
the languors of love are born of soft repose, and tender feelings
are stifled by violent exercise. In the woods and fields, the lover
and the sportsman are so diversely affected that they receive very
different impressions. The fresh shade, the arbours, the pleasant
resting-places of the one, to the other are but feeding grounds, or
places where the quarry will hide or turn to bay. Where the lover
hears the flute and the nightingale, the hunter hears the horn
and the hounds; one pictures to himself the nymphs and dryads, the
other sees the horses, the huntsman, and the pack. Take a country
walk with one or other of these men; their different conversation
will soon show you that they behold the earth with other eyes,
and that the direction of their thoughts is as different as their
favourite pursuit.
I understand how these tastes may be combined, and that at last men
find time for both. But the passions of youth cannot be divided in
this way. Give the youth a single occupation which he loves, and
the rest will soon be forgotten. Varied desires come with varied
knowledge, and the first pleasures we know are the only ones we
desire for long enough. I would not have the whole of Emile's youth
spent in killing creatures, and I do not even profess to justify
this cruel passion; it is enough for me that it serves to delay a
more dangerous passion, so that he may listen to me calmly when I
speak of it, and give me time to describe it without stimulating
it.
There are moments in human life which can never be forgotten. Such
is the time when Emile receives the instruction of which I have
spoken; its influence should endure all his life through. Let us
try to engrave it on his memory so that it may never fade away. It
is one of the faults of our age to rely too much on cold reason,
as if men were all mind. By neglecting the language of expression
we have lost the most forcible mode of speech. The spoken word is
always weak, and we speak to the heart rather through the eyes than
the ears. In our attempt to appeal to reason only, we have reduced
our precepts to words, we have not embodied them in deed. Mere
reason is not active; occasionally she restrains, more rarely she
stimulates, but she never does any great thing. Small minds have a
mania for reasoning. Strong souls speak a very different language,
and it is by this language that men are persuaded and driven to
action.
I observe that in modern times men only get a hold over others by
force or self-interest, while the ancients did more by persuasion,
by the affections of the heart; because they did not neglect the
language; of symbolic expression. All agreements were drawn up
solemnly, so that they might be more inviolable; before the reign
of force, the gods were the judges of mankind; in their presence,
individuals made their treaties and alliances, and pledged themselves
to perform their promises; the face of the earth was the book in
which the archives were preserved. The leaves of this book were
rocks, trees, piles of stones, made sacred by these transactions,
and regarded with reverence by barbarous men; and these pages were
always open before their eyes. The well of the oath, the well of
the living and seeing one; the ancient oak of Mamre, the stones of
witness, such were the simple but stately monuments of the sanctity
of contracts; none dared to lay a sacrilegious hand on these
monuments, and man's faith was more secure under the warrant of
these dumb witnesses than it is to-day upon all the rigour of the
law.
In government the people were over-awed by the pomp and splendour
of royal power. The symbols of greatness, a throne, a sceptre, a
purple robe, a crown, a fillet, these were sacred in their sight.
These symbols, and the respect which they inspired, led them to
reverence the venerable man whom they beheld adorned with them;
without soldiers and without threats, he spoke and was obeyed.
[Footnote: The Roman Catholic clergy have very wisely retained
these symbols, and certain republics, such as Venice, have followed
their example. Thus the Venetian government, despite the fallen
condition of the state, still enjoys, under the trappings of
its former greatness, all the affection, all the reverence of the
people; and next to the pope in his triple crown, there is perhaps
no king, no potentate, no person in the world so much respected
as the Doge of Venice; he has no power, no authority, but he is
rendered sacred by his pomp, and he wears beneath his ducal coronet
a woman's flowing locks. That ceremony of the Bucentaurius, which
stirs the laughter of fools, stirs the Venetian populace to shed
its life-blood for the maintenance of this tyrannical government.]
In our own day men profess to do away with these symbols. What are
the consequences of this contempt? The kingly majesty makes no
impression on all hearts, kings can only gain obedience by the help
of troops, and the respect of their subjects is based only on the
fear of punishment. Kings are spared the trouble of wearing their
crowns, and our nobles escape from the outward signs of their
station, but they must have a hundred thousand men at their command
if their orders are to be obeyed. Though this may seem a finer
thing, it is easy to see that in the long run they will gain nothing.
It is amazing what the ancients accomplished with the aid of
eloquence; but this eloquence did not merely consist in fine speeches
carefully prepared; and it was most effective when the orator said
least. The most startling speeches were expressed not in words but
in signs; they were not uttered but shown. A thing beheld by the
eyes kindles the imagination, stirs the curiosity, and keeps the
mind on the alert for what we are about to say, and often enough
the thing tells the whole story. Thrasybulus and Tarquin cutting
off the heads of the poppies, Alexander placing his seal on the
lips of his favourite, Diogenes marching before Zeno, do not these
speak more plainly than if they had uttered long orations? What
flow of words could have expressed the ideas as clearly? Darius,
in the course of the Scythian war, received from the king of the
Scythians a bird, a frog, a mouse, and five arrows. The ambassador
deposited this gift and retired without a word. In our days he would
have been taken for a madman. This terrible speech was understood,
and Darius withdrew to his own country with what speed he could.
Substitute a letter for these symbols and the more threatening it
was the less terror it would inspire; it would have been merely a
piece of bluff, to which Darius would have paid no attention.
What heed the Romans gave to the language of signs! Different ages
and different ranks had their appropriate garments, toga, tunic,
patrician robes, fringes and borders, seats of honour, lictors,
rods and axes, crowns of gold, crowns of leaves, crowns of flowers,
ovations, triumphs, everything had its pomp, its observances,
its ceremonial, and all these spoke to the heart of the citizens.
The state regarded it as a matter of importance that the populace
should assemble in one place rather than another, that they should
or should not behold the Capitol, that they should or should not
turn towards the Senate, that this day or that should be chosen for
their deliberations. The accused wore a special dress, so did the
candidates for election; warriors did not boast of their exploits,
they showed their scars. I can fancy one of our orators at the
death of Caesar exhausting all the commonplaces of rhetoric to give
a pathetic description of his wounds, his blood, his dead body;
Anthony was an orator, but he said none of this; he showed the
murdered Caesar. What rhetoric was this!
But this digression, like many others, is drawing me unawares away
from my subject; and my digressions are too frequent to be borne
with patience. I therefore return to the point.
Do not reason coldly with youth. Clothe your reason with a body,
if you would make it felt. Let the mind speak the language of the
heart, that it may be understood. I say again our opinions, not our
actions, may be influenced by cold argument; they set us thinking,
not doing; they show us what we ought to think, not what we ought
to do. If this is true of men, it is all the truer of young people
who are still enwrapped in their senses and cannot think otherwise
than they imagine.
Even after the preparations of which I have spoken, I shall take
good care not to go all of a sudden to Emile's room and preach a
long and heavy sermon on the subject in which he is to be instructed.
I shall begin by rousing his imagination; I shall choose the time,
place, and surroundings most favourable to the impression I wish
to make; I shall, so to speak, summon all nature as witness to our
conversations; I shall call upon the eternal God, the Creator of
nature, to bear witness to the truth of what I say. He shall judge
between Emile and myself; I will make the rocks, the woods, the
mountains round about us, the monuments of his promises and mine;
eyes, voice, and gesture shall show the enthusiasm I desire to
inspire. Then I will speak and he will listen, and his emotion will
be stirred by my own. The more impressed I am by the sanctity of
my duties, the more sacred he will regard his own. I will enforce
the voice of reason with images and figures, I will not give him
long-winded speeches or cold precepts, but my overflowing feelings
will break their bounds; my reason shall be grave and serious, but
my heart cannot speak too warmly. Then when I have shown him all
that I have done for him, I will show him how he is made for me;
he will see in my tender affection the cause of all my care. How
greatly shall I surprise and disturb him when I change my tone.
Instead of shrivelling up his soul by always talking of his own
interests, I shall henceforth speak of my own; he will be more
deeply touched by this. I will kindle in his young heart all the
sentiments of affection, generosity, and gratitude which I have
already called into being, and it will indeed be sweet to watch
their growth. I will press him to my bosom, and weep over him in
my emotion; I will say to him: "You are my wealth, my child, my
handiwork; my happiness is bound up in yours; if you frustrate my
hopes, you rob me of twenty years of my life, and you bring my grey
hairs with sorrow to the grave." This is the way to gain a hearing
and to impress what is said upon the heart and memory of the young
man.
Hitherto I have tried to give examples of the way in which a tutor
should instruct his pupil in cases of difficulty. I have tried to
do so in this instance; but after many attempts I have abandoned
the task, convinced that the French language is too artificial
to permit in print the plainness of speech required for the first
lessons in certain subjects.
They say French is more chaste than other languages; for my own
part I think it more obscene; for it seems to me that the purity
of a language does not consist in avoiding coarse expressions but
in having none. Indeed, if we are to avoid them, they must be in
our thoughts, and there is no language in which it is so difficult
to speak with purity on every subject than French. The reader is
always quicker to detect than the author to avoid a gross meaning,
and he is shocked and startled by everything. How can what is heard
by impure ears avoid coarseness? On the other hand, a nation whose
morals are pure has fit terms for everything, and these terms are
always right because they are rightly used. One could not imagine
more modest language than that of the Bible, just because of its
plainness of speech. The same things translated into French would
become immodest. What I ought to say to Emile will sound pure and
honourable to him; but to make the same impression in print would
demand a like purity of heart in the reader.
I should even think that reflections on true purity of speech
and the sham delicacy of vice might find a useful place in the
conversations as to morality to which this subject brings us; for
when he learns the language of plain-spoken goodness, he must also
learn the language of decency, and he must know why the two are
so different. However this may be, I maintain that if instead of
the empty precepts which are prematurely dinned into the ears of
children, only to be scoffed at when the time comes when they might
prove useful, if instead of this we bide our time, if we prepare
the way for a hearing, if we then show him the laws of nature in
all their truth, if we show him the sanction of these laws in the
physical and moral evils which overtake those who neglect them,
if while we speak to him of this great mystery of generation, we
join to the idea of the pleasure which the Author of nature has
given to this act the idea of the exclusive affection which makes
it delightful, the idea of the duties of faithfulness and modesty
which surround it, and redouble its charm while fulfilling its
purpose; if we paint to him marriage, not only as the sweetest form
of society, but also as the most sacred and inviolable of contracts,
if we tell him plainly all the reasons which lead men to respect
this sacred bond, and to pour hatred and curses upon him who dares
to dishonour it; if we give him a true and terrible picture of the
horrors of debauch, of its stupid brutality, of the downward road
by which a first act of misconduct leads from bad to worse, and at
last drags the sinner to his ruin; if, I say, we give him proofs
that on a desire for chastity depends health, strength, courage,
virtue, love itself, and all that is truly good for man--I maintain
that this chastity will be so dear and so desirable in his eyes,
that his mind will be ready to receive our teaching as to the way
to preserve it; for so long as we are chaste we respect chastity;
it is only when we have lost this virtue that we scorn it.
It is not true that the inclination to evil is beyond our control,
and that we cannot overcome it until we have acquired the habit of
yielding to it. Aurelius Victor says that many men were mad enough
to purchase a night with Cleopatra at the price of their life,
and this is not incredible in the madness of passion. But let us
suppose the maddest of men, the man who has his senses least under
control; let him see the preparations for his death, let him realise
that he will certainly die in torment a quarter of an hour later;
not only would that man, from that time forward, become able
to resist temptation, he would even find it easy to do so; the
terrible picture with which they are associated will soon distract
his attention from these temptations, and when they are continually
put aside they will cease to recur. The sole cause of our weakness
is the feebleness of our will, and we have always strength to
perform what we strongly desire. "Volenti nihil difficile!" Oh! if
only we hated vice as much as we love life, we should abstain as
easily from a pleasant sin as from a deadly poison in a delicious
dish.
How is it that you fail to perceive that if all the lessons given
to a young man on this subject have no effect, it is because they
are not adapted to his age, and that at every age reason must be
presented in a shape which will win his affection? Speak seriously
to him if required, but let what you say to him always have a charm
which will compel him to listen. Do not coldly oppose his wishes;
do not stifle his imagination, but direct it lest it should bring
forth monsters. Speak to him of love, of women, of pleasure; let
him find in your conversation a charm which delights his youthful
heart; spare no pains to make yourself his confidant; under this
name alone will you really be his master. Then you need not fear
he will find your conversation tedious; he will make you talk more
than you desire.
If I have managed to take all the requisite precautions in accordance
with these maxims, and have said the right things to Emile at the
age he has now reached, I am quite convinced that he will come of
his own accord to the point to which I would lead him, and will
eagerly confide himself to my care. When he sees the dangers by
which he is surrounded, he will say to me with all the warmth of
youth, "Oh, my friend, my protector, my master! resume the authority
you desire to lay aside at the very time when I most need it;
hitherto my weakness has given you this power. I now place it in
your hands of my own free-will, and it will be all the more sacred
in my eyes. Protect me from all the foes which are attacking me,
and above all from the traitors within the citadel; watch over
your work, that it may still be worthy of you. I mean to obey your
laws, I shall ever do so, that is my steadfast purpose; if I ever
disobey you, it will be against my will; make me free by guarding
me against the passions which do me violence; do not let me become
their slave; compel me to be my own master and to obey, not my
senses, but my reason."
When you have led your pupil so far (and it will be your own fault
if you fail to do so), beware of taking him too readily at his word,
lest your rule should seem too strict to him, and lest he should
think he has a right to escape from it, by accusing you of taking
him by surprise. This is the time for reserve and seriousness; and
this attitude will have all the more effect upon him seeing that
it is the first time you have adopted it towards him.
You will say to him therefore: "Young man, you readily make promises
which are hard to keep; you must understand what they mean before
you have a right to make them; you do not know how your fellows
are drawn by their passions into the whirlpool of vice masquerading
as pleasure. You are honourable, I know; you will never break your
word, but how often will you repent of having given it? How often
will you curse your friend, when, in order to guard you from the
ills which threaten you, he finds himself compelled to do violence
to your heart. Like Ulysses who, hearing the song of the Sirens,
cried aloud to his rowers to unbind him, you will break your
chains at the call of pleasure; you will importune me with your
lamentations, you will reproach me as a tyrant when I have your
welfare most at heart; when I am trying to make you happy, I shall
incur your hatred. Oh, Emile, I can never bear to be hateful in
your eyes; this is too heavy a price to pay even for your happiness.
My dear young man, do you not see that when you undertake to obey
me, you compel me to promise to be your guide, to forget myself
in my devotion to you, to refuse to listen to your murmurs and
complaints, to wage unceasing war against your wishes and my own.
Before we either of us undertake such a task, let us count our
resources; take your time, give me time to consider, and be sure
that the slower we are to promise, the more faithfully will our
promises be kept."
You may be sure that the more difficulty he finds in getting your
promise, the easier you will find it to carry it out. The young
man must learn that he is promising a great deal, and that you
are promising still more. When the time is come, when he has, so
to say, signed the contract, then change your tone, and make your
rule as gentle as you said it would be severe. Say to him, "My
young friend, it is experience that you lack; but I have taken care
that you do not lack reason. You are ready to see the motives of
my conduct in every respect; to do this you need only wait till
you are free from excitement. Always obey me first, and then ask
the reasons for my commands; I am always ready to give my reasons
so soon as you are ready to listen to them, and I shall never be
afraid to make you the judge between us. You promise to follow my
teaching, and I promise only to use your obedience to make you the
happiest of men. For proof of this I have the life you have lived
hitherto. Show me any one of your age who has led as happy a life
as yours, and I promise you nothing more."
When my authority is firmly established, my first care will be to
avoid the necessity of using it. I shall spare no pains to become
more and more firmly established in his confidence, to make myself
the confidant of his heart and the arbiter of his pleasures. Far
from combating his youthful tastes, I shall consult them that I
may be their master; I will look at things from his point of view
that I may be his guide; I will not seek a remote distant good at
the cost of his present happiness. I would always have him happy
always if that may be.
Those who desire to guide young people rightly and to preserve them
from the snares of sense give them a disgust for love, and would
willingly make the very thought of it a crime, as if love were
for the old. All these mistaken lessons have no effect; the heart
gives the lie to them. The young man, guided by a surer instinct,
laughs to himself over the gloomy maxims which he pretends to
accept, and only awaits the chance of disregarding them. All that
is contrary to nature. By following the opposite course I reach
the same end more safely. I am not afraid to encourage in him the
tender feeling for which he is so eager, I shall paint it as the
supreme joy of life, as indeed it is; when I picture it to him, I
desire that he shall give himself up to it; by making him feel the
charm which the union of hearts adds to the delights of sense, I
shall inspire him with a disgust for debauchery; I shall make him
a lover and a good man.
How narrow-minded to see nothing in the rising desires of a young
heart but obstacles to the teaching of reason. In my eyes, these
are the right means to make him obedient to that very teaching.
Only through passion can we gain the mastery over passions; their
tyranny must be controlled by their legitimate power, and nature
herself must furnish us with the means to control her.
Emile is not made to live alone, he is a member of society, and must
fulfil his duties as such. He is made to live among his fellow-men
and he must get to know them. He knows mankind in general; he has
still to learn to know individual men. He knows what goes on in the
world; he has now to learn how men live in the world. It is time
to show him the front of that vast stage, of which he already
knows the hidden workings. It will not arouse in him the foolish
admiration of a giddy youth, but the discrimination of an exact
and upright spirit. He may no doubt be deceived by his passions;
who is there who yields to his passions without being led astray
by them? At least he will not be deceived by the passions of other
people. If he sees them, he will regard them with the eye of the
wise, and will neither be led away by their example nor seduced by
their prejudices.
As there is a fitting age for the study of the sciences, so there
is a fitting age for the study of the ways of the world. Those who
learn these too soon, follow them throughout life, without choice
or consideration, and although they follow them fairly well they
never really know what they are about. But he who studies the ways
of the world and sees the reason for them, follows them with more
insight, and therefore more exactly and gracefully. Give me a child
of twelve who knows nothing at all; at fifteen I will restore him
to you knowing as much as those who have been under instruction
from infancy; with this difference, that your scholars only know
things by heart, while mine knows how to use his knowledge. In
the same way plunge a young man of twenty into society; under good
guidance, in a year's time, he will be more charming and more truly
polite than one brought up in society from childhood. For the former
is able to perceive the reasons for all the proceedings relating
to age, position, and sex, on which the customs of society depend,
and can reduce them to general principles, and apply them to
unforeseen emergencies; while the latter, who is guided solely by
habit, is at a loss when habit fails him.
Young French ladies are all brought up in convents till they are
married. Do they seem to find any difficulty in acquiring the ways
which are so new to them, and is it possible to accuse the ladies
of Paris of awkward and embarrassed manners or of ignorance of the
ways of society, because they have not acquired them in infancy!
This is the prejudice of men of the world, who know nothing of more
importance than this trifling science, and wrongly imagine that
you cannot begin to acquire it too soon.
On the other hand, it is quite true that we must not wait too long.
Any one who has spent the whole of his youth far from the great
world is all his life long awkward, constrained, out of place; his
manners will be heavy and clumsy, no amount of practice will get
rid of this, and he will only make himself more ridiculous by trying
to do so. There is a time for every kind of teaching and we ought
to recognise it, and each has its own dangers to be avoided. At this
age there are more dangers than at any other; but I do not expose
my pupil to them without safeguards.
When my method succeeds completely in attaining one object, and
when in avoiding one difficulty it also provides against another,
I then consider that it is a good method, and that I am on the
right track. This seems to be the case with regard to the expedient
suggested by me in the present case. If I desire to be stern and
cold towards my pupil, I shall lose his confidence, and he will soon
conceal himself from me. If I wish to be easy and complaisant, to
shut my eyes, what good does it do him to be under my care? I only
give my authority to his excesses, and relieve his conscience at
the expense of my own. If I introduce him into society with no
object but to teach him, he will learn more than I want. If I keep
him apart from society, what will he have learnt from me? Everything
perhaps, except the one art absolutely necessary to a civilised
man, the art of living among his fellow-men. If I try to attend to
this at a distance, it will be of no avail; he is only concerned
with the present. If I am content to supply him with amusement, he
will acquire habits of luxury and will learn nothing.
We will have none of this. My plan provides for everything. Your
heart, I say to the young man, requires a companion; let us go
in search of a fitting one; perhaps we shall not easily find such
a one, true worth is always rare, but we will be in no hurry, nor
will we be easily discouraged. No doubt there is such a one, and
we shall find her at last, or at least we shall find some one like
her. With an end so attractive to himself, I introduce him into
society. What more need I say? Have I not achieved my purpose?
By describing to him his future mistress, you may imagine whether
I shall gain a hearing, whether I shall succeed in making the
qualities he ought to love pleasing and dear to him, whether I shall
sway his feelings to seek or shun what is good or bad for him. I
shall be the stupidest of men if I fail to make him in love with he
knows not whom. No matter that the person I describe is imaginary,
it is enough to disgust him with those who might have attracted
him; it is enough if it is continually suggesting comparisons which
make him prefer his fancy to the real people he sees; and is not
love itself a fancy, a falsehood, an illusion? We are far more in
love with our own fancy than with the object of it. If we saw the
object of our affections as it is, there would be no such thing as
love. When we cease to love, the person we used to love remains
unchanged, but we no longer see with the same eyes; the magic veil
is drawn aside, and love disappears. But when I supply the object
of imagination, I have control over comparisons, and I am able
easily to prevent illusion with regard to realities.
For all that I would not mislead a young man by describing a model
of perfection which could never exist; but I would so choose the
faults of his mistress that they will suit him, that he will be
pleased by them, and they may serve to correct his own. Neither
would I lie to him and affirm that there really is such a person;
let him delight in the portrait, he will soon desire to find the
original. From desire to belief the transition is easy; it is a
matter of a little skilful description, which under more perceptible
features will give to this imaginary object an air of greater reality.
I would go so far as to give her a name; I would say, smiling. Let
us call your future mistress Sophy; Sophy is a name of good omen;
if it is not the name of the lady of your choice at least she will
be worthy of the name; we may honour her with it meanwhile. If
after all these details, without affirming or denying, we excuse
ourselves from giving an answer, his suspicions will become certainty;
he will think that his destined bride is purposely concealed from
him, and that he will see her in good time. If once he has arrived
at this conclusion and if the characteristics to be shown to him
have been well chosen, the rest is easy; there will be little risk
in exposing him to the world; protect him from his senses, and his
heart is safe.
But whether or no he personifies the model I have contrived to
make so attractive to him, this model, if well done, will attach
him none the less to everything that resembles itself, and will
give him as great a distaste for all that is unlike it as if Sophy
really existed. What a means to preserve his heart from the dangers
to which his appearance would expose him, to repress his senses
by means of his imagination, to rescue him from the hands of those
women who profess to educate young men, and make them pay so dear
for their teaching, and only teach a young man manners by making
him utterly shameless. Sophy is so modest? What would she think of
their advances! Sophy is so simple! How would she like their airs?
They are too far from his thoughts and his observations to be
dangerous.
Every one who deals with the control of children follows the same
prejudices and the same maxima, for their observation is at fault,
and their reflection still more so. A young man is led astray in
the first place neither by temperament nor by the senses, but by
popular opinion. If we were concerned with boys brought up in boarding
schools or girls in convents, I would show that this applies even
to them; for the first lessons they learn from each other, the only
lessons that bear fruit, are those of vice; and it is not nature
that corrupts them but example. But let us leave the boarders in
schools and convents to their bad morals; there is no cure for them.
I am dealing only with home training. Take a young man carefully
educated in his father's country house, and examine him when he
reaches Paris and makes his entrance into society; you will find
him thinking clearly about honest matters, and you will find his
will as wholesome as his reason. You will find scorn of vice and
disgust for debauchery; his face will betray his innocent horror at
the very mention of a prostitute. I maintain that no young man could
make up his mind to enter the gloomy abodes of these unfortunates
by himself, if indeed he were aware of their purpose and felt their
necessity.
See the same young man six months later, you will not know him;
from his bold conversation, his fashionable maxims, his easy air,
you would take him for another man, if his jests over his former
simplicity and his shame when any one recalls it did not show that
it is he indeed and that he is ashamed of himself. How greatly has
he changed in so short a time! What has brought about so sudden and
complete a change? His physical development? Would not that have
taken place in his father's house, and certainly he would not have
acquired these maxims and this tone at home? The first charms of
sense? On the contrary; those who are beginning to abandon themselves
to these pleasures are timid and anxious, they shun the light and
noise. The first pleasures are always mysterious, modesty gives
them their savour, and modesty conceals them; the first mistress
does not make a man bold but timid. Wholly absorbed in a situation
so novel to him, the young man retires into himself to enjoy it,
and trembles for fear it should escape him. If he is noisy he knows
neither passion nor love; however he may boast, he has not enjoyed.
These changes are merely the result of changed ideas. His heart is
the same, but his opinions have altered. His feelings, which change
more slowly, will at length yield to his opinions and it is then
that he is indeed corrupted. He has scarcely made his entrance
into society before he receives a second education quite unlike the
first, which teaches him to despise what he esteemed, and esteem
what he despised; he learns to consider the teaching of his parents
and masters as the jargon of pedants, and the duties they have
instilled into him as a childish morality, to be scorned now that
he is grown up. He thinks he is bound in honour to change his
conduct; he becomes forward without desire, and he talks foolishly
from false shame. He rails against morality before he has any taste
for vice, and prides himself on debauchery without knowing how to
set about it. I shall never forget the confession of a young officer
in the Swiss Guards, who was utterly sick of the noisy pleasures
of his comrades, but dared not refuse to take part in them lest he
should be laughed at. "I am getting used to it," he said, "as I am
getting used to taking snuff; the taste will come with practice;
it will not do to be a child for ever."
So a young man when he enters society must be preserved from vanity
rather than from sensibility; he succumbs rather to the tastes
of others than to his own, and self-love is responsible for more
libertines than love.
This being granted, I ask you. Is there any one on earth better
armed than my pupil against all that may attack his morals, his
sentiments, his principles; is there any one more able to resist the
flood? What seduction is there against which he is not forearmed?
If his desires attract him towards women, he fails to find what
he seeks, and his heart, already occupied, holds him back. If he
is disturbed and urged onward by his senses, where will he find
satisfaction? His horror of adultery and debauch keeps him at a
distance from prostitutes and married women, and the disorders of
youth may always be traced to one or other of these. A maiden may
be a coquette, but she will not be shameless, she will not fling
herself at the head of a young man who may marry her if he believes
in her virtue; besides she is always under supervision. Emile, too,
will not be left entirely to himself; both of them will be under
the guardianship of fear and shame, the constant companions of
a first passion; they will not proceed at once to misconduct, and
they will not have time to come to it gradually without hindrance.
If he behaves otherwise, he must have taken lessons from his comrades,
he must have learned from them to despise his self-control, and to
imitate their boldness. But there is no one in the whole world so
little given to imitation as Emile. What man is there who is so
little influenced by mockery as one who has no prejudices himself
and yields nothing to the prejudices of others. I have laboured
twenty years to arm him against mockery; they will not make him
their dupe in a day; for in his eyes ridicule is the argument of
fools, and nothing makes one less susceptible to raillery than to
be beyond the influence of prejudice. Instead of jests he must have
arguments, and while he is in this frame of mind, I am not afraid
that he will be carried away by young fools; conscience and truth
are on my side. If prejudice is to enter into the matter at all,
an affection of twenty years' standing counts for something; no one
will ever convince him that I have wearied him with vain lessons;
and in a heart so upright and so sensitive the voice of a tried and
trusted friend will soon efface the shouts of twenty libertines.
As it is therefore merely a question of showing him that he is
deceived, that while they pretend to treat him as a man they are
really treating him as a child, I shall choose to be always simple
but serious and plain in my arguments, so that he may feel that I
do indeed treat him as a man. I will say to him, You will see that
your welfare, in which my own is bound up, compels me to speak; I
can do nothing else. But why do these young men want to persuade
you? Because they desire to seduce you; they do not care for you,
they take no real interest in you; their only motive is a secret
spite because they see you are better than they; they want to
drag you down to their own level, and they only reproach you with
submitting to control that they may themselves control you. Do you
think you have anything to gain by this? Are they so much wiser
than I, is the affection of a day stronger than mine? To give any
weight to their jests they must give weight to their authority; and
by what experience do they support their maxima above ours? They
have only followed the example of other giddy youths, as they would
have you follow theirs. To escape from the so-called prejudices
of their fathers, they yield to those of their comrades. I cannot
see that they are any the better off; but I see that they lose two
things of value--the affection of their parents, whose advice is
that of tenderness and truth, and the wisdom of experience which
teaches us to judge by what we know; for their fathers have once
been young, but the young men have never been fathers.
But you think they are at least sincere in their foolish precepts.
Not so, dear Emile; they deceive themselves in order to deceive you;
they are not in agreement with themselves; their heart continually
revolts, and their very words often contradict themselves. This man
who mocks at everything good would be in despair if his wife held
the same views. Another extends his indifference to good morals even
to his future wife, or he sinks to such depths of infamy as to be
indifferent to his wife's conduct; but go a step further; speak to
him of his mother; is he willing to be treated as the child of an
adulteress and the son of a woman of bad character, is he ready
to assume the name of a family, to steal the patrimony of the true
heir, in a word will he bear being treated as a bastard? Which of
them will permit his daughter to be dishonoured as he dishonours
the daughter of another? There is not one of them who would not kill
you if you adopted in your conduct towards him all the principles
he tries to teach you. Thus they prove their inconsistency, and
we know they do not believe what they say. Here are reasons, dear
Emile; weigh their arguments if they have any, and compare them
with mine. If I wished to have recourse like them to scorn and
mockery, you would see that they lend themselves to ridicule as
much or more than myself. But I am not afraid of serious inquiry.
The triumph of mockers is soon over; truth endures, and their
foolish laughter dies away.
You do not think that Emile, at twenty, can possibly be docile. How
differently we think! I cannot understand how he could be docile
at ten, for what hold have I on him at that age? It took me fifteen
years of careful preparation to secure that hold. I was not educating
him, but preparing him for education. He is now sufficiently educated
to be docile; he recognises the voice of friendship and he knows
how to obey reason. It is true I allow him a show of freedom, but
he was never more completely under control, because he obeys of
his own free will. So long as I could not get the mastery over his
will, I retained my control over his person; I never left him for
a moment. Now I sometimes leave him to himself because I control
him continually. When I leave him I embrace him and I say with
confidence: Emile, I trust you to my friend, I leave you to his
honour; he will answer for you.
To corrupt healthy affections which have not been previously
depraved, to efface principles which are directly derived from our
own reasoning, is not the work of a moment. If any change takes
place during my absence, that absence will not be long, he will
never be able to conceal himself from me, so that I shall perceive
the danger before any harm comes of it, and I shall be in time to
provide a remedy. As we do not become depraved all at once, neither
do we learn to deceive all at once; and if ever there was a man
unskilled in the art of deception it is Emile, who has never had
any occasion for deceit.
By means of these precautions and others like them, I expect to
guard him so completely against strange sights and vulgar precepts
that I would rather see him in the worst company in Paris than alone
in his room or in a park left to all the restlessness of his age.
Whatever we may do, a young man's worst enemy is himself, and
this is an enemy we cannot avoid. Yet this is an enemy of our own
making, for, as I have said again and again, it is the imagination
which stirs the senses. Desire is not a physical need; it is not
true that it is a need at all. If no lascivious object had met our
eye, if no unclean thought had entered our mind, this so-called
need might never have made itself felt, and we should have remained
chaste, without temptation, effort, or merit. We do not know how
the blood of youth is stirred by certain situations and certain
sights, while the youth himself does not understand the cause of
his uneasiness-an uneasiness difficult to subdue and certain to
recur. For my own part, the more I consider this serious crisis
and its causes, immediate and remote, the more convinced I am that
a solitary brought up in some desert, apart from books, teaching,
and women, would die a virgin, however long he lived.
But we are not concerned with a savage of this sort. When we
educate a man among his fellow-men and for social life, we cannot,
and indeed we ought not to, bring him up in this wholesome ignorance,
and half knowledge is worse than none. The memory of things we have
observed, the ideas we have acquired, follow us into retirement
and people it, against our will, with images more seductive than
the things themselves, and these make solitude as fatal to those
who bring such ideas with them as it is wholesome for those who
have never left it.
Therefore, watch carefully over the young man; he can protect
himself from all other foes, but it is for you to protect him
against himself. Never leave him night or day, or at least share
his room; never let him go to bed till he is sleepy, and let him
rise as soon as he wakes. Distrust instinct as soon as you cease
to rely altogether upon it. Instinct was good while he acted under
its guidance only; now that he is in the midst of human institutions,
instinct is not to be trusted; it must not be destroyed, it must
be controlled, which is perhaps a more difficult matter. It would
be a dangerous matter if instinct taught your pupil to abuse his
senses; if once he acquires this dangerous habit he is ruined. From
that time forward, body and soul will be enervated; he will carry
to the grave the sad effects of this habit, the most fatal habit
which a young man can acquire. If you cannot attain to the mastery
of your passions, dear Emile, I pity you; but I shall not hesitate
for a moment, I will not permit the purposes of nature to be evaded.
If you must be a slave, I prefer to surrender you to a tyrant from
whom I may deliver you; whatever happens, I can free you more easily
from the slavery of women than from yourself.
Up to the age of twenty, the body is still growing and requires
all its strength; till that age continence is the law of nature,
and this law is rarely violated without injury to the constitution.
After twenty, continence is a moral duty; it is an important
duty, for it teaches us to control ourselves, to be masters of our
own appetites. But moral duties have their modifications, their
exceptions, their rules. When human weakness makes an alternative
inevitable, of two evils choose the least; in any case it is better
to commit a misdeed than to contract a vicious habit.
Remember, I am not talking of my pupil now, but of yours. His
passions, to which you have given way, are your master; yield to
them openly and without concealing his victory. If you are able
to show him it in its true light, he will be ashamed rather than
proud of it, and you will secure the right to guide him in his
wanderings, at least so as to avoid precipices. The disciple must
do nothing, not even evil, without the knowledge and consent of his
master; it is a hundredfold better that the tutor should approve
of a misdeed than that he should deceive himself or be deceived by
his pupil, and the wrong should be done without his knowledge. He
who thinks he must shut his eyes to one thing, must soon shut them
altogether; the first abuse which is permitted leads to others, and
this chain of consequences only ends in the complete overthrow of
all order and contempt for every law.
There is another mistake which I have already dealt with, a mistake
continually made by narrow-minded persons; they constantly affect
the dignity of a master, and wish to be regarded by their disciples
as perfect. This method is just the contrary of what should be
done. How is it that they fail to perceive that when they try to
strengthen their authority they are really destroying it; that to
gain a hearing one must put oneself in the place of our hearers,
and that to speak to the human heart, one must be a man. All these
perfect people neither touch nor persuade; people always say, "It
is easy for them to fight against passions they do not feel." Show
your pupil your own weaknesses if you want to cure his; let him
see in you struggles like his own; let him learn by your example
to master himself and let him not say like other young men, "These
old people, who are vexed because they are no longer young, want to
treat all young people as if they were old; and they make a crime
of our passions because their own passions are dead."
Montaigne tells us that he once asked Seigneur de Langey how often,
in his negotiations with Germany, he had got drunk in his king's
service. I would willingly ask the tutor of a certain young man
how often he has entered a house of ill-fame for his pupil's sake.
How often? I am wrong. If the first time has not cured the young
libertine of all desire to go there again, if he does not return
penitent and ashamed, if he does not shed torrents of tears upon
your bosom, leave him on the spot; either he is a monster or you
are a fool; you will never do him any good. But let us have done
with these last expedients, which are as distressing as they are
dangerous; our kind of education has no need of them.
What precautions we must take with a young man of good birth before
exposing him to the scandalous manners of our age! These precautions
are painful but necessary; negligence in this matter is the ruin of
all our young men; degeneracy is the result of youthful excesses,
and it is these excesses which make men what they are. Old and base
in their vices, their hearts are shrivelled, because their worn-out
bodies were corrupted at an early age; they have scarcely strength
to stir. The subtlety of their thoughts betrays a mind lacking in
substance; they are incapable of any great or noble feeling, they
have neither simplicity nor vigour; altogether abject and meanly
wicked, they are merely frivolous, deceitful, and false; they have
not even courage enough to be distinguished criminals. Such are
the despicable men produced by early debauchery; if there were but
one among them who knew how to be sober and temperate, to guard his
heart, his body, his morals from the contagion of bad example, at
the age of thirty he would crush all these insects, and would become
their master with far less trouble than it cost him to become master
of himself.
However little Emile owes to birth and fortune, he might be this
man if he chose; but he despises such people too much to condescend
to make them his slaves. Let us now watch him in their midst, as he
enters into society, not to claim the first place, but to acquaint
himself with it and to seek a helpmeet worthy of himself.
Whatever his rank or birth, whatever the society into which he
is introduced, his entrance into that society will be simple and
unaffected; God grant he may not be unlucky enough to shine in
society; the qualities which make a good impression at the first
glance are not his, he neither possesses them, nor desires to
possess them. He cares too little for the opinions of other people
to value their prejudices, and he is indifferent whether people
esteem him or not until they know him. His address is neither shy nor
conceited, but natural and sincere, he knows nothing of constraint
or concealment, and he is just the same among a group of people
as he is when he is alone. Will this make him rude, scornful, and
careless of others? On the contrary; if he were not heedless of
others when he lived alone, why should he be heedless of them now
that he is living among them? He does not prefer them to himself
in his manners, because he does not prefer them to himself in his
heart, but neither does he show them an indifference which he is far
from feeling; if he is unacquainted with the forms of politeness,
he is not unacquainted with the attentions dictated by humanity.
He cannot bear to see any one suffer; he will not give up his place
to another from mere external politeness, but he will willingly
yield it to him out of kindness if he sees that he is being neglected
and that this neglect hurts him; for it will be less disagreeable
to Emile to remain standing of his own accord than to see another
compelled to stand.
Although Emile has no very high opinion of people in general, he
does not show any scorn of them, because he pities them and is sorry
for them. As he cannot give them a taste for what is truly good, he
leaves them the imaginary good with which they are satisfied, lest
by robbing them of this he should leave them worse off than before.
So he neither argues nor contradicts; neither does he flatter nor
agree; he states his opinion without arguing with others, because
he loves liberty above all things, and freedom is one of the fairest
gifts of liberty.
He says little, for he is not anxious to attract attention; for the
same reason he only says what is to the point; who could induce him
to speak otherwise? Emile is too well informed to be a chatter-box.
A great flow of words comes either from a pretentious spirit, of
which I shall speak presently, or from the value laid upon trifles
which we foolishly think to be as important in the eyes of others
as in our own. He who knows enough of things to value them at
their true worth never says too much; for he can also judge of the
attention bestowed on him and the interest aroused by what he says.
People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who
know much say little. It is plain that an ignorant person thinks
everything he does know important, and he tells it to everybody.
But a well-educated man is not so ready to display his learning;
he would have too much to say, and he sees that there is much more
to be said, so he holds his peace.
Far from disregarding the ways of other people, Emile conforms to
them readily enough; not that he may appear to know all about them,
nor yet to affect the airs of a man of fashion, but on the contrary
for fear lest he should attract attention, and in order to pass
unnoticed; he is most at his ease when no one pays any attention
to him.
Although when he makes his entrance into society he knows nothing
of its customs, this does not make him shy or timid; if he keeps in
the background, it is not because he is embarrassed, but because,
if you want to see, you must not be seen; for he scarcely troubles
himself at all about what people think of him, and he is not the
least afraid of ridicule. Hence he is always quiet and self-possessed
and is not troubled with shyness. All he has to do is done as well
as he knows how to do it, whether people are looking at him or
not; and as he is always on the alert to observe other people, he
acquires their ways with an ease impossible to the slaves of other
people's opinions. We might say that he acquires the ways of society
just because he cares so little about them.
But do not make any mistake as to his bearing; it is not to be
compared with that of your young dandies. It is self-possessed, not
conceited; his manners are easy, not haughty; an insolent look is
the mark of a slave, there is nothing affected in independence. I
never saw a man of lofty soul who showed it in his bearing; this
affectation is more suited to vile and frivolous souls, who have
no other means of asserting themselves. I read somewhere that a
foreigner appeared one day in the presence of the famous Marcel,
who asked him what country he came from. "I am an Englishman,"
replied the stranger. "You are an Englishman!" replied the dancer,
"You come from that island where the citizens have a share in the
government, and form part of the sovereign power? [Footnote: As if
there were citizens who were not part of the city and had not, as
such, a share in sovereign power! But the French, who have thought
fit to usurp the honourable name of citizen which was formerly the
right of the members of the Gallic cities, have degraded the idea
till it has no longer any sort of meaning. A man who recently wrote
a number of silly criticisms on the "Nouvelle Heloise" added to
his signature the title "Citizen of Paimboeuf," and he thought it
a capital joke.] No, sir, that modest bearing, that timid glance,
that hesitating manner, proclaim only a slave adorned with the
title of an elector."
I cannot say whether this saying shows much knowledge of the true
relation between a man's character and his appearance. I have not
the honour of being a dancing master, and I should have thought just
the opposite. I should have said, "This Englishman is no courtier;
I never heard that courtiers have a timid bearing and a hesitating
manner. A man whose appearance is timid in the presence of a dancer
might not be timid in the House of Commons." Surely this M. Marcel
must take his fellow-countrymen for so many Romans.
He who loves desires to be loved, Emile loves his fellows and
desires to please them. Even more does he wish to please the women;
his age, his character, the object he has in view, all increase
this desire. I say his character, for this has a great effect; men
of good character are those who really adore women. They have not
the mocking jargon of gallantry like the rest, but their eagerness
is more genuinely tender, because it comes from the heart. In the
presence of a young woman, I could pick out a young man of character
and self-control from among a hundred thousand libertines. Consider
what Emile must be, with all the eagerness of early youth and so
many reasons for resistance! For in the presence of women
I think he will sometimes be shy and timid; but this shyness will
certainly not be displeasing, and the least foolish of them will
only too often find a way to enjoy it and augment it. Moreover, his
eagerness will take a different shape according to those he has to
do with. He will be more modest and respectful to married women,
more eager and tender towards young girls. He never loses sight of
his purpose, and it is always those who most recall it to him who
receive the greater share of his attentions.
No one could be more attentive to every consideration based upon
the laws of nature, and even on the laws of good society; but the
former are always preferred before the latter, and Emile will show
more respect to an elderly person in private life than to a young
magistrate of his own age. As he is generally one of the youngest
in the company, he will always be one of the most modest, not from
the vanity which apes humility, but from a natural feeling founded
upon reason. He will not have the effrontery of the young fop,
who speaks louder than the wise and interrupts the old in order to
amuse the company. He will never give any cause for the reply given
to Louis XV by an old gentleman who was asked whether he preferred
this century or the last: "Sire, I spent my youth in reverence
towards the old; I find myself compelled to spend my old age in
reverence towards the young."
His heart is tender and sensitive, but he cares nothing for the
weight of popular opinion, though he loves to give pleasure to
others; so he will care little to be thought a person of importance.
Hence he will be affectionate rather than polite, he will never be
pompous or affected, and he will be always more touched by a caress
than by much praise. For the same reasons he will never be careless
of his manners or his clothes; perhaps he will be rather particular
about his dress, not that he may show himself a man of taste, but
to make his appearance more pleasing; he will never require a gilt
frame, and he will never spoil his style by a display of wealth.
All this demands, as you see, no stock of precepts from me; it is
all the result of his early education. People make a great mystery
of the ways of society, as if, at the age when these ways are
acquired, we did not take to them quite naturally, and as if the
first laws of politeness were not to be found in a kindly heart.
True politeness consists in showing our goodwill towards men; it
shows its presence without any difficulty; those only who lack this
goodwill are compelled to reduce the outward signs of it to an art.
"The worst effect of artificial politeness is that it teaches
us how to dispense with the virtues it imitates. If our education
teaches us kindness and humanity, we shall be polite, or we shall
have no need of politeness.
"If we have not those qualities which display themselves gracefully
we shall have those which proclaim the honest man and the citizen;
we shall have no need for falsehood.
"Instead of seeking to please by artificiality, it will suffice
that we are kindly; instead of flattering the weaknesses of others
by falsehood, it will suffice to tolerate them.
"Those with whom we have to do will neither be puffed up nor
corrupted by such intercourse; they will only be grateful and will
be informed by it." [Footnote: Considerations sur les moeurs de ce
siecle, par M. Duclos.]
It seems to me that if any education is calculated to produce the
sort of politeness required by M. Duclos in this passage, it is
the education I have already described.
Yet I admit that with such different teaching Emile will not be just
like everybody else, and heaven preserve him from such a fate! But
where he is unlike other people, he will neither cause annoyance
nor will he be absurd; the difference will be perceptible but not
unpleasant. Emile will be, if you like, an agreeable foreigner. At
first his peculiarities will be excused with the phrase, "He will
learn." After a time people will get used to his ways, and seeing
that he does not change they will still make excuses for him and
say, "He is made that way."
He will not be feted as a charming man, but every one will like him
without knowing why; no one will praise his intellect, but every
one will be ready to make him the judge between men of intellect;
his own intelligence will be clear and limited, his mind will be
accurate, and his judgment sane. As he never runs after new ideas,
he cannot pride himself on his wit. I have convinced him that all
wholesome ideas, ideas which are really useful to mankind, were
among the earliest known, that in all times they have formed the
true bonds of society, and that there is nothing left for ambitious
minds but to seek distinction for themselves by means of ideas which
are injurious and fatal to mankind. This way of winning admiration
scarcely appeals to him; he knows how he ought to seek his
own happiness in life, and how he can contribute to the happiness
of others. The sphere of his knowledge is restricted to what is
profitable. His path is narrow and clearly defined; as he has no
temptation to leave it, he is lost in the crowd; he will neither
distinguish himself nor will he lose his way. Emile is a man
of common sense and he has no desire to be anything more; you may
try in vain to insult him by applying this phrase to him; he will
always consider it a title of honour.
Although from his wish to please he is no longer wholly indifferent
to the opinion of others, he only considers that opinion so far as
he himself is directly concerned, without troubling himself about
arbitrary values, which are subject to no law but that of fashion
or conventionality. He will have pride enough to wish to do well
in everything that he undertakes, and even to wish to do it better
than others; he will want to be the swiftest runner, the strongest
wrestler, the cleverest workman, the readiest in games of skill;
but he will not seek advantages which are not in themselves clear
gain, but need to be supported by the opinion of others, such as
to be thought wittier than another, a better speaker, more learned,
etc.; still less will he trouble himself with those which have
nothing to do with the man himself, such as higher birth, a greater
reputation for wealth, credit, or public estimation, or the impression
created by a showy exterior.
As he loves his fellows because they are like himself, he will
prefer him who is most like himself, because he will feel that he
is good; and as he will judge of this resemblance by similarity of
taste in morals, in all that belongs to a good character, he will
be delighted to win approval. He will not say to himself in so
many words, "I am delighted to gain approval," but "I am delighted
because they say I have done right; I am delighted because the men
who honour me are worthy of honour; while they judge so wisely, it
is a fine thing to win their respect."
As he studies men in their conduct in society, just as he formerly
studied them through their passions in history, he will often have
occasion to consider what it is that pleases or offends the human
heart. He is now busy with the philosophy of the principles of
taste, and this is the most suitable subject for his present study.
The further we seek our definitions of taste, the further we
go astray; taste is merely the power of judging what is pleasing
or displeasing to most people. Go beyond this, and you cannot say
what taste is. It does not follow that the men of taste are in the
majority; for though the majority judges wisely with regard to each
individual thing, there are few men who follow the judgment of the
majority in everything; and though the most general agreement in
taste constitutes good taste, there are few men of good taste just
as there are few beautiful people, although beauty consists in the
sum of the most usual features.
It must be observed that we are not here concerned with what we
like because it is serviceable, or hate because it is harmful to us.
Taste deals only with things that are indifferent to us, or which
affect at most our amusements, not those which relate to our needs;
taste is not required to judge of these, appetite only is sufficient.
It is this which makes mere decisions of taste so difficult and as
it seems so arbitrary; for beyond the instinct they follow there
appears to be no reason whatever for them. We must also make a
distinction between the laws of good taste in morals and its laws
in physical matters. In the latter the laws of taste appear to
be absolutely inexplicable. But it must be observed that there is
a moral element in everything which involves imitation.[Footnote:
This is demonstrated in an "Essay on the Origin of Languages"
which will be found in my collected works.] This is the explanation
of beauties which seem to be physical, but are not so in reality.
I may add that taste has local rules which make it dependent in
many respects on the country we are in, its manners, government,
institutions; it has other rules which depend upon age, sex, and
character, and it is in this sense that we must not dispute over
matters of taste.
Taste is natural to men; but all do not possess it in the same
degree, it is not developed to the same extent in every one; and
in every one it is liable to be modified by a variety of causes.
Such taste as we may possess depends on our native sensibility;
its cultivation and its form depend upon the society in which we
have lived. In the first place we must live in societies of many
different kinds, so as to compare much. In the next place, there
must be societies for amusement and idleness, for in business
relations, interest, not pleasure, is our rule. Lastly, there must
be societies in which people are fairly equal, where the tyranny of
public opinion may be moderate, where pleasure rather than vanity
is queen; where this is not so, fashion stifles taste, and we seek
what gives distinction rather than delight.
In the latter case it is no longer true that good taste is the taste
of the majority. Why is this? Because the purpose is different.
Then the crowd has no longer any opinion of its own, it only follows
the judgment of those who are supposed to know more about it; its
approval is bestowed not on what is good, but on what they have
already approved. At any time let every man have his own opinion,
and what is most pleasing in itself will always secure most votes.
Every beauty that is to be found in the works of man is imitated.
All the true models of taste are to be found in nature. The further
we get from the master, the worse are our pictures. Then it is
that we find our models in what we ourselves like, and the beauty
of fancy, subject to caprice and to authority, is nothing but what
is pleasing to our leaders.
Those leaders are the artists, the wealthy, and the great, and
they themselves follow the lead of self-interest or pride. Some
to display their wealth, others to profit by it, they seek eagerly
for new ways of spending it. This is how luxury acquires its power
and makes us love what is rare and costly; this so-called beauty
consists, not in following nature, but in disobeying her. Hence
luxury and bad taste are inseparable. Wherever taste is lavish, it
is bad.
Taste, good or bad, takes its shape especially in the intercourse
between the two sexes; the cultivation of taste is a necessary
consequence of this form of society. But when enjoyment is easily
obtained, and the desire to please becomes lukewarm, taste must
degenerate; and this is, in my opinion, one of the best reasons
why good taste implies good morals.
Consult the women's opinions in bodily matters, in all that concerns
the senses; consult the men in matters of morality and all that
concerns the understanding. When women are what they ought to be,
they will keep to what they can understand, and their judgment
will be right; but since they have set themselves up as judges of
literature, since they have begun to criticise books and to make them
with might and main, they are altogether astray. Authors who take
the advice of blue-stockings will always be ill-advised; gallants who
consult them about their clothes will always be absurdly dressed.
I shall presently have an opportunity of speaking of the real
talents of the female sex, the way to cultivate these talents,
and the matters in regard to which their decisions should receive
attention.
These are the elementary considerations which I shall lay down
as principles when I discuss with Emile this matter which is by
no means indifferent to him in his present inquiries. And to whom
should it be a matter of indifference? To know what people may
find pleasant or unpleasant is not only necessary to any one who
requires their help, it is still more necessary to any one who would
help them; you must please them if you would do them service; and
the art of writing is no idle pursuit if it is used to make men
hear the truth.
If in order to cultivate my pupil's taste, I were compelled to choose
between a country where this form of culture has not yet arisen
and those in which it has already degenerated, I would progress
backwards; I would begin his survey with the latter and end with the
former. My reason for this choice is, that taste becomes corrupted
through excessive delicacy, which makes it sensitive to things
which most men do not perceive; this delicacy leads to a spirit
of discussion, for the more subtle is our discrimination of things
the more things there are for us. This subtlety increases the
delicacy and decreases the uniformity of our touch. So there are as
many tastes as there are people. In disputes as to our preferences,
philosophy and knowledge are enlarged, and thus we learn to think.
It is only men accustomed to plenty of society who are capable of
very delicate observations, for these observations do not occur to
us till the last, and people who are unused to all sorts of society
exhaust their attention in the consideration of the more conspicuous
features. There is perhaps no civilised place upon earth where the
common taste is so bad as in Paris. Yet it is in this capital that
good taste is cultivated, and it seems that few books make any
impression in Europe whose authors have not studied in Paris. Those
who think it is enough to read our books are mistaken; there is
more to be learnt from the conversation of authors than from their
books; and it is not from the authors that we learn most. It is the
spirit of social life which develops a thinking mind, and carries
the eye as far as it can reach. If you have a spark of genius, go
and spend a year in Paris; you will soon be all that you are capable
of becoming, or you will never be good for anything at all.
One may learn to think in places where bad taste rules supreme;
but we must not think like those whose taste is bad, and it is very
difficult to avoid this if we spend much time among them. We must
use their efforts to perfect the machinery of judgment, but we
must be careful not to make the same use of it. I shall take care
not to polish Emile's judgment so far as to transform it, and when
he has acquired discernment enough to feel and compare the varied
tastes of men, I shall lead him to fix his own taste upon simpler
matters.
I will go still further in order to keep his taste pure and wholesome.
In the tumult of dissipation I shall find opportunities for useful
conversation with him; and while these conversations are always
about things in which he takes a delight, I shall take care to make
them as amusing as they are instructive. Now is the time to read
pleasant books; now is the time to teach him to analyse speech and
to appreciate all the beauties of eloquence and diction. It is a
small matter to learn languages, they are less useful than people
think; but the study of languages leads us on to that of grammar in
general. We must learn Latin if we would have a thorough knowledge
of French; these two languages must be studied and compared if we
would understand the rules of the art of speaking.
There is, moreover, a certain simplicity of taste which goes straight
to the heart; and this is only to be found in the classics. In
oratory, poetry, and every kind of literature, Emile will find the
classical authors as he found them in history, full of matter and
sober in their judgment. The authors of our own time, on the contrary,
say little and talk much. To take their judgment as our constant
law is not the way to form our own judgment. These differences of
taste make themselves felt in all that is left of classical times
and even on their tombs. Our monuments are covered with praises,
theirs recorded facts.
"Sta, viator; heroem calcas."
If I had found this epitaph on an ancient monument, I should at
once have guessed it was modern; for there is nothing so common
among us as heroes, but among the ancients they were rare. Instead
of saying a man was a hero, they would have said what he had done
to gain that name. With the epitaph of this hero compare that of
the effeminate Sardanapalus--
"Tarsus and Anchiales I built in a day, and now I am dead."
Which do you think says most? Our inflated monumental style is only
fit to trumpet forth the praises of pygmies. The ancients showed men
as they were, and it was plain that they were men indeed. Xenophon
did honour to the memory of some warriors who were slain by
treason during the retreat of the Ten Thousand. "They died," said
he, "without stain in war and in love." That is all, but think how
full was the heart of the author of this short and simple elegy.
Woe to him who fails to perceive its charm. The following words
were engraved on a tomb at Thermopylae--
"Go, Traveller, tell Sparta that here we fell in obedience to her
laws."
It is pretty clear that this was not the work of the Academy of
Inscriptions.
If I am not mistaken, the attention of my pupil, who sets so small
value upon words, will be directed in the first place to these
differences, and they will affect his choice in his reading. He
will be carried away by the manly eloquence of Demosthenes, and
will say, "This is an orator;" but when he reads Cicero, he will
say, "This is a lawyer."
Speaking generally Emile will have more taste for the books of the
ancients than for our own, just because they were the first, and
therefore the ancients are nearer to nature and their genius is
more distinct. Whatever La Motte and the Abbe Terrasson may say,
there is no real advance in human reason, for what we gain in one
direction we lose in another; for all minds start from the same
point, and as the time spent in learning what others have thought
is so much time lost in learning to think for ourselves, we have
more acquired knowledge and less vigour of mind. Our minds like our
arms are accustomed to use tools for everything, and to do nothing
for themselves. Fontenelle used to say that all these disputes as
to the ancients and the moderns came to this--Were the trees in
former times taller than they are now. If agriculture had changed,
it would be worth our while to ask this question.
After I have led Emile to the sources of pure literature, I will
also show him the channels into the reservoirs of modern compilers;
journals, translations, dictionaries, he shall cast a glance at
them all, and then leave them for ever. To amuse him he shall hear
the chatter of the academies; I will draw his attention to the fast
that every member of them is worth more by himself than he is as
a member of the society; he will then draw his own conclusions as
to the utility of these fine institutions.
I take him to the theatre to study taste, not morals; for in the
theatre above all taste is revealed to those who can think. Lay
aside precepts and morality, I should say; this is not the place
to study them. The stage is not made for truth; its object is to
flatter and amuse: there is no place where one can learn so completely
the art of pleasing and of interesting the human heart. The study
of plays leads to the study of poetry; both have the same end
in view. If he has the least glimmering of taste for poetry, how
eagerly will he study the languages of the poets, Greek, Latin,
and Italian! These studies will afford him unlimited amusement and
will be none the less valuable; they will be a delight to him at
an age and in circumstances when the heart finds so great a charm
in every kind of beauty which affects it. Picture to yourself on
the one hand Emile, on the other some young rascal from college,
reading the fourth book of the Aeneid, or Tibollus, or the Banquet
of Plato: what a difference between them! What stirs the heart of
Emile to its depths, makes not the least impression on the other!
Oh, good youth, stay, make a pause in your reading, you are too
deeply moved; I would have you find pleasure in the language of
love, but I would not have you carried away by it; be a wise man, but
be a good man too. If you are only one of these, you are nothing.
After this let him win fame or not in dead languages, in literature,
in poetry, I care little. He will be none the worse if he knows
nothing of them, and his education is not concerned with these mere
words.
My main object in teaching him to feel and love beauty of every
kind is to fix his affections and his taste on these, to prevent
the corruption of his natural appetites, lest he should have to
seek some day in the midst of his wealth for the means of happiness
which should be found close at hand. I have said elsewhere that
taste is only the art of being a connoisseur in matters of little
importance, and this is quite true; but since the charm of life
depends on a tissue of these matters of little importance, such
efforts are no small thing; through their means we learn how to
fill our life with the good things within our reach, with as much
truth as they may hold for us. I do not refer to the morally good
which depends on a good disposition of the heart, but only to that
which depends on the body, on real delight, apart from the prejudices
of public opinion.
The better to unfold my idea, allow me for a moment to leave Emile,
whose pure and wholesome heart cannot be taken as a rule for others,
and to seek in my own memory for an illustration better suited to
the reader and more in accordance with his own manners.
There are professions which seem to change a man's nature, to
recast, either for better or worse, the men who adopt them. A coward
becomes a brave man in the regiment of Navarre. It is not only in
the army that esprit de corps is acquired, and its effects are not
always for good. I have thought again and again with terror that
if I had the misfortune to fill a certain post I am thinking of in
a certain country, before to-morrow I should certainly be a tyrant,
an extortioner, a destroyer of the people, harmful to my king, and
a professed enemy of mankind, a foe to justice and every kind of
virtue.
In the same way, if I were rich, I should have done all that is
required to gain riches; I should therefore be insolent and degraded,
sensitive and feeling only on my own behalf, harsh and pitiless to
all besides, a scornful spectator of the sufferings of the lower
classes; for that is what I should call the poor, to make people
forget that I was once poor myself. Lastly I should make my fortune
a means to my own pleasures with which I should be wholly occupied;
and so far I should be just like other people.
But in one respect I should be very unlike them; I should be sensual
and voluptuous rather than proud and vain, and I should give myself
up to the luxury of comfort rather than to that of ostentation.
I should even be somewhat ashamed to make too great a show of
my wealth, and if I overwhelmed the envious with my pomp I should
always fancy I heard him saying, "Here is a rascal who is greatly
afraid lest we should take him for anything but what he is."
In the vast profusion of good things upon this earth I should seek
what I like best, and what I can best appropriate to myself.
To this end, the first use I should make of my wealth would be to
purchase leisure and freedom, to which I would add health, if it
were to be purchased; but health can only be bought by temperance,
and as there is no real pleasure without health, I should be
temperate from sensual motives.
I should also keep as close as possible to nature, to gratify the
senses given me by nature, being quite convinced that, the greater
her share in my pleasures, the more real I shall find them. In
the choice of models for imitation I shall always choose nature
as my pattern; in my appetites I will give her the preference; in
my tastes she shall always be consulted; in my food I will always
choose what most owes its charm to her, and what has passed through
the fewest possible hands on its way to table. I will be on my guard
against fraudulent shams; I will go out to meet pleasure. No cook
shall grow rich on my gross and foolish greediness; he shall not
poison me with fish which cost its weight in gold, my table shall
not be decked with fetid splendour or putrid flesh from far-off
lands. I will take any amount of trouble to gratify my sensibility,
since this trouble has a pleasure of its own, a pleasure more than
we expect. If I wished to taste a food from the ends of the earth,
I would go, like Apicius, in search of it, rather than send for
it; for the daintiest dishes always lack a charm which cannot be
brought along with them, a flavour which no cook can give them--the
air of the country where they are produced.
For the same reason I would not follow the example of those who are
never well off where they are, but are always setting the seasons
at nought, and confusing countries and their seasons; those who
seek winter in summer and summer in winter, and go to Italy to be
cold and to the north to be warm, do not consider that when they
think they are escaping from the severity of the seasons, they
are going to meet that severity in places where people are not
prepared for it. I shall stay in one place, or I shall adopt just
the opposite course; I should like to get all possible enjoyment
out of one season to discover what is peculiar to any given country.
I would have a variety of pleasures, and habits quite unlike one
another, but each according to nature; I would spend the summer at
Naples and the winter in St. Petersburg; sometimes I would breathe
the soft zephyr lying in the cool grottoes of Tarentum, and again
I would enjoy the illuminations of an ice palace, breathless and
wearied with the pleasures of the dance.
In the service of my table and the adornment of my dwelling I would
imitate in the simplest ornaments the variety of the seasons, and
draw from each its charm without anticipating its successor. There
is no taste but only difficulty to be found in thus disturbing the
order of nature; to snatch from her unwilling gifts, which she
yields regretfully, with her curse upon them; gifts which have
neither strength nor flavour, which can neither nourish the body
nor tickle the palate. Nothing is more insipid than forced fruits.
A wealthy man in Paris, with all his stoves and hot-houses, only
succeeds in getting all the year round poor fruit and poor vegetables
for his table at a very high price. If I had cherries in frost,
and golden melons in the depths of winter, what pleasure should I
find in them when my palate did not need moisture or refreshment.
Would the heavy chestnut be very pleasant in the heat of the
dog-days; should I prefer to have it hot from the stove, rather
than the gooseberry, the strawberry, the refreshing fruits which
the earth takes care to provide for me. A mantelpiece covered in
January with forced vegetation, with pale and scentless flowers,
is not winter adorned, but spring robbed of its beauty; we deprive
ourselves of the pleasure of seeking the first violet in the woods,
of noting the earliest buds, and exclaiming in a rapture of delight,
"Mortals, you are not forsaken, nature is living still."
To be well served I would have few servants; this has been said
before, but it is worth saying again. A tradesman gets more real
service from his one man than a duke from the ten gentlemen round
about him. It has often struck me when I am sitting at table with
my glass beside me that I can drink whenever I please; whereas, if
I were dining in state, twenty men would have to call for "Wine"
before I could quench my thirst. You may be sure that whatever is
done for you by other people is ill done. I would not send to the
shops, I would go myself; I would go so that my servants should
not make their own terms with the shopkeepers, and to get a better
choice and cheaper prices; I would go for the sake of pleasant
exercise and to get a glimpse of what was going on out of doors;
this is amusing and sometimes instructive; lastly I would go for
the sake of the walk; there is always something in that. A sedentary
life is the source of tedium; when we walk a good deal we are never
dull. A porter and footmen are poor interpreters, I should never
wish to have such people between the world and myself, nor would
I travel with all the fuss of a coach, as if I were afraid people
would speak to me. Shanks' mare is always ready; if she is tired
or ill, her owner is the first to know it; he need not be afraid
of being kept at home while his coachman is on the spree; on the
road he will not have to submit to all sorts of delays, nor will
he be consumed with impatience, nor compelled to stay in one place
a moment longer than he chooses. Lastly, since no one serves us so
well as we serve ourselves, had we the power of Alexander and the
wealth of Croesus we should accept no services from others, except
those we cannot perform for ourselves.
I would not live in a palace; for even in a palace I should only
occupy one room; every room which is common property belongs to
nobody, and the rooms of each of my servants would be as strange
to me as my neighbour's. The Orientals, although very voluptuous,
are lodged in plain and simply furnished dwellings. They consider
life as a journey, and their house as an inn. This reason scarcely
appeals to us rich people who propose to live for ever; but I should
find another reason which would have the same effect. It would seem
to me that if I settled myself in one place in the midst of such
splendour, I should banish myself from every other place, and
imprison myself, so to speak, in my palace. The world is a palace
fair enough for any one; and is not everything at the disposal of
the rich man when he seeks enjoyment? "Ubi bene, ibi patria," that
is his motto; his home is anywhere where money will carry him,
his country is anywhere where there is room for his strong-box,
as Philip considered as his own any place where a mule laden with
silver could enter. [Footnote: A stranger, splendidly clad, was asked
in Athens what country he belonged to. "I am one of the rich," was
his answer; and a very good answer in my opinion.] Why then should
we shut ourselves up within walls and gates as if we never meant
to leave them? If pestilence, war, or rebellion drive me from one
place, I go to another, and I find my hotel there before me. Why
should I build a mansion for myself when the world is already at my
disposal? Why should I be in such a hurry to live, to bring from
afar delights which I can find on the spot? It is impossible to
make a pleasant life for oneself when one is always at war with
oneself. Thus Empedocles reproached the men of Agrigentum with
heaping up pleasures as if they had but one day to live, and building
as if they would live for ever.
And what use have I for so large a dwelling, as I have so few people
to live in it, and still fewer goods to fill it? My furniture would
be as simple as my tastes; I would have neither picture-gallery
nor library, especially if I was fond of reading and knew something
about pictures. I should then know that such collections are never
complete, and that the lack of that which is wanting causes more
annoyance than if one had nothing at all. In this respect abundance
is the cause of want, as every collector knows to his cost. If you
are an expert, do not make a collection; if you know how to use
your cabinets, you will not have any to show.
Gambling is no sport for the rich, it is the resource of those
who have nothing to do; I shall be so busy with my pleasures that
I shall have no time to waste. I am poor and lonely and I never
play, unless it is a game of chess now and then, and that is more
than enough. If I were rich I would play even less, and for very
low stakes, so that I should not be disappointed myself, nor see
the disappointment of others. The wealthy man has no motive for
play, and the love of play will not degenerate into the passion
for gambling unless the disposition is evil. The rich man is always
more keenly aware of his losses than his gains, and as in games
where the stakes are not high the winnings are generally exhausted
in the long run, he will usually lose more than he gains, so that
if we reason rightly we shall scarcely take a great fancy to games
where the odds are against us. He who flatters his vanity so far
as to believe that Fortune favours him can seek her favour in more
exciting ways; and her favours are just as clearly shown when the
stakes are low as when they are high. The taste for play, the result
of greed and dullness, only lays hold of empty hearts and heads;
and I think I should have enough feeling and knowledge to dispense
with its help. Thinkers are seldom gamblers; gambling interrupts
the habit of thought and turns it towards barren combinations;
thus one good result, perhaps the only good result of the taste
for science, is that it deadens to some extent this vulgar passion;
people will prefer to try to discover the uses of play rather
than to devote themselves to it. I should argue with the gamblers
against gambling, and I should find more delight in scoffing at
their losses than in winning their money.
I should be the same in private life as in my social intercourse.
I should wish my fortune to bring comfort in its train, and never
to make people conscious of inequalities of wealth. Showy dress is
inconvenient in many ways. To preserve as much freedom as possible
among other men, I should like to be dressed in such a way that
I should not seem out of place among all classes, and should not
attract attention in any; so that without affectation or change I
might mingle with the crowd at the inn or with the nobility at the
Palais Royal. In this way I should be more than ever my own master,
and should be free to enjoy the pleasures of all sorts and conditions
of men. There are women, so they say, whose doors are closed to
embroidered cuffs, women who will only receive guests who wear lace
ruffles; I should spend my days elsewhere; though if these women
were young and pretty I might sometimes put on lace ruffles to
spend an evening or so in their company.
Mutual affection, similarity of tastes, suitability of character;
these are the only bonds between my companions and myself; among
them I would be a man, not a person of wealth; the charm of their
society should never be embittered by self-seeking. If my wealth
had not robbed me of all humanity, I would scatter my benefits and
my services broadcast, but I should want companions about me, not
courtiers, friends, not proteges; I should wish my friends to regard
me as their host, not their patron. Independence and equality would
leave to my relations with my friends the sincerity of goodwill;
while duty and self-seeking would have no place among us, and we
should know no law but that of pleasure and friendship.
Neither a friend nor a mistress can be bought. Women may be got
for money, but that road will never lead to love. Love is not only
not for sale; money strikes it dead. If a man pays, were he indeed
the most lovable of men, the mere fact of payment would prevent
any lasting affection. He will soon be paying for some one else,
or rather some one else will get his money; and in this double
connection based on self-seeking and debauchery, without love,
honour, or true pleasure, the woman is grasping, faithless, and
unhappy, and she is treated by the wretch to whom she gives her
money as she treats the fool who gives his money to her; she has
no love for either. It would be sweet to lie generous towards one
we love, if that did not make a bargain of love. I know only one
way of gratifying this desire with the woman one loves without
embittering love; it is to bestow our all upon her and to live at
her expense. It remains to be seen whether there is any woman with
regard to whom such conduct would not be unwise.
He who said, "Lais is mine, but I am not hers," was talking nonsense.
Possession which is not mutual is nothing at all; at most it is
the possession of the sex not of the individual. But where there
is no morality in love, why make such ado about the rest? Nothing
is so easy to find. A muleteer is in this respect as near to
happiness as a millionaire.
Oh, if we could thus trace out the unreasonableness of vice, how
often should we find that, when it has attained its object, it
discovers it is not what it seemed! Why is there this cruel haste
to corrupt innocence, to make, a victim of a young creature whom we
ought to protect, one who is dragged by this first false step into
a gulf of misery from which only death can release her? Brutality,
vanity, folly, error, and nothing more. This pleasure itself is
unnatural; it rests on popular opinion, and popular opinion at its
worst, since it depends on scorn of self. He who knows he is the
basest of men fears comparison with others, and would be the first
that he may be less hateful. See if those who are most greedy in
pursuit of such fancied pleasures are ever attractive young men--men
worthy of pleasing, men who might have some excuse if they were
hard to please. Not so; any one with good looks, merit, and feeling
has little fear of his mistress' experience; with well-placed
confidence he says to her, "You know what pleasure is, what is that
to me? my heart assures me that this is not so."
But an aged satyr, worn out with debauchery, with no charm, no
consideration, no thought for any but himself, with no shred of
honour, incapable and unworthy of finding favour in the eyes of any
woman who knows anything of men deserving of love, expects to make
up for all this with an innocent girl by trading on her inexperience
and stirring her emotions for the first time. His last hope is to
find favour as a novelty; no doubt this is the secret motive of
this desire; but he is mistaken, the horror he excites is just as
natural as the desires he wishes to arouse. He is also mistaken
in his foolish attempt; that very nature takes care to assert her
rights; every girl who sells herself is no longer a maid; she has
given herself to the man of her choice, and she is making the very
comparison he dreads. The pleasure purchased is imaginary, but none
the less hateful.
For my own part, however riches may change me, there is one matter
in which I shall never change. If I have neither morals nor virtue,
I shall not be wholly without taste, without sense, without delicacy;
and this will prevent me from spending my fortune in the pursuit
of empty dreams, from wasting my money and my strength in teaching
children to betray me and mock at me. If I were young, I would
seek the pleasures of youth; and as I would have them at their best
I would not seek them in the guise of a rich man. If I were at my
present age, it would be another matter; I would wisely confine
myself to the pleasures of my age; I would form tastes which I could
enjoy, and I would stifle those which could only cause suffering.
I would not go and offer my grey beard to the scornful jests of
young girls; I could never bear to sicken them with my disgusting
caresses, to furnish them at my expense with the most absurd
stories, to imagine them describing the vile pleasures of the old
ape, so as to avenge themselves for what they had endured. But if
habits unresisted had changed my former desires into needs, I would
perhaps satisfy those needs, but with shame and blushes. I would
distinguish between passion and necessity, I would find a suitable
mistress and would keep to her. I would not make a business of my
weakness, and above all I would only have one person aware of it.
Life has other pleasures when these fail us; by hastening in vain
after those that fly us, we deprive ourselves of those that remain.
Let our tastes change with our years, let us no more meddle with
age than with the seasons. We should be ourselves at all times,
instead of struggling against nature; such vain attempts exhaust
our strength and prevent the right use of life.
The lower classes are seldom dull, their life is full of activity;
if there is little variety in their amusements they do not recur
frequently; many days of labour teach them to enjoy their rare
holidays. Short intervals of leisure between long periods of labour
give a spice to the pleasures of their station. The chief curse of
the rich is dullness; in the midst of costly amusements, among so
many men striving to give them pleasure, they are devoured and slain
by dullness; their life is spent in fleeing from it and in being
overtaken by it; they are overwhelmed by the intolerable burden;
women more especially, who do not know how to work or play, are a
prey to tedium under the name of the vapours; with them it takes
the shape of a dreadful disease, which robs them of their reason
and even of their life. For my own part I know no more terrible
fate than that of a pretty woman in Paris, unless it is that of
the pretty manikin who devotes himself to her, who becomes idle
and effeminate like her, and so deprives himself twice over of his
manhood, while he prides himself on his successes and for their
sake endures the longest and dullest days which human being ever
put up with.
Proprieties, fashions, customs which depend on luxury and breeding,
confine the course of life within the limits of the most miserable
uniformity. The pleasure we desire to display to others is a pleasure
lost; we neither enjoy it ourselves, nor do others enjoy it.
[Footnote: Two ladies of fashion, who wished to seem to be enjoying
themselves greatly, decided never to go to bed before five o'clock
in the morning. In the depths of winter their servants spent the
night in the street waiting for them, and with great difficulty
kept themselves from freezing. One night, or rather one morning,
some one entered the room where these merry people spent their
hours without knowing how time passed. He found them quite alone;
each of them was asleep in her arm-chair.] Ridicule, which public
opinion dreads more than anything, is ever at hand to tyrannise,
and punish. It is only ceremony that makes us ridiculous; if we can
vary our place and our pleasures, to-day's impressions can efface
those of yesterday; in the mind of men they are as if they had
never been; but we enjoy ourselves for we throw ourselves into
every hour and everything. My only set rule would be this: wherever
I was I would pay no heed to anything else. I would take each day
as it came, as if there were neither yesterday nor to-morrow. As
I should be a man of the people, with the populace, I should be a
countryman in the fields; and if I spoke of farming, the peasant
should not laugh at my expense. I would not go and build a town
in the country nor erect the Tuileries at the door of my lodgings.
On some pleasant shady hill-side I would have a little cottage,
a white house with green shutters, and though a thatched roof is
the best all the year round, I would be grand enough to have, not
those gloomy slates, but tiles, because they look brighter and more
cheerful than thatch, and the houses in my own country are always
roofed with them, and so they would recall to me something of the
happy days of my youth. For my courtyard I would have a poultry-yard,
and for my stables a cowshed for the sake of the milk which I love.
My garden should be a kitchen-garden, and my park an orchard, like
the one described further on. The fruit would be free to those
who walked in the orchard, my gardener should neither count it nor
gather it; I would not, with greedy show, display before your eyes
superb espaliers which one scarcely dare touch. But this small
extravagance would not be costly, for I would choose my abode in
some remote province where silver is scarce and food plentiful,
where plenty and poverty have their seat.
There I would gather round me a company, select rather than numerous,
a band of friends who know what pleasure is, and how to enjoy it,
women who can leave their arm-chairs and betake themselves to outdoor
sports, women who can exchange the shuttle or the cards for the
fishing line or the bird-trap, the gleaner's rake or grape-gatherer's
basket. There all the pretensions of the town will be forgotten,
and we shall be villagers in a village; we shall find all sorts of
different sports and we shall hardly know how to choose the morrow's
occupation. Exercise and an active life will improve our digestion
and modify our tastes. Every meal will be a feast, where plenty will
be more pleasing than any delicacies. There are no such cooks in
the world as mirth, rural pursuits, and merry games; and the finest
made dishes are quite ridiculous in the eyes of people who have
been on foot since early dawn. Our meals will be served without
regard to order or elegance; we shall make our dining-room anywhere,
in the garden, on a boat, beneath a tree; sometimes at a distance
from the house on the banks of a running stream, on the fresh green
grass, among the clumps of willow and hazel; a long procession
of guests will carry the material for the feast with laughter and
singing; the turf will be our chairs and table, the banks of the
stream our side-board, and our dessert is hanging on the trees;
the dishes will be served in any order, appetite needs no ceremony;
each one of us, openly putting himself first, would gladly see
every one else do the same; from this warm-hearted and temperate
familiarity there would arise, without coarseness, pretence,
or constraint, a laughing conflict a hundredfold more delightful
than politeness, and more likely to cement our friendship. No
tedious flunkeys to listen to our words, to whisper criticisms on
our behaviour, to count every mouthful with greedy eyes, to amuse
themselves by keeping us waiting for our wine, to complain of the
length of our dinner. We will be our own servants, in order to be
our own masters. Time will fly unheeded, our meal will be an interval
of rest during the heat of the day. If some peasant comes our way,
returning from his work with his tools over his shoulder, I will
cheer his heart with kindly words, and a glass or two of good
wine, which will help him to bear his poverty more cheerfully; and
I too shall have the joy of feeling my heart stirred within me,
and I should say to myself--I too am a man.
If the inhabitants of the district assembled for some rustic feast,
I and my friends would be there among the first; if there were
marriages, more blessed than those of towns, celebrated near my
home, every one would know how I love to see people happy, and I
should be invited. I would take these good folks some gift as simple
as themselves, a gift which would be my share of the feast; and in
exchange I should obtain gifts beyond price, gifts so little known
among my equals, the gifts of freedom and true pleasure. I should
sup gaily at the head of their long table; I should join in the
chorus of some rustic song and I should dance in the barn more
merrily than at a ball in the Opera House.
"This is all very well so far," you will say, "but what about the
shooting! One must have some sport in the country." Just so; I only
wanted a farm, but I was wrong. I assume I am rich, I must keep
my pleasures to myself, I must be free to kill something; this is
quite another matter. I must have estates, woods, keepers, rents,
seignorial rights, particularly incense and holy water.
Well and good. But I shall have neighbours about my estate who are
jealous of their rights and anxious to encroach on those of others;
our keepers will quarrel, and possibly their masters will quarrel
too; this means altercations, disputes, ill-will, or law-suits at
the least; this in itself is not very pleasant. My tenants will not
enjoy finding my hares at work upon their corn, or my wild boars
among their beans. As they dare not kill the enemy, every one of
them will try to drive him from their fields; when the day has been
spent in cultivating the ground, they will be compelled to sit up
at night to watch it; they will have watch-dogs, drums, horns, and
bells; my sleep will be disturbed by their racket. Do what I will,
I cannot help thinking of the misery of these poor people, and
I cannot help blaming myself for it. If I had the honour of being
a prince, this would make little impression on me; but as I am a
self-made man who has only just come into his property, I am still
rather vulgar at heart.
That is not all; abundance of game attracts trespassers; I shall
soon have poachers to punish; I shall require prisons, gaolers,
guards, and galleys; all this strikes me as cruel. The wives of
those miserable creatures will besiege my door and disturb me with
their crying; they must either be driven away or roughly handled.
The poor people who are not poachers, whose harvest has been
destroyed by my game, will come next with their complaints. Some
people will be put to death for killing the game, the rest will
be punished for having spared it; what a choice of evils! On every
side I shall find nothing but misery and hear nothing but groans.
So far as I can see this must greatly disturb the pleasure of slaying
at one's ease heaps of partridges and hares which are tame enough
to run about one's feet.
If you would have pleasure without pain let there be no monopoly;
the more you leave it free to everybody, the purer will be your own
enjoyment. Therefore I should not do what I have just described,
but without change of tastes I would follow those which seem likely
to cause me least pain. I would fix my rustic abode in a district
where game is not preserved, and where I can have my sport without
hindrance. Game will be less plentiful, but there will be more
skill in finding it, and more pleasure in securing it. I remember
the start of delight with which my father watched the rise of his
first partridge and the rapture with which he found the hare he
had sought all day long. Yes, I declare, that alone with his dog,
carrying his own gun, cartridges, and game bag together with his
hare, he came home at nightfall, worn out with fatigue and torn to
pieces by brambles, but better pleased with his day's sport than
all your ordinary sportsmen, who on a good horse, with twenty guns
ready for them, merely take one gun after another, and shoot and
kill everything that comes their way, without skill, without glory,
and almost without exercise. The pleasure is none the less, and
the difficulties are removed; there is no estate to be preserved,
no poacher to be punished, and no wretches to be tormented; here are
solid grounds for preference. Whatever you do, you cannot torment
men for ever without experiencing some amount of discomfort; and
sooner or later the muttered curses of the people will spoil the
flavour of your game.
Again, monopoly destroys pleasure. Real pleasures are those which
we share with the crowd; we lose what we try to keep to ourselves
alone. If the walls I build round my park transform it into a
gloomy prison, I have only deprived myself, at great expense, of
the pleasure of a walk; I must now seek that pleasure at a distance.
The demon of property spoils everything he lays hands upon. A rich
man wants to be master everywhere, and he is never happy where he is;
he is continually driven to flee from himself. I shall therefore
continue to do in my prosperity what I did in my poverty.
Henceforward, richer in the wealth of others than I ever shall
be in my own wealth, I will take possession of everything in my
neighbourhood that takes my fancy; no conqueror is so determined as
I; I even usurp the rights of princes; I take possession of every
open place that pleases me, I give them names; this is my park,
chat is my terrace, and I am their owner; henceforward I wander
among them at will; I often return to maintain my proprietary rights;
I make what use I choose of the ground to walk upon, and you will
never convince me that the nominal owner of the property which I
have appropriated gets better value out of the money it yields him
than I do out of his land. No matter if I am interrupted by hedges
and ditches, I take my park on my back, and I carry it elsewhere;
there will be space enough for it near at hand, and I may plunder
my neighbours long enough before I outstay my welcome.
This is an attempt to show what is meant by good taste in the choice
of pleasant occupations for our leisure hours; this is the spirit
of enjoyment; all else is illusion, fancy, and foolish pride. He
who disobeys these rules, however rich he may be, will devour his
gold on a dung-hill, and will never know what it is to live.
You will say, no doubt, that such amusements lie within the reach
of all, that we need not be rich to enjoy them. That is the very
point I was coming to. Pleasure is ours when we want it; it is only
social prejudice which makes everything hard to obtain, and drives
pleasure before us. To be happy is a hundredfold easier than it
seems. If he really desires to enjoy himself the man of taste has
no need of riches; all he wants is to be free and to be his own
master. With health and daily bread we are rich enough, if we will
but get rid of our prejudices; this is the "Golden Mean" of Horace.
You folks with your strong-boxes may find some other use for your
wealth, for it cannot buy you pleasure. Emile knows this as well
as I, but his heart is purer and more healthy, so he will feel
it more strongly, and all that he has beheld in society will only
serve to confirm him in this opinion.
While our time is thus employed, we are ever on the look-out for
Sophy, and we have not yet found her. It was not desirable that
she should be found too easily, and I have taken care to look for
her where I knew we should not find her.
The time is come; we must now seek her in earnest, lest Emile should
mistake some one else for Sophy, and only discover his error when
it is too late. Then farewell Paris, far-famed Paris, with all your
noise and smoke and dirt, where the women have ceased to believe in
honour and the men in virtue. We are in search of love, happiness,
innocence; the further we go from Paris the better.