anything, which we much doubt,--and we require no other proof of it
than the quantity of immoral books it produces and the success they
meet with.--Books follow morals, morals do not follow books.--The
Regency produced Crébillon, not Crébillon the Regency. Boucher's
little shepherdesses were painted and immodest because the little
marchionesses of the day were painted and immodest.--Pictures are
painted after models, not models after pictures. Somebody or other
has said somewhere or other that literature and the arts have a
great influence on morals. Whoever he is, he is unquestionably a
great fool.--It is as if some one should say: "Green peas make the
springtime grow;" on the other hand, green peas grow because it is
spring, and cherries because it is summer. The trees bear fruit, the
fruit assuredly does not bear the trees--the law is everlasting and
invariable in its variations; the centuries succeed one another and
each bears its fruit, which differs from that of the preceding century;
books are the fruit of morals.
Beside the moral journalists, under this shower of homilies, as if it
were a summer shower in a park, there has arisen, between the boards of
the Saint-Simonian stage, a school of little mushrooms of a curious new
variety, of which we propose to give the natural history.
They are the utilitarian critics,--poor fellows whose noses were so
short that they would not hold spectacles, and who could not see to the
end of their noses.
When an author tossed upon their desk a volume of any sort,--novel
or poetry,--these gentry would lean back nonchalantly in their
chairs, balance them on their hind legs, sway back and forth, puffing
themselves out with a knowing air, and say:
"What purpose does this book serve? How can it be applied to securing
the moral and spiritual well-being of the most numerous and poorest
class? What! not a word of the needs of society, nothing civilizing
and progressive! How, instead of dealing synthetically with the great
problems of humanity, and following, through the events of history,
the phases of the regenerating, providential idea, can you waste
time writing poetry and novels which lead to nothing, and which do
nothing to help the generation forward in the pathway of the future?
How can you concern yourself about form and style and rhythm, in
presence of such grave interests?--What do we care for rhythm and
style and form? that is all right in its place!" (Poor foxes, they
are too green!)--"Society is suffering, it has a terrible gnawing at
the vitals;" (translate: no one will subscribe to the utilitarian
papers.) "It is for the poet to seek the cause of the trouble and cure
it. He will find a way by sympathizing heart and soul with humanity;"
(philanthropic poets! that would be something rare and charming.) "We
await the coming of that poet, we pray for his coming with all our
hearts. When he appears, his will be the acclamations of the multitude,
his the palm-leaves, his the wreaths, his the Prytaneum."
Very fine; but as we desire the reader to stay awake to the end of this
blessed preface, we will not continue this very close imitation of the
utilitarian style, which, by its nature, is unusually soporific, and
might advantageously replace laudanum and the discourses of the Academy.
No, fools, no, cretins and goitrous creatures that you are, a book does
not make gelatine soup;--a novel is not a pair of seamless boots; a
sonnet is not a syringe with a continuous stream; a drama is not a
railroad,--all essentially civilizing things and tending to assist
humanity along the pathway of progress.
By the bowels of all the popes, past, present, and to come, no, two
hundred thousand times no.
You cannot make a nightcap out of a metonymy, or wear comparisons by
way of slippers; you cannot use antithesis as an umbrella; unluckily
we have not the secret of clapping a few variegated rhymes upon the
stomach as we put on a waistcoat. I have a firm conviction that the ode
is a garment too light for winter, and that one would be no more warmly
clad with the strophe, the antistrophe, and the epode, than the wife of
the cynic who was contented to have only her virtue as a chemise and
went about as naked as your hand, as history tells us.
The famous Monsieur de la Calprenède once had a coat, and when
some one asked what kind of cloth it was made of, he answered:
Silvandre.--_Silvandre_ was a play of his that had just been produced
with success.
Such arguments make one raise his shoulders above his head, higher than
the Duke of Gloucester's.
People who claim to be economists and who wish to rebuild society from
top to bottom, seriously put forward such trash.
A novel may be useful in two ways:--one material, the other spiritual,
if we may use such an expression with reference to a novel.--Its
material utility consists, first, of the few thousand francs that go
into the author's pocket, and ballast him so that neither the devil nor
the wind can whisk him away; to the publisher it is a noble race-horse
who stamps and rears with his cabriolet of ebony and steel, as Figaro
says; to the paper manufacturer, one more factory on some stream and
often the means of spoiling a fine site; to the printers, divers
hogsheads of logwood to put their windpipes in shape once a week; to
the circulating libraries, piles of big sous covered with proletariat
verdigris and a quantity of grease, which if it were carefully
collected and utilized would render the whale-fishery useless.--The
spiritual utility consists in this: that, while you are reading novels,
you fall asleep, and you are not reading utilitarian, virtuous, and
progressive newspapers, or other similar indigestible, stupefying drugs.
Let any one say after this that novels do not assist civilization.--I
will say nothing of the tobacco agents, grocers, and dealers in fried
potatoes, who have a very great interest in this branch of literature,
the paper used therein being, as a general rule, of a superior quality
to that used by the newspapers.
Verily it is enough to make one split one's sides with laughter to hear
messieurs the republican or Saint-Simonian utilitarians hold forth.--In
the first place, I should be glad to know the exact meaning of that
great lubberly substantive with which they daily lard the empty void
of their columns, and which serves them as a sort of shibboleth and
sacramental term:--Utility; what is the word, and to what is it applied?
There are two kinds of utilities, and the meaning of the word is always
relative. What is useful for one is not for another. You are a cobbler,
I am a poet.--It is useful for me to have my first line rhyme with my
second.--A dictionary of rhymes is of great utility to me; you have
no use for it in cobbling an old pair of boots, and it is fair to say
that a cobbler's knife would be of no great use to me in writing an
ode.--Now, you will remark that a cobbler is much above a poet, and
that we could get along better without the latter than without the
former. Without undertaking to cry down the illustrious profession of
cobbler, which I honor equally with the profession of constitutional
monarch, I will humbly confess that I should prefer to have my shoe
down at heel rather than to have my lines haltingly rhymed, and that
I should be more willing to go without boots than without poems. As I
rarely go out, and walk more readily on my head than on my feet, I wear
out fewer shoes than a virtuous republican who does nothing but run
from one government department to another trying to induce somebody to
toss him an office.
I know that there are those who prefer windmills to churches, and the
bread that feeds the body to that that feeds the soul. To them I have
nothing to say. They deserve to be economists in this world and also in
the other.
Is there anything absolutely useful on this earth and in this life that
we live? In the first place, there is very little use in one being
on the earth and living. I challenge the most erudite of the band
to say of what use we are, unless it be to subscribe neither to the
_Constitutionnel_ nor to a journal of any sort.
Secondly, the utility of our existence being admitted _a priori_, what
are the really useful things to maintain it? A plate of soup and a bit
of bread twice a day are all that we need to fill the stomach, in the
strict acceptation of the word. The man for whom a coffin six feet by
two will be enough and more than enough after his death, does not need
much more space during his life. A hollow cube, seven or eight feet
broad, long and deep, with a hole to breathe through, a single cell in
the hive, is all that he needs to lodge him and to keep the rain from
falling on his back. A quilt, rolled properly about his body, will
protect him from the cold as well as, yes, better than, Staub's most
stylish and elegant frock-coat.
With that a man can exist, theoretically. They say that one can live
on twenty-five sous a day; but to keep from dying is not living; and I
cannot see wherein a city organized on utilitarian principles would be
more agreeable to live in than Père La Chaise.
Nothing beautiful is indispensable to life.--If flowers should be
suppressed, the world would not suffer materially; and yet who could
wish that there were no flowers? I would rather give up potatoes than
roses, and I do not believe there is more than one utilitarian in the
world capable of digging up a bed of tulips to make room for cabbages.
What good purpose does female beauty serve? Provided that a woman is
well-developed physically, in a condition to receive a man and to
produce children, she will always be good enough for the economist.
What is the use of music? or painting? Who would be foolish enough to
prefer Mozart to Monsieur Carrel, Michael Angelo to the inventor of
white mustard?
Nothing is really beautiful but that which cannot be made use of;
everything that is useful is ugly, for it is the expression of some
need, and the needs of man are vile and disgusting, like his poor, weak
nature.--The most useful part of a house is the privy.
I myself, with due respect to those gentlemen, am one of those to whom
superfluities are necessaries--and my liking for people and things is
in inverse ratio to the services they render me. I prefer a Chinese
vase, covered with dragons and mandarins, which is of no use to me
at all, to a certain other vase, which is useful to me; and that one
of my talents which I prize most highly is my inability to guess
riddles and charades. I would very willingly renounce my privileges
as a Frenchman and a citizen to see an authentic painting by Raphael,
or a beautiful nude woman: the Princess Borghese, for instance, when
she posed for Canova, or Julia Grisi when she was in her bath. For
my part I would gladly consent to the return of that cannibal of
a Charles X., if he would bring me, from his castle in Bohemia, a
hamper of Tokay or Johannisberg, and I would agree that the suffrage
laws were broad enough, if some of the streets were more so and other
things less so.--Although I am not a born _dilettante,_ I prefer the
noise of squeaking fiddles and bass drums to that of Monsieur le
Président's bell. I would sell my trousers to buy a ring and my daily
bread for sweetmeats.--The most becoming occupation for a polished man
is, it seems to me, to do nothing, or to smoke his pipe or his cigar
analytically. I also have a high regard for those who play at skittles
and for those who write good poetry. You see that my principles are
very far from being utilitarian, and that I shall never become editor
of a virtuous newspaper unless I am converted, which would be droll
enough.
Instead of awarding a Monthyon prize as a reward of virtue, I would
prefer to give, like Sardanapalus, that great philosopher who has been
so misunderstood, a handsome premium to the man who should invent a new
form of pleasure; for enjoyment seems to me the true aim of life and
the only useful thing in the world. God has so willed it, for it was He
who made women, perfumes, light, lovely flowers, good wines, prancing
horses, greyhounds, and Angora cats; nor did he say to his angels:
"Be virtuous," but: "Love;" and he gave us a mouth, more sensitive
than the rest of the skin, with which to kiss women, eyes uplifted to
see the light, a subtle sense of smell to inhale the soul of flowers,
well-knit thighs to press the sides of stallions and fly swifter than
thought without railroad or steamboat, delicate hands with which to
caress the long head of the greyhound, the velvety back of the cat,
and the gleaming shoulders of creatures of doubtful virtue; in a word,
he bestowed only upon us the threefold, glorious privilege of drinking
without being thirsty, of striking a light, and of making love at all
seasons, which distinguishes us from the brute much more than the
custom of reading newspapers and drawing maps.
_Mon Dieu_! what an idiotic thing is this alleged perfectibility of the
human race that is being dinned into our ears! One would say in truth
that man is a machine susceptible of improvements, and that the more
careful adjustment of a wheel, a counterpoise more conveniently placed,
might make it work more smoothly and more handily. When they have
succeeded in giving man a double stomach, so that he can chew his cud
like an ox, and eyes in the back of his head, like Janus, so that he
can see those who stick out their tongues at him behind his back, and
contemplate his _unworthiness_ in a less uncomfortable position than
that of the Venus Callipyges at Athens, and in planting wings on his
shoulder blades so that he will not be obliged to pay six sous to ride
in an omnibus; when they have given him a new organ, well and good:
then the word _perfectibility_ will begin to mean something.
Since all these fine ameliorations, what has been done that was not
done as well and better before the deluge?
Have we succeeded in drinking more than they drank in the days of
ignorance and barbarism--old style? Alexander, the doubtful friend
of the fair Hephæstion, was no small drinker, although there was no
_Journal des Connaissances Utiles_ in his day, and I am unable to
conceive how any utilitarian, unless he should become oïnopic and
more puffed out than the younger Lepeintre or a hippopotamus, could
drain the great beaker which he called Hercules' cup. The Maréchal
de Bassompierre, who emptied his long boot to the health of the
Thirteen Cantons, seems to me a singularly estimable personage in his
way and very hard to improve upon. What economist will enlarge our
stomachs so that they will hold as many beefsteaks as the late Milo
of Crotona, who ate an ox? The bill of fare at Véfour's Café Anglais,
or at any other culinary celebrity's that you choose, seems to me very
ill-supplied and commonplace compared to the menu of Trimalcion's
dinner.--At whose table in these days are a sow and her twelve
shoats served on a single platter? Who has eaten muræna and lampreys
fattened on man? Do you really think that Brillat-Savarin has improved
upon Apicius? Could Vitellius's big tripe-man find at Chevet's the
wherewithal to fill his famous Minerva's shield with pheasants' and
peacocks' brains, tongues of flamingoes and scarus livers?--The oysters
you eat at the Rocher de Cancale are such a great delicacy compared
with the oysters of Lucrin, for which a lake was made expressly.--The
little establishments in the suburbs kept by the marquises of the
Regency were wretched little boxes, if we compare them with the villas
of the Roman patricians at Baiæ, Capri, and Tibur. The Cyclopean
splendor of the great voluptuaries who erected everlasting monuments
for a day's pleasure should cause us to fall flat on our faces before
the genius of antiquity and erase forever from our dictionaries the
word _perfectibility._
Has a new capital crime been invented? Unfortunately there are only
seven of them as before, the number of the just man's backslidings for
one day, which is very moderate.--Indeed, I do not think that after a
century of progress, at the rate we are travelling, any lover would be
capable of renewing the thirteenth labor of Hercules.--Can a man be
agreeable to his divinity a single time oftener than in the days of
Solomon? Many very illustrious scholars and very respectable ladies
answer that question in the negative, and aver that amiability is on
the wane. Very good! if that is so, why do you talk of progress?--I
know that you will tell me that there is an Upper Chamber and a Lower
Chamber, that you hope that everybody will soon be an elector and the
number of representatives doubled or trebled. Do you think that there
are not enough mistakes in grammar made in the national tribune as it
is, and that the deputies are not numerous enough for the vile work
they have to do? I can hardly understand the utility of quartering
two or three hundred provincials in a wooden barrack, with a ceiling
painted by Monsieur Fragonard, there to botch and bungle nobody knows
how many absurd or atrocious little laws.--What difference does it
make whether it is a sabre, a holy-water sprinkler, or an umbrella
that governs us?--It is a club all the same, and I am amazed that
progressive men should dispute as to the kind of club that is to make
their shoulders tingle, when it would be much more progressive and less
expensive to break it and throw the pieces to all the devils.
The only one of you who has any common sense is a madman, a great
genius, an imbecile, a divine poet far above Lamartine, Hugo, and
Byron; it is Charles Fourrier, the phalansterian, who is all that in
his single person: he alone is logical and has the courage to carry
his theory through to its inevitable consequence.--He asserts, without
hesitation, that man will soon have a tail fifteen feet long with an
eye at the end of it; that surely is progress and will permit us to
do a thousand fine things we could not do before, such as killing
elephants without striking a blow, balancing ourselves on trees without
swings, as handily as the most expert ape, doing without sunshade or
umbrella by raising the tail above the head like a plume, as squirrels
do, who get along very well without umbrellas; and other prerogatives
too numerous to mention. Several phalansterians claim that they already
have a little tail that asks nothing better than to grow longer, if
only God gives them length of days.
Charles Fourrier has invented as many species of animals as George
Cuvier, the great naturalist. He invented horses that will be thrice
the size of elephants, dogs as large as tigers, fish capable of feeding
more people than the three small fishes of the Saviour, which the
incredulous Voltaireans believe were _poissons d'Avril_,[1] and I the
text of a noble parable. He has built cities beside which Rome, Tyre,
and Babylon are simply mole-hills; he has piled Babels one upon another
and built spiral stairways ascending among the clouds to a greater
height than all those in John Martinn's engravings; he has conceived I
cannot say how many orders of architecture and new sauces; he has drawn
a plan for a theatre which would seem immense even to Romans of the
Empire, and prepared a dinner menu that Lucius or Nomentanus might have
deemed sufficient for a dinner to their friends; he promises to create
new forms of pleasure and to develop the organs and the senses; he is
to make women fairer and more voluptuous, men more robust and sturdy;
he guarantees you children and proposes to reduce the population of the
world so that every one will be in easy circumstances; which is more
reasonable than to urge paupers to make other paupers, with the idea of
shooting them down in the streets when they breed too fast and sending
them bullets instead of bread.
Progress is possible in no other way.--All the rest is bitter mockery,
buffoonery without wit, which is not even calculated to deceive
gullible fools.
The phalanstery is really a step in advance of the abbey of Thélème,
and definitely relegates the earthly paradise to the ranks of those
things that are altogether superannuated and old-fashioned. The
Thousand and One Nights and Madame d'Aulnay's Tales alone can contend
successfully with the phalanstery. What fertility! what invention!
There is material there from which to supply marvels for three thousand
cartloads of romantic or classic poems; and our versifiers, whether
academicians or not, are paltry inventors compared to Monsieur Charles
Fourrier, the inventor of startling attractions.--This idea of making
use of impulses which people have hitherto sought to repress, is most
assuredly a lofty and powerful idea.
Ah! you say that we are making progress!--Suppose that a volcano
should open its maw to-morrow at Montmartre, and should make a
winding-sheet of ashes and a tomb of lava for Paris, as Vesuvius once
did for Stabia, Pompeii, and Herculaneum, and that, some thousand
years hence, the antiquaries of that day should make excavations and
exhume the corpse of the dead city, tell me what monument would remain
standing to bear witness to the splendor of the mighty entombed, the
Gothic Notre-Dame?--They would form truly a fine idea of our artistic
development when they cleared away the rubbish from the Tuileries,
redecorated by Monsieur Fontaine! The statues on Pont Louis XV. would
look splendid in the museums of those days. And were it not for the
pictures of the ancient schools and the statues of antiquity or the
Renaissance crowded together in the gallery of the Louvre, that long
shapeless conduit; were it not for the ceiling by Ingres, which would
show that Paris was not a Barbary camp or a village of Welches or
Topinamboux, the things that would be unearthed from the ruins would
be very interesting.--Short swords carried by National Guardsmen,
firemen's helmets, coins struck from pyriform dies, that is the kind
of thing they would find instead of the beautiful, curiously-carved
weapons that the Middle Ages left in the recesses of their towers and
ruined tombs, the medallions that fill the Etruscan vases and pave the
cellars of all Roman buildings. As for our wretched veneered furniture,
all the cheap boxes, naked and ugly and shabby, that we call commodes
or secretaries, and all our shapeless, fragile utensils,--I trust that
time would have been compassionate enough to destroy the last vestige
of them.