French Classics Part 5

No. 138. We would rather speak ill of ourselves, than not talk of ourselves.

The following maxim, longer and less felicitously phrased than is usual with La Rochefoucauld, recalls that bitter definition of the bore--"One who insists on talking about himself all the time that you are wis.h.i.+ng to talk about yourself":

No. 139. One of the causes why we find so few people who appear reasonable and agreeable in conversation, is that there is scarcely any one who does not think more of what he wishes to say, than of replying exactly to what is said to him. The cleverest and the most compliant think it enough to show an attentive air; while we see in their eyes and in their mind a wandering from what is said to them, and a hurry to return to what they wish to say, instead of considering that it is a bad way to please or to persuade others, to try so hard to please one's self, and that to listen well is one of the greatest accomplishments we can have in conversation.

If we are indignant at the maxims following, it is probably rather because they are partly true than because they are wholly false:

No. 144. We are not fond of praising, and, without interest, we never praise any one. Praise is a cunning flattery, hidden and delicate, which, in different ways, pleases him who gives and him who receives it. The one takes it as a reward for his merit: the other gives it to show his equity and his discernment.

No. 146. We praise generally only to be praised.

No. 147. Few are wise enough to prefer wholesome blame to treacherous praise.

No. 149. Disclaiming praise is a wish to be praised a second time.

No. 152. If we did not flatter ourselves, the flattery of others could not hurt us.

No. 184. We acknowledge our faults in order to atone, by our sincerity, for the harm they do us in the minds of others.

No. 199. The desire to appear able often prevents our becoming so.

No. 201. Whoever thinks he can do without the world, deceives himself much; but whoever thinks the world cannot do without him, deceives himself much more.

With the following, contrast Ruskin's n.o.ble paradox, that the soldier's business, rightly conceived, is self-sacrifice; his ideal purpose being, not to kill, but to be killed:

No. 214. Valor, in private soldiers, is a perilous calling, which they have taken to in order to gain their living.

Here is, perhaps, the most current of all La Rochefoucauld's maxims:

No. 218. Hypocrisy is a homage which vice renders to virtue.

Of the foregoing maxim it may justly be said, that its truth and point depend upon the a.s.sumption, implicit, that there is such a thing as virtue--an a.s.sumption which the whole tenor of the "Maxims" in general contradicts.

How incisive the following:

No. 226. Too great eagerness to requite an obligation is a kind of ingrat.i.tude.

No. 298. The grat.i.tude of most men is only a secret desire to receive greater favors.

No. 304. We often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive those whom we bore.

No. 313. Why should we have memory enough to retain even the smallest particulars of what has happened to us, and yet not have enough to remember how often we have told them to the same individual?

The first following maxim satirizes both princes and courtiers. It might be ent.i.tled, "How to insult a prince, and not suffer for your temerity":

No. 320. To praise princes for virtues they have not, is to insult them with impunity.

No. 347. We find few sensible people, except those who are of our way of thinking.

No. 409. We should often be ashamed of our best actions, if the world saw the motives which cause them.

No. 424. We boast of faults the reverse of those we have: when we are weak, we boast of being stubborn.

Here, at length, is a maxim that does not depress--that animates you:

No. 432. To praise n.o.ble actions heartily is in some sort to take part in them.

The following is much less exhilarating:

No. 454. There are few instances in which we should make a bad bargain, by giving up the good that is said of us, on condition that nothing bad be said.

This, also:

No. 458. Our enemies come nearer to the truth, in the opinions they form of us, than we do ourselves.

Here is a celebrated maxim, vainly "suppressed" by the author, after first publication:

No. 583. In the adversity of our best friends, we always find something which does not displease us.

Before La Rochefoucauld, Montaigne had said, "Even in the midst of compa.s.sion we feel within us an unaccountable bitter-sweet t.i.tillation of ill-natured pleasure in seeing another suffer;" and Burke, after both, wrote (in his "Sublime and Beautiful") with a heavier hand, "I am convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others."

La Rochefoucauld is not fairly cynical, more than is Montaigne. But as a man he wins upon you less. His maxims are like hard and sharp crystals, precipitated from the worldly wisdom blandly solute and dilute in Montaigne.

The wise of this world reject the dogma of human depravity, as taught in the Bible. They willingly accept it--nay, accept it complacently, hugging themselves for their own penetration--as taught in the "Maxims"

of La Rochefoucauld.

JEAN DE LA BRUYeRE is personally almost as little known as if he were an ancient of the Greek or Roman world surviving, like Juvenal, only in his literary production. Bossuet got him employed to teach history to a great duke, who became his patron, and settled a life-long annuity upon him. He published his one book, the "Characters," in 1687, was made member of the French Academy in 1693, and died in 1696. That, in short, is La Bruyere's biography.

His book is universally considered one of the most finished products of the human mind. It is not a great work--it lacks the unity and the majesty of design necessary for that. It consists simply of detached thoughts and observations on a variety of subjects. It shows the author to have been a man of deep and wise reflection, but especially a consummate master of style. The book is one to read in, rather than to read. It is full of food to thought. The very beginning exhibits a self-consciousness on the writer's part very different from that spontaneous simplicity in which truly great books originate. La Bruyere begins:

Every thing has been said; and one comes too late, after more than seven thousand years that there have been men, and men who have thought.

La Bruyere has something to say, and that to length unusual for him, of pulpit eloquence. We select a few specimen sentences:

Christian eloquence has become a spectacle. That gospel sadness, which is its soul, is no longer to be observed in it; its place is supplied by advantages of facial expression, by inflections of the voice, by regularity of gesticulation, by choice of words, and by long categories. The sacred word is no longer listened to seriously; it is a kind of amus.e.m.e.nt, one among many; it is a game in which there is rivalry, and in which there are those who lay wagers.

Profane eloquence has been transferred, so to speak, from the bar ...

where it is no longer employed, to the pulpit where it ought not to be found.

Matches of eloquence are made at the very foot of the altar, and in the presence of the mysteries. He who listens sits in judgment on him who preaches, to condemn or to applaud, and is no more converted by the discourse which he praises than by that which he p.r.o.nounces against. The orator pleases some, displeases others, and has an understanding with all in one thing--that as he does not seek to render them better, so they do not think of becoming better.

The almost cynical acerbity of the preceding is ostensibly relieved of an obvious application to certain ill.u.s.trious contemporary examples among preachers by the following open allusion to Bossuet and Bourdaloue:

The Bishop of Meaux [Bossuet] and Father Bourdaloue make me think of Demosthenes and Cicero. Both of them, masters of pulpit eloquence, have had the fortune of great models; the one has made bad critics, the other bad imitators.

Here is a happy instance of La Bruyere's successful pains in redeeming a commonplace sentiment by means of a striking form of expression; the writer is disapproving the use of oaths in support of one's testimony:

An honest man who says Yes, or No, deserves to be believed; his character swears for him.