Part 39 (1/2)
_La Fontaine._ We usually like those roads which show us the fronts of our friends' houses and the pleasure-grounds about them, and the smooth garden-walks, and the trim espaliers, and look at them with more satisfaction than at the docks and nettles that are thrown in heaps behind. The _Offices_ of Cicero are imperfect; yet who would not rather guide his children by them than by the line and compa.s.s of harder-handed guides; such as Hobbes for instance?
_Rochefoucault._ Imperfect as some gentlemen in hoods may call the _Offices_, no founder of a philosophical or of a religious sect has been able to add to them anything important.
_La Fontaine._ Pity! that Cicero carried with him no better authorities than reason and humanity. He neither could work miracles, nor d.a.m.n you for disbelieving them. Had he lived fourscore years later, who knows but he might have been another Simon Peter, and have talked Hebrew as fluently as Latin, all at once! Who knows but we might have heard of his patrimony! who knows but our venerable popes might have claimed dominion from him, as descendant from the kings of Rome!
_Rochefoucault._ The hint, some centuries ago, would have made your fortune, and that saintly cat there would have kittened in a mitre.
_La Fontaine._ Alas! the hint could have done nothing: Cicero could not have lived later.
_Rochefoucault._ I warrant him. Nothing is easier to correct than chronology. There is not a lady in Paris, nor a jockey in Normandy, that is not eligible to a professor's chair in it. I have seen a man's ancestor, whom n.o.body ever saw before, spring back over twenty generations. Our Vatican Jupiters have as little respect for old Chronos as the Cretan had: they mutilate him when and where they think necessary, limp as he may by the operation.
_La Fontaine._ When I think, as you make me do, how ambitious men are, even those whose teeth are too loose (one would fancy) for a bite at so hard an apple as the devil of ambition offers them, I am inclined to believe that we are actuated not so much by selfishness as you represent it, but under another form, the love of power. Not to speak of territorial dominion or political office, and such other things as we usually cla.s.s under its appurtenances, do we not desire an exclusive control over what is beautiful and lovely? the possession of pleasant fields, of well-situated houses, of cabinets, of images, of pictures, and indeed of many things pleasant to see but useless to possess; even of rocks, of streams, and of fountains? These things, you will tell me, have their utility. True, but not to the wisher, nor does the idea of it enter his mind. Do not we wish that the object of our love should be devoted to us only; and that our children should love us better than their brothers and sisters, or even than the mother who bore them? Love would be arrayed in the purple robe of sovereignty, mildly as he may resolve to exercise his power.
_Rochefoucault._ Many things which appear to be incontrovertible are such for their age only, and must yield to others which, in their age, are equally so. There are only a few points that are always above the waves. Plain truths, like plain dishes, are commended by everybody, and everybody leaves them whole. If it were not even more impertinent and presumptuous to praise a great writer in his presence than to censure him in his absence, I would venture to say that your prose, from the few specimens you have given of it, is equal to your verse.
Yet, even were I the possessor of such a style as yours, I would never employ it to support my _Maxims_. You would think a writer very impudent and self-sufficient who should quote his own works: to defend them is doing more. We are the worst auxiliaries in the world to the opinions we have brought into the field. Our business is, to measure the ground, and to calculate the forces; then let them try their strength. If the weak a.s.sails me, he thinks me weak; if the strong, he thinks me strong. He is more likely to compute ill his own vigour than mine. At all events, I love inquiry, even when I myself sit down. And I am not offended in my walks if my visitor asks me whither does that alley lead. It proves that he is ready to go on with me; that he sees some s.p.a.ce before him; and that he believes there may be something worth looking after.
_La Fontaine._ You have been standing a long time, my lord duke: I must entreat you to be seated.
_Rochefoucault._ Excuse me, my dear M. la Fontaine; I would much rather stand.
_La Fontaine._ Mercy on us! have you been upon your legs ever since you rose to leave me?
_Rochefoucault._ A change of position is agreeable: a friend always permits it.
_La Fontaine._ Sad doings! sad oversight! The other two chairs were sent yesterday evening to be scoured and mended. But that dog is the best tempered dog! an angel of a dog, I do a.s.sure you; he would have gone down in a moment, at a word. I am quite ashamed of myself for such inattention. With your sentiments of friends.h.i.+p for me, why could you not have taken the liberty to shove him gently off, rather than give me this uneasiness?
_Rochefoucault._ My true and kind friend! we authors are too sedentary; we are heartily glad of standing to converse, whenever we can do it without any restraint on our acquaintance.
_La Fontaine._ I must reprove that animal when he uncurls his body. He seems to be dreaming of Paradise and houris. Ay, twitch thy ear, my child! I wish at my heart there were as troublesome a fly about the other: G.o.d forgive me! The rogue covers all my clean linen! s.h.i.+rt and cravat! what cares he!
_Rochefoucault._ Dogs are not very modest.
_La Fontaine._ Never say that, M. de la Rochefoucault! The most modest people upon earth! Look at a dog's eyes, and he half closes them, or gently turns them away, with a motion of the lips, which he licks languidly, and of the tail, which he stirs tremulously, begging your forbearance. I am neither blind nor indifferent to the defects of these good and generous creatures. They are subject to many such as men are subject to: among the rest, they disturb the neighbourhood in the discussion of their private causes; they quarrel and fight on small motives, such as a little bad food, or a little vainglory, or the s.e.x. But it must be something present or near that excites them; and they calculate not the extent of evil they may do or suffer.
_Rochefoucault._ Certainly not: how should dogs calculate?
_La Fontaine._ I know nothing of the process. I am unable to inform you how they leap over hedges and brooks, with exertion just sufficient, and no more. In regard to honour and a sense of dignity, let me tell you, a dog accepts the subsidies of his friends, but never claims them: a dog would not take the field to obtain power for a son, but would leave the son to obtain it by his own activity and prowess.
He conducts his visitor or inmate out a-hunting, and makes a present of the game to him as freely as an emperor to an elector. Fond as he is of slumber, which is indeed one of the pleasantest and best things in the universe, particularly after dinner, he shakes it off as willingly as he would a gadfly, in order to defend his master from theft or violence. Let the robber or a.s.sailant speak as courteously as he may, he waives your diplomatical terms, gives his reasons in plain language, and makes war. I could say many other things to his advantage; but I never was malicious, and would rather let both parties plead for themselves; give me the dog, however.
_Rochefoucault._ Faith! I will give you both, and never boast of my largess in so doing.
_La Fontaine._ I trust I have removed from you the suspicion of selfishness in my client, and I feel it quite as easy to make a properer disposal of another ill attribute, namely cruelty, which we vainly try to shuffle off our own shoulders upon others, by employing the offensive and most unjust term, brutality. But to convince you of my impartiality, now I have defended the dog from the first obloquy, I will defend the man from the last, hoping to make you think better of each. What you attribute to cruelty, both while we are children and afterward, may be a.s.signed, for the greater part, to curiosity.
Cruelty tends to the extinction of life, the dissolution of matter, the imprisonment and sepulture of truth; and if it were our ruling and chief propensity, the human race would have been extinguished in a few centuries after its appearance. Curiosity, in its primary sense, implies care and consideration.
_Rochefoucault._ Words often deflect from their primary sense. We find the most curious men the most idle and silly, the least observant and conservative.
_La Fontaine._ So we think; because we see every hour the idly curious, and not the strenuously; we see only the persons of the one set, and only the works of the other.