CHAPTER XV.
Le plaisir de la societe entre les amis se cultive par une ressemblancede gout sur ce qui regarde les moeurs, et par quelque differenced'opinions sur les sciences; par la ou l'on s'affermit dans sessentiments, ou l'on s'exerce et l'on s'instruit par la dispute.--LaBruyere.
There was a party at Monsieur de V--e's, to which Vincent and myselfwere the only Englishmen invited: accordingly as the Hotel de V. was inthe same street as my hotel, we dined together at my rooms, and walkedfrom thence to the minister's house.
The party was as stiff and formal as such assemblies invariably are,and we were both delighted when we espied Monsieur d'A--, a man of muchconversational talent, and some celebrity as an ultra writer, forming alittle group in one corner of the room.
We took advantage of our acquaintance with the urbane Frenchman to joinhis party; the conversation turned almost entirely on literary subjects.Allusion being made to Schlegel's History of Literature, and theseverity with which he speaks of Helvetius, and the philosophers of hisschool, we began to discuss what harm the free-thinkers in philosophyhad effected.
"For my part," said Vincent, "I am not able to divine why we aresupposed, in works where there is much truth, and little falsehood, muchgood, and a little evil, to see only the evil and the falsehood, tothe utter exclusion of the truth and the good. All men whose minds aresufficiently laborious or acute to love the reading of metaphysicalinquiries, will by the same labour and acuteness separate the chafffrom the corn--the false from the true. It is the young, the light, thesuperficial, who are easily misled by error, and incapable ofdiscerning its fallacy; but tell me, if it is the light, the young, thesuperficial, who are in the habit of reading the abstruse and subtlespeculations of the philosopher. No, no! believe me that it is the verystudies Monsieur Schlegel recommends, which do harm to morality andvirtue; it is the study of literature itself, the play, the poem, thenovel, which all minds, however frivolous, can enjoy and understand,that constitute the real foes to religion and moral improvement."
"Ma foi," cried Monsieur de G., (who was a little writer, and a greatreader of romances) "why, you would not deprive us of the politerliterature, you would not bid us shut up our novels, and burn ourtheatres."
"Certainly not!" replied Vincent; "and it is in this particular that Idiffer from certain modern philosophers of our own country, for whom,for the most part, I entertain the highest veneration. I would notdeprive life of a single grace, or a single enjoyment, but I wouldcounteract whatever is pernicious in whatever is elegant; if among myflowers there is a snake, I would not root up my flowers, I would killthe snake. Thus, who are they that derive from fiction and literaturea prejudicial effect? We have seen already--the light andsuperficial;--but who are they that derive profit from them?--they whoenjoy well regulated and discerning minds. Who pleasure?--all mankind!Would it not therefore be better, instead of depriving some of profit,and all of pleasure, by banishing poetry and fiction from our Utopia,to correct the minds which find evil, where, if they were properlyinstructed, they would find good? Whether we agree with Helvetius, thatall men are born with an equal capacity of improvement, or merely gothe length with all other metaphysicians, that education can improve thehuman mind to an extent yet incalculable, it must be quite clear, thatwe can give sound views instead of fallacies, and make common truths aseasy to discern and adopt as common errors. But if we effect this,which we all allow is so easy, with our children; if we strengthen theirminds, instead of weakening them, and clear their vision, rather thanconfuse it, from that moment, we remove the prejudicial effects offiction, and just as we have taught them to use a knife, without cuttingtheir fingers, we teach them to make use of fiction without pervertingit to their prejudice. What philosopher was ever hurt by reading thenovels of Crebillon, or seeing the comedies of Moliere? You understandme, then, Monsieur de G., I do, it is true, think that polite literature(as it is termed,) is prejudicial to the superficial, but for thatreason, I would not do away with the literature, I would do away withthe superficial."
"I deny," said M. D'A--, "that this is so easy a task--you cannot makeall men wise."
"No," replied Vincent; "but you can all children, at least to a certainextent. Since you cannot deny the prodigious effects of education, youmust allow that they will, at least, give common sense; for it theycannot do this, they can do nothing. Now common sense is all that isnecessary to distinguish what is good and evil, whether it be in lifeor in books: but then your education must not be that of public teachingand private fooling; you must not counteract the effects of common senseby instilling prejudice, or encouraging weakness; your education maynot be carried to the utmost goal: but as far as it does go you must seethat the road is clear. Now, for instance, with regard to fiction, youmust not first, as is done in all modern education, admit the disease,and then dose with warm water to expel it; you must not put fiction intoyour child's hands, and not give him a single principle to guide hisjudgment respecting it, till his mind has got wedded to the poison, andtoo weak, by its long use, to digest the antidote. No; first fortify hisintellect by reason, and you may then please his fancy by fiction. Donot excite his imagination with love and glory, till you can instructhis judgment as to what love and glory are. Teach him, in short, toreflect, before you permit him full indulgence to imagine."
Here there was a pause. Monsieur D'A--looked very ill-pleased, and poorMonsieur de G--thought that somehow or other his romance writing wascalled into question. In order to soothe them, I introduced some subjectwhich permitted a little national flattery; the conversation then turnedinsensibly on the character of the French people.
"Never," said Vincent, "has there been a character more oftendescribed--never one less understood. You have been termed superficial.I think, of all people, that you least deserve the accusation. Withregard to the few, your philosophers, your mathematicians, your menof science, are consulted by those of other nations, as some of theirprofoundest authorities. With regard to the many, the charge is stillmore unfounded. Compare your mob, whether of gentlemen or plebeians,to those of Germany, Italy--even England--and I own, in spite of mynational prepossessions, that the comparison is infinitely in yourfavour. The country gentlemen, the lawyer, the petit maitre of England,are proverbially inane and ill-informed. With you, the classes ofsociety that answer to those respective grades, have much informationin literature, and often not a little in science. In like manner, yourtradesmen, your mechanics, your servants, are, beyond all measure, oflarger, better cultivated, and less prejudiced minds than those ranks inEngland. The fact is, that all with you pretend to be savans, and thisis the chief reason why you have been censured as shallow. We see yourfine gentleman, or your petit bourgeois, give himself the airs of acritic or a philosopher; and because he is neither a Scaliger nor aNewton, we forget that he is only the bourgeois or the pelit maitre,and set down all your philosophers and critics with the censure ofsuperficiality, which this shallow individual of a shallow ordermay justly have deserved. We, the English, it is true, do not exposeourselves thus: our dandies, our tradesmen, do not vent second ratephilosophy on the human mind, nor on les beaux arts: but why is this?Not because they are better informed than their correspondent ciphersin France, but because they are much worse; not because they can saya great deal more on the subject, but because they can say nothing atall."
"You do us more than justice," said Monsieur D'A--, "in this instance:are you disposed to do us justice also in another? It is a favouritepropensity of your countrymen to accuse us of heartlessness and want offeeling. Think you that this accusation is deserved?"
"By no means," replied Vincent. "The same cause that brought on theerroneous censure we have before mentioned, appears to me also to havecreated this; viz. a sort of Palais Royal vanity, common to all yournation, which induces you to make as much display at the shop window aspossible. You show great cordiality, and even enthusiasm, to strangers;you turn your back on them--you forget them. 'How heartless!' cry we.Not at all! The English sho
w no cordiality, no enthusiasm to strangers,it is true: but they equally turn their backs on them, and equallyforget them! The only respect, therefore, in which they differ fromyou, is the previous kindness: now if we are to receive strangers, I canreally see no reason why we are not to be as civil to them as possible;and so far from imputing the desire to please them to a bad heart, Ithink it a thousand times more amiable and benevolent than telling them,a l'Anglaise, by your morosity and reserve, that you do not care a pinwhat becomes of them. If I am only to walk a mile with a man, why shouldI not make that mile as pleasant to him as I can; or why, above all, ifI choose to be sulky, and tell him to go and be d--d, am I to swell outmy chest, colour with conscious virtue, and cry, see what a good heart Ihave?
"Ah, Monsieur D'A----, since benevolence is inseparable from allmorality, it must be clear that there is a benevolence in littlethings as well as in great; and that he who strives to make his fellowcreatures happy, though only for an instant, is a much better man thanhe who is indifferent to, or, (what is worse) despises, it. Nor do I, tosay truth, see that kindness to an acquaintance is at all destructiveto sincerity to a friend: on the contrary, I have yet to learn, thatyou are (according to the customs of your country) worse friends, worsehusbands, or worse fathers than we are!"
"What!" cried I, "you forget yourself, Vincent. How can the privatevirtues be cultivated without a coal fire? Is not domestic affectiona synonymous term with domestic hearth? and where do you find either,except in honest old England?"
"True," replied Vincent; "and it is certainly impossible for a fatherand his family to be as fond of each other on a bright day in theTuilleries, or at Versailles, with music and dancing, and fresh air, asthey would be in a back parlour, by a smoky hearth, occupied entirely byle bon pere, et la bonne mere; while the poor little children sit at theother end of the table, whispering and shivering, debarred the vent ofall natural spirits, for fear of making a noise; and strangely unitingthe idea of the domestic hearth with that of a hobgoblin, and theassociation of dear papa with that of a birch rod."
We all laughed at this reply, and Monsieur D'A----, rising to depart,said, "Well, well, milord, your countrymen are great generalizers inphilosophy; they reduce human actions to two grand touchstones. Allhilarity, they consider the sign of a shallow mind; and all kindness,the token of a false heart."