reckoned the greatest man in France. His account of La Boetie's death is
boldly, and not presumptuously, paralleled by Mr. St. John with the
"Phaedon" of Plato. Noble writing, it certainly is, though its
stateliness is a shade too self-conscious, perhaps.
We have thus far presented Montaigne in words of his own such as may
fairly be supposed likely to prepossess the reader in his favor. We
could multiply our extracts indefinitely in a like unexceptionable vein
of writing. But to do so, and to stop with these, would misrepresent
Montaigne. Montaigne is very far from being an innocent writer. His
moral tone generally is low, and often it is execrable. He is coarse,
but coarseness is not the worst of him. Indeed, he is cleanliness itself
compared with Rabelais. But Rabelais is morality itself compared with
Montaigne. Montaigne is corrupt and corrupting. This feature of his
writings, we are necessarily forbidden to illustrate. In an essay
written in his old age,--which we will not even name, its general tenor
is so evil,--Montaigne holds the following language:--
I gently turn aside, and avert my eyes from the stormy and cloudy
sky I have before me, which, thanks be to God, I regard without
fear, but not without meditation and study, and amuse myself in the
remembrance of my better years:--
"Animus quod perdidit, optat, Atque in praeterita se totus imagine
versat."
PETRONIUS, c. 128.
["The mind desires what it has lost, and in fancy flings itself
wholly into the past."]
Let childhood look forward, and age backward: is not this the
signification of Janus' double face? Let years haul me along if
they will, but it shall be backward; as long as my eyes can discern
the pleasant season expired, I shall now and then turn them that
way; though it escape from my blood and veins, I shall not,
however, root the image of it out of my memory:--
"Hoc est Vivere bis, vita posse priore frui."
MARTIAL, x. 23, 7.
["'Tis to live twice to be able to enjoy former life again."]
Harmlessly, even engagingly, pensive seems the foregoing strain of
sentiment. Who could suppose it a prelude to detailed reminiscence on
the author's part of sensual pleasures--the basest--enjoyed in the past?
The venerable voluptuary keeps himself in countenance for his lascivious
vein, by writing as follows:--
I have enjoined myself to dare to say all that I dare to do; even
thoughts that are not to be published, displease me; the worst of
my actions and qualities do not appear to me so evil, as I find it
evil and base not to dare to own them....
...I am greedy of making myself known, and I care not to how many,
provided it be truly.... Many things that I would not say to a
particular individual, I say to the people; and, as to my most
secret thoughts, send my most intimate friends to my book.... For
my part, if any one should recommend me as a good pilot, as being
very modest, or very chaste, I should owe him no thanks [because
the recommendation would be false].
We must leave it--as, however, Montaigne himself is far enough from
leaving it--to the imagination of readers to conjecture what "pleasures"
they are, of which this worn-out debauchee (nearing death, and thanking
God that he nears it "without fear") speaks in the following sentimental
strain:--
In farewells, we oftener than not heat our affections towards the
things we take leave of: I take my last leave of the pleasures of
this world; these are our last embraces.
Mr. Emerson, in his "Representative Men," makes Montaigne stand for The
Sceptic. Sceptic Montaigne was. He questioned, he considered, he
doubted. He stood poised in equilibrium, in indifference, between
contrary opinions. He saw reasons on this side, but he saw reasons also
on that, and he did not clear his mind. "_Que scai-je?_" was his motto
("What know I?"), a question as of hopeless ignorance,--nay, as of
ignorance also void of desire to know. His life was one long
interrogation, a balancing of opposites, to the end.
Such, speculatively, was Montaigne. Such, too, speculatively, was
Pascal. The difference, however, was greater than the likeness, between
these two minds. Pascal, doubting, gave the world of spiritual things
the benefit of his doubt. Montaigne, on the other hand, gave the benefit
of his doubt to the world of sense. He was a sensualist, he was a
glutton, he was a lecher. He, for his portion, chose the good things of
this life. His body he used to get him pleasures of the body. In
pleasures of the body he sunk and drowned his conscience,--if he ever
had a conscience. But his intelligence survived. He became, at last,--if
he was not such from the first,--almost pure sense, without soul.
Yet we have no doubt Montaigne was an agreeable gentleman. We think we
should have got on well with him as a neighbor of ours. He was a
tolerably decent father, provided the child were grown old enough to be
company for him. His own lawful children, while infants, had to go out
of the house for their nursing; so it not unnaturally happened that all
but one died in their infancy. Five of such is the number that you can
count in his own journalistic entries of family births and deaths. But,
speaking as "moral philosopher," in his "Essays," he says, carelessly,
that he had lost "two or three" "without repining." This, perhaps, is
affectation. But what affectation!
Montaigne was well-to-do; and he ranked as a gentleman, if not as a
great nobleman. He lived in a castle, bequeathed to him, and by him
bequeathed,--a castle still standing, and full of personal association
with its most famous owner. He occupied a room in the tower, fitted up
as a library. Over the door of this room may still, we believe, be read
Montaigne's motto, "_Que scai-je?_" Votaries of Montaigne perform their
pious pilgrimages to this shrine of their idolatry, year after year,
century after century.
For, remember, it is now three centuries since Montaigne wrote. He was
before Bacon and Shakspeare. He was contemporary with Charles IX., and
with Henry of Navarre. But date has little to do with such a writer as
Montaigne. His quality is sempiternal. He overlies the ages, as the long
hulk of "The Great Eastern" overlay the waves of the sea, stretching
from summit to summit. Not that, in the form of his literary work, he
was altogether independent of time and of circumstance. Not that he was
uninfluenced by his historic place, in the essential spirit of his
work. But, more than often happens, Montaigne may fairly be judged out
of himself alone. His message he might, indeed, have delivered
differently; but it would have been substantially the same message if he
had been differently placed in the world, and in history. We need
hardly, therefore, add any thing about Montaigne's outward life. His
true life is in his book.
Montaigne the Essayist is the consummate, the ideal, expression,
practically incapable of improvement, of the spirit and wisdom of the
world. This characterization, we think, fairly and sufficiently sums up
the good and the bad of Montaigne. We might seem to describe no very
mischievous thing. But to have the spirit and wisdom of this world
expressed, to have it expressed as in a last authoritative form, a form
to commend it, to flatter it, to justify it, to make it seem sufficient,
to erect it into a kind of gospel,--that means much. It means hardly
less than to provide the world with a new Bible,--a Bible of the world's
own, a Bible that shall approve itself as better than the Bible of the
Old and New Testaments. Montaigne's "Essays" constitute, in effect, such
a book. The man of the world may,--and, to say truth, does,--in this
volume, find all his needed texts. Here is _viaticum_--daily manna--for
him, to last the year round, and to last year after year; an
inexhaustible breviary for the church of this world! It is of the
gravest historical significance that Rabelais and Montaigne, but
especially Montaigne, should, to such an extent, for now three full
centuries, have been furnishing the daily intellectual food of
Frenchmen.
Pascal, in an interview with M. de Saci (carefully reported by the
latter), in which the conversation was on the subject of Montaigne and
Epictetus contrasted,--these two authors Pascal acknowledged to be the
ones most constantly in his hand,--said gently of Montaigne, "Montaigne
is absolutely pernicious to those who have any inclination toward
irreligion, or toward vicious indulgences." We, for our part, are
prepared, speaking more broadly than Pascal, to say that, to a somewhat
numerous class of naturally dominant minds, Montaigne's "Essays," in
spite of all that there is good in them,--nay, greatly because of so
much good in them,--are, by their subtly insidious persuasion to evil,
upon the whole quite the most powerfully pernicious book known to us in
literature, either ancient or modern.
V.
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD: 1613-1680 (La Bruyere: 1646 (?)-1696; Vauvenargues:
1715-1747).
In La Rochefoucauld we meet another eminent example of the author of one
book. "Letters," "Memoirs," and "Maxims" indeed name productions in
three kinds, productions all of them notable, and all still extant, from
La Rochefoucauld's pen. But the "Maxims" are so much more famous than
either the "Letters" or the "Memoirs," that their author may be said to
be known only by those. If it were not for the "Maxims," the "Letters"
and the "Memoirs" would probably now be forgotten. We here may dismiss
these from our minds, and concentrate our attention exclusively upon the
"Maxims." Voltaire said, "The 'Memoirs' of the Duc de La Rochefoucauld
are read, but we know his 'Maxims' by heart."
La Rochefoucauld's "Maxims" are detached sentences of reflection and
wisdom on human character and conduct. They are about seven hundred in
number, but they are all comprised in a very small volume; for they
generally are each only two or three lines in length, and almost never
does a single maxim occupy more than the half of a moderate-sized page.
The "Maxims," detached, as we have described them, have no very marked
logical sequence in the order in which they stand. They all, however,
have a profound mutual relation. An unvarying monotone of sentiment, in
fact, runs through them. They are so many different expressions,
answering to so many different observations taken at different angles,
of one and the same persisting estimate of human nature. 'Self-love is
the mainspring and motive of every thing we do, or say, or feel, or
think:' that is the total result of the "Maxims" of La Rochefoucauld.
The writer's qualifications for treating his theme were unsurpassed. He
had himself the right character, moral and intellectual; his scheme of
conduct in life corresponded; he wrote in the right language, French;
and he was rightly situated in time, in place, and in circumstance. He
needed but to look closely within him and without him,--which he was
gifted, with eyes to do,--and then report what he saw, in the language
to which he was born. This he did, and his "Maxims" are the fruit. His
method was largely the sceptical method of Montaigne. His result, too,
was much the same result as his master's. But the pupil surpassed the
master in the quality of his work. There is a fineness, an
exquisiteness, in the literary form of La Rochefoucauld, which Montaigne
might indeed have disdained to seek, but which he could never, even with
seeking, have attained. Each maxim of La Rochefoucauld is a "gem of
purest ray serene," wrought to the last degree of perfection in form
with infinite artistic pains. Purity, precision, clearness, density,
point, are perfectly reconciled in La Rochefoucauld's style with ease,
grace, and brilliancy of expression. The influence of such literary
finish, well bestowed on thought worthy to receive it, has been
incalculably potent in raising the standard of French production in
prose. It was Voltaire's testimony, "One of the works which has most
contributed to form the national taste, and give it a spirit of accuracy
and precision, was the little collection of 'Maxims' by Francois Duc de
La Rochefoucauld."
There is a high-bred air about La Rochefoucauld the writer, which well
accords with the rank and character of the man La Rochefoucauld. He was
of one of the noblest families in France. His instincts were all
aristocratic. His manners and his morals were those of his class. Brave,
spirited, a touch of chivalry in him, honorable and amiable as the world
reckons of its own, La Rochefoucauld ran a career consistent throughout
with his own master-principle, self-love. He had a wife whose conjugal
fidelity her husband seems to have thought a sufficient supply in that
virtue for both himself and her. He behaved himself accordingly. His
illicit relations with other women were notorious. But they unhappily
did not make La Rochefoucauld in that respect at all peculiar among the
distinguished men of his time. His brilliant female friends collaborated
with him in working out his "Maxims." These were the labor of years.
They were published in successive editions, during the lifetime of the
author; and some final maxims were added from his manuscripts after his
death.
Using, for the purpose, a very recent translation, that of A. S. Bolton
(which, in one or two places, we venture to conform more exactly to the
sense of the original), we give almost at hazard a few specimens of
these celebrated apothegms. We adopt the numbering given in the best
Paris edition of the "Maxims:"--
No. 11. The passions often beget their contraries. Avarice
sometimes produces prodigality, and prodigality avarice: we are
often firm from weakness, and daring from timidity.
No. 13. Our self-love bears more impatiently the condemnation of
our tastes than of our opinions.
How much just detraction from all mere natural human greatness is
contained in the following penetrative maxim!--
No. 18. Moderation is a fear of falling into the envy and contempt
which those deserve who are intoxicated with their good fortune; it
is a vain parade of the strength of our mind; and, in short, the
moderation of men in their highest elevation is a desire to appear
greater than their fortune.
What effectively quiet satire in these few words!--
No. 19. We have strength enough to bear the ills of others.
This man had seen the end of all perfection in the apparently great of
this world. He could not bear that such should flaunt a false plume
before their fellows:--
No. 20. The steadfastness of sages is only the art of locking up
their uneasiness in their hearts.
Of course, had it lain in the author's chosen line to do so, he might,
with as much apparent truth, have pointed out, that to lock up
uneasiness in the heart requires steadfastness no less--nay, more--than
not to feel uneasiness.
The inflation of "philosophy" vaunting itself is thus softly eased of
its painful distention:--
No. 22. Philosophy triumphs easily over troubles passed and
troubles to come, but present troubles triumph over it.
When Jesus once rebuked the fellow-disciples of James and John for
blaming those brethren as self-seekers, he acted on the same profound
principle with that disclosed in the following maxim:--
No. 34. If we had no pride, we should not complain of that of
others.
How impossible it is for that Proteus, self-love, to elude the presence
of mind, the inexorable eye, the fast hand, of this incredulous
Frenchman:--
No. 39. Interest [self-love] speaks all sorts of languages, and
plays all sorts of parts, even that of disinterestedness.
No. 49. We are never so happy, or so unhappy, as we imagine.
No. 78. The love of justice is, in most men, only the fear of
suffering injustice.
What a subtly unsoldering distrust the following maxim introduces into
the sentiment of mutual friendship!--
No. 83. What men have called friendship, is only a partnership, a
mutual accommodation of interests, and an exchange of good offices:
it is, in short, only a traffic, in which self-love always proposes
to gain something.
No. 89. Every one complains of his memory, and no one complains of
his judgment.
How striking, from its artful suppression of strikingness, is the first
following, and what a wide, easy sweep of well-bred satire it
contains!--
No. 93. Old men like to give good advice, to console themselves for
being no longer able to give bad examples.
No. 119. We are so much accustomed to disguise ourselves to others,
that, at last, we disguise ourselves to ourselves.
No. 127. The true way to be deceived, is to think one's self
sharper than others.
The plain-spoken proverb, "A man that is his own lawyer, has a fool for
his client," finds a more polished expression in the following:--
No. 132. It is easier to be wise for others, than to be so for
one's self.
How pitilessly this inquisitor pursues his prey, "the human soul, into
all its useless hiding-places!--
No. 138. We would rather speak ill of ourselves, than not talk of
ourselves.
The following maxim, longer and less felicitously phrased than is usual
with La Rochefoucauld, recalls that bitter definition of the bore,--"One
who insists on talking about himself all the time that you are wishing
to talk about yourself:"--
No. 139. One of the causes why we find so few people who appear
reasonable and agreeable in conversation, is, that there is
scarcely any one who does not think more of what he wishes to say,
than of replying exactly to what is said to him. The cleverest and
the most compliant think it enough to show an attentive air; while
we see in their eyes and in their mind a wandering from what is
said to them, and a hurry to return to what they wish to say,
instead of considering that it is a bad way to please or to
persuade others, to try so hard to please one's self, and that to
listen well is one of the greatest accomplishments we can have in
conversation.
If we are indignant at the maxims following, it is probably rather
because they are partly true than, because they are wholly false:--
No. 144. We are not fond of praising, and, without interest, we
never praise any one. Praise is a cunning flattery, hidden and
delicate, which, in different ways, pleases him who gives and him
who receives it. The one takes it as a reward for his merit: the
other gives it to show his equity and his discernment.
No. 146. We praise generally only to be praised.
No. 147. Few are wise enough to prefer wholesome blame to
treacherous praise.
No. 149. Disclaiming praise is a wish to be praised a second time.
No. 152. If we did not flatter ourselves, the flattery of others
could not hurt us.
No. 184. We acknowledge our faults in order to atone, by our
sincerity, for the harm they do us in the minds of others.
No. 199. The desire to appear able often prevents our becoming so.
No. 201. Whoever thinks he can do without the world, deceives
himself much; but whoever thinks the world cannot do without him,
deceives himself much more.
With the following, contrast Ruskin's noble paradox, that the soldier's
business, rightly conceived, is self-sacrifice; his ideal purpose being,
not to kill, but to be killed:--
No. 214. Valor, in private soldiers, is a perilous calling, which
they have taken to in order to gain their living.
Here is, perhaps, the most current of all La Rochefoucauld's maxims:--
No. 218. Hypocrisy is a homage which vice renders to virtue.
Of the foregoing maxim, it may justly be said, that its truth and point
depend upon the assumption, implicit, that there is such a thing as
virtue,--an assumption which the whole tenor of the "Maxims," in
general, contradicts.
How incisive the following!--
No. 226. Too great eagerness to requite an obligation is a kind of
ingratitude.
No. 298. The gratitude of most men is only a secret desire to
receive greater favors.
No. 304. We often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive
those whom we bore.
No. 318. Why should we have memory enough to retain even the
smallest particulars of what has happened to us, and yet not have
enough to remember how often we have told them to the same
individual?
The first following maxim satirizes both princes and courtiers. It might
be entitled, "How to insult a prince, and not suffer for your
temerity":--
No. 320. To praise princes for virtues they have not, is to insult
them with impunity.
No. 347. We find few sensible people, except those who are of our
way of thinking.
No. 409. We should often be ashamed of our best actions, if the
world saw the motives which cause them.
No. 424. We boast of faults the reverse of those we have: when we
are weak, we boast of being stubborn.
Here, at length, is a maxim that does not depress,--that animates you:--
No. 432. To praise noble actions heartily, is in some sort to take
part in them.
The following is much less exhilarating:--
No. 454. There are few instances in which we should make a bad
bargain, by giving up the good that is said of us, on condition
that nothing bad be said.
This, also:--
No. 458. Our enemies come nearer to the truth, in the opinions they
form of us, than we do ourselves.
Here is a celebrated maxim, vainly "suppressed" by the author, after
first publication:--
No. 583. In the adversity of our best friends, we always find
something which does not displease us.
Before La Rochefoucauld, Montaigne had said, "Even in the midst of
compassion, we feel within us an unaccountable bitter-sweet titillation
of ill-natured pleasure in seeing another suffer;" and Burke, after
both, wrote (in his "Sublime and Beautiful") with a heavier hand, "I am
convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in
the real misfortunes and pains of others."
La Rochefoucauld is not fairly cynical, more than is Montaigne. But, as
a man, he wins upon you less. His maxims are like hard and sharp
crystals, precipitated from the worldly wisdom blandly solute and dilute
in Montaigne.
The wise of this world reject the dogma of human depravity, as taught in
the Bible. They willingly accept it,--nay, accept it complacently,
hugging themselves for their own penetration,--as taught in the "Maxims"
of La Rochefoucauld.
* * *
Jean de La Bruyere is personally almost as little known as if he were an
ancient of the Greek or Roman world, surviving, like Juvenal, only in
his literary production. Bossuet got him employed to teach history to a
great duke, who became his patron, and settled a life-long annuity upon
him. He published his one book, the "Characters," in 1687, was made
member of the French Academy in 1693, and died in 1696. That, in short,
is La Bruyere's biography.
His book is universally considered one of the most finished products of
the human mind. It is not a great work,--it lacks the unity and the
majesty of design necessary for that. It consists simply of detached
thoughts and observations on a variety of subjects. It shows the author
to have been a man of deep and wise reflection, but especially a
consummate master of style. The book is one to read in, rather than to
read. It is full of food to thought. The very beginning exhibits a
self-consciousness on the writer's part very different from that
spontaneous simplicity in which truly great books originate. La Bruyere
begins:--
Every thing has been said; and one comes too late, after more than
seven thousand years that there have been men, and men who have
thought.
La Bruyere has something to say, and that at length unusual for him, of
pulpit eloquence. We select a few specimen sentences:--
Christian eloquence has become a spectacle. That gospel sadness,
which is its soul, is no longer to be observed in it; its place is
supplied by advantages of facial expression, by inflexions of the
voice, by regularity of gesticulation, by choice of words, and by
long categories. The sacred word is no longer listened to
seriously; it is a kind of amusement, one among many; it is a game
in which there is rivalry, and in which there are those who lay
wagers.
Profane eloquence has been transferred, so to speak, from the
bar,... where it is no longer employed, to the pulpit, where it
ought not to be found.