"The praise of those we love,
Dearer to true young hearts than their own praise."
I venture to think we need not be young to prefer to hear the praise of
others rather than our own. It is not embarrassing in the first place,
as all praise of ourselves must be. I doubt if any man or woman can
flatter so discreetly as not to make us uncomfortable. Besides, if our
own performances be lauded, we are uneasy as to whether the honour is
deserved. An artist has usually his own doubts about his own doings, or
rather he has his own certainties. About our friends' work we need have
no such misgivings. And our self-love is more delicately caressed by the
success of our friends than by our own. It is still self-love, but it is
filtered, so to speak, through our affection for another.
What are human motives, according to Rochefoucauld? Temperament, vanity,
fear, indolence, self-love, and a grain of natural perversity, which
somehow delights in evil for itself. He neglects that other element, a
grain of natural worth, which somehow delights in good for itself. This
taste, I think, is quite as innate, and as active in us, as that other
taste for evil which causes there to be something not wholly displeasing
in the misfortunes of our friends.
There is a story which always appears to me a touching proof of this
grain of goodness, as involuntary, as fatal as its opposite. I do not
remember in what book of travels I found this trait of native excellence.
The black fellows of Australia are very fond of sugar, and no wonder, if
it be true that it has on them an intoxicating effect. Well, a certain
black fellow had a small parcel of brown sugar which was pilfered from
his lair in the camp. He detected the thief, who was condemned to be
punished according to tribal law; that is to say, the injured man was
allowed to have a whack at his enemy's head with a waddy, a short club of
heavy hard wood. The whack was duly given, and then the black who had
suffered the loss threw down his club, burst into tears, embraced the
thief and displayed every sign of a lively regret for his revenge.
That seems to me an example of the human touch that Rochefoucauld never
allows for, the natural goodness, pity, kindness, which can assert itself
in contempt of the love of self, and the love of revenge. This is that
true clemency which is a real virtue, and not "the child of Vanity, Fear,
Indolence, or of all three together." Nor is it so true that "we have
all fortitude enough to endure the misfortunes of others." Everybody has
witnessed another's grief that came as near him as his own.
How much more true, and how greatly poetical is that famous maxim: "Death
and the Sun are two things not to be looked on with a steady eye." This
version is from the earliest English translation of 1698. The _Maximes_
were first published in Paris in 1665. {8} "Our tardy apish nation" took
thirty-three years in finding them out and appropriating them. This,
too, is good: "If we were faultless, we would observe with less pleasure
the faults of others." Indeed, to observe these with pleasure is not the
least of our faults. Again, "We are never so happy, nor so wretched, as
we suppose." It is our vanity, perhaps, that makes us think ourselves
_miserrimi_.
Do you remember--no, you don't--that meeting in "Candide" of the
unfortunate Cunegonde and the still more unfortunate old lady who was the
daughter of a Pope? "You lament your fate," said the old lady; "alas,
you have known no such sorrows as mine!" "What! my good woman!" says
Cunegonde. "Unless you have been maltreated by _two_ Bulgarians,
received _two_ stabs from a knife, had _two_ of your castles burned over
your head, seen _two_ fathers and _two_ mothers murdered before your
eyes, and _two_ of your lovers flogged at two autos-da-fe, I don't fancy
that you can have the advantage of me. Besides, I was born a baroness of
seventy-two quarterings, and I have been a cook." But the daughter of a
Pope had, indeed, been still more unlucky, as she proved, than Cunegonde;
and the old lady was not a little proud of it.
But can you call _this_ true: "There is nobody but is ashamed of having
loved when once he loves no longer"? If it be true at all, I don't think
the love was much worth having or giving. If one really loves once, one
can never be ashamed of it; for we never cease to love. However, this is
the very high water of sentiment, you will say; but I blush no more for
it than M. le Duc de Rochefoucauld for his own opinion. Perhaps I am
thinking of that kind of love about which he says: "True love is like
ghosts; which everybody talks about and few have seen." "Many be the
thyrsus-bearers, few the Mystics," as the Greek proverb runs. "Many are
called, few are chosen."
As to friendship being "a reciprocity of interests," the saying is but
one of those which Rochefoucauld's vanity imposed on his wit. Very witty
it is not, and it is emphatically untrue. "Old men console themselves by
giving good advice for being no longer able to set bad examples."
Capital; but the poor old men are often good examples of the results of
not taking their own good advice. "Many an ingrate is less to blame than
his benefactor." One might add, at least I will, "Every man who looks
for gratitude deserves to get none of it." "To say that one never
flirts--is flirting." I rather like the old translator's version of "Il
y a de bons mariages; mais il n'y en a point de delicieux"--"Marriage is
sometimes convenient, but never delightful."
How true is this of authors with a brief popularity: "_Il y a des gens
qui ressemblent aux vaudevilles, qu'on ne chante qu'un certain temps_."
Again, "to be in haste to repay a kindness is a sort of ingratitude," and
a rather insulting sort too. "Almost everybody likes to repay small
favours; many people can be grateful for favours not too weighty, but for
favours truly great there is scarce anything but ingratitude." They must
have been small favours that Wordsworth had conferred when "the gratitude
of men had oftener left him mourning." Indeed, the very pettiness of the
aid we can generally render each other, makes gratitude the touching
thing it is. So much is repaid for so little, and few can ever have the
chance of incurring the thanklessness that Rochefoucauld found all but
universal.
"Lovers and ladies never bore each other, because they never speak of
anything but themselves." Do husbands and wives often bore each other
for the same reason? Who said: "To know all is to forgive all"? It is
rather like "On pardonne tant que l'on aime"--"As long as we love we can
forgive," a comfortable saying, and these are rare in Rochefoucauld.
"Women do not quite know what flirts they are" is also, let us hope, not
incorrect. The maxim that "There is a love so excessive that it kills
jealousy" is only a corollary from "as long as we love, we forgive." You
remember the classical example, Manon Lescaut and the Chevalier des
Grieux; not an honourable precedent.
"The accent of our own country dwells in our hearts as well as on our
tongues." Ah! never may I lose the Border accent! "Love's Miracle! To
cure a coquette." "Most honest women are tired of their task," says this
unbeliever. And the others? Are they never aweary? The Duke is his own
best critic after all, when he says: "The greatest fault of a penetrating
wit is going beyond the mark." Beyond the mark he frequently goes, but
not when he says that we come as fresh hands to each new epoch of life,
and often want experience for all our years. How hard it was to begin to
be middle-aged! Shall we find old age easier if ever we come to its
threshold? Perhaps, and Death perhaps the easiest of all. Nor let me
forget, it will be long before _you_ have occasion to remember, that
"vivacity which grows with age is not far from folly."