II

ENGLAND'S REGARD FOR MEN OF LETTERS[41]

Neither the English nor any other people have foundations established in favor of the polite arts like those in France. There are universities in most countries, but it is in France only that we meet with so beneficial an encouragement for astronomy and all parts of the mathematics, for physic, for researches into antiquity, for painting, sculpture, and architecture. Louis XIV has immortalized his name by these several foundations, and this immortality did not cost him two hundred thousand livres a year.

I must confess that one of the things I very much wonder at is that as the Parliament of Great Britain have promised a reward of £20,000 to any person who may discover the longitude, they should never have once thought to imitate Louis XIV in his munificence with regard to the arts and sciences.

Merit, indeed, meets in England with rewards of another kind, which redound more to the honor of the nation. The English have so great a veneration for exalted talents, that a man of merit in their country is always sure of making his fortune. Mr. Addison in France would have been elected a member of one of the academies, and, by the credit of some women, might have obtained a yearly pension of twelve hundred livres, or else might have been imprisoned in the Bastille, upon pretense that certain strokes in his tragedy of Cato had been discovered which glanced at the porter of some man in power. Mr. Addison was raised to the post of Secretary of State in England. Sir Isaac Newton was made Master of the Royal Mint. Mr. Congreve had a considerable employment. Mr. Prior was Plenipotentiary. Dr. Swift is Dean of St. Patrick's in Dublin, and is more revered in Ireland than the Primate himself. The religion which Mr. Pope professes[42] excludes him, indeed, from preferments of every kind, but then it did not prevent his gaining two hundred thousand livres by his excellent translation of Homer. I myself saw a long time in France the author of "Rhadamistus"[43] ready to perish for hunger. And the son of one of the greatest men our country ever gave birth to, and who was beginning to run the noble career which his father had set him, would have been reduced to the extremes of misery had he not been patronized by Monsieur Fagon.

But the circumstance which mostly encourages the arts in England is the great veneration which is paid them. The picture of the Prime Minister hangs over the chimney of his own closet, but I have seen that of Mr. Pope in twenty noblemen's houses. Sir Isaac Newton was revered in his lifetime, and had a due respect paid to him after his death,—the greatest men in the nation disputing who should have the honor of holding up his pall. Go into Westminster Abbey, and you will find that what raises the admiration of the spectator is not the mausoleums of the English kings, but the monuments which the gratitude of the nation has erected to perpetuate the memory of those illustrious men who contributed to its glory. We view their statues in that abbey in the same manner as those of Sophocles, Plato, and other immortal personages were viewed in Athens; and I am persuaded that the bare sight of those glorious monuments has fired more than one breast, and been the occasion of their becoming great men.

The English have even been reproached with paying too extravagant honors to mere merit, and censured for interring the celebrated actress Mrs. Oldfield[44] in Westminster Abbey, with almost the same pomp as Sir Isaac Newton. Some pretend that the English had paid her these great funeral honors purposely to make us more strongly sensible of the barbarity and injustice which they object to in us, for having buried Mademoiselle Le Couvreur ignominiously in the fields.

But be assured from me that the English were prompted by no other principle in burying Mrs. Oldfield in Westminster Abbey than their good sense. They are far from being so ridiculous as to brand with infamy an art which has immortalized a Euripides and a Sophocles; or to exclude from the body of their citizens a set of people whose business is to set off with the utmost grace of speech and action those pieces which the nation is proud of.

Under the reign of Charles I and in the beginning of the civil wars raised by a number of rigid fanatics, who at last were the victims to it, a great many pieces were published against theatrical and other shows, which were attacked with the greater virulence because that monarch and his queen, daughter to Henry I of France, were passionately fond of them.

One Mr. Prynne, a man of most furiously scrupulous principles, who would have thought himself damned had he worn a cassock instead of a short cloak, and have been glad to see one-half of mankind cut the other to pieces for the glory of God and the Propaganda Fide, took it into his head to write a most wretched satire against some pretty good comedies, which were exhibited very innocently every night before their majesties. He quoted the authority of the Rabbis, and some passages from St. Bonaventura, to prove that the "Œdipus" of Sophocles was the work of the evil spirit; that Terence was excommunicated ipso facto; and added that doubtless Brutus, who was a very severe Jansenist, assassinated Julius Cæsar for no other reason but because he, who was Pontifex Maximus, presumed to write a tragedy the subject of which was "Œpidus." Lastly, he declared that all who frequented the theater were excommunicated, as they thereby renounced their baptism. This was casting the highest insult on the king and all the royal family; and as the English loved their prince at that time, they could not bear to hear a writer talk of excommunicating him, tho they themselves afterward cut his head off. Prynne was summoned to appear before the Star Chamber; his wonderful book, from which Father Lebrun stole his, was sentenced to be burned by the common hangman, and himself to lose his ears.[45] His trial is now extant.

The Italians are far from attempting to cast a blemish on the opera, or to excommunicate Sigñor Senesino or Signora Cuzzoni. With regard to myself, I could presume to wish that the magistrates would suppress I know not what contemptible pieces written against the stage. For when the English and Italians hear that we brand with the greatest mark of infamy an art in which we excel; that we excommunicate persons who receive salaries from the king; that we condemn as impious a spectacle exhibited in convents and monasteries; that we dishonor sports in which Louis XIV and Louis XV performed as actors; that we give the title of the devil's works to pieces which are received by magistrates of the most severe character, and represented before a virtuous queen; when, I say, foreigners are told of this insolent conduct, this contempt for the royal authority, and this Gothic rusticity which some presume to call Christian severity, what idea must they entertain of our nation? And how will it be possible for them to conceive, either that our laws give a sanction to an art which is declared infamous, or that some persons dare to stamp with infamy an art which receives a sanction from the laws, is rewarded by kings, cultivated and encouraged by the greatest men, and admired by whole nations? And that Father Lebrun's impertinent libel against the stage is seen in a bookseller's shop, standing the very next to the immortal labors of Racine, of Corneille, of Molière, etc.?

JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU

I

I will confess that the majesty of the Scriptures strikes me with admiration, as the purity of the Gospel hath its influence on my heart. Peruse the works of our philosophers with all their pomp of diction; how mean, how contemptible are they compared with the Scriptures! Is it possible that a book, at once so simple and sublime, should be merely the work of man? Is it possible that the sacred personage, whose history it contains, should be himself a mere man? Do we find that He assumed the tone of an enthusiast or ambitious sectary? What sweetness, what purity in His manner! What an affecting gracefulness in His delivery! What sublimity in His maxims! what profound wisdom in His discourses? What presence of mind, what subtlety, what truth in His replies! How great the command over His passions! Where is the man, where the philosopher, who could so live, and so die, without weakness, and without ostentation? When Plato described his imaginary good man loaded with all the shame of guilt, yet meriting the highest rewards of virtue, he describes exactly the character of Jesus Christ: the resemblance was so striking that all the Fathers perceived it.

What prepossession, what blindness must it be to compare the son of Sophronicus to the son of Mary! What an infinite disproportion there is between them! Socrates dying without pain or ignominy, easily supported his character to the last; and if his death, however easy, had not crowned his life, it might have been doubted whether Socrates, with all his wisdom, was anything more than a vain sophist. He invented, it is said, the theory of morals. Others, however, had before put them in practise; he had only to say, therefore, what they had done, and to reduce their examples to precepts. Aristides had been just before Socrates defined justice; Leonidas had given up his life for his country before Socrates declared patriotism to be a duty; the Spartans were a sober people before Socrates recommended sobriety; before he had even defined virtue Greece abounded in virtuous men.

But where could Jesus learn, among His competitors, that pure and sublime morality, of which He only hath given us both precept and example? The greatest wisdom was made known amongst the most bigoted fanaticism, and the simplicity of the most heroic virtues did honor to the vilest people on earth. The death of Socrates, peaceably philosophizing with his friends, appears the most agreeable that could be wished for; that of Jesus, expiring in the midst of agonizing pains, abused, insulted, and accused by a whole nation, is the most horrible that could be feared. Socrates, in receiving the cup of poison, blest, indeed, the weeping executioner who administered it; but Jesus, in the midst of excruciating torments, prayed for His merciless tormentors. Yes, if the life and death of Socrates were those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of a God. Shall we suppose the evangelic history a mere fiction? Indeed, my friend, it bears not the marks of fiction; on the contrary, the history of Socrates, which nobody presumes to doubt, is not so well attested as that of Jesus Christ. Such a supposition, in fact, only shifts the difficulty without obviating it: it is more inconceivable that a number of persons should agree to write such a history, than that one only should furnish the subject of it. The Jewish authors were incapable of the diction, and strangers to the morality contained in the Gospel, the marks of whose truth are so striking and inimitable that the inventor would be a more astonishing character than the hero.

II

OF THE MANAGEMENT OF CHILDREN[46]

I have thought that the most essential part in the education of children, and which is seldom regarded in the best families, is to make them sensible of their inability, weakness, and dependence, and, as my husband called it, the heavy yoke of that necessity which nature has imposed upon our species; and that, not only in order to show them how much is done to alleviate the burden of that yoke, but especially to instruct them betimes in what rank Providence has placed them, that they may not presume too far above themselves, or be ignorant of the reciprocal duties of humanity.

Young people who from their cradle have been brought up in ease and effeminacy, who have been caressed by every one, indulged in all their caprices, and have been used to obtain easily everything they desired, enter upon the world with many impertinent prejudices; of which they are generally cured by frequent mortifications, affronts, and chagrin. Now, I would willingly spare my children this kind of education by giving them, at first, a just notion of things. I had indeed once resolved to indulge my eldest son in everything he wanted, from a persuasion that the first impulses of nature must be good and salutary; but I was not long in discovering that children, conceiving from such treatment that they have a right to be obeyed, depart from a state of nature almost as soon as born—contracting our vices from our example, and theirs by our indiscretion. I saw that if I indulged him in all his humors they would only increase by such indulgence; that it was necessary to stop at some point, and that contradiction would be but the more mortifying as he should be less accustomed to it; but, that it might be less painful to him, I began to use it upon him by degrees, and in order to prevent his tears and lamentations I made every denial irrevocable.

It is true, I contradict him as little as possible, and never without due consideration. Whatever is given or permitted him is done unconditionally and at the first instance; and in this we are indulgent enough; but he never gets anything by importunity, neither his tears nor entreaties being of any effect. Of this he is now so well convinced that he makes no use of them; he goes his way on the first word, and frets himself no more at seeing a box of sweetmeats taken away from him than at seeing a bird fly away which he would be glad to catch, there appearing to him the same impossibility of having the one as the other; and, so far from beating the chairs and tables, he dares not lift his hand against those who oppose him. In everything that displeases him he feels the weight of necessity, the effect of his own weakness.

The great cause of the ill humor of children is the care which is taken either to quiet or to aggravate them. They will sometimes cry for an hour for no other reason in the world than because they perceive we would not have them. So long as we take notice of their crying, so long have they a reason for continuing to cry; but they will soon give over of themselves when they see no notice is taken of them; for, old or young, nobody loves to throw away his trouble. This is exactly the case with my eldest boy, who was once the most peevish little bawler, stunning the whole house with his cries; whereas now you can hardly hear there is a child in the house. He cries, indeed, when he is in pain; but then it is the voice of nature, which should never be restrained; and he is again hushed as soon as ever the pain is over. For this reason I pay great attention to his tears, as I am certain he never sheds them for nothing; and hence I have gained the advantage of being certain when he is in pain and when not; when he is well and when sick; an advantage which is lost with those who cry out of mere humor and only in order to be appeased. I must confess, however, that this management is not to be expected from nurses and governesses; for as nothing is more tiresome than to hear a child cry, and as these good women think of nothing but the time present, they do not foresee that by quieting it to-day it will cry the more to-morrow. But, what is still worse, this indulgence produces an obstinacy which is of more consequence as the child grows up. The very cause that makes it a squaller at three years of age will make it stubborn and refractory at twelve, quarrelsome at twenty, imperious and insolent at thirty, and insupportable all its life.

In every indulgence granted to children they can easily see our desire to please them, and therefore they should be taught to suppose we have reason for refusing or complying with their requests. This is another advantage gained by making use of authority, rather than persuasion, on every necessary occasion. For, as it is impossible they can be always blind to our motives, it is natural for them to imagine that we have some reason for contradicting them, of which, they are ignorant. On the contrary, when we have once submitted to their judgment, they will pretend to judge of everything, and thus become cunning, deceitful, fruitful in shifts and chicanery, endeavoring to silence those who are weak enough to argue with them; for when one is obliged to give them an account of things above their comprehension, they attribute the most prudent conduct to caprice, because they are incapable of understanding it. In a word, the only way to render children docile and capable of reasoning is not to reason with them at all, but to convince them that it is above their childish capacities; for they will always suppose the argument in their favor unless you can give them good cause to think otherwise. They know very well that we are unwilling to displease them, when they are certain of our affection; and children are seldom mistaken in this particular: therefore, if I deny anything to my children, I never reason with them, I never tell them why I do so and so; but I endeavor, as much as possible, that they should find it out, and that even after the affair is over. By these means they are accustomed to think that I never deny them anything without a sufficient reason, tho they can not always see it.

On the same principle it is that I never suffer my children to join in the conversation of grown people, or foolishly imagine themselves on an equality with them, because they are permitted to prattle. I would have them give a short and modest answer when they are spoken to, but never to speak of their own head, or ask impertinent questions of persons so much older than themselves, to whom they ought to show more respect....

What can a child think of himself when he sees a circle of sensible people listening to, admiring, and waiting impatiently for his wit, and breaking out in raptures at every impertinent expression? Such false applause is enough to turn the head of a grown person; judge, then, what effect it must have upon that of a child. It is with the prattle of children as with the prediction in the almanac. It would be strange if, amidst such a number of idle words, chance did not now and then jumble some of them into sense. Imagine the effect which such flattering exclamations must have on a simple mother, already too much flattered by her own heart. Think not, however, that I am proof against this error because I expose it. No, I see the fault, and yet am guilty of it. But, if I sometimes admire the repartees of my son, I do it at least in secret. He will not learn to become a vain prater by hearing me applaud him, nor will flatterers have the pleasure, in making me repeat them, of laughing at my weakness.

MADAME DE STAËL

OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE[47]

General Bonaparte made himself as conspicuous by his character and his intellect as by his victories; and the imagination of the French began to be touched by him [1797]. His proclamations to the Cisalpine and Ligurian republics were talked of.... A tone of moderation and of dignity pervaded his style, which contrasted with the revolutionary harshness of the civil rulers of France. The warrior spoke in those days like a lawgiver, while the lawgivers exprest themselves with soldier-like violence. General Bonaparte had not executed in his army the decrees against the émigrés. It was said that he loved his wife, whose character is full of sweetness; it was asserted that he felt the beauties of Ossian; it was a pleasure to attribute to him all the generous qualities that form a noble background for extraordinary abilities....

Such at least was my own mood when I saw him for the first time in Paris. I could find no words with which to reply to him when he came to me to tell me that he had tried to visit my father at Coppet, and that he was sorry to have passed through Switzerland without seeing him. But when I had somewhat recovered from the agitation of admiration, it was followed by a feeling of very marked fear. Bonaparte then had no power: he was thought even to be more or less in danger from the vague suspiciousness of the Directory; so that the fear he inspired was caused only by the singular effect of his personality upon almost every one who had intercourse with him. I had seen men worthy of high respect; I had also seen ferocious men: there was nothing in the impression Bonaparte produced upon me which could remind me of men of either type. I soon perceived, on the different occasions when I met him during his stay in Paris, that his character could not be defined by the words we are accustomed to make use of: he was neither kindly nor violent, neither gentle nor cruel, after the fashion of other men. Such a being, so unlike others, could neither excite nor feel sympathy: he was more or less than man. His bearing, his mind, his language have the marks of a foreigner's nature—an advantage the more in subjugating Frenchmen....

Far from being reassured by seeing Bonaparte often, he always intimidated me more and more. I felt vaguely that no emotional feeling could influence him. He regards a human creature as a fact or a thing, but not as an existence like his own. He feels no more hate than love. For him there is no one but himself: all other creatures are mere ciphers. The force of his will consists in the imperturbable calculations of his egotism: he is an able chess-player whose opponent is all humankind, whom he intends to checkmate. His success is due as much to the qualities he lacks as to the talents he possesses. Neither pity, nor sympathy, nor religion, nor attachment to any idea whatsoever would have power to turn him from his path. He has the same devotion to his own interests that a good man has to virtue: if the object were noble, his persistency would be admirable.

Every time that I heard him talk I was struck by his superiority; it was of a kind, however, that had no relation to that of men instructed and cultivated by study, or by society, such as England and France possess examples of. But his conversation indicated that quick perception of circumstances the hunter has in pursuing his prey. Sometimes he related the political and military events of his life in a very interesting manner; he had even, in narratives that admitted gaiety, a touch of Italian imagination. Nothing, however, could conquer my invincible alienation from what I perceived in him. I saw in his soul a cold and cutting sword, which froze while wounding; I saw in his mind a profound irony, from which nothing fine or noble could escape not even his own glory: for he despised the nation whose suffrages he desired; and no spark of enthusiasm mingled with his craving to astonish the human race....

His face, thin and pale at that time, was very agreeable: since then he has gained flesh—which does not become him; for one needs to believe such a man to be tormented by his own character, at all to tolerate the sufferings this character causes others. As his stature is short, and yet his waist very long, he appeared to much greater advantage on horseback than on foot; in all ways it is war, and war only, he is fitted for. His manner in society is constrained without being timid; it is disdainful when he is on his guard, and vulgar when he is at ease; his air of disdain suits him best, and so he is not sparing in the use of it. He took pleasure already in the part of embarrassing people by saying disagreeable things: an art which he has since made a system of, as of all other methods of subjugating men by degrading them.

VISCOUNT DE CHATEAUBRIAND

IN AN AMERICAN FOREST[48]

When, in my journeys among the Indian tribes of Canada, I left European dwellings, and found myself, for the first time, alone in the midst of an ocean of forests, having, so to speak, all nature prostrate at my feet, a strange change took place within me. In the kind of delirium which seized me, I followed no road; I went from tree to tree, now to the right, now to the left, saying to myself, "Here there are no more roads to follow, no more towns, no more narrow houses, no more presidents, republics, or kings—above all, no more laws, and no more men." Men! Yes, some good savages, who cared nothing for me, nor I for them; who, like me, wandered freely wherever their fancy led them, eating when they felt inclined, sleeping when and where they pleased. And, in order to see if I were really established in my original rights, I gave myself up to a thousand acts of eccentricity, which enraged the tall Dutchman who was my guide, and who, in his heart, thought I was mad.

Escaped from the tyrannous yoke of society, I understood then the charms of that independence of nature which far surpasses all the pleasures of which civilized man can form any idea. I understood why not one savage has become a European, and why many Europeans have become savages; why the sublime "Discourse on the Inequality of Rank" is so little understood by the most part of our philosophers. It is incredible how small and diminished the nations and their most boasted institutions appeared in my eyes; it seemed to me as if I saw the kingdoms of the earth through an inverted spy-glass, or rather that, being myself grown and elevated, I looked down on the rest of my degenerate race with the eye of a giant.

You who wish to write about men, go into the deserts, become for a moment the child of nature, and then—and then only—take up the pen.

Among the innumerable enjoyments of this journey one especially made a vivid impression on my mind.

I was going then to see the famous cataract of Niagara, and I had taken my way through the Indian tribes who inhabit the deserts to the west of the American plantations. My guides were—the sun, a pocket-compass, and the Dutchman of whom I have spoken: the latter understood perfectly five dialects of the Huron language. Our train consisted of two horses, which we let loose in the forests at night, after fastening a bell to their necks. I was at first a little afraid of losing them, but my guide reassured me by pointing out that, by a wonderful instinct, these good animals never wandered out of sight of our fire.

One evening, when, as we calculated that we were only about eight or nine leagues from the cataract, we were preparing to dismount before sunset, in order to build our hut and light our watch-fire after the Indian fashion, we perceived in the wood the fires of some savages who were encamped a little lower down on the shores of the same stream as we were. We went to them. The Dutchman having by my orders asked their permission for us to pass the night with them, which was granted immediately, we set to work with our hosts. After having cut down some branches, planted some stakes, torn off some bark to cover our palace, and performed some other public offices, each of us attended to his own affairs. I brought my saddle, which served me well for a pillow all through my travels; the guide rubbed down the horses; and as to his night accommodation, since he was not so particular as I am, he generally made use of the dry trunk of a tree. Work being done, we seated ourselves in a circle, with our legs crossed like tailors, around the immense fire, to roast our heads of maize, and to prepare supper. I had still a flask of brandy, which served to enliven our savages not a little. They found out that they had some bear hams, and we began a royal feast.

The family consisted of two women, with infants at their breasts, and three warriors; two of them might be from forty to forty-five years of age, altho they appeared much older, and the third was a young man.

The conversation soon became general; that is to say, on my side it consisted of broken words and many gestures—an expressive language, which these nations understand remarkably well, and that I had learned among them. The young man alone preserved an obstinate silence; he kept his eyes constantly fixt on me. In spite of the black, red, and blue stripes, cut ears, and the pearl hanging from his nose, with which he was disfigured, it was easy to see the nobility and sensibility which animated his countenance. How well I knew he was inclined not to love me! It seemed to me as if he were reading in his heart the history of all the wrongs which Europeans have inflicted on his native country. The two children, quite naked, were asleep at our feet before the fire; the women took them quietly into their arms and put them to bed among the skins, with a mother's tenderness so delightful to witness in these so-called savages: the conversation died away by degrees, and each fell asleep in the place where he was.

I alone could not close my eyes, hearing on all sides the deep breathing of my hosts. I raised my head, and, supporting myself on my elbow, watched by the red light of the expiring fire the Indians stretched around me and plunged in sleep. I confess that I could hardly refrain from tears. Brave youth, how your peaceful sleep affects me! You, who seemed so sensible of the woes of your native land, you were too great, too high-minded to mistrust the foreigner! Europeans, what a lesson for you! These same savages whom we have pursued with fire and sword, to whom our avarice would not leave a spadeful of earth to cover their corpses in all this world, formerly their vast patrimony—these same savages receiving their enemy into their hospitable hut, sharing with him their miserable meal, and, their couch undisturbed by remorse, sleeping close to him the calm sleep of the innocent. These virtues are as much above the virtues of conventional life as the soul of tho man in his natural state is above that of the man in society.

It was moonlight. Feverish with thinking, I got up and seated myself at a little distance on a root which ran along the edge of the streamlet: it was one of those American nights which the pencil of man can never represent, and the remembrance of which I have a hundred times recalled with delight.

The moon was at the highest point of the heavens; here and there at wide, clear intervals twinkled a thousand stars. Sometimes the moon rested on a group of clouds which looked like the summit of high mountains crowned with snow: little by little these clouds grew longer, and rolled out into transparent and waving zones of white satin, or transformed themselves into light flakes of froth, into innumerable wandering flocks in the blue plains of the firmament. Another time the arch of heaven seemed changed into a shore on which one could discover horizontal rows, parallel lines such as are made by the regular ebb and flow of the sea; a gust of wind tore this veil again, and everywhere appeared in the sky great banks of dazzlingly white down, so soft to the eye that one seemed to feel their softness and elasticity. The scene on the earth was not less delightful: the silvery and velvety light of the moon floated silently over the top of the forests, and at intervals went down among the trees, casting rays of light even through the deepest shadows. The narrow brook which flowed at my feet, burying itself from time to time among the thickets of oak-, willow-, and sugar-trees, and reappearing a little farther off in the glades, all sparkling with the constellations of the night, seemed like a ribbon of azure silk spotted with diamond stars and striped with black bands. On the other side of the river, in a wide, natural meadow, the moonlight rested quietly on the pastures, where it was spread out like a sheet. Some birch-trees scattered here and there over the savannas, sometimes blending, according to the caprice of the winds, with the background, seemed to surround themselves with a pale gauze—sometimes rising up again from their chalky foundations, hidden in the darkness, formed, as it were, islands of floating shadows on an immovable sea of light. Near all was silence and repose, except the falling of the leaves, the rough passing of a sudden wind, the rare and interrupted whooping of the gray owl; but in the distance at intervals one heard the solemn rolling of the cataract of Niagara, which in the calm of the night echoed from desert to desert and died away in solitary forests.

The grandeur, the astonishing melancholy of this picture can not be exprest in human language: the most beautiful nights in Europe can give no idea of it. In the midst of our cultivated fields the imagination vainly seeks to expand itself; everywhere it meets with the dwellings of man; but in these desert countries the soul delights in penetrating and losing itself in these eternal forests; it loves to wander by the light of the moon on the borders of immense lakes, to hover over the roaring gulf of terrible cataracts, to fall with the masses of water, and, so to speak, mix and blend itself with a sublime and savage nature. These enjoyments are too keen; such is our weakness that exquisite pleasures become griefs, as if nature feared that we should forget that we are men. Absorbed in my existence, or rather drawn quite out of myself, having neither feeling nor distinct thought, but an indescribable I know not what, which was like that happiness which they say we shall enjoy in the other life, I was all at once recalled to this. I felt unwell, and perceived that I must not linger. I returned to our encampment, where, lying down by the savages, I soon fell into a deep sleep.

FRANÇOIS GUIZOT

SHAKESPEARE AS AN EXAMPLE OF CIVILIZATION[49]

Voltaire was the first person in France who spoke of Shakespeare's genius;[50] and altho he spoke of him merely as a barbarian genius, the French public were of opinion that Voltaire had said too much in his favor. Indeed, they thought it nothing less than profanation to apply the words "genius" and "glory" to dramas which they considered as crude as they were coarse.

At the present day all controversy regarding Shakespeare's genius and glory has come to an end. No one ventures any longer to dispute them; but a greater question has arisen—namely, whether Shakespeare's dramatic system is not far superior to that of Voltaire. This question I do not presume to decide. I merely say that it is now open for discussion. We have been led to it by the onward progress of ideas. I shall endeavor to point out the causes which have brought it about; but at present I insist merely upon the fact itself, and deduce from it one simple consequence, that literary criticism has changed its ground, and can no longer remain restricted to the limits within which it was formerly confined.

Literature does not escape from the revolutions of the human mind; it is compelled to follow it in its course, to transport itself beneath the horizon under which it is conveyed, to gain elevation and extension with the ideas which occupy its notice, and to consider the questions which it discusses under the new aspects and novel circumstances in which they are placed by the new state of thought and of society....

When we embrace human destiny in all its aspects, and human nature in all the conditions of man upon earth, we enter into possession of an exhaustless treasure. It is the peculiar advantage of such a system that it escapes, by its extent, from the dominion of any particular genius. We may discover its principles in Shakespeare's works; but he was not fully acquainted with them, nor did he always respect them. He should serve as an example, not as a model. Some men, even of superior talent, have attempted to write plays according to Shakespeare's taste, without perceiving that they were deficient in one important qualification for the task; and that was to write as he did, to write them for our age just as Shakespeare's plays were written for the age in which he lived. This is an enterprise the difficulties of which have, hitherto, perhaps, been maturely considered by no one.

We have seen how much art and effort were employed by Shakespeare to surmount those which are inherent in his system. They are still greater in our times, and would unveil themselves much more completely to the spirit of criticism which now accompanies the boldest essays of genius. It is not only with spectators of more fastidious taste and of more idle and inattentive imagination that the poet would have to do who should venture to follow in Shakespeare's footsteps. He would be called upon to give movement to personages embarrassed in much more complicated interests, preoccupied with much more various feelings, and subject to less simple habits of mind and to less decided tendencies. Neither science, nor reflection, nor the scruples of conscience, nor the uncertainties of thought frequently encumber Shakespeare's heroes; doubt is of little use among them, and the violence of their passions speedily transfers their belief to the side of the desires, or sets their actions above their belief. Hamlet alone presents the confused spectacle of a mind formed by the enlightenment of society in conflict with a position contrary to its laws; and he needs a supernatural apparition to determine him to act, and a fortuitous event to accomplish his project. If incessantly placed in an analogous position, the personages of a tragedy conceived at the present day according to the romantic system would offer us the same picture of indecision. Ideas now crowd and intersect each other in the mind of man, duties multiply in his conscience and obstacles and bonds around his life. Instead of those electric brains, prompt to communicate the spark which they have received; instead of those ardent and simple-minded men, whose projects like Macbeth's "will to hand"—the world now presents to the poet minds like Hamlet's, deep in the observation of those inward conflicts which our classical system has derived from a state of society more advanced than that of the time in which Shakespeare lived. So many feelings, interests, and ideas, the necessary consequences of modern civilization, might become even in their simplest form of expression a troublesome burden, which it would be difficult to carry through the rapid evolutions and bold advances of the romantic system.

We must, however, satisfy every demand; success itself requires it. The reason must be contented at the same time that the imagination is occupied. The progress of taste, of enlightenment, of society, and of mankind, must serve not to diminish or disturb our enjoyment, but to render them worthy of ourselves and capable of supplying the new wants which we have contracted. Advance without rule and art in the romantic system, and you will produce melodramas calculated to excite a passing emotion in the multitude, but in the multitude alone, and for a few days; just as by dragging along without originality in the classical system you will satisfy only that cold literary class who are acquainted with nothing in nature which is more important than the interests of versification, or more imposing than the three unities. This is not the work of the poet who is called to power and destined for glory: he acts upon a grander scale, and can address the superior intellects as well as the general and simple faculties of all men. It is doubtless necessary that the crowd should throng to behold those dramatic works of which you desire to make a national spectacle; but do not hope to become national, if you do not unite in your festivities all those classes of persons and minds whose well-arranged hierarchy raises a nation to its loftiest dignity. Genius is bound to follow human nature in all its developments; its strength consists in finding within itself the means for constantly satisfying the whole of the public. The same task is now imposed upon government and upon poetry: both should exist for all, and suffice at once for the wants of the masses and for the requirements of the most exalted minds.

Doubtless stopt in its course by these conditions, the full severity of which will only be revealed to the talent that can comply with them, dramatic art, even in England, where under the protection of Shakespeare it would have liberty to attempt anything, scarcely ventures at the present day even to try timidly to follow him. Meanwhile England, France, and the whole of Europe demand of the drama pleasures and emotions that can no longer be supplied by the inanimate representation of a world that has ceased to exist. The classical system had its origin in the life of its time: that time has passed; its image subsists in brilliant colors in its works, but can no more be reproduced. Near the monuments of past ages, the monuments of another age are now beginning to arise. What will be their form? I can not tell; but the ground upon which their foundations may rest is already perceptible.

This ground is not the ground of Corneille and Racine, nor is it that of Shakespeare; it is our own; but Shakespeare's system, as it appears to me, may furnish the plans according to which genius ought now to work. This system alone includes all those social conditions and all those general or diverse feelings, the simultaneous conjunction and activity of which constitute for us at the present day the spectacle of human things. Witnesses during thirty years of the greatest revolutions of society, we shall no longer willingly confine the movement of our mind within the narrow space of some family event, or the agitations of a purely individual passion. The nature and destiny of man have appeared to us under their most striking and their simplest aspect, in all their extent and in all their variableness. We require pictures in which this spectacle is reproduced, in which man is displayed in his completeness and excites our entire sympathy.