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 LA BRUY&RE.
 
 
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 J_<A BRUYERE. 
 
 ONDON STEREO. CO. PHOTOMEZZOTYPE.
 
 THE MORALS AND MAN- 
 NERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH 
 CENTURY, BEING THE CHA- 
 RACTERS OF LA BRUYERE. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 HELEN STOTT 
 
 LONDON 
 
 DAVID STOTT 370 OXFORD STREET 
 1890
 
 THIS TRANSLATION IS DEDICATED TO A DEAR 
 MEMORY AND AN EVER PRESENT INFLUENCE. "THE 
 
 DEAD ARE NOT DEAD, BUT ALIVE." 
 
 H. S. 
 
 London, May iqth, rSqo. 
 
 2095100
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION vii 
 
 INTRODUCTION .. j% ! i 
 
 INTELLECT AND LEARNING 5 
 
 PERSONAL MERIT 28 
 
 ABOUT WOMEN 40 
 
 THE HEART 57 
 
 SOCIETY AND CONVERSATION 67 
 
 THE BENEFITS OF WEALTH 86 
 
 PARIS 102 
 
 THE COURT AND COURTIERS 112 
 
 THE NOBILITY 136 
 
 THE SOVEREIGN AND THE REPUBLIC 153 
 
 MEN 173 
 
 JUDGMENT AND CRITICISM 208 
 
 FASHIONS 243 
 
 SOME CUSTOMS 261 
 
 THE PULPIT 277 
 
 OF UNBELIEVING MINDS ... 289
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION. 
 
 JUST two hundred years ago Jean de la Bruyere issued 
 the little volume which at once gave him his place in 
 that illustrious throng of learned intellect which made 
 the close of the seventeenth century and the reign of 
 Louis XIV. so great and glorious. Racine, Moliere, 
 Bossuet, Fe"nelon enjoyed with him the favour of the 
 King, and La Rochefoucauld, La Fayette, and Madame 
 de SeVignd were also of the Court. 
 
 Little is known of La Bruyere's youth, and we have 
 few details of his family, or of his personal life ; indeed, 
 it is through his characters and reflections alone that 
 we can form any intimate knowledge of him ; but it 
 does not require much imagination to build or to 
 idealize the hidden life, even the carefully shrouded 
 love, which his own thoughts reveal to us. Once he 
 lifts the veil of obscurity in which his family history is 
 enveloped, when he tells us, with terse humour, of that 
 GeofTroy de la Bruyere of the Crusades ; and it has 
 been said that an ancestor of his exercised the duties 
 of Civil Lieutenant during the time of the barricades 
 of Paris in the reigns of Henri III. and IV. Guizot 
 says that he was born at Dourdan in 1639, Dut no 
 entirely authentic record of his birth has been dis- 
 covered, although from one of the parish registers of 
 Paris we learn that Jean de la Bruyere was christened 
 there on the I7th of August, 1645. We find him first 
 at Caen, in an official capacity under Government, and 
 we must suppose he had some previous acquaintance 
 with Bossuet, Bishop of Meux, as it was through his in- 
 fluence he was appointed historical tutor to M. le Due, 
 the grandson of the great Prince of Conde, with a
 
 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 salary of 1,000 crowns. Modest and retiring, he lived 
 very simply in the midst of all the luxury and splen- 
 dour of Court life at Versailles, having his lodgment 
 in the Hotel de Conde : he was thus well placed to 
 study the characters of men. 
 
 Like Theophrastus, whose Greek " Characters " he 
 translated, he veiled his portraits under figurative names ; 
 but as he found his models in his daily life, they were 
 readily recognized. In the kindly student he describes 
 with proud humility as waiting the pleasure ofClttiphon, 
 ready always himself to be interrupted if he can be of 
 use, we are pleased to discover the great philoso- 
 pher and moralist who, from the solitude of his 
 cabinet, sent out a book so unique in style, and so wise, 
 penetrating, and severe, without any bitterness or 
 malice, that we cannot fail to see how his portraiture 
 applies as aptly to the human nature of this nineteenth 
 century as it did to the men and women of his own time, 
 who were mirrored with exact fidelity. This truthful- 
 ness was very fascinating ; everybody had met with 
 just such people as La Bruyere depicted ; and when his 
 book was published its success was sudden and 
 immense, and every one tried to give names to the 
 portraits drawn in classic metaphor. 
 
 His style is pure, original, and animated, rising to the 
 noblest thoughts, grave and mocking, keen and earnest, 
 holding the attention by his perfect mastery of the 
 painter's art, according with his own maxim that an 
 excellent writer shows himself an excellent painter: his 
 pictures are finished, and at times terrible. 
 
 Few persons of his time would have written of the 
 sufferings of the people as he did in that graphic 
 passage on peasants, " certain wild animals." 
 
 Enjoying as he did the intimacy of princes, of men 
 of wit and learning, he was well able to observe the 
 ways of the Court, and the customs and fashions of the
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION. ix 
 
 world. He wrote of what he knew well, his delicacy 
 of perception enabling him to divine and judge, and 
 his sound sense leading him to expose boldly the pre- 
 vailing follies. 
 
 His ideas are expressed with much happy humour 
 and even gay wit, in which, however, the malice of his 
 enemies found ill-natured satire. In one of the added 
 portraits of later editions in his chapter on Judg- 
 ments he alludes to himself, with proud disdain, as 
 Antisthenes. 
 
 His Preface tells us how his work grew, and explains 
 how it was extended, and he says, " Everything has been 
 said during the seven thousand years in which men have 
 lived and thought ; we must read and re-read ancient 
 authors, translate, and imitate them ; " and with those 
 ancient authors he quaintly includes the " learned of 
 modern writers." Thus we perceive the mood in which 
 he begins to "glean," adding grain by grain till he 
 reaches that acme of perfection which is "perfect taste." 
 
 Although La Bruyere spent all his life at Court, he 
 was never a courtier, and he never married ; yet that 
 he loved, probably in some impossible direction, many 
 passages in his book seem to indicate. What a tender 
 touch is that with which he describes the day-dream 
 by the side of one we love. Madame de Belleforiere, 
 his intimate friend, is supposed by Sainte-Beuve to be 
 the lady who inspired many of the most delicate 
 thoughts in the chapter on 'The. Heart: "There are 
 women of such radiant loveliness, such perfect good- 
 ness, that to see them is to love them, even if we can 
 never hope to converse with them ;" and how faithful 
 to a memory he shows himself in this other charm- 
 ing passage, " It sometimes happens in the course 
 of our life that our most ardent pleasures, most tender 
 attachments are forbidden us, and it is natural we 
 should regret them ; they cannot be surpassed. Our
 
 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 only compensation is in the knowledge that we have 
 had the moral strength to renounce them." 
 
 His appreciation of the picturesque and beautiful in 
 nature is very uncommon for the time in which he lived ; 
 as, for instance, when he describes the little town which 
 in the clear air looked like a beautiful picture painted 
 on the hillside ; and what a gracious comparison we find 
 in the story of the prince, and the shepherd, and the 
 flock ; what exquisite feeling in the thought, " There 
 are some places we admire, others we love ; wit, passion, 
 taste, and sentiment depend on the place we live in." 
 
 Ideas ever new and fresh carry the reader along, 
 germs of thought which our own minds expand, and 
 we wonder how such deep and subtle knowledge of the 
 workings of the mind was gained. 
 
 "At a first glance," says Sainte-Beuve, "you may 
 think you have taken up a book of fragments 
 arranged in successive order, and you find yourself 
 in a labyrinth of wisdom to which there is no end." 
 Each thought is corrected, enlarged, and made clearer 
 by surrounding thoughts, and all are bound together by 
 a golden thread gleaming out here and there in some 
 nobly uttered reflection. " Her talent," La Bruy^re says 
 of Catherine Turgot, " was like a well-set diamond," an 
 expression which is itself an exquisite gem. Read the 
 glowing eulogism on Cardinal de Richelieu, and the 
 wonderful character of a glorified Louis XIV., to 
 whom, however, he offers advice but thinly veiled in 
 praise when he speaks of the "difficulty a religious 
 prince has in reforming his Court, and making it pious." 
 
 More serious and less bitter than La Rochefoucauld, 
 as brilliant as Cardinal de Retz, and more firm in his 
 opinions, La Bruyere was a more sincere believer than 
 either. " I feel that there is a God," he says, " and I 
 do not feel that there is no God : that is enough for me ; 
 all the reasoning in the world is useless as far as I am
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION. xl 
 
 concerned. I am convinced. Are men good enough, 
 faithful enough to be worthy of our whole confidence, to 
 prevent us longing for a God to whom we can appeal 
 against injustice, and in whom we can take refuge 
 when men persecute and betray us?" Is not this the 
 reasoning of a mind convinced that the world can be 
 governed by justice alone? 
 
 D'Olivet writes of him as a philosopher who loved a 
 quiet life among his friends and his books, ableto make 
 a good choice of both, neither seeking nor evading 
 pleasure, disposed to simple enjoyments and ingenu- 
 ously creating them, polished in his manners and wise 
 in his discourse, and so afraid of notoriety that he 
 modestly hid even his talent. 
 
 Much light is thrown on his character by the 
 story of the publication of his " Characters," as told by 
 M. Walckenaer, who relates that " Monsieur de la 
 Bruyere used to go nearly every day to the shop of a 
 bookseller named Michallet, where he would sit down 
 and turn overall the new books, amusing himself at the 
 same time with the pretty little daughter of the book, 
 seller, to whom he had taken a liking. One day 
 he drew a manuscript from his pocket, saying to 
 Michallet " Will you publish this? I don't know if it 
 will pay you, but if it is a success the profit will be for 
 my little sweetheart here." The bookseller, more un- 
 certain of the result than the author, undertook to 
 publish an edition, and no sooner was it issued than it 
 was sold, and he had to print it over and over again, 
 and made two or three hundred thousand francs by it. 
 And in this unexpected way the bookseller's daughter 
 got her marriage portion : and when long afterwards she 
 married a man in a good position, she took her hus- 
 band a fortune of more than 100,000 li-vres. So the 
 book, with all its bitter and misanthropical experiences, 
 became by a strange contrast a girl's dowry."
 
 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 In 1693 La Bruyere was made a member of the 
 Academy of France ; his oration was most eloquent, 
 and, following the custom, he eulogized great living 
 members, praising Bossuet, Fdnelon, Racine, and La 
 Fontaine, etc., but bringing upon himself the animosity 
 and jealous criticism of those he did not notice. His 
 sensitive nature was deeply wounded, and he retired to 
 his quiet life at Versailles, where three years after- 
 wards he died, disappearing in the height of his glory 
 before biographers had thought of interviewing him. 
 
 Saint Simon, writing soon after 1696, says, "The 
 public has lost in La Bruyere a man who must ever be 
 illustrious for his originality, his wit, andhis knowledge 
 of human nature; he has surpassed Theophrastus, 
 whose work he translated, he was a simple, genial, honest 
 man, with nothing of the pedant or self-seeker in his 
 nature. I knew him well enough to regret him, and the 
 work which, from his comparative youth, might have 
 been expected of him." 
 
 If the translator may be allowed to add a sentence 
 to this epitomized account of the philosopher and his 
 work, she would first quote his own words, when he 
 says that, "Among all the varied expressions by 
 which we may render a single thought, only one is 
 correct ; we cannot always find it either in speaking 
 or writing ; it exists however, and any other form of 
 expression is feeble, and does not satisfy the student 
 who would be understood." In this spirit she has 
 attempted her work, but it is difficult to convey the 
 fine and delicate shades of meaning of the incompar- 
 able original into the concise English, which would be 
 in keeping with La Bruyere's style ; for it has been well 
 said that his motto might have been "The best in the 
 least."
 
 THE MORALS AND MANNERS OF 
 THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY: 
 
 BEING 
 
 THE CHARACTERS OF LA BRUYERE. 
 
 THE material for this book I have borrowed from the 
 world at large. Justice demands that having ac- 
 complished my work to the best of my ability, and with 
 such due regard for truthfulness as the subject merits, 
 I should acknowledge my obligation and restore what 
 was lent to me. The public may regard at leisure the 
 picture I have drawn of it from nature, and, if it recog- 
 nizes and admits some of the faults I describe, correct 
 them. This is the only aim a man ought to have in 
 writing, although he must not always expect to succeed. 
 As men do not weary of wickedness, neither must we 
 grow lax in rebuking them. But for our censure and 
 reproof they would probably be worse ; therefore, 
 preaching and writing do much good, and to those who 
 wield such powers appreciation is keenly gratifying, 
 although were an orator or an author to seek praise 
 only, he might blush for shame. The improvement or 
 reformation of those who read or who listen is the 
 highest approbation, the most enduring praise. We 
 ought neither to speak nor to write, save for the instruc- 
 tion of others, and if at the same time we chance to 
 please, we may rejoice, for by this means we instil in- 
 structive lessons in an agreeable and gentle manner.
 
 2 LA BRUY^RE. 
 
 When any thoughts or reflections slip into a book 
 having neither the brilliancy nor the spirit of the con- 
 text, but which appear to have been introduced for the 
 purpose of variety, or to relax the mind and render it 
 more receptive to that which follows, we must take care 
 that they are expressed simply and intelligibly, other- 
 wise the author would do well to expunge them, lest 
 even the unlearned, who ought never to be neglected, 
 condemn them. This is one good rule. There is 
 another which, for my own interest, I ask you to 
 observe. It is this, do not lose sight of my title, and 
 remember throughout the perusal of this book that I 
 am describing the characters or the manners of this 
 age in which we live. And although my observations 
 are most frequently drawn from the Court of France 
 and from my own countrymen, it has nevertheless been 
 impossible to restrict them to any single court or 
 country, for by such restriction I could not have 
 carried out my purpose, which is to portray men in 
 general, and my book would thus have lost much of 
 its breadth and usefulness. These are some of the 
 considerations which guided me in the arrangement of 
 my chapters, and in a certain unconscious order the re- 
 flections of which they are composed. 
 
 After this perhaps necessary warning, the meaning 
 of which will be easily understood, I think I may be 
 held innocent of any special application of censure, 
 and I protest against all complaint or wrong inter- 
 pretation on the part of those readers who may be 
 maliciously disposed towards me. 
 
 People ought either to be able to read and keep dis- 
 creetly silent, or else to relate with perfect accuracy 
 what they have read, and neither more nor less : this 
 method ought invariably to be observed. Without 
 these conditions, which an exact and scrupulous author 
 has a right to require from certain minds as the sole
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 reward of his labour, I question if he ought to write at 
 all, for he must ever set truthfulness before zeal, and 
 consider his own gratification less than his useful- 
 ness. 
 
 I confess that since the year 1690, before publishing 
 the fifth edition, I hesitated between my anxiety to 
 make my book fuller and larger by the introduction of 
 more characters, and the fear that some people might 
 say, " Will these ' Characters ' never be finished ? 
 Shall we never see anything else by this author ? " 
 Some sensible people said to me, " Your subject is 
 solid, useful, agreeable, inexhaustible ; may you long 
 discourse on the same theme you could not do better. 
 The follies of mankind will each year provide you 
 materials for a volume." 
 
 Other friends with equal judgment told me to be- 
 ware of the whims of the multitude and the fickleness 
 of the people (with whom, however, so far I have good 
 reason to be contented). Those friends also hinted 
 to me, that as for the last thirty years people had read 
 only for the sake of amusement, they must be amused 
 by new books with new titles. That this frivolous 
 humour had flooded the shops with a dull and lifeless 
 literature, without aim or style, meaning or moral, 
 written and perused in equal haste, and only for the 
 sake of novelty ; but that if I could do no more than 
 add to a book already tolerably long, it would be 
 wisest to rest from my labours. 
 
 Of this opposing counsel I adopted a medium course, 
 agreeing a little with each. I did not question the 
 propriety of adding a few new remarks to those which 
 had already enlarged my work to double the size of 
 the first edition ; but in order that the public might 
 not be obliged to look through the whole book to find 
 out what was new in it, and that they might readily 
 find what alone they wished to read, I was careful to 
 
 B 2
 
 4 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 distinguish for them this second addition by a peculiar 
 mark, and the first enlargement by another simpler 
 mark, which also conveniently showed the progress of 
 my characters, and helped the reader in his choice of 
 a chapter. And lest it might be feared that there would 
 never be an end of those additions, I added to my 
 formalities a sincere promise to venture on nothing 
 more of the kind. If any one accuses me of breaking 
 my word in continuing to insert new remarks in later 
 editions, he will nevertheless see that in mixing those 
 new remarks with the older ones, and in suppressing 
 all distinguishing marks, I have thought less of novelty 
 than of the possibility of leaving my work in com- 
 plete and regular form to posterity. 
 
 Finally, I have not been endeavouring to write maxims : 
 those are like laws of morality, and I possess neither 
 the genius nor the authority of one who makes laws. 
 I am aware that I have even transgressed against the 
 accepted mode of forming maxims which are short and 
 concise, after the manner of oracles. Some of my 
 remarks are in this form, others are more lengthy. 
 Different things are thought out by different methods 
 and explained by diverse expressions, it may be by a 
 sentence, an argument, a metaphor, or some other figure, 
 a parallel, a simple comparison, by description, or by 
 portraiture. In this way the length or the brevity of 
 my reflections arises. Those who lay down maxims 
 desire to be considered infallible. I shall, however, be 
 contented though it is said of me, " His remarks are 
 not good," provided always that those who say so make 
 better remarks themselves.
 
 INTELLECT AND LEARNING. 
 
 EVERYTHING has already been written. We have 
 been born too late, for men have lived and thought for 
 more than seven thousand years, and all the grandest 
 or most beautiful thoughts regarding the morals or the 
 manners of men, have already been culled. We can 
 only glean after the old philosophers, and the abler of 
 our modern minds. 
 
 We must only endeavour to think and to speak 
 honestly ourselves, without attempting to convert 
 others to our tastes and sentiments ; that would be too 
 ambitious an enterprise. 
 
 As much craft is necessary for the writing of a book 
 as for the making of a clock. More than intellect is 
 required of an- author. A judge attains the highest 
 dignity by the force of merit ; he is keen and practical 
 in all points of law, and he instils rare moral lessons 
 while he seems to ridicule. 
 
 It is not so easy to make ourselves a name by a per- 
 fect work as to make an indifferent work valuable by 
 the reputation one has already acquired. 
 
 A satire when circulated privately will, even if it 
 possesses little literary value, pass for marvellous ; but 
 printing will prove it. 
 
 Take certain works of moral philosophy, extract 
 the advice to the reader, the dedication, the index, the 
 preface, and the approving notices ; and there will
 
 6 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 seldom be a sufficient number of pages left to make a 
 book. 
 
 Poetry, music, painting, and oratory are some of the 
 arts in which mediocrity is unendurable. What a 
 weariness it is to listen to a dull speech pompously 
 delivered, or to a weak poet declaiming his indifferent 
 verses. 
 
 Many poets in their dramatic flights indulge in long 
 words, and sounding verses which seem very power- 
 ful and elevating and full of noble sentiments, and the 
 people listen greedily, and stare and gape, believing 
 they please the poet. The less they understand, the 
 more they admire and hold their breath, being im- 
 patient even of the noise of applause. In my early 
 youth I imagined those passages must be clear and 
 intelligible to the actors, as well as to the pit and the 
 gallery ; that the authors had some hidden meaning in 
 them which with all my careful attention I could never 
 discover, and I thought I must be to blame for my want 
 of comprehension. I am now undeceived. 
 
 Up to the present day, a masterpiece has seldom 
 been produced from the joint labour of several minds. 
 Homer wrote Ifte "Iliad," Virgil the "^Eneid," Livy 
 his " Decades," and the Roman orator (Cicero) his 
 " Orations." 
 
 There is an acme of perfection in art, as in nature there 
 is an extreme degree of goodness or of maturity. One 
 who feels this and loves it has perfect taste. He who 
 does not feel it, and can rest satisfied with anything 
 short of it, has defective taste. So there is good and 
 bad taste, and consequently there is a basis for dis- 
 putes of taste.
 
 INTELLECT AND LEARNING. ^ 
 
 Men generally possess more ardour than judgment, 
 or in other words, there are few men whose talent is 
 guided by perfect taste and judicious criticism. 
 
 The lives of heroes have enriched history and his- 
 tory has glorified the actions of heroes ; therefore, I 
 know not which are most beholden to the other, the 
 historians to the heroes who furnished such noble 
 material, or those great men to their historians. 
 
 A heap of epithets is weak praise ; simple facts and 
 the style of narrating them commend a man. 
 
 An author's talent is shown by clear definition and 
 vivid portraiture. Moses, Homer, Plato, Virgil, and 
 Horace, are superior to other writers only through 
 their expressiveness and their imagery. To depict 
 with truthfulness a man must feel naturally, strongly, 
 and delicately. 
 
 Style in literature ought to have been treated as 
 architecture has been treated ; the Gothic order, which 
 a rude age had introduced for palaces and temples, 
 has been abandoned ; Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian 
 styles have been reintroduced. What was once to be 
 seen only among the ruins of ancient Rome and old 
 Greece is now become the modern architecture, and 
 enriches our porticos and peristyles. Likewise, 
 in writing, we need not expect to attain perfection ; 
 and, if it is possible to surpass the ancients, it will 
 only be by imitating them. How many centuries 
 passed before men returned to the tastes of the 
 ancients, and before they recovered the simple and 
 the natural in matters relating to art and science. 
 
 Our minds are strengthened by the study of the 
 ancients and the abler minds of our own time. We 
 extract all we can from them, we enlarge upon and
 
 8 LA BRUY&RE, 
 
 draw inspiration from their work, and when at last \v? 
 are full-fledged authors ourselves, and feel that we 
 can sail along unaided, we rise up and abuse them, as 
 an infant grown strong and vigorous through good 
 nourishment will turn against its foster mother. 
 
 A modern author generally tries to prove that the 
 ancients were inferior to us in two things, reason and 
 example ; the reason he draws from his own peculiar 
 taste, the example from his own writings. He con- 
 fesses that an ancient author, however unequal and 
 incorrect he may be, has a few good lines, which he 
 proceeds to quote ; and they are so good that, for the 
 sake of them, people read his criticism. 
 
 Some learned men pronounce in favour of the 
 ancients as against modern writers, but we suspect 
 they have interested reasons, so obviously are their 
 own works formed on models of antiquity. 
 
 It is best to read our works to those who know 
 enough of the subject to be able to appreciate and 
 suggest corrections. Not to tolerate advice or correc- 
 tion is pedantry. An author should receive praise and 
 criticism with equal modesty. 
 
 Among all the different modes in which a single 
 thought may be expressed, only one is correct ; and 
 this does not always occur to us in speaking or 
 writing. Nevertheless, it exists, and any other is weak, 
 and never contents a man of talent who wishes to be 
 understood. 
 
 A careful writer often finds that the expression he 
 has sought in vain for a long time and found at last 
 is most simple and natural, and one which apparently 
 ought to have struck him at once without effort. 
 
 Those who write as the whim moves them often 
 touch up their work ; therefore, it is irregular, varying
 
 INTELLECT AND LEARNING. 9 
 
 according to their moods, and usually they end by 
 altering the very expressions or words they liked best 
 at first. 
 
 The same sound judgment which enables an author 
 to write well makes him value his work modestly. 
 
 A person of middling abilities believes that he 
 writes divinely, while a man of real talent thinks his 
 production but tolerable. 
 
 " I was engaged," said Arzstus, "to read my book to 
 Zoilus, and I did so. It made some impression on him 
 at first before he had leisure to discover its inferiority. 
 He indeed gave it some cold praise in my presence, 
 but since then he has ignored it to every one. I must 
 excuse him, and ought nevertohave expected more from 
 an author. I even pity him for having been obliged to 
 listen to many beautiful passages of which he was not 
 himself the author." 
 
 Those who from their position are exempt from the 
 jealousies of an author have other cares and passions 
 to distract them and render them indifferent as to how 
 another man's conceptions will be received. Scarcely 
 anyone is so well-disposed in mind, heart, and fortune, 
 as to be in a condition to freely enjoy the pleasure a 
 perfect composition can give. 
 
 The pleasure of criticising often deprives us of the 
 pleasure of being deeply touched by the beauty of 
 some passage. 
 
 Many people who feel the merits of a manuscript 
 when they have it first read to them, will say nothing 
 in its favour till they see what effect its publication 
 has on the world, and what verdict is pronounced on 
 it by men of letters. They will not risk their commen-
 
 10 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 dations till success is certain, they must be guided by 
 public opinion, led by the multitude ; then how eager 
 they are to explain their early appreciation of the work, 
 and to express their pleasure that the world at large 
 agrees with them. Such persons miss the opportunity 
 of convincing us of their intelligence and judgment, 
 and of their ability to bestow appreciation when it is 
 due. Something very good falls into their hands, an 
 author's first work perhaps. He has no name, no 
 influence, nothing can be gained through him or his 
 friends by praise of his effort. Self-interest does not 
 require you to pronounce it a masterpiece of genius, to 
 declare that nothing could excel it, and that in future a 
 man's appreciation of this work ought to be made the 
 test of his capacity. Strained exaggeration such as 
 this would only be detrimental to what is really com- 
 mendable. But why cannot they simply say, it is a 
 good book ! They end by saying so when everybody 
 else does, when it is praised by Frenchmen and by 
 foreigners alike, and translated into every European 
 language. But such tardy acknowledgment receives 
 no gratitude. 
 
 Some people having read a book, quote certain pas- 
 sages which they do not in the least understand, garble 
 their meaning by infusing something of their own, and, 
 thus distorted, they expose these passages to censure, 
 maintain them to be bad, and, as they quote them, the 
 world accepts and condemns. But injustice does not 
 destroy the true beauty of the passages they have pre- 
 tended to quote. 
 
 " Well," says some one, what do you think of Her- 
 madotus's work ? " " It is very poor," replies Anthimus. 
 " Poor ! I don't understand you." "Very poor," con- 
 tinues Anthimus, " so poor that it is not worth
 
 INTELLECT AND LEARNING. 11 
 
 notice at all.'' " But have you read it ? " " Oh, no,'' 
 is the reply. Why does he not add that Fulvia and 
 Melania condemned it unread, and that he is the friend 
 of Fuh'ia and Melania. 
 
 Arsenus from the height of his intellect contem- 
 plates mankind, and feeling himself so far removed 
 from them, he affects to be afraid of the littlenesses 
 he beholds. 
 
 Lauded to the skies by certain friends with whom 
 he has formed a compact for reciprocal admiration, 
 having a little merit, he believes himself the possessor 
 of more than he will ever have. Full of sublime 
 ideas of his own wisdom he has scarcely time to utter 
 his oracular sayings. 
 
 He is elevated far beyond ordinary human feelings 
 and opinions, and leaves it for common mortals to 
 value a regular united life. For all inconsistencies he 
 holds himself accountable only to those particular 
 friends who see in them something more to admire ; 
 and as by his coterie he alone is deemed capable of 
 thought and judgment, so he also alone can write, 
 or ought to write, and no other work, no matter how 
 highly approved of by the public, will he condescend 
 to read. Therefore, as he will never read this sketch, 
 he will never benefit from it. 
 
 Theocrines is well informed on unprofitable subjects. 
 His sentiments are always peculiar; he is more 
 systematic than learned ; he makes little use of any 
 faculty except his memory, is absent-minded and 
 disdainful, appearing ever to laugh to himself at those 
 who do not see his worth. By chance I once read to 
 him something of mine ; he listened, then talked of his 
 own. You want to know what he said of mine? I 
 have told you already, he talked of his own.
 
 12 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 No production, let it be ever so highly finished, 
 would survive criticism if the author took heed of 
 every censor, and allowed each to strike out the passage 
 which pleased him least. 
 
 Experience tells us that if there are ten persons who 
 would blot out a thought or an expression from a book, 
 an equal number will oppose the rejection, exclaiming 
 "Why would you suppress that thought? it is new and 
 beautiful, and well expressed ; " others declare that it 
 ought either to be omitted or at least another turn 
 given to it. The first critic remarks, " I notice one 
 expression in your book which is very clever, and 
 exactly hits off your meaning." " I observe a word," 
 says another, " which it seems to me is rather doubtful, 
 and besides it does not convey all your meaning." 
 Both persons are speaking of the same word, the 
 same expression, yet both are considered good judges. 
 What then can an author do but follow the advice 
 which approves ? 
 
 An earnest writer is not obliged to trouble his head 
 with all the coarse and silly remarks which are passed, 
 or to concern himself with the inept applications which 
 are made of portions of his work ; much less ought 
 he to suppress them, for it is quite certain that how- 
 ever scrupulously exact a man may be in his manner 
 of writing, supercilious jests and sneering strictures 
 are inevitable, since in certain quarters the best things 
 are turned into ridicule. 
 
 There is an immense difference between what is called 
 a fine work and one which is perfect and regular. I 
 doubt, indeed, if anything deserving the latter descrip- 
 tion exists, for it is less difficult for genius to reach the 
 grand or sublime than it is to avoid all errors. " The
 
 INTELLECT AND LEARNING. 13 
 
 Cid," from its first appearance, was with one voice 
 commended. Its power was stronger than politics or 
 authority, which tried in vain to crush it. People of 
 every class and of the most varied sentiments and 
 opinions were unanimous in their favourable estimate 
 of the tragedy, and everybody knew it by heart, so that 
 when repeating it the actors were not infrequently 
 prompted by the audience. " The Cid," in fact, is one 
 of the finest poems in existence, and perhaps the 
 criticism on it is the best that was ever written. 
 
 If you find that the perusal of a book elevates your 
 thoughts and inspires you with great and noble senti- 
 ments, seek no other rule by which to judge of its 
 merits. It is good, and shows the master's hand. 
 
 It is the journalist's business to inform us that a cer- 
 tain book is published, and by whom ; to describe it 
 and its style and character, and say where it can be 
 bought. It is foolishness in him to make any criticism 
 of it. 
 
 His chief business is to write a lengthy, empty 
 argument on the political situation of the day. But he 
 may lie down at night relying on some piece of news 
 which the morning proves to be a false report. 
 
 The philosopher wastes his life and energies in 
 observing men and exposing vice and folly. If he 
 gives the public the benefit of his observations, it is 
 less for the pride of authorship than to throw the light 
 of day upon some discovery, so that it may make the 
 impression he desires. Yet some people think he is 
 well rewarded if they read his book and say authorita- 
 tively that there is wisdom in it. He does not value 
 their praise, this was not the object of his sleepless 
 labour. He has higher aims, and acts on a nobler
 
 14 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 principle. He exacts from mankind a greater acknow- 
 ledgment than praise or reward. He requires reform. 
 
 Fools read a book, but understand it not. Men of 
 little understanding think they comprehend perfectly, 
 while the wise man cannot understand entirely ; but 
 distinguishes between what is clear and what is 
 obscure to him. A wit, on the other hand, tries to make 
 a mystification where it does not exist, and pretends 
 not to understand what is perfectly intelligible. 
 
 An author tries in vain to excite admiration by his 
 productions. Fools sometimes admire, but then they 
 are fools. A sensible person is by nature pregnant with 
 truth, and his moral perceptions are keen ; so nothing 
 is quite new to him. He seldom admires. He ap- 
 proves. 
 
 I do not think it would be possible to find in any 
 other letters greater talent, more liberality, or a more 
 agreeable style, than we find in those of Balzac* and 
 Voiture. It is true they do not contain those popular 
 sentiments, for the creation of which we are indebted 
 to our female writers, who excel us in this kind of 
 writing. Words and expressions which come to us 
 after long labour and weary research, flow easily and 
 gracefully from a woman's pen. She makes a happy 
 choice of words, and arranges them so tersely, that 
 ordinary phrases have all the charm of novelty, and 
 seem both apt and original. Only a woman can put 
 a volume of meaning into one word, and express a 
 delicate thought in words as delicate. She has an in- 
 imitable faculty of linking together, in an apparently 
 effortless way, the most diverse subjects. If women 
 
 * Jean Louis Guez de Balzac (1594-1655), author of a series of 
 ' Familiar Letters."
 
 INTELLECT AND LEARNING. 15 
 
 were only more correct, I am not afraid to assert that 
 there is nothing in our language better written than 
 some of their letters.* 
 
 The fault one finds in Terence is his coldness, but 
 nowhere do we find greater accuracy, elegance, and 
 politeness than in his characters. From Moliere we 
 could have desired greater purity, and the avoidance 
 of vulgar words and barbarisms : but what vivacity we 
 find and what simplicity joined to keen sense of 
 humour ; his characters are portraits overflowing with 
 wit. Had those two comic writers been one man, 
 what a genius he would have been. 
 
 I have read Malherbe and Theophile. They both 
 understood nature, but with this difference : the first, 
 in a copious, regular style, sets before us at once the 
 beautiful and noble and what is simple and natural ; he 
 makes a picture for us with his pen. The other, with 
 erratic mood, carelessly and inaccurately charges his 
 descriptions with tiresome details, anatomizing, at 
 times drawing on his imagination, until he exaggerates 
 and goes so far beyond the truth that his writing 
 becomes romance. 
 
 Ronsardand Balzac have produced each in a different 
 fashion as much bad and good as would model heroes 
 in prose or verse. 
 
 Judging from his manner and style of diction, Marot 
 would seem to have written later than Ronsard, for be- 
 tween his style and that of our day there is only the 
 difference of a few words. 
 
 * An allusion to the Letters of Mme. de Sevigne'.
 
 1 6 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 Ronsard and his contemporaries have done more 
 harm than good to our language. They retarded its 
 progress to perfection and exposed it to the danger of 
 permanent defect. It is surprising that Marot's works, 
 which are so easy and natural, did not make Ronsard, 
 otherwise so full of vivacity and enthusiasm, a much 
 greater poet than either : and that on the contrary 
 Belleau Jodelle and Du Bartas were so soon followed 
 by a Ragan and a Malherbe, and that thus our lan- 
 guage was scarcely corrupted ere it was purified. 
 
 Marot and Rabelais are inexcusable for indulging in 
 ribald language. Both had sufficient genius and 
 wit to have been independent of such aid, even had 
 they only aimed at the amusement of those who will 
 laugh more often than admire. Rabelais, especially, is 
 incomprehensible ; his book is an enigma, we might say 
 a fabulous fancy, a woman's lovely face with feet and 
 tail like a serpent, or some more hideous anomaly 
 an insidious mixture of ingenuous morality and mon- 
 strous coarseness. Where it is bad it is abominable, and 
 fit only for the canaille^ while the good parts are just 
 as surpassingly excellent, and afford exquisite pleasure 
 to the most refined. 
 
 Two writers in their works have condemned 
 Montaigne. I do not hold him exempt from blame, 
 but they appear to consider him worthy of no esteem, 
 and allow him no credit at all. The one thinks too 
 little to be capable of enjoying an author who thinks 
 much, and the thoughts of the other are too subtle to 
 be pleased with what is natural. 
 
 A grave, earnest, scrupulous style will live long. 
 Amyot and Coeffeteau are still read, but which of their 
 contemporaries ? Balzac in his phrases and expres-
 
 INTELLECT AND LEARNING. 17 
 
 sions belongs to a later day than Voiture. But if the 
 talent and natural style of the latter is not modern, and 
 does not resemble our modern literature, it is because 
 our authors have found it easier to neglect than to 
 imitate him, and the few who followed him could not 
 come up to him. 
 
 " Le Mercure Galant"*is just of less value than 
 nothing. There are many other works of the same 
 importance. There is as much device in growing rich 
 by a silly book as there is want of sense in buying it. 
 Ignorance of the public taste sometimes prevents the 
 publication of silly things. 
 
 Opera is the outline, the faint idea, of some magnifi- 
 cent spectacle. 
 
 I do not understand why it is that an opera, with its 
 perfect music and its splendid accessories, has yet the 
 power of thoroughly wearying me. 
 
 There are some parts in an opera which make us 
 long and long for more, and others which make us 
 wish to escape from the whole performance, just as 
 we are pleased or not with the plot and the actors. 
 
 Opera as it at present exists is not a poem, but a 
 metrical dialogue, nor is it any longer a show, since 
 automatic puppets have been discontinued by the 
 economy of Amphion\ and his kind. It is a vocal 
 and instrumental concert ; and I think it is unfair to 
 tell us that automatons are fit only for children's 
 marionettes. In my opinion they increase and beau- 
 tify the romance and keep up a delightful illusion 
 in the minds of the spectators, and throw an element 
 of the marvellous into the performance. Neither 
 
 * A now forgotten work by de Vis. 
 t Lulli and his school.
 
 1 8 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 wings, triumphal cars, nor transformations are wanted 
 in tragedy, but in opera they are necessary, its 
 chief design being to hold eye and ear in a spell of 
 enchantment. 
 
 Connoisseurs, or those who consider themselves such, 
 assume the power of giving an opinion for or against 
 all public productions. Dividing themselves into 
 cliques, they are swayed by anything but public inter- 
 est or fairness : they admire a certain poem or a 
 certain musical composition and condemn all others. 
 Their partizanship is so hot that they cannot properly 
 defend their opinions, and so injure the reputation of 
 their favourites. They discourage poets and musicians 
 by their inconsistencies and contradictions, and retard 
 the progress of science and art by withdrawing the 
 stimulus of emulation from those masters who, accord- 
 ing to their different talents, could produce excellent 
 work. 
 
 What is the reason that people laugh so easily, yet 
 are ashamed to weep at a theatre ? Is nature more 
 easily swayed to mirth than moved to pity ? or 
 is it the disfigurement of tears which keeps them 
 back ? Immoderate laughter is more unseemly than 
 ihe bitterest grief, and we ought to be as much 
 ashamed to let others see us laugh as cry. Are we 
 afraid to be thought soft-hearted, or weak-minded, or 
 easily imposed on by unreal things ? We shall not 
 take into account those strong-minded persons who 
 never give way to either excessive laughter or to tears, 
 but let us consider for what reason we go to listen to a 
 tragedy. Is it to laugh ? Is truth not as vividly por- 
 trayed there as in comedy ? Will anything but 
 truth, let it be in comedy or tragedy, move the soul ? 
 Will people be satisfied with the improbable ? There-
 
 INTELLEW AND LEARNING. 19 
 
 fore, as it is no unusual thing for a theatre to ring with 
 spontaneous laughter at some amusing hit in a comedy, 
 so also the violent efforts people make to control their 
 tears and break into forced laughter at some touch of 
 pathos, clearly prove that giving way to natural 
 emotion should cause no other embarrassment than 
 that of drying our eyes, and having agreed to indulge 
 our feelings in this way, experience will teach us that 
 there is less fear of being moved to tears at a play than 
 of being made to feel ashamed. 
 
 A tragedy arrests the attention at its very com- 
 mencement, and during its progress we almost hold 
 our breath, and can think of nothing else ; or if our 
 attention is diverted for a moment it is only to be 
 plunged anew into yet deeper absorption ; we are 
 moved to pity, then to alarm, and so we are swayed 
 by alternate tears, sobs, hopes and fears, horror and 
 surprise, to the end. Tragedy should not then be a mere 
 concoction of pretty speeches, tender situations, and 
 soft words, or sometimes of pleasant jests, to be 
 certainly followed by a last scene in which some riotous 
 persons appear and kill some others why, we do not 
 understand, as already there seems to have been 
 enough bloodshed. 
 
 It is not enough that the manners of the stage are 
 not bad, they ought also to be seemly and instructive. 
 Some of the things one sees there are either so low and 
 gross, or so dull and poor in themselves, that they are 
 not worthy a poet's attention, nor can any audience be 
 diverted by them. The peasant or the drunkard may 
 be made a subject for a comic farce but ought never to 
 enter into the action of a true comedy. " But," says 
 some one, "these characters are natural." " Yes, but 
 by the same rule our attention might be engaged by
 
 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 bringing on the stage a whistling lackey or a drunkard 
 sick and snoring ; there is nothing more natural." 
 
 It is the custom of an effeminate youth to rise late 
 and spend the best part of the day over his toilet, 
 looking at himself in his mirror, perfuming, powdering, 
 and laying on his patches, then receiving his love notes, 
 and replying to them. But try putting this role on the 
 stage ; as the play goes on from act to act, the 
 truer to nature, the more life-like it seems, but the 
 more dull and stupid it also becomes. 
 
 It seems to me that plays and romances may be 
 equally useful or hurtful to those who read them. In 
 them are to be found many fine examples of constancy, 
 virtue, tenderness, and disinterestedness, many beau- 
 tiful and noble characters ; so that when a young 
 man casts his eyes around him and sees so much that 
 is base and unworthy his ideal, I am surprised that he 
 is able to retain any weakness for his fellows at all. 
 
 Corneille cannot be equalled in those parts in which 
 he excels ; in them he is inimitable, as well as original, 
 but he is unequal. His first plays are dry and heavy, 
 and give us no reason to expect that he would after- 
 wards rise to such a height ; just as his later plays 
 make us wonder how he could have fallen from it. In 
 some of his best pieces there are unpardonable faults 
 of style; as, when he declaims, the action stops, and there 
 is a carelessness in the rhythm and expression such as 
 we can scarcely understand in so great a man. But his 
 genius is sublime, and we are beholden to him for some 
 of the happiest verses which were ever written. We 
 are also indebted to him for first opposing the ancient 
 rules in the direction of a theatre, and lastly for the 
 admirable manner in which he unravels his eventful 
 plots, though in this he does not imitate the grand
 
 INTELLECT AND LEARNING. 21 
 
 simplicity of the Grecian taste. He is likewise to 
 be admired for his great variety ; among all the 
 numerous poems he composed he rarely repeats 
 himself. 
 
 In Racine's poems more similarity is apparent ; the 
 same idea pervades many of them, but he is more equal 
 and sustained throughout, both in the design and in 
 the working out of his pieces, which are appropriate, 
 regular, full of nature and common sense. His 
 versification is correct, rich in rhyme, elegant, har- 
 monious. He is an exact imitator of the ancients, 
 whom he scrupulously foliows in simplicity of action, 
 although he does not come far short of Corneille in the 
 sublime and marvellous, as well as in the touching and 
 pathetic. 
 
 Where can we find greater tenderness than is 
 diffused through the " Cid," " Polyeucte," and the 
 " Horaces ? " What grandeur we find in Mithridates, 
 Porus, Burrhus. 
 
 Terror and pity, the favourite passions of the 
 ancients, were well understood by those two poets, as 
 Orestes, in the "Andromache" of Racine, and his 
 "Phaedra," and also the "CEdipus " and the " Horaces " 
 of Corneille prove. If however I might be allowed to 
 make comparison between the two, and to distinguish 
 each by what I discover in his works, perhaps I 
 would speak thus : Corneille subjects us to his 
 characters and ideas, Racine conforms himself to ours. 
 The former paints men as they ought to be, the latter 
 describes them as they are. In the first there is more 
 of what we ought to admire and imitate, and in the 
 second more of what we know there is in others, and 
 of what we feel to be in ourselves. Corneille elevates, 
 astonishes, instructs, and influences us ; Racine pleases, 
 moves, affects and penetrates. The former overcomes
 
 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 us by touching what is grand and noble in our nature, 
 the other through our most refined and delicate senti- 
 ments. One is full of maxims, rules, and precepts, the 
 other is occupied with agreeable and pleasant tastes. 
 Where Corneille arrests our attention, Racine moves 
 or disturbs our minds ; Corneille is more moral, 
 Racine more natural. The one seems to imitate 
 Sophocles, the other Euripides. 
 
 In ordinary language, the power of being able to 
 speak for a length of time, gesticulating and loudly 
 attesting with much lung power, is called eloquence. 
 Pedantic persons affirm that eloquence can be dis- 
 played only in public speaking, and they are unable to 
 distinguish between true eloquence and those rounded 
 periods full of symbols and long words by which it is 
 simulated. 
 
 Logic is the art of convincing others of some truth, 
 while eloquence is a gift of the soul, which makes us 
 masters of the hearts and minds of others, and 
 enables us to inspire them or persuade them as we 
 will. 
 
 Eloquence may exist in any discourse, or in any kind 
 of writing. We rarely find it when we look for it, 
 but sometimes when we do not expect to find it. 
 
 Eloquence is to the Sublime what the whole is to 
 one of its own parts. 
 
 What is the Sublime ? It does not seem ever to have 
 been defined. Is it a figure of speech, or is it derived 
 from figures, or at least, from some figures? Is any 
 kind of writing capable of being sublime, or is sub- 
 limity found only in great works ? Could anything be 
 more touching than the beautiful simplicity of a 
 pastoral ? and what is more pleasing in letters and 
 conversation than natural delicacy ? Now, may it not 
 be, that simplicity and delicacy form the Sublime in 
 those works in which such qualities are the per-
 
 INTELLECT AND LEARNING. 23 
 
 fection, for what is the Sublime and where does it 
 begin ? 
 
 Synonyms are words or phrases having the same 
 signification. Antithesis is the opposition of two 
 truths which by contrast explain each other. 
 
 Metaphor or comparison borrows from an outside 
 object to give a natural image of the truth. Hyper- 
 bole expresses more than the truth that the mind may 
 idealize it better. The Sublime describes the whole 
 truth nobly and entirely, both in cause and in effect, 
 and it expresses it in a manner worthy of truth. 
 
 Little minds cannot express themselves fitly in one 
 word, and therefore use synonyms. Young men are 
 dazzled by the brilliancy of antithesis, arid often use 
 it. Greater men who take pride in exactitude of speech 
 prefer comparison and metaphor. A lively imagination 
 is often carried beyond justice into the use of hyper- 
 bole. As for the Sublime, only the highest genius is 
 capable of it. 
 
 He who would write correctly ought to put himself 
 in the place of his readers, examine his work as some- 
 thing he has never read before or had anything to do 
 with, but which has been submitted to his criticism. 
 Then let him discover if he understands his writing 
 only because he wrote it himself, or because it is 
 really intelligible. 
 
 An author must not write only to be understood, but 
 he must inform us of the things that ought to be 
 understood. He must, it is true, possess pure diction 
 and correctness of expression, but his correct express- 
 ions ought to convey high and noble thoughts, full of 
 sound good sense. 
 
 It is making a bad use of pure, clear language 
 to use it on some frivolous, unprofitable subject, having
 
 24 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 neither wit, novelty, nor purpose, which, although 
 easily understood, has no other merit. It is better to 
 be a little uncertain of an author's meaning, than tired 
 of his production. If sometimes we throw more depth 
 into our writings, more variety of expression, or it may 
 be greater delicacy, we err from having formed a high 
 opinion of our readers. 
 
 In reading books written by members of some clique 
 or party, there is this disadvantage : we do not always 
 get the truth from them. Facts are disputed, and 
 both sides of the question are not handled with equal 
 force or correctness, and if we have time and patience 
 we may read a great deal of strong language used by 
 grave and reverend men, who, on some point of 
 doctrine or controversy, make personal quarrel. Some 
 books have this specialty: fhey deserve neither the 
 extraordinary sale they have for a time, nor the 
 profound oblivion they afterwards fall into. As soon 
 as the heat and antagonism of partisanship ceases, 
 they are forgotten like an old almanack. 
 
 Some men deserve glory and reward for having 
 written, others for not having done so. 
 
 During the last twenty years the style of composition 
 has been careful and accurate, construction has been 
 properly attended to, and the language has been en- 
 riched by many new words. We have thrown off the 
 yoke of Latinism and confined ourselves to a phrase- 
 ology purely French. Indeed we have almost 
 recovered the harmony which Malherbe and Balzac 
 first revealed to us, but which their numerous 
 successors suffered to be lost. Our language has now 
 all the method and distinctness it is capable of, and 
 this will in the end add wisdom to it.
 
 INTELLECT AND LEARNING. 25 
 
 There are some scientific men whose genius is as 
 vast as the art or science they profess. By their 
 ingenuity and invention they repay with interest all 
 they have borrowed from the principles of science. 
 They break away from rules of art only to ennoble it, 
 and they set aside example when it does not appear 
 likely to lead to greatness. They go on alone with no 
 followers, but they aim high and push forwards, self- 
 confident and strengthened by the success which is 
 sometimes a result of want of system. Men of 
 ordinary talent cannot overtake them, and do not even 
 admire or understand them, much less imitate them. 
 These go on quietly, reaching only that certain point 
 which forms the limit of their capacity. They can go 
 no further, as they cannot see beyond ; and at the best 
 they only attain a foremost place in excellent mediocrity. 
 
 There are certain minds, if I may be allowed to say 
 so, which are distinctly inferior or subordinate. Their 
 place seems to be to collect, enroll, and chronicle the 
 fruits of other people's genius. They are plagiarists, 
 compilers, translators, whatever you choose to call 
 them. They do not think for themselves, but only 
 write what others have thought. A good choice of 
 thoughts is, it is true, a kind of invention, but such men 
 are seldom just in their choice, they prefer rather to 
 make it large than excellent. They infuse no origin- 
 ality into their work, and, understanding little of what 
 they purloin, they purloin what the world could do 
 without. Theirs is a useless calling, neither pleasant 
 nor profitable, either as regards conversation or 
 commerce. It is like bad money. We wonder at the 
 extent of their reading, but soon get tired of their 
 company and of their work. The rich and vulgar 
 confound such poor ability with wisdom, but the better 
 informed know it as pedantry.
 
 26 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 Criticism can scarcely be called a science ; it is a 
 trade at which more health than wit is required, more 
 work than intellect. It is more a matter of routine 
 than of genius. The criticism of a man who reads more 
 than he can discriminate, perverts both his own and 
 his reader's judgment. 
 
 Any author who has only the faculty of imitation, 01 
 who through extreme modesty is a copyist, I would 
 advise to choose for his models such as are full of wis- 
 dom, imagination, or learning. If he does not equal 
 his ideals, he will at all events come somewhat near 
 them, and he will at least be read. On the other 
 hand, he ought to avoid as a rock of destruction any 
 desire to copy those whom caprice or sentiment 
 inspires to express on paper their innermost thoughts. 
 These are dangerous models, and those who follow 
 them will fall into a dull, uninteresting, vague style. 
 Besides, how laughable it would be to see someone 
 trying to speak in our exact tone of voice, or to resemble 
 us physically. 
 
 A man who is born a Christian and a Frenchman is 
 restricted in his exercise of sarcasm. Great subjects 
 are forbidden him, though sometimes he attempts 
 them. He therefore turns to little things and raises 
 and ennobles them by the beauty of his genius and his 
 style. 
 
 We should avoid* foolish trifling things, for fear of 
 resembling Dorilas and Handburg; although in some 
 kinds of writing certain expressions may be risked if 
 they depict vividly; and we pity those who cannot feel 
 the pleasure this freedom gives, and who cannot use it 
 judiciously.
 
 INTELLECT AND LEARNING. 27 
 
 He who in his writing regards only the age he lives 
 in, thinks more of himself than of his work. We should 
 ever aim at perfection: then that justice which is often 
 denied us by our contemporaries will be yielded to us 
 by posterity. 
 
 We must never attribute a jest where none exists. 
 It is bad taste, and depraves our own judgment as 
 well as other people's. But when banter is intended, 
 draw it out in a pleasing and instructive manner. 
 
 "Horace and Despreaux," you say, "made such a 
 remark before you." I take your word for it, but I said 
 it as original. May I not think a truism as well as they, 
 just as others may do the same after me ?
 
 PERSONAL MERIT. 
 
 WHO among us, even if he possesses the rarest 
 talent and the most exceeding merit, is not convinced 
 of his uselessness, when he considers that when he dies 
 he will leave a world which will not feel his loss, and 
 in which there are so many people to fill his place. 
 
 Some people's worth lies only in their names. When 
 you come into close contact with them you find they 
 have no merit. They only impose on us at a distance. 
 
 I am convinced that those who are chosen for 
 different employments, each according to his talent or 
 professional training, do well : yet I shall venture to say 
 that there exist many persons, known and unknown, 
 who [are not employed at all, and who would acquit 
 themselves as well ; and I am drawn to this induction 
 by the extraordinary success of some whom chance 
 alone has brought to the front, and from whom till then 
 no great things were expected. How many admirable 
 men of great talent have died without ever being heard 
 of ; and how many are living now of whom no one 
 talks, or ever will talk. 
 
 How difficult it is for a man who belongs to no 
 society or party, who has no partizans or promoters, 
 but who stands alone upon his merits, to make his light 
 shine out of obscurity, and to put himself on a level 
 with the influential fool. 
 
 It is seldom that a man discovers for himself the
 
 PERSONAL MERIT. 29 
 
 merit of another. Men are generally too much occu- 
 pied with themselves to have leisure to study others, 
 and therefore a man of great merit, if he also possesses 
 modesty, may long remain unknown. 
 
 Sometimes it is the genius and the talent which 
 are absent, sometimes the opportunity. Some may 
 deserve praise for what they have done, and others for 
 what they could have done. 
 
 It is not so rare to meet with wit, as with people who 
 make a good use of what wit they have of their own, 
 and know how to bring out other people's. 
 
 There are more tools than workmen ; and of the 
 latter, more bad than good. What would you think of 
 a man who tried to saw with a plane, and who took up 
 his saw to plane with? 
 
 There is not in all the world so tiresome a trade a& 
 that of trying to win renown. Life is over, and you 
 have scarcely sketched your work. 
 
 What is to be done with Egesippus who is seeking a 
 post ? Shall we put him into one of the public offices, 
 or into the army? It does not matter which, he will 
 make as good a financier as soldier ; therefore, interest 
 alone should decide. His friends say he is capable of 
 anything, which generally means that he is fit for 
 nothing. He is, like many other men, entirely taken 
 up with himself; in his youth he consumed his time in 
 every kind of pleasure, and now that h is older, 
 fondly imagines the country has only to be made aware 
 of his indigence or uselessness, to exert every effort to 
 aid him and establish him in some office; and he never 
 thinks of the important fact that men ought to employ
 
 30 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 the early years of their life in becoming, through work 
 and study, so valuable that the state would soon dis- 
 cover the need she has of their knowledge and intelli- 
 gence. In this way men would become a necessary 
 int'egral in the fabric of the country, which will 
 be obliged for its own advantage to advance their 
 fortunes. We must work if we would merit high 
 employments. Other things do not matter ; let them 
 be the concern of other people. 
 
 It requires great firmness, as well as vast intellect, to 
 refuse high posts, and remain contented in obscurity. 
 Very few possess the merit to play this role with dig- 
 nity, nor enough depth of mind to fill up time without 
 what is commonly called business. The idleness 
 of a wise man should however be called by another 
 name; and his meditation, discourse, reading, and 
 repose ought to be called work. 
 
 A talented man in office never troubles others 
 through his vanity : for he is less proud of the post he 
 occupies than humiliated by the thought of a greater, 
 of which he considers himself worthy. He is more 
 chagrined than haughty, and is too depressed to 
 despise anyone. 
 
 It is difficult for a man of real talent to flatter, but 
 not for the reason you may suppose. True worth is 
 very modest, and he would never imagine it could 
 give pleasure to another to see him continually putting 
 himself in his way. He would be more likely to con- 
 sider himself importunate in so doing ; and it requires 
 the pressure of duty and custom to make him resolve to 
 appear at all. He, on the other hand, who has a good 
 opinion of himself, and whom the vulgar appreciate, 
 likes to be seen ; and makes his court with all the more
 
 PERSONAL MERIT. 31 
 
 confidence, that it never enters his mind to imagine 
 that the great people before whom he appears think 
 less of him than he does of himself. 
 
 An honourable man is repaid for his strict applica- 
 tion to duty by the pleasure it gives him to perform it : 
 and this makes him independent of the praise, esteem, 
 and acknowledgment, which is often withheld from 
 him. 
 
 If I dared to make comparison between two alto- 
 gether unequal conditions, I would say that a cour- 
 ageous man sets about performing his duty just as 
 a slater would set about performing his work. Neither 
 of them seeks to expose himself to danger, but 
 neither will the fear of it deter him from duty. 
 Death is an accident which might happen to either, 
 but the thought of it is never an obstacle. The brave 
 man is no more proud of having been in the trenches, 
 of making a breach, or forcing an entrenchment, 
 than the workman is of having finished work at the 
 top of a steeple or at some equally perilous elevation. 
 They each think only of doing their duty well, whilst 
 the boaster only tries to make people say he did 
 well. 
 
 Modesty is to merit what shading is to a figure in a 
 picture. It makes it stand out in strong relief. 
 
 A plain exterior seems fit and proper for a common 
 man, but it is an ornament to one whose life is full of 
 great deeds ; I would compare it to unconscious beauty, 
 which is only the more charming. 
 
 Some people, being highly pleased with the tolerable 
 success of something they have done, and having 
 heard that modesty is becoming to great men, try to 
 imitate those who are truly and naturally modest, but 
 they are like those persons of ordinary height who
 
 32 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 stoop as they enter a door in case they should strike 
 their heads against the top of it. 
 
 In our choice of friends some special virtue ought 
 to attract us : we should not examine as to whether 
 they are rich or poor; but if we are persuaded that 
 we could follow them into adversity, then we may boldly 
 cultivate their friendship in their greatest prosperity. 
 
 If it is usual to be deeply touched by rare things, 
 how does it happen that we pay so little attention to 
 virtue ? 
 
 If it is happiness to be well-born, it is not less so to 
 be so estimable that nobody inquires if we are well- 
 born or not. 
 
 From time to time there appear in the world men 
 of such rare virtue that the brilliancy of their pre- 
 eminently noble qualities sheds light all round them ; 
 like those wonderful stars whose origin we know not, 
 any more than we know what becomes of them when 
 they disappear. Those men have neither ancestors 
 nor posterity. They alone compose their race. 
 
 Good sense tells us our duty, and our obligation to 
 perform it ; and even if there be danger, to face the 
 danger. It either inspires us with courage or takes the 
 place of it. 
 
 If a man excels in his art and enriches it by every 
 perfection of which he is capable, he puts himself into 
 it, so to speak, and raises it to all that is highest and 
 noblest in himself. Vignon is a painter, Colasse a 
 musician, Pradon a poet ; but Mignard is Mignard, 
 Lully is Lully, and Corneille is Corneille.
 
 PERSONAL MERIT. 33 
 
 A single man can, if he has wit, raise himself 
 above his station, and mix in the world above him on a 
 footing of equality ; but this is less easy if he be 
 married, for marriage seems to settle everyone in 
 his proper rank. 
 
 Next to'personal merit, we must confess that eminent 
 dignities and titles give most distinction and Mat to a 
 man. He who cannot be an Erasmus ought to aim 
 at being a bishop. Some, to increase their import- 
 ance, obtain peerages and orders of various kinds, 
 and, after the cardinal's hat, would like the Pope's 
 tiara. But what need has Trophimus * to be made 
 Cardinal ? 
 
 With us the soldier is brave and the lawyer learned ; 
 and we wish no more. With the Romans the lawyer 
 was brave and the soldier learned : a Roman citizen 
 was both soldier and lawyer. 
 
 A hero should be one thing only a brave man ; 
 whilst a great man should know everything, whether of 
 the robe, the sword, the cabinet, or the court; but both 
 together are not worth one honest man. 
 
 In war, the distinction between a hero and a great 
 man is difficult to define. Both possess all the military 
 virtues : nevertheless the first must be young, daring, 
 of great valour, bold, adventurous, and of dauntless 
 courage : the other excels rather by his profound 
 good sense, his vast foresight, great capacity, and long 
 experience. We might call Alexander a hero, Caesar 
 a great man. 
 
 * Bossuet.
 
 34 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 s* was born a hero ; he had all the qualities 
 which men do not generally attain without learning, me- 
 ditation, and exercise. In his childhood he had only to 
 fulfil the powers which were natural to him, and to 
 follow the bent of his own genius. He acted himself, 
 and influenced others to act, before he knew ; or rather 
 he understood before he had learned. Need I tell 
 you that his youthful games were a series of victories ? 
 A fong and prosperous life would be rendered illustrious 
 solely by the acts achieved by him in his youth. 
 After that period he seized every opportunity to excel or 
 to conquer ; and when no opportunity existed, his 
 star seemed to predominate, and his valour created it. 
 He was admired as much for what he could have done 
 as for what he did. He was looked upon as a man 
 incapable of giving way to an enemy; numbers and 
 obstacles never made him yield : a being of the highest 
 order, he was inspired by greater light and know- 
 ledge to see further than other men. To have him at 
 the head of the legion was a sure presage of victory ; 
 for he alone was worth many legions. He was great 
 in prosperity, and greater still in adversity. The raising 
 of a siege, a retreat, gained him more honour than a 
 victory, and has been lauded almost as much as a 
 victorious battle or the taking of a town. He was as 
 grandly noble as he was modest ; and has been heard 
 to say, " I fled," with as much grace as he might have 
 said, "We gained the battle." He was devoted to the 
 state and to his family, and sincere towards God and 
 man ; as great an admirer of merit as if it had been 
 less familiar to himself ; a true man, naturally brave 
 and noble ; in whom only the least of all the virtues 
 might be found wanting. 
 
 * The Great Prince of Conde, to whose grandson La Bruyere 
 was tutor.
 
 PERSONAL MERIT. 
 
 The children of the Gods, so to speak, are exempt 
 from nature's rules. They have nothing to learn from 
 age or experience. Their merit is beyond their years ; 
 knowledge comes with their birth, and they arrive at 
 perfect manhood before ordinary beings are out of 
 childhood. 
 
 Shortsighted people, that is to say, people with so 
 little imagination that it cannot reach beyond their own 
 sphere, cannot understand that universality of genius 
 which is sometimes observable in the same individual. 
 Where they see amiability, they exclude solidity ; and 
 where they find personal grace, activity, and dexterity, 
 they will not grant mental endowments, judgment, 
 prudence, wisdom. They ignore that history relates of 
 Socrates that he danced. 
 
 There are few men so amiable or so necessary to 
 their fellow-men that their loss could not be endured. 
 
 A simple, straightforward man, even if he be clever, 
 will readily be ensnared. He thinks no one would try to 
 make a dupe of him, and this confidence makes him 
 incautious, and the wag takes advantage of him. But 
 he who tries it a second time will come off badly ; he 
 is cheated only once. 
 
 I would avoid offending any one, as is right ; but 
 especially a clever man, if I care for my own interests. 
 
 The greatest cunning or simplicity will not guard a 
 man from exposing his peculiarities. A fool neither 
 comes in, nor goes out, nor sits down, nor rises up, nor 
 is silent, nor uses his legs, like a man of sense.
 
 36 LA BRUYkRE. 
 
 I came to know Mopsus from a visit which he paid 
 me, although he had no previous acquaintance with me. 
 
 It is his custom to ask people he does not know to 
 allow him to accompany them to visit persons who do 
 not know him. He also writes to ladies he knows only 
 by sight, or gets into conversation with individuals who 
 have no idea who he is ; and, not waiting till his opinion 
 is asked, he rudely interrupts, speaking absurd 
 nonsense. Another time he will attend a public 
 meeting, and sit down anywhere, paying no attention 
 to anybody : when asked to move from a seat retained 
 for some minister of state, he goes and sits down in a 
 place reserved for a duke. Everybody laughs, but he 
 preserves a stately gravity, and does not even smile. 
 
 He reminds one of the dog driven out of the king's 
 chair, which jumps into the pulpit. He takes no heed 
 of the world's opinion, is neither embarrassed nor 
 ashamed, and could no more blush than a fool. 
 
 Celsus belongs to the middle classes, but is tolerated 
 in the highest. He has no learning himself, but is 
 allied to learned men, and although he has little merit 
 of his own, he knows people who have a great deal; 
 he is not clever, but he has a smooth tongue and feet 
 to carry him where he will. 
 
 He seems to have been born to run backwards and 
 forwards on other people's business, listening, reporting 
 of his own accord, and getting no credit for it : 
 conciliating people who fall out at their first interview ; 
 succeeding in one thing and failing in a thousand : 
 taking to himself all the glory of success, and casting 
 on others the odium of defeat. He knows all the gossip 
 and scandal of the town, originates nothing, only 
 repeats other people's stories, in other words he is a 
 newsmonger. He knows all the family secrets, worms 
 himself into the deepest mysteries, can tell why that
 
 PERSONAL MERIT. 37 
 
 person has withdrawn from society, and why the other 
 has entered it again. He knows the cause of the many 
 disputes between those two brothers, and of the 
 rupture between the two ministers. Did he not 
 predict of the first what would be the end of their sad 
 misunderstanding, and of the latter that their harmony 
 would not last long? Was he not present when 
 certain things were said ? Did he not try to patch the 
 matter up ; but would they believe him, or listen to 
 what he said? Who but Celsus ought to know about 
 all these things ? Who has more knowledge of all the 
 Court intrigues than he, and if he has not if he only 
 dreams or imagines it, can he not at least make you 
 believe it, and put on the mysterious, important air of 
 one who has just returned from an embassy? 
 
 Menippus is the daw decked with peacock's 
 feathers. He neither speaks nor thinks himself, but 
 repeats other people's sentiments and conversation ; 
 and it comes so natural to him to use other people's 
 minds that he even deceives himself into thinking 
 that he is expressing his own taste and uttering his 
 own thoughts, when he is only the echo of some one 
 he has just parted from. He is a man whom you can 
 tolerate for a quarter of an hour : but after that he palls 
 upon you ; the glamour is removed, and you see his 
 brilliant wit is only a little memory which soon wears 
 threadbare. 
 
 He himself, however, is quite unconscious how 
 far below the sublime and heroic he is, and does not 
 know how high it is possible for talent to reach, as he 
 innocently supposes that he has as much as it is possible 
 for a man to have, and he therefore has the air of one 
 who is quite satisfied with himself and envies no one. 
 He usually speaks to himself, and does not try to con- 
 ceal the habit ; and he is so much engaged with his
 
 38 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 own thoughts that to salute him in passing is to throw 
 him into a state of great perplexity as to whether he 
 ought to salute you or not, and whilst he is deliberating 
 you are quite out of sight. He vainly assumes to him- 
 self every befitting virtue, and raises himself far above 
 his natural merit. To see him is to know that his 
 whole mind is occupied with his own person ; he has 
 the air of being satisfied that all he does is right, that 
 his finery is well-chosen and adjusted ; and that all 
 eyes are upon him, and every new-comer is an 
 admirer. 
 
 False greatness is unsociable, inaccessible, and, as if 
 quite aware of its weakness, hides itself, or at least 
 does not push forward more than is necessary to 
 preserve its assumed position, for fear of betraying its 
 real littleness. True greatness, on the contrary, is 
 free, kind, familiar, popular, allows itself to be seen 
 and touched, loses nothing by close observation, 
 and the better known the more admired. It good- 
 naturedly bends to inferiors, and without effort assumes 
 again its natural manner. It can even put off all 
 appearance of superiority, but never loses the power 
 of resuming its proper dignity, even when laughing 
 and jesting with perfect carelessness. In our inter- 
 course with such a character we may exercise frank 
 familiarity, but must also reverence the nobility which 
 is so courteous that even princes who are exalted to 
 the height of greatness may be approached with a con- 
 fidence which prevents us from feeling our own humble 
 condition. 
 
 The wise man is cured of ambition by ambition 
 itself. He aims at such great things that he is not 
 contented with what is called wealth, preferment, and 
 favour : he sees nothing in such poor advantages good
 
 PERSONAL MERIT. 39 
 
 enough or important enough to satisfy the longings of 
 his nature, or worth caring for ; he has even to make 
 an effort not to show how he despises such things. The 
 only honour which can tempt him is that glory which 
 springs from virtue pure and simple : but as that is 
 seldom found in the world, he has to do without it. 
 
 He is good who does good to others ; if he suffer for 
 the good he does, he is very good ; and if he suffer 
 from those to whom he did that good, he is so good 
 that nothing can increase his goodness but an 
 increase of his sufferings, and if they end in his death 
 his virtue can reach no further : it is perfect and 
 heroic.
 
 ABOUT WOMEN. 
 
 MEN and women rarely agree as to the merits of a 
 woman ; their interests are too diverse. It does not 
 please a woman to find in another the very perfections 
 which captivate a man. The many charms which 
 awake in us the tender passion cause in them mutual 
 antipathy and dislike. 
 
 The superiority of some women is simply artifice, a 
 movement of the eyes, a toss of the head, a graceful 
 carriage, or a superficial sparkling wit, which is all the 
 more esteemed because it is not deep. But there are 
 some women who possess a simplicity and natural 
 grandeur independent of gesture or movement. This 
 springs from the heart, and is the result of good 
 birth. They are gifted with a quiet, unassuming supe- 
 riority, and many virtues, which the greatest modesty 
 cannot hide from those who have eyes to see. 
 
 I have often wished I could be a girl, a beautiful 
 girl of course, from thirteen to twenty-two ; after that, a 
 man again. 
 
 Some young persons are not sufficiently grateful for 
 the advantages bestowed on them by kind nature, and 
 do not know how they ought to cherish them. Rare 
 and fragile are those gifts from heaven, but they 
 weaken and spoil them by affectation. Their tone of 
 voice, their mien and gesture are artificial ; they are 
 constantly examining themselves before a mirror, and
 
 ABOUT WOMEN. 41 
 
 endeavouring to be as unlike themselves as possible. 
 And they take all this trouble to make themselves less 
 agreeable. 
 
 If women only desire to be beautiful in each other's 
 eyes they may, of course, follow their own caprice or 
 taste, as to the way in which they dress and adorn them- 
 selves ; but if they desire to please men, if it is to 
 charm them they rouge and paint, I can assert, in the 
 name of mankind, or at least of those men whose 
 votes I have taken, that white and red paints make 
 women look old and hideous, that it is as disgust- 
 ing to see women with paint on their faces, as 
 with false teeth in their mouths and waxen balls 
 to puff out their thin cheeks ; and that far from coun- 
 tenancing it, men solemnly protest against all such arts, 
 which infallibly tend to cure them of love. If women 
 were by nature what art makes them, if they were to 
 lose in a moment their fresh complexions and their 
 faces were to become as brilliant or as leaden-hued as 
 they make them by rouge and paint, they would be 
 inconsolable. 
 
 A coquette never loses her passion for admiration, or 
 the high opinion she has of her own beauty. The pass- 
 ing years are regarded by her only as periods which 
 wrinkle and disfigure other women ; she forgets that 
 age is written on the face, and that the dress which 
 enhanced her youthful beauty is most unbecoming to 
 her now, serving only to heighten the ravages of age. 
 A mincing affectation attends her sick bed, and till 
 the end she is decked out in brilliant ribbons. 
 
 A beautiful face is the finest thing we can see, 
 and the sweetest music is the sound of the voice we 
 love best.
 
 42 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 Liking is optional. Beauty is a reality, and is in- 
 dependent of taste and opinion. 
 
 There are some women of such radiant loveliness 
 and such perfect goodness that to see them is to love 
 them, even if we can never hope to converse with 
 
 them. 
 
 A beautiful woman with the acquirements of an 
 accomplished man is the most delightful acquaintance 
 in the world, for her conversation has the charm of 
 both sexes. 
 
 Impulsive little attentions from the fair sex are very 
 bewitching and highly flattering to those to whom they 
 are addressed. Men are rarely impulsive, their endear- 
 ments are voluntary or deliberate, they speak and act 
 from choice, and are seldom persuasive. 
 
 A woman's caprice very often counteracts the effect 
 of her beauty, and is the antidote to the heart-sickness 
 she creates. 
 
 Women attach themselves to men by the favours 
 they grant. Men are lured by these same favours. 
 
 A woman is capable of forgetting a man she no 
 longer loves to the extent of forgetting even the 
 benefits she has bestowed on him. 
 
 A woman who has only one lover thinks herself no 
 coquette. She who has many lovers thinks herself 
 only a coquette. Such a woman may avoid being a 
 coquette by an attachment to one in particular, but 
 will be called a fool for having made a bad choice.
 
 ABOUT WOMEN. 43 
 
 An old love is of little consequence ; he must give 
 way to the new husband, whose supremacy, alas ! lasts 
 such a little while that a new lover jostles him out of his 
 place. 
 
 The old lover fears or suspects the new rival 
 according to the character of his mistress, and he 
 frequently owes his continued favours to the fact that 
 he is not the husband. 
 
 An intriguante is more than a coquette, and a male 
 flirt is worse than gallant. A male flirt and an intrigu- 
 ing woman are a match for each other 
 
 Few intrigues are secret. Many women are not 
 better known by their husbands' names than by their 
 lovers'. 
 
 An intriguing woman desires to be beloved, a 
 coquette is satisfied if she is thought worthy of love and 
 is acknowledged to be a beauty. One seeks to make 
 an engagement, the other to make a conquest. The 
 first breaks many engagements, the second has several 
 flirtations in hand at once. 
 
 Passion and pleasure are dominant in one, vanity and 
 frivolity in the other. Intrigue is a fault at heart, 
 probably constitutional obliquity ; coquetry is irregu- 
 larity of mind. The intriguing woman is feared, the 
 coquette inspires dislike. From the two characters 
 might be formed a third worse than either. 
 
 A weak woman receives reproach with self-torment- 
 ings, her heart is always at war with her reason. She 
 would fain be cured of her failings, but will never have 
 the strength of mind to surmount them herself, or at 
 all events will do so very tardily. 
 
 An inconstant woman is one who is no longer in love ;
 
 44 LA BRUY^RE. 
 
 a false woman is one who already loves another ; a 
 fickle woman knows neither whom she loves nor if she 
 loves at all ; an indifferent woman does not love at all. 
 
 Treachery, if I may name it, means falsehood of the 
 whole nature. In a woman, it means putting an action 
 or a word in a wrong light, perverting everything, and 
 often involves the breaking of most sacred promises. 
 
 A faithless woman, if she is known to be such by 
 the person concerned, is simply faithless ; but if she is 
 trusted in she is perfidious. The only good thing a 
 woman's treachery does, is to cure us of jealousy. 
 
 Some women have two characters to keep up, two 
 parts to play in the world, both equally difficult. One 
 requires nothing but a contract, the other nothing but 
 a heart. 
 
 To judge of that woman by her beauty, her youth, 
 her pride, and her hauteur, one expects that nothing 
 less than a hero will captivate her. But behold her choice 
 is made. A little monster without a grain of sense ! 
 
 Women who have passed the springtime of life seem 
 naturally to fall to the lot of young fellows who have 
 no great fortune. I know not who is most to be pitied, 
 the woman advanced in years who requires a lover, or 
 the young man whose needs force him to marry an old 
 woman. 
 
 The riffraff of the Court will be received in the city 
 boudoir, where he ousts even the judge in his gala 
 dress, and routs the citizen in sword and wig, possess- 
 ing himself of the field and receiving all the attentions. 
 It is impossible to resist a gold scarf, a white plume, 
 and a man who talks to the king and associates with 
 his ministers. He no doubt makes enemies, male and 
 female, but has many admirers, although not four 
 leagues off he is pitied.
 
 ABOUT WOMEN. 45 
 
 A provincial woman regards a man about town as a 
 city lady does a habitue of the Court. 
 
 A vain man with little wit and a voluble tongue, who 
 speaks of himself with assuming confidence, and of 
 others contemptuously, who is proud, brusque, and 
 adventurous, without breeding or honesty, morality or 
 sense, requires no more to make him admired by 
 certain women than good features and a fine figure. 
 
 Is it love of something clandestine or a depraved 
 taste that makes one woman love her valet, another a 
 monk, and Dorina her physician ? 
 
 Some women can be generous to the church and to 
 their lovers at the same time, both charitable and art- 
 ful. They have even at the altar rails a place to read 
 their love notes, while they are supposed to be at their 
 devotions. 
 
 What kind of woman is she who is directed, as it 
 is called ? Is she a woman who is more dutiful to her 
 husband, kinder to her servants, devoted to her family, 
 careful of her concerns, sincere and zealous towards 
 her friends ? Is she not at all the slave of moods, not 
 selfish or luxurious ? I do not ask if she loads her 
 children with gifts ; they may have no need of them ; 
 but out of her superfluity does she provide them with 
 every necessary which is their right? 
 
 Is she exempt from self-love and neglect of others, 
 or free from worldly employments and entanglements ? 
 " No," you answer, " she is none of these things." But 
 I insist on knowing what is a woman who is directed ? 
 Oh ! I now understand, she is a woman who has a 
 director.
 
 46 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 If the confessor and the director cannot agree upon 
 some rule, what third person can a woman ask to 
 arbitrate the point? 
 
 A woman's chief thought should not be to provide 
 herself with a director, but to live so discreetly that she 
 has no need of one. 
 
 If a woman could, along with her other weaknesses, 
 tell her confessor that which she has for her director, 
 and the time she wastes in his company, perhaps it 
 might be made her penance to renounce him. 
 
 It is too hard for a man to have a wife who is both a 
 coquette and a bigot. Surely one of these qualities is 
 enough for a woman. 
 
 I have now something to say which I have had 
 difficulty in suppressing so long ; but now it must come 
 out, and I only hope the frankness of my words may 
 be useful to those women who, thinking a confessor is 
 not enough to guide them, use no judgment in their 
 choice of a director. I cannot express my admiration 
 and surprise at beholding some people who shall be 
 nameless. I gaze wonderingly at them ; they speak, I 
 listen, I inquire ; I am told certain things, and I medi- 
 tate upon them. 
 
 I cannot comprehend how persons in whom I seem to 
 see everything directly opposed to common sense, sound 
 reason, worldly experience, knowledge of mankind, 
 religion and morality, should presume to assert that 
 heaven would, in their persons, renew in our genera- 
 tion the miracle of the Apostleship ; making ignorant, 
 pretty creatures like them capable of the ministry of 
 souls, an office which, above all others, is noble and sub; 
 lime. More than this, if those persons consider that
 
 ABOUT WOMEN. 47 
 
 they have been born to fill such high and holy functions, 
 which very few are qualified for, and if they are per- 
 suaded that in doing so they are following their voca- 
 tion and exercising their natural talents, then I under- 
 stand the matter still less. 
 
 I can see plainly that it is pleasant to them to be 
 made the depositaries of family secrets, and to be 
 thought indispensable in all social and domestic 
 difficulties, and, generally speaking, to find every door 
 open to them, a place at every table, even the highest. 
 It is also pleasant to drive about town in somebody's 
 comfortable carriage, and enjoy a delightful country 
 retreat, to see many people of rank and distinction so 
 interested in their health and prosperity ; and it may 
 also-be a congenial occupation to manage the affairs of 
 other people as well as their own : and I can only infer 
 that these are the considerations for which the 
 care of souls is made the plausible and irreproachable 
 pretext, and out of which have sprung up in the world 
 that inexhaustible supply of directors. . 
 
 A woman is easily guided, provided a man gives him- 
 self some trouble. One man is frequently the chosen 
 guide of many women. He cultivates their minds and 
 memories, determines their religion, and he even under- 
 takes to regulate their hearts. They will neither 
 approve nor disapprove, praise nor condemn, till by look 
 or gesture they are assured of his opinion. He is the 
 guardian of their joys and sorrows, their desires, their 
 jealousies, their loves, and their hates. He makes them 
 quarrel with their lovers, makes mischief, and reconciles 
 them again to their husbands ; and profits by the inter- 
 vals. He takes care of their business affairs, petitions 
 in their law suits, sees the judges for them ; finds a 
 doctor for them, tradesmen, workmen ; dictates as to 
 their lodging, their furniture, their equipages ; drives
 
 48 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 out with them in town, is to be seen with them in 
 country walks, in their pew at church, their box at the 
 play ; pays visits to the same people at the same time, 
 travels with them to their favourite watering-places, 
 and has the best room in their country houses. He 
 grows old without losing his authority, having a little 
 wit and much leisure in which to preserve it. 
 
 Children and servants all depend on him. He began 
 by being esteemed, and ends by being feared ; and 
 this old and necessary friend dies at last without being 
 regretted ; and the dozen or so women over whom he 
 tyrannized inherit liberty. 
 
 In the play an actor exceeds nature ; a poet exagger- 
 ates in his descriptions, and an artist who paints from 
 nature heightens the sentiment, the contrast or the 
 postures, while he who copies, when he measures 
 exactly the sizes and proportions, will enlarge his figures, 
 and give to every part of his picture greater bulk than 
 belongs to the original. In the same way, prudence 
 imitates discretion. 
 
 There is a kind of false modesty which is vanity ; a 
 false pride which is trifling ; a false grandeur which is 
 meanness ; a false virtue which is hypocrisy ; a false 
 wisdom which is reserve. 
 
 A prudish woman is accounted so from her bearing 
 and language ; a wise woman isknown from her conduct ; 
 one follows her humour and inclination, the other her 
 reason and affection ; one is serious and austere, the 
 other is on all occasions precisely what she ought to be. 
 The first hides her failings under a plausible exterior, 
 the second hides her depth of feeling under an air of 
 natural frankness. Formal prudery constrains wit, and 
 hides neither age nor wrinkles ; it rather gives cause 
 to suspect them. Wisdom, on the contrary, conceals
 
 ABOUT WOMEN. 49 
 
 bodily defects and ennobles the mind ; it makes youth 
 more piquant and beauty more dangerous. 
 
 Why should men be blamed because women have 
 little learning? By what laws and restrictions have 
 they forbidden them to use their eyes, and to read 
 and retain what they read and show it in conversation or 
 literary effort? Is it not rather they themselves who 
 have introduced the fashion of ignorance, either through 
 weakness of disposition or laziness, or care for the 
 preservation of their beauty, or by inherent levity which 
 prevents them study ing anything thoroughly? Or is it 
 the natural genius they have to employ their fingers, 
 and the distractions of domestic detail, or an aversion 
 to anything difficult or serious ; or because their minds 
 are occupied with gossip or any pleasure but that of 
 exercising the intellect? But to whatever cause men 
 may attribute women's ignorance, they must rejoice that, 
 as the sex have the pre-eminence in so many other ways, 
 they should in this show to less advantage. 
 
 We regard a learned woman as we would fine armour ; 
 it is artistically chased, rarely polished, of most fine 
 and curious workmanship : but, suited only for a museum 
 of art, it would be of no more use in the camp or 
 hunting-field than a circus horse, let him be ever so 
 well trained. 
 
 If I find learning and wisdom united in one person, 
 I do not wait to consider the sex, I bend in admiration; 
 and if you tell me that a wise woman is seldom learned, 
 or a learned woman wise, you must already have for- 
 gotten what you have just read, namely, that constitu- 
 tional defects have turned women from learning. Judge 
 then for yourself if women who have the fewest of those 
 defects will not likely be the wisest. Therefore, a wise 
 woman is the more likely to become learned, but a 
 learned woman being such by reason that she has
 
 50 LA BRUY&RE 
 
 overcome many defects, surely shows herself the 
 wisest. 
 
 It is difficult to remain neutral when two women who 
 are equally our friends fall out about something which 
 does not concern us. We are often obliged to choose 
 between them or to lose both. 
 
 There are women who love their money better than 
 their friends, and their lovers better than their 
 money. 
 
 It is strange to discover in some women something 
 stronger than love, I mean ambition and play. Such 
 women make men virtuous, because they have nothing 
 womanly but their clothes. 
 
 Women are extremes, they are either better or worse 
 than men. 
 
 Most women have no principle : they are led by their 
 hearts, and their morals depend on those they love. 
 
 Women love more devotedly than most men, but in 
 friendship men have the advantage. 
 
 Men are the cause of women not loving each other. 
 
 A man is more faithful to the secret of another than 
 to his own. A woman, on the contrary, keeps her 
 own secret better than another's. 
 
 A young woman's heart is never so engrossed by 
 love as to have no room for ambition or self-interest. 
 
 There is a time when even the richest women ought 
 to marry. They cannot allow their youthful chances to
 
 ABOUT WOMEN. 51 
 
 escape them without the risk of a long repentance. The 
 importance of their reputed wealth seems to diminish 
 with their beauty. A young woman, on the contrary, 
 has everything in her favour, even in men's eyes ; and 
 if added to youth she possesses other advantages, she 
 is so much the more desirable. 
 
 To how many women has great beauty been of no 
 service but to raise in them hopes of a great fortune. 
 
 A beautiful woman who treats her lover badly 
 commonly gives him his revenge, for she throws her- 
 self away on an ugly, old, or unworthy husband. 
 
 Most women judge of a man's merit or good looks 
 by the impression he makes on them, and will allow 
 neither merit nor good looks to one who does not 
 impress them at all. 
 
 A man who is anxious to discover what change age 
 has made in him need only consult the eyes of the lady 
 he addresses, and listen to the tone of her voice as she 
 talks to him ; he will soon learn what he fears to know. 
 But it is a hard school ! 
 
 The woman who has eyes only for one person, or 
 whose eyes constantly avoid him, leads us by both 
 actions to the same conclusion. 
 
 It costs a woman less to say what she does not feel 
 than it costs a man to say all he feels. 
 
 Sometimes when a woman is trying to hide from a 
 man the love she feels for him, he is pretending for her 
 a love he feels not. 
 
 A man may deceive a woman by a feigned attach- 
 ment, provided he has no real one elsewhere. 
 
 E 2
 
 52 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 A man blazes out against a woman who no longer 
 cares for him, then consoles himself. A woman makes 
 less noise, but her regret endures. 
 
 Idleness in women is cured either by vanity or love; 
 but, on the other hand, in a naturally active woman 
 idleness is the precursor of love. 
 
 It is pretty certain that a woman who writes with 
 great warmth is touched, though it is not so certain 
 that she is truly in love. A strong, tender love is more 
 likely to be pensive and silent, and her most fervent 
 desire is to be assured of her lover's devotion, not to 
 convince him of hers. 
 
 There is a certain lady who seems to have buried 
 her husband, or at least, expunged him, for there is 
 never any mention made of him in society. No one 
 knows if he be alive or not, and in the household he is 
 a mere cipher, of no use except as an example of timid 
 silence and perfect submission. The income is all 
 settled on the wife, and she might almost be taken for 
 the husband, and vice versd. For months together 
 they live in the same house without the least danger 
 of meeting each other, less indeed than if they were 
 only neighbours. He pays the butcher and the baker, 
 but it is madam who entertains. They have nothing 
 in common, not even their name, for they follow the 
 Roman and Greek fashion, and have separate names ; 
 and only time and a thorough knowledge of town talk 
 acquaints you with the fact that Monsieur B. has been 
 for more than twenty years the husband of Madame L. 
 
 Other wives have different methods of tormenting 
 their husbands. They have no irregularities, but annoy 
 them by continual reference to their high birth and 
 good connections and the large dowry they brought,
 
 ABOUT WOMEN, 53 
 
 their beauty and attainments, and what they call their 
 virtue. 
 
 Few women are so perfect that they do not give 
 their husbands cause, once a day at least, to regret 
 that they possess a wife, or to envy those who do not. 
 
 Dumb, stupid grief is out of fashion. Women 
 weep, and talk, and lament, and are so affected by 
 bereavement that every detail of their sorrow is 
 repeated to you. 
 
 Is it impossible for a man to discover the way to 
 make his wife love him ? 
 
 The woman who has no susceptibility is one who 
 has not yet met the man she must love. 
 
 In Smyrna there lived a beautiful young girl who 
 was called Emira, and who was less known throughout 
 the city for her beauty than for the propriety of her 
 conduct and manners, and more especially for the 
 complete indifference she displayed towards men ; 
 whom she saw with no more concern or feeling than 
 she had towards her brothers or her girl friends. She 
 could not credit the thousandth part of the follies 
 which people told her love had been the cause of in 
 old times; and those she saw herself she did not 
 understand. Friendship was the strongest sentiment 
 she had any comprehension of, and she owed her 
 enjoyment of this experience to a young and charming 
 girl of her own age, who was so sweet and made her 
 so happy that her only desire was that the friendship 
 should last for ever, not imagining that any other senti- 
 ment could supervene to weaken the esteem and con- 
 fidence she cherished so dearly. She was continually 
 speaking of Euphrosyne, which was the name of that
 
 54 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 faithful friend, and all Smyrna talked of her and of 
 Euphrosyne. Their friendship became a proverb. 
 
 Emira had two brothers, both young and handsome, 
 so that all the women of Smyrna were in love with 
 them, and she herself loved them truly, as became a 
 sister. 
 
 There was a priest of Jupiter who had access to her 
 father's house, and who, being struck by Emira! s beauty, 
 ventured to declare his passion to her, but was rejected 
 with scorn. An old man, who, trusting to his noble birth 
 and great wealth, had the same audacity, met with 
 the same repulse. She was now triumphant, for sur- 
 rounded by brothers, a priest, and an old man, had she 
 not proved herself insensible? But it seems heaven 
 had still greater trials to expose her to, which, however, 
 only served to make her yet more boastful, and to confirm 
 her reputation as a girl whom love had no power to 
 touch. Of three lovers whom her charms had success- 
 ively gained her, and at whose ardour she was not 
 dismayed,, the first, in a transport of love, stabbed him- 
 self at her feet ; the second, filled with despair that 
 she would not listen to his suit, went to seek his death 
 in the Cretan wars; while the third languished and 
 died from sleepless depression. 
 
 He who was to avenge all these had not yet appeared. 
 
 The old man who had been so unfortunate in his 
 addresses cured himself at length by reflecting on his 
 age and the character of the young person in whose 
 eyes he had wished to find favour, and, desiring to see 
 her sometimes, he obtained her consent to visit her. 
 One day he brought with him his son, a young man of 
 agreeable countenance and noble mein. Emira re- 
 garded him with unusual interest, but, as he was very 
 silent in his father's presence, she judged he had not 
 sufficient confidence, and wished he had had more. 
 Next time he saw her alone, and then he talked enough,
 
 ABOUT WOMEN. 55 
 
 and with plenty of spirit and humour ; but as he paid 
 little attention to her, and spoke even less of her and 
 of her beauty, she was surprised and a little indignant 
 that a man so handsome as he could show so little 
 gallantry. She discussed him with her friend, who 
 expressed a desire to see him, and from that time he 
 had eyes only for Ettphrosyne, displaying in many 
 ways his admiration of her beauty. And Emira the 
 indifferent become jealous, realized that Ctesiphon 
 meant all he looked and said, and that he was capable 
 not only of gallantry, but of tenderness. 
 
 From this time she was more reserved with her 
 friend, yet she longed to see them together again, so 
 that she might solve the matter. The second interview 
 revealed more than she had feared, and changed sus- 
 picion into certainty. She evaded Euphrosyne, and no 
 longer saw in her the virtues which had charmed her 
 before, and she lost all taste for her society. She no 
 longer loved her, and this change made her feel that 
 love had at last taken the place of friendship. 
 
 Ctesiphon and Euphrosyne met every day, loved, 
 became engaged, and married. The news spread over 
 all the city that two persons who loved each other were 
 blessed with the rare felicity of happy marriage. 
 
 Emira hears the news, and is in despair, for she is now 
 sensible how great her love is. She seeks Euphrosyne 
 again for the sole pleasure of beholding Ctesiphon, but 
 the young husband is still the lover of his newly wedded 
 wife, and only sees in Emira the friend of her who is 
 dear to him. 
 
 The unfortunate girl can neither eat nor rest ; she 
 becomes weak, and her mind becomes disturbed, so 
 that she mistakes her brother for Ctesiphon and 
 addresses him as a lover; then recollects herself and 
 blushes for her distraction, relapses into greater blun- 
 ders, but no longer blushes, for she is unconscious.
 
 56 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 Her heart is awake at last, but too late ; it is only folly 
 now. She has intervals of reason, but only to lament 
 its restoration ; and the youth of Smyrna who had 
 found her so proud and hard-hearted, think now that 
 the gods have punished her too severely.
 
 THE HEART. 
 
 IN pure friendship there is a sensation of felicity which 
 only the well-bred can attain. 
 
 Friendship may exist between a man and a woman, 
 quite apart from any influence of sex. Yet a woman 
 always looks upon a man as a man, and so a man 
 regards a woman. This intimacy is neither pure 
 friendship nor pure love. It is a sentiment which 
 stands alone. 
 
 Love is born suddenly, without deliberation, either 
 through temperament or weakness : some grace or 
 beauty attracts, determines us. Friendship, on the con- 
 trary, grows by degrees through time and long familiar 
 acquaintance. How many years of affection, kind- 
 ness, and good service it takes to do what a lovely 
 face or a beautiful hand will often do in a moment ! 
 
 Time which strengthens friendship weakens love. 
 
 So long as love lasts it is self-subsisting, and is even 
 fed by the very things which might rather seem power- 
 ful to extinguish it caprice, severity, neglect, jealousy. 
 Friendship, on the contrary, requires care, confidence, 
 kindness, and congeniality, without which it would 
 perish. 
 
 Perfect friendship is more rare than excessive love. 
 
 Love and friendship exclude each other.
 
 5 8 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 He who has had the experience of one great love 
 neglects friendship, while he who has spent all his 
 devotion on friendship has made no progress on the 
 way to love. 
 
 Love begins with love, and the very strongest friend- 
 ship can only be changed into feeble love. 
 
 Nothing so resembles intense friendship as those 
 intimacies we cultivate for the security of our love. 
 
 We never love truly except once, and that is the 
 first time. The attachments which succeed are more 
 voluntary. 
 
 Sudden love lasts longest. 
 
 The love which increases by slow degrees is toa 
 much like friendship ever to be a violent passion. 
 
 He who loves so passionately that he wishes he 
 could love a thousand times more than he loves 
 already, yields only to him who loves more than he 
 would love. 
 
 Granted that in the intensity of a great passion it is 
 possible to love another more than oneself, who has 
 the truest pleasure he who loves, or he who is be- 
 loved ? 
 
 Although we are so fastidious in love, we pardon 
 more faults in that than we -.vill overlook in friendship. 
 
 He who loves deeply finds a sweet revenge in acting 
 so that his beloved one shall appear ungrateful. 
 
 It is sad to love if our fortune is not enough to enable
 
 THE HEART. 59 
 
 us to heap benefits on those we love, and to make them 
 so happy that they have nothing more to wish for. 
 
 A woman with whom we have once been deeply in 
 love may, later in life, render us the greatest possible 
 service ; but if she has been indifferent to our love, 
 she will not receive much gratitude from us. 
 
 Deep gratitude is a sign that we have much liking 
 and friendship for the person who has benefited us. 
 
 To be with those we love is happiness ; even if both 
 are silent, the mere fact of being together is sufficient : 
 we may each be dreaming of the other, or thinking 
 of quite different things. 
 
 Hatred is not so remote from friendship as antipathy. 
 
 In friendship we confide our secrets ; in love they 
 escape us. 
 
 It is possible to have a person's confidence without 
 having his love. He who possesses the heart has no 
 need of confidential information, all is open to him. 
 
 In friendship we perceive only those faults which 
 may be prejudicial to our friends ; in those we love we 
 see no faults, except those from which we suffer our- 
 selves. 
 
 Jealousy is greatly dependent on temperament, and 
 does not always mean passionate love. Yet a great 
 love is always exclusive, and this is a paradox. 
 
 Our susceptibilities seldom disturb any one but our- 
 selves. Jealousy makes others as well as ourselves 
 uneasy.
 
 60 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 Friendship does not cool without cause ; love 
 diminishes for no other reason than that we have been 
 too well beloved. 
 
 We are no more able to love always than to prevent 
 ourselves loving sometimes. 
 
 Love is killed by disgust and buried in oblivion. 
 
 The beginning, as the end, of love is manifested by 
 our anxiety to be alone. 
 
 To cease loving is one clear proof that the heart of 
 man has its limits. To love is weakness, but often it is 
 weaker still to try to cure love. We are cured as we 
 are consoled. The heart cannot grieve for ever or love 
 for ever. 
 
 There are certain losses for which our hearts ought 
 to contain inexhaustible sources of grief. It is seldom 
 through either moral excellence or strength of mind 
 a great sorrow is overcome. We weep bitterly and are 
 sorely touched, but at last either we are so weak or so 
 fickle that we are comforted. 
 
 When an ugly woman inspires love it is a passion, 
 for either the lover is strangely weak, or she has some 
 secret and invincible charm more potent than that of 
 beauty. 
 
 To try to forget a person is to continually think of 
 him. Love has this in common with conscience that it 
 is fed by the very arguments and considerations which 
 are used to free us from it. We might weaken love if 
 we could disregard it.
 
 THE HEART. 6r 
 
 Our desire is that all the good fortune of those we 
 love, or, if that is impossible, all their evil fortune, 
 should come to them from our hands. 
 
 It is happier by comparison to mourn one we love 
 than to live with one we hate. 
 
 However disinterested we may be with regard to 
 those we love, we must sometimes force ourselves to 
 give them pleasure by accepting their gifts. He who 
 is capable of receiving a gift delicately displays as 
 much generosity as he who gives. 
 
 To give is to act, not simply to allow our benefits to 
 slip from us, nor to yield to the importunate demands 
 of those who ask. 
 
 If we have been generous to those we love, we shall 
 never be tempted by anything which may happen later 
 to reflect on our benefits. 
 
 A Latin author has said that it costs less to hate 
 than to love, or if you prefer it, that friendship is more 
 costly than hatred. It is true, we are not expected 
 to be liberal towards our enemies, but does revenge 
 cost nothing ? Since it is easy and natural to do evil 
 to those we hate, is it less agreeable to do good to those 
 we love? Should we not rather find it difficult and 
 troublesome not to be kind ? 
 
 There is pleasure in meeting the glance of one we 
 have lately benefited. 
 
 I doubt if a benefit which falls on an ungrate- 
 ful, and therefore unworthy, person, does not change 
 its name, and if it is a thing which deserves gratitude
 
 62 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 Liberality consists less in giving much than in giving 
 appropriately. If it is true that pity and compassion 
 are drawn from us by a kind of selfish fear lest we 
 should ever be in the same circumstances, how does 
 it happen that the unfortunate extract so little help 
 from us in their misery ? 
 
 It is better to run the risk of ingratitude than to 
 neglect the distressed. 
 
 Experience teaches us that luxurious self-indulgence 
 and hard-heartedness towards others is one and the 
 same vice. 
 
 A laborious, hard-working man who does not spare 
 himself will not be considerate for others, except for 
 some very potent reason. 
 
 However unpleasant it may be to feel ourselves re- 
 sponsible for the maintenance of an indigent person, 
 we seldom relish the better fortune which at last with- 
 draws him from our patronage. In the same way, the 
 pleasure which we feel in the exaltation of a friend is 
 counterbalanced by the slight annoyance of seeing 
 him become our equal or superior. He does not suit 
 us so well thus, for we like to have dependants who 
 do not cost us anything. We wish good fortune for 
 our friends ; but when it comes, our first feeling is not 
 one of pure delight. 
 
 Some people delight in giving invitations to their 
 house and table, and in offering their means and their 
 services ; all this costs little, and is of small value if 
 they are not as good as their word. 
 
 One faithful friend is enough ; it is even much to 
 meet with one, yet we cannot for the sake of others 
 have too many friends.
 
 THE HEART. 63 
 
 When we have done all we can to conciliate, and yet 
 do not succeed, there is one resource left, which is to 
 leave such persons alone. 
 
 To live with our enemies as if they might one day be 
 our friends and with our friends as if they might be our 
 enemies, is neither in accordance with the nature of 
 hatred or the rules of friendship. It may be a good 
 political maxim, but it is a bad moral one. 
 
 We ought not to make enemies of those who, if 
 better known, might rank among our friends. We 
 ought to choose as friends persons of such honour and 
 probity that, should they ever cease to be our friends, 
 they would never abuse our confidence, nor give us 
 cause to fear them as enemies. 
 
 It is as pleasant to see our friends from inclination 
 and esteem as it is irksome to cultivate people from 
 interested motives. This is importunity. 
 
 We ought to court the favour of those we desire to 
 oblige, rather than those from whom we expect 
 benefits. 
 
 He who knows how to wait for what he desires will 
 not despair if he happens to have to do without it. On 
 the other hand, he who impatiently longs for a thing 
 has been too much engrossed with the thought of it to 
 feel that success rewards him for all his anxiety. 
 
 The things most wished for never happen, or if they 
 do they come at such a time or in such circumstances 
 as spoil the enjoyment of them. 
 
 We must laugh before we are happy for fear we should 
 die before we have ever laughed at all.
 
 64 LA BRUYZRE. 
 
 Life is short if we only count the time when it is 
 pleasant ; and if we were only to reckon the hours we 
 spend agreeably, it would take a great number ot years 
 to make up a life of a few months. 
 
 How difficult it is to be quite satisfied with any one ! 
 
 It is hard for a proud man to forgive one who has 
 found him out in some fault and who has good reason 
 to complain of him : his resentment is never healed till 
 he has regained his advantage by putting the other in 
 the wrong. 
 
 As we become more and more attached to those we 
 oblige, so we cordially dislike those to whom we have 
 given great offence. 
 
 It is as difficult to stifle the resentment of an injury 
 at first as it is to preserve the feeling after a certain 
 length of time. 
 
 It is weakness which makes us hate an enemy and 
 wish to be revenged, and it is laziness which pacifies us 
 and makes us not pursue revenge. 
 
 A man will allow himself to be governed as much 
 through indolence as from weakness. 
 
 There is no use attempting suddenly to control a 
 man, and especially in matters of importance to him 
 and his. It requires some address to prevent him 
 feeling that you are trying to gain a moral power over 
 him ; shame or caprice would move him to resist the 
 restraint* Let him first be guided in little things, and 
 from thence the progress to greater things is certain. 
 Even if at first your influence is only such as will per- 
 suade him to go to the country, or to return to town, it 
 will end in your dictating the terms of the will by 
 which his son is disinherited.
 
 THE HEART. 65 
 
 To direct or govern any one absolutely and long, it 
 is necessary to hold a light rein, and to let him feel his 
 dependence as little as possible. Some people will allow 
 themselves to be controlled up to a certain point, and 
 from thence are quite unmanageable, and will no longer 
 be led. All at once the power of moral suasion is lost, 
 and neither through reason nor affection can you move 
 them ; some act thus from conviction, others from 
 caprice. There are men who will not listen to reason 
 nor to good advice, and willingly go wrong through 
 fear of being controlled. 
 
 Others will allow their friends to dictate to them in 
 little things, so that they in their turn may assume the 
 right to dictate in affairs of more importance. 
 
 Drance would like to be thought his master's governor. 
 His master, however, is not of the same opinion any 
 more than the rest of the world. A servant who inces- 
 santly chatters to him he serves, laughs loudly in his 
 presence, interrupts his conversation with others who 
 have come to pay their court, seats himself as near his 
 master as possible, or lounges about familiarly in his 
 presence, even presuming to pluck his sleeve or tread 
 upon his heels, is more likely to be thought a vain fool 
 than a favourite. A wise man neither suffers himself to 
 be governed nor seeks to govern others ; he desires 
 solely and always to be governed by his judgment. 
 
 For my part, I would not object to yield myself up 
 entirely to the guidance of another, provided he were a 
 person of sound judgment. I would thus be sure of 
 doing right without the trouble of deliberating, and 
 should enjoy all the peace and tranquillity of one who is 
 governed by reason. 
 
 All our passions are deceitful ; we conceal them as 
 much as possible from the eyes of others, and even try 
 to disguise them to ourselves ; there is no vice which 
 
 F
 
 66 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 has not some spurious resemblance to virtue, and takes 
 advantage of this. 
 
 The best and most agreeable conversation is that in 
 which the heart has more influence than the head. 
 
 There are certain sublime sentiments, certain grand 
 and noble acts, which are called forth more by our 
 moral strength than by innate goodness. 
 
 There is scarcely any excess in the world so com- 
 mendable as an excess of gratitude. 
 
 He must be a dull person indeed whom neither love, 
 hate, nor necessity can inspire with wit. 
 
 There are some places we admire ; others we love. 
 It seems to me that wit, humour, passion, taste, and 
 sentiment depend on the place we live in. 
 
 Only those who do well deserve to be envied ; but 
 there is a still better course to take, which is to excel 
 them. This is a sweet revenge to take over those who 
 give us the opportunity. 
 
 Some people keep from loving and from rhyming as 
 two weaknesses they dare not encourage one of the 
 heart, the other of the head. 
 
 It sometimes happens in the course of life that our 
 most ardent pleasures or most cherished attachments 
 are forbidden us, and it is natural that we should regret 
 them, for they cannot be surpassed : our compen- 
 sation lies in the knowledge that we have had the 
 moral strength to renounce them.
 
 SOCIETY AND CONVERSATION. 
 
 A PERSON with no character is insipid. 
 
 A fool is always troublesome, while a sensible man 
 sees at once if his company is agreeable or if he is in 
 the- way ; he knows the exact moment to take leave 
 before he has become tiresome. 
 
 There are many offensive wits, many more slander- 
 ous and satirical, and few delicate. A man must have 
 polished manners, graceful language, and a good deal 
 of imagination to carry off a light and playful conversa- 
 tion with success, for his airy jests are created out of 
 nothing. 
 
 If we were to pay serious attention to all the vain and 
 silly remarks in ordinary conversation, we should be 
 ashamed to take part in it at all, and might take a vow of 
 perpetual silence which would be more injurious to 
 society than the most unprofitable talk. We must 
 therefore accommodate ourselves to all minds, permit 
 as a necessary evil false reports and vague political 
 reflections, and listen patiently to the grand notions 
 some men are continually airing. We must allow 
 Arontius to utter his wise sayings, and Melinda to talk 
 of herself, her nerves, her ailments, and her want of 
 sleep. 
 
 We often meet with people who in conversation 
 irritate us by using absurd phrases and novel or in- 
 
 F 2
 
 68 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 appropriate words used by nobody but themselves and 
 twisted into meanings quite at variance with the 
 signification their inventors intended. They observe 
 neither custom nor reason in their language, but follow 
 their own fantastic genius. The desire to be thought 
 witty gradually turns this jargon of theirs into their 
 natural phraseology, and their ridiculous originality is 
 accompanied by odd gestures and affected pronuncia- 
 tion. 
 
 However, they are quite pleased with themselves and 
 their wit, which we admit they are not devoid of; but we 
 regret they have not more, for we suffer from its 
 puerility. 
 
 If we go much into society we cannot avoid meeting 
 certain vain persons who are easy, familiar and 
 assertive ; they are the talkers, the others must listen. 
 We hear them in the antechamber but need not fear to 
 interrupt them, for their eloquence flows on without the 
 slightest regard for those who come in and go out, or 
 for the rank and quality of the company. They 
 silence any one who begins to tell a piece of news, so 
 that they may be left to report it in their own way, 
 which is of course the only right way; did they not hear 
 it from Zamet, or Ruccelay, or Concini* persons they 
 never even spoke to and whom they certainly would not 
 dare to address without some title of respect. At other 
 times they will accost the most important guest, and in 
 a confidential undertone inform him of some fact known 
 to no one else, and which they would on no account 
 tell to any one else. They suppress names to disguise 
 the story and prevent applicability. And so the 
 mystery grows. You beg them to be explicit, but it is 
 
 * Three of the Italian retinue of Marie de Me'dicis, the last 
 being the unfortunate Marquis d'Ancre.
 
 SOCIETY AND CONVERSATION. 69 
 
 useless, there are certain things they cannot tell, 
 certain persons whose names cannot be mentioned, 
 their word has been given, it is a secret of the utmost 
 importance ; to insist would be to demand an im- 
 possibility, for in truth they know nothing whatever 
 of either the persons or the facts they speak of. 
 
 Arrias has read and seen everything ; at least he 
 would make you believe so. He lays himself out as a 
 universal genius, and would rather lie than be silent, 
 or seem ignorant on any subject. At table a great man 
 at some northern court is mentioned ; at once the words 
 are taken out of the speakers mouth, and A rrias refers 
 to that distant country as if he had been born there ; 
 speaks of the manners of its court, of its women, its 
 laws, and its customs ; tells little stories of things 
 which happened there, finds them amusing to himself 
 and laughs heartily over the recollection. Some one 
 ventures to contradict him, and to say flatly that what 
 he affirms is untrue. Arrias is not put out by this, but 
 gets angry with his opponent, saying, " Sir, I assert 
 nothing I do not know to be true ; I heard it from 
 Setkon, the French ambassador at that court, who 
 returned thence a few days ago, and who is such a parti- 
 cular friend of mine he would keep nothing from me." 
 Then, with greater confidence than ever, he resumes 
 the thread of his discourse, when one of the guests 
 informs him that he is Sethon, and that he has just 
 returned from the Embassy ! 
 
 I hear the voice of Theodectns's in the antechamber. 
 The nearer he comes the louder he talks, and he enters, 
 laughing noisily, and grinning from ear to ear. He is 
 no less remarkable for the things he says than for the 
 tone in which he says them. His noisy tumult is only 
 quieted when he is stammering out some of his folly
 
 7 o LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 and vanity. He has so little regard for persons, place, 
 or decorum, that he hits off everybody in turn, with the 
 confidence of ignorance. No sooner is he seated than, 
 quite unconsciously, he has annoyed the whole com- 
 pany. Dinner served, he is first at table, in the place of 
 honour, ladies on his right and left, he eats, drinks, 
 talks, jests, and interrupts, with no consideration for 
 host or guests, abusing the toleration shown him ; in- 
 deed, any one would suppose he had given the feast, he 
 assumes so much authority ; and it is less trouble to 
 let him have his own way than to argue with him. 
 Eating and drinking do not improve his manners, 
 while at play he wins and laughs at the loser till he 
 gives offence. The frivolous are on his side, and they 
 excuse in him any amount of folly. 
 
 At last I give it up and disappear, unable longer to 
 endure Theodectus and those who tolerate him. 
 
 Troilus is very useful to those who have too much 
 money. He relieves them of their superfluity, and saves 
 them the trouble of hoarding, locking coffers, carrying 
 about keys, or fearing dishonest servants. He assists 
 them in the pursuit of pleasure, and is even serviceable 
 to them in their love affairs, which he regulates for 
 them. He is the household oracle, his word is law, his 
 every wish is anticipated. He orders that this slave 
 shall be punished, that one whipped, and the other 
 freed, and it is done. If it is noticed that a sycophant 
 does not make him laugh, it must be that he displeases 
 him, so he is dismissed. The master of the house must 
 think himself fortunate if Troilus graciously leaves him 
 his wife and children. At table his taste decides which 
 dishes are dainty, which insipid. He is seldom to be 
 found elsewhere than in the house of this rich man, 
 whom he governs ; it is there he eats, sleeps, digests, 
 quarrels with his valet, sees his work-people, dismisses
 
 SOCIETY AND CONVERSATION. ^\ 
 
 his creditors. He rules with a high hand in the 
 audience-chamber, where he receives the homage of 
 those who are clever enough to know that they will best 
 reach the master through Troilus. If some one comes 
 in whose expression of countenance does not please 
 him, he frowns and turns away from him ; and if he 
 comes up to him he sits still and takes no notice ; he sits 
 down beside him, talks, but is repulsed ; if the new- 
 comer persists, Troilus will move into another room, 
 make for the staircase, and would rather jump down 
 the whole flight, or even leap out of the window, than 
 be forced to speak to a man whose face or voice he 
 dislikes. He is himself fortunate in both, and they 
 serve to insinuate and gain his ends, till at last every- 
 thing is beneath his notice and he scorns to preserve 
 his supremacy by the least of the efforts through which 
 he gained it. It is quite a favour if occasionally he 
 rouses himself from his silent reserve to contradict or 
 even to criticize, unless it be once a day to show his 
 wit. There is no use expecting that he will condescend 
 to listen to any expression of your opinions or com- 
 mend anything you do, or indeed that your courtesy 
 and compliance with his wishes will be recognized. 
 
 The great gift in conversation lies less in displaying 
 talent ourselves than in drawing it out of others. He 
 who leaves your company pleased with himself and 
 his own cleverness is perfectly well pleased with you. 
 Most men would rather please you than admire you, and 
 desire less to be instructed or even amused than to be 
 approved and applauded, and the most delicate pleasure 
 is to give it to another. 
 
 Too much imagination is not necessary either in our 
 conversation or in our writings ; it often produces vain 
 and silly ideas which neither tend to make us wiser nor
 
 72 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 better. Our thoughts ought to be guided by good sense 
 and right reason, and resolved by our judgment. 
 
 It is a very sad thing to have neither wisdom enough 
 to speak well, nor sense enough to be silent. This is 
 the origin of all impertinence. 
 
 To speak of a thing in tones of moderation, to say 
 simply that it is good or bad and to say why you think 
 so, requires good sense and a happy turn of expression ; 
 and is not such an easy matter as it is to say with an 
 air of conviction which carries with it the proof of your 
 assertion, that the thing is execrable or that it is mira- 
 culously good. 
 
 Nothing can be more displeasing to God and man 
 than the habit of supporting the smallest subjects of 
 conversation by a jarring oath. An honest man who 
 says yes or no deserves to be believed, his character 
 swears for him, gives credit to his words and gains him 
 every confidence. 
 
 He who is continually saying he is a man of truth 
 and honour, that he wrongs no one and is quite willing 
 that any harm he has ever done to others should recoil 
 on himself, and swears in order that he may be be- 
 lieved, does not know how even to imitate an honest man. 
 
 A really honest man, with all his modesty, does not 
 know how to prevent people saying of him all that a 
 dishonest man says of himself. 
 
 Clean says rude or unjust things, one or the other, 
 but he adds that he cannot help it : he was born brusque^ 
 and what he thinks he says. 
 
 There is a knack of speaking well, speaking easily, 
 speaking justly, and speaking appropriately, or in good
 
 SOCIETY AND CONVERSATION. 73 
 
 taste. It is offending against the latter to enlarge on 
 the subject of some grand banquet you have just given 
 before those who are reduced to poverty, to boast of 
 sound health before the ailing, to entertain a man who 
 has neither house nor lands with an account of your 
 wealth, your estates, and your belongings, in short, to 
 speak of your blessings before the miserable. Such 
 conversation is very hard for them, and the comparison 
 they draw between your condition and theirs is hateful. 
 
 ' ' Oh you ! " says Eutiphron, " you are rich, or at 
 least you ought to consider yourself so. Ten thousand 
 livres a year invested in land, why it is delightful; you 
 are certainly fortunate." Now he who speaks thus has 
 fifty thousand livres a year, and thinks he has not half 
 as much as he deserves. But he reckons up how much 
 you are worth, and what your expenses are, and if he 
 considers you worthy of a better fortune, even of what 
 he himself aspires to, he does not fail to say that he 
 wishes you may get it. He is not the only one who 
 makes such ill-judged calculations and unkind com- 
 parisons ; the world is full of Eutiphrons. 
 
 There are some people who cannot speak without 
 giving offence. They are sharp and piquant, their 
 style is a mixture of gall and wormwood, sneering 
 abuse and insults fall freely from their lips, and it 
 would have been a blessing had they been born dumb 
 or stupid. The little wit and cleverness they possess 
 does them more harm than other people's foolishness ; 
 sharp answers do not always satisfy them; they prefer 
 to be the aggressors, and will attack with virulence ; 
 every subject they touch upon is treated with extreme 
 bitterness, and while those present have their feelings 
 wounded, the absent do not escape ; they are like batter- 
 ing rams falling foul of every one.
 
 74 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 We do not expect by this portrayal to reform such 
 ill-natured people : when we see them, the best thing 
 we can do is to fly from them with all our might, 
 without ever looking behind us. 
 
 There are men of such disposition and character 
 that we must be careful how far we trust them. We 
 must say as little against them as possible, as it would 
 never be believed that we were doing them justice. 
 
 I hate a man whom I cannot accost or salute till he 
 has just recognized me, without the risk of being 
 thought contemptible or contemptuous. Montaigne 
 would say, " I must have perfect freedom, and be as 
 courteous and affable as I like without being obliged to 
 weigh the consequences. I cannot go against my in- 
 clination or act contrary to my nature which makes me 
 meet people half way, provided they are my equals, 
 and not my enemies. I reciprocate their reception and 
 make enquiries as to health and occupation, and I offer 
 my services if it seems they can be of use, without 
 hesitating to think how much or how little, or to value 
 my favours as some people do. He displeases me who, 
 through the knowledge I have of his ways and manners, 
 would like to deprive me of my frank liberty. How 
 can I remember in an instant when I see such a man 
 afar off that I must put on a grave and important ex- 
 pression, so that he may know that I consider myself 
 as good as he is, nay, better? To do this I would have 
 to call to my mind all my good qualities and his bad 
 ones, and compare notes. This is too much trouble for 
 me; I am not capable of such swift and subtle ex- 
 amination, and even if I could do this once, I am sure 
 I should fail the second time. I cannot force myself to 
 be constrained and proud for any man."
 
 SOCIETY AND CONVERSATION. 75 
 
 A man may have capacity and every virtue, and be 
 well-conducted, and yet be unbearable. Manners 
 which are often neglected as of no importance are fre- 
 quently the points upon which a good or bad opinion 
 of one is formed. A little care taken to be gentle and 
 polite will prevent a bad impression. It requires very 
 little to gain a reputation for pride, incivility, and dis- 
 dain, and it requires even less to gain esteem. 
 
 Politeness does not always inspire kindness, justice, 
 generosity, and gratitude ; it only makes a man appear 
 to have those virtues which he ought to possess. 
 
 We may define the spirit of politeness though we 
 cannot determine its practice. It has certain recog- 
 nized rules according to time, place, and persons, and 
 there are different rules for the sexes and for different 
 conditions. Wit alone cannot attain it, but it may be 
 gained by imitation, and practice perfects it. There 
 are certain temperaments which are impressible 
 through politeness, and there are others which can 
 only be reached by talent or solid virtue. It is true 
 that a polished manner sets off merit and makes it 
 more agreeable, and that it is necessary to have 
 very eminent qualifications to be bearable without it. 
 
 Politeness seems to consist in taking a certain 
 amount of care about our words, and our manner of 
 saying them, so that other people may be pleased with 
 them and with us. 
 
 It is not polite to praise immoderately before those 
 who have just been singing or playing for our amuse- 
 ment, some one else who possesses the same talent, 
 or to commend another poet in presence of one who 
 has just read his verses to you. 
 
 When we give an entertainment, make presents, or 
 procure any pleasure for another, we may do it grandly
 
 76 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 or in accordance with their tastes. The latter way is 
 the better. 
 
 It is rude to reject with indifference every kind of 
 praise. We ought to appreciate that which is honestly 
 given by people who praise in us what they see worthy 
 of it. 
 
 A talented man who is naturally proud loses nothing 
 of his pride and reserve by being poor ; on the con- 
 trary, if anything can soften him and make him more 
 pleasant and sociable it will be a little prosperity. 
 
 It does not show a good disposition if we cannot bear 
 with the many bad tempers we meet with in this world. 
 In commerce copper is as necessary as gold. 
 
 To live with people who are continually at variance, 
 and who make you hear first one side and then the 
 other, is like living, so to speak, in a court of justice, 
 hearing cases from morning till night. 
 
 There were two persons who spent their lives in close 
 union. Their goods were in common, they had one 
 dwelling, and never lost sight of each other. But after 
 four score years they perceived that it was time to 
 part and put an end to their intimacy. They had only 
 one day more to live, but they could not risk passing 
 it together. They were in such haste to break with 
 each other before death came to part them that their 
 forbearance could not last till then. They lived too 
 long for good example : a moment sooner and they had 
 died good friends, and left behind them a rare instance 
 of a lasting friendship. 
 
 Family life is often torn by jealousy, distrust, and dis- 
 like, whilst outwardly the members seem happy, con-
 
 SOCIETY AND CONVERSATION. 77 
 
 tented, and peaceable, and we suppose they enjoy a 
 tranquillity which they do not know. There are few 
 households which can bear close examination ; the visit 
 you make, stays a domestic quarrel which only waits 
 your departure to begin again. 
 
 Only those who have, or who have had, old relations 
 from whom they have expectations, can tell what they 
 cost them. 
 
 Cleantes is a very worthy person. He chose as his 
 wife one of the best and most sensible women in the 
 world, and each in his or her way gives much pleasure 
 in the society they frequent ; such politeness and ex- 
 cellence is rarely met with ; they part to-morrow, 
 and the deed of separation is already prepared at the 
 notary's. There are, no doubt, certain virtues which 
 are incompatible and were not meant to be together. 
 
 A man may seemingly count on his wife's portion, 
 jointure, and settlement, but cannot be certain of his 
 peace. This depends on such a fragile thing as har- 
 mony between a daughter-in-law and a mother-in-law, 
 and often ends during the first year of married life. 
 
 A father-in-law loves his son-in-law and his daughter- 
 in-law. A mother-in-law loves her son-in-law but not 
 her son's wife. There is a law of reciprocity in every- 
 thing. 
 
 A step-mother loves her husband's children less than 
 anything else in the world ; the more she dotes on 
 her husband, the more she is a step-mother. 
 
 Step-mothers make whole towns and villages miser- 
 able ; the country owes its beggars, vagabonds,
 
 78 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 servants, and slaves to them more than to poverty 
 itself. 
 
 G * * * and H * * * are neighbours, their estates 
 adjoin, and the neighbourhood is very solitary, far from 
 any town or society ; one would expect that solitude 
 and the natural yearning men have for society would 
 draw them together. It would be difficult to say what 
 trifles have prevented their friendship and roused an 
 implacable hatred in their hearts against each other, 
 a hatred which their children inherit. No family 
 quarrel ever arose out of so little. 
 
 If there were only two men in existence and the 
 whole world were divided between them, I am con- 
 vinced that very soon some subject of dispute would 
 arise between them, if only about their proper bounds. 
 
 It is frequently easier as well as better to agree 
 in another man's opinion, than to bring him over to 
 ours. 
 
 I am approaching a little town, I have reached an 
 eminence from which I discover it ; it is situated half 
 way up the hill, a river runs beside its walls and flows 
 into a lovely valley ; it is sheltered from the cold, 
 northerly winds by the thickly-wooded hill. The air 
 is so clear that I can count its turrets and steeples ; it 
 seems to me like a beautiful picture painted on the hill- 
 side ; and I exclaim how delightful it would be to dwell 
 there under such a heavenly sky! I descend into the 
 town, and have not been there two nights till, like those 
 who live there, I wish to get away. 
 
 There is one thing which never has been seen and 
 apparently never will be seen on this earth. It is a small 
 town which is not divided into cliques ; where families
 
 SOCIETY AND CONVERSATION. 79 
 
 are united, relations trust each other ; a marriage does 
 not stir up civil war ; where disputes about precedence 
 do not crop up at every moment, from which all lying, 
 scolding, and gossiping are banished ; where one may 
 sometimes see the mayor and the sheriff talking amic- 
 ably together ; where the people and the tax-collector are 
 not at daggers drawn ; the bishop lives at peace with the 
 dean, the dean with the canons, the canons do not 
 disdain the chaplains, and they in their turn are able to 
 endure the curates. 
 
 Countrymen .and fools are always ready to take 
 offence, and think you are laughing at or despising 
 them. It is best not to venture on the most innocent 
 joke unless it be among men of refinement and sense. 
 
 We seldom shine among great people ; their grandeur 
 keeps us at a distance, nor among the common people ; 
 they are so matter of fact that they repulse us. 
 
 Merit is discriminating ; it is mutually felt and dis- 
 tinguished. If we would be esteemed, we must 
 associate with estimable people. 
 
 He who holds himself apart and will not take a jest 
 should never make one. 
 
 We all have little failings which we do not mind 
 being bantered about, and we should choose similar 
 defects in others when we banter them. 
 
 It is the privilege of fools to laugh at talent. A wise 
 man is to the world what a fool is at Court, of no 
 consequence. 
 
 Mockery is often poverty of wit.
 
 So LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 You believe a man to be your dupe ; but if he is only 
 pretending to be so, who is the greater dupe he or 
 you ? 
 
 If you carefully observe those people who never 
 praise, but are always finding fault, and are never con- 
 tented with any one, you will find that they are people 
 with whom nobody is content. 
 
 Pride and scorn have the opposite effect to that 
 desired, if it be esteem. 
 
 Among friends the pleasure of society is increased 
 by similarity of tastes as regards inclinations, and by 
 some difference of opinion as to learning; thus in 
 matters of taste we feel ourselves supported, whilst our 
 minds are stimulated and instructed by argument. 
 
 Two persons cannot be great friends if they cannot 
 forgive each other's little failings. 
 
 How many fine and useless reasons are laid before 
 him who is in great trouble, to try and calm him. But 
 circumstances are often too much for reason or nature. 
 It is cold advice to be told to eat and drink, and not 
 to kill oneself with sorrow, to live arfd be reason- 
 able, it is not wise to grieve so deeply. Is this not 
 equal to saying are you not a fool to be so miser- 
 able? 
 
 Counsel is necessary in business affairs, but in 
 society it is sometimes prejudicial to him who tenders 
 it, and useless to the recipient. You remark, perhaps 
 on some bad habit which is either not admitted as such 
 or looked upon as a virtue. You mark out a passage 
 in an author's writing, the very one in which he con-
 
 SOCIETY AND CONVERSATl 81 
 
 siders he has surpassed himself. In this way you lose 
 the intimacy of your friends without making them 
 better or wiser. 
 
 Some time ago a weak and silly kind of conversation 
 was fashionable ; it turned mostly on trivial questions 
 as to love ; and what is called passion or tenderness. 
 Reading certain romances first started the habit 
 among the best people of the Court and city ; but they 
 soon discarded it, and the middle classes have now 
 assumed it with all its doubtful witticisms. 
 
 If we sometimes pretend to forget names which we 
 look upon as obscure, or if we affectedly mispronounce 
 them, it can only be because we have such a high 
 opinion of our own. 
 
 Sometimes, in a humorous mood or in the freedom 
 of friendly conversation, we say silly things which we 
 mean to be silly, and which are amusing simply 
 because they are so ridiculous. This undignified style 
 belongs to the people, but it has already infected the 
 youth of the Court. True, we need not be afraid that 
 it will take deep .root, it is too stupid and crude an 
 amusement to extend far in a country which is the 
 centre of good taste and politeness. We ought, how- 
 ever, to show those who practise it that it is objection- 
 able ; for although it is not a serious matter, yet in 
 ordinary conversation it fills the place of something 
 better. 
 
 I cannot choose between the people who say absurd 
 things and those who repeat, as new, clever things 
 which we all know already. 
 
 Lucan says a good thing ; there follows a happy 
 expression in Claudian ; then a passage from Seneca; 
 
 G
 
 82 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 and then a long Latin quotation, cited to those who 
 although ignorant of every word of it pretend to 
 understand. It would be better to have sense and 
 talent of one's own ; for then we might dispense with 
 ancient quotations, or, having read carefully, we would 
 choose the best and only quote them appropriately. 
 
 Hermagoras does not know who is King of Hungary, 
 and is surprised when some one mentions the King of 
 Bohemia. Do not speak to him of the wars of 
 Flanders or of Holland, or at least do not expect him to 
 reply, for he is confused as to dates, and does not know 
 when they began or ended. Battles and sieges are all 
 new to him, but he is well up in the wars of the giants ; 
 he can tell you all about them to the smallest 
 details. He can with equal ease pierce the mist of 
 that dreadful chaos in which the Babylonian and 
 Assyrian monarchies existed ; he is deeply read in 
 Egypt and its dynasties. He never saw Versailles and 
 never will see it, but he nearly saw the tower of Babel ; 
 he has counted the steps and knowshow manyarchitects 
 were employed, and has discovered their names. 
 I believe that he supposes Henri IV. to be the son of 
 Henri III.; at all events he has not thought it worth 
 while to know anything about the houses of France, 
 Austria, or Bavaria ; mere trifles ! he says, while he can 
 recite from memory the long list of Kings of Media 
 and Babylon, and such names as Apronal, Heregabal, 
 Noesnemordach, and Mardokempad, are as familiar 
 to him as those of Valois and Bourbon to us. He 
 asks us if the Emperor is married, but he knows all 
 about Ninus and his two wives. You tell him that the 
 King enjoys perfect health, and he remarks that 
 Thetmosis, a King of Egypt, was healthy, and that he 
 inherited a good complexion from his ancestor 
 Alipharmutosis. What does he not know ? What in
 
 SOCIETY AND CONVERSATION. 83 
 
 all venerable antiquity is hid from him ? He will tell 
 you that Semiramis, or, as some call her, Serimaris, 
 spoke so like her son Ninyas, that their voices were 
 not distinguishable; but he dare not decide whether the 
 mother had a manly voice like her son, or the son an 
 effeminate voice like his mother. He reveals to you 
 that Nimrod was left handed, whilst Sesostris could 
 use both hands with equal ease ; and that it is a mistake 
 to suppose that one of the Artaxerxes was called 
 Longimanus because his arms reached to his knees, 
 and not because one of his hands was longer than the 
 other ; and he adds that there are authors who gravely 
 affirm that it was his right hand, but he has good 
 reason to believe that it was the left. 
 
 Profound ignorance makes a man dogmatic; he who 
 knows little thinks he may teach others what he has 
 just learned himself ; whilst he who knows a great deal 
 can scarcely imagine that others can be ignorant, and 
 therefore he speaks with more impartiality. 
 
 Great things should be simply spoken, emphasis 
 spoils them. Little things must be said in a dignified 
 manner, they require the support of a deep-toned 
 delivery. 
 
 We can generally say things more wittily than write 
 them. 
 
 An honourablebirth, and a good education, are almost 
 the only things which make a man capable of keeping 
 a secret. 
 
 Confidence is dangerous if it is not entire. With but 
 few exceptions it is best either to tell the whole truth or
 
 84 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 nothing. We have already told too much to a man 
 from whom we think it necessary to conceal one cir- 
 cumstance. 
 
 Nicander entertains Eliza with stories of the tender, 
 kindly manner in which he lived with his wife from the 
 day of their marriage till her death. He has already 
 told her how much he regrets that she left him no 
 children, and he now repeats it. He talks of his houses 
 in town and his estate in the country, and he calculates 
 the income it yields. He describes the situation and 
 the plan of the house, and enlarges on the convenience 
 of the rooms, and also on the beauty and elegance of 
 the furniture. Assures her that he likes to live well 
 and in good style, with carriages and horses ; and 
 regrets that his wife did not care more for play and 
 society. " You are so rich," remarks a chosen friend, 
 so that Eliza may hear, " so rich, why don't you buy 
 that post, or why don't you add such and such a domain 
 to your own ? " " Oh," replies Nicander, modestly, 
 people credit me with greater wealth than I possess." He 
 does not forget to refer to his connections either 
 the treasurer, my cousinj my kinswoman, the 
 chancellors wife, this is his style. He tells her a 
 story which shows how dissatisfied he is with 
 his nearest relations, even his heirs, and asks 
 Eliza to judge if he has not been deeply injured, and 
 does she think he can be expected to do them more 
 kindness. Then he hints that he is in a feeble lan- 
 guishing state of health, and speaks of the vault where 
 he desires to be interred. He insinuates himself into 
 the good graces of all those who are very intimate with 
 this lady he courts. But Eliza has n^t the courage to 
 be made rich at the cost of being his wife ; and whilst 
 he is still talking a cavalier is announced whose presence 
 alone is enough to knock down the battery raised by
 
 SOCIETY AND CONVERSATION. 85 
 
 this citizen : he rises disconcerted and chagrined, and 
 departs to tell some one else that he is anxious to 
 marry again. 
 
 Wise men often avoid the world, so that they may 
 not be wearied by it.
 
 THE BENEFITS OF WEALTH. 
 
 A RICH man may eat of fine dishes, decorate his 
 ceilings and alcoves, enjoy himself in his palatial 
 country residence or in a splendid town mansion, have 
 a great retinue of servants, marry his daughter to a 
 Duke, and buy a title for his son this is all right, and 
 within his power; but contentment belongs to another 
 man. 
 
 High birth or great wealth sets of merit, and makes 
 it sooner appreciated. 
 
 If anything can justify a foolish man's ambition, it is 
 the trouble he takes, after he has made his fortune, to dis- 
 cover some imaginary merit great enough to give him 
 the importance he considers himself worthy of. 
 
 As wealth and favour desert a man it is discovered 
 that he is a fool, although nobody discovered it in his 
 prosperity. 
 
 If we did not see it every day could we ever imagine 
 the extraordinary disproportion a few pieces of money 
 more or less make between men ? 
 
 This more or less decides whether a man is to follow 
 the profession of arms, the church, or the long robe ; 
 and this is almost its sole vocation. 
 
 Two merchants were neighbours, and engaged in 
 the same business, but in the end their fortunes were
 
 THE BENEFITS OF WEALTH. 87 
 
 very different. Each of them had an only daughter, 
 and they were brought up together, and lived in such 
 intimacy as was natural for young persons of the same 
 age and condition. Years later one of them in great 
 distress sought to find a situation, and at last entered 
 the service of a very great lady, one of the first rank 
 at Court. This was the companion of her childhood ! 
 
 If the financier misses his aim, the courtier says of 
 him he is only a citizen, a nobody, quite a low-bred 
 fellow. If he succeeds, the courtier asks for the 
 honour of his daughter's hand. 
 
 Some men in their youth have served an apprentice- 
 ship which has well fitted them to exercise a very 
 different one for the rest of their lives. 
 
 A man is ugly, deformed, and weak-minded. It is 
 whispered in my ear, he has fifty million livres a year. 
 That concerns him alone, and I shall never be the better 
 or the worse for it. What a fool I should be were I to 
 begin to look at him with different eyes, and not re- 
 main master of my own judgment. 
 
 It is vain to attempt to turn a rich fool into ridicule ; 
 the laughers are all on his side. 
 
 Clitiphon, I have need of you, and have risen early 
 from my bed to go and see you. Would that my 
 misfortunes did not require me to trouble and annoy 
 you ! Your slaves tell me that you are invisible at 
 present, and cannot see me for a whole hour. I return 
 before the time mentioned and they tell me you have 
 gone out. What are you doing, Clitiphon, in your 
 private room, that you will not see me, what is the im- 
 portant labour which prevents you listening to me?
 
 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 Are you filing your accounts, comparing your memor- 
 anda, signing papers, writing explanatory notes, or what, 
 whilst I wait with only one question to ask you, to 
 which you would have but one word to answer, yes or 
 no? If you desire to be important, render service to 
 those who require it of you, and you will be more es- 
 teemed than by making yourself so scarce. You are 
 a man of note at present and full of business, but the 
 time may come when you will have need of my services ; 
 come then into the privacy of my apartment, the 
 philosopher will be accessible. I shall not put you off 
 till another day. You may find me occupied with 
 Plato on the immortality of the soul, or pen in hand 
 calculating the distance between Saturn and Jupiter : 
 for I admire the Creator in all his works, and I 
 endeavour by acquiring a more perfect knowledge of 
 the truth to regulate and improve my mind. Come in, 
 all the doors are open, my ante-room is not a place of 
 weary waiting, come straight in to me without any 
 ceremony. You bring me something more precious 
 than silver or gold, if it is the opportunity of obliging 
 you. Tell me, what do you wish me to do for you ? 
 Must I leave my books, my studies, my writing, the 
 line I have just begun? Ah, but I am very happy to 
 be interrupted if I can be of use to you ! 
 
 The monied or the business man is a bear, we dare 
 not approach his den ; even at home we cannot see 
 him without a great deal of trouble. What am I 
 saying ? He is not to be seen at all, for at first we are 
 told we cannot see him yet, and then that we can see 
 him no more. The man of letters is quite different, he 
 is as common as a mile-stone, and can be seen at any 
 time, anywhere, by anybody ; he is of no importance, 
 and does not wish to be. 
 
 Let us not envy some people their great wealth ; the
 
 THE BENEFITS OF WEALTH. 89 
 
 burden of it is very heavy, and would not suit us at all. 
 To possess it they have sacrificed health, rest, honour, 
 and conscience, and this is too high a price ; there is no 
 profit in such a bargain. 
 
 The P. T. S.* rouse all evil passions in us one after 
 the other. First we despise them on account of their 
 obscurity, then we envy them, then hate, then fear, and 
 sometimes we esteem and respect them ; and if we 
 live long enough our concern with them will end in 
 compassion. 
 
 Sosia rose from a footman's livery through a receiver's 
 office till he got a sub-lease of the revenue taxes ; and 
 by extortion, violence, and abuse of trust is now 
 advanced on the ruin of several families to a high 
 station. Ennobled by his position, all he now lacks is 
 honesty. 
 
 Arfuria used to go alone and on foot to church, and 
 had to listen to the sermon of the bishop or the priest 
 from behind a pillar where she lost half the words, and 
 only saw the preacher indistinctly. Her virtue was 
 obscure, but her devotion was as notorious as her 
 person. Her husband has got into one of the public 
 offices and has in less than six years made an immense 
 fortune. She now comes to church in a coach, and her 
 heavy train is carried by pages, the preacher pauses 
 while she seats herself, for she now sits well in front, 
 and loses not a tone or gesture. There is a plot 
 among the priests as to who shall confess her ; they all 
 desire to give her absolution, but the curd has the 
 privilege. 
 
 Wealth has not only gained another name for 
 Sylvanus, but also good birth. He is lord of the manor 
 
 * An enigmatical reference to certain partisans.
 
 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 where his ancestors were vassals. Formerly he was 
 not good enough to be the page of Cleobulus, now he is 
 his son-in-law. 
 
 Dorus is carried in a litter along the Appian way,, 
 his freedmen and slaves precede him to make the 
 people turn aside to make room for him. He lacks 
 nothing but lictors. He enters Rome with his retinue, 
 and thinks that he triumphs over the meanness and 
 poverty of his father Sanga. 
 
 No one can put a fortune to better use than Perian derf 
 it brings him rank, credit, and authority. People no 
 longer try to gain his friendship, they implore his pro- 
 tection. He begins to say of himself, "A man of my 
 position," and sometimes, " A man of my quality." 
 When he assumes these airs, there are none who 
 borrow money from him or who partake of his dainty 
 hospitality would think of disputing them. His 
 residence is magnificent, the external decorations 
 are Doric ; the entrance is a grand portico, and 
 people mistake it for a temple rather than a private 
 house. He is the lord paramount of the neighbour- 
 hood, the man everybody envies, but whose fall they 
 would rather rejoice to see. His wife's pearls have 
 made even the ladies his enemies. Everything suc- 
 ceeds with him ; as yet there has been nothing to 
 detract from all this grandeur, which he has acquired 
 by his own exertions. What a pity his decrepit old 
 father did not die twenty years ago, before the world 
 had heard anything of Periander, for how will he 
 endure the opening up of that old parish register: 
 odious papers these are, which make a man's extraction 
 so clear to the world that the widow and heirs are 
 often quite ashamed. He cannot hide it from the eyes 
 of a jealous town, and will be at the mercy of the
 
 THE BENEFITS OF WEALTH. 91 
 
 thousand or so malicious mourners who will insist on 
 their privilege of attending the funeral. He could wish 
 that on this account he were able to call his father a 
 nobleman or even a gentleman ; for is he not now the 
 esquire ? 
 
 How many men are like well-grown trees trans- 
 planted into a beautiful garden. It surprises us to see 
 them there, as we never saw them growing ; so we 
 have no knowledge of their beginning nor their pro- 
 
 If some who are gone were to return again to this 
 world, and see their names and titles, estates and 
 ancient castles in the possession of people whose 
 fathers were probably their tenant farmers, what 
 opinion could they have of our age ? 
 
 Nothing will more readily make us comprehend how" 
 valueless in God's eyes are wealth and grandeur, and 
 the other advantages He bestows on mankind, than 
 the dispensation He makes of them, and the kind of 
 men who are best provided. 
 
 If you were to go into your kitchen, where all that 
 skill and method can do is employed to please your 
 taste, and tempt you to eat more than is necessary ; 
 and if you were to examine too particularly all the 
 dishes which compose the feast you give ; if you knew 
 how many hands they pass through, and all the 
 different processes they undergo before they arrive at 
 the neatness and elegance which charm your eye, 
 puzzle your choice, and force you to try them all ; if 
 you were to see the whole repast anywhere else than 
 on a well appointed table how disgusted you would 
 be. If you were to go behind the scenes at a theatre,
 
 92 LA BRUYZRE. 
 
 and see all the wheels, and weights, and ropes, and 
 consider how many people are necessary to put the 
 machinery in motion, what an amount of muscular, as 
 well as nerve power, it all means, you would say : are 
 these things the mainsprings of that most natural 
 scenery and beautiful spectacle, which appeared to act 
 of itself? and you would exclaim : what violent efforts 
 are required! In the same way, as regards men in 
 office, do not inquire too narrowly into the sources of 
 their fortune. 
 
 This fine, strong, healthy youth is patron of an abbey 
 and of two other benefices ; all together bring him in 
 26,000 livres of revenue paid to him in gold. Some- 
 whereelse I know 106 poor families who are never warm 
 throughout the whole winter, have no clothes to cover 
 them, and who often want bread to eat : their poverty 
 is extreme and shameful. How unequal this is ! Does 
 
 it not clearly prove that there is a future ? 
 v 
 
 Chrisippus was a newly created noble, the first of his 
 race. Thirty years ago his earnest desire was to have 
 some day an income of 2000 livres a year : this, he 
 said, was his highest ambition, and he repeated it so 
 often that many still remember it. He succeeded, I 
 know not how, in gaining such enormous wealth that 
 when one of his daughters married her dowry was the 
 sum which formerly was the utmost he aspired to have 
 as his own entire income. A similar sum is set aside for 
 each of his children, and hehas many to provide for. This 
 is only the first of their inheritance ; there will be a great 
 fortune to divide at his death, and now at an advanced 
 age he is still employed in labouring to be yet richer. 
 
 That man who made your fortune, and that of several 
 other people, was not able to maintain his own or to
 
 THE BENEFITS OF WEALTH. 93 
 
 secure sufficient for his wife and children after his death. 
 They live in miserable obscurity, and though you are 
 well informed of their condition, you do not try to 
 alleviate it. You have no time, in fact, you are too 
 busy entertaining, and building a house of your own. 
 Your gratitude moves you to preserve the picture of 
 your benefactor, removing it, however, from your 
 private room to the ante-chamber. How condescend- 
 ing ! Its next removal will be to the store-room. 
 
 A man who has been clever and capable enough to 
 fill his coffers comes at last to think he has a head fit 
 for government. 
 
 When we are young we are generally poor, for we 
 have neither acquired wealth nor come into our in- 
 heritance ; we get old and rich at the same time ; so 
 seldom is it that man can enjoy all his advantages 
 at once ; and if it does happen to some, we cannot envy 
 them ; for they may through death have lost so much 
 that they deserve our compassion. 
 
 A man must be thirty years of age before he is fit 
 to begin to make a fortune. He may have completed 
 it at fifty, and he begins to build in his old age, and 
 dies by the time his house is ready for the painters and 
 glaziers. 
 
 What is the fruit of a great fortune, if it be not to 
 enjoy the vanity, industry, labour, and expenditure of 
 those who lived before us, and to labour ourselves 
 in our time planting, building, and acquiring for our 
 posterity. 
 
 Men display their goods every morning to cheat the 
 public ; and pack them up at night, after having 
 cheated all day.
 
 94 
 
 LA BRUYfrRE. 
 
 In all conditions of life the poor man is nearer 
 to honesty than the rich, who is not far removed from 
 knavery. Quick wits do not bring riches. Whatever 
 your profession or trade may be, a great display of 
 honesty will help to make you rich. 
 
 The best and the quickest road to fortune is to con- 
 vince others that it will be their interest to serve you well. 
 
 Men are forced by the necessities of life, and some- 
 times by the craving for riches or glory, to cultivate 
 profane talents or to engage in doubtful occupations, 
 the perilous consequences of which they disguise even 
 to themselves. They generally abandon them in the 
 end to embrace a circumspect devotion, which they 
 never thought of till after they had gathered in their 
 harvest, and were in the enjoyment of a well-established 
 fortune. 
 
 There are miseries in this world which strike 
 cowardice to the heart. Some are denied even 
 necessary food ; they dread the winter and fear to live ; 
 whilst others eat the earliest fruits, the seasons are 
 forced forward, and the earth is made to yield its 
 riches in advance to furnish them with delicacies. 
 Obscure citizens, simply because they are rich, have 
 the audacity to swallow in one morsel the living of a 
 hundred families. I am not pleased with such ex- 
 tremes, and would not choose to be either so poor 
 or so rich, but would find refuge in moderation. 
 
 The poor are troubled because they want for every- 
 thing, and nobody comforts or relieves them. The 
 rich are annoyed if they have to wait for the least thing, 
 or if any one attempts to thwart them. 
 
 He is rich whose income is more than his expenses; 
 and he is poor whose expenses exceed his income.
 
 THE BENEFITS OF WEALTH. 95 
 
 Some people, although they had an income of two 
 millions, would manage to have five hundred livres a 
 year too little. 
 
 Nothing holds out so well as a moderate fortune; 
 and nothing flies so quickly as a large one. 
 
 Nothing comes so near to poverty as great wealth. 
 
 If it is true that we are rich by as much as we have 
 of unnecessary things, a wise man must be the richest 
 man. 
 
 If he is poor who is always wanting something, 
 the covetous and ambitious man must languish in 
 extreme poverty. 
 
 The passions tyrannize over man, but ambition sus- 
 pends every other feeling for the time, and gives him 
 the appearance of virtue. Tryphon, who is possessed 
 of every vice, I once believed to be sober, chaste, 
 liberal, and humble, even devout. I would have believed 
 it still had he not made his fortune. 
 
 There is no limit to a man's desire for riches and 
 greatness ; sickness overtakes him, death approaches, 
 but even then with shaking limbs and withered lips he 
 mutters of his fortune ; his position. 
 
 There are but two ways of rising in the world ; one 
 is by your own industry, the other by the weakness of 
 others. 
 
 Features may disclose the disposition and manners, 
 but a man's appearance indicates his fortune ; his ex- 
 pression will tell if he has more or less than 1,000 
 livres a year. 
 
 Chrysantes, a wealthy and insolent man, was ashamed 
 
 to be seen with Eugem'us,a.man of great merit, but poor 
 
 Eugenius had exactly the same feeling for Chrysanfrs,
 
 96 LA BRUYlLKE 
 
 so there seemed little chance that they would often run 
 against each other. 
 
 When I now meet certain persons who in former 
 times used always to anticipate my civilities, they wait 
 till I first salute them, and are very punctilious : I say 
 to myself, " Oh, very well, I am delighted things are 
 so flourishing with you ;" for I am quite certain he is 
 living in a grander way than formerly ; that he has got 
 into some lucrative post and has already advanced 
 his fortune. God grant that it may continue, and 
 v in a short time he will be in a position to despise me. 
 
 If thoughts, books, and their authors were dependent 
 on the wealthy and those who have risen to wealth, 
 what a hard fate they would be under! How seldom 
 the learned would be heard of! They would be 
 domineered over and dictated to, and treated with 
 contempt as poor wretches whose merits have not 
 advanced their fortunes, and who do nothing but think 
 and write down wisdom. We must confess the present 
 time is for the rich, and the future for the virtuous and 
 learned. Homer lives still and will live for ever, when 
 the treasurer and tax-collector are no more. Have 
 they ever existed ? we ask. Were their names or their 
 country known ? Were there any revenue farmers in 
 Greece ? What has become of all the important per- 
 sonages who despised Homer, who took care to avoid 
 him in the public places, who scarcely returned his 
 salutation, and scorned to invite him to their tables, 
 who regarded Homer only as a man who was not rich, 
 and had written a book ? What will become of the 
 hawks of the State, they who farmed the king's 
 revenues ? Will they be handed down to posterity like 
 Descartes, who was born in France and died in 
 Sweden ?
 
 THE BENEFITS OF WEALTH. 97 
 
 V 
 
 The same pride which makes a man hold himself 
 so much above his inferiors makes him cringe and 
 fawn on his superiors. It is characteristic of a vice 
 which is founded neither on personal merit nor on 
 virtue, but on riches, position, and useless knowledge, to 
 despise those who have less of these things, and to over- 
 estimate those who have more than ourselves. 
 
 Whilst Orortes was increasing in years, wealth, and 
 estates, a daughter was born in a certain family. She 
 grew up and increased in beauty till she entered her 
 sixteenth year. He at fifty desires to marry this young, 
 beautiful, and accomplished girl : a man without birth, 
 learning, or the slightest merit, and she prefers him to 
 all his rivals. 
 
 Marriage, which ought to be the fountain of all good 
 things, is often by the turn of fortune a heavy burden 
 under which a man succumbs. This is the case when 
 wife and children become a temptation to fraud, 
 falsehood, and unlawful gain ; he finds himself hemmed 
 in between poverty and knavery : strange solution of a 
 problem. To marry a good Frenchwoman, who is a 
 widow, means to make your fortune, though it does 
 not always turn out what it seems to mean. 
 
 Dine well, Clericus ; have a good supper ; pile the 
 wood on the fire ; buy yourself a fine cloak ; hang your 
 room with tapestry. You know you don't love your 
 heir ; you do not know him, indeed, or you have not 
 one at all. 
 
 When we are young we provide for our old age : 
 when we are old we save for death. The prodigal 
 heir pays for an ostentatious funeral, and devours the 
 rest.
 
 98 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 The dead miser spends more in a single day than 
 he spent living in ten years ; and his heir more in ten 
 months than he has been able to part with in all his 
 life. 
 
 What one wastes he steals from his heir ; what one 
 sordidly saves he steals from himself. A medium 
 course is just, for ourselves and others. 
 
 Children would perhaps be dearer to their parents, 
 and parents to their children, were it not for the title of 
 heirs. 
 
 It is a sad condition to be in, and it makes life dis- 
 tasteful, if we have to drudge for, and watch over, and 
 be dependent on some one for a little money, or if we 
 have to owe our fortune to the death of our nearest. 
 He who has never longed to step into his father's shoes 
 is a singularly honest man. 
 
 Very courteous and obliging is the person who ex- 
 pects to be our heir. We are never more flattered, 
 better obeyed, paid more attention to, courted and 
 caressed during all our lives than we are by him 
 who believes he will gain by our death, and wishes it 
 would come. 
 
 Titles, posts, and successorships make all men 
 regard themselves as each other's heirs, and conse- 
 quently self-interest makes them continually cherish a 
 secret desire for each other's death. In every con- 
 dition of life the happiest man is he who has most to 
 lose by another's death, and who will be most missed 
 by his successor. 
 
 Not even in the House of Assembly, or in the Court 
 of Justice, will you behold anything so grave and
 
 THE BENEFITS OF WEALTH. 99 
 
 serious as a table of gamblers playing high. A melan- 
 choly severity sits on their countenances. Inexorable 
 towards each other and unrelenting to their enemies, 
 whilst the play goes on they recognize neither relation- 
 ship, friendship, nor distinction. Chance alone, blind 
 chance, that fierce divinity, presides at that table, and 
 exercises an absolute control, and they honour her by 
 a profound silence and engrossed attention, which else- 
 where they would not be capable of. All other pas- 
 sions seem suspended to make way for this. The 
 courtier is no longer a pleasant flatterer, or even atten- 
 tive. 
 
 In those who have made their fortunes at the gaming- 
 table we can trace no sign of their former condition. 
 
 They lose sight of their equals, and associate with 
 people of higher rank, although it often happens that 
 the accidents of the die or the exigencies of lansquenet 
 put them back again in their original position. 
 
 Thousands have been ruined by gaming, and yet you 
 say calmly that people could not get on without play. 
 What foolishness ! Is there any passion, however 
 shameful or violent, which might not put forth the 
 same plea ? Would we be allowed to say we cannot 
 live without murders, robberies, and suicides? Why 
 then should play be allowed, hideous play, unbounded, 
 unceasing, where nothing is thought of but the ruin of 
 an adversary ; where one is transported by the desire 
 for gain, desperate over loss, consumed by avarice, and 
 where, on the turn of a card, we risk our own fortunes 
 and those of wife and children ? Is this a thing which 
 you cannot live without, which even ought to be toler- 
 ated? And these are not the worst consequences of 
 this folly; utter ruin follows, till food and clothing of 
 families are sacrificed. 
 
 H 2
 
 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 I would have no one be a cheat, but I would allow only 
 a cheat to play high. I would forbid an honest man ; 
 it would be too foolish to expose himself to a great 
 loss. 
 
 There is only one lasting affliction, and that is the 
 loss of fortune. Time, which softens all others, increases 
 this ; we feel it each moment in our lives in which we 
 are short of money. 
 
 If a man does not lay his money out to the best ad- 
 vantage, pay his debts and marry his daughters ; it 
 signifies nothing to any one except to his wife and 
 children. 
 
 Neither the troubles, Zenobia, which disturb your 
 Empire, nor the wars which, since the death of the 
 king your husband, you have so courageously waged 
 against a powerful nation have impaired the magnifi- 
 cence of your kingdom. You have chosen the shores 
 of the Euphrates on which to raise a stately palace. 
 The climate is healthy and temperate, the situation 
 charming. The western side is shaded by that sacred 
 wood, and the Syrian gods, who, it is said, frequent it, 
 could not choose a more beautiful abode. All the 
 country round is peopled with labourers hewing, carv- 
 ing, going and coming, conveying the wood of 
 Lebanon with brass and porphyry. The air is filled 
 with the noise of tools and the grinding of machines ; 
 and travellers, on their way to Arabia, hope, on their 
 return, to see the palace completed, with all the splen- 
 dour you intend for it before you consider it fit for you 
 and the princes your children to dwell in. Spare nothing, 
 great queen, neither gold nor the most excellent work- 
 manship. Let the Phidias and the Zeuxis of your age 
 display their art on your walls and ceilings. Lay out
 
 THE BENEFITS OF WEALTH. 101 
 
 great and enchanting gardens, which will seem too 
 luxuriously lovely to have been formed by the hands of 
 men : spare no industry and no wealth on this incom- 
 parable edifice. And then, Zenobia, when you have 
 perfected it, one of the shepherds who dwell on the 
 neighbouring sandy flats of Palmyra, enriched by the 
 toll-tax on your rivers, will disburse some of his riches 
 to buy your royal house, beautify and adorn it, and 
 make it more worthy of him and his fortune ! 
 
 That palace, with its beautiful furniture, its gardens 
 and fountains, charms you, and at the first sight of this 
 delightful abode you exclaim how great must be the 
 happiness of the master. He is no more, his life was 
 neither so pleasant nor so tranquil as yours ; he never 
 knew a quiet day nor a peaceful night. He was inun- 
 dated with debts, contracted to adorn the building you 
 admire so much, his creditors drove him out, he turned 
 round to take one last look at it, and grief killed him 
 that instant. 
 
 If you have neglected no effort to make your for- 
 tune, how great your labour must have been ! If you 
 have neglected the smallest thing how great your 
 repentance !
 
 PARIS. 
 
 IN Paris we meet without any previous appointment, 
 as if it were a recognized rendez-vous. Punctually 
 every evening in the drive or at the Tuileries we scan 
 each other's faces and disapprove one of the other. 
 
 All the same we cannot do without this society, 
 although we dislike it and make fun of it. 
 
 We wait for each other in the public drives, and 
 pass in review before each other's eyes. Carriages, 
 horses, liveries, nothing escapes the eyes which are 
 curious or malicious to observe, and we carefully dis- 
 tribute our respect or our disdain, according to the gran- 
 deur or simplicity of an equipage. 
 
 Everybody knows the long bank* which bounds and 
 confines the Seine, where it is joined by the Marne as 
 it enters Paris. Men are fond of bathing at the foot 
 of the bank in the dog-days ; you may see them throw 
 themselves into the water and come out again ; it is an 
 amusement. The townswomen never think of walking 
 there excepting during that season, and when it is over 
 they no longer walk there. 
 
 In this public promenade, where the ladies assemble 
 only to show off their fine clothes, and to enjoy the 
 triumphs of the toilet, people do not choose their com- 
 pany for the sake of conversation. They walk together 
 to talk over the play, to show themselves socially, and 
 to strengthen themselves against criticism. This is 
 
 * The Quay St. Bernard.
 
 PARIS. 103 
 
 where people talk without saying anything, or rather, 
 they talk for the benefit of passers-by, on whose 
 account they raise their voices, jest and bow, and pass 
 and re-pass. 
 
 The town is divided into several cliques, which are 
 like as many little republics, each of which has its 
 own laws, customs, jargon, and jests ; and so long 
 as one of these little societies is popular, nothing 
 is well said or well done, or enjoyed outside of it ; 
 and those who are not initiated in its mysteries 
 are despised. If chance brings into it a stranger, 
 even if he be a talented man of the world, he feels 
 as if he were in a strange country, whose ways, 
 and language, and manners, and customs he does not 
 know. He sees people who buzz, and talk, and whis- 
 per, and laugh, and presently fall into a doleful silence. 
 He feels quite lost, does not know where to put in a 
 word or even when to listen. Even here there is 
 always some man who, with his insipid jokes, makes 
 himself the hero of the company, and seems to feel 
 accountable for a certain amount of mirth on the part 
 of the others, and is able to make them laugh before 
 he opens his mouth. If at any time a woman comes 
 among them, who does not join in their merry-making, 
 the jolly company wonders why she does not laugh at 
 things she does not understand, and appears insen- 
 sible to nonsense which they would see no fun in them- 
 selves were it not their own ; so they criticize her voice 
 and her silence, and spare neither her face, her figure, 
 or her dress, her manner of coming in or going out. 
 Those clubs never last long, however ; two years is the 
 longest time a coterie keeps together. In the first 
 year the seeds of division are sown : the next year dissen- 
 sion follows. A dispute about some beauty or some gam- 
 bling incident it may be, or the extravagance of the
 
 io 4 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 feasts, which from modest beginnings soon degenerate 
 into pyramids of dishes, costly banquets, causes dis- 
 satisfaction, which means ruin to such cliques, and in 
 a very short time no more is heard of them than o{ 
 last year's flies. 
 
 In the city there are members of the greater magis- 
 tracy, and of the lesser ; and the first avenge them- 
 selves on the second for the mortifications they endure 
 at Court. It is not easy to discover where the greater 
 ends and the lesser begins, there being a considerable 
 number who refuse to belong to the second order who 
 are not allowed to be in the first. They will not yield, 
 however, and try by their gravity and expenditure to 
 equal the council to whom they unwillingly give place. 
 They are often heard to say that the nobility of their 
 employment, the independence of their profession, 
 their talent in speaking, and their personal merit, 
 balance at least the bags of money which the sons 
 of partizans or bankers paid as a premium for their 
 posts. 
 
 What mean you by sitting idly dreaming in your 
 carriage? Quick, take up your books and papers, study 
 them, and scarcely salute those who bow to you from 
 their grand equipages ; they will believe you have an 
 extraordinary amount of business, they will say, "That 
 is a most laborious, hard-working man ; he reads and 
 studies even in the streets." Observe the smallest 
 attorney, how he makes himself appear to be over- 
 whelmed with business, draws his brows and thinks very 
 deeply of nothing ; pretends he has no time even to eat 
 and drink, can very seldom be seen in his house, for 
 he vanishes into his private room, where he is hidden 
 from the public, and avoids the theatre, which he leaves 
 to those who run no risk in appearing there.
 
 PARIS. 105 
 
 There are a certain number of young magistrates 
 whom the pleasures of wealth have associated with 
 some of those who are called at Court " petits-mailres? 
 and whom they imitate, behaving in a manner beneatl; 
 the dignity of the robe, thinking that their age and 
 fortune absolve them from the necessity of observing 
 moderation and discretion. They follow all the bad 
 habits of the Court, and take to vanity, luxury, and 
 intemperance, as if those vices belonged to them, 
 affecting thus a very different character from that 
 which they ought to maintain, and they end as they 
 desire by becoming faithful copies of very wicked 
 originals. 
 
 A man of the robe in the city and the same man at 
 Court are two different men. Among his friends he 
 resumes the manners, the gestures, and expressions he 
 left with them : he is neither so perplexed nor so honest. 
 
 The Crispins club together and collect among the 
 different families so that they may have six horses in 
 their equipage, and with a swarm of men in livery, one 
 from each, they make as much show in the park or at 
 Vincennes as a newly married couple, or as Jason whose 
 vanity will be his ruin, or as Thraso who is going to 
 marry and has applied for a grand post. 
 
 I have heard of the Sannions, the elder branch, the 
 younger branch, and the youngest branch of the younger 
 house ; they all bear the same name, have the same coat 
 of arms, only the first bears it plain, the second adds a 
 label, and the third has it indented ; like the 
 Bourbons, they blazon the same colours on the same 
 metal, and like them also they support two and one. 
 They are not fleurs-de-lis, but they console themselves 
 no doubt by thinking in their hearts that their 
 bearings are as noble, and they have them in com-
 
 io6 LA BRUY&RE, 
 
 mon with persons of high rank who are satisfied with 
 them. Their escutcheons are to be seen in their 
 chapels, on their houses, and on the pillars of justiciary- 
 chambers, where they condemn a man to be hanged 
 who only deserved banishment. Everywhere we see this 
 coat of arms, on their furniture, on their locks ; their 
 carriages are emblazoned here and there, and their 
 liveries do not dishonour their arms. If I were to speak 
 plainly of the Sannions, I would say, "Your folly is pre- 
 mature ; you should have waited till one generation at 
 least of you had ended. Those who knew your grand- 
 father are old, they cannot live long, and after them 
 who will be able to say that he kept a shop and sold 
 his goods very dear ? " 
 
 The Sannions and the Crispins would rather be 
 thought extravagant than economical ; they tell long, 
 tiresome stories of feasts and entertainments they 
 have given ; they talk of the money they have lost at 
 play, and patronize those who have no money to lose ; 
 then they indulge in mysterious hints about the ladies 
 of their acquaintance ; and they have always a hundred 
 pleasant things to relate to each other, new discoveries 
 they have made, trying to appear very full of adventure. 
 One of them goes to bed late in the country, sleeps well 
 and rises early, dresses in his hunting suit, with all his 
 accoutrements, ties his hair in a knot, takes up his gun, 
 and behold a sportsman, if only he could shoot. He 
 returns at night, wet and muddy, having killed nothing ; 
 he does the same thing next day, and in this manner 
 passes his time missing thrushes and partridges. 
 
 You say you have seen that man somewhere, but you 
 cannot remember where, although his face is familiar. 
 He is well known to others, and if possible I shall 
 assist your memory. Was it in driving in the boulevard, 
 walking in the broad walk of the Tuileries, in the balcony
 
 PARIS. 107 
 
 at church, at a ball, at Rambouillet, at the play? In fact 
 where did you not see him ? Where is he not to be 
 met? If there is an execution or a display of fireworks, 
 he is sure to appear at a window of the Hotel de Ville. 
 If there is a grand review, he has a place on some 
 platform; a tournament, he is in the amphitheatre. It 
 the king receives an ambassador, he sees the proces- 
 sion and assists at the audience, and gets into the 
 line on the return. His presence is as essential at the 
 swearing in of the Swiss cantons as that of the Chan- 
 cellor of the League himself, and his face is present 
 in all illustrations of the event. He is at every hunt 
 meeting, every camp-out, and every review. He loves 
 war, the troops, the militia, understands all the mili- 
 tary manoeuvres ; he is an old sightseer, a spectator by 
 profession, a man who does nothing he ought, but 
 boasts he has seen all there is to see, and now will not 
 regret to die. What a loss that will be to the town ! 
 Who will there be to tell us the park-gates are closed, 
 and nobody walks there? Who will warn us that 
 Rochois is suffering from cold, and will not sing for a 
 week ; that Beaumavielle died yesterday ; where some en- 
 chanting fair is to be held? Who can tell at once who 
 everybody is by their arms or livery? and lastly, since 
 there is in this city as elsewhere such a number of dull, 
 lazy, ignorant fools, who will so exactly suit them all 
 as he? 
 
 Theramenes was rich and talented ; he is now the 
 heir, and is therefore very rich and very talented. All 
 the women want to flirt with him, and all their daugh- 
 ters want to marry him. He goes from house to house 
 to make the mothers think he means to marry. He no 
 sooner sits down than they retire to give their daugh- 
 ters a chance of charming him, or that he may declare 
 himself; and he sets himself up against the peaceful
 
 io8 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 lawyer, he eclipses the cavalier or the gentleman ; a gay, 
 bright, witty young fellow could not be more passion- 
 ately desired or better received. They almost snatch 
 him out of each other's hands, and have hardly time to 
 smile upon any one else when he is present. How 
 many suitors has he already defeated, how many good 
 matches has he spoiled ; he cannot marry all the 
 heiresses who want him. He is not only the terror of 
 husbands, but the dread of all who are hoping through 
 marriage to repair their broken fortunes. Men like 
 him, so rich and fortunate, ought to be banished from 
 a well-governed city, and the fair sex ought to be for- 
 bidden on the pain of indignity and foolishness to 
 treat him better than if he had nothing but his merits 
 to recommend him. 
 
 The foolishness of some Parisian ladies in trying 
 to imitate those of the Court is very vulgar, it is worse 
 than the coarseness of a lower class or the rude brusque- 
 ness of villagers. 
 
 What a clever invention it is for the bridegroom to 
 make magnificent wedding presents which cost 
 nothing, as after marriage they will all be returned in 
 hard cash ! 
 
 What a praiseworthy practice it is to spend on the ex- 
 penses of your wedding a third part of your wife's 
 dowry. To begin by agreeing to impoverish your- 
 selves by collecting a heap of superfluities, and to 
 draw so soon on your capital to pay the upholsterer 
 and the cabinet-maker ! 
 
 What troublesome, useless slavery it is for people to 
 be continually trying to meet each other, quite im- 
 patient if they do not meet, to say the most trifling
 
 PARIS. 109 
 
 things, and to tell each other what they are each per- 
 fectly acquainted with, and which it would matter little 
 if they did not know. Going into a room simply to come 
 out of it again, going out after dinner and coming in 
 again at night, quite satisfied to have spent five hours 
 in seeing three of your friends' hall-porters, one woman 
 you scarcely know, and another you don't like. If any 
 one will rightly consider the value of time, and how 
 irreparable is the loss of it, he will mourn bitterly over 
 such wretched trifling. 
 
 City people pride themselves on their gross ignor- 
 ance of rural and country affairs. They scarcely know 
 linseed from hemp, wheat from rye, and neither of 
 them from barley. They content themselves with 
 eating and dressing. If you want to be understood, 
 you need not talk to them of fallow ground, staddles, 
 vine-shoots, or after-grass ; they will think you speak 
 another language. To some of them you should speak 
 of weights and scales, to others of petitions and 
 appeals. They know the world, although they are 
 ignorant of nature and her bounties ; their ignorance 
 is often quite voluntary, and founded on the high 
 opinion they hold of their own calling or profession : 
 and the meanest practitioner in the depths of his grimy, 
 smoky chamber, his mind occupied with pettifogging 
 quibbles, prefers his life to that of the labourer who 
 enjoys the free air of heaven, cultivates the earth, sows 
 his seeds in their seasons, and gathers in his rich har- 
 vests ; and if at any time he hears of Abel or the 
 Patriarchs and their simply country lives, he wonders 
 how people could have lived in those days without 
 officers or solicitors or presidents or commissioners, 
 and it passes his comprehension to know what they did 
 without registrars and courts of justice and refresh- 
 ment-rooms.
 
 no LA BRUYERE. 
 
 The Roman emperors never obtained such luxurious 
 service and convenient modes of triumphing over the 
 rain, wind, dust, and sun as the citizens of Paris 
 make use of every day. What an immense distance 
 there is between their comfortable carriages and the 
 mules of their ancestors, who never thought of depriving 
 themselves of necessaries to obtain superfluities, to 
 prefer vain display to solid use. Their rooms were not 
 lighted by wax candles nor heated by stoves ; candles 
 were sacred to the altar or the palace ; they did not 
 rise from a bad dinner to drive in a carriage ; they 
 were persuaded that men's legs were for use, and they 
 walked ; they were dry when the weather was fine, and 
 when it rained they put up with muddy boots, and 
 thought no more of crossing the wet streets and courts 
 than a sportsman thinks of crossing a ploughed field. 
 They had not yet thought of harnessing two men to a 
 chair; there were even magistrates who walked on 
 foot to the law courts with as good a grace as Augustus 
 walked to the Capitol. Pewter in those days shone on 
 the tables and sideboards, and brass and steel in the 
 chimney corners ; silver and gold were stored in their 
 coffers. Women were waited on by women who even 
 served in the kitchens. Such titles as governor and 
 governess were not known to our fathers ; they knew 
 to whom the care of the children of kings and princes 
 was confided, but they shared with their domestics the 
 charge of their own children, content to superintend 
 themselves their regular instruction ; they lived 
 according to their means : their liveries, their equipages, 
 their houses, and their furniture were all appropriate to 
 their incomes and condition. There were, however, 
 outward distinctions among them which prevented any 
 one mistaking the wife of a practitioner for that of a 
 judge, or the plebeian for a gentleman. They were less 
 anxious to spend or to add to their patrimony than to
 
 PARIS. in 
 
 preserve it, and leave it entire to their heirs when they 
 passed from a life of moderation to a peaceful death. 
 There was no complaining of hard times, great poverty, 
 scarcity of money ; they had less than we have, and 
 yet they had enough ; they were richer by their 
 economy and modest wants than by their revenues and 
 estates. To conclude, in olden times people observed 
 this maxim, that what is splendour and magnificence 
 among the great, is extravagance, folly, and dissipation 
 for ordinary people.
 
 THE COURT AND COURTIERS. 
 
 IN one sense the most honourable reproach with 
 which you can charge a man is that he is ignorant of 
 Court life. There are no virtues we do not imply by 
 this imputation. 
 
 An accomplished courtier is master of his gestures, 
 his eyes, his face ; he is deep and impenetrable ; he 
 can dissemble when he is doing an ill turn, smile on 
 his enemies, restrain his temper, disguise his passions, 
 act contrary to his feelings, speak against his con- 
 victions ; and all this polish is only a vice which we 
 call falsehood, and is sometimes of as little use to the 
 courtier as candour, sincerity, and virtue. 
 
 Who can define those changing colours, which vary 
 according to the light we see them in. In like manner 
 who can define the Court ? 
 
 The man who escapes from the Court for a moment 
 renounces it for ever ; the courtier who saw it in the 
 morning must see it at night, so that he may recognize 
 it next day, and be known there himself. 
 
 A man is of little importance at Court, and however 
 much he may think of himself, he will find it is so ; 
 but the evil is universal, and the great are small 
 there. 
 
 People in the provinces look upon Court life as some-
 
 THE COURT AND COURTIERS. 113 
 
 thing very admirable ; if they approach it, its attractions 
 diminish like a fine perspective when examined too 
 
 closely. 
 
 People have great difficulty in getting used to pass 
 their lives in an ante-chamber, a court-yard, or on a 
 staircase. 
 
 Court life does not give a man contentment ; it only 
 hinders him from finding it elsewhere. 
 
 It is better that an honourable man should have 
 tried Court life. It will have seemed like an unknown 
 world to him, where vice and politeness have equal 
 dominion, and where good and bad were equally useful 
 to him. 
 
 The Court is like a marble edifice ; I mean it is 
 composed of men who are hard, but very polished. 
 
 Some go to Court only for the distinction of it, and 
 that, on their return, they may be taken notice of by 
 the nobility and church dignitaries of their province. 
 
 The embroiderer and confectioner would be useless 
 and superfluous were we modest and temperate. 
 Courts would be deserted and kings almost desolate, if 
 we were destitute of vanity and self-interest. Men 
 submit to be slaves in one place, that they may rule 
 elsewhere. The grandees of the Court seem to purchase 
 their airs of hauteur, pride, and authority wholesale, 
 so that they may retail them in the provinces. They 
 do exactly what is done to them true apes of royalty. 
 
 The prince's presence has a strange disfiguring 
 effect on some courtiers, their faces alter so as to be 
 
 i
 
 u 4 LA BKUYERE. 
 
 scarcely recognizable, their expression changes to 
 contemptible servility, and the prouder and haughtier 
 they are, the more marked the change. 
 
 He who is modest and honest bears himself best ; he 
 has nothing to amend. 
 
 The air of the Court is contagious, it is caught at 
 Versailles, as the Norman accent is caught at Rouen 
 or Falaise. We perceive it among outriders, grooms, 
 and confectioners. A man with a little aptitude 
 acquires it easily, but a man of solid worth and culti- 
 vation does not value this kind of talent sufficiently to 
 study it and perfect himself in it, it comes to him 
 intuitively, and he never thinks of throwing it off or 
 eluding it. 
 
 N*** arrives with a great bustle, pushes everybody 
 aside, taps, knocks, announces himself, and after a 
 while he is admitted but with the crowd. 
 
 I daresay you know some man who gives you a cold 
 bow as he passes, squares his shoulders, and stretches 
 his neck like a woman, looks the other way when he 
 asks you a question, speaking in a loud tone, as if to 
 indicate that he considers himself above everyone 
 present. If he stops speaking, the others crowd round 
 him, for, as self-constituted president of the company, 
 he does all the talking, and he persists in this ridiculous 
 affected dignity till some real personage unexpectedly 
 appears, whose presence quickly brings him down 
 from his pedestal to his natural place, which is less 
 mischievous. 
 
 Courts could not do without a certain kind of 
 courtier, who can flatter, and insinuate, and pay 
 devoted attention to the ladies, whose amusements he
 
 THE COURT AND COURTIERS. 115 
 
 arranges, while he studies their weaknesses and '* 
 smooths over their difficulties. He makes whispered 
 innuendoes or pleasant little remarks, speaks of 
 husbands and lovers in suitable terms, guesses at all 
 troubles and maladies, fixes the fashions, and improves 
 upon all the niceties of luxury and expense, and teaches 
 the sex the surest way to consume immense sums of 
 money in dress, furniture, and equipages. His own 
 dress shines with splendour, and he does not consider 
 an old palace fit to live in till it has been restored and 
 embellished. He eats slowly and delicately, and there 
 is no self-indulgence he has not tried and can de- 
 scribe. He owes his fortune to himself, and keeps it as 
 cleverly as he gained it. Proud and disdainful, he 
 scorns his equals, or no longer recognizes them ; he 
 speaks when others are silent, and pushes in where 
 the highest nobility would not presume ; not even 
 those who, through long service, wounds, and honours, 
 have 'arrived at the highest dignity, show such an 
 assured countenance, and display such bold airs. Such 
 men have the ears of the greatest princes, are par- 
 takers of all their pleasures and dissipations, and are 
 quite at home in the Louvre or at Versailles ; they 
 seem to be everywhere at once, and their faces are 
 always the first to strike a stranger on arrival at 
 Court. They embrace, and are embraced. They 
 laugh, and talk, and jest ; are very agreeable and rich : 
 and of no importance. 
 
 One would suppose that Cimon and Clitander had sole 
 charge of the concerns of the state, and that they alone 
 were responsible, that one of them must be minister of 
 land, and the other of marine affairs. They are em- 
 bodiments of restless hurry, activity and curiosity, true 
 representatives of motion. They never sit, and never 
 stand, scarcely even walk, you may meet them running
 
 u6 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 and talking the while, and they will ask you questions 
 but will not wait for your reply. T'hey come from no- 
 where in particular and go nowhere in particular, but 
 are always passing and repassing : do not delay them 
 in their precipitate course, you might put the 
 machinery out of order. Do not ask them any ques- 
 tions or give them time to breathe, or they might 
 remember that they have nothing to do, and might stay 
 with you a long time, go with you even wherever 
 you please to take them. They are not like the 
 satellites of Jupiter, I mean those who gather round 
 the prince, they precede him and announce his coming, 
 and rush so impetuously among the crowd of courtiers 
 that all they meet with are in danger. Their 
 profession is to see and be seen, and they never lie 
 down at night without acquitting themselves of this 
 duty which is so useful and important to the state. 
 They are, besides, thoroughly well posted up in all 
 kinds of gossip, and they know all the little incidents 
 of Court life and intrigue which would be as well 
 ignored. They possess every necessary qualification 
 for their general advancement, being likewise wide 
 awake and on the alert to any thing they think will 
 advantage them, enterprising also and quick-witted : in 
 a word they are carried by the wind, tied to the chariot 
 of fortune though never likely to be seated on it. 
 
 A courtier whose name is not good enough for him 
 ought to hide it under a better : but if it is one he may 
 venture to bear, then he ought to insinuate that it is of 
 all names the most illustrious, as his house is of all 
 others the most ancient; he ought to be descended 
 from the princes of Lorraine, from the Rohans, 
 Chatillons, Montmorencies, and, if possible, from the 
 princes of the blood : his conversation should be of 
 Dukes, Cardinals, and prime ministers, with frequent
 
 THE COURT AND COURTIERS. 117 
 
 mention of his paternal and maternal ancestors, for 
 whom he should find places very near the royal 
 standard in the Crusades. His hall should be hung 
 with genealogies and escutcheons of six quarters, 
 pictures of his ancestors and their kindred by marriage, 
 he should pride himself on the ancient castle of his 
 family, its machicolated towers and battlements, take 
 every opportunity of speaking of " My race, my branch 
 of the family, my name and my arms." Say of this man, 
 " He is an upstart;" of that lady "She is a nobody;" or 
 if he is told that Hyacinthus\\'a3 won the great prize, ask 
 if he is a gentleman? Some men may smile at such 
 accidents, but he will let them smile ; others may tell 
 a different tale of him, he will let them talk, maintain- 
 ing persistently that he takes rank after the reigning 
 house, and by dint of reiteration he will be believed. 
 
 It would be very simple-minded to admit at Court 
 the slightest strain of plebeian birth ; there all are sup- 
 posed to be gentlemen. In Court life men lie down 
 and rise up thinking only of self-interest ; morning, 
 noon, and night, they act on it, think of it, speak of it, 
 are silent because of it, in this spirit they speak to some 
 and neglect others, ascend and descend, and by its 
 rule they note out their cares, attentions, esteem, 
 indifference, and their suspicions. Even if some of 
 them advance a little towards virtue, wisdom, and 
 moderation, the first promptings of ambition carry 
 them away with the covetous, who are the most 
 violent in their desires for still higher promotion. 
 How can one stand still when all are on the move ; 
 pushing forward, he must go with the tide. Men 
 think they are responsible to themselves for their 
 advancement and fortune, he who has not been suc- 
 cessful at Court is censured as having been undeserving, 
 and from this there is no appeal. Whether is it better
 
 n8 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 to retire without having gathered any fruit or to persist 
 in remaining without favour or reward? This is such 
 a knotty question, so perplexing and difficult to decide, 
 that an infinite number of courtiers grow old between 
 yes and no, and at last die in doubt. 
 
 No one is so scorned, so worthless at Court, as the 
 man who can contribute nothing to the making of our 
 fortunes. I am surprised he dares to show himself. 
 
 It is too much to expect from a friend, that if he rises 
 to great favour he will still retain our acquaintance. 
 
 If he who is in favour knows how to take advantage 
 of it before he loses it, if he can make his way while 
 the wind blows fair for him, keep his eyes open for 
 all vacant posts or church preferments, and has only 
 to ask to obtain, being provided with pensions, com- 
 missions and reversions, you complain of his greed 
 and ambition, say he takes or appropriates everything, 
 either for his friends or dependents, and that by the 
 numerous and varied favours which have been heaped 
 upon him, he alone has made the fortunes of many. 
 Yet what would you have had him do ? Were I to 
 judge, not by what you say, but by what you would 
 have done yourself in the same circumstances, I should 
 be satisfied he has done right. We blame those who 
 have made large fortunes whilst they had the oppor- 
 tunity, because from the smallness of our own we 
 despair of ever being in a position to draw down a 
 like reproach on ourselves. If we were in the way to 
 follow in their footsteps we should begin to think they 
 were less to blame, and would be more reticent for 
 fear of pronouncing our own condemnation. 
 
 We must never exaggerate nor attribute to the 
 Court evil which does not exist there. The worst it
 
 THE COURT AND COURTIERS. 119 
 
 does for true merit is to leave it sometimes unrewarded, 
 but it is not always despised when it is discerned, it 
 is only forgotten ; though indeed at Courts they under- 
 stand well the art of doing nothing, or at least very 
 little, for those they esteem much. 
 
 It would be strange if of all the instruments a man 
 has used to build up his fortunes at Court, some of 
 them did not fail. One of his friends who has promised to 
 speak for -him says nothing ; another speaks but with 
 faint praise ; a third, by a slip, speaks against his 
 friend's interest and his own intentions. The one lacks 
 good will, the other tact and prudence. To neither 
 would it be such great pleasure to see another happy 
 that they care to exert themselves too much to make 
 him so. 
 
 If every one remembered what his own preferment 
 cost him, and the helps which cleared his way to it, 
 we should be ready to make good the services we have 
 ourselves received by rendering them to others in like 
 need, but our first and only care after our fortune is 
 made is to think of ourselves. 
 
 Courtiers do not employ their wit, address, and 
 ingenuity to find excuses for helping the friends who 
 implore their interest ; but rather to discover specious 
 pretexts for saying that it is an impossibility, and by 
 this they consider themselves discharged from all 
 obligations of duty, friendship, or gratitude. 
 
 It is difficult to find a friend at Court who will speak 
 first for you, they all offer to second a proposal; because 
 judging of others by themselves, they hope nobody 
 will propose, and that thus their support will not be 
 required. This is an easy and polite way of refusing 
 to do a kindness to him who has need of it
 
 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 How many people who stifle you with their caresses 
 in private, saying how they love and esteem you, are 
 yet embarrassed if they meet you in public at a leve'e 
 or at mass ; how they avoid meeting your eyes ! There 
 is only a small proportion of courtiers who are noble- 
 minded enough of themselves to do honour before the 
 world to merit alone, devoid of interest. 
 
 I see a man surrounded and followed, but he is in 
 office. I see another courted by everybody*, he is in 
 favour : this man is embraced and caressed even by 
 people of rank, but he is rich : that man is regarded 
 with curiosity and pointed out everywhere, but he is an 
 eloquent scholar. I see one whom no one forgets to 
 bow to, but he is a rogue. I would like to find a man 
 who is good and nothing more, who is courted and 
 sought after. 
 
 I think it may be said of an eminent and difficult 
 position that it is obtained more easily than it is pre- 
 served. 
 
 We see men fall from great eminence by the very 
 defects which raised them. At Court there are two 
 ways of getting rid of people : get angry with them or 
 else make them so angry with you that they retire dis- 
 gusted. 
 
 At Court a man is well spoken of for two reasons : 
 first that he may know people have praised him, and 
 secondly that he may do the same by them. 
 
 It is as dangerous at Court to make advances as it is 
 embarrassing not to make them. 
 
 T am told so many evil things of a man, and I see so
 
 THE COURT AND COURTIERS. 121 
 
 few in him, that I begin to suspect he has some obtru- 
 sive merit which eclipses that of others. 
 
 You are an honest man, and do not trouble about 
 pleasing or displeasing favourites, are only attached to 
 your master and your duty ; you are a lost man. 
 
 None are bold by chance, but by constitution ; bold- 
 ness is born in some, and is natural. He who is not 
 born so is modest, and cannot easily change from one 
 extremity to the other. It would be useless to say to 
 him, "Be bold and you will succeed." A bad imitation 
 would not profit him, he would soon be stranded. 
 Nothing less than real naive impudence is successful 
 at Court. 
 
 We seek, intrigue, busy and torment ourselves, 
 petition, are refused, ask again and obtain ; and then we 
 say to our friends, without ever having asked for it ; 
 indeed we were thinking of something quite different ! " 
 This was the old style silly stories which deceived 
 nobody. 
 
 Men are not willing we should discover the prospects 
 they have of advancement, nor guess that they aim at 
 a certain dignity, because if they do not obtain it 
 they are ashamed that they have been refused it ; while, 
 if they attain it, it is greater glory for them to be 
 thought worthy by him who bestows than to show by 
 using interest and intrigue that they judge themselves 
 worthy : they thus find themselves adorned by their 
 dignity, and at the same time, by their modesty. 
 
 Which is the greater shame, to be refused a post we 
 merit or to be advanced to one we do not deserve ? 
 
 However great the difficulty maybe to get a place at 
 Court, it is still harder and more difficult to be worthy 
 of a place.
 
 LA BRUYRE. 
 
 It is more often said of a man " Why did he obtain 
 that post ? " than " Why did he not obtain it ? " 
 
 Even at the present time the city taxes are contested, 
 and a chair in the French Academy is solicited as 
 if it were a consulship. What reason is there why a 
 man should not work during the early years of his life, 
 to render himself capable of a great post, and ask for 
 it openly without any mystery or intrigue, confident in 
 his ability to serve his country and his prince ? 
 
 I never knew a courtier to whom his prince had pre- 
 sented a good governorship, a large pension, and a 
 high post, who did not, through vanity, or else to show 
 his disinterestedness, assure everybody that he was less 
 pleased with the gift than with the way in which it was 
 given. The only undeniable thing about this is that 
 he says so. 
 
 It is churlish to give with a bad grace; the most 
 difficult part is the giving, it costs little to add a smile. 
 
 I must confess, however, that there are men who can 
 refuse more courteously than others can give, while 
 some make us ask so often, and then grant the favour 
 so unwillingly, and impose such disagreeable conditions, 
 that it would be a greater favour still to be excused 
 from receiving anything from them. 
 
 At Court there are always to be found some so 
 covetous that they will adapt themselves to any con- 
 ditions so that they may promote their own interest, 
 governor, commander, bishop, it is all the same to 
 them. Their adaptability is such that they are quali- 
 fied to grace any position ; they may be called 
 amphibious, as they can live by the church or the sword, 
 and to these could unite the secrets of the robe. If you 
 ask what do these men do at Court, you might be
 
 THE COURT AND COURTIERS. 123 
 
 answered they take all they can get, and envy every- 
 body to whom anything is given. 
 
 Hundreds of people at Court drag out their day? 
 caressing and congratulating those who receive 
 favours, and die themselves without having any 
 bestowed upon them. 
 
 There is a great and beaten road to honour and 
 dignity, and there is also a crooked bye-path which 
 is the shortest. 
 
 We seek out the unhappy that we may study 
 their looks ; we stand in a line, or we secure a place 
 at a window on purpose to examine the countenance 
 of a man who is condemned to die : a vain, malicious, 
 cruel curiosity. If men were wise, public places of 
 execution would be abolished, and it would be con- 
 sidered simply ignominious to gaze at such spectacles. 
 If you have a curious disposition, exercise it on a 
 nobler subject. Look at a fortunate man, mark him 
 on the day of his promotion to a new post, when he 
 is receiving his congratulations ; read in his eyes 
 through his studied, calm, and affected modesty, how 
 pleased and satisfied he is with himself ; observe the 
 quiet placidity which the accomplishment of his 
 desires seems to spread over his heart and coun- 
 tenance, as if he had nothing more to think of now 
 than health and long life ; till, at last, his delight 
 bursts forth ; it can no longer be restrained : and how 
 he seems to bend beneath the weight of his own 
 happiness ; what a serious and reserved manner he 
 assumes towards those who are no longer his equals ! 
 He seems not to see them, does not reply to their 
 questions ; and even the attentions of the great, who 
 are no longer so far above him, begin to weary him.
 
 124 LA BRUY^RE. 
 
 He is unsettled, pre-occupied, suffering from a kind 
 of mental derangement. You who long for fortune, 
 for favours, sometimes they are things to be shunned. 
 
 Knaves are necessary at Court ; the great men and 
 the ministers even those with the best intentions 
 have need of them ; but they must be used delicately, 
 and one must know how to work them sometimes 
 their places could not be filled by others. Honour, 
 virtue, conscience, are always respectable qualities, 
 though often useless : what could one do, on certain 
 occasions, with an honest man ? 
 
 The minority of a prince is the source of many 
 fortunes. 
 
 How many friends and relatives spring up for 
 a new minister in one night ! Some bring forward 
 old acquaintanceship, school-fellowship, or they claim 
 to be known as neighbours ; others consult their pedi- 
 gree, and go back to great-great-grandfathers claiming 
 paternal or maternal relationship. Everybody tries to 
 be related to him in some way or other, and they say, 
 over and over again, "He is my friend ; I am very glad 
 of his promotion ; I ought to be greatly interested, for 
 he is my near relative." Vain men, followers of success, 
 empty flatterers, would you have said so a week ago ? 
 Has he since then become a more honest man, more 
 worthy of the honour his prince has bestowed upon 
 him ; or, did you have to wait for this circumstance of 
 fortune to know him better ? 
 
 What comforts and supports me under the little 
 slights I sometimes sustain from my equals as well as 
 from my superiors is that I say to myself : these men 
 value me by my fortune, and they are right, it is very
 
 THE COURT AND COURTIERS. 125 
 
 small, they would doubtless adore me if I were a 
 minister. 
 
 If they knew that I was soon to be advanced, had 
 they some foreknowledge of it, how they would salute 
 me, greet me. 
 
 I expect it is pleasant for a man of merit to see the 
 place at an assembly or public meeting which has 
 just been refused to him, given to a man who has 
 neither eyes to see nor ears to hear nor sense to under- 
 stand, who has nothing to recommend him but certain 
 liveries which he does not even wear himself. 
 
 Theodotus has a grave manner, a comical face like 
 a man making his debut on the stage, his voice, 
 gestures and deportment agree with his face ; he is 
 clever, wily, soft and mysterious, he comes up to you 
 and whispers in your ear, " What fine weather we are 
 having," or " It is a great thaw." If his style is not very 
 lofty, his manners are at least pleasant, if a little 
 finical. Picture to yourself the diligence with which 
 a child builds a card castle or chases a butterfly, and 
 you will have an idea of Theodotus, busy about some- 
 thing of so little consequence that it is not worth 
 caring about, although he treats it as seriously as if it 
 were a matter of grave importance. He is in such a 
 hurry, so busy and active about it, that he makes it 
 succeed, and now he is able to rest and breathe, and he 
 is right, for it has given him a great deal of trouble. 
 There are some men whom favour intoxicates, they 
 think of it all day and dream of it at night ; they 
 are continually running up and down the staircases of 
 the minister coming and going to his ante-chamber, 
 having nothing to say, still speaking and speaking 
 again, contented that they have spoken to the man in 
 office. You may press them on any subject, you will
 
 126 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 squeeze nothing out of them but pride and arrogance 
 and presumption ; you address them, they do not know 
 you, and do not reply ; their eyes have a wild look, 
 their brains seem distracted, their relations ought to 
 see to them and have them confined, for fear their folly 
 should turn to madness, and the world should suffer. 
 Theodotus has a quieter mania, he loves favour wildly, 
 but he shows his passion for it less ; he adores it in 
 secret, cultivates it and makes use of it in mysterious 
 ways. He is always on the look out to discover any 
 new aspirants, and should they have any claims, he 
 offers them his assistance and intrigues for them, 
 sacrificing in an underhand way those who have more 
 merit and more claim on his friendship or gratitude. 
 If the post of a Cassini were vacant, and the porter or 
 postillion of a favourite took it into his head to ask for 
 it, he would support his pretension, and consider him 
 quite worthy of it, and capable of making astrono- 
 mical observations and calculations. If you enquire 
 about Theodotus, whether he is an original author or 
 a plagiarist, I must give you his works and bid you 
 read and judge ; but to say whether he is a bigot or a 
 courtier, who could decide that from the picture I have 
 drawn of him ? I could more boldly draw his horoscope. 
 Yes, Theodotus, I have observed the star under which 
 you were born ; you will be advanced, and soon, you 
 need not trouble yourself and other people any more 
 about it, or print any more of your credentials the 
 public cries for quarter. 
 
 There is a country where the joys are visible but 
 false, and the griefs hidden but real. Who would 
 imagine that the bursts of applause at the comedies of 
 Moliere, or the harlequin, the feasts, the hunting matches, 
 balls and banquets covered so many uneasinesses,
 
 THE COURT AND COURTIERS. 127 
 
 cares and diverse interests, so many hopes and fears, 
 such ardent passions and serious affairs. 
 
 Court life is a grave and melancholy game which re- 
 quires study. One must range his pieces and his 
 batteries, have a design and pursue it, thwart his 
 adversary, venture sometimes, and at other times play 
 capriciously, and yet after all his considerations and 
 contrivances he may be checkmated. Often when he 
 has manoeuvred his men well, the game goes to the 
 queen, and some one more clever or more fortunate 
 gains the game. 
 
 The wheels, the springs, the movements of a watch 
 are hidden, nothing is visible but the hands, which in- 
 sensibly move forward and finish the round : and this 
 image of a courtier is all the more perfect, that after he 
 has gone a long way he returns to the point from 
 which he started. 
 
 Two-thirds of my life are already passed, why, then, 
 should I disquiet myself about what is left? The most 
 splendid fortune does not deserve either the torment I 
 put myself to, nor the meannesses I must stoop to, 
 nor the humiliations I am forced to endure. Thirty 
 years will destroy those colossal powers which are so 
 high as to be almost out of sight. We shall disappear, 
 I who am so little and those to whom I looked so 
 eagerly and from whom I expected all my greatness. 
 The best of all blessings, if there are any blessings, is 
 repose and a quiet retreat of our own. N***wasofthis 
 opinion in his disgrace, but forgot it in his pros- 
 perity. 
 
 A nobleman who lives at home in his own province 
 is free but unprotected : if he lives at Court he is pro- 
 tected, but he is a slave : so it is balanced.
 
 128 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 Xantippus, buried in his province, under an old roof, in 
 a poor bed, dreamt one night that he saw the prince, 
 that he spoke to him, and felt extreme joy. When he 
 waked he was sad, and told his dream, and said what 
 strange fancies fall into a man's mind when he is 
 asleep. When Xantippus had lived a little longer he 
 came to Court and saw his prince and spoke to him, 
 and went beyond his dream, for he became a favourite. 
 
 Nobody is more a slave than an assiduous courtier, 
 unless it be a courtier who is still more assiduous. 
 
 A slave has but one master ; an ambitious man has 
 as many as may be useful for his advancement. 
 
 Hundreds of men who are nobodies crowd everyday 
 to the levee to see and be seen by the prince, who can- 
 not see hundreds at a time, so if he sees only those he 
 saw yesterday, and will see to-morrow, how many will 
 be unhappy. 
 
 Of all those who crowd about great men and pay 
 their court to them, a few honour them in their hearts, 
 a great number seek them for ambitious and interested 
 reasons, and the greatest number of all, through a 
 ridiculous vanity or a foolish impatience to be taken 
 notice of. 
 
 There are certain families who, according to the 
 ordinary rules of the world and decorum, ought to be 
 irreconcilable, and behold they are good friends ; where 
 religion failed in her attempt to unite, interest suc- 
 ceeded without any trouble. 
 
 People tell me of a country where the old men are 
 polite, civil, and gallant, the young men on the 
 contrary, stubborn, wild, without manners or politeness,
 
 THE COURT AND COURTIERS. 129 
 
 free from all sentiment about women, at an age when 
 in other countries they begin to feel it, and prefer 
 feasting and the silliest dalliance. Wine does not elate 
 them, the too frequent use of it has rendered it insipid 
 to them, and they try by brandy and strong liquors to 
 revive their extinguished taste for it ; nothing is wanting 
 at their debauches but to drink aqua Jortis. The 
 women of that country hasten the decay of their beauty 
 by artifices which they think enhance it. It is their 
 custom to paint their lips, their cheeks, their eyelashes, 
 and their shoulders, which, with neck and arms, they 
 imagine they cannot display enough of to please. The 
 physiognomy of the people of that country is not at all 
 clear and distinct, but confused and half hidden by 
 masses of false hair, which they prefer to their natural 
 tresses, and which they dress elaborately and allow to 
 hang loose and long, changing their features, and pre- 
 venting recognition. This nation has, besides, their 
 own God and their own king. The grandees assemble 
 every day at a certain hour, in a temple which they call 
 a church. At the upper end of this temple there is an 
 altar consecrated to their God, where the priest cele- 
 brates some mysteries which they call holy, sacred, and 
 awful ; the grandees form a great circle at the foot of 
 this altar, standing with their backs to the priests and 
 the holy mysteries, and their faces raised towards their 
 king, who is to be seen on his knees upon a throne, 
 and to whom they seem to direct all the desires of 
 their hearts. We cannot help seeing in this custom 
 a kind of subordination, the people appearing to 
 adore the prince, and the prince to adore God. 
 
 The inhabitants of this country call it * It is 
 
 in some forty-eight degrees of latitude, and more 
 than eleven hundred leagues from the Iroquois and 
 the Hurons. 
 
 * Versailles is meant by this distant country. 
 
 K
 
 I 3 o LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 If you will consider how the whole happiness of a 
 courtier consists in beholding the face of his king, his 
 whole life fully occupied in endeavouring to see and to 
 be seen by him, you may in a measure comprehend that 
 to behold the face of God must be the fulfilment 
 of glorious felicity for the saints. 
 
 Great lords are full of respect for their princes, it is 
 their employment, and they have their inferiors : less 
 important courtiers are more lax in this duty ; they are 
 more unconstrained, more free, as men who have no 
 example to set to any one. 
 
 What then is wanting in the youth of our day? 
 They have capacity and knowledge, or at least, if they 
 do not know as much as they ought to know, they are 
 no less positive. 
 
 How weak are men ! A great man says of 
 Timagenes that he is a fool, but he is mistaken. I do 
 not ask you to reply that he is a man of genius, only be 
 bold enough to believe that he is not a fool. 
 
 He also says that Iphicrates is a coward ; you have 
 seen him perform a brave act : keep your mind easy, 
 1 excuse you from publishing it provided that after 
 what you have heard of him you still remember that 
 you saw him perform it. 
 
 How few know how to speak to kings ; perhaps this 
 is one of the things which best determine the prudence 
 and tact of a courtier. A word escapes and falls on 
 the prince's ear, lingers in his memory, and sometimes 
 reaches his heart ; it is impossible to recall it ; all the 
 care and ingenuity we may use to explain it away will 
 only serve to engrave it deeper and to strengthen the 
 effect of it. If it is only against ourselves we have
 
 THE COURT AND COURTIERS. 131 
 
 spoken, although this mistake is not usual, there is a 
 ready remedy ; which is, to be taught by our mistake and 
 to endure the consequence of our thoughtlessness. 
 But if our words have been against another, what de- 
 jection and repentance we suffer ! Could there be a 
 better rule to prevent such harmful uneasiness than 
 always to talk of others to our sovereign, whether it be of 
 their persons, actions, manners, or conduct, with at 
 least as much guarded precaution as we use in talking 
 of ourselves ? 
 
 An idle jester is a wretched character ; if this has 
 not been said already I say it. One who would injure 
 the reputation or the fortune of another for the sake of 
 making a jest deserves an ignominious punishment : I 
 venture to say this which has not been said before. 
 
 There are a certain number of ready-made phrases 
 which, as we would do from a magazine, we pick out 
 and use to congratulate each other on the turn of 
 events ; they are frequently spoken without any affec- 
 tion and received without acknowledgment : still we 
 must not omit them because they are at least the repre- 
 sentatives of the best thing in the world, which is 
 friendship ; and since men can scarcely count upon this 
 from each other they seem to agree among themselves 
 to be contented with its semblance. 
 
 Having acquired five or six terms of art, and nothing 
 more, we set up as connoisseurs in music, painting, con- 
 structing, and junketting ; and thinking our powers of 
 enjoyment in hearing, seeing, and eating are greater 
 than ordinary people's, we impose on our fellows and 
 deceive ourselves. 
 
 The Court is never destitute of a certain number of 
 
 K 2
 
 132 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 persons in whom fashion, politeness, or fortune take 
 the place of sense, and make up for deficiency of 
 merit : they know how to enter and retire from a room : 
 they evade conversation by never mingling in it : they 
 make themselves agreeable by their silence, and im- 
 portant by the length of time they maintain it, or 
 by speaking at most only a few syllables. A slight 
 inflection of the voice, a smile, or a look is the only 
 return they make to what you say. They have not, I 
 may say, two inches of depth. If you were to try to- 
 fathom them you would very soon reach the tufa at 
 the bottom. 
 
 What shall I call those people who are sharp only to- 
 wards fools ? I know that clever men confuse them 
 with those they impose upon. 
 
 He shows a deep cunning who is able to make others 
 think he is but indifferently cunning. 
 
 Cunning is neither too good nor too bad a quality ; it 
 floats between vice and virtue ; there is scarcely any 
 occasion on which it might not be, and ought not to be,, 
 supplanted by prudence. 
 
 Cunning is near neighbour to cheating ; the path 
 from one to the other is slippery ; a lie only lies 
 between : if you add that to cunning it is cheating. 
 
 Among those who through cunning listen much and 
 talk little do you speak still less, or if you speak much 
 say little. 
 
 You have some important business which depends on 
 the consent of two persons ; one of them says to you, 
 "I give you my hand upon it provided so and so 
 agrees," and he does agree and desires nothing more 
 than to be assured of the intentions of the other. 
 However, the affair does not advance, months and 
 years roll on unprofitably. " I shall lose it," you say, "and
 
 THE COURT AND COURTIERS. 133 
 
 I do not understand why; there is nothing to do but for 
 them to have an interview and discuss it." Shall I tell 
 you what I see clearly and understand well ? They 
 have discussed it. 
 
 It seems to me that a man who solicits for others 
 does so with the confidence of one who asks justice ; 
 and that in speaking and acting for himself he would 
 be confused and ashamed like one imploring mercy. 
 
 There are some occasions in life when truth and 
 simplicity are the best husbandry. 
 
 Are you in favour, all you do is good, you can commit 
 no fault, any path you take is right. Otherwise all is 
 at fault, nothing is of use, and any path you take is 
 wrong. 
 
 A man who has lived for a certain time in an atmo- 
 sphere of intrigue cannot do without it ; all other modes 
 of life are tiresome. 
 
 A man who intrigues must possess talent. He may 
 however have so much talent as to be above intrigue, 
 and above being enthralled by it, finding a more 
 honourable way of making a fortune and a reputation. 
 
 With such sublime wit, such universal knowledge, 
 tried fidelity and most accomplished merit, you need 
 not, Aristides, be afraid of falling at Court and losing 
 the favour of great men as long as they have need 
 of you. 
 
 If we consider many of the people at Court, and 
 -attend to their discourse, and follow their conduct, we 
 shall see that they think neither of their grandfathers 
 nor grandchildren: the present is for them, and that they 
 abuse and do not enjoy.
 
 134 LA 3RUY&RE. 
 
 Slraton* wa^ born under two stars, happy and 
 unhappy in the same degree ; his life would be a 
 romance but that it lacks probability ; he has had no 
 adventures, his dreams have been both good and bad.. 
 What am I saying ? people do not dream as they live. 
 Nobody has been more favoured by fate than he has 
 been ; ordinary and extraordinary things are known ta 
 him ; he has shone and suffered ; he has lived an 
 open life ; nothing has escaped him. He made himself 
 valued for the virtues he seriously assured us were in 
 him ; he said of himself, " I have wit, I have courage," 
 and everybody echoed, " He has wit, he has courage." 
 In good and in evil fortune he showed the courtier's 
 spirit, and perhaps more good and also more evil was 
 said of him than he deserved. Agreeable, handsome,, 
 rare, wonderful, heroic, are the terms used to eulogize 
 him, and quite the contrary to vilify him. His. 
 character is equivocal, mixed and mysterious ; aa 
 enigma, a question at issue. 
 
 | Favour places a man above his equals, the loss of it: 
 j below them. 
 
 He who knows the proper time resolutely to renounce 
 a great name, great authority, or a great fortune, frees 
 himself at once from many troubles, much sleepless- 
 ness and sometimes from many crimes. 
 
 In a hundred years the world will still exist as it is 
 now, there will be the same theatre and decorations, 
 though no longer the same actors. All those who- 
 
 * The Duke de Lauzun, the favourite of Louis XIV., after- 
 wards disgraced and sent to the Bastille. Being restored to 
 favour, he again offended the king, and, after five years' im- 
 prisonment, he was exiled. He became attached to the Court 
 of James II., and was one of the first to quit the field at the 
 battle of the Boyne.
 
 THE COURT AND COURTIERS. 135 
 
 have rejoiced over a grace received, or who were cast 
 down and afflicted by one refused, all will have dis- 
 appeared behind the scenes. Already others will have 
 advanced upon the stage who will take the same parts 
 in the same play ; they will vanish in their turn, and 
 those who are not yet born will one day be no more, 
 new actors will take their place. How can we depend 
 on the actors in a play ? 
 
 Whoever has seen the Court has seen the world, and 
 all that is most beautiful, fair and glorious in it ; he 
 who despises the Court, having seen it, despises the 
 world 
 
 A healthy mind imbibes at Court a taste for solitude 
 and retirement.
 
 THE NOBILITY. 
 
 THE great ones of the land have such a fascination for 
 the people, who are so blindly infatuated in favour of 
 their looks, voices, manners, and conduct, that if they 
 would only take it into their heads to be good, they 
 would be idolized. 
 
 If you were born vicious, oh, Theagenes* I pity you : 
 if you have become so through weakness for those 
 whose interest it is that you should be so, who have 
 sworn among themselves to corrupt you, and who 
 already boast of their success you must put up with 
 my contempt. But if you are wise, temperate, and 
 modest ; civil, generous, grateful, and industrious ; and 
 moreover, by your rank and birth impelled to set an 
 example rather than take it from others ; to make rules 
 rather than accept them then agree with those people 
 to follow courteously their irregularities, vices, and 
 follies, when the deference they owe you leads them 
 to exercise all the virtues which you cherish. Bold 
 irony but significant, well calculated to protect your 
 conduct and to ruin all their schemes, and force them 
 to remain what they are, and to leave you as you 
 are. 
 
 Great men have an immense advantage over others 
 in one thing. I do not envy them their good living, 
 their furniture, their dogs and horses, monkeys, dwarfs, 
 
 * It is generally understood that La Bruyere here refers to the 
 grandson of Henri IV., who was Prior and Superior of the 
 Vendonie.
 
 THE NOBILITY. 137 
 
 fools, and flatterers ; but I envy them the happiness of 
 having in their service men who equal them in heart 
 and intellect, nay, who sometimes surpass them. 
 
 The great pride themselves on opening up walks 
 through the forests, making and building up fine wide 
 terraces, gilding their ceilings, making fountains and 
 stocking orangeries ; but to render one sorrowful heart 
 happy, soothe a distracted mind, anticipate and relieve 
 extreme necessity is farther than their ambition 
 extends. 
 
 In comparing the different conditions of men, their 
 advantages and disadvantages, let me ask if you do 
 not remark a kind of balancing of good and bad, which 
 seems to set them on an equality, or, at least, prevents 
 one condition being much more desirable than another. 
 He who is rich and powerful, and who lacks nothing, 
 may ask the question, but the poor man must answer 
 it. Each of these different conditions has, however, a 
 charm of its own, which will abide till misery removes 
 it. For, as the great take pleasure in excess, the poor 
 prefer moderation ; the first like to govern and com- 
 mand, the second have pleasure, and even pride, in 
 obeying. The great are surrounded, saluted, respected ; 
 the humble surround and salute, and both are content. 
 A few words cost the great so little, and from their 
 condition they are not obliged to keep the fine pro- 
 mises they make ; so it is modesty in them not to make 
 them more freely still. 
 
 " He is old and used up," says a noble, " he has worn 
 himself out in my service ; what shall we do with him?" 
 Some one younger steps in, dasheshishopesand obtains 
 the post which is refused to this old man only because 
 lie deserves it.
 
 I 3 8 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 I do not understand. You tell me with an injured, 
 indignant air, that Philanthes has merit, wit, and 
 pleasant manners, and is punctual over his duties, 
 and faithful in his attachment to his master, but is 
 little liked, valued, or esteemed. Explain yourself ; is 
 it PhilantJies you blame, or the great man he serves ? 
 
 The great are so fortunate that during all their lives 
 they are not even put to the trouble of lamenting the loss 
 of their best servants, or of persons even moderately 
 illustrious, from whom they have extracted pleasure 
 and useful services, and who can scarcely be replaced. 
 The first thing the flatterers do on the death of such a 
 one, is to discover all his weak points from which they 
 pretend his successor will be exempt, and to boast that 
 the latter, with all the capacity and zeal of him whose 
 place he takes, has none of his defects. And this is 
 sufficient to console princes for the loss of great and 
 worthy servants, and makes them satisfied with 
 indifferent ones. The great scorn men of wit who have 
 nothing but their talents ; the men of talent despise the 
 great who have nothing but grandeur ; the honest 
 man pities both, if having grandeur and talent, they have 
 not virtue. When I see seated familiarly at the tables 
 of the great some men I know to be bold, intriguing 
 adventurers, both dangerous and disreputable, and on 
 the other hand think of the difficulty some worthy 
 persons find in approaching, I am not always disposed 
 to believe that the wicked are tolerated from interested 
 motives, or that honest men are regarded as serving no 
 purpose; I am only more confirmed in my opinion that 
 greatness and discernment are two different things^ 
 and love of virtue and the virtuous a third. 
 
 Lurilius prefers to spend his life in making himself 
 endurable to some great people rather than be reduced
 
 THE NOBILITY. 139 
 
 to live familiarly with his equals. It requires peculiar 
 talents to associate with great people, and is a custom 
 which ought to be restricted. 
 
 What is the incurable mania Theophilus* is afflicted 
 with ? He has had it for thirty years and is not cured yet. 
 He was, is, and always will be anxious to govern the 
 great. Death alone will end with his life this thirst for 
 empire and ascendancy over other men's minds. Is it 
 excess of zeal, mere habit, or an over estimate of him- 
 self? There is not a palace into which he does not 
 insinuate himself, and he is not contented to pay his 
 visits in the public rooms, he intrudes into private and 
 retiring rooms, and he keeps others waiting for an 
 audience while he speaks long and vehemently. He 
 thrusts himself into family secrets, and concerns himself 
 in everything which happens, fortunate or unfortunate ; 
 but is so obliging and willing in his intermeddling that 
 he cannot be kept out. The care of ten thousand souls 
 for which as well as his own he is accountable to God, 
 is not enough to fill up his time or his ambition ; and 
 there are others also of still higher rank and distinction 
 of whom without being called upon to do so he volun- 
 tarily takes charge. He is always listening and watching 
 for anything that may possibly feed his spirit of intrigue 
 or interference : a great man has scarcely arrived in 
 town till he lays hold of him; and before we have time 
 to suspect his intentions, we hear that Theophilus 
 governs and controls all his actions. 
 
 Coldness or incivility from our superiors offends us, 
 but a bow or a smile reconciles us. 
 
 * The Abb de Roquette, Bishop of Autun.
 
 1 40 LA BRUYbRE. 
 
 Some arrogant men are improved and humbled by 
 the promotion of their rivals ; their mortification has 
 the effect of making them civil, but time, which softens 
 all things, restores them to their natural disposition. 
 
 The contempt which the great have for the people 
 makes them indifferent to the praise and flattery they 
 receive from them, and tempers their vanity ; in the 
 same way, princes praised beyond measure by their 
 courtiers and grandees would be more vain if they had 
 more esteem for those who praise them. 
 
 The great believe that they alone are perfect, and 
 will scarcely allow to other men the right of judgment, 
 ability, or delicacy ; they consider such gifts due to 
 their high birth. It is, however, a great mistake in 
 them to foster such false prejudices ; the best thoughts, 
 the best sayings, the best writings, and perhaps the 
 most refined behaviour, are not always to be found 
 among them. They possess large estates, and a long 
 line of ancestors this cannot be denied them. 
 
 There are some who, if they could but know their 
 inferiors and themselves, would be ashamed to be 
 above them. 
 
 If there are but few excellent orators, are there many 
 people who could understand them ? If there are not 
 enough good authors, where are those who could read 
 them? Likewise we are always complaining of the 
 small number of persons qualified to counsel kings and 
 to assist them in the administration of their affairs ; 
 Taut when such able and intelligent men do appear, if 
 they act according to their light and knowledge, are 
 they beloved or esteemed as much as they deserve? 
 Are they thanked for all they do and think for the
 
 THE NOBILITY. 141 
 
 country's good ? They are there that is sufficient ; 
 they are censured if their designs miscarry, and envied 
 if they succeed. Let us then blame those whom it 
 would be absurd to excuse the people, whose dis- 
 content and jealousy the great and powerful look upon 
 as inevitable, and have gradually come to take no 
 notice of ; they rather seem to make it a rule in 
 politics to neglect their suffrages. The common people 
 detest each other when they mutually injure each 
 other ; and the great are odious to them for the ill they 
 do and the good they do not do them ; they are to 
 blame for their obscurity, poverty, and misfortune, or, 
 at least, so it appears to them. 
 
 It really seems too much condescension for a great 
 man to have the same religion, the same God, as the 
 people. How can they even call themselves Peter, 
 John, James, like the tradesman or the labourer ? Let 
 us avoid having anything in common with the multi- 
 tude ; let us, on the contrary, effect every distinction 
 which can separate them from us. Leave it to the people 
 to appropriate the twelve apostles, the disciples, and 
 martyrs, fit patrons for such people. Let them look for- 
 ward year by year to the return of particular days which 
 each celebrates as his festival, and let us, the great and 
 noble, resort to profane names, and baptize our children 
 Hannibal, Caesar, Pompey these are grand names or 
 I.ucretia, who was an illustrious Roman lady, or 
 Rinaldo, Rogero, Olivero, Tancredo. These vvereknights 
 errant : and romance cannot point to more heroic names 
 than Hector, Achilles, Hercules, demi-gods, and 
 Phoebus and Diana : and what would prevent our call- 
 ing ourselves Jupiter or Mercury, Venus or Adonis ? 
 
 While the great neglect, I do not say only the interests 
 of princes, but also their own and the public affairs;
 
 1 4 2 LA BRUYlLRE. 
 
 whilst they remain ignorant of domestic economy, and 
 are not masters in their own households, but allow 
 themselves to be impoverished and ruled over by their 
 stewards, and are contented to be always eating and 
 drinking and sitting in their clubs, idly talking of dogs 
 and horses, and telling tales of all the stages between 
 Paris and Besangon ; some citizens are instructing 
 themselves in everything that concerns their country, 
 studying the art of government, tact, and policy, find- 
 ing out the strength and the weakness of the state ; 
 then they think of advancement, are promoted, become 
 powerful, and ease the prince of part of his public 
 duties. The great who scorned them end by respecting 
 them, and are happy if they are accepted as their sons- 
 in-law. 
 
 If I compare the two most opposite conditions of 
 men, I mean the great and the people, the latter appear 
 to be contented with necessaries, while the former are 
 poor, and discontented with superfluities. A man of 
 lowly condition cannot do much harm, while a great 
 man does not try to do much good, and is capable of 
 doing a great deal of evil. The one exerts himself 
 only for his profit, the other to his injury. Here churlish- 
 ness and coarseness are ingenuously displayed, there 
 a corrupt and evil nature is hidden under a sur- 
 face of politeness ; the people have little wit and the 
 great have no heart. Those are good at heart with no 
 external grace, these are all surface, gloss, and no 
 depth. If I must choose between the two I would not 
 weigh the matter, but would belong to the people. 
 
 However clever the great ones of the Court may be,i 
 and however adroit their art in appearing what 
 they are not, and not appearing what they are, 
 they are unable to hide their malice and inclina-
 
 THE NOBILITY. 143 
 
 tion to laugh at the expense of others, and to cast 
 ridicule when it is not deserved. These fine talents, 
 are observable in them from the first, and are no 
 doubt admirable for misleading the unwary or making 
 a fool of one who is a fool already, but are 
 likely to deprive them of the pleasure they might 
 have derived from a man of wit, who would have 
 known how to yield himself to their moods in a 
 thousand amusing ways, if the character of a courtier 
 did not warn him to be very prudent. He entrenches 
 himself behind a reserved gravity of demeanour, and 
 does it so effectively, that the scoffers, much as they 
 would like to make fun of him, have no opportunity. 
 
 An easy life, plenty, and the calm of great pros- 
 perity, enable princes to be easily amused ; they laugh 
 at a monkey, a dwarf, or an imbecile, or a silly tale : 
 people who are less fortunate only laugh in season. 
 
 A great man loves champagne and detests La Brie, 
 he intoxicates himself with better wine than the poor 
 man, and this is the sole difference between the 
 dissipation of the nobleman and that of the footman. 
 
 At first sight it seems that there must always enter 
 into the pleasures of princes a little inconvenience to 
 others : but this is not so, princes are like other men, 
 they think of themselves and follow their own tastes, 
 passions, and convenience ; this is natural. 
 
 It seems as if the first care of persons in power or 
 office is to put as many obstacles as possible in the 
 way of those who depend on them for the conduct of 
 their affairs. 
 
 If a great man has to a certain extent more happiness
 
 1 44 LA BRUYbRE. 
 
 than others, 1 can only suppose it is because he has it 
 in his power to bestow pleasure, and when such an 
 opportunity arises he ought to take advantage of it. If 
 it is in favour of an honest man, he ought to be afraid 
 to let it slip ; and if it is in a just cause, he ought to 
 anticipate solicitation, and not show himself till he has 
 to be thanked ; and if it is an easy thing, he should not 
 set a high value on it ; if he refuses it, I pity both. 
 
 There are some men born inaccessible, and they are 
 just themen of whom others have need, and on whom they 
 depend ; they seem always to stand on one foot like 
 Mercury, and are as variable ; continually on the 
 move, flitting here and there brisk and noisy, like 
 the paper fireworks which betoken a public fete 
 they scatter fire and flame, and hiss and sparkle, so 
 that we dare not approach them ; till, being extin- 
 guished, they at last fall down, become manageable, 
 but useless. 
 
 The porter, the valet, the footman if they have 
 no more sense than belongs to their condition, never 
 think of themselves according to their birth, but by 
 the rank and fortune of those they serve ; and they 
 consider all who enter their gates and mount their 
 staircases infinitely below themselves and their 
 masters. So true it is that we are destined to suffer 
 from the great and from those belonging to them. 
 
 A man in office ought to love his prince, his wife, 
 his children ; and, after them, men of wit and sense. 
 He ought to take them under his protection, always 
 have some about him, never be without them. He 
 cannot reward them too well, I shall not say with 
 pensions and benefits, but with familiarity and 
 attention for all the service he extracts from them
 
 THE NOBILITY, 145 
 
 without their being aware of it What idle reports 
 do they not dissipate ; what stories they reduce to 
 mere fiction ! How clearly can they justify ill success 
 by good intentions, prove by the prosperous result 
 the excellence of a scheme, or the justice of measures 
 which may seem extreme ; ward off malice and envy 
 by proving that good enterprises proceed from good 
 motives ; put favourable constructions on bad appear- 
 ances ; hide little defects, and only allow virtues to be 
 seen, and those in the best light ; sow on all occasions 
 any facts and details which may be advantageous, 
 and turn ridicule against those who dare to doubt or 
 to bring forward adverse facts. I know it is a rule 
 with the great to let people talk, but to continue to 
 act as they choose. But I also know it often 
 happens that allowing people to speak prevents them 
 acting. 
 
 To be sensible of merit, and, when once recognized, 
 to treat it well are two great steps which few men 
 are capable of taking promptly. 
 
 You are great and powerful, but that is not enough ; 
 act so that I may esteem you and be sorry either to 
 lose your favour, or not to have been able to gain it. 
 
 You say of a great man, or a man in power, that he 
 is very kind and obliging and glad to give pleasure, and 
 you confirm this by detailing what he has done in an 
 affair in which he knew you were taking an interest. 
 This lets me understand that something was done for 
 you ; you were in favour with the ministry, held in 
 esteem by the powers that be ; what else would you 
 have me think ? 
 
 Some one tells you, " I do not consider I have been 
 used well by such a one ; he is proud and disdainful to
 
 146 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 me since his promotion, scarcely recognizes me." You 
 reply, " I have nothing to say against him, on the con- 
 trary, I must speak in his praise, he seems to be very 
 civil," then I understand you also. You wish it to be 
 understood that this man in office has a regard for 
 you, that in the ante-chamber he picks you out from 
 among a crowd of honourable persons, from whom he 
 turns aside for fear he may slip into such an impro- 
 priety as returning their smiles and bows. To exalt 
 oneself in praising another, especially some great mam 
 is a delicately conceived topic, for in relating all the 
 good they have done us, or have never thought of doing 
 us, we are praising ourselves. We praise the great to 
 show we are intimate with them, seldom from esteem 
 or gratitude. We often do not know those we praise ; 
 vanity and frivolity even carries us above resentment, 
 for often we are displeased with them, yet praise them. 
 
 If it is dangerous to interfere in a suspicious affair, 
 the danger is greater if you find yourself involved with 
 a great man ; he will get out of it and leave you to bear 
 the brunt of it and suffer for both. 
 
 A prince's whole fortune would not suffice to recom- 
 pense a man for a dishonourable service if he judges of 
 it by what it costs the man ; and his power is not great 
 enough to punish him if he measures his vengeance by 
 the wrong done him. 
 
 The nobility expose their lives for the safety of the 
 state and the glory of the sovereign, whom the magis- 
 trate relieves from the duty of judging the people : 
 both are lofty functions, with noble aims : men are 
 scarcely capable of greater things, and I cannot imagine 
 why the wearers of the gown and of the sword despise 
 each other so cordially.
 
 THE NOBILITY. 147 
 
 If it is true that the great yield more in risking their 
 lives destined to gaiety and pleasure than the private 
 man who loses only cheerless days, it must also be con- 
 fessed that they have a very different recompense in 
 their glory and great renown : the private soldier 
 cannot feel that he will ever be known, he dies obscure 
 in a crowd ; he lived in the same way, it is true, still he 
 lived, and this is one of the causes of want of courage 
 in servile conditions. Those who by birth are exalted 
 above the people are more exposed to praise or censure, 
 and, therefore, if they are not naturally inclined to virtue 
 they are impelled to exert themselves beyond their 
 inclinations, and this constitution of heart and mirid 
 which they inherit from their ancestors is that bravery 
 so often recognized in persons of noble birth perhaps 
 it is nobility itself. 
 
 Throw me among the troops as a simple soldier ; I 
 am Thersites. Put me at the head of an army for which 
 I am responsible to the whole of Europe, and I am 
 Achilles. 
 
 Princes do not require rules of science to aid their 
 intuitive judgment : they are born and brought up in 
 a centre of all that is best and noblest ; and they com- 
 pare all they read and see and hear, and what does not 
 approach such ideals as Lulli, Racine, and Le Brun, 
 they condemn. 
 
 It is an unnecessary precaution to talk to young 
 princes of the respect due to their rank, for the whole 
 court consider it their duty and a part of their court- 
 liness to practise respect towards them. They are less 
 apt to be ignorant of the respect due to their birth 
 than to confound persons, and treat indifferently and 
 without distinction all ranks. They have an innate 
 haughtiness which they can assume on any occasion ; 
 
 L 2
 
 148 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 they require no lessons except in governing this dis- 
 position and to inspire them with good principles, 
 honour, and a spirit of discernment. 
 
 For a man of a certain degree not to take at once 
 the rank which is his due and which is universally con- 
 ceded to him, is pure hypocrisy. It costs him nothing 
 to be modest, to mix with the crowd which makes way 
 for him, to take the lowest seat at an entertainment, so 
 that all may see him there and hasten to set him 
 higher. It is more difficult for ordinary men to 
 practise modesty ; if they mix in a crowd they get 
 crushed and jostled ; if they choose an uncomfortable 
 seat they stay there. 
 
 The best actions are charged or weakened by the 
 way in which they are performed, and ever leave room 
 to doubt the intentions which prompted them. He who 
 protects or commends virtue for the sake of virtue, 
 who corrects or condemns vice because it is vice, acts 
 simply and naturally, without design, peculiarity, pride 
 or affectation. He neither reproves too gravely nor 
 sententiously, nor makes his reproof a scene of public 
 enjoyment. He does his duty, and sets a good example 
 in doing it, and provides no material for gossip or 
 romance. The good he does is in truth little known, 
 but he has done good, and what can he desire more? 
 
 The great ought not to love the earlier period of 
 history ; it is not all favourable to them. It must be 
 sad for them to see that we are all brothers and 
 sisters ; that mankind is but one and the same family ; 
 that there is only a greater or lesser degree of 
 relationship. 
 
 One must have a very bad opinion of men, and yet
 
 THE NOBILITY. 149 
 
 know them well, if he believes that he can impose 
 upon them by studied endearments or long and mean- 
 ingless caresses. 
 
 Pamphilus does not converse with the people he 
 meets in the halls and courts, but his grave manner 
 and the way he raises his voice make people 
 think he is formally receiving, giving audience or dis- 
 missing one ; he has some set terms which are 
 at once civil and haughty, and a kind of imperious 
 courtesy which he employs without distinction ; a 
 spurious grandeur which lowers him and embarrasses 
 his friends who do not wish to despise him. 
 
 A Pamphilus is full of himself, never loses sight of 
 his own merit, his importance and position, his dignity 
 and connections ; he musters all his forces, so to speak) 
 surrounds himself with them to add to his consequence ; 
 talks of his order, his blue ribbon, which he either 
 hides or displays ostentatiously. A Pamphilus, in 
 short, would be great, believes he is so and is not ; he is 
 only a copy of a great man. If at any time he smiles on 
 one of a lower order, a clever man perhaps, he chooses 
 his time so aptly that he is never caught in the act, for 
 he would blush if unfortunately he were surprised in the 
 least familiarity with a person who is neither rich nor 
 powerful, nor the friend of a minister, nor his ally, nor 
 his servant. He is severe and inexorable to him who 
 has not made his fortune. One day he sees you in a 
 gallery, he evades you ; the next day he meets you in 
 a less public place, or, though public, if you are in the 
 company of a great man, he takes courage and comes 
 up to you, saying, " Yesterday you pretended not to see 
 me." Sometimes he will leave you brusquely to join 
 a lord or some important man, or if he finds you with 
 one, he will nudge you and carry you off ; you meet him 
 another time and he will not stop, you follow him and
 
 ISO LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 have to talk so loud that people stare. Thus the 
 Pamphiluses live always as if they were in a play; 
 they are bred in falseness, and, disliking nothing so 
 much as to be natural, they are perfect actors in a 
 comedy. 
 
 But we are not yet done with the Pamphiluses j they 
 are cringing and timid before princes and their 
 ministers ; full of arrogance and confidence with those 
 who possess nothing but their virtue ; mute and con- 
 fused before the learned ; sharp, forward, and positive 
 before the ignorant. They speak of war to a lawyer, 
 of politics to a banker, of history to a woman, poetry 
 to a doctor, and of geometry among poets. They do 
 not trouble themselves with maxims, and with principles 
 still less ; they live at a venture, pushed on by the 
 wind of favour and the attractions of riches ; they 
 have no opinions which are really their own, they 
 borrow them just as they require them ; and their 
 chosen friends are neither wise, able, nor virtuous, but 
 men of the world. 
 
 We feel either fruitless jealousy or impotent 
 hatred towards those who are great or powerful, and 
 this cannot avenge us for their splendour and elevation, 
 but only adds to our own misery the unsupportable 
 burden of another's happiness. What is to be done for 
 such a wide-spread and inveterate disease of the mind ? 
 Let us be contented with little, if possible with less, let 
 us learn how to bear losses ; this is an unfailing remedy, 
 and I have made up my mind to try it. By this con- 
 tentment I spare myself the trouble of trying to make 
 another man's porter civil, coaxing a clerk, being 
 pushed and jostled at the gate of a minister's house 
 several times a day, while a crowd of clients and 
 flatterers disgorge themselves. I am saved much 
 weary waiting in the audience-hall to beg of him with
 
 THE NOBILITY. 151 
 
 stammering and tremor some just request : I have not 
 to bear with his gravity or sententious sarcasm now : so 
 I neither hate nor envy him ; we are equals : the only 
 difference is that he is not calm and undisturbed, and I 
 am. 
 
 If the great have opportunities of doing us good they 
 rarely have the will ; and if they would do us harm it is 
 not always in their power ; so we may be mistaken in 
 the kind of worship we pay them if it is founded on 
 hope or fear ; and a long life often ends without a man 
 happening to have to depend on the great for any 
 benefit, or being indebted to them for good or bad 
 fortune : we must honour them since they are great and 
 we are humble, and there are others humbler than 
 ourselves who honour us. 
 
 The same passions, the same weaknesses and little- 
 nesses, the same contrasts of disposition, family 
 quarrels, envyings, and antipathies reign at court and 
 in the city. Everywhere there are daughters-in-law, 
 mothers-in-law, husbands and wives, ruptures, 
 divorces, misunderstandings, everywhere there are 
 moods, tempers, likes and dislikes, false reports and 
 scandals : with eyes to see, you v/ill easily discover the 
 Rue St. Denis at Versailles or Fontainebleau ; only here 
 they believe that they hate with greater pride and 
 dignity, and annoy each other more politely and 
 cunningly, their rage is more elegant, their abuse 
 expressed in better terms. They do not soil the purity 
 of the language, they only harm men and their 
 reputations. All the external aspects of vice here are 
 plausible, but at the core once more I say, it is the same 
 as in the most abject conditions, as low, base, weak, 
 and unworthy. These men who by birth, favour and 
 intellect stand so high, these women who are so polite
 
 152 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 and witty, these are themselves the people, the people 
 whom they despise. When we say the people, we say 
 many things, it is a wide word and we should be 
 astonished to see all it embraces and how far it extends. 
 There are the people who are opposed to the great, 
 which signifies the mob, the multitude ; and there are 
 the people who are opposed to the wise, learned, and 
 virtuous, and these include the great as well as the 
 humble. 
 
 The great govern themselves by sentiment. Strong 
 first impressions are formed on idle minds. Some- 
 thing happens, they talk of it too much, soon they speak 
 less, then no more ; action, conduct, performance, event, 
 all is forgotten. Do not ask from them correction, 
 foresight, reflection, gratitude, or reward. 
 
 Two opinions are expressed about certain persons. 
 After they are dead, criticism is rife among the people, 
 whilst the pulpits resound with their praises. Some- 
 times they deserve neither criticism nor formal oration, 
 sometimes both. 
 
 We ought not to talk of the great and powerful, the 
 good we say of them is often flattery. It is dangerous 
 to speak evil of them whilst they live, and cowardly 
 when they are dead.
 
 THE SOVEREIGN AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 IF, after impartial consideration of all the various 
 forms of government, we cannot decide which is best, 
 finding good and bad in all, it is most reasonable to 
 hold in highest esteem that under which you were 
 born, and to submit to it. 
 
 Neither art nor science is necessary in the exercise 
 of political tyranny, which, as it consists only in blood- 
 shed, has narrow limits and no squeamishness ; it 
 inspires the destruction of every life which is an 
 obstacle to ambition ; and this a naturally cruel man 
 can accomplish without compunction; it is the most 
 horrible and detestable way to wealth and promotion. 
 
 A very safe and ancient republican policy is to 
 suffer the people to stupefy themselves with feasting 
 and luxury, and all kinds of vain and foolish spectacles, 
 leaving them to take their fill of empty folly and to 
 enjoy nothing but the meanest trifles : by this indul- 
 gence the greatest strides are made towards despotism. 
 
 There is no home policy in a despotic country; in- 
 terest, glory, and the service of the King supply its place. 
 
 If changes and innovations are contemplated in a 
 state it is rather the time than the acts which have to 
 be considered : there are certain occasions when 
 we know nothing can be attempted in opposition to the 
 people, and there are other times when anything can 
 be done with them. To-day you may withdraw from
 
 154 LA BRUY&RR. 
 
 that town its franchise, rights and privileges, but to- 
 morrow do not even dream of altering its signboards. 
 
 When a tumult begins we cannot understand how 
 calm is to be restored ; and when all is quiet we cannot 
 imagine how the peace was disturbed. 
 
 There are certain evils which a government connives 
 at because they delay or prevent greater evils ; there 
 are others which are evils only because they are recog- 
 nized, and which, being originally abuses or mal- 
 practices, are less pernicious in their results than a 
 more just and reasonable law would be. There are 
 some wrongs which may be corrected by change and 
 novelty, and this is a very dangerous kind ; others are 
 hidden like the refuse in the ground ; buried in shame, 
 performed in secrecy and darkness : you cannot examine 
 too closely into them because of the odious poison 
 they exhale ; the wisest men sometimes doubt whether 
 it is best to recognize or to appear ignorant of these. 
 
 The state sometimes tolerates one great evil to avert 
 a number of lesser evils which seem inevitable, and could 
 not be remedied. There are also evils which, although 
 individuals groan under them, tend nevertheless to 
 the public good, although the public is nothing else 
 than a body of those same individuals. There are also 
 personal hardships or evils which turn to the advantage 
 of families ; and there are evils which afflict, ruin, and 
 dishonour families, but which contribute to the preserva- 
 tion of the state or government ; other evils over- 
 throw governments and raise new ones on their ruins ; 
 we have seen that vast empires have been undermined 
 and utterly exterminated to change and renew the face 
 of the universe. 
 
 What does it matter to the state that Ergastes is rich ;
 
 THE SO VE REIGN AND THE REPUBLIC. 1 5 5 
 
 that he has a good pack of hounds ; that he leads the 
 fashions both in dress and equipages, and that he 
 abounds in superfluities? Where the interest and con- 
 venience of the public is concerned the individual 
 counts for nothing. It is some consolation for the 
 people, when burdens press on them a little, to know 
 that they assist the prince and enrich him alone ; they 
 do not wish to be indebted to Ergastes for improving his 
 fortune. 
 
 War has antiquity to plead for it; it has existed 
 through all the ages, rilling the world with widows and 
 orphans, and depriving families of heirs, often killing 
 more than one brother in the same battle. I mourn 
 thy loss, young Soyecour ; * such rare wit, lofty virtue, 
 and wise modesty make me regret the premature death 
 which has united thee to thy brave brother. War is for 
 us a deep misfortune, but alas, too common. From all 
 time a little spot of earth, more or less, has made men. 
 combine together to destroy, despoil, burn, kill each 
 other, and to do this the more surely and ingeniously, 
 they have invented fine laws which they call military 
 art. The practice of those laws they reward with glory 
 and the highest honours, and they have from century to- 
 century improved upon this art of self-destruction. 
 
 Injustice among the founders of our race, and the 
 need which sprang from it of masters who would deter- 
 mine rights and privileges, was the original source of 
 war. If, content with their own possessions, they had 
 not transgressed their neighbours', we might have 
 enjoyed for ever peace and liberty. 
 
 Those who sit peaceably at home in the midst of 
 family and friends, in the safety of a large town 
 
 * The Chevalier de Soyecour, whose brother was killed in the 
 battle of Fleurus, July, 1690, and who died himself, of wounds 
 then received, three days after.
 
 156 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 enjoying the gifts of fortune, and fearing nothing either 
 for life or property, are generally those who breathe fire 
 and sword, and are much occupied in discussing wars, 
 massacres, and conflagrations, and suffer much im- 
 patience of spirit when they hear that the armies which 
 hold the field have not yet come to an encounter ; or, 
 that having met, there has been no engagement ; or if 
 they have engaged that the battle has not been more 
 bloody; that there were less than 10,000 men killed on 
 the spot. They sometimes even go so far as to forget 
 their most cherished interests, repose, and security, 
 simply through a passionate desire for change and 
 novelty. Some of them would even be pleased to see 
 the enemy at the very gates of their cities, and would 
 help to build barricades and hang the chains across the 
 streets for the sole pleasure of hearing and recounting 
 the news. 
 
 Demophilus on my right hand groans and laments 
 that all is lost, the state is on the brink of ruin ; how 
 can it stand against such deep and universal plotting ? 
 How can we, I do not say overcome, but hold out 
 against so many and such powerful enemies ? Such a 
 state of affairs is unexampled in the history of mon- 
 archy. A hero, an Achilles, would have to succumb to 
 it ! We have committed, he says, serious faults, and 
 I know, he adds, what I am saying, for I have seen war 
 and taken part in it myself, and history has taught me 
 much more about it. He thereupon begins to praise 
 Olivier Le Daim* and Jacques Cceur.f Those were men, 
 
 * Olivier Le Daim, a peasant of Flanders, barber to Louis XI. , 
 who attained the position of Chief Minister to the King, and was 
 hanged in 1483, at the beginning of the reign of Charles VIII. 
 
 t Jacques Coeur, a rich and famous merchant, who became 
 King's Treasurer. He rendered valuable services to Charles 
 VII., who, after loading him with honours, in the end sacrificed 
 him to a court intrigue.
 
 THE SO VEREIGN AND THE REPUBLIC. 157 
 
 he says, and ministers, indeed. He invents the most 
 gloomy and prejudicial news, and spreads it everywhere. 
 At one time a part of our army has been drawn into an 
 ambuscade and cut in pieces, then a portion of our 
 troops is confined in an old castle, surrenders at 
 discretion, and is put to the sword ; and if you tell 
 him that the report is false, that there is nothing to 
 confirmitjhewill not listen to you, but adds that such and 
 such a general has been killed, and although the truth is 
 that he has received a slight wound, he will not believe 
 your assurances, but insists on deploring his death and 
 pitying his widow and orphans. The state, he sighs, 
 has lost a good friend and a powerful defender. He 
 tells you the German cavalry is invincible, and turns 
 pale if you but name the Imperial Cuirassiers. If we 
 attack that place, he continues, we shall be obliged to 
 raise the siege, for whether we defend or attack we 
 must be defeated ; if we are beaten, behold the enemy 
 at the frontier. Yes, according to Demophilus, the enemy 
 will immediately be in the heart of the kingdom ; he 
 already hears the alarm bells and cries of terror. He 
 thinks of his wealth, his property, and seriously con- 
 siders where he can place his money and his family in 
 safety, whether he will find a refuge for them and him- 
 self in Switzerland or Venice. 
 
 But on my left Basilides in one moment raises an 
 army of 300,000 men ; not a single brigade will he 
 abate ; he has the list of squadrons, battalions, com- 
 manders, and officers, and omits neither artillery nor 
 baggage. He peremptorily disposes of those troops, 
 sends some to Germany, some to Flanders, reserves a 
 certain number for the Alps, a smaller number for the 
 Pyrenees, and transports the rest beyond the seas. 
 He knows every movement of this army, what they 
 have done, and what they have not done ; you 
 might supppse he had the king's ear, or at all
 
 LA 
 
 events was in all the secrets of his minister. If the 
 enemy is defeated, and loses nine or ten thousand 
 men, he is positive it is thirty thousand, neither 
 more nor less, for his numbers are always exact, as if 
 he were thoroughly well informed. If he hears some 
 morning that we have lost a paltry village, he not only 
 sends to excuse himself to the guests he has invited 
 to dinner, but fasts himself, and if he sups, he has no 
 appetite. If our soldiers besiege a place which, besides 
 oeing well fortified is naturally strong, has a good 
 garrison of men commanded by an officer of intrepid 
 courage, and well provided with ammunition and all 
 necessary stores, he tells you that he knows the place 
 has its weak points, is badly fortified and short of 
 powder, while its commanding officer is inexperienced, 
 and that it is sure to capitulate eight days at most 
 after the opening of the trenches. Another time he 
 hurries breathless to inform us of his news. " Listen ! " 
 he exclaims, after he recovers a little : " I have news, 
 great news : they are defeated, totally routed, the 
 general, the principal officers, or at least most of them 
 killed, a terrible slaughter indeed, and we have had a 
 glorious victory." Then he sits down to rest after 
 having published his news, which is complete but for 
 one circumstance, namely that it is quite certain there 
 has not been a battle at all. But he goes on to assure 
 us that a certain prince* has repudiated the league and 
 quitted the confederacy, that a secondf shows signs of 
 following him, and that a third, according to popular 
 belief, is dead$, and he names the place of his inter- 
 ment ; and even when the whole town is undeceived, 
 he persists in the truth of his report. He has the most 
 reliable authority for saying that Teke'li, the Hungarian 
 general, has risen against the Emperor, that the Sultan 
 
 Duke of Savoy. t Charles II. of Spain. I Charles II. of 
 England.
 
 THE SO VEREIGN AND THE REPUBLIC. 1 59 
 
 will not hear of peace, and that his Vizier will once 
 more appear at the gates of Venice. He claps his 
 hands, and seems greatly excited about this event, as if 
 he had no doubt of it. The triple alliance is to him a 
 Cerberus, and enemies so many monsters to be over- 
 powered ; he can talk of nothing but laurels, triumphs, 
 and trophies. His favourite expressions are, " Our 
 august hero, our great potentate," or, " Our invincible 
 monarch." He cannot say simply, " The King has 
 manyenemies ; theyare powerful, united, and incensed ; 
 he has vanquished them, and I hope will always be able 
 to vanquish them." This style is too bold and decisive 
 for Demophilus, and is not pompous and exaggerated 
 enough for Basilides, whose head is full of grand flights 
 of fancy ; he is thinking of inscriptions for triumphal 
 arches and pyramids, which will adorn the capital on 
 the day of the victorious entry, and as soon as he hears 
 that the armies have met, or a town is invested, he 
 airs his grandest robes that they may be ready for the 
 thanksgiving service in the cathedral. 
 
 The main point of the affair which is to be discussed 
 by the ambassadors of kingdoms and republics, must 
 be very intricate and important, if it takes longer to 
 conclude, than has already been taken to settle the 
 preliminaries, and all the ceremonious rules of pre- 
 cedence and rank. A public minister or an am- 
 bassador is a chameleon, a Proteus ; sometimes like a 
 clever gambler he has to disguise his mood or temper, it 
 may be as much to avoid discriminating surmises, as to 
 prevent the risk of anything escaping him through 
 weakness or passion. He knows how to assume the 
 character most in keeping with his views, and, as 
 necessity arises, he appears to be what it is to his 
 interest that others should believe him to be. There- 
 fore, if the matter is very formidable, he is resolute and
 
 160 LA BRUYRE. 
 
 inflexible, so that people may not attempt to obtain 
 much from him ; but if he feels his position rather 
 weak, he unbends, so that by giving others the chance 
 of asking, he may have the same liberty. At another 
 time,either he is profound and subtle to conceal a truth 
 while he pretends to publish it, because it is important 
 that he should have told it, but that it should not be 
 believed : or else he is frank and open, so that when he 
 does dissemble and conceal what must not be known, 
 no one will suspect him of being hypocritical, but will 
 believe he told all he knew. He can adroitly inspire 
 others to talk, and at the same time prevent them 
 talking to him of things he does not wish to talk 
 about or to tell. He talks of so many different things, 
 that meanings get confused, modified, or destroyed, 
 and as he inspires as much fear as confidence, in 
 people's minds, he is able to recover at once a lost 
 opportunity, and at the same moment to gain another. 
 Or he is cool and silent, and having set others talking, 
 he will listen patiently for a long time ; so that when 
 he desires to speak he may obtain the same attention ; 
 for his discourse is generally full of power, and has 
 great influence when it contains promises or threats, 
 which are either moving or disturbing to those at 
 whom they are directed. At one time he will open 
 the discussion, speaking first that he may discover 
 what contradictions, intrigues, or cabals are to be 
 brought forward (by foreign ministers) to oppose his 
 proposition, take measures accordingly, and have a 
 reply ; at another time he waits till the last so that he 
 may not say a word too much, but to the point, having 
 discovered exactly what it is necessary to make im- 
 portant for his master, or his allies ; what to ask ; and 
 also what he is likely to obtain. He knows how to 
 speak in clear and formal terms, and also how to use 
 ambiguous, equivocal language which will hide his
 
 THE SO VEREIGN AND THE REPUBLIC. 161 
 
 true meaning, using words which he can twist to suit 
 himself or h;s interests. 
 
 He asks little when he does not wish to yield much, 
 and he asks much so that he may be sure of a little. 
 His first exactions are unimportant, so that later he 
 may declare that as they were valueless to him he 
 ought not now to be denied something greater. He 
 will avoid gaining an important point, if it is likely to 
 prevent him gaining several which though of less con- 
 sequence separately, yet together exceed the first. 
 He asks something extravagant so that he may be 
 denied, his object being to give himself the precedent 
 for refusing something he knows will be asked, and 
 which he does not wish to grant, and he is as careful to 
 exaggerate the unreasonableness of the request, and to 
 explain the reasons why he cannot listen, as to weaken 
 the reasons advanced by those who did not agree to 
 his solicitation. He is equally anxious to exalt and 
 magnify the little he offers, as to despise openly the 
 little which is granted to him. He feigns extraordinary 
 concessions which breed distrust, and oblige his oppo- 
 nents to reject, what if accepted, would be useless: 
 this, however, gives him the excuse to make exorbitant 
 demands, and to put in the wrong those who refuse to 
 agree to them. Sometimes he grants more than is 
 asked, so that he may obtain more than he ought to 
 have, or he requires much solicitation for some trifling 
 request, to extinguish hope, and prevent any idea 
 of larger demands, and when at last he is persuaded to 
 grant it, he attaches such conditions to his assent as 
 will make it as advantageous to him as to those who 
 receive the favour. He directly or indirectly embraces 
 the interests of an ally, if he finds it will be useful for 
 the advancement of his own party. His conversation 
 is entirely of alliances, peace, public tranquillity, and 
 public interests ; in fact, he .thinks of nothing but
 
 1 62 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 the interest of his master and the republic. Now and 
 then he reconciles those who were antagonistic, and at 
 other times he divides those he finds united ; he 
 intimidates the strong and powerful, and encourages 
 the weak, or he unites several feeble interests against 
 a more powerful one, to render the balance equal ; then 
 he joins with the former that they may lean on him, and 
 he makes them pay dearly for his alliance and 
 protection. He knows how to interest those with whom 
 he treats, and by delicate address and cunning subter- 
 fuge, he makes them aware of private advantages, 
 wealth, and honours, which they may hope for through 
 a certain laxity which will not clash with their duty, 
 nor with the wishes of their masters. And so that he 
 may not be thought altogether invincible on this point, 
 he displays on his own account a little concern as to his 
 own future, and by this means he draws proposals from 
 them which discover their secret intentions, their most 
 profound designs, and the extent of their resources ; 
 from this he profits. If at some time he is wronged in 
 any particular which is afterwards rectified, he is loud 
 in his remonstrances, but if it is the other way he is 
 louder still, and throws the injured back on their 
 justification and defence. 
 
 Everything he does is examined and ordered by the 
 court, 'every step is regulated, every advance directed 
 and limited ; nevertheless he acts even in difficult and 
 contested points, as if he were yielding of his own 
 accord quite readily and simply. Through his obliging 
 disposition he ventures to say that he will make the 
 proposition meet with approval : he is sure it will not 
 be denied them. He has false reports bruited about 
 concerning the business he is secretly charged with, 
 but reserves his own particular powers and instructions, 
 which he never discloses till some extremity arises, 
 when it would be hurtful not to put them in operation.
 
 THE SOVEREIGN AND THE REPUBLIC. 163 
 
 His intrigues aim above everything at what is solid 
 and essential, and he is always ready to sacrifice for 
 them all minutiae and trifling points of honour. He is 
 phlegmatic and armed with plenty of patience and 
 courage ; he fatigues and discourages others, but is 
 never wearied himself, is forewarned and hardened to 
 tear all delays and affronts, reproaches, suspi- 
 cions, difficulties, obstacles, and defiance ; fully per- 
 suaded that time and circumstances will arrange 
 matters and influence people's minds as he desires. 
 He will even pretend that he would rather break off the 
 negociation, when all the time he is most ardently 
 hoping it will go on : but if on the contrary he has strict 
 orders to try to break it off, he thinks the best way 
 to succeed is to press the conclusion of it. If some 
 great emergency occurs, he cither gives way or is in- 
 flexible according as it will be to his advantage or pre- 
 judice : and if by great tact he can prevent it, he will 
 temporise and urge according to the hopes and fears of 
 the state for which he acts, and he regulates his con- 
 ditions by his needs. He takes great heed of time, 
 place, and occasion, of any power or weakness, and of 
 the genius of the nation with whom he treats, and the 
 temper and character of the persons with whom he 
 negociates. All his schemes and sayings and subtle 
 policy have but one aim, which is never to be imposed 
 upon himself, but always to deceive others. 
 
 The character of the French nation requires gravity 
 in the sovereign. 
 
 One ot the misfortunes of a prince is that he is 
 obliged to bear the burden of his secrets, because it 
 is dangerous to discover them ; he is fortunate if he 
 finds a faithful confidant.
 
 1 64 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 A prince wants nothing but the pleasures of a 
 private life to complete his happiness ; and only the 
 charms of friendship and the faithfulness of his friends 
 can console him for this loss. 
 
 A king who is worthy of his throne finds pleasure 
 in sometimes laying aside his greatness and state, and 
 enjoying the unconstrained intimacy of his friends. 
 
 Nothing does more honour to a prince than the 
 modesty of his favourite. 
 
 No doubt a favourite who possesses strength of mind 
 and good principle, must often be annoyed and dis- 
 concerted by the mean and petty flatteries, and silly 
 and persevering attentions of those who pay their 
 court to him, and follow him about like dogs. He 
 probably laughs at them in private for all the trouble 
 their slavish attentions give him. 
 
 A favourite should have no followers, no ties or 
 relationships. He may be surrounded by friends and 
 dependants, and take no heed of them. He is severed, 
 isolated from them all. 
 
 Men in office, ministers, favourites, allow me to 
 advise you. Do not trust to your descendants to 
 preserve your memory and continue your name ; titles 
 pass away, favour vanishes, honours are forgotten, 
 riches melt away, and merit degenerates. It is true 
 you have children, who seem worthy of you, and 
 capable, I may even add, of upholding your character, 
 but who can vouch as much for your grandchildren ? 
 If you do not believe me, look for once at certain men 
 whom you never notice but with scorn and disdain. They 
 had ancestors whom, great .as you are, you can only
 
 THE SOVEREIGN AND THE REPUBLIC. 165 
 
 endeavour to resemble. Be virtuous and humane, and 
 if you ask me what more is necessary, I would reply 
 benevolence and virtue. You will then be master of 
 the future, independent of posterity, and your name 
 will live as long as monarchy itself endures ; and when 
 future generations are shown the ruins of your castle, 
 or it maybe only the site whereon it stood, the remem- 
 brance of your great and noble acts will still be fresh 
 Jn the minds of the people, who will eagerly examine 
 your portraits and medals, and will say " That man* 
 always spoke to the prince with force and freedom ; 
 he was more afraid of injuring than displeasing him ; 
 he encouraged him in all acts of kindness and gener- 
 osity, and taught him to say, ' My good city ! ' ' My 
 own people ! ' " That other picture t on which you look 
 is remarkable for the strength of character the face 
 displays, and its air of grave austerity and majesty. 
 As the years passed they only added splendour to his 
 reputation; the greatest politicians suffered from com- 
 parison with him ; his great aim was to establish the 
 authority of the prince and the security of the people 
 by humbling the nobility : and from this aim neither 
 opposition, conspiracy, treason, terror of death, or his 
 own infirmities had any power to turn him. Besides 
 this he found time to set in operation an undertaking 
 afterwards continued and finished byone of the greatest 
 and best princes t the world has ever seen, namely 
 the extinction of heresy. 
 
 The most plausible and cunning snare which was 
 ever laid for nobles by their treasurers, or for kings by 
 their ministers, is the means they advise them to take 
 to pay off their debts and enrich themselves. It is 
 
 * Cardinal George d'Amboise. f Cardinal Richelieu. 
 
 J Louis XIV.
 
 1 66 LA BKUYERE. 
 
 admirable counsel they give, most fruitful, worth 
 indeed a mine of gold, Peru itself, for those who are 
 clever enough to instil it into their masters. 
 
 That is a fortunate nation whose king admits into his- 
 counsel and chooses for his ministers those very persons 
 whom the people would have chosen for him if they 
 had been his advisers. 
 
 Knowledge of details, and diligent attention to 
 the smallest needs of the republic, is an essential 
 part of good government, which in truth was- 
 formerly too much neglected both by kings and 
 ministers, and is a quality which cannot be toa 
 earnestly desired in a sovereign who does not 
 cultivate it, nor overestimated in him who possesses 
 it. For how does it really affect the prosperity of the, 
 people, or their ease and comfort, that their king 
 extends the bounds of his dominions beyond those of 
 his enemies ; that he makes their states provinces of 
 his kingdom; that he is as superior to them in sieges 
 as in battles, so that they cannot resist him either on 
 the field or behind the strongest fortress ; that 
 neighbouring nations have to call on each other to- 
 enter into leagues to defend themselves and put a 
 stop to his conquests ; that all this is in vain, for he is 
 always advancing, always victorious ; and the last hopes 
 of his enemies are dashed to the ground by the 
 re-establishment of such health in this great monarch^ 
 as gives him the prospect of seeing his grandsons able 
 to support and augment his good fortune by leading 
 his victorious armies to the conquest of new states, 
 and able to command old and experienced officers, less 
 by their right of rank and birth, than by merit and 
 wisdom, following in the footsteps of their victorious 
 father, imitating his goodness, justice and mildness, as 
 well as his vigilance and bravery. 
 
 How, I repeat, does it affect me, or the people, that
 
 THE SO VE REIGN AND THE RE PUB L 1C. 167 
 
 the sovereign and his children are covered with glory, 
 wealth, and honour, and that our country is great and 
 powerful, if we have to exist under the dismal burden 
 of poverty and oppression ; if while protected against 
 the inroads of the enemy, we are exposed within the 
 walls of the city to the violence and cruelty of a 
 tyrant? How much better would I and my fellow- 
 subjects be, if security, order, and cleanliness had not 
 rendered life in our cities so delightful, and if plenty 
 and prosperity did not include for us the pleasures of 
 society, or if being feeble and defenceless we were 
 subject to attacks from every neighbouring great man, 
 if no provision had been made to protect us against his 
 injustice ? If I had not at hand so many excellent 
 teachers to train my children in those arts and sciences 
 which will one day raise their fortunes ; if the facilities 
 of trade had not brought good clothing within my 
 reach, and health-sustaining, nourishing food, which I 
 can buy cheap? If, in short, the solicitude of my 
 sovereign had not given me as much reason to be 
 contented with my fortune, as his virtues must make 
 him with his ? 
 
 Eight or ten thousand men are to a sovereign like 
 money, with which he buys a town or a victor)'. The 
 more he can spare his men, the cheaper is his purchase 
 like a merchant who gets the best value for his 
 money. 
 
 All things prosper in a kingdom in which the 
 interests of the sovereign and the state are one. 
 . To say that a king is the father of his people, is no 
 more praising him than calling him by his name and 
 title. 
 
 There is a sort of commerce or reciprocal render- 
 ing of duty between a sovereign and his subjects. 
 Which finds these duties the greatest tie or the most 
 troublesome to perform ? I will not decide, for this
 
 1 68 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 would involve judging between the strict requirements 
 of reverence, obedience, and dependence on the one 
 side, and the supreme obligation to kindness, justice, 
 and protection on the other. To say that the king is 
 the arbitrator of the people's destinies, is only to tell 
 us that the crimes of mankind have naturally placed 
 them in subjection to laws of justice, of which the 
 king is the guardian, but to add that he is absolute 
 master of his subjects' wealth, without discussion, con- 
 sideration, or question, is the language of flattery, or 
 the opinion of a favourite who will retract his words 
 only at the point of death. 
 
 A lovely day is fading into evening and you may see 
 a large flock of sheep dotted over the hillside, quietly 
 feeding on the sweet wild thyme, or in the meadow 
 nibbling the young and tender grass which has escaped 
 the reaper's scythe. The careful watching shepherd is 
 not far from his flock, he keeps his sheep always in 
 sight, and leads them and follows them to new pasture 
 ground. If they wander he gathers them together 
 again ; if a hungry wolf appears, he sets his dog to 
 hound him off; he nourishes and protects them ; day- 
 break finds him already in the field, which he only left 
 with the sun. What care ! What watchfulness ! 
 What servitude is this ! Which condition appears to 
 you the most free and delightful, that of the shepherd 
 or his sheep? Is the flock made for the shepherd or 
 the shepherd for the flock? This pastoral imagery 
 represents the people and the prince who governs 
 them, if he is a good prince. 
 
 A proud, luxurious king is like a shepherd adorned 
 with gold and precious stones ; a golden crook is in his 
 hands, a collar of gold round his dog's neck, and he 
 has a cord of gold and silk to lead him by. But how 
 will all this gold protect the flock from the wolf? 
 
 What a delightful post is that which gives frequent
 
 THE SO VE REIGN AND THE REPUBLIC. 169 
 
 opportunities of doing good to thousands : what a 
 miserable one is that which at any moment exposes a 
 man to the necessity of injuring millions. 
 
 If there is in this world no happiness for men greater, 
 more natural, and more sublime, than the knowledge 
 of being beloved ; and if kings are men ; can they ever 
 purchase the hearts of their people too dearly ? 
 
 There are few general rules or proved measures for 
 .good government. Times and circumstances have to 
 be considered which mingle prudence and caution with 
 the aims of those who reign. Therefore perfect govern- 
 ment shows a master mind ; though perhaps it would be 
 impossible to attain, if the people did not contrioute 
 towards it by their habits of dependence and submis- 
 sion. 
 
 Those who hold the highest posts under a great 
 monarch have very easy places, and fill them with 
 little trouble. Everything flows from the fountain head. 
 The authority and genius of the prince makes the way 
 plain, smooths all difficulties and makes things prosper 
 beyond expectation. They have only the merit of 
 subalterns. 
 
 If the care of one family is such a burden, if it is 
 enough for a man to have to answer for himself, what 
 a weight, what a load is the charge of a whole 
 "kingdom? Is the sovereign recompensed for all his 
 anxiety by the humble reverence of his courtiers, or 
 the pleasures an absolute power seem to give? I 
 reflect on the painful, and dubious, and dangerous 
 paths he is sometimes forced to follow in order to 
 establish public tranquillity. I think over the extreme 
 though necessary measures lie is often obliged to use 
 for a good end, and knowing that he is accountable to 
 God, even for the felicity of his people, that good and
 
 i;o LA BRUYlLRE. 
 
 evil are in his hands, and that he has no excuse of 
 ignorance ; I ask myself, Would you wish to reign ? 
 Would a man who is moderately happy in a private 
 condition of life quit it for a throne ? Is it not enough 
 for him who is born a king to discharge his hereditary 
 duties. 
 
 How many gifts from heaven are required to help a 
 prince to reign well* ? An august birth, a royal and 
 commanding air, a face which will satisfy the curiosity 
 of those who crowd to see him, and which will inspire 
 respect in his courtiers, a perfectly even temper, an 
 aversion to ill-natured jesting, or good sense enough to 
 suppress it. He must never threaten, reproach, or give 
 way to his passion, and yet exact obedience. His dis- 
 position must be pliant and engaging, his heart sincere 
 and open, so that all may think they understand him. 
 This will help him to make friends, dependants, and 
 allies. He must be always reserved, deep, and im- 
 penetrable as to his motives and designs, be very grave 
 and serious in public ; dignity, justice, and brevity must 
 all unite in his replies to foreign ambassadors and in 
 his council chamber. In bestowing favours his manner 
 must have such grace as will seem to double the benefit ; 
 and in his choice of persons to be thus gratified he must 
 show great discernment, discriminating between the 
 qualifications, talents, and dispositions of those who are 
 chosen as ministers and generals, or to hold office. He 
 must have such a firm and decided judgment that in 
 all affairs he will at once see what is best and most 
 just; and his understanding must be so righteous and 
 sincere as to make him sometimes declare against him- 
 self in favour of the people, his allies, or his enemies. 
 He must possess such a happy memory that he recalls 
 
 * In answering this question, La Bruyere gives an ideal 
 portrait of Louis XIV.
 
 THE SOVEREIGN AND THE RETCBLIC. 171 
 
 at once the needs of a subject, and even names, faces, 
 and petitions; a wide intelligence, which extends not 
 only tp foreign affairs, commerce, state policy, and 
 political views, new conquests, and the defence of them 
 by impregnable fortresses, but he must know also how 
 to confine himself to home concerns and be acquainted 
 with all the details of the lealm, knowing when to 
 abolish all false worship which might be prejudicial to 
 sovereignty, to put down all cruel or reprobate cus- 
 toms, to reform laws if they are full of abuse, to make 
 his cities secure and convenient, noble and magni- 
 ficent; punishing severely all scandalous vices, and 
 and by his authority and example advancing the honour 
 of religion and virtue. He must protect the church and 
 the clergy, their rights and liberties ; treat his people as 
 kindly as a father treats his children, always planning 
 for their comfort, trying to lighten their taxes and other 
 burdens that they be not impoverished. He must have 
 great talent for war, be vigilant, diligent, and unwearied, 
 able to command in person his numerous armies, be 
 calm and fearless in the midst of danger, sparing him- 
 self only for the good of the state, caring for its welfare 
 and for its glory more than for his life. His power 
 must be so absolute that there will be no opportunity for 
 i itrigue, and he will try to lessen the great distance 
 between the nobility and the people by drawing nearer 
 them himself, so that all may be equally submissive. 
 His knowledge must be so extensive that everything 
 will be under his own eyes, and all acts will proceed 
 directly from him ; his generals, however distant, must 
 be but his lieutenants, and his ministers his ministers 
 only. His wisdom must be so profound that he knows 
 when to declare war, when to vanquish, and how to 
 make the best use of victory ; knows how to make peace 
 and when to break it, and how to constrain his enemies 
 as diverse interests arise, to set bounds to ambition,
 
 172 LA BRUYfrRE. 
 
 and how far to extend his conquests. Even in the 
 midst of enemies, secret or open, he must find leisure 
 for plays, feasts, and spectacles, cultivate the arts and 
 sciences, design and erect magnificent edifices. His 
 genius must be so vigorous and universal that he is be- 
 loved and revered by his own people and feared by 
 strangers. His court, and indeed his whole kingdom, 
 is like a single family, perfectly united under one chief, 
 a union which renders them formidable to the rest of 
 the world. All these admirable virtues seem to be 
 comprised in my idea of a sovereign. True, we rarely 
 meet with them inone'person ; too many things have 
 to contribute at once, mind, heart, temperament, and 
 external circumstances : but it appears to me that a 
 prince who unites all these in his person is very worthy 
 of the name of " Great."
 
 MEN. 
 
 Do not let us be angry with man when we find him 
 stubborn, unjust, proud, and selfish ; men are made 
 so, it is their nature ; we might as soon remonstrate 
 with the stone for falling, or the sparks for flying up- 
 ward. 
 
 In one sense men are not fickle except in trifles. 
 They change their clothes, their language, their habits, 
 and sometimes their tastes, but they always preserve 
 their evil inclinations, are firm and constant in wrong- 
 doing, and in their indifference to virtue. 
 
 Stoicism is an idle fancy, an idea something like the 
 republic of Plato. Stoics pretend that a man may laugh 
 at poverty, be insensible to injury, ingratitude, the loss 
 of wealth, relations, friends ; look coldly on death as 
 n thing of no consequence, which ought neither to 
 make him merry nor sad ; that neither pleasure nor pain 
 ought to overcome him,arid that he ought to undergo the 
 torments of fire or sword without uttering the faintest 
 cry or shedding a single tear ; and this imaginary 
 phantom of virtuous endurance they are pleased to 
 call a wise man. But, after all, mankind is left in 
 possession of every defect those stoics found in him; 
 they have not cured him of a single weakness. 
 Instead of depicting vice in its most hideous or ridicu- 
 lous forms to disgust him with it, they have indicated 
 an idea of heroism and perfection of which man is not 
 capable, and exhorted him to strive after the impossible. 
 Thus this imaginary wise man is to find himself 
 naturally and by his own strength above regarding any
 
 174 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 circumstance or ill; neither the most agonizing attack 
 of gout, nor the sharpest twinge of pain, is to have 
 power to draw from him the least complaint. Heaven 
 and earth may be turned upside down, but it is no 
 concern of his ; and he" would be supposed to stand 
 firm on the ruins of the universe, while another man 
 nearly loses his senses, cries and bewails, and flashes 
 fire from his eyes and loses h's breath for the sake of a 
 Jost dog or a piece of broken china. 
 
 Restlessness of mind, irregularity of temper, incon- 
 stancy of heart, and uncertainty of conduct, are all 
 mental defects, but all different, and, notwithstanding- 
 the relation they all appear to bear to each other, they 
 are not necessarily found in the same person. 
 
 A changeable man is several men in one, he multi- 
 plies himself every time he acquires a new title or puts 
 on a different manner. He is not this minute what he 
 was the last, and he will be the next what he never 
 was before, he is always succeeding himself. Do not ask 
 what his disposition is, but what his dispositions are ; nor 
 what his humour, but how many varieties of humour 
 he has. Are you not mistaken, was it not Euthy- 
 crates you met to-day? How stiff he was to you. 
 Yesterday he sought you out and made so much of 
 you that all his friends were jealous of you ; do you 
 think he knows you ? tell him your name. 
 
 M tunicas* goes down stairs, opens his door to go 
 out, shuts it. He then perceives that he is still in his 
 night-cap, and examining himself a little closer he dis- 
 covers that only half his face is shaved; that he wears 
 
 * Said to be the Duke de Brancas, the most absent-minded man 
 of his time.
 
 MEN. 175 
 
 his sword at his right side and his stockings hanging 
 over his heels. If he walks into the street he feels 
 something strike him on the face, he cannot imagine 
 what it can be, till waking up he opens his eyes and 
 finds that he has run into a carriage shaft, or hit against 
 a plank on a carpenter's shoulder. He was once seen to 
 run up against a blind man with such force that both 
 fell backward. He often happens to come up forehead 
 to forehead with the prince, and has scarcely time to 
 squeeze himself close to the wall to prevent a collision, 
 with difficulty making room for him to pass. He is 
 seeking for something, gets confused, calls out that he 
 cannot find it, gets into a heat, calls his servants one 
 after the other, tells them they lose everything, put 
 everything out of the way, and demands his gloves 
 which are in his hands, like the woman who asked for 
 her mask when it was on her face. He enters a room 
 and passes under a lustre to which his wig gets hooked 
 and remains hanging. The courtiers look at it and 
 laugh, Menalcas looks also and laughs louder than the 
 others ; he looks all round the company to discover who 
 shows his ears and has lost his wig. If he goes into 
 the city, he has gone only a short distance when he 
 believes he has lost his way, makes a great disturbance, 
 and asks the passers by to tell him where he is. 
 They tell him the name of the street he lives in, so near 
 is he to his own house which he enters, but quickly 
 runs out again thinking he has made a mistake. On 
 coming out of the palace he finds a carriage at the foot 
 of the grand staircase; he mistakes it for his own and 
 gets in, the coachman touches up the horses and 
 believes he is taking his master home. Menalcas jumps 
 out, crosses the court, mounts the stairs, walks through 
 the ante-chamber, chamber, and closet, everything 
 is familiar nothing new, he sits down, rests, and 
 feels at home. Presently the master comes in, he rises
 
 176 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 up to receive him, treats him very politely, begs him to 
 be seated and does the honours of the place. He talks, 
 reflects, and talks again, the master of the house is 
 tired and astonished, and Menalcas is no less so, but 
 does not say what he thinks, he sees he has to do with 
 some troublesome, idle fellow, who will take himself off 
 sometime, no doubt; he must just have patience. Night 
 comes on, when with some difficulty he is undeceived. 
 Another time he pays a visit to a lady, and, being per- 
 suaded thatshe isvisitinghim, sits down in herarm-chair 
 and never thinks of giving it up. He begins to think 
 the lady pays very long visits, and expects every 
 moment she will get up and leave him at liberty, but 
 the time drags on, he is hungry, and as night comes 
 on he invites her to sup with him. She laughs, and 
 laughs so loudly that he wakes up. He gets married 
 one morning, but forgets all about it by evening and 
 goes to the country. Some years after he loses his 
 wife, who dies in his arms ; he is present at the 
 obsequies, and next day when his servants come and 
 tell him dinner is served, he asks if his wife is ready, if 
 lliey have told her. 
 
 It was he also who, going into a church, took the 
 blind man sitting at the door for a pillar, and his dish 
 for the holy water basin, plunged in his hand and 
 crossed his forehead, when suddenly he hears the 
 pillar speak and ask for alms. He walks up the nave, 
 and thinks he sees a kneeling cushion, kneels heavily 
 on it, and lo ! the machine bends, sinks, and tries to 
 cry out. Menalc.is is surprised to find himself on the 
 legs of a very little man, leaning on his back, with 
 his two arms over his shoulders, while his clasped 
 hands are stretched across his nose and mouth. He 
 retires confused, and goes and kneels elsewhere ; he 
 draws out his prayer-book, as he supposes, and behold 
 it is his slipper which he has put in his pocket instead.
 
 MEN. 177 
 
 He is scarcely outside the church, when a man in 
 livery runs after him, and asks him, smiling, if he has 
 not got my lord's slipper. Menalcas shows him his 
 own, and says " This is the only slipper I have about 
 me." He searches, however, and finds he has also the 
 
 Bishop of 's slipper, whom he has been visiting, 
 
 and found sitting by the fire, a little indisposed, and 
 whose slipper he had picked up on leaving, instead of 
 one of his own gloves he had let fall. He goes by water 
 one day, and asks what o'clock it is ; they hand him 
 a watch ; he has no sooner looked at it than he forgets 
 both the hour and the watch, and throws the latter 
 into the river as a thing which was in his way. First 
 he writes a long letter, and, having sanded it, throws 
 the sand into the inkstand, then a second, and having 
 closed both, makes a mistake in addressing them, and 
 the Duke, to whom he wrote first, reads, " Mr. Oliver, 
 do not fail to send me, immediately you receive this, my 
 usual supply of hay." His factor receives the other, and 
 when he opens it, reads, "My Lord, I receive with a blind 
 submission the orders which it has pleased your Grace 
 etc." He writes another letter at night, and after 
 having sealed it, he blows out his can die, and is surprised 
 to find himself in the dark ; can scarcely understand 
 how it happens. Coming downstairs from the Louvre 
 he meets some one coming up, takes him by the hand, 
 saying, " You are the very man I want to see ; " and 
 drags him along with him, crosses several courts, goes 
 in and out of several halls, and then, as they retrace their 
 steps, Menalcas looks at the man he has been dragging 
 after him for the last quarter of an hour, and wonders 
 who he is, and what he wants ; he has nothing to say 
 to him, lets him go, and turns the other way. He will 
 often stop to ask you a question, but is already a long 
 ivay off before you can answer him, or he will ask you 
 how your father is, and when you tell him he is very 
 ill, he exclaims cheerfully how glad he is ! 
 
 N
 
 1 78 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 One morning he orders dinner to be got ready early, as 
 he has important business to attend to; he rises before 
 the fruit is served, and takes leave of the company, but 
 he may be seen that day in all the chief parts of the 
 city, except where he has made the appointment which 
 interfered with his dinner, and obliged him to go out on 
 foot, as he was in too much haste to wait for his car- 
 riage. You may hear him violently railing against one of 
 his servants, "Where is he? what can he be doing? he is 
 always out of the way when he is wanted ! He need not 
 come near me again : I shall give him warning from this 
 day." While he is speaking the servant comes in ; he 
 asks him in a passion where he has come from, and is 
 answered, " From the place you sent me to," and he gives 
 a faithful account of his errand. You very often take 
 him to be what he is not ; for a stupid, because he hears 
 little and speaks less; for a fool, because he talks to 
 himself, and has a habit of making grimaces and 
 absurd motions with his head ; for a proud, uncivil man, 
 because when you bow to him he passes without look- 
 ing, or looks at you without returning your salute; for a 
 thoughtless man, because he talks of bankruptcy in 
 a family which has a bankrupt relative, of executions 
 and scaffolds to a person whose father was beheaded, 
 of low birth to a man who has become rich and wishes 
 to be thought noble. In fact, he thinks and speaks at 
 the same time, but what he speaks of is rarely what 
 he is thinking of, therefore there is very little coherence 
 in what he says. He usually replies yes instead of no, 
 and when he says yes you may suppose he means to 
 say no; he may answer you with his eyes attentively 
 fixed on yours, but he does not see you, he is not think- 
 ing of you or of any one or anything in the world; all you 
 can draw from him, even in his most attentive mood, 
 is something like this " Yes, indeed, truly good, all the 
 better, certainly I believe so," or something quite as in-
 
 MEN. 179 
 
 appropriate. His mind is never with those he appears 
 among,he quite seriously calls his footman "Sir"andhis 
 friend "Thomas," he says "Your Reverence" to a prince 
 of the blood, and " Your Highness" to a Jesuit. When 
 he attends mass, if the priest sneezes, he cries out "God 
 bless you." A grave and venerable judge asks him if 
 such a thing happened, he replies "Yes, miss." On 
 one occasion, as he was returning from the country, his 
 servants undertook to rob him, and succeeded ; they 
 jumped down from behind the carriage and held a 
 lighted torch in his face, demanding his purse, which 
 he delivered to them. When he arrived at home he 
 recounted his adventure to his friends, who kept plying 
 him with questions about it; he told them to ask the 
 servants, saying they were there ! 
 
 Impoliteness is not a vice of itself, but is caused by 
 several mental defects : foolish vanity, ignorance of 
 duty, idleness, stupidity, contempt of others, jealousy. 
 If it is displayed by outward manner, it is even more 
 objectionable, being then a visible and manifest defect. 
 It is true, however, that it offends us more or less 
 according to the original cause of it. 
 
 If we say of a bad-tempered, unequal, quarrelsome, 
 peevish, formal, capricious person, "It is only his dispo- 
 sition," that does not excuse him, as people seem tothink, 
 but is an unconscious confession that such great 
 defects are incurable. 
 
 Temper, as we call it, is too little kept in check among 
 men. They ought to understand that it is not enough 
 to be good : they must also show it, at least if they wish 
 to be sociable and fit for kindly intercourse ; in other 
 words, if they would be men. We do not expect of 
 malignant minds that they should be agreeable and 
 
 N 2
 
 i8o LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 kind ; they can be so when such qualities are required 
 to ensnare the simple or to turn their own cunning to 
 account. But we desire that those who are good at 
 heart should be always affable, obliging, and courteous, 
 so that it may no longer be said that the wicked do us 
 harm and the good make us suffer. 
 
 It is generally the case that if a man is angry with 
 you his next step is to injure you ; some, however, act 
 quite differently ; they first offend and then get angry, 
 and we are so surprised at this proceeding that no room 
 is left for resentment. 
 
 Some men do not apply themselves enough to look- 
 ing for opportunities of giving pleasure to others. 
 They seem only to wish to be obliging, and they are 
 not. The thing we do most promptly is to refuse; 
 that we do at once, but we grant only after re- 
 flection. 
 
 Know exactly what you are to expect from mankind 
 in general, and also from individuals, and then venture 
 into the world. 
 
 If poverty is the mother of crime, want of sense is 
 the father of it. 
 
 It is difficult to understand how a dishonest man can 
 have sense. A penetrating, straightforward nature 
 goes with order, truth, and virtue. It is want of sense 
 and penetration which makes a man obstinate in 
 wickedness and falsehood. We seek in vain to correct 
 these faults by caricaturing them in others, but he 
 does not recognize the sarcasm, it is like railing at a 
 deaf man. It would be better for the benefit of 
 honest men and for public satisfaction if a rogue were 
 not so devoid of feeling.
 
 MEN. 181 
 
 There are some vices we owe to nobody, they were 
 born with us, and are strengthened by habit ; there are 
 others which are quite foreign to us, these we contract. 
 Some men are born with easy manners, complaisance, 
 and a desire to please ; but from the treatment they 
 receive from those with whom they live, or on whom 
 they depend, they are soon forced to change their ways, 
 and even their dispositions ; they become fretful and 
 melancholy, they see the change in themselves, and at 
 last are astonished to find that they are hard and sharp. 
 
 Some ask why mankind in general do not compose 
 one nation, and are not contented to speak one 
 language, to live under the same laws, and agree among 
 themselves to have the same customs and the same 
 worship ; whilst I, seeing how contrary are their minds, 
 their tastes, and sentiments, wonder to see even seven 
 or eight persons living between the same walls under 
 one roof and making a single famiiy. 
 
 There are some strange fathers who seem during the 
 whole course of their lives to be chiefly occupied in 
 preparing reasons for their children to console them- 
 selves on their death. 
 
 The morals, the manners, and the humours of most 
 men are unnatural. During all his life one man has 
 lived bad-tempered, passionate, greedy, and selfish; he 
 was born gay, peaceful, generous, noble-minded, and 
 far above all meanness; but the necessities of life, 
 circumstances, situations, and the law of necessity force 
 nature and cause such great changes. Thus a man can 
 scarcely understand himself; so many things beyond 
 his control spoil his character, upset and unsettle him, 
 that he is really neither exactly what he thinks he is, 
 nor what he appears to be.
 
 1 82 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 Life is short and wearisome; it is spent in vaiii 
 longings; and we put off to the future our rest and enjoy* 
 ment, often delaying till an age when our best blessings, 
 health and youth, have already disappeared. The 
 time comes and surprises us still in the midst of new- 
 desires, and we are still busy with them when a fever 
 seizes us and extinguishes us. If we are cured, it is 
 only to desire more. 
 
 When we wish a thing, we surrender at discretion to 
 the wish of him from whom we hope. If we are 
 sure of a thing, we temporize, parley, and then 
 surrender. 
 
 It is such a general thing for a man not to be happy, 
 and so essential that every good thing must be 
 acquired with difficulty, that when something comes 
 easily we are suspicious, and can hardly understand 
 how that which costs us so little can be much to our 
 advantage, or that we could so easily, and by using 
 only honest measures, reach the end we proposed. 
 We think we deserve success, but ought seldom to rely 
 on that. 
 
 The man who says he was not born fortunate might 
 at least become so by the kindness of his friends and 
 relations. Envy robs him of this last resource. 
 
 Although, perhaps, I may have said elsewhere that 
 the afflicted have themselves to blame, men seem to be 
 born for misfortune, grief, and poverty. Few escape it, 
 and since any calamity may befall them, they ought to 
 be prepared for all adversity. 
 
 What difficulty there is in arranging business affairs ! 
 Men are so keen over the least advantage, and bustle
 
 MEN. 183 
 
 up at every obstacle, so willing to deceive and so un- 
 willing to be deceived, setting such high value on what 
 belongs to them and so small a price on what belongs 
 to others, that I confess I do not know how or when 
 they are able to conclude marriage contracts, purchases, 
 peace treaties, truces, or alliances. 
 
 With some, arrogance supplies the place of greatness; 
 cruelty, obstinacy, and deceit the place of wit. Cheats 
 easily believe others to be as bad as themselves ; they 
 are hard to deceive, but neither can they deceive 
 long. 
 
 I would rather be considered stupid than a cheat. 
 
 No blessing attends cheating, for malice and false- 
 hood go with it. 
 
 We hear nothing in the streets of great cities but 
 such words as writs and executions, and the passers 
 by talk only of bonds and pleadings. Is there not the 
 smallest amount of equity left in the world? Is it on 
 the contrary full of people who demand what is not 
 due to them, and who boldly refuse to pay what they 
 owe? 
 
 Parchments were invented to remind men of their 
 word and to persuade them to keep it. What a dis- 
 grace to mankind! 
 
 If you were to take away passion, self-interest, and 
 injustice, what a great calm would fall upon our cities ! 
 The necessaries of life do not make a third part of the 
 turmoil. 
 
 Nothing so much helps a reasonable mind to support 
 quietly the injuries he receives from relations and 
 friends, as reflection on the vices of humanity, and
 
 1 84 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 the difficulty men have in being constant, generous, 
 and faithful, or of being sensible of any affection 
 greater than their own interests. If he reflects, he will 
 understand the range of their capacity, and will not 
 expect them to penetrate solid bodies, fly in the air, or 
 possess rectitude. He may hate mankind in general 
 for having so little virtue, but he excuses individuals, 
 he even loves from some higher motive, and tries as 
 much as possible not to require similar indul- 
 gence. 
 
 There are certain benefits we passionately desire ; 
 the mere idea of them excites and moves us, and if we 
 happen to obtain them, we accept them with greater 
 tranquillity than we thought possible, and are less 
 engaged enjoying them than in aspiring after still 
 greater things. 
 
 There exist such frightful evils, such horrible mis- 
 fortunes, that we dare not think of them, the very 
 prospect of them makes us tremble. But if they 
 happen to fall on us, we find that we have more 
 resources than we imagined, we brace ourselves to 
 bear misfortune, and endure it better than we 
 expected. 
 
 Sometimes very little is required to mitigate a great 
 grief ; we interest ourselves in a pleasant house, or find 
 ourselves the possessors of a fine horse or a good dog. 
 even a new carpet or a new clock will help to make us 
 feel a great loss less. 
 
 I first try to imagine to myself that men are to live 
 for ever on this earth, and then I meditate as to 
 whether they could do better for themselves in these 
 circumstances than they do now.
 
 MEN. 185 
 
 If life is miserable, it is painful to endure it, if it is 
 happy, it is terrible to lose it ; both come to the same 
 thing. 
 
 There is nothing man is so anxious to preserve, yet 
 takes less care of, than life. 
 
 Irene* goes at great expense to Epidaurus, she visits 
 the temple of ^Esculapius, and consults him about all 
 her ailments. First she complains that she is weary 
 and worn out with fatigue ; the god pronounces this 
 the effect of her long journey. She says she has no 
 appetite for supper ; the oracle orders her to eat less 
 dinner ; she adds that she is troubled with sleepless- 
 ness ; he tells her never to lie in bed by day. She 
 asks how she can become thin ; the oracle replies that 
 she must rise before noon and sometimes use her legs 
 to walk on. She declares that wine disagrees with 
 her ; the oracle bids her drink water : she suffers from 
 indigestion, she must diet herself. "My sight," complains 
 Irene,'"'' begins to fail me." "Use spectacles," is the reply, 
 " I am getting so weak," she continues ; " I am not nearly 
 so strong as I was." "You are getting old," said the god. 
 " But how am I to cure this languishing feeling ? " 
 " The shortest way, Irene, is to die, as your grandfathe 
 and grandmother did before you." " Son of Apollo," 
 exclaims Irene, " is this the wondrous skill men rave 
 about ? You have told me nothing new or mysterious : 
 did I not know all that you have told me before?" 
 " Why did you not put your knowledge into practice, 
 then," is the answer, "without coming so far to seek me, 
 shortening your days by a long and tedious journey ? " 
 
 Death only comes once, but we feel it every moment of 
 our lives : it is harder to apprehend than to suffer it. 
 
 * Madame de Montespan, a malade imaginaire.
 
 186 LA BRVY&RE. 
 
 Uneasiness, fear, and dejection cannot keep death 
 from us, yet I doubt if much laughter suits mortal 
 men. 
 
 The certainty of death is mitigated by its uncertainty ; 
 in its indefiniteness there is something of infinitude, or 
 what we call eternity. 
 
 We are sighing now for the loss of our vanished 
 youth ; let us remember that decay will come, and then 
 we shall regret this, our age of maturity, which we do 
 not appreciate. 
 
 We fear old age, yet we cannot be sure of attaining 
 it. We hope to grow old, and still we fear old age ; 
 that is to say, we love life and long to escape death. 
 
 It is better to give way to nature and fear death than 
 to be always fighting against it, arming ourselves with 
 reasons and arguments why we should not fear it. 
 
 If some died and others did not, death would be a 
 terrible affliction. 
 
 A long illness is placed between life and death, so 
 that when death comes it may be a relief both to those 
 who die and those who are left. 
 
 Humanly speaking, death is a good thing, it puts an 
 end to old age. The death which prevents dotage is 
 more opportune than that which ends it. 
 
 The regrets men suffer for mis-spent time do not 
 always lead them to make a better use of what remains 
 to them.
 
 MEN. 187 
 
 Life is a sleep. To the old the sleep has been longest 
 they only begin to awake as death approaches. 
 If they could then pass in review all the years of their 
 lives, they would not find in many of them either virtues 
 or praiseworthy actions to distinguish one from the 
 other ; the different stages of life are blended and con- 
 fused, and nothing stands out to measure life by. It 
 seems an incoherent dream, and the dying feel like 
 those who awake, that they have slept long. 
 
 There are but three events which happen to man- 
 kind, birth, life, and death. Of birth they know no- 
 thing, in death they suffer, and forget to live. 
 
 Children are proud, hasty, envious, inquisitive, self- 
 ish, idle, frivolous, timid, ungovernable, false, and deceit- 
 ful ; they laugh or cry in a moment, are extravagantly 
 happy or in great grief over trifles ; they would not suffer 
 evil but love to do mischief. They are men in minia- 
 ture. 
 
 Children think neither of the past nor future ; they 
 enjoy what we rarely do, the present. 
 
 Children seem to be all the same ; it is only by very 
 careful and minute attention we can distinguish differ- 
 ences ; these increase, however, as reason comes, because 
 with it the passions and vices of nature grow, and these 
 alone make men so unlike each other, so complex to 
 themselves. 
 
 Children possess two faculties which old people lose, 
 imagination and memory ; and they make marvellous 
 use of them in their games and amusements, for 
 by their aid they repeat things they hear, and imitate 
 what they see done; they try everything and occupy
 
 1 88 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 themselves with all kinds of inventions, even copying 
 the movements and gestures of different artizans by 
 way of amusement, or transporting themselves into 
 imaginary palaces or enchanted castles, where they 
 have grand equipages and trains of followers, lead their 
 armies into battle, and enjoy all the pleasures of 
 victory, talk with kings and princes, or are themselves 
 kings with numerous subjects and vast treasures, which 
 are only leaves or pebbles ; they are what during the 
 rest of their lives they cannot be, the arbitrators of 
 their own fortunes, and masters of their happiness. 
 
 There are no exterior vices or defects which children 
 do not perceive at once, and they can indicate them in 
 fitting words ; we could not ourselves express them so 
 happily. But when they become men they are loaded 
 in their turn with the same imperfections, and are 
 themselves mocked. 
 
 The chief endeavour of children is to find out 
 their master's weak points and the weaknesses of all 
 to whom they are in subjection ; and as soon as the dis- 
 covery is made they get the upper hand, and never give 
 up their advantage ; for what made us forfeit our ad van - 
 tage in their eyes will prevent our ever recovering it. 
 
 Idleness and laziness, which are so natural to children, 
 disappear in their games, where they are quick, lively, 
 and exact, great advocates of rule and order, which 
 they insist on for their companions, and they will them- 
 selves begin a thing many times if they fail, certain 
 sign that though they may one day neglect their 
 duty, they will never forget their pleasures. 
 
 In children's eyes everything is great, gardens, build- 
 ings, furniture, men, and animals. To us, worldly
 
 MEN. 189 
 
 affairs seem great, and I daresay for the same reason, 
 because we are little. 
 
 Who doubts that children do not originate, judge, 
 and reason correctly ? and if only in little things, that 
 is because they are only children and have not much 
 experience, and if they use wrong words it is less their 
 fault than that of their parents and masters. 
 
 Children lose confidence in you, and you are useless 
 to them, if you punish them for faults they never com- 
 mitted, or speak severely to them about trifling things ; 
 they know exactly what they deserve, better than any- 
 one else indeed, and they seldom deserve more than 
 they dread. When they are chastised, they know if it 
 is rightly or wrongly ; and undeserved punishment does 
 them more harm than indulgence. 
 
 We do not live long enough to profit from our mis- 
 takes ; we are committing them during the whole course 
 of our lives, and all that we can do without failure is to 
 die corrected. 
 
 It is hard to confess our faults ; we would rather 
 hide them or lay them on some one else ; and this is 
 what gives a director an advantage over a confessor. 
 
 The faults of fools are sometimes so awkward and so 
 difficult to foresee that they put wise men in the 
 wrong, and only serve those who commit them. 
 
 Party-spirit lowers the greatest man to an equality 
 with the rabble. 
 
 Vanity and decorum lead us to do the same things 
 and in the same way as if we were prompted by
 
 igo LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 inclination or duty. A great man * has died in Paris 
 of a fever caught nursing his wife, whom he did not 
 love. 
 
 All men desire at heart to be esteemed; yet they are 
 careful that no one shall discover how much they 
 covet esteem : because, if men wish to possess a certain 
 virtue and yet to reap some merit from it, that is to say 
 esteem or praise, that is no longer being virtuous but 
 loving esteem and praise, or being vain. Men are 
 very vain, yet they dislike nothing so much as being 
 thought so. 
 
 A vain man likes to speak of himself either good or 
 ill ; a modest man never speaks of himself. 
 
 Vanity is ashamed to show itself, and often hides 
 under a semblance of modesty, and in this is its 
 absurdity very plainly to be seen. False modesty is 
 the most cunning kind of vanity; it makes a man 
 assume a virtue he does not possess, and gives him a 
 character opposed to his merits, and this is a lie. 
 False glory is the temptation of vanity, it leads men to 
 try to gain esteem by qualities which, though indeed 
 they possess, are too insignificant to exalt them. 
 
 Men speak of themselves in such a way that if they 
 confess to small faults they at the same time imply 
 that they have great talents and fine qualifications. 
 Thus, though they complain of a bad memory, they are 
 at the same time well contented with their good sense 
 and judgment, and if they are reproached for absent- 
 mindedness, they seem to think it is a sign of wit; they 
 acknowledge that they are awkward, can do nothing with 
 their hands, but are quite consoled for the loss of such 
 talents by their mental gifts and spiritual powers which 
 
 * The Prince of Conti.
 
 MEN. 191 
 
 everybody admits. They talk of their idleness in 
 terms which show their indifference and their want of 
 ambition. They are not ashamed of slovenliness, 
 which marks only a carelesness in little things, and 
 makes it appear that they are diligent only over solid 
 and essential things. A soldier is fond of saying that 
 it was foolhardiness or curiosity which placed him in 
 danger in the trenches, or some other perilous position 
 whither he had not been ordered, and adds that his 
 General reprimanded him. 
 
 In the same way a great genius, born with all the 
 prudence which others vainly endeavour to acquire, 
 who has had the natural bent of his mind strengthened 
 by wide experience, to whom the number, weight, 
 variety, difficulty, and importance of affairs is an em- 
 ployment, not an oppression ; who, by his deep insight 
 and penetration makes himself master of all events ; who, 
 far from being biassed by all the reflections which are 
 thrown on the government and the political situation, 
 is perhaps one of those lofty souls born to rule others, 
 and by whom some of the laws were suggested, is 
 prevented by the great things he does from having 
 the enjoyment of the pleasant things he might read, 
 but he loses nothing if he turns over the leaves of his 
 own life and actions. A man thus endowed may say 
 safely that he knows nothing of books, and never reads. 
 
 Men would sometimes hide their weaknesses, or 
 make them less important by confessing them freely. 
 " I know nothing," says one, who is really very 
 ignorant. " I am quite old," says another, who is past 
 sixty ; " I am not rich," confesses a man who is 
 miserably poor. 
 
 The world is full of people, who, making superficial 
 comparisons between themselves and others, always
 
 192 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 decide in favour of their own merits, and act accord- 
 ingly. 
 
 You say modesty is a necessary virtue, and people 
 of good birth say the same : then you ought to prevent 
 those who yield through modesty being tyrannized over, 
 and those who bend being crushed. Some also say 
 people should be modest in their dress, and those who 
 know their own value desire nothing more, but the 
 world cries for ornament and gets it ; it covets super- 
 fluities and receives them. Some esteem others only 
 for their fine linen or rich stuffs, and we cannot 
 always refuse to be impressed by such things. There 
 are certain places we would like to be seen in, but our 
 admittance depends on the width of a gold strip. 
 
 As we ought not to indulge in that vanity which 
 makes us imagine that others are regarding us with 
 curiosity or esteem, and converse only to entertain 
 each other with our praises, so ought we also to have 
 as much confidence in ourselves as will prevent us 
 thinking that our friends only whisper to speak ill of 
 us, and that they never laugh but to ridicule us. 
 
 How is it that Alcippus salutes me to-day, smiles to 
 me, and almost throws himself out of the carriage in 
 his eagerness to catch my eye? I am not rich, and I 
 am on foot ; it would have been more, fashionable not 
 to see me. Can it be that he wished me to see him 
 driving with a great man ? 
 
 Most people are so full of themselves that they show 
 it in everything they do, they love to be seen, pointed 
 out, saluted even by those they do not know. If they 
 are not recognized they are angry ; they think people 
 should know intuitively who they are.
 
 MEN. 
 
 193 
 
 We look beyond ourselves for our happiness, and 
 seek to find it in the opinion of men whom we know 
 to be flatterers, insincere, unjust, full of envy, caprice 
 and prejudice. What folly ! 
 
 We expect people to laugh at what is ridiculous only, 
 but we see them laughing quite as much at what there 
 is no absurdity in. If you are a fool and thoughtless, 
 and some silly thing escapes you, they laugh ; if you 
 are wise, and only say sensible things in a proper 
 manner, they laugh all the same. 
 
 If we find it so easy and pleasant to make fun of 
 and despise others it is very unfair that we should 
 feel angry with those who laugh at or despise us. 
 
 Health and wealth, by depriving men of all ex- 
 perience of misfortune, harden them towards their 
 fellow-creatures : whilst those who are bowed down by 
 their own misery enter compassionately into the 
 sorrows of others. 
 
 It would seem that the effect of music and feasting 
 on a truly good heart is to make the calamities of 
 friends and relatives more keenly felt and realized. 
 
 A great mind is above injury, injustice, grief, or 
 mockery, and would be invulnerable if it did not suffer 
 through compassion. 
 
 There are some miseries which, to see, make us feel 
 ashamed of being happy. 
 
 Men are quick to be aware of their smallest advan- 
 tages, and slow to recognize their defects. They are 
 not ignorant of their fine eyebrows and well-shaped
 
 j 9 4 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 nails, but they would rather forget that they are blind 
 in one eye, and do not know that they are devoid of 
 sense. 
 
 Argyra pulls off her glove to show her beautiful 
 hand, and does not neglect to allow her little shoe to 
 be seen that her small feet may be imagined. She 
 laughs at everything, grave and gay, to display her 
 fine teeth, and if she shows her ears it is because they 
 are well-shaped. If she does not dance it means that 
 she is not quite satisfied about her figure, which is 
 broadening. She understands very well all her own 
 interests except one thing she speaks too much and 
 has no sense. 
 
 Men reckon as almost valueless all the virtues of 
 the heart, and idolize their wit and personal gifts. He 
 can say coolly of himself, without any thought of 
 boasting, that he is good, constant, faithful, sincere, 
 just, and grateful, but would not dare to say that he is 
 smart, has fine teeth, and a soft skin ; that would be 
 going too far. 
 
 It is true that there are two virtues which men admire, 
 courage and liberality ; because these are two things 
 which they esteem much ; and while these virtues make 
 them neglect life and money, yet nobody boasts of him- 
 self that he is brave and liberal. 
 
 Nobody says of himself, especially without reason, 
 that he is handsome, generous, high-souled ; those 
 qualities are so rare, and are valued so highly, that 
 people content themselves with thinking they possess 
 them. 
 
 Although there appears to be some resemblance 
 between jealousy and emulation, there is in truth as 
 much difference between them as between vice and 
 virtue.
 
 MEN. 195 
 
 Jealousy and emulation are directed towards the 
 same object, which is either the wealth or the attain- 
 ments of another, with this difference, that the latter is 
 a free, outspoken, sincere sentiment, which produces 
 intellectual fruit, and profits by great examples, so as 
 often to excel what it admires ; whilst the former is a 
 violent effort, and enforced confession of merit greater 
 than its own, which will even go so far as to deny 
 virtue where it undoubtedly exists, or if forced to recog- 
 nize it, refuses all praise and envies all reward ; a fruit- 
 less passion, which leaves a man in the condition it 
 found him, fills him with conceit and self importance, 
 makes him a hardand cold judge of another man's acts or 
 exertions, and even makes him feel only astonished that 
 there exist in the world talents other than his own, or 
 other men who possess the very talents he prides him- 
 self in. 
 
 This is a mean defect, which, if allowed to go to excess, 
 becomes vanity and presumption, and does not so 
 much convince the person who is affected with it that 
 he has more talent and more merit than others, 
 as it makes him believe that he alone possesses talent 
 and merit. 
 
 It is persons of the same art or condition, or who 
 
 possess the same talents, who are jealous of, or emulate 
 
 each other. The worst craftsmen are the most apt to 
 
 1 l>e jealous ; those who profess the liberal arts or polite 
 
 j literature, painters, musicians, orators, and poets,ought 
 
 : not to be capable of more than emulation. 
 
 Jealousy is never free from some degree of envy, and 
 the two passions are often confounded. Envy, how- 
 ever, sometimes exists apart from jealousy, as, for in- 
 stance, when it makes us long in our hearts for bene- 
 fits much above our condition, as fortune, favour, or 
 some high appointment. 
 
 Envy and hatred are always united, and strengthen 
 
 o 2
 
 196 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 each other with the same object ; they are scarcely 
 distinguishable from each other, but in this, that one 
 fixes on the person, the other on his state or condi- 
 tion. 
 
 A sensible man is not jealous of an armourer who 
 has wrought a fine sword, or of a sculptor who has 
 made a fine statue ; he knows that in these arts there 
 are rules and methods which he does not understand, 
 that there are tools to be wielded of which he does not 
 know the use or name or form, and it is enough for 
 him to know that he has not learned a trade to be con- 
 tented that he is not the master of it. He may, however, 
 be quite susceptible to envy and even jealousy towards 
 the government or some special minister. But reason 
 and sound sense which he possesses in common with 
 them are not the only means employed in ruling a 
 nation and presiding over public affairs ; they cannot 
 supply the place of rules, precepts, and experience. 
 
 We meet with few entirely dull or stupid minds, 
 fewer sublime or supremely excellent ; men, in general, 
 float between these two extremes, and the intermediate 
 space is filled up by numerous ordinary geniuses who 
 are very helpful, and serve their country ; including in 
 their ranks the useful and agreeable, such as mercan- 
 tile and financial affairs, the details of war and 
 navigation, arts and professions, as well as memory and 
 wit, which are necessary in society and conversation. 
 
 All the sense in the world is useless to him who has 
 none ; he has no aims, and cannot profit by another 
 man's. 
 
 The next step to reason would be to feel the want 
 of it. A fool is not capable of such perception. So 
 also, the next best thing to sense is to know that we
 
 MEN. 197 
 
 are devoid of it, we would then be able without sense 
 to do right and not to be a fool, a coxcomb, or 
 impertinent. 
 
 A man who has but little sense is serious and 
 equable ; he never laughs or jokes, nor makes fun of 
 trifles, and is as incapable of rising to anything great 
 as of accommodating himself even by way of relaxation 
 to trifling things ; he can hardly play even with his 
 children. 
 
 Every one says of a coxcomb that he is a coxcomb, 
 t>ut no one does so to his face ; he dies unknown and 
 unregretted. 
 
 What a strange want of apprehension there is 
 between the heart and the mind. The philosopher lives 
 wickedly, in spite of his precepts; and the politician, 
 with all his farsightedness, cannot govern himself. 
 
 Wit decays like other things : science is its food, and 
 nourishes while it consumes it. 
 
 Those who have no need for them, often possess a 
 thousand virtues which they do not know how to 
 
 profit by. 
 
 We meet with men who lightly support the weight 
 of favour and authority, who are quite accustomed to 
 their deserved greatness, and whose heads are not 
 turned by the high posts they are raised to. But, on 
 the other hand, there are those whom fortune, without 
 either choice or discernment, has blindly overwhelmed 
 with blessings, and they enjoy them proudly and im- 
 moderately. Their eyes, their conduct, their voice, 
 declare openly the admiration they feel for the
 
 193 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 eminence they have reached, and at last they become 
 so rampant that disaster alone can tame them. 
 
 A tall, robust man with a full chest and broad shoul- 
 ders carries a heavy burden lightly and gracefully, and 
 still has one hand free; a dwarf would be crushed 
 with half the weight ; in the same way eminent posts 
 make great men greater still and small men even 
 less. 
 
 One would expect of a man who has once been 
 capable of a noble, heroic action known to the whole 
 world that, without appearing to be spent by this one 
 great effort, his conduct during the rest of his life 
 would at least be as wise and judicious as that of 
 ordinary men ; that he would not be guilty of any 
 meanness unworthy the high reputation he has ac- 
 quired; that mixing less with the people, and not giving 
 them time to see too much of him, their curiosity and 
 admiration would not be allowed to grow into in- 
 difference, and perhaps contempt. 
 
 It is easier for certain men* to cultivate a thousand 
 virtues than to correct a single fault. They are even 
 so unfortunate that this one fault is often one quite un- 
 suited to their condition, and it makes them appear 
 ridiculous in the eyes of the world. It weakens the 
 effect of their great qualities, hinders them from being 
 perfect, and leaves their reputation not unstained. We 
 do not ask that they should be more enlightened or 
 more incorruptible, fonder of order and discipline, 
 more faithful to their duty, more zealous for the public 
 
 *Harlay de Chauvallon, Archbishop of Paris, who was not 
 devoid of virtue and talent, but who very badly fulfilled one of 
 his duties. It will easily be guessed which.
 
 MEN. igg 
 
 good, more grave; we ask only that they should not be 
 amorous. 
 
 Some men in the course of their lives' change so 
 much in heart and mind that we should quite mis- 
 understand them if we were to judge them only by 
 what they appeared to be in their youth. Some were 
 pious, wise, and learned, who through that weakness 
 which is inseparable from much basking in fortune's 
 smiles, are so no longer. We know others who in the 
 early part of their lives applied all their energies to the 
 pursuit of pleasure ; and who, as the result of misfor- 
 tune, have become religious, wise, and temperate. The 
 latter are generally great men on whom we may rely, 
 their sincerity has been proved by patience and adver- 
 sity ; they are deeply imbued with the courtesy which 
 misfortune and home association has given them, and 
 to which they owe their well-regulated minds, powers 
 of reflection, and capacity. 
 
 Great evils spring from our dislike to be alone- 
 gambling, luxury, extravagance, wine, women, ignor- 
 ance, scoffing, envy, and forgetfulness of God and our- 
 selves. 
 
 The generality of men employ the best part of their 
 lives to make the last part miserable. 
 
 Hatred is so enduring and so obstinate that a true 
 symptom of approaching death is a desire for recon- 
 ciliation. 
 
 We gain the affection of others either by flattering 
 their passions or pitying their bodily infirmities : these 
 are the only ways in which we can be attentive to them : 
 therefore it is that the rich and fortunate are the most 
 difficult to control.
 
 2co LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 An old man in love is one of the greatest anomalies 
 in nature. 
 
 The niggardliness of old men does not proceed from 
 the fear that they will one day want money, for some 
 of them have such immense wealth that they can 
 scarcely have any such uneasiness. Besides, how can 
 they fear that in their dotage they may lack neces- 
 saries when they voluntarily deny themselves to satisfy 
 their avarice? Neither is it a desire to leave great 
 riches to their children, for they naturally love nothing 
 so much as themselves, and moreover there are many 
 misers who have no heirs. This vice is more the effect 
 of age and constitution ; old men abandon themselves 
 to it just as naturally as they devoted themselves to 
 pleasure in their youth, or to ambition in maturer years. 
 Neither youth, vigour, nor health is required to be a 
 a miser : a man does not require to take any trouble to 
 save his income : he need only lock up all his wealth in 
 his coffers, and deny himself everything. This suits 
 old men, who must have one passion, because they are 
 men. 
 
 The remembrance of youth is pleasant to old men ; 
 they love the places where they spent it ; the people 
 they knew in that distant time are very dear to them ; 
 they affect in their speech many of the words they 
 used when they were young ; they keep to the old 
 ways of singing and dancing, boast of the fashions of 
 long ago, in clothes, furniture, and equipages ; they 
 can never disapprove of things which ministered to their 
 passions, or which added to their pleasures, and which 
 remind them of them. How can they be expected to 
 prefer new customs and recent modes in which they 
 have no part, and from which they have nothing to 
 hope, which young people have invented, and in
 
 MEN. 201 
 
 their turn will store up similar memories against old 
 age. 
 
 Too much negligence has the same effect on old 
 men as too much adornment, both increase wrinkles 
 and make old age more apparent. 
 
 An old man is proud, disdainful, and difficult to 
 manage if he has not a great deal of sense. 
 
 An old man who has lived at Court, and has good 
 sense and a faithful memory, is an inestimable 
 treasure ; he is full of facts and maxims ; he can tell 
 the history of the century, adorned with many curious 
 details, which are to be found in no books ; he can 
 give us rules of conduct and manners which are always 
 trustworthy, because they are founded on experience. 
 
 Young men, because of their passions, which beguile 
 them, are more fit for solitude than old men. 
 
 We see certain sullen animals scattered over 
 the country; they are male and female, dark and 
 leaden-hued, tanned by the sun, and bound to the 
 earth which they are always digging and turning over 
 with unconquerable obstinacy ; they have voices almost 
 articulate, and when they raise themselves on their 
 feet they show human faces, and in truth they are 
 men. They retire at night into their dens, where they 
 live on black bread, water, and roots ; they save other 
 men the trouble of sowing, labouring, and reaping for 
 their livelihood ; and thus do not deserve to lack the 
 bread which they themselves have sown. 
 
 Don Fernando in his province is idle, ignorant, 
 slanderous, quarrelsome, deceitful, intemperate, im- 
 pertinent ; but he draws his sword against his neigh-
 
 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 hours, exposes his life for trifles, and as he has killed 
 men for little reason so he will himself be killed. 
 
 The provincial noble, useless to his country, his 
 family, or himself, often without a home or clothes, 
 or any merit, repeats ten times a day that he is a 
 nobleman ; despises the wealth of the city, and occupies 
 all his time with his parchments and titles, which he 
 would not chansre for the mace of a chancellor. 
 
 In all men there maybe found infinite combinations of 
 power, favour, genius, riches, dignity, nobility, strength, 
 industry, capacity, virtue, vice, weakness, stupidity, 
 poverty, obscurity of birth and vulgarity. All these 
 qualities blending together in a thousand different 
 ways, and balancing each other in various persons, 
 make all the diverse states and conditions of men. 
 When men, moreover, know each other's strength and 
 weakness, they act reciprocally, as they believe it their 
 tluty to act, recognizing their equals, and understanding 
 the respect due to their superiors, and what they have 
 a right to expect from others : from this proceeds 
 either familiarity or deference, pride or contempt ; and 
 from the same cause it happens that in public places 
 we find ourselves continually meeting those we wish 
 to be intimate with and those we would rather avoid ; 
 we are honoured by knowing one and ashamed to know 
 the other ; or it happens that the man you wish to 
 speak to does not wish to be troubled with you, leaves 
 you for another who is ashamed to be seen speaking 
 to him, and so on in this strange intercourse one de- 
 spises here, and is despised there ; and what we gain 
 on one side we lose on the other. Would it not be 
 better to renounce for ever haughtiness and pride, 
 which are so unbecoming for weak men, and to 
 arrange to treat each other with mutual kindness,
 
 MEN. 
 
 which would ensure the advantage of never being 
 mortified ourselves, giving us also the satisfaction of 
 never mortifying any one else. 
 
 Instead of being afraid or blushing at the very name 
 of philosopher, there is no one born into this world who- 
 does not owe it to himself to acquire a slight knowledge 
 of philosophy. It is suitable for every body, and is 
 useful for every age, sex, and condition; it consoles 
 us in other people's good fortune, when the un- 
 worthy have the preference over us, and in unsuccessful 
 efforts and in decline of strength or beauty ; it arms us 
 against poverty, old age, sickness, and death, against 
 fools, and evil scoffers, enables us to live without a 
 wife, or helps us to endure the one we have. 
 
 In one day a man will open his heart to the enjoy- 
 ment of trifles, and allow himself to be overcome by 
 small annoyances ; nothing is more unequal and less 
 coherent than the changes which pass so rapidly over 
 men's hearts and minds. The only remedy for this 
 evil is to estimate the things of this world at what they 
 are worth. 
 
 It is as difficult to find a vain man who considers 
 himself appreciated as it is to find a modest man who- 
 thinks himself undervalued. 
 
 The poverty of the vine dresser, the soldier, or the 
 stone-cutter, prevents me thinking myself poor when I 
 see the wealth possessed by princes and ministers, and 
 which I lack. 
 
 Only one real misfortune can befall a man, and that 
 is to feel himself in fault, and to have cause for self-re- 
 proach.
 
 204 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 Most men are more capable of one great effort to 
 attain their ends than of long perseverance. Laziness 
 or fickleness robs them of the fruit of a good begin- 
 ning, and they often allow themselves to be outstripped 
 by others who started after them, and who proceed 
 slowly but surely. 
 
 I venture almost to assert that men know better 
 how to propose measures than how to follow them, or 
 to resolve what to do or say, rather than do or say 
 what they ought. In some matter of business we 
 firmly determine to be silent about a certain thing, 
 and then either through passion, or in the excitement 
 of conversation, it is the first thing to escape us. 
 
 Men act feebly in things which are their duty ; while 
 they make it a merit or even a conceit to be eager 
 about those things which neither belong to them nor 
 suit their character and position. 
 
 When a man assumes a character foreign to his 
 nature, there is as much difference between what he 
 seems to be and what he is as between a mask and a 
 face. 
 
 The greatest wits are unequal, brilliant one day, 
 and dull another. If then a wit is wise, he speaks 
 little and writes nothing when he is out of humour, 
 does not try to amuse. Do we sing if we have a 
 cold ? Must we not wait till the voice returns. 
 
 The fool is automatic, a machine, a spring, moved 
 "by weights, always in the same way, and with the 
 same regularity. He is equable, never in a bustle. If 
 you have seen him once, you have seen him as he 
 always is. He is like the bull who bellows, or the 
 blackbird who whistles, his nature is quite settled ;
 
 MEN. 205 
 
 what seems the least evident in him is his soul, that 
 has no life, no action ; it sleeps. 
 
 The fool never dies, or, if according to our way of speak- 
 ing, he dies, we may truly say that he gains by it, and 
 that in the moment when others die he begins to live ; 
 his soul then thinks, reasons, infers, concludes, judges, 
 foresees, and does everything it never did before. It 
 finds itself freed from a mass of flesh, where it was 
 buried without any function or movement or any 
 worthy exercise ; I merely said that it blushed to have 
 been bound for so long to such a coarse and imperfect 
 body, of which it had only been able to make a fool or 
 an idiot. It is now equal to the greatest souls, those 
 which have animated the bodies of the greatest and 
 wisest of men. There is now no difference between 
 the soul of Alain and that of the great Conde, 
 Richelieu, or Pascal. 
 
 False delicacy in common things, such as manner 
 and behaviour, is not called so because it is feigned, 
 but because it is exercised on familiar occasions when 
 it is not necessary. False delicacy in taste or constitu- 
 tion, on the contrary, is real because it is feigned or 
 affected, like Eliza, who screams out with all her 
 strength in some small danger of which she is not at 
 all afraid, or Nina, who turns pale at the sight of a 
 mouse, or Georgette, who is fond of violets, and faints 
 at the sight of a tuberose. 
 
 Who will venture to hope that he can satisfy man- 
 kind ? A prince, however good and powerful he may be, 
 need not undertake it. Let him make men's pleasures 
 his chief concern ; let his courtiers have the freedom 
 of his palace, even of his private rooms, and of those 
 places the very sight of which is an entertainment ; let
 
 206 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 him provide them with many other sights, games, 
 concerts, and splendid feasts, and perfect liberty to 
 enjoy them all ; let him even enter into all their amuse- 
 ments himself ; the great man may be affable, the hero 
 kind and familiar, still he would not have done enough. 
 Men end by wearying of the very things which charmed 
 at first. They would forsake the table of the gods, 
 nectar would in time become insipid ; they donot scruple 
 to criticise perfection ; in this lies their vanity and 
 affectation : their taste, if we are to believe them, is 
 superior to all our attempts to satisfy it, even after the 
 most royal expense has been lavished to try to succeed, 
 :and malice will even prompt them to try to lessen the 
 pleasure experienced in trying to content them. These 
 same people who are generally so fawning and civil can 
 belie themselves so that we scarcely recognize them ; 
 we see the man even in the courtier. 
 
 Affectation in gesture, speech, .or manners, is often 
 a result of idleness or indifference, and it is observed 
 that some serious attachment or important business 
 forces a man to be natural. 
 
 How does it happen that the same individuals who 
 can receive tidings of the greatest disaster with phleg- 
 matic indifference are beside themselves with anger 
 over the most trifling inconvenience? Such conduct is 
 not wisdom; for virtue is equable, never noisy and 
 excited : it is therefore a vice and nothing less than 
 vanity which never rouses itself except over events 
 which make people talk, and most about self, taking no 
 interest in anything else. 
 
 We seldom repent of talking too little, but very 
 often of talking too much. This is a common and 
 trivial maxim which everybody knows and nobody 
 practises.
 
 . MEN. 207 
 
 If men could blush at their own actions how many 
 sins, public and private, would they be spared. 
 
 If certain men are not so upright as they might be, 
 it is through some defect in their education. 
 
 Some men have just sense enough to be prudent. 
 
 7Yw(?/z, the misanthrope, may be at heart stern and 
 reserved, but outwardly he is civil and polite, although 
 he does not belie his nature and become sociable with 
 others ; on the contrary, he treats them gravely and 
 courteously, acting so as to hold them at a distance. 
 He does not wish to be familiar with them, to make 
 friends of them ; and in this he resembles a woman 
 visiting another woman. 
 
 After having maturely reflected on mankind, and dis- 
 covered the falsity of their thoughts, sentiments, tastes, 
 and affections, we are forced to admit that they lose 
 less through inconstancy of disposition than through 
 obstinacy. 
 
 How many weak, effeminate, ordinary people there 
 are with no great defects, and who yet are objects of 
 ridicule ? And how many varieties of ridiculous persons 
 are scattered among men attracting no attention by 
 their peculiarity, and equally useless for instruction or 
 to point a moral. Their weaknesses are unique, are 
 not infectious, and are more personal than general.
 
 JUDGMENT AND CRITICISM. 
 
 NOTHING is more like firm conviction than great 
 obstinacy. Plots, parties, and heresies proceed from it. 
 
 We are not always constant to our opinions : disgust 
 follows close on infatuation. 
 
 Great things startle us ; small things are tedious ; 
 custom familiarizes us with both. 
 
 There are two extremes of contrariety, both of which 
 equally attract us custom and novelty. 
 
 There is nothing more mean and underbred than to 
 talk much in praise of those very persons of whom we 
 thought little before they were promoted. 
 
 A prince's favour neither includes nor excludes 
 merit. 
 
 It is strange that with all our puffed-up pride, and 
 the high opinion we have of our own good judgment, 
 we neglect to make use of it to speak in praise of 
 others. Fashion, princely or popular favour, rouses 
 our enthusiasm. We commend what is praised much 
 more than what is worthy of praise. 
 
 I do not know that there is anything in the world 
 which has more difficulty in obtaining praise than 
 that which is most worthy of approbation ; or that 
 virtue, merit, beauty, and good actions, or good work 
 of any kind, do not rouse stronger antipathy than envy
 
 JUDGMENT AND CRITICISM. 209 
 
 and jealousy. It is not of a saint that a devotee* 
 speaks well, but of another devotee. If a beautiful 
 woman praises another's beauty, we may conclude she 
 possesses more than she praises. If a poet praises 
 another's verses we may wager they are very poor. 
 
 It is not natural for men to like one another ; they 
 have only a weak inclination to approve of each 
 other's actions, conduct, thoughts, expressions; nothing 
 satisfies or even pleases. They are always substituting 
 for what others read, or write, or speak, what they 
 themselves would have done in similar circumstances, 
 what they have thought or written on such and such a 
 subject ; and they are so full of their own ideas that 
 they have no room for those of others. 
 
 The generality of men are so inclined to irregularity 
 and trifling, and the world is so full of pernicious or 
 ridiculous examples, that I almost think singularity, if 
 kept within bounds, would come nearest to sound 
 reason and regular conduct. 
 
 We must do as others do : a dangerous maxim which 
 nearly always means we must do ill ; at least when we 
 carry it beyond purely exterior and immaterial things 
 which have no influence, and are only matters of 
 custom, fashion, or convenience. 
 
 If men were not so like bears and panthers, if they 
 were equitable and just to themselves and others, 
 there would be no plaintiffs or defendants, and what 
 would become of the laws and text-books, the pro- 
 digious accumulation of commentaries, and the whole 
 science of jurisprudence ? To what would you reduce 
 
 * Note by La Bruyere. False devotee (hypocrite).
 
 aio LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 those who swell their wealth by the pickings they are 
 authorized to make in maintaining those laws? If 
 men were honest and straightforward, and free from 
 prejudice, whither would the disputes of the schools 
 and the law-courts vanish ? If they were temperate, 
 chaste, and moderate, what need would there be for 
 the mysterious jargon of medicine, which is a mine of 
 gold for those who practise it. Lawyers, physicians, 
 doctors, what a fall you would have, could we all 
 discover the way to wisdom! 
 
 How many great men in the different spheres of 
 peace and war could we have done without ! To what 
 point of refinement and perfection have we not brought 
 those arts and sciences which ought never to have 
 been necessary, and which exist in the world only as 
 remedies for all the evils of which our wickedness is 
 the source ! 
 
 Since the time when Varro lived how much is 
 known of which he was ignorant ? Would even the 
 wisdom of Plato or Socrates suffice us ? 
 
 We listen to a sermon or a piece of music ; we look 
 at a gallery of pictures, and we hear on our right and left 
 precisely opposite opinions expressed. This makes 
 me say freely that of every kind of talent it is safe to 
 risk good and bad together ; the good pleases some, 
 the bad others, and even the worst has its admirers. 
 
 The phoenix of song rose from his own ashes, and 
 in one day saw his reputation die and revive again. 
 The public, that stern and infallible judge, was change- 
 able for once on his account, and was either mistaken 
 or is now deceived. He who would now say that 
 Quinault* is a poor poet would speak almost as 
 foolishly as he who formerly said he is a good poet. 
 
 * French dramatic poet, born 1535. His popular operas 
 excited the envy of Boileau.
 
 JUDGMENT AND CRITICISM. 
 
 Chapelain was rich, Corneille was poor. " La Pucelle" 
 and "Rodogune" each merited the other's fate : and it is 
 thus in certain professions, one man has made a fortune 
 and another has missed it: and men must seek the 
 reason of this in their own caprice, which in the most 
 important conjunctures of their affairs, their pleasures, 
 their health, or their life, often leads them to leave the 
 best and take the worst. 
 
 The profession of an actor was infamous among the 
 Romans and honourable among the Greeks. How is 
 it with us ? We think of them as the Romans did, 
 and live with them as the Greeks did. 
 
 It was enough for Batyllus to be a clown to be run 
 after by the Roman ladies, for Rhoe to be a ballet- 
 dancer, and for Roscia and Nerina to sing in the chorus, 
 to attract a crowd of admirers. Self-conceit and bold- 
 ness, the result of too much power, had deprived the 
 Romans of all taste for secrecy and mystery; they 
 enjoyed making the theatre the scene of their love- 
 making : they had no jealousy of the amphitheatre, nor 
 of sharing the charms of their mistress with the 
 multitude ; their pleasure lay in showing they", loved 
 not a beauty, or even an excellent actress, but an 
 actress. 
 
 Nothing shows better the appreciation men have for 
 the sciences and literature, and their sense of their 
 value to the republic, than the price set upon them, and 
 the repute in which they, whose profession it is to culti- 
 vate them, stand. There isno trade,howevermechanical 
 and mean, which has not more certain, prompt, and 
 solid advantages. The comedian, lounging in his 
 carriage, bespatters the very face of Corneille walking 
 on foot. To many, the names of scholar and pedant
 
 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 are synonymous. Often when the rich man speaks, 
 and speaks of learning, the scholar must be silent, 
 listen and applaud, at least if he wishes to be credited 
 with learning. 
 
 There is a kind of courage required in the presence 
 of certain people to support the disgrace of being 
 learned. They are prejudiced against scholars, to 
 whom they deny any knowledge of the world, how to 
 live in it, or how to behave in society; and having thus 
 despoiled them, they dismiss them to their study and 
 their books. As ignorance is a peaceful state which 
 costs little trouble, most people adopt it; and form such 
 a numerous company, both in Court and city, that they 
 overwhelm the scholars; and even if the latter cite in 
 their favour such names as Estree, Harlay, Bossuet, 
 Seguier, Montausier, Vardes, Chevreuse, Novion, 
 Lamoignon, Scudery, Pelisson, and many other 
 personages equally learned and polite, nay, if they 
 even dare to mention such great names as Chartres, 
 Conde", Conti, Bourbon, and Vendome, as princes, 
 who combined the highest knowledge of the Greeks 
 with the smooth politeness of the Romans, they 
 will be told without any scruple that these are singular 
 examples; and if they then try to reason from an 
 intelligent view, they are not powerful enough to stand 
 against the voice of the public. It seems, however, 
 that the public should be more cautious in deciding on 
 this ; and should at least take the trouble to question 
 whether the mind which has made such great progress 
 in knowledge as to be capable of thinking, judging, 
 speaking, and writing well, could not also be polite. 
 
 Very little depth is required to improve a man's 
 manners, but much to polish his mind. 
 
 "He is a scholar," says a politician, "therefore 
 incapable of business ; I would not trust him with
 
 JUDGMENT AND CRITICISM. 213 
 
 the care of my wardrobe," and there is reason 
 in this. Ossat, Ximenes, and Richelieu were 
 learned; were they excellent in business? Did they 
 act even as good ministers? "He understands 
 Greek," says the statesman ; he is a scribbler, a philo- 
 sopher, and, at this rate, an Athenian fruiterer must 
 have been a philosopher. Languages are but the 
 keys of science, no more ; neglect of one includes the 
 other, and it is of no importance whether languages 
 are ancient or modern, dead or living, but whether 
 they are uncivilized or polite, whether their literature 
 is in good or bad taste. Suppose that our language 
 should one day share the fate of the Greek and Latin 
 tongues, should we be thought pedantic if some cen- 
 turies after this, when French is no longer spoken, we 
 should read Moliere or La Fontaine ? 
 
 If I name Euripilus, and you say he is a wit, you 
 say also of him who works on a plank, he is a carpen- 
 ter ; and of him who builds up a wall, he is a mason. I 
 ask you where is the workshop in which this wit follows 
 his trade ? what signboard has he ? how shall I know 
 him? what are his tools? a wedge, a hatchet, or a chisel? 
 Where does he cleave his wood and hammer it, and 
 expose it for sale ? A workman boasts that he is a 
 workman, does Etirifilits boast that he is a wit ? If 
 he does, he is a coxcomb, a mere sordid machine, to 
 whom the description witty or talented could not be 
 seriously applied; but if it is true that he boasts of 
 nothing, I tell you I will accept him as a wise and 
 talented man. Do you not also call a prig a clever 
 fellow, and say the same of an indifferent poet ? And 
 do you consider that you yourself have no talent ? No 
 doubt what you have is of a fit and proper kind, there- 
 fore you are a wit. But if it happens that you take 
 the name as an insult, do so. I consent to give it to
 
 214 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 Euripilus, and to speak ironically as fools do who 
 have no discrimination, or judgment ; or as ignorant 
 people who console themselves with it for the culture 
 they neither possess themselves nor see in others. 
 
 I wish never again to hear of pens, ink, or paper ; 
 or of style, printer or printing; let no one ever 
 again say to me, "You write so well, Antisthems ! * 
 go on writing ; are we never to see your work in a 
 folio volume ? never to see all the virtues and all the 
 vices treated of in one large book, connected, method- 
 ical, and without an end?" they might add without sale, 
 too. I renounce for ever all which was, or will be a 
 book. The sight of a cat sends Berylhts into a fit, the 
 sight of a book sends me into one. Am I better fed 
 or clad, or have I a more luxurious room after being 
 on sale for twenty long years ? You say, I have a 
 great name, much renown : say rather that I have 
 plenty of empty praise which does me no good. Have 
 I a single grain of that metal which procures every- 
 thing ? The pettifogger swells his bill and re- 
 imburses himself the expenses he never paid, and 
 has a count or a judge for a son-in-law. A lackey 
 becomes a commissioner, and is soon richer than his 
 master ; the livery is buried in oblivion, and with his 
 money he buys a title. Benoit has amassed a fortune 
 by a puppet-show, Barbareau by selling bottles of 
 water ; another charlatan comes over the mountains, 
 and has scarcely unpacked his box when he is ready 
 to return whence he came, with waggon loads of rich 
 spoil. Mercury is Mercury and nothing more ; and 
 gold not being enough to pay his mediations and 
 intrigues, favours and distinctions are added. 
 
 And now let us speak of legitimate remunerations. 
 
 * Supposed to mean the Author himself.
 
 JUDGMENT AND CRITICISM. 215 
 
 You pay a tile-maker for his tiles, a workman for his 
 time or labour, but do you pay an author for his 
 thoughts or writing? Is he enriched or ennobled 
 by doing his work well ? Men must be clothed 
 and shaved, and when they retire to their houses 
 they must have doors which shut close, but is it 
 necessary to be well informed? It is folly, simplicity, 
 imbecility, continues Anttsthenes, to set up as an 
 author or philosopher. Have, if possible, a lucrative 
 appointment which will make life agreeable, and enable 
 you to lend to your friends, give to those who cannot 
 repay, write for amusement, or to pass the time as 
 Tityrus played or whistled on his flute. That or 
 nothing ; and I write on these conditions, and thus 
 submit to the violence of those who would take me by 
 the throat and declare " You shall write." Well, they 
 will read as the title of my new book " Some ideas of 
 the good, the beautiful, and the true, with primary 
 causes," by Antisthenes the Fishmonger. 
 
 If the Ambassadors* of foreign princes were 
 educated monkeys, who had learned to walk on 
 their hind feet, and to make themselves understood 
 by interpreters, we could not be more struck with 
 astonishment than we are by the propriety of their 
 replies and the good sense which they evince in all 
 their discourse. Prejudice and pride in our own nation 
 makes us forget that reason belongs to every climate, 
 and that there are wise thoughts wherever there are 
 men. We do not like to be so treated by those we 
 call barbarians; and if there is any barbarity among us, 
 it consists in being surprised to see people of other 
 countries able to reason like ourselves. All foreigners 
 are not barbarians ; and all our countrymen are not 
 
 * Those of Siam, v\lio came to Paris at this time.
 
 216 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 civilized ; and just as all the country people are not ill- 
 bred, so all citizens are not polite. In a corner of a 
 maritime province in a certain kingdom in Europe, 
 the villagers are affable and gentle-mannered, and the 
 citizens and magistrates coarse through hereditary 
 rusticity. 
 
 With such purity of language, fine clothes, and 
 cultivated manners, good laws and white complexions, 
 we are still in the eyes of some people barbarians. 
 
 Should we be told of the Orientals that their 
 ordinary beverage is a liquor which flies to their heads 
 and makes them mad and sick, we w r ould say "How 
 extremely barbarous." 
 
 That prelate seldom goes to Court or into society, is 
 never seen with ladies, does not play or assist at fetes 
 and shows, is not a man of intrigue or of any party 
 spirit, but is always to be found in his diocese, where he 
 constantly resides. He thinks of nothing but edifying 
 his people by instructive words and his own good 
 example. He consumes his wealth in charity and his 
 body in penance, and imitates in every way the zeal 
 and piety of the Apostles. Time changes things, and 
 in this reign he is threatened with a more eminent 
 title. 
 
 May we not try to make persons of a certain 
 character, and of what we may call a serious profession, 
 understand that they are not obliged to make the world 
 talk of them, and say that they play and sing and make 
 jokes like other men, and that to see them so pleasant 
 and agreeable, one would not believe that they could 
 elsewhere be so regular and severe ? May we not 
 venture to suggest to them that such manners detract
 
 JUDGMENT AND CRITICISM. 217 
 
 from the polished refinement on which they pride 
 themselves ; that outward appearances ought to agree 
 with that refinement instead of contrasting with it, and 
 showing the same man in such different lights, making 
 him indeed a whimsical odditv. 
 
 We ought not to judge of men as of a picture or a 
 statue, at first sight ; we must search the heart and 
 mind ; the veil of modesty hides merit, and the mask 
 of hypocrisy disguises malignity. Few people are dis- 
 cerning and correct judges ; it is only by degrees and 
 through time and circumstances that perfect virtue 
 or consummate wickedness shows itself. 
 
 A FRAGMENT.* 
 
 Wit in that lovely woman was like an exquisitely set 
 diamond ; good sense and graceful elegance are so 
 blended in her that she captivates heart and mind of 
 all who speak to her ; they know not if they .admire 
 or love ; there is that in her which will make either a 
 perfect friend or will force you to go beyond friend- 
 ship. Too young and beautiful not to please, but too 
 modest to think of pleasing, she esteems men only as 
 they merit, and thinks of them only as friends. Full of 
 vivacity, and capable of deep feeling, she surprises as 
 much as she interests ; and, without forgetting the most 
 refined delicacy in her conversation, she yet introduces 
 such humorous sallies that besides the pleasure they 
 give they require no reply. She talks to you as one 
 
 * This is a portrait of Madame Catherine Turgot ; she 
 was beloved by the poet Chaulieu, whose portrait La Bruyere 
 gives us under the name of Artenice. He addressed several 
 poems to her under the name of Iris. "She was," said he. 
 "the loveliest woman I ever knew, and she possessed, besides 
 beauty, sweetness of temper and brilliant wit. No one ever 
 wrote better than she did, and few as well."
 
 218 LA RRUYERE. 
 
 who is unlearned, doubtful, anxious to be enlightened ; 
 and she listens to you like one who knows a great 
 deal, and is perfectly aware of the importance of all 
 you are telling her, and on whom your conversation 
 will not be lost. Far from laying herself out to 
 contradict you in a witty way, like Elvira, who prefers 
 to be considered sharp, rather than a woman of good 
 sense and propriety, she adapts your sentiments till 
 they become her own, and enlarges and beautifies 
 them so that you have the pleasant feeling that your 
 ideas have been better and more happily expressed 
 than you had thought. She is even above vanity, and 
 in speaking or writing she never sacrifices truth to 
 brilliancy, for she understands that true eloquence is 
 simple. If it is a matter of helping some one, and 
 you wish her interest, Artenicc will not approach her 
 as he would Elvira, with flattery and pretty phrases, but 
 with sincerity, ardour, and earnestness. Her greatest 
 pleasure is in reading and conversing with persons of 
 lame and talent ; less for the pleasure of being known 
 than for that of knowing them. We may safely 
 predict that she will attain to great wisdom ; and praise 
 her for the merit she is storing up for future years : 
 since, added to a good disposition, she has the best 
 intentions and the highest principles, of infinite use to- 
 those who like her are exposed to flattery and 
 attention. She is reserved without being rude, is even 
 a little inclined to solitude, and requires only oppor- 
 tunities for he/ virtue to dazzle all beholders. 
 
 The more natural a beautiful woman is, the more 
 lovely : she loses nothing by being simple and un- 
 adorned, except by the charms of her own youth. 
 Innocent grace shines in her face and animates every 
 movement ; so that there is less danger in seeing her 
 decked with all the finery and ornament of fashion
 
 JUDGMENT AND CRITICISM. 219 
 
 than in her simplicity. In the same way an honest 
 man is respected for himself, and is not dependent on 
 external aids to render his person more esteemed and 
 his virtue more apparent. An invalid air, an affected 
 modesty, or a singularity in dress, adds nothing to 
 probity nor heightens merit : they burden it and 
 probably make it appear less pure and ingenuous. 
 
 Studied gravity becomes comical if carried to excess ; 
 for extremes meet, and dignity is found between, and 
 he who apes gravity will never attain it. A man is 
 either naturally grave or he is not so ; it is less difficult 
 to lay gravity aside than to assume it. 
 
 A renowned and talented man, if he is strict and \ 
 stern, frightens young people, gives them a wrong im- I 
 pression of virtue, and makes them shy of reformation 
 as too troublesome to practise. If, on the contrary, 
 he is kind and sociable, virtue becomes an easy lesson 
 to them ; and he teaches them that it is possible to live 
 happily and industriously, and to have serious aims 
 without renouncing honest pleasures ; he becomes an 
 example they may follow. 
 
 Physiognomy has no rule by which we may judge ' 
 man ; it serves only as a means of conjecture. 
 
 An air of intelligence is to men what regular features 
 are to women. It is a kind of beauty the vainest may 
 aspire to. 
 
 A man who is known to have much merit and great 
 talent is not ugly if he has the most deformed features ; 
 or if the deformity is noticed it makes no impression. 
 
 How much art is employed to imitate nature ! how 
 much time, what rules and attention and labour to be 
 able to dance with the same freedom and grace you
 
 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 walk with, to sing as you speak, and to speak or ex- 
 press yourself as you think ; to put as much force and 
 spirit and passion into a studied public speech as 
 we sometimes quite naturally entertain our friends 
 with ! 
 
 Those who, not knowing us well, think ill of us, do 
 us no_ wrong. It is not us they attack, but a phantom 
 of their own imagination. 
 
 There are some little rules, duties, kindnesses which 
 belong to certain times, places, or persons. We do 
 not know them intuitively, but custom teaches us with 
 little trouble. To judge of men by their neglect of 
 such things before they are instructed, is like judging 
 of them by their nails or by the set of their hair, 
 forming a decision which will one day be changed. 
 
 I do not know if it is permissible to judge of a man 
 by a single fault ; allowance should be made for 
 extreme necessity, violent passion, or first impulse. 
 
 Truth is often found to be contrary to the current 
 reports of persons or things. 
 
 Unless we keep a bridle on our tongue, and pay par- 
 ticular attention to all our words, we are liable every 
 hour to say "Yes" and "No " on the same subject or 
 of the same person. It depends only on the spirit of 
 the society and conversation which naturally inclines 
 us not to contradict this one or that one, although they 
 talk differently of the same things. 
 
 A man who has partialities is exposed to frcquen ; 
 mortifications, for it is as impossible that his favour- 
 ites can be always gracious and wise as that those he
 
 JUDGMENT AND CRITICISM. 221 
 
 declares himself against can be always to blame. From 
 this cause he is often put out of countenance in public, 
 either by the misfortunes of those he upholds, or by 
 new glories acquired by those he condemns. 
 
 A prejudiced man who accepts a dignity, either 
 secular or ecclesiastic, may be compared to a blind 
 man who would paint, or a deaf man who would judge 
 of a symphony ; and this is but weak imagery in which 
 to express the misery of prejudice. 
 
 We must add that it is a terrible malady, incur- 
 able, and apt to infect all who come in contact with the 
 sick man. It makes us desert our equals, inferiors, 
 relations, and friends, even our physicians ; and the 
 patient is far from being cured if he can neither be 
 made to acknowledge the malady nor to understand 
 the remedy; which is first to doubt, then to inform and 
 enlighten himself. Flatterers, cheats, and backbiters,, 
 those who never unloose their tongues but to lie ia 
 their own interest, these are the knaves in whom he 
 confides, and they make him swallow anything they 
 please ; they also poison him, and then -kill. 
 
 The rule of Descartes, never to decide on the least 
 truth till it is clearly and distinctly understood, is so 
 good and just that it ought to be extended to the 
 judgment we form of persons. 
 
 Nothing better avenges the evil judgment men form 
 of our talents, our morals, and our manners than the 
 unworthy, wicked characters of those of whom they 
 approve. With the same faculties with which we 
 neglect a man of merit we admire a fool. 
 
 A fool is one who has not even the necessary wit to 
 be a coxcomb.
 
 222 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 A coxcomb is one whom fools believe to be a man 
 of merit. 
 
 An impertinent fellow is an absurd fool ; the coxcomb 
 wearies, disgusts, repels ; the impertinent fellow is 
 repulsive, underbred, irritating, offensive : he begins 
 where the other ends. 
 
 The coxcomb is between the fool and the impertinent 
 fellow ; he is made up of both. 
 
 Vices have their origin in a depraved heart ; the 
 effects of vice are in the constitution ; absurdity comes 
 from want of sense. If a man makes himself ridiculous 
 he has the appearance of a fool. The fool is never 
 free from absurdity, it is his character. Another pre- 
 tends to be so, but not for long. An error may put a 
 wise man in an absurd position. A fool is foolish, a 
 coxcomb vain, and impertinence is rudeness. Absurd- 
 ity is sometimes in the imagination of those who 
 believe they see it where it does not exist and never 
 can. 
 
 Rudeness, roughness, and brutality, may be vices of 
 a man of wit. 
 
 A stupid man is a fool who never speaks ; in this he 
 is more endurable than the fool who speaks. 
 
 A jest or a simple remark from the lips of a wise man 
 would be foolishness in a fool. 
 
 If a coxcomb could believe in his silliness he would 
 lose his character. 
 
 One sign of indifferent sense is to be always telling 
 stories.
 
 JUDGMENT AND CRITICISM. 223 
 
 The fool is embarrassed in himself; the coxcomb hasw 
 an air of freedom and assurance ; the impertinent/ 
 fellow carries it off with impudence ; merit is alwaysV 
 modest. 
 
 The self-sufficient man is one in whom the manage- 
 ment of a few details which he dignifies by the name 
 of business is united with indifferent sense. A grain 
 more sense and an ounce more business would make 
 of him an important man. 
 
 The honest man is between a clever man and a good 
 man, although equally distant from these two ex- 
 tremes. 
 
 The distance between an honest man and a clever 
 man grows less every day, and is on the point of dis- 
 appearing. 
 
 The clever man hides his passions, understands his 
 interests, and sacrifices many things to it ; has acquired 
 wealth and knows how to keep it. 
 
 The honest man is one who neither robs nor kills, 
 whose vices are not scandalous. 
 
 We know that a good man is an honest man, but it 
 is amusing to think that every honest man is not a 
 good man. 
 
 The good man is neither a saint nor a hypocrite, but 
 confines himself to being virtuous. 
 
 Genius, judgment, talent, and good sense are very 
 different things, though not incompatible. 
 
 There is as much difference between good sense and 
 sound judgment as between cause and effect. 
 
 Talent is to genius as the whole to a part. 
 
 Shall I call him a man of talent who is limited and 
 confined to one art, or even to one particular science,
 
 224 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 which he cultivates to perfection, and beyond that 
 shows neither judgment, memory, quickness, practical 
 principles, nor management ; who does not listen, 
 never thinks, and expresses himself badly ? A musician, 
 for example, who, after he has enchanted me with his 
 harmony, seems to shut himself up with his lute in its 
 case, and who, without his instrument, is like a machine 
 out of working order, from which we need expect 
 nothing more. 
 
 What shall I say now of gambling ? Can any one 
 define that to me ? Is no foresight, cunning, or skill 
 required to play at ombre or chess ? If so, how is it 
 that we see imbeciles excel in these games, while very 
 clever' people are unable even to attain mediocrity, and 
 are quite put out of countenance if they take a piece or 
 a card into their hands. 
 
 There is something which, if possible, is even 
 more incomprehensible : a man* who, to outward 
 appearance, is coarse, heavy, and stupid, knowing 
 neither how to converse or to describe things he has just 
 seen ; but who, if he sits down to write, is the model 
 of a good story-teller. He makes animals speak, and 
 trees, and stones ; everything which does not speak. 
 His works are light and graceful, full of beauty and 
 natural elegance. 
 
 Anotherf is simple, timid, and tiresome in con- 
 versation, uses inappropriate words often, and judges 
 of the merit of his writing only by the money it 
 brings him in. He can neither recite nor read his 
 own writing: but leave him to his lofty compositions, 
 and he is not inferior to Augustus, Pompey, Nicomedes, 
 Heraclius ; he is a king, a great, a glorious king, a 
 politician, a philosopher. He creates heroes, and, when 
 
 * La Fontaine. ) Pierre Corneille.
 
 JUDGMENT AND CRITICISM. 225 
 
 he describes the Romans, they are greater and grander, 
 and more Roman in his verses than in their own 
 history. 
 
 Shall I give you another prodigy ? Imagine a man 
 who is easy, soft, kind, compliant ; in a moment he 
 becomes outrageously violent and capricious. Imagine 
 a simple, ingenuous, credulous, giddy trifler, a grey- 
 haired child ; but stay till he pulls himself together, 
 or rather gives himself up to the genius which works 
 within him ; I may almost say without effort or even 
 knowledge on his part. What life and spirit and 
 imagination, and what a Latin scholar ! 
 
 You ask me do I speak of one man ? Yes, of one 
 Theodas*, and of him only. In his excitement he 
 cries and rolls on the ground, then rises up, thunders 
 and gesticulates, and from the midst of this storm 
 comes a light which dazzles and delights us. Let us 
 speak plainly. He talks like a fool, and thinks like a 
 philosopher; tells us truths in a ridiculous way, and in 
 his foolishness shows sense and reason. He seems to 
 possess two souls, having no connection with each 
 other, each having its distinct work and action. This 
 portrait would be wanting in one important character- 
 istic, if I were to forget to say that he is insatiably greedy 
 of praise, always ready for criticism, and, on the whole, 
 willing enough to profit by censure. I begin myself to 
 think that I have drawn the portraits of two different 
 people ; and it would not be impossible to find even a 
 third in Theodas, for he is a good, agreeable, and 
 excellent man. 
 
 Next to a faculty of discernment, diamonds and 
 pearls are the rarest things in the world. 
 
 * Santeul, who wrote Latin verses of great beauty. He be- 
 came a devotee towards the end of his life, and was both 
 eccentric and capricious. Died in 1697. 
 
 Q
 
 226 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 One man is well known in the world for his superior 
 talents, and is honoured and cherished wherever he 
 goes ; but in his domestic circle and among his rela- 
 tions he is unable to gain esteem. 
 
 Another man, on the contrary, is a prophet in his 
 own country, enjoys the popularity he has among his 
 own people, which, however, is confined to the walls of 
 his own house. His family praise his rare and singular 
 merit ; he is their idol. But when he goes abroad 
 his fame never accompanies him, he leaves that at 
 home. " 
 
 The world rises against a man who begins to gain a 
 reputation. Even his friends can scarcely forgive him 
 his growing merit, or the just report which seems to 
 associate him with the glory they were already in 
 possession of. They hold out to the last, and not till the 
 prince has acknowledged him by rewards do they con- 
 gratulate him ; only from that day does he take his 
 place among men of merit. 
 
 We often affect to praise excessively some who are 
 very ordinary men. We would elevate them if we 
 could as high as those who truly excel; because we 
 grow weary of always admiring the same persons ; or 
 because their glory thus shared becomes less offensive 
 in our eyes, more endurable, and soothing to us. 
 
 We meet with men who in the beginning of their 
 career are carried away full sail on the wind of favour. 
 They lose sight of land in a moment, and go on their 
 course; everything smiles on them, everything suc- 
 ceeds with them ; all their actions, all their words are 
 received with praise and loaded with rewards. They 
 never show themselves without being complimented 
 and made much of. Through it all they are as firm as
 
 JUDGMENT AND CRITICISM. 227 
 
 a rock on a sea-shore, though the waves dash and 
 break at its feet. All the winds of power, riches, 
 violence, flattery, authority, favour, do not move them; 
 but the public is the rock upon which they run 
 aground and are shipwrecked. 
 
 It is a common and natural thing to judge of the 
 labour of others by the bearing it has on the work we 
 are occupied with ourselves. Thus the poet, full of 
 grand and sublime ideas, puts little value on the dis- 
 course of the orator, which is often directed to simple 
 facts ; and the historian cannot understand how a 
 reasoning mind can be employed in imagining fictions 
 or in finding a rhyme. And the student, deep in the 
 study of the early centuries, thinks all other knowledge 
 dull, vain, and useless, whilst he is likely despised in 
 his turn by the geometrician. 
 
 One may have enough sense to excel in a particular 
 study, and be able to instruct in it and yet not have sense 
 enough to see that he ought to be silent on another 
 subject of which he has only a slight knowledge. He 
 shines within the limits of his own genius ; but beyond 
 it he makes a clever man talk like a fool. 
 
 Whether Herillus talks, harangues, or writes, he 
 must always quote. He calls up the prince of philo- 
 sophers, to tell us that wine will make us drunk, the 
 Roman orator, to tell us that water qualifies it. If he 
 gets on the subject of morality, it is not he, but the 
 divine Plato, who assures us that virtue is good and 
 vice odious, or that both may grow into habit ; the most 
 common and trivial things he is capable of thinking 
 himself he must owe to the ancients, to the Latins and 
 Greeks, and it is not to give greater authority to what 
 he says, nor to gain honour for what he knows ; it is 
 simply that he must quote. 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 It is often hazarding or even throwing away a good 
 jest to give it as your own ; it falls flat on men of wit, 
 or on those who think themselves witty, though they 
 could not have said it themselves. But if the jest is 
 told as another's, it is more thought of, being some- 
 thing they were not obliged to know ; it is told more 
 insinuatingly, and received with less jealousy ; no one 
 feels outdone ; they laugh if it is laughable, and admire 
 if it is admirable. 
 
 It has been said of Socrates that he was like a fool 
 delirious with wit ; but those Greeks who spoke thus of 
 that wise man were more like fools themselves. "What 
 odd and whimsical portraits does the philosopher give 
 us," said they. " What strange and peculiar manners 
 he describes. How did he dream of such extra- 
 ordinary ideas? What kind of a pencil or what 
 colours did he use ? They are all idle fancies he 
 paints." But they were wrong. He did, indeed, depict 
 monsters of vice, but he drew them from nature, so 
 that they were afraid to look at them. Socrates was 
 far from a cynic ; he spared persons, but condemned 
 morals which were wicked. 
 
 One who has become rich through his knowledge of 
 the world knows a philosopher, his precepts, morality, 
 and discipline ; and, never imagining that men have 
 any other aim in their actions than that which he has 
 aimed at all his life, says in his heart : I pity him, I look on 
 him as a failure ; his censure is too strict, he is misled, 
 gone far out of the way. This is not how we take 
 the wind which carries us to the delicious port of fortune. 
 He argues according to his principles. 
 
 " I pardon those I have praised in my works," says 
 Antisthius; "although they forget me, what have I done 
 for them? They deserve praise. I shall not, however,
 
 JUDGMENT AND CRITICISM. 229 
 
 so easily pardon forgetfulness in those whose vices 1 
 have attacked without touching their persons. They 
 may owe to me the great advantage of improvement ; 
 but, as this is an issue rarely seen, it follows that 
 neither the one nor the other is obliged to thank me." 
 
 " They may," adds this philosopher, " envy or deny 
 my writings their reward, but they cannot diminish 
 their reputation, and if they could what would prevent 
 me despising it ? " 
 
 It is a good thing to be a philosopher, and of little 
 use to pass for one. We are not allowed to call some 
 philosophers ; they would consider it an affront 
 until men are pleased to restore to such a great name 
 its proper and suitable meaning, and give it all the 
 esteem it merits. 
 
 There is a philosophy which raises us above ambi- 
 tion and fortune ; makes us equal to it ; nay, what do 
 I say ? Raises us above the rich, great, and powerful ; 
 makes us despise preferment and those who can pro- 
 cure it ; exempts us from the need of begging for it, 
 and saves us from excessive transports of joy over 
 success. 
 
 There is another kind of philosophy which disposes 
 us to submit to all these things for the sake of our 
 friends and relations. This is the best kind. 
 
 It will save us much time and discussion to think 
 of certain persons as incapable of speaking justly ; and 
 therefore to condemn all they say, have said, or will 
 say. 
 
 We approve of others only for the resemblance we 
 think they bear to ourselves, and in esteeming them we 
 seem to put them on a par with ourselves.
 
 230 LA BRUYhRE. 
 
 The same defects which we find insupportable in 
 others seem quite proper in ourselves ; they are no 
 burden, we do not feel them. A man draws a fright- 
 ful portrait of another man, never seeing that he is 
 depicting himself. Nothing would so quickly correct 
 us of our faults as the capability of admitting them to 
 ourselves, and seeing them in others. At such a 
 distance they would appear as they are, and we should 
 hate them as they deserve. 
 
 Wise conduct turns on two pivots, the past and the 
 future ; he who has a faithful memory and great fore- 
 sight is in no danger of censuring in others what he 
 may have been guilty of himself; or of condemning 
 an action, which, were he one day placed in similar 
 circumstances, would be equally unavoidable. 
 
 Neither the soldier, the politician, nor the clever 
 gamester makes his chance ; they prepare it, induce 
 it, seem almost to determine it ; they not only know 
 what the fool and the coward ignore, but they take 
 advantage of chance when it comes. They even know 
 how to profit by their precautionary measures on such 
 and such a chance, or on several at once ; and if in 
 the nick of time the expected turn comes, they gain ; 
 if the other turn, they still gain ; or the same turn may 
 make them gain in several ways. These wise men 
 may be commended for their good fortune as well as 
 for their wise conduct, and chance ought to be re- 
 warded in them as if it were virtue. 
 
 The only person I would set above a great politician 
 is the man who despises to become such, and is more 
 and more persuaded that the world does not deserve 
 that he should occupy his attention with it.
 
 JUDGMENT AND CRITICISM. 231 
 
 In the best advice there is something to displease us ; 
 it is not our own thought, and therefore our presump 
 tion or caprice rejects it, and we receive it only when 
 necessity or reflection forces us to do so. 
 
 What surprising success has accompanied that 
 favourite during the whole course of his life. Who 
 has been so fortunate ? No interruption, no dis- 
 grace, high posts, the prince's ear, vast treasures, 
 perfect health, and a peaceful death. 
 
 But what a strange account he will have to render 
 of a life passed in favour ! Of counsel given and not 
 followed, and of counsel he has neglected to give, good 
 deeds not done and evil deeds done, either by himself 
 or others in a word, for all his prosperity. 
 
 By our death we gain the praises of our survivors, 
 and frequently our only merit is that we are no more. 
 The same praise serves for Cato and Piso. 
 
 It is rumoured that Piso is dead. It is a great 
 loss. He was a good man, and deserved a longer life; 
 he was talented and agreeable, resolute and coura- 
 geous, faithful and generous ! Add, provided he is dead. 
 
 The way in which we run down some people who 
 distinguish themselves for their trustworthiness, disin* 
 terestedness and honesty, does not redound so much 
 to their praise as to the discredit of mankind. 
 
 One relieves the poor and neglects his own 
 family, and leaves his son in poverty. Another builds 
 a new house, who has not yet paid for the lead of that 
 which was finished ten years ago. A third makes 
 presents and donations, and ruins his creditors. I 
 wish to know whether pity, liberality, or magnificence 
 can be virtue in an unjust man ; or whether oddity 
 and vanity are not rather the cause of his injustice.
 
 232 LA J3RUY&RE. 
 
 Promptitude is an essential part of the justice we 
 owe to others : to keep anyone waiting is unjust. 
 
 Those do well or do their duty who do what they 
 ought. He does badly whose conduct is such that it is 
 said of him, " He will in time do well." 
 
 It is said of a great man who sits down to table 
 twice a day, and whose time is spent in digestion, that 
 he is dying of hunger; meaning he is not rich, that his 
 affairs are in a bad state. This is a figure of speech 
 which might more literally be used of his creditors. 
 
 The kindness, consideration, and politeness of people 
 advanced in years, to each other of either sex, give me 
 a good opinion of what we call the olden times. 
 
 Parents are too hopeful if they expect everything 
 from the education of their children : but it is a great 
 error to expect nothing and neglect their education. 
 
 Were it true, what many say, that education does 
 not change the heart or disposition, or make any im- 
 portant difference to a man, being merely connected 
 with superfluities, I would still affirm that it is not 
 unprofitable. 
 
 He who speaks little has the advantage : the pre- 
 sumption is that he possesses wit; and if indeed he is 
 not without it, it is presumed that he has exceeding 
 great wit. 
 
 To think only of ourselves and the present is a 
 source of error in political affairs. 
 
 Next to being convicted of a crime, the greatest 
 misfortune is often that of having had to justify our-
 
 JUDGMENT AND CRITICISM. 233 
 
 selves. We may be discharged and absolutely 
 acquitted by all except the voice of the people. 
 
 A man is faithful to certain practices of religion ; we 
 see him perform them punctually, no one commends 
 or disapproves of him, he is not heeded. Another 
 follows his example after ten years of neglect, and he 
 is lauded and praised ; for my part I blame his long 
 forgetfulness of duty, and think him fortunate in return- 
 ing to it. 
 
 Some are forgotten in the distribution of favours, and 
 this makes us ask why they were forgotten. And if 
 they had been remembered we should have asked why 
 they were distinguished. Whence proceeds this 
 contrariety ? Is it the character of these persons, or the 
 uncertainty of our judgments, or both ? 
 
 We begin to predict who will be chancellor after 
 such a one ; who will be archbishop or pope ; or we go 
 further, and each according to his wishes or caprice 
 settles the promotion, often giving it to persons more 
 aged and feeble than those at the time holding the 
 post ; and as there is no reason why the dignity should 
 kill the persons who are at the time invested with it, 
 as it ought rather to rejuvenize them, and give them 
 new mental as well as bodily resources, it is not a rare 
 event that the man holding office buries his successor. 
 
 Disgrace extinguishes hatred and jealousy, and it 
 may well do so since the man in disgrace does not 
 irritate us by being in favour. There is no merit or 
 virtue he will not be pardoned, he may even be a hero 
 with impunity. Nothing is of any importance in a 
 disgraced man or a man out of favour ; his virtue, his 
 merit, both are unworthy, misunderstood, or imputed to
 
 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 vice. He may have great courage, be afraid of neither 
 fire nor sword, or he may possess the chivalry of a 
 Bayard ; it is nothing but bravado, people say scorn- 
 fully, " He is no hero." I contradict myself, it is true ; 
 but blame for this mankind of whom I only relate my 
 judgment ; I do not speak of different men, but of the 
 same men who judge so differently. 
 
 We do not require to wait twenty years to see men 
 change their opinions on the most serious things, or on 
 those which have appeared to them the most sure and 
 true. I shall not attempt to advance a theory that 
 fire in itself, independently of our sensations, has no 
 heat, that is to say nothing approaching the sensations 
 we feel when it comes near us, for fear that some day 
 it should become hotter than it has ever been. It 
 would be as far from me to assert that one right line 
 falling on another makes two right angles, or equals 
 two right angles, for fear that men should discover 
 something more or less, and I should be laughed at 
 for my proposition. And also, on another subject, I 
 would not agree with all France that Vauban is infal- 
 lible, that there is no appeal from this. But who will 
 guarantee that, in a short time some one will not in- 
 sinuate that even on sieges, upon which his decision has 
 been held supreme, he errs sometimes, and is liable 
 to make mistakes, like Antiphilus. 
 
 If you believe what people say when they are irritated 
 against each other, till passion masters them, the 
 scholar is a prig, the magistrate a boor, the banker an 
 aggressor, the gentleman an upstart ; but it is strange 
 that these names, which anger and hatred have in- 
 vented, have become so familiar to us, that disdain, cold 
 and quiet as it is, ventures to use them.
 
 JUDGMENT AND CRITICISM. 235 
 
 You hurry and rush about, especially when the 
 enemy begins to fly, and the victory is no longer 
 doubtful. You do the same before a town which has 
 capitulated. During a battle or a siege you pretend to 
 be in a hundred places at once, and are nowhere. You 
 foresee the General's orders, so that you may not follow 
 them, and seek opportunities rather than wait for them. 
 Is it possible that this is false courage ? 
 
 Place men to guard a post where they might be 
 killed and are not killed ; they love both honour and 
 life. 
 
 To see how men love life can it be supposed that 
 they can love anything else more than life; or that 
 glory which they prefer to life is often an opinion 
 of themselves established in the minds of a thousand 
 people whom they neither know nor esteem ? 
 
 Some who are neither soldiers nor courtiers go to war 
 or follow the Court ; they do not make the siege, but 
 they assist, and have soon satisfied their curiosity 
 about a battlefield as well as about the trenches and 
 the effect of bombs and cannon and sudden dashes, 
 and about the order and success of an attack which 
 they just got a glimpse of. Resistance is maintained ; 
 the rainy weather comes on and fatigues increase ; mud 
 has to be waded through, and both the weather and the 
 enemy have to be encountered ; the lines may be forced, 
 and thus shut up between a town and the army, what 
 an extremity ; courage flags, and they begin to grumble 
 and say, " Is it such a difficult thing to raise a siege ?" 
 Does the safety of the state depend on a citadel more 
 or less ? " Ought we not," they add, " to submit to the 
 decrees of heaven, which is against us, and delay 
 the campaign till another time ?" They are no longer
 
 236 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 brave, and if they dared they would say what they 
 think to the General, who is only hardened by obstacles, 
 and cheered and excited by the difficulty of the under- 
 taking ; watching by night, and exposing himself by 
 day to carry it through to the end. Should the enemy 
 capitulate, these same poor-spirited creatures will 
 extol the importance of the conquest, predicting the 
 results, and exaggerating the necessity there was for it, 
 the peril and the disgrace which would have been 
 theirs had they abandoned it ; and demonstrating that 
 the army which covered us from the enemy was in- 
 vincible. They return with the Court ; and as they 
 pass through towns and villages are proud to be gazed 
 at by the people who crowd the windows ; they triumph 
 by the way, and when they reach home they deafen 
 you with their right, left, and their talk of forts, ram- 
 parts, flanks and bastions ; and weary you with their 
 tales of the danger their curiosity led them into, lead- 
 ing you to believe that they ran a great risk of being 
 captured or killed by the enemy. The only point on 
 which they are silent is that they were afraid. 
 
 It is a little inconvenient to come to a full stop in a 
 sermon or oration, but it leaves the orator free to 
 exercise all the wit, sense and imagination, morality and 
 doctrine he possesses, and robs him of nothing ; but we 
 cannot help being surprised that men, having once 
 affixed a kind of disgrace to such a failure, should 
 expose themselves, by long and often useless dis- 
 courses, to the risk of it. 
 
 Those who make the worst use of their time are the 
 first to complain of its shortness ; as they consume it 
 in eating and sleeping, in foolish talk, arranging what 
 they ought to do, and oftenest in doing nothing, so they 
 want more of it for their business or their pleasures.
 
 JUDGMENT AND CRITICISM. 237 
 
 Those, on the contrary, who make good use of it, have 
 some to spare. 
 
 There is no minister, however busy, who does not 
 manage to waste at least two hours every day ; which 
 makes a great deal of time in a long life : and if 
 the evil is much greater among all conditions of men, 
 what an infinite waste goes on in the world of this 
 precious thing which you complain you have not 
 enough of. 
 
 There are creatures of God called men. They have 
 souls which are spiritual, yet their whole lives are em- 
 ployed in, and their whole attention concentrated on, 
 the sawing of marble. This is very simple and trifling ; 
 but there are others who seem much astonished at 
 them, though they are entirely useless. They pass 
 their days in doing nothing at all, which is still more 
 trifling than sawing marble. 
 
 The greater part of mankind so far forget that they 
 have souls, that they engage in many things in which 
 the soul is of no use ; so much so that we consider we 
 speak very favourably of a man when we say of him, 
 " He thinks." This has become quite an ordinary way 
 of eulogizing a man, and yet it only raises him above 
 a dog or a horse. 
 
 " How do you amuse yourself? How do you pass 
 your time?" is asked both by fools and sensible people. 
 If I reply, "In opening my eyes and seeing, in giving ear 
 and hearing, in enjoying health, repose, and freedom," 
 that is saying nothing; the greatest and only advantage 
 is not mentioned or taken into account. " Do you 
 gamble or dance?" 
 
 Is liberty such a great boon for man, since it can 
 be so great and so free that at last it prompts him
 
 238 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 to desire something more, which means that he has 
 less liberty. 
 
 Liberty is not idleness, it is a free use of time. It 
 means choosing our labour, our exercise. To be free 
 does not mean to do nothing, it is to have the sole con- 
 trol of our actions, what we shall do and what we 
 shall not do. In this sense what a blessing liberty is. 
 
 
 Caesar was not too old to think of the conquest of 
 the universe. He had no other bliss to strive after 
 but to live a brave life and have a great name after his 
 death. Born proud and ambitious and strong, he 
 could not better employ his time than in conquering 
 the world. 
 
 Alexander was very young for so serious a design. 
 It is astonishing that at his age women or wine did 
 not frustrate his enterprise. 
 
 A young prince* of an august race, the hope and 
 joy of his people, a gift from heaven to prolong liberty 
 upon earth, greater than his forefathers, son of a hero 
 who is his model, has already convinced the universe 
 by his divine qualities and promising virtues that the 
 sons of heroes are nearer being heroes than other 
 men.t 
 
 If the world is to last a hundred million years, it is 
 still in its pristine freshness. It has scarcely begun, 
 and we ourselves are not far removed from the first 
 men and the patriarchs, and who will distinguish us 
 from them in the distant ages ? 
 
 But if we may judge of the future by the past, how 
 
 * The Dauphin, son of Louis XIV. 
 
 fNote by La Bruyere. Contrary to the trivial Latin maxim, 
 " Heroum filii noxae, " which means that the sons of heroes degen- 
 erate from their fathers.
 
 JUDGMENT AND CRITICISM. 239 
 
 much is still unknown to us in art, science, and nature, 
 and I may even say in history. What discourses will 
 be made, what diverse revolutions may not happen 
 over the whole face of the earth in states and empires, 
 what ignorance we live in, and how small our ex- 
 perience of six or seven thousand years ? 
 
 There is no way too long for him who walks gently 
 and without hurry ; and there are no advantages 
 too distant for those who patiently prepare themselves 
 for them. 
 
 To court no one, neither to expect courtship, is a 
 happy condition, a golden age, and the most natural 
 state of man. 
 
 The world is for those who follow Courts and people 
 cities, but nature is for those who dwell in the country. 
 They alone live, or at least they alone know that they 
 live. 
 
 Why do you treat me coldly, and complain of what I 
 have said of some of our young courtiers ? You are 
 not vicious, O Thrasyllus; at least, I did not know it, 
 though you say so. What I do know is that you are 
 not young, and that you are possibly offended at what 
 I said of some great people. But do not cry out at 
 the wound of another. 
 
 Are you haughty, malicious, sarcastic, a flatterer or 
 a hypocrite ? If you are I did not know it ; I spoke 
 of some great people. 
 
 A spirit of moderation and a medium amount of 
 prudence leave men in obscurity ; to be famous they 
 must have great virtues or else, perhaps, great_vices. 
 
 Men are prejudiced, charmed, or infatuated by the
 
 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 conduct of great and obscure persons, according to 
 the success achieved by them ; very little will prevent 
 a fortunate crime being commended as a virtue, or 
 wealth supplying the place of every virtue : this is 
 outrageous, mean, and odious, a thing which no suc- 
 cess can justifiy. 
 
 Men are led astray by fine appearances and plausible 
 pretexts, and are easily induced to regard with favour 
 the ambitious project of some great man ; they speak 
 of it with much interest ; are even pleased with the 
 novelty or boldness of his scheme, soon get accustomed 
 to it, and confidently expect it to succeed ; if on the 
 contrary it miscarries, they say with equal confidence, 
 and with no idea of deceiving, that it was too rash, and 
 could not have been successful. 
 
 Some schemes* are so brilliant, have such important 
 issues depending on them, are talked of so long, and 
 are the subject of so many hopes and fears, according 
 to different interests, besides compromising the whole 
 future glory and honour and fortune of one man, that 
 having made so great a display, he finds it impossible, 
 to retire from action ; however great the disaster he 
 begins to foresee as the end of his enterprise, he must 
 encounter it, and his least misfortune will be defeat. 
 
 In a wicked man there is nothing to make a 
 great man. Commend his views and projects, admire 
 his conduct, exaggerate his ability in making use of 
 the shortest and most fitting means to attain his ends, 
 if his ends are bad, prudence has had no share in 
 them ; and, where prudence is wanting, find great- 
 ness if you can. 
 
 * An illusion to William, Prince of Orange, taking the throne 
 of England from James II
 
 JUDGMENT AND CRITICISM. 241 
 
 " O this age and its customs ! " exclaims Her&clitus, 
 *O unhappy century, full of bad examples, a time 
 when virtue suffers and crime rules triumphantly ! I 
 would be a Lycaon, an ^Egisthus. There could not be a 
 better opportunity, more favourable circumstances, at 
 least if I desire to prosper." 
 
 A man said* " I shall cross the sea ; I shall rob my 
 sire of his patrimony ; I shall drive him and his wife 
 and his heir from his own possessions ;" and as he said 
 so he has done. All he had to fear was the resentment of 
 many kings, outraged in this king's person. But theysup- 
 ported him, encouraged him, all but said to him, "Cross 
 the sea and rob your sire ; show the whole world that 
 it is possible to drive a king out of his own kingdom as 
 easily as a petty noble from his castle or a farmer from 
 his farm. Show that there is little difference between 
 obscure individuals and us ; that we are tired of these 
 distinctions ; teach the world that the subjects God has 
 given us can abandon and betray us, surrender us and 
 themselves to a stranger, and that they have less to 
 fear from us than we from them and their strength." 
 
 Who can regard events so sad and gloomy un- 
 mo^ed ? All responsibilities have their privileges, and 
 every rightful holder of these privileges will, by 
 word and act, exert himself to defend them. Royal 
 dignity alone no longer has such rights and privileges, 
 for have not kings themselves repudiated them ? One 
 only, ever good and magnanimous,! received an un- 
 fortunate family with open arms. The others leagued 
 themselves to avenge themselves on him for the sup- 
 port he was extending to a cause which was common 
 to them all. Pique and jealousy were roused among 
 them to the prejudice of political interest, honour, and 
 
 * The Prince of Orange. 
 
 f Louis XIV., who received James II. and all his family when 
 they were forced to leave England.
 
 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 religion. Was it as much for their personal and 
 domestic interest ? It is a vital point, concerning, I do 
 not say their election, but their succession, and their 
 hereditary rights. Thus, as in everything, the man has 
 the advantage of the sovereign. A Prince* who might 
 deliver Europe and himself from a fatal enemy, who 
 might possess the glory of having destroyed a great 
 empire,t neglects all for a doubtful war. Those who 
 are born umpiresj and mediators temporise, and when 
 they might have already usefully interposed their 
 mediation they only promise it. "O herdsmen," con- 
 tinues Heraclitus, "ye boors who dwell in cabins roofed 
 with thatch ! If the dire events which are happening 
 in the world do not reach you, if your hearts are not 
 broken by the malice of men, if men are no longer 
 spoken of where you live, only foxes and lynx-eyed 
 wolves, let me come among you, to live with you, 
 and eat of your black bread and drink of the water 
 from your wells." 
 
 * Leopold I., Emperor of the West. 
 t Turkey. I Innocent XI.
 
 FASHIONS. 
 
 WE only betray our foolishness and weakness if we 
 allow fashion to interfere with what concerns our food, 
 our manner of living, our health or conscience. Venison 
 is out of fashion, therefore insipid. It would be sin- 
 ning against fashion to cure a fever by bleeding ; for 
 this same reason it has for a long time been unusual 
 for the dying to have Theotimus to soothe their last 
 moments ; his tender exhortations can no longer save 
 the rich, only the people hear him now ; he has lived 
 to see his successor. 
 
 Curiosity is not a taste for what is good and beauti- 
 ful, but for what is rare and unique, a longing to possess 
 what others have not discovered. It is not an attachment 
 to what is perfect, but to what is much sought after or 
 fashionable. It is not an amusement but a passion, 
 and is often so violent that it yields neither to love nor 
 ambition except in the meanness of its object. It is 
 not a general passion for things which are rare and 
 much sought after, but for a 'certain thing which, 
 besides being rare, is in the fashion. 
 
 A florist has a suburban garden ; he spends all his 
 time there from sunrise to sunset ; one might say he is 
 planted there, has taken root among his tulips, beside his 
 ''Solitaire;" he rubs his hands and gazes at it, stoops 
 to examine it closely, for he never saw anything so 
 beautiful, his heart expands with the delight he feels in 
 it ; he leaves it to look at his " Orientale? and from 
 it he goes to the " Veuve j" then to the " Drap d'or" 
 then to the "Agate" from which he returns to the
 
 244 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 " Solitaire" where he stands tired till he sinks down 
 beside it and forgets his dinner ; beholding and ad- 
 miring its perfect vase-like flower, its calyx, and the 
 lovely shaded, shining petals of the gracefully opening 
 flower. God is in everything in nature, though our 
 florist admires nothing beyond his bulb ; his tulips 
 he would not part with for a thousand crowns, 
 although he will give them away for nothing when tulips 
 are out of fashion and carnations are in ! This 
 reasoning being who has a soul, a creed, and a religion, 
 returns home tired and hungry, but highly pleased 
 with his day, for he has seen his tulips. 
 
 Now try to speak to that other man of the beauty 
 of the crops, the plentiful harvest or the rich vintage ; 
 he is interested only in fruit, so you cannot make him 
 understand you ; speak to him of figs and melons, tell 
 him that the pear trees are bending under their weight 
 of fruit this year, that the peach trees also are laden, 
 it is all an unknown language to him ; he is interested 
 only in plum trees, and does not answer you ; 
 will not even converse with you about them, for he 
 cares for only a single kind ; at the mention of any 
 others he only smiles sarcastically ; he leads you up 
 to the trees, and in a scientific way plucks an exquisite 
 plum, which he divides, giving you the half and keep- 
 ing the other: "What exquisite fruit," he says, "Just 
 taste it, is it not divine ! I am convinced it is match- 
 less ; " and his nostrils dilate with pride as he tries to 
 hide his pleasure and conceit under a veil of modesty. 
 
 O man ! divine indeed, man whom we cannot 
 praise and admire enough, man who will be spoken of 
 during all the ages ; I ponder on his face and figure, 
 I remember the features of him who alone among 
 mortals possessed such a plum ! 
 
 You visit another man, and his conversation is of the 
 curiouspeople he knows, especially Diogneius. " I admire
 
 FASHIONS. 245 
 
 him," he says, " and I understand him less than ever." 
 Do you suppose he is seeking knowledge through 
 medals, that he looks on them as the existing 
 proofs of certain facts, fixed and indubitable monu- 
 ments of ancient history ? No less than that ; you 
 believe, perhaps, that all the trouble he gives himself 
 to recover a certain head is because of the pleasure it 
 gives him to see an uninterrupted suite of emperors. 
 No ! it is even less important still. Diognetus is a con- 
 noisseur in medals. He can tell at once if one is 
 genuine, he understands every stamp. He has a case 
 in which every space is full except one : this empty 
 space is an eyesore to him : it is literally and truly 
 to fill up this empty space that he spends his fortune 
 and his life. 
 
 " Will you look at my prints ?" says Democedes. And 
 presently he spreads them out before you. You pick 
 out one which is neither well printed, well engraved, 
 nor well drawn, and much more suitable to decorate 
 the new bridge on a. fete day than to be carefully pre- 
 served in a cabinet. Democedes admits that it is 
 badly engraved and badly designed, but he assures 
 you that it was executed by an Italian whose works 
 are very scarce ; that this is the only one in France of 
 his productions; that he paid a high price for it, and 
 would not exchange it for a much better one. "But I 
 have," he continues, " a great grief, one which will 
 force me to renounce engravings for the rest of my life. 
 I possess the whole series of Callot's* pictures except 
 one which, although it is not one of his best, indeed it 
 is one of his worst; still it spoils my set, and it is very 
 hard, for I have been trying for twenty years to dis- 
 cover that print to complete my Callots ; and now I 
 despair." 
 
 * An eminent French engraver (1593 1633).
 
 246 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 I meet another man who is satirical when he speaks 
 of people who, either from restlessness or curiosity, 
 travel much and yet keep no journal to make a memoir 
 of afterwards : who go to see and see nothing, or else 
 forget what they have seen ; who seem simply to have 
 wished to visit some new towns and churches, and to 
 sail on rivers which are called neither the Seine nor the 
 Loire ; they leave their own country only to return 
 again with the prestige of having returned from afar. 
 This criticism is not unjust, and might be listened 
 to. 
 
 But when he adds that books are more instructive 
 than travelling, and makes me understand from his 
 conversation that he has a library, I desire to see it, 
 and I pay him a visit. He receives me in his house, 
 and even on the staircase, indeed. I feel faint with 
 the scent of the morocco with which all his books are 
 covered ; in vain he tries to reassure me, shouting that 
 they are all gilt-edged and first editions ; and he names 
 the best of his collection one after the other ; tell- 
 ing me that his room is full, except one or two places 
 which are painted to represent books arranged in cases, 
 and so well done that the deception is not observed ; 
 then he adds that he never reads or even sets foot in 
 this room. He comes there now only to give me 
 pleasure. I thank him for his kindness, and have r.o 
 more wish than he has to revisit his tannery, which he 
 calls a library. 
 
 Some people have such an eager thirst for knowledge 
 that they cannot bear to be ignorant of anything. 
 They dip into everything and master nothing : they 
 prefer to learn much rather than learn well, to be super- 
 ficial and weak in many sciences rather than to be 
 deeply versed in one. Thus they find that on every 
 subject there is someone who excels them and can 
 correct them ; they are mere dupes of their own vain
 
 FASHIONS. 247 
 
 curiosity, and can only after long and painful efforts 
 overcome their gross ignorance. 
 
 Others possess the keys of all learning, yet never 
 use them. They spend their lives in puzzling out all 
 the known languages, and even would discover that 
 which is spoken in the moon. The most useless idioms, 
 the most ridiculous and mystical characters, are pre- 
 cisely those which awake their passion for languages 
 and excite their industry. They pity those who are 
 contented to know their own language, or at most, 
 Greek and Latin. Such people read all books of his- 
 tory and yet know nothing at all of history; they skim 
 through so many books that they profit by none ; they 
 could not well be more barren of facts and principles, 
 but they certainly have the best collection of words 
 and phrases which can be imagined ; their memories 
 are oppressed and loaded with them, while their minds 
 remain empty. 
 
 A citizen has a mania for building, so he builds him- 
 self a house so grand, and beautiful, and richly decora- 
 ted, that it is uninhabitable. He is ashamed to live in 
 it himself, and yet he cannot resolve to let it to a 
 prince or to a rich merchant; so he retires to the 
 garret, where he lives whilst his house is overrun by 
 English and German tourists. There are incessant 
 knocks at the door and demands to see the house, but 
 not its master. 
 
 We know another man who has unmarried daugh- 
 ters to whom he cannot give dowries ; or worse still, he 
 can scarcely give them food and clothing ; he is so 
 poor that he has to deny himself a bed and a change 
 of linen. The secret of this poverty is not far to seek; 
 it lies in a lumber-room full to obstruction of rare 
 sculptures, already covered with dust and dirt, the sale 
 of which would free him ; but he cannot make up his 
 mind to part with them.
 
 248 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 Dephilus* is a bird fancier ; he had only one to begin 
 with, and ends with a thousand. His house is not im- 
 proved by them ; they fly about all over the sitting- 
 room, the hall, the staircase, bedrooms, study ; birds 
 are everywhere. It is no longer a sweet warbling 
 sound they make, but a noisy discord. The winds and 
 floods of autumn do not cause such a shrill and pierc- 
 ing noise. People cannot hear themselves speaking 
 even in the rooms they wait in till they are announced, 
 for there they are annoyed with little yelping dogs. 
 Dephilus finds his craze no longer an agreeable amuse- 
 ment ; it has become a tiresome business which he can 
 with difficulty overtake ; and he spends his days, those 
 days which pass never to return again, scattering grain 
 and cleaning bird-cages. He pays a large salary to a 
 man whose only service is to whistle on a bird-organ 
 and breed canaries. True, what he spends in one way 
 he saves in another, for his children have neither 
 teachers nor education. In the evening, tired out with 
 what he calls pleasure, he shuts himself up and is not 
 able to enjoy the least repose till his birds are at roost, 
 till the small creatures which he loves only for their 
 singing, cease to sing ; he thinks of them all night in 
 his sleep, or is himself a little tufted canary, and 
 chirps, and perches, and dreams that he is moulting or 
 brooding. 
 
 Who can, indeed, describe all the different varieties 
 of curiosity ? Would you imagine, to hear a man talk 
 of his leopard and his plume, boasting of them as the 
 most wonderful and marvellous things in the world, 
 that he wants to dispose of his collection of shells? 
 And why should he not boast since he bought them for 
 their weight in gold? 
 
 Another admires insects ; every day he adds to his 
 
 * The whimsical Santeul, already referred to.
 
 FASHIONS. 249 
 
 collection ; he is the greatest authority on butterflies in 
 Europe ; he has them of all shapes and colours. What 
 an unfortunate time to pay him a visit ; he is plunged 
 in bitter grief, and is very irritable, to the discomfort of 
 his whole family ; for he has had an irreparable loss. 
 Go nearer and look at what he shows you on his finger 
 a lifeless thing, it has just expired. A caterpillar, and 
 such a caterpillar ! 
 
 Duelling is one of the triumphs of fashion, and the 
 thing in which her tyranny has been exercised with the 
 most brilliant results. It is a custom which has not 
 left the coward liberty of life, for it forces him to allow 
 himself to be killed by a braver man than himself, and 
 even to seem a man of courage. It attaches honour and 
 glory to a foolish and extravagant action. Kings have 
 approved of it by their presence, and it has sometimes 
 been practised as a religious duty. It has established 
 a man's innocence, and in capital crimes has been exer- 
 cised to decide whether an accusation were true or 
 false ; and, at least, it became so deeply rooted in the 
 opinion of the world, and got so firm a hold of the 
 hearts and minds of men, that it has been one of the 
 finest points in the life of a great king tocurehis people 
 of this folly. 
 
 A man of fashion is not long so, for fashions change. 
 If by chance he is a man of merit he will not be put 
 down, extinguished ; something of him will always 
 remain, and be worthy of esteem, although less valued. 
 
 Virtue has this comfort, it is self-sufficing, and can 
 exist without admirers, partizans, or protectors. The 
 want of support and admiration not only does not harm 
 a virtuous man ; it preserves, purifies, and renders him 
 more perfect : for whether virtue be in the fashion or 
 not, it is always virtue.
 
 250 LA BRUYlLRE. 
 
 If you tell people, and especially the great, that 
 such a one is virtuous, they will say, " Let him keep 
 his virtue ; " and if you tell them he has a great deal 
 of pleasant and amusing wit, they will answer, " So 
 much the better for him." You say, " His mind is well 
 cultivated, he knows many things :" they ask you what 
 o'clock it is, or what kind of weather. But if you tell 
 them that he is a juggler Avho can perform marvellous 
 tricks, then they cry, " Where is he ? Bring him 
 here to-morrow, this evening ; will you bring him at 
 once?" He is taken to them, and this fellow, who is 
 only fit to amuse people at a fair, is admitted into their 
 intimacy. 
 
 There is nothing which brings a man more suddenly 
 into fashion than playing high. It is equal to any 
 debauchery. I would like to see any man, were he 
 as polished, playful, free and witty as Catullus, try to 
 compare with him who loses eight hundred pistoles at 
 a sitting. 
 
 A fashionable man is like a certain blue flower which, 
 growing wild in the fields, chokes the corn, spoils the 
 crops, and takes up the place of something better. It is a 
 thing of little beauty and no value, except what it 
 borrows from a light caprice, which is born and gone 
 almost in the same instant ; to-day it is in fashion, and 
 all the women adorn themselves with it ; to-morrow it 
 will be neglected and left to the people. 
 
 An estimable person, on the other hand, is a 
 flower which we do not describe by its colour, 
 but which we call by its name ; and cultivate for 
 its beauty and perfume. It is one of the graces 
 of nature, one of the things which beautify the 
 world ; it is for all time, and its fashion is both 
 ancient and popular. Our fathers esteemed it, and we
 
 FASHIONS. 251 
 
 esteem it after them, and neither the disgust nor the 
 antipathy of any one can harm a lily or a rose. 
 
 We see Eustrates sitting in his boat enjoying the 
 pure air and the beautiful calm sky. He sails on with 
 a fair wind which, to all appearance, will not change ; 
 but all of a sudden the sky is overcast, the storm rises,, 
 and the boat is dashed about among the waves, tili at 
 last it sinks. Etistrates is seen to rise to the surface 
 and tries to swim ; we hope that he will at least be able 
 to reach the shore in safety, but another wave seizes 
 him, and we think he is lost ; he appears once more, 
 and our hopes revive, when a great billow overcomes 
 him, and he sinks, and is never seen again, he is 
 drowned. 
 
 Voiture and Sarrazin were born for the age they lived 
 in; they came just when they were wanted. If they 
 had appeared later I doubt if they would have been as 
 much esteemed as they were. 
 
 The light and airy style of conversation, reunions, 
 charming familiar letters, ' delicate jesting, and the 
 select parties where wit only was allowed to enter ; all 
 have disappeared, and there seems little chance of 
 their being revived. All I can hope for is that the 
 spirit of the same genius may revive in another way. 
 But the women of the present day are either saints or 
 coquettes ; and the men devote their time to gambling 
 or ambition, and some are all these things at once. 
 Self-interest, play, gallants, and confessors, are the 
 fashion, and hold their place against men of wit. 
 
 A ridiculous coxcomb wears a broad hat, a doublet 
 with flying shoulder-knots and long boots ; he 
 wonders by night where and how he can make him- 
 self remarkable the following day. A philosopher
 
 252 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 leaves his tailor to make his clothes ; there is as much 
 weakness in evading the fashion as in affecting it. 
 
 We dislike a fashion which divides a man's height 
 into two equal parts, one half being the head and 
 shoulders, and the other all the rest of the body ; we 
 condemn those who make a woman's head like the base 
 of an edifice of several stories, the order and structure of 
 which change according to caprice ; who drag the 
 hair away from the part of the face it is meant to 
 shade, and raise it after the manner of a Bacchante ; 
 seeming only anxious that women should change the 
 sweet and modest expression of their faces to one which 
 is proud and bold ; and lastly we exclaim against such 
 and such a fashion, which, however, odd as it may be, 
 improves and adorns while the fashion lasts, and from 
 which we gather all the advantages we required of it, 
 namely, to please. It seems to me that we ought rather 
 to admire the inconstancy and frivolity of men who 
 approve of and admire such opposite things in suc- 
 cession, and use for fun and frolic the same adorn- 
 ments which formerly- served more grave and serious 
 purposes ; how short a time it takes to mark so wide 
 a difference. 
 
 N * * * is rich, she eats well and sleeps well ; but 
 "head-dresses change when she expects it least and feels 
 happy ; now hers is old-fashioned. 
 
 Iphis sees at church a new-fashioned shoe, he looks 
 at his own and blushes for it, he no longer feels 
 dressed ; he used to attend mass that he might be 
 seen there, and now he hides ; and is held by the 
 foot in his room all the rest of the day. He has a soft 
 hand, and he preserves it with perfumed paste ; he 
 takes care to laugh that he may show his teeth ; he
 
 253. 
 
 wears a set smile, admires his legs, looks at himself in 
 the mirror ; none can be so pleased with another as 
 he is with himself; he has acquired a delicate and clear 
 voice, and luckily he speaks with a burr ; there is an 
 expressive turn of his head and an inexpressible sweet- 
 ness in his eyes which he does not forget to make 
 use of ; he walks slowly and holds himself as grace- 
 fully as possible ; he uses rouge, but only now and 
 then, he does not make a custom of it ; it is true,, 
 however, that he wears shoulder knots and a hat, and 
 has neither ear-rings nor a necklace ; therefore I have 
 not put him in the chapter about women. 
 
 The very same fashions which men follow so will- 
 ingly in their persons they will not have copied in their 
 portraits, as if they felt and foresaw how ridiculous 
 they will appear when they have lost what we call the 
 fascination and charm of novelty. In their portraits men 
 allow themselves to be adorned very indifferently, 
 according to the arbitrary fancy of the painter, and in 
 a way which suits neither their character nor their face, 
 which recalls neither their manner nor their person. 
 They choose a constrained or immodest attitude, and a 
 hardened, rough, unnatural manner, which makes a 
 young abbe into a captain, and changes a judge into a 
 harlequin ; makes Diana of a city dame ; an Amazon 
 or a Pallas of a simple, timid woman ; a Lai's of an 
 honest woman ; a Scythian or Attila of a prince who is 
 good and magnanimous. 
 
 One fashion has hardly destroyed another when it is 
 abolished by a newer one, which itself gives way to the 
 next, which will not be the last. Such is our frivolity ;. 
 during these revolutions a century flows on and puts all 
 finery among past things which are no more. The 
 fashion, then, which is most curious, most uncommon,, 
 and most agreeable to our eyes, is the most ancient
 
 254 LA BRUYEKE. 
 
 Time and years make it appear as charming in portraits 
 as the sagum or Roman costume on the stage, or the 
 Oriental mantle, tiara, and veil in our tapestries and 
 pictures. 
 
 Our fathers have transmitted to us, together with some 
 knowledge of their persons, an idea of the dress, arms, 
 and ornaments which they preferred during their life. We 
 cannot better extend this benefit to our posterity than 
 by accommodating them in the same way. 
 
 Formerly the courtier wore his own hair, doublets 
 and large breeches, and was a libertine ; this is so no 
 longer: now he has a full wig, a close suit, plain 
 stockings, and he is devout ; all is the result of fashion. 
 
 He who has studied life at Court understands the 
 difference between virtue and false devotion ; he can 
 no longer be deceived. 
 
 To neglect vespers as an obsolete and unfashionable 
 custom, to keep our own place for the benediction, and 
 to know all the best parts of the chapel where we can 
 be seen, and where we are not seen ; to think in the 
 house of God of our own business, to receive visits 
 there, and give orders and instructions, and wait for the 
 replies ; to have a confessor who is listened to rather 
 than the Gospel ; to derive all our holiness and credit 
 from the reputation of our director, despising and 
 hardly admitting the possibility of salvation for those 
 who attend the ministrations of one less fashionable ; 
 to love only as much of the Word of God as is 
 preached in our own church by our special director ; to 
 prefer his mass to other masses, and the Sacraments 
 from his hand rather than from any other ; to feast 
 only on mystical books as if there were neither Gos- 
 pels, Apostolic Epistles, nor the spiritual writings of the
 
 FASHIONS. 255 
 
 fathers ; to read and speak a religious jargon unknown 
 in the early ages ; to be very careful at confession ; to 
 detail the faults of others and to palliate our own ; to 
 underrate our suffering and patience, to deprecate our 
 feeble progress in heroism ; to have private leagues 
 with certain persons against certain others, consider- 
 ing only ourselves, and our own clique, and suspecting 
 even virtue itself ; longing only for the selfish enjoy- 
 ment of prosperity and favour ; never assisting merit, 
 and making piety subservient to ambition ; even seek- 
 ing after salvation by means of fortune and honour 
 this, at present, is the finest effort of the devotion of 
 our time. 
 
 A (false) devotee is one who, under an atheist king, 
 would be an atheist. 
 
 Onuphrius has only a rug of grey serge for his bed, 
 still he lies on cotton and down ; his dress is likewise 
 simple and comfortable, I mean it is of light material 
 in Summer, and of something soft and warm in Winter ; 
 he wears very fine linen, but is most careful to hide it. 
 He does not speak of his coarse clothing, or of his self- 
 discipline ; on the contrary, he looks what he is, a hypo- 
 crite, though he intends to pass for a devout man ; it is 
 true he leads us to believe without saying it, that he 
 wears a hair shirt and exercises a severe discipline. * 
 He has many books lying carelessly about his room ; 
 if we examine them we find the " Spiritual Combat" 
 " Christian Life," the " Sacred Year" etc. ; his other 
 books are under lock and key. If he walks along the 
 street and sees in the distance a man to whom he 
 would appear devout, he plays his part with downcast 
 eyes, slow and modest gait, and a thoughtful air of con- 
 templation. If he enters a church he first takes heed 
 
 * A parody on Moltere's Tartuffe.
 
 256 LA BRUYlLRE. 
 
 whose eyes are on him, and according to the discovery 
 made he falls on his knees and prays, or else he neither 
 thinks of kneeling or praying. If a man of wealth 
 and authority comes beside him and observes, perhaps 
 would hear him, he not only prays, but deeply ponders, 
 sighs, and groans ; but as soon as the rich man retires 
 he utters no more sounds. Another time he goes into 
 a holy place, crushes through the crowd, chooses a 
 place for his devotion where everybody can see how 
 he humbles himself; if he sees any courtiers who 
 laugh and talk, making more noise in the chapel than 
 they would make in the antechamber, he makes still 
 more noise in order to silence them ; and resumes his 
 meditations that he may be favourably compared with 
 them. He avoids deserted and solitary churches where 
 he may hear two masses in succession, the sermon, 
 vespers, and compline, and all between God and him- 
 self without anyone to give him credit ; he likes the 
 parish church, or frequents crowded temples, for thus 
 his aim is gained, and he is seen of the congregation. 
 He chooses two or three days in the year on which to 
 fast, not special fast days ; but about the end of winter 
 he has a cough, a weak chest, indigestion, or a feverish 
 attack ; his friends beg and pray and earnestly implore 
 him to break his lenten fast as soon as it is begun, and 
 he complacently yields. li'Onuphrius is named umpire 
 in a quarrel among relations, or in any family disagree- 
 ment, he is on the side of the strongest, that is to say, 
 the richest, for he cannot be persuaded that he who has 
 much wealth can ever be wrong. If he happens to find a 
 rich man on whom he can impose and take advantage 
 of, he becomes his parasite ; he does not wheedle his 
 wife, or make the least advance or declaration to her ; 
 he will evade her unless he is as sure of her as he is 
 of himself. Still further would it be from him to em- 
 ploy the jargon of false devotion to flatter her and
 
 FASHIONS. 257 
 
 lead her astray. He does not usually talk that lan- 
 guage, only as it is useful to him, and never when it 
 might chance to make him appear ridiculous. He 
 knows where to find women more sociable and easy 
 than his friend's wife, and from them he does not 
 absent himself for long, unless it be to have it said of 
 him in public that he has taken a vow of retreat. Who 
 indeed could doubt it when they see him reappear with 
 the worn face of a man who does not take care of him- 
 self. 
 
 The women whose intrigues prosper under the 
 shade of devotion suit him, with only this little difference, 
 that he slights those who have grown old, and cultivates 
 the young, and among them only the most beautiful 
 attract him. They come and go as he does, and 
 he has the pleasure of seeing them at all hours, in all 
 places ; and who in his position but would be edified ? 
 They are devout, and he is devout. He does not for- 
 get to take advantage of his friend's blind prepossession 
 in his favour ; sometimes he borrows money from him, 
 and at times he manages so well that his friend offers 
 him some, and even reproaches him for not making 
 use of him when he has need. He will not accept a 
 mite without giving an acceptance for it, which, how- 
 ever, he is very sure will never be redeemed. At 
 another time he says, in a certain tone, that he is in 
 need of nothing. This is when he wants only a small 
 sum. Another day he publicly praises the generosity 
 of this man in order to pique him into bestowing some 
 liberal gift on him. He does not expect to succeed to 
 all his property, nor to receive a deed of gift of all 
 his personal estate, especially if there is a son or law- 
 ful heir. A devout man is neither covetous, violent, 
 unjust, nor self-interested. 
 
 Onuphrius is not devout, but he wishes to be thought 
 so, and by a perfect, though false, imitation of piety 
 
 s
 
 258 LA RRUY&RF. 
 
 he silently takes care of his own interests. Thus he does 
 not aim his designs at the direct line of a family, and 
 never insinuates himself where there are daughters to 
 provide for, or a son to establish. These are claims so 
 strong and unquestionable that they cannot be set 
 aside without causing some stir, which might, perhaps, 
 come to the ears of the prince, from whom he conceals 
 such aims for fear of being discovered to be what he 
 is. He chooses the collateral line which he can attack 
 with impunity. He is the terror of male and female 
 cousins, nephews and nieces ; the flatterer and open 
 friend of all the uncles who have made a fortune. He 
 gives himself out as the lawful heir of all the old men 
 who die childless and rich, and they must disinherit 
 him if they wish their relations to benefit from their 
 estates. If Onuphrius does not find means to defraud 
 them altogether, he will at least take a large portion 
 from them. A small calumny, less than that, a slight 
 slander, is enough for his pious design, and this is a 
 talent he possesses to a high degree of perfection, so 
 much so that he makes a point of not allowing it to 
 lie useless. There are, according to him, people one is 
 obliged in-conscience to slander, and these people are 
 those he does not like, whom he desires to injure and 
 ruin. He gains his ends without ever giving himself 
 the trouble of opening his mouth. You talk to him of 
 Eudoxus; he smiles, and sighs. You question him, 
 you even insist ; but he makes no answer, and he is 
 right ; he has said enough of him. 
 
 When a courtier shall be humble, cured of pride and 
 ambition, when he ceases to establish his own fortune 
 on the ruin of his rivals, when he becomes just to his 
 dependants, pays his creditors, is neither knavish nor 
 slanderous, renounces luxury and unlawful love, prays 
 even when not in the presence of the prince, and not
 
 FASHIONS. 259 
 
 with his lips only; when I find that he is not austere 
 and forbidding, and difficult to approach, is not idle 
 and dreamy, knowing how to give scrupulous attention 
 to diverse but congruous employments, when he can 
 and will turn his mind to great and laborious affairs, 
 especially those which involve far-reaching, extended 
 results for the people and for the whole state, when 
 his noble qualities make me afraid to name him in 
 this place, and his modesty stops me even though I 
 do not name him plainly, I shall say of this personage* 
 " He is truly devout," or rather, " He is a man given to 
 his age as the model of genuine virtue, and for com- 
 parison with hypocrites." 
 
 During the present century arts and sciences have 
 been advanced to the highest degree of refinement. 
 Even the plan of salvation has been reduced to rule 
 and method, and augmented by all the finest and most 
 sublime ideas which the mind of man could conceive. 
 Devotion (false) and geometry have their own forms of 
 expression, and are called, " art terms ;" he who knows 
 them not is neither a devotee nor a geometrician. The 
 early Christians, even those who were instructed by the 
 Apostles, were ignorant of such terms ; those simple 
 people had only faith and works, and confined them- 
 selves to believing and living a good life. 
 
 It is a delicate thing for a religious prince to reform 
 the Court and make it pious ; aware how much the 
 courtier desires to please him, and what sacrifices he 
 has to make in order to advance his fortune, the 
 prince treats him with prudence, and humours and 
 tolerates him even if he dislikes him, for fear of plung- 
 ing him into hypocrisy or sacrilege ; he expects more 
 from God and time than from his own zeal and in- 
 dustry. 
 
 * The Due de Beauvilliers. 
 
 S 2
 
 260 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 In Courts there is an old custom of giving pensions 
 and distributing favours to a musician, a dancing- 
 master, a comic actor, a flute player, a flatterer ; they 
 possess certain merits and certain acknowledged 
 talents which amuse the great people and provide 
 them with relaxation. One knows that Favier is a fine 
 dancer, and that Lorenzani composes beautiful sacred 
 music ; but who knows if the devout man has any 
 virtue ? There is nothing for him in the privy purse or 
 in the treasury, and with good reason, for his is a pro- 
 fession easily counterfeited, which if it were rewarded 
 would often expose the prince to the mistake of 
 honouring dissimulation and knavery, and allowing 
 pensions to hypocrisy. 
 
 We must hope that the piety of the Court will not 
 prevent its devotees remaining there. 
 
 I do not doubt that true devotion is the source of 
 repose ; it enables one to endure life and makes death 
 sweet ; we cannot derive as much comfort from 
 hypocrisy. 
 
 Each hour in itself, so far as regards us, is unique ; 
 when once it has glided away it has perished for ever, 
 millions of ages will not bring it back ; days, months, 
 years, fly past and are lost in the abyss of time. Time 
 itself shall be destroyed ; it is only a point in the im- 
 mense span of eternity, and it shall be blotted out. 
 There are some light and trifling circumstances of time 
 which are unstable and which pass away. I call these 
 circumstances fashions, greatness, riches, power, 
 authority, independence, pleasure, joys, superfluity. 
 What shall become of these fashions when time itself 
 shall have disappeared ? Virtue alone, though least in 
 fashion, will survive time.
 
 SOME CUSTOMS. 
 
 THERE are some people who require wealth to make 
 them gentlemen. There are others who would have 
 been gentlemen could they have obtained six months' 
 longer delay from their creditors. 
 
 Others lie down plebeians and rise up gentlemen. 
 
 How many gentlemen are there whose fathers and 
 brothers are plebeians ! 
 
 A certain man disowns his father, who is known to 
 have a farm and a shop ; he goes back to his ancestor 
 who has been dead a long time, and is unknown and 
 forgotten, and boasts of him ; now he has a large 
 income and a great estate ; his children marry well, 
 and he requires only a title to be a gentleman. 
 
 To rehabilitate, is the expression commonly used in 
 law, and letters of nobility, formerly necessary in 
 France, are now obsolete : to be rehabilitated is to 
 suppose that a man who originally held the patent 
 which entitled him to be called gentleman, has become 
 rich, and he is reinstated in his gentility ; this means 
 that he may honestly bear the title, although his father 
 may have degraded himself by ploughing, digging, 
 wearing a livery, or carrying a pedlar's box ; still the 
 son is only restored to the original privileges of his 
 ancestors, and of continuing the arms of his house, 
 even although he has invented new ones quite different 
 to those engraved on his pewter. 
 
 In a word, letters of nobility would not be suitable
 
 262 LA BRUY^RE. 
 
 for him ; they honour only a plebeian, that is, a man 
 who is still longing to discover the secret of how to 
 grow rich. 
 
 An uneducated man asserts that he has seen some 
 prodigy, and ends by believing he has really seen it. 
 Another conceals his age, and even persuades him- 
 self that he is as young as he would like others to 
 believe he is : and in the same way the man of humble 
 parentage, by continually talking of his descent from 
 some ancient baron or great nobleman, has the pleasure 
 of persuading himself that he has a noble pedigree. 
 
 Is there a man of low degree, who, having made 
 some money, lacks a coat of arms, and to the arms, 
 supporters, and a motto, and perhaps a war-cry? 
 
 Helmets are an obsolete distinction ; it is a matter 
 of no importance now, whether they are borne in front 
 or sidewise, close or open, and with few or more bars ; 
 no one takes any heed of such minutiae : so our rich 
 plebeian aims direct at coronets, which is the simplest 
 way ; he considers himself quite worthy of one, and it is 
 bestowed on him. Among the better citizens, however, 
 there is a little modesty left, which deters them from 
 adorning themselves withamarquis'scoronet,and leaves 
 them satisfied with an earl's ; and some of them do 
 not go very far for it ; they take it from their signboards 
 to put on their carriage. 
 
 You may have been born in a thatched cottage far 
 away in the country, or in a damp, broken-down ruin 
 in a marshy swamp, a place you grandly call a castle ; 
 if you have only not been born in town you will, on 
 your own word, be credited with noble birth. 
 
 Some men have three names in case one should be
 
 SOME CUSTOMS. 263 
 
 forfeited ; they use one at their country place, another 
 in the town, and the other in their public life. Others 
 have one name of two syllables, which they distinguish, 
 as soon as their fortunes improve, by the particles du or 
 de. Another by the suppression of a syllable makes an 
 illustrious name of one which is obscure. Another 
 changes one letter only, and makes a parody ; from 
 Syrus he becomes Cyrus. Some suppress names they 
 might have borne honourably in order to adopt 
 grander ones ; and in this way they lose by the com- 
 parisons made between the name they bear and the 
 great men who once bore it. Lastly, there are some 
 people, who, born within the walls of Paris, would 
 like to pass for Flemish or Italian : so they lengthen 
 their names by some foreign termination, forgetting 
 that plebeians are of every country, they seem to think 
 that to come from afar is to be grand. 
 
 Need of money has drawn nobles and plebeians 
 nearer each other, and has made the evidence of 
 greatness disappear. 
 
 How many would gain by a law which decides that 
 good birth must come from the mother's side, but 
 how many more would lose by it ! 
 
 There are few families who are not related at one 
 end of their pedigree to the greatest princes, and at the 
 other to the humblest of the people. 
 
 I declare frankly, so that all may be prepared and 
 none surprised ; if it one day happen that some great 
 man thinks me worthy of his notice, or if I ever make 
 my fortune ; there is one Geoffroy de La Bruyere, 
 whom all the records place in the ranks of the greatest 
 nobles of France ; he followed Godefroy de Bouillon to
 
 264 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 the conquest of the Holy Land : take notice therefore 
 from whom I am descended in direct line. 
 
 If nobility be a virtue, it is lost by that which 
 is not virtuous ; and if it be not a virtue, it is a trifle. 
 
 If we search into the principles and first institutions 
 of some things, they are very wonderful and incom- 
 prehensible. Who could imagine, for instance, that a 
 certain abbe, whose dress is in perfect taste, and who 
 is as effeminate and vain as it is possible for any person 
 of either sex or condition to be ; who is as much a 
 favourite with ladies as the marquis or the rich banker; 
 who would think, I say, that he was originally, as the 
 spelling of his name proves one of the fathers of a 
 society of monks, humble men, devoted to solitude, to 
 whom he ought to be an example. What an abuse of 
 power that is, not to speak of greater evils. Have we 
 not cause to dread the day, should it ever come, when 
 this simple abbe will be arrayed in the figured velvet 
 of a cardinal, and in patches and rouge like a woman ! 
 
 Beautiful things are less beautiful out of their proper 
 place; fitness makes perfection, and reason employs 
 fitness. Thus, we could not listen to a jig in church, 
 nor to a sermon declaimed like a stage oration. Temples 
 are not adorned with profane images ; a Crucifix and 
 the Judgment of Paris were never seen in the same 
 sanctuary ; nor is the retinue and equipage of a cava- 
 lier appropriate for one whose service is sacred to the 
 church. 
 
 People do not make vows or pilgrimages to obtain 
 from any saint a more loving spirit, or a more grateful 
 heart ; to be made more just and less wicked ; to be 
 cured of vanity, restlessness, and discontent.
 
 SOME CUSTOMS. 265 
 
 Can you think of anything more extraordinary than 
 a crowd of professing Christians of both sexes meet- 
 ing together in a place of entertainment, for the pur- 
 pose of applauding a band of excommunicated persons 
 who are placed under the ban of the church solely on 
 account of the pleasure they have been paid to give 
 them. It seems to me that either theatres should 
 be closed, or the players should be treated less 
 severely. 
 
 The fees for a baptism are less than for a marriage and 
 more than for a confession. We might suppose that 
 this tax is put on the sacraments to make them more 
 valued ; but it is only a custom, and those who receive 
 for those holy things do not think they sell, nor do 
 those who give think they buy. Such appearances of 
 evil might well be avoided for the sake of the simple 
 and devout. 
 
 A youthful, ruddy, priest in fine linen and point lace 
 has his place during the service near the dignitaries 
 and grandees; he digests his dinner comfortably, 
 whilst the monk or friar leaves his cell or his retreat to 
 which propriety and his vows bind him, to come and 
 preach the sermon for the priest and his flock, receiv- 
 ing payment for it as if for a piece of mercery. You 
 interrupt me, saying, " What an unheard of and dis- 
 respectful kind of criticism ; would you like to prevent 
 the priest and his flock hearing the Gospel preached, 
 and deprive them of the bread of life ? " Quite the 
 contrary, I would only have the priest officiate himself, 
 morning and evening, in public and in private, on the 
 housetops, in the churches. I would have none pre- 
 tend to such a great and glorious office unless they 
 were capable and fully purposed to perform all the 
 duties, and deserving of the large offerings and rich
 
 266 LA BRUYZRE. 
 
 contributions attached to it. I cannot, it is true, blame 
 a young priest for continuing a usual and established 
 practice, which he will have to leave to his successor : 
 but I cannot approve of a custom so extraordinarily un- 
 reasoning and unnecessary : it is even more objection- 
 able than his being paid four times for the same 
 obsequies, his private fee, his clerical fee, a third for his 
 presence and a fourth for his assistance. 
 
 Titus has been twenty years in the second rank of 
 priests, and yet when a vacancy occurs in the first rank 
 he is not considered worthy of it. Neither his talents, 
 his doctrine, his exemplary life, nor the wishes of his 
 parishioners, can give it to him ; some cleric starts up 
 from underground, as it were, to fill the vacancy, and 
 Titus is pushed back or dismissed ; he does not com- 
 plain, it is the custom. 
 
 " Who shall force me to go to matins, am I not the 
 Dean, the master of the choir? My predecessor 
 never attended, and am I a less important man than 
 he was ? Ought I to consent to lower my dignity, or even 
 to leave it as I found it?" " It is not," says the Canon, 
 " my own interest I look to ; I regard the interest of the 
 Prebendary : it would indeed be hard that I should be 
 obliged to listen to the service, whilst the Treasurer, 
 the Archdeacon and the Vicar hold themselves 
 exempt." " I have a good precedent." declares the 
 Provost, "for demanding my dues without the formality 
 of attending prayers ; for twenty long years I have 
 been allowed to sleep undisturbed, and I shall end as I 
 began ; no one will ever see me do anything dero- 
 gatory to my title ; I know what is due to me as the 
 head of a Chapter, and my example cannot be of any 
 consequence."
 
 SOME CUSTOMS. 267 
 
 In this way do they all vie with each other as to who 
 will not praise God, and who will show best reason 
 why from long custom he is not obliged to do it ; there 
 could not be a more fervent emulation as to who shall 
 absent themselves most frequently from divine service. 
 The bells ring through the still night air, and their 
 melody which awakes the choir men and the child 
 choristers, only lulls the canons to a peaceful slumber 
 and gives them pleasant dreams ; they rise late, go to 
 church, and receive a salary for having had a good 
 night's sleep. 
 
 If experience did not force us to observe it, could we 
 imagine that it is difficult formen to resolve toenjoytheir 
 rightful happiness ? that it is even necessary to have 
 an order of men who by preparing tender and pathetic 
 speeches, by appeals made eloquent by tears and ges- 
 tures, by violent and exhaustingaction, succeed after long 
 effort in persuading a reasoning Christian man who is 
 hopelessly ill to choose eternal salvation before his 
 soul's destruction ? 
 
 The daughter of Aristippus is dangerously ill ; she 
 sends for her father, wishing to be reconciled to him, 
 and to die with his blessing. Will this wise man, whose 
 counsel the whole town respects, grant this reasonable 
 request ? Will he go and take his wife with him, or 
 will the influence of the confessor be required to move 
 them? 
 
 A mother, I do not say one who submits and yields 
 before her daughter's evident vocation for a religious 
 life, but a mother who makes her daughter a nun, takes 
 upon herself the responsibility of another soul, and 
 should be warned that she is answerable to God for it : 
 if the daughter is not saved the mother is lost.
 
 268 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 A man gambles till he is ruined : nevertheless he gets 
 his eldest daughter married by giving her all he has 
 left as her dower, the youngest has to take the veil, 
 her only vocation being her father's gambling. 
 
 Some virtuous, fervent, healthy girls have had a 
 good vocation, but were not rich enough to make ;i 
 vow of poverty in a wealthy convent. 
 
 He who deliberates in his choice between an abbey 
 and a simple monastery opens the old question of a 
 popular or a despotic state. 
 
 To play the fool and marry for love, means marry 
 Melita, who is very beautiful, wise, and prudent ; whom 
 you love, and who loves you, but who is poorer than 
 jEgina, who is offered to you ; and who, with a rich 
 dowry, has also a rich disposition to spend it and your 
 own wealth along with it. 
 
 Formerly marriage was a delicate matter : it was a 
 long engagement, a serious affair, which deserved much 
 thought, for a man was the husband of his wife during 
 all the rest of his life, for better, for worse. There 
 could be no question of a separate establishment; with 
 a wife, children, and servants, a man could no longer 
 enjoy the delights of his bachelor days. 
 
 To avoid the company of a woman who is not your 
 wife is proper modesty ; and not to frequent the society 
 of persons whose reputation is open to attack, is not 
 beyond my comprehension ; but what false shame can 
 make a man blush to be seen in public with his own 
 wife, whom he has chosen for his inseparable com- 
 panion, and who ought to be his joy and delight, his 
 only society ; she whom he loves and esteems, who is
 
 SOME CUSTOMS. 269 
 
 his chief ornament, whose wit, virtue, merit, and 
 family, all do him honour ! Why did he not begin by 
 blushing at his marriage ? I understand the power of 
 custom, and how it tyrannizes over minds, and con- 
 strains manners, even without ground or reason. Yet 
 I feel I should have the impudence to promenade in 
 the most public place with her who should be my 
 wife. 
 
 There is neither shame nor disgrace in a young man's 
 marrying an old woman. He may do this from pru- 
 dential motives, or to preserve himself from something 
 worse. The infamy consists in treating his benefac- 
 tress unworthily, and forcing her to see that she is the 
 victim of a hypocritical, ungrateful man. If ever any 
 pretence is excusable it is in such a case to feign kind- 
 liness ; and if deceit be permissible, here is an occasion 
 when it would be cruel to be sincere. Even if she 
 lives longer than you expected, did you stipulate that 
 she should enjoy life only long enough to give her time 
 to make over her fortune to you, and pay all your debts? 
 After this work was completed, did you expect she 
 would have nothing more to do than to take a dose of 
 opium or hemlock, and lie down and die ? Is it a sin in 
 her to live ? If you were to die before her whose 
 obsequies you have so well arranged, even to the 
 bell-ringing and the funeral ornaments, would she be to 
 blame? 
 
 For a long time it has been the custom for men to 
 increase their wealth by bills and bonds ; this method 
 continues to be practised by some of the best men, 
 and condemned by our most learned divines. 
 
 You have a piece of silver or even a piece of gold, 
 but that is not enough ; it is quantity which will be
 
 270 LA BKUY&RE. 
 
 effective ; make more if you can, amass a fortune and 
 leave the rest to me. You have neither birth, wit, 
 talent, nor experience ; but no matter, keep up the pile : 
 and I shall place you so high that you may be your 
 master's equal, if you have one ; indeed, he must be a 
 very great man, if with all your precious metal 
 he does not some day lift his hat to you. 
 
 Oranta has had a lawsuit before the courts for ten 
 years, about the settlement of a very important affair 
 on which her whole fortune depends ; she may know 
 perhaps in five years more who her judges are to be, 
 and before what tribunal she is to plead for the 
 remainder of her life. 
 
 People seem to approve of a custom which has been 
 introduced into our courts of law, that of interrupting 
 the advocate in the middle of his speech, preventing 
 him ever warming into eloquence or wit, and forcing 
 him to confine himself to bare facts and simple proofs 
 to establish the rights of his clients ; and this very 
 rigid practice, which leaves an orator to deplore that 
 he had no opportunity to deliver the finest part of his 
 discourse, which banishes eloquence from its only 
 natural place, and is likely to make of our tribunal a 
 dumb show, is authorised by a solid reason against 
 which there is no appeal, namely, the quick despatch 
 of business. We can only wish that this reason were 
 oftener remembered in other places, that it held good 
 in other offices of the same court ; that it would put 
 some limit to written processes as it has done to 
 speeches at the bar. 
 
 The duty of a judge is to adminster justice ; his 
 trade is to delay it. Some judges know their duty, and 
 follow their trade.
 
 SOME CUSTOMS. 271 
 
 He who solicits his judge does him no honour ; for 
 he either mistrusts his wisdom and his probity, or 
 he seeks to prepossess him in his favour, and obtain 
 injustice. 
 
 There are some judges who even in a good cause 
 are prejudiced if interest, friendship, relationship, or 
 authority be brought to bear on them; they will rather 
 be unjust than appear corruptible. 
 
 A magistrate who is a gallant man does more harm 
 than a dissolute one ; the latter conceals his intrigues, 
 and we do not frequently find him out ; the former has a 
 thousand known weaknessess, through which he may 
 be attacked by any woman he pays court to. 
 
 Religion and justice are almost equally respected in 
 a republic, and the magistrate is almost as much an 
 object of veneration as the priest. A counsellor would 
 scarcely dance at a ball, be seen at a play, or forget 
 simplicity and modesty in his dress, without bringing 
 deserved contempt upon himself; and it is strange * 
 that it was considered necessary to pass a decree to 
 regulate his outward appearance, and force him to be 
 grave and to command respect. 
 
 There is no trade which does not require an appren- 
 ticeship ; and in rising from smaller conditions to 
 greater, there is always a certain time devoted to 
 learning and practising that which is to be a profes- 
 sion, a time when mistakes are of little consequence, 
 nay are rather helps to perfection. War itself, which 
 seems to be the product only of confusion and dis- 
 order, has its rules. Men have to learn to kill each 
 
 * A judicial rule obliged counsellors to wear neckbands instead 
 of cravats.
 
 272 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 other methodically ; there is a school for soldiers, but 
 where is the school for judges ? There are certain 
 customs, laws, and practices, but when have they time, 
 sufficient time to study them, to learn and digest them ? 
 A young man passes from school to the bar, his money 
 bags have made a judge of him,* and his first essay 
 is to decide authoritatively the lives and fortunes of 
 men. 
 
 1'he chief virtue of an orator is truth ; without it he 
 degenerates into adeclaimer. Hedisguises or exagger- 
 ates facts, libels, misquotes, espouses the animosity of 
 his client rather than the justice of his cause. He is 
 one of those advocates of whom the proverb says, 
 " They are paid to abuse." 
 
 It is quite true that sum is due to him, he has a law- 
 ful right to it ; but there is some small formality he has 
 to go through ; if he forgets that, he cannot persist in 
 his claim, and consequently he loses the money, 
 for he has undeniably waived his right ; now he 
 is sure to forget this formality. This is what I call 
 a lawyer's conscience. A good maxim for the law- 
 courts, and one which would be equally useful, reason- 
 able, and fair to the public, would be one exactly 
 opposed to that which makes formality outweigh 
 equity. 
 
 The rack is a marvellous invention, and an unfailing 
 method of ruining an innocent weakly man and 
 saving one who is robust and guilty. 
 
 The punishment of a guilty man is an example to 
 others ; the condemnation of an innocent man is the 
 concern of all honest people. 
 
 *In La Bruyere's time the position of judge was generally 
 obtained by purchase.
 
 SOME CUSTOMS. 273 
 
 I had almost said, as I am neither a robber nor a 
 murderer, I shall never be punished as such ; but that 
 is too bold an inference. 
 
 It is a very grievous thing for an innocent man to 
 be, through rash judgment, found guilty of a crime. 
 Even the position of his judge is not more deplor- 
 able. 
 
 If I were to be told that at one time the public 
 officer appointed to prosecute and root out thieves was 
 a person who knew them well, and was aware of their 
 misdeeds ; was, indeed, himself often so deeply involved 
 in their evil mysteries, that if some man of mark were 
 robbed of a valuable jewel at night, as he left a crowded 
 public place, this officer, to prevent a disturbance, 
 would cause it to be restored to him ; that one such 
 affair became so notorious that the courts interfered 
 and made a case against the officer ; I would look 
 upon such a story as one of those romances we read of 
 in history, and which time has made incredible. How 
 then can I believe that it may be presumed from fresh 
 events, known and proved, that such a mischievous con- 
 nivance exists at the present day, and that it is winked 
 at or disregarded. 
 
 Howmanymen there are who oppose strength to weak- 
 ness, are firm and inflexible against the solicitations of 
 the people, and, disregarding poverty, are rigid and 
 stern in trifling matters ; refusing all compliments, and 
 remaining uninfluenced either by relations or friends ; 
 men whom women alone can corrupt. 
 
 It is not absolu tely impossible for a person in great 
 favour to lose his cause. 
 
 T
 
 274 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 The last will of a dying man is listened to like an 
 oracle ; there are many disputes over it, each one in- 
 terpreting it in his own way, or, I should rather say, as 
 his desires and interests dictate. 
 
 Were there no wills to regulate the rights of 
 heirs, I doubt if there would be any need for tribunals 
 to adjudge the disputes of men ; judges would be re- 
 stricted to their dismal function of sending murderers, 
 thieves, and incendiaries to the gallows. Who are 
 those who dawdle about the chambers, crowding the 
 floors and vestibules of the courts ? Are they heirs at 
 law ? No, they are legatees, persons whose rights are 
 established, but who still argue the meaning of a clause 
 or of a word ; or disinherited persons who dispute a 
 will made after careful thought and deliberation by 
 some wise, good, conscientious man, assisted by able 
 counsel ; or they find flaws in a deed drawn up with 
 all the lawyer's usual phraseology and skill ; it is 
 signed by the testator and public witnesses, and 
 although every formality has been attended to, still, 
 perfect as it seems, it is rendered null and void. 
 
 Titius is present at the reading of a friend's will, his 
 eyes are red and tearful, and his heart is heavy with 
 grief at the loss of one by whose death he hopes to in- 
 herit a fortune. One clause makes him successor in 
 office, by another he inherits property in town, by a 
 third he is master of a country estate, while a fourth 
 bestows on him a house in the best part of Paris, fur- 
 nished and complete. His grief increases, unrestrained 
 tears flow down his cheeks ; he is now a public 
 officer with a place in the country and one in town, 
 able to keep a good table and drive a carriage ; " Was 
 there ever in theworld a kinder man than thedeceased?" 
 But stay ! Here is a codicil which must be read ; and by
 
 SOME CUSTOMS. 275 
 
 it Mcemus is sole legatee, and Titius is sent back to 
 obscurity without either honours or money, and is again 
 obliged to go afoot. He dries his tears, and it is now 
 M (emus' s turn to weep. 
 
 Does not the law which forbids murder include in it 
 poisoning, stabbing, burning, and drowning, assaults 
 and open violence ; all modes, in fact, of destroying 
 human life ? Did the law which deprives a husband 
 or a wife of the power of making over property to each 
 other not recognise that there are other less direct ways 
 of doing this ? Has it neglected to make provision for 
 these indirect ways ? Are trusteeships an evasion of 
 this same law, or does it even allow trusts ? 
 
 When a man dearly loves his wife, does he not 
 leave his wealth to a faithful friend with every feeling 
 of confidence, and in the certainty that he will make a 
 right use of what has been entrusted to him. Would 
 he entrust his estate to one in whom he had 
 not perfect confidence that he would restore it 
 to the person for whom it is intended? Does he 
 even require a written promise or any oath or 
 agreement from his friend about this private under- 
 standing? Have not all men a prescience of what 
 they may expect from each other in such circumstances ? 
 But since the property has devolved on this trusty 
 friend, can you tell me why he should lose his reputa- 
 tion if he kept it ? What grounds would there be for 
 lampooning or abusing him? Why should you call 
 him a defaulter, or compare him to a servant who robs 
 his master of money he is sent to deliver to some one? 
 It is quite unfair to do this; for where lies the odium in 
 not being generous and in a man keeping to himself 
 what is his own? A trusteeship seems to involve much 
 perplexity, and to have many intolerable burdens 
 attached to it. If through respect for the law a man 
 
 T 2
 
 276 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 appropriates the funds, he ho longer passes for an 
 honest man ; and if from respect to a deceased friend 
 he carries out that friend's intentions and restores the 
 legacy to his widow, he transgresses the law which 
 differs much from the opinions of men ; it may be, 
 however, that I should blame neither. 
 
 Typhon provides a certain nobleman with horses 
 and dogs, and many things besides, and is in return 
 patronised by the aristocrat, which renders him insolent, 
 making him assume that he can do what he likes in 
 the neighbourhood without fear of punishment ; so he 
 commits all kinds of crimes till at last the prince has 
 to take upon himself his chastisement. 
 
 Ragouts, liqueurs, entrees, entremets, are all words 
 which ought to be unintelligible and barbarous to us ; 
 and if they are not to be used in time of peace as only 
 tending to encourage luxury and gluttony, why are 
 they so well understood in times of war, or great 
 calamity, during a siege, or the night before a battle ? 
 Where do we find mention made of the table of Scipio 
 or of Marius ? Do we read in any record that 
 Epaminondas, Miltiades, or Agesilaus indulged in 
 delicate or costly food ? I should not like to hear a 
 great general praised for the taste, delicacy, or magni- 
 ficence of his table till after the subject of his victories 
 and bravery had been exhausted ; indeed, I should 
 prefer that a general be deprived altogether of such 
 praise.
 
 THE PULPIT. 
 
 PREACHING has now become a mere show ; that evan- 
 gelical gravity, which was the very soul of it, no 
 longer exists ; and a good manner and delivery, finely- 
 turned sentences, well-chosen words, and a long perora- 
 tion, supply its place. No one listens seriously to the in- 
 spired words. Going to church is one amusement among 
 many others ; preachers emulate each other, and the 
 hearers often make bets upon the best preacher. 
 
 Profane eloquence which, under Le Maistre, Pucelle, 
 and Fourcroy was a powerful influence, has been trans- 
 ferred from the bar to the pulpit, where it ought not to 
 exist. 
 
 Eloquent preachers vie with others even at the altar 
 and in the very presence of the holy mysteries. The 
 hearers judge him who preaches, condemn or approve, 
 and are no more converted by the sermon of the man 
 who pleases them than by the discourse of him they 
 condemn. The orator pleases some and displeases 
 others, but suits all in one point that as he does not 
 seek to make them better, so they do not trouble them- 
 selves to become so. 
 
 An apprentice is tractable, attentive to his master, 
 profits by his instruction, and at last becomes a 
 master himself. 
 
 The intractable man criticizes the discourse of the 
 preacher as he does the writing of the philosopher, and 
 so has neither religion nor sense.
 
 278 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 Till there shall again appear a man whose method 
 has been formed on the Holy Scriptures, who has 
 studied them deeply, and is able to explain them 
 simply and plainly, orators and declamators will be 
 popular. 
 
 Quotations from secular authors, cold allusions, false 
 pathos, antithesis, exaggerated symbols, are out of 
 date. Imagery will soon follow, and give place to a 
 simple exposition of the Gospel, accompanied by other 
 advances which will inspire conversion. 
 
 This man for whom I so ardently longed, but dared 
 not expect in our time, is at length come. The cour- 
 tiers from their cultivated taste and knowledge of pro- 
 priety approved of him, and, incredible though it seems, 
 they left the king's chapel and went with the people to 
 hear the Word of God preached by this apostolic 
 teacher.* The city was not of the same opinion as the 
 Court. When he preached there the parishioners deserted 
 the church, even the churchwardens disappeared, the 
 pastors remained, but the congregations dispersed, and 
 neighbouring orators thus increased their audiences. I 
 ought to have foreseen this, and not have said that 
 such a man had but to show himself to be followed, 
 but to speak to be listened to : I ought to have known 
 the indomitable force of habit in men and in all things : 
 and as for the last thirty years they have listened to 
 rhetoricians, declaimers, enumerators, they care to 
 run after those only who describe with exaggerated or 
 minute detail ; not long since such lively turns and 
 such witty expressions were used in sermons, that 
 they might have passed for epigrams ; this style still 
 exists, but softened, I own, till now they may be called 
 
 * Pere Seraphin, a Capuchin preacher.
 
 THE PULPIT. 279 
 
 madrigals. But it is still considered quite indispens- 
 able and geometrically necessary to provide three 
 subjects for consideration. A certain thing has to be 
 proved in the first part of the discourse, another in the 
 second part, and yet another in the third. Thus you 
 will be at once convinced of a certain truth, and this 
 is the first head ; of another truth, and that is their 
 second point : and further, you must be convinced of 
 a third truth, and that is their third point ; so that the 
 first reflection will instruct you in one of the funda- 
 mental principles of your religion, the second of another 
 similar principle, and the last reflection of a third and 
 last principle, the most important of all, which, for 
 want of leisure, is put off to another time ; finally, they 
 
 take up and abridge this division and form a plan 
 
 " More still," you say, " preparations for a discourse of 
 an hour longer ; the more they try to clear and unravel 
 all this the more they perplex me." I believe you. 
 indeed, and agree that it is the most natural effect of 
 all this mass of ideas which, while unmercifully burden- 
 ing the memories of the hearers, always come back 
 to the starting point. How those preachers pride 
 themselves on this method ! one would think that the 
 grace of conversion depends on such conditions: 
 nevertheless, how one can be converted by apostles 
 one can scarcely understand. I could almost ask 
 them in the midst of their impetuous discourse to 
 pause, breathe, and allow the congregation to breathe 
 also. What vain, useless words ! the time for such 
 homilies is gone by ; a Basil or a Chrysostom would not 
 restore them to favour, people would go to other 
 dioceses to escape from the sound of their voices, and 
 familiar lessons. The generality of men like phrases 
 and periods, admire what they do not understand, and 
 consider themselves clever in deciding between a first 
 and second point, or between the last sermon and the 
 last but one.
 
 280 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 Less than a century ago a French book was composed 
 of a certain number of Latin pages, in which a few lines 
 or words in our language might be found. Ovid and 
 Catullus were the arbiters in marriage settlements and 
 wills, and the Pandects guarded the rights of widows 
 and wards. No distinction was made between sacred 
 and profane authors, both were quoted, and had even 
 crept together into the pulpits ; St. Cyril and Horace, 
 St. Cyprian and Lucretius, spoke alternately ; the 
 poets expressed the sentiments of St. Augustine and 
 all the fathers ; for a longtime they discoursed in Latin, 
 even to women and churchwardens ; and Greek was 
 also spoken : much learning was necessary to produce 
 such bad preaching. Other times, other customs ; the 
 text is still in Latin, but the sermon is French, and 
 very fine French ; the Gospel even is not quoted : very 
 little knowledge is now required to preach well. 
 
 Scholasticism is at last banished from all the pulpits 
 of the great cities, and consigned to the small towns 
 and villages for the instruction and edification of the 
 ploughman and the vinedresser. 
 
 A man must have talent if he hopes to please the 
 people by a sermon of a florid style ; a sprightly 
 moral, frequent illustrations, brilliant passages and 
 lively descriptions are not enough. 
 
 A higher mind scorns such extraneous embellish- 
 ments as unworthy to advance the Gospel : he preaches 
 simply, forcibly, and as a Christian. 
 
 An orator paints certain sins in such bright colours, 
 introduces such delicate circumstances, endows him 
 who sins with so much spirit and refinement, that if 
 I have not a longing to resemble the portrait, I 
 at least reauire some teacher who in a more Christian
 
 THE PULPIT. 281 
 
 strain will disgust me with the vices which have been 
 so agreeably depicted to me. 
 
 A fine sermon is a piece of oratory perfectly regu- 
 lated, purged from all its faults, conformable to the 
 precepts of human elegance, free from all the embel- 
 lishments of rhetoric ; those who have clear under- 
 standings will not lose a single feature nor a single 
 thought, they easily follow the orator in all his conclu- 
 sions; it is an enigma for the people only. 
 
 What a deep and admirable discourse we have just 
 heard. How well the most essential points of religion, 
 and the most urgent motives for conversion have been 
 handled ; what a fine effect it ought to have had on the 
 mind and soul of every hearer. They are persuaded, 
 moved and touched to the point of resolving in their 
 hearts that this sermon of Theodorus's* is even finer than 
 the last he preached. 
 
 It is a mistake to preach an easy, lax morality ; there 
 is nothing in it to awaken or stimulate the curiosity of 
 the man of the world, who fears less than we think a 
 severe doctrine, and who even likes the preacher who 
 makes it his duty to proclaim it. It seems, then, that 
 there are in the church, as it were, two sides ; one 
 speaking the truth in all its breadth without fear or 
 disguise ; the other listening eagerly with taste, 
 admiration, and praise, and yet being made neither 
 better nor worse by it. 
 
 Theodulus has been less successful than some of 
 his hearers feared. They are pleased with him and 
 
 * Louis Bourdaloue, one of the most celebrated of French 
 preachers.
 
 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 his discourse, more so than if he had charmed their 
 minds and ears, for he has flattered their jealousy. 
 
 Preaching and war resemble each other in one 
 respect, there is more risk than in other things, and 
 success is more rapid. 
 
 If you belong to a certain rank or class, and feel you 
 possess no talent but for making dull discourses, preach, 
 deliver dull sermons. Nothing hinders success so 
 much as being unknown. Theodolus is well rewarded 
 for his ill-turned phrases and his wearying monotony. 
 
 Large bishoprics have been obtained by pulpit ora- 
 tory, which, however, have not always turned out so 
 valuable to a man as a simple canonry. 
 
 The indolence of women, and the habit which men 
 have of running after them wherever they assemble, 
 make the reputation of dull orators, and support 
 and sustain for a time those who are falling off in 
 popularity. 
 
 Ought greatness and worldly power to bring a man 
 praise in the pulpit of truth, and before God's holy 
 altar ? Ought such greatness to be extolled and cele- 
 brated at his obsequies ? Is there no other greatness 
 than that which is derived from authority and good 
 birth ? Why is it not the custom to eulogize a man 
 who, in his life, has excelled in goodness, justice, 
 gentleness, faithfulness, and piety ? What we call a 
 funeral oration is at the present day well received by 
 the majority of hearers, only according to the distance 
 they perceive in it from the Christian discourse ; or, 
 if you prefer, the nearer it approaches profane elo- 
 quence.
 
 THE PULPIT. 
 
 The orator looks for a bishopric through his dis- 
 courses ; the apostle seeks converts ; he deserves to 
 find what the other looks for. 
 
 We see some clerics return from a short sojourn in 
 the provinces as vain of the conversions which they 
 found already made, as of those which they could not 
 succeed in making ; already comparing themselves to 
 the Vincents and Xaviers, believing themselves to be 
 men of Apostolic merit ; their great works and success- 
 ful missions would not in their opinion be too well 
 rewarded by an Abbey. 
 
 A man on a sudden impulse, not having previously 
 thought about it, takes paper, pen, and ink, saying to 
 himself, " I am going to write a book ;" he is devoid of 
 merit, except the need of fifty crowns. In vain I 
 exclaim, " Take tools and saw, or turn, or make the 
 spoke of a wheel, and you will earn the price of your 
 labour," but he has not been apprenticed to those 
 trades. "Copy then, transpose, correct proofs, but do 
 not write ;" no, he wishes to write, to appear in print ; 
 and because one does not send blank paper to the 
 printer, he scribbles it over with anything he chooses ; 
 tells us that the Seine flows into Paris, that there are 
 seven days in the week, or that the weather is rainy ; 
 and as this is neither against religion nor the state, 
 and as it will do no further harm to the public than to 
 spoil its taste and accustom it to insipid, dull trifles, it 
 passes muster and is printed, to the disgrace of the 
 age, as if to humiliate good authors, nay, is reprinted. 
 In the same way a man resolves in his heart, "I will 
 preach," and he preaches ; behold him in the pulpit 
 with no other merit or vocation than his need of a 
 benefice.
 
 284 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 A worldly or irreligious cleric, if he ascends the pul- 
 pit, is an orator. There are, on the other hand, holy 
 men whose characters alone lead others to conviction ; 
 they appear, and a whole congregation prepares to 
 listen and is moved and influenced by their mere 
 presence. The discourse which they are about to deliver 
 will do the rest. 
 
 The Bishop of Meaux and Father Bourdaloue 
 remind me of Demosthenes and Cicero. Both masters 
 of pulpit eloquence have had the same fate as their 
 great models ; one has made bad critics, the other 
 bad copyists. 
 
 That proportion of pulpit eloquence which depends on 
 the talent of the orator is a secret known to few, and 
 difficult to attain ; what art is required to please and 
 persuade at the same time. You must follow the 
 beaten track, say what has been said and what you 
 are expected to say ; the materials are grand, but worn 
 and trite ; the principles are sure but the hearers at 
 once arrive at the conclusions ; sublime subjects 
 abound, it is true, but who can interpret the sublime. 
 There are mysteries which ought to be expounded, but 
 which are better explained by a lesson in the schools 
 than in an oratorical discourse. The morality even of the 
 pulpit, which comprises matter as vast and varied as 
 the morals of men, still turns on the same pivot, re- 
 produces the same imagery and prescribes itself limits 
 much narrower than satire ; for after the usual invec- 
 tive against honours, riches, and pleasures, there is no 
 more left to the orator than to hasten to the end of his 
 discourse and dismiss the assembly. If sometimes we 
 are moved to tears, let us analyse the genius and 
 character of the preacher, and perhaps it will be allowed 
 that our emotion has been caused rather by some per-
 
 THE PULPIT. 285 
 
 sonal interest in the matter preached than by the true 
 eloquence of the missioner. 
 
 The preacher is not supported, like the lawyer, by 
 ever new facts, by different events and unexpected 
 adventures. He doe not discuss doubtful questions, 
 lays no stress on strong conjectures and presumptions, 
 all of which help to exalt genius, and give it power 
 and latitude ; rather establishing and directing elo- 
 quence than restraining it. The preacher must, how- 
 ever, take his discourse from a source common to all, 
 and if he departs from these common paths he is no 
 longer popular ; he is either too abstruse or he is 
 declamatory, he does not preach the Gospel. He re- 
 quires only a noble simplicity, but that he must attain, 
 and it is a rare talent, and one beyond the capability of 
 most men ; for the genius, imagination, erudition, and 
 memory they possess is of no use to them ; it often 
 only hinders them. 
 
 The lawyer's profession is hard and laborious, and 
 he who exercises it must possess a fund of knowledge. 
 He is not merely primed like the preacher with a cer- 
 tain number of addresses, composed at leisure, and 
 delivered from memory, with authority, and without 
 fear of contradiction, which, with little alterations, 
 can be made to do him credit more than once. His 
 pleadings have to be spoken gravely before judges who 
 may command him to be silent, and in the presence of 
 adversaries who may interrupt him. He must be 
 quick and ready with his replies, able to speak in several 
 courts on different affairs in the same day. His house 
 even is no place of rest and shelter for him, nor a 
 refuge from his clients ; it is open to all who choose to 
 come and overwhelm him with their doubts and ques- 
 tions. He is no sooner in bed, refreshed and made 
 comfortable, than his room is crowded by people of all 
 conditions come to congratulate him on the grace and
 
 286 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 charm of his language, making him remember one 
 place where he nearly stopped short, or another case 
 in which he has been doubtful if his pleading was as 
 good as usual. His only repose after a long discourse 
 is to begin to write a long document ; he only varies 
 his labour. I dare to say he is in his way what the 
 early Apostles were in theirs. 
 
 Having thus distinguished the eloquence of the law 
 and the function of the lawyer, from the eloquence of 
 the pulpit and the office of the preacher, we can 
 easily see that it is easier to preach than to plead, and 
 more difficult to preach well than to plead well. 
 
 What an immense advantage an extempore sermon 
 has over a written one. Men are swayed by eloquent 
 gestures and by the solemnity of the congregation: if they 
 have been, even in a small degree, prejudiced in favour 
 of him who speaks, they will admire him and try to 
 understand him. Before he has well commenced, they 
 say to themselves, " This will be a good sermon ; " 
 then they go to sleep, and when he ends they wake up 
 and say, " What a splendid discourse ! " An author has 
 less power to affect people, and his book is read in the 
 retirement of the country, or in the quiet of a study. 
 There is no crowded meeting to extol him, no parti- 
 sans to sacrifice everything for his sake, and raise him 
 to a prelacy ; however excellent his book may be it is 
 read with the intention of finding it indifferent. It is 
 turned over and run through, then discussed and com. 
 pared. Unlike sounds, which are lost in the air andfor- 
 gotten, written words stand ; sometimes publication 
 is waited for impatiently only to condemn, and criticism 
 is the greatest pleasure some find in it. They are 
 annoyed to see passages on every page which ought to 
 please, they will even go so far as to lay down the 
 book at last because it is so good.
 
 THE PULPIT. 287 
 
 It is not every one who is fit to be a preacher ; 
 phrases, figures of speech, the gift of memory, the 
 gown and the oath of a divine are not things every one 
 desires or dares to appropriate, whereas every one 
 imagines he can think, and still better, express on 
 paper what he has thought ; therefore, he is not a fair 
 judge of another who thinks and writes as well as him- 
 self. In a word, the preacher is sooner made a bishop 
 than the most intellectual writer is advanced to a small 
 priory, and new honours are continually accorded to 
 the former, while the latter has to be contented with 
 his leavings. 
 
 If it happens that the wicked hate and persecute you, 
 good men advise you to humble yourself before God, 
 so that you may be preserved from the vain spirit 
 which might arise in you with the feeling that you are 
 not pleasing in the sight of such men. So when cer- 
 tain men, who habitually exclaim against indifferent 
 work disapprove of a book you have written, or of a 
 discourse you have delivered, be it at the bar, or in the 
 pulpit, or elsewhere, humble yourself, for there is no 
 greater or more personal temptation to pride. 
 
 A preacher ought, I think, in each sermon he 
 delivers to make choice of some great truth, one of the 
 deadly sins which may move to terror or yield instruc- 
 tion ; handling it deeply and exhaustively ; omitting all 
 the divisions and subdivisions which are so far fetched, 
 'involved and perplexing ; he should not take for 
 granted what is not the case, that the great and 
 fashionable world understands the religion it professes 
 or the duties it ought to perform. He should not be 
 afraid to instruct these grand, refined people in their 
 catechism ; let him employ the time others take to 
 write a long sermon in making himself master of his
 
 288 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 subject, so that his eloquence will flow from his heart 
 and soul, growing as he speaks ; let him after careful 
 preparation abandon himself to his own genius and to 
 the emotions a great subject will inspire him with. 
 Let him spare himself those great efforts of memory 
 which are more like reciting for a wager than a 
 solemn occasion, and which spoil all the grace of 
 delivery ; let him, on the contrary, by his own fine 
 enthusiasm shoot out conviction into souls and alarm 
 into hearts, and inspire his hearers with some other 
 fear than that of seeing him halt in his rhetoric. 
 
 Let not him who is not yet confident enough to forget 
 himself in the ministry of the holy word be discouraged 
 by the austere rules which are prescribed to him, as if 
 they robbed him of the means of showing his own 
 talent and attaining to the dignity to which he aspires. 
 What finer talent can a man possess than that of 
 preaching like the Apostles ? and what can better 
 deserve a Bishopric ? Was Fenelon unworthy ? 
 would he have missed his Prince's choice but for 
 another choice?
 
 OF UNBELIEVING MINDS. 
 
 Do those whom we call bold thinkers know that they 
 are so named in irony ? For what greater weakness 
 can exist than to be doubtful of the principle of our 
 being, of life, sense, knowledge ? and of how all these 
 things must end ? What can be more discouraging for 
 a man than doubts and questionings as to whether his 
 soul is material like a stone, corruptible as the 
 vilest worm ? Is it not bolder and greater to accept the 
 idea of a being superior to all other beings, by whom 
 all things were made, and to whom all things 
 must yield ; of a being supremely perfect, in- 
 finitely pure, who is from everlasting to everlasting, 
 and of whom our soul is the image, and, if I may dare 
 so to say, a part, being spiritual and immortal ? 
 
 Worldly, earthly, gross, I call those persons whose 
 minds and hearts are bound to one little portion of 
 the world they inhabit, which is the earth ; who 
 value nothing, love nothing beyond ; people whose 
 minds are narrowed to the limits of what they call 
 their own dominions and possessions. I am not sur- 
 prised that men, whose support is an atom, stumble 
 over the smallest efforts they make to fathom the 
 truth; with such short-sighted vision they are unable 
 to pierce beyond the heavens and the stars to God ; 
 and perceiving nothing of the excellence of that which 
 is spiritual or of the dignity of the soul, they are still 
 less sensible of any difficulty in satisfying its aspira- 
 tions, or of feeling how much the whole earth is 
 
 u
 
 290 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 inferior to the soul, and the longing the soul comes to 
 have for one supreme being who is God, or of the 
 absolute need of a religion which will show them God, 
 and be a sure pledge of His reality. On the contrary, 
 I understand very well that it is natural for such men to 
 fall into a state of unbelief or indifference ; and to make 
 use of God and of religion only when it suits their 
 policy, that is to say, as far as it serves to regulate 
 and improve the world, for this, according to them, is 
 the only thing worth thinking about. 
 
 Some men, after much travelling, end in being per- 
 verted, and lose the little religion left to them : 
 from day to day they meet with new forms of wor- 
 ship, new rites and ceremonies ; they are like the 
 people who go into a shop undetermined as to what they 
 wish to buy, and who are made more indifferent still 
 from the variety of choice offered to them ; each thing 
 pleases them in some way ; but they are unable to 
 decide, and come away without having purchased any- 
 thing. 
 
 A man should examine and prove himself well and 
 seriously before declaring himself an unbeliever, so that 
 he may at least act up to his principles, and die as he 
 has lived ; or if he does not feel his convictions strong 
 enough to carry him as far as this, he should resolve to 
 live as he would wish to die. 
 
 I should expect that those who act differently from 
 other people, and contradict the usually accepted prin- 
 ciples of mankind, should know more than other men, 
 and be ready with clear reasons and convincing argu- 
 ments. 
 
 Should a good, just, well-governed, sober man assert
 
 OF UNBELIEVING MINDS. 291 
 
 that there is no God, I should at least think his 
 judgment impartial; but such a man is not to be 
 found. 
 
 The difficulty I find myself in to prove that there is 
 no God makes me perceive the existence of one. 
 
 I feel that there is a God, and I do not feel that 
 there is none ; this is enough for me, all the world's 
 reasoning is useless to me. I conclude that God exists ; 
 this conclusion is in my nature. I received the principles 
 of my belief involuntarily in my childhood, and I have 
 preserved them too naturally in my later life to suspect 
 them of falsehood ; but there are m'nds which renounce 
 these truths. I question their existence, but if it be 
 so, this proves only that there are monsters. 
 
 There is no such thing as atheism. Great men who 
 are most apt to be suspected of it are too lazy to decide 
 in their own minds that there is no God. Their in 
 dolence is so extreme as to render them cold and in- 
 different on this important question, as also upon the 
 nature of their own souls and the significancy of a true 
 religion. They neither deny these things nor grant 
 them ; they never think about them. 
 
 Are men good, faithful, and just enough to deserve 
 our whole confidence, and not to make us wish for the 
 existence of a God, to whom we can appeal from 
 their injustice, and whom we can petition when they 
 persecute or deceive us ? 
 
 If it is the grandeur and sublimity of religion which 
 dazzles and confuses unbelievers, they cannot be 
 called freethinkers, they are only weak-minded, feeble, 
 geniuses ; if, on the contrary, it is its humility and sim-
 
 29? LA BRUYERE. 
 
 plicity which makes them reject it, they must indeed be 
 strong in their unbelief; stronger than all the great 
 and learned men who, nevertheless, were so faithful, 
 such as the Leos, the Basils, the Jeromes, and the 
 
 Ausrustines. 
 
 Man is born false ; truth is simple and honest, and 
 he desires gilding and ornament. Truth or reality is 
 not one of his natural qualities ; it comes direct from 
 Heaven in all its perfection, and man loves only his 
 own work, fiction, and fable. Just look how people 
 invent and add to a tale, and load it with vulgarity and 
 foolishness. Ask even the most honest man if his con- 
 versation is always truthful, if he does not sometimes 
 even surprise himself by the distortions he indulges in 
 through vanity or levity, if to make a story better he 
 does not often find himself making a few additions to 
 some event which seems to require a little more cir- 
 cumstance. Something happens to-day and, perhaps, 
 under our own observation. A hundred people who 
 have seen it will relate the fact in a hundred different 
 ways; what credence then can I give to the relation of 
 facts which are separated from us by so many cen- 
 turies ? What foundation have I for believing the 
 greatest historians? What is history? Was Caesar 
 really murdered before the Senate ? Was there ever a 
 Caesar? " What strange ideas," you exclaim; "what 
 doubts and questions ! " You laugh and think me 
 scarcely worth an answer ; and, indeed, I believe you 
 are right. But I must be assured that the book which 
 speaks of Caesar is not a profane book, written by the 
 hands of men who are liars ; that it was not found by 
 chance among other manuscripts containing histories, 
 some of which are true and others doubtful ; but that, 
 on the contrary, the book is inspired, holy, divine, that 
 it bears the marks of its holv origin, that it has been
 
 OF UNBELIEVING MINDS. 
 
 believed for nearly two thousand years by an innumer- 
 able society of men who have never all this time 
 allowed the smallest alteration in it, and who have 
 made of it a religion which they have preserved in all 
 its integrity ; that there is even a solemn and indis- 
 pensable obligation to believe in all the facts contained 
 in the volume which speaks of Caesar and his Dictator- 
 ship. Confess, Lucilms, you will doubt that there ever 
 was a Caesar. 
 
 All music is not fit for the praice of God, and to 
 be heard in the sanctuary. Every kind of philosophy 
 does not speak worthily of God, of His power, of the 
 principles of His mighty works, and of His Holy mys- 
 teries. The more subtle and ideal that philosophy is, 
 the more vain and useless to explain these things which 
 only require from men a right reason to be under- 
 stood up to a certain point, and which, beyond that, 
 cannot be explained at all. To pretend to give a per- 
 fect explanation of God, of His perfection, and, if I 
 dare so to speak, of His actions, is to go beyond the 
 ancient philosophers, the apostles, or first teachers of 
 the Gospel, without being so prudent or exact ; it means 
 searching long and digging deeply, and failing to find 
 the springs of truth. If we abandon the terms good- 
 ness, mercy, justice, omnipotence, which present to us 
 such sublime and beautiful ideas of God, we are only 
 able by great efforts of imagination to borrow dry, 
 barren, senseless expressions, to admit strained original 
 ideas, or at least, ideas which are subtle and ingenious, 
 and which, as they gradually teach us new metaphysics, 
 will take away our religion from us. 
 
 To what extremes will men not be carried in the in- 
 terests of a religion of which they are so little con- 
 vinced that they practise it so badly.
 
 294 LA BKUYERE. 
 
 If all religion is a respectful fear of the Divine Being-,, 
 what shall we think of those who dare to offend Him 
 in His delegate here on earth, who is the king ? 
 
 Were we to be assured that the secret motive of the 
 embassy from Siam* was to incite the most Christian 
 king to renounce Christianity, and to consent to their 
 priests entering his kingdom, who, being allowed to- 
 penetrate into our households, would try by their books 
 and discourses to persuade our wives and children, and 
 even ourselves, to accept their religion; afterwards, 
 raising their pagodas in our midst for the adoration of 
 their images, with what scorn and derision would we 
 listen to such an extraordinary project. Yet we our- 
 selves make a voyage of six thousand leagues for the 
 conversion of the Indies, and to teach Christianity in 
 Siam, China, and Japan ; that is to say, to propound 
 seriously to these nations doctrines which must appear 
 to them equally foolish and ridiculous. Nevertheless, 
 they endure our religion and our priests ; they listen to- 
 them sometimes, and allow them to build churches and 
 to perform their mission. What is the cause of this 
 difference in them and in us ? Does it not demonstrate 
 the force of truth? 
 
 It is not seemly that any kind of person should set 
 up his banner as almoner, and have all the beggars of 
 the town gathered round his door, each receiving his 
 alms. But, on the other hand, who is there among us 
 who does not know of some hidden case of dire neces- 
 sity which he is able to tiy to relieve either at once 
 from his own purse or through his mediation with 
 others ? In the same way all are not qualified to go 
 into a pulpit, and from thence to preach the Word of 
 
 * Sent to France in 1680.
 
 OF UNBELIEVING MINDS. 295 
 
 God ; but who at some time has not had it in his power 
 to try by gentle winning words to lead some erring 
 soul to believe ? If, during all his lifetime, a man has 
 taught the gospel message to only one man, he has not 
 lived in the world in vain, nor has he been but a cum- 
 berer of the earth. 
 
 There are two worlds : one in which our sojourn is 
 short, and which we must soon leave never to return 
 to again ; the other into which we must soon enter to 
 abide there for ever. Interest, authority, friends, a 
 great name, and great riches, are useful in the first ; 
 but scorn of them all is of the most use for the second. 
 It is our own concern to choose which is of greatest 
 importance. 
 
 He who has lived a single day has lived a century : 
 the same sun, the same earth, the same universe, the 
 same sensations ; nothing is more like to-day than to- 
 morrow. To die would be a new sensation, to be no 
 longer a body, but a spirit ; but man, impatient as 
 he is for novelty, has no curiosity to experience this 
 change. However restless and wearied he is of every- 
 thing, he is never tired of life, and would probably 
 consent to live for ever ; for what he sees of death 
 more violently impresses him than what he knows of 
 it. Sickness, pain, the grave, take from him the desire 
 to go to another world ; it requires all the earnestness 
 of religion to reconcile him to death. 
 
 Religion is either true or false. If it is no more than 
 a vain fiction, I grant that the honest man, the monk, 
 and the ascetic recluse, waste sixty years, but they run 
 no other risk ; therefore, if it is even founded on truth, 
 what an unutterable misfortune for the wicked man : 
 the mere thought of all the woe he is preparing for
 
 296 LA BRUYERE. 
 
 himself makes me miserable ; imagination is too 
 feeble to conceive it, words are vain to try to express 
 it. Even supposing our faith in the truth of religion 
 were less sure than it is, surely the paths of virtue are 
 the best. 
 
 I almost think that those who dare to deny God do 
 not deserve that we should strive to prove to them His 
 existence, or at least that I should handle the matter 
 more earnestly than I have already done in this chap- 
 ter ; the ignorance of their natures makes them in- 
 capable of understanding the clearest and most 
 natural inferences. Still I am willing that they should 
 read what I am about to write, provided they do not 
 persuade themselves that this is all one could say on 
 such a glorious subject. 
 
 Forty years ago I was not : neither was it in my 
 power that I should ever exist, even as now that I do 
 exist, I have no power to cease from being : therefore, 
 I had a beginning and I continue to be, through some 
 influence apart from me, and which will continue after 
 me, because it is better and more powerful than myself ; 
 if this something is not God, will you tell me what it 
 is? 
 
 You say, " Perhaps I exist as I am only through the 
 power of a universal nature which is and has been 
 from all eternity." But this nature is either spiritual, and 
 is God ; or it is material, and consequently could not 
 have created my soul ; or it is a compound of spirit 
 and matter : and whatever is spiritual in nature, I call 
 God. 
 
 Or again, perhaps, you add that what I call my soul 
 is only a portion of matter which exists through the 
 power of a universal nature, which also is material, 
 always was and will be for ever just as we see it now,
 
 OF UNBELIEVING MINDS. 297 
 
 and is not God; but at least you must admit that what I 
 call my reason, whatever it may be, is something which 
 thinks, and that, if it is matter, it is necessarily matter 
 which can think ; for no one will ever persuade me 
 that whilst I thus reason with you, there is not some- 
 thing within me that thinks ; now this something which 
 is in me and which thinks; if it owes its being and its 
 preservation to a universal law, which always was and 
 ever will be, which it acknowledges as its cause, must of 
 necessity be either a universal something which thinks, 
 or else a nobler and more perfect nature than that 
 which thinks ; and if this something thus formed is 
 matter, we must still conclude that it is a universal 
 material law which thinks, or that it is nobler and more 
 perfect than that which thinks. 
 
 To continue, I maintain that this matter, being such 
 as we have supposed it to be, if it be not chimerical, 
 but real, cannot be imperceptible to all our senses ; 
 and that if it is not apparent in itself, it would at least be 
 perceived in the diverse dispositions of those parts which 
 constitute all bodies, and which make the difference 
 between them. Matter, then, is itself all these different 
 bodies ; and since according to the supposition, matter 
 is a something which thinks, or is better than that 
 which thinks ; it follows that it is such at least as regards 
 some of these bodies, and consequently that it 
 thinks in stones, in minerals, in the earth and sea, 
 and also in myself, since I am only a body. I therefore 
 owe this something within me which thinks, and which 
 I call my soul, to the union of all these gross, earthy, 
 corporeal parts, which together form the universal 
 matter of this visible world ; an absurd argument. 
 
 If, on the contrary, however, this universal nature, 
 whatever it may be, cannot be all these bodies, nor any 
 of these bodies, it follows from that cause that it is 
 not matter, and cannot be perceived by any of our
 
 298 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 senses. If, nevertheless, it thinks, or is more perfect 
 than that which has the faculty of thinking, I still con- 
 clude that it is spirit, or something better and more 
 complete than spirit ; if, moreover, there remains no 
 more of that which thinks in me, and which I call my 
 mind, than that universal nature to which we must go 
 back to find its first cause and sole origin, inasmuch as 
 it does not find its principle in itself, and still less in 
 matter, as has just been demonstrated, I did not then 
 dispute about names, but this original source of all 
 understanding which is the soul itself, and which is 
 more excellent than all reason, I call God. In a word, 
 I believe then that God exists ; for that which thinks 
 within me I have not bestowed on myself, since it was 
 no more in my power to create it at first than it is now 
 to be the preserver of it for a single moment. Nor do 
 I owe this gift to a material being superior to myself, 
 since it is impossible that matter can be superior to that 
 which thinks; therefore, I must have received it from a 
 being who is superior to me, and who is not material, 
 and that Beinsr is God. 
 
 The soul sees colour through the medium of the eye, 
 and hears sounds by medium of the ear ; but if those 
 subjects or objects were removed, seeing and hearing 
 would cease, and yet being would not cease, because 
 the soul is not only that which sees or hears, it is that 
 which thinks. Now, how can such power cease ? It 
 is not from want of organism, since it is proved that 
 the soul is not material ; nor from want of objects so 
 long as there is a God and eternal truths ; therefore it 
 is incorruptible. 
 
 I cannot conceive that a soul which God has filled 
 with the idea of His infinite and all-perfect being can 
 be annihilated.
 
 OF UNBELIEVING MINDS. 299 
 
 Look, Lticilius, this spot of earth* is better cared for,, 
 more adorned than any of the other parts which are 
 near it. Here we find spaces watered by smooth as 
 well as spouting waters. There are endless sheltered 
 walks lined with fruit-laden palisades. On one side a 
 leafy wood, which shelters from the strongest sun, and 
 on the other a lovely view. Lower down a Yvette or 
 a Lignon, which once ran unnoticed among willows and 
 poplars, is now an adorned canal. There long, cool, 
 shady avenues traverse the fields and lead you to a resi- 
 dence built by the water's brink. Do you exclaim, " What 
 a lucky chance ! How many beautiful effects have 
 happened to unite here ! " No, on the contrary, you 
 will doubtless say, " How well all this has been con- 
 trived, arranged, and executed, what great skill and 
 intelligence have been displayed in this conception." I 
 agree with you, and would add that this must be the 
 dwelling-place of one of those men who, from the first 
 day they are in a place, think only of beautifying it. 
 And yet after all what is this piece of earth thus dis- 
 posed, and on the embellishment of which so much art 
 has been lavished, if all the earth be but an atom sus- 
 pended in the air, and if you pay any heed to what I 
 am about to say ? 
 
 You, LucilitiS) are placed somewhere on this atom of 
 earth, you must, therefore, be very small, for you 
 occupy so little space ; however, you have eyes which 
 are two almost imperceptible points : do not forget to 
 raise them towards the heavens. What do you some- 
 times see there ? Is it the full moon? She is beauti- 
 ful and very luminous, although her light is in reality 
 but the reflection of the sun ; she appears as large as 
 the sun and greater than the other planets, or any of 
 the stars ; but be not deceived by external appearance, 
 
 * Chantilly.
 
 300 LA BRUYf.RE, 
 
 for there is nothing in the sky so small as the moon ; 
 its surface is thirteen times smaller than the earth's 
 surface, and it is forty-eight times less solid. The 
 earth has four times its diameter of seven hundred and 
 fifty leagues, and the truth is, it is only its nearness to us 
 which makes it appear so large and brilliant, for its 
 distance from us is scarcely thirty times the diameter 
 of the earth, or about a hundred thousand leagues. Its 
 course is very insignificant compared with the vast 
 tour the sun makes in the firmament of heaven ; for 
 we know the moon's course is only five hundred and 
 forty thousand leagues a day ; this is equal to twenty- 
 two thousand five hundred leagues each hour, or three 
 hundred and seventy-five leagues a minute. In order to 
 accomplish this course, however, the moon must travel 
 five thousand six hundred times quicker than a post 
 horse, which covers four leagues in an hour ; she must 
 fly eighty times more rapidly than sound, than the 
 noise, for example, of a cannon, and of thunder, which 
 travels two hundred and seventy-seven leagues an 
 hour. 
 
 But indeed there is no comparison between the moon 
 and the sun with respect to its distance from us, its 
 size, or its course. Only think of the diameter of the 
 arth ; it is three thousand leagues ; that of the sun is 
 ahundredtimesmore; it must therefore be three hundred 
 thousand leagues. Now, if this be its extent, what must be 
 its surface, what its solidity ? Do you understand clearly 
 the immensity of this dimension, and that the earth a 
 million times over would not be larger than the sun ? 
 " What an immense distance, then, it must be from us," 
 you say, " if we are to judge from its appearance." You 
 are quite right, the distance is tremendous. It is com- 
 puted that the sun's distance from the earth is no less 
 than ten thousand times the diameter of the earth, or 
 in other words, thirty million leagues ; and it may even
 
 OF UNBELIEVING MINDS. 30 r 
 
 be four, six, or ten times further ; there is no exact 
 method of determining this distance. 
 
 In order to help your imagination to realize this, let 
 us suppose a mill-stone falling from the sun to the 
 earth : let us allow it to fall with the greatest speed 
 possible to conceive, a rapidity greater than any falling 
 body has ever attained, let us farther suppose that this 
 rapidity is maintained unceasingly and uniformly,, 
 never either gaining or losing in speed, that it travels 
 fifteen fathoms every second, which is half the height 
 of the highest steeple, and in a minute it advances 
 nine hundred fathoms. But to make this calculation 
 easier we shall make it a thousand fathoms, and a 
 thousand fathoms are equal to half a league, so in two 
 minutes the mill-stone would travel a league, and in an 
 hour, thirty leagues, and in a day, seven hundred and 
 twenty leagues ; now to reach the earth the stone 
 would have to travel thirty million leagues ; there- 
 fore it would take forty thousand, six hundred and 
 sixty-six days, which are more than a hundred 
 and fourteen years, to complete this journey. Do 
 not be alarmed, Lucilius, attend to what I say : the 
 distance from the earth to Saturn is at least ten times 
 that of the earth's distance from the sun, that is to say, 
 it cannot be less than three hundred million leagues, so 
 this stone would take more than eleven hundred and 
 forty years to fall from Saturn to the earth. 
 
 Now try to realize this elevation of Saturn, and if 
 you can, raise your imagination to consider the immen- 
 sity of his daily course. Saturn's orbit is more than 
 six hundred million leagues in diameter, and conse- 
 quently more than eighteen hundred million leagues 
 in circumference ; so that an English horse, which 
 would travel ten leagues an hour, would take twenty 
 thousand five hundred and fifty-eight years to make 
 this journey.
 
 302 LA BRUYfrRE. 
 
 I have not said all, Lua'iius, that could be said about 
 the wonders of this visible world, or, to use your fre- 
 quent expression, on the marvels of chance, which 
 only you will admit as the primary cause of all things. 
 There is yet another workman more wonderful than 
 you imagine ; try to understand chance, instruct your- 
 self in the power of your God. Do you know what a 
 small thing this distance of thirty millions of leagues 
 from the earth to the sun, and that of three hundred 
 millions of leagues from the earth to Saturn, is, com- 
 pared to the distance from the earth to the stars. No 
 one knows the height of a star, it is, if I may say so, 
 immeasurable ; angles, lines, and parallaxes, are useless 
 to compute it. If a man in Paris were observing a 
 fixed star, and if in Japan another man were looking 
 at the same star, the two lines which would reach from 
 their eyes to the star would not form an angle, but 
 would be confounded and mixed into a single line, so 
 far short of space is the whole earth in comparison 
 with this distance. But the stars have this in common 
 with Saturn and the sun : and I must add something 
 more ; if two astronomers, one on the earth and the 
 other in the sun, were observing the same star at the 
 same time, the two visual rays of these two astrono- 
 mers would not form a sensible angle. To explain 
 this otherwise, if a man were in a star, our sun, our 
 earth, and the thirty millions of leagues which separate 
 them, would appear to him the same point ; this is 
 clearly demonstrated. 
 
 Nor is the distance between one star and another 
 known, although to us they appear so close. The 
 Pleiades, judging from our sight, almost touch each 
 other, and in the line of stars which form the tail of the 
 Great Bear one star seems to lie on another; sight can 
 scarcely discern the space of sky which separates them, 
 to the eve it seems a double star ; now if all the science
 
 OF UNBELIEVING MINDS. 303 
 
 of astronomy is useless to discover the distance 
 between them, what can we conceive of the space 
 between two stars, which even to us seem remote from 
 each other, and what again of the two polar stars. 
 How tremendous the line which reaches from one pole 
 star to another, and how immense the circle of which 
 this line is the diameter. Is it not worse than trying 
 to sound a bottomless abyss to attempt to imagine the 
 solidity of the globe of which this circle is only a 
 section. Can we still be surprised that these stars, 
 though so immeasurably great, seem to us no larger 
 than sparks ? Shall we not rather admire that from such 
 a boundless height they still preserve a form and arc 
 not invisible ? There are many which escape our 
 vision. We fix the number of the stars, but how can we 
 number those which are unseen ; those, for example, 
 which make the Milky Way, that track of brilliant 
 light which from North to South on clear nights is 
 observed in the sky. Our eyes cannot pierce to their 
 infinite height, we cannot distinguish any particular 
 star as we gaze at that white and shining pathway in 
 the heavens. 
 
 We are placed then on this earth as on a grain of 
 sand suspended loosely in the air ; a multitude 
 cf fiery globes of infinite size are for ever revolv- 
 ing round this grain of sand, and for more 
 than six thousand years they have been crossing 
 the vast immensity of the heavens. If you prefer 
 another system, one no less marvellous, the world itself 
 is turning round the sun, the centre of the universe, 
 with inconceivable rapidity. I try to imagine to myself 
 all these globes, those alarming bodies always moving 
 on in such marvellous order ; with no confusion, no 
 coming into contact one with the other ; if the smallest 
 of them all were to deviate and but touch our 
 earth, what would become of it ? But all keep their
 
 304 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 places, remaining in their prescribed order, following 
 the paths assigned to them ; and this so quietly, as far 
 as we know, for human ears are not formed to distin- 
 guish any sound from that ceaseless march of stars, while 
 the ignorant scarcely know of their existence. Oh, what a 
 marvellous economy of chance : could intelligence even 
 have done better ? There is only one thing, Lucilius, 
 I cannot understand : these great bodies are so exact 
 and constant in their courses, in their revolutions, and 
 in all their relations to each other, that an insignificant 
 animal, confined to a corner of that immense space, a 
 corner which is called the world, having carefully 
 observed them, has evolved an infallible method of pre- 
 dicting in what degree of their respective courses all 
 these stars will be to-day, or two, three, four, or twenty 
 thousand years hence. Thisis my difficulty, Z7rJ: if it 
 is by chance that they observe such unchanging rules, 
 what is order? what are rules? 
 
 I would even like to ask you what is chance, is it a 
 body, or is it a spirit ? Is it a being distinguishable 
 from other beings, one having a particular existence 
 somewhere ? Or rather is it not a mode or a fashion of 
 being ? When a bowl runs against a stone, we say it 
 was chance ; but does that mean anything more than 
 that these two bodies accidentally hit each other? If 
 by this chance or this hit the bowl does not now 
 run straight, if its direct aim is weighted, if it no longer 
 rolls on its axis, but turns and whirls like a top, shall I 
 from this infer that from this same chance motion is in 
 general in this bowl ? Shall I not rather suspect that 
 the bowl owes motion to itself, or "to the impulse of 
 the arm which threw it." And because the wheels of a. 
 clock are regulated one by the other to a certain time, 
 shall I examine less curiously what may be the cause of 
 all these movements, if they act of themselves or 
 through the moving force of a weight which sets them
 
 OF UNBELIEVING MINDS. 305 
 
 in motion. But neither these wheels nor that bowl 
 have the power of producing movement of themselves, 
 nor could they change this motion unless they could 
 change their own nature ; it seems, then, that they are 
 moved otherwise, by some power which does not belong 
 to them. And the celestial bodies, if they could 
 change their motions, would they change their nature ? 
 Would they cease to be bodies ? I cannot believe 
 this. They still move, and if not of themselves and by 
 their own nature, we must search and examine, O 
 Lucilius, if there be not principle independent of them 
 which causes their motion; and whatever you may dis- 
 cover, I call this principle God. 
 
 If we could suppose these great bodies to be motion- 
 less, we should not require to ask who gives them 
 motion, but we should still be ready to ask who made 
 these bodies, as we should inquire who made these 
 wheels or this bowl ; and if each of these great bodies 
 were supposed to be but a heap of atoms which have 
 accidentally knit themselves into shape and form, I 
 would still take one of these atoms and I should say, 
 Who created this atom ? Is it matter or is it spirit ? 
 Did it conceive its own being before it came into 
 being ? Then it existed a moment before it came into 
 being ; it was and it was not at the same time ; and 
 if it be the author of its own being and of its manner 
 of being, why did it create itself a body rather than a 
 spirit? More than this, had the atom no beginning, is 
 it eternal ? is it infinite ? Will you make a God of this 
 atom ? 
 
 The mite has eyes, it turns aside from any object 
 that could hurt it. Place it on a black surface that 
 you may observe it better : if while it moves to the 
 other side you lay the most tiny straw in its way it will 
 alter its course. Now do you believe that the optic 
 
 x
 
 306 LA BRUY&RE. 
 
 nerve, the retina and the crystalline humour, which are 
 the mediums of light, are given to this little creature by 
 chance ? 
 
 God condemns and punishes those who offend Him. 
 He is the only Judge of His own motives ; this we 
 might resist if He were not Himself justice and truth ; 
 that is, if He were not God. 
 
 If you assume that every man in the world, without 
 exception, lives in plenty and wants for nothing, my 
 deduction from your proposition would be that no man 
 has plenty, that all want for everything. All wealth is 
 reduced to two kinds, money and land ; if all were 
 rich who would cultivate the ground and excavate the 
 mines. Those who live far away from mines could not 
 dig up their treasures ; and those who live in barren 
 lands which produce only minerals would not be able 
 to reap fruits from the earth. People would depend on 
 commerce, you suppose : but if all men had abundance 
 of wealth, and none were obliged to live by labour, who 
 would transport the gold and silver and all kinds of 
 commodities from one place to another ? Who would 
 prepare the ships and guide them across the seas ? and 
 who would convey goods by land ? Everyone would 
 be \n want of necessaries and of all useful things. If 
 there were no necessaries, there would be no arts or 
 sciences, no inventions, no machinery. Besides, this 
 equality in wealth would lead to equality in condition, 
 would banish subordination ; men would have to be 
 their own servants, and would render no help to each 
 other : law would be worthless, and useless, and 
 universal anarchy and violence would produce outrage, 
 murder, and impunity from the punishment of crime. 
 
 If, on the other hand, you would assume all men to 
 be poor, in vain the sun would shine on our horizon,
 
 OF UNBELIEVING MINDS. 307 
 
 warm the earth and render it fruitful; in vain the 
 heavens would pour out refreshing rains upon it, or the 
 rivers water it with streams carrying to all countries 
 wealth and abundance. In vain the seas, the rocks, 
 and the mountains open and let us dig into their depths 
 for all the hidden treasures they contain. But if you 
 will lay it down as a law that of all men scattered 
 throughout the' whole world, some must be rich, some 
 poor, and some intelligent, you will then bring about 
 another law, a law of necessity which will draw men 
 together and bind them in a union of fellowship and 
 content ; some to serve and others to obey, &nd some 
 to perfect labour and invention ; while others rule, pro- 
 tect, succour, and sustain, and enjoy ; thus order is 
 established, and God is manifested. 
 
 Some inequality in the conditions of men for the 
 maintenance of order and subordination is the work of 
 God, and sets forth the divine law. Any great dispro- 
 portion which we remark among men is their own 
 work, brought about by the law of violence. All 
 extremes are corrupt, and originate with man : the law 
 of compensation is just, and comes from God. 
 
 If these characters are not liked I shall be sur- 
 prised ; if they are liked, I shall be surprised even 
 more. 
 
 Henderson & Spalding, Printers, Marylebone Lane, W.
 
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 June 1890
 
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 THE MORALS AND MANNERS OF THE SEVEN- 
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 Translated by HELEN STOTT. 1 To'. With Portrait. 
 
 [June '2nd. 
 
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 WILLIAM SHAKP. With Portrait. 
 
 [July 1st. 
 
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 Xotes by CLEMKXT K. SHORTER. With Portrait of Goethe, aud 
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 A PRETTY RADICAL, 
 
 And Other Storict. 
 BY MABEL E. WOTTON. 
 
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 WORKS BY H.R.H. PRINCESS CHRISTIAN. 
 
 MEMOIRS OF WILHELMINE, 
 
 MAEGEAVINE OF BAIEEUTH. 
 
 Translated and Edited bj/ Her Royal Highness PHINCESS 
 
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 THE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE MARGRAVINE OF 
 BAIREUTH AND VOLTAIRE. 
 
 By Dr. GEORGE HORN. Translated by H.R.H. 
 PRINCESS CHRISTIAN of Schleswig-Holstein. 
 
 Demy Svo. Price 7s. 6d.
 
 SAPPHO: 
 
 cmoirs, Cai, untr Cranslat'um. 
 
 BV 
 
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 With Etched Portrait of Sappho and Autotype of Fragments 
 
 of Sappho's MS. 
 
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 THIS BOOK IS NOW OUT OF 1'UINT. 
 
 " A pretty volume, in which Mr. H. T. Wharton has collected all 
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 tions and imitations which have appeared since the time of Addison. 
 . . . The chief novelty of the book i a series of translations, 
 written expressly for it by Mr.'J. A. Symonds." Atfiena-uni, June 
 13i h, 1885. 
 
 " A valuable addition to clussical literature. . . . The work 
 cannot but prove interesting, both to scholars and to those whose 
 ignorance of Greek debars them Irom a study of the Lesbian's frag- 
 mentary works in the original." Graphic, June 13th, 1885. 
 
 " Tlie little book will be treasured by all lovers of poetry, and, we 
 may add, by all bibliophiles, for its intrinsic oemity. . . . As for 
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 22ud, 188(5. 
 
 Wherein the Excellence of Sweet Poesy Is concluded. 
 
 Edited from the Folio of 1598. 
 BY 
 
 ALFEED W. POLLAED. 
 
 With Portrait. Parchment, Fcap. 8vo. PRICE 7s. 6d. 
 
 J2 lited with great ca.re."Athenauni. 
 
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 WORKS BY REV. A. H. CRAUFURD. 
 
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 "Very thoughtful and often very wise essays. . . . Their 
 teaching is always f-ober. . . . His intellectual caution and 
 lucidity of thought are always remarkable." Spectator. 
 
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 BY MR. RENNELL RODD. 
 
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 This book is DUE on the last 
 date stamped below 
 
 
 Of C 22 13 16 
 
 - ... 
 
 i '73 
 281373. 
 
 7987
 
 3 1158 01154 1082 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACIUTY 
 
 A 000 048 540 9