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diff --git a/16937-h/16937-h.htm b/16937-h/16937-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7a1acf2 --- /dev/null +++ b/16937-h/16937-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1862 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Critical Miscellanies: Vauvenargues, by John Morley. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's Critical Miscellanies (Vol 2 of 3), by John Morley + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Critical Miscellanies (Vol 2 of 3) + Essay 1: Vauvenargues + +Author: John Morley + +Release Date: October 25, 2005 [EBook #16937] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRITICAL MISCELLANIES (VOL 2 OF 3) *** + + + + +Produced by Paul Murray, Luis Amador and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1>CRITICAL +MISCELLANIES</h1> + +<h4>BY</h4> + +<h2>JOHN MORLEY</h2> + +<p> </p> + +<h5>VOL. II.</h5> + +<h3>Essay 1: Vauvenargues</h3> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<p class="center">London</p> + +<p class="center">MACMILLAN AND CO., <span class="smcap">Limited</span></p> + +<p class="center">NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</p> + +<p class="center">1905</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CONTENTS_OF_VOL_II" id="CONTENTS_OF_VOL_II"></a>CONTENTS OF VOL. II.</h2> + +<table summary="Table of Contents" width="80%"> +<tr><td>CHAPTER</td><td align="right">PAGE</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#Page_1">The influence of Pascal</a></td><td align="right">1</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#Page_4">Vauvenargues holds the balance between him and the votaries of Perfectibility</a></td><td align="right"> 4</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#Page_4">Birth, education, and hard life of Vauvenargues</a></td><td align="right">4</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#Page_10">Life in Paris, and friendship with Voltaire</a></td><td align="right">10</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#Page_12">His religious sentiment</a></td><td align="right">12</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#Page_15">His delicacy, reserve, and psychagogic quality</a></td><td align="right">15</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#Page_17">Certain inability to appreciate marked originality</a></td><td align="right">17</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#Page_19">Criticisms on Molière, Racine, and Corneille</a></td><td align="right">19</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#Page_20">Comparison with English aphoristic writers and moralists</a></td><td align="right">20</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#Page_25">Character the key to his theory of greatness</a></td><td align="right">25</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#Page_26">His exaltation of spontaneous feeling, a protest against Rochefoucauld and Pascal</a></td><td align="right">26</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#Page_28">His plea for a normal sense of human relation, the same</a></td><td align="right">28</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#Page_29">His doctrine of the Will connected with his doctrine of +Character</a></td><td align="right">29</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#Page_33">Antipathy to ascetic restrictions</a></td><td align="right">33</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#Page_34">Two ways of examining character: that followed by Vauvenargues </a></td><td align="right">34</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#Page_36">Examples of his style</a></td><td align="right">36</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#Page_40">The beauty of his nature to be read in his face</a></td><td align="right">40</td></tr> + +</table> +<p class="center"> <br />[Transcriber's Note: Footnotes have been moved to end of book.]</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VAUVENARGUES" id="VAUVENARGUES"></a>VAUVENARGUES.</h2> + + +<p>One of the most important phases of French thought<a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a> +in the great century of its illumination is only +thoroughly intelligible, on condition that in studying +it we keep constantly in mind the eloquence, force, +and genius of Pascal. He was the greatest and most +influential representative of that way of viewing +human nature and its circumstances, which it was +one of the characteristic glories of the eighteenth +century to have rebelled against and rejected. More +than a hundred years after the publication of the +<i>Pensées</i>, Condorcet thought it worth while to prepare +a new edition of them, with annotations, protesting, +not without a certain unwonted deference of tone, +against Pascal's doctrine of the base and desperate +estate of man. Voltaire also had them reprinted +with notes of his own, written in the same spirit of +vivacious deprecation, which we may be sure would +have been even more vivacious, if Voltaire had not +remembered that he was speaking of the mightiest +of all the enemies of the Jesuits. Apart from formal +and specific dissents like these, all the writers who +had drunk most deeply of the spirit of the eighteenth +century, lived in a constant ferment of revolt against<a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a> +the clear-witted and vigorous thinker of the century +before, who had clothed mere theological mysteries +with the force and importance of strongly entrenched +propositions in a consistent philosophy.</p> + +<p>The resplendent fervour of Bossuet's declamations +upon the nothingness of kings, the pitifulness of +mortal aims, the crushing ever-ready grip of the hand +of God upon the purpose and faculty of man, rather +filled the mind with exaltation than really depressed +or humiliated it. From Bossuet to Pascal is to pass +from the solemn splendour of the church to the chill +of the crypt. Besides, Bossuet's attitude was professional, +in the first place, and it was purely theological, +in the second; so the main stream of thought flowed +away and aside from him. To Pascal it was felt +necessary that there should be reply and vindication, +whether in the shape of deliberate and published +formulas, or in the reasoned convictions of the +individual intelligence working privately. A syllabus +of the radical articles of the French creed of the +eighteenth century would consist largely of the +contradictions of the main propositions of Pascal. +The old theological idea of the fall was hard to +endure, but the idea of the fall was clenched by such +general laws of human nature as this,—that 'men +are so necessarily mad, that it would be to be mad +by a new form of madness not to be mad;'—that +man is nothing but masquerading, lying, and hypocrisy, +both in what concerns himself and in respect of +others, wishing not to have the truth told to himself,<a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a> +and shrinking from telling it to anybody else;<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> that +the will, the imagination, the disorders of the body, +the thousand concealed infirmities of the intelligence, +conspire to reduce our discovery of justice and truth +to a process of haphazard, in which we more often +miss the mark than hit.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> Pleasure, ambition, industry, +are only means of distracting men from the otherwise +unavoidable contemplation of their own misery. How +speak of the dignity of the race and its history, when +we know that a grain of sand in Cromwell's bladder +altered the destinies of a kingdom, and that if +Cleopatra's nose had been shorter the whole surface +of the earth would be different? Imagine, in a word, +'a number of men in chains, and all condemned to +death; some of them each day butchered in the sight +of the others, while those who remain watch their +own condition in that of their fellows, and eyeing +one another in anguish and hopelessness, wait their +turn; such is the situation of man.'<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> + +<p>It was hardly possible to push the tragical side of +the verities of life beyond this, and there was soon +an instinctive reaction towards realities. The sensations +with their conditions of pleasure no less than of +pain; the intelligence with its energetic aptitudes for +the discovery of protective and fruitful knowledge; +the affections with their large capacities for giving +and receiving delight; the spontaneous inner impulse +towards action and endurance in the face of outward<a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a> +circumstances—all these things reassured men, and +restored in theory to them with ample interest what +in practice they had never lost—a rational faith and +exultation in their own faculties, both of finding out +truth and of feeling a very substantial degree of +happiness. On this side too, as on the other, +speculation went to its extreme limit. The hapless +and despairing wretches of Pascal were transformed +by the votaries of perfectibility into bright beings +not any lower than the angels. Between the two +extremes there was one fine moralist who knew how +to hold a just balance, perceiving that language is +the expression of relations and proportions, that when +we speak of virtue and genius we mean qualities that +compared with those of mediocre souls deserve these +high names, that greatness and happiness are comparative +terms, and that there is nothing to be said +of the estate of man except relatively. This moralist +was Vauvenargues.</p> + +<p>Vauvenargues was born of a good Provençal stock +at Aix, in the year 1715. He had scarcely any of +that kind of education which is usually performed in +school-classes, and he was never able to read either +Latin or Greek. Such slight knowledge as he ever +got of the famous writers among the ancients was in +translations. Of English literature, though its influence +and that of our institutions were then becoming +paramount in France, and though he had a particular +esteem for the English character, he knew only the +writings of Locke and Pope, and the Paradise Lost.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> +Vauvenargues must be added to the list of thinkers<a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a> +and writers whose personal history shows, what men +of letters sometimes appear to be in a conspiracy to +make us forget, that for sober, healthy, and robust +judgment on human nature and life, active and +sympathetic contact with men in the transaction of +the many affairs of their daily life is a better +preparation than any amount of wholly meditative +seclusion. He is also one of the many who show +that a weakly constitution of body is not incompatible +with fine and energetic qualities of mind, even if it +be not actually friendly to them. Nor was feeble +health any disqualification for the profession of arms. +As Arms and the Church were the only alternatives +for persons of noble birth, Vauvenargues, choosing +the former, became a subaltern in the King's Own +Regiment at the age of twenty (1735). Here in time +he saw active service; for in 1740 the death of +Charles VI. threw all Europe into confusion, and the +French Government, falling in with the prodigious +designs of the Marshal Belle-Isle and his brother, +took sides against Maria Theresa, and supported the +claims of the unhappy Elector of Bavaria who afterwards +became the Emperor Charles VII. The disasters +which fell upon France in consequence are well +known. The forces despatched to Bavaria and +Bohemia, after the brief triumph of the capture of +Prague, were gradually overwhelmed without a single<a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a> +great battle, and it was considered a signal piece of +good fortune when in the winter of 1742-43 Belle-Isle +succeeded, with a loss of half his force, in leading by +a long circuit, in the view of the enemy, and amid +the horrors of famine and intense frost, some thirteen +thousand men away from Prague. The King's +Regiment took part in the Bohemian campaign, and +in this frightful march which closed it; Vauvenargues +with the rest.</p> + +<p>To physical sufferings during two winters was +added the distress of losing a comrade to whom he +was deeply attached; he perished in the spring of +'42 under the hardships of the war. The <i>Éloge</i> in +which Vauvenargues commemorates the virtues and +the pitiful fate of his friend, is too deeply marked +with the florid and declamatory style of youth to be +pleasing to a more ripened taste.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> He complained +that nobody who had read it observed that it was +touching, not remembering that even the most tender +feeling fails to touch us, when it has found stilted +and turgid expression. Delicacy and warmth of +affection were prominent characteristics in Vauvenargues. +Perhaps if his life had been passed in less +severe circumstances, this fine susceptibility might +have become fanciful and morbid. As it was, he +loved his friends with a certain patient sweetness and +equanimity, in which there was never the faintest +tinge of fretfulness, caprice, exacting vanity, or any +of those other vices which betray in men that<a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a> +excessive consciousness of their own personality, +which lies at the root of most of the obstacles in the +way of an even and humane life. His nature had +such depth and quality that the perpetual untowardness +of circumstances left no evil print upon him; +hardship made him not sour, but patient and wise, +and there is no surer sign of noble temper.</p> + +<p>The sufferings and bereavements of war were not +his only trials. Vauvenargues was beset throughout +the whole of his short life with the sordid and +humiliating embarrassments of narrow means. His +letters to Saint-Vincens, the most intimate of his +friends, disclose the straits to which he was driven. +The nature of these straits is an old story all over +the world, and Vauvenargues did the same things +that young men in want of money have generally +done. It cannot be said, I fear, that he passed along +those miry ways without some defilement. He +bethinks him on one occasion that a rich neighbour +has daughters. 'Why should I not undertake to +marry one of them within two years, with a reasonable +dowry, if he would lend me the money I want and +provided I should not have repaid it by the time +fixed?'<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> We must make allowance for the youth of +the writer, and for a different view of marriage and +its significance from our own. Even then there +remains something to regret. Poverty, wrote Vauvenargues, +in a maxim smacking unwontedly of +commonplace, cannot debase strong souls, any more<a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a> +than riches can elevate low souls.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> That depends. +If poverty means pinching and fretting need of +money, it may not debase the soul in any vital sense, +but it is extremely likely to wear away a very +priceless kind of delicacy in a man's estimate of +human relations and their import.</p> + +<p>Vauvenargues has told us what he found the life +of the camp. Luxurious and indolent living, neglected +duties, discontented sighing after the delights of +Paris, the exaltation of rank and mediocrity, an +insolent contempt for merit; these were the characteristics +of the men in high military place. The +lower officers meantime were overwhelmed by an +expenditure that the luxury of their superiors +introduced and encouraged; and they were speedily +driven to retire by the disorder of their affairs, or by +the impossibility of promotion, because men of spirit +could not long endure the sight of flagrant injustice, +and because those who labour for fame cannot tie +themselves to a condition where there is nothing to +be gathered but shame and humiliation.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> + +<p>To these considerations of an extravagant expenditure +and the absence of every chance of promotion, +there was added in the case of Vauvenargues the still +more powerful drawback of irretrievably broken +health. The winter-march from Prague to Egra had +sown fatal seed. His legs had been frost-bitten, and +before they could be cured he was stricken by +small-pox, which left him disfigured and almost blind.<a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a> +So after a service of nine years, he quitted military +life (1744). He vainly solicited employment as a +diplomatist. The career was not yet open to the +talents, and in the memorial which Vauvenargues +drew up he dwelt less on his conduct than on his +birth, being careful to show that he had an authentic +ancestor who was Governor of Hyères in the early +part of the fourteenth century.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> But the only road +to employment lay through the Court. The claims +even of birth counted for nothing, unless they were +backed by favour among the ignoble creatures who +haunted Versailles. For success it was essential to +be not only high-born, but a parasite as well. 'Permit +me to assure you, sir,' Vauvenargues wrote courageously +to Amelot, then the minister, 'that it is this +moral impossibility for a gentleman, with only zeal to +commend him, of ever reaching the King his master, +which causes the discouragement that is observed +among the nobility of the provinces, and which +extinguishes all ambition.'<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> Amelot, to oblige Voltaire, +eager as usual in good offices for his friend, +answered the letters which Vauvenargues wrote, and +promised to lay his name before the King as soon as +a favourable opportunity should present itself.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p> + +<p>Vauvenargues was probably enough of a man of +the world to take fair words of this sort at their +value, and he had enough of qualities that do not +belong to the man of the world to enable him to +confront the disappointment with cheerful fortitude<a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a> +'Misfortune itself,' he had once written, 'has its +charms in great extremities; for this opposition of +fortune raises a courageous mind, and makes it collect +all the forces that before were unemployed: it is in +indolence and littleness that virtue suffers, when a +timid prudence prevents it from rising in flight and +forces it to creep along in bonds.'<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> He was true to +the counsel which he had thus given years before, +and with the consciousness that death was rapidly +approaching, and that all hope of advancement in +the ordinary way was at an end, even if there were +any chance of his life, he persevered in his project of +going to Paris, there to earn the fame which he +instinctively felt that he had it in him to achieve. +Neither scantiness of means nor the vehement +protests of friends and relations—always the worst +foes to superior character on critical occasions—could +detain him in the obscurity of Provence. In 1745 +he took up his quarters in Paris in a humble house +near the School of Medicine. Literature had not yet +acquired that importance in France which it was so +soon to obtain. The Encyclopædia was still unconceived, +and the momentous work which that famous +design was to accomplish, of organising the philosophers +and men of letters into an army with banners, +was still unexecuted. Voltaire, indeed, had risen, if +not to the full height of his reputation, yet high +enough both to command the admiration of people of +quality, and to be the recognised chief of the new<a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a> +school of literature and thought. Voltaire had been +struck by a letter in which Vauvenargues, then +unknown to him, had sent a criticism comparing +Corneille disadvantageously with Racine. Coming +from a young officer, the member of a profession +which Voltaire frankly described as 'very noble, in +truth, but slightly barbarous,' this criticism was +peculiarly striking. A great many years afterwards +Voltaire was surprised in the same way, to find that +an officer could write such a book as the <i>Félicité +Publique</i> of the Marquis de Chastellux. To Vauvenargues +he replied with many compliments, and pointed +out with a good deal of pains the injustice which the +young critic had done to the great author of <i>Cinna</i>. +'<i>It is the part of a man like you</i>,' he said admirably, +'<i>to have preferences, but no exclusions.</i>'<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> The correspondence +thus begun was kept up with ever-growing +warmth and mutual respect. 'If you had been born +a few years earlier,' Voltaire wrote to him, 'my +works would be worth all the more for it; but at +any rate, even at the close of my career, you confirm +me in the path that you pursue.'<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p> + +<p>The personal impression was as fascinating as that +which had been conveyed by Vauvenargues' letters. +Voltaire took every opportunity of visiting his +unfortunate friend, then each day drawing nearer +to the grave. Men of humbler stature were equally +attracted. 'It was at this time,' says the light-hearted +Marmontel, 'that I first saw at home the man who<a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></a> +had a charm for me beyond all the rest of the world, +the good, the virtuous, the wise Vauvenargues. +Cruelly used by nature in his body, he was in soul +one of her rarest masterpieces. I seemed to see in +him Fénelon weak and suffering. I could make a +good book of his conversations, if I had had a chance +of collecting them. You see some traces of it in the +selection that he has left of his thoughts and +meditations. But all eloquent and full of feeling as +he is in his writings, he was even more so still in his +conversation.'<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> Marmontel felt sincere grief when +Vauvenargues died, and in the <i>Epistle to Voltaire</i> +expressed his sorrow in some fair lines. They +contain the happy phrase applied to Vauvenargues, +'<i>ce cœur stoïque et tendre</i>.'<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p> + +<p>In religious sentiment Vauvenargues was out of +the groove of his time. That is to say, he was not +unsusceptible of religion. Accepting no dogma, so +far as we can judge, and complying with no observances, +very faint and doubtful as to even the fundamentals—God, +immortality, and the like—he never +partook of the furious and bitter antipathy of the +best men of that century against the church, its +creeds, and its book. At one time, as will be seen +from a passage which will be quoted by and by, his +leanings were towards that vague and indefinable<a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a> +doctrine which identifies God with all the forces and +their manifestations in the universe. Afterwards even +this adumbration of a theistic explanation of the +world seems to have passed from him, and he lived, +as many other not bad men have lived, with that fair +working substitute for a religious doctrine which is +provided in the tranquil search, or the acceptance in +a devotional spirit, of all larger mortal experiences +and higher human impressions. There is a <i>Meditation +on the Faith</i>, including a <i>Prayer</i>, among his writings; +and there can be little doubt, in spite of Condorcet's +incredible account of the circumstances of its composition, +that it is the expression of what was at the time +a sincere feeling.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> It is, however, rather the straining +and ecstatic rhapsody of one who ardently seeks +faith, than the calm and devout assurance of him who +already possesses it. Vauvenargues was religious by +temperament, but he could not entirely resist the +intellectual influences of the period. The one fact +delivered him from dogma and superstition, and the +other from scoffing and harsh unspirituality. He saw +that apart from the question of the truth or falsehood +of its historic basis, there was a balance to be struck +between the consolations and the afflictions of the +faith.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> Practically he was content to leave this +balance unstruck, and to pass by on the other side. +Scarcely any of his maxims concern religion. One of +these few is worth quoting, where he says: 'The +strength or weakness of our belief depends more on<a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a> +our courage than our light; not all those who mock +at auguries have more intellect than those who believe +in them.'<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p> + +<p>The end came in the spring of 1747, when Vauvenargues +was no more than thirty-two. Perhaps, in +spite of his physical miseries, these two years in Paris +were the least unhappy time in his life. He was in +the great centre where the fame which he longed for +was earned and liberally awarded. A year of intercourse +with so full and alert and brilliant a mind as +Voltaire's, must have been more to one so appreciative +of mental greatness as Vauvenargues, than many years +of intercourse with subalterns in the Regiment of the +King. With death, now known to be very near at +hand, he had made his account before. 'To execute +great things,' he had written in a maxim which gained +the lively praise of Voltaire, 'a man must live as +though he had never to die.'<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> This mood was +common among the Greeks and Romans; but the +religion which Europe accepted in the time of its +deepest corruption and depravation, retained the +mark of its dismal origin nowhere so strongly as in +the distorted prominence which it gave in the minds +of its votaries to the dissolution of the body. It was<a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a> +one of the first conditions of the Revival of Reason +that the dreary <i>memento mori</i> and its hateful emblems +should be deliberately effaced. 'The thought of +death,' said Vauvenargues, 'leads us astray, because +it makes us forget to live.' He did not understand +living in the sense which the dissolute attach to it. +The libertinism of his regiment called no severe +rebuke from him, but his meditative temper drew him +away from it even in his youth. It is not impossible +that if his days had not been cut short, he might +have impressed Parisian society with ideas and a +sentiment, that would have left to it all its cheerfulness, +and yet prevented that laxity which so fatally +weakened it. Turgot, the only other conspicuous +man who could have withstood the license of the +time, had probably too much of that austerity which +is in the fibre of so many great characters, to make +any moral counsels that he might have given widely +effective.</p> + +<p>Vauvenargues was sufficiently free from all taint +of the pedagogue or the preacher to have dispelled +the sophisms of licence, less by argument than by the +gracious attraction of virtue in his own character. +The stock moralist, like the commonplace orator of +the pulpit, fails to touch the hearts of men or to +affect their lives, for lack of delicacy, of sympathy, +and of freshness; he attempts to compensate for this +by excess of emphasis, and that more often disgusts +us than persuades. Vauvenargues, on the other +hand, is remarkable for delicacy and half-reserved<a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a> +tenderness. Everything that he has said is coloured +and warmed with feeling for the infirmities of men. +He writes not merely as an analytical outsider. +Hence, unlike most moralists, he is no satirist. He +had borne the burdens. 'The looker-on,' runs one of +his maxims, 'softly lying in a carpeted chamber, +inveighs against the soldier, who passes winter nights +on the river's edge, and keeps watch in silence over +the safety of the land.'<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> Vauvenargues had been +something very different from the safe and sheltered +critic of other men's battles, and this is the secret of +the hold which his words have upon us. They are +real, with the reality that can only come from two +sources; from high poetic imagination, which Vauvenargues +did not possess, or else from experience of life +acting on and strengthening a generous nature. 'The +cause of most books of morality being so insipid,' he +says, 'is that their authors are not sincere; is that, +being feeble echoes of one another, they could not +venture to publish their own real maxims and private +sentiments.'<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> One of the secrets of his own freedom +from this ordinary insipidity of moralists was his +freedom also from their pretentiousness and insincerity.</p> + +<p>Besides these positive merits, he had, as we have +said, the negative distinction of never being emphatic. +His sayings are nearly always moderate and persuasive, +alike in sentiment and in phrase. Sometimes +they are almost tentative in the diffidence of their turn.<a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a> +Compared with him La Rochefoucauld's manner is +hard, and that of La Bruyère sententious. In the +moralist who aspires to move and win men by their +best side instead of their worst, the absence of this +hardness and the presence of a certain lambency and +play even in the exposition of truths of perfect assurance, +are essential conditions of psychagogic quality. +In religion such law does not hold, and the contagion +of fanaticism is usually most rapidly spread by a +rigorous and cheerless example.</p> + +<p>We may notice in passing that Vauvenargues has +the defects of his qualities, and that with his aversion +to emphasis was bound up a certain inability to appreciate +even grandeur and originality, if they were too +strongly and boldly marked. 'It is easy to criticise +an author,' he has said, 'but hard to estimate him.'<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> +This was never more unfortunately proved than in +the remarks of Vauvenargues himself upon the great +Molière. There is almost a difficulty in forgiving a +writer who can say that 'La Bruyère, animated with +nearly the same genius, painted the crookedness of +men with as much truth and as much force as Molière; +but I believe that there is more eloquence and more +elevation to be found in La Bruyère's images.'<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> Without +at all undervaluing La Bruyère, one of the acutest +and finest of writers, we may say that this is a truly +disastrous piece of criticism. Quite as unhappy is the +preference given to Racine over Molière, not merely +for the conclusion arrived at, but for the reasons on<a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a> +which it is founded. Molière's subjects, we read, are +low, his language negligent and incorrect, his characters +bizarre and eccentric. Racine, on the other +hand, takes sublime themes, presents us with noble +types, and writes with simplicity and elegance. It +is not enough to concede to Racine the glory of art, +while giving to Molière or Corneille the glory of genius. +'When people speak of the art of Racine—the art +which puts things in their place; which characterises +men, their passions, manners, genius; which banishes +obscurities, superfluities, false brilliancies; which +paints nature with fire, sublimity, and grace—what +can we think of such art as this, except that it is the +genius of extraordinary men, and the origin of those +rules that writers without genius embrace with so +much zeal and so little success?'<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> And it is certainly +true that the art of Racine implied genius. The +defect of the criticism lies, as usual, in a failure to see +that there is glory enough in both; in the art of +highly-finished composition and presentation, and in +the art of bold and striking creation. Yet Vauvenargues +was able to discern the secret of the popularity +of Molière, and the foundation of the common opinion +that no other dramatist had carried his own kind of +art so far as Molière had carried his; 'the reason is, +I fancy, that he is more natural than any of the +others, and this is an important lesson for everybody +who wishes to write.'<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> He did not see how nearly +everything went in this concession, that Molière was,<a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a> +above all, natural. With equal truth of perception +he condemned the affectation of grandeur lent by the +French tragedians to classical personages who were +in truth simple and natural, as the principal defect +of the national drama, and the common rock on which +their poets made shipwreck.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> Let us, however, +rejoice for the sake of the critical reputation of +Vauvenargues that he was unable to read Shakespeare. +One for whom Molière is too eccentric, +grotesque, inelegant, was not likely to do much +justice to the mightiest but most irregular of all +dramatists.</p> + +<p>A man's prepossessions in dramatic poetry, supposing +him to be cultivated enough to have any prepossessions, +furnish the most certain clue that we can +get to the spirit in which he inwardly regards character +and conduct. The uniform and reasoned preference +which Vauvenargues had for Racine over +Molière and Corneille, was only the transfer to art of +that balanced, moderate, normal, and emphatically +harmonious temper, which he brought to the survey +of human nature. Excess was a condition of thought, +feeling, and speech, that in every form was disagreeable +to him; alike in the gloom of Pascal's reveries, +and in the inflation of speech of some of the heroes +of Corneille. He failed to relish even Montaigne as +he ought to have done, because Montaigne's method +was too prolix, his scepticism too universal, his egoism +too manifest, and because he did not produce complete<a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a> +and artistic wholes.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p> + +<p>Reasonableness is the strongest mark in Vauvenargues' +thinking; balance, evenness, purity of vision, +penetration finely toned with indulgence. He is never +betrayed into criticism of men from the point of view +of immutable first principles. Perhaps this was what +the elder Mirabeau meant when he wrote to Vauvenargues, +who was his cousin: 'You have the English +genius to perfection,' and what Vauvenargues meant +when he wrote of himself to Mirabeau: 'Nobody in +the world has a mind less French than I.'<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> These +international comparisons are among the least fruitful +of literary amusements, even when they happen +not to be extremely misleading; as when, for example, +Voltaire called Locke the English Pascal, a description +which can only be true on condition that the +qualifying adjective is meant to strip either Locke or +Pascal of most of his characteristic traits. And if we +compare Vauvenargues with any of our English aphoristic +writers, there is not resemblance enough to +make the contrast instructive. The obvious truth is +that in this department our literature is particularly +weak, while French literature is particularly strong in +it. With the exception of Bacon, we have no writer +of apophthegms of the first order; and the difference +between Bacon as a moralist and Pascal or Vauvenargues, +is the difference between Polonius's famous +discourse to Laertes and the soliloquy of Hamlet.</p> + +<p>Bacon's precepts refer rather to external conduct and<a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a> +worldly fortune than to the inner composition of character, +or to the 'wide, gray, lampless' depths of +human destiny. We find the same national characteristic, +though on an infinitely lower level, in Franklin's +oracular saws. Among the French sages a psychological +element is predominant, as well as an occasional +transcendent loftiness of feeling, not to be found +in Bacon's wisest maxims, and from his point of view +in their composition we could not expect to find +them there. We seek in vain amid the positivity of +Bacon, or the quaint and timorous paradox of Browne, +or the acute sobriety of Shaftesbury, for any of that +poetic pensiveness which is strong in Vauvenargues, +and reaches tragic heights in Pascal.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a>Addison may +have the delicacy of Vauvenargues, but it is a delicacy +that wants the stir and warmth of feeling. It seems +as if with English writers poetic sentiment naturally +sought expression in poetic forms, while the Frenchmen +of nearly corresponding temperament were restrained +within the limits of prose by reason of the +vigorously prescribed stateliness and stiffness of their +verse at that time. A man in this country with the +quality of Vauvenargues, with his delicacy, tenderness, +elevation, would have composed lyrics. We +have undoubtedly lost much by the laxity and irregularity<a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a> +of our verse, but as undoubtedly we owe to +its freedom some of the most perfect and delightful +of the minor figures that adorn the noble gallery of +English poets.</p> + +<p>It would be an error to explain the superiority of +the great French moralists by supposing in them a +fancy and imagination too defective for poetic art. It +was the circumstances of the national literature during +the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries which made +Vauvenargues for instance a composer of aphorisms, +rather than a moral poet like Pope. Let us remember +some of his own most discriminating words. 'Who +has more imagination,' he asks, 'than Bossuet, Montaigne, +Descartes, Pascal, all of them great philosophers? +Who more judgment and wisdom than Racine, Boileau, +La Fontaine, Molière, all of them poets full of genius? +<i>It is not true, then, that the ruling qualities exclude the +others; on the contrary, they suppose them.</i> I should be +much surprised if a great poet were without vivid +lights on philosophy, at any rate moral philosophy, and +it will very seldom happen for a true philosopher to +be totally devoid of imagination.'<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> With imagination +in the highest sense Vauvenargues was not largely +endowed, but he had as much as is essential to reveal +to one that the hard and sober-judging faculty is not +the single, nor even the main element, in a wise and +full intelligence. 'All my philosophy,' he wrote to +Mirabeau, when only four or five and twenty years +old, an age when the intellect is usually most exigent<a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a> +of supremacy, 'all my philosophy has its source in my +heart.'<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a></p> + +<p>In the same spirit he had well said that there is +more cleverness in the world than greatness of soul, +more people with talent than with lofty character.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> +Hence some of the most peculiarly characteristic and +impressive of his aphorisms; that famous one, for +instance, '<i>Great thoughts come from the heart,</i>' and the +rest which hang upon the same idea. 'Virtuous +instinct has no need of reason, but supplies it.' +'Reason misleads us more often than nature.' 'Reason +does not know the interests of the heart.' 'Perhaps +we owe to the passions the greatest advantages of the +intellect.' Such sayings are only true on condition +that instinct and nature and passion have been already +moulded under the influence of reason; just as this +other saying, which won the warm admiration of +Voltaire, '<i>Magnanimity owes no account of its motives to +prudence</i>,' is only true on condition that by magnanimity +we understand a mood not out of accord with +the loftiest kind of prudence.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> But in the eighteenth +century reason and prudence were words current in +their lower and narrower sense, and thus one coming<a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a> +like Vauvenargues to see this lowness and narrowness, +sought to invest ideas and terms that in fact only +involved modifications of these, with a significance of +direct antagonism. Magnanimity was contrasted +inimically with prudence, and instinct and nature +were made to thrust from their throne reason and +reflection. Carried to its limit, this tendency developed +the speculative and social excesses of the +great sentimental school. In Vauvenargues it was +only the moderate, just, and most seasonable protest +of a fine observer, against the supremacy among ideals +of a narrow, deliberative, and calculating spirit.</p> + +<p>His exaltation of virtuous instinct over reason is +in a curious way parallel to Burke's memorable exaltation +over reason of prejudice. 'Prejudice,' said +Burke, 'previously engages the mind in a steady +course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the +man hesitating in the moment of decision, sceptical, +puzzled, and unresolved. Prejudice renders a man's +virtue his habit, and not a series of unconnected acts; +through just prejudice his duty becomes a part of +his nature.'<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> What Burke designated as prejudice, +Vauvenargues less philosophically styled virtuous instinct; +each meant precisely the same thing, though +the difference of phrase implied a different view of its +origin and growth: and the side opposite to each of +them was the same—namely, a sophisticated and +over-refining intelligence, narrowed to the consideration +of particular circumstances as they presented<a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a> +themselves.</p> + +<p>Translated into the modern equivalent, the heart, +nature, instinct of Vauvenargues all mean <i>character</i>. +He insisted upon spontaneous impulse as a condition +of all greatest thought and action. Men think and +work on the highest level when they move without +conscious and deliberate strain after virtue: when, in +other words, their habitual motives, aims, methods, +their character, in short, naturally draw them into +the region of what is virtuous. '<i>It is by our ideas +that we ennoble our passions or we debase them; they +rise high or sink low according to the man's soul</i>.'<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> All +this has ceased to be new to our generation, but a +hundred and thirty years ago, and indeed much nearer +to us than that, the key to all nobleness was thought +to be found only by cool balancing and prudential +calculation. A book like <i>Clarissa Harlowe</i> shows us +this prudential and calculating temper underneath a +varnish of sentimentalism and fine feelings, an incongruous +and extremely displeasing combination, particularly +characteristic of certain sets and circles in +that century. One of the distinctions of Vauvenargues +is that exaltation of sentiment did not with +him cloak a substantial adherence to a low prudence, +nor to that fragment of reason which has so constantly +usurped the name and place of the whole. He +eschewed the too common compromise which the +sentimentalist makes with reflection and calculation, +and it was this which saved him from being a sentimentalist.</p> + +<p>That doctrine of the predominance of the heart<a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a> +over the head, which has brought forth so many pernicious +and destructive fantasies in the history of +social thought, represented in his case no more than a +reaction against the great detractors of humanity. +Rochefoucauld had surveyed mankind exclusively +from the point of their vain and egoistic propensities, +and his aphorisms are profoundly true of all persons +in whom these propensities are habitually supreme, +and of all the world in so far as these propensities +happen to influence them. Pascal, on the one hand, +leaving the affections and inclinations of a man very +much on one side, had directed all his efforts to showing +the pitiful feebleness and incurable helplessness +of man in the sphere of the understanding. Vauvenargues +is thus confronted by two sinister pictures of +humanity—the one of its moral meanness and littleness, +the other of its intellectual poverty and impotency. +He turned away from both of them, and found +in magnanimous and unsophisticated feeling, of which +he was conscious in himself and observant in others, +a compensation alike for the selfishness of some men +and the intellectual limitations of all men. This +compensation was ample enough to restore the human +self-respect that Pascal and Rochefoucauld had done +their best to weaken.</p> + +<p>The truth in that disparagement was indisputable +so far as it went. It was not a kind of truth, however, +on which it is good for the world much to dwell,<a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a> +and it is the thinkers like Vauvenargues who build +up and inspire high resolve. 'Scarcely any maxim,' +runs one of his own, 'is true in all respects.'<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> We +must take them in pairs to find out the mean truth; +and to understand the ways of men, so far as words +about men can help us, we must read with appreciation +not only Vauvenargues, who said that great thoughts +come from the heart, but La Rochefoucauld, who +called the intelligence the dupe of the heart, and +Pascal, who saw only desperate creatures, miserably +perishing before one another's eyes in the grim dungeon +of the universe. Yet it is the observer in the spirit +of Vauvenargues, of whom we must always say that +he has chosen the better part. Vauvenargues' own +estimate was sound. 'The Duke of La Rochefoucauld +seized to perfection the weak side of human nature; +maybe he knew its strength too; and only contested +the merit of so many splendid actions in order to +unmask false wisdom. Whatever his design, the +effect seems to me mischievous; his book, filled with +delicate invective against hypocrisy, even to this day +turns men away from virtue, by persuading them that +it is never genuine.'<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> Or, as he put it elsewhere, +without express personal reference: 'You must arouse +in men the feeling of their prudence and strength, if +you would raise their character; those who only apply +themselves to bring out the absurdities and weaknesses +of mankind, enlighten the judgment of the public far +less than they deprave its inclination.'<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> This principle<a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a> +was implied in Goethe's excellent saying, that if +you would improve a man, it is best to begin by persuading +him that he is already that which you would +have him to be.</p> + +<p>To talk in this way was to bring men out from +the pits which cynicism on the one side, and asceticism +on the other, had dug so deep for them, back to the +warm precincts of the cheerful day. The cynic and +the ascetic had each looked at life through a microscope, +exaggerating blemishes, distorting proportions, +filling the eye with ugly and disgusting illusions.<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> +Humanity, as was said, was in disgrace with the +thinkers. The maxims of Vauvenargues were a plea +for a return to a healthy and normal sense of relations. +'These philosophers,' he cried, 'are men, yet +they do not speak in human language; they change +all the ideas of things, and misuse all their terms.'<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> +These are some of the most direct of his retorts upon +Pascal and La Rochefoucauld:</p> + +<p>'I have always felt it to be absurd for philosophers +to fabricate a Virtue that is incompatible with the +nature of humanity, and then after having pretended +this, to declare coldly that there is no virtue. If they<a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a> +are speaking of the phantom of their imagination, +they may of course abandon or destroy it as they +please, for they invented it; but true virtue—which +they cannot be brought to call by this name, because +it is not in conformity with their definitions; which +is the work of nature and not their own; and which +consists mainly in goodness and vigour of soul—that +does not depend on their fancies, and will last +for ever with characters that cannot possibly be +effaced.'</p> + +<p>'The body has its graces, the intellect its talents; +is the heart then to have nothing but vices? And +must man, who is capable of reason, be incapable of +virtue?'</p> + +<p>'We are susceptible of friendship, justice, humanity, +compassion, and reason. O my friends, what then is +virtue?'</p> + +<p>'Disgust is no mark of health, nor is appetite a +disorder; quite the reverse. Thus we think of the +body, but we judge the soul on other principles. We +suppose that a strong soul is one that is exempt from +passions, and as youth is more active and ardent than +later age, we look on it as a time of fever, and place +the strength of man in his decay.'<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The theological speculator insists that virtue lies +in a constant and fierce struggle between the will +and the passions, between man and human nature.</p> + +<p>Vauvenargues founded his whole theory of life on the<a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a> +doctrine that the will is not something independent +of passions, inclinations, and ideas, but on the contrary +is a mere index moved and fixed by them, as +the hand of a clock follows the operation of the +mechanical forces within. Character is an integral +unit. 'Whether it is reason or passion that moves +us, it is we who determine ourselves; it would be +madness to distinguish one's thoughts and sentiments +from one's self.... No will in men, which does not +owe its direction to their temperament, their reasoning, +and their actual feelings.'<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> Virtue, then, is not +necessarily a condition of strife between the will and +the rest of our faculties and passions; no such strife +is possible, for the will obeys the preponderant passion +or idea, or group of passions and ideas; and the contest +lies between one passion or group and another. +Hence, in right character there is no struggle at all, +for the virtuous inclinations naturally and easily +direct our will and actions; virtue is then independent +of struggle; and the circumstance of our finding +pleasure in this or that practice, is no reason why +both the practice and the pleasure should not be +unimpeachably virtuous.</p> + +<p>It is easy to see the connection between this theory +of the dependence of the will, and the prominence +which Vauvenargues is ever giving to the passions. +These are the key to the movements of the will. To +direct and shape the latter, you must educate the +former. It was for his perception of this truth, we<a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a> +may notice in passing, that Comte awarded to Vauvenargues +a place in the Positivist Calendar; 'for his +direct effort, in spite of the universal desuetude into +which it had fallen, to reorganise the culture of the +heart according to a better knowledge of human +nature, of which this noble thinker discerned the +centre to be affective.'<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a></p> + +<p>This theory of the will, however, was not allowed +to rest here; the activity of man was connected with +the universal order. 'What prevents the mind from +perceiving the motive of its actions, is only their +infinite quickness. Our thoughts perish at the moment +in which their effects make themselves known; when +the action commences, the principle has vanished; +the will appears, the feeling is gone; we cannot find +it ourselves, and so doubt if we ever had it. But it +would be an enormous defect to have a will without +a principle; our actions would be all haphazard; the +world would be nothing but caprice; all order would +be overturned. It is not enough, then, to admit it +to be true that it is reflection or sentiment that leads +us: we must add further that it would be monstrous +for this to be otherwise.<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> ...</p> + +<p>'The will recalls or suspends our ideas; our ideas +shape or vary the laws of the will; the laws of the will +are thus dependent on the laws of creation; but the laws +of creation are not foreign to ourselves, they constitute +our being, and form our essence, and are entirely +our own, and we can say boldly that we act by ourselves,<a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a> +when we only act by them.<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> ...</p> + +<p>'Let us recognise here, then, our profound subjection.... +Let us rend the melancholy veil which +hides from our eyes the eternal chain of the world +and the glory of the Creator.... External objects +form ideas in the mind, these ideas form sentiments, +these sentiments volitions, these volitions actions in +ourselves and outside of ourselves. So noble a +dependence in all the parts of this vast universe must +conduct our reflections to the unity of its principle; +this subordination makes the true greatness of the +beings subordinated. The excellence of man is in his +dependence; his subjection displays two marvellous +images—the infinite power of God, and the dignity +of our own soul.... Man independent would be an +object of contempt; the feeling of his own imperfection +would be his eternal torture. But the same feeling, +when we admit his dependence, is the foundation +of his sweetest hope; it reveals to him the nothingness +of finite good, and leads him back to his principle, +which insists on joining itself to him, and which alone +can satisfy his desires in the possession of himself.'<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a></p> + +<p>Vauvenargues showed his genuine healthiness not +more by a plenary rejection of the doctrine of the +incurable vileness and frenzy of man, than by his +freedom from the boisterous and stupid transcendental +optimism which has too many votaries in our time. +He would not have men told that they are miserable +earth-gnomes, the slaves of a black destiny, but he<a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a> +still placed them a good deal lower than the angels. +For instance: 'We are too inattentive or too much +occupied with ourselves, to get to the bottom of one +another's characters; <i>whoever has watched masks at a +ball dancing together in a friendly manner, and joining +hands without knowing who the others are, and then parting +the moment afterwards never to meet again nor ever +to regret, or be regretted, can form some idea of the world</i>.'<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> +But then, as he said elsewhere: 'We can be perfectly +aware of our imperfection, without being humiliated +by the sight. <i>One of the noblest qualities of our nature +is that we are able so easily to dispense with greater perfection.</i>'<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> +In all this we mark the large and rational +humaneness of the new time, a tolerant and kindly +and elevating estimate of men.</p> + +<p>The faith in the natural and simple operation of +virtue, without the aid of all sorts of valetudinarian +restrictions, comes out on every occasion. The +Trappist theory of the conditions of virtue found no +quarter with him. Mirabeau for instance complained +of the atmosphere of the Court, as fatal to the practice +of virtue. Vauvenargues replied that the people there +were doubtless no better than they should be, and +that vice was dominant. 'So much the worse for +those who have vices. But when you are fortunate +enough to possess virtue, it is, to my thinking, a very +noble ambition to lift up this same virtue in the +bosom of corruption, to make it succeed, to place it +above all, to indulge and control the passions without<a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a> +reproach, to overthrow the obstacles to them, and to +surrender yourself to the inclinations of an upright +and magnanimous heart, instead of combating or +concealing them in retreat, without either satisfying +or vanquishing them. I know nothing so weak and +so vain as to flee before vices, or to hate them without +measure; for people only hate them by way of reprisal +because they are afraid of them, or else out of +vengeance because these vices have played them some +sorry turn; but a little loftiness of soul, some knowledge +of the heart, a gentle and tranquil humour, will +protect you against the risk of being either surprised, +or keenly wounded by them.'<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a></p> + +<p>There is a tolerably obvious distinction between +two principal ways of examining character. One is a +musing, subjective method of delineation, in which +the various shades and windings seem to reveal themselves +with a certain spontaneity, and we follow many +recesses and depths in the heart of another, such as +only music stirs into consciousness in ourselves. +Besides this rarer poetic method, there is what may +be styled the diplomatist's method; it classifies +characters objectively, according to the kinds of outer +conduct in which they manifest themselves, and +according to the best ways of approaching and dealing +with them. The second of these describes the +spirit in which Vauvenargues observed men. He is +French, and not German, and belongs to the eighteenth +century, and not to the seventeenth or the nineteenth.<a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a> +His <i>Characters</i>, very little known in this country, are +as excellent as any work in this kind that we are +acquainted with, or probably as excellent as such +work can be. They are real and natural, yet while +abstaining as rigorously as Vauvenargues everywhere +does from grotesque and extravagant traits, they +avoid equally the vice of presenting the mere bald +and sterile flats of character, which he that runs may +read. As we have said, he had the quality possessed +by so few of those who write about men; he watched +men, and drew from the life. In a word, he studied +concrete examples and interrogated his own experience—the +only sure guarantee that one writing on his +themes has anything which it is worth our while to +listen to. Among other consequences of this reality +of their source is the agreeable fact that these pictures +are free from that clever bitterness and easy sarcasm, +by which crude and jejune observers, thinking more +of their own wit than of what they observe, sometimes +gain a little reputation. Even the coxcombs, self-duping +knaves, simpletons, braggarts, and other evil +or pitiful types whom he selects, are drawn with +unstrained and simple conformity to reality. The +pictures have no moral label pinned on to them. Yet +Vauvenargues took life seriously enough, and it was +just because he took it seriously, that he had no +inclination to air his wit or practise a verbal humour +upon the stuff out of which happiness and misery are +made.</p> + +<p>One or two fragments will suffice. Take the Man<a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a> +of the World, for instance:</p> + +<p>'A man of the world is not he who knows other +men best, who has most foresight or dexterity in +affairs, who is most instructed by experience and +study; he is neither a good manager, nor a man of +science, nor a politician, nor a skilful officer, nor a +painstaking magistrate. He is a man who is ignorant +of nothing but who knows nothing; who, doing his +own business ill, fancies himself very capable of doing +that of other people; a man who has much useless +wit, who has the art of saying flattering things which +do not flatter, and judicious things which give no +information; who can persuade nobody, though he +speaks well; endowed with that sort of eloquence +which can bring out trifles, and which annihilates +great subjects; as penetrating in what is ridiculous +and external in men, as he is blind to the depths of +their minds. One who, afraid of being wearisome +by reason, is wearisome by his extravagances; is +jocose without gaiety, and lively without passion.'<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a></p> + +<p>Or the two following, the Inconstant Man, and +Lycas or the Firm Man:</p> + +<p>'Such a man seems really to possess more than +one character. A powerful imagination makes his +soul take the shape of all the objects that affect it; he +suddenly astonishes the world by acts of generosity +and courage which were never expected of him; the +image of virtue inflames, elevates, softens, masters his +heart; he receives the impression from the loftiest,<a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a> +and he surpasses them. But when his imagination +has grown cold, his courage droops, his generosity +sinks; the vices opposed to these virtues take possession +of his soul, and after having reigned awhile +supreme, they make way for other objects.... We +cannot say that they have a great nature, or strong, or +weak, or light; it is a swift and imperious imagination +which reigns with sovereign power over all their +being, which subjugates their genius, and which +prescribes for them in turn those fine actions and +those faults, those heights and those littlenesses, those +flights of enthusiasm and those fits of disgust, which +we are wrong in charging either with hypocrisy or +madness.'<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a></p> + +<p>'Lycas unites with a self-reliant, bold, and impetuous +nature, a spirit of reflection and profundity which +moderates the counsels of his passions, which leads +him by inpenetrable motives, and makes him advance +to his ends by many paths. He is one of those long-sighted +men, who consider the succession of events +from afar off, who always finish a design begun; who +are capable, I do not say of dissembling either a +misfortune or an offence, but of rising above either, +instead of letting it depress them; deep natures, +independent by their firmness in daring all and +suffering all; who, whether they resist their inclinations +out of foresight, or whether, out of pride and a +secret consciousness of their resources, they defy what +is called prudence, always, in good as in evil, cheat +the acutest conjectures.'<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a></p> + +<p>Let us note that Vauvenargues is almost entirely<a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a> +free from that favourite trick of the aphoristic person, +which consists in forming a series of sentences, the +predicates being various qualifications of extravagance, +vanity, and folly, and the subject being Women. He +resists this besetting temptation of the modern speaker +of apophthegms to identify woman and fool. On the +one or two occasions in which he begins the maxim +with the fatal words, <i>Les femmes</i>, he is as little +profound as other people who persist in thinking of +man and woman as two different species. 'Women,' +for example, 'have ordinarily more vanity than +temperament, and more temperament than virtue'—which +is fairly true of all human beings, and in so far +as it is true, describes men just as exactly—and no +more so—as it describes women. In truth, Vauvenargues +felt too seriously about conduct and character +to go far in this direction. Now and again he is +content with a mere smartness, as when he says: +'There are some thoroughly excellent people who +cannot get rid of their <i>ennui</i> except at the expense of +society.' But such a mood is not common. He is +usually grave, and not seldom profoundly weighty, +delicate without being weak, and subtle without +obscurity; as for example:</p> + +<p>'People teach children to fear and obey; the +avarice, pride, or timidity of the fathers, instructs the +children in economy, arrogance, or submission. We<a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a> +stir them up to be yet more and more copyists, which +they are only too disposed to be, as it is; nobody +thinks of making them original, hardy, independent.'</p> + +<p>'If instead of dulling the vivacity of children, +people did their best to raise the impulsiveness and +movement of their characters, what might we not +expect from a fine natural temper?'</p> + +<p>Again: 'The moderation of the weak is mediocrity.'</p> + +<p>'What is arrogance in the weak is elevation in the +strong; as the strength of a sick man is frenzy, and +that of a whole man is vigour.'</p> + +<p>'To speak imprudently and to speak boldly are +nearly always the same thing. But we may speak +without prudence, and still speak what is right; and +it is a mistake to fancy that a man has a shallow +intelligence, because the boldness of his character or +the liveliness of his temper may have drawn from +him, in spite of himself, some dangerous truth.'</p> + +<p>'It is a great sign of mediocrity always to praise +moderately.'</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Vauvenargues has a saying to the effect that men +very often, without thinking of it, form an idea of +their face and expression from the ruling sentiment +of which they are conscious in themselves at the time. +He hints that this is perhaps the reason why a coxcomb +always believes himself to be handsome.<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> And +in a letter to Mirabeau, he describes pleasantly how +sometimes in moments of distraction he pictures himself<a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a> +with an air of loftiness, of majesty, of penetration, +according to the idea that is occupying his mind, and +how if by chance he sees his face in the mirror, he is +nearly as much amazed as if he saw a Cyclops or a +Tartar.<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> Yet his nature, if we may trust the portrait, +revealed itself in his face; it is one of the most +delightful to look upon, even in the cold inarticulateness +of an engraving, that the gallery of fair souls +contains for us. We may read the beauty of his +character in the soft strength of the brow, the meditative +lines of mouth and chin, above all, the striking +clearness, the self-collection, the feminine solicitude, +that mingle freely and without eagerness or expectancy +in his gaze, as though he were hearkening to some ever-flowing +inward stream of divine melody. We think of +that gracious touch in Bacon's picture of the father of +Solomon's House, that 'he had an aspect as though he +pitied men.' If we reproach France in the eighteenth +century with its coarseness, artificiality, shallowness, +because it produced such men as the rather brutish +Duclos, we ought to remember that this was also the +century of Vauvenargues, one of the most tender, +lofty, cheerful, and delicately sober of all moralists.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <i>Pensées</i>, i. v. 8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> <i>Ib.</i> i. vi. 16.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> <i>Ib.</i> i. vii. 6.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> M. Gilbert's edition of the <i>Works and Correspondence of +Vauvenargues</i> (2 vols. Paris: Furne, 1857), ii. 133.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> <i>Éloge de P.H. de Seytres</i>. <i>Œuv.</i> i. 141-150.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> ii. 233. See too p. 267.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> No. 579, i. 455.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> <i>Réflexions sur Divers Sujets</i>, i. 104.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> ii. 249.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> <i>Ib.</i> ii. 265.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> <i>Ib.</i> ii. 266.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> <i>Conseils à un Jeune Homme</i>, i. 124.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> ii. 252.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> <i>Ib.</i> ii. 272.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> <i>Mémoires de Marmontel</i>, vol. i. 189.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> The reader of Marmontel's <i>Mémoires</i> will remember the +extraordinary and grotesque circumstances under which a +younger brother of Mirabeau, (of <i>l'ami des hommes</i>, that is) +appealed to the memory of Vauvenargues. See vol. i. 256-260.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> i. 225-232.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> <i>Letter to Saint-Vincens</i>, ii. 146.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> No. 318.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Napoleon said on some occasion, '<i>Il faut vouloir vivre et +savoir mourir</i>.' M. Littré prefaces the third volume of that +heroic monument of learning and industry, his <i>Dictionary of the +French Language</i>, by the words: 'He who wishes to employ +his life seriously ought always to act as if he had long to live, +and to govern himself as if he would have soon to die.'</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> No. 223.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> No. 300.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> No. 264.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> <i>Réflexions Critiques sur quelques Poètes</i>, i. 237.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> <i>Œuv</i>. i. 248.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> <i>Réflexions Critiques sur quelques Poètes</i>, i. 238.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> i. 243.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> i. 275.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> <i>Correspondance</i>. <i>Œuv.</i> ii. 131, 207.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Long-winded and tortuous and difficult to seize as Shaftesbury +is as a whole, in detached sentences he shows marked aphoristic quality; <i>e.g.</i> 'The most ingenious way of becoming +foolish is by a system;' 'The liker anything is to wisdom, if it be not plainly the thing itself, the more directly it becomes its opposite.'</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> No. 278 (i. 411).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> ii. 115.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> <i>Ib.</i> i. 87.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> +<span style="margin-left: 12.5em;">Doch</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Zuweilen ist des Sinns in einer Sache<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Auch mehr, als wir vermuthen; und es wäre<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So unerhört doch nicht, dass uns der Heiland<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Auf Wegen zu sich zöge, die der Kluge<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Von selbst nicht leicht betreten würde.<br /></span> +</p> +<p><span style="margin-left: 10em;"><i>Nathan der Weise</i>, iii. 10.</span></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> <i>Reflections on the French Revolution</i>, Works (ed. 1842), i. 414.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> ii. 170.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> No. 111.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> ii. 74.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> No. 285.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> 'A man may as well pretend to cure himself of love by +viewing his mistress through the artificial medium of a microscope +or prospect, and beholding there the coarseness of her +skin and monstrous disproportion of her features, as hope to +excite or moderate any passion by the artificial arguments of a +Seneca or an Epictetus.'—Hume's <i>Essays</i> (xviii. <i>The Sceptic</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> i. 163.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Nos. 296-298, 148.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> <i>Sur le Libre Arbitre</i>. <i>Œuv.</i> i. 199.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> <i>Politique Positive</i>, iii. 589.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> <i>Ib.</i> i. 194.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> <i>Politique Positive</i>, 205.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> <i>Ib.</i> 206, 207.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> No. 330.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> Nos. 462, 463.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> <i>Correspondance</i>. <i>Œuv.</i> ii. 163.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> i. 310.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> i. 325.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> i. 326.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> No. 236.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> <i>Œuv</i>. ii. 188.</p></div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Critical Miscellanies (Vol 2 of 3), by John Morley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRITICAL MISCELLANIES (VOL 2 OF 3) *** + +***** This file should be named 16937-h.htm or 16937-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + 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