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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d6fbab8 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #53490 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53490) diff --git a/old/53490-0.txt b/old/53490-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 0a718cc..0000000 --- a/old/53490-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,11035 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of William Shakespeare, by Victor Hugo - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: William Shakespeare - -Author: Victor Hugo - -Translator: A. Baillot - -Release Date: November 10, 2016 [EBook #53490] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE *** - - - - -Produced by Laura Natal Rodriguez and Marc D'Hooghe at -Free Literature (online soon in an extended version, also -linking to free sources for education worldwide ... MOOC's, -educational materials,...) Images generously made available -by the Hathi Trust - - - - - -WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. - -BY VICTOR HUGO - -TRANSLATED BY A. BAILLOT - -WITH ILLUSTRATIONS - -BOSTON - -ESTES AND LAURIAT - -PUBLISHERS - -1864 - - - -[Illustration: _Portrait of Victor Hugo._ Photogravure -by Goupil et Cie.--From Painting by Pannemaker.] - - - - TO - - ENGLAND - - I Dedicate this Book, - - THE GLORIFICATION OF HER POET. - - - I TELL ENGLAND THE TRUTH; BUT, AS A LAND ILLUSTRIOUS - AND FREE, I ADMIRE HER, AND AS AN ASYLUM. - I LOVE HER. - - VICTOR HUGO. - - Hauteville House, 1864. - - - - -PREFACE - - -The true title of this work should be, "Apropos to Shakespeare." The -desire of introducing, as they say in England, before the public, -the new translation of Shakespeare, has been the first motive of the -author. The feeling which interests him so profoundly in the translator -should not deprive him of the right to recommend the translation. -However, his conscience has been solicited on the other part, and -in a more binding way still, by the subject itself. In reference to -Shakespeare all questions which touch art are presented to his mind. -To treat these questions, is to explain the mission of art; to treat -these questions, is to explain the duty of human thought toward -man. Such an occasion for speaking truths imposes a duty, and he is -not permitted, above all at such an epoch as ours, to evade it. The -author has comprehended this. He has not hesitated to turn the complex -questions of art and civilization on their several faces, multiplying -the horizons every time that the perspective has displaced itself, and -accepting every indication that the subject, in its rigorous necessity, -has offered to him. This expansion of the point of view has given rise -to this book. - -Hauteville House, 1864. - - - - -CONTENTS - -PART I. - -Book - -I. Shakespeare.--His Life 1 - -II. Men of Genius.--Homer, Job, Æschylus, Isaiah, -Ezekiel, Lucretius, Juvenal, Tacitus, St. John, -St. Paul, Dante, Rabelais, Cervantes, Shakespeare 28 - -III. Art and Science 78 - -IV. The Ancient Shakespeare 102 - -V. The Souls 146 - -PART II. - -I. Shakespeare.--His Genius 161 - -II. Shakespeare.--His Work.--The Culminating Points 187 - -III. Zoilus as Eternal as Homer 215 - -IV. Criticism 238 - -V. The Minds and the Masses 256 - -VI. The Beautiful tub Servant of the True 274 - -PART III.--CONCLUSION. - -I. After Death.--Shakespeare.--England 298 - -II. The Nineteenth Century 325 - -III. True History.--Every one put in his Right Place 337 - - -LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. - -Portrait op Victor Hugo Frontispiece - -"In order to gain a Livelihood, he sought to take Care -of Horses at the Doors of the Theatres" - -Shakespeare in his Garden - -Anne Hathaway's Cottage - -Portrait of Shakespeare [not included] - - - - -WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. - - - -PART I.--BOOK I. - - -HIS LIFE. - - - -CHAPTER I - - -Twelve years ago, in an island adjoining the coast of France, a house, -with a melancholy aspect in every season, became particularly sombre -because winter had commenced. The west wind, blowing then in full -liberty, made thicker yet round this abode those coats of fog that -November places between earthly life and the sun. Evening comes quickly -in autumn; the smallness of the windows added to the shortness of the -days, and deepened the sad twilight in which the house was wrapped. - -The house, which had a terrace for a roof, was rectilinear, correct, -square, newly whitewashed,--a true Methodist structure. Nothing is -so glacial as that English whiteness; it seems to offer you the -hospitality of snow. One dreams with a seared heart of the old huts of -the French peasants, built of wood, cheerful and dark, surrounded with -vines. - -To the house was attached a garden of a quarter of an acre, on an -inclined plane, surrounded with walls, cut in steps of granite, and -with parapets, without trees, naked, where one could see more stones -than leaves. This little uncultivated domain abounded in tufts of -marigold, which flourish in autumn, and which the poor people of the -country eat baked with the eel. The neighbouring seashore was hid from -this garden by a rise in the ground; on this rise there was a field of -short grass, where some nettles and a big hemlock flourished. - -From the house you might perceive, on the right, in the horizon, on an -elevation, and in a little wood, a tower, which passed for haunted; on -the left you might see the dyke. The dyke was a row of big trunks of -trees, leaning against a wall, planted upright in the sand, dried up, -gaunt, with knots, ankylosès, and patellas, which looked like a row of -tibias. Revery, which readily accepts dreams for the sake of proposing -enigmas, might ask to what men these tibias of three fathoms in height -had belonged. - -The south façade of the house looked on the garden, the north façade on -a deserted road. - -A corridor at the entrance to the ground-floor, a kitchen, a -greenhouse, and a courtyard, with a little parlour, having a view of -the lonely road, and a pretty large study, scarcely lighted; on the -first and second floors, chambers, neat, cold, scantily furnished, -newly repainted, with white blinds to the window,--such was this -lodging, with the noise of the sea ever resounding. - -This house, a heavy, right-angled white cube, chosen by those who -inhabited it apparently by chance, perhaps by intentional destiny, had -the form of a tomb. - -Those who inhabited this abode were a group,--to speak more properly, -a family; they were proscribed ones. The most aged was one of those men -who, at a given moment, are _de trop_ in their own country. He had come -from an assembly; the others, who were young, had come from a prison. -To have written, that is sufficient motive for bars. Where shall -thought conduct except to a dungeon? - -The prison had set them free into banishment. - -The oldest, the father, had in that place all his own except his eldest -daughter, who could not follow him. His son-in-law was with her. Often -were they leaning round a table or seated on a bench, silent, grave, -thinking, all of them, and without saying it, of those two absent ones. - -Why was this group installed in this lodging, so little suitable? For -reasons of haste, and from a desire to be as soon as possible anywhere -but at the inn. Doubtless, also, because it was the first house to let -that they had met with, and because proscribed people are not lucky. - -This house,--which it is time to rehabilitate a little and console, for -who knows if in its loneliness it is not sad at what we have just said -about it; a home has a soul,--this house was called Marine Terrace. The -arrival was mournful; but after all, we declare, the stay in it was -agreeable, and Marine Terrace has not left to those who then inhabited -it anything but affectionate and dear remembrances. And what we say -of that house, Marine Terrace, we say also of that island of Jersey. -Places of suffering and trial end by having a kind of bitter sweetness -which, later on, causes them to be regretted. They have a stern -hospitality which pleases the conscience. - -There had been, before them, other exiles in that island. This is not -the time to speak of them. We mention only that the most ancient of -whom tradition, a legend, perhaps, has kept the remembrance, was a -Roman, Vipsanius Minator, who employed his exile in augmenting, for -the benefit of his country's dominion, the Roman wall of which you -may still see some parts, like bits of hillock, near a bay named, I -think, St. Catherine's Bay. This Vipsanius Minator was a consular -personage,--an old Roman so infatuated with Rome that he stood in the -way of the Empire. Tiberius exiled him into this Cimmerian island, -Cæsarea; according to others, to one of the Orkneys. Tiberius did more; -not content with exile, he ordained oblivion. It was forbidden to the -orators of the senate and the forum to pronounce the name of Vipsanius -Minator. The orators of the forum and the senate, and history, have -obeyed; about which Tiberius, of course, did not have a doubt. That -arrogance in commanding, which proceeded so far as to give orders to -men's thoughts, characterized certain ancient governments newly arrived -at one of those firm situations where the greatest amount of crime -produces the greatest amount of security. - -Let us return to Marine Terrace. - -One morning at the end of November, two of the inhabitants of the -place, the father and the youngest of the sons, were seated in the -lower parlour. They were silent, like shipwrecked ones who meditate. -Without, it rained; the wind blew. The house was as if deafened by -the outer roaring. Both went on thinking, absorbed perhaps by this -coincidence between a beginning of winter and a beginning of exile. - -All at once the son raised his voice and asked the father,-- - -"What thinkest thou of this exile?" - -"That it will be long." - -"How dost thou reckon to fill it up?" - -The father answered,-- - -"I shall look on the ocean." - -There was a silence. The father resumed the conversation:-- - -"And you?" - -"I," said the son,--"I shall translate Shakespeare." - - - -CHAPTER II. - - -There are men, oceans in reality. - -These waves; this ebb and flow; this terrible go-and-come; this noise -of every gust; these lights and shadows; these vegetations belonging -to the gulf; this democracy of clouds in full hurricane; these eagles -in the foam; these wonderful gatherings of stars reflected in one -knows not what mysterious crowd by millions of luminous specks, heads -confused with the innumerable; those grand errant lightnings which seem -to watch; these huge sobs; these monsters glimpsed at; this roaring, -disturbing these nights of darkness; these furies, these frenzies, -these tempests, these rocks, these shipwrecks, these fleets crushing -each other, these human thunders mixed with divine thunders, this blood -in the abyss; then these graces, these sweetnesses, these _fêtes_ these -gay white veils, these fishing-boats, these songs in the uproar, these -splendid ports, this smoke of the earth, these towns in the horizon, -this deep blue of water and sky, this useful sharpness, this bitterness -which renders the universe wholesome, this rough salt without which -all would putrefy, these angers and assuagings, this whole in one, -this unexpected in the immutable, this vast marvel of monotony -inexhaustibly varied, this level after that earthquake, these hells and -these paradises of immensity eternally agitated, this infinite, this -unfathomable,--all this can exist in one spirit; and then this spirit -is called genius, and you have Æschylus, you have Isaiah, you have -Juvenal, you have Dante, you have Michael Angelo, you have Shakespeare; -and looking at these minds is the same thing as to look at the ocean. - - - -CHAPTER III - - -William Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon, in a house under -the tiles of which was concealed a profession of the Catholic faith -beginning with these words, "I, John Shakespeare." John was the -father of William. The house, situate in Henley Street, was humble; -the chamber in which Shakespeare came into the world, wretched,--the -walls whitewashed, the black rafters laid crosswise; at the farther -end a tolerably large window with two small panes, where you may read -to-day, among other names, that of Walter Scott. This poor lodging -sheltered a decayed family. The father of William Shakespeare had been -alderman; his grand-father had been bailiff. Shakespeare signifies -"shake-lance;" the family had for coat-of-arms an arm holding a -lance,--allusive arms, which were confirmed, they say, by Queen -Elizabeth in 1595, and apparent, at the time we write, on Shakespeare's -tomb in the church of Stratford-on-Avon. There is little agreement -on the orthography of the word Shake-speare, as a family name; it is -written variously,--Shakspere, Shakespere, Shakespeare, Shakspeare. -In the eighteenth century it was habitually written Shakespear; the -actual translator has adopted the spelling Shakespeare, as the only -true method, and gives for it unanswerable reasons. The only objection -that can be made is that Shakspeare is more easily pronounced than -Shakespeare, that cutting off the _e_ mute is perhaps useful, and -that for their own sake, and in the interests of literary currency, -posterity has, as regards surnames, a claim to euphony. It is evident, -for example, that in French poetry the orthography Shakspeare is -necessary. However, in prose, and convinced by the translator, we write -Shakespeare. - -2. The Shakespeare family had some original draw-back, probably its -Catholicism, which caused it to fall. A little after the birth of -William, Alderman Shakespeare was no more than "butcher John." William -Shakespeare made his _début_ in a slaughter-house. At fifteen years -of age, with sleeves tucked up, in his father's shambles, he killed -the sheep and calves "pompously," says Aubrey. At eighteen he married. -Between the days of the slaughter-house and the marriage he composed a -quatrain. This quatrain, directed against the neighbouring villages, -is his _début_ in poetry. He there says that Hillbrough is illustrious -for its ghosts and Bidford for its drunken fellows. He made this -quatrain (being tipsy himself), in the open air, under an apple-tree -still celebrated in the country in consequence of this Midsummer -Night's Dream. In this night and in this dream where there were -lads and lasses, in this drunken fit, and under this apple-tree, he -discovered that Anne Hathaway was a pretty girl. The wedding followed. -He espoused this Anne Hathaway, older than himself by eight years, -had a daughter by her, then twins, boy and girl, and left her; and -this wife, vanished from Shakespeare's life, appears again only in his -will, where he leaves her the worst of his two beds, "having probably," -says a biographer, "employed the best with others." Shakespeare, like -La Fontaine, did but sip at a married life. His wife put aside, he -was a schoolmaster, then clerk to an attorney, then a poacher. This -poaching has been made use of since then to justify the statement -that Shakespeare had been a thief. One day he was caught poaching in -Sir Thomas Lucy's park. They threw him in prison; they commenced -proceedings. These being spitefully followed up, he saved himself by -flight to London. In order to gain a livelihood, he sought to take care -of horses at the doors of the theatres. Plautus had turned a millstone. -This business of taking care of horses at the doors existed in London -in the last century, and it formed then a kind of small band or corps -that they called "Shakespeare's boys." - - - -[Illustration: "_In order to gain a livelihood, he sought to take care -of horses at the doors of the theatres._" - -Photogravure.--From A. Mongin's etching of painting by François -Flameng.] - - -3. You may call London the black Babylon,--gloomy the day, magnificent -the night To see London is a sensation; it is uproar under smoke. -Mysterious analogy! The uproar is the smoke of noise. Paris is the -capital of one side of humanity. London is the capital of the opposite -side,--splendid and melancholy town! Life there is a tumult; the people -there are an ant-hill; they are free, and yet dove-tailed. London is an -orderly chaos. The London of the sixteenth century did not resemble the -London of our day; but it was already a town without bounds. Cheapside -was the high-street; St Paul's, which is a dome, was a spire. The -plague was nearly as much at home in London as at Constantinople. It -is true that there was not much difference between Henry VIII. and a -sultan. Fires, also, as at Constantinople, were frequent in London, -on account of the populous parts of the town being built entirely of -wood. In the streets there was but one carriage,--the carriage of her -Majesty. Not a cross-road where they did not cudgel some pickpocket -with that drotsch-block which is still retained at Groningen for -thrashing the wheat. Manners were rough, almost ferocious; a fine lady -rose at six, and went to bed at nine. Lady Geraldine Kildare, to whom -Lord Surrey inscribed verses, breakfasted off a pound of bacon and a -pot of beer. Queens, the wives of Henry VIII., knitted mittens, and did -not even object to their being of coarse red wool. In this London, -the Duchess of Suffolk took care of her hen-house, and with her dress -tucked up to her knees, threw corn to the ducks in the court below. To -dine at midday was a late dinner. The pleasures of the upper classes -were to go and play at "hot cockles" with my Lord Leicester. Anne -Boleyn played there; she knelt down, with eyes bandaged, rehearsing -this game, without knowing it, in the posture of the scaffold. This -same Anne Boleyn, destined to the throne, from whence she was to -go farther, was perfectly dazzled when her mother bought her three -linen chemises at sixpence the ell, and promised her for the Duke of -Norfolk's ball a pair of new shoes worth five shillings. - -4. Under Elizabeth, in spite of the anger of the Puritans, there were -in London eight companies of comedians, those of Newington Butts, Earl -Pembroke's company. Lord Strange's retainers, the Lord-Chamberlain's -troop, the Lord High-Admiral's troop, the company of Blackfriars, -the children of St. Paul's, and, in the first rank, the Showmen of -Bears. Lord Southampton went to the play every evening. Nearly all the -theatres were situate on the banks of the Thames, which increased the -number of water-men. The play-rooms were of two kinds: some merely -open tavern-yards, a trestle leaning against a wall, no ceiling, rows -of benches placed on the ground, for boxes the windows of the tavern. -The performance took place in the broad daylight and in the open air. -The principal of those theatres was the Globe; the others, which were -mostly closed play-rooms, lighted with lamps, were used at night. The -most frequented was Blackfriars. The best actor of Lord Pembroke's -troop was called Henslowe; the best actor at Blackfriars was Burbage. -The Globe was situate on Bank Side. This is known by a document at -Stationers' Hall, dated 26th November, 1607:-- - - "His Majesty's servants playing usually at the Globe on the - Bank Side." - -The scenery was simple. Two swords laid crosswise, sometimes two laths, -signified a battle; a shirt over the coat signified a knight; the -petticoat of one of the comedians' wives on a broom-handle, signified a -palfrey caparisoned. A rich theatre, which made its inventory in 1598, -possessed "the limbs of Moors, a dragon, a big horse with his legs, a -cage, a rock, four Turks' heads, and that of the ancient Mahomet, a -wheel for the siege of London, and a _bouche d'enfer._" Another had -"a sun, a target, the three feathers of the Prince of Wales, with the -device _Ich Dien_, besides six devils, and the Pope on his mule." An -actor besmeared with plaster and immovable, signified a wall; if he -spread his fingers, it meant that the wall had crevices. A man laden -with a fagot, followed by a dog, and carrying a lantern, meant the -moon; his lantern represented the moonshine. People may laugh at this -_mise en scène_ of moonlight, become famous by the "Midsummer Night's -Dream," without imagining that there is in it a gloomy anticipation -of Dante.[1] The robing-room of these theatres, where the comedians -dressed themselves pell-mell, was a corner separated from the stage by -a rag of some kind stretched on a cord. The robing-room at Blackfriars -was shut off by an ancient piece of tapestry which had belonged to one -of the guilds, and represented a blacksmith's workshop; through the -holes in this partition, flying in rags and tatters, the public saw the -actors redden their cheeks with brick-dust, or make their mustaches -with a cork burned at a tallow-candle. From time to time, through an -occasional opening of the curtain, you might see a face grinning in a -mask, peeping to see if the time for going on the stage had arrived, -or the smooth chin of a comedian, who was to play the part of a woman. -"Glabri histriones," said Plautus. These theatres were frequented by -noblemen, scholars, soldiers, and sailors. They acted there the tragedy -of "Lord Buckhurst," "Gorbuduc," or "Ferrex and Porrex," "Mother -Bombic," by Lilly, in which the phip-phip of sparrows was heard; "The -Libertine," an imitation of the "Convivado de Piedra," which had a -European fame; "Felix and Philomena," a fashionable comedy, performed -for the first time at Greenwich, before "Queen Bess;" "Promos and -Cassandra," a comedy dedicated by the author, George Whetstone, to -William Fleetwood, recorder of London; "Tamerlane," and the "Jew of -Malta," by Christopher Marlowe; farces and pieces by Robert Greene, -George Peele, Thomas Lodge, and Thomas Kid; and lastly, mediæval -comedies. For just as France has her "L'Avocat Pathelin," so England -has her "Gossip Gurton's Needle." While the actors gesticulated and -ranted, the noblemen and officers, with their plumes and band of gold -lace, standing or squatting on the stage, turning their backs, haughty -and easy in the midst of the constrained comedians, laughed, shouted, -played at cards, threw them at each other's heads, or played at post -and pair; and below in the shade, on the pavement, among pots of beer -and pipes, you might see the "stinkards" (the mob). It was by that very -theatre that Shakespeare entered on the drama. From being the guardian -of horses, he became the shepherd of men. - -5. Such was the theatre in London about the year 1580, under "the -great queen." It was not much less wretched, a century later, at -Paris, under "the great king;" and Molière, at his debut, had, like -Shakespeare, to make shift with rather miserable playhouses. There is -in the archives of the Comédie Française an unpublished manuscript of -four hundred pages, bound in parchment and tied with a band of white -leather. It is the diary of Lagrange, a comrade of Molière. Lagrange -describes also the theatre where Molière's company played by order of -Mr. Rateban, superintendent of the king's buildings: "Three beams, -the frames rotten and shored up, and half the room roofless and in -ruins." In another place, by date Sunday, 15th March, 1671, he says, -"The company have resolved to make a large ceiling over the whole -room, which, up to the said date (15th) has not been covered, save by -a large blue cloth suspended by cords." As for lighting and heating -this room, particularly on the occasion of the extraordinary expenses -necessary for the performance of "Psyche," which was by Molière and -Corneille, we read: "Candles, thirty livres; door-keeper, for wood, -three livres." This was the style of playhouse which "the great king" -placed at the disposal of Molière. These bounties to literature did -not impoverish Louis XIV. so much as to deprive him of the pleasure of -giving, for example, at one and the same time, two hundred thousand -livres to Lavardin, and the same to D'Epernon; two hundred thousand -livres, besides the regiment of France, to the Count de Médavid; four -hundred thousand livres to the Bishop of Noyon, because this bishop was -Clermont-Tonnerre, a family that had two patents of count and peer of -France,--one for Clermont and one for Tonnerre; five hundred thousand -livres to the Duke of Vivonne; and seven hundred thousand livres to -the Duke of Quintin-Lorges, besides eight hundred thousand livres to -Monseigneur Clement de Bavière, Prince-Bishop of Liége. Let us add that -he gave a thousand livres pension to Molière. We find in Lagrange's -journal in the month of April, 1663, this remark:-- - - "About the same time, M. de Molière received, as a great - wit, a pension from the king, and has been placed on the - civil list for the sum of a thousand livres." - -Later, when Molière was dead and interred at St. Joseph, "Chapel of -ease to the parish of St. Eustache," the king pushed patronage so far -as to permit his tomb to be "raised a foot out of the ground." - -6. Shakespeare, as we see, remained as an outsider a long time on the -threshold of theatrical life. At length he entered. He passed the -door and got behind the scenes. He succeeded in becoming call-boy, -vulgarly, a "barker." About 1586 Shakespeare was barking with Greene at -Blackfriars. In 1587 he gained a step. In the piece called "The Giant -Agrapardo, King of Nubia, worse than his late brother, Angulafer," -Shakespeare was intrusted with carrying the turban to the giant. Then -from a supernumerary he became actor, thanks to Burbage, to whom, by -an interlineation in his will, he left thirty-six shillings, to buy -a gold ring. He was the friend of Condell and Hemynge,--his comrades -whilst alive, his publishers after his death. He was handsome; he had -a high forehead, a brown beard, a mild countenance, a sweet mouth, a -deep look. He took delight in reading Montaigne, translated by Florio. -He frequented the Apollo tavern, where he would see and keep company -with two _habitués_ of his theatre,--Decker, author of the "Gull's -Hornbook," in which a chapter is specially devoted to "the way a -man of fashion ought to behave at the play," and Dr. Symon Forman, -who has left a manuscript journal, containing reports of the first -representations of the "Merchant of Venice," and "A Winter's Tale." He -used to meet Sir Walter Raleigh at the Siren Club. Somewhere about that -time, Maturin Régnier met Philippe de Béthune at la Pomme de Pin. The -great lords and fine gentlemen of the day were rather prone to lend -their names in order to start new taverns. At Paris the Viscount de -Montauban, who was a Créqui, founded Le Tripot des Onze Mille Diables. -At Madrid, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, the unfortunate admiral of the -"Invincible," founded the Puño-en-rostro, and in London Sir Walter -Raleigh founded the Siren. There you found drunkenness and wit. - -7. In 1589, when James VI. of Scotland, looking to the throne of -England, paid his respects to Elizabeth, who, two years before, on the -8th February, 1587, had beheaded Mary Stuart, mother of this James, -Shakespeare composed his first drama, "Pericles." In 1591, while the -Catholic king was dreaming, after a scheme of the Marquis d'Astorga, -of a second Armada, more lucky than the first, inasmuch as it never -put to sea, he composed "Henry VI." In 1593, when the Jesuits obtained -from the Pope express permission to paint "the pains and torments of -hell," on the walls of "the chamber of meditation" of Clermont College, -where they often shut up a poor youth, who the year after, became -famous under the name of Jean Châtel, he composed "Taming the Shrew." -In 1594, when, looking daggers at each other and ready for battle, -the King of Spain, the Queen of England, and even the King of France, -all three said "my good city of Paris," he continued and completed -"Henry VI." In 1595, while Clement VIII. at Rome was solemnly aiming -a blow at Henry IV. by laying his crosier on the backs of Cardinals -du Perron and d'Ossat, he wrote "Timon of Athens." In 1596, the year -when Elizabeth published an edict against the long points of bucklers, -and when Philip II. drove from his presence a woman who laughed when -blowing her nose, he composed "Macbeth." In 1597, when this same Philip -II. said to the Duke of Alba, "You deserve the axe," not because the -Duke of Alba had put the Low Countries to fire and sword, but because -he had entered into the king's presence without being announced, he -composed "Cymbeline" and "Richard III." In 1598, when the Earl of Essex -ravaged Ireland, bearing on his headdress the glove of the virgin Queen -Elizabeth, he composed the "Two Gentlemen of Verona," "King John," -"Love's Labour's Lost," "The Comedy of Errors," "All's Well that Ends -Well," "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and "The Merchant of Venice." In -1599, when the Privy Council, at her Majesty's request, deliberated -on the proposal to put Dr. Hayward to the rack for having stolen some -of the ideas of Tacitus, he composed "Romeo and Juliet." In 1600, -while the Emperor Rudolph was waging war against his rebel brother -and sentencing his son, murderer of a woman, to be bled to death, he -composed "As You Like It," "Henry IV.," "Henry V.," and "Much Ado about -Nothing." In 1601, when Bacon published the eulogy on the execution -of the Earl of Essex, just as Leibnitz, eighty years afterward, was -to find out good reasons for the murder of Monaldeschi, with this -difference however, that Monaldeschi was nothing to Leibnitz, and that -Essex had been the benefactor of Bacon, he composed "Twelfth Night; -or, What you Will." In 1602, while in obedience to the Pope, the King -of France, styled "Renard de Béarn" by Cardinal Aldobrandini, was -counting his beads every day, reciting the litanies on Wednesday, and -the rosary of the Virgin Mary on Saturday, while fifteen cardinals, -assisted by the heads of the chapter, opened the discussion on Molinism -at Rome, and while the Holy See, at the request of the crown of -Spain, "was saving Christianity and the world" by the institution of -the congregation "de Auxiliis," he composed "Othello." In 1603, when -the death of Elizabeth made Henry IV. say, "She was a virgin just as -I am a Catholic," he composed "Hamlet." In 1604, while Philip III. -was losing his last footing in the Low Countries, he wrote "Julius -Cæsar" and "Measure for Measure." In 1606, at the time when James I. -of England, the former James VI. of Scotland, wrote against Bellarmin -the "Tortura Forti" and faithless to Carr began to look sweetly on -Villiers, who was afterward to honour him with the title of "Your -Filthiness," he composed "Coriolanus." In 1607, when the University of -York received the little Prince of Wales as doctor, according to the -account of Father St. Romuald "with all the ceremonies and the usual -fur gowns," he wrote "King Lear." In 1609, when the magistracy of -France, placing the scaffold at the disposition of the king, gave upon -trust a _carte blanche_ for the sentence of the Prince de Condé "to -such punishment as it might please his Majesty to order," Shakespeare -composed "Troilus and Cressida." In 1610, when Ravaillac assassinated -Henry IV. by the dagger, and the French parliament assassinated -Ravaillac by the process of quartering his body, Shakespeare composed -"Antony and Cleopatra." In 1611, while the Moors, driven out by Philip -III., and in the pangs of death, were crawling out of Spain, he wrote -the "Winter's Tale," "Henry VIII.," and "The Tempest." - -8. He used to write on flying sheets, like nearly all poets. Malherbe -and Boileau are almost the only ones who have written on quires of -paper. Racan said to Mlle. de Gournay:-- - - "I have seen this morning M. de Malherbe sewing with coarse - gray thread a bundle of white papers, on which will soon - appear some sonnets." - -Each of Shakespeare's dramas, composed according to the wants of his -company, was in all probability learned and rehearsed in haste by -the actors from the original itself, as they had not time to copy it; -hence, in his case as in Molière's, the mislaying of manuscripts which -were cut into parts. Few or no entry-books in those almost itinerant -theatres; no coincidence between the time of representation and the -publication of the plays; sometimes not even a printed copy,--the -stage the sole publication. When the pieces by chance are printed, -they bear titles which bewilder us. The second part of Henry VI. is -entitled "The First Part of the War between York and Lancaster." The -third part is called "The True Tragedy of Richard, Duke of York." -All this enables us to understand why so much obscurity rests on the -dates when Shakespeare composed his dramas, and why it is difficult -to fix them with precision. The dates that we have just given, and -which are here brought together for the first time, are pretty nearly -certain; notwithstanding, some doubt still exists as to the years when -the following were written, or indeed played,--"Timon of Athens," -"Cymbeline," "Julius Cæsar," "Antony and Cleopatra," "Coriolanus," -and "Macbeth." Here and there we meet with barren years; others there -are of which the fertility seems excessive. It is, for instance, -on a simple note by Meres, author of the "Treasure of Wit," that -we are compelled to attribute to the year 1598 the creation of six -pieces,--"The Two Gentlemen of Verona," the "Comedy of Errors," "King -John," "Midsummer Night's Dream," "The Merchant of Venice," and "All's -Well that Ends Well," which Meres calls "Love's Labour Gained." The -date of "Henry VI." is fixed, for the first part at least, by an -allusion which Nash makes to this play in "Pierce Penniless." The year -1604 is given as that of "Measure for Measure," inasmuch as this piece -had been represented on Stephen's Day of that year, of which Hemynge -makes a special note; and the year 1611 for "Henry VIII." inasmuch as -"Henry VIII." was played at the time of the fire of the Globe Theatre. -Various circumstances--a disagreement with his company, a whim of the -lord-chamberlain--sometimes compelled Shakespeare to change from one -theatre to another. "Taming the Shrew" was played for the first time in -1593, at Henslowe's theatre; "Twelfth Night" in 1601, at Middle Temple -Hall; "Othello" in 1602, at Harefield Castle. "King Lear" was played -at Whitehall during Christmas (1607) before James I. Burbage created -the part of Lear. Lord Southampton, recently set free from the Tower of -London, was present at this performance. This Lord Southampton was an -old _habitué_ of Blackfriars; and Shakespeare, in 1589, had dedicated -the poem of "Adonis" to him. Adonis was the fashion at that time; -twenty-five years after Shakespeare, the Chevalier Marini wrote a poem -on Adonis which he dedicated to Louis XIII. - -9. In 1597 Shakespeare lost his son, who has left as his only -trace on earth one line in the death-register of the parish of -Stratford-on-Avon: "1597. August 17. Hamnet. Filius William -Shakespeare." On the 6th September, 1601, his father, John Shakespeare, -died. He was now the head of his company of comedians. James I. had -given him, in 1607, the lease of Blackfriars, and afterward that -of the Globe. In 1613 Madame Elizabeth, daughter of James, and the -Elector-palatine, King of Bohemia, whose statue may be seen in the ivy -at the angle of a big tower at Heidelberg, came to the Globe to see the -"Tempest" performed. These royal attendances did not save him from the -censure of the lord-chamberlain. A certain interdict weighed on his -pieces, the representation of which was tolerated, and the printing now -and then forbidden. On the second volume of the register at Stationers' -Hall you may read to-day on the margin of the title of three pieces, -"As You Like It," "Henry V.," "Much Ado about Nothing," the words "4 -Augt. to suspend." The motives for these interdictions escape us. -Shakespeare was able, for instance without raising objection, to place -on the stage his former poaching adventure and make Sir Thomas Lucy -a buffoon (Judge Shallow), show the public Falstaff killing the buck -and belabouring Shallow's people, and push the likeness so far as to -give to Shallow the arms of Sir Thomas Lucy,--an outrageous piece of -Aristophanism by a man who did not know Aristophanes. Falstaff, in -Shakespeare's manuscripts, was written Falstaffe. In the mean time his -circumstances had improved, as later they did with Molière. Toward -the end of the century he was rich enough for a certain Ryc-Quiney -to ask, on the 8th October, 1598, his assistance in a letter which -bears the inscription: "To my amiable friend and countryman William -Shakespeare." He refused the assistance, as it appears, and returned -the letter, found since among Fletcher's papers, and on the reverse of -which this same Ryc-Quiney had written: "_Histrio! Mima!_" He loved -Stratford-on-Avon, where he was born, where his father had died, where -his son was buried. He there purchased or built a house, which he -christened "New Place." We say, bought or built a house, for he bought -it, according to Whiterill, and he built it according to Forbes, and on -this point Forbes disputes with Whiterill. These cavils of the learned -about trifles are not worth being searched into, particularly when we -see Father Hardouin, for instance, completely upset a whole passage of -Pliny by replacing _nos pridem_ by _non pridem._ - - -[Illustration: _Shakespeare in his Garden._ - -Photogravure.--From R. de Los Rios' etching of painting by François -Flameng.] - - -10. Shakespeare went from time to time to pass some days at New Place. -In these short journeys he met half-way Oxford, and at Oxford the -Crown Hotel, and in the hotel the hostess, a beautiful, intelligent -creature, wife of the worthy innkeeper, Davenant. In 1606 Mrs. Davenant -was brought to bed of a son whom they named William, and in 1644 -Sir William Davenant, created knight by Charles I., wrote to Lord -Rochester: "Know this, which does honour to my mother, I am the son -of Shakespeare," thus allying himself to Shakespeare in the same way -that in our days M. Lucas Montigny claimed relationship with Mirabeau. -Shakespeare had married off his two daughters,--Susan to a doctor, -Judith to a merchant; Susan had wit, Judith knew not how to read or -write, and signed her name with a cross. In 1613 it happened that -Shakespeare, having come to Stratford-on-Avon, had no further desire -to return to London. Perhaps he was in difficulties. He had just been -compelled to mortgage his house. The contract deed of this mortgage, -dated 11th March, 1613, and indorsed with Shakespeare's signature, -was up to the last century in the hands of an attorney, who gave it -to Garrick, who lost it. Garrick lost likewise (it is Miss Violetti, -his wife, who tells the story), Forbes's manuscript, with his letters -in Latin. From 1613 Shakespeare remained at his house at New Place, -occupied with his garden, forgetting his plays, wrapped up in his -flowers. He planted in this garden of New Place the first mulberry-tree -that was grown at Stratford, just as Queen Elizabeth wore, in 1561, the -first silk stockings seen in England. On the 25th March, 1616, feeling -ill, he made his will. His will, dictated by him, is written on three -pages; he signed each of them; his hand trembled. On the first page -he signed only his Christian name, "William;" on the second, "Willm. -Shaspr.;" on the third, "William Shasp." On the 23d April, he died. -He had reached that day exactly fifty-two years, being born on the -23d April, 1564. On that same day, 23d April, 1616, died Cervantes, a -genius of like growth. When Shakespeare died, Milton was eight years, -Corneille ten years of age; Charles I. and Cromwell were two youths, -the one sixteen, the other seventeen years old. - - -[Footnote 1: See L'Inferno, Chant xx.] - - - -CHAPTER IV. - - -Shakespeare's life was greatly imbittered. He lived perpetually -slighted; he states it himself. Posterity may read this to-day in his -own verses:-- - - "Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, - And almost thence my nature is subdu'd. - Pity me, then, - Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink - Potions of eysel."[1] - - "Your love and pity doth th' impression fill - Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow."[2] - - "Nor thou with public kindness honour me, - Unless thou take that honour from thy name."[3] - - "Or on my frailty why are frailer spies."[4] - -Shakespeare had permanently near him one envious person, Ben -Jonson,--an indifferent comic poet, whose _début_ he assisted. -Shakespeare was thirty-nine when Elizabeth died. This queen had not -paid attention to him; she managed to reign forty-four years without -seeing that Shakespeare was there. She is not the least qualified, -historically, to be called the "protectress of arts and letters," -etc. The historians of the old school gave these certificates to all -princes, whether they knew how to read or not. - -Shakespeare, persecuted like Molière at a later date, sought, as -Molière, to lean on the master. Shakespeare and Molière would in our -days have had a loftier spirit. The master, it was Elizabeth,--"King -Elizabeth," as the English called her. Shakespeare glorified Elizabeth: -he called her the "Virgin Star," "Star of the West," and "Diana,"--a -name of a goddess which pleased the queen,--but in vain. The queen took -no notice of it; less sensitive to the praises in which Shakespeare -called her Diana than to the insults of Scipio Gentilis, who, taking -the pretensions of Elizabeth on the bad side, called her "Hecate," and -applied to her the ancient triple curse, "Mormo! Bombo! Gorgo!" As for -James I., whom Henry IV. called Master James, he gave, as we have seen, -the lease of the Globe to Shakespeare, but he willingly forbade the -publication of his pieces. Some contemporaries, Dr. Symon Forman among -others, so far took notice of Shakespeare as to make a note of the -occupation of an evening passed at the performance of the "Merchant of -Venice!" That was all which he knew of glory. Shakespeare, once dead, -entered into oblivion. - -From 1640 to 1660 the Puritans abolished art, and shut up the -playhouses. All theatricals were under a funeral shroud. With Charles -II. the drama revived without Shakespeare. The false taste of Louis -XIV. had invaded England. Charles II. belonged rather to Versailles -than London. He had as mistress a French girl, the Duchess of -Portsmouth, and as an intimate friend the privy purse of the King of -France. Clifford, his favourite, who never entered the parliament-house -without spitting, said: "It is better for my master to be viceroy under -a great monarch like Louis XIV. than the slave of five hundred insolent -English subjects." These were not the days of the republic,--the time -when Cromwell took the title of "Protector of England and France," and -forced this same Louis XIV. to accept the title of "King of the French." - -Under this restoration of the Stuarts, Shakespeare completed his -eclipse. He was so thoroughly dead that Davenant, possibly his son, -re-composed his pieces. There was no longer any "Macbeth" but the -"Macbeth" of Davenant. Dryden speaks of Shakespeare on one occasion in -order to say that he is "out of date." Lord Shaftesbury calls him "a -wit out of fashion." Dryden and Shaftesbury were two oracles. Dryden, -a converted Catholic, had two sons, ushers in the Chamber of Clément -XI., made tragedies worth putting into Latin verse, as Atterbury's -hexameters prove; and he was the servant of that James II. who, before -being king on his own account, had asked of his brother, Charles II., -"Why don't you hang Milton?" The Earl of Shaftesbury, a friend of -Locke, was the man who wrote an "Essay on Sprightliness in Important -Conversations," and who, by the manner in which Chancellor Hyde helped -his daughter to the wing of a chicken, divined that she was secretly -married to the Duke of York. - -These two men having condemned Shakespeare, the oracle had spoken. -England, a country more obedient to conventional opinion than is -generally believed, forgot Shakespeare. Some purchaser pulled down -his house, New Place. A Rev. Dr. Cartrell cut down and burned his -mulberry-tree. At the commencement of the eighteenth century the -eclipse was total. In 1707, one called Nahum Tate published a "King -Lear," warning his readers "that he had borrowed the idea of it from a -play which he had read by chance,--the work of some nameless author." -This "nameless author" was Shakespeare. - - -[Footnote 1: Sonnet 111.] - -[Footnote 2: Sonnet 112.] - -[Footnote 3: Sonnet 36.] - -[Footnote 4: Sonnet 121.] - - - -CHAPTER V. - - -In 1728 Voltaire imported from England to France the name of Will -Shakespeare. Only in place of Will, he pronounced it _Gilles._ - -Jeering began in France, and oblivion continued in England. What -the Irishman Nahum Tate had done for "King Lear," others did for -other pieces. "All's Well that Ends Well" had successively two -arrangers,--Pilon for the Haymarket, and Kemble for Drury Lane. -Shakespeare existed no more, and counted no more. "Much Ado about -Nothing" served likewise as a rough draft twice,--for Davenant in -1673, for James Miller in 1737. "Cymbeline" was recast four times: -under James II., at the Theatre Royal, by Thomas Dursey; in 1695 by -Charles Marsh; in 1759 by W. Hawkins; in 1761 by Garrick. "Coriolanus" -was recast four times: in 1682, for the Theatre Royal, by Tates; in -1720, for Drury Lane, by John Dennis; in 1755, for Covent Garden, by -Thomas Sheridan; in 1801, for Drury Lane, by Kemble. "Timon of Athens" -was recast four times: at the Duke's Theatre, in 1678, by Shadwell; -in 1768, at the Theatre of Richmond Green, by James Love; in 1771, at -Drury Lane, by Cumberland; in 1786, at Covent Garden, by Hull. - -In the eighteenth century the persistent raillery of Voltaire ended in -producing in England a certain waking up. Garrick, while correcting -Shakespeare, played him, and acknowledged that it was Shakespeare that -he played. They reprinted him at Glasgow. An imbecile, Malone, made -commentaries on his plays, and as a logical sequence, whitewashed his -tomb. There was on this tomb a little bust, of a doubtful resemblance, -and moderate as a work of art; but, what made it a subject of -reverence, contemporaneous with Shakespeare. It is after this bust that -all the portraits of Shakespeare have been made that we now see. The -bust was whitewashed. Malone, critic and whitewasher of Shakespeare, -spread a coat of plaster on his face, of idiotic nonsense on his work. - - - - -BOOK II. - - -MEN OF GENIUS. - - - -CHAPTER I. - - -Great Art, using this word in its arbitrary sense, is the region of -Equals. - -Before going farther, let us fix the value of this expression, Art, -which often recurs in our writing. - -We speak of Art as we speak of Nature; here are two terms of an -almost unlimited signification. To pronounce the one or the other of -these words, Nature, Art, is to make a conjuration, to extract from -the depths the ideal, to draw aside one of the two grand curtains of -a divine creation. God manifests himself to us in the first degree -through the life of the universe, and in the second through the thought -of man. The second manifestation is not less holy than the first. The -first is named Nature, the second is named Art. Hence this reality: the -poet is a priest - -There is here below a pontiff,--it is genius. - -_Sacerdos Magnus._ - -Art is the second branch of Nature. - -Art is as natural as Nature. - -By the word _God_--let us fix the sense of this word--we mean the -Living Infinite. - -The I latent of the Infinite patent, that is God. - -God is the Invisible seen. - -The world concentrated is God. God expanded, is the world. - -We, who are speaking, we believe in nothing out of God. - -That being said, let us proceed. God creates art by man. He has for a -tool the human intellect. This tool the Workman has made for himself; -he has no other. - -Forbes, in the curious little work perused by Warburton and lost by -Garrick, affirms that Shakespeare devoted himself to the practice of -magic, that magic was in his family, and that what little good there -was in his pieces was dictated to him by one "Alleur," a spirit. - -Let us say on this point, for we must not avoid any of the questions -about to arise, that it is a wretched error of all ages to desire to -give the human intellect assistance from without,--_antrum adjuvat -vatem._ To the work which seems superhuman, people wish to bring the -intervention of the extra-human,--in antiquity, the tripod; in our -days, the table. The table is nothing but the tripod come back. To -accept _au pied de la lettre_ the demon that Socrates talks of, the -thicket of Moses, the nymph of Numa, the spirit of Plotinus, and -Mahomet's dove, is to be the victim of a metaphor. - -On the other hand, the table, turning or talking, has been very much -laughed at; to speak the truth, this raillery is out of place. To -replace inquiry by mockery is convenient, but not very scientific. -For our part, we think that the strict duty of science is to test all -phenomena. Science is ignorant, and has no right to laugh; a savant -who laughs at the possible is very near being an idiot. The unexpected -ought always to be expected by science. Her duty is to stop it in -its course and search it, rejecting the chimerical, establishing the -real. Science has but the right to put a visa on facts; she should -verify and distinguish. All human knowledge is but picking and culling. -Because the false mixes with the true, it is no excuse for rejecting -the mass. When was the tare an excuse for refusing the corn? Hoe the -weed, error, but reap the fact, and place it beside others. Knowledge -is the sheaf of facts. - -The mission of science,--to study and try the depth of everything. All -of us, according to our degree, are the creditors of investigation; -we are its debtors also. It is owed to us, and we owe it to others. -To avoid a phenomenon, to refuse to pay it that attention to which it -has a right, to lead it out, to shut to the door, to turn our back on -it laughing, is to make truth a bankrupt, and to leave the draft of -science to be protested. The phenomenon of the tripod of old, and of -the table of to-day, is entitled, like anything else, to observation. -Psychic science will gain by it, without doubt. Let us add that to -abandon phenomena to credulity is to commit treason against human -reason. - -Homer affirms that the tripods of Delphi walked of their own accord; -and he explains the fact[1] by saying that Vulcan forged invisible -wheels for them. The explanation does not much simplify the phenomenon. -Plato relates that the statues of Dædalus gesticulated in the darkness, -had a will of their own, and resisted their master; and that he was -obliged to tie them up, so that they might not walk off. Strange dogs -at the end of a chain! Fléchier mentions, at page 52 of his "Histoire -de Thédodose"--referring to the great conspiracy of the magicians of -the fourth century against the emperor--a table-turning of which, -perhaps, we shall speak elsewhere, in order to say what Fléchier -did not say, and seemed to ignore. This table was covered with a -round plating of several metals, _ex diversis metallicis materiis -fabrefacta_, like the plates of copper and zinc actually employed in -biology. So you may see that the phenomenon, always rejected and always -reappearing, is not a matter of yesterday. - -Besides, whatever credulity has said or thought about it, this -phenomenon of the tripods and tables is without any connection, and -it is the very thing we want to come to, with the inspiration of the -poets,--an inspiration entirely direct. The sibyl has a tripod, the -poet none. The poet is himself a tripod. He is a tripod of God. God has -not made this marvellous distillery of thought, the brain of man, not -to be made use of. Genius has all that it wants in its brain; every -thought passes by there. Thought ascends and buds from the brain, as -the fruit from the root. Thought is man's consequence; the root plunges -into earth, the brain into God,--that is to say, into the Infinite. - -Those who imagine (there are such, witness Forbes) that a poem like "Le -Médecin de son Honneur," or "King Lear," can be dictated by a tripod or -a table, err in a strange fashion; these works are the works of man. -God has no need to make a piece of wood aid Shakespeare or Calderon. - -Then let us dispose of the tripod. Poetry is the poet's own. Let us be -respectful before the possible of which no one knows the limit; let us -be attentive and serious before the extra-human, out of which we come, -and which awaits us; but let us not diminish the great workers of earth -by hypotheses of mysterious assistance, which is not necessary. Let us -leave to the brain what belongs to it, and agree that the work of the -men of genius is of the superhuman, the offspring of man. - - -[Footnote 1: Song XVIII of the Iliad.] - - - -CHAPTER II. - - -Supreme Art is the region of Equals. - -The _chef d'œuvre_ is adequate to the _chef d'œuvre._ - -As water, when heated to 100° C., is incapable of calorific increase, -and can rise no higher, so human thought attains in certain men its -maximum intensity. Æschylus, Job, Phidias, Isaiah, Saint Paul, Juvenal, -Dante, Michael Angelo, Rabelais, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Rembrandt, -Beethoven, with some others, mark the 100° of genius. - -The human mind has a summit. - -This summit is the Ideal. - -God descends, man rises to it. - -In each age three or four men of genius undertake the ascent. From -below, the world follow them with their eyes. These men go up the -mountain, enter into the clouds, disappear, re-appear. People watch -them, mark them. They walk by the side of precipices. A false step does -not displease certain of the lookers-on. They daringly pursue their -road. See them aloft, see them in the distance; they are but black -specks. "How small they are!" says the crowd. They are giants. On they -go. The road is uneven, its difficulties constant. At each step a wall, -at each step a trap. As they rise, the cold increases. They must make -their ladder, cut the ice, and walk on it, hewing the steps in haste. -Every storm is raging. Nevertheless, they go forward in their madness. -The air becomes difficult to breathe. The abyss increases around them. -Some fall. It is well done. Others stop and retrace their steps; there -is sad weariness. - -The bold ones continue; those predestined persist. The dreadful -declivity sinks beneath them and tries to draw them in; glory is -traitorous. They are eyed by the eagles; the lightning plays about -them; the hurricane is furious. No matter, they persevere. They ascend. -He who arrives at the summit is thy equal, Homer! - -Those names that we have mentioned, and those which we might have -added, repeat them again. To choose between these men is impossible. -There is no method for striking the balance between Rembrandt and -Michael Angelo. - -And, to confine ourselves solely to the authors and poets, examine them -one after the other. Which is the greatest? Every one. - -1. One, Homer, is the huge poet-child. The world is born, Homer sings. -He is the bird of this aurora. Homer has the holy sincerity of the -early dawn. He almost ignores shadow. Chaos, heaven, earth; Geo and -Ceto; Jove, god of gods; Agamemnon, king of kings; peoples; flocks -from the beginning; temples, towns, battles, harvests; the ocean; -Diomedes fighting; Ulysses wandering; the windings of a sail seeking -its home; Cyclops; dwarfs; a map of the world crowned by the gods of -Olympus; and here and there a glimmer of the furnace permitting a -sight of hell; priests, virgins, mothers; little children frightened -by the plumes; the dog who remembers; great words which fall from -gray-beards; friendships, loves, passions, and the hydras; Vulcan for -the laugh of the gods, Thersites for the laugh of men; two aspects of -married life summed up for the benefit of ages in Helen and Penelope; -the Styx; Destiny; the heel of Achilles, without which Destiny would -be vanquished by the Styx; monsters, heroes, men; thousands of -landscapes seen in perspective in the cloud of the old world,--this -immensity, this is Homer. Troy coveted, Ithaca desired. Homer is war -and travel,--the first two methods for the meeting of mankind. The -camp attacks the fortress, the ship sounds the unknown, which is -also an attack; around war every passion; around travels every kind -of adventure,--two gigantic groups; the first, bloody, is called the -Iliad; the second, luminous, is called the Odyssey. Homer makes men -greater than Nature; they hurl at each other rocks which twelve pairs -of oxen could not move. The gods hardly care to come in contact with -them. Minerva takes Achilles by the hair; he turns round in anger: -"What do you want with me, goddess?" No monotony in these puissant -figures. These giants are graduated. After each hero, Homer breaks the -mould. Ajax, son of Oïleus, is less high in stature than Ajax, son of -Telamon. Homer is one of the men of genius who resolve that beautiful -problem of art (the most beautiful of all, perhaps),--the true picture -of humanity obtained by aggrandizing man; that is to say, the creation -of the real in the ideal. Fable and history, hypothesis and tradition, -the chimera and knowledge, make up Homer. He is fathomless, and he -is cheerful. All the depth of ancient days moves happily radiant and -luminous in the vast azure of this spirit. Lycurgus, that peevish -sage, half way between a Solon and a Draco, was conquered by Homer. -He turned out of the way, while travelling, to go and read, at the -house of Cleophilus, Homer's poems, placed there in remembrance of -the hospitality that Homer, it is said, had formerly received in that -house. Homer, to the Greeks, was a god; he had priests,--the Homerides. -Alcibiades gave a bombastic orator a cuff for boasting that he had -never read Homer. The divinity of Homer has survived Paganism. Michael -Angelo said, "When I read Homer, I look at myself to see if I am not -twenty feet in height." Tradition will have it that the first verse of -the Iliad should be a verse of Orpheus. This doubling Homer by Orpheus, -increased in Greece the religion of Homer. The shield of Achilles[1] -was commented on in the temples by Damo, daughter of Pythagoras. -Homer, as the sun, has planets. Virgil, who writes the Æneid, Lucan, -who writes "Pharsalia," Tasso, who writes "Jerusalem," Ariosto, who -composes "Roland," Milton, who writes "Paradise Lost," Camoëns, who -writes the "Lusiades," Klopstock, who wrote the "Messiah," Voltaire, -who wrote the "Henriade," gravitate toward Homer, and sending back -to their own moons his light reflected in different degrees, move at -unequal distances in his boundless orbit. This is Homer. Such is the -beginning of the epic poem. - -2. Another, Job, began the drama. This embryo is a colossus. Job begins -the drama, and it is forty centuries ago, by placing Jehovah and -Satan in presence of each other; the evil defies the good, and behold -the action is begun. The earth is the place for the scene, and man -the field of battle; the plagues are the actors. One of the wildest -grandeurs of this poem is that in it the sun is inauspicious. The sun -is in Job as in Homer; but it is no longer the dawn, it is midday. The -mournful heaviness of the brazen ray falling perpendicularly on the -desert pervades this poem, heated to a white heat. Job sweats on his -dunghill. The shadow of Job is small and black, and hidden under him, -as the snake under the rock. Tropical flies buzz on his sores. Job has -above his head the frightful Arabian sun,--a bringer-up of monsters, an -amplifier of plagues, who changes the cat into the tiger, the lizard -into the crocodile, the pig into the rhinoceros, the snake into the -boa, the nettle into the cactus, the wind into the simoon, the miasma -into the plague. Job is anterior to Moses. Far into ages, by the side -of Abraham, the Hebrew patriarch, there is Job, the Arabian patriarch. -Before being proved, he had been happy,--"the greatest man in all -the East," says his poem. This was the labourer-king. He exercised -the immense priesthood of solitude; he sacrificed and sanctified. -Toward evening he gave the earth the blessing,--the "berac." He was -learned; he knew rhythm; his poem, of which the Arabian text is lost, -was written in verse,--this, at least, is certain as regards from -verse 3 of chap. III. to the end. He was good; he did not meet a poor -child without throwing him the small coin kesitha; he was "the foot -of the lame man, and the eye of the blind." It is from that that he -was precipitated; fallen, he became gigantic. The whole poem of "Job" -is the development of this idea,--the greatness that may be found at -the bottom of the abyss. Job is more majestic when unfortunate than -when prosperous. His leprosy is a purple cloth. His misery terrifies -those who are there; they speak not to him until after a silence of -seven days and seven nights. His lamentation is marked by they know -not what quiet and sad sorcery. As he is crushing the vermin on his -ulcers, he calls on the stars. He addresses Orion, the Hyades, which he -names the Pleiades, and the signs that are at noonday. He says, "God -has put an end to darkness." He calls the diamond which is hidden, -"the stone of obscurity." He mixes with his distress the misfortune of -others, and has tragic words that freeze,--"The widow is desolate." He -smiles also, and is then more frightful yet. He has around him Eliphaz, -Bildad, Zophar,--three implacable types of the friendly busybody, -of whom he says, "You play on me as on a tambourine." His language, -submissive toward God, is bitter toward kings: "The kings of the earth -build solitudes," leaving our wit to find out whether he speaks of -their tomb or their kingdom. Tacitus says, "Solitudinem faciunt." As -to Jehovah, he adores him; and under the furious scourging of the -plagues, all his resistance is confined to asking of God, "Wilt thou -not permit me to swallow my spittle?" That dates four thousand years -ago. At the same hour, perhaps, when the enigmatical astronomer of -Denderah carves in the granite his mysterious zodiac, Job engraves -his on human thought; and his zodiac is not made of stars, but of -miseries. This zodiac turns yet above our heads. We have of Job only -the Hebrew version, written by Moses. Such a poet, followed by such -a translator, makes us dream! The man of the dunghill is translated -by the man of Sinai. It is that, in reality, Job is a minister and a -prophet. Job extracts from his drama a dogma. Job suffers, and draws an -inference. Now, to suffer and draw an inference is to teach; sorrow, -when logical, leads to God. Job teaches. Job, after having touched the -summit of the drama, stirs up the depths of philosophy. He shows first -that sublime madness of wisdom which, two thousand years later, by -resignation making itself a sacrifice, will be the foolishness of the -cross,--_stultitiam crucis._ The dunghill of Job, transfigured, will -become the Calvary of Jesus. - -3. Another, Æschylus, enlightened by the unconscious divination of -genius, without suspecting that he has behind him, in the East, the -resignation of Job, completes it, unwittingly, by the revolt of -Prometheus; so that the lesson may be complete, and that the human -race, to whom Job has taught but duty, shall feel in Prometheus Right -dawning. There is something ghastly in Æschylus from one end to the -other; there is a vague outline of an extraordinary Medusa behind the -figures in the foreground. Æschylus is magnificent and powerful,--as -though you saw him knitting his brows beyond the sun. He has two -Cains,--Eteocles and Polynices; Genesis has but one. His swarm of -sea-monsters come and go in the dark sky, as a flock of driven birds. -Æschylus has none of the known proportions. He is rough, abrupt, -immoderate, incapable of smoothing the way, almost ferocious, with -a grace of his own which resembles the flowers in wild places, less -haunted by nymphs than by the Eumenides, of the faction of the Titans; -among goddesses choosing the sombre ones, and smiling darkly at the -Gorgons; a son of the earth like Othryx and Briareus, and ready to -attempt again the scaling of heaven against that _parvenu Jupiter._ -Æschylus is ancient mystery made man,--something like a Pagan prophet. -His work, if we had it all, would be a kind of Greek bible. Poet -hundred-handed, having an Orestes more fatal than Ulysses and a Thebes -grander than Troy, hard as a rock, raging like the foam, full of -steeps, torrents, and precipices, and such a giant that at times you -might suppose that he becomes mountain. Coming later than the Iliad, he -has the appearance of an elder son of Homer. - -4. Another, Isaiah, seems, above humanity, as a roaring of continual -thunder. He is the great censure. His style, a kind of nocturnal -cloud, lightens up unceasingly with images which suddenly empurple -all the depths of this dark mind, and makes us exclaim, "He gives -light!" Isaiah takes hand-to-hand the evil which, in civilization, -makes its appearance before the good. He cries "Silence!" at the -noise of chariots, of _fêtes_, of triumphs. The foam of his prophecy -surges even on Nature. He denounces Babylon to the moles and bats, -promises Nineveh briers, Tyre ashes, Jerusalem night, fixes a date for -the wrong-doers, warns the powers of their approaching end, assigns -a day against idols, high citadels, the fleets of Tarsus, the cedars -of Lebanon, the oaks of Basan. He is standing on the threshold of -civilization, and he refuses to enter. He is a kind of mouthpiece of -the desert speaking to multitudes, and claiming for quicksands, briers, -and breezes the place where towns are, because it is just; because the -tyrant and the slave--that is to say, pride and shame--exist wherever -there are walled enclosures; because evil is there incarnate in man; -because in solitude there is but the beast, while in the city there is -the monster. That which Isaiah made a reproach of in his day--idolatry, -pride, war, prostitution, ignorance--still exists. Isaiah is the -eternal contemporary of vices which turn valets, and crimes which exalt -themselves into kings. - -5. Another, Ezekiel, is the wild soothsayer,--the genius of the -cavern; thought which the roar suits. But listen. This savage makes -a prophecy to the world,--Progress. Nothing more astonishing. Ah, -Isaiah overthrows? Very well! Ezekiel will reconstruct. Isaiah refuses -civilization. Ezekiel accepts, but transforms it. Nature and humanity -blend together in that softened howl which Ezekiel throws forth. The -idea of duty is in Job; of right, in Æschylus. Ezekiel brings before -us the resulting third idea,--the human race ameliorated, posterity -more and more free. That posterity may be a rising instead of a setting -star is man's consolation. Time present works for time to come. Work, -then, and hope. Such is Ezekiel's cry. Ezekiel is in Chaldæa; and -from Chaldæa he sees distinctly Judæa, as from oppression you may -see liberty. He declares peace as others declare war. He prophesies -harmony, goodness, sweetness, union, the blending of races, love. -Notwithstanding, he is terrible. He is the austere benefactor. He is -the universal kind-hearted grumbler at the human race. He scolds, he -almost gnashes his teeth; and people fear and hate him. The men about -are thorns to him. "I live among the briers," he says. He condemns -himself to be a symbol, and makes in his person, become hideous, a sign -of human misery and popular degradation. He is a kind of voluntary -Job. In his town, in his house, he causes himself to be bound with -cords, and rests mute: behold the slave. In the public place he eats -dung: behold the courtier. This makes Voltaire burst into laughter, -and causes our tears to flow. Ah, Ezekiel, so far does your devotion -go! You render shame visible by horror; you compel ignominy to turn -the head when recognizing herself in the dirt; you show that to -accept a man for master is to eat dung; you cause a shudder to the -cowards who follow the prince, by putting into your stomach what -they put into their souls; you preach deliverance by vomiting; be -reverenced! This man, this being, this figure, this swine-prophet, is -sublime. And the transfiguration that he announces he proves. How? By -transfiguring himself. From this horrible and soiled lip comes forth -the blaze of poetry. Never has grander language been spoken, never more -extraordinary. - - "I saw the vision of God. A whirlwind comes from the north, - and a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself. I saw a - chariot and a likeness of four animals. Above the creatures - and the chariot was a space like a terrible crystal. The - wheels of the chariot were made of eyes, and so high that - they were dreadful. The noise of the wings of the four - angels was as the noise of the All-Powerful, and when they - stopped they lowered their wings. And I saw a likeness which - was as fire, and which put forth a hand. And a voice said, - 'The kings and the judges have in their souls gods of dung. - I will take from their breasts the heart of stone, and I - will give them a heart of flesh.' I went to them that dwelt - by the river of Chebar, and I remained there astonished - among them seven days." - -And again:-- - - "There was a plain and dry bones; and I said, 'Bones, rise - up,' and I looked, and there came nerves on these bones, and - flesh on these nerves, and a skin above; but the spirit was - not there. And I cried, 'Spirit, come from the four winds, - breathe, so that these dead revive.' The spirit came. The - breath entered into them, and they rose up, and it was an - army, and it was a people. Then the voice said, 'You shall - be one nation, you shall have no king or judge but me; and - I will be the God who has one people, and you shall be the - people who have one God.'" - -Is not everything there? Search for a higher formula, you will not -find it. A free man under a sovereign God. This visionary eater of -dung is a resuscitator. Ezekiel has mud on the lips and sun in the -eyes. Among the Jews the reading of Ezekiel was dreaded. It was not -permitted before the age of thirty years. Priests, disturbed, put a -seal on this poet. People could not call him an impostor. His terror -as a prophet was incontestable. He had evidently seen what he related. -Thence his authority. His very enigmas made him an oracle. They could -not tell which it was, these women sitting toward the north weeping for -Tammuz. Impossible to divine what was the "hasmal," this metal which he -pictured as in fusion in the furnace of the dream; but nothing was more -clear than his vision of Progress. Ezekiel saw the quadruple man,--man, -ox, lion, and eagle; that is to say, the master of thought, the master -of the field, the master of the desert, the master of the air. Nothing -forgotten. It is posterity complete, from Aristotle to Christopher -Columbus, from Triptolemus to Montgolfier. Later on, the Gospel also -will become quadruple in the four Evangelists, making Matthew, Mark, -Luke, and John subservient to man, the ox, the lion, and the eagle, -and, remarkable fact, to symbolize progress will take the four faces -of Ezekiel. At all events, Ezekiel, like Christ, calls himself the -"Son of Man." Jesus often in his parables invokes and cites Ezekiel; -and this kind of first Messiah paves the way for the second. There are -in Ezekiel three constructions,--man, in whom he places progress; the -temple, where he puts a light that he calls glory; the city, where -he puts God. He cries to the temple,--no priest here, neither they, -nor their kings, nor the carcasses of their kings.[2] One cannot help -thinking that this Ezekiel, a species of biblical demagogue, would help -'93 in the terrible sweeping of St. Denis. As for the city built by -him, he mutters above it this mysterious name, Jehovah Schammah, which -signifies "the Eternal is there." Then he is silent and thoughtful in -the darkness, pointing at humanity; farther on, in the depth of the -horizon, a continued increase of azure. - -6. Another, Lucretius, is that vast obscure thing, All. Jupiter is -in Homer; Jehovah is in Job; in Lucretius Pan appears. Such is Pan's -greatness that he has under him Destiny, which is above Jupiter. -Lucretius has travelled and he has mused, which is another voyage. -He has been at Athens; he has been in the haunts of philosophers; he -has studied Greece and made out India. Democritus has made him dream -on matter, and Anaximander on space. His dreams have become doctrine. -Nothing is known of the incidents of his life. Like Pythagoras, he -frequented the two mysterious schools on the Euphrates,--Neharda and -Pombeditha; and he may have met there the Jewish doctors. He spelt -the papyri of Sepphoris, which, at his time, was not yet transformed -into Diocæsarea. He lived with the pearl-fishers of the isle of Tylos. -We may find in the Apocrypha traces of an ancient strange itinerary -recommended, according to some, to the philosophers by Empedocles, the -magician, of Agrigentum, and, according to others, to the rabbis by -the high-priest Eleazer who corresponded with Ptolemy Philadelphus. -This itinerary would have served at a later time as a standard for the -travels of the Apostles. The traveller who followed this itinerary went -through the five satrapies of the country of the Philistines, visited -the people who charm serpents and suck poisonous sores,--the Psylli; -drank of the torrent Bosor, which marks the frontier of Arabia Deserta; -then touched and handled the bronze _carcan_ of Andromeda, still -sealed to the rock of Joppa; Balbec in Syria; Apamea, on the Orontes, -where Nicanor nourished his elephants; the harbour of Eziongeber, -where the vessels of Ophir, laden with gold, stopped; Segher, which -produced white incense, preferred to that of Hadramauth; the two -Syrtes, the mountain of Emerald Smaragdus; the Nasamones, who pillaged -the shipwrecked; the black nation, Agysimba; Adribe, the town of -crocodiles; Cynopolis, town of aloes; the wonderful cities of Comagena, -Claudia, and Barsalium; perhaps even Tadmor, the town of Solomon,--such -were the stages of this almost fabulous pilgrimage of the thinkers. -This pilgrimage, did Lucretius make it? One cannot tell. His numerous -travels are beyond doubt He had seen so many men that at the end they -were all mixed up in his eye, and this multitude had become to him -shadows. He is arrived at that excess of simplification of the universe -which is almost its entire fading away. He has sounded until he feels -the plummet float He has questioned the vague spectres of Byblos; he -has conversed with the severed tree of Chyteron, who is Juno-Thespia. -Perhaps he has spoken in the reeds to Oannes, the man-fish of Chaldæa, -who had two heads,--at the top the head of a man, below the head of -a hydra, and who, drinking chaos by his lower orifice, re-vomited it -on the earth by his upper lip; in knowledge awful. Lucretius has this -knowledge. Isaiah borders on the archangels, Lucretius on larvas. -Lucretius twists the ancient veil of Isis, steeped in the waters of -darkness, and expresses out of it sometimes in torrents, sometimes -drop by drop, a sombre poetry. The boundless is in Lucretius. At times -there passes a powerful spondaic verse almost terrible, and full of -shadow: "Circum se foliis ac frondibus involventes." Here and there a -vast image is sketched in the forest,--"Tunc Venus in sylvis jungebat -corpora amantum;" and the forest is Nature. These verses are impossible -with Virgil. Lucretius turns his back on humanity, and looks fixedly on -the Enigma. Lucretius's spirit, working to the very deeps, is placed -between this reality, the atom, and this impossibility, the vacuum; by -turns attracted by these two precipices. Religious when he contemplates -the atom, sceptical when he sees the void; thence his two aspects, -equally profound, whether he denies, whether he affirms. One day this -traveller commits suicide. This is his last departure. He puts himself -_en route_ for Death. He departs to see. He has embarked successively -on all the pinnaces,--on the galley of Trevirium for Sanastrea in -Macedonia; on the trireme of Carystus for Metapon in Greece; on the -skiff of Cyllenus for the island of Samothrace; on the sandal of -Samothrace for Naxos, where is Bacchus; on the _ceroscaph_ of Naxos for -Syria; on the vessel of Syria for Egypt, and on the ship of the Red -Sea for India. It remains for him to make one voyage. He is curious -about the dark country; he takes his passage on the coffin, and himself -unfastening the mooring, pushes with foot into space this dark vessel -that floats on the unknown wave. - -7. Another, Juvenal, has everything in which Lucretius -fails,--passion, emotion, fever, tragic flame, passion for honesty, -avenging sneer, personality, humanity. He dwells in a certain given -point in creation, and he contents himself with it, finding there what -may nourish and swell his heart with justice and anger. Lucretius is -the universe, Juvenal the locality. And what a locality! Rome. Between -the two they are the double voice which speaks to land and town,--_urbi -et orbi._ Juvenal has, above the Roman Empire, the enormous flapping -of wings of the griffin above the rest of the reptiles. He pounces -upon this swarm and takes them, one after the other, in his terrible -beak,--from the adder who is emperor and calls himself Nero, to the -earthworm who is a bad poet and calls himself Codrus. Isaiah and -Juvenal have each their harlot; but there is something more gloomy than -the shadow of Babel,--it is the crashing of the bed of the Cæsars; and -Babylon is less formidable than Messalina. Juvenal is the ancient free -spirit of the dead republics; in him there is a Rome, in the bronze -of which Athens and Sparta are cast. Thence in his poetry something -of Aristophanes and something of Lycurgus. Take care of him; he is -severe. Not a cord is wanting to his lyre or to the lash he uses. He is -lofty, rigid, austere, thundering, violent, grave, just, inexhaustible -in imagery, harshly gracious when he chooses. His cynicism is the -indignation of modesty. His grace, thoroughly independent and a true -figure of liberty, has talons; it appears all at once, enlivening, by -we cannot tell what supple and spirited undulations, the well-formed -majesty of his hexameter. You may imagine that you see the Cat of -Corinth roaming on the frieze of the Parthenon. There is the epic in -this satire; that which Juvenal has in his hand is the sceptre of gold -with which Ulysses beat Thersites. "Bombast, declamation, exaggeration, -hyperbole," cry the slaughtered deformities; and these cries, stupidly -repeated by rhetoricians, are a noise of glory. "Crime is quite equal -to committing things or relating them," say Tillemont, Marc Muret, -Garasse, etc.,--fools, who, like Muret, are sometimes knaves. Juvenal's -invective blazes since two thousand years ago,--a fearful flash of -poetry which still burns Rome in the presence of centuries. This -splendid fire breaks out and, far from diminishing with time, increases -under the whirl of its mournful smoke. From it proceed rays in behalf -of liberty, probity, heroism; and it may be said that it throws even -into our civilization minds full of his light. What is Régnier? what -D'Aubigné? what Corneille?--scintillations of Juvenal. - -8. Another, Tacitus, is the historian. Liberty is incarnate in him -as in Juvenal, and rises, dead, to the judgment-seat, having for a -toga its winding-shroud, and summons to his bar tyrants. The soul of -a people become the soul of man, is Juvenal, as we have just said: -thus it is with Tacitus. By the side of the poet who condemns stands -the historian who punishes. Tacitus, seated on the curule chair of -genius, summons and seizes _in flagante delicto_ these guilty ones, -the Cæsars. The Roman Empire is a long crime. This crime commences -by four demons,--Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero. Tiberius, the -emperor's spy; the eye which watches the world; the first dictator who -dared to twist for himself the law of power made for the Roman people; -knowing Greek, intellectual, sagacious, sarcastic, eloquent, terrible; -loved by informers; the murderer of citizens, of knights, of the -senate, of his wife, of his family; having rather the air of stabbing -people than massacring them; humble before the barbarians; a traitor -with Archelaus, a coward with Artabanes; having two thrones,--Rome -for his ferocity, Caprea for his baseness; an inventor of vices and -names for vices; an old man with a seraglio of children; gaunt, bald, -crooked, bandy-legged, sour-smelling, eaten up with leprosy, covered -with suppurations, masked with plasters, crowned with laurels; having -ulcers like Job, and the sceptre as well; surrounded by an oppressive -silence; seeking a successor; smelling out Caligula, and finding him -good; a viper who selects a tiger. Caligula, the man who has known -fear, the slave become master, trembling under Tiberius, terrible -after Tiberius, vomiting his fright of yesterday in atrocity. Nothing -comes up to this mad fool. An executioner makes a mistake and kills, -instead of the condemned one, an innocent man; Caligula smiles, and -says, "The condemned had not more deserved it." He gets a woman eaten -alive by dogs, for the sake of seeing it. He lies publicly with his -three sisters, stark naked. One of them dies,--Drusilla. He says, -"Behead those who do not bewail her, for she is my sister; and crucify -those who bewail her, for she is a goddess." He makes his horse a -pontiff, as, later on, Nero made his monkey god. He offers to the -universe this wretched spectacle: the annihilation of intellect by -power. Prostitute, sharper, a robber, breaking the busts of Homer and -Virgil, his head dressed as Apollo with rays, and booted with wings -like Mercury; franticly master of the world, desiring incest with his -mother, a plague to his empire, famine to his people, rout to his -army, resemblance to the gods, and one sole head to the human race -that he might cut it off,--such is Caius Caligula. He forces the son -to assist at the torment of his father and the husband the violation -of his wife, and to laugh. Claudius is a mere sketch of a ruler. He is -nearly a man made a tyrant, a noodle-head crowned. He hides himself; -they discover him, they drag him from his hole, and they throw him -terrified on the throne. Emperor, he still trembles, having the crown -but not sure that he has his head. He feels for his head at times, as -if he searched for it. Then he gets more confident, and decrees three -new letters to be added to the alphabet. He is a learned man, this -idiot. They strangle a senator. He says, "I did not order it but since -it is done, it is well." His wife prostitutes herself before him. He -looks at her, and says, "Who is this woman?" He scarcely exists: he -is a shadow; but this shadow crushes the world. At length the hour -for his departure arrives: his wife poisons him, his doctor finishes -him. He says, "I am saved," and dies. After his death they come to -see his corpse. While alive they had seen his ghost. Nero is the most -formidable figure of _ennui_ that has ever appeared among men. The -yawning monster that the ancients called Livor and the moderns call -Spleen, gives us this enigma to divine,--Nero. Nero seeks simply a -distraction. Poet, comedian, singer, coachman, exhausting ferocity to -find voluptuousness, trying a change of sex, the husband of the eunuch -Sporus, and bride of the slave Pythagoras, and promenading the streets -of Rome between his husband and wife. Having two pleasures--one to -see the people clutching pieces of gold, diamonds and pearls, and the -other to see the lions clutch the people; an incendiary for curiosity's -sake, and a parricide for want of employment. It is to these four that -Tacitus dedicates his four first pillories. He hangs their reign to -their necks: he fastens that _carcan_ to theirs. His book of Caligula -is lost. Nothing easier to comprehend than the loss and obliteration -of these kinds of books. To read them was a crime. A man having been -caught reading the history of Caligula by Suetonius, Com modus had him -thrown to the wild beasts. "Feris objici jussit," says Lampridius. The -horror of those days is wonderful. Manners, below and above stairs, -are ferocious. You may judge of the cruelty of the Romans by the -atrocity of the Gauls. A row breaks out in Gaul: the peasants place -the Roman ladies, naked and still alive, on harrows whose points enter -here and there into the body; then they cut their breasts from them -and sew them in their mouths, as though they had the appearance of -eating them. "These are scarcely reprisals" (_Vix vindicta est_), says -the Roman general, Turpilianus. These Roman ladies had the practice, -while chattering with their lovers, of sticking pins of gold in the -breasts of their Persian or Gallic slaves who dressed their hair. Such -is the humanity at which Tacitus is present. This view renders him -terrible. He states the facts, and leaves you to draw your conclusions. -You only meet a Potiphar in Rome. When Agrippina, reduced to her last -resource, seeing her grave in the eyes of her son, offers him her bed, -when her lips seek those of Nero, Tacitus is there, following her with -his eyes, _lasciva oscula et prœnuntias flagitii blanditias_; and he -denounces to the world this effort of a monstrous and trembling mother -to make the parricide miscarry by incest. Whatever Justus Lipsius, -who bequeathed his pen to the Holy Virgin, has said, Domitian exiled -Tacitus, and did well. Men like Tacitus are unhealthy subjects for -authority. Tacitus applies his style to the shoulder of an emperor, -and the marks remain. Tacitus always makes his thrust at the required -spot. A deep thrust. Juvenal, all-powerful poet, deals about him, -scatters, makes a show, falls and rebounds, strikes right and left, a -hundred blows at a time, on laws, manners, bad magistrates, corrupt -verses, libertines and the idle, on Cæsar, on the people,--everywhere. -He is lavish, like hail; he is careless, like the whip. Tacitus has the -conciseness of red iron. - -9. Another, John, is the virgin old man. All the ardent sap of man, -become smoke and mysterious shaking, is in his head, as a vision. -One does not escape love. Love, unsatiated and discontented, changes -itself at the end of life into a gloomy overflowing of chimeras. The -woman wants man; otherwise man, instead of human, will have a phantom -poetry. Some beings, however, resist universal procreation, and then -they are in that peculiar state where monstrous inspiration can weaken -itself on them. The Apocalypse is the almost mad _chef-d'œuvre_ of -this wonderful chastity. John, while young, was pleasant and wild. He -loved Jesus; then could love nothing else. There is a deep resemblance -between the Canticle of Canticles and the Apocalypse; the one and -the other are explosions of pent-up virginity. The heart, mighty -volcano, bursts open; there proceeds from it this dove, the Canticle of -Canticles, or this dragon, the Apocalypse. These two poems are the two -poles of ecstasy,--voluptuousness and horror; the two extreme limits -of the soul are attained. In the first poem ecstasy exhausts love; in -the second, terrifies it, and carries to mankind, henceforth forever -disquieted, the dreadful fright of the eternal precipice. Another -resemblance, not less worthy of attention, there is between John and -Daniel. The nearly invisible thread of affinity is carefully followed -by the eye of those who see in the prophetic spirit a human and normal -phenomenon, and who, far from disdaining the question of miracles, -generalize it, and calmly attach it to existing phenomena. Religions -lose, and science gains, by it. It has not been sufficiently remarked -that the seventh chapter of Daniel contains the root of the Apocalypse. -Empires are there represented as beasts. Therefore has the legend -associated the two poets; it makes the one traverse the den of lions, -and the other the caldron of boiling oil. Independently of the legend, -the life of John is fine. An exemplary life which undergoes strange -openings, passing from Golgotha to Patmos, and from the execution of -Messiah to the exile of the prophet. John, after having been present -at the sufferings of Christ, finished by suffering on his own account; -the suffering seen made him an apostle, the suffering endured made him -a magician,--the growth of the spirit was the result of the growth of -the trial. Bishop, he writes the gospel; proscribed, he composes the -Apocalypse,--tragic work, written under the dictation of an eagle, the -poet having above his head we know not what mournful flapping of wings. -The whole Bible is between two visionaries,--Moses and John. This poem -of poems merges out of chaos in Genesis, and finishes in the Apocalypse -by thunders. John was one of the great vagrants of the language of -fire. During the Last Supper his head was on the breast of Jesus, and -he could say, "My ear has heard the beating of God's heart." He went -to relate it to men. He spoke a barbarous Greek, mixed with Hebrew -expressions and Syrian words, harsh and grating, yet charming. He went -to Ephesus, he went to Media, he went among the Parthians. He dared to -enter Ctesiphon, a town of the Parthians, built as a counterpoise to -Babylon. He faced the living idol, Cobaris, king, god, and man, forever -immovable on his block, which serves him as throne and latrine. He -evangelized Persia, which the Gospel calls Paras. When he appeared at -the Council of Jerusalem, they thought they saw a pillar of the Church. -He looked with stupefaction at Cerintus and Ebion, who said that Jesus -was but a man. When they questioned him on the mystery, he answered, -"Love you one another?" He died at the age of ninety-four years, under -Trajan. According to tradition, he is not dead; he is spared, and John -is ever living at Patmos as Barberousse at Kaiserslautern. There are -some waiting-caverns for these mysterious everlasting beings. John, -as a historian, has his equals,--Matthew, Luke, Mark; as a visionary -he is alone. There is no dream approaches his, so deep it is in the -infinite. His metaphors pass out from eternity, distracted; his poetry -has a profound smile of madness; the reverberation of the Most High -is in the eye of this man. It is the sublime going fully astray. Men -do not understand it--scorn it, and laugh. "My dear Thiriot," says -Voltaire, "the Apocalypse is filth." Religions, being in want of this -book, have taken to worshipping it; but, in order not to be thrown to -the common sewer, it must be put on the altar. What does it matter? -John is a spirit. It is in the John of Patmos, among all, that the -communication between certain men of genius and the abyss is apparent. -In all other poets men get a glimpse of this communication; in John -they see it, at times they touch it, and have a shivering fit in -placing, so to speak, the hand on this sombre door. That is the way to -the Deity. It seems, when you read the poem of Patmos, that some one -pushes you from behind; you have a confused outline of the dreadful -opening. It fills you with terror and attraction. If John had only -that, he would be immense. - -10. Another, Paul, a saint for the Church, a great man for -humanity, represents this prodigy, at the same time human and -divine,--conversion. He is the one who has had a glimpse of the future. -It leaves him haggard; and nothing can be more magnificent than this -face, forever wondering, of the man conquered by the light. Paul, born -a Pharisee, had been a weaver of camel's-hair for tents, and servant -of one of the judges of Jesus Christ, Gamaliel; then the scribes had -advanced him, trusting to his natural ferocity. He was the man of -the past; he had taken care of the mantles of the stone-throwers. He -aspired, having studied with the priests, to become an executioner; he -was on the road for this. All at once a wave of light emanates from -the darkness, throws him down from his horse, and henceforth there -will be in the history of the human race this wonderful thing,--the -road to Damascus. That day of the metamorphosis of Saint Paul is a -great day; keep the date,--it corresponds to the 25th January in our -Gregorian calendar. The road to Damascus is necessary to the march of -Progress. To fall into the truth and to rise a just man, a fall and -transfiguration, that is sublime. It is the history of Saint Paul. -From his day it will be the history of humanity. The flash of light -is beyond the flash of lightning. Progress will carry itself on by a -series of scintillations. As for Saint Paul, who has been turned aside -by the force of new conviction, this harsh stroke from on high opens -to him genius. Once on his feet again, behold him proceed: he will -no more stop. "Forward!" is his cry. He is a cosmopolite. He loves -the outsiders, whom Paganism calls barbarians, and Christianity calls -Gentiles; he devotes himself to them. He is the apostle of the outer -world. He writes to the nations epistles on behalf of God. Listen to -him speaking to the Galatians: "O insane Galatians! how can you go back -to the yokes to which you were tied? There are no more Jews, or Greeks, -or slaves. Do not carry out your grand ceremonies ordained by your -laws. I declare unto you that all that is nothing. Love each other. -Man must be a new creature. Freedom is awaiting you." There were at -Athens, on the hill of Mars, steps hewn in rock, which may be seen to -this day. On these steps sat the great judges before whom Orestes had -appeared. There Socrates had been judged. Paul went there; and there, -at night (the Areopagus only sat at night), he said to the grave men, -"I come to announce to you the unknown God." The Epistles of Paul to -the Gentiles are simple and profound, with the subtlety so marked in -its influence over savages. There are in these messages gleams of -hallucination; Paul speaks of the Celestials as if he distinctly saw -them. Like John, half-way between life and eternity, it seems that he -had one part of his thought on the earth and one in the Unknown; and -it may be said, at moments, that one of his verses answers to another -from beyond the dark wall of the tomb. This half-possession of death -gives him a personal certainty, and one often distinctly apart from -the dogma, and a mark of conviction on his personal conceptions, which -makes him almost heretical. His humility, bordering on the mysterious, -is lofty. Peter says, "The words of Paul may be taken in a bad sense." -The deacon Hilaire and the Luciferians ascribe their schism to the -Epistles of Paul. Paul is at heart so anti-monarchical that King James -I., very much encouraged by the orthodox University of Oxford, caused -the Epistle to the Romans to be burned by the hand of the common -hangman. It is true it was one with a commentary by David Pareus. Many -of Paul's works are rejected by the Church: they are the finest; and -among them his Epistle to the Laodiceans, and above all his Apocalypse, -erased by the Council of Rome under Gelasius. It would be curious to -compare it with the Apocalypse of John. On the opening that Paul had -made to heaven the Church wrote, "Entrance forbidden." He is not less -holy for it. It is his official consolation. Paul has the restlessness -of the thinker; text and formulary are little for him. The letter does -not suffice; the letter, it is matter. Like all men of progress, he -speaks with reserve of the written law; he prefers grace, as we prefer -justice. What is grace? It is the inspiration from on high; it is the -breath, _flat ubi vult_; it is liberty. Grace is the spirit of law. -This discovery of the spirit of law belongs to Saint Paul; and what -he calls "grace" from a heavenly point of view, we, from an earthly -point, call "right." Such is Paul. The greatness of a spirit by the -irruption of clearness, the beauty of violence done by truth to one -spirit, breaks forth in this man. In that, we insist, lies the virtue -of the road to Damascus. Henceforth, whoever wishes this increase, must -follow the guide-post of Saint Paul. All those to whom justice shall -reveal itself, every blindness desirous of the day, all the cataracts -looking to be healed, all searchers after conviction, all the great -adventurers after virtue, all the holders of good in quest of truth, -shall go by this road. The light that they find there shall change -nature, for the light is always relative to darkness; it shall increase -in intensity. After having been revelation, it shall be rationalism; -but it shall always be light. Voltaire is like Saint Paul on the road -to Damascus. The road to Damascus shall be forever the passage for -great minds. It shall also be the passage for peoples,--for peoples, -these vast individualisms, have like each of us their crisis and their -hour. Paul, after his glorious fall, rose up again armed against -ancient errors, with that flaming sword, Christianity; and two thousand -years after, France, struck by the light, arouses herself, she also -holding in hand this sword of fire, the Revolution. - -11. Another, Dante, has mentally conceived the abyss. He has made -the epic poem of spectres. He rends the earth; in the terrible hole -he has made he puts Satan. Then he pushes through purgatory up to -heaven. Where all end Dante begins. Dante is beyond man; beyond, -not without,--a singular proposition, which, however, has nothing -contradictory in it, the soul being a prolongation of man into the -indefinite. Dante twists light and shade into a huge spiral; it -descends, then it ascends. Wonderful architecture! At the threshold is -the sacred mist; across the entrance is stretched the corpse of Hope; -all that you perceive beyond is night. The infinite anguish is sobbing -somewhere in the invisible darkness. You lean over this gulf-poem. Is -it a crater? You hear reports; the verse shoots out narrow and livid, -as from the fissures of a solfatara. It is vapour now, then lava. This -paleness speaks; and then you know that the volcano, of which you have -caught a glimpse, is hell. This is no longer the human medium; you are -in the unknown abyss. In this poem the imponderable submits to the laws -of the ponderable, with which it is mixed, as in the sudden tumbling -down of a building on fire, the smoke, carried down by the ruins, falls -and rolls with them, and seems caught under the timber and the stones; -thence strange effects: the ideas seem to suffer and to be punished in -men. The idea, sufficiently man to undergo expiation, is the phantom -(a form that is shade), impalpable, but not invisible,--an appearance -retaining yet a sufficient amount of reality for the chastisement to -have a hold on it; sin in the abstract state, but having kept the human -figure. It is not only the wicked who grieves in this Apocalypse, -it is the evil; there all possible bad actions are in despair. This -spiritualization of pain gives to the poem a powerful moral import. The -depth of hell once sounded, Dante pierces it, and remounts to the other -side of the infinite. In rising, he becomes idealized; and thought -drops the body as a robe. From Virgil he passes to Beatrice. His guide -to hell, it is the poet; his guide to heaven, it is poetry. The epic -poem continues, and has more grandeur yet; but man comprehends it no -more. Purgatory and paradise are not less extraordinary than gehenna; -but the more he ascends the less interested is man. He was somewhat at -home in hell, but he is no longer so in heaven. He cannot recognize -himself in angels. The human eye is perhaps not made for so much sun; -and when the poem draws happiness, it becomes tedious. It is generally -the case with all happiness. Marry the lovers, or send the souls to -dwell in paradise, it is well; but seek the drama elsewhere than there. -After all, what does it matter to Dante if you no longer follow him? He -goes on without you. He goes alone, this lion. His work is a wonder. -What a philosopher is this visionary! What a sage is this madman! Dante -lays down the law for Montesquieu; the penal divisions of "L'Esprit -des Lois" are an exact copy of the classifications in the hell of the -"Divina Commedia." That which Juvenal does for the Rome of the Cæsars, -Dante does for the Rome of popes; but Dante is a more terrible judge -than Juvenal. Juvenal whips with cutting thongs; Dante scourges with -flames. Juvenal condemns; Dante damns. Woe to the living on whom this -awful traveller fixes the unfathomable glare of his eyes! - -12. Another, Rabelais, is the soul of Gaul. And who says Gaul says also -Greece, for the Attic salt and the Gallic jest have at bottom the same -flavour; and if anything, buildings apart, resembles the Piræus, it is -La Rapée. Aristophanes is distanced; Aristophanes is wicked. Rabelais -is good; Rabelais would have defended Socrates. In the order of lofty -genius, Rabelais chronologically follows Dante; after the stem face, -the sneering visage. Rabelais is the wondrous mask of ancient comedy -detached from the Greek proscenium, from bronze made flesh, henceforth -a human living face, remaining enormous, and coming among us to laugh -at us, and with us. Dante and Rabelais spring from the school of the -Franciscan friars, as later Voltaire springs from the Jesuits. Dante -the incarnate sorrow, Rabelais the parody, Voltaire the irony,--they -came from the Church against the Church. Every genius has his invention -or his discovery. Rabelais has made this one: the belly. The serpent is -in man; it is the intestines. It tempts, betrays, and punishes. Man, -single being as a spirit and complex as man, has within himself for his -earthly mission three centres,--the brain, the heart, the stomach. Each -of these centres is august by one great function which is peculiar to -it: the brain has thought, the heart has love, the belly has paternity -and maternity. The belly may be tragic. "Feri ventrem," says Agrippina. -Catherine Sforza, threatened with the death of her children, kept in -hostage, exhibits herself naked to her navel on the battlements of -the citadel of Rimini and says to the enemy, "With this I can give -birth to others." In one of the epic convulsions of Paris a woman of -the people, standing on a barricade, raised her petticoat, showed the -soldiery her naked belly, and cried, "Kill your mothers!" The soldiers -perforated that belly with balls. The belly has its heroism; but it -is from it that flows in life corruption, in art comedy. The breast, -where the heart rests, has for its summit the head; the belly has the -phallus. The belly being the centre of matter, is our gratification -and our danger; it contains appetite, satiety, and putrefaction. The -devotion, the tenderness, which we feel then are subject to death; -egotism replaces them. Easily do the affections become intestines. -That the hymn can become a drunkard's brawl, that the strophe can be -deformed into a couplet, is sad. That comes from the beast that is -in man. The belly is essentially this beast. Degradation seems to be -its law. The ladder of sensual poetry has for its topmost round the -Canticle of Canticles, and for its lowest the coarse jest. The belly -god is Silenus; the belly emperor is Vitellius; the belly animal is the -pig. One of those horrid Ptolemies was called the Belly,--_Physcon._ -The belly is to humanity a formidable weight: it breaks every moment -the equilibrium between the soul and the body. It fills history. It is -responsible for nearly all crimes. It is the bottle of all vices. It is -the belly which by voluptuousness makes the sultan and by drunkenness -the czar; it is this that shows Tarquin the bed of Lucrece; it is -this that ends by making that senate which had waited for Brennus -and dazzled Jugurtha deliberate on the sauce of a turbot. It is the -belly which counsels the ruined libertine, Cæsar, the passage of the -Rubicon. To pass the Rubicon, how well that pays one's debts! To pass -the Rubicon, how readily that throws women, into one's arms! What good -dinners afterward! And the Roman soldiers enter Rome with the cry, -"Urbani, claudite uxores; mœchum calvum adducimus." The appetite -debauches the intellect. Voluptuousness replaces will. At starting, as -is always the case, there is some nobleness. It is the orgy. There is a -gradation between being fuddled and being dead drunk. - -Then the orgy degenerates into bestial gluttony. Where there was -Solomon there is Ramponneau. Man becomes a barrel; an inner sea of dark -ideas drowns thought; conscience submerged cannot warn the drunken -soul. Beastliness is consummated; it is not even any longer cynical, -it is empty and beastly. Diogenes disappears; there remains but the -barrel. We commence by Alcibiades, we finish by Trimalcion. It is -complete; nothing more, neither dignity, nor shame, nor honour, nor -virtue, nor wit,--animal gratification in all its nakedness, thorough -impurity. Thought dissolves itself in satiety; carnal gorging absorbs -everything; nothing survives of the grand sovereign creature inhabited -by the soul. As the word goes, the belly eats the man. Such is the -final state of all societies where the ideal is eclipsed. That passes -for prosperity, and is called aggrandizing one's self. Sometimes even -philosophers thoughtlessly aid this degradation by inserting in their -doctrines the materialism which is in the consciences. This sinking -of man to the level of the human beast is a great calamity. Its first -fruit is the turpitude visible at the summit of all professions,--the -venal judge, the simoniacal priest, the hireling soldier; laws, -manners, and beliefs are a dungheap,--_totus homo fit excrementum._ -In the sixteenth century all the institutions of the past are in -that state. Rabelais gets hold of that situation; he proves it; he -authenticates that belly which is the world. Civilization is, then, -but a mass; science is matter; religion is blessed with a stomach; -feudality is digesting; royalty is obese. What is Henry VIII.? A -paunch. Rome is a fat-gutted old woman. Is it health? Is it sickness? -It is perhaps obesity; it is perhaps dropsy-query. Rabelais, doctor -and priest, feels the pulse of Papacy; he shakes his head and bursts -out laughing. Is it because he has found life? No, it is because he -has felt death; it is, in reality, breathing its last. While Luther -reforms, Rabelais jests. Which tends best to the end? Rabelais -ridicules the monk, the bishop, the Pope; laughter and death-rattle -together; fool's bell sounding the tocsin! Well, then, what? I thought -it was a feast; it is agony. One may be deceived by the nature of -the hiccough. Let us laugh all the same. Death is at the table; the -last drop toasts the last sigh. The agony feasting,--it is superb. -The inner colon is king; all that old world feasts and bursts, and -Rabelais enthrones a dynasty of bellies,--Grangousier, Pantagruel, and -Gargantua. Rabelais is the Æschylus of victuals; indeed, it is grand -when we think that eating is devouring. There is something of the -gulf in the glutton. Eat then, my masters, and drink, and come to the -finale. To live is a song, of which to die is the refrain. Others dig -under the depraved human race fearful dungeons. For subterraneous caves -the great Rabelais contents himself with the cellar. This universe, -which Dante put into hell, Rabelais confines in a wine-cask; his book -is nothing else. The seven circles of Alighieri bung and encompass -this extraordinary tun. Look within the monstrous cask, and you see -them there. In Rabelais they are entitled, Idleness, Pride, Envy, -Avarice, Anger, Luxury, Gluttony; and it is thus that you suddenly -meet again the formidable jester. Where?--in church. The seven sins -are this _curé's_ sermon. Rabelais is priest. Castigation, properly -understood, begins at home; it is therefore on the clergy that he -strikes first. It is something, indeed, to be at home! The Papacy dies -of indigestion. Rabelais plays the Papacy a trick,--the trick of a -Titan. The Pantagruelian joy is not less grandiose than the mirth of -a Jupiter,--jaw for jaw. The monarchical and priestly jaw eats; the -Rabelaisian jaw laughs. Whoever has read Rabelais has forever before -his eyes this stem opposition: the mask of Theocritus gazed at fixedly -by the mask of Comedy. - -13. Another, Cervantes, is also a form of epic mockery; for as the -writer of these lines said in 1827,[3] there are between the Middle -Ages and the modern times, after the feudal barbarism, and placed -there as it were for a conclusion, two Homeric buffoons,--Rabelais and -Cervantes. To sum up horror by laughter, is not the least terrible -manner of doing it. It is what Rabelais did; it is what Cervantes did. -But the raillery of Cervantes has nothing of the large Rabelaisian -grin. It is the fine humour of the noble after the joviality of the -_curé._ I am the Signor Don Miguel Cervantes de Saavedra, Caballeros, -poet-soldier, and, as a proof, one-armed. No broad, coarse jesting in -Cervantes. Scarcely a flavour of elegant cynicism. The satirist is -fine, sharp-edged, polished, delicate, almost gallant, and would even -run the risk sometimes of diminishing his power with all his affected -ways if he had not the deep poetic spirit of the Renaissance. That -saves his charming grace from becoming prettiness. Like Jean Goujon, -like Jean Cousin, like Germain Pilon, like Primatice, Cervantes has -the chimera within himself. Thence all the unexpected marvels of his -imagination. Add to that a wonderful intuition of the inmost deeds -of the mind, and a philosophy, inexhaustible in aspects, which seems -to possess a new and complete chart of the human heart. Cervantes -sees the inner man. His philosophy blends with the comic and romantic -instinct. Thence does the unexpected break in at each moment in his -characters, in his action, in his style,--the unforeseen, magnificent -adventure. Personages remaining true to themselves, but facts and -ideas whirling around them, with a perpetual renewing of the original -idea, with the unceasing breathing of that wind which carries flashes -of lightning,--such is the law of great works. Cervantes is militant; -he has a thesis; he makes a social book. Such poets are the fighting -champions of the mind. Where have they learned fighting? On the -battle-field itself. Juvenal was a military tribune; Cervantes arrives -from Lepanto, as Dante from Campalbino, as Æschylus from Salamis. After -which they pass to a new trial. Æschylus goes into exile, Juvenal into -exile, Dante into exile, Cervantes into prison. It is just, for they -have served you well. Cervantes, as poet, has the three sovereign -gifts,--creation, which produces types, and clothes ideas with flesh -and bone; invention, which hurls passions against events, makes man -flash brightly over destiny, and brings forth the drama; imagination, -sun of the brain, which throws light and shade everywhere, and, giving -relieve, creates life. Observation, which is acquired, and which, in -consequence, is a quality rather than a gift, is included in creation. -If the miser was not observed, Harpagon would not be created. In -Cervantes, a new-comer, glimpsed at in Rabelais, puts in a decided -appearance; it is common-sense. You have caught sight of it in Panurge; -you see it plainly in Sancho Panza. It arrives like the Silenus of -Plautus; and it may also say, "I am the god mounted on an ass." Wisdom -at once, reason by-and-by; it is indeed the strange history of the -human mind. What more wise than all religions? What less reasonable? -Morals true, dogmas false. Wisdom is in Homer and in Job; reason, such -as it ought to be to overcome prejudices,--that is to say, complete -and armed _cap-à-pie_,--will be found only in Voltaire. Common-sense -is not wisdom and is not reason; it is a little of one and a little -of the other, with a dash of egotism. Cervantes makes it bestride -ignorance; and, at the same time, completing his profound satire, he -gives fatigue as a nag to heroism. Thus he shows one after the other, -one with the other, the two profiles of man, and parodies them, without -more pity for the sublime than for the grotesque. The hippogriff -becomes Rosinante. Behind the equestrian figure, Cervantes creates and -gives movement to the asinine personage. Enthusiasm takes the field, -Irony follows in its footsteps. The wonderful feats of Don Quixote, -his riding and spurring, his big lance, steady in the rest, are judged -by the donkey, a connoisseur in windmills. The invention of Cervantes -is so masterly that there is between the man type and the quadruped -complement statuary adhesion; the reasoner, like the adventurer, is -part of the beast which belongs to him, and you can no more dismount -Sancho Panza than Don Quixote. The Ideal is in Cervantes as in Dante; -but it is called the impossible, and is scoffed at. Beatrice is become -Dulcinea. To rail at the ideal would be the failing of Cervantes; but -this failing is only apparent. Look well! The smile has a tear. In -reality, Cervantes is for Don Quixote what Molière is for Alcestes. -One must learn how to read in a peculiar manner in the books of the -sixteenth century; there is in almost all, on account of the threats -hanging over the liberty of thought, a secret that must be opened, and -the key of which is often lost Rabelais had something unexpressed, -Cervantes had an aside, Machiavelli had a secret recess,--several -perhaps; at all events, the advent of common-sense is the great fact -in Cervantes. Common-sense is not a virtue; it is the eye of interest. -It would have encouraged Themistocles and dissuaded Aristides. -Leonidas has no common-sense; Regulus has no common-sense; but in the -face of egotistical and ferocious monarchies dragging poor peoples -into wars undertaken for themselves, decimating families, making -mothers desolate, and driving men to kill each other with all those -fine words,--military honour, warlike glory, obedience to discipline -etc.,--it is an admirable personification, that common-sense coming all -at once and crying to the human race, "Take care of your skin!" - -14. Another, Shakespeare, what is he? You might almost answer, He is -the earth. Lucretius is the sphere; Shakespeare is the globe. There is -more and less in the globe than in the sphere. In the sphere there is -the whole; on the globe there is man. Here the outer, there the inner, -mystery. Lucretius is the being; Shakespeare is the existence. Thence -so much shadow in Lucretius; thence so much movement in Shakespeare. -Space,--_the blue_, as the Germans ay,--is certainly not forbidden -to Shakespeare. The earth sees and surveys heaven; the earth knows -heaven under its two aspects,--darkness and azure, doubt and hope. Life -goes and comes in death. All life is a secret,--a sort of enigmatical -parenthesis between birth and the death-throe, between the eye which -opens and the eye which closes. This secret imparts its restlessness to -Shakespeare. Lucretius is; Shakespeare lives. In Shakespeare the birds -sing, the bushes become verdant, the hearts love, the souls suffer, -the cloud wanders, it is hot, it is cold, night falls, time passes, -forests and crowds speak, the vast eternal dream hovers about. The sap -and the blood, all forms of the fact multiple, the actions and the -ideas, man and humanity, the living and the life, the solitudes, the -cities, the religions, the diamonds and pearls, the dung-hills and the -charnel-houses, the ebb and flow of beings, the steps of the comers and -goers,--all, all are on Shakespeare and in Shakespeare; and this genius -being the earth, the dead emerge from it. Certain sinister sides of -Shakespeare are haunted by spectres. Shakespeare is a brother of Dante. -The one completes the other. Dante incarnates all supernaturalism, -Shakespeare all Nature; and as these two regions, Nature and -supernaturalism, which appear to us so different, are really the same -unity, Dante and Shakespeare, however dissimilar, commingle outwardly, -and are but one innately. There is something of the Alighieri, -something of the ghost in Shakespeare. The skull passes from the hands -of Dante into the hands of Shakespeare. Ugolino gnaws it, Hamlet -questions it; and it shows perhaps even a deeper meaning and a loftier -teaching in the second than in the first. Shakespeare shakes it and -makes stars fall from it The isle of Prospero, the forest of Ardennes, -the heath of Armuyr, the platform of Elsinore, are not less illuminated -than the seven circles of Dante's spiral by the sombre reverberation -of hypothesis. The unknown--half fable, half truth--is outlined there -as well as here. Shakespeare as much as Dante allows us to glimpse at -the crepuscular horizon of conjecture. In the one as in the other there -is the possible,--that window of the dream opening on reality. As for -the real, we insist on it, Shakespeare overflows with it; everywhere -the living flesh. Shakespeare possesses emotion, instinct, the true -cry, the right tone, all the human multitude in his clamour. His poetry -is himself, and at the same time it is you. Like Homer, Shakespeare -is element Men of genius, re-beginners,--it is the right name for -them,--rise at all the decisive crises of humanity; they sum up the -phases and complete the revolutions. In civilization, Homer stamps -the end of Asia and the commencement of Europe; Shakespeare stamps -the end of the Middle Ages. This closing of the Middle Ages, Rabelais -and Cervantes have fixed also; but, being essentially satirists, they -give but a partial aspect Shakespeare's mind is a total; like Homer, -Shakespeare is a cyclic man. These two geniuses, Homer and Shakespeare, -close the two gates of barbarism,--the ancient door and the gothic one. -That was their mission; they have fulfilled it. That was their task; -they have accomplished it. The third great human crisis is the French -Revolution; it is the third huge gate of barbarism, the monarchical -gate, which is closing at this moment. The nineteenth century hears it -rolling on its hinges. Thence for poetry, the drama, and art arises the -actual era, as independent of Shakespeare as of Homer. - - -[Footnote 1: Song XVII. of the Iliad.] - -[Footnote 2: Ezekiel, XLIII. 7.] - -[Footnote 3: Preface to "Cromwell."] - - - -CHAPTER III. - - -Homer, Job, Æschylus, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Lucretius, Juvenal, Saint John, -Saint Paul, Tacitus, Dante, Rabelais, Cervantes, Shakespeare. - -That is the avenue of the immovable giants of the human mind. - -The men of genius are a dynasty. Indeed there is no other. They wear -all the crowns,--even that of thorns. - -Each of them represents the sum total of absolute that man can realize. - -We repeat it, to choose between these men, to prefer one to the other, -to mark with the finger the first among these first, it cannot be. All -are the Mind. - -Perhaps, in an extreme case--and yet every objection would be -legitimate--you might mark out as the highest summit among those -summits, Homer, Æschylus, Job, Isaiah, Dante, and Shakespeare. - -It is understood that we speak here only in an Art point of view, and -in Art, in the literary point of view. - -Two men in this group, Æschylus and Shakespeare, represent specially -the drama. - -Æschylus, a kind of genius out of time, worthy to stamp either a -beginning or an end in humanity, does not seem to be placed in his -right turn in the series, and, as we have said, seems an elder son of -Homer's. - -If we remember that Æschylus is nearly submerged by the darkness -rising over human memory; if we remember that ninety of his plays have -disappeared, that of that sublime hundred there remain no more than -seven dramas, which are also seven odes, we are stupefied by what we -see of that genius, and almost frightened by what we do not see. - -What, then, was Æschylus? What proportions and what forms had he in -all this shadow? Æschylus is up to his shoulders in the ashes of ages. -His head alone remains out of that burying; and, like the giant of the -desert, with his head alone he is as immense as all the neighbouring -gods standing on their pedestals. - -Man passes before this insubmergible wreck. Enough remains for an -immense glory. What the darkness has taken adds the unknown to this -greatness. Buried and eternal, his brow projecting from the grave, -Æschylus looks at generations. - - - -CHAPTER IV. - - -To the eyes of the thinker, these men of genius occupy thrones in the -ideal. - -To the individual works that those men have left us, must be -added various vast collective works, the Vedas, the Râmayana, the -Mahâbhârata, the Edda, the Niebelungen, the Heldenbuch, the Romancero. - -Some of these works are revealed and sacred. Unknown assistance is -marked on them. The poems of India in particular have the ominous -fulness of the possible imagined by insanity, or related by dreams. -These works seem to have been composed in common with beings to whom -our world is no longer accustomed. Legendary horror covers these epic -poems. _These books have not been composed by man alone_; the Ash-Nagar -inscription says it. Djinns have alighted upon them; polypterian magi -have thought over them; the texts have been interlined by invisible -hands; the demi-gods have been aided by demi-demons; the elephant, -which India calls the sage, has been consulted. Thence a majesty -almost horrible. The great enigmas are in these poems. They are full -of mysterious Asia. Their prominent parts have the supernatural and -hideous outline of chaos. They are a mass in the horizon like the -Himalayas. The distance of the manners, beliefs, ideas, actions, -persons, is extraordinary. One reads these poems with that wondering -stoop of the head which is induced by the profound distance that -there is between the book and the reader. This Holy Writ of Asia has -evidently been yet more difficult to reduce and put into shape than -our own. It is in every part refractory to unity. In vain have the -Brahmins, like our priests, erased and interpolated. Zoroaster is -there; Ized Serosch is there. The Eschem of the Mazdæan traditions -appears under the name of Siva; Manicheism is discernible between -Brahma and Bouddha. All kinds of traces blend, cross, and recross each -other in these poems. One may see in them the mysterious tramp of a -crowd of minds who have worked at them in the mist of ages. Here the -measureless toe of the giant; there the claw of the chimera. Those -poems are the pyramid of a vanished colony of ants. - -The Niebelungen, another pyramid of another ant-hill, has the same -greatness. What the dives have done there, the elves have done here. -These powerful epic legends, the testaments of ages, tattooings marked -by races on history, have no other unity than the very unity of the -people. The collective and the successive, combining together, are one. -_Turba fit mens._ These recitals are mists, and wonderful flashes of -light traverse them. As to the Romancero, which creates the Cid after -Achilles, and the chivalric after the heroic, it is the Iliad of many -lost Homers. Count Julian, King Roderigo, Cava, Bernard del Carpio, the -bastard Mudarra, Nuño Salido, the Seven Infantes of Lara, the Constable -Alvar de Luna,--no Oriental or Hellenic type surpasses these figures. -The horse of Campeador is equal to the dog of Ulysses. Between Priam -and Lear you must place Don Arias, the old man of Zamora's tower, -sacrificing his seven sons to his duty, and tearing them from his heart -one after another. There is grandeur in that. In presence of these -sublimities the reader undergoes a sort of insolation. - -These works are anonymous, and owing to the great reason of the _homo -sum_, while admiring them, while holding them as the summit of art, we -prefer to them the acknowledged works. With equal beauty, the Râmayana -touches us less than Shakespeare. The "I" of a man is more vast and -profound even than the "I" of a people. - -However, these composite myriologies, the great testaments of India -particularly, with a coat of poetry rather than real poems, expression -at the same time sideral and bestial of humanities passed away, derive -from their very deformity an indescribable supernatural air. The "I" -multiple expressed by those myriologies makes them the polypi of -poetry,--vague and wonderful enormities. The strange joinings of the -antediluvian rough outline seem visible there as in the ichthyosaurus -or in the pterodactyl. Any one of these black _chefs-d'œuvre_ with -several heads makes on the horizon of art the silhouette of a hydra. - -The Greek genius is not deceived by them, and abhors them. Apollo -would attack them. The Romancero excepted, beyond and above all these -collective and anonymous productions, there are men to represent -peoples. These men we have just named. They give to nations and periods -the human face. They are in art the incarnations of Greece, of Arabia, -of India, of Pagan Rome, of Christian Italy, of Spain, of France, of -England. As for Germany, the matrix, like Asia, of races, hordes, and -nations, she is represented in art by a sublime man, equal, although in -a different category, to all those that we have characterized above. -That man is Beethoven. Beethoven is the German soul. - -What a shadow this Germany! She is the India of the West. She holds -everything. There is no formation more colossal. In the sacred mist -where the German spirit breathes, Isidro de Seville places theology; -Albert the Great, scholasticism; Raban Maur, the science of language; -Trithemius, astrology; Ottnit, chivalry; Reuchlin, vast curiosity; -Tutilo, universality; Stadianus, method; Luther, inquiry; Albert Dürer, -art; Leibnitz, science; Puffendorf, law; Kant, philosophy; Fichte, -metaphysics; Winckelmann, archæology; Herder, æsthetics; the Vossiuses, -of whom one, Gerard John, was of the Palatinate, learning; Euler, the -spirit of integration; Humboldt, the spirit of discovery; Niebuhr, -history; Gottfried of Strasburg, fable; Hoffman, dreams; Hegel, doubt; -Ancillon, obedience; Werner, fatalism; Schiller, enthusiasm; Goethe, -indifference; Arminius, liberty. - -Kepler gives Germany the heavenly bodies. - -Gerard Groot, the founder of the Fratres Communis Vitæ, brings his -first attempt at fraternity in the fourteenth century. Whatever may -have been her infatuation for the indifference of Goethe, do not -consider her impersonal, that Germany. She is a nation, and one of -the most generous; for it is for her that Rückert, the military poet, -forges the "geharnischte Sonnette," and she shudders when Körner hurls -at her the Song of the Sword. She is the German fatherland, the great -beloved land, _Teutonia mater._ Galgacus was to the Germans what -Caractacus was to the Britons. - -Germany has everything in herself and at home. She shares Charlemagne -with France and Shakespeare with England; for the Saxon element is -mingled with the British element. She has an Olympus,--the Valhalla. -She must have her own style of writing. Ulfilas, Bishop of Moesia, -composes it for her, and the Gothic mode of caligraphy will henceforth -keep its ground along with the writing of Arabia. The capital letter -of a missal strives to outdo in fancy the signature of a caliph. Like -China, Germany has invented printing. Her Burgraves (this remark has -been already made[1]) are to us what the Titans are to Æschylus. To the -temple of Tanfana, destroyed by Germanicus, she caused the cathedral of -Cologne to succeed. She is the grandmother of our history, the grandam -of our legends. From all parts,--from the Rhine to the Danube, from -the Rauhe-Alp, from the ancient _Sylva Gabresa_, from the Lorraine on -the Moselle, and from the ripuarian Lorraine by the Wigalois and the -Wigamur, with Henry the Fowler, with Samo, King of the Vends, with -the chronicler of Thuringia, Rothe, with the chronicler of Alsace, -Twinger, with the chronicler of Limbourg, Gansbein, with all these -ancient popular songsters, Jean Folz, Jean Viol, Muscatblüt, with the -minnesingers, those rhapsodists,--the tale, that form of dream, reaches -her, and enters into her genius. At the same time, idioms are flowing -from her. From her fissures rush, to the north, the Danish and Swedish, -to the west, the Dutch and Flemish. The German idiom passes the Channel -and becomes the English language. In the order of intellectual facts, -the German genius has other frontiers besides Germany. Such people -resists Germany and yields to Germanism. The German spirit assimilates -to itself the Greeks by Müller, the Serbians by Gerhard, the Russians -by Goethe, the Magyars by Mailath. When Kepler, in the presence of -Rudolph II., was preparing the Rudolphian Tables, it was with the -aid of Tycho Brahé German affinities go far. Without any alteration -in the local and national autonomies, it is with the great Germanic -centre that the Scandinavian spirit in Oehlenschläger, and the Batavian -spirit in Vondel, is connected. Poland unites herself to it, with all -her glory, from Copernicus to Kosciusko, from Sobieski to Mickiewicz. -Germany is the well of nations. They pass out of her like rivers; she -receives them as a sea. - -It seems as though one heard through all Europe the wonderful murmur of -the Hercynian forest. The German nature, profound and subtle, distinct -from European nature, but in harmony with it, volatilizes and floats -above nations. The German mind is misty, luminous, scattered. It is a -kind of immense soul-cloud, with stars. Perhaps the highest expression -of Germany can only be given by music. Music, by its very want of -precision, which in this special case is a quality, goes where the -German soul proceeds. - -If the German spirit had as much density as expansion,--that is to say, -as much will as power,--she could, at a given moment, lift up and save -the human race. Such as she is, she is sublime. - -In poetry she has not said her last word. At this hour, the symptoms -are excellent. Since the jubilee of the noble Schiller, particularly, -there has been an awakening, and a generous awakening. The great -definitive poet of Germany will be necessarily a poet of humanity, of -enthusiasm, and of liberty. Perchance, and some signs give token of it, -we may soon see him arise from the young group of contemporary German -writers. - -Music, we beg indulgence for this word, is the vapour of art. It is to -poetry what revery is to thought, what the fluid is to the liquid, what -the ocean of clouds is to the ocean of waves. If another description is -required, it is the indefinite of this infinite. The same insufflation -pushes it, carries it, raises it, upsets it, fills it with trouble and -light and with an ineffable sound, saturates it with electricity and -causes it to give suddenly discharges of thunder. - -Music is the Verb of Germany. The German race, so much curbed as a -people, so emancipated as thinkers, sing with a sombre love. To sing -resembles a freeing from bondage. Music expresses that which cannot -be said, and on which it is impossible to be silent. Therefore is -Germany all music until she becomes all liberty. Luther's choral is -somewhat a Marseillaise. Everywhere singing clubs and singing tables. -In Swabia every year the fête of song, on the banks of the Neckar, in -the plains of Enslingen. The _Liedermusik_, of which Schubert's "Le Roi -des Aulnes" is the _chef-d'œuvre_, is part of German life. Song is for -Germany a breathing. It is by singing that she respires and conspires. -The note being the syllable of a kind of undefined universal language, -Germany's grand communication with the human race is made through -harmony,--an admirable commencement to unity. It is by the clouds that -the rains which fertilize the earth ascend from the sea; it is by music -that the ideas which go deep into souls pass out of Germany. - -Therefore we may say that Germany's greatest poets are her musicians, -of which wonderful family Beethoven is the head. - -Homer is the great Pelasgian; Æschylus, the great Hellene; Isaiah, -the great Hebrew; Juvenal, the great Roman; Dante, the great Italian; -Shakespeare, the great Englishman; Beethoven, the great German. - - -[Footnote 1: Preface of the Burgraves, 1843.] - - - -CHAPTER V. - - -The Ex-"Good Taste," that other divine law which has for so long a time -weighed on Art, and which had succeeded in suppressing the Beautiful -for the benefit of the Pretty, the ancient criticism, not altogether -dead, like the ancient monarchy, prove, from their own point of view, -the same fault, exaggeration, in those sovereign men of genius whom we -have named above. They are exaggerated. - -This is caused by the quantity of the infinite that they have in them. - -In fact, they are not circumscribed. They contain something unknown. -Every reproach that is addressed to them might be addressed to -sphinxes. People reproach Homer for the carnage which fills his cavern, -the Iliad; Æschylus, for his monstrousness; Job, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Saint -Paul, for double meanings; Rabelais, for obscene nudity and venomous -ambiguity; Cervantes, for insidious laughter; Shakespeare, for his -subtlety; Lucretius, Juvenal, Tacitus, for obscurity; John of Patmos -and Dante Alighieri for darkness. - -None of those reproaches can be made to other minds very great, but -less great. Hesiod, Æsop, Sophocles, Euripides, Plato, Thucydides, -Anacreon, Theocritus, Titus Livius, Sallust, Cicero, Terence, Virgil, -Horace, Petrarch, Tasso, Ariosto, La Fontaine, Beaumarchais, Voltaire, -have neither exaggeration nor darkness nor obscurity nor monstrousness. -What, then, fails them? _That_ which the others have. - -_That_ is the Unknown. - -_That_ is the Infinite. - -If Corneille had "that," he would be the equal of Æschylus. If Milton -had "that," he would be the equal of Homer. If Molière had "that," he -would be the equal of Shakespeare. - -It is the misfortune of Corneille that he mutilated and contracted the -old native tragedy in obedience to fixed rules. It is the misfortune of -Milton that by Puritan melancholy he excluded from his work the vast -Nature, the great Pan. It is Molière's failing that, out of dread of -Boileau, he quickly extinguishes the luminous style of the "Etourdi;" -that, for fear of the priests, he writes too few scenes like "The Poor" -in "Don Juan." - -To give no occasion for attack is a negative perfection. It is fine to -be open to attack. - -Indeed, dig out the meaning of those words, placed as masks to the -mysterious qualities of geniuses. Under obscurity, subtlety, and -darkness you find depth; under exaggeration, imagination; under -monstrousness, grandeur. - -Therefore, in the upper region of poetry and thought there are Homer, -Job, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Lucretius, Juvenal, Tacitus, John of Patmos, Paul -of Damascus, Dante, Rabelais, Cervantes, Shakespeare. - -These supreme men of genius are not a closed series. The author of All -adds to it a name when the wants of progress require it. - - - - -BOOK III. - - -ART AND SCIENCE. - - - -CHAPTER I. - - -Many people in our day, readily merchants and often lawyers, say and -repeat, "Poetry is gone." It is almost as if they said, "There are no -more roses; spring has breathed its last; the sun has lost the habit -of rising; roam about all the fields of the earth, you will not find -a butterfly; there is no more light in the moon, and the nightingale -sings no more; the lion no longer roars; the eagle no longer soars; -the Alps and the Pyrenees are gone; there are no more lovely girls or -handsome young men; no one thinks any more of the graves; the mother no -longer loves her child; heaven is quenched; the human heart is dead." - -If it was permitted to mix the contingent with the eternal, it would be -rather the contrary which would prove true. Never have the faculties of -the human soul, investigated and enriched by the mysterious excavation -of revolutions, been deeper and more lofty. - -And wait a little; give time for the realization of the acme of social -salvation,--gratuitous and compulsory education. How long will it -take? A quarter of a century; and then imagine the incalculable sum of -intellectual development that this single word contains: every one can -read! The multiplication of readers is the multiplication of loaves. -On the day when Christ created that symbol, he caught a glimpse of -printing. His miracle is this marvel. Behold a book. I will nourish -with it five thousand souls, a hundred thousand souls, a million -souls,--all humanity. In the action of Christ bringing forth the -loaves, there is Gutenberg bringing forth books. One sower heralds the -other. - -What is the human race since the origin of centuries? A reader. For a -long time he has spelt; he spells yet. Soon he will read. - -This infant, six thousand years old, has been at school. Where? In -Nature. At the beginning, having no other book, he spelt the universe. -He has had his primary teaching of the clouds, of the firmament, of -meteors, flowers, animals, forests, seasons, phenomena. The fisherman -of Ionia studies the wave; the shepherd of Chaldæa spells the star. -Then the first books came. Sublime progress! The book is vaster yet -than that grand scene, the world; for to the fact it adds the idea. If -anything is greater than God seen in the sun, it is God seen in Homer. - -The universe without the book is science taking its first steps; the -universe with the book is the ideal making its appearance,--therefore -immediate modification in the human phenomenon. Where there had been -only force, power reveals itself. The ideal applied to real facts is -civilization. Poetry written and sung begins its work, magnificent and -efficient deduction of the poetry only seen. A striking statement to -make,--science was dreaming; poetry acts. With the sound of the lyre, -the thinker drives away brutality. - -We shall return later on to this power of the book; we do not insist on -it at present; that power blazes forth. Now, many writers, few readers; -such has the world been up to this day. But a change is at hand. -Compulsory education is a recruiting of souls for light. Henceforth -every progress of the human race will be accomplished by the literary -legion. The diameter of the moral and ideal good corresponds always to -the opening of intelligences. In proportion to the worth of the brain -is the worth of the heart - -The book is the tool to work this transformation. A constant supply of -light, that is what humanity requires. Reading is nutriment. Thence -the importance of the school, everywhere adequate to civilization. The -human race is at last on the point of stretching open the book. The -immense human Bible, composed of all the prophets, of all the poets, of -all the philosophers, is about to shine and blaze under the focus of -this enormous luminous lens, compulsory education. - -Humanity reading is humanity knowing. - -What, then, is the meaning of that nonsense, "Poetry is gone"? We might -say, on the contrary, "Poetry is coming!" For he who says "poetry" -says "philosophy" and "light." Now, the reign of the book commences; -the school is its purveyor. Increase the reader, you increase the -book,--not, certainly, in intrinsic value; that remains what it was; -but in efficient power: it influences where it had no influence. The -souls become its subjects for good purpose. It was but beautiful; it is -useful. - -Who would venture to deny this? The circle of readers enlarging, the -circle of books read will increase. Now, the want of reading being a -train of powder, once lighted it will not stop; and this, combined with -the simplification of hand-labour by machinery, and with the increased -leisure of man, the body less fatigued leaving intelligence more free, -vast appetites for thought will spring up in all brains; the insatiable -thirst for knowledge and meditation will become more and more the human -preoccupation; low places will be deserted for high places,--a natural -ascent for every growing intelligence. People will quit Faublas to read -"Orestes." There they will taste greatness; and once they have tasted -it, they will never be satiated. They will devour the beautiful because -the refinement of minds augments in proportion to their force; and a -day will come when the fulness of civilization making itself manifest, -those summits, almost desert for ages, and haunted solely by the -_élite_,--Lucretius, Dante, Shakespeare,--will be crowded with souls -seeking their nourishment on the lofty peaks. - - - -CHAPTER II. - - -There can be but one law; the unity of law results from the unity -of essence. Nature and art are the two sides of the same fact; -and in principle, saving the restriction which we shall indicate -very shortly, the law of one is the law of the other. The angle of -reflection equals the angle of incidence. All being equity in the -moral order and equilibrium in the material order, all is equation -in the intellectual order. The binomial theorem, that marvel fitting -everything, is included in poetry not less than in algebra. Nature -plus humanity, raised to the second power, gives art That is the -intellectual binomial theorem. Now replace this A + B by the number -special to each great artist and each great poet, and you will have, -in its multiple physiognomy and in its strict total, each of the -creations of the human mind. What more beautiful than the variety of -_chefs-d'œuvre_ resulting from the unity of law. Poetry like science -has an abstract root; out of that science evokes the _chef-d'œuvre_ of -metal, wood, fire, or air,--machine, ship, locomotive, æroscaph; out -of that poetry evokes the _chef-d'œuvre_ of flesh and blood,--Iliad, -Canticle of Canticles, Romancero, Divine Comedy, "Macbeth." Nothing so -starts and prolongs the shock felt by the thinker as those mysterious -exfoliations of abstraction into realities in the double region, the -one positive, the other infinite, of human thought. A region double, -and nevertheless one; the infinite is a precision. The profound word -_number_ is at the base of man's thought. It is, to our intelligence, -elemental; it has a harmonious as well as a mathematical signification. -Number reveals itself to art by rhythm, which is the beating of the -heart of the Infinite. In rhythm, law of order, God is felt. A verse is -a gathering like a crowd; its feet take the cadenced step of a legion. -Without number, no science; without number, no poetry. The strophe, -the epic poem, the drama, the riotous palpitation of man, the bursting -forth of love, the irradiation of the imagination, all this cloud with -its flashes, the passion,--all is lorded over by the mysterious word -number, even as geometry and arithmetic. Ajax, Hector, Hecuba, the -seven chiefs before Thebes, Œdipus, Ugolino, Messalina, Lear and -Priam, Romeo, Desdemona, Richard III., Pantagruel, the Cid, Alcestes, -all belong to it, as well as conic sections and the differential and -integral calculus. It starts from two and two make four, and ascends to -the region where the lightning sits. - -Yet, between art and science, let us note a radical difference. Science -may be brought to perfection; art, not. - -Why? - - - -CHAPTER III. - - -Among human things, and inasmuch as it is a human thing, art is a -strange exception. - -The beauty of everything here below lies in the power of reaching -perfection. Everything is endowed with that property. To increase, to -augment, to win strength, to march forward, to be worth more to-day -than yesterday,--that is at once glory and life. The beauty of art lies -in not being susceptible of improvement. - -Let us insist on these essential ideas, already touched on in some of -the preceding pages. - -A _chef-d'œuvre_ exists once for all. The first poet who arrives, -arrives at the summit. You will ascend after him, as high, not higher. -Ah, you call yourself Dante! well; but that one calls himself Homer. - -Progress, goal constantly displaced, halting-place forever varying, has -a shifting horizon. Not so with the ideal. - -Now, progress is the motive power of science; the ideal is the -generator of art. - -Thus is explained why perfection is the characteristic of science, and -not of art. - -A savant may outlustre a savant; a poet never throws a poet into the -shade. - -Art progresses after its own fashion. It shifts its ground like -science; but its successive creations, containing the immutable, live, -while the admirable attempts of science, which are, and can be nothing -but combinations of the contingent, obliterate each other. - -The relative is in science; the positive is in art. The _chef-d'œuvre_ -of to-day will be the _chef d'œuvre_ of to-morrow. Does Shakespeare -interfere in any way with Sophocles? Does Molière take anything from -Plautus? Even when he borrows Amphitryon he does not take him from him. -Does Figaro blot out Sancho Panza? Does Cordelia suppress Antigone? No. -Poets do not climb over each other. The one is not the stepping-stone -of the other. They rise up alone, without any other lever than -themselves. They do not tread their equal under foot. Those who are -first in the field respect the old ones. They succeed, they do not -replace each other. The beautiful does not drive away the beautiful. -Neither wolves nor _chefs-d'œuvre_ devour each other. - -Saint-Simon says (I quote from memory): "There has been through the -whole winter but one cry of admiration for M. de Cambray's book, when -suddenly appeared M. de Meaux's book, which devoured it." If Fénélon's -book had been Saint-Simon's, the book of Bossuet would not have -devoured it. - -Shakespeare is not above Dante, Molière is not above Aristophanes, -Calderon is not above Euripides, the Divine Comedy is not above -Genesis, the Romancero is not above the Odyssey, Sirius is not above -Arcturus. Sublimity is equality. - -The human mind is the infinite possible. The _chefs-d'œuvre_, immense -worlds, are hatched within it unceasingly, and last forever. No pushing -one against the other; no recoil. The occlusions, when there are any, -are but apparent, and quickly cease. The expanse of the boundless -admits all creations. - -Art, taken as art, and in itself, goes neither forward nor backward. -The transformations of poetry are but the undulations of the -Beautiful, useful to human movement. Human movement,--another side of -the question that we certainly do not overlook, and that we shall -attentively examine farther on. Art is not susceptible of intrinsic -progress. From Phidias to Rembrandt there is onward movement, but not -progress. The frescoes of the Sistine Chapel are absolutely nothing to -the metopes of the Parthenon. Retrace your steps as much as you like, -from the palace of Versailles to the castle of Heidelberg, from the -castle of Heidelberg to Notre-Dame of Paris, from Notre-Dame of Paris -to the Alhambra, from the Alhambra to St. Sophia, from St. Sophia to -the Coliseum, from the Coliseum to the Propylæons, from the Propylæons -to the Pyramids; you may recede into ages, you do not recede in art. -The Pyramids and the Iliad stand on the fore plan. - -Masterpieces have a level, the same for all,--the absolute. - -Once the absolute reached, all is said. That cannot be excelled. The -eye can bear but a certain quantity of dazzling light. - -Thence comes the assurance of poets. They lean on posterity with a -lofty confidence. "Exegi monumentum," says Horace. And on that occasion -he insults bronze. "Plaudite, cives," says Plautus. Corneille, at -sixty-five years, wins the love (a tradition in the Escoubleau family) -of the very young Marquise de Contades, by promising her to send her -name down to posterity:-- - - "Chez cette race nouvelle, - Où j'aurai quelque crédit, - Vous ne passerez pour belle - Qu'autant que je l'aurai dit." - -In the poet and in the artist there is the infinite. It is this -ingredient, the infinite, which gives to this kind of genius the -irreducible grandeur. - -This amount of the infinite in art is not inherent to progress. It may -have, and it certainly has, duties to fulfil toward progress, but it is -not dependent on it. It is dependent on no perfections which may result -from the future, on no transformation of language, on no death or birth -of idioms. It has within itself the immeasurable and the innumerable; -it cannot be subdued by any occurrence; it is as pure, as complete, -as sidereal, as divine in the heart of barbarism as in the heart of -civilization. It is the Beautiful, diverse according to the men of -genius, but always equal to itself. Supreme. - -Such is the law, scarcely known, of Art. - - - -CHAPTER IV. - - -Science is different. - -The relative, which governs it, leaves its mark on it; and these -successive stamps of the relative, more and more resembling the real, -constitute the movable certainty of man. - -In science, certain things have been masterpieces which are so no more. -The hydraulic machine of Marly was a _chef-d'œuvre._ - -Science seeks perpetual movement. She has found it; it is itself -perpetual motion. - -Science is continually moving in the benefit it confers. - -Everything stirs up in science, everything changes, everything is -constantly renewed. Everything denies, destroys, creates, replaces -everything. That which was accepted yesterday is put again under the -millstone to-day. The colossal machine, Science, never rests. It is -never satisfied; it is everlastingly thirsting for improvement, which -the absolute ignores. Vaccination is a problem, the lightning-rod is a -problem. Jenner may have erred, Franklin may have deceived himself; let -us go on seeking. This agitation is grand. Science is restless around -man; it has its own reasons for this restlessness. Science plays in -progress the part of utility. Let us worship this magnificent servant. - -Science makes discoveries, art composes works. Science is an -acquirement of man, science is a ladder; one savant overtops the other. -Poetry is a lofty soaring. - -Do you want examples? They abound. Here is one,--the first which occurs -to our mind. - -Jacob Metzu, scientifically Metius, discovers the telescope by chance, -as Newton did gravitation and Christopher Columbus, America. Let us -open a parenthesis: there is no chance in the creation of "Orestes" -or of "Paradise Lost." A _chef-d'œuvre_ is the offspring of will. -After Metzu comes Galileo, who improves the discovery of Metzu; then -Kepler, who improves on the improvement of Galileo; then Descartes, -who, although going somewhat astray in taking a concave glass for -eyepiece instead of a convex one, fructifies the improvement of Kepler; -then the Capuchin Reita, who rectifies the reversing of objects; then -Huyghens, who makes a great step by placing the two convex glasses on -the focus of the objective; and in less than fifty years, from 1610 to -1659, during the short interval which separates the "Nuncius Sidereus" -of Galileo from the "Oculus Eliæ et Enoch" of Father Reita, behold the -original inventor, Metzu, obliterated. And it is constantly the same in -science. - -Vegetius was Count of Constantinople; but that is no obstacle to his -tactics being forgotten,--forgotten like the strategy of Polybius, -forgotten like the strategy of Folard. The pig's-head of the phalanx -and the pointed order of the legion have for a moment re-appeared, -two hundred years ago, in the wedge of Gustavus Adolphus; but in our -days, when there are no more pikemen as in the fourteenth century, -nor lansquenets as in the seventeenth, the ponderous triangular -attack, which was in other times the base of all tactics, is replaced -by a crowd of Zouaves charging with the bayonet. Some day, sooner -perhaps than people think, the charge with the bayonet will be itself -superseded by peace, at first European, by-and-by universal, and then -a whole science--the military science--will vanish away. For that -science, its improvement lies in its disappearance. - -Science goes on unceasingly erasing itself,--fruitful erasures. Who -knows now what is the "Homœomeria" of Anaximenes, which perhaps -belongs in reality to Anaxagoras? Cosmography is notably amended -since the time when this same Anaxagoras told Pericles that the -sun was almost as large as the Peloponnesus. Many planets, and -satellites of planets, have been discovered since the four stars of -Medici. Entomology has made some advance since the time when it was -asserted that the scarabee was somewhat of a god and a cousin of -the sun,--firstly, on account of the thirty toes on its feet, which -correspond to the thirty days of the solar month; secondly, because the -scarabee is without a female, like the sun; and when Saint Clement, of -Alexandria, out-bidding Plutarch, made the remark that the scarabee, -like the sun, passes six months in the earth and six months under it. -Do you wish to have the proof of this?--refer to the "Stromates," -paragraph IV. Scholasticism itself, chimerical as it is, gives up the -"Holy Meadow" of Moschus, laughs at the "Holy Ladder" of John Climacus, -and is ashamed of the century in which Saint Bernard, adding fuel to -the stake which the Viscounts of Campania wished to put out, called -Arnaud de Bresse "a man with the head of the dove and the tail of the -scorpion." The cardinal virtues are no longer the law in anthropology. -The _steyardes_ of the great Arnauld are decayed. However uncertain is -meteorology, it is far from discussing now, as it did in the twelfth -century, whether a rain which saves an army from dying of thirst is -due to the Christian prayers of the Melitine legion or to the Pagan -intervention of Jupiter Pluvius. The astrologer, Marcian Posthumus, -was for Jupiter; Tertullian was for the Melitine legion. No one stood -in favour of the cloud and of the wind. Locomotion, if we go from the -antique chariot of Laïus to the railway, passing by the _patache_, the -track-boat, the _turgotine_, the diligence, and the mail, has made -some progress indeed. The time is gone by for the famous journey from -Dijon to Paris, lasting a month; and we could not understand to-day -the amazement of Henry IV. asking of Joseph Scaliger, "Is it true, -Monsieur l'Escale, that you have been from Paris to Dijon without -relieving your bowels?" Micrography is now far beyond Leuwenhoeck, -who was himself far beyond Swammerdam. Look at the point to which -spermatology and ovology are arrived to-day, and recollect Mariana -reproaching Arnaud de Villeneuve, who discovered alcohol and the oil -of turpentine, with the strange crime of having tried human generation -in a pumpkin. Grand-Jean de Fouchy, the not over-credulous life -secretary of the Academy of Sciences, a hundred years ago, would have -shaken his head if any one had told him that from the solar spectrum -one would pass to the igneous spectrum, then to the stellar spectrum, -and that by the aid of the spectrum of flames and of the spectrum of -stars, would be discovered an entirely new method of grouping the -heavenly bodies, and what might be called the chemical constellations. -Orffyreus, who destroyed his machine rather than allow the Landgrave -of Hesse to see inside it,--Orffyreus, so admired by S'Gravesande, the -author of the "Matheseos Universalis Elements,"--would be laughed at -by our mechanicians. A village veterinary surgeon would not inflict -on horses the remedy with which Galen treated the indigestions of -Marcus Aurelius. What is the opinion of the eminent specialists of -our times, Desmarres at the head of them, respecting the learned -discoveries of the seventeenth century by the Bishop of Titiopolis in -the nasal chambers? The mummies have got on; M. Gannal makes them -differently, if not better, than the Taricheutes, the Paraschistes, -and the Cholchytes made them in the days of Herodotus,--the first by -washing the body, the second by opening it, and the third by embalming -it. Five hundred years before Jesus Christ it was perfectly scientific, -when a king of Mesopotamia had a daughter possessed by the devil, to -send to Thebes for a god to cure her. It is not exactly our way to -treat epilepsy. In the same way have we given up expecting the kings of -France to cure scrofula. - -In 371, under Valens, son of Gratian le Cordier, the judges summoned -to their bar a table accused of sorcery. This table had an accomplice -named Hilarius. Hilarius confessed the crime. Ammianus Marcellinus has -preserved for us his confession, received by Zosimus, count and fiscal -advocate:-- - - "Construximus, magnifici judices, ad cortinæ similitudinem - Delphicæ infaustam hanc mensulam quam videtis; movimus - tandem." - -Hilarius was beheaded. Who was his accuser? A learned geometrician and -magician,--the same who advised Valens to decapitate all those whose -names began with a _Theod._ To-day you may call yourself Theodore, and -even make a table turn, without the fear of a geometrician causing your -head to be cut off. - -One would very much astonish Solon the son of Execestidas, Zeno the -stoic, Antipater, Eudoxus, Lysis of Tarentum, Cebes, Menedemus, Plato, -Epicurus, Aristotle, and Epimenides, if one were to tell Solon that -it is not the moon which regulates the year; to Zeno, that it is -not proved that the soul is divided into eight parts; to Antipater, -that the heaven is not formed of five circles; to Eudoxus, that it -is not certain that between the Egyptians embalming the dead, the -Romans burning them, and the Pæonians throwing them into ponds, the -Pæonians are those who are right; to Lysis of Tarentum, that it is not -exact that the sight is a hot vapour; to Cebes, that it is false that -the principle of elements is the oblong triangle and the isosceles -triangle; to Menedemus, that it is not true that in order to know -the secret bad intentions of men it suffices to stick on one's head -an Arcadian hat with the twelve signs of the zodiac; to Plato, that -sea-water does not cure all diseases; to Epicurus, that matter is -divisible _ad infinitum_; to Aristotle, that the fifth element has not -an orbicular movement, for the reason that there is no fifth element; -to Epimenides, that the plague cannot be infallibly got rid of by -letting black and white sheep go at random, and sacrificing to unknown -gods hidden in the places where the sheep happen to stop. - -If you should try to hint to Pythagoras how improbable it is that he -should have been wounded at the siege of Troy,--he Pythagoras, by -Menelaus, two hundred and seven years before his birth,--he would reply -that the fact is incontestable, and that it is proved by the fact that -he perfectly recognizes, as having already seen it, the shield of -Menelaus suspended under the statue of Apollo at Branchides, although -entirely rotten, except the ivory face; that at the siege of Troy -his own name was Euphorbus, and that before being Euphorbus he was -Æthalides, son of Mercury, and that after having been Euphorbus, he was -Hermotimus, then Pyrrhus, fisherman at Delos, then Pythagoras; that it -is all evident and clear,--as clear as it is clear that he was present -the same day and the same minute at Metapontum and Crotona, as evident -as it is evident that by writing with blood on a mirror exposed to the -moon, one may see in the moon what he wrote on the mirror; and lastly, -that he is Pythagoras, living at Metapontum, in the Street of the -Muses, the author of the multiplication-table, and of the square of the -hypothenuse, the greatest of all mathematicians, the father of exact -science, and that you, you are an imbecile. - -Chrysippus of Tarsus, who lived about the hundred and thirtieth -Olympiad, forms an era in science. This philosopher, the same who -died, literally died, of laughing on seeing a donkey eat figs out -of a silver basin, had studied everything, gone into the depth of -everything, written seven hundred and five volumes, of which three -hundred and eleven were on dialectics, without having dedicated a -single one to a king,--a fact which astounds Diogenes Laërtius. He -condensed in his brain all human knowledge. His contemporaries named -him Light. Chrysippus signifying "golden horse," they said that he had -got detached from the chariot of the sun. He had taken for device "To -Me." He knew innumerable things,--among others these: The earth is -flat. The universe is round and limited. The best food for man is human -flesh. The community of women is the base of the social order. The -father ought to espouse his daughter. There is a word which kills the -serpent, a word which tames the bear, a word which arrests the flight -of eagles, and a word which drives the oxen from the beanfield. By -pronouncing from hour to hour the three names of the Egyptian Trinity, -Amon-Mouth-Khons, Andron of Argos contrived to cross the deserts of -Libya without drinking. Coffins ought not to be manufactured of cypress -wood, the sceptre of Jupiter being made of that wood. Themistoclea, -priestess of Delphi, had given birth to children, and yet had remained -a virgin. The just alone having authority to swear, it is by equity -that Jupiter has received the name of The Swearer. The phœnix of -Arabia lives in the fire. The earth is carried by the air as by a car. -The sun drinks from the ocean, and the moon from the rivers. For these -reasons the Athenians raised a statue to him on the Ceramicus, with -this inscription: "To Chrysippus, who knew everything." - -About the same time, Sophocles wrote "Œdipus Rex." - -And Aristotle believed in the story about Andron of Argos, and Plato in -the social principle of the community of women, and Gorgisippus in the -earth being flat; and Epicurus admitted as a fact that the earth was -supported by the air, and Hermodamantes that magic words mastered the -ox, the eagle, the bear, and the serpent; and Echecrates believed in -the immaculate maternity of Themistoclea, and Pythagoras in Jupiter's -sceptre made of cypress wood, and Posidonius in the ocean affording -drink to the sun and in the rivers quenching the thirst of the moon, -and Pyrrho in the phœnix existing in fire. - -Excepting in this particular, Pyrrho was a sceptic. He made up for his -belief in that phœnix by doubting everything else. - -All that long groping is science. Cuvier was mistaken yesterday, -Lagrange the day before yesterday, Leibnitz before Lagrange, -Gassendi before Leibnitz, Cardan before Gassendi, Cornelius Agrippa -before Cardan, Averroes before Agrippa, Plotinus before Averroes, -Artemidorus Daldian before Plotinus, Posidonius before Artemidorus, -Democritus before Posidonius, Empedocles before Democritus, Carneades -before Empedocles, Plato before Carneades, Pherecydes before Plato, -Pittacus before Pherecydes, Thales before Pittacus, and before Thales -Zoroaster, and before Zoroaster Sanchoniathon, and before Sanchoniathon -Hermes,--Hermes, which signifies science, as Orpheus signifies art. Oh, -wonderful marvel, this heap swarming with dreams which engender the -real! Oh, sacred errors, slow, blind, and sainted mothers of truth! - -Some savants, such as Kepler, Euler, Geoffroy St. Hilaire, Arago, have -brought into science nothing but light; they are rare. - -At times science is an obstacle to science. The savants give way to -scruples and cavil at study. Pliny is scandalized at Hipparchus; -Hipparchus, with the aid of an imperfect astrolabe, tries to count the -stars and to name them,--an impropriety toward God, says Pliny ("Ausus -rem Deo improbam"). - -To count the stars is to commit a wickedness toward God. This -accusation, started by Pliny against Hipparchus, is continued by the -Inquisition against Campanella. - -Science is the asymptote of truth. It approaches unceasingly and never -touches. Nevertheless it has every greatness. It has will, precision, -enthusiasm, profound attention, penetration, shrewdness, strength, -patience by concatenation, permanent watching for phenomena, the ardour -of progress, and even flashes of bravery,--witness La Pérouse; witness -Pilastre des Rosiers; witness John Franklin; witness Victor Jacquemont; -witness Livingstone: witness Mazet; witness, at this very hour, Nadar. - -But science is series. It proceeds by tests heaped one above the other, -and the thick obscurity of which rises slowly to the level of truth. - -Nothing like it in art. Art is not successive. All art is _ensemble._ - -Let us sum up these few pages. - -Hippocrates is outrun, Archimedes is outrun, Aratus is outrun, -Avicennus is outrun, Paracelsus is outrun, Nicholas Flamel is outrun, -Ambrose Paré is outrun, Vésale is outrun, Copernicus is outrun, Galileo -is outrun, Newton is outrun, Clairaut is outrun, Lavoisier is outrun, -Montgolfier is outrun, Laplace is outrun. Pindar not, Phidias not. - -Pascal the savant is outrun; Pascal the writer is not. - -We no longer teach the astronomy of Ptolemy, the geography of Strabo, -the climatology of Cleostratus, the zoology of Pliny, the algebra -of Diophantus, the medicine of Tribunus, the surgery of Ronsil, the -dialectics of Sphœrus, the myology of Steno, the uranology of -Tatius, the stenography of Trithemius, the pisciculture of Sebastien -de Medici, the arithmetic of Stifels, the geometry of Tartaglia, the -chronology of Scaliger, the meteorology of Stoffler, the anatomy of -Gassendi, the pathology of Fernel, the jurisprudence of Robert Barmne, -the agriculture of Quesnay, the hydrography of Bouguer, the nautics -of Bourdé de Villehuet, the ballistics of Gribeauval, the veterinary -practice of Garsault, the architectonics of Desgodets, the botany of -Tournefort, the scholasticism of Abailard, the politics of Plato, the -mechanics of Aristotle, the physics of Descartes, the theology of -Stillingfleet. We taught yesterday, we teach to-day, we shall teach -to-morrow, we shall teach forever, the "Sing, goddess, the anger of -Achilles." - -Poetry lives a potential life. The sciences may extend its sphere, not -increase its power. Homer had but four winds for his tempests; Virgil -who has twelve, Dante who has twenty-four, Milton who has thirty-two, -do not make their storms grander. - -And it is probable that the tempests of Orpheus were as beautiful as -those of Homer, although Orpheus had, to raise the waves, but two -winds, the Phœnicias and the Aparctias,--that is to say, the wind -of the south and the wind of the north (often confounded, let us say -in passing, with the Argestes, westerly summer wind, and the Libs, the -westerly winter wind). - -Some religions die away; and when they disappear, they bequeath a great -artist to other religions coming after them. Serpio makes for the Venus -Aversative of Athens a vase that the Holy Virgin accepts from Venus, -and which to-day is used in the baptistery of Notre Dame at Gaëta. - -Oh, eternity of art! - -A man, a corpse, a shade, from the depth of the past, through the long -ages, lays hold of you. - -I remember, when a youth, one day at Romorantin, in an old house we had -there, under a vine arbour open to air and light, I espied a book on -a plank, the only book there was in the house,--"De Rerum Natura," of -Lucretius. My professors of rhetoric had spoken very ill of it, which -was a recommendation to me. I opened the book. It was at that moment -about midday. I came on these powerful and calm lines:-- - - "Religion does not consist in turning unceasingly toward - the veiled stone, nor in approaching all the altars, nor in - throwing one's self prostrated on the ground, nor in raising - the hands before the habitations of gods, nor deluging the - temples with the blood of beasts, nor in heaping vows upon - vows, but in beholding all with a peaceful soul." [1] - -I stopped in thought; then I began to read again. Some moments -afterward I could see nothing, hear nothing; I was immersed in the -poet. At the dinner-hour I made a sign that I was not hungry; and at -night, when the sun set, and when the herds were returning to their -sheds, I was still in the same place reading the wonderful book; and -by my side my father, with his white locks, seated on the door-sill of -the low room, where his sword hung on a nail, indulging my prolonged -reading, was gently calling the sheep; and they came in turn to eat a -little salt in the hollow of his hand. - - -[Footnote 1: - - Nec pietas ulla est, velatum saepe videri - Vertier ad lapidem, atque omnes accedere ad aras. - Nec procumbere humi prostratum, et pandere palmas - Ante deum delubra, neque aras sanguine multo - Spargere quadrupedum, nec votis nectere vota; - Sed mage placata posse omnia mente tueri. -] - - - -CHAPTER V. - - -Poetry cannot grow less. Why? Because it cannot grow greater. - -These words, so often used, even by the lettered, "decline," "revival," -show to what an extent the essence of art is ignored. Superficial -intellects, easily becoming pedantic, take for revival and decline some -effects of juxtaposition, some optical mirages, some exigencies of -language, some ebb and flow of ideas, all the vast movement of creation -and thought, the result of which is universal art. This movement is the -very work of the infinite passing through the human brain. - -Phenomena are only seen from the culminating point; and seen from the -culminating point, poetry is immovable. There is neither rise nor -decline in art. Human genius is always at its full; all the rain of -heaven adds not a drop of water to the ocean. A tide is an illusion; -water falls on one shore only to rise on another. You take oscillations -for diminutions. To say, "There will be no more poets," is to say, -"There will be no more ebbing." - -Poetry is element. It is irreducible, incorruptible, and refractory. -Like the sea, it says each time all it has to say; then it re-begins -with a tranquil majesty, and with the inexhaustible variety which -belongs only to unity. This diversity in what seems monotonous is the -marvel of immensity. - -Wave upon wave, billow after billow, foam behind foam, movement and -again movement: the Iliad is moving away, the Romancero comes; the -Bible sinks, the Koran surges up; after the aquilon Pindar comes the -hurricane Dante. Does everlasting poetry repeat itself? No. It is the -same and it is different. Same breath, another sound. - -Do you take the Cid for an imitation of Ajax? Do you take Charlemagne -for a plagiary of Agamemnon? "There is nothing new under the sun." -"Your novelty is the repetition of the old," etc. Oh, the strange -process of criticism! Then art is but a series of counterfeits! -Thersites has a thief, Falstaff. Orestes has an imitator, Hamlet. The -Hippogriff is the jay of Pegasus. All these poets! A crew of cheats! -They pillage each other, _voilà tout!_ Inspiration and swindling -compounded. Cervantes plunders Apuleius; Alcestes cheats Timon of -Athens. The Smynthean wood is the forest of Bondy. Out of which pocket -comes the hand of Shakespeare? Out of the pocket of Æschylus. - -No! neither decline, nor revival, nor plagiary, nor repetition, nor -imitation: identity of heart, difference of mind,--that is all. Each -great artist (we have said so already) appropriates; stamps art anew -after his own image. Hamlet is Orestes after the effigy of Shakespeare. -Figaro is Scapin, with the effigy of Beaumarchais. Grangousier is -Silenus, after the effigy of Rabelais. - -Everything re-begins with the new poet, and at the same time nothing -is interrupted. Each new genius is abyss, yet there is tradition. -Tradition from abyss to abyss,--such is, in art as in the firmament, -the mystery; and men of genius communicate by their effluvia, like the -stars. What have they in common? Nothing,--everything. - -From that pit that is called Ezekiel to that precipice that is called -Juvenal, there is no solution of continuity for the thinker. Lean over -this anathema, or over that satire, and the same vertigo is whirling -around both. - -The Apocalypse reverberates on the polar sea of ice, and you have that -aurora borealis, the Niebelungen. The Edda replies to the Vedas. - -Hence this, our starting-point, to which we are returning: art is not -perfectible. - -No possible decline for poetry, no possible improvement. We lose our -time when we say, "Nescio quid majus nascitur Iliade." Art is subject -neither to diminution nor enlarging. Art has its seasons, its clouds, -its eclipses, even its stains, which are splendours, perhaps its -interpositions of sudden opacity for which it is not responsible; but -at the end it is always with the same intensity that it brings light -into the human soul. It remains the same furnace giving the same -brilliancy. Homer does not grow cold. - -Let us insist, moreover, on this, inasmuch as the emulation of minds is -the life of the beautiful, O poets, the first rank is ever free. Let -us remove everything which may disconcert daring minds and break their -wings: art is a species of valour. To deny that men of genius yet to -come may be peers with men of genius of the past would be to deny the -ever-working power of God. - -Yes, and often do we return, and shall return again, to this necessary -encouragement. Emulation is almost creation. Yes, those men of genius -that cannot be surpassed may be equalled. - -How? - -By being different. - - - - -BOOK IV. - - -THE ANCIENT SHAKESPEARE. - - - -CHAPTER I. - - -Æschylus is the ancient Shakespeare. Let us return to Æschylus. He is -the grandsire of the stage. - -This book would be incomplete if Æschylus had not his separate place in -it. - -A man whom we do not know how to class in his own century, so little -does he belong to it, being at the same time so much behind it and so -much in advance of it, the Marquis de Mirabeau, that queer customer as -a philanthropist, but a very rare thinker after all, had a library, -in the two comers of which he had had carved a dog and a she-goat, in -remembrance of Socrates, who swore by the dog, and of Zeno, who swore -by the goat. His library presented this peculiarity: on one side he had -Hesiod, Sophocles, Euripides, Plato, Herodotus, Thucydides, Pindar, -Theocritus, Anacreon, Theophrastus, Demosthenes, Plutarch, Cicero Titus -Livius, Seneca, Persius, Lucan, Terence, Horace, Ovid, Propertius, -Tibullus, Virgil, and underneath could be read, engraved in letters of -gold, "Amo;" on the other side, he had Æschylus alone, and underneath, -this word, "Timeo." - -Æschylus, in reality, is formidable. He cannot be approached without -trembling. He has magnitude and mystery. Barbarous, extravagant, -emphatic, antithetical, bombastic, absurd,--such is the judgment passed -on him by the official rhetoric of the present day. This rhetoric will -be changed. Æschylus is one of those men whom superficial criticism -scoffs at or disdains, but whom the true critic approaches with a sort -of sacred fear. The dread of genius is the first step toward taste. - -In the true critic there is always a poet, even when in a latent state. - -Whoever does not comprehend Æschylus is irremediably an ordinary mind. -Intellects may be tried on Æschylus. - -The Drama is a strange form of art. Its diameter measures from the -"Seven against Thebes" to the "Philosopher Without Knowing it," and -from Brid'oison to Œdipus. Thyestes forms part of it, Turcaret also. -If you wish to define it, put into your definition Electra and Marton. - -The drama is disconcerting. It baffles the weak. This comes from -its ubiquity. The drama has every horizon. You may then imagine its -capacity. The epic poem has been blended in the drama, and the result -is this marvellous literary novelty, which is at the same time a social -power,--the romance. - -Bronze, amalgamation of the epic, lyric, and dramatic,--such is the -romance. "Don Quixote" is iliad, ode, and comedy. - -Such is the expansion possible to the drama. - -The drama is the largest recipient of art. God and Satan are there; -witness Job. - -To look at art in the absolute point of view, the characteristic of the -epic poem is grandeur; the characteristic of the drama is immensity. -The immense differs from the great in this, that it excludes, if -it chooses, dimension; that "it is beyond measure," as the common -saying is; and that it can, without losing beauty, lose proportion. -It is harmonious as is the Milky Way. It is by this characteristic of -immensity that the drama commences, four thousand years ago, in Job, -whom we have just named again, and two thousand two hundred years -ago, in Æschylus; it is by this characteristic that it continues in -Shakespeare. What personages does Æschylus take? Volcanoes,--one of -his lost tragedies is called "Etna;" then the mountains,--Caucasus, -with Prometheus; then the sea,--the Ocean on its dragon, and the waves, -the Oceanides; then the vast East,--the Persians; then the bottomless -darkness,--the Eumenides. Æschylus proves the man by the giant. In -Shakespeare the drama approaches nearer to humanity, but remains -colossal. Macbeth seems a polar Atrides. You see that the drama opens -Nature, then opens the soul; there is no limit to this horizon. The -drama is life; and life is everything. The epic poem can be only great; -the drama must necessarily be immense. - -This immensity, it is Æschylus throughout, and Shakespeare throughout. - -The immense, in Æschylus, is a will. It is also a temperament. Æschylus -invents the buskin which makes the man taller, and the mask which -enlarges the voice. His metaphors are enormous. He calls Xerxes "the -man with the dragon eyes." The sea, which is a plain for so many -poets, is for Æschylus "a forest,"--ἄλσος. These magnifying figures, -peculiar to the highest poets, and to them only, are true; they ace -the true emanations of revery. Æschylus excites you to the very brink -of convulsion. His tragical effects are like blows struck at the -spectators. When the furies of Æschylus make their appearance, pregnant -women miscarry. Pollux, the lexicographer, affirms that there were -children taken with epilepsy and who died, on looking at those faces of -serpents and at those torches violently tossed about. That is evidently -"going beyond the aim." Even the grace of Æschylus, that strange and -sovereign grace of which we have spoken, has a Cyclopean look. It is -Polyphemus smiling. At times the smile is formidable, and seems to hide -an obscure rage. Put, by way of example, in the presence of Helen, -those two poets, Homer and Æschylus. Homer is at once conquered and -admires. His admiration is forgiveness. Æschylus is moved, but remains -grave. He calls Helen "fatal flower;" then he adds, "soul as calm as -the tranquil sea." One day Shakespeare will say, "False as the wave." - - - -CHAPTER II. - - -The theatre is a crucible of civilization. It is a place of human -communion. All its phases require to be studied. It is in the theatre -that the public soul is formed. - -We have just seen what the theatre was in the time of Shakespeare and -Molière. Shall we see what it was at the time of Æschylus? - -Let us go to that spectacle. - -It is no longer the cart of Thespis; it is no longer the scaffold of -Susarion; it is no longer the wooden circus of Chœrilus. Athens, -foreboding, perceiving the coming of Æschylus, Sophocles, and -Euripides, has built theatres of stone. No roof, the sky for a ceiling, -the day for lighting, a long platform of stone pierced with doors and -staircases, and secured to a wall, the actors and the chorus going -and coming on this platform, which is the logeum, and performing the -play; in the centre, where in our days is the hole of the prompter, -a small altar to Bacchus, the thymele; in front of the platform a -vast hemicycle of stone steps, five or six thousand men sitting -pell-mell,--such is the laboratory. There it is that the swarming -crowd of the Piræus come to turn Athenians; there it is that the -multitude become the public, until such day when the public will become -the people. The multitude is in reality there,--all the multitude, -including the women, the children, and the slaves, and Plato, who knits -his brows. - -If it is a fête-day, if we are at the Panathenæa, at the Lenæa, or at -the great Dionysia, the magistrates form part of the audience; the -proedri, the epistati, and the prytani sit in their place of honour. If -the trilogy is to be a tetralogy, if the representation is to conclude -by a piece with satyrs; if the fauns, the ægipans, the menades, the -goat-footed, and the evantes, are to come at the end to perform their -pranks; if among the comedians, almost priests, and called "the men of -Bacchus," is to appear the favourite actor who excels in the two modes -of declamation, in paralogy as well as in paracatology; if the poet -is sufficiently liked by his rivals to let the public expect to see -some celebrated men, Eupolis, Cratinus, or even Aristophanes figure -in the chorus,--"Eupolis atque Cratinus, Aristophanesque poetæ," as -Horace will one day say; if a play with women is performed, even the -old "Alcestis" of Thespis, the whole place is full; there is a crowd. -The crowd is already to Æschylus what, later on, as the prologue of the -"Bacchides" remarks, it will be to Plautus,--a swarm of men on seats, -coughing, spitting, sneezing, making grimaces and noises with the mouth -and "ore concrepario" and talking of their affairs; what a crowd is -to-day. - -Students scrawl with charcoal on the wall, now in token of admiration, -now in irony, some well-known verses,--for instance, the singular -iambic a Phrynichus in a single word:-- - - "Archaiomelesidonophrunicherata." [1] - -Of which the famous Alexandrine, in two words, of one of our tragic -poets of the sixteenth century was but a poor imitation:-- - - "Métamorphoserait Nabuchodonosor." - -There are not only the students to make a row; there are the old men. -Trust to the old men of the "Wasps" of Aristophanes for a noise. Two -schools are in presence,--on one side Thespis, Susarion, Pratinas of -Phlius, Epigenes of Sicyon, Theomis, Auleas, Chœrilus, Phrynichus, -Minos himself; on the other, young Æschylus. Æschylus is twenty-eight -years old. He gives his trilogy of the "Promethei,"--"Prometheus -Lighting Fire;" "Prometheus Bound;" "Prometheus Delivered," followed by -some piece with satyrs,--"The Argians," perhaps, of which Macrobius has -preserved a fragment for us. The ancient quarrel of youth and old age -breaks out; gray beards against black hair. They discuss, they dispute. -The old are for the old school; the young are for Æschylus. The young -defend Æschylus against Thespis, as they will defend Corneille against -Garnier. - -The old men are indignant. Listen to the Nestors grumbling. What -is tragedy? It is the song of the he-goat. Where is the he-goat in -this "Prometheus Bound"? Art is in its decline. And they repeat the -celebrated objection: "Quid pro Baccho?" (What is there for Bacchus?) -The graver men, the purists, do not even admit Thespis, and remind -each other that Solon had raised his stick against Thespis, calling -him "liar," for the sole reason that he had detached and isolated in -a play an episode in the life of Bacchus,--the history of Pentheus. -They hate this innovator, Æschylus. They blame all these inventions, -the end of which is to bring about a closer connection between the -drama and Nature, the use of the anapæst for the chorus, of the iambus -for the dialogue, and of the trochee for passion, in the same way -that, later on, Shakespeare was blamed for going from poetry to prose, -and the theatre of the nineteenth century for that which was termed -"broken verse." These are indeed unbearable novelties. And then, the -flute plays too high, and the tetrachord plays too low; and where is -now the ancient sacred division of tragedies into monodies, stasimes, -and exodes? Thespis never put on the stage but one speaking actor; -here is Æschylus putting two. Soon we shall have three. (Sophocles, -indeed, was to come.) Where will they stop? These are impieties. -And how does Æschylus dare to call Jupiter "the prytanus of the -Immortals?" Jupiter was a god, and he is now no more than a magistrate. -Where are we going? The thymele, the ancient altar of sacrifice, is -now a seat for the corypheus! The chorus ought to limit itself to -executing the strophe,--that is to say, the turn to the right; then -the antistrophe,--that is to say, the turn to the left; then the -epode,--that is to say, repose. But what is the meaning of the chorus -arriving in a winged chariot? What is the gad-fly that pursues Io? Why -does the Ocean come mounted on a dragon? This is show, not poetry. -Where is the ancient simplicity? This show is puerile. Your Æschylus -is but a painter, a decorator, a composer of brawls, a charlatan, a -machinist. All for the eyes, nothing for the mind. To the fire with -all those pieces, and let us content ourselves with a recitation of -the ancient pæans of Tynnichus! It is Chœrilus who, by his tetralogy -of the "Curetes," has begun the evil. What are the Curetes, if you -please? Gods forging metal. Well, then, he had simply to show working -on the stage their five families, the Dactyli finding the metal, the -Cabiri inventing the forge, the Corybantes forging the sword and -the plough-share, the Curetes making the shield, and the Telchines -chasing the jewelry. It was sufficiently interesting in that form; -but by allowing poets to blend in it the adventure of Plexippus and -Toxeus, all is lost. How can you expect society to resist such excess? -It is abominable. Æschylus ought to be summoned before justice, and -sentenced to drink hemlock like that old wretch Socrates. You will see -that after all, he will only be exiled. Everything degenerates. - -And the young men burst with laughter. They criticise as well, but in -another fashion. What an old brute is that Solon! It is he who has -instituted the eponymous archonship. What do they want with an archon -giving his name to the year? Hoot the eponymous archon who has lately -caused a poet to be elected and crowned by ten generals, instead of -taking ten men from the people! It is true that one of the generals -was Cimon,--an attenuating circumstance in the eyes of some, for Cimon -had beaten the Phœnicians; aggravating in the eyes of others, for -it is this very Cimon who, in order to get out of a prison for debt, -sold his sister Elphinia, and his wife in the bargain, to Callias. If -Æschylus is a bold man, and deserves to be cited before the Areopagus, -has not Phrynichus also been judged and condemned for having shown -on the stage, in the "Taking of Miletus," the Greeks beaten by the -Persians? When will poets be allowed to suit their own fancy? Hurrah -for the liberty of Pericles and down with the censure of Solon! And -then what is the law that has just been promulgated by which the -chorus is reduced from fifty to fifteen? And how are they to play the -"Danaïdes"? and won't they sneer at the line of Æschylus: "Egyptus, the -father of _fifty_ sons"? The fifty will be fifteen. These magistrates -are idiots. Quarrel, uproar all round. One prefers Phrynichus, another -prefers Æschylus, another prefers wine with honey and benzoin. The -speaking-trumpets of the actors compete as well as they can with this -deafening noise, through which is heard from time to time the shrill -cry of the public vendors of phallus and the water-bearers. Such is -Athenian uproar. During that time the play is going on. It is the work -of a living man. The uproar has every reason to be. Later on, after the -death of Æschylus, or after he has been exiled, there will be silence. -It is right to be silent before a god. "Æquum est," it is Plautus who -speaks, "vos deo facere silentium." - - -[Footnote 1: Αρχηαιομελεσιδονοπηρυνιχηερατα.] - - - -CHAPTER III. - - -A genius is an accused man. As long as Æschylus lived, his life was a -strife. His genius was contested, then he was persecuted,--a natural -progression. According to Athenian practice, his private life was -unveiled; he was traduced, slandered. A woman whom he had loved, -Planesia, sister of Chrysilla, mistress of Pericles, has dishonoured -herself in the eyes of posterity by the outrages that she publicly -inflicted on Æschylus. People ascribed to him unnatural loves; people -gave him, as well as Shakespeare, a Lord Southampton. His popularity -was knocked to pieces. Then everything was charged to him as a crime, -even his kindness to young poets, who respectfully offered to him -their first laurels. It is curious to see this reproach constantly -re-appearing. Pezay and St. Lambert repeat it in the eighteenth -century:-- - - "Pourquoi, Voltaire, à ces auteurs - Qui t'adressent des vers flatteurs, - Répondre, en toutes tes missives, - Par des louanges excessives?" - -Æschylus, living, was a kind of public target for all haters. Young, -the ancient poets, Thespis and Phrynichus, were preferred to him. Old, -the new ones, Sophocles and Euripides, were placed above him. At last -he was brought before the Areopagus, and, according to Suidas, because -the theatre tumbled down during one of his pieces; according to Ælian, -because he had blasphemed, or, which is the same thing, had related -the mysteries of Eleusis, he was exiled. He died in exile. - -Then Lycurgus the orator cried, "We must raise a statue of bronze to -Æschylus." - -Athens had expelled the man, but raised the statue. - -Thus Shakespeare, through death, entered into oblivion; Æschylus into -glory. - -This glory, which was to have in the course of ages its phases, its -eclipses, its ebbing and rising tides, was then dazzling. Greece -remembered Salamis, where Æschylus had fought. The Areopagus itself -was ashamed. It felt that it had been ungrateful toward the man who, -in the "Orestias," had paid to that tribunal the supreme honour of -bringing before it Minerva and Apollo. Æschylus became, sacred. All -the phratries had his bust, wreathed at first with bandolets, later on -crowned with laurels. Aristophanes made him say in the "Frogs": "I am -dead, but my poetry liveth." In the great Eleusinian days, the herald -of the Areopagus blew the Tyrrhenian trumpet in honour of Æschylus. -An official copy of his ninety-seven dramas was made at the expense -of the republic, and placed under the special care of the recorder of -Athens. The actors who played his pieces were obliged to go and collate -their parts by this perfect and unique copy. Æschylus was made a second -Homer. Æschylus had, likewise, his rhapsodists, who sang his verses at -the festivals, holding in their hands a branch of myrtle. - -He had been right, the great and insulted man, to write on his poems -this proud and mournful dedication, "To Time." - -There was no more said about his blasphemy: it had caused him to die in -exile; it was well; it was enough; it was as though it had never been. -Besides, one does not know where to find that blasphemy. Palingenes -searched for it in an "Asterope," which, in our opinion, existed -only in imagination. Musgrave sought it in the "Eumenides." Musgrave -probably was right, for the "Eumenides" being a very religious piece, -the priests could not help of course choosing it to accuse him of -impiety. - -Let us point out a whimsical coincidence. The two sons of Æschylus, -Euphorion and Bion, are said to have re-cast the "Orestias," exactly -as, two thousand three hundred years later, Davenant, Shakespeare's -bastard, re-cast "Macbeth." But in the presence of the universal -respect for Æschylus after his death, such impudent tamperings were -impossible; and what is true of Davenant, is evidently untrue of Bion -and Euphorion. - -The renown of Æschylus filled the world of those days. Egypt, feeling -with reason that he was a giant and somewhat Egyptian, bestowed on him -the name of Pimander, signifying "Superior Intelligence." In Sicily, -whither he had been banished, and where they sacrificed he-goats before -his tomb at Gela, he was almost an Olympian. Later on, he was almost a -prophet for the Christians, owing to the prediction in "Prometheus," -which some people thought to apply to Jesus. - -Strange thing! it is this very glory which has wrecked his work. - -We speak here of the material wreck; for, as we have said, the mighty -name of Æschylus survives! - -It is indeed a drama, and an extraordinary drama, the disappearance of -those poems. A king has stupidly robbed the human mind. - -Let us relate this robbery. - - - -CHAPTER IV. - - -Here are the facts,--the legend at least; for at such a distance, and -in such a twilight, history is legendary:-- - -There was a king of Egypt, named Ptolemy Euergetes, brother-in-law to -Antiochus the god. - -Let us mention it en passant, all these people were gods:--gods Soters, -gods Euergetes, gods Epiphanes, gods Philometors, gods Philadelphi, -gods Philopators. Translation: Gods saviours, gods beneficent, gods -illustrious, gods loving their mother, gods loving their brothers, -gods loving their father. Cleopatra was goddess Soter. The priests and -priestesses of Ptolemy Soter were at Ptolemais. Ptolemy VI. was called -"God-love-Mother" (Philometor), because he hated his mother, Cleopatra. -Ptolemy IV. was "God-love-Father" (Philopator), because he had poisoned -his father. Ptolemy II. was "God-love-Brothers" (Philadelphus), because -he had killed his two brothers. - -Let us return to Ptolemy Euergetes. - -He was the son of the Philadelphus who gave golden crowns to the -Roman ambassadors,--the same to whom the pseudo-Aristeus attributes -by mistake the version of the Septuagint. This Philadelphus had much -increased the library of Alexandria, which, during his lifetime, -counted two hundred thousand volumes, and which, in the sixth century, -attained, it is said, the incredible number of seven hundred thousand -manuscripts. - -This stock of human knowledge, formed under the eyes of Euclid, and -by the care of Callimachus, Diodorus Cronos, Theodorus the Atheist, -Philetas, Apollonius, Aratus, the Egyptian priest Manetho, Lycophron, -and Theocritus, had for its first librarian, according to some, -Zenodotus of Ephesus, according to others, Demetrius of Phalerum, to -whom the Athenians had raised three hundred and sixty statues, which -they took one year to put up and one day to destroy. Now, this library -had no copy of Æschylus. One day the Greek Demetrius said to Euergetes, -"Pharaoh has not Æschylus,"--exactly as, later on, Leidrade, archbishop -of Lyons and librarian of Charlemagne, said to Charlemagne, "The -Emperor has not Scæva Memor." - -Ptolemy Euergetes, wishing to complete the work of the Philadelphus -his father, resolved to give Æschylus to the Alexandrian library. He -declared that he would cause a copy to be made. He sent an embassy to -borrow from the Athenians the unique and sacred copy under the care of -the recorder of the republic. Athens, not over-prone to lend, hesitated -and demanded a security. The king of Egypt offered fifteen silver -talents. Now, those who wish to realize the value of fifteen talents, -have but to know that it was three-fourths of the annual tribute of -ransom payed by Judea to Egypt, which was twenty talents, and weighed -so heavily on the Jewish people that the high priest Onias II., founder -of the Onion temple, decided to refuse this tribute at the risk of a -war. Athens accepted the security. The fifteen talents were deposited. -The complete copy of Æschylus was delivered to the king of Egypt. The -king gave up the fifteen talents and kept the book. - -Athens, indignant, had some thought of declaring war against Egypt. To -reconquer Æschylus was as good as reconquering Helen. To recommence -Troy, but this time to get back Homer, it was a fine thing. Yet, time -was taken for consideration. Ptolemy was powerful. He had forcibly -taken back from Asia the two thousand five hundred Egyptian gods -formerly carried there by Cambyses, because they were in gold and -silver. He had, besides, conquered Cilicia and Syria, and all the -country from the Euphrates to the Tigris. With Athens it was no longer -the day when she improvised a fleet of two hundred vessels against -Artaxerxes. She left Æschylus a prisoner in Egypt. - -A prisoner-god. This time the word _god_ is in its right place. They -paid Æschylus unheard-of honours. The king refused, it is said, to let -a copy be made of it, stupidly bent on possessing a unique copy. - -Particular care was taken of this manuscript when the library of -Alexandria, enlarged by the library of Pergamus, which Antony gave to -Cleopatra, was transferred to the temple of Jupiter Serapis. There it -was that Saint Jerome came to read, in the Athenian text, the famous -passage in "Prometheus" prophesying Christ: "Go and tell Jupiter that -nothing shall make me name the one who is to dethrone him." - -Other doctors of the Church made, from the same copy, the same -verification. For, at all times, the orthodox asseverations have been -combined with what have been called the testimonies of polytheism, -and great efforts have been resorted to in order to make the -Pagans say Christian things,--_teste David cum Sibylla._ People -came to the Alexandrian library, as on a pilgrimage, to examine -"Prometheus,"--constant visits which deceived the Emperor Adrian, and -made him write to the consul Servianus: "Those who adore Serapis are -Christians: those who profess to be bishops of Christ are at the same -time devotees of Serapis." - -Under the Roman dominion the library of Alexandria belonged to -the emperor. Egypt was Cæsar's property. "Augustus," says Tacitus, -"seposuit Ægyptum." It was not every one who could travel there. Egypt -was closed. The Roman knights, and even the senators, could not easily -obtain admission. - -It was during this period that the complete copy of Æschylus could be -consulted and perused by Timocharis, Aristarchus, Athenæus, Stobæus, -Diodorus of Sicily, Macrobius, Plotinus, Jamblichus, Sopater, Clement -of Alexandria, Nepotian of Africa, Valerius Maximus, Justin the Martyr, -and even by Ælian, although Ælian left Italy but seldom. - -In the seventh century a man entered Alexandria. He was mounted on -a camel and seated between two sacks,--one full of figs, the other -full of corn. These two sacks were, with a wooden platter, all that -he possessed. This man never seated himself except on the ground. He -drank nothing but water and ate nothing but bread. He had conquered -half of Asia and of Africa, taken or burned thirty-six thousand towns, -villages, fortresses, and castles, destroyed four thousand Pagan or -Christian temples, built fourteen hundred mosques, conquered Izdeger, -King of Persia, and Heraclius, Emperor of the East, and he called -himself Omar. He burned the library of Alexandria. - -Omar is for that reason celebrated. Louis, called the Great, has not -the same celebrity, which is unjust, for he burned the Rupertine -library at Heidelberg. - - -[Illustration] _Anne Hathaway's Cottage._ - -Photogravure.--From Photograph. - - - -CHAPTER V. - - -Now, is not that incident a complete drama? It might be entitled -"Æschylus Lost." Recital, node, and _dénouement._ After Euergetes, -Omar. The action begins with a robber and ends with an incendiary. - -Euergetes (this is his excuse) robbed from enthusiasm,--an unpleasant -instance of the admiration of an imbecile. - -As for Omar, he is the fanatic. By the way, we must say that strange -historical rehabilitations have been attempted in our time. We do not -speak of Nero, who is the fashion; but an attempt has been made to -exonerate Omar, as well as to bring a verdict of not guilty for Pius V. -Holy Pius V. personifies the Inquisition; to canonize him was enough, -why declare him innocent? We do not lend ourselves to those attempts -at appeal in trials which have received final judgment. We have no -taste for rendering small services to fanaticism, whether it be caliph -or pope, whether it burn books or men. Omar has had many advocates. -A certain class of historians and biographical critics are readily -moved to pity for the sword,--a victim of slander, this poor sword! -Imagine then the tenderness that is felt for a scimitar! The scimitar -is the ideal sword. It is better than brute,--it is Turk. Omar, then, -has been cleaned as much as possible. A first fire in the Bruchion -district, where the Alexandrian library stood, was used as an argument -to prove how easily such accidents happen. That one was the fault of -Julius Cæsar,--another sword. Then a second argument was found in a -second fire, only partial, of the Serapeum, in order to accuse the -Christians, the demagogues of those days. If the fire at the Serapeum -had destroyed the Alexandrian library in the fourth century, Hypatia -would not have been able, in the fifth century, to give, in that same -library, those lessons in philosophy which caused her to be murdered -with broken pieces of earthen pots. About Omar we willingly believe -the Arabs. Abd-Allatif saw at Alexandria, about 1220, "the column of -pillars supporting a cupola," and said, "There stood the library that -Amrou-ben-Alas burned by permission of Omar." Abulfaradge, in 1260, -relates in his "Dynastic History" that by order of Omar they took the -books from the library, and with them heated the baths of Alexandria -for six months. According to Gibbon, there were at Alexandria four -thousand baths. Ebn-Khaldoun, in his "Historical Prolegomena," relates -another wanton destruction,--the annihilation of the library of the -Medes by Saad, Omar's lieutenant. Now, Omar having caused the burning -of the Median library in Persia by Saad, was logical in causing the -destruction of the Egyptian-Greek library in Egypt by Amrou. His -lieutenants have preserved his orders for us: "If these books contain -falsehoods, to the fire with them. If they contain truths, these truths -are in the Koran; to the fire with them." In place of the Koran, put -the Bible, Veda, Edda, Zend-Avesta, Toldos Jeschut, Talmud, Gospel, and -you have the imperturbable and universal formula of all fanaticisms. -This being said, we do not see any reason to reverse the verdict of -history; we award to the caliph the smoke of the seven hundred thousand -volumes of Alexandria, Æschylus included, and we maintain Omar in -possession of his rights as incendiary. - -Euergetes, through his wish for exclusive possession, and treating a -library as a seraglio, has robbed us of Æschylus. Imbecile contempt can -have the same effect as imbecile adoration. Shakespeare was very near -having the fate of Æschylus. He has had, too, his fire. Shakespeare -was so little printed, printing existed so little for him, thanks to -the silly indifference of his immediate posterity, that in 1666 there -was still but one edition of the poet of Stratford-on-Avon (Hemynge -and Condell's edition), three hundred copies of which were printed. -Shakespeare, with this obscure and pitiful edition, waiting in vain for -the public, was a sort of poor wretch ashamed to beg for glory. These -three hundred copies were nearly all stored up in London when the fire -of 1666 broke out. It burned London, and nearly burned Shakespeare. The -whole edition of Hemynge and Condell disappeared, with the exception of -forty-four copies, which had been sold in fifty years. Those forty-four -purchasers saved from death the work of Shakespeare. - - - -CHAPTER VI. - - -The disappearance of Æschylus! Stretch this catastrophe hypothetically -to a few more names, and it seems as though you felt the vacuum -annihilating the human mind. - -The work of Æschylus was, by its extent, the greatest, certainly, of -all antiquity. By the seven plays which remain to us, we may judge what -that universe was. - -Let us point out what Æschylus lost is. - -Fourteen trilogies: the "Promethei," of which "Prometheus Bound" formed -a part; the "Seven Chiefs before Thebes," of which there remains -one piece, "The Danaid," which comprised the "Supplicants," written -in Sicily, and in which the _Sicelism_ of Æschylus is traceable; -"Laius," which comprised "Œdipus;" "Athamas," which ended with the -"Isthmiasts;" "Perseus," the node of which was the "Phorcydes;" "Etna," -which had as prologue the "Etnean Women;" "Iphigenia," the _dénouement_ -of which was the tragedy of the "Priestesses;" the "Ethiopid," the -titles of which are nowhere to be found; "Pentheus," in which were the -"Hydrophores;" "Teucer," which opened with the "Judgment of Arms;" -"Niobe," which commenced with the "Nurses" and ended with the "Men -of the Train;" a trilogy in honour of Achilles, the "Tragic Iliad," -composed of the "Myridons," the "Nereids," and the "Phrygians;" one -in honour of Bacchus, the "Lycurgia," composed of the "Edons," the -"Bassarides," and the "Young Men." - -These fourteen trilogies in themselves alone give a total of fifty-six -plays, if we consider that nearly all were tetralogies,--that is to -say, quadruple dramas,--and ended with a satyride. Thus the "Orestias" -had, as a final satyride, "Proteus," and the "Seven Chiefs before -Thebes," had the "Sphinx." - -Add to those fifty-six pieces a probable trilogy of the "Labdacides;" -add the tragedies,--the "Egyptians," the "Ransom of Hector," -"Memnon," undoubtedly connected with some trilogies; add all the -satyrides,--"Sisyphus the Deserter," the "Heralds," the "Lion," the -"Argians," "Amymone," "Circe," "Cercyon," "Glaucus the Mariner," -comedies in which was found the mirth of that wild genius. - -See all that is lost. - -Euergetes and Omar have robbed us of all that. - -It is difficult to state precisely the total number of pieces written -by Æschylus. The amount varies. The anonymous biographer speaks of -seventy-five, Suidas of ninety, Jean Deslyons of ninety-seven, Meursius -of one hundred. - -Meursius reckons up more than a hundred titles, but some are probably -used twice. - -Jean Deslyons, doctor of the Sorbonne, theologal of Senlis, author -of the "Discours ecclesiastique contre le paganisme du Roi boit," -published in the seventeenth century a work against the custom of -laying coffins one above the other in the cemeteries, in which he took -for his authority the twenty-fifth canon of the Council of Auxerre: -"Non licet mortuum super mortuum mitti." Deslyons, in a note added to -that work, now very scarce, and a copy of which was in the possession -of Charles Nodier, if our memory is faithful, quotes a passage from -the great antiquarian numismatist of Venloo, Hubert Goltzius, in -which, in reference to embalming, Goltzius mentions the "Egyptians," -of Æschylus, and "The Apotheosis of Orpheus,"--a title omitted in the -enumeration given by Meursius. Goltzius adds that "The Apotheosis of -Orpheus" was recited at the mysteries of the Lycomidians. - -This title, "The Apotheosis of Orpheus" opens a field for thought. -Æschylus speaking of Orpheus, the Titan measuring the giant, the god -interpreting the god, what more magnificent, and how one would long to -read that work! Dante, speaking of Virgil and calling him his master, -does not fill up this gap, because Virgil, a noble poet, but without -invention, is less than Dante; it is between equals, from genius to -genius, from sovereign to sovereign, that such homage is splendid. -Æschylus raises to Orpheus a temple of which he might occupy the altar -himself: it is grand. - - - -CHAPTER VII. - - -Æschylus is incommensurate. There is in him something of India. The -wild majesty of his stature recalls those vast poems of the Ganges -which walk through art with the steps of a mammoth, and which have, -among the Iliads and the Odysseys, the appearance of hippopotami among -lions. Æschylus, a thorough Greek, is yet something else besides a -Greek. He has the Oriental immensity. - -Saumaise declares that he is full of Hebraisms and Syrianisms.[1] -Æschylus makes the Winds carry Jupiter's throne, as the Bible makes -the Cherubim carry Jehovah's throne, as the Rig-Veda makes the Marouts -carry the throne of Indra. The winds, the cherubim, and the marouts are -the same beings,--the Breezes. Saumaise is right. The double-meaning -words so frequent in the Phœnician language, abound in Æschylus. -He plays, for instance, in reference to Jupiter and Europa, on the -Phœnician word _ilpha_, which has the double meaning of "ship" and -"bull." He loves that language of Tyre and Sidon, and at times he -borrows the strange gleams of its style; the metaphor, "Xerxes with -the dragon eyes," seems an inspiration from the Ninevite dialect, in -which the word _draka_ meant at the same time dragon and clear-sighted. -He has Phœnician heresies. His heifer Io is rather the cow of Isis; -he believes, like the priests of Sidon, that the temple of Delphi was -built by Apollo with a paste made of wax and bees'-wings. In his exile -in Sicily he often drank religiously at the fountain of Arethusa, -and never did the shepherds who watched him hear him name Arethusa -otherwise than by this mysterious name, _Alphaga_,--an Assyrian word -signifying "source surrounded with willows." - -Æschylus is, in the whole Hellenic literature, the sole example of -the Athenian mind with a mixture of Egypt and Asia. These depths were -repugnant to the Greek intelligence. Corinth, Epidaurus, Œdepsus, -Gythium, Cheronea, which was to be the birth-place of Plutarch, Thebes, -where Pindar's house was, Mantinea, where the glory of Epaminondas -shone,--all these golden towns repudiated the Unknown, a glimpse of -which was seen like a cloud behind the Caucasus. It seemed as though -the sun was Greek. The sun, used to the Parthenon, was not made -to enter the diluvian forests of Grand Tartary under the gigantic -mouldiness of the monocotyledons under the lofty ferns of five hundred -cubits, where swarmed all the first dreadful models of Nature, and -under whose shadows existed unknown, shapeless cities, such as that -fabulous Anarodgurro, the existence of which was denied until it sent -an embassy to Claudius. Gagasmira, Sambulaca, Maliarpha, Barygaza, -Cavenpatnam Sochoth-Benoth, Theglath-Phalazar, Tana-Serim--all these -almost hideous names affrighted Greece when they came to be reported -by the adventurers on their return first by those with Jason, then by -those of Alexander. Æschylus had no such horror. He loved the Caucasus. -It was there he had made the acquaintance of Prometheus. One almost -feels in reading Æschylus that he had haunted the vast primitive -thickets now become coal mines, and that he has taken huge strides -over the roots, snake-like and half-living, of the ancient vegetable -monsters. Æschylus is a kind of behemoth among geniuses. - -Let us say, however, that the affinity of Greece with the East, an -affinity hated by the Greeks, was real. The letters of the Greek -alphabet are nothing else but the letters of the Phœnician alphabet -reversed. Æschylus was all the more Greek from the fact of his being a -little of a Phœnician. - -This powerful mind, at times apparently crude on account of his very -grandeur, has the Titanic gayety and affability. He indulges in -quibbles on the names of Prometheus, Polynices, Helen, Apollo, Ilion, -on the cock and the sun, imitating in this respect Homer, who made on -the olive that famous pun which caused Diogenes to throw away his plate -of olives and eat a tart. - -The father of Æschylus, Euphorion, was a disciple of Pythagoras. The -soul of Pythagoras, that philosopher half magian and half brahmin, -seemed to have entered through Euphorion into Æschylus. We have said -already that in the dark and mysterious quarrel between the celestial -and the terrestrial gods, the intestinal war of Paganism, Æschylus -was terrestrial. He belonged to the faction of the gods of earth. The -Cyclops had worked for Jupiter; he rejected them as we would reject a -corporation of workers who had turned traitors, and he preferred to -them the Cabyri. He adored Ceres. "O thou, Ceres, nurse of my soul!" -and Ceres is Demeter, is Gemeter, is the mother-earth. Hence his -veneration for Asia. It seemed then as though Earth was rather in Asia -than elsewhere. Asia is, in reality, compared with Europe, a kind of -block almost without capes and gulfs, and little penetrated by the -sea. The Minerva of Æschylus says, "Great Asia." "The sacred soil of -Asia," says the chorus of the Oceanides. In his epitaph, graven on his -tomb at Gela and written by himself, Æschylus attests "the Mede with -long hair." He makes the chorus celebrate "Susicanes and Pegastagon, -born in Egypt, and the chief of Memphis, the sacred city." Like the -Phœnicians, he gives the name of "Oncea" to Minerva. In the "Etna" he -celebrates the Sicilian Dioscuri, the Palici, those twin gods whose -worship, connected with the local worship of Vulcan, had reached Asia -through Sarepta and Tyre. He calls them "the venerable Palici." Three -of his trilogies are entitled the "Persians," the "Ethiopid," the -"Egyptians." In the geography of Æschylus, Egypt was Asia, as well as -Arabia. Prometheus says, "the dower of Arabia, the heroes of Caucasus." -Æschylus was, in geography, very peculiar. He had a Gorgonian city -Cysthenes, which he placed in Asia, as well as a river Pluto, rolling -gold, and defended by men with a single eye,--the Arimaspes. The -pirates to whom he makes allusion somewhere are, according to all -appearance, the pirates of Angria who inhabited the rock Vizindruk. He -could see distinctly beyond the Pas-du-Nil, in the mountains of Byblos, -the source of the Nile, still unknown to-day. He knew the precise -spot where Prometheus had stolen the fire, and he designated without -hesitation Mount Mosychlus in the neighbourhood of Lemnos. - -When this geography ceases to be fanciful, it is exact as an itinerary. -It becomes true and remains without measure. Nothing more real than -that splendid transmission of the news of the capture of Troy in one -night by bonfires lighted one after the other and corresponding from -mountain to mountain,--from Mount Ida to the promontory of Hermes, -from the promontory of Hermes to Mount Athos, from Mount Athos to -Mount Macispe, from the Macispe to the Messapius, from Mount Messapius -over the river Asopus to Mount Cytheron, from Mount Cytheron over the -morass of Gorgopis to Mount Egiplanctus, from Mount Egiplanctus to Cape -Saronica (later Spireum); from Cape Saronica to Mount Arachne, from -Mount Arachne to Argos. You may follow on the map that train of fire -announcing Agamemnon to Clytemnestra. - -This bewildering geography is mingled with an extraordinary tragedy, in -which you hear dialogues more than human:-- - -_Prometheus._ "Alas!" - -_Mercury._ "This is a word that Jupiter speaks not." - -And where Gerontes is the Ocean. "To look a fool," says the Ocean -to Prometheus, "is the secret of the sage,"--saying as deep as the -sea. Who knows the mental reservations of the tempest? And the Power -exclaims, "There is but one free god; it is Jupiter." - -Æschylus has his own geography; he has also his own fauna. - -This fauna, which strikes as fabulous, is enigmatical rather than -chimerical. The author of these lines has discovered and authenticated -at the Hague, in a glass in the Japanese Museum, the impossible serpent -in the "Orestias," having two heads attached to its two extremities. -There are, it may be added, in that glass several specimens of -bestiality that might belong to another world, at all events strange -and not accounted for, as we are little disposed to admit, for our -part, the absurd hypothesis of the Japanese stitchers of monsters. - -Æschylus at moments sees Nature with simplifications stamped with a -mysterious disdain. Here the Pythagorician disappears, and the magian -shows himself. All beasts are the beast. Æschylus seems to see in the -animal kingdom only a dog. The griffin is a "dumb dog;" the eagle is a -"winged dog,"--"The winged dog of Jupiter," says Prometheus. - -We have just pronounced the word _magian._ In fact, Æschylus officiates -at times like Job. One would suppose that he exercises over Nature, -over human creatures, and even over gods, a kind of magianism. He -upbraids animals for their voracity. A vulture which seizes, even -while running, a doe-hare with young, and feeds on it, "eats a whole -race stopped in its flight." He calls on the dust and on the smoke; to -the one he says, "Thirsty sister of mire!" to the other, "Black sister -of fire!" He insults the dreaded bay of Salmydessus: "Hard-hearted -mother of vessels." - -He brings down to dwarfish proportions the Greeks, conquerors of Troy -by treachery; he shows them brought forth by an implement of war,--he -calls them "these young of a horse." As for the gods, he goes so far as -to incorporate Apollo with Jupiter. He magnificently calls Apollo "the -conscience of Jupiter." - -His familiar boldness is absolute, characteristic of sovereignty. He -makes the sacrificer take Iphigenia "as a she-goat" A queen who is a -faithful spouse is for him "the good house-bitch." As for Orestes, he -has seen him when quite a child, and he speaks of him as "wetting his -swaddling-cloths,"--_humectatio ex urina._ He even goes beyond this -Latin. The expression, which we do not repeat here, is to be found in -"Les Plaideurs," act III. scene 3. If you are bent upon reading the -word which we hesitate to write, apply to Racine. - -The whole is immense and mournful. The profound despair of fate is in -Æschylus. He shows in terrible lines "the impotence which chains down, -as in a dream, the blind living creatures." His tragedy is nothing -but the old Orphean dithyrambic suddenly launching into tears and -lamentations over man. - - -[Footnote 1: "Hebraïsmis et Syrianismis."] - - - -CHAPTER VIII. - - -Aristophanes loved Æschylus by that law of affinity which causes -Marivaux to love Racine tragedy and comedy made to understand each -other. - -The same distracted and all-powerful breath fills Æschylus and -Aristophanes. They are the two inspired spirits of the antique mask. - -Aristophanes, who is not yet judged, adhered to the mysteries, to -Cecropian poetry, to Eleusis, to Dodona, to the Asiatic twilight, to -the profound pensive dream. This dream, whence sprung the art of Egina, -was at the threshold of the Ionian philosophy in Thales as well as -at the threshold of the Italian philosophy in Pythagoras. It was the -sphinx guarding the entrance. - -This sphinx has been a muse,--the great pontifical and lascivious -muse of universal rut; and Aristophanes loved it This sphinx breathed -tragedy into Æschylus, and comedy into Aristophanes. It had something -of Cybele. The ancient sacred immodesty is in Aristophanes. At moments -he has Bacchus foaming at the lips. He came from the Dionysia, or from -the Aschosia, or from the great Trieteric Orgy, and he strikes one as a -raving maniac of the mysteries. His wild verse resembles the bassaride -hopping giddily upon bladders filled with air. Aristophanes has the -sacerdotal obscurity. He is for nudity against love. He denounces the -Phedras and Sthenobæas, and he creates Lysistrata. - -Let no one be deceived on this point; it was religion, and a cynic was -an austere mind. The gymnosophists were the point of intersection -between lewdness and thought The he-goat, with its philosopher's beard, -belonged to that sect That dark ecstatic and bestial Oriental spirit -lives still in the santon, the dervish, and the fakir. The corybantes -were a kind of Greek fakirs. Aristophanes, like Diogenes, belonged -to that family. Æschylus, by the Oriental bent of his nature, nearly -belonged to it himself, but he retained the tragic chastity. - -That mysterious naturalism was the ancient spirit of Greece. It was -called poetry and philosophy. It had under it the group of the seven -sages, one of whom, Periander, was a tyrant. Now, a certain vulgar, -mean spirit appeared with Socrates. It was sagacity clearing and -bottling up wisdom. Reduction of Thales and Pythagoras to the immediate -true. Such was the operation. A sort of filtering, which, purifying -and weakening, allowed the ancient divine doctrine to percolate, drop -by drop, and become human. These simplifications disgust fanaticism; -dogmas object to a process of sifting. To ameliorate a religion is -to lay violent hands on it. Progress offering its services to Faith, -offends it. Faith is an ignorance which professes to know, and which, -in certain cases, knows perhaps more than Science. In the face of -the lofty affirmations of believers, Socrates had an uncomfortably -sly half-smile. There is something of Voltaire in Socrates. Socrates -denounces all the Eleusinian philosophy as unintelligible and -indiscernible; and he said to Euripides that to understand Heraclitus -and the old philosophers, "one required to be a swimmer of Delos,"--in -other words, a swimmer capable of landing on an isle which was always -receding before him. That was impiety and sacrilege for the ancient -Hellenic naturalism. There was no other cause for the antipathy of -Aristophanes toward Socrates. - -This antipathy was quite fearful. The poet showed himself a -persecutor; he has lent assistance to the oppressors against the -oppressed, and his comedy has been guilty of crimes. Aristophanes -has remained in the eyes of posterity in the condition of a wicked -genius,--fearful punishment! But there is for him one attenuating -circumstance: he was an ardent admirer of the poet of "Prometheus," -and to admire him was to defend him. Aristophanes did what he could to -prevent his banishment; and if anything can diminish one's indignation -in reading the "Clouds," implacable on Socrates, it is that one may -see in the background the hand of Aristophanes holding the mantle of -Æschylus going into exile. Æschylus has likewise a comedy, a sister of -the broad farce of Aristophanes. We have spoken of his mirth. It goes -very far in "The Argians." It equals Aristophanes, and outstrips the -Shrove Tuesday of our Carnival. Listen: "He throws at my head a chamber -utensil. The full vase falls on my head, and is broken, odoriferous, -but in a different manner from an urnful of perfume." Who says that? -Æschylus. And in his turn Shakespeare will come and will exclaim -through Falstaff's lips: "Empty the jorden." What can you say? You have -to deal with savages. - -One of those savages is Molière: witness from one end to the other the -"Malade Imaginaire." Racine also is in a degree one of them: see "Les -Plaideurs," already mentioned. - -The Abbé Camus was a witty bishop,--a rare thing at all times; and what -is more, he was a good man. He would have deserved this reproach of -another bishop: "Bon jusqu'à la bêtise." Perhaps he was good because he -had wit He gave to the poor all the revenue of his bishopric of Belley. -He objected to canonization. It was he who said, "Il n'est chasse que -de vieux chiens et châsse que de vieux saints;" and although he did -not like the new-comers in sanctity, he was a friend of Saint François -de Sales, by whose advice he wrote novels. He relates in one of his -letters that one day François de Sales said to him: "The Church laughs -readily." - -Art also laughs readily. Art, which is a temple, has its laughter. -Whence comes this hilarity? All at once, in the midst of -_chefs-d'œuvre_, serious figures, a buffoon stands up and blurts -out,--a _chef-d'œuvre_ also. Sancho Panza jostles Agamemnon. All the -marvels of thought are there; irony comes to complicate and complete -them. Enigma. Behold art, great art, breaking into an excess of gayety. -Its problem, matter, amuses it. It was forming it, now it deforms it. -It was shaping it for beauty, now it delights in extracting from it -ugliness. It seems to forget its responsibility. It does not forget -it, however; for suddenly, behind the grimace, philosophy makes its -appearance,--a philosophy smooth, less sidereal, more terrestrial, -quite as mysterious as the grave philosophy. The unknown which is in -man, and the unknown which is in things, face each other; and it turns -out that in the act of meeting, these two augurs, Nature and Fate, -cannot keep their serious countenance. Poetry, laden with anxieties, -befools--whom? Itself. A mirth, which is not serenity, gushes out from -the incomprehensible. An unknown, lofty, and sinister raillery flashes -its lightning through the human darkness. The shadows piled up around -us play with our soul. Formidable blossoming of the unknown. The jest -proceeds from the abyss. - -This alarming mirth in art is called, in olden times, Aristophanes, and -in modern times, Rabelais. - -When Pratinas the Dorian had invented the play with satyrs, comedy -making its appearance opposite tragedy, mirth by the side of mourning, -the two styles ready perhaps to unite, it was a matter of scandal. -Agathon, the friend of Euripides, went to Dodona to consult Loxias. -Loxias is Apollo. Loxias means crooked; and Apollo was called The -Crooked, on account of his oracles being always obscure and full of -ambiguous meanings. Agathon inquired from Apollo whether the new -style was not impious, and whether comedy existed by right as well as -tragedy. Loxias answered, "Poetry has two ears." - -This answer, which Aristotle declares obscure, seems to us very clear. -It sums up the entire law of art. Two problems, in fact, are presented. -In the full light the first problem,--noisy, tumultuous, stormy, -clamorous, the vast vital causeway, offering every direction to the -ten thousand feet of man; the quarrels, the uproar, the passions with -their _why_; the evil, which undergoes suffering the first, for to be -evil is worse than doing it; sorrows, griefs, tears, cries, rumours. -In the shade, the second one, mute problem, immense silence, with an -inexpressible and terrible meaning. And poetry has two ears,--one which -listens to life, the other which listens to death. - - - -CHAPTER IX. - - -The power that Greece had to evolve her luminous effluvia is -prodigious,--even like that to-day which we see in France. Greece did -not colonize without civilizing,--an example that more than one modern -nation might follow. To buy and sell is not everything. - -Tyre bought and sold; Berytus bought and sold; Sidon bought and sold; -Sarepta bought and sold. Where are these cities? Athens taught; Athens -is still at this hour one of the capitals of human thought. - -The grass is growing on the six steps of the tribune where spoke -Demosthenes; the Ceramicus is a ravine half-choked with the marble-dust -which was once the palace of Cecrops; the Odeon of Herod Atticus at -the foot of the Acropolis is now but a ruin on which falls, at certain -hours, the imperfect shadow of the Parthenon; the temple of Theseus -belongs to the swallows; the goats browse on the Pnyx. Still the Greek -spirit is living; still Greece is queen; still Greece is goddess. A -commercial firm passes away; a school remains. - -It is curious to say to one's self to-day that twenty-two centuries -ago small towns, isolated and scattered on the outskirts of the known -world, possessed, all of them, theatres. In point of civilization, -Greece began always by the construction of an academy, of a portico, -or of a logeum. Whoever could have seen, nearly at the same period, -rising at a short distance one from the other, in Umbria, the Gallic -town of Sens (now Sinigaglia), and, near Vesuvius, the Hellenic city -Parthenopea (at present Naples), would have recognized Gaul by the big -stone standing all red with blood, and Greece by the theatre. - -This civilization by poetry and art had such a mighty force that -sometimes it subdued even war. The Sicilians--Plutarch relates it in -speaking of Nicias--gave liberty to the Greek prisoners who sang the -verses of Euripides. - -Let us point out some very little known and very singular facts. - -The Messenian colony, Zancle, in Sicily; the Corinthian colony, -Corcyra, distinct from the Corcyra of the Absyrtides Islands; the -Cycladian colony, Cyrene, in Libya; the three Phocean colonies, Helea -in Lucania, Palania in Corsica, Marseilles in France, had theatres. -The gad-fly having pursued Io all along the Adriatic Gulf, the Ionian -Sea reached as far as the harbour of Venetus, and Tregeste (now -Trieste) had a theatre. A theatre at Salpe, in Apulia; a theatre at -Squillacium, in Calabria; a theatre at Thernus, in Livadia; a theatre -at Lysimachia, founded by Lysimachus, Alexander's lieutenant; a theatre -at Scapta-Hyla, where Thucydides had gold-mines; a theatre at Byzia, -where Theseus had lived; a theatre in Chaonia, at Buthrotum, where -performed those equilibrists from Mount Chimera whom Apuleius admired -on the Pœcile; a theatre in Pannonia, at Bude, where the Metanastes -were,--that is to say, the "Transplanted." Many of these colonies, -situated afar, were much exposed. In the Isle of Sardinia, which the -Greeks named Ichnusa, on account of its resemblance to the sole of -the foot, Calaris (now Cagliari) was, so to speak, under the Punic -clutch; Cibalis, in Mysia, had to fear the Triballi; Aspalathon, the -Illyrians; Tomis, the future resting-place of Ovid, the Scordisci; -Miletus, in Anatolia, the Massagetes; Denia, in Spain, the Cantabrians; -Salmydessus, the Molossians; Carsina, the Tauro-Scythians; Gelonus, -the Arymphæans of Sarmatia who lived on acorns; Apollonia, the -Hamaxobians, wandering in their chariots; Abdera, the birth-place -of Democritus, the Thracians, men tattooed all over,--all these -towns, by the side of their citadel, had a theatre. Why? Because the -theatre keeps alight the flame of love for the fatherland. Having the -barbarians at their gates, it was important that they should remain -Greeks. The national spirit is the strongest of bulwarks. - -The Greek drama was profoundly lyrical. It was often less a tragedy -than a dithyramb. It had occasionally strophes as powerful as swords. -It rushed on the scene, wearing the helmet, and it was an ode armed -_cap-à-pie._ We know what a Marseillaise can do. - -Many of these theatres were in granite, some in brick. The theatre -of Apollonia was in marble. The theatre of Salmydessus, which could -be moved to the Doric place or to the Epiphanian place, was a vast -scaffolding rolling on cylinders, after the fashion of those wooden -towers which they thrust against the stone towers of besieged towns. - -And what poet did they play by preference at these theatres? Æschylus. - -Æschylus was for Greece the autochthonic poet. He was more than Greek, -he was Pelasgian. He was born at Eleusis; and not only was he Eleusian, -but Eleusiatic,--that is to say, a believer. It is the same shade as -English and Anglican. The Asiatic element, the grandiose deformation -of this genius, increased respect for it; for people said that the -great Dionysus, that Bacchus, common to the West and the East, came in -Æschylus's dreams to dictate to him his tragedies. You find again here -the "familiar spirit" of Shakespeare. - -Æschylus, Eupatride, and Eginetic struck the Greeks as more Greek -than themselves. In those times of code and dogma mingled together, -to be sacerdotal was an elevated way of being national. Fifty-two -of his tragedies had been crowned. On leaving the theatre after the -performance of the plays of Æschylus, the men would strike the shields -hung at the doors of the temples, crying, "Fatherland, fatherland!" Let -us add here, that to be hieratic did not hinder him from being demotic. -Æschylus loved the people, and the people adored him. There are two -sides to greatness: majesty is one, familiarity is the other. Æschylus -was familiar with the turbulent and generous mob of Athens. He often -gave to that mob a fine part in his plays. See, in the "Orestias," -how tenderly the chorus, which is the people, receive Cassandra! The -queen uses the slave roughly, and scares him whom the chorus tries to -reassure and soothe. Æschylus had introduced the people in his grandest -works,--in "Pentheus," by the tragedy of "The Woolcombers;" in "Niobe," -by the tragedy of the "Nurses;" in "Athamas," by the tragedy of the -"Net-drawers;" in "Iphigenia," by the tragedy of the "Bed-Makers." -It was on the side of the people that he turned the balance in that -mysterious drama, "The Weighing of Souls."[1] Therefore had he been -chosen to preserve the sacred fire. - -In all the Greek colonies they played the "Orestias" and "The -Persians." Æschylus being present, the fatherland was no longer absent. -The magistrates ordered these almost religious representations. The -gigantic Æschylean theatre was intrusted with watching over the infancy -of the colonies. It enclosed them in the Greek spirit, it guaranteed -them from the influence of bad neighbours, and from all temptations -of being led astray. It preserved them from foreign contact, it -maintained them within the Hellenic circle. It was there as a warning. -All those young offsprings of Greece were, so to speak, placed under -the care of Æschylus. - -In India they readily give the children into the charge of elephants. -These enormous specimens of goodness watch over the little things. -The whole group of flaxen heads sing, laugh, and play under the shade -of the trees. The habitation is at some distance. The mother is not -with them. She is at home, busy with her domestic cares; she pays -no attention to her children. Yet, joyful as they are, they are in -danger. These beautiful trees are treacherous; they hide under their -thickness thorns, claws, and teeth. There the cactus bristles up, the -lynx roams, the viper crawls. The children must not wander away; beyond -a certain limit they would be lost. Nevertheless, they run about, call -to one another, pull and entice one another away, some of them scarcely -stuttering, and quite unsteady on their little feet. At times one of -them goes too far. Then a formidable trunk is stretched out, seizes the -little one, and gently carries him home. - - -[Footnote 1: The Psychostasia.] - - - -CHAPTER X. - - -There were some copies more or less complete of Æschylus. - -Besides the copies in the colonies, which were limited to a small -number of pieces, it is certain that partial copies of the original at -Athens were made by the Alexandrian critics and scholars, who have left -us some fragments,--among others the comic fragment of "The Argians," -the Bacchic fragment of the "Edons," the lines cited by Stobæus, and -even the probably apocryphal verses given by Justin the Martyr. - -These copies, buried but perhaps not destroyed, have buoyed up the -persistent hope of searchers,--notably of Le Clerc, who published -in Holland, in 1709, the discovered fragments of Menander. Pierre -Pelhestre, of Rouen, the man who had read everything, for which the -worthy Archbishop Péréfixe scolded him, affirmed that the greater -part of the poems of Æschylus would be found in the libraries of the -monasteries of Mount Athos, just as the five books of the "Annals" of -Tacitus had been discovered in the Convent of Corwey in Germany, and -the "Institutions" of Quintilian, in an old tower of the Abbey of St. -Gall. - -A tradition, not undisputed, would have it that Euergetes II. had -returned to Athens, not the original copy of Æschylus, but a copy, -leaving the fifteen talents as a compensation. - -Independently of the story about Euergetes and Omar that we have -related, and which, very true in the whole, is perhaps legendary -in more than one particular, the loss of so many beautiful works of -antiquity is but too well explained by the small number of copies. -Egypt, in particular, transcribed everything on papyrus. The papyrus, -being very dear, became very rare. People were reduced to write on -pottery. To break a vase was to destroy a book. About the time when -Jesus Christ was painted on the walls at Rome, with the hoofs of an -ass, and this inscription, "The God of the Christians, hoof of an ass," -in the third century, to make ten manuscripts of Tacitus yearly,--or, -as we should say to-day, to strike off ten copies of his works,--a -Cæsar must needs call himself Tacitus, and believe Tacitus to be his -uncle. And yet Tacitus is nearly lost. Of the twenty-eight years of his -"History of the Cæsars,"--from the year 69 to the year 96,--we have -but one complete year, 69, and a fragment of the year 70. Euergetes -prohibited the exportation of papyrus, which caused parchment to be -invented. The price of papyrus was so high that Firmius the Cyclop, -manufacturer of papyrus in 270, made by his trade enough money to raise -armies, wage war against Aurelian, and declare himself emperor. - -Gutenberg is a redeemer. These submersions of the works of the mind, -inevitable before the invention of printing, are impossible at present. -Printing is the discovery of the inexhaustible. It is perpetual motion -found for social science. From time to time a despot seeks to stop or -to slacken it, and he is worn away by the friction. The impossibility -to shackle thought, the impossibility to stop progress, the book -imperishable,--such is the result of printing. Before printing, -civilization was subject to losses of substance; the essential signs -of progress, proceeding from such a philosopher or such a poet, were -all at once lacking: a page was suddenly torn from the human book. -To disinherit humanity of all the great bequests of genius, the -stupidity of a copyist or the caprice of a tyrant sufficed. No such -danger in the present day. Henceforth the unseizable reigns. No one -could serve a writ upon thought and take up its body. It has no longer -a body. The manuscript was the body of the masterpiece; the manuscript -was perishable, and carried off the soul,--the work. The work, made -a printed sheet, is delivered. It is now only a soul. Kill now this -immortal! Thanks to Gutenberg, the copy is no longer exhaustible. -Every copy is a root, and has in itself its own possible regeneration -in thousands of editions; the unit is pregnant with the innumerable. -This prodigy has saved universal intelligence. Gutenberg, in the -fifteenth century, emerges from the awful obscurity, bringing out -of the darkness that ransomed captive, the human mind. Gutenberg is -forever the auxiliary of life; he is the permanent fellow-workman in -the great work of civilization. Nothing is done without him. He has -marked the transition of the man-slave to the free-man. Try and deprive -civilization of him, you become Egypt. The decrease of the liberty of -the press is enough to diminish the stature of a people. - -One of the great features in this deliverance of man by printing, -is, let us insist on it, the indefinite preservation of poets and -philosophers. Gutenberg is like the second father of the creations of -the mind. Before him, yes, it was possible for a _chef-d'œuvre_ to die. - -Greece and Rome have left--mournful thing to say--vast ruins of books. -A whole facade of the human mind half crumbled, that is antiquity. Here -the ruin of an epic poem, there a tragedy dismantled; great verses -effaced, buried, and disfigured; pediments of ideas almost entirely -fallen; geniuses truncated like columns; palaces of thought without -ceiling and door; bleached bones of poems; a death's-head which has -been a strophe; immortality in ruins. Fearful nightmare! Oblivion, -dark spider, hangs its web between the drama of Æschylus and the -history of Tacitus. - -Where is Æschylus? In pieces everywhere. Æschylus is scattered in -twenty texts. His ruins must be sought in innumerable different places. -Athenæus gives the dedication "To Time," Macrobius the fragment of -"Etna" and the homage to the Palic gods, Pausanias the epitaph. The -biographer is anonymous; Goltzius and Meursius give the titles of the -lost pieces. - -We know from Cicero, in the "Disputationes Tusculanæ," that Æschylus -was a Pythagorean; from Herodotus, that he fought bravely at Marathon; -from Diodorus of Sicily, that his brother Amynias behaved valiantly at -Platæa; from Justin, that his brother Cynegyrus was heroic at Salamis. -We know by the didascalies that "The Persians" were represented under -the archon Meno, "The Seven Chiefs before Thebes" under the archon -Theagenides, and the "Orestias" under the archon Philocles; we know -from Aristotle that Æschylus was the first to venture to make two -personages speak at a time on the stage; from Plato that the slaves -were present at his plays; from Horace, that he invented the mask -and the buskin; from Pollux, that pregnant women miscarried at the -appearance of his Furies; from Philostratus, that he abridged the -monodies; from Suidas, that his theatre tumbled down under the pressure -of the crowd; from Ælian, that he committed blasphemy; from Plutarch, -that he was exiled; from Valerius Maximus, that an eagle killed him by -letting a tortoise fall on his head; from Quintilian, that his plays -were re-cast; from Fabricius, that his sons are accused of this crime -of laze-paternity; from the Arundel marbles, the date of his birth, the -date of his death, and his age,--sixty-nine years. - -Now, take away from the drama the East and replace it by the North; -take away Greece and put England, take away India and put Germany, that -other immense mother, _All-men_ (Allemagne); take away Pericles and -put Elizabeth; take away the Parthenon and put the Tower of London; -take away the plebs and put the mob; take away the fatality and put -the melancholy; take away the gorgon and put the witch; take away -the eagle and put the cloud; take away the sun and put on the heath, -shuddering in the evening wind, the livid light of the moon, and you -have Shakespeare. - -Given the dynasty of men of genius, the originality of each being -absolutely reserved, the poet of the Carlovingian formation being the -natural successor of the poet of the Jupiterian formation and the -gothic mist of the antique mystery, Shakespeare is Æschylus II. - -There remains the right of the French Revolution, creator of the third -world, to be represented in Art. Art is an immense gaping chasm, ready -to receive all that is within possibility. - - - - -BOOK V. - - -THE SOULS. - - - -CHAPTER I. - - -The production of souls is the secret of the unfathomable depth. The -innate, what a shadow! What is that concentration of the unknown -which takes place in the darkness, and whence abruptly bursts forth -that light, a genius? What is the law of these events, O Love? The -human heart does its work on earth, and that moves the great deep. -What is that incomprehensible meeting of material sublimation and -moral sublimation in the atom, indivisible if looked at from life, -incorruptible if looked at from death? The atom, what a marvel! No -dimension, no extent, nor height, nor width, nor thickness, independent -of every possible measure, and yet, everything in this nothing! -For algebra, the geometrical point. For philosophy, a soul. As a -geometrical point, the basis of science; as a soul, the basis of faith. -Such is the atom. Two urns, the sexes, imbibe life from the infinite; -and the spilling of one into the other produces the being. This is the -normal condition of all, animal as well as man. But the man more than -man, whence comes he? - -The Supreme Intelligence, which here below is the great man, what is -the power which invokes it, incorporates it, and reduces it to a human -state? What part do the flesh and the blood take in this prodigy? -Why do certain terrestrial sparks seek certain celestial molecules? -Where do they plunge, those sparks? Where do they go? How do they -manage? What is this gift of man to set fire to the unknown? This -mine, the infinite, this extraction, a genius, what more wonderful! -Whence does that spring up? Why, at a given moment, this one and not -that one? Here, as everywhere, the incalculable law of affinities -appears and escapes. One gets a glimpse, but sees not. O forger of the -unfathomable, where art thou? - -Qualities the most diverse, the most complex, the most opposed in -appearance, enter into the composition of souls. The contraries do -not exclude each other,--far from that; they complete each other. -More than one prophet contains a scholiast; more than one magian -is a philologist. Inspiration knows its own trade. Every poet is a -critic: witness that excellent piece of criticism on the theatre -that Shakespeare puts in the mouth of Hamlet. A visionary mind may -be at the same time precise,--like Dante, who writes a book on -rhetoric, and a grammar. A precise mind may be at the same time -visionary,--like Newton, who comments on the Apocalypse; like Leibnitz, -who demonstrates, _nova inventa logica_, the Holy Trinity. Dante knows -the distinction between the three sorts of words, _parola piana, -parola sdrucciola, parola tronca_; he knows that the _piana_ gives a -trochee, the _sdrucciola_ a dactyl, and the _tronca_ an iambus. Newton -is perfectly sure that the Pope is the Antichrist. Dante combines and -calculates; Newton dreams. - -No law is to be grasped in that obscurity. No system is possible. The -currents of adhesions and of cohesions cross each other pell-mell. At -times one imagines that he detects the phenomenon of the transmission -of the idea, and fancies that he distinctly sees a hand taking the -light from him who is departing, to give it to him who arrives. 1642, -for example, is a strange year. Galileo dies, Newton is born, in that -year. Good. It is a thread; try and tie it, it breaks at once. Here is -a disappearance: on the 23d of April, 1616, on the same day, almost -at the same minute, Shakespeare and Cervantes die. Why are these two -flames extinguished at the same moment? No apparent logic. A whirlwind -in the night. - -Enigmas constantly. Why does Commodus proceed from Marcus Aurelius? - -These problems beset in the desert Jerome, that man of the caves, -that Isaiah of the New Testament He interrupted his deep thoughts on -eternity, and his attention to the trumpet of the archangel, in order -to meditate on the soul of some Pagan in whom he felt interested. He -calculated the age of Persius, connecting that research with some -obscure chance of possible salvation for that poet, dear to the -cenobite on account of his strictness; and nothing is so surprising as -to see this wild thinker, half naked on his straw, like Job, dispute on -this question, so frivolous in appearance, of the birth of a man, with -Rufinus and Theophilus of Alexandria,--Rufinus observing to him that -he is mistaken in his calculations, and that Persius having been born -in December under the consulship of Fabius Persicus and Vitellius, and -having died in November, under the consulship of Publius Marius and -Asinius Gallus, these periods do not correspond rigorously with the -year II. of the two hundred and third Olympiad, and the year II. of -the two hundred and tenth, the dates fixed by Jerome. The mystery thus -attracts deep thinkers. - -These calculations, almost wild, of Jerome, or other similar ones, are -made by more than one dreamer. Never to find a stop, to pass from one -spiral to another like Archimedes, and from one zone to another like -Alighieri, to fall, while fluttering about in the circular well, is the -eternal lot of the dreamer. He strikes against the hard wall on which -the pale ray glides. Sometimes certainty comes to him as an obstacle, -and sometimes clearness as a fear. He keeps on his way. He is the bird -under the vault. It is terrible. No matter, the dreamer goes on. - -To dream is to think here and there,--_passim._ What means the birth -of Euripides during that battle of Salamis where Sophocles, a youth, -prays, and where Æschylus, in his manhood, fights? What means the -birth of Alexander in the night which saw the burning of the temple -of Ephesus? What tie between that temple and that man? Is it the -conquering and radiant spirit of Europe which, destroyed under the -form of the _chef-d'œuvre_, revives under the form of the hero? For -do not forget that Ctesiphon is the Greek architect of the temple of -Ephesus. We have mentioned just now the simultaneous disappearance of -Shakespeare and Cervantes. Here is another case not less surprising. -The day when Diogenes died at Corinth, Alexander died at Babylon. -These two cynics, the one of the tub, the other of the sword, depart -together; and Diogenes, longing to enjoy the immense unknown radiance, -will again say to Alexander: "Stand out of my sunlight!" - -What is the meaning of certain harmonies in the myths represented by -divine men? What is this analogy between Hercules and Jesus which -struck the Fathers of the Church, which made Sorel indignant, but -edified Duperron, and which makes Alcides a kind of material mirror -of Christ? Is there not a community of souls, and, unknown to them, a -communication between the Greek legislator and the Hebrew legislator, -creating at the same moment, without knowing each other, and -without their suspecting the existence of each other, the first the -Areopagus, the second the Sanhedrim? Strange resemblance between the -jubilee of Moses and the jubilee of Lycurgus! What are these double -paternities,--paternity of the body, paternity of the soul, like that -of David for Solomon? Giddy heights, steeps, precipices. - -He who looks too long into this sacred horror feels immensity racking -his brain. What does the sounding-line give you when thrown into -that mystery? What do you see? Conjectures quiver, doctrines shake, -hypotheses float; all the human philosophy vacillates before the -mournful blast rising from that chasm. - -The expanse of the possible is, so to speak, under your eyes. The -dream that you have in yourself, you discover it beyond yourself. All -is indistinct. Confused white shadows are moving. Are they souls? One -catches, in the depths below, a glimpse of vague archangels passing -along; will they be men at some future day? Holding your head between -your hands, you strive to see and to know. You are at the window -looking into the unknown. On all sides the deep layers of effects -and causes, heaped one behind the other, wrap you with mist. The man -who meditates not lives in blindness; the man who meditates lives in -darkness. The choice between darkness and darkness, that is all we -have. In that darkness, which is up to the present time nearly all our -science, experience gropes, observation lies in wait, supposition moves -about If you gaze at it very often, you become _vates._ Vast religious -meditation takes possession of you. - -Every man has in him his Patmos. He is free to go or not to go on that -frightful promontory of thought from which darkness is seen. If he -goes not, he remains in the common life, with the common conscience, -with the common virtue, with the common faith, or with the common -doubt; and it is well. For the inward peace it is evidently the best. -If he ascends to that peak, he is caught. The profound waves of the -marvellous have appeared to him. No one sees with impunity that -ocean. Henceforth he will be the thinker enlarged, magnified, but -floating,--that is to say, the dreamer. He will partake of the poet and -of the prophet A certain quantity of him now belongs to darkness. The -boundless enters into his life, into his conscience, into his virtue, -into his philosophy. He becomes extraordinary in the eyes of other men, -for his measure is different from theirs. He has duties which they have -not. He lives in a sort of vague prayer, attaching himself, strangely -enough, to an indefinite certainty which he calls God. He distinguishes -in that twilight enough of the anterior life and enough of the ulterior -life to seize these two ends of the dark thread, and with them to tie -up his soul again. Who has drunk will drink; who has dreamed will -dream. He will not give up that alluring abyss, that sounding of the -fathomless, that indifference for the world and for life, that entrance -into the forbidden, that effort to handle the impalpable and to see the -invisible; he returns to them, he leans and bends over them; he takes -one step forward, then two,--and thus it is that one penetrates into -the impenetrable; and thus it is that one plunges into the boundless -chasms of infinite meditation. - -He who walks down them is a Kant; he who falls down them is a -Swedenborg. - -To keep one's own free will in that dilatation, is to be great. But, -however great one may be, the problems cannot be solved. One may ply -the fathomless with questions. Nothing more. As for the answers, they -are there, but mingled with shadows. The huge lineaments of truth seem -at times to appear for one moment, then go back, and are lost in the -absolute. Of all those questions, that among them all which besets the -intellect, that among them all which rends the heart, is the question -of the soul. - -Does the soul exist? Question the first. The persistency of the self is -the thirst of man. Without the persistent self, all creation is for him -but an immense _cui bono?_ Listen to the astounding affirmation which -bursts forth from all consciences. The whole sum of God that there is -on the earth, within all men, condenses itself in a single cry,--to -affirm the soul. And then, question the second: Are there great souls? - -It seems impossible to doubt it. Why not great minds in humanity as -well as great trees in the forest, as well as great peaks in the -horizon? The great souls are seen as well as the great mountains. Then, -they exist. But here the interrogation presses further; interrogation -is anxiety: Whence come they? What are they? Who are they? Are these -atoms more divine than others? This atom, for instance, which shall -be endowed with irradiation here below, this one which shall be -Thales, this one Æschylus, this one Plato, this one Ezekiel, this one -Macchabœus, this one Apollonius of Tyana, this one Tertullian, this -one Epictetus, this one Marcus Aurelius, this one Nestorius, this one -Pelagius, this one Gama, this one Copernicus, this one Jean Huss, -this one Descartes, this one Vincent de Paul, this one Piranesi, this -one Washington, this one Beethoven, this one Garibaldi, this one John -Brown,--all these atoms, souls having a sublime function among men, -have they seen other worlds, and do they bring on earth the essence -of those worlds? The master souls, the leading intellects, who sends -them? Who determines their appearance? Who is judge of the actual -want of humanity? Who chooses the souls? Who musters the atoms? Who -ordains the departures? Who premeditates the arrivals? Does the atom -conjunction, the atom universal, the atom binder of worlds, exist? Is -not that the great soul? - -To complete one universe by the other; to pour upon the too little of -the one the too much of the other; to increase here liberty, there -science, there the ideal; to communicate to the inferiors patterns of -superior beauty; to exchange the effluvia; to bring the central fire to -the planet; to harmonize the various worlds of the same system; to urge -forward those which are behind; to mix the creations,--does not that -mysterious function exist? - -Is it not fulfilled, unknown to them, by certain elects, who, -momentarily and during their earthly transit, partly ignore themselves? -Is not the function of such or such atom, divine motive power called -soul, to give movement to a solar man among earthly men? Since the -floral atom exists, why should not the stellary atom exist? That -solar man will be, in turn, the savant, the seer, the calculator, the -thaumaturge, the navigator, the architect, the magian, the legislator, -the philosopher, the prophet, the hero, the poet. The life of humanity -will move onward through them. The volutation of civilization will be -their task; that team of minds will drag the huge chariot. One being -unyoked, the others will start again. Each completion of a century -will be one stage on the journey. Never any solution of continuity. -That which one mind will begin, another mind will finish, soldering -phenomenon to phenomenon, sometimes without suspecting that welding -process. To each revolution in the fact will correspond an adequate -revolution in the ideas, and reciprocally. The horizon will not be -allowed to extend to the right without stretching as much to the -left. Men the most diverse, the most opposite, sometimes will adhere -by unexpected parts; and in these adherences will burst forth the -imperious logic of progress. Orpheus, Bouddha, Confucius, Zoroaster, -Pythagoras, Moses, Manou, Mahomet, with many more, will be the links -of the same chain. A Gutenberg discovering the method for the sowing -of civilization, and the means for the ubiquity of thought, will -be followed by a Christopher Columbus discovering a new field. A -Christopher Columbus discovering a world will be followed by a Luther -discovering a liberty. After Luther, innovator in the dogma, will come -Shakespeare, innovator in art. One genius completes the other. - -But not in the same region. The astronomer follows the philosopher; the -legislator is the executor of the poet's wishes; the fighting liberator -lends his assistance to the thinking liberator; the poet corroborates -the statesman. Newton is the appendix to Bacon; Danton originates from -Diderot; Milton confirms Cromwell; Byron supports Botzaris; Æschylus, -before him, has assisted Miltiades. The work is mysterious even for -the very men who perform it. Some are conscious of it, others not. At -great distances, at intervals of centuries, the correlations manifest -themselves, wonderful. The modification in human manners, begun by the -religious revealer, will be completed by the philosophical reasoner, -so that Voltaire follows up Jesus. Their work agrees and coincides. If -this concordance rested with them, both would resist, perhaps,--the -one, the divine man, indignant in his martyrdom, the other, the human -man, humiliated in his irony; but that is so. Some one who is very high -orders it in that way. - -Yes, let us meditate on these vast obscurities. The characteristic of -revery is to gaze at darkness so intently that it brings light out of -it. - -Humanity developing itself from the interior to the exterior is, -properly speaking, civilization. Human intelligence becomes radiance, -and step by step, wins, conquers, and humanizes matter. Sublime -domestication! This labour has phases; and each of these phases, -marking an age in progress, is opened or closed by one of those beings -called geniuses. These missionary spirits, these legates of God, do -they not carry in them a sort of partial solution of this question, -so abstruse, of free will? The apostolate, being an act of will, is -related on one side to liberty, and on the other, being a mission, is -related by predestination to fatality. The voluntary necessary. Such is -the Messiah; such is Genius. - -Now let us return,--for all questions which append to mystery form -the circle, and one cannot get out of it,--let us return to our -starting-point, and to our first question: What is a genius? Is it not -perchance a cosmic soul, a soul imbued with a ray from the unknown? In -what depths are such souls prepared? How long do they wait? What medium -do they traverse? What is the germination which precedes the hatching? -What is the mystery of the ante-birth? Where was this atom? It seems as -if it was the point of intersection of all the forces. How come all the -powers to converge and tie themselves into an indivisible unity in this -sovereign intelligence? Who has bred this eagle? The incubation of the -fathomless on genius, what an enigma! These lofty souls, momentarily -belonging to earth, have they not seen something else? Is it for that -reason that they arrive here with so many intuitions? Some of them seem -full of the dream of a previous world. Is it thence that comes to them -the scared wildness that they sometimes have? Is it that which inspires -them with wonderful words? Is it that which gives them strange -agitations? Is it thence that they derive the hallucination which makes -them, so to speak, see and touch imaginary things and beings? Moses -had his fiery thicket; Socrates his familiar demon; Mahomet his dove; -Luther his goblin playing with his pen, and to whom he would say, "Be -still, there!" Pascal his gaping chasm that he hid with a screen. - -Many of those majestic souls are evidently conscious of a mission. They -act at times as if they knew. They seem to have a confused certainty. -They have it. They have it for the mysterious _ensemble._ They have it -also for the detail. Jean Huss dying predicts Luther. He exclaims, "You -burn the goose [Huss], but the swan will come." Who sends these souls? -Who creates them? What is the law of their formation anterior and -superior to life? Who provides them with force, patience, fecundation, -will, passion? From what urn of goodness have they drawn sternness? -In what region of the lightnings have they culled love? Each of these -great newly arrived souls renews philosophy or art or science or -poetry, and re-makes these worlds after its own image. They are as -though impregnated with creation. At times a truth emanates from these -souls which lights up the questions on which it falls. Some of these -souls are like a star from which light would drip. From what wonderful -source, then, do they proceed, that they are all different? Not one -originates from the other, and yet they have this in common, that they -all bring the infinite. Incommensurable and insoluble questions. That -does not stop the good pedants and the clever men from bridling up, -and saying, while pointing with the finger at the sidereal group of -geniuses on the heights of civilization: "You will have no more men -such as those. They cannot be matched. There are no more of them. We -declare to you that the earth has exhausted its contingent of master -spirits. Now for decadence and general closing. We must make up our -minds to it We shall have no more men of genius."--Ah, you have seen -the bottom of the unfathomable, you! - - - -CHAPTER II - - -No, Thou art not worn out. Thou hast not before thee the bourn, the -limit, the term, the frontier. Thou has nothing to bound thee, as -winter bounds summer, as lassitude the birds, as the precipice the -torrent, as the cliff the ocean, as the tomb man. Thou art boundless. -The "Thou shalt not go farther," is spoken _by_ thee, and it is not -said _of_ thee. No, thou windest not a skein which diminishes, and the -thread of which breaks; no, thou stoppest not short; no, thy quantity -decreaseth not; no, thy thickness becometh not thinner; no, thy faculty -miscarrieth not; no, it is not true that they begin to perceive in -thy all-powerfulness that transparence which announces the end, and -to get a glimpse behind thee of another thing besides thee. Another -thing! And what then? The obstacle. The obstacle to whom? The obstacle -to creation, the obstacle to the everlasting, the obstacle to the -necessary! What a dream! - -When thou hearest men say, "This is as far as God advances,--do not -ask more of him; he starts from here, and stops there. In Homer, in -Aristotle, in Newton, he has given you all that he had; leave him at -rest now,--he is empty. God does not begin again; he could do that -once, he cannot do it twice; he has spent himself altogether in this -man,--enough of God does not remain to make a similar man;"--when -thou hearest them say such things, if thou wast a man like them, thou -wouldst smile in thy terrible depth; but thou art not in a terrible -depth, and being goodness, thou hast no smile. The smile is but a -passing wrinkle, unknown to the absolute. - -Thou struck by a powerless chill; thou to leave off; thou to break -down; thou to say "Halt!" Never. Thou shouldst be compelled to take -breath after having created a man! No; whoever that man may be, -thou art God. If this weak swarm of living beings, in presence of -the unknown, must feel wonder and fear at something, it is not at -the possibility of seeing the germ-seed dry up and the power of -procreation become sterile; it is, O God, at the eternal unleashing of -miracles. The hurricane of miracles blows perpetually. Day and night -the phenomena surge around us on all sides, and, not less marvellous, -without disturbing the majestic tranquillity of the Being. This tumult -is harmony. - -The huge concentric waves of universal life are boundless. The -starry sky that we study is but a partial apparition. We steal from -the network of the Being but some links. The complication of the -phenomenon, of which a glimpse can be caught, beyond our senses, only -by contemplation and ecstasy, makes the mind giddy. The thinker who -reaches so far, is, for other men, only a visionary. The necessary -entanglement of the perceptible and of the imperceptible strikes -the philosopher with stupor. This plenitude is required by thy -all-powerfulness, which does not admit any blank. The permeation of -universes into universes makes part of thy infinitude. Here we extend -the word universe to an order of facts that no astronomer can reach. -In the Cosmos that the vision spies, and which escapes our organs of -flesh, the spheres enter into the spheres without deforming each other, -the density of creations being different; so that, according to every -appearance, with our world is amalgamated, in some inexplicable way, -another world invisible to us, as we are invisible to it. - -And thou, centre and place of all things, as though thou, the Being, -couldst be exhausted! that the absolute serenities could, at certain -moments, fear the want of means on the part of the Infinite! that there -would come an hour when thou couldst no longer supply humanity with the -lights which it requires! that mechanically unwearied, thou couldst be -worn out in the intellectual and moral order! that it would be proper -to say, "God is extinguished on this side!" No! no! no! O Father! - -Phidias created does not stop you from making Michael Angelo. Michael -Angelo completed, there still remains to thee the material for -Rembrandt. A Dante does not tire thee. Thou art no more exhausted -by a Homer than by a star. The auroras by the side of auroras, the -indefinite renewing of meteors, the worlds above the worlds, the -wonderful passage of these incandescent stars called comets, the -geniuses and again the geniuses, Orpheus, then Moses, then Isaiah, then -Æschylus, then Lucretius, then Tacitus, then Juvenal, then Cervantes -and Rabelais, then Shakespeare, then Molière, then Voltaire, those who -have been and those who will be,--that does not weary thee. Swarm of -constellations! there is room in thy immensity. - - - - -PART II.-BOOK I. - - -SHAKESPEARE.--HIS GENIUS. - - - -CHAPTER I. - - -"Shakespeare," says Forbes, "had neither the tragic talent nor the -comic talent. His tragedy is artificial, and his comedy is but -instinctive." Johnson confirms the verdict: "His tragedy is the result -of industry, and his comedy the result of instinct." After Forbes and -Johnson had contested his claim to drama, Green contested his claim -to originality. Shakespeare is "a plagiarist;" Shakespeare is "a -copyist;" Shakespeare "has invented nothing;" he is "a crow adorned -with the plumes of others;" he pilfers Æschylus, Boccaccio, Bandello, -Holinshed, Belleforest, Benoist de St. Maur; he pilfers Layamon, Robert -of Gloucester, Robert of Wace, Peter of Langtoft, Robert Manning, -John de Mandeville, Sackville, Spenser; he steals the "Arcadia" of -Sidney; he steals the anonymous work called the "True Chronicle of King -Leir;" he steals from Rowley in "The Troublesome Reign of King John" -(1591), the character of the bastard Faulconbridge. Shakespeare pilfers -Thomas Greene; Shakespeare pilfers Dekker and Chettle. Hamlet is not -his;--Othello is not his; Timon of Athens is not his, nothing is -his. As for Green, Shakespeare is for him not only "a blower of blank -verses," a "shakescene," a _Johannes factotum_ (allusion to his former -position as call-boy and supernumerary); Shakespeare is a wild beast. -Crow no longer suffices; Shakespeare is promoted to a tiger. Here is -the text: "Tyger's heart wrapt in a player's hyde."[1] - -Thomas Rhymer judges "Othello:"-- - - "The moral of this story is certainly very instructive. It - is a warning to good housewives to look after their linen." - -Then the same Rhymer condescends to give up joking, and to take -Shakespeare in earnest:-- - - "What edifying and useful impression can the audience - receive from such poetry? To what can this poetry serve, - unless it is to mislead our good sense, to throw our - thoughts into disorder, to trouble our brain, to pervert our - instincts, to crack our imaginations, to corrupt our taste, - and to fill our heads with vanity, confusion, clatter, and - nonsense?" - -This was printed eighty years after the death of Shakespeare, in 1693. -All the critics and all the connoisseurs were of one opinion. - -Here are some of the reproaches unanimously addressed to Shakespeare: -Conceits, play on words, puns; improbability, extravagance, absurdity; -obscenity; puerility; bombast; emphasis, exaggeration; false glitter, -pathos; far-fetched ideas, affected style; abuse of contrast and -metaphor; subtilty; immorality; writing for the mob; pandering to the -_canaille_; delighting in the horrible; want of grace; want of charm; -overreaching his aim; having too much wit; having no wit; overdoing his -works. - -"This Shakespeare is a coarse and savage mind," says Lord Shaftesbury. -Dryden adds, "Shakespeare is unintelligible." Mrs. Lennox gives -Shakespeare this slap: "This poet alters historical truth." A German -critic of 1680, Bentheim, feels himself disarmed, because, says he, -"Shakespeare is a mind full of drollery." Ben Jonson, Shakespeare's -protégé, relates this. "I recollect that the comedians mentioned to the -honour of Shakespeare, that in his writings he never erased a line. -I answered, 'Would to God he had erased a thousand.'"[2] This wish, -moreover, was granted by the worthy publishers of 1623,--Blount and -Jaggard. They struck out of Hamlet alone two hundred lines; they cut -out two hundred and twenty lines of "King Lear." Garrick played at -Drury Lane only the "King Lear" of Nahum Tate. Listen again to Rhymer: -"'Othello' is a sanguinary farce without wit." Johnson adds, "'Julius -Cæsar,' a cold tragedy, and lacking the power to move the public." -"I think," says Warburton, in a letter to the Dean of St. Asaph, -"that Swift has much more wit than Shakespeare, and that the comic in -Shakespeare, altogether low as it is, is very inferior to the comic -in Shadwell." As for the witches in "Macbeth," "Nothing equals," says -that critic of the seventeenth century, Forbes, repeated by a critic of -the nineteenth, "the absurdity of such a spectacle." Samuel Foote, the -author of the "Young Hypocrite," makes this declaration: "The comic in -Shakespeare is too heavy, and does not make one laugh. It is buffoonery -without wit." At last, Pope, in 1725, finds a reason why Shakespeare -wrote his dramas, and exclaims, "One must eat!" - -After these words of Pope, one cannot understand with what object -Voltaire, aghast about Shakespeare, writes: "Shakespeare whom the -English take for a Sophocles, flourished about the time of Lopez -[Lope, if you please, Voltaire] de Vega." Voltaire adds, "You are not -ignorant that in 'Hamlet' the diggers prepare a grave, drinking, -singing ballads, and cracking over the heads of dead people the jokes -usual to men of their profession." And, concluding, he qualifies thus -the whole scene,--"these follies." He characterizes Shakespeare's -pieces by this word, "monstrous farces called tragedies," and completes -the judgment by declaring that Shakespeare "has ruined the English -theatre." - -Marmontel comes to see Voltaire at Ferney. Voltaire is in bed, holding -a book in his hand; all at once he rises up, throws the book away, -stretches his thin legs across the bed, and cries to Marmontel, "Your -Shakespeare is a barbarian!" "He is not my Shakespeare at all," replies -Marmontel. - -Shakespeare was an occasion for Voltaire to show his skill at the -target Voltaire missed him rarely. Voltaire shot at Shakespeare as -the peasants shoot at the goose. It was Voltaire who had commenced -in France the attack against that barbarian. He nicknamed him the -Saint Christopher of Tragic Poets. He said to Madame de Graffigny, -"Shakespeare pour rire." He said to Cardinal de Bernis, "Compose pretty -verses; deliver us, monsignor, from plagues, witches, the school of -the King of Prussia, the Bull Unigenitus, the constitutionalists and -the convulsionists, and from that ninny Shakespeare! _Libera nos, -Domine_," The attitude of Fréron toward Voltaire has, in the eyes of -posterity, as an attenuating circumstance, the attitude of Voltaire -toward Shakespeare. Nevertheless, throughout the eighteenth century, -Voltaire gives the law. The moment that Voltaire sneers at Shakespeare, -Englishmen of wit, such as my Lord Marshal follow suit. Johnson -confesses the ignorance and vulgarity of Shakespeare. Frederic II. -comes in for a word also. He writes to Voltaire _à propos_ of "Julius -Cæsar:" "You have done well in re-casting, according to principles, -the crude piece of that Englishman." Behold, then, where Shakespeare -is in the last century. Voltaire insults him. La Harpe protects him: -"Shakespeare himself, coarse as he was, was not without reading and -knowledge."[3] - -In our days, the class of critics of whom we have just seen some -samples, have not lost courage. Coleridge speaks of "Measure for -Measure:" "a painful comedy," he hints. "Revolting," says Mr. Knight. -"Disgusting," responds Mr. Hunter. - -In 1804 the author of one of those idiotic _Biographies Universelles_, -in which they contrive to relate the history of Calas without -pronouncing the name of Voltaire, and to which governments, knowing -what they are about, grant readily their patronage and subsidies, a -certain Delandine feels himself called upon to be a judge, and to -pass sentence on Shakespeare; and after having said that "Shakespear, -which is pronounced Chekspir," had, in his youth, "stolen the deer of -a nobleman," he adds: "Nature had brought together in the head of this -poet the highest greatness we can imagine, with the lowest coarseness, -without wit." Lately, we read the following words, written a short time -ago by an eminent dolt who is living: "Second-rate authors and inferior -poets, such as Shakespeare," etc. - - -[Footnote 1: A Groatsworth of Wit. 1592.] - -[Footnote 2: Works, vol IX. p. 175, Gifford's edition.] - -[Footnote 3: La Harpe: _Introduction au Cours de Littérature._] - - - -CHAPTER II. - - -Poet must at the same time, and necessarily, be a historian and a -philosopher. Herodotus and Thales are included in Homer. Shakespeare, -likewise, is this triple man. He is, besides, the painter, and what -a painter!--the colossal painter. The poet in reality does more than -relate; he exhibits. Poets have in them a reflector, observation, and -a condenser, emotion; thence those grand luminous spectres which burst -out from their brain, and which go on blazing forever on the gloomy -human wall. These phantoms have life. To exist as much as Achilles, -would be the ambition of Alexander. Shakespeare has tragedy, comedy, -fairy-land, hymn, farce, grand divine laughter, terror and horror, and, -to say all in one word, the drama. He touches the two poles. He belongs -to Olympus and to the travelling booth. No possibility fails him. - -When he grasps you, you are subdued. Do not expect from him any pity. -His cruelty is pathetic. He shows you a mother,--Constance, mother -of Arthur; and when he has brought you to that point of tenderness -that your heart is as her heart, he kills her child. He goes farther -in horror even than history, which is difficult. He does not content -himself with killing Rutland and driving York to despair; he dips in -the blood of the son the handkerchief with which he wipes the eyes of -the father. He causes elegy to be choked by the drama, Desdemona by -Othello. No attenuation in anguish. Genius is inexorable. It has its -law and follows it. The mind also has its inclined planes, and these -slopes determine its direction. Shakespeare glides toward the terrible. -Shakespeare, Æschylus, Dante, are great streams of human emotion -pouring from the depth of their cave the um of tears. - -The poet is only limited by his aim; he considers nothing but the idea -to be worked out; he does not recognize any other sovereignty, any -other necessity but the idea; for, art emanating from the absolute, -in art, as in the absolute, the end justifies the means. This is, it -may be said parenthetically, one of those deviations from the ordinary -terrestrial law which make lofty criticism muse and reflect, and -which reveal to it the mysterious side of art. In art, above all, is -visible the _quid divinum._ The poet moves in his work as providence -in its own; he excites, astounds, strikes, then exalts or depresses, -often in inverse ratio to what you expected, diving into your soul -through surprise. Now, consider. Art has, like the Infinite, a Because -superior to all the _Why's._ Go and ask the wherefore of a tempest -from the ocean, that great lyric. What seems to you odious or absurd -has an inner reason for existing. Ask of Job why he scrapes the pus on -his ulcer with a bit of glass, and of Dante why he sews with a thread -of iron the eyelids of the larvas in purgatory, making the stitches -trickle with fearful tears![1] Job continues to clean his sore with his -broken glass and wipes it on his dungheap, and Dante goes on his way. -The same with Shakespeare. - -His sovereign horrors reign, and force themselves upon you. He mingles -with them, when he chooses, the charm, that august charm of the -powerful, as superior to feeble sweetness, to slender attraction, to -the charm of Ovid or of Tibullus, as the Venus of Milo to the Venus -de Medici. The things of the unknown; the unfathomable metaphysical -problems; the enigmas of the soul and of Nature, which is also a -soul; the far-off intuitions of the eventual included in destiny; -the amalgams of thought and event,--can be translated into delicate -figures, and fill poetry with mysterious and exquisite types, the more -delightful that they are rather sorrowful, somewhat invisible, and at -the same time very real, anxious concerning the shadow which is behind -them, and yet trying to please you. Profound grace does exist. - -Prettiness combined with greatness is possible (it is found in Homer; -Astyanax is a type of it); but the profound grace of which we speak -is something more than this epic delicacy. It is linked to a certain -amount of agitation, and means the infinite without expressing it. It -is a kind of light and shade radiance. The modern men of genius alone -have that depth in the smile which shows elegance and depth at the same -time. - -Shakespeare possesses this grace, which is the very opposite to the -unhealthy grace, although it resembles it, emanating as it does -likewise from the grave. - -Sorrow,--the great sorrow of the drama, which is nothing else but human -constitution carried into art,--envelops this grace and this horror. - -Hamlet, doubt, is at the centre of his work; and at the two -extremities, love,--Romeo and Othello, all the heart. There is light -in the folds of the shroud of Juliet; yet nothing but darkness in the -winding-sheet of Ophelia disdained and of Desdemona suspected. These -two innocents, to whom love has broken faith, cannot be consoled. -Desdemona sings the song of the willow under which the water bears -Ophelia away. They are sisters without knowing each other, and kindred -souls, although each has her separate drama. The willow trembles over -them both. In the mysterious chant of the calumniated who is about to -die, floats the dishevelled shadow of the drowned one. - -Shakespeare in philosophy goes at times deeper than Homer. Beyond Priam -there is Lear; to weep at ingratitude is worse than weeping at death. -Homer meets envy and strikes it with the sceptre; Shakespeare gives the -sceptre to the envious, and out of Thersites creates Richard III. Envy -is exposed in its nakedness all the better for being clothed in purple; -its reason for existing is then visibly altogether in itself. Envy on -the throne, what more striking! - -Deformity in the person of the tyrant is not enough for this -philosopher; he must have it also in the shape of the valet, and he -creates Falstaff. The dynasty of common-sense, inaugurated in Panurge, -continued in Sancho Panza, goes wrong and miscarries in Falstaff. The -rock which this wisdom splits upon is, in reality, lowness. Sancho -Panza, in combination with the ass, is embodied with ignorance. -Falstaff-glutton, poltroon, savage, obscene, human face and stomach, -with the lower parts of the brute--walks on the four feet of turpitude; -Falstaff is the centaur man and pig. - -Shakespeare is, above all, an imagination. Now,--and this is a -truth to which we have already alluded, and which is well known to -thinkers,--imagination is depth. No faculty of the mind goes and sinks -deeper than imagination; it is the great diver. Science, reaching the -lowest depths, meets imagination. In conic sections, in logarithms, -in the differential and integral calculus, in the calculation of -probabilities, in the infinitesimal calculus, in the calculations -of sonorous waves, in the application of algebra to geometry, the -imagination is the co-efficient of calculation, and mathematics -becomes poetry. I have no faith in the science of stupid learned men. - -The poet philosophizes because he imagines. That is why Shakespeare -has that sovereign management of reality which enables him to have his -way with it; and his very whims are varieties of the true,--varieties -which deserve meditation. Does not destiny resemble a constant whim? -Nothing more incoherent in appearance, nothing less connected, nothing -worse as deduction. Why crown this monster, John? Why kill that child, -Arthur? Why have Joan of Arc burned? Why Monk triumphant? Why Louis XV. -happy? Why Louis XVI. punished? Let the logic of God pass. It is from -that logic that the fancy of the poet is drawn. Comedy bursts forth -in the midst of tears; the sob rises out of laughter; figures mingle -and clash; massive forms, nearly animals, pass clumsily; larvas--women -perhaps, perhaps smoke--float about; souls, libellulas of darkness, -flies of the twilight, quiver among all these black reeds that we call -passions and events. At one pole Lady Macbeth, at the other Titania. A -colossal thought, and an immense caprice. - -What are the "Tempest," "Troilus and Cressida," "The Two Gentlemen of -Verona," "The Merry Wives of Windsor," the "Midsummer Night's Dream," -"The Winter's Tale?" They are fancy,--arabesque work. The arabesque -in art is the same phenomenon as vegetation in Nature. The arabesque -grows, increases, knots, exfoliates, multiplies, becomes green, blooms, -branches, and creeps around every dream. The arabesque is endless; it -has a strange power of extension and aggrandizement; it fills horizons, -and opens up others; it intercepts the luminous deeds by innumerable -intersections; and, if you mix the human figure with these entangled -branches, the _ensemble_ makes you giddy; it is striking. Behind -the arabesque, and through its openings, all philosophy can be seen; -vegetation lives; man becomes pantheist; a combination of infinite -takes place in the finite; and before such work, in which are found -the impossible and the true, the human soul trembles with an emotion -obscure and yet supreme. - -For all this, the edifice ought not to be overrun by vegetation, nor -the drama by arabesque. - -One of the characteristics of genius is the singular union of faculties -the most distant. To draw an astragal like Ariosto, then to dive into -souls like Pascal,--such is the poet Man's inner conscience belongs -to Shakespeare; he surprises you with it constantly. He extracts -from conscience every unforeseen contingence that it contains. Few -poets surpass him in this psychical research. Many of the strangest -peculiarities of the human mind are indicated by him. He skilfully -makes us feel the simplicity of the metaphysical fact under the -complication of the dramatic fact. That which the human creature does -not acknowledge inwardly, the obscure thing that he begins by fearing -and ends by desiring,--such is the point of junction and the strange -place of meeting for the heart of virgins and the heart of murderers; -for the soul of Juliet and the soul of Macbeth. The innocent fears and -longs for love, just as the wicked one for ambition. Perilous kisses -given on the sly to the phantom, smiling here, fierce there. - -To all these prodigalities, analysis, synthesis, creation in flesh -and bone, revery, fancy, science, metaphysics, add history,--here the -history of historians, there the history of the tale; specimens of -everything,--of the traitor, from Macbeth the assassin of his guest, -up to Coriolanus, the assassin of his country; of the despot, from -the intellectual tyrant Cæsar, to the bestial tyrant Henry VIII.; of -the carnivorous, from the lion down to the usurer. One may say to -Shylock: "Well bitten, Jew!" And, in the background of this wonderful -drama, on the desert heath, in the twilight, in order to promise crowns -to murderers, three black outlines appear, in which Hesiod, through -the vista of ages, perhaps recognizes the Parcæ. Inordinate force, -exquisite charm, epic ferocity, pity, creative faculty, gayety (that -lofty gayety unintelligible to narrow understandings), sarcasm (the -cutting lash for the wicked), star-like greatness, microscopic tenuity, -boundless poetry, which has a zenith and a nadir; the _ensemble_ vast, -the detail profound,--nothing is wanting in this mind. One feels, on -approaching the work of this man, the powerful wind which would burst -forth from the opening of a whole world. The radiancy of genius on -every side,--that is Shakespeare. "Totus in antithesi," says Jonathan -Forbes. - - -[Footnote 1: - - And as the sun does not reach the blind, so the spirits of - which I was just speaking have not the gift of heavenly - light. An iron wire pierces and fastens together their - eyelids, as it is done to the wild hawk in order to tame it. - ---_Purgatory, chap. XIII._] - - - -CHAPTER III. - - -One of the characteristics which distinguish men of genius from -ordinary minds, is that they have a double reflection,--just as the -carbuncle, according to Jerome Cardan, differs from crystal and glass -in having a double refraction. - -Genius and carbuncle, double reflection, double refraction; the same -phenomenon in the moral and in the physical order. - -Does this diamond of diamonds, the carbuncle, exist? It is a question. -Alchemy says yes, chemistry searches. As for genius, it exists. It is -sufficient to read one verse of Æschylus or Juvenal in order to find -this carbuncle of the human brain. - -This phenomenon of double reflection raises to the highest power in -men of genius what rhetoricians call antithesis,--that is to say, the -sovereign faculty of seeing the two sides of things. - -I dislike Ovid, that proscribed coward, that licker of bloody hands, -that fawning cur of exile, that far-away flatterer disdained by the -tyrant, and I hate the _bel esprit_ of which Ovid is full; but I do not -confound that _bel esprit_ with the powerful antithesis of Shakespeare. - -Complete minds having everything, Shakespeare contains Gongora as -Michael Angelo contains Bernini; and there are on that subject -ready-made sentences: "Michael Angelo is a mannerist, Shakespeare is -antithetical." These are the formulas of the school; but it is the -great question of contrast in art seen by the small side. - -_Totus in antithesi._ Shakespeare is all in antithesis. Certainly, it -is not very just to see all the man, and such a man, in one of his -qualities. But, this reserve being made, let us observe that this -saying, _Totus in antithesi_, which pretends to be a criticism, might -be simply a statement. Shakespeare, in fact, has deserved, like all -truly great poets, this praise,--that he is like creation. What is -creation? Good and evil, joy and sorrow, man and woman, roar and song, -eagle and vulture, lightning and ray, bee and drone, mountain and -valley, love and hate, the medal and its reverse, beauty and ugliness, -star and swine, high and low. Nature is the Eternal bifronted. And this -antithesis, whence comes the antiphrasis, is found in all the habits -of man; it is in fable, in history, in philosophy, in language. Are -you the Furies, they call you Eumenides,--the Charming; do you kill -your brothers, you are called Philadelphus; kill your father, they -will call you Philopator; be a great general, they will call you _le -petit caporal._ The antithesis of Shakespeare is universal antithesis, -always and everywhere; it is the ubiquity of antinomy,--life and -death, cold and heat, just and unjust, angel and demon, heaven and -earth, flower and lightning, melody and harmony, spirit and flesh, -high and low, ocean and envy, foam and slaver, hurricane and whistle, -self and not-self, the objective and subjective, marvel and miracle, -type and monster, soul and shadow. It is from this sombre palpable -difference, from this endless ebb and flow, from this perpetual yes -and no, from this irreducible opposition, from this immense antagonism -ever existing, that Rembrandt obtains his chiaroscuro and Piranesi his -vertiginous height. - -Before removing this antithesis from art, commence by removing it from -Nature. - - - -CHAPTER IV. - - -"He is reserved and discreet. You may trust him; he will take no -advantage. He has, above all, a very rare quality,--he is sober." - -What is this? A recommendation for a domestic? No. It is the panegyric -of a writer. A certain school, called "serious," has in our days -hoisted this programme of poetry: sobriety. It seems that the only -question should be to preserve literature from indigestion. Formerly, -the motto was "Prolificness and power;" to-day it is "tisane." You -are in the resplendent garden of the Muses, where those divine -blossoms of the mind that the Greeks called "tropes" blow in riot and -luxuriance on every branch; everywhere the ideal image, everywhere the -thought-flower, everywhere fruits, metaphors, golden apples, perfumes, -colours, rays, strophes, wonders; touch nothing, be discreet. Whoever -gathers nothing there proves himself a true poet. Be of the temperance -society. A good critical book is a treatise on the dangers of drinking. -Do you wish to compose the Iliad, put yourself on diet Ah, thou mayest -well open thy eyes wide, old Rabelais! - -Lyricism is heady, the beautiful intoxicates, greatness inebriates, -the ideal causes giddiness; whoever proceeds from it is no longer -in his right senses; when you have walked among the stars, you are -capable of refusing a prefecture; you are no longer a sensible being; -they might offer you a seat in the senate of Domitian and you would -refuse it; you no longer give to Cæsar what is due to Cæsar; you have -reached that point of mental alienation that you will not even salute -the Lord Incitatus, consul and horse. See what is the result of your -having drunk in that shocking place, the Empyrean! You become proud, -ambitious, disinterested. Now, be sober. It is forbidden to haunt the -tavern of the sublime. - -Liberty means libertinism. To restrain yourself is well, to geld -yourself is better. - -Pass your life in restraining yourself. - -Observe sobriety, decency, respect for authority, an irreproachable -toilet. There is no poetry unless it be fashionably dressed. An -uncombed savannah, a lion which does not pare its nails, an unsifted -torrent, the navel of the sea which allows itself to be seen, the cloud -which forgets itself so far as to show Aldebaran--oh, shocking! The -wave foams on the rock, the cataract vomits into the gulf, Juvenal -spits on the tyrant. Fie! - -We like not enough better than too much. No exaggeration. Henceforth -the rose-tree shall be compelled to count its roses. The prairie shall -be requested not to be so prodigal of daisies; the spring shall be -ordered to restrain itself. The nests are rather too prolific. The -groves are too rich in warblers. The Milky Way must condescend to -number its stars; there are a good many. - -Take example from the big Mullen Serpentaria of the Botanical Garden, -which blooms only every fifty years. That is a flower truly respectable. - -A true critic of the sober school is that garden-keeper who, to this -question, "Have you any nightingales in your trees?" replied, "Ah, -don't mention it! For the whole month of May these ugly beasts have -been doing nothing but bark." - -M. Suard gave to Marie Joseph Chénier this certificate: "His style has -the great merit of not containing comparisons." In our days we have -seen that singular eulogium reproduced. This reminds us that a great -professor of the Restoration, indignant at the comparisons and figures -which abound in the prophets, crushes Isaiah, Daniel, and Jeremiah, -with this profound apothegm: "The whole Bible is in 'like' (_comme_)." -Another, a greater professor still, was the author of this saying, -which is still celebrated at the normal school: "I throw Juvenal back -to the romantic dunghill." Of what crime was Juvenal guilty? Of the -same as Isaiah,--namely, of readily expressing the idea by the image. -Shall we return, little by little, in the walks of learning, to the -metonymy term of chemistry, and to the opinion of Pradon on metaphor? - -One would suppose, from the demands and clamours of the doctrinary -school, that it has to supply, at its own expense, all the consumption -of metaphors and figures that poets can make, and that it feels -itself ruined by spendthrifts such as Pindar, Aristophanes, Ezekiel, -Plautus, and Cervantes. This school puts under lock and key passions, -sentiments, the human heart, reality, the ideal, life. Frightened, -it looks at the men of genius, hides from them everything, and says, -"How greedy they are!" Therefore it has invented for writers this -superlative praise: "He is temperate." - -On all these points sacerdotal criticism fraternizes with doctrinal -criticism. The prude and the devotee help each other. - -A curious bashful fashion tends to prevail. We blush at the coarse -manner in which grenadiers meet death; rhetoric has for heroes modest -vine-leaves which they call periphrases; it is agreed that the bivouac -speaks like the convent, the talk of the guardroom is a calumny; a -veteran drops his eyes at the recollection of Waterloo, and the Cross -of Honour is given to these modest eyes. Certain sayings which are in -history have no right to be historical; and it is well understood, for -example, that the gendarme who fired a pistol at Robespierre at the -Hôtel-de-Ville was called _La-garde-meurt-et-ne-se-rend-pas._ - -One salutary reaction is the result of the combined effort of two -critics watching over public tranquillity. This reaction has already -produced some specimens of poets,--steady, well-bred, prudent, whose -style always keeps good time; who never indulge in an orgy with all -those mad things, ideas; who are never met at the corner of a wood, -_solus cum sola_, with that Bohemian, Revery; who are incapable of -having connection either with Imagination, a dangerous vagabond, or -with Inspiration, a Bacchante, or with Fancy, a _lorette_; who have -never in their life given a kiss to that beggarly chit, the Muse; -who do not sleep out, and who are honoured with the esteem of their -door-keeper, Nicholas Boileau. If Polyhymnia goes by with her hair -rather flowing, what a scandal! Quick, they call the hairdresser. M. -de la Harpe comes hastily. These two sister critics, the doctrinal and -the sacerdotal, undertake to educate. They bring up writers from the -birth. They keep houses to wean them, a boarding-school for juvenile -reputations. - -Thence a discipline, a literature, an art. Dress right, fall into line! -Society must be saved in literature as well as in politics. Every one -knows that poetry is a frivolous, insignificant thing, childishly -occupied in seeking rhymes, barren, vain; therefore nothing is more -formidable. It behooves us to well secure the thinkers. Lie down, -dangerous beast! What is a poet? For honour, nothing; for persecution, -everything. - -This race of writers requires repression. It is useful to have -recourse to the secular arm. The means vary. From time to time a -good banishment is expedient. The list of exiled writers opens with -Æschylus, and does not close with Voltaire. Each century has its -link in this chain. But there must be at least a pretext for exile, -banishment, and proscription. That cannot apply to all cases. It is -rather unmanageable; it is important to have a lighter weapon for -every-day skirmishing. A State criticism, duly sworn in and accredited, -can render service. To organize the persecution of writers by means of -writers is not a bad thing. To entrap the pen by the pen is ingenious. -Why not have literary policemen? - -Good taste is a precaution taken by good order. Sober writers are the -counterpart of prudent electors. Inspiration is suspected of love for -liberty. Poetry is rather outside of legality; there is, therefore, an -official art, the offspring of official criticism. - -A whole special rhetoric proceeds from those premises. Nature has in -that particular art but a narrow entrance, and goes in through the side -door. Nature is infected with demagogy. The elements are suppressed as -being bad company, and making too much uproar. The equinox is guilty of -breaking into reserved grounds; the squall is a nightly row. The other -day, at the School of Fine Arts, a pupil-painter having caused the wind -to lift up the folds of a mantle during a storm, a local professor, -shocked at this lifting up, said, "The style does not admit of wind." - -After all, reaction does not despair. We get on; some progress is -accomplished. A ticket of confession sometimes gains admittance for -its bearer into the Academy. Jules Janin, Théophile Gautier, Paul de -Saint-Victor, Littré, Renan, please to recite your creed. - -But that does not suffice; the evil is deep-rooted. The ancient -Catholic society, and the ancient legitimate literature, are -threatened. Darkness is in peril To war with new generations! to war -with the modern spirit! and down upon Democracy, the daughter of -Philosophy! - -Cases of rabidness--that is to say, the works of genius--are to be -feared. Hygienic prescriptions are renewed. The public high-road is -evidently badly watched. It appears that there are some poets wandering -about. The prefect of police, a negligent man, allows some spirits to -rove about. What is Authority thinking of? Let us take care. Intellects -can be bitten; there is danger. It is certain, evident. It is rumoured -that Shakespeare has been met without a muzzle on. - -This Shakespeare without a muzzle is the present translation.[1] - -[Footnote 1: The Complete Works of Shakespeare, translated by François -Victor Hugo.] - - - -CHAPTER V. - - -If ever a man was undeserving of the good character of "he is sober," -it is most certainly William Shakespeare. Shakespeare is one of the -worst rakes that serious æsthetics ever had to lord over. - -Shakespeare is fertility, force, exuberance, the overflowing breast, -the foaming cup, the brimful tub, the overrunning sap, the overflooding -lava, the whirlwind scattering germs, the universal rain of life, -everything by thousands, everything by millions, no reticence, no -binding, no economy, the inordinate and tranquil prodigality of -the creator. To those who feel the bottom of their pocket, the -inexhaustible seems insane. Will it stop soon? Never. Shakespeare is -the sower of dazzling wonders. At every turn, the image; at every turn, -contrast; at every turn, light and darkness. - -The poet, we have said, is Nature. Subtle, minute, keen, microscopical -like Nature; immense. Not discreet, not reserved, not sparing. Simply -magnificent. Let us explain this word, _simple._ - -Sobriety in poetry is poverty; simplicity is grandeur. To give to each -thing the quantity of space which fits it, neither more nor less, is -simplicity. Simplicity is justice. The whole law of taste is in that. -Each thing put in its place and spoken with its own word. On the only -condition that a certain latent equilibrium is maintained and a certain -mysterious proportion preserved, simplicity may be found in the most -stupendous complication, either in the style, or in the _ensemble._ -These are the arcana of great art. Lofty criticism alone, which -takes its starting-point from enthusiasm, penetrates and comprehends -these learned laws. Opulence, profusion, dazzling radiancy, may be -simplicity. The sun is simple. - -Such simplicity does not evidently resemble the simplicity recommended -by Le Batteux, the Abbé d'Aubignac, and Father Bouhours. - -Whatever may be the abundance, whatever may be the entanglement, even -if perplexing, confused, and inextricable, all that is true is simple. -A root is simple. - -That simplicity which is profound is the only one that art recognizes. - -Simplicity, being true, is artless. Artlessness is the characteristic -of truth. Shakespeare's simplicity is the great simplicity. He is -foolishly full of it. He ignores the small simplicity. - -The simplicity which is impotence, the simplicity which is meagreness, -the simplicity which is short-winded, is a case for pathology. It has -nothing to do with poetry. An order for the hospital suits it better -than a ride on the hippogriff. - -I admit that the hump of Thersites is simple; but the breastplates of -Hercules are simple also. I prefer that simplicity to the other. - -The simplicity which belongs to poetry may be as bushy as the oak. Does -the oak by chance produce on you the effect of a Byzantine and of a -refined being? Its innumerable antitheses,--gigantic trunk and small -leaves, rough bark and velvet mosses, reception of rays and shedding -of shade, crowns for heroes and fruit for swine,--are they marks of -affectation, corruption, subtlety and bad taste? Could the oak be too -witty? Could the oak belong to the Hôtel Rambouillet? Could the oak -be a _précieux ridicule?_ Could the oak be tainted with Gongorism? -Could the oak belong to the age of decadence? Is by chance complete -simplicity, _sancta simplicitas_, condensed in the cabbage? - -Refinement, excess of wit, affectation, Gongorism,--that is what they -have hurled at Shakespeare's head. They say that those are the faults -of littleness, and they hasten to reproach the giant with them. - -But then this Shakespeare respects nothing, he goes straight on, -putting out of breath those who wish to follow; he strides over -proprieties; he overthrows Aristotle; he spreads havoc among the -Jesuits, methodists, the Purists, and the Puritans; he puts Loyola -to flight, and upsets Wesley; he is valiant, bold, enterprising, -militant, direct. His inkstand smokes like a crater. He is always -laborious, ready, spirited, disposed, going forward. Pen in hand, his -brow blazing, he goes on driven by the demon of genius. The stallion -abuses; there are he-mules passing by to whom this is offensive. To -be prolific is to be aggressive. A poet like Isaiah, like Juvenal, -like Shakespeare, is, in truth, exorbitant. By all that is holy! -some attention ought to be paid to others; one man has no right to -everything. What! always virility, inspiration everywhere, as many -metaphors as the prairie, as many antitheses as the oak, as many -contrasts and depths as the universe; what! forever generation, -hatching, hymen, parturition, vast ensemble, exquisite and robust -detail, living communion, fecundation, plenitude, production! It is too -much; it infringes the rights of human geldings. - -For nearly three centuries Shakespeare, this poet all brimming with -virility, has been looked upon by sober critics with that discontented -air that certain bereaved spectators must have in the seraglio. - -Shakespeare has no reserve, no discretion, no limit, no blank. What -is wanting in him is that he wants nothing. No box for savings, no -fast-day with him. He overflows like vegetation, like germination, -like light, like flame. Yet, it does not hinder him from thinking -of you, spectator or reader, from preaching to you, from giving -you advice, from being your friend, like any other kind-hearted La -Fontaine, and from rendering you small services. You can warm your -hands at the conflagration he kindles. - -Othello, Romeo, Iago, Macbeth, Shylock, Richard III., Julius Cæsar, -Oberon, Puck, Ophelia, Desdemona, Juliet, Titania, men, women, witches, -fairies, souls,--Shakespeare is the grand distributor; take, take, -take, all of you! Do you want more? Here is Ariel, Parolles, Macduff, -Prospero, Viola, Miranda, Caliban. More yet? Here is Jessica, Cordelia, -Cressida, Portia, Brabantio, Polonius, Horatio, Mercutio, Imogene, -Pandarus of Troy, Bottom, Theseus. _Ecce Deus!_ It is the poet, he -offers himself: who will have me? He gives, scatters, squanders -himself; he is never empty. Why? He cannot be. Exhaustion with him -is impossible. There is in him something of the fathomless. He fills -up again, and spends himself; then recommences. He is the bottomless -treasury of genius. - -In license and audacity of language Shakespeare equals Rabelais, whom, -a few days ago, a swan-like critic called a swine. - -Like all lofty minds in full riot of Omnipotence, Shakespeare decants -all Nature, drinks it, and makes you drink it. Voltaire reproached -him for his drunkenness, and was quite right. Why on earth, we repeat -why has this Shakespeare such a temperament? He does not stop, he -does not feel fatigue, he is without pity for the poor weak stomachs -that are candidates for the Academy. The gastritis called "good -taste," he does not labour under it. He is powerful. What is this vast -intemperate song that he sings through ages,--war-song, drinking-song, -love-ditty,--which passes from King Lear to Queen Mab, and from Hamlet -to Falstaff, heart-rending at times as a sob, grand as the Iliad? "I -have the lumbago from reading Shakespeare," said M. Auger. - -His poetry has the sharp perfume of honey made by the vagabond -bee without a hive. Here prose, there verse; all forms, being but -receptacles for the idea, suit him. This poetry weeps and laughs. The -English tongue, a language little formed, now assists, now harms him, -but everywhere the deep mind gushes forth translucent Shakespeare's -drama proceeds with a kind of distracted rhythm. It is so vast that -it staggers; it has and gives the vertigo; but nothing is so solid as -this excited grandeur. Shakespeare, shuddering, has in himself the -winds, the spirits, the philters, the vibrations, the fluctuations -of transient breezes, the obscure penetration of effluvia, the great -unknown sap. Thence his agitation, in the depth of which is repose. -It is this agitation in which Goethe is wanting, wrongly praised for -his impassiveness, which is inferiority. This agitation, all minds -of the first order have it. It is in Job, in Æschylus, in Alighieri. -This agitation is humanity. On earth the divine must be human. It -must propose to itself its own enigma and feel disturbed about it. -Inspiration being prodigy, a sacred stupor mingles with it. A certain -majesty of mind resembles solitudes and is blended with astonishment. -Shakespeare, like all great poets, like all great things, is absorbed -by a dream. His own vegetation astounds him; his own tempest appals -him. It seems at times as if Shakespeare terrified Shakespeare. He -shudders at his own depth. This is the sign of supreme intellects. It -is his own vastness which shakes him and imparts to him unaccountable -huge oscillations. There is no genius without waves. An inebriated -savage it may be. He has the wildness of the virgin forest; he has the -intoxication of the high sea. - -Shakespeare (the condor alone gives some idea of such gigantic gait) -departs, arrives, starts again, mounts, descends, hovers, dives, sinks, -rushes, plunges into the depths below, plunges into the depths above. -He is one of those geniuses that God purposely leaves unbridled, so -that they may go headlong and in full flight into the infinite. - -From time to time comes on this globe one of these spirits. Their -passage, as we have said, renews art, science, philosophy, or society. - -They fill a century, then disappear. Then it is not one century alone -that their light illumines, it is humanity from one end to another of -time; and it is perceived that each of these men was the human mind -itself contained whole in one brain, and coming, at a given moment, to -give on earth an impetus to progress. - -These supreme spirits, once life achieved and the work completed, go in -death to rejoin the mysterious group, and are probably at home in the -infinite. - - - - -BOOK II. - - -SHAKESPEARE.--HIS WORK.--THE CULMINATING POINTS. - - - -CHAPTER I. - - -The characteristic of men of genius of the first order is to -produce each a peculiar model of man. All bestow on humanity its -portrait,--some laughing, some weeping, others pensive. These last are -the greatest. Plautus laughs, and gives to man Amphitryon; Rabelais -laughs, and gives to man Gargantua; Cervantes laughs, and gives to man -Don Quixote; Beaumarchais laughs, and gives to man Figaro; Molière -weeps, and gives to man Alceste; Shakespeare dreams, and gives to man -Hamlet; Æschylus meditates, and gives to man Prometheus. The others are -great; Æschylus and Shakespeare are immense. - -These portraits of humanity, left to humanity as a last farewell by -those passers-by, the poets, are rarely flattered, always exact, -striking likenesses. Vice, or folly, or virtue, is extracted from the -soul and stamped on the visage. The tear congealed becomes a pearl; -the smile petrified ends by looking like a menace; wrinkles are the -furrows of wisdom; some frowns are tragic. This series of models of man -is the permanent lesson for generations; each century adds in some -figures,--sometimes done in full light and strong relief, like Macette, -Célimène, Tartuffe, Turcaret, and the Nephew of Rameau; sometimes -simple profiles, like Gil Bias, Manon Lescaut, Clarissa Harlowe, and -Candide. - -God creates by intuition; man creates by inspiration, strengthened by -observation. This second creation, which is nothing else but divine -action carried out by man, is what is called genius. - -The poet stepping into the place of destiny; an invention of men and -events so strange, so true to nature, and so masterly that certain -religious sects hold it in horror as an encroachment upon Providence, -and call the poet "the liar;" the conscience of man, taken in the act -and placed in a medium which it combats, governs or transforms,--such -is the drama. And there is in this something superior. This handling -of the human soul seems a kind of equality with God,--equality, the -mystery of which is explained when we reflect that God is within -man. This equality is identity. Who is our conscience? He. And He -counsels good acts. Who is our intelligence? He. And He inspires the -_chef-d'œuvre._ - -God may be there, but it removes nothing, as we have proved, from -the sourness of critics; the greatest minds are those which are most -brought into question. It even sometimes happens that true intellects -attack genius; the inspired, strangely enough, do not recognize -inspiration. Erasmus, Bayle, Scaliger, St. Evremond, Voltaire, many of -the Fathers of the Church, whole families of philosophers, the whole -School of Alexandria, Cicero, Horace, Lucian, Plutarch, Josephus, Dion -Chrysostom, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Philostratus, Metrodorus of -Lampsacus, Plato, Pythagoras, have severally criticised Homer. In this -enumeration we omit Zoïlus. Men who deny are not critics. Hatred is -not intelligence. To insult is not to discuss. Zoïlus, Mævius, Cecchi, -Green, Avellaneda, William Lauder, Visé, Fréron,--no cleansing of these -names is possible. These men have wounded the human race through her -men of genius; these wretched hands forever retain the colour of the -mud that they have thrown. - -And these men have not even either the sad renown that they seem to -have acquired by right, or the whole quantity of shame that they have -hoped for. One scarcely knows that they have existed. They are half -forgotten,--a greater humiliation than to be wholly forgotten. With -the exception of two or three among them who have become by-words -of contempt, despicable owls, nailed up for an example, all these -wretched names are unknown. An obscure notoriety follows their -equivocal existence. Look at this Clement, who had called himself -the "hypercritic," and whose profession it was to bite and denounce -Diderot; he disappears, and is confounded, although born at Geneva, -with Clement of Dijon, confessor to Mesdames; with David Clement, -author of the "Bibliothèque Curieuse;" with Clement of Baize, -Benedictine of St. Maur; and with Clement d'Ascain, Capuchin, definator -and provincial of Béarn. What avails it him to have declared that the -work of Diderot is but an "obscure verbiage," and to have died mad at -Charenton, to be afterward submerged in four or five unknown Clements? -In vain did Famien Strada rabidly attack Tacitus; one scarcely knows -him now from Fabien Spada, called _L'Epée de Bois_, the jester of -Sigismond Augustus. In vain did Cecchi vilify Dante; we are not -certain whether his name was not Cecco. In vain did Green fasten on -Shakespeare; he is now confounded with Greene. Avellaneda, the "enemy" -of Cervantes, is perhaps Avellanedo. Lauder, the slanderer of Milton, -is perhaps Leuder. The unknown De Visé, who tormented Molière, turns -out to be a certain Donneau; he had surnamed himself De Visé, through a -taste for nobility. Those men relied, in order to create for themselves -a little _éclat_, on the greatness of those whom they outraged. But -no, they have remained obscure. These poor insulters did not get their -salary. Contempt has failed them. Let us pity them. - - - -CHAPTER II. - - -Let us add that calumny loses its labour. Then what purpose can it -serve? Not even an evil one. Do you know anything more useless than the -sting which does not sting? - -Better still. This sting is beneficial. In a given time it is found -that calumny, envy, and hatred, thinking to labour against, have worked -in aid of truth. Their insults bring fame, their blackening makes -illustrious. They succeed only in mingling with glory an outcry which -increases it. - -Let us continue. - -So, each of the men of genius tries on in his turn this immense human -mask; and such is the strength of the soul which they cause to pass -through the mysterious aperture of the eyes, that this look changes the -mask, and, from terrible, makes it comic, then pensive, then grieved, -then young and smiling, then decrepit, then sensual and gluttonous, -then religious, then outrageous; and it is Cain, Job, Atreus, Ajax, -Priam, Hecuba, Niobe, Clytemnestra, Nausicaa, Pistoclerus, Grumio, -Davus, Pasicompsa, Chimène, Don Arias, Don Diego, Mudarra, Richard -III., Lady Macbeth, Desdemona, Juliet, Romeo, Lear, Sancho Panza, -Pantagruel, Panurge, Arnolphe, Dandin Sganarelle, Agnes, Rosine, -Victorine, Basile, Almaviva, Cherubin, Manfred. - -From the direct divine creation proceeds Adam, the prototype. From -the indirect divine creation,--that is to say, from the human -creation,--proceed other Adams, the types. - -A type does not produce any man in particular; it cannot be exactly -superposed upon any individual; it sums up and concentrates under -one human form a whole family of characters and minds. A type is no -abridgment; it is a condensation. It is not one, it is all Alcibiades -is but Alcibiades, Petronius is but Petronius, Bassompierre is -but Bassompierre, Buckingham is but Buckingham, Fronsac is but -Fronsac, Lauzun is but Lauzun; but take Lauzun, Fronsac, Buckingham, -Bassompierre, Petronius, and Alcibiades, and pound them in the mortar -of imagination, and from that process you have a phantom more real -than them all,--Don Juan. Take the usurers one by one; no one of them -is that fierce merchant of Venice, crying, "Go, Tubal, fee me an -officer, bespeak him a fortnight before; I will have the heart of him -if he forfeit." Take all the usurers together; from the crowd of them -comes a total,--Shylock. Sum up usury, you have Shylock. The metaphor -of the people, who are never mistaken, confirms, without knowing it, -the inventions of the poet; and while Shakespeare makes Shylock, it -creates the _gripe-all._ Shylock is the Jewish bargaining. He is also -Judaism; that is to say, his whole nation,--the high as well as the -low, faith as well as fraud; and it is because he sums up a whole race, -such as oppression has made it, that Shylock is great. Jews, even -those of the Middle Ages, might with reason say that not one of them -is Shylock. Men of pleasure may with reason say that not one of them -is Don Juan. No leaf of the orange-tree when chewed gives the flavour -of the orange, yet there is a deep affinity, an identity of roots, a -sap rising from the same source, the sharing of the same subterraneous -shadow before life. The fruit contains the mystery of the tree, and -the type contains the mystery of the man. Hence the strange vitality -of the type. For--and this is the prodigy--the type lives. If it were -but an abstraction, men would not recognize it, and would allow this -shadow to pass by. The tragedy termed classic makes larvæ; the drama -creates types. A lesson which is a man; a myth with a human face so -plastic that it looks at you, and that its look is a mirror; a parable -which warns you; a symbol which cries out "Beware!" an idea which -is nerve, muscle, and flesh, and which has a heart to love, bowels -to suffer, eyes to weep, and teeth to devour or laugh, a psychical -conception with the relief of actual fact, and which, if it bleeds, -drops real blood,--that is the type. O power of true poetry! Types are -beings. They breathe, palpitate, their steps are heard on the floor, -they exist. They exist with an existence more intense than that of any -creature thinking himself living there in the street. These phantoms -have more density than man. There is in their essence that amount of -eternity which belongs to _chefs-d'œuvre_, and which makes Trimalcion -live, while M. Romieu is dead. - -Types are cases foreseen by God; genius realizes them. It seems that -God prefers to teach man a lesson through man, in order to inspire -confidence. The poet is on the pavement of the living; he speaks to -them nearer to their ear. Thence the efficacy of types. Man is a -premise, the type the conclusion; God creates the phenomenon, genius -puts a name on it; God creates the miser only, genius Harpagon; God -creates the traitor only, genius makes Iago; God creates the coquette, -genius makes Célimène; God creates the citizen only, genius makes -Chrysale; God creates the king only, genius makes Grandgousier. -Sometimes, at a given moment, the type proceeds complete from some -unknown partnership of the mass of the people with a great natural -comedian, involuntary and powerful realizer; the crowd is a mid-wife. -In an epoch which bears at one of its extremities Talleyrand, and at -another Chodruc-Duclos, springs up suddenly, in a flash of lightning, -under the mysterious incubation of the theatre, that spectre, Robert -Macaire. - -Types go and come firmly in art and in Nature. They are the ideal -realized. The good and the evil of man are in these figures. From each -of them results, in the eyes of the thinker, a humanity. - -As we have said before, so many types, so many Adams. The man of Homer, -Achilles, is an Adam; from him comes the species of the slayers: the -man of Æschylus, Prometheus, is an Adam; from him comes the race of the -fighters: Shakespeare's man, Hamlet, is an Adam; to him belongs the -family of the dreamers. Other Adams, created by poets, incarnate, this -one passion, another duty, another reason, another conscience, another -the fall, another the ascension. Prudence, drifting to trepidation, -goes on from the old man Nestor to the old man Géronte. Love, drifting -to appetite, goes on from Daphne to Lovelace. Beauty, entwined with the -serpent, goes from Eve to Melusina. The types begin in Genesis, and a -link of their chain passes through Restif de la Bretonne and Vadé. The -lyric suits them, Billingsgate is not unbecoming to them. They speak -in country dialects by the mouth of Gros-René; and in Homer they say -to Minerva, holding them by the hair of the head: "What dost thou want -with me, goddess?" - -A surprising exception has been conceded to Dante. The man of Dante -is Dante. Dante has, so to speak, created himself a second time in -his poem. He is his own type; his Adam is himself. For the action -of his poem he has sought out no one. He has only taken Virgil as -supernumerary. Moreover, he made himself epic at once, without even -giving himself the trouble to change his name. What he had to do was -in fact simple,--to descend into hell and remount to heaven. What good -was it to trouble himself for so little? He knocks gravely at the door -of the infinite and says, "Open! I am Dante." - - - -CHAPTER III. - - -Two marvellous Adams, we have just said, are the man of Æschylus, -Prometheus, and the man of Shakespeare, Hamlet. - -Prometheus is action. Hamlet is hesitation. - -In Prometheus the obstacle is exterior; in Hamlet it is interior. - -In Prometheus the will is securely nailed down by nails of brass and -cannot get loose; besides, it has by its side two watchers,--Force -and Power. In Hamlet the will is more tied down yet; it is bound by -previous meditation,--the endless chain of the undecided. Try to get -out of yourself if you can! What a Gordian knot is our revery! Slavery -from within, that is slavery indeed. Scale this enclosure, "to dream!" -escape, if you can, from this prison, "to love!" The only dungeon is -that which walls conscience in. Prometheus, in order to be free, has -but a bronze collar to break and a god to conquer; Hamlet must break -and conquer himself. Prometheus can raise himself upright, if he -only lifts a mountain; to raise himself up, Hamlet must lift his own -thoughts. If Prometheus plucks the vulture from his breast, all is -said; Hamlet must tear Hamlet from his breast. Prometheus and Hamlet -are two naked livers; from one runs blood, from the other doubt. - -We are in the habit of comparing Æschylus and Shakespeare by Orestes -and Hamlet, these two tragedies being the same drama. Never in fact was -a subject more identical. The learned mark an analogy between them; the -impotent, who are also the ignorant, the envious, who are also the -imbeciles, have the petty joy of thinking they establish a plagiarism. -It is after all a possible field for erudition and for serious -criticism. Hamlet walks behind Orestes, parricide through filial -love. This easy comparison, rather superficial than deep, strikes us -less than the mysterious confronting of those two enchained beings, -Prometheus and Hamlet. - -Let us not forget that the human mind, half divine as it is, creates -from time to time superhuman works. These superhuman works of man are, -moreover, more numerous than it is thought, for they entirely fill art. -Out of poetry, where marvels abound, there is in music Beethoven, in -sculpture Phidias, in architecture Piranesi, in painting Rembrandt, and -in painting, architecture, and sculpture Michael Angelo. We pass many -over, and not the least. - -Prometheus and Hamlet are among those more than human works. - -A kind of gigantic determination; the usual measure exceeded; greatness -everywhere; that which astounds ordinary intellects demonstrated when -necessary by the improbable; destiny, society, law, religion, brought -to trial and judgment in the name of the Unknown, the abyss of the -mysterious equilibrium; the event treated as a _rôle_ played out, and, -on occasion, hurled as a reproach against Fatality or Providence; -passion, terrible personage, going and coming in man; the audacity and -sometimes the insolence of reason; the haughty forms of a style at ease -in all extremes, and at the same time a profound wisdom; the gentleness -of the giant; the goodness of a softened monster; an ineffable dawn -which cannot be accounted for and which lights up everything,--such are -the signs of those supreme works. In certain poems there is starlight. - -This light is in Æschylus and in Shakespeare. - - - -CHAPTER IV. - - -Nothing can be more fiercely wild than Prometheus stretched on the -Caucasus. It is gigantic tragedy. The old punishment that our ancient -laws of torture call extension, and which Cartouche escaped because -of a hernia, Prometheus undergoes it; only, the wooden horse is a -mountain. What is his crime? Right. To characterize right as crime, -and movement as rebellion, is the immemorial talent of tyrants. -Prometheus has done on Olympus what Eve did in Eden,--he has taken -a little knowledge. Jupiter, identical with Jehovah (_Iovi, Iova_), -punishes this temerity,--the desire to live. The Eginetic traditions, -which localize Jupiter, deprive him of the cosmic personality of -the Jehovah of Genesis. The Greek Jupiter, bad son of a bad father, -in rebellion against Saturn, who has himself been a rebel against -Cœlus, is a _parvenu._ The Titans are a sort of elder branch, which -has its legitimists, of whom Æschylus, the avenger of Prometheus, was -one. Prometheus is right conquered. Jupiter has, as is always the -case, consummated the usurpation of power by the punishment of right. -Olympus claims the aid of Caucasus. Prometheus is fastened there to the -_carcan._ There is the Titan, fallen, prostrate, nailed down. Mercury, -the friend of everybody, comes to give him such counsel as follows -generally the perpetration of _coups d'état._ Mercury is the type of -cowardly intellect, of every possible vice, but of vice full of wit. -Mercury, the god of vice, serves Jupiter the god of crime. This fawning -in evil is still marked to-day by the veneration of the pickpocket -for the assassin. There is something of that law in the arrival of the -diplomatist behind the conqueror. The _chefs-d'œuvre_ are immense -in this, that they are eternally present to the deeds of humanity. -Prometheus on the Caucasus, is Poland after 1772; France after 1815; -the Revolution after Brumaire. Mercury speaks; Prometheus listens but -little. Offers of amnesty miscarry when it is the victim who alone -should have the right to grant pardon. Prometheus, though conquered, -scorns Mercury standing proudly above him, and Jupiter standing above -Mercury, and Destiny standing above Jupiter. Prometheus jests at the -vulture which gnaws at him; he shrugs disdainfully his shoulders as -much as his chain allows. What does he care for Jupiter, and what good -is Mercury? There is no hold on this haughty sufferer. The scorching -thunderbolt causes a smart, which is a constant call upon pride. -Meanwhile tears flow around him, the earth despairs, the women-clouds -(the fifty Oceanides), come to worship the Titan, the forests scream, -wild beasts groan, winds howl, the waves sob, the elements moan, the -world suffers in Prometheus; his _carcan_ chokes universal life. -An immense participation in the torture of the demigod seems to be -henceforth the tragic delight of all Nature; anxiety for the future -mingles with it: and what is to be done now? How are we to move? What -will become of us? And in the vast whole of created beings, things, -men, animals, plants, rocks, all turned toward the Caucasus, is felt -this inexpressible anguish,--the liberator is enchained. - -Hamlet, less of a giant and more of a man, is not less grand,--Hamlet, -the appalling, the unaccountable, complete in incompleteness; all, -in order to be nothing. He is prince and demagogue, sagacious and -extravagant, profound and frivolous, man and neuter. He has but -little faith in the sceptre, rails at the throne, has a student for -his comrade, converses with any one passing by, argues with the first -comer, understands the people, despises the mob, hates strength, -suspects success, questions obscurity, and says "thou" to mystery. He -gives to others maladies which he has not himself: his false madness -inoculates his mistress with true madness. He is familiar with spectres -and with comedians. He jests with the axe of Orestes in his hand. He -talks of literature, recites verses, composes a theatrical criticism, -plays with bones in a cemetery, dumbfounds his mother, avenges his -father, and ends the wonderful drama of life and death by a gigantic -point of interrogation. He terrifies and then disconcerts. Never has -anything more overwhelming been dreamed. It is the parricide saying: -"What do I know?" - -Parricide? Let us pause on that word. Is Hamlet a parricide? Yes, and -no. He confines himself to threatening his mother; but the threat is so -fierce that the mother shudders. His words are like daggers. "What wilt -thou do? Thou wilt not murder me? Help! help! ho!" And when she dies, -Hamlet, without grieving for her, strikes Claudius with this tragic -cry: "Follow my mother!" Hamlet is that sinister thing, the possible -parricide. - -In place of the northern ice which he has in his nature, let him have, -like Orestes, southern fire in his veins, and he will kill his mother. - -This drama is stern. In it truth doubts, sincerity lies. Nothing can -be more immense, more subtile. In it man is the world, and the world -is zero. Hamlet, even full of life, is not sure of his existence. -In this tragedy, which is at the same time a philosophy, everything -floats, hesitates, delays, staggers, becomes discomposed, scatters, -and is dispersed. Thought is a cloud, will is a vapour, resolution is -a crepuscule; the action blows each moment in an opposite direction; -man is governed by the winds. Overwhelming and vertiginous work, in -which is seen the depth of everything, in which thought oscillates only -between the king murdered and Yorick buried, and in which what is best -realized is royalty represented by a ghost, and mirth represented by a -death's-head. - -"Hamlet" is the _chef-d'œuvre_ of the tragedy-dream. - - - -CHAPTER V. - - -One of the probable causes of the feigned madness of Hamlet has not -been up to the present time indicated by critics. It has been said, -"Hamlet acts the madman to hide his thought, like Brutus." In fact, it -is easy for apparent imbecility to hatch a great project; the supposed -idiot can take aim deliberately. But the case of Brutus is not that -of Hamlet. Hamlet acts the madman for his safety. Brutus screens his -project, Hamlet his person. The manners of those tragic courts being -known, from the moment that Hamlet, through the revelation of the -ghost, is acquainted with the crime of Claudius, Hamlet is in danger. -The superior historian within the poet is here manifested, and one -feels the deep insight of Shakespeare into the ancient darkness of -royalty. In the Middle Ages and in the Lower Empire, and even at -earlier periods, woe unto him who found out a murder or a poisoning -committed by a king! Ovid, according to Voltaire's conjecture, was -exiled from Rome for having seen something shameful in the house of -Augustus. To know that the king was an assassin was a State crime. -When it pleased the prince not to have had a witness, it was a matter -involving one's head to ignore everything. It was bad policy to have -good eyes. A man suspected of suspicion was lost. He had but one -refuge,--folly; to pass for "an innocent" He was despised, and that was -all. Do you remember the advice that, in Æschylus, the Ocean gives to -Prometheus: "To look a fool is the secret of the wise man." When the -Chamberlain Hugolin found the iron spit with which Edrick the Vendee -had empaled Edmond II., "he hastened to put on madness," says the Saxon -Chronicle of 1016, and saved himself in that way. Heraclian of Nisibe, -having discovered by chance that Rhinomete was a fratricide, had -himself declared mad by the doctors, and succeeded in getting himself -shut up for life in a cloister. He thus lived peaceably, growing old -and waiting for death with a vacant stare. Hamlet runs the same peril, -and has recourse to the same means. He gets himself declared mad like -Heraclian, and puts on folly like Hugolin. This does not prevent the -restless Claudius from twice making an effort to get rid of him,--in -the middle of the drama by the axe or the dagger in England, and toward -the conclusion by poison. - -The same indication is again found in "King Lear;" the Earl of -Gloster's son takes refuge also in apparent lunacy. There is in that a -key to open and understand Shakespeare's thought. In the eyes of the -philosophy of art, the feigned folly of Edgar throws light upon the -feigned folly of Hamlet. - -The Amleth of Belleforest is a magician; the Hamlet of Shakespeare -is a philosopher. We just now spoke of the strange reality which -characterizes poetical creations. There is no more striking example -than this type,--Hamlet. Hamlet has nothing belonging to an abstraction -about him. He has been at the University; he has the Danish rudeness -softened by Italian politeness; he is small, plump, somewhat -lymphatic; he fences well with the sword, but is soon out of breath. -He does not care to drink too soon during the assault of arms with -Laërtes,--probably for fear of producing perspiration. After having -thus supplied his personage with real life, the poet can launch him -into full ideal. There is ballast enough. - -Other works of the human mind equal "Hamlet;" none surpasses it. The -whole majesty of melancholy is in "Hamlet." An open sepulchre from -which goes forth a drama,--this is colossal "Hamlet" is to our mind -Shakespeare's chief work. - -No figure among those that poets have created is more poignant and -stirring. Doubt counselled by a ghost,--that is Hamlet. Hamlet has -seen his dead father and has spoken to him. Is he convinced? No, he -shakes his head. What shall he do? He does not know. His hands clench, -then fall by his side. Within him are conjectures, systems, monstrous -apparitions, bloody recollections, veneration for the spectre, hate, -tenderness, anxiety to act and not to act, his father, his mother, -his duties in contradiction to each other,--a deep storm. Livid -hesitation is in his mind. Shakespeare, wonderful plastic poet, makes -the grandiose pallor of this soul almost visible. Like the great larva -of Albert Dürer, Hamlet might be named "Melancholia." He also has above -his head the bat which flies disembowelled; and at his feet science, -the sphere, the compass, the hour-glass, love; and behind him in the -horizon an enormous, terrible sun, which seems to make the sky but -darker. - -Nevertheless, at least one half of Hamlet is anger, transport, outrage, -hurricane, sarcasm to Ophelia, malediction on his mother, insult to -himself. He talks with the gravediggers, nearly laughs, then clutches -Laërtes by the hair in the very grave of Ophelia, and stamps furiously -upon the coffin. Sword-thrusts at Polonius, sword-thrusts at Laërtes, -sword-thrusts at Claudius. From time to time his inaction is tom in -twain, and from the rent comes forth thunder. - -He is tormented by that possible life, intermixed with reality and -chimera, the anxiety of which is shared by all of us. There is in -all his actions an expanded somnambulism. One might almost consider -his brain as a formation; there is a layer of suffering, a layer of -thought, then a layer of dreaminess. It is through this layer of -dreaminess that he feels, comprehends, learns, perceives, drinks, eats, -frets, mocks, weeps, and reasons. There is between life and him a -transparency; it is the wall of dreams. One sees beyond, but one cannot -step over it. A kind of cloudy obstacle everywhere surrounds Hamlet. -Have you ever while sleeping, had the nightmare of pursuit or flight, -and tried to hasten on, and felt anchylosis in the knees, heaviness in -the arms, the horror of paralysed hands, the impossibility of movement? -This nightmare Hamlet undergoes while waking. Hamlet is not upon the -spot where his life is. He has ever the appearance of a man who talks -to you from the other side of a stream. He calls to you at the same -time that he questions you. He is at a distance from the catastrophe in -which he takes part, from the passer-by whom he interrogates, from the -thought that he carries, from the action that he performs. He seems not -to touch even what he grinds. It is isolation in its highest degree. It -is the loneliness of a mind, even more than the loftiness of a prince. -Indecision is in fact a solitude. You have not even your will to keep -you company. It is as if your own self was absent and had left you -there. The burden of Hamlet is less rigid than that of Orestes, but -more undulating. Orestes carries predestination; Hamlet carries fate. - -And thus apart from men, Hamlet has still in him a something which -represents them all. _Agnosco fratrem._ At certain hours, if we felt -our own pulse, we should be conscious of his fever. His strange reality -is our own reality after alL He is the mournful man that we all are in -certain situations. Unhealthy as he is, Hamlet expresses a permanent -condition of man. He represents the discomfort of the soul in a life -which is not sufficiently adapted to it He represents the shoe that -pinches and stops our walking; the shoe is the body. Shakespeare -frees him from it, and he is right Hamlet--prince if you like, but -king never--Hamlet is incapable of governing a people; he lives too -much in a world beyond. On the other hand, he does better than to -reign; he _is._ Take from him his family, his country, his ghost, and -the whole adventure at Elsinore, and even in the form of an inactive -type, he remains strangely terrible. That is the consequence of the -amount of humanity and the amount of mystery that is in him. Hamlet is -formidable, which does not prevent his being ironical. He has the two -profiles of destiny. - -Let us retract a statement made above. The chief work of Shakespeare -is not "Hamlet" The chief work of Shakespeare is all Shakespeare. That -is, moreover, true of all minds of this order. They are mass, block, -majesty, bible, and their solemnity is their ensemble. - -Have you sometimes looked upon a cape prolonging itself under the -clouds and jutting out, as far as the eye can go, into the deep -water? Each of its hillocks contributes to make it up. No one of its -undulations is lost in its dimension. Its strong outline is sharply -marked upon the sky, and enters as far as possible into the waves, and -there is not a useless rock. Thanks to this cape, you can go amidst the -boundless waters, walk among the winds, see closely the eagles soar -and the monsters swim, let your humanity wander mid the eternal hum, -penetrate the impenetrable. The poet renders this service to your mind. -A genius is a promontory into the infinite. - - - -CHAPTER VI - - -Near "Hamlet," and on the same level, must be placed three grand -dramas,--"Macbeth," "Othello," "King Lear." - -Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, Lear,--these four figures tower upon the -lofty edifice of Shakespeare. We have said what Hamlet is. - -To say, "Macbeth is ambition," is to say nothing. Macbeth is hunger. -What hunger? The hunger of ten monsters, which is always possible in -man. Certain souls have teeth. Do not wake up their hunger. - -To bite at the apple, that is a fearful thing. The apple is called -_Omnia_, says Filesac, that doctor of the Sorbonne who confessed -Ravaillac. Macbeth has a wife whom the chronicle calls Gruoch. This Eve -tempts this Adam. Once Macbeth has given the first bite he is lost. The -first thing that Adam produces with Eve is Cain; the first thing that -Macbeth accomplishes with Gruoch is murder. - -Covetousness easily becoming violence, violence easily becoming -crime, crime easily becoming madness,--this progression is Macbeth. -Covetousness, crime, madness,--these three vampires have spoken to him -in the solitude, and have invited him to the throne. The cat Graymalkin -has called him: Macbeth will be cunning. The toad Paddock has called -him: Macbeth will be horror. The _unsexed_ being, Gruoch, completes -him. It is done; Macbeth is no longer a man. He is nothing more than -an unconscious energy rushing wildly toward evil. Henceforth, no -notion of right; appetite is everything. Transitory right, royalty; -eternal right, hospitality,--Macbeth murders them all. He does more -than slay them,--he ignores them. Before they fell bleeding under -his hand, they already lay dead within his soul. Macbeth commences -by this parricide,--the murder of Duncan, his guest; a crime so -terrible that from the counter-blow in the night, when their master -is stabbed, the horses of Duncan again become wild. The first step -taken, the fall begins. It is the avalanche. Macbeth rolls headlong. -He is precipitated. He falls and rebounds from one crime to another, -always deeper and deeper. He undergoes the mournful gravitation of -matter invading the soul. He is a thing that destroys. He is a stone -of ruin, flame of war, beast of prey, scourge. He marches over all -Scotland, king as he is, his bare legged kernes and his heavily-armed -gallowglasses, devouring, pillaging, slaying. He decimates the Thanes, -he kills Banquo, he kills all the Macduffs except the one who shall -slay him, he kills the nobility, he kills the people, he kills his -country, he kills "sleep." At length the catastrophe arrives,--the -forest of Birnam moves against him. Macbeth has infringed all, burst -through everything, violated everything, torn everything, and this -desperation ends in arousing even Nature. Nature loses patience, Nature -enters into action against Macbeth, Nature becomes soul against the man -who has become brute force. - -This drama has epic proportions. Macbeth represents that frightful -hungry one who prowls throughout history, called brigand in the forest -and on the throne conqueror. The ancestor of Macbeth is Nimrod. These -men of force, are they forever furious? Let us be just; no. They have a -goal, which being attained, they stop. Give to Alexander, to Cyrus, to -Sesostris, to Cæsar, what?--the world; they are appeased. Geoffroy St. -Hilaire said to me one day: "When the lion has eaten, he is at peace -with Nature." For Cambyses, Sennacherib, and Genghis Khan, and their -parallels, to have eaten is to possess all the earth. They would calm -themselves down in the process of digesting the human race. - -Now, what is Othello? He is night; an immense fatal figure. Night is -amorous of day. Darkness loves the dawn. The African adores the white -woman. Desdemona is Othello's brightness and frenzy! And then how easy -to him is jealousy! He is great, he is dignified, he is majestic, he -soars above all heads, he has as an escort bravery, battle, the braying -of trumpets, the banner of war, renown, glory; he is radiant with -twenty victories, he is studded with stars, this Othello: but he is -black. And thus how soon, when jealous, the hero becomes monster, the -black becomes the negro! How speedily has night beckoned to death! - -By the side of Othello, who is night, there is Iago, who is -evil,--evil, the other form of darkness. Night is but the night of the -world; evil is the night of the soul. How deeply black are perfidy -and falsehood! To have ink or treason in the veins is the same thing. -Whoever has jostled against imposture and perjury knows it. One must -blindly grope one's way with roguery. Pour hypocrisy upon the break -of day, and you put out the sun; and this, thanks to false religions, -happens to God. - -Iago near Othello is the precipice near the landslip. "This way!" -he says in a low voice. The snare advises blindness. The being of -darkness guides the black. Deceit takes upon itself to give what -light may be required by night. Jealousy uses falsehood as the -blind man his dog. Othello the negro, Iago the traitor, opposed to -whiteness and candour,--what can be more terrible! These ferocities -of the darkness act in unison. These two incarnations of the eclipse -conspire together,--the one roaring, the other sneering; the tragic -extinguishment of light. - -Sound this profound thing. Othello is the night, and being night, and -wishing to kill, what does he take to slay with? Poison, the club, -the axe, the knife? No; the pillow. To kill is to lull to sleep. -Shakespeare himself perhaps did not take this into account. The creator -sometimes, almost unknown to himself, yields to his type, so much is -that type a power. And it is thus that Desdemona, spouse of the man -Night, dies stifled by the pillow, which has had the first kiss, and -which has the last sigh. - -Lear is the occasion for Cordelia. Maternity of the daughter toward -the father,--profound subject; maternity venerable among all other -maternities, so admirably translated by the legend of that Roman girl, -who, in the depth of a prison, nurses her old father. The young breast -near the white beard,--there is not a spectacle more holy. This filial -breast is Cordelia. - -Once this figure dreamed of and found, Shakespeare created his -drama. Where should he put this consoling vision? In an obscure age. -Shakespeare has taken the year of the world 3105, the time when -Joas was king of Judah, Aganippus, king of France, and Leir, king -of England. The whole earth was at that time mysterious. Represent -to yourself that epoch: the temple of Jerusalem is still quite new; -the gardens of Semiramis, constructed nine hundred years previously, -begin to crumble; the first gold coin appears in Ægina; the first -balance is made by Phydon, tyrant of Argos; the first eclipse of the -sun is calculated by the Chinese; three hundred and twelve years have -passed since Orestes, accused by the Eumenides before the Areopagus, -was acquitted; Hesiod is just dead; Homer, if he still lives, is a -hundred years old; Lycurgus, thoughtful traveller, re-enters Sparta; -and one may perceive in the depth of the sombre cloud of the East -the chariot fire which carries Elias away. It is at that period that -Leir--Lear--lives, and reigns over the dark islands. Jonas, Holofernes, -Draco, Solon, Thespis, Nebuchadnezzar, Anaximenes who is to invent the -signs of the zodiac, Cyrus, Zorobabel, Tarquin, Pythagoras, Æschylus, -are not born yet Coriolanus, Xerxes, Cincinnatus, Pericles, Socrates, -Brennus, Aristotle, Timoleon, Demosthenes, Alexander, Epicurus, -Hannibal, are larvæ waiting their hour to enter among men. Judas -Maccabæus, Viriatus, Popilius, Jugurtha, Mithridates, Marius and Sylla, -Cæsar and Pompey, Cleopatra and Antony, are far away in the future; -and at the moment when Lear is king of Brittany and of Iceland, there -must pass away eight hundred and ninety-five years before Virgil says, -"Penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos," and nine hundred and fifty -years before Seneca says "Ultima Thule." The Picts and the Celts (the -Scotch and the English) are tattooed. A redskin of the present day -gives a vague idea of an Englishman then. It is this twilight that -Shakespeare has chosen,--a broad night well adapted to the dream in -which this inventor at his pleasure puts everything that he chooses, -this King Lear, and then a King of France, a Duke of Burgundy, a Duke -of Cornwall, a Duke of Albany, an Earl of Kent, and an Earl of Gloster. -What does your history matter to him who has humanity? Besides, he -has with him the legend, which is a kind of science also, and as -true as history perhaps, but in another point of view. Shakespeare -agrees with Walter Mapes, archdeacon of Oxford,--that is something; -he admits, from Brutus to Cadwalla, the ninety-nine Celtic kings who -have preceded the Scandinavian Hengist and the Saxon Horsa: and since -he believes in Mulmutius, Cinigisil, Ceolulf, Cassibelan, Cymbeline, -Cynulphus, Arviragus, Guiderius, Escuin, Cudred, Vortigern, Arthur, -Uther Pendragon, he has every right to believe in King Lear, and to -create Cordelia. This land adopted, the place for the scene marked out, -this foundation established, he takes everything and builds his work. -Unheard of edifice. He takes tyranny, of which, at a later period, -he will make weakness,--Lear; he takes treason,--Edmond; he takes -devotion,--Kent; he takes ingratitude which begins with a caress, and -he gives to this monster two heads,--Goneril, whom the legend calls -Gornerille, and Regan, whom the legend calls Ragaü; he takes paternity; -he takes royalty; he takes feudality; he takes ambition; he takes -madness, which he divides into three, and he puts in presence three -madmen,--the king's buffoon, madman by trade; Edgar of Gloster, mad for -prudence's sake; the king mad through misery. It is at the summit of -this tragic heap that he raises Cordelia. - -There are some formidable cathedral towers, like, for instance, the -Giralda of Seville, which seem made all complete, with their spirals, -their staircases, their sculptures, their cellars, their cœcums, their -aerial cells, their sounding chambers, their bells, and their mass -and their spire, and all their enormity, in order to carry an angel -spreading on their summit her golden wings. Such is this drama, "King -Lear." - -The father is the pretext for the daughter. This admirable human -creation, Lear, serves as a support to that ineffable divine creation, -Cordelia. The reason why that chaos of crimes, vices, madnesses, and -miseries exists is, for the more splendid setting forth of virtue. -Shakespeare, carrying Cordelia in his thoughts, created that tragedy -like a god who, having an Aurora to put forward, makes a world -expressly for it. - -And what a figure is that father! What a caryatid! He is man bent down -by weight, but shifts his burdens for others that are heavier. The more -the old man becomes enfeebled, the more his load augments. He lives -under an overburden. He bears at first power, then ingratitude, then -isolation, then despair, then hunger and thirst, then madness, then all -Nature. Clouds overcast him, forests heap shadow on him, the hurricane -beats on the nape of his neck, the tempest makes his mantle heavy as -lead, the rain falls on his shoulders, he walks bent and haggard as if -he had the two knees of night upon his back. Dismayed and yet immense, -he throws to the winds and to the hail this epic cry: "Why do you hate -me, tempests? Why do you persecute me? _You are not my daughters._" -And then it is over; the light is extinguished,--reason loses courage -and leaves him. Lear is in his dotage. Ah, he is childish, this old -man. Very well! he requires a mother. His daughter appears,--his one -daughter Cordelia; for the two others Regan and Goneril, are no longer -his daughters, save to that extent which gives them a right to the name -of parricides. - -Cordelia approaches.--"Sir, do you know me?" "You are a spirit, -I know," replies the old man, with the sublime clairvoyance of -bewilderment. From this moment the adorable nursing commences. Cordelia -applies herself to nourish this old despairing soul, dying of inanition -in hatred. Cordelia nourishes Lear with love, and his courage revives; -she nourishes him with respect, and the smile returns; she nourishes -him with hope, and confidence is restored; she nourishes him with -wisdom, and reason revives. Lear, convalescent, rises again, and, step -by step, returns again to life. The child becomes again an old man; -the old man becomes a man again. And behold him happy, this wretched -one. It is on this expansion of happiness that the catastrophe is -hurled down. Alas! there are traitors, there are perjurers, there are -murderers. Cordelia dies. Nothing more heart-rending than this. The -old man is stunned; he no longer understands anything; and embracing -the corpse, he expires. He dies on this dead one. The supreme anguish -is spared him of remaining behind her among the living, a poor shadow, -to feel the place in his heart empty and to seek for his soul, carried -away by that sweet being who is departed. O God, those whom thou lovest -thou dost not allow to survive. - -To live after the flight of the angel; to be the father orphaned of -his child; to be the eye which no longer has light; to be the deadened -heart which has no more joy; from time to time to stretch the hands -into obscurity, and try to reclasp a being who was there (where, then, -can she be?); to feel himself forgotten in that departure; to have lost -all reason for being here below; to be henceforth a man who goes to -and fro before a sepulchre, not received, not admitted,--that would be -indeed a gloomy destiny. Thou hast done well, poet, to kill this old -man. - - - - -BOOK III. - - -ZOILUS AS ETERNAL AS HOMER. - - - -CHAPTER I. - - - "Ce courtisan grossier du profane vulgaire."[1] - -This Alexandrine is by La Harpe, who hurls it at Shakespeare. Somewhere -else La Harpe says, "Shakespeare panders to the mob." - -Voltaire, as a matter of course, reproaches Shakespeare with -antithesis: that is well. And La Beaumelle reproaches Voltaire with -antithesis: that is better. - -Voltaire, when he is himself in question, _pro domo sua_, gets angry. -"But," he writes, "this Langleviel, alias La Beaumelle, is an ass. I -defy you to find in any poet, in any book, a fine thing which is not an -image or an antithesis." - -Voltaire's criticism is double-edged. He wounds and is wounded. This is -how he characterizes the Ecclesiastes and the Canticle of Canticles: -"Works without order, full of low images and coarse expressions." - -A little while after, furious, he exclaims,-- - - "On m'ose préférer Crébillon le barbare!"[2] - -An idler of the Œil-de-Bœuf, wearing the red heel and the blue -ribbon, a stripling and a marquis,--M. de Créqui,--comes to Ferney, -and writes with an air of superiority: "I have seen Voltaire, that -childish old man." - -That injustice should receive a counterstroke from injustice, is -nothing more than right; and Voltaire gets what he deserved. But to -throw stones at men of genius is a general law, and all have to bear -it. Insult is a crown, it appears. - -For Saumaise, Æschylus is nothing but farrago.[3] Quintilian -understands nothing of the "Orestias." Sophocles mildly scorned -Æschylus. "When he does well, he does not know it," said Sophocles. -Racine rejected everything, except two or three scenes of the -"Choephori," which he condescended to spare by a note in the margin of -his copy of Æschylus. Fontenelle says in his "Remarques": "One does -not know what to make of the 'Prometheus' of Æschylus. Æschylus is a -kind of madman." The eighteenth century, without exception, railed at -Diderot for admiring the "Eumenides." - -"The whole of Dante is a hotch-potch," says Chaudon. "Michael Angelo -wearies me," says Joseph de Maistre. "Not one of the eight comedies of -Cervantes is supportable," says La Harpe. "It is a pity that Molière -does not know how to write," says Fénélon. "Molière is a worthless -buffoon," says Bossuet. "A schoolboy would avoid the mistakes of -Milton," says the Abbé Trublet, an authority as good as another. -"Corneille exaggerates, Shakespeare raves," says that same Voltaire, -who must always be fought against and fought for. - -"Shakespeare," says Ben Jonson, "talked heavily and without any wit." -How prove the contrary? Writings remain, talk passes away. Well, it is -always so much denied to Shakespeare. That man of genius had no wit: -how nicely that flatters the numberless men of wit who have no genius! - -Some time before Scudéry called Corneille "Corneille déplumée" -(unfeathered carrion crow), Green had called Shakespeare "a crow -decked out with our feathers." In 1752 Diderot was sent to the -fortress of Vincennes for having published the first volume of the -"Encyclopædia," and the great success of the year was a print sold -on the quays which represented a Franciscan friar flogging Diderot. -Although Weber is dead,--an attenuating circumstance for those who -are guilty of genius,--he is turned into ridicule in Germany; and for -thirty-three years a _chef-d'œuvre_ has been disposed of with a pun. -The "Euryanthe" is called the "Ennuyante" (wearisome). - -D'Alembert hits at one blow Calderon and Shakespeare. He writes to -Voltaire:-- - - "I have announced to the Academy your 'Heraclius,' of - Calderon. The Academy will read it with as much pleasure as - the harlequinade of Gilles Shakespeare."[4] - -That everything should be perpetually brought again into question, that -everything should be contested, even the incontestable,--what does it -matter? The eclipse is a good trial for truth as well as for liberty. -Genius, being truth and liberty, has a claim to persecution. What -matters to genius that which is transient? It was before, and will be -after. It is not on the sun that the eclipse throws darkness. - -Everything can be written. Paper is patience itself. Last year a grave -review printed this: "Homer is now going out of fashion." - -The judgment passed on the philosopher, on the artist, on the poet is -completed by the portrait of the man. - -Byron has killed his tailor. Molière has married his own daughter. -Shakespeare has "loved" Lord Southampton. - - "Et pour voir à la fin tous les vices ensemble, - Le parterre en tumulte a demandé l'auteur."[5] - -That _ensemble_ of all vices is Beaumarchais. - -As for Byron, we mention this name a second time; he is worth the -trouble. Read "Glenarvon," and listen, on the subject of Byron's -abominations, to Lady Bl---, whom he had loved, and who, of course, -resented it. - -Phidias was a procurer; Socrates was an apostate and a thief, -_décrocheur de manteaux_; Spinosa was a renegade, and sought to -obtain legacies by undue influence; Dante was a peculator; Michael -Angelo was cudgelled by Julius II., and quietly put up with it for -the sake of five hundred crowns; D'Aubigné was a courtier sleeping in -the water-closet of the king, ill-tempered when he was not paid, and -for whom Henri IV. was too kind; Diderot was a libertine; Voltaire a -miser; Milton was venal,--he received a thousand pounds sterling for -his apology, in Latin, of regicide: "Defensio pro se," etc. Who says -these things? Who relates these histories? That good person, your old -fawning friend, O tyrants, your ancient comrade, O traitors, your old -auxiliary, O bigots, your ancient comforter, O imbeciles!--calumny. - - - -[Footnote 1: This coarse flatterer of the vulgar herd.] - -[Footnote 2: To me they dare to prefer Crébillon the barbarian.] - -[Footnote 3: The passage in Saumaise is curious and worth the trouble -of being transcribed:-- - - Unus ejus Agamemnon obscuritate superat quantum est - librorum sacrorum cum suis hebraismis et syrianismis et - totâ hellenisticâ supellectile vel farragine. - --_De Re - Hellenisticâ_, p. 38, ep. dedic.] - - -[Footnote 4: Letter CV.] - -[Footnote 5: - - "And at last, in order to see all the vices together, - The riotous pit called for the author." - -] - - - - -CHAPTER II. - - -Let us add a detail. Diatribe is, on certain occasions, a useful means -of government. - -Thus the hand of the police was in the print of Diderot Flogged, and -the engraver of the Franciscan friar must have been kindred to the -turnkey of Vincennes. Governments, more passionate than necessary, -neglect to remain strangers to the animosities of the lower orders. -Political persecution of former days--it is of former days that we are -speaking--willingly availed itself of a dash of literary persecution. -Certainly, hatred hates without being paid for it. Envy, to do its -work, does not need a minister of State to encourage it and to give -it a pension; and there is such a thing as unofficial calumny. But -a money-bag does no harm. When Roy, the court-poet, rhymed against -Voltaire, "Tell me, daring stoic," etc., the position of treasurer of -the chamber of Clermont, and the cross of St. Michael, were not likely -to damp his enthusiasm for the Court, and his spirit against Voltaire. -A gratuity is pleasant to receive after a service rendered; the masters -upstairs smile; you receive the agreeable order to insult some one -you detest; you obey richly; you are free to bite like a glutton; you -take your fill; it is all profit; you hate and you give satisfaction. -Formerly authority had its scribes. It was a pack of hounds as good as -any other. Against the free rebel spirit, the despot would let loose -the scribbler. To torture was not sufficient; teasing was resorted to -likewise. Trissotin held a confabulation with Vidocq, and from their -_tête-à-tête_ would burst a complex inspiration. Pedagogism, thus -supported by the police, felt itself an integral part of authority, -and strengthened its æsthetics with legal means. It was arrogant. The -pedant raised to the dignity of policeman,--nothing can be so arrogant -as that vileness. See, after the struggle between the Arminians and -the Gomarists, with what a superb air Sparanus Buyter, his pocket full -of Maurice of Nassau's florins, denounces Josse Vondel, and proves, -Aristotle in hand, that the Palamède of Vondel's tragedy is no other -than Barneveldt,--useful rhetoric, by which Buyter obtains against -Vondel a fine of three hundred crowns, and for himself a fat prebend at -Dordrecht. - -The author of the book "Querelles Littéraires," the Abbé Irail, canon -of Monistrol, asks of La Beaumelle: "Why do you insult M. de Voltaire -so much?" "It is because it sells well," replies La Beaumelle. And -Voltaire, informed of the question and of the reply, concludes: "It is -just; the booby buys the writing, and the minister buys the writer. It -sells well." - -Françoise d'Issembourg de Happoncourt, wife of François Hugo, -chamberlain of Lorraine, and very celebrated under the name of Madame -de Graffigny, writes to M. Devaux, reader to King Stanislaus:-- - - My dear Pampam,--Atys being far off [read: Voltaire being - banished], the police cause to be published against him a - swarm of small writings and pamphlets, which are sold at - a sou in the cafés and theatres. That would displease the - marquise,[1] if it did not please the king. - -Desfontaines, that other insulter of Voltaire, by whom he had been -taken out of Bicêtre, said to the Abbé Prévost, who advised him to make -his peace with the philosopher: "If Algiers did not make war, Algiers -would die of famine." - -This Desfontaines, also an abbé, died of dropsy; and his well-known -tastes gained for him this epitaph: "Periit aqua qui meruit igne." - -Among the publications suppressed in the last century by decree of -Parliament, can be observed a document printed by Quinet and Besogne, -and destroyed doubtless because of the revelations it contained, and of -which the title gave promise: "L'Arétinade, ou Tarif des Libellistes et -Gens de Lettres Injurieux." - -Madame de Staël, sent in exile forty-five leagues from Paris, stops -exactly at the forty-five leagues,--at Beaumont-sur-Loire,--and thence -writes to her friends. Here is a fragment of a letter addressed to -Madame Gay, mother of the illustrious Madame de Girardin:-- - - "Ah, dear madame, what a persecution are these exiles!... - [We suppress some lines.] You write a book; it is forbidden - to speak of it. Your name in the journals displeases. - Permission is, however, fully given to speak ill of it." - -[Footnote 1: Madame de Pompadour.] - - - -CHAPTER III. - - -Sometimes the diatribe is sprinkled with quicklime. All those black -pen-nibs finish by digging ill-omened ditches. - -Among the writers abhorred for having been useful, Voltaire and -Rousseau hold a conspicuous rank. They were reviled when alive, mangled -when dead. To have a bite at these renowned ones was a splendid deed, -and reckoned as such in favour of literary constables. A man who -insulted Voltaire was at once promoted to the dignity of pedant. Men in -power encouraged the men of libellous propensity. A swarm of mosquitoes -have rushed upon those two illustrious minds, and ate yet buzzing. - -Voltaire is the most hated, being the greatest. Everything was good for -an attack on him, everything was a pretext: Mesdames de France, Newton, -Madame du Châtelet, the Princess of Prussia, Maupertuis, Frederic, the -Encyclopædia, the Academy, even Labarre, Sirven, and Calas,--never -a truce. His popularity suggested to Joseph de Maistre this: "Paris -crowned him; Sodom would have banished him." Arouet was translated into -_A rouer._[1] At the house of the Abbess of Nivelles, Princess of the -Holy Empire, half recluse and half worldling, and having recourse, it -is said, in order to make her cheeks rosy, to the method of the Abbess -of Montbazon, charades were played,--among others, this one: The first -syllable is his fortune; the second should be his duty. The word -was _Vol-taire._[2] A celebrated member of the Academy of Sciences, -Napoleon Bonaparte, seeing in 1803, in the library of the Institute, -in the centre of a crown of laurels, this inscription: "Au grand -Voltaire," scratched with his nail the last three letters, leaving -only, _Au grand Volta!_ - -There is round Voltaire particularly a _cordon sanitaire_ of priests, -the Abbé Desfontaines at the head, the Abbé Nicolardot at the tail. -Fréron, although a layman, is a critic after the priestly fashion, and -belongs to this band. - -Voltaire made his first appearance at the Bastille. His cell was next -to the dungeon in which had died Bernard Palissy. Young, he tasted the -prison; old, exile. He was kept twenty-seven years away from Paris. - -Jean-Jacques, wild and rather surly, was tormented in consequence of -those traits in his nature. Paris issued a writ against his person; -Geneva expelled him; Neufchâtel rejected him; Motiers-Travers damned -him; Bienne stoned him; Berne gave him the choice between prison and -expulsion; London, hospitable London, scoffed at him. - -Both died, following closely on each other. Death caused no -interruption to the outrages. A man is dead; insult does not slacken -pursuit for such a trifle. Hatred can feast on a corpse. Libels -continued, falling furiously on these glories. - -The Revolution came and sent them to the Pantheon. - -At the beginning of this century, children were often brought to see -these two graves. They were told, "It is here." That made a strong -impression on their minds. They carried forever in their thoughts that -apparition of two sepulchres side by side,--the elliptical arch of the -vault; the antique form of the two monuments provisionally covered with -wood painted like marble; these two names, Rousseau, Voltaire, in the -twilight; and the arm carrying a flambeau which was thrust out of the -tomb of Jean-Jacques. - -Louis XVIII. returned. The restoration of the Stuarts had torn Cromwell -from his grave; the restoration of the Bourbons could not do less for -Voltaire. - -One night, in May, 1814, about two o'clock in the morning, a cab -stopped near the barrier of La Gare, which faces Bercy, at the door of -an enclosure of planks. This enclosure surrounded a large vacant piece -of ground, reserved for the projected _entrepôt_, and belonging to the -city of Paris. The cab was coming from the Pantheon, and the coachman -had been ordered to take the most deserted streets. The closed planking -opened. Some men alighted from the cab and entered the enclosure. Two -carried a sack between them. They were conducted, so tradition asserts, -by the Marquis of Puymaurin, afterward deputy to the Invisible Chamber, -and director of the mint, accompanied by his brother, the Comte de -Puymaurin. Other men, many in cassocks, were waiting for them. They -proceeded toward a hole dug in the middle of the field. This hole, -according to one of the witnesses, who since has been waiter at the -inn of the Marronniers at La Rapée, was round, and looked like a blind -well. At the bottom of the hole was quicklime. These men said nothing, -and had no light. The wan break of day gave a ghastly light. The sack -was opened. It was full of bones. These were, pell-mell, the bones -of Jean Jacques and of Voltaire, which had just been withdrawn from -the Pantheon. The mouth of the sack was brought close to the hole, -and the bones were thrown into that darkness. The two skulls struck -against each other; a spark, not likely to be seen by such men as those -present was doubtless exchanged between the head that had made the -"Dictionnaire Philosophique" and the head which had made the "Contrat -Social," and reconciled them. When that was done, when the sack had -been shaken, when Voltaire and Rousseau had been emptied into that -hole, a digger seized a spade, threw inside the opening all the earth -which was at the side, and filled tip the hole; the others stamped -with their feet on the ground, so as to remove from it the appearance -of having been freshly disturbed. One of the assistants took for his -trouble the sack, as the hangman takes the clothing of his victim; -they all left the enclosure, closed the door, got into the cab without -saying a word, and hastily, before the sun had risen, those men got -away. - - - -[Footnote 1: Deserving of being broken on the wheel.] - -[Footnote 2: _Vol_ meaning _theft_, _taire_ meaning to be silent.] - - - -CHAPTER IV. - - -Saumaise, that worse Scaliger, does not comprehend Æschylus, and -rejects him. Who is to blame? Saumaise much, Æschylus little. - -The attentive man who reads great works feels at times, in the middle -of reading, certain sudden fits of cold followed by a kind of excess -of heat ("I no longer understand!--I understand!"), shivering and -burning,--something which causes him to be a little upset, at the same -time that he is very much struck. Only minds of the first order, only -men of supreme genius, subject to heedless wanderings in the infinite, -give to the reader this singular sensation,--stupor for most, ecstasy -for a few. These few are the _élite._ As we have already observed, this -_élite_, gathered from century to century, and always adding to itself, -at last makes up a number, becomes in time a multitude, and composes -the supreme crowd,--the definitive public of men of genius, sovereign -like them. - -It is with that public that at the end one must deal. - -Nevertheless, there is another public, other appraisers, other judges, -to whom we have lately alluded. They are not content. - -The men of genius, the great minds,--this Æschylus, this Isaiah, -this Juvenal, this Dante, this Shakespeare,--are beings, imperious, -tumultuous, violent, passionate, extreme riders of winged steeds, -"overleaping all boundaries," having their own goal, which "goes beyond -the goal," "exaggerated," taking scandalous strides, flying abruptly -from one idea to another, and from the north pole to the south pole, -crossing the heavens in three steps, making little allowance for short -breaths, tossed about by all the winds, and at the same time full of -some unaccountable equestrian confidence amidst their bounds across the -abyss, untractable to the "aristarchs," refractory to state rhetoric, -not amiable to asthmatical _literati_, unsubdued to academic hygiene, -preferring the foam of Pegasus to asses' milk. - -The worthy pedants are kind enough to be afraid for them. The ascent -gives rise to the calculation of the fall. The compassionate cripples -lament for Shakespeare. He is mad; he mounts too high! The crowd of -college fags (they are a crowd) look on in wonder, and get angry. -Æschylus and Dante make their connoisseurs blink their eyes every -moment. This Æschylus is lost! This Dante is near falling! A god is -soaring above; the worthy bourgeois cry out to him: "Look out for -yourself!" - - - -CHAPTER V. - - -Besides, these men of genius disconcert. - -One knows not on what to rely with them. Their lyric fever obeys -them; they interrupt it when they like. They seem wild. All at once -they stop. Their frenzy becomes melancholy. They are seen among the -precipices, alighting ou a peak and folding their wings, and then they -give way to meditation. Their meditation is not less surprising than -their transport. Just now they were soaring above, now they sink below. -But it is always the same boldness. - -They are pensive giants. Their Titanic revery needs the absolute and -the unfathomable in which to expand. They meditate, as the sun shines, -with the abyss around them. - -Their moving to and fro in the ideal gives the vertigo. Nothing is too -lofty for them, and nothing too low. They pass from the pygmy to the -Cyclops, from Polyphemus to the Myrmidons, from Queen Mab to Caliban, -and from a love affair to a deluge, and from Saturn's ring to the doll -of a little child. _Sinite parvulos venire._ One of the pupils of their -eye is a telescope, the other a microscope. They investigate familiarly -these two frightful opposite depths,--the infinitely great and the -infinitely small. - -And one should not be angry with them; and one should not reproach -them for all this! Indeed! Where should we go if such excesses were -to be tolerated? What! No scruple in the choice of subjects, horrible -or sad; and the idea, even if it be disquieting and formidable, -always followed up to its extreme limits, without pity for their -fellow-creatures! These poets only see their own aim; and in everything -are immoderate in their way of doing things. What is Job?--a worm on -an ulcer. What is the Divina Commedia?--a series of torments. What -is the Iliad?--a collection of plagues and wounds; not an artery -cut which is not complaisantly described. Go round for opinions on -Homer: ask of Scaliger, Terrasson, Lamotte, what they think of him. -The fourth of an ode to the shield of Achilles--what intemperance! He -who does not know when to stop never knew how to write. These poets -agitate, disturb, trouble, upset, overwhelm, make everything shiver, -break things, occasionally, here and there. They can cause great -misfortunes; it is terrible. Thus speak the Athenæa, the Sorbonnes, the -sworn-in professors, the societies called learned, Saumaise, successor -of Scaliger at the university of Leyden, and the _bourgeoisie_ after -them,--all who represent in literature and art the great party of -order. What can be more logical? The cough quarrels with the hurricane. - -Those who are poor in wit are joined by those who have too much wit. -The septics lend assistance to the fools. Men of genius, with few -exceptions, are proud and stem; that is in the very marrow of their -bones. They have in company with them Juvenal, Agrippa d'Aubigné, -and Milton; they are prone to harshness; they despise the _panem et -circenses_; they seldom grow sociable, and they growl. People rail at -them in a pleasant way. Well done. - -Ah, poet! Ah, Milton! Ah, Juvenal!--ah, you keep up resistance! ah, -you perpetuate disinterestedness! ah, you bring together these two -firebrands, faith and will, in order to make the flame burst out from -them! ah, there is something of the Vestal in you, old grumbler! ah, -you have an altar,--your country! ah, you. have a tripod,--the ideal! -ah, you believe in the rights of man, in emancipation, in the future, -in progress, in the beautiful, in the just, in what is great! Take -care; you are behindhand. All this virtue is infatuation. You emigrate -with honour; but you emigrate. This heroism is no longer the fashion. -It no longer suits our epoch. There comes a moment when the sacred fire -is no longer fashionable. Poet, you believe in right and truth; you are -behind your century. Your very eternity causes you to pass away. - -So much the worse, without doubt, for those grumbling geniuses -accustomed to greatness, and scornful of what is no longer so. They -are slow in movement when shame is at stake; their back is struck with -anchylosis for anything like bowing and cringing. When success passes -along, deserved or not, but saluted, they have an iron bar keeping -their vertebral column stiff. That is their affair. So much the worse -for those people of old-fashioned Rome. They belong to antiquity and -to antique manners. To bristle up at every turn may have been all very -well in former days. Those long bristling manes are no longer worn; -the lions are out of fashion now. The French Revolution is nearly -seventy-five years old. At that age dotage comes. The people of the -present time mean to belong to their day, and even to their minute. -Certainly, we find no fault with it. Whatever is, must be. It is quite -right that what exists should exist The forms of public prosperity -are various. One generation is not obliged to imitate another. Cato -copied Phocion; Trimalcion is less like,--it is independence. You -bad-tempered old fellows, you wish us to emancipate ourselves? Let it -be so. We disencumber ourselves of the imitation of Timoleon, Thraseas -Artevelde, Thomas More, Hampden. It is our fashion to free ourselves. -You wish for a revolt; there it is. You wish for no insurrection; we -rise up against our rights. We affranchise ourselves from the care -of being free. To be citizens is a heavy load. Eights entangled with -obligations are restraints to whoever desires to enjoy life quietly. -To be guided by conscience and truth in all the steps that we take -is fatiguing. We mean to walk without leading-strings and without -principles. Duty is a chain; we break our irons. What do you mean by -speaking to us of Franklin? Franklin is a rather too servile copy of -Aristides. We carry our horror of servility so far as to prefer Grimod -de la Reynière. To eat and drink well, there is purpose in that. Each -epoch has its peculiar manner of being free. Orgy is a liberty. This -way of reasoning is triumphant; to adhere to it is wise. There have -been, it is true, epochs when people thought otherwise. In those times -the things which were trodden on would sometimes resent it, and would -rebel,--but that was the ancient system, ridiculous now; and those who -regret and grumble must be left to talk and to affirm that there was -a better notion of right, justice, and honour in the stones of olden -times than in the men of to-day. - -The rhetoricians, official and officious,--we have pointed out already -their wonderful sagacity,--take strong precautions against men of -genius. Men of genius are not great followers of the university; what -is more, they are wanting in insipidity. They are lyrists, colourists, -enthusiasts, enchanters, possessed, exalted, "rabid" (we have read the -word) beings who, when everybody is small, have a mania for creating -great things; in fact, they have every vice. A doctor has recently -discovered that genius is a variety of madness. They are Michael Angelo -handling giants; Rembrandt painting with a palette all bedaubed with -the sun's rays; they are Dante, Rabelais, Shakespeare, exaggerated. -They bring a wild art, roaring, flaming, dishevelled like the lion and -the comet. Oh, shocking! There is coalition against them, and it is -right. We have, luckily, the "teetotallers" of eloquence and poetry. -"I like paleness," said one day a literary _bourgeois._ The literary -_bourgeois_ exists. Rhetoricians, anxious on account of the contagions -and fevers which are spread by genius, recommend with a lofty reason, -which we have commended, temperance, moderation, "common-sense," the -art of keeping within bounds, writers expurgated, trimmed, pruned, -regulated, the worship of the qualities that the malignant call -negative, continence, abstinence, Joseph, Scipio, the water-drinkers. -It is all excellent,--only, young students must be warned that by -following these sage precepts too closely they run the risk of -glorifying the chastity of the eunuch. Maybe, I admire Bayard; I admire -Origen less. - - - -CHAPTER VI. - - -Résumé: Great minds are importunate; to deny them a little is judicious. - -After all, let us admit it at last, and complete our statement; there -is some truth in the reproaches that are hurled at them. This anger -is natural. The powerful, the grand, the luminous, are in a certain -point of view things calculated to offend. To be surpassed is never -agreeable; to feel one's own inferiority leads surely to feel offence. -The beautiful exists so truly by itself that it certainly has no -need of pride; nevertheless, given human mediocrity, the beautiful -humiliates at the same time that it enchants. It seems natural that -beauty should be a vase for pride,--it is supposed to be full of it; -one seeks to avenge one's self for the pleasure it gives, and this word -superb ends by having two senses,--one of which causes suspicion of -the other. It is the fault of the beautiful, as we have already said. -It wearies: a sketch by Piranesi bewilders you; a grasp of the hand -of Hercules bruises you. Greatness is sometimes in the wrong. It is -ingenuous, but obstructive. The tempest thinks to sprinkle you,--it -drowns you; the star thinks to give light,--it dazzles, sometimes -blinds. The Nile fertilizes, but overflows. The "too much" is not -convenient; the habitation of the fathomless is rude; the infinite -is little suitable for a lodging. A cottage is badly situated on the -cataract of Niagara or in the circus of Gavarnie. It is awkward to keep -house with these fierce wonders; to frequent them regularly without -being overwhelmed, one must be a cretin or a genius. - -The dawn itself at times seems to us immoderate: he who looks at it -straight suffers. The eye at certain moments thinks very ill of the -sun. Let us not then be astonished at the complaints made, at the -incessant objections, at the fits of passion and prudence, at the -cataplasms applied by a certain criticism, at the ophthalmies habitual -to academies and teaching bodies, at the warnings given to the reader, -at all the curtains let down, and at all the shades used against -genius. Genius is intolerant without knowing it, because it is itself. -How can people be familiar with Æschylus, with Ezekiel, with Dante? - -The _I_ is the right to egotism. Now, the first thing that those -beings do, is to use roughly the _I_ of each one. Exorbitant in -everything,--in thoughts, in images, in convictions, in emotions, in -passions, in faith,--whatever may be the side of your _I_ to which they -address themselves, they inconvenience it. Your intellect, they surpass -it; your imagination, they dazzle it; your conscience, they question -and search it; your bowels, they twist them; your heart, they break it; -your soul, they carry it off. - -The infinite that is in them passes from them and multiplies them, and -transfigures them before your eyes every moment,--formidable fatigue -for your gaze. With them you never know where you are. At every turn -the unforeseen. You expected only men: they cannot enter your room, for -they are giants. You expected only an idea: cast your eyes down, they -are the ideal. You expected only eagles: they have six wings,--they are -seraphs. Are they then beyond Nature? Is it that humanity fails them? - -Certainly not, and far from that, and quite the reverse. We have -already said it, and we insist on it, Nature and humanity are in them -more than in any other beings. They are superhuman men, but men. _Homo -sum._ This word of a poet sums up all poetry. Saint Paul strikes his -breast and says, "Peccamus!" Job tells you who he is: "I am the son of -woman." They are men. That which troubles you is that they are men more -than you; they are too much men, so to speak. There where you have but -the part, they have the whole; they carry in their vast heart entire -humanity, and they are you more than yourself. You recognize yourself -too much in their work,--hence your outcry. To that total of Nature, -to that complete humanity, to that potter's clay, which is all your -flesh, and which is at the same time the whole earth, they add, and it -completes your terror, the wonderful reverberation of the unknown. They -have vistas of revelation; and suddenly, and without crying "Beware!" -at the moment when you least expect it, they burst the cloud, make in -the zenith a gap whence falls a ray, and they light up the terrestrial -with the celestial It is very natural that people should not greatly -fancy familiar intercourse with them, and should have no taste for -keeping neighbourly intimacy with them. - -Whoever has not a soul well-tempered by vigorous education avoids -them willingly. For great books there must be great readers. It is -necessary to be strong and healthy to open Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Job, -Pindar, Lucretius, and that Alighieri, and that Shakespeare. Homely -habits, prosy life, the dead calm of consciences, "good taste" and -"common-sense,"--all the small, placid egotism is deranged, let us own -it, by these monsters of the sublime. - -Yet, when one dives in and reads them, nothing is more hospitable for -the mind at certain hours than these stem spirits. They have all at -once a lofty gentleness, as unexpected as the rest. They say to you, -"Come in!" They receive you at home with a fraternity of archangels. -They are affectionate, sad, melancholy, consoling. You are suddenly at -your ease. You feel yourself loved by them; you almost imagine yourself -personally known to them. Their sternness and their pride cover a -profound sympathy. If granite had a heart, how deep would its goodness -be! Well, genius is granite with goodness. Extreme power possesses -great love. They join you in your prayers. They know well, those men, -that God exists. Apply your ear to these giants, you will hear them -palpitate. Do you want to believe, to love, to weep, to strike your -breast, to fall on your knees, to raise your hands to heaven with -confidence and serenity, listen to these poets. They will aid you -to rise toward the healthy and fruitful sorrow; they will make you -feel the celestial use of emotion. Oh, goodness of the strong! Their -emotion, which, if they will, can be an earthquake, is at moments so -cordial and so gentle that it seems like the rocking of a cradle. They -have just given birth within you to something of which they take care. -There is maternity in genius. Take a step, advance farther,--a new -surprise awaits you: they are graceful. As for their grace, it is light -itself. - -The high mountains have on their sides all climates, and the great -poets all styles. It is sufficient to change the zone. Go up, it is the -tempest; descend, the flowers are there. The inner fire accommodates -itself to the winter without; the glacier has no objection to be the -crater, and the lava never looks more beautiful than when it rashes out -through the snow. A sudden blaze of flame is not strange on a polar -summit. This contact of the extremes is a law in Nature, in which -the unforeseen wonders of the sublime burst forth at every moment. -A mountain, a genius,--both are austere majesty. These masses evolve -a sort of religious intimidation. Dante is not less perpendicular -than Etna. The depths of Shakespeare equal the gulfs of Chimborazo. -The peaks of poets are not less cloudy than the summits of mountains. -Thunders are rolling there, and at the same time, in the valleys, in -the passes, in the sheltered spots, in places between escarpments, -are streams, birds, nests, boughs, enchantments, wonderful floræ. -Above the frightful arch of the Aveyron, in the middle of the frozen -sea, there is that paradise called The Garden. Have you seen it? What -an episode! A hot sun, a shade tepid and fresh, a vague exudation of -perfumes on the grass-plots, an indescribable month of May perpetually -reigning among precipices,--nothing is more tender and more exquisite. -Such are poets: such are the Alps. These huge old gloomy mountains -are marvellous growers of roses and violets; they avail themselves of -the dawn and of the dew better than all your prairies and all your -hillocks can do it, although it is their natural business. The April -of the plain is flat and vulgar compared with their April; and they -have, those immense old mountains, in their wildest ravine, their own -charming spring, well known to the bees. - - - - -BOOK IV. - - -CRITICISM. - - - -CHAPTER I. - - -Every play of Shakespeare's, two excepted, "Macbeth" and "Romeo -and Juliet" (thirty-four plays out of thirty-six), offers to our -observation one peculiarity which seems to have escaped, up to this -day, the most eminent commentators and critics,--one that the Schlegels -and M. Villemain himself, in his remarkable labours, do not notice, -and on which it is impossible not to give an opinion. It is a double -action which traverses the drama, and reflects it on a small scale. -By the side of the storm in the Atlantic, the storm in the tea-cup. -Thus, Hamlet makes beneath himself a Hamlet: he kills Polonius, -father of Laërtes,--and there is Laërtes opposite him exactly in the -same situation as he is toward Claudius. There are two fathers to -avenge. There might be two ghosts. So, in King Lear: side by side and -simultaneously, Lear, driven to despair by his daughters Goneril and -Regan, and consoled by his daughter Cordelia, is reflected by Gloster, -betrayed by his son Edmond, and loved by his son Edgar. The bifurcated -idea, the idea echoing itself, a lesser drama copying and elbowing the -principal drama, the action trailing its own shadow (a smaller action -but its parallel), the unity cut asunder,--surely it is a strange fact. -These twin actions have been strongly blamed by the few commentators -who have pointed them out. We do not participate in their blame. Do -we then approve and accept as good these twin actions? By no means. -We recognize them, and that is all. The drama of Shakespeare (we said -so with all our might as far back as 1827,[1] in order to discourage -all imitation),--the drama of Shakespeare is peculiar to Shakespeare. -It is a drama inherent to this poet; it is his own essence; it is -himself,--thence his originalities absolutely personal; thence his -idiosyncrasies which exist without establishing a law. - -These twin actions are purely Shakespearian. Neither Æschylus nor -Molière would admit them; and we certainly would agree with Æschylus -and Molière. - -These twin actions are, moreover, the sign of the sixteenth century. -Each epoch has its own mysterious stamp. The centuries have a seal that -they affix to _chefs-d'œuvre_, and which it is necessary to know how -to decipher and recognize. The seal of the sixteenth century is not -the seal of the eighteenth. The Renaissance was a subtle time,--a time -of reflection. The spirit of the sixteenth century was reflected in a -mirror. Every idea of the Renaissance has a double compartment. Look -at the jubes in the churches. The Renaissance, with an exquisite and -fantastical art, always makes the Old Testament repercussive on the -New. The twin action is there in everything. The symbol explains the -personage in repeating his gesture. If, in a basso-rilievo, Jehovah -sacrifices his son, he has close by, in the next low relief, Abraham -sacrificing his son. Jonas passes three days in the whale, and Jesus -passes three days in the sepulchre; and the jaws of the monster -swallowing Jonas answer to the mouth of hell engulfing Jesus. - -The carver of the jube of Fécamp, so stupidly demolished, goes so far -as to give for counterpart to Saint Joseph--whom? Amphitryon. - -These singular results constitute one of the habits of that profound -and searching high art of the sixteenth century. Nothing can be more -curious in that style than the part ascribed to Saint Christopher. -In the Middle Ages, and in the sixteenth century, in paintings and -sculptures, Saint Christopher, the good giant martyred by Decius in -250, recorded by the Bollandists and acknowledged without a question -by Baillet, is always triple,--an opportunity for the triptych. There -is foremost a first Christ-bearer, a first Christophorus; that is -Christopher, with the infant Jesus on his shoulders. Afterward the -Virgin enceinte is a Christopher, since she carries Christ Last, -the cross is a Christopher; it also carries Christ. This treble -illustration of the idea is immortalized by Rubens in the cathedral -of Antwerp. The twin idea, the triple idea,--such is the seal of the -sixteenth century. - -Shakespeare, faithful to the spirit of his time, must needs add Laërtes -avenging his father to Hamlet avenging his father, and cause Hamlet -to be persecuted by Laërtes at the same time that Claudius is pursued -by Hamlet; he must needs make the filial piety of Edgar a comment on -the filial piety of Cordelia, and bring out in contrast, weighed down -by the ingratitude of unnatural children, two wretched fathers, each -bereaved of a kind light,--Lear mad, and Gloster blind. - - -[Footnote 1: Preface to "Cromwell."] - - - -CHAPTER II. - - -What then? No criticising? No.--No blame? No.--You explain everything? -Yes.--Genius is an entity like Nature, and requires, like Nature, to -be accepted purely and simply. A mountain must be accepted as such or -left alone. There are men who would make a criticism on the Himalayas, -pebble by pebble. Mount Etna blazes and slavers, throws out its glare, -its wrath, its lava, and its ashes; these men take scales and weigh -those ashes, pinch by pinch. _Quot libras in monte summo?_ Meanwhile -genius continues its eruption. Everything in it has its reason for -existing. It is because it is. Its shadow is the inverse of its light. -Its smoke comes from its flame. Its depth is the result of its height. -We love this more and that less; but we remain silent wherever we feel -God. We are in the forest; the tortuosity of the tree is its secret. -The sap knows what it is doing. The root knows its own business. We -take things as they are; we are indulgent for that which is excellent, -tender, or magnificent; we acquiesce in _chefs-d'œuvre_; we do not -make use of one to find fault with the other; we do not insist upon -Phidias sculpturing cathedrals, or upon Pinaigrier glazing temples -(the temple is the harmony, the cathedral is the mystery; they are two -different forms of the sublime); we do not claim for the Münster the -perfection of the Parthenon, or for the Parthenon the grandeur of the -Münster. We are so far whimsical as to be satisfied with both being -beautiful. We do not reproach for its sting the insect that gives us -honey. We renounce our right to criticise the feet of the peacock, the -cry of the swan, the plumage of the nightingale, the butterfly for -having been caterpillar, the thorn of the rose, the smell of the lion, -the skin of the elephant, the prattle of the cascade, the pips of the -orange, the immobility of the Milky Way, the saltness of the ocean, the -spots on the sun, the nakedness of Noah. - -The _quandoque bonus dormitat_ is permitted to Horace. We raise -no objection. What is certain is, that Homer would not say it of -Horace,--he would not take the trouble. Himself the eagle, Homer would -indeed find Horace, the chattering humming-bird, charming. I grant -it is pleasant to a man to feel himself superior, and say, "Homer is -puerile; Dante is childish." It is indulging in a pretty smile. To -crush these poor geniuses a little, why not? To be the Abbé Trublet, -and say, "Milton is a schoolboy," it is pleasing. How witty is the man -who finds that Shakespeare has no wit! That man is La Harpe, Delandine, -Auger; he is, was, or shall be, an Academician. "All these great men -are made up of extravagance, bad taste, and childishness." What a fine -decree to issue! These fashions tickle voluptuously those who have -them; and in reality, when they have said, "This giant is small," -they can fancy that they are great. Every man has his own way. As for -myself, the writer of these lines, I admire everything like a fool. - -That is why I have written this book. - -To admire, to be an enthusiast,--it has struck me that it was right to -give in our century this example of folly. - - - -CHAPTER III. - - -Do not look, then, for any criticism. I admire Æschylus, I admire -Juvenal, I admire Dante, in the mass, in a lump, all. I do not cavil -at those great benefactors. What you characterize as a fault, I call -accent. I accept and give thanks. I do not inherit the marvels of -human wit conditionally. Pegasus being given to me, I do not look -the gift-horse in the mouth. A masterpiece offers its hospitality: -I approach it with my hat off, and think the visage of mine host -handsome. Gilles Shakespeare, it may be: I admire Shakespeare and I -admire Gilles. Falstaff is proposed to me: I accept him, and I admire -the "Empty the jorden." I admire the senseless cry, "A rat!" I admire -the jests of Hamlet; I admire the wholesale murders of Macbeth; I -admire the witches, "that ridiculous spectacle;" I admire "the buttock -of the night;" I admire the eye plucked from Gloster. I am simple -enough to admire all. - -Having recently had the honour to be called "silly" by several -distinguished writers and critics, and even by my illustrious friend M. -de Lamartine,[1] I am determined to justify the epithet. - -We close with one last observation which we have specially to make -regarding Shakespeare. - -Orestes, that fatal senior of Hamlet, is not, as we have said, the -sole link between Æschylus and Shakespeare; we have noted a relation, -less easily perceptible, between Prometheus and Hamlet. The mysterious -close connection between the two poets is, in reference to this same -Prometheus, more strangely striking yet, and in a particular which, up -to this time, has escaped the observers and critics. Prometheus is the -grandsire of Mab. - -Let us prove it. - -Prometheus, like all personages become legendary,--like Solomon, like -Cæsar, like Mahomet, like Charlemagne, like the Cid, like Joan of Arc, -like Napoleon,--has a double prolongation, the one in history, the -other in fable. Now, the prolongation of Prometheus is this: - -Prometheus, creator of men, is also creator of spirits. He is father -of a dynasty of Divs, whose filiation the old metrical tales have -preserved: Elf, that is to say, the Rapid, son of Prometheus; then -Elfin, King of India; then Elfinan, founder of Cleopolis, town of the -fairies; then Elfilin, builder of the golden wall; then Elfinell, -winner of the battle of the demons; then Elfant, who made Panthea -entirely in crystal; then Elfar, who killed Bicephalus and Tricephalus; -then Elfinor, the magian, a kind of Salmoneus, who built over the sea -a bridge of copper, sounding like thunder, "non imitabile fulmen aere -et cornipedum pulsu simularat equorum;" then seven hundred princes; -then Elficleos the Sage; then Elferon the Beautiful; then Oberon; then -Mab,--wonderful fable, which, with a profound meaning, unites the -sidereal and the microscopic, the infinitely great and the infinitely -small. - -And it is thus that the infusoria of Shakespeare is connected with the -giant of Æschylus. - -The fairy, drawn over the nose of sleeping men in her carriage, covered -with the wing of a locust, by eight flies harnessed with the rays of -the moon, and whipped with a gossamer,--the fairy atom has for ancestor -the huge Titan, robber of stars, nailed on the Caucasus, one hand on -the Caspian gates, the other on the portals of Ararat, one heel on -the source of the Phasis, the other on the Validus-Murus, closing the -passage between the mountain and the sea,--a colossus, whose immense -shadow was, according as the rise or setting of light, projected by the -sun, now on Europe as far as Corinth, now on Asia as far as Bangalore. - -Nevertheless, Mab, who is also called Tanaquil, has all the wavering -inconsistency of the dream. Under the name of Tanaquil she is the -wife of Tarquin the Ancient; and she spins for young Servius Tullius -the first tunic worn by a young Roman after leaving off the pretexta. -Oberon, who turns out to be Numa, is her uncle. In "Huon de Bordeaux" -she is called Gloriande, and has for lover Julius Cæsar, and Oberon is -her son; in Spenser, she is called Gloriana, and Oberon is her father; -in Shakespeare she is called Titania, and Oberon is her husband. -Titania: this name unites Mab to the Titan, and Shakespeare to Æschylus. - - -[Footnote 1: All the biography, sometimes rather puerile, even rather -silly, of Bishop Myriel.--Lamartine: _Cours de Littérature_ (Entretien -LXXXIV. p. 385).] - - - -CHAPTER IV. - - -An eminent man of our day, a celebrated historian a powerful orator, -one of the former translators of Shakespeare, is mistaken, according to -our views, when he regrets, or appears to regret, the slight influence -of Shakespeare on the theatre of the nineteenth century. We cannot -share that regret An influence of any sort, even that of Shakespeare, -could but mar the originality of the literary movement of our epoch. -"The system of Shakespeare," says the honourable and grave writer, -with reference to that movement, "can furnish, it seems to me, the -plans after which genius must henceforth work." We have never been of -that opinion, and we have said so as far back as forty years ago.[1] -For us, Shakespeare is a genius, and not a system. On this point we -have already explained our views, and we mean soon to explain them at -greater length; but let us state now that what Shakespeare has done, -is done once for all,--it is impossible to do it over again. Admire or -criticise, but do not recast. It is finished. - -A distinguished critic who lately died,--M. Chaudesaigues,--lays a -stress on this reproach: "Shakespeare," says he, "has been revived -without being followed. The romantic school has not imitated -Shakespeare. In that it is wrong." In that it is right. It is blamed -for it; we praise it. The contemporary theatre is what it is, but it is -itself. The contemporary theatre has for device, _Sum non sequor._ It -belongs to no "system" It has its own law, and it accomplishes it. It -has its own life, and it lives it. - -The drama of Shakespeare expresses man at a given moment. Man passes -away; that drama remains, having for eternal foundation, life, the -heart, the world, and for surface the sixteenth century. That drama can -neither be continued nor recomposed. Another age, another art. - -The theatre of our day has not followed Shakespeare any more than it -has followed Æschylus. And without reckoning all the other reasons -that we shall note farther on, how perplexed would he be who wished to -imitate and copy, in making a choice between these two poets! Æschylus -and Shakespeare seem made to prove that contraries may be admirable. -The point of departure of the one is absolutely opposite to the point -of departure of the other. Æschylus is concentration; Shakespeare is -diffusion. One must be much applauded because he is condensed, and -the other because he is diffuse; to Æschylus unity, to Shakespeare -ubiquity. Between them they divide God. And as such intellects are -always complete, one feels in the condensed drama of Æschylus the free -agitation of passion, and in the diffuse drama of Shakespeare the -convergence of all the rays of life. The one starts from unity and -reaches a multiple; the other starts from the multiple and arrives at -unity. - -This appears strikingly evident, particularly when we compare "Hamlet" -with "Orestes,"--extraordinary double page, obverse and reverse of the -same idea, and which seems written expressly to prove to what an extent -two different geniuses, making the same thing, will make two different -things. - -It is easy to see that the theatre of our day has, rightly or wrongly, -traced out its own way between Greek unity and Shakespearian ubiquity. - - -[Footnote 1: Preface to "Cromwell."] - - - -CHAPTER V. - - -Let us set aside for the present the question of contemporary art, and -take up again the general question. - -Imitation is always barren and bad. - -As for Shakespeare,--since Shakespeare is the poet who claims our -attention now,--he is, in the highest degree, a genius human and -general; but like every true genius, he is at the same time an -idiosyncratic and personal mind. Axiom: the poet starts from his own -inner self to come to us. It is that which makes the poet inimitable. - -Examine Shakespeare, dive into him, and see how determined he is to -be himself. Do not expect any concession from him. It is not egotism, -but it is stubbornness. He wills it. He gives to art his orders,--of -course in the limits of his work; for neither the art of Æschylus, -nor the art of Aristophanes, nor the art of Plautus, nor the art of -Macchiavelli, nor the art of Calderon, nor the art of Molière, nor the -art of Beaumarchais, nor any of the forms of art, deriving life each -of them from the special life of a genius, would obey the orders given -by Shakespeare. Art, thus understood, is vast equality and profound -liberty; the region of the equals is also the region of the free. - -One of the grandeurs of Shakespeare consists in his impossibility -to be a model. In order to realize his idiosyncrasy, open one of -his plays,--no matter which; it is always foremost and above all -Shakespeare. - -What more personal than "Troilus and Cressida"? A comic Troy! Here -is "Much Ado about Nothing,"--a tragedy which ends with a burst of -laughter. Here is the "Winter's Tale,"--a pastoral drama. Shakespeare -is at home in his work. Do you wish to see true despotism: look at his -fancy. What arbitrary determination to dream! What despotic resolution -in his vertiginous flight! What absoluteness in his indecision and -wavering! The dream fills some of his plays to that degree that man -changes his nature, and is the cloud more than the man. Angelo in -"Measure for Measure" is a misty tyrant. He becomes disintegrated, -and wears away. Leontes in the "Winter's Tale" is an Othello who -is blown away. In "Cymbeline" one thinks that Iachimo will become -an Iago, but he melts down. The dream is there,--everywhere. Watch -Manilius, Posthumus, Hermione, Perdita, passing by. In the "Tempest," -the Duke of Milan has "a brave son," who is like a dream in a dream. -Ferdinand alone speaks of him, and no one but Ferdinand seems to have -seen him. A brute becomes reasonable: witness the constable Elbow in -"Measure for Measure." An idiot is all at once witty: witness Cloten in -"Cymbeline." A King of Sicily is jealous of a King of Bohemia. Bohemia -has a seashore. The shepherds pick up children there. Theseus, a duke, -espouses Hippolyta, the Amazon. Oberon comes in also. For here it is -Shakespeare's will to dream; elsewhere he thinks. - -We say more: where he dreams he still thinks,--with a different but -equal depth. - -Let men of genius remain in peace in their originality. There is -something wild in these mysterious civilizers. Even in their comedy, -even in their buffoonery, even in their laughter, even in their smile, -there is the unknown. In them is felt the sacred dread that belongs to -art, and the all-powerful terror of the imaginary mixed with the real. -Each of them is in his cavern, alone. They hear one another from afar, -but never copy one another. We are not aware that the hippopotamus -imitates the roar of the elephant, neither do lions imitate one another. - -Diderot does not recast Bayle; Beaumarchais does not copy Plautus, and -has no need of Davus to create Figaro. Piranesi is not inspired by -Dædalus. Isaiah does not begin Moses over again. - -One day, at St. Helena, M. De Las Cases said, "Sire, when you were -master of Prussia, I would in your place have taken the sword of -Frederick the Great, which is deposited in the tomb at Potsdam; and I -would have worn it." "Fool!" replied Napoleon, "I had my own." - -Shakespeare's work is absolute, sovereign, imperious, eminently -solitary, unneighbourly, sublime in radiance, absurd in reflection, and -must remain without a copy. - -To imitate Shakespeare would be as insane as to imitate Racine would be -stupid. - - - -CHAPTER VI. - - -Let us agree, by the way, respecting a qualificative much used -everywhere: _Profanum vulgus_,--the saying of a poet on which pedants -lay great stress. This _profanum vulgus_ is rather the weapon of -everybody. Let us fix the meaning of this word. What is the _profanum -vulgus?_ The school says, "It is the people." And we, we say, "It is -the school." - -But let us first define this expression, "the school." When we say, -"the school," what must be understood? Let us explain it. The school -is the resultant of pedantry; the school is the literary excrescence -of the budget; the school is intellectual mandarinship governing in -the various authorized and official teachings, either of the press -or of the State, from the theatrical _feuilleton_ of the prefecture -to the biographies and encyclopædias duly examined, stamped, and -hawked about, and sometimes, as a refinement, made by republicans -agreeable to the police; the school is the circumvallating classic and -scholastic orthodoxy, the Homeric and Virgilian antiquity made use of -by _literati_ licensed by government,--a kind of China self-called -Greece; the school is--summed up in one concretion which forms part -of public order--all the knowledge of pedagogues, all the history of -historiographers, all the poetry of laureates, all the philosophy -of sophists, all the criticism of pedants, all the ferule of the -"ignorantins," all the religion of bigots, all the modesty of prudes, -all the metaphysics of those who change sides, all the justice of -placemen, all the old age of the small young men who have undergone -the operation, all the flattery of courtiers, all the diatribes of -censer-bearers, all the independence of valets, all the certainty -of short sights and of base souls. The school hates Shakespeare. It -detects him in the very act of mingling with the people, going to and -fro in public thoroughfares, "trivial," speaking the language of the -people, uttering the human cry like any other man, welcome to those -that he welcomes, applauded by hands black with tar, cheered by all -the hoarse throats that proceed from labour and weariness. The drama -of Shakespeare is the people; the school is indignant and says, "Odi -profanum vulgus." There is demagogy in this poetry roaming at large; -the author of "Hamlet" "panders to the mob." - -Let it be so. The poet "panders to the mob." - -If anything is great, it is that. - -There in the foreground, everywhere, in full light, amidst the flourish -of trumpets, are the powerful men followed by the gilded men. The poet -does not see them, or, if he does, he disdains them. He lifts his eyes -and looks at God; then he lowers his eyes and looks at the people. -There in the depth of the shadow, nearly invisible, so much submerged -that it is the night, is that fatal crowd, that vast and mournful -heap of suffering, that venerable populace of the tattered and of the -ignorant,--chaos of souls. That crowd of heads undulates obscurely -like the waves of a nocturnal sea. From time to time there pass on -that surface, like squalls over the water, catastrophes,--a war, a -pestilence, a royal favourite, a famine. That causes a disturbance -which lasts a short time, the depth of sorrow being immovable as the -depth of the ocean. Despair deposits in us some weight as of lead. -The last word of the abyss is stupor; therefore it is the night. It -is, under the thick blackness, behind which all is indistinct, the -mournful sea of the needy. - -These overloaded beings are silent; they know nothing; they submit -_Plectuntur Achivi._ They are hungry and cold. Their indecent flesh is -seen through the holes in their tatters. Who makes those tatters? The -purple. The nakedness of virgins comes from the nudity of odalisques. -From the twisted rags of the daughters of the people fall pearls for -the Fontanges and the Châteauroux. It is famine which gilds Versailles. -The whole of that living and dying shadow moves; these larvæ are in the -pangs of death; the mother's breast is dry; the father has no work; -the brains have no light. If there is a book in that destitution, it -resembles the pitcher, so insipid or corrupt is what it offers to the -thirst of intellects. Mournful families! - -The group of the little ones is wan. All die away and creep along, not -having even the power to love; and unknown to them perhaps, while they -crouch down and resign themselves, from all that vast unconsciousness -in which Right dwells, from the rumbling murmur of those wretched -breaths mingled together, proceeds an indescribable confused voice, -mysterious mist of language, succeeding, syllable by syllable in the -darkness, in uttering extraordinary words,--Future, Humanity, Liberty, -Equality, Progress. And the poet listens, and he hears; and he looks, -and he sees; and he bends lower and lower, and he weeps; and all at -once, growing with a strange growth, drawing from all that darkness his -own transfiguration, he stands erect, terrible and tender, above all -those wretched ones,--those above as well as those below,--with flaming -eyes. - -And he demands a reckoning with a loud voice. And he says, Here is -the effect! And he says, Here is the cause! Light is the remedy. -_Erudimini._ And he looks like a great vase full of humanity shaken -by the hand which is in the cloud, and from whence fall on the earth -large drops,--fire for the oppressors, dew for the oppressed. Ah, you -find fault with that, you fellows! Well, then, we approve of it, we -do! We find it just that some one speaks when all suffer. The ignorant -who enjoy and the ignorant who suffer have an equal want of teaching. -The law of fraternity is derived from the law of labour. To kill one -another has had its day. The hour has come to love one another. It is -to promulgate these truths that the poet is good. For that, he must -be of the people; for that he must be of the populace,--that is to -say, that, bringing progress, he should not recoil before the pressure -of facts, however ugly the facts may be. The distance between the -real and the ideal cannot be measured otherwise. Besides, to drag the -cannon-ball a little completes Vincent de Paul. Hurrah, then, for the -trivial promiscuousness, for the popular metaphor, for the great life -in common with those exiles from joy who are catted the poor!--this is -the first duty of poets. It is useful; it is necessary, that the breath -of the people should fill those all-powerful souls. The people have -something to say to them. It is good that there should be in Euripides -a flavour of the herb-dealers at Athens, and in Shakespeare of the -sailors of London. - -Sacrifice to "the mob," O poet! Sacrifice to that unfortunate, -disinherited, vanquished, vagabond, shoeless, famished, repudiated, -despairing mob; sacrifice to it, if it must be and when it must be, thy -repose, thy fortune, thy joy, thy country, thy liberty, thy life. The -mob is the human race in misery. The mob is the mournful commencement -of the people. The mob is the great victim of darkness. Sacrifice to -it! Sacrifice thyself! Let thyself be hunted, let thyself be exiled as -Voltaire to Ferney, as D'Aubigné to Geneva, as Dante to Verona, as -Juvenal to Syene, as Tacitus to Methymna, as Æschylus to Gela, as John -to Patmos, as Elias to Horeb, as Thucydides to Thrace, as Isaiah to -Esiongeber! Sacrifice to the mob. Sacrifice to it thy gold, and thy -blood which is more than thy gold, and thy thought which is more than -thy blood, and thy love which is more than thy thought; sacrifice to it -everything except justice. Receive its complaint; listen to its faults, -and to the faults of others. Listen to what it has to confess and to -denounce to thee. Stretch forth to it the ear, the hand, the arm, the -heart. Do everything for it, excepting evil. Alas! it suffers so much, -and it knows nothing. Correct it, warm it, instruct it, guide it, bring -it up. Put it to the school of honesty. Make it spell truth; show it -that alphabet, reason; teach it to read virtue, probity, generosity, -mercy. Hold thy book wide open. Be there, attentive, vigilant, kind, -faithful, humble. Light up the brain, inflame the mind, extinguish -egotism, show good example. The poor are privation: be abnegation. -Teach! irradiate! They need thee; thou art their great thirst To learn -is the first step; to live is but the second. Be at their order, dost -thou hear? Be ever there, light! For it is beautiful, on this sombre -earth, during this dark life, short passage to something else, it is -beautiful that Force should have Right for a master, that Progress -should have Courage as a chief, that Intelligence should have Honour -as a sovereign, that Conscience should have Duty as a despot, that -Civilization should have Liberty as a queen, that Ignorance should have -a servant,--Light. - - - - -BOOK V. - - -THE MINDS AND THE MASSES, - - - -CHAPTER I. - - -For the last eighty years memorable things have been done. A wonderful -heap of demolished materials covers the pavement. - -What is done is but little by the side of what remains to be done. - -To destroy is the task: to build is the work. Progress demolishes with -the left hand; it is with the right hand that it builds. - -The left hand of Progress is called Force; the right hand is called -Mind. - -There is at this hour a great deal of useful destruction accomplished; -all the old cumbersome civilization is, thanks to our fathers, cleared -away. It is well, it is finished, it is thrown down, it is on the -ground. Now, up with you all, intellects! to work, to labour, to -fatigue, to duty; it is necessary to construct. - -Here three questions: To construct what? To construct where? To -construct how? - -We reply: To construct the people. To construct the people according to -the laws of progress. To construct the people according to the laws of -light. - - - -CHAPTER II. - - -To work for the people,--that is the great and urgent necessity. - -The human mind--an important thing to say at this minute--has a greater -need of the ideal even than of the real. - -It is by the real that we exist; it is by the ideal that we live. Now, -do you wish to realize the difference? Animals exist, man lives. - -To live, is to understand. To live, is to smile at the present, to look -toward posterity over the wall. To live, is to have in one's self a -balance, and to weigh in it the good and the evil. To live, is to have -justice, truth, reason, devotion, probity, sincerity, common-sense, -right, and duty nailed to the heart. To live, is to know what one is -worth, what one can do and should do. Life is conscience. Cato would -not rise before Ptolemy. Cato lived. - -Literature is the secretion of civilization, poetry of the ideal. That -is why literature is one of the wants of societies. That is why poetry -is a hunger of the soul. That is why poets are the first instructors -of the people. That is why Shakespeare must be translated in France. -That is why Molière must be translated in England. That is why comments -must be made on them. That is why there must be a vast public literary -domain. That is why all poets, all philosophers, all thinkers, all the -producers of the greatness of the mind must be translated, commented -on, published, printed, reprinted, stereotyped, distributed, explained, -recited, spread abroad, given to all, given cheaply, given at cost -price, given for nothing. - -Poetry evolves heroism. M. Royer-Collard, that original and ironical -friend of routine, was, taken all in all, a wise and noble spirit Some -one we know heard him say one day, "Spartacus is a poet." - -That wonderful and consoling Ezekiel--the tragic revealer of -progress--has all kinds of singular passages full of a profound -meaning: "The voice said to me: Fill the palm of thy hand with red-hot -coals, and spread them on the city." And elsewhere: "The spirit having -gone into them, everywhere where the spirit went, they went" And again: -"A hand was stretched towards me. It held a roll which was a book. The -voice said to me: Eat this roll. I opened the lips and I ate the book. -And it was sweet in my mouth as honey." To eat the book is a strange -and striking image,--the whole formula of perfectibility, which above -is knowledge, and below, teaching. - -We have just said, "Literature is the secretion of civilization." Do -you doubt it? Open the first statistics you come across. - -Here is one which we find under our hand: Bagne de Toulon, 1862. Three -thousand and ten prisoners. Of these three thousand and ten convicts, -forty know a little more than to read and write, two hundred and -eighty-seven know how to read and write, nine hundred and four read -badly and write badly, seventeen hundred and seventy-nine know neither -how to read nor write. In this wretched crowd all the merely mechanical -trades are represented by numbers decreasing according as they rise -toward the enlightened pursuits, and you arrive at this final result: -goldsmiths and jewellers, four; ecclesiastics, three; lawyers, two; -comedians, one; artist musicians, one; men of letters, not one. - -The transformation of the crowd into the people,--profound labour! -It is to this labour that the men called socialists have devoted -themselves during the last forty years. The author of this book, -however insignificant he may be, is one of the oldest in this labour; -"Le Dernier Jour d'un Condamné" dates from 1828, and "Claude Gueux" -from 1834. He claims his place among these philosophers because it is -a place of persecution. A certain hatred of socialism, very blind, but -very general, has been at work for fifteen or sixteen years, and is -still at work most bitterly among the influential classes. (Classes, -then, are still in existence?) Let it not be forgotten, socialism, true -socialism, has for its end the elevation of the masses to the civic -dignity, and therefore its principal care is for moral and intellectual -cultivation. The first hunger is ignorance; socialism wishes then, -above all, to instruct. That does not hinder socialism from being -calumniated, and socialists from being denounced. To most of the -infuriated, trembling cowards who have their say at the present moment, -these reformers are public enemies. They are guilty of everything -that has gone wrong. "O Romans!" said Tertullian, "we are just, kind, -thinking, lettered, honest men. We meet to pray, and we love you -because you are our brethren. We are gentle and peaceable like little -children, and we wish for concord among men. Nevertheless, O Romans! if -the Tiber overflows, or if the Nile does not, you cry, 'To the lions -with the Christians!'" - - - -CHAPTER III. - - -The democratic idea, the new bridge of civilization, undergoes at this -moment the formidable trial of overweight. Every other idea would -certainly give way under the load that it is made to bear. Democracy -proves its solidity by the absurdities that are heaped on, without -shaking it. It must resist everything that people choose to place on -it. At this moment they try to make it carry despotism. - -The people have no need of liberty,--such was the pass-word of a -certain innocent and duped school, the head of which has been dead some -years. That poor honest dreamer believed in good faith that men can -keep progress with them when they turn out liberty. We have heard him -put forth, probably without meaning it, this aphorism: Liberty is good -for the rich. These kinds of maxims have the disadvantage of not being -prejudicial to the establishment of empires. - -No, no, no! Nothing out of liberty. - -Servitude is the blind soul. Can you figure to yourself a man blind -voluntarily? This terrible thing exists. There are willing slaves. A -smile in irons! Can anything be more hideous? He who is not free is not -a man; he who is not free has no sight, no knowledge, no discernment, -no growth, no comprehension, no will, no faith, no love; he has no -wife, he has no children: he has a female and young ones; he lives -not,--_ab luce principium._ Liberty is the apple of the eye. Liberty is -the visual organ of progress. - -Because liberty has inconveniences, and even perils, to wish to create -civilization without it is just the same as to try cultivation without -the sun; the sun is also a censurable heavenly body. One day, in the -too beautiful summer of 1829, a critic, now forgotten,--and wrongly, -for he was not without some talent,--M. P., suffering from the heat, -sharpened his pen, saying, "I am going to excoriate the sun." - -Certain social theories, very distinct from socialism such as we -understand and want it, have gone astray. Let us discard all that -resembles the convent, the barrack, the cell and the straight-line -system. Paraguay, minus the Jesuits, is Paraguay just the same. To -give a new fashion to evil is not a useful task. To recommence the old -slavery is idiotic. Let the nations of Europe beware of a despotism -made anew from materials they have to some extent themselves supplied. -Such a thing, cemented with a special philosophy, might well last. -We have just mentioned the theorists, some of whom otherwise right -and sincere, who, by dint of fearing the dispersion of activities -and energies, and of what they call "anarchy," have arrived at an -almost Chinese acceptation of absolute social concentration. They turn -their resignation into a doctrine. Provided man eats and drinks, all -is right. The happiness of the beast is the solution. But this is a -happiness which some other men would call by a different name. - -We dream for nations something else besides a felicity solely made -up of obedience. The bastinado procures that sort of felicity -for the Turkish fellah, the knout for the Russian serf, and the -cat-o'-nine-tails for the English soldier. These socialists by the -side of socialism come from Joseph de Maistre, and from Ancillon, -without suspecting it perhaps; for the ingenuousness of these theorists -rallied to the _fait accompli_ has--or fancies it has--democratic -intentions, and speaks energetically of the "principles of '89." Let -these involuntary philosophers of a possible despotism think a moment. -To teach the masses a doctrine against liberty; to cram intellects with -appetites and fatalism, a certain situation being given; to saturate it -with materialism; and to run the risk of the construction which might -proceed from it,--that would be to understand progress in the fashion -of the worthy man who applauded a new gibbet, and who exclaimed, "This -is all right! We have had till now but the old wooden gallows. To-day -the age advances; and here we are with a good stone gibbet, which will -do for our children and grandchildren!" - - - -CHAPTER IV. - - -To enjoy a full stomach, a satisfied intestine, a satiated belly, is -doubtless something, for it is the enjoyment of the brute. However, one -may place one's ambition higher. - -Certainly, a good salary is a fine thing. To tread on this firm ground, -high wages, is pleasant. The wise man likes to want nothing. To insure -his own position is the characteristic of an intelligent man. An -official chair, with ten thousand sesterces a year, is a graceful and -convenient seat. Great emoluments give a fresh complexion and good -health. One lives to an old age in pleasant, well-paid sinecures. The -high financial world, rich in plentiful profits, is a place agreeable -to live in. To be well at Court settles a family well and brings a -fortune. As for myself, I prefer to all these solid comforts the old -leaky vessel in which Bishop Quodvultdeus embarks with a smile. - -There is something beyond gorging one's self. The goal of man is not -the goal of the animal. - -A moral enhancement is necessary. The life of nations, like the life -of individuals, has its minutes of depression; these minutes pass, -certainly, but no trace of them ought to remain. Man, at this hour, -tends to fall into the stomach. Man must be replaced in the heart; man -must be replaced in the brain. The brain,--behold the sovereign that -must be restored! The social question requires to-day, more than ever, -to be examined on the side of human dignity. - -To show man the human end, to ameliorate intelligence first, the animal -afterward, to disdain the flesh as long as the thought is despised, and -to give the example on their own flesh,--such is the actual, immediate, -urgent duty of writers. - -It is what men of genius have done at all times. - -You ask in what poets can be useful? In imbuing civilization with -light,-only that. - - - -CHAPTER V. - - -Up to this day there has been a literature of _literati._ In France, -particularly, as we have said, literature had a disposition to form -a caste. To be a poet was something like being a mandarin. Words did -not all belong by right to the language. The dictionary granted or -did not grant the registration. The dictionary had a will of its own. -Imagine the botanist declaring to a vegetable that it does not exist, -and Nature timidly offering an insect to entomology, which refuses it -as incorrect. Imagine astronomy cavilling at the stars. We recollect -having heard an Academician, now dead, say in full academy that French -had been spoken in France only in the seventeenth century, and then -for only twelve years,--we do not remember which twelve. Let us give -up, for it is time, this order of ideas; democracy requires it. The -actual enlarging of thoughts needs something else. Let us leave the -college, the conclave, the cell, the weak taste, weak art, the small -chapel. Poetry is not a coterie. There is at this hour an effort -made to galvanize dead things. Let us strive against this tendency. -Let us insist on the truths which are urgent. The _chefs-d'œuvre_ -recommended by the manual of bachelorship, compliments in verse and in -prose, tragedies soaring over the head of some king, inspiration in -full official dress, the brilliant nonentities fixing laws on poetry, -the _Arts poétiques_ which forget La Fontaine, and for which Molière -is doubtful, the Planats castrating the Corneilles, prudish tongues, -the thoughts enclosed between four walls, and limited by Quintilian, -Longinus, Boileau, and La Harpe,--all that, although official and -public teaching is filled and saturated with it, all that belongs to -the past. Some particular epoch, which is called the grand century, -and for a certainty the fine century, is nothing else in reality but a -literary monologue. Is it possible to realize such a strange thing,--a -literature which is an aside? It seems as if one read on the frontal -of art "No admittance." As for ourselves, we understand poetry only -with the door wide open. The hour has struck for hoisting the "All for -All." What is needed by civilization, henceforth a grown-up woman, is a -popular literature. - -1830 has opened a debate, literary on the surface, at the bottom social -and human. The moment is come to close the debate. We close it by -asking a literature having in view this purpose: "The People." - -The author of these pages wrote, thirty-one years ago, in the preface -to "Lucrèce Borgia," a few words often repeated since: "Le poète a -charge d'âmes." He would add here, if it were worth saying, that, -allowing for possible error, the words, uttered by his conscience, have -been his rule throughout life. - - - -CHAPTER VI. - - -Macchiavelli had a strange idea of the people. To heap the measure, -to overflow the cup, to exaggerate horror in the case of the prince, -to increase the crushing in order to stir up the oppressed to revolt, -to cause idolatry to change into a curse, to push the masses to -extremities,--such seems to be his policy. His "yes" signifies "no." He -loads the despot with despotism in order to make him burst. The tyrant -becomes in his hands a hideous projectile, which will break to pieces. -Macchiavelli conspires. For whom? Against whom? Guess. His apotheosis -of kings is just the thing to make regicides. On the head of his prince -he places a diadem of crimes, a tiara of vices, a halo of baseness; and -he invites you to adore his monster, with the air of a man expecting -an avenger. He glorifies evil with a squint toward the darkness,--the -darkness wherein is Harmodius. Macchiavelli, the getter-up of princely -outrages, the valet of the Medici and of the Borgias, had in his youth -been put to the rack for having admired Brutus and Cassius. He had -perhaps plotted with the Soderini the deliverance of Florence. Does -he recollect it? Does he continue? His advice is followed, like the -lightning, by a low rumbling in the cloud,--alarming reverberation. -What did he mean to say? On whom has he a design? Is the advice for or -against him to whom he gives it? One day, at Florence, in the garden -of Cosmo Ruccelaï, there being present the Duke of Mantua and John de -Medici, who afterward commanded the Black Bands of Tuscany, Varchi, -the enemy of Macchiavelli, heard him say to the two princes: "Let the -people read no book,--not even mine." It is curious to compare with -this remark the advice given by Voltaire to the Duke de Choiseul,--at -the same time advice to the minister, and insinuation for the king: -"Let the boobies read our nonsense. There is no danger in reading, my -lord. What can a great king like the King of France fear? The people -are but rabble, and the books are but trash." Let them read nothing, -let them read everything: these two pieces of contrary advice coincide -more than one would think. Voltaire, with hidden claws, is purring at -the feet of the king, Voltaire and Macchiavelli are two formidable -indirect revolutionists, dissimilar in everything, and yet identical -in reality by their profound hatred, disguised in flattery, of the -master. The one is malignant, the other is sinister. The princes of the -sixteenth century had as theorist on their infamies, and as enigmatical -courtier, Macchiavelli, an enthusiast dark at heart. The flattery of a -sphinx,--terrible thing! Better yet be flattered, like Louis XV., by a -cat. - -Conclusion: Make the people read Macchiavelli, and make them read -Voltaire. - -Macchiavelli will inspire them with horror of, and Voltaire with -contempt for, crowned guilt. - -But the hearts should turn, above all, toward the grand pure poets, -whether they be sweet like Virgil or bitter like Juvenal. - - - -CHAPTER VII. - - -The progress of man by the education of minds,--there is no safety but -in that. Teach! learn! All the revolutions of the future are enclosed -and imbedded in this phrase: Gratuitous and obligatory instruction. - -It is by the unfolding of works of the highest order that this vast -intellectual teaching should be crowned. At the top the men of genius. - -Wherever there is a gathering of men, there ought to be in a special -place, a public expositor of the great thinkers. - -By a great thinker we mean a beneficent thinker. - -The perpetual presence of the beautiful in their works maintains poets -at the summit of teaching. - -No one can foresee the quantity of light which will be brought forth -by letting the people be in communication with men of genius. This -combination of the hearts of the people with the heart of the poet will -be the Voltaic pile of civilization. - -Will the people understand this magnificent teaching? Certainly. We -know of nothing too lofty for the people. The people are a great soul. -Have you ever gone on a fête-day to a theatre open gratuitously to -all? What do you think of that auditory? Do you know of any other -more spontaneous and intelligent? Do you know, even in the forest, -of a vibration more profound? The court of Versailles admires like a -well-drilled regiment; the people throw themselves passionately into -the beautiful. They pack together, crowd, amalgamate, combine, and -knead themselves in the theatre,--a living paste that the poet is about -to mould. The powerful thumb of Molière will presently make its mark -on it; the nail of Corneille will scratch this ill-shaped heap. Whence -does that heap come? Whence does it proceed? From the Courtille, from -the Porcherons, from the Cunette; it is shoeless, it is bare-armed, it -is ragged. Silence! This is the human block. - -The house is crowded, the vast multitude looks, listens, loves; all -consciences, deeply moved, throw off their inner fire; all eyes -glisten; the huge beast with a thousand heads is there,--the Mob of -Burke, the _Plebs_ of Titus Livius, the _Fex urbis_ of Cicero. It -caresses the beautiful; smiling at it with the grace of a woman. It -is literary in the most refined sense of the word; nothing equals the -delicacy of this monster. The tumultuous crowd trembles, blushes, -palpitates. Its modesty is surprising; the crowd is a virgin. No -prudery however; this brute is not brutal. Not a sympathy escapes -it; it has in itself the whole keyboard, from passion to irony, from -sarcasm to sobbing. Its compassion is more than compassion; it is real -mercy. God is felt in it. All at once the sublime passes, and the -sombre electricity of the abyss heaves up suddenly all this pile of -hearts and entrails; enthusiasm effects a transfiguration. And now, -is the enemy at the gates, is the country in danger? Appeal to that -populace, and it would enact the sublime drama of Thermopylæ. Who has -called forth such a metamorphosis? Poetry. - -The multitude (and in this lies their grandeur) are profoundly open to -the ideal. When they come in contact with lofty art they are pleased, -they shudder. Not a detail escapes them. The crowd is one liquid and -living expanse capable of vibration. A mass is a sensitive-plant. -Contact with the beautiful agitates ecstatically the surface of -multitudes,--sure sign that the depth is sounded. A rustling of leaves, -a mysterious breath, passes, the crowd trembles under the sacred -insufflation of the abyss. - -And even where the man of the people is not in a crowd, he is yet a -good hearer of great things. His ingenuousness is honest, his curiosity -healthy. Ignorance is a longing. His near connection with Nature -renders him subject to the holy emotion of the true. He has, toward -poetry, secret natural desires which he does not suspect himself. All -the teachings are due to the people. The more divine the light, the -more is it made for this simple soul. We would have in the villages a -pulpit from which Homer should be explained to the peasants. - - - -CHAPTER VIII. - - -Too much matter is the evil of our day. Hence a certain dulness. - -It is necessary to restore some ideal in the human mind. Whence shall -you take your ideal? Where is it? The poets, the philosophers, the -thinkers are the urns. The ideal is in Æschylus, in Isaiah, in Juvenal, -in Alighieri, in Shakespeare. Throw Æschylus, throw Isaiah, throw -Juvenal, throw Dante, throw Shakespeare into the deep soul of the human -race. - -Pour Job, Solomon, Pindar, Ezekiel, Sophocles, Euripides, Herodotus, -Theocritus, Plautus, Lucretius, Virgil, Terence, Horace, Catullus, -Tacitus, Saint Paul, Saint Augustine, Tertullian, Petrarch, Pascal, -Milton, Descartes, Corneille, La Fontaine, Montesquieu, Diderot, -Rousseau, Beaumarchais, Sedaine, André Chenier, Kant, Byron, -Schiller,--pour all these souls into man. And with them pour all the -wits from Æsop up to Molière, all the intellects from Plato up to -Newton, all the encyclopædists from Aristotle up to Voltaire. - -By that means, while curing the illness for the moment, you will -establish forever the health of the human mind. - -You will cure the middle class and found the people. - -As we have said just now, after the destruction which has delivered the -world, you will construct the edifice which shall make it prosper. - -What an aim,--to make the people! Principles combined with science; -every possible quantity of the absolute introduced by degrees into the -fact; Utopia treated successively by every mode of realization,--by -political economy, by philosophy, by physics, by chemistry, by -dynamics, by logic, by art; union replacing little by little -antagonism, and unity replacing union; for religion God, for priest the -father, for prayer virtue, for field the whole earth, for language the -verb, for law the right, for motive-power duty, for hygiene labour, -for economy universal peace, for canvas the very life, for the goal -progress, for authority liberty, for people the man,--such is the -simplification. - -And at the summit the ideal. - -The ideal!--inflexible type of perpetual progress. - -To whom belong men of genius, if not to thee, people? They do belong to -thee; they are thy sons and thy fathers. Thou givest birth to them, and -they teach thee. They open in thy chaos vistas of light. Children, they -have drunk thy sap. They have leaped in the universal matrix, humanity. -Each of thy phases, people, is an avatar. The deep essence of life, -it is in thee that it must be looked for. Thou art the great bosom. -Geniuses are begotten from thee, mysterious crowd. - -Let them therefore return to thee. - -People, the author, God, dedicates them to thee. - - - - -BOOK VI. - - -THE BEAUTIFUL THE SERVANT OF THE TRUE. - - - -CHAPTER I. - - -Ah, minds, be useful! Be of some service. Do not be fastidious when it -is necessary to be efficient and good. Art for art may be beautiful, -but art for progress is more beautiful yet. To dream revery is well, -to dream Utopia is better. Ah, you must think? Then think of making -man better. You must dream? Here is the dream for you,--the ideal. The -prophet seeks solitude, but not isolation. He unravels and untwists -the threads of humanity, tied and rolled in a skein in his soul; he -does not break them. He goes into the desert to think--of whom? Of -the multitude. It is not to the forests that he speaks; it is to the -cities, It is not at the grass bending to the wind that he looks; it is -at man. It is not against lions that he wars; it is against tyrants. -Woe to thee, Ahab! woe to thee, Hosea! woe to you, kings! woe to you, -Pharaohs! is the cry of the great solitary one. Then he weeps. - -For what? For that eternal captivity of Babylon, undergone by Israel -formerly, undergone by Poland, by Roumania, by Hungary, by Venice -to-day. He grows old, the good and dark thinker; he watches, he lies -in wait, he listens, he looks,--ear in the silence, eye in the night, -claw half stretched toward the wicked. Go and speak to him, then, of -art for art, to that cenobite of the ideal. He has his aim, and he -walks straight toward it; and his aim is this: improvement. He devotes -himself to it. - -He does not belong to himself; he belongs to his apostleship. He is -intrusted with that immense care,--the progress of the human race. -Genius is not made for genius, it is made for man. Genius on earth -is God giving himself. Each time that a masterpiece appears, it is a -distribution of God that takes place. The masterpiece is a variety of -the miracle. Thence, in all religions, and among all peoples, comes -faith in divine men. They deceive themselves, those who think that we -deny the divinity of Christs. - -At the point now reached by the social question, everything should be -action in common. Forces isolated frustrate one another; the ideal and -the real strengthen each other. Art necessarily aids science. These two -wheels of progress should turn together. - -Generation of new talents, noble group of writers and poets, legion -of young men, O living posterity of my country, your elders love -and salute you! Courage! let us consecrate ourselves. Let us devote -ourselves to the good, to the true, to the just. In that there is -goodness. - -Some pure lovers of art, affected by a preoccupation which in its -way has its dignity and nobleness, discard this formula, "Art for -progress," the Beautiful Useful, fearing lest the useful should deform -the beautiful. They tremble lest they should see attached to the fine -arms of the Muse the coarse hands of the drudge. According to them, the -ideal may become perverted by too much contact with reality. They are -solicitous for the sublime if it is lowered as far as humanity. Ah, -they are mistaken. - -The useful, far from circumscribing the sublime, increases it. The -application of the sublime to human things produces unexpected -_chefs-d'œuvre._ The useful, considered in itself and as an element -combining with the sublime, is of several kinds; there is the useful -which is tender, and there is the useful which is indignant. Tender, it -refreshes the unfortunate and creates the social epopee; indignant, it -flagellates the wicked, and creates the divine satire. Moses hands the -rod to Jesus; and after having caused the water to gush from the rock, -that august rod, the very same, drives the vendors from the sanctuary. - -What! art should grow less because it has expanded? No. One service -more is one more beauty. - -But people cry out: To undertake the cure of social evils; to amend -the codes; to denounce the law to the right; to pronounce those -hideous words, "bagne," "galley-slave," "convict," "girl of the town;" -to control the police-registers; to contract the dispensaries; to -investigate wages and the want of work; to taste the black bread of -the poor; to seek labour for the work-girl; to confront fashionable -idleness with ragged sloth; to throw down the partition of ignorance; -to open schools; to teach little children how to read; to attack -shame, infamy, error, vice, crime, want of conscience; to preach the -multiplication of spelling-books; to proclaim the equality of the sun; -to ameliorate the food of intellects and of hearts; to give meat and -drink; to claim solutions for problems and shoes for naked feet,--that -is not the business of the azure. Art is the azure. - -Yes, art is the azure; but the azure from above, from which falls -the ray which swells the corn, makes the maize yellow and the apple -round, gilds the orange, sweetens the grape. I repeat it, one service -more is one more beauty. At all events, where is the diminution? To -ripen the beet-root, to water the potatoes, to thicken the lucern, the -clover, and the hay; to be a fellow-workman with the ploughman, the -vine-dresser, and the gardener,--that does not deprive the heavens of -one star. Ah, immensity does not despise utility, and what does it lose -by it? Does the vast vital fluid that we call magnetic or electric -lighten less splendidly the depth of the clouds because it consents -to perform the office of pilot to a bark, and to keep always turned -to the north the small needle that is trusted to it, the huge guide? -Is the aurora less magnificent, has it less purple and emerald, does -it undergo any decrease of majesty, of grace and radiancy, because, -foreseeing the thirst of a fly, it carefully secretes in the flower the -drop of dew which the bee requires? - -Yet, people insist: To compose social poetry, human poetry, popular -poetry; to grumble against the evil and for the good; to promote public -passions; to insult despots; to make rascals despair; to emancipate man -before he is of age; to push souls forward and darkness backward; to -know that there are thieves and tyrants; to clean penal cells; to empty -the pail of public filth,--what! Polyhymnia, sleeves tucked up to do -such dirty work? Oh, for shame! - -Why not? - -Homer was the geographer and the historian of his time, Moses the -legislator of his, Juvenal the judge of his, Dante the theologian of -his, Shakespeare the moralist of his, Voltaire the philosopher of his. -No region, in speculation or in real fact, is shut to the mind. Here a -horizon, there wings; right for all to soar. - -For certain sublime beings, to soar is to serve. In the desert not a -drop of water,--a horrible thirst; the wretched file of pilgrims drag -along overcome. All at once, in the horizon, above a wrinkle in the -sands, a griffin is seen soaring, and all the caravan cry out, "There -is water there!" - -What thinks Æschylus of art as art? Certainly, if ever a poet was a -poet, it is Æschylus. Listen to his reply. It is in the "Frogs" of -Aristophanes, line 1039. Æschylus speaks:-- - - "Since the beginning of time, the illustrious poet has - served men. Orpheus has taught the horror of murder, Musæus - oracles and medicine, Hesiod agriculture, and that divine - Homer, heroism. And I, after Homer, I have sung Patroclus, - and Teucer the lion-hearted; so that every citizen should - try to resemble the great men." - -As all the sea is salt, so all the Bible is poetry. This poetry talks -politics at its own hours. Open 1 Samuel, chapter VIII. The Jewish -people demand a king: - - "...And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice - of the people in all that they say unto thee; for they have - not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should - not reign over them.... And Samuel told all the words of the - Lord unto the people that asked of him a king. And he said, - This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over - you: He will take your sons and appoint them for himself, - for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall - run before his chariots.... And he will take your daughters - to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. - And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your - oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his - servants. And he will take your men-servants, and your - maid-servants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, - and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your - sheep: and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out - in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen - you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day." - -Samuel, we see, denies the right divine; Deuteronomy shakes the -altar,--the false altar, let us observe; but is not the next altar -always the false altar? "You shall demolish the altars of the false -gods. You shall seek God where he dwells." It is almost Pantheism. -Because it takes part in human things, is democratic here, iconoclast -there, is that book less magnificent and less supreme? If poetry is not -in the Bible, where is it? - -You say: The muse is made to sing, to love, to believe, to pray. Yes -and no. Let us understand each other. To sing whom? The void. To love -what? One's self. To believe in what? The dogma. To pray to what? The -idol. No, here is the truth: To sing the ideal, to love humanity, to -believe in progress, to pray to the infinite. - -Take care, you who are tracing those circles round the poet, you put -him beyond man. That the poet should be beyond humanity in one way,--by -the wings, by the immense flight, by the sudden possible disappearance -in the fathomless,--is well; it must be so, but on condition of -reappearance. He may depart, but he must return. Let him have wings -for the infinite, provided he has feet for the earth, and that, after -having been seen flying, he is seen walking. Let him become man again, -after he has gone out of humanity. After he has been seen an archangel, -let him be once more a brother. Let the star which is in that eye weep -a tear, and that tear be the human tear. Thus, human and superhuman, he -shall be the poet. But to be altogether beyond man, is not to be. Show -me thy foot, genius, and let us see if, like myself, thou hast earthly -dust on thy heel. - -If thou hast not some of that dust, if thou hast never walked in my -pathway, thou dost not know me and I do not know thee. Go away. Thou -believest thyself an angel, thou art but a bird. - -Help from the strong for the weak, help from the great for the small, -help from the free for the slaves, help from the thinkers for the -ignorant, help from the solitary for the multitudes,--such is the law, -from Isaiah to Voltaire. He who does not follow that law may be a -genius, but he is only a useless genius. By not handling the things of -the earth, he thinks to purify himself; he annuls himself. He is the -refined, the delicate, he may be the exquisite genius; he is not the -great genius. Any one, roughly useful, but useful, has the right to -ask on seeing that good-for-nothing genius: "Who is this idler?" The -amphora which refuses to go to the fountain deserves the hooting of the -pitchers. - -Great is he who consecrates himself! Even when overcome, he remains -serene, and his misery is happiness. No, it is not a bad thing for the -poet to meet face to face with duty. Duty has a stern resemblance to -the ideal. The act of doing one's duty is worth all the trial it costs. -No, the jostling with Cato is not to be avoided. No, no, no; truth, -honesty, teaching the crowds, human liberty, manly virtue, conscience, -are not things to disdain. Indignation and emotion are but one faculty -turned toward the two sides of mournful human slavery; and those who -are capable of anger are capable of love. To level the tyrant and the -slave, what a magnificent effort! Now, the whole of one side of actual -society is tyrant, and all the other side is slave. To straighten this -out will be a wonderful thing to accomplish; yet it will be done. All -thinkers must work with that end in view. They will gain greatness in -that work. To be the servant of God in the march of progress and the -apostle of God with the people,--such is the law which regulates the -growth of genius. - - -[Illustration: _Portrait of Shakespeare._ - -Photogravure. From Mr. Ozias Humphry's Drawing of the Chandos. Picture -made for the late Mr. Malene in 1783. - -Drawing of Mr. Malene] - - - -CHAPTER II. - - -There are two poets,--the poet of caprice and the poet of logic; and -there is a third poet, a component of both, amending them one by the -other, completing them one by the other, and summing them up in a -loftier entity,--the two statures in a single one. The third is the -first. He has caprice, and he follows the wind. He has logic, and he -follows duty. The first writes the Canticle of Canticles, the second -writes Leviticus, the third writes the Psalms and the Prophecies. The -first is Horace, the second is Lucan, the third is Juvenal. The first -is Pindar, the second is Hesiod, the third is Homer. - -No loss of beauty results from goodness. Is the lion less beautiful -than the tiger, because it has the faculty of merciful emotion? -Does that jaw which opens to let the infant fall into the hands of -the mother deprive that mane of its majesty? Does the vast noise of -the roaring vanish from that terrible mouth because it has licked -Androcles? The genius which does not help, even if graceful, is -deformed. A prodigy without love is a monster. Let us love! let us love! - -To love has never hindered from pleasing. Where have you seen one form -of the good excluding the other? On the contrary, all that is good is -connected. Let us, however, understand each other. It does not follow -that to have one quality implies necessarily the possession of the -other; but it would be strange that one quality added to another should -make less. To be useful, is but to be useful; to be beautiful is but -to be beautiful; to be useful and beautiful is to be sublime. That is -what Saint Paul is in the first century, Tacitus and Juvenal in the -second, Dante in the thirteenth, Shakespeare in the sixteenth, Milton -and Molière in the seventeenth. - -We have just now recalled a saying become famous: "Art for art." Let -us, once for all, explain ourselves in this question. If faith can -be placed in an affirmation very general and very often repeated (we -believe honestly), these words, "Art for art," would have been written -by the author of this book himself. Written? Never! You may read, from -the first to the last line, all that we have published; you will not -find these words. It is the opposite which is written throughout our -works, and, we insist on it, in our entire life. As for these words -in themselves, how far are they real? Here is the fact, which several -of our contemporaries remember as well as we do. One day, thirty-five -years ago, in a discussion between critics and poets on Voltaire's -tragedies, the author of this book threw out this suggestion: "This -tragedy is not a tragedy. It is not men who live, it is sentences -which speak in it! Rather a hundred times 'Art for art!'" This remark -turned, doubtless involuntarily, from its true sense to serve the wants -of discussion, has since taken, to the great surprise of him who had -uttered it, the proportions of a formula. It is this opinion, limited -to "Alzire" and to the "Orpheline de la Chine," and incontestable in -that restricted application, which has been turned into a perfect -declaration of principles, and an axiom to inscribe on the banner of -art. - -This point settled, let us go on. - -Between two verses, the one by Pindar, deifying a coachman or -glorifying the brass nails of the wheel of a chariot, the other by -Archilochus, so powerful that, after having read it, Jeffreys would -leave off his career of crimes and would hang himself on the gallows -prepared by him for honest people,--between these two verses, of equal -beauty, I prefer that of Archilochus. - -In times anterior to history, when poetry is fabulous and legendary, -it has a Promethean grandeur. What composes this grandeur? Utility. -Orpheus tames wild animals; Amphion builds cities; the poet, tamer and -architect, Linus aiding Hercules, Musæus assisting Dædalus, poetry a -civilizing power,--such is the origin. Tradition agrees with reason. -The common-sense of peoples is not deceived in that. It always invents -fables in the sense of truth. Everything is great in those magnifying -distances. Well, then, the wild-beast-taming poet that you admire in -Orpheus, recognize him in Juvenal. - -We insist on Juvenal. Few poets have been more insulted, more -contested, more calumniated. Calumny against Juvenal has been drawn -at such long date that it lasts yet. It passes from one literary -clown to another. These grand haters of evil are hated by all the -flatterers of power and success. The mob of fawning sophists, of -writers who have around the neck the mark of their slavery, of bullying -historiographers, of scholiasts kept and fed, of court and school -followers, stand in the way of the glory of the punishers and avengers. -They croak around those eagles. People do not willingly render justice -to the dispensers of justice. They hinder the masters and rouse the -indignation of the lackeys. There is such a thing as the indignation of -baseness. - -Moreover, the diminutives cannot do less than help one another, and -Cæsarion must at least have Tyrannion as a support The pedant snaps -the ferules for the benefit of the satrap. There is for this kind of -work a literary sycophancy and an official pedagogism. These poor, -dear-paying vices; these excellent indulgent crimes; his Highness -Rufinus; his Majesty Claudius; that august Madame Messalina who gives -such beautiful _fêtes_, and pensions out of her privy purse, and who -lasts and who is perpetuated, always crowned, calling herself Theodora, -then Fredegonde, then Agnes, then Margaret of Burgundy, then Isabel -of Bavaria, then Catherine de Medici, then Catherine of Russia, then -Caroline of Naples, etc.,--all these great lords, crimes, all these -fine ladies, turpitudes, shall they have the sorrow of witnessing -the triumph of Juvenal! No. War with the scourge in the name of -sceptres! War with the rod in the name of the shop! That is well! Go -on, courtiers, clients, eunuchs, and scribes. Go on, publicans and -pharisees. You will not hinder the republic from thanking Juvenal, or -the temple from approving Jesus. - -Isaiah, Juvenal, Dante,--they are virgins. Observe their eyes cast -down. There is chastity in the anger of the just against the unjust. -The Imprecation can be as holy as the Hosanna; and indignation, honest -indignation, has the very purity of virtue. In point of whiteness, the -foam has no reason to envy the snow. - - - -CHAPTER III. - - -History proves the working partnership of art and progress. _Dictus ob -hoc lenire tigres._ Rhythm is a power,--a power that the Middle Ages -recognize and submit to not less than antiquity. The second barbarism, -feudal barbarism, dreads also this power,--poetry. The barons, not -over-timid, are abashed before the poet. Who is this man? They fear -lest a manly song be sung. The spirit of civilization is with this -unknown. The old donjons full of carnage open their wild eyes, and -suspect the darkness; anxiety seizes hold of them. Feudality trembles; -the den is disturbed. The dragons and the hydras are ill at ease. Why? -Because an invisible god is there. - -It is curious to find this power of poetry in countries where -unsociableness is deepest, particularly in England, in that extreme -feudal darkness, _penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos._ If we believe -the legend,--a form of history as true and as false as any other,--it -is owing to poetry that Colgrim, besieged by the Britons, is relieved -in York by his brother Bardulph the Saxon; that King Awlof penetrates -into the camp of Athelstan; that Werburgh, prince of Northumbria, is -delivered by the Welsh, whence, it is said, that Celtic device of the -Prince of Wales, _Ich dien_; that Alfred, King of England, triumphs -over Gitro, King of the Danes; and that Richard the Lion-hearted -escapes from the prison of Losenstein. Ranulph, Earl of Chester, -attacked in his castle of Rothelan, is saved by the intervention of -the minstrels, which was still authenticated under Elizabeth by the -privilege accorded to the minstrels patronized by the Lords of Dalton. - -The poet had the right of reprimand and menace. In 1316, on Pentecost -Day, Edward II. being at table in the grand hall of Westminster with -the peers of England, a female minstrel entered the hall on horseback, -rode all round, saluted Edward II., predicted in a loud voice to -the minion Spencer the gibbet and castration by the hand of the -executioner, and to the king the hoof by means of which a red-hot iron -should be buried in his intestines, placed on the table before the king -a letter, and departed; and no one said anything to her. - -At the festivals the minstrels passed before the priests, and were -more honourably treated. At Abingdon, at a festival of the Holy Cross, -each of the twelve priests received fourpence, and each of the twelve -minstrels two shillings. At the priory of Maxtoke, the custom was to -give supper to the minstrels in the Painted Chamber, lighted by eight -huge wax-candles. - -The more we advance North, it seems as if the increased thickness -of the fog increases the greatness of the poet. In Scotland he is -enormous. If anything surpasses the legend of the Rhapsodists, it is -the legend of the Scalds. At the approach of Edward of England, the -bards defend Stirling as the three hundred had defended Sparta; and -they have their Thermopylæ, as great as that of Leonidas. Ossian, -perfectly certain and real, has had a plagiary; that is nothing; but -this plagiarist has done more than rob him,--he has made him insipid. -To know Fingal only by Macpherson is as if one knew Amadis only by -Tressan. They show at Staffa the stone of the poet, _Clachan an -Bairdh_,--so named, according to many antiquaries, long before the -visit of Walter Scott to the Hebrides. This chair of the Bard--a great -hollow rock ready for a giant wishing to sit down--is at the entrance -of the grotto. Around it are the waves and the clouds. Behind the -Clachan an Bairdh is heaped up and raised the superhuman geometry of -basaltic prisms, the pell-mell of colonnades and waves, and all the -mystery of the fearful edifice. The gallery of Fingal runs next to the -poet's chair; the sea beats on it before entering under that terrible -ceiling. When evening comes, one imagines that he sees in that chair -a form leaning on its elbow. "It is the ghost!" say the fishermen of -Mackinnon's clan; and no one would dare, even in full day, to go up as -far as that formidable seat; for to the idea of the stone is allied the -idea of the sepulchre, and on the chair of granite no one can be seated -but the man of shade. - - - -CHAPTER IV. - - -Thought is power. - -All power is duty. Should this power enter into repose in our age? -Should duty shut its eyes? and is the moment come for art to disarm? -Less than ever. The human caravan is, thanks to 1789, arrived on a high -plateau; and the horizon being more vast, art has more to do. This -is all. To every widening of horizon corresponds an enlargement of -conscience. - -We have not reached the goal. Concord condensed in happiness, -civilization summed up in harmony,--that is far off yet. In the -eighteenth century that dream was so distant that it seemed a guilty -thought. The Abbé de St. Pierre was expelled from the Academy for -having dreamed that dream,--an expulsion which seems rather severe at a -period when pastorals carried the day, even with Fontenelle, and when -St. Lambert invented the idyll for the use of the nobility. The Abbé -de St. Pierre has left behind him a word and a dream: the word is his -own,--"Benevolence;" the dream belongs to all of us,--"Fraternity." -This dream, which made Cardinal de Polignac foam and Voltaire smile, is -not now so much lost as it was once in the mist of the improbable. It -is a little nearer; but we do not touch it. The people, those orphans -who seek their mother, do not yet hold in their hand the hem of the -robe of peace. - -There remains around us a sufficient quantity of slavery, of sophistry, -of war and death, to prevent the spirit of civilization from giving up -any of its forces. The idea of the right divine is not yet entirely -done away with. That which has been Ferdinand VII. in Spain, Ferdinand -II. in Naples, George IV. in England, Nicholas in Russia, still floats -about; a remnant of these spectres is still hovering in the air. -Inspirations descend from that fatal cloud on some crown-bearers who, -leaning on their elbows, meditate with a sinister aspect. - -Civilization has not done yet with those who grant constitutions, -with the owners of peoples, and with the legitimate and hereditary -madmen, who assert themselves majesties by the grace of God, and think -that they have the right of manumission over the human race. It is -necessary to raise some obstacle, to show bad will to the past, and to -bring to bear on these men, on these dogmas, on these chimeras which -stand in the way, some hindrance. Intellect, thought, science, true -art, philosophy, ought to watch and beware of misunderstandings. False -rights contrive very easily to put in movement true armies. There -are murdered Polands looming in the future. "All my anxiety," said a -contemporary poet recently dead, "is the smoke of my cigar." My anxiety -is also a smoke,--the smoke of the cities which are burning in the -distance. Therefore, let us bring the masters to grief, if we can. - -Let us go again in the loudest possible voice over the lesson of the -just and the unjust, of right and usurpation, of oath and perjury, of -good and evil, of _fas et nefas_; let us come forth with all our old -antitheses, as they say. Let us contrast what ought to be with what -actually is. Let us put clearness into everything. Bring light, you -that have it. Let us oppose dogma to dogma, principle to principle, -energy to obstinacy, truth to imposture, dream to dream,--the dream -of the future to the dream of the past,--liberty to despotism. People -will be able to sit down, to stretch themselves at full length, and -to go on smoking the cigar of fancy poetry, and to enjoy Boccaccio's -"Decameron" with the sweet blue sky over their heads, whenever the -sovereignty of a king shall be exactly of the same dimension as the -liberty of a man. Until then, little sleep. I am distrustful. - -Put sentinels everywhere. Do not expect from despots a large share -of liberty. Break your own shackles, all of you Polands that may -be! Make sure of the future by your own exertions. Do not hope that -your chain will forge itself into the key of freedom. Up, children -of the fatherland! O mowers of the steppes, arise! Trust to the good -intentions of orthodox czars just enough to take up arms. Hypocrisies -and apologies, being traps, are one more danger. - -We live in a time when orations are heard praising the magnanimity of -white bears and the tender feelings of panthers. Amnesty, clemency, -grandeur of soul; an era of felicity opens; fatherly love is the order -of the day; see all that is already done; it must not be thought that -the march of the age is not understood; august arms are open; rally -still closer round the emperor; Muscovy is kind-hearted. See how happy -the serfs are! The streams are to flow with milk, with prosperity and -liberty for all. Your princes groan like you over the past; they are -excellent. Come, fear nothing, little ones! so far as we are concerned, -we confess candidly that we are of those who put no reliance in the -lachrymal gland of crocodiles. - -The actual public monstrosities impose stem obligations on the -conscience of the thinker, philosopher, or poet. Incorruptibility must -resist corruption. It is more than ever necessary to show men the -ideal,--that mirror in which is seen the face of God. - - - -CHAPTER V. - - -There are in literature and philosophy men who have tears and laughter -at command,--Heraclituses wearing the mask of a Democritus; men often -very great, like Voltaire. They are irony keeping a serious, sometimes -tragic countenance. - -These men, under the pressure of the influences and prejudices of -their time, speak with a double meaning. One of the most profound is -Bayle,[1] the man of Rotterdam, the powerful thinker. When Bayle coolly -utters this maxim, "It is better worth our while to weaken the grace -of a thought than to anger a tyrant," I smile; I know the man. I think -of the persecuted, almost proscribed one, and I know well that he has -given way to the temptation of affirming merely to give me the longing -to contest. But when it is a poet who speaks,--a poet wholly free, -rich, happy, prosperous almost to inviolability,--one expects a clear, -open, and healthy teaching, one cannot believe that from such a man can -emanate anything like a desertion of his own conscience; and it is with -a blush that one reads this:-- - - "Here below, in time of peace, let every man sweep his own - street-door. In war, if conquered, let every man fraternize - with the soldiery.... Let every enthusiast be put on the - cross when he reaches his thirtieth year. If he has once - experienced the world as it is, from the dupe he becomes - the rogue.... What utility, what result, what advantage - does the holy liberty of the press offer you? The complete - demonstration of it is this: a profound contempt of - public opinion.... There are people who have a mania for - railing at everything that is great,--they are the men who - have attacked the Holy Alliance; and yet nothing has been - invented more august and more salutary for humanity." - -These things, which lower the man who has written them, are signed -_Goethe._ Goethe, when he wrote them, was sixty years old. Indifference -to good and evil excites the brain,--one may get intoxicated with it; -and that is what comes of it. The lesson is a sad one. Mournful sight! -Here the helot is a mind. - -A quotation may be a pillory. We nail on the public highway these -lugubrious sentences; it is our duty. Goethe has written that. Let it -be remembered; and let no one among the poets fall again into the same -error. - -To go into a passion for the good, for the true, for the just; to -suffer with the sufferers; to feel in our inner soul all the blows -struck by every executioner on human flesh; to be scourged with -Christ and flogged with the negro; to be strengthened and to lament; -to climb, a Titan, that wild peak where Peter and Cæsar make their -swords fraternize, _gladium cum gladio copulemus_; to heap up for -that escalade the Ossa of the ideal on the Pelion of the real; to -make a vast repartition of hope; to avail one's self of the ubiquity -of the book in order to be everywhere at the same time with a -comforting thought; to push pell-mell men, women, children, whites, -blacks, peoples, hangmen, tyrants, victims, impostors, the ignorant, -proletaries, serfs, slaves, masters, toward the future (a precipice -to some, deliverance to others); to go forth, to wake up, to hasten, -to march, to run, to think, to wish,--ah, indeed, that is well! It is -worth while being a poet. Beware! you lose your temper. Of course I -do; but I gain anger. Come and breathe into my wings, hurricane! - -There has been, of late years, an instant when impassibility was -recommended to poets as a condition of divinity. To be indifferent, -that was called being Olympian. Where had they seen that? That is -an Olympus very unlike the real one. Read Homer. The Olympians are -passion, and nothing else. Boundless humanity,--such is their divinity. -They fight unceasingly. One has a bow, another a lance, another a -sword, another a club, another thunder. There is one of them who -compels the leopards to draw him along. Another, Wisdom, has cut off -the head of Night, twisted with serpents, and has nailed it to his -shield. Such is the calm of the Olympians. Their angers cause the -thunders to roll from one end to the other of the Iliad and of the -Odyssey. - -These angers, when they are just, are good. The poet who has them -is the true Olympian. Juvenal, Dante, Agrippa d'Aubigné, and Milton -had these angers; Molière also. From the soul of Alcestes flashes -constantly the lightning of "vigorous hatreds." Jesus meant that hatred -of evil when he said, "I am come to bring war." - -I like Stesichorus indignant, preventing the alliance of Greece with -Phalaris, and fighting the brazen bull with strokes of the lyre. - -Louis XIV. found it good to have Racine sleeping in his chamber when -he, the king, was ill, turning thus the poet into an assistant to his -apothecary,--wonderful patronage of letters; but he asked nothing -more from the _beaux esprits_, and the horizon of his alcove seemed -to him sufficient for them. One day, Racine, somewhat urged by Madame -de Maintenon, had the idea to leave the king's chamber and to visit -the garrets of the people. Thence a memoir on the public distress. -Louis XIV. cast at Racine a killing look. Poets fare ill when, being -courtiers, they do what royal mistresses ask of them. Racine, on the -suggestion of Madame de Maintenon, risks a remonstrance which causes -him to be driven from Court, and he dies of it. Voltaire at the -instigation of Madame de Pompadour, tries a madrigal (an awkward one it -appears), which causes him to be driven from France; and he does not -die of it Louis XV. on reading the madrigal,--"Et gardez tous deux vos -conquêtes,"--had exclaimed, "What a fool this Voltaire is!" - -Some years ago, "a well-authorized pen," as they say in official and -academic _patois_, wrote this:-- - - "The greatest service that poets can render us is to be good - for nothing. We do not ask of them anything else." - -Observe the extent and spread of this word, "the poets," which includes -Linus, Musæus, Orpheus, Homer, Job, Hesiod, Moses, Daniel, Amos, -Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Æsop, David, Solomon, Æschylus, Sophocles, -Euripides, Pindar, Archilochus, Tyrtæus, Stesichorus, Menander, Plato, -Asclepiades, Pythagoras, Anacreon, Theocritus, Lucretius, Plautus, -Terence, Virgil, Horace, Catullus, Juvenal, Apuleius, Lucan, Persius, -Tibullus, Seneca, Petrarch, Ossian, Saädi, Ferdousi, Dante, Cervantes, -Calderon, Lope de Vega, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Camoëns, Marot, Ronsard, -Régnier, Agrippa d'Aubigné, Malherbe, Segrais, Racan, Milton, Pierre -Corneille, Molière, Racine, Boileau, La Fontaine, Fontenelle, Reguard, -Lesage, Swift, Voltaire, Diderot, Beaumarchais, Sedaine, Jean-Jacques -Rousseau, André Chénier, Klopstock, Lessing, Wieland, Schiller, Goethe, -Hoffmann, Alfieri, Châteaubriand, Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth, Burns, -Walter Scott, Balzac, Musset, Béranger, Pellico, Vigny, Dumas, George -Sand, Lamartine,--all declared by the oracle "good for nothing," -and having uselessness for excellence. That sentence (a "success," -it appears) has been very often repeated. We repeat it in our turn. -When the conceit of an idiot reaches such proportions it deserves -registering. The writer who has emitted that aphorism is, so they -assure us, one of the high personages of the day. We have no objection. -Dignities do not lessen the length of the ears. - -Octavius Augustus, on the morning of the battle of Actium, met an ass -that the owner called Triumphus. This Triumphus, endowed with the -faculty of braying, appeared to him of good omen; Octavius Augustus -won the battle, remembered Triumphus, had the ass carved in bronze and -placed in the Capitol. That made a Capitoline ass, but still an ass. - -One can understand kings saying to the poet, "Be useless;" but one -does not understand the people saying so to him. The poet is for the -people. "Pro populo poëta," wrote Agrippa d'Aubigné; "All things to -all men," exclaimed Saint Paul. What is a mind? A feeder of souls. -The poet is at the same time a menace and a promise. The anxiety -with which he inspires oppressors calms and consoles the oppressed. -It is the glory of the poet that he places a restless pillow on the -purple bed of the tormentors; and, thanks to him, it is often that -the tyrant awakes, saying, "I have slept badly." Every slavery, -every disheartening faintness, every sorrow, every misfortune, every -distress, every hunger, and every thirst have a claim on the poet; he -has one creditor,--the human race. - -To be the great servant does not certainly derogate from the poet. -Because on certain occasions, and to do his duty, he has uttered the -cry of a people; because he has, when necessary, the sob of humanity -in his breast,--every voice of mystery sings not the less in him. -Speaking so loudly does not prevent him speaking low. He is not less -the confidant, and sometimes the confessor, of hearts. He is not less -intimately connected with those who love, with those who think, with -those who sigh, thrusting his head in the twilight between the heads -of two lovers. The love poems of André Chénier, without losing any -of their characteristics, border on the angry iambic: "Weep thou, O -Virtue, if I die!" The poet is the only living being to whom it is -granted both to thunder and to whisper, because he has in himself, -like Nature, the rumbling of the cloud and the rustling of the leaf. -He exists for a double function,--a function individual and a public -function: and it is for that that he requires, so to speak, two souls. - -Ennius said: "I have three of them,--an Oscan soul, a Greek soul, and a -Latin soul." It is true that he made allusion only to the place of his -birth, to the place of his education, and to the place where he was a -citizen; and besides, Ennius was but a rough cast of a poet, vast, but -unformed. - -No poet without that activity of soul which is the resultant of -conscience. The ancient moral laws require to be stated; the new moral -laws require to be revealed. These two series do not coincide without -some effort. That effort is incumbent on the poet He assumes constantly -the function of the philosopher. He must defend, according to the -side attacked, now the liberty of the human mind, now the liberty of -the human heart,--to love being no less holy than to think. There is -nothing of "Art for art" in all that. - -The poet arrives in the midst of those goers and comers that we call -the living, in order to tame, like ancient Orpheus, the tiger in -man,--his evil instincts,--and, like the legendary Amphion, to remove -the stumbling-blocks of prejudice and superstition, to set up the new -blocks, to relay the corner-stones and the foundations, and to build up -again the city,--that is to say, society. - -That this immense service--namely, to co-operate in the work of -civilization--should involve loss of beauty for poetry and of dignity -for the poet, is a proposition which one cannot enunciate without -smiling. Useful art preserves and augments all its graces, all its -charms, all its prestige. Indeed, because he has taken part with -Prometheus,--the man progress, crucified on the Caucasus by brutal -force, and gnawed at while alive by hatred,--Æschylus is not lowered. -Because he has loosened the ligatures of idolatry; because he has freed -human thought from the bands of religions tied over it (_arctis nodis -relligionum_), Lucretius is not diminished. The branding of tyrants -with the red-hot iron of prophecy does not lessen Isaiah; the defence -of his country does not taint Tyrtæus. The beautiful is not degraded -by having served liberty and the amelioration of human multitudes. -The phrase "a people enfranchised" is not a bad end to a strophe. No, -patriotic or revolutionary usefulness robs poetry of nothing. Because -the huge Grütli has screened under its cliffs that formidable oath of -three peasants from which sprang free Switzerland, it is all the same, -in the falling night, a lofty mass of serene shade alive with herds, -where are heard innumerable invisible bells tinkling gently under the -clear twilight sky. - - -[Footnote 1: Do not write _Beyle._] - - - - -PART III.--BOOK I. - - -CONCLUSION. - - -AFTER DEATH.--SHAKESPEARE.--ENGLAND. - - - -CHAPTER I - - -In 1784, Bonaparte, then fifteen years old, arrived at the Military -School of Paris from Brienne, being one among four under the escort -of a minim priest. He mounted one hundred and seventy-three steps, -carrying his small trunk, and reached, below the roof, the barrack -chamber he was to inhabit. This chamber had two beds, and a small -window opening on the great yard of the school. The wall was -whitewashed; the youthful predecessors of Bonaparte had scrawled upon -this with charcoal, and the new-comer read in this little cell these -four inscriptions that we ourselves read thirty-five years ago:-- - - It takes rather long to win an epaulet.--_De Montgivray._ - - The finest day in life is that of a battle.--_Vicomte de - Tinténiac._ - - Life is but a long falsehood.--_Le Chevalier Adolphe Delmas._ - - All ends under six feet of earth.-_Le Comte de la Villette._ - -By substituting for "an epaulet" "an empire,"--a very slight -change,--the above four inscriptions were all the destiny of Bonaparte, -and a kind of "Mene Tekel Upharsin" written beforehand upon that wall. -Desmazis, junior, who accompanied Bonaparte, being his room-mate, and -about to occupy one of the two beds, saw him take a pencil (it is -Desmazis who has related the fact) and draw beneath the inscriptions -that he had just read a rough sketch of his house at Ajaccio; then, by -the side of that house, without suspecting that he was thus bringing -near the island of Corsica another mysterious island then hid in the -deep future, he wrote the last of the four sentences: "All ends under -six feet of earth." - -Bonaparte was right. For the hero, for the soldier, for the man of the -material fact, all ends under six feet of earth; for the man of the -idea everything commences there. - -Death is a power. - -For him who has had no other action but that of the mind, the tomb is -the elimination of the obstacle. To be dead, is to be all-powerful. - -The man of war is formidable while alive; he stands erect, the earth -is silent, _siluit_; he has extermination in his gesture; millions of -haggard men rush to follow him,--a fierce horde, sometimes a ruffianly -one; it is no longer a human head, it is a conqueror, it is a captain, -it is a king of kings, it is an emperor, it is a dazzling crown of -laurels which passes, throwing out lightning flashes, and allowing -to be seen in starlight beneath it a vague profile of Cæsar. All -this vision is splendid and impressive; but let only a gravel come -in the liver, or an excoriation to the pylorus,--six feet of ground, -and all is said. This solar spectrum vanishes. This tumultuous life -falls into a hole; the human race pursues its way, leaving behind -this nothingness. If this man hurricane has made some lucky rupture, -like Alexander in India, Charlemagne in Scandinavia, and Bonaparte -in ancient Europe, that is all that remains of him. But let some -passer-by, who has in him the ideal, let a poor wretch like Homer throw -out a word in the darkness, and die,--that word burns up in the gloom -and becomes a star. - -This vanquished one, driven from one town to another, is called Dante -Alighieri,--take care! This exiled one is called Æschylus, this -prisoner is called Ezekiel,--beware! This one-handed man is winged,--it -is Michael Cervantes. Do you know whom you see wayfaring there before -you? It is a sick man, Tyrtæus; it is a slave, Plautus; it is a -labourer, Spinoza; it is a valet, Rousseau. Well, that degradation, -that labour, that servitude, that infirmity, is power,--the supreme -power, mind. - -On the dunghill like Job, under the stick like Epictetus, under -contempt like Molière, mind remains mind. This it is that shall say -the last word. The Caliph Almanzor makes the people spit on Averroes -at the door of the mosque of Cordova; the Duke of York spits in -person on Milton; a Rohan, almost a prince,--"duc ne daigne, Rohan -suis,"--attempts to cudgel Voltaire to death; Descartes is driven from -France in the name of Aristotle; Tasso pays for a kiss given a princess -twenty years spent in a cell; Louis XV. sends Diderot to Vincennes; -these are mere incidents; must there not be some clouds? Those -appearances that were taken for realities, those princes, those kings -melt away; there remains only what should remain,--the human mind on -the one side, the divine minds on the other; the true work and the true -workers; society to be perfected and made fruitful; science seeking -the true; art creating the beautiful; the thirst of thought, torment -and happiness of man; inferior life aspiring to superior life. Men -have to deal with real questions,--with progress in intelligence and by -intelligence. Men call to their aid the poets, prophets, philosophers, -thinkers, the inspired. It is seen that philosophy is a nourishment and -poetry a want. There must be another bread besides bread. If you give -up poets, you must give up civilization. There comes an hour when the -human race is compelled to reckon with Shakespeare the actor and Isaiah -the beggar. - -They are the more present that they are no longer seen. Once dead, -these beings live. - -What life did they lead? What kind of men were they? What do we know -of them? Sometimes but little, as of Shakespeare; often nothing, as -of those of ancient days. Has Job existed? Is Homer one, or several? -Méziriac made Æsop straight, and Planudes made him a hunchback. -Is it true that the prophet Hosea, in order to show his love for -his country, even when fallen into opprobrium and become infamous, -espoused a prostitute, and called his children Mourning, Famine, Shame, -Pestilence, and Misery? Is it true that Hesiod ought to be divided -between Cumæ in Æolia, where he was born, and Ascra, in Bœotia, -where he had been brought up? Velleius Paterculus makes him live one -hundred and twenty years after Homer, of whom Quintilian makes him -contemporary. Which of the two is right? What matters it? The poets are -dead, their thought reigns. Having been, they are. - -They do more work to-day among us than when they were alive. Others who -have departed this life rest from their labours; dead men of genius -work. - -They work upon what? Upon minds. They make civilization. - -"All ends under six feet of earth "? No; everything commences there. -No; everything germinates there. No; everything flowers in it, and -everything grows in it, and everything bursts forth from it, and -everything proceeds from it! Good for you, men of the sword, are these -maxims! - -Lay yourselves down, disappear, lie in the grave, rot. So be it. - -During life, gildings, caparisons, drums and trumpets, panoplies, -banners to the wind, tumults, make up an illusion. The crowd gazes with -admiration on these things. It imagines that it sees something grand. -Who has the casque! Who has the cuirass? Who has the sword-belt? Who -is spurred, morioned, plumed, armed? Hurrah for that one! At death the -difference becomes striking. Juvenal takes Hannibal in the hollow of -his hand. - -It is not the Cæsar, it is the thinker, who can say when he expires, -"Deus fio." So long as he remains a man his flesh interposes between -other men and him. The flesh is a cloud upon genius. Death, that -immense light, comes and penetrates the man with its aurora. No more -flesh, no more matter, no more shade. The unknown which was within him -manifests itself and beams forth. In order that a mind may give all its -light, it requires death. The dazzling of the human race commences when -that which was a genius becomes a soul. A book within which there is -something of the ghost is irresistible. - -He who is living does not appear disinterested. People mistrust him; -people dispute him because they jostle against him. To be alive, and -to be a genius is too much. It goes and comes as you do, it walks on -the earth, it has weight, it throws a shadow, it obstructs. It seems -as if there was importunity in too great a presence. Men do not find -that man sufficiently like themselves. As we have said already, they -owe him a grudge. Who is this privileged one? This functionary cannot -be dismissed. Persecution makes him greater; decapitation crowns him. -Nothing can be done against him, nothing for him, nothing with him. -He is responsible, but not to you. He has his instructions. What he -executes may be discussed, not modified. It seems as though he had a -commission to execute from some one who is not man. Such exception -displeases. Hence more hissing than applause. - -Dead, he no longer obstructs. The hiss, now useless, dies out. Living, -he was a rival; dead, he is a benefactor. He becomes, according to the -beautiful expression of Lebrun "l'homme irréparable." Lebrun observes -this of Montesquieu; Boileau observes the same of Molière. "Avant -qu'un peu de terre" etc. This handful of earth has equally aggrandized -Voltaire. Voltaire, so great in the eighteenth century, is still -greater in the nineteenth. The grave is a crucible. Its earth, thrown -on a man, sifts his reputation, and allows it to pass forth purified. -Voltaire has lost his false glory and retained the true. To lose the -false is to gain. Voltaire is neither a lyric poet, nor a comic poet, -nor a tragic poet: he is the indignant yet tender critic of the old -world; he is the mild reformer of manners; he is the man who softens -men. Voltaire, who has lost ground as a poet, has risen as an apostle. -He has done what is good, rather than what is beautiful. The good being -included in the beautiful, those who, like Dante and Shakespeare, -have produced the beautiful, surpass Voltaire; but below the poet, -the place of the philosopher, is still very high, and Voltaire is the -philosopher. Voltaire is common-sense in a continual stream. Excepting -in literature, he is a good judge in everything. Voltaire was, in spite -of his insulters, almost adored during his lifetime; he is in our days -admired, now that the true facts of the case are known. The eighteenth -century saw his mind: we see his soul. Frederick II., who willingly -railed at him, wrote to D'Alembert, "Voltaire buffoons. This century -resembles the old courts. It has a fool, who is Arouet." This fool of -the century was its sage. - -Such are the effects of the tomb for great minds. That mysterious -entrance into the unknown leaves light behind. Their disappearance is -resplendent. Their death evolves authority. - - - -CHAPTER II. - - -Shakespeare is the great glory of England. England has in politics -Cromwell, in philosophy Bacon, in science Newton,--three lofty men of -genius. But Cromwell is tinged with cruelty and Bacon with meanness; as -to Newton, his edifice is now shaking on its base. Shakespeare is pure, -which Cromwell and Bacon are not, and immovable, which Newton is not. -Moreover, he is higher as a genius. Above Newton there is Copernicus -and Galileo; above Bacon there is Descartes and Kant; above Cromwell -there is Danton and Bonaparte; above Shakespeare there is no one. -Shakespeare has equals, but not a superior. It is a singular honour for -a land to have borne that man. One may say to that land, "Alma parens." -The native town of Shakespeare is an elect place; an eternal light is -on that cradle; Stratford-on-Avon has a certainty that Smyrna, Rhodes, -Colophon, Salamis, Ohio, Argos, and Athens--the seven towns which -disputed the birthplace of Homer--have not. - -Shakespeare is a human mind; he is also an English mind. He is very -English,--too English. He is English so far as to weaken the horror -surrounding the horrible kings whom he places on the stage, when they -are kings of England; so far as to depreciate Philip Augustus in -comparison with John Lackland; so far as expressly to make a scapegoat, -Falstaff, in order to load him with the princely misdeeds of the young -Henry V.; so far as to partake in a certain measure of the hypocrisies -of a pretended national history. Lastly, he is English so far as to -attempt to attenuate Henry VIII.; it is true that the eye of Elizabeth -is fixed upon him. But at the same time, let us insist upon this,--for -it is by it that he is great,--yes, this English poet is a human -genius. Art, like religion, has its _Ecce Homo._ Shakespeare is one of -those of whom we may utter this grand saying: He is Man. - -England is egotistical. Egotism is an island. That which perhaps is -needed by this Albion immersed in her own business, and at times looked -upon with little favour by other nations, is disinterested greatness; -of this Shakespeare gives her some portion. He throws that purple on -the shoulders of his country. He is cosmopolite and universal by his -fame. On every side he overflows island and egotism. Deprive England of -Shakespeare and see how much the luminous reverberation of that nation -would immediately decrease. Shakespeare modifies the English visage and -makes it beautiful With him, England is no longer so much like Carthage. - -Strange meaning of the apparition of men of genius! There is no great -poet born in Sparta, no great poet born in Carthage. This condemns -those two cities. Dig, and you shall find this: Sparta is but the city -of logic; Carthage is but the city of matter; to one as to the other -love is wanting. Carthage immolates her children by the sword, and -Sparta sacrifices her virgins by nudity; here innocence is killed, and -there modesty. Carthage knows only her bales and her cases; Sparta -blends herself wholly with the law,--there is her true territory; it is -for the laws that her men die at Thermopylæ. Carthage is hard. Sparta -is cold. They are two republics based upon stone; therefore no books. -The eternal sower, who is never mistaken, has not opened for those -ungrateful lands his hand full of men of genius. Such wheat is not to -be confided to the rock. - -Heroism, however, is not refused to them; they will have, if necessary, -either the martyr or the captain. Leonidas is possible for Sparta, -Hannibal for Carthage; but neither Sparta nor Carthage is capable of -Homer. Some indescribable tenderness in the sublime, which causes the -poet to gush from the very entrails of a people, is wanting in them. -That latent tenderness, that _flebile nescio quid_, England possesses; -as a proof, Shakespeare. We may add also as a proof, Wilberforce. - -England, mercantile like Carthage, legal like Sparta, is worth more -than Sparta and Carthage. She is honoured by this august exception,--a -poet. To have given birth to Shakespeare makes England great. - -Shakespeare's place is among the most sublime in that _élite_ of -absolute men of genius which, from time to time increased by some -splendid fresh arrival, crowns civilization and illumines with its -immense radiancy the human race. Shakespeare is legion. Alone, he forms -the counterpoise to our grand French seventeenth century, and almost to -the eighteenth. - -When one arrives in England, the first thing that he looks for is the -statue of Shakespeare. He finds the statue of Wellington. - -Wellington is a general who gained a battle, having chance for his -partner. - -If you insist on seeing Shakespeare's statue you are taken to a place -called Westminster, where there are kings,--a crowd of kings: there is -also a comer called "Poets' Corner." There, in the shade of four or -five magnificent monuments where some royal nobodies shine in marble -and bronze, is shown to you on a small pedestal a little figure, and -under this little figure, the name, "WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE." - -In addition to this, statues everywhere; if you wish for statues you -may find as many as you can wish. Statue for Charles, statue for -Edward, statue for William, statues for three or four Georges, of whom -one was an idiot. Statue of the Duke of Richmond at Huntley; statue -of Napier at Portsmouth; statue of Father Mathew at Cork; statue -of Herbert Ingram, I don't know where. A man has well drilled the -riflemen,--he gets a statue; a man has commanded a manœuvre of the -Horse Guards,--he gets a statue. Another has been a supporter of the -past, has squandered all the wealth of England in paying a coalition -of kings against 1789, against democracy, against light, against the -ascending movement of the human race,--quick! a pedestal for that; a -statue to Mr. Pitt. Another has knowingly fought against truth, in the -hope that it might be vanquished, and has found out one fine morning -that truth is hard-lived, that it is strong, that it might be intrusted -with forming a cabinet, and has then passed abruptly over to its -side,--one more pedestal; a statue for Mr. Peel. Everywhere, in every -street, in every square, at every step, gigantic notes of admiration -in the shape of columns,--a column to the Duke of York, which should -really take the form of points of interrogation; a column to Nelson, -pointed at by the ghost of Caracciolo; a column to Wellington, already -named: columns for everybody. It is sufficient to have played with a -sword somewhere. At Guernsey, by the seaside, on a promontory, there -is a high column, similar to a lighthouse,--almost a tower; this one -is struck by lightning; Æschylus would have contented himself with -it. For whom is this?--for General Doyle. Who is General Doyle?--a -general. What has this general done?--he has constructed roads. At his -own expense?--no, at the expense of the inhabitants. He has a column. -Nothing for Shakespeare, nothing for Milton, nothing for Newton; the -name of Byron is obscure. That is where England is,--an illustrious and -powerful nation. - -It avails little that this nation has for scout and guide that generous -British press, which is more than free,--which is sovereign,--and -which through innumerable excellent journals throws light upon every -question,--that is where England is; and let not France laugh too -loudly, with her statue of Négrier; nor Belgium, with her statue -of Belliard; nor Prussia, with her statue of Blücher; nor Austria, -with the statue that she probably has of Schwartzenberg; nor Russia, -with the statue that she certainly has of Souwaroff. If it is not -Schwartzenberg, it is Windischgrätz; if it is not Souwaroff, it is -Kutusoff. - -Be Paskiewitch or Jellachich,--they will give you a statue; be Augereau -or Bessières,--you get a statue; be an Arthur Wellesley, they will -make you a colossus, and the ladies will dedicate you to yourself, -quite naked, with this inscription: "Achilles." A young man, twenty -years of age, performs the heroic action of marrying a beautiful young -girl: they prepare for him triumphal arches; they come to see him out -of curiosity; the grand-cordon is sent to him as on the morrow of a -battle; the public squares are brilliant with fireworks; people who -might have gray beards put on perukes to come and make speeches to -him almost on their knees; they throw up in the air millions sterling -in squibs and rockets to the applause of a multitude in tatters, -who will have no bread to-morrow; starving Lancashire participates -in the wedding; people are in ecstasies; they fire guns, they ring -the bells,--"Rule Britannia!" "God save!" What! this young man has -the kindness to do this? What a glory for the nation! Universal -admiration,--a great people become frantic; a great city falls into -a swoon; a balcony looking upon the passage of the young man is let -for five hundred guineas; people heap themselves together, press upon -one another, thrust one another beneath the wheels of his carriage; -seven women are crushed to death in the enthusiasm, and their little -children are picked up dead under the trampling feet; a hundred -persons, partially stifled, are carried to the hospital: the joy is -inexpressible. While this is going on in London, the cutting of the -Isthmus of Panama is interrupted by a war; the cutting of the Isthmus -of Suez depends on one Ismail Pacha; a company undertakes the sale of -the water of Jordan at a guinea the bottle; walls are invented which -resist every cannon-ball, after which missiles are invented which -destroy every wall; an Armstrong cannon-shot costs fifty pounds; -Byzantium contemplates Abdul-Azis; Rome goes to confession; the frogs, -encouraged by the stork, demand a heron; Greece, after Otho, again -wants a king; Mexico, after Iturbide, again wants an emperor; China -wants two of them,--the king of the Centre, a Tartar, and the king of -Heaven (Tien Wang), a Chinese. O earth! throne of stupidity. - - - -CHAPTER III. - - -The glory of Shakespeare reached England from abroad. There was almost -a day and an hour when one might have assisted at the landing of his -fame at Dover. - -It required three hundred years for England to begin to hear those two -words that the whole world cries in her ear: "William Shakespeare." - -What is England? She is Elizabeth. There is no incarnation more -complete. In admiring Elizabeth, England loves her own looking-glass. -Proud and magnanimous, yet full of strange hypocrisies; great, yet -pedantic; haughty, albeit able; prudish, yet audacious; having -favourites but no masters; her own mistress, even in her bed; -all-powerful queen, inaccessible woman,--Elizabeth is a virgin as -England is an island. Like England, she calls herself Empress of the -Sea, _Basilea maris._ A fearful depth, in which are let loose the angry -passions which behead Essex and the tempests which destroy the Armada, -defends this virgin and defends this island from every approach. -The ocean is the guardian of this modesty. A certain celibacy, in -fact, constitutes all the genius of England. Alliances, be it so; no -marriage. The universe always kept at some distance. To live alone, -to go alone, to reign alone, to be alone,--such is Elizabeth, such is -England. - -On the whole, a remarkable queen and an admirable nation. - -Shakespeare, on the contrary, is a sympathetic genius. Insularism is -his ligature, not his strength. He would break it willingly. A little -more and Shakespeare would be European. He loves and praises France; he -calls her "the soldier of God." Besides, in that prudish nation he is -the free poet. - -England has two books: one which she has made, the other which has made -her,--Shakespeare and the Bible. These two books do not agree together. -The Bible opposes Shakespeare. - -Certainly, as a literary book, the Bible, a vast cup from the East, -more overflowing in poetry even than Shakespeare, might fraternize -with him; in a social and religious point of view, it abhors him. -Shakespeare thinks, Shakespeare dreams, Shakespeare doubts. There is in -him something of that Montaigne whom he loved. The "to be or not to be" -comes from the _que sais-je?_ - -Moreover, Shakespeare invents. A great objection. Faith excommunicates -imagination. In respect to fables, faith is a bad neighbour, and -fondles only its own. One recollects Solon's staff raised against -Thespis. One recollects the torch of Omar brandished over Alexandria. -The situation is always the same. Modern fanaticism has inherited -that staff and that torch. That is true in Spain, and is not false in -England. I have heard an Anglican bishop discuss the Iliad and condense -everything in this remark, with which he meant to annihilate Homer: "It -is not true." Now, Shakespeare is much more a "liar" than Homer. - -Two or three years ago the journals announced that a French writer was -about to sell a novel for four hundred thousand francs. This made quite -a noise in England. A Conformist paper exclaimed, "How can a falsehood -be sold at such a price?" - -Besides, two words, all-powerful in England, range themselves against -Shakespeare, and constitute an obstacle against him: "Improper, -shocking." Observe that, on a host of occasions, the Bible also is -"improper" and Holy Writ is "shocking." The Bible, even in French, and -through the rough lips of Calvin, does not hesitate to say, "Tu as -paillardé, Jerusalem." These crudities are part of poetry as well as of -anger; and the prophets, those angry poets, do not abstain from them. -Gross words are constantly on their lips. But England, where the Bible -is continually read, does not seem to realize it. Nothing equals the -power of voluntary deafness in fanatics. Would you have another example -of their deafness? At this hour Roman orthodoxy has not yet admitted -the brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, although averred by the four -Evangelists. Matthew, may say, "Behold, thy mother and thy brethren -stand without.... And his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and -Judas. And his sisters, are they not all with us?" Mark may insist: -"Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, -and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with -us?" Luke may repeat: "Then came to him his mother and his brethren." -John may again take up the question: "He, and his mother, and his -brethren.... Neither did his brethren believe in him.... But when his -brethren were gone up." Catholicism does not hear. - -To make up for it, in the case of Shakespeare, "somewhat of a Pagan, -like all poets"[1] Puritanism has a delicate hearing. Intolerance -and inconsequence are sisters. Besides, in the matter of proscribing -and damning, logic is superfluous. When Shakespeare, by the mouth -of Othello, calls Desdemona "whore," general indignation, unanimous -revolt, scandal from top to bottom. Who then is this Shakespeare? -All the biblical sects stop their ears, without thinking that Aaron -addresses exactly the same epithet to Sephora, wife of Moses. It is -true that this is in an Apocryphal work, "The Life of Moses." But the -Apocryphal books are quite as authentic as the canonical ones. - -Thence in England, for Shakespeare, a depth of irreducible coldness. -What Elizabeth was for Shakespeare, England is still,--at least we fear -so. We should be happy to be contradicted. We are more ambitious for -the glory of England than England is herself. This cannot displease her. - -England has a strange institution,--"the poet laureate,"--which attests -the official admiration and a little the national admiration. Under -Elizabeth, England's poet was named Drummond. - -Of course, we are no longer in the days when they placarded "Macbeth, -opera of Shakespeare, altered by Sir William Davenant." But if -"Macbeth" is played, it is before a small audience. Kean and Macready -have tried and failed in the endeavour. - -At this hour they would not play Shakespeare on any English stage -without erasing from the text the word _God_ wherever they find it. In -the full tide of the nineteenth century, the lord-chamberlain still -weighs heavily on Shakespeare. In England, outside the church, the -word God is not made use of. In conversation they replace "God" by -"Goodness." In the editions or in the representations of Shakespeare, -"God" is replaced by "Heaven." The sense suffers, the verse limps; no -matter. "Lord! Lord! Lord!" the last appeal of Desdemona expiring, was -suppressed by command in the edition of Blount and Jaggard in 1623. -They do not utter it on the stage. "Sweet Jesus!" would be a blasphemy; -a devout Spanish woman on the English stage is bound to exclaim, "Sweet -Jupiter!" Do we exaggerate? Would you have a proof? Let us open -"Measure for Measure." There is a nun, Isabella. Whom does she invoke? -Jupiter. Shakespeare had written "Jesus."[2] - -The tone of a certain Puritanical criticism toward Shakespeare is, most -certainly, improved; yet the cure is not complete. - -It is not many years since an English economist, a man of authority, -making, in the midst of social questions, a literary excursion, -affirmed in a lofty digression, and without exhibiting the slightest -diffidence, this:-- - - "Shakespeare cannot live because he has treated specially - foreign or ancient subjects--'Hamlet,' 'Othello,' 'Romeo and - Juliet,' 'Macbeth,' 'Lear,' 'Julius Cæsar,' 'Coriolanus,' - 'Timon of Athens,' etc. Now, nothing is likely to live in - literature except matters of immediate observation and works - made on contemporary subjects." - -What say you to the theory? We would not mention it if this system -had not met approvers in England and propagators in France. Besides -Shakespeare, it simply excludes from literary "life" Schiller, -Corneille, Milton, Virgil, Euripides, Sophocles, Æschylus, and Homer. -It is true that it surrounds with a halo of glory Aulus-Gellius and -Restif of Bretonne. O critic, this Shakespeare is not likely to live, -he is only immortal! - -About the same time, another--English also, but of the Scotch -school, a Puritan of that discontented variety of which Knox is the -head--declared poetry childishness; repudiated beauty of style as an -obstacle interposed between the idea and the reader; saw in Hamlet's -soliloquy only "a cold lyricism," and in Othello's adieu to standards -and camps only "a declamation;" likened the metaphors of poets to -illustrations in books,--good for amusing babies; and showed a -particular contempt for Shakespeare, as besmeared from one end to the -other with that "illuminating process." - -Not later than last January, a witty London paper,[3] with indignant -irony, was asking which is the most celebrated, in England, Shakespeare -or "Mr. Calcraft, the hangman:"-- - - "There are localities in this enlightened country where, - if you pronounce the name of Shakespeare they will answer - you: 'I don't know what this Shakespeare may be about whom - you make all this fuss, but I will back Hammer Lane of - Birmingham to fight him for five pounds.' But no mistake is - made about Calcraft." - - -[Footnote 1: Rev. John Wheeler.] - -[Footnote 2: On the other hand, however, in spite of all the -lords-chamberlain, it is difficult to beat the French censorship. -Religions are diverse, but bigotry is one, and is the same in all its -specimens. What we are about to write is an extract from the notes (on -"Richard II." and "Henry IV.") added to his translation by the new -translator of Shakespeare:-- - - "'Jesus! Jesus!' This exclamation of Shallow was expunged - in the edition of 1623, conformably to the statute which - forbade the uttering of the name of the Divinity on the - stage. It is worthy of remark that our modern theatre - has had to undergo, under the scissors of the censorship - of the Bourbons, the same stupid mutilations to which - the censorship of the Stuarts condemned the theatre of - Shakespeare. I read what follows in the first page of the - manuscript of 'Hernani,' which I have in my hands:-- - - 'Received at the Théâtre-Français, Oct. 8, 1829. - - 'The Stage-manager, - - 'Albertin.' - - "And lower down, in red ink:-- - - 'On condition of expunging the name of "Jesus" wherever - found, and conforming to the alterations marked at pages 27, - 28, 29, 62, 74, and 76. - - 'The Secretary of State for the Department of the Interior, - - 'La Bourdonnate.'" - -We may add that in the scenery representing Saragossa (second act of -"Hernani") it was forbidden to put any belfry or any church, which made -resemblance rather difficult, Saragossa having in the sixteenth century -three hundred and nine churches and six hundred and seventeen convents.] - -[Footnote 3: Daily Telegraph, 13 Jan., 1864.] - - - -CHAPTER IV. - - -At all events, Shakespeare has not the monument that England owes to -Shakespeare. - -France, let me admit, is not, in like cases, much more speedy. Another -glory, very different from Shakespeare, but not less grand,--Joan of -Arc,--waits also, and has waited longer for a national monument, a -monument worthy of her. - -This land which has been Gaul, and where the Velledas reigned, -has, in a Catholic and historic sense, for patronesses two august -figures,--Mary and Joan. The one, holy, is the Virgin; the other, -heroic, is the Maid. Louis XIII. gave France to the one; the other has -given France to France. The monument of the second should not be less -high than the monument of the first Joan of Arc must have a trophy as -grand as Notre-Dame. When shall she have it? - -England has failed utterly to pay its debt to Shakespeare; but so also -has France failed toward Joan of Arc. - -These ingratitudes require to be sternly denounced. Doubtless the -governing aristocracies, which blind the eyes of the masses, deserve -the first accusation of guilt; but on the whole, conscience exists -for a people as for an individual. Ignorance is only an attenuating -circumstance; and when these denials of justice last for centuries, -they remain the fault of governments, but become the fault of nations. -Let us know, when necessary, how to tell nations of their shortcomings. -France and England, you are wrong. - -To flatter peoples would be worse than to flatter kings. The one is -base, the other would be cowardly. - -Let us go further, and since this thought has been presented to us, -let us generalize it usefully, even if we should leave our subject for -a while. No; the people have not the right to throw indefinitely the -fault upon governments. The acceptation of oppression by the oppressed -ends in becoming complicity. Cowardice is consent whenever the duration -of a bad thing, which presses on the people, and which the people could -prevent if they would, goes beyond the amount of patience endurable by -an honest man; there is an appreciable solidarity and a partnership in -shame between the government guilty of the evil and the people allowing -it to be done. To suffer is worthy of veneration; to submit is worthy -of contempt. Let us pass on. - -A noteworthy coincidence: the man who denies Shakespeare, Voltaire, -is also the insulter of Joan of Arc. But then what is Voltaire? -Voltaire--we may say it with joy and sadness--is the French mind. Let -us understand: it is the French mind, up to the Revolution exclusively. -From the French Revolution, France increasing in greatness, the French -mind grows larger, and tends to become the European mind; it is less -local and more fraternal, less Gallic and more human. It represents -more and more Paris, the city heart of the world. As for Voltaire, -he remains as he is,--the man of the future, but also the man of the -past. He is one of those glories which make the thinker say yes and no; -he has against him two sarcasms, Joan of Arc and Shakespeare. He is -punished through what he sneered at. - - - -CHAPTER V. - - -In truth, a monument to Shakespeare, _cui bono?_ The statue that he -has made for himself is worth more, with all England for a pedestal. -Shakespeare has no need of a pyramid; he has his work. - -What do you suppose marble could do for him? What can bronze do where -there is glory? Malachite and alabaster are of no avail; jasper, -serpentine, basalt, red porphyry, such as that at the Invalides, -granite, Paros and Carrara, are of no use,--genius is genius without -them. Even if all the stones had a part in it, would they make that man -an inch greater? What vault shall be more indestructible than this; -"The Winter's Tale," "The Tempest," "The Merry Wives of Windsor," "The -Two Gentlemen of Verona," "Julius Cæsar," "Coriolanus?" What monument -more grandiose than "Lear," more wild than "The Merchant of Venice," -more dazzling than "Romeo and Juliet," more amazing than "Richard -III."? What moon could throw on that building a light more mysterious -than "The Midsummer Night's Dream"? What capital, were it even London, -could produce around it a rumour so gigantic as the tumultuous soul -of "Macbeth"? What framework of cedar or of oak will last as long -as "Othello"? What bronze will be bronze as much as "Hamlet"? No -construction of lime, of rock, of iron and of cement, is worth the -breath,--the deep breath of genius, which is the breathing of God -through man. A head in which is an idea,--such is the summit; heaps -of stone and brick would be useless efforts. What edifice equals a -thought? Babel is below Isaiah; Cheops is less than Homer; the Coliseum -is inferior to Juvenal; the Giralda of Seville is dwarfish by the side -of Cervantes; St. Peter of Rome does not reach to the ankle of Dante. -How could you manage to build a tower as high as that name: Shakespeare. - -Ah, add something, if you can, to a mind! - -Suppose a monument. Suppose it splendid; suppose it sublime,--a -triumphal arch, an obelisk, a circus with a pedestal in the centre, a -cathedral. No people is more illustrious, more noble, more magnificent, -and more magnanimous than the English people. Couple these two ideas, -England and Shakespeare, and make an edifice arise therefrom. Such -a nation celebrating such a man, it will be superb. Imagine the -monument, imagine the inauguration. The Peers are there, the Commons -give their adherence, the bishops officiate, the princes join the -procession, the queen is present. The virtuous woman in whom the -English people, royalist as we know, see and venerate their actual -personification,--this worthy mother, this noble widow, comes, with the -deep respect which is called for, to incline material majesty before -ideal majesty; the Queen of England salutes Shakespeare. The homage of -Victoria repairs the disdain of Elizabeth. As for Elizabeth, she is -probably there also, sculptured somewhere on the surbase, with Henry -VIII., her father, and James I., her successor,--pygmies beneath the -poet. The cannon booms, the curtain falls, they uncover the statue, -which seems to say, "At length!" and which has grown in the shade -during three hundred years,--three centuries; the growth of a colossus; -an immensity. All the York, Cumberland, Pitt, and Peel bronzes have -been made use of, in order to produce this statue; the public places -have been disencumbered of a heap of uncalled-for metal-castings; -in this lofty figure have been amalgamated all kinds of Henrys and -Edwards; the various Williams and the numerous Georges have been -melted, the Achilles in Hyde Park has made the great-toe. This is fine; -behold Shakespeare almost as great as a Pharaoh or a Sesostris. Bells, -drums, trumpets, applause, hurrahs. - -What then? - -It is honourable for England, indifferent to Shakespeare. - -What is the salutation of royalty, of aristocracy, of the army, and -even of the English populace, ignorant yet to this moment, like -nearly all other nations,--what is the salutation of all these groups -variously enlightened to him who has the eternal acclamation, with its -reverberation, of all ages and all men? What orison of the Bishop of -London or of the Archbishop of Canterbury is worth the cry of a woman -before Desdemona, of a mother before Arthur, of a soul before Hamlet? - -And thus, when universal outcry demands from England a monument to -Shakespeare, it is not for the sake of Shakespeare, it is for the sake -of England. - -There are cases in which the repayment of a debt is of greater import -to the debtor than to the creditor. - -A monument is an example. The lofty head of a great man is a light. -Crowds, like the waves, require beacons above them. It is good that -the passer-by should know that there are great men. People may not -have time to read; they are forced to see. People pass by that way, -and stumble against the pedestal; they are almost obliged to raise the -head and to glance a little at the inscription. Men escape a book; they -cannot escape the statue. One day on the bridge of Rouen, before the -beautiful statue due to David d'Angers, a peasant mounted on an ass -said to me: "Do you know Pierre Corneille?" "Yes," I replied. "So do -I," he rejoined. "And do you know 'The Cid'?" I resumed. "No," said he. - -To him, Corneille was the statue. - -This beginning in the knowledge of great men is necessary to the -people. The monument incites them to know more of the man. They desire -to learn to read in order to know what this bronze means. A statue is -an elbow-thrust to ignorance. - -There is then, in the execution of such monuments, popular utility as -well as national justice. - -To perform what is useful at the same time as what is just, that will -at the end certainly tempt England. She is the debtor of Shakespeare. -To leave such a debt in abeyance is not a good attitude for the pride -of a people. It is a point of morality that nations should be good -payers in matters of gratitude. Enthusiasm is probity. When a man is a -glory in the face of his nation, that nation which does not perceive -the fact astounds the human race around. - - - -CHAPTER VI. - - -England, as it is easy to foresee, will build a monument to her poet. - -At the very moment we finished writing the pages you have just read, -was announced in London the formation of a committee for the solemn -celebration of the three-hundredth anniversary of the birth of -Shakespeare. This committee will dedicate to Shakespeare, on the 23d -April, 1864, a monument and a festival which will surpass, we doubt -not, the incomplete programme we have just sketched out. They will -spare nothing. The act of admiration will be a striking one. One may -expect everything, in point of magnificence, from the nation which -has created the prodigious palace at Sydenham, that Versailles of a -people. The initiative taken by the committee will doubtless secure -the co-operation of the powers that be. We discard, for our part, and -the committee will discard, we think, all idea of a manifestation by -subscription. A subscription, unless of one penny,--that is to say, -open to all the people,--is necessarily fractional. What is due to -Shakespeare is a national manifestation;--a holiday, a public _fête_, -a popular monument, voted by the Chambers and entered in the Budget -England would do it for her king. Now, what is the King of England -beside the man of England? Every confidence is due to the Jubilee -Committee of Shakespeare,--a committee composed of persons highly -distinguished in the press, the peerage, literature, the stage, and -the church. Eminent men from all countries, representing intellect -in France, in Germany, in Belgium, in Spain, in Italy, complete this -committee, in all points of view excellent and competent. Another -committee, formed at Stratford-on-Avon, seconds the London committee. -We congratulate England. - -Nations have a dull ear and a long life,--which latter makes their -deafness by no means irreparable: they have time to change their mind. -The English are awake at last to their glory. England begins to spell -that name, Shakespeare, upon which the universe has laid her finger. - -In April, 1664, a hundred years after Shakespeare was born, England was -occupied in cheering loudly Charles II., who had sold Dunkirk to France -for two hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling, and in looking at -something that was a skeleton and had been Cromwell, whitening under -the north-east wind and rain on the gallows at Tyburn. In April, 1764, -two hundred years after Shakespeare was born, England was contemplating -the dawn of George III.,--a king destined to imbecility,--who at that -epoch, in secret councils, and in somewhat unconstitutional asides -with the Tory chiefs and the German Landgraves, was sketching out that -policy of resistance to progress which was to strive, first against -liberty in America, then against democracy in France, and which, during -the single ministry of the first Pitt, had, in 1778, raised the debt of -England to the sum of eighty millions sterling. In April, 1864, three -hundred years since Shakespeare's birth, England raises a statue to -Shakespeare. It is late, but it is well. - - - - -BOOK II. - - -THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. - - - -CHAPTER I. - - -The nineteenth century springs from itself only; it does not receive -its impulse from any ancestor; it is the offspring of an idea. -Doubtless, Isaiah, Homer, Aristotle, Dante, Shakespeare, have been or -could be great starting-points for important philosophical or poetical -formations; but the nineteenth century has an august mother,--the -French Revolution. It has that powerful blood in its veins. It honours -men of genius. When denied it salutes them, when ignored it proclaims -them, when persecuted it avenges them, when insulted it crowns them, -when dethroned it replaces them upon their pedestal; it venerates -them, but it does not proceed from them. The nineteenth century has -for family itself, and itself alone. It is the characteristic of its -revolutionary nature to dispense with ancestors. - -Itself a genius, it fraternizes with men of genius. As for its source, -it is where theirs is,--beyond man. The mysterious gestations of -progress succeed each other according to a providential law. The -nineteenth century is born of civilization. It has a continent to bring -into the world. France has borne this century; and this century bears -Europe. - -The Greek stock bore civilization, narrow and circumscribed at first by -the mulberry leaf, confined to the Morea; then civilization, gaining -step by step, grew broader, and formed the Roman stock. It is to-day -the French stock,--that is to say, all Europe,--with young shoots in -America, Africa, and Asia. - -The greatest of these young shoots is a democracy,--the United States, -the sprouting of which was aided by France in the last century. France, -sublime essayist in progress, has founded a republic in America before -making one in Europe. _Et vidit quod esset bonum._ After having lent -to Washington an auxiliary, Lafayette, France, returning home, gave to -Voltaire, dismayed within his tomb, that formidable successor, Danton. -In presence of the monstrous past, hurling every thunder, exhaling -every miasma, breathing every darkness, protruding every talon, -horrible and terrible, progress, constrained to use the same weapons, -has had suddenly a hundred arms, a hundred heads, a hundred tongues of -fire, a hundred roarings. The good has transformed itself into a hydra. -It is this that is termed the Revolution. - -Nothing can be more august. - -The Revolution ended one century and began another. - -An intellectual awakening prepares the way for an overthrow of -facts,--and this is the eighteenth century. After which the political -revolution, once accomplished, seeks expression, and the literary and -social revolution completes it: this is the nineteenth century. With -ill-will, but not unjustly, has it been said that romanticism and -socialism are identical: hatred, in its desire to injure, very often -establishes, and, so far as is in its power, consolidates. - -A parenthesis. This word, romanticism, has, like all war-cries, the -advantage of readily summing up a group of ideas. It is brief,--which -pleases in the contest; but it has, to our idea, through its militant -signification, the objection of appearing to limit the movement that -it represents to a warlike action. Now, this movement is a matter of -intellect, a matter of civilization, a matter of soul; and this is why -the writer of these lines has never used the words _romanticism_ or -_romantic._ They will not be found in any of the pages of criticism -that he has had occasion to write. If to-day he derogates from his -usual prudence in polemics, it is for the sake of greater rapidity -and with all reservation. The same observation may be made on the -subject of the word _socialism_, which admits of so many different -interpretations. - -The triple movement--literary, philosophical, and social--of the -nineteenth century, which is one single movement, is nothing but the -current of the revolution in ideas. This current, after having swept -away facts, is perpetuated in minds with all its immensity. - -This term, "literary '93," so often quoted in 1830 against -contemporaneous literature, was not so much an insult as it -was intended to be. It was certainly as unjust to employ it as -characterizing the whole literary movement as it is iniquitous to -employ it to describe all the political revolutions; there is in these -two phenomena something besides '93. But this term, "literary '93," was -relatively exact, insomuch as it indicated, confusedly but truthfully, -the origin of the literary movement which belongs to our epoch, while -endeavouring to dishonour that movement. Here again the clairvoyance -of hatred was blind. Its daubings of mud upon the face of truth are -gilding, light, and glory. - -The Revolution, turning climacteric of humanity, is made up of several -years. Each of these years expresses a period, represents an aspect, or -realizes a phase of the phenomenon. Tragic '93 is one of those colossal -years. Good news must sometimes have a mouth of bronze. Such a mouth is -'93. - -Listen to the immense proclamation proceeding from it. Give attention, -remain speechless, and be impressed. God himself said the first time -_Fiat lux_, the second time he has caused it to be said. - -By whom? - -By '93. - -Therefore, we men of the nineteenth century hold in honour that -reproach, "You are '93." - -But do not stop there. We are '89 as well as '93. The Revolution, -the whole Revolution,--such is the source of the literature of the -nineteenth century. - -On these grounds put it on its trial, this literature, or seek its -triumph; hate it or love it. According to the amount of the future that -you have in you, outrage it or salute it; little do animosities and -fury affect it. It is the logical deduction from the great chaotic and -genesiacal fact that our fathers have witnessed, and which has given a -new starting-point to the world. He who is against that fact is against -that literature; he who is for that fact is on its side. What the fact -is worth the literature is worth. The reactionary writers are not -mistaken; wherever there is revolution, patent or latent, the Catholic -and royalist scent is unfailing. Those men of letters of the past award -to contemporaneous literature an honourable amount of diatribe; their -aversion is convulsive. One of their journalists, who is, I believe a -bishop, pronounces this word _poet_ with the same accent as the word -_Septembrist_; another, less of a bishop, but quite as angry, writes, -"I feel in all this literature Marat and Robespierre." This last writer -is rather mistaken; there is in "this literature" Danton rather than -Marat. - -But the fact is true: democracy is in this literature. - -The Revolution has forged the clarion; the nineteenth century sounds it. - -Ah, this affirmation suits us, and, in truth, we do not recoil before -it; we avow our glory,--we are revolutionists. The thinkers of the -present time,--poets, writers, historians, orators, philosophers,--all -are derived from the French Revolution. They come from it, and it -alone. It was '89 that demolished the Bastille; it was '93 that took -the crown from the Louvre. From '89 sprung Deliverance, and from -'93 Victory. From '89 and '93 the men of the nineteenth century -proceed: these are their father and their mother. Do not seek for -them another affiliation, another inspiration, another insufflation, -another origin. They are the democrats of the idea, successors to the -democrats of action. They are the emancipators. Liberty bent over their -cradles,--they all have sucked her vast breast; they all have her milk -in their entrails, her marrow in their bones, her sap in their will, -her spirit of revolt in their reason, her flame in their intellect. - -Even those among them (there are some) who were born aristocrats, who -came to the world banished in some degree among families of the past, -who have fatally received one of those primary educations whose stupid -effort is to contradict progress, and who have commenced the words -that they had to say to our century with an indescribable royalist -stuttering,--these, from that period, from their infancy (they will -not contradict me), felt the sublime monster within them. They had -the inner ebullition of the immense fact. They had in the depth of -their conscience a whispering of mysterious ideas; the inward shock of -false certainties troubled their mind; they felt their sombre surface -of monarchism, Catholicism, and aristocracy tremble, shudder, and by -degrees split up. One day, suddenly and powerfully, the swelling of -truth within them prevailed, the hatching was completed, the eruption -took place; the light flamed in them, causing them to burst open,--not -falling on them, but (more beautiful mystery!) gushing out of these -amazed men, enlightening them, while it burned within them. They were -craters unknown to themselves. - -This phenomenon has been interpreted to their reproach as a treason. -They passed over, in fact, from right divine to human right. They -turned their back on false history, on false tradition, on false -dogmas, on false philosophy, on false daylight, on false truth. The -free spirit which soars up,--bird called by Aurora,--offends intellects -saturated with ignorance and the fœtus preserved in spirits of wine. -He who sees offends the blind; he who hears makes the deaf indignant; -he who walks offers an abominable insult to cripples. In the eyes of -dwarfs, abortions, Aztecs, myrmidons, and pygmies, forever subject to -rickets, growth is apostasy. - -The writers and poets of the nineteenth century have the admirable -good fortune of proceeding from a genesis, of arriving after an end -of the world, of accompanying a reappearance of light, of being the -organs of a new beginning. This imposes on them duties unknown to -their predecessors--the duties of intentional reformers and direct -civilizers. They continue nothing; they remake everything. For new -times, new duties. The function of thinkers in our days is complex; to -think is no longer sufficient,--they must love; to think and love is -no longer sufficient,--they must act; to think, to love, and to act, -no longer suffices,--they must suffer. Lay down the pen, and go where -you hear the grapeshot. Here is a barricade; be one on it. Here is -exile; accept it. Here is the scaffold; be it so. Let John Brown be -in Montesquieu, if needful. The Lucretius required by this century in -labour should contain Cato. Æschylus, who wrote the "Orestias" had for -a brother Cynegyrus, who fastened with his teeth on the ships of the -enemies: that was sufficient for Greece at the time of Salamis, but -it no longer suffices for France after the Revolution. That Æschylus -and Cynegyrus are brothers is not enough; they must be the same -man. Such are the actual requirements of progress. Those who devote -themselves to great and pressing things can never be too great. To -set ideas in motion, to heap up evidence, to pile up principles, that -is the redoubtable movement. To heap Pelion on Ossa is the labour of -infants beside that work of giants, the placing of right upon truth. -To scale that afterward, and to dethrone usurpations in the midst of -thunders,--such is the work. - -The future presses. To-morrow cannot wait. Humanity has not a minute to -lose. Quick! quick! let us hasten; the wretched ones have their feet -on red-hot iron. They hunger, they thirst, they suffer. Ah, terrible -emaciation of the poor human body! Parasitism laughs, the ivy grows -green and thrives, the mistletoe is flourishing, the tapeworm is happy. -What a frightful object the prosperity of the tapeworm! To destroy that -which devours,--in that is safety. Your life has within itself death, -which is in good health. There is too much misery, too much desolation, -too much immodesty, too much nakedness, too many brothels, too many -prisons, too many rags, too many crimes, too much weakness, too much -darkness, not enough schools, too many little innocents growing up -for evil! The truckle-beds of poor girls are suddenly covered with -silk and lace,--and in that is worse misery; by the side of misfortune -there is vice, the one urging the other. Such a society requires prompt -succour. Let us seek for the best. Go all of you in this search. Where -are the promised lands? Civilization would go forward; let us try -theories, systems, ameliorations, inventions, progress, until the shoe -for that foot shall be found. The attempt costs nothing, or costs but -little,--to attempt is not to adopt,--but before all, above all, let -us be lavish of light. All sanitary purification begins in opening -windows wide. Let us open wide all intellects. Let us supply souls with -air. - -Quick, quick, O thinkers! Let the human race breathe; give hope, give -the ideal, do good. Let one step succeed another, horizon expand -into horizon, conquest follow conquest. Because you have given what -you promised do not think you have performed all that is required of -you. To possess is to promise; the dawn of to-day imposes on the sun -obligations for to-morrow. - -Let nothing be lost. Let not one strength be isolated. Every one to -work! there is vast urgency for it. No more idle art. Poetry the worker -of civilization, what more admirable? The dreamer should be a pioneer; -the strophe should mean something. The beautiful should be at the -service of honesty. I am the valet of my conscience; it rings for me: I -come. "Go!" I go. What do you require of me, O truth, sole majesty of -this world? Let each one feel in haste to do well. A book is sometimes -a source of hoped-for succour. An idea is a balm, a word may be a -dressing for wounds; poetry is a physician. Let no one tarry. Suffering -is losing its strength while you are idling. Let men leave this dreamy -laziness. Leave the kief to the Turks. Let men labour for the safety of -all, and let them rush into it and be out of breath. Do not be sparing -of your strides. Nothing useless; no inertia. What do you call dead -nature? Everything lives. The duty of all is to live; to walk, to run, -to fly, to soar, is the universal law. What do you wait for? Who stops -you? Ah, there are times when one might wish to hear the stones murmur -at the slowness of man! - -Sometimes one goes into the woods. To whom does it not happen at times -to be overwhelmed?--one sees so many sad things. The stage is a long -one to go over, the consequences are long in coming, a generation is -behindhand, the work of the age languishes. What! so many sufferings -yet? One might think he has gone backward. There is everywhere -increase of superstition, of cowardice, of deafness, of blindness, of -imbecility. Penal laws weigh upon brutishness. This wretched problem -has been set,--to augment comfort by putting off right; to sacrifice -the superior side of man to the inferior side; to yield up principle -to appetite. Cæsar takes charge for the belly, I make over to him the -brains,--it is the old sale of at birth-right for the dish of porridge. -A little more, and this fatal anomaly would cause a wrong road to be -taken toward civilization. The fattening pig would no longer be the -king, but the people. Alas! this ugly expedient does not even succeed. -No diminution whatever of the malady. In the last ten years--for the -last twenty years--the low water-mark of prostitution, of mendicity, of -crime, has been stationary, below which evil has not fallen one degree. -Of true education, of gratuitous education, there is none. The infant -nevertheless requires to know that he is man, and the father that he is -citizen. Where are the promises? Where is the hope? Oh, poor wretched -humanity! one is tempted to shout for help in the forest; one is -tempted to claim support, assistance, and a strong arm from that grand -mournful Nature. Can this mysterious ensemble of forces be indifferent -to progress? We supplicate, appeal, raise our hands toward the shadow. -We listen, wondering if the rustlings will become voices. The duty of -the springs and streams should be to babble forth the word "Forward!" -One could wish to hear nightingales sing new Marseillaises. - -Notwithstanding all this, these times of halting are nothing beyond -what is normal. Discouragement would be puerile. There are halts, -repose, breathing spaces in the march of peoples, as there are winters -in the progress of the seasons. The gigantic step, '89, is all the same -a fact. To despair would be absurd, but to stimulate is necessary. - -To stimulate, to press, to chide, to awaken, to suggest to inspire,--it -is this function, fulfilled everywhere by writers, which impresses -on the literature of this century so high a character of power and -originality. To remain faithful to all the laws of art, while combining -them with the law of progress,--such is the problem, victoriously -solved by so many noble and proud minds. - -Thence this word _deliverance_, which appears above everything in the -light, as if it were written on the very forehead of the ideal. - -The Revolution is France sublimed. There was a day when France was -in the furnace,--the furnace causes wings to grow on certain warlike -martyrs,--and from amid the flames this giant came forth archangel. -At this day, by all the world, France is called Revolution; and -henceforth this word _revolution_ will be the name of civilization, -until it can be replaced by the word _harmony._ I repeat it: do not -seek elsewhere the starting-point and the birth-place of the literature -of the nineteenth century. Yes, as many as there be of us, great and -small, powerful and unknown, illustrious and obscure, in all our works -good or bad, whatever they may be,--poems, dramas, romances, history, -philosophy,--at the tribune of assemblies as before the crowds of the -theatre, as in the meditation of solitudes; yes, everywhere; yes, -always; yes, to combat violence and imposture; yes, to rehabilitate -those who are stoned and run down; yes, to sum up logically and to -march straight onward; yes, to console, to succour, to relieve, to -encourage, to teach; yes, to dress wounds in hope of curing them; -yes, to transform charity into fraternity, alms into assistance, -sluggishness into work, idleness into utility, centralization into a -family, iniquity into justice, the _bourgeois_ into the citizen, the -populace into the people, the rabble into the nation, nations, into -humanity, war into love, prejudice into free examination, frontiers -into solderings, limits into openings, ruts into rails, vestry-rooms -into temples, the instinct of evil into the desire of good, life into -right, kings into men; yes, to deprive religions of hell and societies -of the galley; yes, to be brothers to the wretched, the serf, the -fellah, the _prolétaire_, the disinherited, the banished, the betrayed, -the conquered, the sold, the enchained, the sacrificed, the prostitute, -the convict, the ignorant, the savage, the slave, the negro, the -condemned, and the damned,--yes, we are thy sons, Revolution! - -Yes, men of genius; yes, poets, philosophers, historians; yes, -giants of that great art of previous ages which is all the light of -the past,--O men eternal, the minds of this day salute you, but do -not follow you; in respect to you they hold to this law,--to admire -everything, to imitate nothing. Their function is no longer yours. -They have business with the virility of the human race. The hour which -makes mankind of age has struck. We assist, under the full light of -the ideal, at that majestic junction of the beautiful with the useful. -No actual or possible genius can surpass you, ye men of genius of old; -to equal you is all the ambition allowed: but, to equal you, one must -conform to the necessities of our time, as you supplied the necessities -of yours. Writers who are sons of the Revolution have a holy task. -O Homer, their epic poem must weep; O Herodotus, their history must -protest; O Juvenal, their satire must dethrone; O Shakespeare, their -"thou shalt be king," must be said to the people; O Æschylus, their -Prometheus must strike Jupiter with thunderbolts; O Job, their -dunghill must be fruitful; O Dante, their hell must be extinguished; -O Isaiah, thy Babylon crumbles, theirs must blaze forth with light! -They do what you have done; they contemplate creation directly, they -observe humanity directly; they do not accept as a guiding light any -refracted ray,--not even yours. Like you, they have for their sole -starting-point, outside them, universal being: in them, their soul. -They have for the source of their work the one source whence flows -Nature and whence flows art, the infinite. As the writer of these lines -said forty years ago: "The poets and the writers of the nineteenth -century have neither masters nor models."[1] No; in all that vast -and sublime art of all peoples, in all those grand creations of all -epochs,--no, not even thee, Æschylus, not even thee, Dante, not even -thee, Shakespeare,--no, they have neither models nor masters. And why -have they neither masters nor models? It is because they have one -model, Man, and because they have one master, God. - -[Footnote 1: Preface to "Cromwell."] - - - - -BOOK III. - - -TRUE HISTORY.--EVERY ONE PUT IN HIS RIGHT PLACE. - - - -CHAPTER I. - - -Here is the advent of the new constellation. It is certain that at the -present hour that which has been till now the light of the human race -grows pale, and that the old flame is about to disappear from the world. - -The men of brutal force have, since human tradition existed, shone -alone in the empyrean of history; theirs was the only supremacy. -Under the various names of kings, emperors, captains, chiefs, -princes,--summed up in the word heroes,--this group of an apocalypse -was resplendent. They were all dripping with victories. Terror -transformed itself into acclamation to salute them. They dragged after -them an indescribable tumultuous flame. They appeared to man in a -disorder of horrible light. They did not light up the heavens,--they -set them on fire. They looked as if they meant to take possession of -the Infinite. Rumbling crashes were heard in their glory. A red glare -mingled with it. Was it purple? Was it blood? Was it shame? Their light -made one think of the face of Cain. They hated one another. Flashing -shocks passed from one to the other; at times these enormous planets -came into collision, striking out lightnings. Their look was furious. -Their radiance stretched out into swords. All that hung terrible above -us. - -That tragic glare fills the past. To-day it is in full process of -waning. - -There is decline in war, decline in despotism, decline in theocracy, -decline in slavery, decline in the scaffold. The blade becomes shorter, -the tiara is fading away, the crown is simplified; war is raging, the -plume bends lower, usurpation is circumscribed, the chain is lightened, -the rack is out of countenance. The antique violence of the few against -all, called right divine, is coming to an end. Legitimacy, the grace of -God, the monarchy of Pharamond, nations branded on the shoulder with -the _fleur-de-lis_, the possession of peoples by the right of birth, -the long series of ancestors giving right over the living,--these -things are yet striving in some places; at Naples, in Prussia, etc; but -they are struggling rather than striving,--it is death that strains for -life. A stammering which to-morrow will be utterance, and the day after -to-morrow a full declaration, proceeds from the bruised lips of the -serf, of the vassal, of the _prolétaire_, of the pariah. The gag breaks -up between the teeth of the human race. The human race has had enough -of the sorrowful path, and the patient refuses to go farther. - -From this very time certain forms of despotism are no longer possible. -The Pharaoh is a mummy, the sultan a phantom, the Cæsar a counterfeit. -This stylite of the Trajan columns is anchylosed on its pedestal; it -has on its head the excrement of free eagles; it is nihility rather -than glory; the bands of the sepulchre fasten this crown of laurels. - -The period of the men of brutal force is gone. They have been glorious, -certainly, but with a glory that melts away. That species of great men -is soluble in progress. Civilization rapidly oxidizes these bronzes. -At the point of maturity to which the French Revolution has already -brought the universal conscience, the hero is no longer a hero without -a good reason; the captain is discussed, the conqueror is inadmissible. -In our days Louis XIV. invading the Palatinate would look like a -robber. From the last century these realities began to dawn. Frederick -II., in the presence of Voltaire, felt and owned himself somewhat of -a brigand. To be a great man of matter, to be pompously violent, to -govern by the sword-knot and the cockade, to forge right upon force, to -hammer out justice and truth by blows of accomplished facts, to make -brutalities of genius,--is to be grand, if you like; but it is a coarse -manner of being grand,--glories announced with drums which are met with -a shrug of the shoulders. Sonorous heroes have deafened human reason -until to-day; that pompous noise begins now to weary it. It shuts -its eyes and ears before those authorized slaughters that they call -battles. The sublime murderers of men have had their time; it is in a -certain relative forgetfulness that henceforth they will be illustrious -and august; humanity, become greater, requires to dispense with them. -The food for guns thinks; it reflects, and is actually losing its -admiration for being shot down by a cannon-ball. - -A few figures by the way may not be useless. - -All tragedy is part of our subject. The tragedy of poets is not the -only one; there is the tragedy of politicians and statesmen. Would you -like to know how much that tragedy costs? - -Heroes have an enemy; that enemy is called finance. For a long time -the amount of money paid for that kind of glory was ignored. In order -to disguise the total, there were convenient little fireplaces like -that in which Louis XIV. burned the accounts of Versailles. That day -the smoke of one thousand millions of francs passed out the chimney of -the royal stove. The nation did not even take notice. At the present -day nations have one great virtue,--they are miserly. They know that -prodigality is the mother of abasement. They reckon up; they learn -book-keeping by double entry. Warlike glory henceforth has its debit -and credit account: that renders it impossible. - -The greatest warrior of modern times is not Napoleon, it is Pitt -Napoleon carried on warfare; Pitt created it. It is Pitt who willed all -the wars of the Revolution and of the empire; they proceeded from him. -Take away Pitt and put Fox in his place, there would then be no reason -for that exorbitant battle of twenty-three years, there would be no -longer any coalition. Pitt was the soul of the coalition, and he dead, -his soul remained amidst the universal war. What Pitt cost England and -the world, here it is. We add this bas-relief to his pedestal. - -In the first place, the expenditure in men. From 1791 to 1814 France -alone, striving against Europe, coalesced by England,--France -constrained and compelled, expended in butcheries for military glory -(and also, let us add, for the defence of territory) five millions of -men; that is to say, six hundred men per day. Europe, including the -total of France, has expended sixteen millions six hundred thousand -men; that is to say, two thousand deaths per day during twenty-three -years. - -Secondly, the expenditure of money. We have, unfortunately, no -authentic total, save the total of England. From 1791 to 1814 England, -in order to make France succumb to Europe, became indebted to the -extent of eighty-one millions, two hundred and sixty five thousand, -eight hundred and forty-two pounds sterling. Divide this total by -the total of men killed, at the rate of two thousand per day for -twenty-three years, and you arrive at this result,--that each corpse -stretched on the field of battle has cost England alone fifty pounds -sterling. - -Add the total of Europe,--total unknown, but enormous. - -With these seventeen millions of dead men, they might have peopled -Australia with Europeans. With the eighty millions expended by England -in cannon-shots, they might have changed the face of the earth, begun -the work of civilization everywhere, and suppressed throughout the -entire world ignorance and misery. - -England pays eighty millions for the two statues of Pitt and Wellington. - -It is a fine thing to have heroes, but it is an expensive luxury. Poets -cost less. - - - -CHAPTER II. - - -The discharge of the warrior is signed: it is splendour in the -distance. The great Nimrod, the great Cyrus, the great Sennacherib, -the great Sesostris, the great Alexander, the great Pyrrhus, the great -Hannibal, the great Cæsar, the great Timour, the great Louis, the great -Frederic, and more great ones,--all are going away. - -It would be a mistake to think that we reject these men purely and -simply. In our eyes five or six of those that we have named are -legitimately illustrious; they have even mingled something good in -their ravages; their definitive total embarrasses the absolute equity -of the thinker, and they weigh nearly even weights in the balance of -the injurious and the useful. - -Others have been only injurious. They are numerous, innumerable even; -for the masters of the world are a crowd. - -The thinker is the weigher. Clemency suits him. Let us therefore -say. Those others who have done only evil have one attenuating -circumstance,--imbecility. - -They have another excuse yet,--the mental condition of the human race -itself at the moment they appeared; the medium surrounding facts, -modifiable, but encumbering. - -It is not men that are tyrants, but things. The real tyrants are called -frontier, track, routine; blindness under the form of fanaticism, -deafness and dumbness under the form of diversity of languages; quarrel -under the form of diversity of weights, measures, and moneys; hatred -resulting from quarrel, war resulting from hatred. All these tyrants -may be called by one name,--separation. Division, whence proceeds -irresponsible government,--this is despotism in the abstract. - -Even the tyrants of flesh are mere things. Caligula is much more a -fact than a man; he is a result more than an existence. The Roman -proscriber, dictator, or Cæsar, refuses the vanquished fire and -water,--that is to say, puts his life out. One day of Gela represents -twenty thousand proscribed, one day of Tiberius thirty thousand, one -day of Sylla seventy thousand. One evening Vitellius, being ill, sees -a house lighted up, where people were rejoicing. "Do they think me -dead?" says Vitellius. It is Junius Blesus who sups with Tuscus Cæcina; -the emperor sends to these drinkers a cup of poison, that they may -realize by this sinister end of too joyous a night that Vitellius is -living. (Reddendam pro intempestiva licentia mœstam et funebrem -noctem qua sentient vivere Vitellius et impresser.) Otho and this same -Vitellius forward assassins to each other. Under the Cæsars, it is a -marvel to die in one's bed; Pison, to Whom this happened, is noted for -that strange incident. The garden of Valerius Asiaticus pleases the -emperor; the face of Stateless displeases the empress,--state crimes: -Valerius is strangled because he has a garden, And Statilius because -he has a face. Basil II., Emperor of the East, makes fifteen thousand -Bulgarians prisoners; they are divided into bands of a hundred, and -their eyes are put out, with the exception of one, who is charged -to conduct his ninety-nine blind comrades. He afterward sends into -Bulgaria the whole of this army without eyes. History thus describes -Basil II.: "He was too fond of glory."[1] Paul of Russia gave out this -axiom: "There is no man powerful save him to whom the emperor speaks; -and his power endures as long as the word that he hears." Philip V. -of Spain, so ferociously calm at the _auto-da-fés_, is frightened at -the idea of changing his shirt, and remains six months in bed without -washing and without trimming his nails, for fear of being poisoned, by -means of scissors, or by the water in the basin, or by his shirt, or by -his shoes. Ivan, grandfather of Paul, had a woman put to the torture -before making her lie in his bed; had a newly married bride hanged, -and placed the husband as sentinel by her side, to prevent the rope -from being cut; had a father killed by his son; invented the process of -sawing men in two with a cord; burns Bariatinski himself by slow fire, -and, while the patient howls, brings the embers together with the end -of his stick. Peter, in point of excellence, aspires to that of the -executioner; he exercises himself in cutting off heads. At first he -cuts off but five per day,--little enough; but, with application, he -succeeds in cutting off twenty-five. It is a talent for a czar to tear -away a woman's breast with one blow of the knout. - -What are all those monsters? Symptoms,--running sores, pus which oozes -from a sickly body. They are scarcely more responsible than the sum of -a column is responsible for the figures in that column. Basil, Ivan, -Philip, Paul, etc., are the products of vast surrounding stupidity. The -clergy of the Greek Church, for example, having this maxim, "Who can -make us judges of those who are our masters?" what more natural than -that a czar,--Ivan himself,--should cause an archbishop to be sewn in -a bear's skin and devoured by dogs? The czar is amused,--it is quite -right. Under Nero, the man whose brother was killed goes to the temple -to return thanks to the gods; under Ivan, a Boyard empaled employs -his agony, which lasts for twenty-four hours, in repeating, "O God! -protect the czar." The Princess Sanguzko is in tears; she presents, -upon her knees, a supplication to Nicholas: she implores grace for -her husband, conjuring the master to spare Sanguzko (a Pole guilty of -loving Poland) the frightful journey to Siberia. Nicholas listens in -silence, takes the supplication, and writes beneath it, "On foot." Then -Nicholas goes into the streets, and the crowd throw themselves on his -boot to kiss it What have you to say? Nicholas is a madman, the crowd -is a brute. From "khan" comes "knez;" from "knez" comes "tzar;" from -"tzar" the "czar,"--a series of phenomena rather than an affiliation -of men. That after this Ivan you should have this Peter, after this -Peter this Nicholas, after this Nicholas this Alexander, what more -logical? You all rather contribute to this result. The tortured accept -the torture. "This czar, half putrid, half frozen," as Madame de Staël -says,--you made him yourselves. To be a people, to be a force, and to -look upon these things, is to find them good. To be present, is to -give one's consent. He who assists at the crime, assists the crime. -Unresisting presence is an encouraging submission. - -Let us add that a preliminary corruption began the complicity even -before the crime was committed. A certain putrid fermentation of -pre-existing baseness engenders the oppressor. - -The wolf is the fact of the forest; it is the savage fruit of solitude -without defence. Combine and group together silence, obscurity, easy -victory, monstrous infatuation, prey offered from all parts, murder in -security, the connivance of those who are around, weakness, want of -weapons, abandonment, isolation,--from the point of intersection of -these things breaks forth the ferocious beast. A dark forest, whence -cries cannot be heard, produces the tiger. A tiger is a blindness -hungered and armed. Is it a being? Scarcely. The claw of the animal -knows no more than does the thorn of a plant. The fatal fact engenders -the unconscious organism. In so far as personality is concerned, and -apart from killing for a living, the tiger does not exist. Mouravieff -is mistaken if he thinks that he is a being. - -Wicked men spring from bad things. Therefore let us correct the things. - -And here we return to our starting-point: An attenuating circumstance -for despotism is--idiocy. That attenuating circumstance we have just -pleaded. - -Idiotic despots, a multitude, are the mob of the purple; but above -them, beyond them, by the immeasurable distance which separates that -which radiates from that which stagnates,--there are the despots of -genius; there are the captains, the conquerors, the mighty men of war, -the civilizers of force, the ploughmen of the sword. - -These we have just named. The truly great among them are called Cyrus, -Sesostris, Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar, Charlemagne, Napoleon; and, with -the qualifications we have laid down, we admire them. - -But we admire them on the condition of their disappearance. Make room -for better ones! Make room for greater ones! - -Those greater, those better ones, are they new? No. Their series is as -ancient as the other; more ancient, perhaps, for the idea has preceded -the act, and the thinker is anterior to the warrior. But their place -was taken, taken violently. This usurpation is about to cease; their -hour comes at last; their predominance gleams forth. Civilization, -returned to the true light, recognizes them as its only founders; their -series becomes clothed in light, and eclipses the rest; like the past, -the future belongs to them; and henceforth it is they whom God will -perpetuate. - - -[Footnote 1: Delandine.] - - - -CHAPTER III. - - -That history has to be re-made is evident. Up to the present time, it -has been nearly always written from the miserable point of view of -accomplished fact; it is time to write it from the point of view of -principle,--and that, under penalty of nullity. - -Royal gestures, warlike uproars, princely coronations; marriages, -baptisms, and funerals, executions and fêtes; the finery of one -crushing all; the triumph of being born king, the prowess of sword -and axe; great empires, heavy taxes; the tricks played by chance upon -chance; the universe having for a law the adventures of any being, -provided he be crowned; the destiny of a century changed by a blow from -the lance of a fool through the skull of an imbecile; the majestic -_fistula in ano_ of Louis XIV.; the grave words of the dying Emperor -Mathias to his doctor, trying for the last time to feel his pulse -beneath his coverlet and making a mistake,--"Erras, amice hoc est -membrum nostrum imperiale sacrocæsareum;" the dance, with castanets of -Cardinal Richelieu, disguised as a shepherd before the Queen of France, -in the private villa of the Rue de Gaillon; Hildebrand completed by -Cisneros; the little dogs of Henri III.; the various Potemkins of -Catherine II.,--Orloff here, Godoy there, etc.; a great tragedy with a -petty intrigue,--such was history up to our days, alternating between -the throne and the altar, lending one ear to Dangeau and another to -Dom Calmet, sanctimonious and not stern, not comprehending the true -transitions from one age to the other, incapable of distinguishing the -climacteric crises of civilization, making the human race mount upward -by ladders of silly dates, well versed in puerilities while ignorant of -right, of justice, and of truth, and modelled far more upon Le Ragois -than upon Tacitus. - -So true is this, that in our days Tacitus has been the object of strong -attack. - -Tacitus on the other hand,--we do not weary of insisting upon it,--is, -like Juvenal, like Suetonius and Lampridius, the object of a special -and merited hatred. The day when in the colleges professors of rhetoric -shall put Juvenal above Virgil, and Tacitus above Bossuet, will be the -eve of the day in which the human race shall have been delivered; when -all forms of oppression shall have disappeared,--from the slave-owner -up to the pharisee, from the cottage where the slave weeps to the -chapel where the eunuch sings. Cardinal Du Perron, who received for -Henri IV. blows from the Pope's stick, had the goodness to say, "I -despise Tacitus." - -Up to the epoch in which we live, history has been a courtier. The -double identification of the king with the nation and of the king with -God, is the work of courtier history. The grace of God begets the right -divine. Louis XIV. says, "I am the State!" Madame du Barry, plagiarist -of Louis XIV., calls Louis XV. "France;" and the pompously haughty -saying of the great Asiatic king of Versailles ends with "France, your -coffin taints the camp!" - -Bossuet writes without hesitation, though palliating facts here -and there, the frightful legend of those old thrones of antiquity -covered with crimes, and, applying to the surface of things his vague -theocratic declamation, satisfies himself by this formula: "God holds -in his hand the hearts of kings." That is not the case, for two -reasons,--God has no hand, and kings have no heart. - -We are only speaking, of course, of the kings of Assyria. - -History, that old history of which we have spoken, is a kind person for -princes. It shuts its eyes when a highness says, "History, do not look -this way." It has, imperturbably, with the face of a harlot, denied -the horrible skull-breaking casque with an inner spike, destined by -the Archduke of Austria for the Swiss magistrate Gundoldingen. At the -present time this machine is hung on a nail in the Hôtel de Ville of -Lucerne; anybody can go and see it: yet history repeats its denial. -Moréri calls St. Bartholomew's day "a disturbance." Chaudon, another -biographer, thus characterizes the author of the saying to Louis XV., -cited above: "A lady of the court, Madame du Barry." History accepts -for an attack of apoplexy the mattress under which John II. of England -stifled the Duke of Gloucester at Calais.[1] Why is the head of the -Infant Don Carlos separated from the trunk in his bier at the Escurial? -Philip II., the father, answers: "It is because the Infant having died -a natural death, the coffin prepared for him was not found long enough, -and they were obliged to cut off the head." History blindly believes in -the coffin being too short. What! the father to have his son beheaded! -Oh, fie! Only demagogues would say such things. - -The ingenuousness with which history glorifies the fact, whatever it -may be, and however impious it may be, shines nowhere better than -in Cantemir and Karamsin,--the one a Turkish historian, the other a -Russian historian. The Ottoman fact and the Muscovite fact evidence, -when confronted and compared with each other, the Tartar identity. -Moscow is not less sinisterly Asiatic than Stamboul. Ivan is in -the one as Mustapha is in the other. The gradation is imperceptible -between that Christianity and that Mahometanism. The Pope is brother -of the Ulema, the Boyard of the Pacha, the knout of the bowstring, and -the moujik of the mute. There is to men passing through the streets -little difference between Selim who pierces them with arrows, and -Basil who lets bears loose on them. Cantemir, a man of the South, an -ancient Moldavian hospodar, long a Turkish subject, feels, although he -has passed over to the Russians, that he does not displease the Czar -Peter by deifying despotism, and he prostrates his metaphors before -the sultans: this crouching upon the belly is Oriental, and somewhat -Western also. The sultans are divine; their scimitar is sacred, -their dagger is sublime, their exterminations are magnanimous, their -parricides are good. They call themselves merciful, as the furies are -called Eumenides. The blood that they spill smokes in Cantemir with -an odour of incense, and the vast slaughtering which is their reign -blooms into glory. They massacre the people in the public interest. -When some padischah (I know not which)--Tiger IV. or Tiger VI.--causes -to be strangled one after the other his nineteen little brothers -running frightened round the chamber, the Turkish native historian -declares that "it was executing wisely the law of the empire." The -Russian historian, Karamsin, is not less tender to the Tzar than was -Cantemir to the Sultan; nevertheless, let us say it, in comparison -with Cantemir's, the fervency of Karamsin is lukewarmness. Thus Peter, -killing his son Alexis, is glorified by Karamsin, but in the same tone -in which we excuse a fault. It is not the acceptation pure and simple -of Cantemir, who is more upon his knees. The Russian historian only -admires, while the Turkish historian adores. No fire in Karamsin, no -nerve,--a dull enthusiasm, grayish apotheoses, good-will struck into -an icicle, caresses benumbed with cold. It is poor flattery. Evidently -the climate has something to do with it. Karamsin is a chilled Cantemir. - -Thus is the greater part of history made up to the present day; it -goes from Bossuet to Karamsin, passing by the Abbé Pluche. That -history has for its principle obedience. To what is obedience due? To -success. Heroes are well treated, but kings are preferred. To reign is -to succeed every morning. A king has to-morrow: he is solvent. A hero -may be unsuccessful,--such things happen,--in which case he is but a -usurper. Before this history, genius itself, even should it be the -highest expression of force served by intelligence, is compelled to -continual success. If it fails, ridicule; if it falls, insult. After -Marengo, you are Europe's hero, the man of Providence, anointed by the -Lord; after Austerlitz, Napoleon the Great; after Waterloo, the ogre -from Corsica. The Pope anointed an ogre. - -Nevertheless, impartial Loriquet, in consideration of services -rendered, makes you a marquis. The man of our day who has best executed -that surprising gamut from Hero of Europe to Ogre of Corsica, is -Fontanes, chosen during so many years to cultivate, develop, and direct -the moral sense of youth. - -Legitimacy, right divine, negation of universal suffrage, the throne a -fief, the nation an entailed estate, all proceed from that history. The -executioner is also part of it; Joseph de Maistre adds him, divinely, -to the king. In England such history is called "loyal" history. The -English aristocracy, to whom similar excellent ideas sometimes occur, -have imagined a method of giving to a political opinion the name of -a virtue,--_Instrumentum regni._ In England, to be a royalist, is to -be loyal. A democrat is disloyal; he is a variety of the dishonest -man. This man believes in the people,--shame! He would have universal -suffrage,--he is a chartist! are you sure of his probity? Here is a -republican passing,--take care of your pockets! That is clever. All the -world is more witty than Voltaire: the English aristocracy has more wit -than Macchiavelli. - -The king pays, the people do not pay,--this is about all the secret of -that kind of history. It has also its own tariff of indulgences. Honour -and profit are divided,--honour to the master, profit to the historian. -Procopius is prefect, and, what is more. Illustrious by special decree -(which does not prevent him from being a traitor); Bossuet is bishop, -Fleury is prelate prior of Argenteuil, Karamsin is senator, Cantemir is -prince. But the finest thing is to be paid successively by For and by -Against, and, like Fontanes, to be made senator through idolatry of, -and peer of France through spitting upon, the same idol. - -What is going on at the Louvre? What is going on at the Vatican, in -the Seraglio, Buen Retiro, at Windsor, at Schoenbrünn, at Potsdam, at -the Kremlin, at Oranienbaum? Further questions are needless; for there -is nothing interesting for the human race beyond those ten or twelve -houses, of which history is the door-keeper. - -Nothing can be insignificant that relates to war, the warrior, the -prince, the throne, the court. He who is not endowed with grave -puerility cannot be a historian. A question of etiquette, a hunt, a -gala, a grand levee, a procession, the triumph of Maximilian, the -number of carriages the ladies have following the king to the camp -before Mons, the necessity of having vices congenial with the faults -of his majesty, the clocks of Charles V., the locks of Louis XVI.; how -the broth refused by Louis XV. at his coronation, showed him to be a -good king; how the Prince of Wales sits in the Chamber of the House -of Lords, not in the capacity of Prince of Wales, but as Duke of -Cornwall; how the drunken Augustus has appointed Prince Lubormirsky, -who is starost of Kasimirow, under-cupbearer to the crown; how Charles -of Spain gave the command of the army of Catalonia to Pimentel because -the Pimentels have the title of Benavente since 1308; how Frederic of -Brandenburg granted a fief of forty thousand crowns to a huntsman who -enabled him to kill a fine stag; how Louis Antoine, grand-master of -the Teutonic Order and Prince Palatine, died at Liége from displeasure -at not being able to make the inhabitants choose him bishop; how the -Princess Borghèse, dowager of Mirandole and of the Papal House, married -the Prince of Cellamare, son of the Duke of Giovenazzo; how my Lord -Seaton, who is a Montgomery, followed James II. into France; how the -Emperor ordered the Duke of Mantua, who is vassal of the empire, to -drive from his court the Marquis Amorati; how there are always two -Cardinal Barberins living, and so on,--all that is the important -business. A turned-up nose becomes an historical fact. Two small fields -contiguous to the old Mark and to the duchy of Zell, having almost -embroiled England and Prussia, are memorable. In fact the cleverness of -the governing and the apathy of the governed have arranged and mixed -things in such a manner that all those forms of princely nothingness -have their place in human destiny; and peace and war, the movement of -armies and fleets, the recoil or the progress of civilization, depend -on the cup of tea of Queen Anne or the fly-flap of the Dey of Algiers. - -History walks behind those fooleries, registering them. - -Knowing so many things, it is quite natural that it should be ignorant -of others. If you are so curious as to ask the name of the English -merchant who in 1612 first entered China by the north; of the worker -in glass who in 1663 first established in France a manufactory of -crystal; of the citizen who carried out in the States General at Tours, -under Charles VIII.: the sound principle of elective magistracy (a -principle which has since been adroitly obliterated); of the pilot -who in 1405 discovered the Canary Islands; of the Byzantine lutemaker -who in the eighth century invented the organ and gave to music its -grandest voice; of the Campanian mason who invented the clock by -establishing at Rome on the temple of Quirinus the first sundial; -of the Roman lighterman who invented the paving of towns by the -construction of the Appian Way in the year 312 B.C.; of the Egyptian -carpenter who devised the dove-tail, one of the keys of architecture, -which may be found under the obelisk of Luxor; of the Chaldean keeper -of flocks who founded astronomy by his observation of the signs of -the zodiac, the starting-point taken by Anaximenes; of the Corinthian -calker who, nine years before the first Olympiad, calculated the power -of the triple lever, devised the trireme, and created a tow-boat -anterior by two thousand six hundred years to the steamboat; of the -Macedonian ploughman who discovered the first gold mine in Mount -Pangæus,--history, does not know what to say to you: those fellows are -unknown to history. Who is that,--a ploughman, a calker, a shepherd, -a carpenter, a lighterman, a mason, a lutemaker, a sailor, and a -merchant? History does not lower itself to such rabble. - -There is at Nüremberg, near the Egydienplatz, in a chamber on the -second floor of a house which faces the church of St Giles, on an -iron tripod, a little ball of wood twenty inches in diameter, covered -with darkish vellum, marked with lines which were once red, yellow, -and green. It is a globe on which is sketched out an outline of the -divisions of the earth in the fifteenth century. On this globe is -vaguely indicated, in the twenty-fourth degree of latitude, under -the sign of the Crab, a kind of island named Antilia, which one day -attracted the attention of two men. The one who had constructed the -globe and draw Antilia showed this island to the other, placed his -finger upon it, and said, "It is there." The man who looked on was -called Christopher Columbus; the man who said, "It is there," was -called Martin Behaim. Antilia is America. History speaks of Fernando -Cortez, who ravaged America, but not of Martin Behaim, who divined it. - -Let a man have "cut to pieces" other men; let him have "put them to the -sword;" let him have made them "bite the dust,"--horrible expressions, -which have become hideously familiar,--and if you search history for -the name of that man, whoever he may be, you will find it. But search -for the name of the man who invented the compass, and you will not find -it. - -In 1747, in the eighteenth century, under the gaze even of -philosophers, the battles of Raucoux and Lawfield, the siege of -Sas-de-Gand and the taking of Berg-op-Zoom, eclipse and efface -that sublime discovery which to-day is in course of modifying the -world,--electricity. Voltaire himself, about that year, celebrated -passionately some exploit of Trajan.[2] - -A certain public stupidity is the result of that history which is -superimposed upon education almost everywhere. If you doubt it, see, -among others, the publications of Périsse Brothers, intended by the -editors, says a parenthesis, for primary schools. - -A prince who gives himself an animal's name makes us laugh. We rail -at the Emperor of China, who makes people call him "His Majesty the -Dragon," and we placidly say "Monseigneur le Dauphin." - -History is the record of domesticity. The historian is no more than the -master of ceremonies of centuries. In the model court of Louis the -Great there are four historians, as there are four chamber violinists. -Lulli leads the one, Boileau the others. - -In this old method of history,--the only authorized method up to -1789, and classic in every acceptation of the word,--the best -narrators, even the honest ones (there are few of them), even those -who think themselves free, place themselves mechanically in drill, -stitch tradition to tradition, submit to accepted custom, receive the -pass-word from the antechamber, accept, pell-mell with the crowd, -the stupid divinity of coarse personages in the foreground,--kings, -"potentates," "pontiffs," soldiers,--and, all the time thinking -themselves historians, end by donning the livery of historiographers, -and are lackeys without knowing it. - -This kind of history is taught, is compulsory, is commended and -recommended; all young intellects are more or less saturated with -it, its mark remains upon them, their thought suffers through it and -releases itself only with difficulty,--we make schoolboys learn it by -heart, and I who speak, when a child, was its victim. - -In such history there is everything except history. Shows of princes, -of "monarchs," and of captains, indeed; but of the people, of laws, -of manners, very little; and of letters, of arts, of sciences, of -philosophy, of the universal movement of thought,--in one word, of -man,--nothing. Civilization dates by dynasties, and not by progress; -some king or other is one of the stages along the historical road; -the true stages, the stages of great men, are nowhere indicated. It -explains how Francis II. succeeds to Henri II., Charles IX. to Francis -II., and Henri III. to Charles IX.; but it does not tell us how Watt -succeeds to Papin, and Fulton to Watt; behind the heavy scenery of the -hereditary rights of kings a glimpse of the mysterious sovereignty -of men of genius is scarcely obtained. The lamp which smokes on the -opaque facades of royal accessions hides the starry light which the -creators of civilization throw over the ages. Not one of this series -of historians points out the divine relation of human affairs,--the -applied logic of Providence; not one makes us see how progress -engenders progress. That Philip IV. comes after Philip III., and -Charles II. after Philip IV., it would indeed be shameful not to know; -but that Descartes continues Bacon, and that Kant continues Descartes; -that Las Casas continues Columbus, that Washington continues Las Casas, -and that John Brown continues and rectifies Washington; that John Huss -continues Pelagius, that Luther continues John Huss, and that Voltaire -continues Luther,--it is almost a scandal to be aware of this! - - -[Footnote 1: There was but one John of England, who put to death (as -is supposed) his nephew Arthur, Duke of Bretagne. Perhaps this is what -Hugo had in mind.] - -[Footnote 2: For Trajan, read Louis XV.] - - - -CHAPTER IV. - - -It is time that all this should be altered. It is time that the men of -action should take their place behind, and the men of ideas come to the -front. The summit is the head. Where thought is, there is power. It is -time that men of genius should precede heroes. It is time to render to -Cæsar what is Cæsar's, and to the book what is the book's: such or such -a poem, such a drama, such a novel, does more work than all the Courts -of Europe together. It is time that history should proportion itself to -the reality, that it should allow to each influence its true measure, -and that it should cease to place the masks of kings on epochs made in -the image of poets and philosophers. To whom belongs the eighteenth -century,--to Louis XV. or to Voltaire? Confront Versailles with Ferney, -and see from which of these two points civilization flows. - -A century is a formula; an epoch is a thought expressed,--after which, -civilization passes to another. Civilization has phrases: these phrases -are the centuries. It does not repeat here what it says there; but its -mysterious phrases are bound together by a chain,--logic (_logos_) is -within,--and their series constitutes progress. All these phrases, -expressive of a single idea,--the divine idea,--write slowly the word -Fraternity. - -All light is at some point condensed into a flame; in the same way -every epoch is condensed into a man. The man having expired, the epoch -is closed,--God turns the page. Dante dead, is the full-stop put at -the end of the thirteenth century: John Huss can come. Shakespeare -dead, is the full-stop put at the end of the sixteenth century; after -this poet, who contains and sums up every philosophy, the philosophers -Pascal, Descartes, Molière, Le Sage, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Diderot, -Beaumarchais can come. Voltaire dead, is the full-stop put at the end -of the eighteenth century: the French Revolution, liquidation of the -first social form of Christianity, can come. - -These different periods, which we name epochs, have all their dominant -points. What is that dominant point? Is it a head that wears a crown, -or is it a head that bears a thought? Is it an aristocracy, or is it -an idea? Answer yourself. Do you see where the power is? Weigh Francis -I. in the scales with Gargantua: put all chivalry in the scale against -"Don Quixote." - -Therefore, every one to his right place. Right about face! and let us -now regard the centuries in their true light. In the first rank, minds; -in the second, in the third, in the twentieth, soldiers and princes. -To the warrior the darkness, to the thinker the pedestal. Take away -Alexander, and put in his place Aristotle. Strange thing, that up to -this day humanity should have read the Iliad in such a manner as to -annihilate Homer under Achilles! - -I repeat it, it is time that all this should be changed. Moreover, -the first impulse is given. Already, noble minds are at work; future -history begins to appear, some specimens of the new and magnificent -though partial treatments of the subject being already in existence; a -general recasting is imminent,--_ad usum populi._ Compulsory education -demands true history; and true history will be given: it is begun. - -Effigies must be stamped afresh. That which was the reverse will become -the face, and that which was the face will become the reverse. Urban -VIII. will be the reverse of Galileo. - -The true profile of the human race will re-appear on the different -proofs of civilization that the successive ages will offer. - -The historical effigy will no longer be the man-king; it will be the -man-people. - -Doubtless,--and we shall not be reproached for not insisting on -it,--real and veracious history, in indicating the sources of -civilization wherever they may be, will not lose sight of the -appreciable utility of the sceptre-bearers and sword-bearers at given -periods and in special states of humanity. Certain wrestling matches -necessitate some resemblance between the two combatants; barbarity must -sometimes be pitted against savageness. There are cases of progress by -violence. Cæsar is good in Cimmeria, and Alexander in Asia; but for -Alexander and Cæsar the second rank suffices. - -Veracious history, real history, definitive history henceforth charged -with the education of the royal infant,--namely, the people,--will -reject all fiction, will fail in complaisance, will logically classify -phenomena, will unravel profound causes, will study philosophically -and scientifically the successive commotions of humanity, and will -take less account of the great strokes of the sword than of the grand -strokes of the idea. The deeds of light will pass first; Pythagoras -will be a much greater event than Sesostris. We have just said -it,--heroes, men of the twilight, are relatively luminous in the -darkness; but what is a conqueror beside a sage? What is the invasion -of kingdoms compared with the opening up of intellects? The winners of -minds efface the gainers of provinces. He through whom we think, he is -the true conqueror. In future history, the slave Æsop and the slave -Plautus will have precedence over kings; and there are vagabonds who -will weigh more than certain victors, and comedians who will weigh more -than certain emperors. - -Without doubt, to illustrate what we are saying by means of facts, it -is useful that a powerful man should have marked the halting-place -between the ruin of the Latin world and the growth of the Gothic world; -it is also useful that another powerful man, coming after the first, -like cunning on the footsteps of daring, should have sketched out -under the form of a catholic monarchy the future universal group of -nations, and the beneficial encroachments of Europe upon Africa, Asia, -and America. But it is more useful yet to have written the "Divina -Commedia" and "Hamlet." No bad action is mixed up with these great -works; nor is here to be charged to the account of the civilizer a debt -of nations ruined. The improvement of the human mind being given as the -result to be obtained, Dante is of greater importance than Charlemagne, -and Shakespeare of greater importance than Charles the Fifth. - -In history, as it will be written on the pattern of absolute truth, -that intelligence of no account, that unconscious and trivial -being,--the _Non pluribus impar_, the Sultan-sun of Marly,--will appear -as nothing more than the almost mechanical preparer of the shelter -needed by the thinker disguised as a buffoon, and of the environment of -ideas and men required for the philosophy of Alceste. Thus Louis XIV. -makes Molière's bed. - -These exchanges of parts will put people in their true light; the -historical optic, renewed, will re-adjust the ensemble of civilization, -at present a chaos; for perspective, that justice of geometry, will -size the past,--making such a plan to advance, placing another in the -background. Every one will assume his real stature; the head-dresses -of tiaras and of crowns will only make dwarfs more ridiculous; stupid -genuflexions will vanish. From these alterations will proceed right. - -That great judge We ourselves,--We all,--having henceforth for measure -the clear idea of what is absolute and what is relative, deductions -and restitutions will of themselves take place. The innate moral sense -within man will know its power; it will no longer be obliged to ask -itself questions like this,--Why, at the same minute, do people revere -in Louis XV. and all the rest of royalty the act for which they bum -Deschauffours on the Place de Grève? The quality of kingship will -no longer be a false moral weight. Facts fairly placed will place -conscience fairly. A good light will come, sweet to the human race, -serene, equitable, with no interposition of clouds henceforth between -truth and the brain of man, but a definitive ascent of the good, the -just, and the beautiful toward the zenith of civilization. - -Nothing can escape the law which simplifies. By the mere force of -things, the material side of facts and of men disintegrates and -disappears. There is no shadowy solidity; whatever may be the mass, -whatever may be the block, every combination of ashes (and matter is -nothing else) returns to ashes. The idea of the atom of dust is in -the word "granite,"--inevitable pulverizations. All those granites of -oligarchy, aristocracy, and theocracy are doomed to be scattered to the -four winds. The ideal alone is indestructible. Nothing lasts save the -mind. - -In this indefinite increase of light which is called civilization, the -processes of reduction and levelling are accomplished. The imperious -morning light penetrates everywhere,--enters as master, and makes -itself obeyed. The light is at work; under the great eye of posterity, -before the blaze of the nineteenth century, simplifications take place, -excrescences fall away, glories drop like leaves, reputations are riven -in pieces. Do you wish for an example,--take Moses. There is in Moses -three glories,--the captain, the legislator, the poet. Of these three -men contained in Moses, where is the captain to-day? In the shadow, -with brigands and murderers. Where is the legislator? Amidst the waste -of dead religions. Where is the poet? By the side of Æschylus. - -Daylight has an irresistible corroding power on the things of night. -Hence appears a new historic sky above our heads, a new philosophy of -causes and results, a new aspect of facts. - -Certain minds, however, whose honest and stern anxiety pleases us, -object: "You have said that men of genius form a dynasty; now, we will -not have that dynasty any more than another." This is to misapprehend, -and to fear the word where the thing is reassuring. The same law which -wills that the human race should have no owners, wills that it should -have guides. To be enlightened is quite different from being enslaved. -Kings possess; men of genius conduct,--there is the difference. Between -"I am a Man" and "I am the State" there is all the distance from -fraternity to tyranny. The forward-march must have a guide-post. To -revolt against the pilot can scarcely improve the ship's course; we do -not see what would have been gained by throwing Christopher Columbus -into the sea. The direction "this way" has never humiliated the man who -seeks his road. I accept in the night the guiding authority of torches. -Moreover, a dynasty of little encumbrance is that of men of genius, -having for a kingdom the exile of Dante, for a palace the dungeon of -Cervantes, for a civil list the wallet of Isaiah, for a throne the -dunghill of Job, and for a sceptre the staff of Homer. - -Let us resume. - - - -CHAPTER V. - - -Humanity, no longer owned but guided,--such is the new aspect of facts. - -This new aspect of facts history henceforth is compelled to reproduce. -To change the past, that is strange; yet it is what history is about -to do. By falsehood? No, by speaking the truth. History has been a -picture; she is about to become a mirror. This new reflection of the -past will modify the future. - -The former king of Westphalia, who was a witty man, was looking one day -at an inkstand on the table of some one we know. The writer, with whom -Jerome Bonaparte was at that moment, had brought home from an excursion -among the Alps, made some years before in company with Charles Nodier, -a piece of steatitic serpentine carved and hollowed in the form of an -inkstand, and purchased of the chamois-hunters of the Mer de Glace. It -was this that Jerome Bonaparte was looking at "What is this?" he asked. -"It is my inkstand," said the writer; and he added, "it is steatite. -Admire how Nature with a little dirt and oxide has made this charming -green stone." Jerome Bonaparte replied, "I admire much more the men -who out of this stone made an inkstand." That was not badly said for -a brother of Napoleon, and due credit should be given for it; for -the inkstand is to destroy the sword. The decrease of warriors,--men -of brutal force and of prey; the undefined and superb growth of men -of thought and of peace; the re-appearance on the scene of the true -colossals,--in this is one of the greatest facts of our great epoch. -There is no spectacle more pathetic and sublime,--humanity delivered -from on high, the powerful ones put to flight by the thinkers, the -prophet overwhelming the hero, force routed by ideas, the sky cleaned, -a majestic expulsion. - -Look! raise your eyes! the supreme epic is accomplished. The legions of -light drive backward the hordes of flame. - -The masters are departing; the liberators are arriving! Those who hunt -down nations, who drag armies behind them,--Nimrod, Sennacherib, Cyrus, -Rameses, Xerxes, Cambyses Attila, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Alexander, -Cæsar, Bonaparte,--all these immense wild men are disappearing. They -die away slowly,--behold them touch the horizon; they are mysteriously -attracted by the darkness; they claim kindred with the shade,--thence -their fatal descent. Their resemblance to other phenomena of the night -restores them to that terrible unity of blind immensity, a submersion -of all light; forgetfulness, shadow of the shadow, awaits them. - -But though they are thrown down, they remain formidable. Let us not -insult what has been great. Hooting would be unbecoming before the -burying of heroes; the thinker should remain grave in presence of this -donning of shrouds. The old glory abdicates, the strong lie down: mercy -for those vanquished conquerors! peace to those warlike spirits now -extinguished! The darkness of the grave interposes between their glare -and ourselves. It is not without a kind of religious terror that one -sees planets become spectres. - -While in the engulfing process the flaming pleiad of the men of brutal -force descends deeper and deeper into the abyss with the sinister -pallor of approaching disappearance, at the other extremity of space, -where the last cloud is about to fade away, in the deep heaven of -the future, henceforth to be azure, rises in radiancy the sacred -group of true stars,--Orpheus, Hermes, Job, Homer, Æschylus, Isaiah, -Ezekiel, Hippocrates, Phidias. Socrates, Sophocles, Plato, Aristotle, -Archimedes, Euclid, Pythagoras, Lucretius, Plautus, Juvenal, Tacitus, -Saint Paul, John of Patmos, Tertullian, Pelagius, Dante, Gutenberg, -Joan of Arc, Christopher Columbus, Luther, Michael, Angelo, Copernicus, -Galileo, Rabelais, Calderon, Cervantes Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Kepler, -Milton, Molière, Newton, Descartes, Kant, Piranesi, Beccaria, Diderot, -Voltaire, Beethoven, Fulton, Montgolfier, Washington. And this -marvellous constellation, at each instant more luminous, dazzling as a -glory of celestial diamonds, shines in the clear horizon, and ascending -mingles with the vast dawn of Jesus Christ. - -THE END. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of William Shakespeare, by Victor Hugo - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE *** - -***** This file should be named 53490-0.txt or 53490-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/4/9/53490/ - -Produced by Laura Natal Rodriguez and Marc D'Hooghe at -Free Literature (online soon in an extended version, also -linking to free sources for education worldwide ... MOOC's, -educational materials,...) 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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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: William Shakespeare - -Author: Victor Hugo - -Translator: A. Baillot - -Release Date: November 10, 2016 [EBook #53490] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE *** - - - - -Produced by Laura Natal Rodriguez and Marc D'Hooghe at -Free Literature (online soon in an extended version, also -linking to free sources for education worldwide ... MOOC's, -educational materials,...) Images generously made available -by the Hathi Trust - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="500" alt="" /> -</div> -<h1>WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.</h1> - -<h3>By</h3> - -<h2>VICTOR HUGO</h2> - -<h4>TRANSLATED BY A. BAILLOT</h4> - -<h4>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS</h4> - -<h5>BOSTON</h5> - -<h5>ESTES AND LAURIAT</h5> - -<h5>PUBLISHERS</h5> - -<h5>1864</h5> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<a id="hugo02"></a> -<img src="images/hugo02.jpg" width="500" alt="" /> -<p class="capt"><i>Portrait of Victor Hugo.</i><br /> Photogravure -by Goupil et Cie.—From Painting by Pannemaker.</p> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p style="text-align: center; font-size: 0.8em;">TO</p> - -<h4>ENGLAND</h4> - -<h4>I Dedicate this Book,</h4> - -<hr class="r5" /> -<h5>THE GLORIFICATION OF HER POET.</h5> - -<p style="text-align: center; font-size: 0.8em;"> -I TELL ENGLAND THE TRUTH; BUT, AS A LAND ILLUSTRIOUS<br /> -AND FREE, I ADMIRE HER, AND AS AN ASYLUM.<br /> -I LOVE HER.<br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 50%;">VICTOR HUGO.</span><br /> -</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;">Hauteville House, 1864.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE">PREFACE</a></h4> - - -<p>The true title of this work should be, "Apropos to Shakespeare." The -desire of introducing, as they say in England, before the public, -the new translation of Shakespeare, has been the first motive of the -author. The feeling which interests him so profoundly in the translator -should not deprive him of the right to recommend the translation. -However, his conscience has been solicited on the other part, and -in a more binding way still, by the subject itself. In reference to -Shakespeare all questions which touch art are presented to his mind. -To treat these questions, is to explain the mission of art; to treat -these questions, is to explain the duty of human thought toward -man. Such an occasion for speaking truths imposes a duty, and he is -not permitted, above all at such an epoch as ours, to evade it. The -author has comprehended this. He has not hesitated to turn the complex -questions of art and civilization on their several faces, multiplying -the horizons every time that the perspective has displaced itself, and -accepting every indication that the subject, in its rigorous necessity, -has offered to him. This expansion of the point of view has given rise -to this book.</p> - -<p>Hauteville House, 1864.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p class="caption" style="margin-left: 10%;"><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;">PART I.</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;">Book</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;"><a href="#PART_I_BOOK_Ia">I.</a> Shakespeare.—His Life</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;"><a href="#BOOK_IIa">II.</a> Men of Genius.—Homer, Job, Æschylus, Isaiah, -Ezekiel, Lucretius, Juvenal, Tacitus, St. John, St. Paul, -Dante, Rabelais, Cervantes, Shakespeare</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;"><a href="#BOOK_IIIa">III.</a> Art and Science</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;"><a href="#BOOK_IVa">IV.</a> The Ancient Shakespeare</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;"><a href="#BOOK_Va">V.</a> The Souls</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;">PART II.</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;"><a href="#PART_II-BOOK_Ib">I.</a> Shakespeare.—His Genius</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;"><a href="#BOOK_IIb">II.</a> Shakespeare.—His Work.—The Culminating Points</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;"><a href="#BOOK_IIIb">III.</a> Zoilus as Eternal as Homer</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;"><a href="#BOOK_IVb">IV.</a> Criticism</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;"><a href="#BOOK_Vb">V.</a> The Minds and the Masses</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;"><a href="#BOOK_VIb">VI.</a> The Beautiful tub Servant of the True</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;">PART III.—CONCLUSION.</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;"><a href="#PART_III_BOOK_I">I.</a> After Death.—Shakespeare.—England</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;"><a href="#BOOK_II">II.</a> The Nineteenth Century</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;"><a href="#BOOK_III">III.</a> True History.—Every one put in his Right Place</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> -<p class="caption" style="margin-left: 10%;">LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.</p> - - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;"><a href="#hugo02">Portrait of Victor Hugo</a></p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;"><a href="#hugo03">"In order to gain a Livelihood, he sought to take<br /> -Care of Horses at the Doors of the Theatres"</a></p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;"><a href="#hugo04">Shakespeare in his Garden</a></p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;"><a href="#hugo05">Anne Hathaway's Cottage</a></p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;">Portrait of Shakespeare [not available]</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h3>WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.</h3> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="PART_I_BOOK_Ia" id="PART_I_BOOK_Ia">PART I.—BOOK I.</a></h4> - - -<h4>HIS LIFE.</h4> - -<hr class="r5" /> - -<h5>CHAPTER I</h5> - - -<p>Twelve years ago, in an island adjoining the coast of France, a house, -with a melancholy aspect in every season, became particularly sombre -because winter had commenced. The west wind, blowing then in full -liberty, made thicker yet round this abode those coats of fog that -November places between earthly life and the sun. Evening comes quickly -in autumn; the smallness of the windows added to the shortness of the -days, and deepened the sad twilight in which the house was wrapped.</p> - -<p>The house, which had a terrace for a roof, was rectilinear, correct, -square, newly whitewashed,—a true Methodist structure. Nothing is -so glacial as that English whiteness; it seems to offer you the -hospitality of snow. One dreams with a seared heart of the old huts of -the French peasants, built of wood, cheerful and dark, surrounded with -vines.</p> - -<p>To the house was attached a garden of a quarter of an acre, on an -inclined plane, surrounded with walls, cut in steps of granite, and -with parapets, without trees, naked, where one could see more stones -than leaves. This little uncultivated domain abounded in tufts of -marigold, which flourish in autumn, and which the poor people of the -country eat baked with the eel. The neighbouring seashore was hid from -this garden by a rise in the ground; on this rise there was a field of -short grass, where some nettles and a big hemlock flourished.</p> - -<p>From the house you might perceive, on the right, in the horizon, on an -elevation, and in a little wood, a tower, which passed for haunted; on -the left you might see the dyke. The dyke was a row of big trunks of -trees, leaning against a wall, planted upright in the sand, dried up, -gaunt, with knots, ankylosès, and patellas, which looked like a row of -tibias. Revery, which readily accepts dreams for the sake of proposing -enigmas, might ask to what men these tibias of three fathoms in height -had belonged.</p> - -<p>The south façade of the house looked on the garden, the north façade on -a deserted road.</p> - -<p>A corridor at the entrance to the ground-floor, a kitchen, a -greenhouse, and a courtyard, with a little parlour, having a view of -the lonely road, and a pretty large study, scarcely lighted; on the -first and second floors, chambers, neat, cold, scantily furnished, -newly repainted, with white blinds to the window,—such was this -lodging, with the noise of the sea ever resounding.</p> - -<p>This house, a heavy, right-angled white cube, chosen by those who -inhabited it apparently by chance, perhaps by intentional destiny, had -the form of a tomb.</p> - -<p>Those who inhabited this abode were a group,—to speak more properly, -a family; they were proscribed ones. The most aged was one of those men -who, at a given moment, are <i>de trop</i> in their own country. He had come -from an assembly; the others, who were young, had come from a prison. -To have written, that is sufficient motive for bars. Where shall -thought conduct except to a dungeon?</p> - -<p>The prison had set them free into banishment.</p> - -<p>The oldest, the father, had in that place all his own except his eldest -daughter, who could not follow him. His son-in-law was with her. Often -were they leaning round a table or seated on a bench, silent, grave, -thinking, all of them, and without saying it, of those two absent ones.</p> - -<p>Why was this group installed in this lodging, so little suitable? For -reasons of haste, and from a desire to be as soon as possible anywhere -but at the inn. Doubtless, also, because it was the first house to let -that they had met with, and because proscribed people are not lucky.</p> - -<p>This house,—which it is time to rehabilitate a little and console, for -who knows if in its loneliness it is not sad at what we have just said -about it; a home has a soul,—this house was called Marine Terrace. The -arrival was mournful; but after all, we declare, the stay in it was -agreeable, and Marine Terrace has not left to those who then inhabited -it anything but affectionate and dear remembrances. And what we say -of that house, Marine Terrace, we say also of that island of Jersey. -Places of suffering and trial end by having a kind of bitter sweetness -which, later on, causes them to be regretted. They have a stern -hospitality which pleases the conscience.</p> - -<p>There had been, before them, other exiles in that island. This is not -the time to speak of them. We mention only that the most ancient of -whom tradition, a legend, perhaps, has kept the remembrance, was a -Roman, Vipsanius Minator, who employed his exile in augmenting, for -the benefit of his country's dominion, the Roman wall of which you -may still see some parts, like bits of hillock, near a bay named, I -think, St. Catherine's Bay. This Vipsanius Minator was a consular -personage,—an old Roman so infatuated with Rome that he stood in the -way of the Empire. Tiberius exiled him into this Cimmerian island, -Cæsarea; according to others, to one of the Orkneys. Tiberius did more; -not content with exile, he ordained oblivion. It was forbidden to the -orators of the senate and the forum to pronounce the name of Vipsanius -Minator. The orators of the forum and the senate, and history, have -obeyed; about which Tiberius, of course, did not have a doubt. That -arrogance in commanding, which proceeded so far as to give orders to -men's thoughts, characterized certain ancient governments newly arrived -at one of those firm situations where the greatest amount of crime -produces the greatest amount of security.</p> - -<p>Let us return to Marine Terrace.</p> - -<p>One morning at the end of November, two of the inhabitants of the -place, the father and the youngest of the sons, were seated in the -lower parlour. They were silent, like shipwrecked ones who meditate. -Without, it rained; the wind blew. The house was as if deafened by -the outer roaring. Both went on thinking, absorbed perhaps by this -coincidence between a beginning of winter and a beginning of exile.</p> - -<p>All at once the son raised his voice and asked the father,—</p> - -<p>"What thinkest thou of this exile?"</p> - -<p>"That it will be long."</p> - -<p>"How dost thou reckon to fill it up?"</p> - -<p>The father answered,—</p> - -<p>"I shall look on the ocean."</p> - -<p>There was a silence. The father resumed the conversation:—</p> - -<p>"And you?"</p> - -<p>"I," said the son,—"I shall translate Shakespeare."</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER II.</h5> - - -<p>There are men, oceans in reality.</p> - -<p>These waves; this ebb and flow; this terrible go-and-come; this noise -of every gust; these lights and shadows; these vegetations belonging -to the gulf; this democracy of clouds in full hurricane; these eagles -in the foam; these wonderful gatherings of stars reflected in one -knows not what mysterious crowd by millions of luminous specks, heads -confused with the innumerable; those grand errant lightnings which seem -to watch; these huge sobs; these monsters glimpsed at; this roaring, -disturbing these nights of darkness; these furies, these frenzies, -these tempests, these rocks, these shipwrecks, these fleets crushing -each other, these human thunders mixed with divine thunders, this blood -in the abyss; then these graces, these sweetnesses, these <i>fêtes</i> these -gay white veils, these fishing-boats, these songs in the uproar, these -splendid ports, this smoke of the earth, these towns in the horizon, -this deep blue of water and sky, this useful sharpness, this bitterness -which renders the universe wholesome, this rough salt without which -all would putrefy, these angers and assuagings, this whole in one, -this unexpected in the immutable, this vast marvel of monotony -inexhaustibly varied, this level after that earthquake, these hells and -these paradises of immensity eternally agitated, this infinite, this -unfathomable,—all this can exist in one spirit; and then this spirit -is called genius, and you have Æschylus, you have Isaiah, you have -Juvenal, you have Dante, you have Michael Angelo, you have Shakespeare; -and looking at these minds is the same thing as to look at the ocean.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER III</h5> - - -<p>William Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon, in a house under -the tiles of which was concealed a profession of the Catholic faith -beginning with these words, "I, John Shakespeare." John was the -father of William. The house, situate in Henley Street, was humble; -the chamber in which Shakespeare came into the world, wretched,—the -walls whitewashed, the black rafters laid crosswise; at the farther -end a tolerably large window with two small panes, where you may read -to-day, among other names, that of Walter Scott. This poor lodging -sheltered a decayed family. The father of William Shakespeare had been -alderman; his grand-father had been bailiff. Shakespeare signifies -"shake-lance;" the family had for coat-of-arms an arm holding a -lance,—allusive arms, which were confirmed, they say, by Queen -Elizabeth in 1595, and apparent, at the time we write, on Shakespeare's -tomb in the church of Stratford-on-Avon. There is little agreement -on the orthography of the word Shake-speare, as a family name; it is -written variously,—Shakspere, Shakespere, Shakespeare, Shakspeare. -In the eighteenth century it was habitually written Shakespear; the -actual translator has adopted the spelling Shakespeare, as the only -true method, and gives for it unanswerable reasons. The only objection -that can be made is that Shakspeare is more easily pronounced than -Shakespeare, that cutting off the <i>e</i> mute is perhaps useful, and -that for their own sake, and in the interests of literary currency, -posterity has, as regards surnames, a claim to euphony. It is evident, -for example, that in French poetry the orthography Shakspeare is -necessary. However, in prose, and convinced by the translator, we write -Shakespeare.</p> - -<p>2. The Shakespeare family had some original draw-back, probably its -Catholicism, which caused it to fall. A little after the birth of -William, Alderman Shakespeare was no more than "butcher John." William -Shakespeare made his <i>début</i> in a slaughter-house. At fifteen years -of age, with sleeves tucked up, in his father's shambles, he killed -the sheep and calves "pompously," says Aubrey. At eighteen he married. -Between the days of the slaughter-house and the marriage he composed a -quatrain. This quatrain, directed against the neighbouring villages, -is his <i>début</i> in poetry. He there says that Hillbrough is illustrious -for its ghosts and Bidford for its drunken fellows. He made this -quatrain (being tipsy himself), in the open air, under an apple-tree -still celebrated in the country in consequence of this Midsummer -Night's Dream. In this night and in this dream where there were -lads and lasses, in this drunken fit, and under this apple-tree, he -discovered that Anne Hathaway was a pretty girl. The wedding followed. -He espoused this Anne Hathaway, older than himself by eight years, -had a daughter by her, then twins, boy and girl, and left her; and -this wife, vanished from Shakespeare's life, appears again only in his -will, where he leaves her the worst of his two beds, "having probably," -says a biographer, "employed the best with others." Shakespeare, like -La Fontaine, did but sip at a married life. His wife put aside, he -was a schoolmaster, then clerk to an attorney, then a poacher. This -poaching has been made use of since then to justify the statement -that Shakespeare had been a thief. One day he was caught poaching in -Sir Thomas Lucy's park. They threw him in prison; they commenced -proceedings. These being spitefully followed up, he saved himself by -flight to London. In order to gain a livelihood, he sought to take care -of horses at the doors of the theatres. Plautus had turned a millstone. -This business of taking care of horses at the doors existed in London -in the last century, and it formed then a kind of small band or corps -that they called "Shakespeare's boys."</p> - - -<hr class="r5" /> -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;"> -<a id="hugo03"></a> -<img src="images/hugo03.jpg" width="450" alt="" /> -<p class="capt">"<i>In order to gain a livelihood, he sought to take care -of horses at the doors of the theatres.</i>"</p> - -<p class="capt">Photogravure.—From A. Mongin's etching of painting by François -Flameng.</p> -</div> -<hr class="r5" /> - -<p>3. You may call London the black Babylon,—gloomy the day, magnificent -the night To see London is a sensation; it is uproar under smoke. -Mysterious analogy! The uproar is the smoke of noise. Paris is the -capital of one side of humanity. London is the capital of the opposite -side,—splendid and melancholy town! Life there is a tumult; the people -there are an ant-hill; they are free, and yet dove-tailed. London is an -orderly chaos. The London of the sixteenth century did not resemble the -London of our day; but it was already a town without bounds. Cheapside -was the high-street; St Paul's, which is a dome, was a spire. The -plague was nearly as much at home in London as at Constantinople. It -is true that there was not much difference between Henry VIII. and a -sultan. Fires, also, as at Constantinople, were frequent in London, -on account of the populous parts of the town being built entirely of -wood. In the streets there was but one carriage,—the carriage of her -Majesty. Not a cross-road where they did not cudgel some pickpocket -with that drotsch-block which is still retained at Groningen for -thrashing the wheat. Manners were rough, almost ferocious; a fine lady -rose at six, and went to bed at nine. Lady Geraldine Kildare, to whom -Lord Surrey inscribed verses, breakfasted off a pound of bacon and a -pot of beer. Queens, the wives of Henry VIII., knitted mittens, and did -not even object to their being of coarse red wool. In this London, -the Duchess of Suffolk took care of her hen-house, and with her dress -tucked up to her knees, threw corn to the ducks in the court below. To -dine at midday was a late dinner. The pleasures of the upper classes -were to go and play at "hot cockles" with my Lord Leicester. Anne -Boleyn played there; she knelt down, with eyes bandaged, rehearsing -this game, without knowing it, in the posture of the scaffold. This -same Anne Boleyn, destined to the throne, from whence she was to -go farther, was perfectly dazzled when her mother bought her three -linen chemises at sixpence the ell, and promised her for the Duke of -Norfolk's ball a pair of new shoes worth five shillings.</p> - -<p>4. Under Elizabeth, in spite of the anger of the Puritans, there were -in London eight companies of comedians, those of Newington Butts, Earl -Pembroke's company. Lord Strange's retainers, the Lord-Chamberlain's -troop, the Lord High-Admiral's troop, the company of Blackfriars, -the children of St. Paul's, and, in the first rank, the Showmen of -Bears. Lord Southampton went to the play every evening. Nearly all the -theatres were situate on the banks of the Thames, which increased the -number of water-men. The play-rooms were of two kinds: some merely -open tavern-yards, a trestle leaning against a wall, no ceiling, rows -of benches placed on the ground, for boxes the windows of the tavern. -The performance took place in the broad daylight and in the open air. -The principal of those theatres was the Globe; the others, which were -mostly closed play-rooms, lighted with lamps, were used at night. The -most frequented was Blackfriars. The best actor of Lord Pembroke's -troop was called Henslowe; the best actor at Blackfriars was Burbage. -The Globe was situate on Bank Side. This is known by a document at -Stationers' Hall, dated 26th November, 1607:—</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>"His Majesty's servants playing usually at the Globe on the -Bank Side."</p></blockquote> - -<p>The scenery was simple. Two swords laid crosswise, sometimes two laths, -signified a battle; a shirt over the coat signified a knight; the -petticoat of one of the comedians' wives on a broom-handle, signified a -palfrey caparisoned. A rich theatre, which made its inventory in 1598, -possessed "the limbs of Moors, a dragon, a big horse with his legs, a -cage, a rock, four Turks' heads, and that of the ancient Mahomet, a -wheel for the siege of London, and a <i>bouche d'enfer.</i>" Another had -"a sun, a target, the three feathers of the Prince of Wales, with the -device <i>Ich Dien</i>, besides six devils, and the Pope on his mule." An -actor besmeared with plaster and immovable, signified a wall; if he -spread his fingers, it meant that the wall had crevices. A man laden -with a fagot, followed by a dog, and carrying a lantern, meant the -moon; his lantern represented the moonshine. People may laugh at this -<i>mise en scène</i> of moonlight, become famous by the "Midsummer Night's -Dream," without imagining that there is in it a gloomy anticipation -of Dante.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> The robing-room of these theatres, where the comedians -dressed themselves pell-mell, was a corner separated from the stage by -a rag of some kind stretched on a cord. The robing-room at Blackfriars -was shut off by an ancient piece of tapestry which had belonged to one -of the guilds, and represented a blacksmith's workshop; through the -holes in this partition, flying in rags and tatters, the public saw the -actors redden their cheeks with brick-dust, or make their mustaches -with a cork burned at a tallow-candle. From time to time, through an -occasional opening of the curtain, you might see a face grinning in a -mask, peeping to see if the time for going on the stage had arrived, -or the smooth chin of a comedian, who was to play the part of a woman. -"Glabri histriones," said Plautus. These theatres were frequented by -noblemen, scholars, soldiers, and sailors. They acted there the tragedy -of "Lord Buckhurst," "Gorbuduc," or "Ferrex and Porrex," "Mother -Bombic," by Lilly, in which the phip-phip of sparrows was heard; "The -Libertine," an imitation of the "Convivado de Piedra," which had a -European fame; "Felix and Philomena," a fashionable comedy, performed -for the first time at Greenwich, before "Queen Bess;" "Promos and -Cassandra," a comedy dedicated by the author, George Whetstone, to -William Fleetwood, recorder of London; "Tamerlane," and the "Jew of -Malta," by Christopher Marlowe; farces and pieces by Robert Greene, -George Peele, Thomas Lodge, and Thomas Kid; and lastly, mediæval -comedies. For just as France has her "L'Avocat Pathelin," so England -has her "Gossip Gurton's Needle." While the actors gesticulated and -ranted, the noblemen and officers, with their plumes and band of gold -lace, standing or squatting on the stage, turning their backs, haughty -and easy in the midst of the constrained comedians, laughed, shouted, -played at cards, threw them at each other's heads, or played at post -and pair; and below in the shade, on the pavement, among pots of beer -and pipes, you might see the "stinkards" (the mob). It was by that very -theatre that Shakespeare entered on the drama. From being the guardian -of horses, he became the shepherd of men.</p> - -<p>5. Such was the theatre in London about the year 1580, under "the -great queen." It was not much less wretched, a century later, at -Paris, under "the great king;" and Molière, at his debut, had, like -Shakespeare, to make shift with rather miserable playhouses. There is -in the archives of the Comédie Française an unpublished manuscript of -four hundred pages, bound in parchment and tied with a band of white -leather. It is the diary of Lagrange, a comrade of Molière. Lagrange -describes also the theatre where Molière's company played by order of -Mr. Rateban, superintendent of the king's buildings: "Three beams, -the frames rotten and shored up, and half the room roofless and in -ruins." In another place, by date Sunday, 15th March, 1671, he says, -"The company have resolved to make a large ceiling over the whole -room, which, up to the said date (15th) has not been covered, save by -a large blue cloth suspended by cords." As for lighting and heating -this room, particularly on the occasion of the extraordinary expenses -necessary for the performance of "Psyche," which was by Molière and -Corneille, we read: "Candles, thirty livres; door-keeper, for wood, -three livres." This was the style of playhouse which "the great king" -placed at the disposal of Molière. These bounties to literature did -not impoverish Louis XIV. so much as to deprive him of the pleasure of -giving, for example, at one and the same time, two hundred thousand -livres to Lavardin, and the same to D'Epernon; two hundred thousand -livres, besides the regiment of France, to the Count de Médavid; four -hundred thousand livres to the Bishop of Noyon, because this bishop was -Clermont-Tonnerre, a family that had two patents of count and peer of -France,—one for Clermont and one for Tonnerre; five hundred thousand -livres to the Duke of Vivonne; and seven hundred thousand livres to -the Duke of Quintin-Lorges, besides eight hundred thousand livres to -Monseigneur Clement de Bavière, Prince-Bishop of Liége. Let us add that -he gave a thousand livres pension to Molière. We find in Lagrange's -journal in the month of April, 1663, this remark:—</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>"About the same time, M. de Molière received, as a great -wit, a pension from the king, and has been placed on the -civil list for the sum of a thousand livres."</p></blockquote> - -<p>Later, when Molière was dead and interred at St. Joseph, "Chapel of -ease to the parish of St. Eustache," the king pushed patronage so far -as to permit his tomb to be "raised a foot out of the ground."</p> - -<p>6. Shakespeare, as we see, remained as an outsider a long time on the -threshold of theatrical life. At length he entered. He passed the -door and got behind the scenes. He succeeded in becoming call-boy, -vulgarly, a "barker." About 1586 Shakespeare was barking with Greene at -Blackfriars. In 1587 he gained a step. In the piece called "The Giant -Agrapardo, King of Nubia, worse than his late brother, Angulafer," -Shakespeare was intrusted with carrying the turban to the giant. Then -from a supernumerary he became actor, thanks to Burbage, to whom, by -an interlineation in his will, he left thirty-six shillings, to buy -a gold ring. He was the friend of Condell and Hemynge,—his comrades -whilst alive, his publishers after his death. He was handsome; he had -a high forehead, a brown beard, a mild countenance, a sweet mouth, a -deep look. He took delight in reading Montaigne, translated by Florio. -He frequented the Apollo tavern, where he would see and keep company -with two <i>habitués</i> of his theatre,—Decker, author of the "Gull's -Hornbook," in which a chapter is specially devoted to "the way a -man of fashion ought to behave at the play," and Dr. Symon Forman, -who has left a manuscript journal, containing reports of the first -representations of the "Merchant of Venice," and "A Winter's Tale." He -used to meet Sir Walter Raleigh at the Siren Club. Somewhere about that -time, Maturin Régnier met Philippe de Béthune at la Pomme de Pin. The -great lords and fine gentlemen of the day were rather prone to lend -their names in order to start new taverns. At Paris the Viscount de -Montauban, who was a Créqui, founded Le Tripot des Onze Mille Diables. -At Madrid, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, the unfortunate admiral of the -"Invincible," founded the Puño-en-rostro, and in London Sir Walter -Raleigh founded the Siren. There you found drunkenness and wit.</p> - -<p>7. In 1589, when James VI. of Scotland, looking to the throne of -England, paid his respects to Elizabeth, who, two years before, on the -8th February, 1587, had beheaded Mary Stuart, mother of this James, -Shakespeare composed his first drama, "Pericles." In 1591, while the -Catholic king was dreaming, after a scheme of the Marquis d'Astorga, -of a second Armada, more lucky than the first, inasmuch as it never -put to sea, he composed "Henry VI." In 1593, when the Jesuits obtained -from the Pope express permission to paint "the pains and torments of -hell," on the walls of "the chamber of meditation" of Clermont College, -where they often shut up a poor youth, who the year after, became -famous under the name of Jean Châtel, he composed "Taming the Shrew." -In 1594, when, looking daggers at each other and ready for battle, -the King of Spain, the Queen of England, and even the King of France, -all three said "my good city of Paris," he continued and completed -"Henry VI." In 1595, while Clement VIII. at Rome was solemnly aiming -a blow at Henry IV. by laying his crosier on the backs of Cardinals -du Perron and d'Ossat, he wrote "Timon of Athens." In 1596, the year -when Elizabeth published an edict against the long points of bucklers, -and when Philip II. drove from his presence a woman who laughed when -blowing her nose, he composed "Macbeth." In 1597, when this same Philip -II. said to the Duke of Alba, "You deserve the axe," not because the -Duke of Alba had put the Low Countries to fire and sword, but because -he had entered into the king's presence without being announced, he -composed "Cymbeline" and "Richard III." In 1598, when the Earl of Essex -ravaged Ireland, bearing on his headdress the glove of the virgin Queen -Elizabeth, he composed the "Two Gentlemen of Verona," "King John," -"Love's Labour's Lost," "The Comedy of Errors," "All's Well that Ends -Well," "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and "The Merchant of Venice." In -1599, when the Privy Council, at her Majesty's request, deliberated -on the proposal to put Dr. Hayward to the rack for having stolen some -of the ideas of Tacitus, he composed "Romeo and Juliet." In 1600, -while the Emperor Rudolph was waging war against his rebel brother -and sentencing his son, murderer of a woman, to be bled to death, he -composed "As You Like It," "Henry IV.," "Henry V.," and "Much Ado about -Nothing." In 1601, when Bacon published the eulogy on the execution -of the Earl of Essex, just as Leibnitz, eighty years afterward, was -to find out good reasons for the murder of Monaldeschi, with this -difference however, that Monaldeschi was nothing to Leibnitz, and that -Essex had been the benefactor of Bacon, he composed "Twelfth Night; -or, What you Will." In 1602, while in obedience to the Pope, the King -of France, styled "Renard de Béarn" by Cardinal Aldobrandini, was -counting his beads every day, reciting the litanies on Wednesday, and -the rosary of the Virgin Mary on Saturday, while fifteen cardinals, -assisted by the heads of the chapter, opened the discussion on Molinism -at Rome, and while the Holy See, at the request of the crown of -Spain, "was saving Christianity and the world" by the institution of -the congregation "de Auxiliis," he composed "Othello." In 1603, when -the death of Elizabeth made Henry IV. say, "She was a virgin just as -I am a Catholic," he composed "Hamlet." In 1604, while Philip III. -was losing his last footing in the Low Countries, he wrote "Julius -Cæsar" and "Measure for Measure." In 1606, at the time when James I. -of England, the former James VI. of Scotland, wrote against Bellarmin -the "Tortura Forti" and faithless to Carr began to look sweetly on -Villiers, who was afterward to honour him with the title of "Your -Filthiness," he composed "Coriolanus." In 1607, when the University of -York received the little Prince of Wales as doctor, according to the -account of Father St. Romuald "with all the ceremonies and the usual -fur gowns," he wrote "King Lear." In 1609, when the magistracy of -France, placing the scaffold at the disposition of the king, gave upon -trust a <i>carte blanche</i> for the sentence of the Prince de Condé "to -such punishment as it might please his Majesty to order," Shakespeare -composed "Troilus and Cressida." In 1610, when Ravaillac assassinated -Henry IV. by the dagger, and the French parliament assassinated -Ravaillac by the process of quartering his body, Shakespeare composed -"Antony and Cleopatra." In 1611, while the Moors, driven out by Philip -III., and in the pangs of death, were crawling out of Spain, he wrote -the "Winter's Tale," "Henry VIII.," and "The Tempest."</p> - -<p>8. He used to write on flying sheets, like nearly all poets. Malherbe -and Boileau are almost the only ones who have written on quires of -paper. Racan said to Mlle. de Gournay:—</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>"I have seen this morning M. de Malherbe sewing with coarse -gray thread a bundle of white papers, on which will soon -appear some sonnets."</p></blockquote> - -<p>Each of Shakespeare's dramas, composed according to the wants of his -company, was in all probability learned and rehearsed in haste by -the actors from the original itself, as they had not time to copy it; -hence, in his case as in Molière's, the mislaying of manuscripts which -were cut into parts. Few or no entry-books in those almost itinerant -theatres; no coincidence between the time of representation and the -publication of the plays; sometimes not even a printed copy,—the -stage the sole publication. When the pieces by chance are printed, -they bear titles which bewilder us. The second part of Henry VI. is -entitled "The First Part of the War between York and Lancaster." The -third part is called "The True Tragedy of Richard, Duke of York." -All this enables us to understand why so much obscurity rests on the -dates when Shakespeare composed his dramas, and why it is difficult -to fix them with precision. The dates that we have just given, and -which are here brought together for the first time, are pretty nearly -certain; notwithstanding, some doubt still exists as to the years when -the following were written, or indeed played,—"Timon of Athens," -"Cymbeline," "Julius Cæsar," "Antony and Cleopatra," "Coriolanus," -and "Macbeth." Here and there we meet with barren years; others there -are of which the fertility seems excessive. It is, for instance, -on a simple note by Meres, author of the "Treasure of Wit," that -we are compelled to attribute to the year 1598 the creation of six -pieces,—"The Two Gentlemen of Verona," the "Comedy of Errors," "King -John," "Midsummer Night's Dream," "The Merchant of Venice," and "All's -Well that Ends Well," which Meres calls "Love's Labour Gained." The -date of "Henry VI." is fixed, for the first part at least, by an -allusion which Nash makes to this play in "Pierce Penniless." The year -1604 is given as that of "Measure for Measure," inasmuch as this piece -had been represented on Stephen's Day of that year, of which Hemynge -makes a special note; and the year 1611 for "Henry VIII." inasmuch as -"Henry VIII." was played at the time of the fire of the Globe Theatre. -Various circumstances—a disagreement with his company, a whim of the -lord-chamberlain—sometimes compelled Shakespeare to change from one -theatre to another. "Taming the Shrew" was played for the first time in -1593, at Henslowe's theatre; "Twelfth Night" in 1601, at Middle Temple -Hall; "Othello" in 1602, at Harefield Castle. "King Lear" was played -at Whitehall during Christmas (1607) before James I. Burbage created -the part of Lear. Lord Southampton, recently set free from the Tower of -London, was present at this performance. This Lord Southampton was an -old <i>habitué</i> of Blackfriars; and Shakespeare, in 1589, had dedicated -the poem of "Adonis" to him. Adonis was the fashion at that time; -twenty-five years after Shakespeare, the Chevalier Marini wrote a poem -on Adonis which he dedicated to Louis XIII.</p> - -<p>9. In 1597 Shakespeare lost his son, who has left as his only -trace on earth one line in the death-register of the parish of -Stratford-on-Avon: "1597. August 17. Hamnet. Filius William -Shakespeare." On the 6th September, 1601, his father, John Shakespeare, -died. He was now the head of his company of comedians. James I. had -given him, in 1607, the lease of Blackfriars, and afterward that -of the Globe. In 1613 Madame Elizabeth, daughter of James, and the -Elector-palatine, King of Bohemia, whose statue may be seen in the ivy -at the angle of a big tower at Heidelberg, came to the Globe to see the -"Tempest" performed. These royal attendances did not save him from the -censure of the lord-chamberlain. A certain interdict weighed on his -pieces, the representation of which was tolerated, and the printing now -and then forbidden. On the second volume of the register at Stationers' -Hall you may read to-day on the margin of the title of three pieces, -"As You Like It," "Henry V.," "Much Ado about Nothing," the words "4 -Augt. to suspend." The motives for these interdictions escape us. -Shakespeare was able, for instance without raising objection, to place -on the stage his former poaching adventure and make Sir Thomas Lucy -a buffoon (Judge Shallow), show the public Falstaff killing the buck -and belabouring Shallow's people, and push the likeness so far as to -give to Shallow the arms of Sir Thomas Lucy,—an outrageous piece of -Aristophanism by a man who did not know Aristophanes. Falstaff, in -Shakespeare's manuscripts, was written Falstaffe. In the mean time his -circumstances had improved, as later they did with Molière. Toward -the end of the century he was rich enough for a certain Ryc-Quiney -to ask, on the 8th October, 1598, his assistance in a letter which -bears the inscription: "To my amiable friend and countryman William -Shakespeare." He refused the assistance, as it appears, and returned -the letter, found since among Fletcher's papers, and on the reverse of -which this same Ryc-Quiney had written: "<i>Histrio! Mima!</i>" He loved -Stratford-on-Avon, where he was born, where his father had died, where -his son was buried. He there purchased or built a house, which he -christened "New Place." We say, bought or built a house, for he bought -it, according to Whiterill, and he built it according to Forbes, and on -this point Forbes disputes with Whiterill. These cavils of the learned -about trifles are not worth being searched into, particularly when we -see Father Hardouin, for instance, completely upset a whole passage of -Pliny by replacing <i>nos pridem</i> by <i>non pridem.</i></p> - -<hr class="r5" /> -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;"> -<a id="hugo04"></a> -<img src="images/hugo04.jpg" width="450" alt="" /> -<p class="capt"><i>Shakespeare in his Garden.</i></p> - -<p class="capt">Photogravure.—From R. de Los Rios' etching of painting by François -Flameng.</p> -</div> -<hr class="r5" /> - -<p>10. Shakespeare went from time to time to pass some days at New Place. -In these short journeys he met half-way Oxford, and at Oxford the -Crown Hotel, and in the hotel the hostess, a beautiful, intelligent -creature, wife of the worthy innkeeper, Davenant. In 1606 Mrs. Davenant -was brought to bed of a son whom they named William, and in 1644 -Sir William Davenant, created knight by Charles I., wrote to Lord -Rochester: "Know this, which does honour to my mother, I am the son -of Shakespeare," thus allying himself to Shakespeare in the same way -that in our days M. Lucas Montigny claimed relationship with Mirabeau. -Shakespeare had married off his two daughters,—Susan to a doctor, -Judith to a merchant; Susan had wit, Judith knew not how to read or -write, and signed her name with a cross. In 1613 it happened that -Shakespeare, having come to Stratford-on-Avon, had no further desire -to return to London. Perhaps he was in difficulties. He had just been -compelled to mortgage his house. The contract deed of this mortgage, -dated 11th March, 1613, and indorsed with Shakespeare's signature, -was up to the last century in the hands of an attorney, who gave it -to Garrick, who lost it. Garrick lost likewise (it is Miss Violetti, -his wife, who tells the story), Forbes's manuscript, with his letters -in Latin. From 1613 Shakespeare remained at his house at New Place, -occupied with his garden, forgetting his plays, wrapped up in his -flowers. He planted in this garden of New Place the first mulberry-tree -that was grown at Stratford, just as Queen Elizabeth wore, in 1561, the -first silk stockings seen in England. On the 25th March, 1616, feeling -ill, he made his will. His will, dictated by him, is written on three -pages; he signed each of them; his hand trembled. On the first page -he signed only his Christian name, "William;" on the second, "Willm. -Shaspr.;" on the third, "William Shasp." On the 23d April, he died. -He had reached that day exactly fifty-two years, being born on the -23d April, 1564. On that same day, 23d April, 1616, died Cervantes, a -genius of like growth. When Shakespeare died, Milton was eight years, -Corneille ten years of age; Charles I. and Cromwell were two youths, -the one sixteen, the other seventeen years old.</p> - - -<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> See L'Inferno, Chant xx.</p></div> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER IV.</h5> - - -<p>Shakespeare's life was greatly imbittered. He lived perpetually -slighted; he states it himself. Posterity may read this to-day in his -own verses:—</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;"> -"Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And almost thence my nature is subdu'd.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Pity me, then,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Potions of eysel."<a name="FNanchor_1_2" id="FNanchor_1_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_2" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></span><br /> -<br /> -"Your love and pity doth th' impression fill<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow."<a name="FNanchor_2_3" id="FNanchor_2_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_3" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></span><br /> -<br /> -"Nor thou with public kindness honour me,<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Unless thou take that honour from thy name."<a name="FNanchor_3_4" id="FNanchor_3_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_4" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></span><br /> -<br /> -"Or on my frailty why are frailer spies."<a name="FNanchor_4_5" id="FNanchor_4_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_5" class="fnanchor">[4]</a><br /> -</p> - -<p>Shakespeare had permanently near him one envious person, Ben -Jonson,—an indifferent comic poet, whose <i>début</i> he assisted. -Shakespeare was thirty-nine when Elizabeth died. This queen had not -paid attention to him; she managed to reign forty-four years without -seeing that Shakespeare was there. She is not the least qualified, -historically, to be called the "protectress of arts and letters," -etc. The historians of the old school gave these certificates to all -princes, whether they knew how to read or not.</p> - -<p>Shakespeare, persecuted like Molière at a later date, sought, as -Molière, to lean on the master. Shakespeare and Molière would in our -days have had a loftier spirit. The master, it was Elizabeth,—"King -Elizabeth," as the English called her. Shakespeare glorified Elizabeth: -he called her the "Virgin Star," "Star of the West," and "Diana,"—a -name of a goddess which pleased the queen,—but in vain. The queen took -no notice of it; less sensitive to the praises in which Shakespeare -called her Diana than to the insults of Scipio Gentilis, who, taking -the pretensions of Elizabeth on the bad side, called her "Hecate," and -applied to her the ancient triple curse, "Mormo! Bombo! Gorgo!" As for -James I., whom Henry IV. called Master James, he gave, as we have seen, -the lease of the Globe to Shakespeare, but he willingly forbade the -publication of his pieces. Some contemporaries, Dr. Symon Forman among -others, so far took notice of Shakespeare as to make a note of the -occupation of an evening passed at the performance of the "Merchant of -Venice!" That was all which he knew of glory. Shakespeare, once dead, -entered into oblivion.</p> - -<p>From 1640 to 1660 the Puritans abolished art, and shut up the -playhouses. All theatricals were under a funeral shroud. With Charles -II. the drama revived without Shakespeare. The false taste of Louis -XIV. had invaded England. Charles II. belonged rather to Versailles -than London. He had as mistress a French girl, the Duchess of -Portsmouth, and as an intimate friend the privy purse of the King of -France. Clifford, his favourite, who never entered the parliament-house -without spitting, said: "It is better for my master to be viceroy under -a great monarch like Louis XIV. than the slave of five hundred insolent -English subjects." These were not the days of the republic,—the time -when Cromwell took the title of "Protector of England and France," and -forced this same Louis XIV. to accept the title of "King of the French."</p> - -<p>Under this restoration of the Stuarts, Shakespeare completed his -eclipse. He was so thoroughly dead that Davenant, possibly his son, -re-composed his pieces. There was no longer any "Macbeth" but the -"Macbeth" of Davenant. Dryden speaks of Shakespeare on one occasion in -order to say that he is "out of date." Lord Shaftesbury calls him "a -wit out of fashion." Dryden and Shaftesbury were two oracles. Dryden, -a converted Catholic, had two sons, ushers in the Chamber of Clément -XI., made tragedies worth putting into Latin verse, as Atterbury's -hexameters prove; and he was the servant of that James II. who, before -being king on his own account, had asked of his brother, Charles II., -"Why don't you hang Milton?" The Earl of Shaftesbury, a friend of -Locke, was the man who wrote an "Essay on Sprightliness in Important -Conversations," and who, by the manner in which Chancellor Hyde helped -his daughter to the wing of a chicken, divined that she was secretly -married to the Duke of York.</p> - -<p>These two men having condemned Shakespeare, the oracle had spoken. -England, a country more obedient to conventional opinion than is -generally believed, forgot Shakespeare. Some purchaser pulled down -his house, New Place. A Rev. Dr. Cartrell cut down and burned his -mulberry-tree. At the commencement of the eighteenth century the -eclipse was total. In 1707, one called Nahum Tate published a "King -Lear," warning his readers "that he had borrowed the idea of it from a -play which he had read by chance,—the work of some nameless author." -This "nameless author" was Shakespeare.</p> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_2" id="Footnote_1_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_2"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Sonnet 111.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2_3" id="Footnote_2_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_3"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Sonnet 112.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_3_4" id="Footnote_3_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_4"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Sonnet 36.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_4_5" id="Footnote_4_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_5"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Sonnet 121.</p></div> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER V.</h5> - - -<p>In 1728 Voltaire imported from England to France the name of Will -Shakespeare. Only in place of Will, he pronounced it <i>Gilles.</i></p> - -<p>Jeering began in France, and oblivion continued in England. What -the Irishman Nahum Tate had done for "King Lear," others did for -other pieces. "All's Well that Ends Well" had successively two -arrangers,—Pilon for the Haymarket, and Kemble for Drury Lane. -Shakespeare existed no more, and counted no more. "Much Ado about -Nothing" served likewise as a rough draft twice,—for Davenant in -1673, for James Miller in 1737. "Cymbeline" was recast four times: -under James II., at the Theatre Royal, by Thomas Dursey; in 1695 by -Charles Marsh; in 1759 by W. Hawkins; in 1761 by Garrick. "Coriolanus" -was recast four times: in 1682, for the Theatre Royal, by Tates; in -1720, for Drury Lane, by John Dennis; in 1755, for Covent Garden, by -Thomas Sheridan; in 1801, for Drury Lane, by Kemble. "Timon of Athens" -was recast four times: at the Duke's Theatre, in 1678, by Shadwell; -in 1768, at the Theatre of Richmond Green, by James Love; in 1771, at -Drury Lane, by Cumberland; in 1786, at Covent Garden, by Hull.</p> - -<p>In the eighteenth century the persistent raillery of Voltaire ended in -producing in England a certain waking up. Garrick, while correcting -Shakespeare, played him, and acknowledged that it was Shakespeare that -he played. They reprinted him at Glasgow. An imbecile, Malone, made -commentaries on his plays, and as a logical sequence, whitewashed his -tomb. There was on this tomb a little bust, of a doubtful resemblance, -and moderate as a work of art; but, what made it a subject of -reverence, contemporaneous with Shakespeare. It is after this bust that -all the portraits of Shakespeare have been made that we now see. The -bust was whitewashed. Malone, critic and whitewasher of Shakespeare, -spread a coat of plaster on his face, of idiotic nonsense on his work.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h5><a name="BOOK_IIa" id="BOOK_IIa">BOOK II.</a></h5> - - -<h4>MEN OF GENIUS.</h4> - - - -<h5>CHAPTER I.</h5> - - -<p>Great Art, using this word in its arbitrary sense, is the region of -Equals.</p> - -<p>Before going farther, let us fix the value of this expression, Art, -which often recurs in our writing.</p> - -<p>We speak of Art as we speak of Nature; here are two terms of an -almost unlimited signification. To pronounce the one or the other of -these words, Nature, Art, is to make a conjuration, to extract from -the depths the ideal, to draw aside one of the two grand curtains of -a divine creation. God manifests himself to us in the first degree -through the life of the universe, and in the second through the thought -of man. The second manifestation is not less holy than the first. The -first is named Nature, the second is named Art. Hence this reality: the -poet is a priest</p> - -<p>There is here below a pontiff,—it is genius.</p> - -<p><i>Sacerdos Magnus.</i></p> - -<p>Art is the second branch of Nature.</p> - -<p>Art is as natural as Nature.</p> - -<p>By the word <i>God</i>—let us fix the sense of this word—we mean the -Living Infinite.</p> - -<p>The I latent of the Infinite patent, that is God.</p> - -<p>God is the Invisible seen.</p> - -<p>The world concentrated is God. God expanded, is the world.</p> - -<p>We, who are speaking, we believe in nothing out of God.</p> - -<p>That being said, let us proceed. God creates art by man. He has for a -tool the human intellect. This tool the Workman has made for himself; -he has no other.</p> - -<p>Forbes, in the curious little work perused by Warburton and lost by -Garrick, affirms that Shakespeare devoted himself to the practice of -magic, that magic was in his family, and that what little good there -was in his pieces was dictated to him by one "Alleur," a spirit.</p> - -<p>Let us say on this point, for we must not avoid any of the questions -about to arise, that it is a wretched error of all ages to desire to -give the human intellect assistance from without,—<i>antrum adjuvat -vatem.</i> To the work which seems superhuman, people wish to bring the -intervention of the extra-human,—in antiquity, the tripod; in our -days, the table. The table is nothing but the tripod come back. To -accept <i>au pied de la lettre</i> the demon that Socrates talks of, the -thicket of Moses, the nymph of Numa, the spirit of Plotinus, and -Mahomet's dove, is to be the victim of a metaphor.</p> - -<p>On the other hand, the table, turning or talking, has been very much -laughed at; to speak the truth, this raillery is out of place. To -replace inquiry by mockery is convenient, but not very scientific. -For our part, we think that the strict duty of science is to test all -phenomena. Science is ignorant, and has no right to laugh; a savant -who laughs at the possible is very near being an idiot. The unexpected -ought always to be expected by science. Her duty is to stop it in -its course and search it, rejecting the chimerical, establishing the -real. Science has but the right to put a visa on facts; she should -verify and distinguish. All human knowledge is but picking and culling. -Because the false mixes with the true, it is no excuse for rejecting -the mass. When was the tare an excuse for refusing the corn? Hoe the -weed, error, but reap the fact, and place it beside others. Knowledge -is the sheaf of facts.</p> - -<p>The mission of science,—to study and try the depth of everything. All -of us, according to our degree, are the creditors of investigation; -we are its debtors also. It is owed to us, and we owe it to others. -To avoid a phenomenon, to refuse to pay it that attention to which it -has a right, to lead it out, to shut to the door, to turn our back on -it laughing, is to make truth a bankrupt, and to leave the draft of -science to be protested. The phenomenon of the tripod of old, and of -the table of to-day, is entitled, like anything else, to observation. -Psychic science will gain by it, without doubt. Let us add that to -abandon phenomena to credulity is to commit treason against human -reason.</p> - -<p>Homer affirms that the tripods of Delphi walked of their own accord; -and he explains the fact<a name="FNanchor_1_6" id="FNanchor_1_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_6" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> by saying that Vulcan forged invisible -wheels for them. The explanation does not much simplify the phenomenon. -Plato relates that the statues of Dædalus gesticulated in the darkness, -had a will of their own, and resisted their master; and that he was -obliged to tie them up, so that they might not walk off. Strange dogs -at the end of a chain! Fléchier mentions, at page 52 of his "Histoire -de Thédodose"—referring to the great conspiracy of the magicians of -the fourth century against the emperor—a table-turning of which, -perhaps, we shall speak elsewhere, in order to say what Fléchier -did not say, and seemed to ignore. This table was covered with a -round plating of several metals, <i>ex diversis metallicis materiis -fabrefacta</i>, like the plates of copper and zinc actually employed in -biology. So you may see that the phenomenon, always rejected and always -reappearing, is not a matter of yesterday.</p> - -<p>Besides, whatever credulity has said or thought about it, this -phenomenon of the tripods and tables is without any connection, and -it is the very thing we want to come to, with the inspiration of the -poets,—an inspiration entirely direct. The sibyl has a tripod, the -poet none. The poet is himself a tripod. He is a tripod of God. God has -not made this marvellous distillery of thought, the brain of man, not -to be made use of. Genius has all that it wants in its brain; every -thought passes by there. Thought ascends and buds from the brain, as -the fruit from the root. Thought is man's consequence; the root plunges -into earth, the brain into God,—that is to say, into the Infinite.</p> - -<p>Those who imagine (there are such, witness Forbes) that a poem like "Le -Médecin de son Honneur," or "King Lear," can be dictated by a tripod or -a table, err in a strange fashion; these works are the works of man. -God has no need to make a piece of wood aid Shakespeare or Calderon.</p> - -<p>Then let us dispose of the tripod. Poetry is the poet's own. Let us be -respectful before the possible of which no one knows the limit; let us -be attentive and serious before the extra-human, out of which we come, -and which awaits us; but let us not diminish the great workers of earth -by hypotheses of mysterious assistance, which is not necessary. Let us -leave to the brain what belongs to it, and agree that the work of the -men of genius is of the superhuman, the offspring of man.</p> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_6" id="Footnote_1_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_6"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Song XVIII of the Iliad.</p></div> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER II.</h5> - - -<p>Supreme Art is the region of Equals.</p> - -<p>The <i>chef d'œuvre</i> is adequate to the <i>chef d'œuvre.</i></p> - -<p>As water, when heated to 100° C., is incapable of calorific increase, -and can rise no higher, so human thought attains in certain men its -maximum intensity. Æschylus, Job, Phidias, Isaiah, Saint Paul, Juvenal, -Dante, Michael Angelo, Rabelais, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Rembrandt, -Beethoven, with some others, mark the 100° of genius.</p> - -<p>The human mind has a summit.</p> - -<p>This summit is the Ideal.</p> - -<p>God descends, man rises to it.</p> - -<p>In each age three or four men of genius undertake the ascent. From -below, the world follow them with their eyes. These men go up the -mountain, enter into the clouds, disappear, re-appear. People watch -them, mark them. They walk by the side of precipices. A false step does -not displease certain of the lookers-on. They daringly pursue their -road. See them aloft, see them in the distance; they are but black -specks. "How small they are!" says the crowd. They are giants. On they -go. The road is uneven, its difficulties constant. At each step a wall, -at each step a trap. As they rise, the cold increases. They must make -their ladder, cut the ice, and walk on it, hewing the steps in haste. -Every storm is raging. Nevertheless, they go forward in their madness. -The air becomes difficult to breathe. The abyss increases around them. -Some fall. It is well done. Others stop and retrace their steps; there -is sad weariness.</p> - -<p>The bold ones continue; those predestined persist. The dreadful -declivity sinks beneath them and tries to draw them in; glory is -traitorous. They are eyed by the eagles; the lightning plays about -them; the hurricane is furious. No matter, they persevere. They ascend. -He who arrives at the summit is thy equal, Homer!</p> - -<p>Those names that we have mentioned, and those which we might have -added, repeat them again. To choose between these men is impossible. -There is no method for striking the balance between Rembrandt and -Michael Angelo.</p> - -<p>And, to confine ourselves solely to the authors and poets, examine them -one after the other. Which is the greatest? Every one.</p> - -<p>1. One, Homer, is the huge poet-child. The world is born, Homer sings. -He is the bird of this aurora. Homer has the holy sincerity of the -early dawn. He almost ignores shadow. Chaos, heaven, earth; Geo and -Ceto; Jove, god of gods; Agamemnon, king of kings; peoples; flocks -from the beginning; temples, towns, battles, harvests; the ocean; -Diomedes fighting; Ulysses wandering; the windings of a sail seeking -its home; Cyclops; dwarfs; a map of the world crowned by the gods of -Olympus; and here and there a glimmer of the furnace permitting a -sight of hell; priests, virgins, mothers; little children frightened -by the plumes; the dog who remembers; great words which fall from -gray-beards; friendships, loves, passions, and the hydras; Vulcan for -the laugh of the gods, Thersites for the laugh of men; two aspects of -married life summed up for the benefit of ages in Helen and Penelope; -the Styx; Destiny; the heel of Achilles, without which Destiny would -be vanquished by the Styx; monsters, heroes, men; thousands of -landscapes seen in perspective in the cloud of the old world,—this -immensity, this is Homer. Troy coveted, Ithaca desired. Homer is war -and travel,—the first two methods for the meeting of mankind. The -camp attacks the fortress, the ship sounds the unknown, which is -also an attack; around war every passion; around travels every kind -of adventure,—two gigantic groups; the first, bloody, is called the -Iliad; the second, luminous, is called the Odyssey. Homer makes men -greater than Nature; they hurl at each other rocks which twelve pairs -of oxen could not move. The gods hardly care to come in contact with -them. Minerva takes Achilles by the hair; he turns round in anger: -"What do you want with me, goddess?" No monotony in these puissant -figures. These giants are graduated. After each hero, Homer breaks the -mould. Ajax, son of Oïleus, is less high in stature than Ajax, son of -Telamon. Homer is one of the men of genius who resolve that beautiful -problem of art (the most beautiful of all, perhaps),—the true picture -of humanity obtained by aggrandizing man; that is to say, the creation -of the real in the ideal. Fable and history, hypothesis and tradition, -the chimera and knowledge, make up Homer. He is fathomless, and he -is cheerful. All the depth of ancient days moves happily radiant and -luminous in the vast azure of this spirit. Lycurgus, that peevish -sage, half way between a Solon and a Draco, was conquered by Homer. -He turned out of the way, while travelling, to go and read, at the -house of Cleophilus, Homer's poems, placed there in remembrance of -the hospitality that Homer, it is said, had formerly received in that -house. Homer, to the Greeks, was a god; he had priests,—the Homerides. -Alcibiades gave a bombastic orator a cuff for boasting that he had -never read Homer. The divinity of Homer has survived Paganism. Michael -Angelo said, "When I read Homer, I look at myself to see if I am not -twenty feet in height." Tradition will have it that the first verse of -the Iliad should be a verse of Orpheus. This doubling Homer by Orpheus, -increased in Greece the religion of Homer. The shield of Achilles<a name="FNanchor_1_7" id="FNanchor_1_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_7" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> -was commented on in the temples by Damo, daughter of Pythagoras. -Homer, as the sun, has planets. Virgil, who writes the Æneid, Lucan, -who writes "Pharsalia," Tasso, who writes "Jerusalem," Ariosto, who -composes "Roland," Milton, who writes "Paradise Lost," Camoëns, who -writes the "Lusiades," Klopstock, who wrote the "Messiah," Voltaire, -who wrote the "Henriade," gravitate toward Homer, and sending back -to their own moons his light reflected in different degrees, move at -unequal distances in his boundless orbit. This is Homer. Such is the -beginning of the epic poem.</p> - -<p>2. Another, Job, began the drama. This embryo is a colossus. Job begins -the drama, and it is forty centuries ago, by placing Jehovah and -Satan in presence of each other; the evil defies the good, and behold -the action is begun. The earth is the place for the scene, and man -the field of battle; the plagues are the actors. One of the wildest -grandeurs of this poem is that in it the sun is inauspicious. The sun -is in Job as in Homer; but it is no longer the dawn, it is midday. The -mournful heaviness of the brazen ray falling perpendicularly on the -desert pervades this poem, heated to a white heat. Job sweats on his -dunghill. The shadow of Job is small and black, and hidden under him, -as the snake under the rock. Tropical flies buzz on his sores. Job has -above his head the frightful Arabian sun,—a bringer-up of monsters, an -amplifier of plagues, who changes the cat into the tiger, the lizard -into the crocodile, the pig into the rhinoceros, the snake into the -boa, the nettle into the cactus, the wind into the simoon, the miasma -into the plague. Job is anterior to Moses. Far into ages, by the side -of Abraham, the Hebrew patriarch, there is Job, the Arabian patriarch. -Before being proved, he had been happy,—"the greatest man in all -the East," says his poem. This was the labourer-king. He exercised -the immense priesthood of solitude; he sacrificed and sanctified. -Toward evening he gave the earth the blessing,—the "berac." He was -learned; he knew rhythm; his poem, of which the Arabian text is lost, -was written in verse,—this, at least, is certain as regards from -verse 3 of chap. III. to the end. He was good; he did not meet a poor -child without throwing him the small coin kesitha; he was "the foot -of the lame man, and the eye of the blind." It is from that that he -was precipitated; fallen, he became gigantic. The whole poem of "Job" -is the development of this idea,—the greatness that may be found at -the bottom of the abyss. Job is more majestic when unfortunate than -when prosperous. His leprosy is a purple cloth. His misery terrifies -those who are there; they speak not to him until after a silence of -seven days and seven nights. His lamentation is marked by they know -not what quiet and sad sorcery. As he is crushing the vermin on his -ulcers, he calls on the stars. He addresses Orion, the Hyades, which he -names the Pleiades, and the signs that are at noonday. He says, "God -has put an end to darkness." He calls the diamond which is hidden, -"the stone of obscurity." He mixes with his distress the misfortune of -others, and has tragic words that freeze,—"The widow is desolate." He -smiles also, and is then more frightful yet. He has around him Eliphaz, -Bildad, Zophar,—three implacable types of the friendly busybody, -of whom he says, "You play on me as on a tambourine." His language, -submissive toward God, is bitter toward kings: "The kings of the earth -build solitudes," leaving our wit to find out whether he speaks of -their tomb or their kingdom. Tacitus says, "Solitudinem faciunt." As -to Jehovah, he adores him; and under the furious scourging of the -plagues, all his resistance is confined to asking of God, "Wilt thou -not permit me to swallow my spittle?" That dates four thousand years -ago. At the same hour, perhaps, when the enigmatical astronomer of -Denderah carves in the granite his mysterious zodiac, Job engraves -his on human thought; and his zodiac is not made of stars, but of -miseries. This zodiac turns yet above our heads. We have of Job only -the Hebrew version, written by Moses. Such a poet, followed by such -a translator, makes us dream! The man of the dunghill is translated -by the man of Sinai. It is that, in reality, Job is a minister and a -prophet. Job extracts from his drama a dogma. Job suffers, and draws an -inference. Now, to suffer and draw an inference is to teach; sorrow, -when logical, leads to God. Job teaches. Job, after having touched the -summit of the drama, stirs up the depths of philosophy. He shows first -that sublime madness of wisdom which, two thousand years later, by -resignation making itself a sacrifice, will be the foolishness of the -cross,—<i>stultitiam crucis.</i> The dunghill of Job, transfigured, will -become the Calvary of Jesus.</p> - -<p>3. Another, Æschylus, enlightened by the unconscious divination of -genius, without suspecting that he has behind him, in the East, the -resignation of Job, completes it, unwittingly, by the revolt of -Prometheus; so that the lesson may be complete, and that the human -race, to whom Job has taught but duty, shall feel in Prometheus Right -dawning. There is something ghastly in Æschylus from one end to the -other; there is a vague outline of an extraordinary Medusa behind the -figures in the foreground. Æschylus is magnificent and powerful,—as -though you saw him knitting his brows beyond the sun. He has two -Cains,—Eteocles and Polynices; Genesis has but one. His swarm of -sea-monsters come and go in the dark sky, as a flock of driven birds. -Æschylus has none of the known proportions. He is rough, abrupt, -immoderate, incapable of smoothing the way, almost ferocious, with -a grace of his own which resembles the flowers in wild places, less -haunted by nymphs than by the Eumenides, of the faction of the Titans; -among goddesses choosing the sombre ones, and smiling darkly at the -Gorgons; a son of the earth like Othryx and Briareus, and ready to -attempt again the scaling of heaven against that <i>parvenu Jupiter.</i> -Æschylus is ancient mystery made man,—something like a Pagan prophet. -His work, if we had it all, would be a kind of Greek bible. Poet -hundred-handed, having an Orestes more fatal than Ulysses and a Thebes -grander than Troy, hard as a rock, raging like the foam, full of -steeps, torrents, and precipices, and such a giant that at times you -might suppose that he becomes mountain. Coming later than the Iliad, he -has the appearance of an elder son of Homer.</p> - -<p>4. Another, Isaiah, seems, above humanity, as a roaring of continual -thunder. He is the great censure. His style, a kind of nocturnal -cloud, lightens up unceasingly with images which suddenly empurple -all the depths of this dark mind, and makes us exclaim, "He gives -light!" Isaiah takes hand-to-hand the evil which, in civilization, -makes its appearance before the good. He cries "Silence!" at the -noise of chariots, of <i>fêtes</i>, of triumphs. The foam of his prophecy -surges even on Nature. He denounces Babylon to the moles and bats, -promises Nineveh briers, Tyre ashes, Jerusalem night, fixes a date for -the wrong-doers, warns the powers of their approaching end, assigns -a day against idols, high citadels, the fleets of Tarsus, the cedars -of Lebanon, the oaks of Basan. He is standing on the threshold of -civilization, and he refuses to enter. He is a kind of mouthpiece of -the desert speaking to multitudes, and claiming for quicksands, briers, -and breezes the place where towns are, because it is just; because the -tyrant and the slave—that is to say, pride and shame—exist wherever -there are walled enclosures; because evil is there incarnate in man; -because in solitude there is but the beast, while in the city there is -the monster. That which Isaiah made a reproach of in his day—idolatry, -pride, war, prostitution, ignorance—still exists. Isaiah is the -eternal contemporary of vices which turn valets, and crimes which exalt -themselves into kings.</p> - -<p>5. Another, Ezekiel, is the wild soothsayer,—the genius of the -cavern; thought which the roar suits. But listen. This savage makes -a prophecy to the world,—Progress. Nothing more astonishing. Ah, -Isaiah overthrows? Very well! Ezekiel will reconstruct. Isaiah refuses -civilization. Ezekiel accepts, but transforms it. Nature and humanity -blend together in that softened howl which Ezekiel throws forth. The -idea of duty is in Job; of right, in Æschylus. Ezekiel brings before -us the resulting third idea,—the human race ameliorated, posterity -more and more free. That posterity may be a rising instead of a setting -star is man's consolation. Time present works for time to come. Work, -then, and hope. Such is Ezekiel's cry. Ezekiel is in Chaldæa; and -from Chaldæa he sees distinctly Judæa, as from oppression you may -see liberty. He declares peace as others declare war. He prophesies -harmony, goodness, sweetness, union, the blending of races, love. -Notwithstanding, he is terrible. He is the austere benefactor. He is -the universal kind-hearted grumbler at the human race. He scolds, he -almost gnashes his teeth; and people fear and hate him. The men about -are thorns to him. "I live among the briers," he says. He condemns -himself to be a symbol, and makes in his person, become hideous, a sign -of human misery and popular degradation. He is a kind of voluntary -Job. In his town, in his house, he causes himself to be bound with -cords, and rests mute: behold the slave. In the public place he eats -dung: behold the courtier. This makes Voltaire burst into laughter, -and causes our tears to flow. Ah, Ezekiel, so far does your devotion -go! You render shame visible by horror; you compel ignominy to turn -the head when recognizing herself in the dirt; you show that to -accept a man for master is to eat dung; you cause a shudder to the -cowards who follow the prince, by putting into your stomach what -they put into their souls; you preach deliverance by vomiting; be -reverenced! This man, this being, this figure, this swine-prophet, is -sublime. And the transfiguration that he announces he proves. How? By -transfiguring himself. From this horrible and soiled lip comes forth -the blaze of poetry. Never has grander language been spoken, never more -extraordinary.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>"I saw the vision of God. A whirlwind comes from the north, -and a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself. I saw a -chariot and a likeness of four animals. Above the creatures -and the chariot was a space like a terrible crystal. The -wheels of the chariot were made of eyes, and so high that -they were dreadful. The noise of the wings of the four -angels was as the noise of the All-Powerful, and when they -stopped they lowered their wings. And I saw a likeness which -was as fire, and which put forth a hand. And a voice said, -'The kings and the judges have in their souls gods of dung. -I will take from their breasts the heart of stone, and I -will give them a heart of flesh.' I went to them that dwelt -by the river of Chebar, and I remained there astonished -among them seven days."</p></blockquote> - -<p>And again:—</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>"There was a plain and dry bones; and I said, 'Bones, rise -up,' and I looked, and there came nerves on these bones, and -flesh on these nerves, and a skin above; but the spirit was -not there. And I cried, 'Spirit, come from the four winds, -breathe, so that these dead revive.' The spirit came. The -breath entered into them, and they rose up, and it was an -army, and it was a people. Then the voice said, 'You shall -be one nation, you shall have no king or judge but me; and -I will be the God who has one people, and you shall be the -people who have one God.'"</p></blockquote> - -<p>Is not everything there? Search for a higher formula, you will not -find it. A free man under a sovereign God. This visionary eater of -dung is a resuscitator. Ezekiel has mud on the lips and sun in the -eyes. Among the Jews the reading of Ezekiel was dreaded. It was not -permitted before the age of thirty years. Priests, disturbed, put a -seal on this poet. People could not call him an impostor. His terror -as a prophet was incontestable. He had evidently seen what he related. -Thence his authority. His very enigmas made him an oracle. They could -not tell which it was, these women sitting toward the north weeping for -Tammuz. Impossible to divine what was the "hasmal," this metal which he -pictured as in fusion in the furnace of the dream; but nothing was more -clear than his vision of Progress. Ezekiel saw the quadruple man,—man, -ox, lion, and eagle; that is to say, the master of thought, the master -of the field, the master of the desert, the master of the air. Nothing -forgotten. It is posterity complete, from Aristotle to Christopher -Columbus, from Triptolemus to Montgolfier. Later on, the Gospel also -will become quadruple in the four Evangelists, making Matthew, Mark, -Luke, and John subservient to man, the ox, the lion, and the eagle, -and, remarkable fact, to symbolize progress will take the four faces -of Ezekiel. At all events, Ezekiel, like Christ, calls himself the -"Son of Man." Jesus often in his parables invokes and cites Ezekiel; -and this kind of first Messiah paves the way for the second. There are -in Ezekiel three constructions,—man, in whom he places progress; the -temple, where he puts a light that he calls glory; the city, where -he puts God. He cries to the temple,—no priest here, neither they, -nor their kings, nor the carcasses of their kings.<a name="FNanchor_2_8" id="FNanchor_2_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_8" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> One cannot help -thinking that this Ezekiel, a species of biblical demagogue, would help -'93 in the terrible sweeping of St. Denis. As for the city built by -him, he mutters above it this mysterious name, Jehovah Schammah, which -signifies "the Eternal is there." Then he is silent and thoughtful in -the darkness, pointing at humanity; farther on, in the depth of the -horizon, a continued increase of azure.</p> - -<p>6. Another, Lucretius, is that vast obscure thing, All. Jupiter is -in Homer; Jehovah is in Job; in Lucretius Pan appears. Such is Pan's -greatness that he has under him Destiny, which is above Jupiter. -Lucretius has travelled and he has mused, which is another voyage. -He has been at Athens; he has been in the haunts of philosophers; he -has studied Greece and made out India. Democritus has made him dream -on matter, and Anaximander on space. His dreams have become doctrine. -Nothing is known of the incidents of his life. Like Pythagoras, he -frequented the two mysterious schools on the Euphrates,—Neharda and -Pombeditha; and he may have met there the Jewish doctors. He spelt -the papyri of Sepphoris, which, at his time, was not yet transformed -into Diocæsarea. He lived with the pearl-fishers of the isle of Tylos. -We may find in the Apocrypha traces of an ancient strange itinerary -recommended, according to some, to the philosophers by Empedocles, the -magician, of Agrigentum, and, according to others, to the rabbis by -the high-priest Eleazer who corresponded with Ptolemy Philadelphus. -This itinerary would have served at a later time as a standard for the -travels of the Apostles. The traveller who followed this itinerary went -through the five satrapies of the country of the Philistines, visited -the people who charm serpents and suck poisonous sores,—the Psylli; -drank of the torrent Bosor, which marks the frontier of Arabia Deserta; -then touched and handled the bronze <i>carcan</i> of Andromeda, still -sealed to the rock of Joppa; Balbec in Syria; Apamea, on the Orontes, -where Nicanor nourished his elephants; the harbour of Eziongeber, -where the vessels of Ophir, laden with gold, stopped; Segher, which -produced white incense, preferred to that of Hadramauth; the two -Syrtes, the mountain of Emerald Smaragdus; the Nasamones, who pillaged -the shipwrecked; the black nation, Agysimba; Adribe, the town of -crocodiles; Cynopolis, town of aloes; the wonderful cities of Comagena, -Claudia, and Barsalium; perhaps even Tadmor, the town of Solomon,—such -were the stages of this almost fabulous pilgrimage of the thinkers. -This pilgrimage, did Lucretius make it? One cannot tell. His numerous -travels are beyond doubt He had seen so many men that at the end they -were all mixed up in his eye, and this multitude had become to him -shadows. He is arrived at that excess of simplification of the universe -which is almost its entire fading away. He has sounded until he feels -the plummet float He has questioned the vague spectres of Byblos; he -has conversed with the severed tree of Chyteron, who is Juno-Thespia. -Perhaps he has spoken in the reeds to Oannes, the man-fish of Chaldæa, -who had two heads,—at the top the head of a man, below the head of -a hydra, and who, drinking chaos by his lower orifice, re-vomited it -on the earth by his upper lip; in knowledge awful. Lucretius has this -knowledge. Isaiah borders on the archangels, Lucretius on larvas. -Lucretius twists the ancient veil of Isis, steeped in the waters of -darkness, and expresses out of it sometimes in torrents, sometimes -drop by drop, a sombre poetry. The boundless is in Lucretius. At times -there passes a powerful spondaic verse almost terrible, and full of -shadow: "Circum se foliis ac frondibus involventes." Here and there a -vast image is sketched in the forest,—"Tunc Venus in sylvis jungebat -corpora amantum;" and the forest is Nature. These verses are impossible -with Virgil. Lucretius turns his back on humanity, and looks fixedly on -the Enigma. Lucretius's spirit, working to the very deeps, is placed -between this reality, the atom, and this impossibility, the vacuum; by -turns attracted by these two precipices. Religious when he contemplates -the atom, sceptical when he sees the void; thence his two aspects, -equally profound, whether he denies, whether he affirms. One day this -traveller commits suicide. This is his last departure. He puts himself -<i>en route</i> for Death. He departs to see. He has embarked successively -on all the pinnaces,—on the galley of Trevirium for Sanastrea in -Macedonia; on the trireme of Carystus for Metapon in Greece; on the -skiff of Cyllenus for the island of Samothrace; on the sandal of -Samothrace for Naxos, where is Bacchus; on the <i>ceroscaph</i> of Naxos for -Syria; on the vessel of Syria for Egypt, and on the ship of the Red -Sea for India. It remains for him to make one voyage. He is curious -about the dark country; he takes his passage on the coffin, and himself -unfastening the mooring, pushes with foot into space this dark vessel -that floats on the unknown wave.</p> - -<p>7. Another, Juvenal, has everything in which Lucretius -fails,—passion, emotion, fever, tragic flame, passion for honesty, -avenging sneer, personality, humanity. He dwells in a certain given -point in creation, and he contents himself with it, finding there what -may nourish and swell his heart with justice and anger. Lucretius is -the universe, Juvenal the locality. And what a locality! Rome. Between -the two they are the double voice which speaks to land and town,—<i>urbi -et orbi.</i> Juvenal has, above the Roman Empire, the enormous flapping -of wings of the griffin above the rest of the reptiles. He pounces -upon this swarm and takes them, one after the other, in his terrible -beak,—from the adder who is emperor and calls himself Nero, to the -earthworm who is a bad poet and calls himself Codrus. Isaiah and -Juvenal have each their harlot; but there is something more gloomy than -the shadow of Babel,—it is the crashing of the bed of the Cæsars; and -Babylon is less formidable than Messalina. Juvenal is the ancient free -spirit of the dead republics; in him there is a Rome, in the bronze -of which Athens and Sparta are cast. Thence in his poetry something -of Aristophanes and something of Lycurgus. Take care of him; he is -severe. Not a cord is wanting to his lyre or to the lash he uses. He is -lofty, rigid, austere, thundering, violent, grave, just, inexhaustible -in imagery, harshly gracious when he chooses. His cynicism is the -indignation of modesty. His grace, thoroughly independent and a true -figure of liberty, has talons; it appears all at once, enlivening, by -we cannot tell what supple and spirited undulations, the well-formed -majesty of his hexameter. You may imagine that you see the Cat of -Corinth roaming on the frieze of the Parthenon. There is the epic in -this satire; that which Juvenal has in his hand is the sceptre of gold -with which Ulysses beat Thersites. "Bombast, declamation, exaggeration, -hyperbole," cry the slaughtered deformities; and these cries, stupidly -repeated by rhetoricians, are a noise of glory. "Crime is quite equal -to committing things or relating them," say Tillemont, Marc Muret, -Garasse, etc.,—fools, who, like Muret, are sometimes knaves. Juvenal's -invective blazes since two thousand years ago,—a fearful flash of -poetry which still burns Rome in the presence of centuries. This -splendid fire breaks out and, far from diminishing with time, increases -under the whirl of its mournful smoke. From it proceed rays in behalf -of liberty, probity, heroism; and it may be said that it throws even -into our civilization minds full of his light. What is Régnier? what -D'Aubigné? what Corneille?—scintillations of Juvenal.</p> - -<p>8. Another, Tacitus, is the historian. Liberty is incarnate in him -as in Juvenal, and rises, dead, to the judgment-seat, having for a -toga its winding-shroud, and summons to his bar tyrants. The soul of -a people become the soul of man, is Juvenal, as we have just said: -thus it is with Tacitus. By the side of the poet who condemns stands -the historian who punishes. Tacitus, seated on the curule chair of -genius, summons and seizes <i>in flagante delicto</i> these guilty ones, -the Cæsars. The Roman Empire is a long crime. This crime commences -by four demons,—Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero. Tiberius, the -emperor's spy; the eye which watches the world; the first dictator who -dared to twist for himself the law of power made for the Roman people; -knowing Greek, intellectual, sagacious, sarcastic, eloquent, terrible; -loved by informers; the murderer of citizens, of knights, of the -senate, of his wife, of his family; having rather the air of stabbing -people than massacring them; humble before the barbarians; a traitor -with Archelaus, a coward with Artabanes; having two thrones,—Rome -for his ferocity, Caprea for his baseness; an inventor of vices and -names for vices; an old man with a seraglio of children; gaunt, bald, -crooked, bandy-legged, sour-smelling, eaten up with leprosy, covered -with suppurations, masked with plasters, crowned with laurels; having -ulcers like Job, and the sceptre as well; surrounded by an oppressive -silence; seeking a successor; smelling out Caligula, and finding him -good; a viper who selects a tiger. Caligula, the man who has known -fear, the slave become master, trembling under Tiberius, terrible -after Tiberius, vomiting his fright of yesterday in atrocity. Nothing -comes up to this mad fool. An executioner makes a mistake and kills, -instead of the condemned one, an innocent man; Caligula smiles, and -says, "The condemned had not more deserved it." He gets a woman eaten -alive by dogs, for the sake of seeing it. He lies publicly with his -three sisters, stark naked. One of them dies,—Drusilla. He says, -"Behead those who do not bewail her, for she is my sister; and crucify -those who bewail her, for she is a goddess." He makes his horse a -pontiff, as, later on, Nero made his monkey god. He offers to the -universe this wretched spectacle: the annihilation of intellect by -power. Prostitute, sharper, a robber, breaking the busts of Homer and -Virgil, his head dressed as Apollo with rays, and booted with wings -like Mercury; franticly master of the world, desiring incest with his -mother, a plague to his empire, famine to his people, rout to his -army, resemblance to the gods, and one sole head to the human race -that he might cut it off,—such is Caius Caligula. He forces the son -to assist at the torment of his father and the husband the violation -of his wife, and to laugh. Claudius is a mere sketch of a ruler. He is -nearly a man made a tyrant, a noodle-head crowned. He hides himself; -they discover him, they drag him from his hole, and they throw him -terrified on the throne. Emperor, he still trembles, having the crown -but not sure that he has his head. He feels for his head at times, as -if he searched for it. Then he gets more confident, and decrees three -new letters to be added to the alphabet. He is a learned man, this -idiot. They strangle a senator. He says, "I did not order it but since -it is done, it is well." His wife prostitutes herself before him. He -looks at her, and says, "Who is this woman?" He scarcely exists: he -is a shadow; but this shadow crushes the world. At length the hour -for his departure arrives: his wife poisons him, his doctor finishes -him. He says, "I am saved," and dies. After his death they come to -see his corpse. While alive they had seen his ghost. Nero is the most -formidable figure of <i>ennui</i> that has ever appeared among men. The -yawning monster that the ancients called Livor and the moderns call -Spleen, gives us this enigma to divine,—Nero. Nero seeks simply a -distraction. Poet, comedian, singer, coachman, exhausting ferocity to -find voluptuousness, trying a change of sex, the husband of the eunuch -Sporus, and bride of the slave Pythagoras, and promenading the streets -of Rome between his husband and wife. Having two pleasures—one to -see the people clutching pieces of gold, diamonds and pearls, and the -other to see the lions clutch the people; an incendiary for curiosity's -sake, and a parricide for want of employment. It is to these four that -Tacitus dedicates his four first pillories. He hangs their reign to -their necks: he fastens that <i>carcan</i> to theirs. His book of Caligula -is lost. Nothing easier to comprehend than the loss and obliteration -of these kinds of books. To read them was a crime. A man having been -caught reading the history of Caligula by Suetonius, Com modus had him -thrown to the wild beasts. "Feris objici jussit," says Lampridius. The -horror of those days is wonderful. Manners, below and above stairs, -are ferocious. You may judge of the cruelty of the Romans by the -atrocity of the Gauls. A row breaks out in Gaul: the peasants place -the Roman ladies, naked and still alive, on harrows whose points enter -here and there into the body; then they cut their breasts from them -and sew them in their mouths, as though they had the appearance of -eating them. "These are scarcely reprisals" (<i>Vix vindicta est</i>), says -the Roman general, Turpilianus. These Roman ladies had the practice, -while chattering with their lovers, of sticking pins of gold in the -breasts of their Persian or Gallic slaves who dressed their hair. Such -is the humanity at which Tacitus is present. This view renders him -terrible. He states the facts, and leaves you to draw your conclusions. -You only meet a Potiphar in Rome. When Agrippina, reduced to her last -resource, seeing her grave in the eyes of her son, offers him her bed, -when her lips seek those of Nero, Tacitus is there, following her with -his eyes, <i>lasciva oscula et prœnuntias flagitii blanditias</i>; and he -denounces to the world this effort of a monstrous and trembling mother -to make the parricide miscarry by incest. Whatever Justus Lipsius, -who bequeathed his pen to the Holy Virgin, has said, Domitian exiled -Tacitus, and did well. Men like Tacitus are unhealthy subjects for -authority. Tacitus applies his style to the shoulder of an emperor, -and the marks remain. Tacitus always makes his thrust at the required -spot. A deep thrust. Juvenal, all-powerful poet, deals about him, -scatters, makes a show, falls and rebounds, strikes right and left, a -hundred blows at a time, on laws, manners, bad magistrates, corrupt -verses, libertines and the idle, on Cæsar, on the people,—everywhere. -He is lavish, like hail; he is careless, like the whip. Tacitus has the -conciseness of red iron.</p> - -<p>9. Another, John, is the virgin old man. All the ardent sap of man, -become smoke and mysterious shaking, is in his head, as a vision. -One does not escape love. Love, unsatiated and discontented, changes -itself at the end of life into a gloomy overflowing of chimeras. The -woman wants man; otherwise man, instead of human, will have a phantom -poetry. Some beings, however, resist universal procreation, and then -they are in that peculiar state where monstrous inspiration can weaken -itself on them. The Apocalypse is the almost mad <i>chef-d'œuvre</i> of -this wonderful chastity. John, while young, was pleasant and wild. He -loved Jesus; then could love nothing else. There is a deep resemblance -between the Canticle of Canticles and the Apocalypse; the one and -the other are explosions of pent-up virginity. The heart, mighty -volcano, bursts open; there proceeds from it this dove, the Canticle of -Canticles, or this dragon, the Apocalypse. These two poems are the two -poles of ecstasy,—voluptuousness and horror; the two extreme limits -of the soul are attained. In the first poem ecstasy exhausts love; in -the second, terrifies it, and carries to mankind, henceforth forever -disquieted, the dreadful fright of the eternal precipice. Another -resemblance, not less worthy of attention, there is between John and -Daniel. The nearly invisible thread of affinity is carefully followed -by the eye of those who see in the prophetic spirit a human and normal -phenomenon, and who, far from disdaining the question of miracles, -generalize it, and calmly attach it to existing phenomena. Religions -lose, and science gains, by it. It has not been sufficiently remarked -that the seventh chapter of Daniel contains the root of the Apocalypse. -Empires are there represented as beasts. Therefore has the legend -associated the two poets; it makes the one traverse the den of lions, -and the other the caldron of boiling oil. Independently of the legend, -the life of John is fine. An exemplary life which undergoes strange -openings, passing from Golgotha to Patmos, and from the execution of -Messiah to the exile of the prophet. John, after having been present -at the sufferings of Christ, finished by suffering on his own account; -the suffering seen made him an apostle, the suffering endured made him -a magician,—the growth of the spirit was the result of the growth of -the trial. Bishop, he writes the gospel; proscribed, he composes the -Apocalypse,—tragic work, written under the dictation of an eagle, the -poet having above his head we know not what mournful flapping of wings. -The whole Bible is between two visionaries,—Moses and John. This poem -of poems merges out of chaos in Genesis, and finishes in the Apocalypse -by thunders. John was one of the great vagrants of the language of -fire. During the Last Supper his head was on the breast of Jesus, and -he could say, "My ear has heard the beating of God's heart." He went -to relate it to men. He spoke a barbarous Greek, mixed with Hebrew -expressions and Syrian words, harsh and grating, yet charming. He went -to Ephesus, he went to Media, he went among the Parthians. He dared to -enter Ctesiphon, a town of the Parthians, built as a counterpoise to -Babylon. He faced the living idol, Cobaris, king, god, and man, forever -immovable on his block, which serves him as throne and latrine. He -evangelized Persia, which the Gospel calls Paras. When he appeared at -the Council of Jerusalem, they thought they saw a pillar of the Church. -He looked with stupefaction at Cerintus and Ebion, who said that Jesus -was but a man. When they questioned him on the mystery, he answered, -"Love you one another?" He died at the age of ninety-four years, under -Trajan. According to tradition, he is not dead; he is spared, and John -is ever living at Patmos as Barberousse at Kaiserslautern. There are -some waiting-caverns for these mysterious everlasting beings. John, -as a historian, has his equals,—Matthew, Luke, Mark; as a visionary -he is alone. There is no dream approaches his, so deep it is in the -infinite. His metaphors pass out from eternity, distracted; his poetry -has a profound smile of madness; the reverberation of the Most High -is in the eye of this man. It is the sublime going fully astray. Men -do not understand it—scorn it, and laugh. "My dear Thiriot," says -Voltaire, "the Apocalypse is filth." Religions, being in want of this -book, have taken to worshipping it; but, in order not to be thrown to -the common sewer, it must be put on the altar. What does it matter? -John is a spirit. It is in the John of Patmos, among all, that the -communication between certain men of genius and the abyss is apparent. -In all other poets men get a glimpse of this communication; in John -they see it, at times they touch it, and have a shivering fit in -placing, so to speak, the hand on this sombre door. That is the way to -the Deity. It seems, when you read the poem of Patmos, that some one -pushes you from behind; you have a confused outline of the dreadful -opening. It fills you with terror and attraction. If John had only -that, he would be immense.</p> - -<p>10. Another, Paul, a saint for the Church, a great man for -humanity, represents this prodigy, at the same time human and -divine,—conversion. He is the one who has had a glimpse of the future. -It leaves him haggard; and nothing can be more magnificent than this -face, forever wondering, of the man conquered by the light. Paul, born -a Pharisee, had been a weaver of camel's-hair for tents, and servant -of one of the judges of Jesus Christ, Gamaliel; then the scribes had -advanced him, trusting to his natural ferocity. He was the man of -the past; he had taken care of the mantles of the stone-throwers. He -aspired, having studied with the priests, to become an executioner; he -was on the road for this. All at once a wave of light emanates from -the darkness, throws him down from his horse, and henceforth there -will be in the history of the human race this wonderful thing,—the -road to Damascus. That day of the metamorphosis of Saint Paul is a -great day; keep the date,—it corresponds to the 25th January in our -Gregorian calendar. The road to Damascus is necessary to the march of -Progress. To fall into the truth and to rise a just man, a fall and -transfiguration, that is sublime. It is the history of Saint Paul. -From his day it will be the history of humanity. The flash of light -is beyond the flash of lightning. Progress will carry itself on by a -series of scintillations. As for Saint Paul, who has been turned aside -by the force of new conviction, this harsh stroke from on high opens -to him genius. Once on his feet again, behold him proceed: he will -no more stop. "Forward!" is his cry. He is a cosmopolite. He loves -the outsiders, whom Paganism calls barbarians, and Christianity calls -Gentiles; he devotes himself to them. He is the apostle of the outer -world. He writes to the nations epistles on behalf of God. Listen to -him speaking to the Galatians: "O insane Galatians! how can you go back -to the yokes to which you were tied? There are no more Jews, or Greeks, -or slaves. Do not carry out your grand ceremonies ordained by your -laws. I declare unto you that all that is nothing. Love each other. -Man must be a new creature. Freedom is awaiting you." There were at -Athens, on the hill of Mars, steps hewn in rock, which may be seen to -this day. On these steps sat the great judges before whom Orestes had -appeared. There Socrates had been judged. Paul went there; and there, -at night (the Areopagus only sat at night), he said to the grave men, -"I come to announce to you the unknown God." The Epistles of Paul to -the Gentiles are simple and profound, with the subtlety so marked in -its influence over savages. There are in these messages gleams of -hallucination; Paul speaks of the Celestials as if he distinctly saw -them. Like John, half-way between life and eternity, it seems that he -had one part of his thought on the earth and one in the Unknown; and -it may be said, at moments, that one of his verses answers to another -from beyond the dark wall of the tomb. This half-possession of death -gives him a personal certainty, and one often distinctly apart from -the dogma, and a mark of conviction on his personal conceptions, which -makes him almost heretical. His humility, bordering on the mysterious, -is lofty. Peter says, "The words of Paul may be taken in a bad sense." -The deacon Hilaire and the Luciferians ascribe their schism to the -Epistles of Paul. Paul is at heart so anti-monarchical that King James -I., very much encouraged by the orthodox University of Oxford, caused -the Epistle to the Romans to be burned by the hand of the common -hangman. It is true it was one with a commentary by David Pareus. Many -of Paul's works are rejected by the Church: they are the finest; and -among them his Epistle to the Laodiceans, and above all his Apocalypse, -erased by the Council of Rome under Gelasius. It would be curious to -compare it with the Apocalypse of John. On the opening that Paul had -made to heaven the Church wrote, "Entrance forbidden." He is not less -holy for it. It is his official consolation. Paul has the restlessness -of the thinker; text and formulary are little for him. The letter does -not suffice; the letter, it is matter. Like all men of progress, he -speaks with reserve of the written law; he prefers grace, as we prefer -justice. What is grace? It is the inspiration from on high; it is the -breath, <i>flat ubi vult</i>; it is liberty. Grace is the spirit of law. -This discovery of the spirit of law belongs to Saint Paul; and what -he calls "grace" from a heavenly point of view, we, from an earthly -point, call "right." Such is Paul. The greatness of a spirit by the -irruption of clearness, the beauty of violence done by truth to one -spirit, breaks forth in this man. In that, we insist, lies the virtue -of the road to Damascus. Henceforth, whoever wishes this increase, must -follow the guide-post of Saint Paul. All those to whom justice shall -reveal itself, every blindness desirous of the day, all the cataracts -looking to be healed, all searchers after conviction, all the great -adventurers after virtue, all the holders of good in quest of truth, -shall go by this road. The light that they find there shall change -nature, for the light is always relative to darkness; it shall increase -in intensity. After having been revelation, it shall be rationalism; -but it shall always be light. Voltaire is like Saint Paul on the road -to Damascus. The road to Damascus shall be forever the passage for -great minds. It shall also be the passage for peoples,—for peoples, -these vast individualisms, have like each of us their crisis and their -hour. Paul, after his glorious fall, rose up again armed against -ancient errors, with that flaming sword, Christianity; and two thousand -years after, France, struck by the light, arouses herself, she also -holding in hand this sword of fire, the Revolution.</p> - -<p>11. Another, Dante, has mentally conceived the abyss. He has made -the epic poem of spectres. He rends the earth; in the terrible hole -he has made he puts Satan. Then he pushes through purgatory up to -heaven. Where all end Dante begins. Dante is beyond man; beyond, -not without,—a singular proposition, which, however, has nothing -contradictory in it, the soul being a prolongation of man into the -indefinite. Dante twists light and shade into a huge spiral; it -descends, then it ascends. Wonderful architecture! At the threshold is -the sacred mist; across the entrance is stretched the corpse of Hope; -all that you perceive beyond is night. The infinite anguish is sobbing -somewhere in the invisible darkness. You lean over this gulf-poem. Is -it a crater? You hear reports; the verse shoots out narrow and livid, -as from the fissures of a solfatara. It is vapour now, then lava. This -paleness speaks; and then you know that the volcano, of which you have -caught a glimpse, is hell. This is no longer the human medium; you are -in the unknown abyss. In this poem the imponderable submits to the laws -of the ponderable, with which it is mixed, as in the sudden tumbling -down of a building on fire, the smoke, carried down by the ruins, falls -and rolls with them, and seems caught under the timber and the stones; -thence strange effects: the ideas seem to suffer and to be punished in -men. The idea, sufficiently man to undergo expiation, is the phantom -(a form that is shade), impalpable, but not invisible,—an appearance -retaining yet a sufficient amount of reality for the chastisement to -have a hold on it; sin in the abstract state, but having kept the human -figure. It is not only the wicked who grieves in this Apocalypse, -it is the evil; there all possible bad actions are in despair. This -spiritualization of pain gives to the poem a powerful moral import. The -depth of hell once sounded, Dante pierces it, and remounts to the other -side of the infinite. In rising, he becomes idealized; and thought -drops the body as a robe. From Virgil he passes to Beatrice. His guide -to hell, it is the poet; his guide to heaven, it is poetry. The epic -poem continues, and has more grandeur yet; but man comprehends it no -more. Purgatory and paradise are not less extraordinary than gehenna; -but the more he ascends the less interested is man. He was somewhat at -home in hell, but he is no longer so in heaven. He cannot recognize -himself in angels. The human eye is perhaps not made for so much sun; -and when the poem draws happiness, it becomes tedious. It is generally -the case with all happiness. Marry the lovers, or send the souls to -dwell in paradise, it is well; but seek the drama elsewhere than there. -After all, what does it matter to Dante if you no longer follow him? He -goes on without you. He goes alone, this lion. His work is a wonder. -What a philosopher is this visionary! What a sage is this madman! Dante -lays down the law for Montesquieu; the penal divisions of "L'Esprit -des Lois" are an exact copy of the classifications in the hell of the -"Divina Commedia." That which Juvenal does for the Rome of the Cæsars, -Dante does for the Rome of popes; but Dante is a more terrible judge -than Juvenal. Juvenal whips with cutting thongs; Dante scourges with -flames. Juvenal condemns; Dante damns. Woe to the living on whom this -awful traveller fixes the unfathomable glare of his eyes!</p> - -<p>12. Another, Rabelais, is the soul of Gaul. And who says Gaul says also -Greece, for the Attic salt and the Gallic jest have at bottom the same -flavour; and if anything, buildings apart, resembles the Piræus, it is -La Rapée. Aristophanes is distanced; Aristophanes is wicked. Rabelais -is good; Rabelais would have defended Socrates. In the order of lofty -genius, Rabelais chronologically follows Dante; after the stem face, -the sneering visage. Rabelais is the wondrous mask of ancient comedy -detached from the Greek proscenium, from bronze made flesh, henceforth -a human living face, remaining enormous, and coming among us to laugh -at us, and with us. Dante and Rabelais spring from the school of the -Franciscan friars, as later Voltaire springs from the Jesuits. Dante -the incarnate sorrow, Rabelais the parody, Voltaire the irony,—they -came from the Church against the Church. Every genius has his invention -or his discovery. Rabelais has made this one: the belly. The serpent is -in man; it is the intestines. It tempts, betrays, and punishes. Man, -single being as a spirit and complex as man, has within himself for his -earthly mission three centres,—the brain, the heart, the stomach. Each -of these centres is august by one great function which is peculiar to -it: the brain has thought, the heart has love, the belly has paternity -and maternity. The belly may be tragic. "Feri ventrem," says Agrippina. -Catherine Sforza, threatened with the death of her children, kept in -hostage, exhibits herself naked to her navel on the battlements of -the citadel of Rimini and says to the enemy, "With this I can give -birth to others." In one of the epic convulsions of Paris a woman of -the people, standing on a barricade, raised her petticoat, showed the -soldiery her naked belly, and cried, "Kill your mothers!" The soldiers -perforated that belly with balls. The belly has its heroism; but it -is from it that flows in life corruption, in art comedy. The breast, -where the heart rests, has for its summit the head; the belly has the -phallus. The belly being the centre of matter, is our gratification -and our danger; it contains appetite, satiety, and putrefaction. The -devotion, the tenderness, which we feel then are subject to death; -egotism replaces them. Easily do the affections become intestines. -That the hymn can become a drunkard's brawl, that the strophe can be -deformed into a couplet, is sad. That comes from the beast that is -in man. The belly is essentially this beast. Degradation seems to be -its law. The ladder of sensual poetry has for its topmost round the -Canticle of Canticles, and for its lowest the coarse jest. The belly -god is Silenus; the belly emperor is Vitellius; the belly animal is the -pig. One of those horrid Ptolemies was called the Belly,—<i>Physcon.</i> -The belly is to humanity a formidable weight: it breaks every moment -the equilibrium between the soul and the body. It fills history. It is -responsible for nearly all crimes. It is the bottle of all vices. It is -the belly which by voluptuousness makes the sultan and by drunkenness -the czar; it is this that shows Tarquin the bed of Lucrece; it is -this that ends by making that senate which had waited for Brennus -and dazzled Jugurtha deliberate on the sauce of a turbot. It is the -belly which counsels the ruined libertine, Cæsar, the passage of the -Rubicon. To pass the Rubicon, how well that pays one's debts! To pass -the Rubicon, how readily that throws women, into one's arms! What good -dinners afterward! And the Roman soldiers enter Rome with the cry, -"Urbani, claudite uxores; mœchum calvum adducimus." The appetite -debauches the intellect. Voluptuousness replaces will. At starting, as -is always the case, there is some nobleness. It is the orgy. There is a -gradation between being fuddled and being dead drunk.</p> - -<p>Then the orgy degenerates into bestial gluttony. Where there was -Solomon there is Ramponneau. Man becomes a barrel; an inner sea of dark -ideas drowns thought; conscience submerged cannot warn the drunken -soul. Beastliness is consummated; it is not even any longer cynical, -it is empty and beastly. Diogenes disappears; there remains but the -barrel. We commence by Alcibiades, we finish by Trimalcion. It is -complete; nothing more, neither dignity, nor shame, nor honour, nor -virtue, nor wit,—animal gratification in all its nakedness, thorough -impurity. Thought dissolves itself in satiety; carnal gorging absorbs -everything; nothing survives of the grand sovereign creature inhabited -by the soul. As the word goes, the belly eats the man. Such is the -final state of all societies where the ideal is eclipsed. That passes -for prosperity, and is called aggrandizing one's self. Sometimes even -philosophers thoughtlessly aid this degradation by inserting in their -doctrines the materialism which is in the consciences. This sinking -of man to the level of the human beast is a great calamity. Its first -fruit is the turpitude visible at the summit of all professions,—the -venal judge, the simoniacal priest, the hireling soldier; laws, -manners, and beliefs are a dungheap,—<i>totus homo fit excrementum.</i> -In the sixteenth century all the institutions of the past are in -that state. Rabelais gets hold of that situation; he proves it; he -authenticates that belly which is the world. Civilization is, then, -but a mass; science is matter; religion is blessed with a stomach; -feudality is digesting; royalty is obese. What is Henry VIII.? A -paunch. Rome is a fat-gutted old woman. Is it health? Is it sickness? -It is perhaps obesity; it is perhaps dropsy-query. Rabelais, doctor -and priest, feels the pulse of Papacy; he shakes his head and bursts -out laughing. Is it because he has found life? No, it is because he -has felt death; it is, in reality, breathing its last. While Luther -reforms, Rabelais jests. Which tends best to the end? Rabelais -ridicules the monk, the bishop, the Pope; laughter and death-rattle -together; fool's bell sounding the tocsin! Well, then, what? I thought -it was a feast; it is agony. One may be deceived by the nature of -the hiccough. Let us laugh all the same. Death is at the table; the -last drop toasts the last sigh. The agony feasting,—it is superb. -The inner colon is king; all that old world feasts and bursts, and -Rabelais enthrones a dynasty of bellies,—Grangousier, Pantagruel, and -Gargantua. Rabelais is the Æschylus of victuals; indeed, it is grand -when we think that eating is devouring. There is something of the -gulf in the glutton. Eat then, my masters, and drink, and come to the -finale. To live is a song, of which to die is the refrain. Others dig -under the depraved human race fearful dungeons. For subterraneous caves -the great Rabelais contents himself with the cellar. This universe, -which Dante put into hell, Rabelais confines in a wine-cask; his book -is nothing else. The seven circles of Alighieri bung and encompass -this extraordinary tun. Look within the monstrous cask, and you see -them there. In Rabelais they are entitled, Idleness, Pride, Envy, -Avarice, Anger, Luxury, Gluttony; and it is thus that you suddenly -meet again the formidable jester. Where?—in church. The seven sins -are this <i>curé's</i> sermon. Rabelais is priest. Castigation, properly -understood, begins at home; it is therefore on the clergy that he -strikes first. It is something, indeed, to be at home! The Papacy dies -of indigestion. Rabelais plays the Papacy a trick,—the trick of a -Titan. The Pantagruelian joy is not less grandiose than the mirth of -a Jupiter,—jaw for jaw. The monarchical and priestly jaw eats; the -Rabelaisian jaw laughs. Whoever has read Rabelais has forever before -his eyes this stem opposition: the mask of Theocritus gazed at fixedly -by the mask of Comedy.</p> - -<p>13. Another, Cervantes, is also a form of epic mockery; for as the -writer of these lines said in 1827,<a name="FNanchor_3_9" id="FNanchor_3_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_9" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> there are between the Middle -Ages and the modern times, after the feudal barbarism, and placed -there as it were for a conclusion, two Homeric buffoons,—Rabelais and -Cervantes. To sum up horror by laughter, is not the least terrible -manner of doing it. It is what Rabelais did; it is what Cervantes did. -But the raillery of Cervantes has nothing of the large Rabelaisian -grin. It is the fine humour of the noble after the joviality of the -<i>curé.</i> I am the Signor Don Miguel Cervantes de Saavedra, Caballeros, -poet-soldier, and, as a proof, one-armed. No broad, coarse jesting in -Cervantes. Scarcely a flavour of elegant cynicism. The satirist is -fine, sharp-edged, polished, delicate, almost gallant, and would even -run the risk sometimes of diminishing his power with all his affected -ways if he had not the deep poetic spirit of the Renaissance. That -saves his charming grace from becoming prettiness. Like Jean Goujon, -like Jean Cousin, like Germain Pilon, like Primatice, Cervantes has -the chimera within himself. Thence all the unexpected marvels of his -imagination. Add to that a wonderful intuition of the inmost deeds -of the mind, and a philosophy, inexhaustible in aspects, which seems -to possess a new and complete chart of the human heart. Cervantes -sees the inner man. His philosophy blends with the comic and romantic -instinct. Thence does the unexpected break in at each moment in his -characters, in his action, in his style,—the unforeseen, magnificent -adventure. Personages remaining true to themselves, but facts and -ideas whirling around them, with a perpetual renewing of the original -idea, with the unceasing breathing of that wind which carries flashes -of lightning,—such is the law of great works. Cervantes is militant; -he has a thesis; he makes a social book. Such poets are the fighting -champions of the mind. Where have they learned fighting? On the -battle-field itself. Juvenal was a military tribune; Cervantes arrives -from Lepanto, as Dante from Campalbino, as Æschylus from Salamis. After -which they pass to a new trial. Æschylus goes into exile, Juvenal into -exile, Dante into exile, Cervantes into prison. It is just, for they -have served you well. Cervantes, as poet, has the three sovereign -gifts,—creation, which produces types, and clothes ideas with flesh -and bone; invention, which hurls passions against events, makes man -flash brightly over destiny, and brings forth the drama; imagination, -sun of the brain, which throws light and shade everywhere, and, giving -relieve, creates life. Observation, which is acquired, and which, in -consequence, is a quality rather than a gift, is included in creation. -If the miser was not observed, Harpagon would not be created. In -Cervantes, a new-comer, glimpsed at in Rabelais, puts in a decided -appearance; it is common-sense. You have caught sight of it in Panurge; -you see it plainly in Sancho Panza. It arrives like the Silenus of -Plautus; and it may also say, "I am the god mounted on an ass." Wisdom -at once, reason by-and-by; it is indeed the strange history of the -human mind. What more wise than all religions? What less reasonable? -Morals true, dogmas false. Wisdom is in Homer and in Job; reason, such -as it ought to be to overcome prejudices,—that is to say, complete -and armed <i>cap-à-pie</i>,—will be found only in Voltaire. Common-sense -is not wisdom and is not reason; it is a little of one and a little -of the other, with a dash of egotism. Cervantes makes it bestride -ignorance; and, at the same time, completing his profound satire, he -gives fatigue as a nag to heroism. Thus he shows one after the other, -one with the other, the two profiles of man, and parodies them, without -more pity for the sublime than for the grotesque. The hippogriff -becomes Rosinante. Behind the equestrian figure, Cervantes creates and -gives movement to the asinine personage. Enthusiasm takes the field, -Irony follows in its footsteps. The wonderful feats of Don Quixote, -his riding and spurring, his big lance, steady in the rest, are judged -by the donkey, a connoisseur in windmills. The invention of Cervantes -is so masterly that there is between the man type and the quadruped -complement statuary adhesion; the reasoner, like the adventurer, is -part of the beast which belongs to him, and you can no more dismount -Sancho Panza than Don Quixote. The Ideal is in Cervantes as in Dante; -but it is called the impossible, and is scoffed at. Beatrice is become -Dulcinea. To rail at the ideal would be the failing of Cervantes; but -this failing is only apparent. Look well! The smile has a tear. In -reality, Cervantes is for Don Quixote what Molière is for Alcestes. -One must learn how to read in a peculiar manner in the books of the -sixteenth century; there is in almost all, on account of the threats -hanging over the liberty of thought, a secret that must be opened, and -the key of which is often lost Rabelais had something unexpressed, -Cervantes had an aside, Machiavelli had a secret recess,—several -perhaps; at all events, the advent of common-sense is the great fact -in Cervantes. Common-sense is not a virtue; it is the eye of interest. -It would have encouraged Themistocles and dissuaded Aristides. -Leonidas has no common-sense; Regulus has no common-sense; but in the -face of egotistical and ferocious monarchies dragging poor peoples -into wars undertaken for themselves, decimating families, making -mothers desolate, and driving men to kill each other with all those -fine words,—military honour, warlike glory, obedience to discipline -etc.,—it is an admirable personification, that common-sense coming all -at once and crying to the human race, "Take care of your skin!"</p> - -<p>14. Another, Shakespeare, what is he? You might almost answer, He is -the earth. Lucretius is the sphere; Shakespeare is the globe. There is -more and less in the globe than in the sphere. In the sphere there is -the whole; on the globe there is man. Here the outer, there the inner, -mystery. Lucretius is the being; Shakespeare is the existence. Thence -so much shadow in Lucretius; thence so much movement in Shakespeare. -Space,—<i>the blue</i>, as the Germans ay,—is certainly not forbidden -to Shakespeare. The earth sees and surveys heaven; the earth knows -heaven under its two aspects,—darkness and azure, doubt and hope. Life -goes and comes in death. All life is a secret,—a sort of enigmatical -parenthesis between birth and the death-throe, between the eye which -opens and the eye which closes. This secret imparts its restlessness to -Shakespeare. Lucretius is; Shakespeare lives. In Shakespeare the birds -sing, the bushes become verdant, the hearts love, the souls suffer, -the cloud wanders, it is hot, it is cold, night falls, time passes, -forests and crowds speak, the vast eternal dream hovers about. The sap -and the blood, all forms of the fact multiple, the actions and the -ideas, man and humanity, the living and the life, the solitudes, the -cities, the religions, the diamonds and pearls, the dung-hills and the -charnel-houses, the ebb and flow of beings, the steps of the comers and -goers,—all, all are on Shakespeare and in Shakespeare; and this genius -being the earth, the dead emerge from it. Certain sinister sides of -Shakespeare are haunted by spectres. Shakespeare is a brother of Dante. -The one completes the other. Dante incarnates all supernaturalism, -Shakespeare all Nature; and as these two regions, Nature and -supernaturalism, which appear to us so different, are really the same -unity, Dante and Shakespeare, however dissimilar, commingle outwardly, -and are but one innately. There is something of the Alighieri, -something of the ghost in Shakespeare. The skull passes from the hands -of Dante into the hands of Shakespeare. Ugolino gnaws it, Hamlet -questions it; and it shows perhaps even a deeper meaning and a loftier -teaching in the second than in the first. Shakespeare shakes it and -makes stars fall from it The isle of Prospero, the forest of Ardennes, -the heath of Armuyr, the platform of Elsinore, are not less illuminated -than the seven circles of Dante's spiral by the sombre reverberation -of hypothesis. The unknown—half fable, half truth—is outlined there -as well as here. Shakespeare as much as Dante allows us to glimpse at -the crepuscular horizon of conjecture. In the one as in the other there -is the possible,—that window of the dream opening on reality. As for -the real, we insist on it, Shakespeare overflows with it; everywhere -the living flesh. Shakespeare possesses emotion, instinct, the true -cry, the right tone, all the human multitude in his clamour. His poetry -is himself, and at the same time it is you. Like Homer, Shakespeare -is element Men of genius, re-beginners,—it is the right name for -them,—rise at all the decisive crises of humanity; they sum up the -phases and complete the revolutions. In civilization, Homer stamps -the end of Asia and the commencement of Europe; Shakespeare stamps -the end of the Middle Ages. This closing of the Middle Ages, Rabelais -and Cervantes have fixed also; but, being essentially satirists, they -give but a partial aspect Shakespeare's mind is a total; like Homer, -Shakespeare is a cyclic man. These two geniuses, Homer and Shakespeare, -close the two gates of barbarism,—the ancient door and the gothic one. -That was their mission; they have fulfilled it. That was their task; -they have accomplished it. The third great human crisis is the French -Revolution; it is the third huge gate of barbarism, the monarchical -gate, which is closing at this moment. The nineteenth century hears it -rolling on its hinges. Thence for poetry, the drama, and art arises the -actual era, as independent of Shakespeare as of Homer.</p> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_7" id="Footnote_1_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_7"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Song XVII. of the Iliad.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2_8" id="Footnote_2_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_8"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Ezekiel, XLIII. 7.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_3_9" id="Footnote_3_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_9"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Preface to "Cromwell."</p></div> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER III.</h5> - - -<p>Homer, Job, Æschylus, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Lucretius, Juvenal, Saint John, -Saint Paul, Tacitus, Dante, Rabelais, Cervantes, Shakespeare.</p> - -<p>That is the avenue of the immovable giants of the human mind.</p> - -<p>The men of genius are a dynasty. Indeed there is no other. They wear -all the crowns,—even that of thorns.</p> - -<p>Each of them represents the sum total of absolute that man can realize.</p> - -<p>We repeat it, to choose between these men, to prefer one to the other, -to mark with the finger the first among these first, it cannot be. All -are the Mind.</p> - -<p>Perhaps, in an extreme case—and yet every objection would be -legitimate—you might mark out as the highest summit among those -summits, Homer, Æschylus, Job, Isaiah, Dante, and Shakespeare.</p> - -<p>It is understood that we speak here only in an Art point of view, and -in Art, in the literary point of view.</p> - -<p>Two men in this group, Æschylus and Shakespeare, represent specially -the drama.</p> - -<p>Æschylus, a kind of genius out of time, worthy to stamp either a -beginning or an end in humanity, does not seem to be placed in his -right turn in the series, and, as we have said, seems an elder son of -Homer's.</p> - -<p>If we remember that Æschylus is nearly submerged by the darkness -rising over human memory; if we remember that ninety of his plays have -disappeared, that of that sublime hundred there remain no more than -seven dramas, which are also seven odes, we are stupefied by what we -see of that genius, and almost frightened by what we do not see.</p> - -<p>What, then, was Æschylus? What proportions and what forms had he in -all this shadow? Æschylus is up to his shoulders in the ashes of ages. -His head alone remains out of that burying; and, like the giant of the -desert, with his head alone he is as immense as all the neighbouring -gods standing on their pedestals.</p> - -<p>Man passes before this insubmergible wreck. Enough remains for an -immense glory. What the darkness has taken adds the unknown to this -greatness. Buried and eternal, his brow projecting from the grave, -Æschylus looks at generations.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER IV.</h5> - - -<p>To the eyes of the thinker, these men of genius occupy thrones in the -ideal.</p> - -<p>To the individual works that those men have left us, must be -added various vast collective works, the Vedas, the Râmayana, the -Mahâbhârata, the Edda, the Niebelungen, the Heldenbuch, the Romancero.</p> - -<p>Some of these works are revealed and sacred. Unknown assistance is -marked on them. The poems of India in particular have the ominous -fulness of the possible imagined by insanity, or related by dreams. -These works seem to have been composed in common with beings to whom -our world is no longer accustomed. Legendary horror covers these epic -poems. <i>These books have not been composed by man alone</i>; the Ash-Nagar -inscription says it. Djinns have alighted upon them; polypterian magi -have thought over them; the texts have been interlined by invisible -hands; the demi-gods have been aided by demi-demons; the elephant, -which India calls the sage, has been consulted. Thence a majesty -almost horrible. The great enigmas are in these poems. They are full -of mysterious Asia. Their prominent parts have the supernatural and -hideous outline of chaos. They are a mass in the horizon like the -Himalayas. The distance of the manners, beliefs, ideas, actions, -persons, is extraordinary. One reads these poems with that wondering -stoop of the head which is induced by the profound distance that -there is between the book and the reader. This Holy Writ of Asia has -evidently been yet more difficult to reduce and put into shape than -our own. It is in every part refractory to unity. In vain have the -Brahmins, like our priests, erased and interpolated. Zoroaster is -there; Ized Serosch is there. The Eschem of the Mazdæan traditions -appears under the name of Siva; Manicheism is discernible between -Brahma and Bouddha. All kinds of traces blend, cross, and recross each -other in these poems. One may see in them the mysterious tramp of a -crowd of minds who have worked at them in the mist of ages. Here the -measureless toe of the giant; there the claw of the chimera. Those -poems are the pyramid of a vanished colony of ants.</p> - -<p>The Niebelungen, another pyramid of another ant-hill, has the same -greatness. What the dives have done there, the elves have done here. -These powerful epic legends, the testaments of ages, tattooings marked -by races on history, have no other unity than the very unity of the -people. The collective and the successive, combining together, are one. -<i>Turba fit mens.</i> These recitals are mists, and wonderful flashes of -light traverse them. As to the Romancero, which creates the Cid after -Achilles, and the chivalric after the heroic, it is the Iliad of many -lost Homers. Count Julian, King Roderigo, Cava, Bernard del Carpio, the -bastard Mudarra, Nuño Salido, the Seven Infantes of Lara, the Constable -Alvar de Luna,—no Oriental or Hellenic type surpasses these figures. -The horse of Campeador is equal to the dog of Ulysses. Between Priam -and Lear you must place Don Arias, the old man of Zamora's tower, -sacrificing his seven sons to his duty, and tearing them from his heart -one after another. There is grandeur in that. In presence of these -sublimities the reader undergoes a sort of insolation.</p> - -<p>These works are anonymous, and owing to the great reason of the <i>homo -sum</i>, while admiring them, while holding them as the summit of art, we -prefer to them the acknowledged works. With equal beauty, the Râmayana -touches us less than Shakespeare. The "I" of a man is more vast and -profound even than the "I" of a people.</p> - -<p>However, these composite myriologies, the great testaments of India -particularly, with a coat of poetry rather than real poems, expression -at the same time sideral and bestial of humanities passed away, derive -from their very deformity an indescribable supernatural air. The "I" -multiple expressed by those myriologies makes them the polypi of -poetry,—vague and wonderful enormities. The strange joinings of the -antediluvian rough outline seem visible there as in the ichthyosaurus -or in the pterodactyl. Any one of these black <i>chefs-d'œuvre</i> with -several heads makes on the horizon of art the silhouette of a hydra.</p> - -<p>The Greek genius is not deceived by them, and abhors them. Apollo -would attack them. The Romancero excepted, beyond and above all these -collective and anonymous productions, there are men to represent -peoples. These men we have just named. They give to nations and periods -the human face. They are in art the incarnations of Greece, of Arabia, -of India, of Pagan Rome, of Christian Italy, of Spain, of France, of -England. As for Germany, the matrix, like Asia, of races, hordes, and -nations, she is represented in art by a sublime man, equal, although in -a different category, to all those that we have characterized above. -That man is Beethoven. Beethoven is the German soul.</p> - -<p>What a shadow this Germany! She is the India of the West. She holds -everything. There is no formation more colossal. In the sacred mist -where the German spirit breathes, Isidro de Seville places theology; -Albert the Great, scholasticism; Raban Maur, the science of language; -Trithemius, astrology; Ottnit, chivalry; Reuchlin, vast curiosity; -Tutilo, universality; Stadianus, method; Luther, inquiry; Albert Dürer, -art; Leibnitz, science; Puffendorf, law; Kant, philosophy; Fichte, -metaphysics; Winckelmann, archæology; Herder, æsthetics; the Vossiuses, -of whom one, Gerard John, was of the Palatinate, learning; Euler, the -spirit of integration; Humboldt, the spirit of discovery; Niebuhr, -history; Gottfried of Strasburg, fable; Hoffman, dreams; Hegel, doubt; -Ancillon, obedience; Werner, fatalism; Schiller, enthusiasm; Goethe, -indifference; Arminius, liberty.</p> - -<p>Kepler gives Germany the heavenly bodies.</p> - -<p>Gerard Groot, the founder of the Fratres Communis Vitæ, brings his -first attempt at fraternity in the fourteenth century. Whatever may -have been her infatuation for the indifference of Goethe, do not -consider her impersonal, that Germany. She is a nation, and one of -the most generous; for it is for her that Rückert, the military poet, -forges the "geharnischte Sonnette," and she shudders when Körner hurls -at her the Song of the Sword. She is the German fatherland, the great -beloved land, <i>Teutonia mater.</i> Galgacus was to the Germans what -Caractacus was to the Britons.</p> - -<p>Germany has everything in herself and at home. She shares Charlemagne -with France and Shakespeare with England; for the Saxon element is -mingled with the British element. She has an Olympus,—the Valhalla. -She must have her own style of writing. Ulfilas, Bishop of Moesia, -composes it for her, and the Gothic mode of caligraphy will henceforth -keep its ground along with the writing of Arabia. The capital letter -of a missal strives to outdo in fancy the signature of a caliph. Like -China, Germany has invented printing. Her Burgraves (this remark has -been already made<a name="FNanchor_1_10" id="FNanchor_1_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_10" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>) are to us what the Titans are to Æschylus. To the -temple of Tanfana, destroyed by Germanicus, she caused the cathedral of -Cologne to succeed. She is the grandmother of our history, the grandam -of our legends. From all parts,—from the Rhine to the Danube, from -the Rauhe-Alp, from the ancient <i>Sylva Gabresa</i>, from the Lorraine on -the Moselle, and from the ripuarian Lorraine by the Wigalois and the -Wigamur, with Henry the Fowler, with Samo, King of the Vends, with -the chronicler of Thuringia, Rothe, with the chronicler of Alsace, -Twinger, with the chronicler of Limbourg, Gansbein, with all these -ancient popular songsters, Jean Folz, Jean Viol, Muscatblüt, with the -minnesingers, those rhapsodists,—the tale, that form of dream, reaches -her, and enters into her genius. At the same time, idioms are flowing -from her. From her fissures rush, to the north, the Danish and Swedish, -to the west, the Dutch and Flemish. The German idiom passes the Channel -and becomes the English language. In the order of intellectual facts, -the German genius has other frontiers besides Germany. Such people -resists Germany and yields to Germanism. The German spirit assimilates -to itself the Greeks by Müller, the Serbians by Gerhard, the Russians -by Goethe, the Magyars by Mailath. When Kepler, in the presence of -Rudolph II., was preparing the Rudolphian Tables, it was with the -aid of Tycho Brahé German affinities go far. Without any alteration -in the local and national autonomies, it is with the great Germanic -centre that the Scandinavian spirit in Oehlenschläger, and the Batavian -spirit in Vondel, is connected. Poland unites herself to it, with all -her glory, from Copernicus to Kosciusko, from Sobieski to Mickiewicz. -Germany is the well of nations. They pass out of her like rivers; she -receives them as a sea.</p> - -<p>It seems as though one heard through all Europe the wonderful murmur of -the Hercynian forest. The German nature, profound and subtle, distinct -from European nature, but in harmony with it, volatilizes and floats -above nations. The German mind is misty, luminous, scattered. It is a -kind of immense soul-cloud, with stars. Perhaps the highest expression -of Germany can only be given by music. Music, by its very want of -precision, which in this special case is a quality, goes where the -German soul proceeds.</p> - -<p>If the German spirit had as much density as expansion,—that is to say, -as much will as power,—she could, at a given moment, lift up and save -the human race. Such as she is, she is sublime.</p> - -<p>In poetry she has not said her last word. At this hour, the symptoms -are excellent. Since the jubilee of the noble Schiller, particularly, -there has been an awakening, and a generous awakening. The great -definitive poet of Germany will be necessarily a poet of humanity, of -enthusiasm, and of liberty. Perchance, and some signs give token of it, -we may soon see him arise from the young group of contemporary German -writers.</p> - -<p>Music, we beg indulgence for this word, is the vapour of art. It is to -poetry what revery is to thought, what the fluid is to the liquid, what -the ocean of clouds is to the ocean of waves. If another description is -required, it is the indefinite of this infinite. The same insufflation -pushes it, carries it, raises it, upsets it, fills it with trouble and -light and with an ineffable sound, saturates it with electricity and -causes it to give suddenly discharges of thunder.</p> - -<p>Music is the Verb of Germany. The German race, so much curbed as a -people, so emancipated as thinkers, sing with a sombre love. To sing -resembles a freeing from bondage. Music expresses that which cannot -be said, and on which it is impossible to be silent. Therefore is -Germany all music until she becomes all liberty. Luther's choral is -somewhat a Marseillaise. Everywhere singing clubs and singing tables. -In Swabia every year the fête of song, on the banks of the Neckar, in -the plains of Enslingen. The <i>Liedermusik</i>, of which Schubert's "Le Roi -des Aulnes" is the <i>chef-d'œuvre</i>, is part of German life. Song is for -Germany a breathing. It is by singing that she respires and conspires. -The note being the syllable of a kind of undefined universal language, -Germany's grand communication with the human race is made through -harmony,—an admirable commencement to unity. It is by the clouds that -the rains which fertilize the earth ascend from the sea; it is by music -that the ideas which go deep into souls pass out of Germany.</p> - -<p>Therefore we may say that Germany's greatest poets are her musicians, -of which wonderful family Beethoven is the head.</p> - -<p>Homer is the great Pelasgian; Æschylus, the great Hellene; Isaiah, -the great Hebrew; Juvenal, the great Roman; Dante, the great Italian; -Shakespeare, the great Englishman; Beethoven, the great German.</p> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_10" id="Footnote_1_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_10"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Preface of the Burgraves, 1843.</p></div> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER V.</h5> - - -<p>The Ex-"Good Taste," that other divine law which has for so long a time -weighed on Art, and which had succeeded in suppressing the Beautiful -for the benefit of the Pretty, the ancient criticism, not altogether -dead, like the ancient monarchy, prove, from their own point of view, -the same fault, exaggeration, in those sovereign men of genius whom we -have named above. They are exaggerated.</p> - -<p>This is caused by the quantity of the infinite that they have in them.</p> - -<p>In fact, they are not circumscribed. They contain something unknown. -Every reproach that is addressed to them might be addressed to -sphinxes. People reproach Homer for the carnage which fills his cavern, -the Iliad; Æschylus, for his monstrousness; Job, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Saint -Paul, for double meanings; Rabelais, for obscene nudity and venomous -ambiguity; Cervantes, for insidious laughter; Shakespeare, for his -subtlety; Lucretius, Juvenal, Tacitus, for obscurity; John of Patmos -and Dante Alighieri for darkness.</p> - -<p>None of those reproaches can be made to other minds very great, but -less great. Hesiod, Æsop, Sophocles, Euripides, Plato, Thucydides, -Anacreon, Theocritus, Titus Livius, Sallust, Cicero, Terence, Virgil, -Horace, Petrarch, Tasso, Ariosto, La Fontaine, Beaumarchais, Voltaire, -have neither exaggeration nor darkness nor obscurity nor monstrousness. -What, then, fails them? <i>That</i> which the others have.</p> - -<p><i>That</i> is the Unknown.</p> - -<p><i>That</i> is the Infinite.</p> - -<p>If Corneille had "that," he would be the equal of Æschylus. If Milton -had "that," he would be the equal of Homer. If Molière had "that," he -would be the equal of Shakespeare.</p> - -<p>It is the misfortune of Corneille that he mutilated and contracted the -old native tragedy in obedience to fixed rules. It is the misfortune of -Milton that by Puritan melancholy he excluded from his work the vast -Nature, the great Pan. It is Molière's failing that, out of dread of -Boileau, he quickly extinguishes the luminous style of the "Etourdi;" -that, for fear of the priests, he writes too few scenes like "The Poor" -in "Don Juan."</p> - -<p>To give no occasion for attack is a negative perfection. It is fine to -be open to attack.</p> - -<p>Indeed, dig out the meaning of those words, placed as masks to the -mysterious qualities of geniuses. Under obscurity, subtlety, and -darkness you find depth; under exaggeration, imagination; under -monstrousness, grandeur.</p> - -<p>Therefore, in the upper region of poetry and thought there are Homer, -Job, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Lucretius, Juvenal, Tacitus, John of Patmos, Paul -of Damascus, Dante, Rabelais, Cervantes, Shakespeare.</p> - -<p>These supreme men of genius are not a closed series. The author of All -adds to it a name when the wants of progress require it.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h5><a name="BOOK_IIIa" id="BOOK_IIIa">BOOK III.</a></h5> - - -<h4>ART AND SCIENCE.</h4> - - - -<h5>CHAPTER I.</h5> - - -<p>Many people in our day, readily merchants and often lawyers, say and -repeat, "Poetry is gone." It is almost as if they said, "There are no -more roses; spring has breathed its last; the sun has lost the habit -of rising; roam about all the fields of the earth, you will not find -a butterfly; there is no more light in the moon, and the nightingale -sings no more; the lion no longer roars; the eagle no longer soars; -the Alps and the Pyrenees are gone; there are no more lovely girls or -handsome young men; no one thinks any more of the graves; the mother no -longer loves her child; heaven is quenched; the human heart is dead."</p> - -<p>If it was permitted to mix the contingent with the eternal, it would be -rather the contrary which would prove true. Never have the faculties of -the human soul, investigated and enriched by the mysterious excavation -of revolutions, been deeper and more lofty.</p> - -<p>And wait a little; give time for the realization of the acme of social -salvation,—gratuitous and compulsory education. How long will it -take? A quarter of a century; and then imagine the incalculable sum of -intellectual development that this single word contains: every one can -read! The multiplication of readers is the multiplication of loaves. -On the day when Christ created that symbol, he caught a glimpse of -printing. His miracle is this marvel. Behold a book. I will nourish -with it five thousand souls, a hundred thousand souls, a million -souls,—all humanity. In the action of Christ bringing forth the -loaves, there is Gutenberg bringing forth books. One sower heralds the -other.</p> - -<p>What is the human race since the origin of centuries? A reader. For a -long time he has spelt; he spells yet. Soon he will read.</p> - -<p>This infant, six thousand years old, has been at school. Where? In -Nature. At the beginning, having no other book, he spelt the universe. -He has had his primary teaching of the clouds, of the firmament, of -meteors, flowers, animals, forests, seasons, phenomena. The fisherman -of Ionia studies the wave; the shepherd of Chaldæa spells the star. -Then the first books came. Sublime progress! The book is vaster yet -than that grand scene, the world; for to the fact it adds the idea. If -anything is greater than God seen in the sun, it is God seen in Homer.</p> - -<p>The universe without the book is science taking its first steps; the -universe with the book is the ideal making its appearance,—therefore -immediate modification in the human phenomenon. Where there had been -only force, power reveals itself. The ideal applied to real facts is -civilization. Poetry written and sung begins its work, magnificent and -efficient deduction of the poetry only seen. A striking statement to -make,—science was dreaming; poetry acts. With the sound of the lyre, -the thinker drives away brutality.</p> - -<p>We shall return later on to this power of the book; we do not insist on -it at present; that power blazes forth. Now, many writers, few readers; -such has the world been up to this day. But a change is at hand. -Compulsory education is a recruiting of souls for light. Henceforth -every progress of the human race will be accomplished by the literary -legion. The diameter of the moral and ideal good corresponds always to -the opening of intelligences. In proportion to the worth of the brain -is the worth of the heart</p> - -<p>The book is the tool to work this transformation. A constant supply of -light, that is what humanity requires. Reading is nutriment. Thence -the importance of the school, everywhere adequate to civilization. The -human race is at last on the point of stretching open the book. The -immense human Bible, composed of all the prophets, of all the poets, of -all the philosophers, is about to shine and blaze under the focus of -this enormous luminous lens, compulsory education.</p> - -<p>Humanity reading is humanity knowing.</p> - -<p>What, then, is the meaning of that nonsense, "Poetry is gone"? We might -say, on the contrary, "Poetry is coming!" For he who says "poetry" -says "philosophy" and "light." Now, the reign of the book commences; -the school is its purveyor. Increase the reader, you increase the -book,—not, certainly, in intrinsic value; that remains what it was; -but in efficient power: it influences where it had no influence. The -souls become its subjects for good purpose. It was but beautiful; it is -useful.</p> - -<p>Who would venture to deny this? The circle of readers enlarging, the -circle of books read will increase. Now, the want of reading being a -train of powder, once lighted it will not stop; and this, combined with -the simplification of hand-labour by machinery, and with the increased -leisure of man, the body less fatigued leaving intelligence more free, -vast appetites for thought will spring up in all brains; the insatiable -thirst for knowledge and meditation will become more and more the human -preoccupation; low places will be deserted for high places,—a natural -ascent for every growing intelligence. People will quit Faublas to read -"Orestes." There they will taste greatness; and once they have tasted -it, they will never be satiated. They will devour the beautiful because -the refinement of minds augments in proportion to their force; and a -day will come when the fulness of civilization making itself manifest, -those summits, almost desert for ages, and haunted solely by the -<i>élite</i>,—Lucretius, Dante, Shakespeare,—will be crowded with souls -seeking their nourishment on the lofty peaks.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER II.</h5> - - -<p>There can be but one law; the unity of law results from the unity -of essence. Nature and art are the two sides of the same fact; -and in principle, saving the restriction which we shall indicate -very shortly, the law of one is the law of the other. The angle of -reflection equals the angle of incidence. All being equity in the -moral order and equilibrium in the material order, all is equation -in the intellectual order. The binomial theorem, that marvel fitting -everything, is included in poetry not less than in algebra. Nature -plus humanity, raised to the second power, gives art That is the -intellectual binomial theorem. Now replace this A + B by the number -special to each great artist and each great poet, and you will have, -in its multiple physiognomy and in its strict total, each of the -creations of the human mind. What more beautiful than the variety of -<i>chefs-d'œuvre</i> resulting from the unity of law. Poetry like science -has an abstract root; out of that science evokes the <i>chef-d'œuvre</i> of -metal, wood, fire, or air,—machine, ship, locomotive, æroscaph; out -of that poetry evokes the <i>chef-d'œuvre</i> of flesh and blood,—Iliad, -Canticle of Canticles, Romancero, Divine Comedy, "Macbeth." Nothing so -starts and prolongs the shock felt by the thinker as those mysterious -exfoliations of abstraction into realities in the double region, the -one positive, the other infinite, of human thought. A region double, -and nevertheless one; the infinite is a precision. The profound word -<i>number</i> is at the base of man's thought. It is, to our intelligence, -elemental; it has a harmonious as well as a mathematical signification. -Number reveals itself to art by rhythm, which is the beating of the -heart of the Infinite. In rhythm, law of order, God is felt. A verse is -a gathering like a crowd; its feet take the cadenced step of a legion. -Without number, no science; without number, no poetry. The strophe, -the epic poem, the drama, the riotous palpitation of man, the bursting -forth of love, the irradiation of the imagination, all this cloud with -its flashes, the passion,—all is lorded over by the mysterious word -number, even as geometry and arithmetic. Ajax, Hector, Hecuba, the -seven chiefs before Thebes, Œdipus, Ugolino, Messalina, Lear and -Priam, Romeo, Desdemona, Richard III., Pantagruel, the Cid, Alcestes, -all belong to it, as well as conic sections and the differential and -integral calculus. It starts from two and two make four, and ascends to -the region where the lightning sits.</p> - -<p>Yet, between art and science, let us note a radical difference. Science -may be brought to perfection; art, not.</p> - -<p>Why?</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER III.</h5> - - -<p>Among human things, and inasmuch as it is a human thing, art is a -strange exception.</p> - -<p>The beauty of everything here below lies in the power of reaching -perfection. Everything is endowed with that property. To increase, to -augment, to win strength, to march forward, to be worth more to-day -than yesterday,—that is at once glory and life. The beauty of art lies -in not being susceptible of improvement.</p> - -<p>Let us insist on these essential ideas, already touched on in some of -the preceding pages.</p> - -<p>A <i>chef-d'œuvre</i> exists once for all. The first poet who arrives, -arrives at the summit. You will ascend after him, as high, not higher. -Ah, you call yourself Dante! well; but that one calls himself Homer.</p> - -<p>Progress, goal constantly displaced, halting-place forever varying, has -a shifting horizon. Not so with the ideal.</p> - -<p>Now, progress is the motive power of science; the ideal is the -generator of art.</p> - -<p>Thus is explained why perfection is the characteristic of science, and -not of art.</p> - -<p>A savant may outlustre a savant; a poet never throws a poet into the -shade.</p> - -<p>Art progresses after its own fashion. It shifts its ground like -science; but its successive creations, containing the immutable, live, -while the admirable attempts of science, which are, and can be nothing -but combinations of the contingent, obliterate each other.</p> - -<p>The relative is in science; the positive is in art. The <i>chef-d'œuvre</i> -of to-day will be the <i>chef d'œuvre</i> of to-morrow. Does Shakespeare -interfere in any way with Sophocles? Does Molière take anything from -Plautus? Even when he borrows Amphitryon he does not take him from him. -Does Figaro blot out Sancho Panza? Does Cordelia suppress Antigone? No. -Poets do not climb over each other. The one is not the stepping-stone -of the other. They rise up alone, without any other lever than -themselves. They do not tread their equal under foot. Those who are -first in the field respect the old ones. They succeed, they do not -replace each other. The beautiful does not drive away the beautiful. -Neither wolves nor <i>chefs-d'œuvre</i> devour each other.</p> - -<p>Saint-Simon says (I quote from memory): "There has been through the -whole winter but one cry of admiration for M. de Cambray's book, when -suddenly appeared M. de Meaux's book, which devoured it." If Fénélon's -book had been Saint-Simon's, the book of Bossuet would not have -devoured it.</p> - -<p>Shakespeare is not above Dante, Molière is not above Aristophanes, -Calderon is not above Euripides, the Divine Comedy is not above -Genesis, the Romancero is not above the Odyssey, Sirius is not above -Arcturus. Sublimity is equality.</p> - -<p>The human mind is the infinite possible. The <i>chefs-d'œuvre</i>, immense -worlds, are hatched within it unceasingly, and last forever. No pushing -one against the other; no recoil. The occlusions, when there are any, -are but apparent, and quickly cease. The expanse of the boundless -admits all creations.</p> - -<p>Art, taken as art, and in itself, goes neither forward nor backward. -The transformations of poetry are but the undulations of the -Beautiful, useful to human movement. Human movement,—another side of -the question that we certainly do not overlook, and that we shall -attentively examine farther on. Art is not susceptible of intrinsic -progress. From Phidias to Rembrandt there is onward movement, but not -progress. The frescoes of the Sistine Chapel are absolutely nothing to -the metopes of the Parthenon. Retrace your steps as much as you like, -from the palace of Versailles to the castle of Heidelberg, from the -castle of Heidelberg to Notre-Dame of Paris, from Notre-Dame of Paris -to the Alhambra, from the Alhambra to St. Sophia, from St. Sophia to -the Coliseum, from the Coliseum to the Propylæons, from the Propylæons -to the Pyramids; you may recede into ages, you do not recede in art. -The Pyramids and the Iliad stand on the fore plan.</p> - -<p>Masterpieces have a level, the same for all,—the absolute.</p> - -<p>Once the absolute reached, all is said. That cannot be excelled. The -eye can bear but a certain quantity of dazzling light.</p> - -<p>Thence comes the assurance of poets. They lean on posterity with a -lofty confidence. "Exegi monumentum," says Horace. And on that occasion -he insults bronze. "Plaudite, cives," says Plautus. Corneille, at -sixty-five years, wins the love (a tradition in the Escoubleau family) -of the very young Marquise de Contades, by promising her to send her -name down to posterity:—</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;"> -"Chez cette race nouvelle,<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Où j'aurai quelque crédit,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Vous ne passerez pour belle</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Qu'autant que je l'aurai dit."</span><br /> -</p> - -<p>In the poet and in the artist there is the infinite. It is this -ingredient, the infinite, which gives to this kind of genius the -irreducible grandeur.</p> - -<p>This amount of the infinite in art is not inherent to progress. It may -have, and it certainly has, duties to fulfil toward progress, but it is -not dependent on it. It is dependent on no perfections which may result -from the future, on no transformation of language, on no death or birth -of idioms. It has within itself the immeasurable and the innumerable; -it cannot be subdued by any occurrence; it is as pure, as complete, -as sidereal, as divine in the heart of barbarism as in the heart of -civilization. It is the Beautiful, diverse according to the men of -genius, but always equal to itself. Supreme.</p> - -<p>Such is the law, scarcely known, of Art.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER IV.</h5> - - -<p>Science is different.</p> - -<p>The relative, which governs it, leaves its mark on it; and these -successive stamps of the relative, more and more resembling the real, -constitute the movable certainty of man.</p> - -<p>In science, certain things have been masterpieces which are so no more. -The hydraulic machine of Marly was a <i>chef-d'œuvre.</i></p> - -<p>Science seeks perpetual movement. She has found it; it is itself -perpetual motion.</p> - -<p>Science is continually moving in the benefit it confers.</p> - -<p>Everything stirs up in science, everything changes, everything is -constantly renewed. Everything denies, destroys, creates, replaces -everything. That which was accepted yesterday is put again under the -millstone to-day. The colossal machine, Science, never rests. It is -never satisfied; it is everlastingly thirsting for improvement, which -the absolute ignores. Vaccination is a problem, the lightning-rod is a -problem. Jenner may have erred, Franklin may have deceived himself; let -us go on seeking. This agitation is grand. Science is restless around -man; it has its own reasons for this restlessness. Science plays in -progress the part of utility. Let us worship this magnificent servant.</p> - -<p>Science makes discoveries, art composes works. Science is an -acquirement of man, science is a ladder; one savant overtops the other. -Poetry is a lofty soaring.</p> - -<p>Do you want examples? They abound. Here is one,—the first which occurs -to our mind.</p> - -<p>Jacob Metzu, scientifically Metius, discovers the telescope by chance, -as Newton did gravitation and Christopher Columbus, America. Let us -open a parenthesis: there is no chance in the creation of "Orestes" -or of "Paradise Lost." A <i>chef-d'œuvre</i> is the offspring of will. -After Metzu comes Galileo, who improves the discovery of Metzu; then -Kepler, who improves on the improvement of Galileo; then Descartes, -who, although going somewhat astray in taking a concave glass for -eyepiece instead of a convex one, fructifies the improvement of Kepler; -then the Capuchin Reita, who rectifies the reversing of objects; then -Huyghens, who makes a great step by placing the two convex glasses on -the focus of the objective; and in less than fifty years, from 1610 to -1659, during the short interval which separates the "Nuncius Sidereus" -of Galileo from the "Oculus Eliæ et Enoch" of Father Reita, behold the -original inventor, Metzu, obliterated. And it is constantly the same in -science.</p> - -<p>Vegetius was Count of Constantinople; but that is no obstacle to his -tactics being forgotten,—forgotten like the strategy of Polybius, -forgotten like the strategy of Folard. The pig's-head of the phalanx -and the pointed order of the legion have for a moment re-appeared, -two hundred years ago, in the wedge of Gustavus Adolphus; but in our -days, when there are no more pikemen as in the fourteenth century, -nor lansquenets as in the seventeenth, the ponderous triangular -attack, which was in other times the base of all tactics, is replaced -by a crowd of Zouaves charging with the bayonet. Some day, sooner -perhaps than people think, the charge with the bayonet will be itself -superseded by peace, at first European, by-and-by universal, and then -a whole science—the military science—will vanish away. For that -science, its improvement lies in its disappearance.</p> - -<p>Science goes on unceasingly erasing itself,—fruitful erasures. Who -knows now what is the "Homœomeria" of Anaximenes, which perhaps -belongs in reality to Anaxagoras? Cosmography is notably amended -since the time when this same Anaxagoras told Pericles that the -sun was almost as large as the Peloponnesus. Many planets, and -satellites of planets, have been discovered since the four stars of -Medici. Entomology has made some advance since the time when it was -asserted that the scarabee was somewhat of a god and a cousin of -the sun,—firstly, on account of the thirty toes on its feet, which -correspond to the thirty days of the solar month; secondly, because the -scarabee is without a female, like the sun; and when Saint Clement, of -Alexandria, out-bidding Plutarch, made the remark that the scarabee, -like the sun, passes six months in the earth and six months under it. -Do you wish to have the proof of this?—refer to the "Stromates," -paragraph IV. Scholasticism itself, chimerical as it is, gives up the -"Holy Meadow" of Moschus, laughs at the "Holy Ladder" of John Climacus, -and is ashamed of the century in which Saint Bernard, adding fuel to -the stake which the Viscounts of Campania wished to put out, called -Arnaud de Bresse "a man with the head of the dove and the tail of the -scorpion." The cardinal virtues are no longer the law in anthropology. -The <i>steyardes</i> of the great Arnauld are decayed. However uncertain is -meteorology, it is far from discussing now, as it did in the twelfth -century, whether a rain which saves an army from dying of thirst is -due to the Christian prayers of the Melitine legion or to the Pagan -intervention of Jupiter Pluvius. The astrologer, Marcian Posthumus, -was for Jupiter; Tertullian was for the Melitine legion. No one stood -in favour of the cloud and of the wind. Locomotion, if we go from the -antique chariot of Laïus to the railway, passing by the <i>patache</i>, the -track-boat, the <i>turgotine</i>, the diligence, and the mail, has made -some progress indeed. The time is gone by for the famous journey from -Dijon to Paris, lasting a month; and we could not understand to-day -the amazement of Henry IV. asking of Joseph Scaliger, "Is it true, -Monsieur l'Escale, that you have been from Paris to Dijon without -relieving your bowels?" Micrography is now far beyond Leuwenhoeck, -who was himself far beyond Swammerdam. Look at the point to which -spermatology and ovology are arrived to-day, and recollect Mariana -reproaching Arnaud de Villeneuve, who discovered alcohol and the oil -of turpentine, with the strange crime of having tried human generation -in a pumpkin. Grand-Jean de Fouchy, the not over-credulous life -secretary of the Academy of Sciences, a hundred years ago, would have -shaken his head if any one had told him that from the solar spectrum -one would pass to the igneous spectrum, then to the stellar spectrum, -and that by the aid of the spectrum of flames and of the spectrum of -stars, would be discovered an entirely new method of grouping the -heavenly bodies, and what might be called the chemical constellations. -Orffyreus, who destroyed his machine rather than allow the Landgrave -of Hesse to see inside it,—Orffyreus, so admired by S'Gravesande, the -author of the "Matheseos Universalis Elements,"—would be laughed at -by our mechanicians. A village veterinary surgeon would not inflict -on horses the remedy with which Galen treated the indigestions of -Marcus Aurelius. What is the opinion of the eminent specialists of -our times, Desmarres at the head of them, respecting the learned -discoveries of the seventeenth century by the Bishop of Titiopolis in -the nasal chambers? The mummies have got on; M. Gannal makes them -differently, if not better, than the Taricheutes, the Paraschistes, -and the Cholchytes made them in the days of Herodotus,—the first by -washing the body, the second by opening it, and the third by embalming -it. Five hundred years before Jesus Christ it was perfectly scientific, -when a king of Mesopotamia had a daughter possessed by the devil, to -send to Thebes for a god to cure her. It is not exactly our way to -treat epilepsy. In the same way have we given up expecting the kings of -France to cure scrofula.</p> - -<p>In 371, under Valens, son of Gratian le Cordier, the judges summoned -to their bar a table accused of sorcery. This table had an accomplice -named Hilarius. Hilarius confessed the crime. Ammianus Marcellinus has -preserved for us his confession, received by Zosimus, count and fiscal -advocate:—</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>"Construximus, magnifici judices, ad cortinæ similitudinem -Delphicæ infaustam hanc mensulam quam videtis; movimus -tandem."</p></blockquote> - -<p>Hilarius was beheaded. Who was his accuser? A learned geometrician and -magician,—the same who advised Valens to decapitate all those whose -names began with a <i>Theod.</i> To-day you may call yourself Theodore, and -even make a table turn, without the fear of a geometrician causing your -head to be cut off.</p> - -<p>One would very much astonish Solon the son of Execestidas, Zeno the -stoic, Antipater, Eudoxus, Lysis of Tarentum, Cebes, Menedemus, Plato, -Epicurus, Aristotle, and Epimenides, if one were to tell Solon that -it is not the moon which regulates the year; to Zeno, that it is -not proved that the soul is divided into eight parts; to Antipater, -that the heaven is not formed of five circles; to Eudoxus, that it -is not certain that between the Egyptians embalming the dead, the -Romans burning them, and the Pæonians throwing them into ponds, the -Pæonians are those who are right; to Lysis of Tarentum, that it is not -exact that the sight is a hot vapour; to Cebes, that it is false that -the principle of elements is the oblong triangle and the isosceles -triangle; to Menedemus, that it is not true that in order to know -the secret bad intentions of men it suffices to stick on one's head -an Arcadian hat with the twelve signs of the zodiac; to Plato, that -sea-water does not cure all diseases; to Epicurus, that matter is -divisible <i>ad infinitum</i>; to Aristotle, that the fifth element has not -an orbicular movement, for the reason that there is no fifth element; -to Epimenides, that the plague cannot be infallibly got rid of by -letting black and white sheep go at random, and sacrificing to unknown -gods hidden in the places where the sheep happen to stop.</p> - -<p>If you should try to hint to Pythagoras how improbable it is that he -should have been wounded at the siege of Troy,—he Pythagoras, by -Menelaus, two hundred and seven years before his birth,—he would reply -that the fact is incontestable, and that it is proved by the fact that -he perfectly recognizes, as having already seen it, the shield of -Menelaus suspended under the statue of Apollo at Branchides, although -entirely rotten, except the ivory face; that at the siege of Troy -his own name was Euphorbus, and that before being Euphorbus he was -Æthalides, son of Mercury, and that after having been Euphorbus, he was -Hermotimus, then Pyrrhus, fisherman at Delos, then Pythagoras; that it -is all evident and clear,—as clear as it is clear that he was present -the same day and the same minute at Metapontum and Crotona, as evident -as it is evident that by writing with blood on a mirror exposed to the -moon, one may see in the moon what he wrote on the mirror; and lastly, -that he is Pythagoras, living at Metapontum, in the Street of the -Muses, the author of the multiplication-table, and of the square of the -hypothenuse, the greatest of all mathematicians, the father of exact -science, and that you, you are an imbecile.</p> - -<p>Chrysippus of Tarsus, who lived about the hundred and thirtieth -Olympiad, forms an era in science. This philosopher, the same who -died, literally died, of laughing on seeing a donkey eat figs out -of a silver basin, had studied everything, gone into the depth of -everything, written seven hundred and five volumes, of which three -hundred and eleven were on dialectics, without having dedicated a -single one to a king,—a fact which astounds Diogenes Laërtius. He -condensed in his brain all human knowledge. His contemporaries named -him Light. Chrysippus signifying "golden horse," they said that he had -got detached from the chariot of the sun. He had taken for device "To -Me." He knew innumerable things,—among others these: The earth is -flat. The universe is round and limited. The best food for man is human -flesh. The community of women is the base of the social order. The -father ought to espouse his daughter. There is a word which kills the -serpent, a word which tames the bear, a word which arrests the flight -of eagles, and a word which drives the oxen from the beanfield. By -pronouncing from hour to hour the three names of the Egyptian Trinity, -Amon-Mouth-Khons, Andron of Argos contrived to cross the deserts of -Libya without drinking. Coffins ought not to be manufactured of cypress -wood, the sceptre of Jupiter being made of that wood. Themistoclea, -priestess of Delphi, had given birth to children, and yet had remained -a virgin. The just alone having authority to swear, it is by equity -that Jupiter has received the name of The Swearer. The phœnix of -Arabia lives in the fire. The earth is carried by the air as by a car. -The sun drinks from the ocean, and the moon from the rivers. For these -reasons the Athenians raised a statue to him on the Ceramicus, with -this inscription: "To Chrysippus, who knew everything."</p> - -<p>About the same time, Sophocles wrote "Œdipus Rex."</p> - -<p>And Aristotle believed in the story about Andron of Argos, and Plato in -the social principle of the community of women, and Gorgisippus in the -earth being flat; and Epicurus admitted as a fact that the earth was -supported by the air, and Hermodamantes that magic words mastered the -ox, the eagle, the bear, and the serpent; and Echecrates believed in -the immaculate maternity of Themistoclea, and Pythagoras in Jupiter's -sceptre made of cypress wood, and Posidonius in the ocean affording -drink to the sun and in the rivers quenching the thirst of the moon, -and Pyrrho in the phœnix existing in fire.</p> - -<p>Excepting in this particular, Pyrrho was a sceptic. He made up for his -belief in that phœnix by doubting everything else.</p> - -<p>All that long groping is science. Cuvier was mistaken yesterday, -Lagrange the day before yesterday, Leibnitz before Lagrange, -Gassendi before Leibnitz, Cardan before Gassendi, Cornelius Agrippa -before Cardan, Averroes before Agrippa, Plotinus before Averroes, -Artemidorus Daldian before Plotinus, Posidonius before Artemidorus, -Democritus before Posidonius, Empedocles before Democritus, Carneades -before Empedocles, Plato before Carneades, Pherecydes before Plato, -Pittacus before Pherecydes, Thales before Pittacus, and before Thales -Zoroaster, and before Zoroaster Sanchoniathon, and before Sanchoniathon -Hermes,—Hermes, which signifies science, as Orpheus signifies art. Oh, -wonderful marvel, this heap swarming with dreams which engender the -real! Oh, sacred errors, slow, blind, and sainted mothers of truth!</p> - -<p>Some savants, such as Kepler, Euler, Geoffroy St. Hilaire, Arago, have -brought into science nothing but light; they are rare.</p> - -<p>At times science is an obstacle to science. The savants give way to -scruples and cavil at study. Pliny is scandalized at Hipparchus; -Hipparchus, with the aid of an imperfect astrolabe, tries to count the -stars and to name them,—an impropriety toward God, says Pliny ("Ausus -rem Deo improbam").</p> - -<p>To count the stars is to commit a wickedness toward God. This -accusation, started by Pliny against Hipparchus, is continued by the -Inquisition against Campanella.</p> - -<p>Science is the asymptote of truth. It approaches unceasingly and never -touches. Nevertheless it has every greatness. It has will, precision, -enthusiasm, profound attention, penetration, shrewdness, strength, -patience by concatenation, permanent watching for phenomena, the ardour -of progress, and even flashes of bravery,—witness La Pérouse; witness -Pilastre des Rosiers; witness John Franklin; witness Victor Jacquemont; -witness Livingstone: witness Mazet; witness, at this very hour, Nadar.</p> - -<p>But science is series. It proceeds by tests heaped one above the other, -and the thick obscurity of which rises slowly to the level of truth.</p> - -<p>Nothing like it in art. Art is not successive. All art is <i>ensemble.</i></p> - -<p>Let us sum up these few pages.</p> - -<p>Hippocrates is outrun, Archimedes is outrun, Aratus is outrun, -Avicennus is outrun, Paracelsus is outrun, Nicholas Flamel is outrun, -Ambrose Paré is outrun, Vésale is outrun, Copernicus is outrun, Galileo -is outrun, Newton is outrun, Clairaut is outrun, Lavoisier is outrun, -Montgolfier is outrun, Laplace is outrun. Pindar not, Phidias not.</p> - -<p>Pascal the savant is outrun; Pascal the writer is not.</p> - -<p>We no longer teach the astronomy of Ptolemy, the geography of Strabo, -the climatology of Cleostratus, the zoology of Pliny, the algebra -of Diophantus, the medicine of Tribunus, the surgery of Ronsil, the -dialectics of Sphœrus, the myology of Steno, the uranology of -Tatius, the stenography of Trithemius, the pisciculture of Sebastien -de Medici, the arithmetic of Stifels, the geometry of Tartaglia, the -chronology of Scaliger, the meteorology of Stoffler, the anatomy of -Gassendi, the pathology of Fernel, the jurisprudence of Robert Barmne, -the agriculture of Quesnay, the hydrography of Bouguer, the nautics -of Bourdé de Villehuet, the ballistics of Gribeauval, the veterinary -practice of Garsault, the architectonics of Desgodets, the botany of -Tournefort, the scholasticism of Abailard, the politics of Plato, the -mechanics of Aristotle, the physics of Descartes, the theology of -Stillingfleet. We taught yesterday, we teach to-day, we shall teach -to-morrow, we shall teach forever, the "Sing, goddess, the anger of -Achilles."</p> - -<p>Poetry lives a potential life. The sciences may extend its sphere, not -increase its power. Homer had but four winds for his tempests; Virgil -who has twelve, Dante who has twenty-four, Milton who has thirty-two, -do not make their storms grander.</p> - -<p>And it is probable that the tempests of Orpheus were as beautiful as -those of Homer, although Orpheus had, to raise the waves, but two -winds, the Phœnicias and the Aparctias,—that is to say, the wind -of the south and the wind of the north (often confounded, let us say -in passing, with the Argestes, westerly summer wind, and the Libs, the -westerly winter wind).</p> - -<p>Some religions die away; and when they disappear, they bequeath a great -artist to other religions coming after them. Serpio makes for the Venus -Aversative of Athens a vase that the Holy Virgin accepts from Venus, -and which to-day is used in the baptistery of Notre Dame at Gaëta.</p> - -<p>Oh, eternity of art!</p> - -<p>A man, a corpse, a shade, from the depth of the past, through the long -ages, lays hold of you.</p> - -<p>I remember, when a youth, one day at Romorantin, in an old house we had -there, under a vine arbour open to air and light, I espied a book on -a plank, the only book there was in the house,—"De Rerum Natura," of -Lucretius. My professors of rhetoric had spoken very ill of it, which -was a recommendation to me. I opened the book. It was at that moment -about midday. I came on these powerful and calm lines:—</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>"Religion does not consist in turning unceasingly toward -the veiled stone, nor in approaching all the altars, nor in -throwing one's self prostrated on the ground, nor in raising -the hands before the habitations of gods, nor deluging the -temples with the blood of beasts, nor in heaping vows upon -vows, but in beholding all with a peaceful soul." <a name="FNanchor_1_11" id="FNanchor_1_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_11" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p></blockquote> - -<p>I stopped in thought; then I began to read again. Some moments -afterward I could see nothing, hear nothing; I was immersed in the -poet. At the dinner-hour I made a sign that I was not hungry; and at -night, when the sun set, and when the herds were returning to their -sheds, I was still in the same place reading the wonderful book; and -by my side my father, with his white locks, seated on the door-sill of -the low room, where his sword hung on a nail, indulging my prolonged -reading, was gently calling the sheep; and they came in turn to eat a -little salt in the hollow of his hand.</p> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_11" id="Footnote_1_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_11"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> -</p> -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Nec pietas ulla est, velatum saepe videri</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Vertier ad lapidem, atque omnes accedere ad aras.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Nec procumbere humi prostratum, et pandere palmas</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Ante deum delubra, neque aras sanguine multo</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Spargere quadrupedum, nec votis nectere vota;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Sed mage placata posse omnia mente tueri.</span><br /> -</p> -</div> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER V.</h5> - - -<p>Poetry cannot grow less. Why? Because it cannot grow greater.</p> - -<p>These words, so often used, even by the lettered, "decline," "revival," -show to what an extent the essence of art is ignored. Superficial -intellects, easily becoming pedantic, take for revival and decline some -effects of juxtaposition, some optical mirages, some exigencies of -language, some ebb and flow of ideas, all the vast movement of creation -and thought, the result of which is universal art. This movement is the -very work of the infinite passing through the human brain.</p> - -<p>Phenomena are only seen from the culminating point; and seen from the -culminating point, poetry is immovable. There is neither rise nor -decline in art. Human genius is always at its full; all the rain of -heaven adds not a drop of water to the ocean. A tide is an illusion; -water falls on one shore only to rise on another. You take oscillations -for diminutions. To say, "There will be no more poets," is to say, -"There will be no more ebbing."</p> - -<p>Poetry is element. It is irreducible, incorruptible, and refractory. -Like the sea, it says each time all it has to say; then it re-begins -with a tranquil majesty, and with the inexhaustible variety which -belongs only to unity. This diversity in what seems monotonous is the -marvel of immensity.</p> - -<p>Wave upon wave, billow after billow, foam behind foam, movement and -again movement: the Iliad is moving away, the Romancero comes; the -Bible sinks, the Koran surges up; after the aquilon Pindar comes the -hurricane Dante. Does everlasting poetry repeat itself? No. It is the -same and it is different. Same breath, another sound.</p> - -<p>Do you take the Cid for an imitation of Ajax? Do you take Charlemagne -for a plagiary of Agamemnon? "There is nothing new under the sun." -"Your novelty is the repetition of the old," etc. Oh, the strange -process of criticism! Then art is but a series of counterfeits! -Thersites has a thief, Falstaff. Orestes has an imitator, Hamlet. The -Hippogriff is the jay of Pegasus. All these poets! A crew of cheats! -They pillage each other, <i>voilà tout!</i> Inspiration and swindling -compounded. Cervantes plunders Apuleius; Alcestes cheats Timon of -Athens. The Smynthean wood is the forest of Bondy. Out of which pocket -comes the hand of Shakespeare? Out of the pocket of Æschylus.</p> - -<p>No! neither decline, nor revival, nor plagiary, nor repetition, nor -imitation: identity of heart, difference of mind,—that is all. Each -great artist (we have said so already) appropriates; stamps art anew -after his own image. Hamlet is Orestes after the effigy of Shakespeare. -Figaro is Scapin, with the effigy of Beaumarchais. Grangousier is -Silenus, after the effigy of Rabelais.</p> - -<p>Everything re-begins with the new poet, and at the same time nothing -is interrupted. Each new genius is abyss, yet there is tradition. -Tradition from abyss to abyss,—such is, in art as in the firmament, -the mystery; and men of genius communicate by their effluvia, like the -stars. What have they in common? Nothing,—everything.</p> - -<p>From that pit that is called Ezekiel to that precipice that is called -Juvenal, there is no solution of continuity for the thinker. Lean over -this anathema, or over that satire, and the same vertigo is whirling -around both.</p> - -<p>The Apocalypse reverberates on the polar sea of ice, and you have that -aurora borealis, the Niebelungen. The Edda replies to the Vedas.</p> - -<p>Hence this, our starting-point, to which we are returning: art is not -perfectible.</p> - -<p>No possible decline for poetry, no possible improvement. We lose our -time when we say, "Nescio quid majus nascitur Iliade." Art is subject -neither to diminution nor enlarging. Art has its seasons, its clouds, -its eclipses, even its stains, which are splendours, perhaps its -interpositions of sudden opacity for which it is not responsible; but -at the end it is always with the same intensity that it brings light -into the human soul. It remains the same furnace giving the same -brilliancy. Homer does not grow cold.</p> - -<p>Let us insist, moreover, on this, inasmuch as the emulation of minds is -the life of the beautiful, O poets, the first rank is ever free. Let -us remove everything which may disconcert daring minds and break their -wings: art is a species of valour. To deny that men of genius yet to -come may be peers with men of genius of the past would be to deny the -ever-working power of God.</p> - -<p>Yes, and often do we return, and shall return again, to this necessary -encouragement. Emulation is almost creation. Yes, those men of genius -that cannot be surpassed may be equalled.</p> - -<p>How?</p> - -<p>By being different.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="BOOK_IVa" id="BOOK_IVa">BOOK IV.</a></h4> - - -<h4>THE ANCIENT SHAKESPEARE.</h4> - - - -<h5>CHAPTER I.</h5> - - -<p>Æschylus is the ancient Shakespeare. Let us return to Æschylus. He is -the grandsire of the stage.</p> - -<p>This book would be incomplete if Æschylus had not his separate place in -it.</p> - -<p>A man whom we do not know how to class in his own century, so little -does he belong to it, being at the same time so much behind it and so -much in advance of it, the Marquis de Mirabeau, that queer customer as -a philanthropist, but a very rare thinker after all, had a library, -in the two comers of which he had had carved a dog and a she-goat, in -remembrance of Socrates, who swore by the dog, and of Zeno, who swore -by the goat. His library presented this peculiarity: on one side he had -Hesiod, Sophocles, Euripides, Plato, Herodotus, Thucydides, Pindar, -Theocritus, Anacreon, Theophrastus, Demosthenes, Plutarch, Cicero Titus -Livius, Seneca, Persius, Lucan, Terence, Horace, Ovid, Propertius, -Tibullus, Virgil, and underneath could be read, engraved in letters of -gold, "Amo;" on the other side, he had Æschylus alone, and underneath, -this word, "Timeo."</p> - -<p>Æschylus, in reality, is formidable. He cannot be approached without -trembling. He has magnitude and mystery. Barbarous, extravagant, -emphatic, antithetical, bombastic, absurd,—such is the judgment passed -on him by the official rhetoric of the present day. This rhetoric will -be changed. Æschylus is one of those men whom superficial criticism -scoffs at or disdains, but whom the true critic approaches with a sort -of sacred fear. The dread of genius is the first step toward taste.</p> - -<p>In the true critic there is always a poet, even when in a latent state.</p> - -<p>Whoever does not comprehend Æschylus is irremediably an ordinary mind. -Intellects may be tried on Æschylus.</p> - -<p>The Drama is a strange form of art. Its diameter measures from the -"Seven against Thebes" to the "Philosopher Without Knowing it," and -from Brid'oison to Œdipus. Thyestes forms part of it, Turcaret also. -If you wish to define it, put into your definition Electra and Marton.</p> - -<p>The drama is disconcerting. It baffles the weak. This comes from -its ubiquity. The drama has every horizon. You may then imagine its -capacity. The epic poem has been blended in the drama, and the result -is this marvellous literary novelty, which is at the same time a social -power,—the romance.</p> - -<p>Bronze, amalgamation of the epic, lyric, and dramatic,—such is the -romance. "Don Quixote" is iliad, ode, and comedy.</p> - -<p>Such is the expansion possible to the drama.</p> - -<p>The drama is the largest recipient of art. God and Satan are there; -witness Job.</p> - -<p>To look at art in the absolute point of view, the characteristic of the -epic poem is grandeur; the characteristic of the drama is immensity. -The immense differs from the great in this, that it excludes, if -it chooses, dimension; that "it is beyond measure," as the common -saying is; and that it can, without losing beauty, lose proportion. -It is harmonious as is the Milky Way. It is by this characteristic of -immensity that the drama commences, four thousand years ago, in Job, -whom we have just named again, and two thousand two hundred years -ago, in Æschylus; it is by this characteristic that it continues in -Shakespeare. What personages does Æschylus take? Volcanoes,—one of -his lost tragedies is called "Etna;" then the mountains,—Caucasus, -with Prometheus; then the sea,—the Ocean on its dragon, and the waves, -the Oceanides; then the vast East,—the Persians; then the bottomless -darkness,—the Eumenides. Æschylus proves the man by the giant. In -Shakespeare the drama approaches nearer to humanity, but remains -colossal. Macbeth seems a polar Atrides. You see that the drama opens -Nature, then opens the soul; there is no limit to this horizon. The -drama is life; and life is everything. The epic poem can be only great; -the drama must necessarily be immense.</p> - -<p>This immensity, it is Æschylus throughout, and Shakespeare throughout.</p> - -<p>The immense, in Æschylus, is a will. It is also a temperament. Æschylus -invents the buskin which makes the man taller, and the mask which -enlarges the voice. His metaphors are enormous. He calls Xerxes "the -man with the dragon eyes." The sea, which is a plain for so many -poets, is for Æschylus "a forest,"—ἄλσος. These magnifying figures, -peculiar to the highest poets, and to them only, are true; they ace -the true emanations of revery. Æschylus excites you to the very brink -of convulsion. His tragical effects are like blows struck at the -spectators. When the furies of Æschylus make their appearance, pregnant -women miscarry. Pollux, the lexicographer, affirms that there were -children taken with epilepsy and who died, on looking at those faces of -serpents and at those torches violently tossed about. That is evidently -"going beyond the aim." Even the grace of Æschylus, that strange and -sovereign grace of which we have spoken, has a Cyclopean look. It is -Polyphemus smiling. At times the smile is formidable, and seems to hide -an obscure rage. Put, by way of example, in the presence of Helen, -those two poets, Homer and Æschylus. Homer is at once conquered and -admires. His admiration is forgiveness. Æschylus is moved, but remains -grave. He calls Helen "fatal flower;" then he adds, "soul as calm as -the tranquil sea." One day Shakespeare will say, "False as the wave."</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER II.</h5> - - -<p>The theatre is a crucible of civilization. It is a place of human -communion. All its phases require to be studied. It is in the theatre -that the public soul is formed.</p> - -<p>We have just seen what the theatre was in the time of Shakespeare and -Molière. Shall we see what it was at the time of Æschylus?</p> - -<p>Let us go to that spectacle.</p> - -<p>It is no longer the cart of Thespis; it is no longer the scaffold of -Susarion; it is no longer the wooden circus of Chœrilus. Athens, -foreboding, perceiving the coming of Æschylus, Sophocles, and -Euripides, has built theatres of stone. No roof, the sky for a ceiling, -the day for lighting, a long platform of stone pierced with doors and -staircases, and secured to a wall, the actors and the chorus going -and coming on this platform, which is the logeum, and performing the -play; in the centre, where in our days is the hole of the prompter, -a small altar to Bacchus, the thymele; in front of the platform a -vast hemicycle of stone steps, five or six thousand men sitting -pell-mell,—such is the laboratory. There it is that the swarming -crowd of the Piræus come to turn Athenians; there it is that the -multitude become the public, until such day when the public will become -the people. The multitude is in reality there,—all the multitude, -including the women, the children, and the slaves, and Plato, who knits -his brows.</p> - -<p>If it is a fête-day, if we are at the Panathenæa, at the Lenæa, or at -the great Dionysia, the magistrates form part of the audience; the -proedri, the epistati, and the prytani sit in their place of honour. If -the trilogy is to be a tetralogy, if the representation is to conclude -by a piece with satyrs; if the fauns, the ægipans, the menades, the -goat-footed, and the evantes, are to come at the end to perform their -pranks; if among the comedians, almost priests, and called "the men of -Bacchus," is to appear the favourite actor who excels in the two modes -of declamation, in paralogy as well as in paracatology; if the poet -is sufficiently liked by his rivals to let the public expect to see -some celebrated men, Eupolis, Cratinus, or even Aristophanes figure -in the chorus,—"Eupolis atque Cratinus, Aristophanesque poetæ," as -Horace will one day say; if a play with women is performed, even the -old "Alcestis" of Thespis, the whole place is full; there is a crowd. -The crowd is already to Æschylus what, later on, as the prologue of the -"Bacchides" remarks, it will be to Plautus,—a swarm of men on seats, -coughing, spitting, sneezing, making grimaces and noises with the mouth -and "ore concrepario" and talking of their affairs; what a crowd is -to-day.</p> - -<p>Students scrawl with charcoal on the wall, now in token of admiration, -now in irony, some well-known verses,—for instance, the singular -iambic a Phrynichus in a single word:—</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;"> -"Archaiomelesidonophrunicherata." <a name="FNanchor_1_12" id="FNanchor_1_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_12" class="fnanchor">[1]</a><br /> -</p> - -<p>Of which the famous Alexandrine, in two words, of one of our tragic -poets of the sixteenth century was but a poor imitation:—</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;"> -"Métamorphoserait Nabuchodonosor."<br /> -</p> - -<p>There are not only the students to make a row; there are the old men. -Trust to the old men of the "Wasps" of Aristophanes for a noise. Two -schools are in presence,—on one side Thespis, Susarion, Pratinas of -Phlius, Epigenes of Sicyon, Theomis, Auleas, Chœrilus, Phrynichus, -Minos himself; on the other, young Æschylus. Æschylus is twenty-eight -years old. He gives his trilogy of the "Promethei,"—"Prometheus -Lighting Fire;" "Prometheus Bound;" "Prometheus Delivered," followed by -some piece with satyrs,—"The Argians," perhaps, of which Macrobius has -preserved a fragment for us. The ancient quarrel of youth and old age -breaks out; gray beards against black hair. They discuss, they dispute. -The old are for the old school; the young are for Æschylus. The young -defend Æschylus against Thespis, as they will defend Corneille against -Garnier.</p> - -<p>The old men are indignant. Listen to the Nestors grumbling. What -is tragedy? It is the song of the he-goat. Where is the he-goat in -this "Prometheus Bound"? Art is in its decline. And they repeat the -celebrated objection: "Quid pro Baccho?" (What is there for Bacchus?) -The graver men, the purists, do not even admit Thespis, and remind -each other that Solon had raised his stick against Thespis, calling -him "liar," for the sole reason that he had detached and isolated in -a play an episode in the life of Bacchus,—the history of Pentheus. -They hate this innovator, Æschylus. They blame all these inventions, -the end of which is to bring about a closer connection between the -drama and Nature, the use of the anapæst for the chorus, of the iambus -for the dialogue, and of the trochee for passion, in the same way -that, later on, Shakespeare was blamed for going from poetry to prose, -and the theatre of the nineteenth century for that which was termed -"broken verse." These are indeed unbearable novelties. And then, the -flute plays too high, and the tetrachord plays too low; and where is -now the ancient sacred division of tragedies into monodies, stasimes, -and exodes? Thespis never put on the stage but one speaking actor; -here is Æschylus putting two. Soon we shall have three. (Sophocles, -indeed, was to come.) Where will they stop? These are impieties. -And how does Æschylus dare to call Jupiter "the prytanus of the -Immortals?" Jupiter was a god, and he is now no more than a magistrate. -Where are we going? The thymele, the ancient altar of sacrifice, is -now a seat for the corypheus! The chorus ought to limit itself to -executing the strophe,—that is to say, the turn to the right; then -the antistrophe,—that is to say, the turn to the left; then the -epode,—that is to say, repose. But what is the meaning of the chorus -arriving in a winged chariot? What is the gad-fly that pursues Io? Why -does the Ocean come mounted on a dragon? This is show, not poetry. -Where is the ancient simplicity? This show is puerile. Your Æschylus -is but a painter, a decorator, a composer of brawls, a charlatan, a -machinist. All for the eyes, nothing for the mind. To the fire with -all those pieces, and let us content ourselves with a recitation of -the ancient pæans of Tynnichus! It is Chœrilus who, by his tetralogy -of the "Curetes," has begun the evil. What are the Curetes, if you -please? Gods forging metal. Well, then, he had simply to show working -on the stage their five families, the Dactyli finding the metal, the -Cabiri inventing the forge, the Corybantes forging the sword and -the plough-share, the Curetes making the shield, and the Telchines -chasing the jewelry. It was sufficiently interesting in that form; -but by allowing poets to blend in it the adventure of Plexippus and -Toxeus, all is lost. How can you expect society to resist such excess? -It is abominable. Æschylus ought to be summoned before justice, and -sentenced to drink hemlock like that old wretch Socrates. You will see -that after all, he will only be exiled. Everything degenerates.</p> - -<p>And the young men burst with laughter. They criticise as well, but in -another fashion. What an old brute is that Solon! It is he who has -instituted the eponymous archonship. What do they want with an archon -giving his name to the year? Hoot the eponymous archon who has lately -caused a poet to be elected and crowned by ten generals, instead of -taking ten men from the people! It is true that one of the generals -was Cimon,—an attenuating circumstance in the eyes of some, for Cimon -had beaten the Phœnicians; aggravating in the eyes of others, for -it is this very Cimon who, in order to get out of a prison for debt, -sold his sister Elphinia, and his wife in the bargain, to Callias. If -Æschylus is a bold man, and deserves to be cited before the Areopagus, -has not Phrynichus also been judged and condemned for having shown -on the stage, in the "Taking of Miletus," the Greeks beaten by the -Persians? When will poets be allowed to suit their own fancy? Hurrah -for the liberty of Pericles and down with the censure of Solon! And -then what is the law that has just been promulgated by which the -chorus is reduced from fifty to fifteen? And how are they to play the -"Danaïdes"? and won't they sneer at the line of Æschylus: "Egyptus, the -father of <i>fifty</i> sons"? The fifty will be fifteen. These magistrates -are idiots. Quarrel, uproar all round. One prefers Phrynichus, another -prefers Æschylus, another prefers wine with honey and benzoin. The -speaking-trumpets of the actors compete as well as they can with this -deafening noise, through which is heard from time to time the shrill -cry of the public vendors of phallus and the water-bearers. Such is -Athenian uproar. During that time the play is going on. It is the work -of a living man. The uproar has every reason to be. Later on, after the -death of Æschylus, or after he has been exiled, there will be silence. -It is right to be silent before a god. "Æquum est," it is Plautus who -speaks, "vos deo facere silentium."</p> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_12" id="Footnote_1_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_12"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Αρχηαιομελεσιδονοπηρυνιχηερατα.</p></div> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER III.</h5> - - -<p>A genius is an accused man. As long as Æschylus lived, his life was a -strife. His genius was contested, then he was persecuted,—a natural -progression. According to Athenian practice, his private life was -unveiled; he was traduced, slandered. A woman whom he had loved, -Planesia, sister of Chrysilla, mistress of Pericles, has dishonoured -herself in the eyes of posterity by the outrages that she publicly -inflicted on Æschylus. People ascribed to him unnatural loves; people -gave him, as well as Shakespeare, a Lord Southampton. His popularity -was knocked to pieces. Then everything was charged to him as a crime, -even his kindness to young poets, who respectfully offered to him -their first laurels. It is curious to see this reproach constantly -re-appearing. Pezay and St. Lambert repeat it in the eighteenth -century:—</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;"> -"Pourquoi, Voltaire, à ces auteurs<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Qui t'adressent des vers flatteurs,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Répondre, en toutes tes missives,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Par des louanges excessives?"</span><br /> -</p> - -<p>Æschylus, living, was a kind of public target for all haters. Young, -the ancient poets, Thespis and Phrynichus, were preferred to him. Old, -the new ones, Sophocles and Euripides, were placed above him. At last -he was brought before the Areopagus, and, according to Suidas, because -the theatre tumbled down during one of his pieces; according to Ælian, -because he had blasphemed, or, which is the same thing, had related -the mysteries of Eleusis, he was exiled. He died in exile.</p> - -<p>Then Lycurgus the orator cried, "We must raise a statue of bronze to -Æschylus."</p> - -<p>Athens had expelled the man, but raised the statue.</p> - -<p>Thus Shakespeare, through death, entered into oblivion; Æschylus into -glory.</p> - -<p>This glory, which was to have in the course of ages its phases, its -eclipses, its ebbing and rising tides, was then dazzling. Greece -remembered Salamis, where Æschylus had fought. The Areopagus itself -was ashamed. It felt that it had been ungrateful toward the man who, -in the "Orestias," had paid to that tribunal the supreme honour of -bringing before it Minerva and Apollo. Æschylus became, sacred. All -the phratries had his bust, wreathed at first with bandolets, later on -crowned with laurels. Aristophanes made him say in the "Frogs": "I am -dead, but my poetry liveth." In the great Eleusinian days, the herald -of the Areopagus blew the Tyrrhenian trumpet in honour of Æschylus. -An official copy of his ninety-seven dramas was made at the expense -of the republic, and placed under the special care of the recorder of -Athens. The actors who played his pieces were obliged to go and collate -their parts by this perfect and unique copy. Æschylus was made a second -Homer. Æschylus had, likewise, his rhapsodists, who sang his verses at -the festivals, holding in their hands a branch of myrtle.</p> - -<p>He had been right, the great and insulted man, to write on his poems -this proud and mournful dedication, "To Time."</p> - -<p>There was no more said about his blasphemy: it had caused him to die in -exile; it was well; it was enough; it was as though it had never been. -Besides, one does not know where to find that blasphemy. Palingenes -searched for it in an "Asterope," which, in our opinion, existed -only in imagination. Musgrave sought it in the "Eumenides." Musgrave -probably was right, for the "Eumenides" being a very religious piece, -the priests could not help of course choosing it to accuse him of -impiety.</p> - -<p>Let us point out a whimsical coincidence. The two sons of Æschylus, -Euphorion and Bion, are said to have re-cast the "Orestias," exactly -as, two thousand three hundred years later, Davenant, Shakespeare's -bastard, re-cast "Macbeth." But in the presence of the universal -respect for Æschylus after his death, such impudent tamperings were -impossible; and what is true of Davenant, is evidently untrue of Bion -and Euphorion.</p> - -<p>The renown of Æschylus filled the world of those days. Egypt, feeling -with reason that he was a giant and somewhat Egyptian, bestowed on him -the name of Pimander, signifying "Superior Intelligence." In Sicily, -whither he had been banished, and where they sacrificed he-goats before -his tomb at Gela, he was almost an Olympian. Later on, he was almost a -prophet for the Christians, owing to the prediction in "Prometheus," -which some people thought to apply to Jesus.</p> - -<p>Strange thing! it is this very glory which has wrecked his work.</p> - -<p>We speak here of the material wreck; for, as we have said, the mighty -name of Æschylus survives!</p> - -<p>It is indeed a drama, and an extraordinary drama, the disappearance of -those poems. A king has stupidly robbed the human mind.</p> - -<p>Let us relate this robbery.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER IV.</h5> - - -<p>Here are the facts,—the legend at least; for at such a distance, and -in such a twilight, history is legendary:—</p> - -<p>There was a king of Egypt, named Ptolemy Euergetes, brother-in-law to -Antiochus the god.</p> - -<p>Let us mention it en passant, all these people were gods:—gods Soters, -gods Euergetes, gods Epiphanes, gods Philometors, gods Philadelphi, -gods Philopators. Translation: Gods saviours, gods beneficent, gods -illustrious, gods loving their mother, gods loving their brothers, -gods loving their father. Cleopatra was goddess Soter. The priests and -priestesses of Ptolemy Soter were at Ptolemais. Ptolemy VI. was called -"God-love-Mother" (Philometor), because he hated his mother, Cleopatra. -Ptolemy IV. was "God-love-Father" (Philopator), because he had poisoned -his father. Ptolemy II. was "God-love-Brothers" (Philadelphus), because -he had killed his two brothers.</p> - -<p>Let us return to Ptolemy Euergetes.</p> - -<p>He was the son of the Philadelphus who gave golden crowns to the -Roman ambassadors,—the same to whom the pseudo-Aristeus attributes -by mistake the version of the Septuagint. This Philadelphus had much -increased the library of Alexandria, which, during his lifetime, -counted two hundred thousand volumes, and which, in the sixth century, -attained, it is said, the incredible number of seven hundred thousand -manuscripts.</p> - -<p>This stock of human knowledge, formed under the eyes of Euclid, and -by the care of Callimachus, Diodorus Cronos, Theodorus the Atheist, -Philetas, Apollonius, Aratus, the Egyptian priest Manetho, Lycophron, -and Theocritus, had for its first librarian, according to some, -Zenodotus of Ephesus, according to others, Demetrius of Phalerum, to -whom the Athenians had raised three hundred and sixty statues, which -they took one year to put up and one day to destroy. Now, this library -had no copy of Æschylus. One day the Greek Demetrius said to Euergetes, -"Pharaoh has not Æschylus,"—exactly as, later on, Leidrade, archbishop -of Lyons and librarian of Charlemagne, said to Charlemagne, "The -Emperor has not Scæva Memor."</p> - -<p>Ptolemy Euergetes, wishing to complete the work of the Philadelphus -his father, resolved to give Æschylus to the Alexandrian library. He -declared that he would cause a copy to be made. He sent an embassy to -borrow from the Athenians the unique and sacred copy under the care of -the recorder of the republic. Athens, not over-prone to lend, hesitated -and demanded a security. The king of Egypt offered fifteen silver -talents. Now, those who wish to realize the value of fifteen talents, -have but to know that it was three-fourths of the annual tribute of -ransom payed by Judea to Egypt, which was twenty talents, and weighed -so heavily on the Jewish people that the high priest Onias II., founder -of the Onion temple, decided to refuse this tribute at the risk of a -war. Athens accepted the security. The fifteen talents were deposited. -The complete copy of Æschylus was delivered to the king of Egypt. The -king gave up the fifteen talents and kept the book.</p> - -<p>Athens, indignant, had some thought of declaring war against Egypt. To -reconquer Æschylus was as good as reconquering Helen. To recommence -Troy, but this time to get back Homer, it was a fine thing. Yet, time -was taken for consideration. Ptolemy was powerful. He had forcibly -taken back from Asia the two thousand five hundred Egyptian gods -formerly carried there by Cambyses, because they were in gold and -silver. He had, besides, conquered Cilicia and Syria, and all the -country from the Euphrates to the Tigris. With Athens it was no longer -the day when she improvised a fleet of two hundred vessels against -Artaxerxes. She left Æschylus a prisoner in Egypt.</p> - -<p>A prisoner-god. This time the word <i>god</i> is in its right place. They -paid Æschylus unheard-of honours. The king refused, it is said, to let -a copy be made of it, stupidly bent on possessing a unique copy.</p> - -<p>Particular care was taken of this manuscript when the library of -Alexandria, enlarged by the library of Pergamus, which Antony gave to -Cleopatra, was transferred to the temple of Jupiter Serapis. There it -was that Saint Jerome came to read, in the Athenian text, the famous -passage in "Prometheus" prophesying Christ: "Go and tell Jupiter that -nothing shall make me name the one who is to dethrone him."</p> - -<p>Other doctors of the Church made, from the same copy, the same -verification. For, at all times, the orthodox asseverations have been -combined with what have been called the testimonies of polytheism, -and great efforts have been resorted to in order to make the -Pagans say Christian things,—<i>teste David cum Sibylla.</i> People -came to the Alexandrian library, as on a pilgrimage, to examine -"Prometheus,"—constant visits which deceived the Emperor Adrian, and -made him write to the consul Servianus: "Those who adore Serapis are -Christians: those who profess to be bishops of Christ are at the same -time devotees of Serapis."</p> - -<p>Under the Roman dominion the library of Alexandria belonged to -the emperor. Egypt was Cæsar's property. "Augustus," says Tacitus, -"seposuit Ægyptum." It was not every one who could travel there. Egypt -was closed. The Roman knights, and even the senators, could not easily -obtain admission.</p> - -<p>It was during this period that the complete copy of Æschylus could be -consulted and perused by Timocharis, Aristarchus, Athenæus, Stobæus, -Diodorus of Sicily, Macrobius, Plotinus, Jamblichus, Sopater, Clement -of Alexandria, Nepotian of Africa, Valerius Maximus, Justin the Martyr, -and even by Ælian, although Ælian left Italy but seldom.</p> - -<p>In the seventh century a man entered Alexandria. He was mounted on -a camel and seated between two sacks,—one full of figs, the other -full of corn. These two sacks were, with a wooden platter, all that -he possessed. This man never seated himself except on the ground. He -drank nothing but water and ate nothing but bread. He had conquered -half of Asia and of Africa, taken or burned thirty-six thousand towns, -villages, fortresses, and castles, destroyed four thousand Pagan or -Christian temples, built fourteen hundred mosques, conquered Izdeger, -King of Persia, and Heraclius, Emperor of the East, and he called -himself Omar. He burned the library of Alexandria.</p> - -<p>Omar is for that reason celebrated. Louis, called the Great, has not -the same celebrity, which is unjust, for he burned the Rupertine -library at Heidelberg.</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<a id="hugo05"></a> -<img src="images/hugo05.jpg" width="500" alt="" /> -<p class="capt"><i>Anne Hathaway's Cottage.</i></p> - -<p class="capt">Photogravure.—From Photograph.</p> -</div> -<hr class="r5" /> - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER V.</h5> - - -<p>Now, is not that incident a complete drama? It might be entitled -"Æschylus Lost." Recital, node, and <i>dénouement.</i> After Euergetes, -Omar. The action begins with a robber and ends with an incendiary.</p> - -<p>Euergetes (this is his excuse) robbed from enthusiasm,—an unpleasant -instance of the admiration of an imbecile.</p> - -<p>As for Omar, he is the fanatic. By the way, we must say that strange -historical rehabilitations have been attempted in our time. We do not -speak of Nero, who is the fashion; but an attempt has been made to -exonerate Omar, as well as to bring a verdict of not guilty for Pius V. -Holy Pius V. personifies the Inquisition; to canonize him was enough, -why declare him innocent? We do not lend ourselves to those attempts -at appeal in trials which have received final judgment. We have no -taste for rendering small services to fanaticism, whether it be caliph -or pope, whether it burn books or men. Omar has had many advocates. -A certain class of historians and biographical critics are readily -moved to pity for the sword,—a victim of slander, this poor sword! -Imagine then the tenderness that is felt for a scimitar! The scimitar -is the ideal sword. It is better than brute,—it is Turk. Omar, then, -has been cleaned as much as possible. A first fire in the Bruchion -district, where the Alexandrian library stood, was used as an argument -to prove how easily such accidents happen. That one was the fault of -Julius Cæsar,—another sword. Then a second argument was found in a -second fire, only partial, of the Serapeum, in order to accuse the -Christians, the demagogues of those days. If the fire at the Serapeum -had destroyed the Alexandrian library in the fourth century, Hypatia -would not have been able, in the fifth century, to give, in that same -library, those lessons in philosophy which caused her to be murdered -with broken pieces of earthen pots. About Omar we willingly believe -the Arabs. Abd-Allatif saw at Alexandria, about 1220, "the column of -pillars supporting a cupola," and said, "There stood the library that -Amrou-ben-Alas burned by permission of Omar." Abulfaradge, in 1260, -relates in his "Dynastic History" that by order of Omar they took the -books from the library, and with them heated the baths of Alexandria -for six months. According to Gibbon, there were at Alexandria four -thousand baths. Ebn-Khaldoun, in his "Historical Prolegomena," relates -another wanton destruction,—the annihilation of the library of the -Medes by Saad, Omar's lieutenant. Now, Omar having caused the burning -of the Median library in Persia by Saad, was logical in causing the -destruction of the Egyptian-Greek library in Egypt by Amrou. His -lieutenants have preserved his orders for us: "If these books contain -falsehoods, to the fire with them. If they contain truths, these truths -are in the Koran; to the fire with them." In place of the Koran, put -the Bible, Veda, Edda, Zend-Avesta, Toldos Jeschut, Talmud, Gospel, and -you have the imperturbable and universal formula of all fanaticisms. -This being said, we do not see any reason to reverse the verdict of -history; we award to the caliph the smoke of the seven hundred thousand -volumes of Alexandria, Æschylus included, and we maintain Omar in -possession of his rights as incendiary.</p> - -<p>Euergetes, through his wish for exclusive possession, and treating a -library as a seraglio, has robbed us of Æschylus. Imbecile contempt can -have the same effect as imbecile adoration. Shakespeare was very near -having the fate of Æschylus. He has had, too, his fire. Shakespeare -was so little printed, printing existed so little for him, thanks to -the silly indifference of his immediate posterity, that in 1666 there -was still but one edition of the poet of Stratford-on-Avon (Hemynge -and Condell's edition), three hundred copies of which were printed. -Shakespeare, with this obscure and pitiful edition, waiting in vain for -the public, was a sort of poor wretch ashamed to beg for glory. These -three hundred copies were nearly all stored up in London when the fire -of 1666 broke out. It burned London, and nearly burned Shakespeare. The -whole edition of Hemynge and Condell disappeared, with the exception of -forty-four copies, which had been sold in fifty years. Those forty-four -purchasers saved from death the work of Shakespeare.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER VI.</h5> - - -<p>The disappearance of Æschylus! Stretch this catastrophe hypothetically -to a few more names, and it seems as though you felt the vacuum -annihilating the human mind.</p> - -<p>The work of Æschylus was, by its extent, the greatest, certainly, of -all antiquity. By the seven plays which remain to us, we may judge what -that universe was.</p> - -<p>Let us point out what Æschylus lost is.</p> - -<p>Fourteen trilogies: the "Promethei," of which "Prometheus Bound" formed -a part; the "Seven Chiefs before Thebes," of which there remains -one piece, "The Danaid," which comprised the "Supplicants," written -in Sicily, and in which the <i>Sicelism</i> of Æschylus is traceable; -"Laius," which comprised "Œdipus;" "Athamas," which ended with the -"Isthmiasts;" "Perseus," the node of which was the "Phorcydes;" "Etna," -which had as prologue the "Etnean Women;" "Iphigenia," the <i>dénouement</i> -of which was the tragedy of the "Priestesses;" the "Ethiopid," the -titles of which are nowhere to be found; "Pentheus," in which were the -"Hydrophores;" "Teucer," which opened with the "Judgment of Arms;" -"Niobe," which commenced with the "Nurses" and ended with the "Men -of the Train;" a trilogy in honour of Achilles, the "Tragic Iliad," -composed of the "Myridons," the "Nereids," and the "Phrygians;" one -in honour of Bacchus, the "Lycurgia," composed of the "Edons," the -"Bassarides," and the "Young Men."</p> - -<p>These fourteen trilogies in themselves alone give a total of fifty-six -plays, if we consider that nearly all were tetralogies,—that is to -say, quadruple dramas,—and ended with a satyride. Thus the "Orestias" -had, as a final satyride, "Proteus," and the "Seven Chiefs before -Thebes," had the "Sphinx."</p> - -<p>Add to those fifty-six pieces a probable trilogy of the "Labdacides;" -add the tragedies,—the "Egyptians," the "Ransom of Hector," -"Memnon," undoubtedly connected with some trilogies; add all the -satyrides,—"Sisyphus the Deserter," the "Heralds," the "Lion," the -"Argians," "Amymone," "Circe," "Cercyon," "Glaucus the Mariner," -comedies in which was found the mirth of that wild genius.</p> - -<p>See all that is lost.</p> - -<p>Euergetes and Omar have robbed us of all that.</p> - -<p>It is difficult to state precisely the total number of pieces written -by Æschylus. The amount varies. The anonymous biographer speaks of -seventy-five, Suidas of ninety, Jean Deslyons of ninety-seven, Meursius -of one hundred.</p> - -<p>Meursius reckons up more than a hundred titles, but some are probably -used twice.</p> - -<p>Jean Deslyons, doctor of the Sorbonne, theologal of Senlis, author -of the "Discours ecclesiastique contre le paganisme du Roi boit," -published in the seventeenth century a work against the custom of -laying coffins one above the other in the cemeteries, in which he took -for his authority the twenty-fifth canon of the Council of Auxerre: -"Non licet mortuum super mortuum mitti." Deslyons, in a note added to -that work, now very scarce, and a copy of which was in the possession -of Charles Nodier, if our memory is faithful, quotes a passage from -the great antiquarian numismatist of Venloo, Hubert Goltzius, in -which, in reference to embalming, Goltzius mentions the "Egyptians," -of Æschylus, and "The Apotheosis of Orpheus,"—a title omitted in the -enumeration given by Meursius. Goltzius adds that "The Apotheosis of -Orpheus" was recited at the mysteries of the Lycomidians.</p> - -<p>This title, "The Apotheosis of Orpheus" opens a field for thought. -Æschylus speaking of Orpheus, the Titan measuring the giant, the god -interpreting the god, what more magnificent, and how one would long to -read that work! Dante, speaking of Virgil and calling him his master, -does not fill up this gap, because Virgil, a noble poet, but without -invention, is less than Dante; it is between equals, from genius to -genius, from sovereign to sovereign, that such homage is splendid. -Æschylus raises to Orpheus a temple of which he might occupy the altar -himself: it is grand.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER VII.</h5> - - -<p>Æschylus is incommensurate. There is in him something of India. The -wild majesty of his stature recalls those vast poems of the Ganges -which walk through art with the steps of a mammoth, and which have, -among the Iliads and the Odysseys, the appearance of hippopotami among -lions. Æschylus, a thorough Greek, is yet something else besides a -Greek. He has the Oriental immensity.</p> - -<p>Saumaise declares that he is full of Hebraisms and Syrianisms.<a name="FNanchor_1_13" id="FNanchor_1_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_13" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> -Æschylus makes the Winds carry Jupiter's throne, as the Bible makes -the Cherubim carry Jehovah's throne, as the Rig-Veda makes the Marouts -carry the throne of Indra. The winds, the cherubim, and the marouts are -the same beings,—the Breezes. Saumaise is right. The double-meaning -words so frequent in the Phœnician language, abound in Æschylus. -He plays, for instance, in reference to Jupiter and Europa, on the -Phœnician word <i>ilpha</i>, which has the double meaning of "ship" and -"bull." He loves that language of Tyre and Sidon, and at times he -borrows the strange gleams of its style; the metaphor, "Xerxes with -the dragon eyes," seems an inspiration from the Ninevite dialect, in -which the word <i>draka</i> meant at the same time dragon and clear-sighted. -He has Phœnician heresies. His heifer Io is rather the cow of Isis; -he believes, like the priests of Sidon, that the temple of Delphi was -built by Apollo with a paste made of wax and bees'-wings. In his exile -in Sicily he often drank religiously at the fountain of Arethusa, -and never did the shepherds who watched him hear him name Arethusa -otherwise than by this mysterious name, <i>Alphaga</i>,—an Assyrian word -signifying "source surrounded with willows."</p> - -<p>Æschylus is, in the whole Hellenic literature, the sole example of -the Athenian mind with a mixture of Egypt and Asia. These depths were -repugnant to the Greek intelligence. Corinth, Epidaurus, Œdepsus, -Gythium, Cheronea, which was to be the birth-place of Plutarch, Thebes, -where Pindar's house was, Mantinea, where the glory of Epaminondas -shone,—all these golden towns repudiated the Unknown, a glimpse of -which was seen like a cloud behind the Caucasus. It seemed as though -the sun was Greek. The sun, used to the Parthenon, was not made -to enter the diluvian forests of Grand Tartary under the gigantic -mouldiness of the monocotyledons under the lofty ferns of five hundred -cubits, where swarmed all the first dreadful models of Nature, and -under whose shadows existed unknown, shapeless cities, such as that -fabulous Anarodgurro, the existence of which was denied until it sent -an embassy to Claudius. Gagasmira, Sambulaca, Maliarpha, Barygaza, -Cavenpatnam Sochoth-Benoth, Theglath-Phalazar, Tana-Serim—all these -almost hideous names affrighted Greece when they came to be reported -by the adventurers on their return first by those with Jason, then by -those of Alexander. Æschylus had no such horror. He loved the Caucasus. -It was there he had made the acquaintance of Prometheus. One almost -feels in reading Æschylus that he had haunted the vast primitive -thickets now become coal mines, and that he has taken huge strides -over the roots, snake-like and half-living, of the ancient vegetable -monsters. Æschylus is a kind of behemoth among geniuses.</p> - -<p>Let us say, however, that the affinity of Greece with the East, an -affinity hated by the Greeks, was real. The letters of the Greek -alphabet are nothing else but the letters of the Phœnician alphabet -reversed. Æschylus was all the more Greek from the fact of his being a -little of a Phœnician.</p> - -<p>This powerful mind, at times apparently crude on account of his very -grandeur, has the Titanic gayety and affability. He indulges in -quibbles on the names of Prometheus, Polynices, Helen, Apollo, Ilion, -on the cock and the sun, imitating in this respect Homer, who made on -the olive that famous pun which caused Diogenes to throw away his plate -of olives and eat a tart.</p> - -<p>The father of Æschylus, Euphorion, was a disciple of Pythagoras. The -soul of Pythagoras, that philosopher half magian and half brahmin, -seemed to have entered through Euphorion into Æschylus. We have said -already that in the dark and mysterious quarrel between the celestial -and the terrestrial gods, the intestinal war of Paganism, Æschylus -was terrestrial. He belonged to the faction of the gods of earth. The -Cyclops had worked for Jupiter; he rejected them as we would reject a -corporation of workers who had turned traitors, and he preferred to -them the Cabyri. He adored Ceres. "O thou, Ceres, nurse of my soul!" -and Ceres is Demeter, is Gemeter, is the mother-earth. Hence his -veneration for Asia. It seemed then as though Earth was rather in Asia -than elsewhere. Asia is, in reality, compared with Europe, a kind of -block almost without capes and gulfs, and little penetrated by the -sea. The Minerva of Æschylus says, "Great Asia." "The sacred soil of -Asia," says the chorus of the Oceanides. In his epitaph, graven on his -tomb at Gela and written by himself, Æschylus attests "the Mede with -long hair." He makes the chorus celebrate "Susicanes and Pegastagon, -born in Egypt, and the chief of Memphis, the sacred city." Like the -Phœnicians, he gives the name of "Oncea" to Minerva. In the "Etna" he -celebrates the Sicilian Dioscuri, the Palici, those twin gods whose -worship, connected with the local worship of Vulcan, had reached Asia -through Sarepta and Tyre. He calls them "the venerable Palici." Three -of his trilogies are entitled the "Persians," the "Ethiopid," the -"Egyptians." In the geography of Æschylus, Egypt was Asia, as well as -Arabia. Prometheus says, "the dower of Arabia, the heroes of Caucasus." -Æschylus was, in geography, very peculiar. He had a Gorgonian city -Cysthenes, which he placed in Asia, as well as a river Pluto, rolling -gold, and defended by men with a single eye,—the Arimaspes. The -pirates to whom he makes allusion somewhere are, according to all -appearance, the pirates of Angria who inhabited the rock Vizindruk. He -could see distinctly beyond the Pas-du-Nil, in the mountains of Byblos, -the source of the Nile, still unknown to-day. He knew the precise -spot where Prometheus had stolen the fire, and he designated without -hesitation Mount Mosychlus in the neighbourhood of Lemnos.</p> - -<p>When this geography ceases to be fanciful, it is exact as an itinerary. -It becomes true and remains without measure. Nothing more real than -that splendid transmission of the news of the capture of Troy in one -night by bonfires lighted one after the other and corresponding from -mountain to mountain,—from Mount Ida to the promontory of Hermes, -from the promontory of Hermes to Mount Athos, from Mount Athos to -Mount Macispe, from the Macispe to the Messapius, from Mount Messapius -over the river Asopus to Mount Cytheron, from Mount Cytheron over the -morass of Gorgopis to Mount Egiplanctus, from Mount Egiplanctus to Cape -Saronica (later Spireum); from Cape Saronica to Mount Arachne, from -Mount Arachne to Argos. You may follow on the map that train of fire -announcing Agamemnon to Clytemnestra.</p> - -<p>This bewildering geography is mingled with an extraordinary tragedy, in -which you hear dialogues more than human:—</p> - -<p><i>Prometheus.</i> "Alas!"</p> - -<p><i>Mercury.</i> "This is a word that Jupiter speaks not."</p> - -<p>And where Gerontes is the Ocean. "To look a fool," says the Ocean -to Prometheus, "is the secret of the sage,"—saying as deep as the -sea. Who knows the mental reservations of the tempest? And the Power -exclaims, "There is but one free god; it is Jupiter."</p> - -<p>Æschylus has his own geography; he has also his own fauna.</p> - -<p>This fauna, which strikes as fabulous, is enigmatical rather than -chimerical. The author of these lines has discovered and authenticated -at the Hague, in a glass in the Japanese Museum, the impossible serpent -in the "Orestias," having two heads attached to its two extremities. -There are, it may be added, in that glass several specimens of -bestiality that might belong to another world, at all events strange -and not accounted for, as we are little disposed to admit, for our -part, the absurd hypothesis of the Japanese stitchers of monsters.</p> - -<p>Æschylus at moments sees Nature with simplifications stamped with a -mysterious disdain. Here the Pythagorician disappears, and the magian -shows himself. All beasts are the beast. Æschylus seems to see in the -animal kingdom only a dog. The griffin is a "dumb dog;" the eagle is a -"winged dog,"—"The winged dog of Jupiter," says Prometheus.</p> - -<p>We have just pronounced the word <i>magian.</i> In fact, Æschylus officiates -at times like Job. One would suppose that he exercises over Nature, -over human creatures, and even over gods, a kind of magianism. He -upbraids animals for their voracity. A vulture which seizes, even -while running, a doe-hare with young, and feeds on it, "eats a whole -race stopped in its flight." He calls on the dust and on the smoke; to -the one he says, "Thirsty sister of mire!" to the other, "Black sister -of fire!" He insults the dreaded bay of Salmydessus: "Hard-hearted -mother of vessels."</p> - -<p>He brings down to dwarfish proportions the Greeks, conquerors of Troy -by treachery; he shows them brought forth by an implement of war,—he -calls them "these young of a horse." As for the gods, he goes so far as -to incorporate Apollo with Jupiter. He magnificently calls Apollo "the -conscience of Jupiter."</p> - -<p>His familiar boldness is absolute, characteristic of sovereignty. He -makes the sacrificer take Iphigenia "as a she-goat" A queen who is a -faithful spouse is for him "the good house-bitch." As for Orestes, he -has seen him when quite a child, and he speaks of him as "wetting his -swaddling-cloths,"—<i>humectatio ex urina.</i> He even goes beyond this -Latin. The expression, which we do not repeat here, is to be found in -"Les Plaideurs," act III. scene 3. If you are bent upon reading the -word which we hesitate to write, apply to Racine.</p> - -<p>The whole is immense and mournful. The profound despair of fate is in -Æschylus. He shows in terrible lines "the impotence which chains down, -as in a dream, the blind living creatures." His tragedy is nothing -but the old Orphean dithyrambic suddenly launching into tears and -lamentations over man.</p> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_13" id="Footnote_1_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_13"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> "Hebraïsmis et Syrianismis."</p></div> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER VIII.</h5> - - -<p>Aristophanes loved Æschylus by that law of affinity which causes -Marivaux to love Racine tragedy and comedy made to understand each -other.</p> - -<p>The same distracted and all-powerful breath fills Æschylus and -Aristophanes. They are the two inspired spirits of the antique mask.</p> - -<p>Aristophanes, who is not yet judged, adhered to the mysteries, to -Cecropian poetry, to Eleusis, to Dodona, to the Asiatic twilight, to -the profound pensive dream. This dream, whence sprung the art of Egina, -was at the threshold of the Ionian philosophy in Thales as well as -at the threshold of the Italian philosophy in Pythagoras. It was the -sphinx guarding the entrance.</p> - -<p>This sphinx has been a muse,—the great pontifical and lascivious -muse of universal rut; and Aristophanes loved it This sphinx breathed -tragedy into Æschylus, and comedy into Aristophanes. It had something -of Cybele. The ancient sacred immodesty is in Aristophanes. At moments -he has Bacchus foaming at the lips. He came from the Dionysia, or from -the Aschosia, or from the great Trieteric Orgy, and he strikes one as a -raving maniac of the mysteries. His wild verse resembles the bassaride -hopping giddily upon bladders filled with air. Aristophanes has the -sacerdotal obscurity. He is for nudity against love. He denounces the -Phedras and Sthenobæas, and he creates Lysistrata.</p> - -<p>Let no one be deceived on this point; it was religion, and a cynic was -an austere mind. The gymnosophists were the point of intersection -between lewdness and thought The he-goat, with its philosopher's beard, -belonged to that sect That dark ecstatic and bestial Oriental spirit -lives still in the santon, the dervish, and the fakir. The corybantes -were a kind of Greek fakirs. Aristophanes, like Diogenes, belonged -to that family. Æschylus, by the Oriental bent of his nature, nearly -belonged to it himself, but he retained the tragic chastity.</p> - -<p>That mysterious naturalism was the ancient spirit of Greece. It was -called poetry and philosophy. It had under it the group of the seven -sages, one of whom, Periander, was a tyrant. Now, a certain vulgar, -mean spirit appeared with Socrates. It was sagacity clearing and -bottling up wisdom. Reduction of Thales and Pythagoras to the immediate -true. Such was the operation. A sort of filtering, which, purifying -and weakening, allowed the ancient divine doctrine to percolate, drop -by drop, and become human. These simplifications disgust fanaticism; -dogmas object to a process of sifting. To ameliorate a religion is -to lay violent hands on it. Progress offering its services to Faith, -offends it. Faith is an ignorance which professes to know, and which, -in certain cases, knows perhaps more than Science. In the face of -the lofty affirmations of believers, Socrates had an uncomfortably -sly half-smile. There is something of Voltaire in Socrates. Socrates -denounces all the Eleusinian philosophy as unintelligible and -indiscernible; and he said to Euripides that to understand Heraclitus -and the old philosophers, "one required to be a swimmer of Delos,"—in -other words, a swimmer capable of landing on an isle which was always -receding before him. That was impiety and sacrilege for the ancient -Hellenic naturalism. There was no other cause for the antipathy of -Aristophanes toward Socrates.</p> - -<p>This antipathy was quite fearful. The poet showed himself a -persecutor; he has lent assistance to the oppressors against the -oppressed, and his comedy has been guilty of crimes. Aristophanes -has remained in the eyes of posterity in the condition of a wicked -genius,—fearful punishment! But there is for him one attenuating -circumstance: he was an ardent admirer of the poet of "Prometheus," -and to admire him was to defend him. Aristophanes did what he could to -prevent his banishment; and if anything can diminish one's indignation -in reading the "Clouds," implacable on Socrates, it is that one may -see in the background the hand of Aristophanes holding the mantle of -Æschylus going into exile. Æschylus has likewise a comedy, a sister of -the broad farce of Aristophanes. We have spoken of his mirth. It goes -very far in "The Argians." It equals Aristophanes, and outstrips the -Shrove Tuesday of our Carnival. Listen: "He throws at my head a chamber -utensil. The full vase falls on my head, and is broken, odoriferous, -but in a different manner from an urnful of perfume." Who says that? -Æschylus. And in his turn Shakespeare will come and will exclaim -through Falstaff's lips: "Empty the jorden." What can you say? You have -to deal with savages.</p> - -<p>One of those savages is Molière: witness from one end to the other the -"Malade Imaginaire." Racine also is in a degree one of them: see "Les -Plaideurs," already mentioned.</p> - -<p>The Abbé Camus was a witty bishop,—a rare thing at all times; and what -is more, he was a good man. He would have deserved this reproach of -another bishop: "Bon jusqu'à la bêtise." Perhaps he was good because he -had wit He gave to the poor all the revenue of his bishopric of Belley. -He objected to canonization. It was he who said, "Il n'est chasse que -de vieux chiens et châsse que de vieux saints;" and although he did -not like the new-comers in sanctity, he was a friend of Saint François -de Sales, by whose advice he wrote novels. He relates in one of his -letters that one day François de Sales said to him: "The Church laughs -readily."</p> - -<p>Art also laughs readily. Art, which is a temple, has its laughter. -Whence comes this hilarity? All at once, in the midst of -<i>chefs-d'œuvre</i>, serious figures, a buffoon stands up and blurts -out,—a <i>chef-d'œuvre</i> also. Sancho Panza jostles Agamemnon. All the -marvels of thought are there; irony comes to complicate and complete -them. Enigma. Behold art, great art, breaking into an excess of gayety. -Its problem, matter, amuses it. It was forming it, now it deforms it. -It was shaping it for beauty, now it delights in extracting from it -ugliness. It seems to forget its responsibility. It does not forget -it, however; for suddenly, behind the grimace, philosophy makes its -appearance,—a philosophy smooth, less sidereal, more terrestrial, -quite as mysterious as the grave philosophy. The unknown which is in -man, and the unknown which is in things, face each other; and it turns -out that in the act of meeting, these two augurs, Nature and Fate, -cannot keep their serious countenance. Poetry, laden with anxieties, -befools—whom? Itself. A mirth, which is not serenity, gushes out from -the incomprehensible. An unknown, lofty, and sinister raillery flashes -its lightning through the human darkness. The shadows piled up around -us play with our soul. Formidable blossoming of the unknown. The jest -proceeds from the abyss.</p> - -<p>This alarming mirth in art is called, in olden times, Aristophanes, and -in modern times, Rabelais.</p> - -<p>When Pratinas the Dorian had invented the play with satyrs, comedy -making its appearance opposite tragedy, mirth by the side of mourning, -the two styles ready perhaps to unite, it was a matter of scandal. -Agathon, the friend of Euripides, went to Dodona to consult Loxias. -Loxias is Apollo. Loxias means crooked; and Apollo was called The -Crooked, on account of his oracles being always obscure and full of -ambiguous meanings. Agathon inquired from Apollo whether the new -style was not impious, and whether comedy existed by right as well as -tragedy. Loxias answered, "Poetry has two ears."</p> - -<p>This answer, which Aristotle declares obscure, seems to us very clear. -It sums up the entire law of art. Two problems, in fact, are presented. -In the full light the first problem,—noisy, tumultuous, stormy, -clamorous, the vast vital causeway, offering every direction to the -ten thousand feet of man; the quarrels, the uproar, the passions with -their <i>why</i>; the evil, which undergoes suffering the first, for to be -evil is worse than doing it; sorrows, griefs, tears, cries, rumours. -In the shade, the second one, mute problem, immense silence, with an -inexpressible and terrible meaning. And poetry has two ears,—one which -listens to life, the other which listens to death.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER IX.</h5> - - -<p>The power that Greece had to evolve her luminous effluvia is -prodigious,—even like that to-day which we see in France. Greece did -not colonize without civilizing,—an example that more than one modern -nation might follow. To buy and sell is not everything.</p> - -<p>Tyre bought and sold; Berytus bought and sold; Sidon bought and sold; -Sarepta bought and sold. Where are these cities? Athens taught; Athens -is still at this hour one of the capitals of human thought.</p> - -<p>The grass is growing on the six steps of the tribune where spoke -Demosthenes; the Ceramicus is a ravine half-choked with the marble-dust -which was once the palace of Cecrops; the Odeon of Herod Atticus at -the foot of the Acropolis is now but a ruin on which falls, at certain -hours, the imperfect shadow of the Parthenon; the temple of Theseus -belongs to the swallows; the goats browse on the Pnyx. Still the Greek -spirit is living; still Greece is queen; still Greece is goddess. A -commercial firm passes away; a school remains.</p> - -<p>It is curious to say to one's self to-day that twenty-two centuries -ago small towns, isolated and scattered on the outskirts of the known -world, possessed, all of them, theatres. In point of civilization, -Greece began always by the construction of an academy, of a portico, -or of a logeum. Whoever could have seen, nearly at the same period, -rising at a short distance one from the other, in Umbria, the Gallic -town of Sens (now Sinigaglia), and, near Vesuvius, the Hellenic city -Parthenopea (at present Naples), would have recognized Gaul by the big -stone standing all red with blood, and Greece by the theatre.</p> - -<p>This civilization by poetry and art had such a mighty force that -sometimes it subdued even war. The Sicilians—Plutarch relates it in -speaking of Nicias—gave liberty to the Greek prisoners who sang the -verses of Euripides.</p> - -<p>Let us point out some very little known and very singular facts.</p> - -<p>The Messenian colony, Zancle, in Sicily; the Corinthian colony, -Corcyra, distinct from the Corcyra of the Absyrtides Islands; the -Cycladian colony, Cyrene, in Libya; the three Phocean colonies, Helea -in Lucania, Palania in Corsica, Marseilles in France, had theatres. -The gad-fly having pursued Io all along the Adriatic Gulf, the Ionian -Sea reached as far as the harbour of Venetus, and Tregeste (now -Trieste) had a theatre. A theatre at Salpe, in Apulia; a theatre at -Squillacium, in Calabria; a theatre at Thernus, in Livadia; a theatre -at Lysimachia, founded by Lysimachus, Alexander's lieutenant; a theatre -at Scapta-Hyla, where Thucydides had gold-mines; a theatre at Byzia, -where Theseus had lived; a theatre in Chaonia, at Buthrotum, where -performed those equilibrists from Mount Chimera whom Apuleius admired -on the Pœcile; a theatre in Pannonia, at Bude, where the Metanastes -were,—that is to say, the "Transplanted." Many of these colonies, -situated afar, were much exposed. In the Isle of Sardinia, which the -Greeks named Ichnusa, on account of its resemblance to the sole of -the foot, Calaris (now Cagliari) was, so to speak, under the Punic -clutch; Cibalis, in Mysia, had to fear the Triballi; Aspalathon, the -Illyrians; Tomis, the future resting-place of Ovid, the Scordisci; -Miletus, in Anatolia, the Massagetes; Denia, in Spain, the Cantabrians; -Salmydessus, the Molossians; Carsina, the Tauro-Scythians; Gelonus, -the Arymphæans of Sarmatia who lived on acorns; Apollonia, the -Hamaxobians, wandering in their chariots; Abdera, the birth-place -of Democritus, the Thracians, men tattooed all over,—all these -towns, by the side of their citadel, had a theatre. Why? Because the -theatre keeps alight the flame of love for the fatherland. Having the -barbarians at their gates, it was important that they should remain -Greeks. The national spirit is the strongest of bulwarks.</p> - -<p>The Greek drama was profoundly lyrical. It was often less a tragedy -than a dithyramb. It had occasionally strophes as powerful as swords. -It rushed on the scene, wearing the helmet, and it was an ode armed -<i>cap-à-pie.</i> We know what a Marseillaise can do.</p> - -<p>Many of these theatres were in granite, some in brick. The theatre -of Apollonia was in marble. The theatre of Salmydessus, which could -be moved to the Doric place or to the Epiphanian place, was a vast -scaffolding rolling on cylinders, after the fashion of those wooden -towers which they thrust against the stone towers of besieged towns.</p> - -<p>And what poet did they play by preference at these theatres? Æschylus.</p> - -<p>Æschylus was for Greece the autochthonic poet. He was more than Greek, -he was Pelasgian. He was born at Eleusis; and not only was he Eleusian, -but Eleusiatic,—that is to say, a believer. It is the same shade as -English and Anglican. The Asiatic element, the grandiose deformation -of this genius, increased respect for it; for people said that the -great Dionysus, that Bacchus, common to the West and the East, came in -Æschylus's dreams to dictate to him his tragedies. You find again here -the "familiar spirit" of Shakespeare.</p> - -<p>Æschylus, Eupatride, and Eginetic struck the Greeks as more Greek -than themselves. In those times of code and dogma mingled together, -to be sacerdotal was an elevated way of being national. Fifty-two -of his tragedies had been crowned. On leaving the theatre after the -performance of the plays of Æschylus, the men would strike the shields -hung at the doors of the temples, crying, "Fatherland, fatherland!" Let -us add here, that to be hieratic did not hinder him from being demotic. -Æschylus loved the people, and the people adored him. There are two -sides to greatness: majesty is one, familiarity is the other. Æschylus -was familiar with the turbulent and generous mob of Athens. He often -gave to that mob a fine part in his plays. See, in the "Orestias," -how tenderly the chorus, which is the people, receive Cassandra! The -queen uses the slave roughly, and scares him whom the chorus tries to -reassure and soothe. Æschylus had introduced the people in his grandest -works,—in "Pentheus," by the tragedy of "The Woolcombers;" in "Niobe," -by the tragedy of the "Nurses;" in "Athamas," by the tragedy of the -"Net-drawers;" in "Iphigenia," by the tragedy of the "Bed-Makers." -It was on the side of the people that he turned the balance in that -mysterious drama, "The Weighing of Souls."<a name="FNanchor_1_14" id="FNanchor_1_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_14" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Therefore had he been -chosen to preserve the sacred fire.</p> - -<p>In all the Greek colonies they played the "Orestias" and "The -Persians." Æschylus being present, the fatherland was no longer absent. -The magistrates ordered these almost religious representations. The -gigantic Æschylean theatre was intrusted with watching over the infancy -of the colonies. It enclosed them in the Greek spirit, it guaranteed -them from the influence of bad neighbours, and from all temptations -of being led astray. It preserved them from foreign contact, it -maintained them within the Hellenic circle. It was there as a warning. -All those young offsprings of Greece were, so to speak, placed under -the care of Æschylus.</p> - -<p>In India they readily give the children into the charge of elephants. -These enormous specimens of goodness watch over the little things. -The whole group of flaxen heads sing, laugh, and play under the shade -of the trees. The habitation is at some distance. The mother is not -with them. She is at home, busy with her domestic cares; she pays -no attention to her children. Yet, joyful as they are, they are in -danger. These beautiful trees are treacherous; they hide under their -thickness thorns, claws, and teeth. There the cactus bristles up, the -lynx roams, the viper crawls. The children must not wander away; beyond -a certain limit they would be lost. Nevertheless, they run about, call -to one another, pull and entice one another away, some of them scarcely -stuttering, and quite unsteady on their little feet. At times one of -them goes too far. Then a formidable trunk is stretched out, seizes the -little one, and gently carries him home.</p> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_14" id="Footnote_1_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_14"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The Psychostasia.</p></div> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER X.</h5> - - -<p>There were some copies more or less complete of Æschylus.</p> - -<p>Besides the copies in the colonies, which were limited to a small -number of pieces, it is certain that partial copies of the original at -Athens were made by the Alexandrian critics and scholars, who have left -us some fragments,—among others the comic fragment of "The Argians," -the Bacchic fragment of the "Edons," the lines cited by Stobæus, and -even the probably apocryphal verses given by Justin the Martyr.</p> - -<p>These copies, buried but perhaps not destroyed, have buoyed up the -persistent hope of searchers,—notably of Le Clerc, who published -in Holland, in 1709, the discovered fragments of Menander. Pierre -Pelhestre, of Rouen, the man who had read everything, for which the -worthy Archbishop Péréfixe scolded him, affirmed that the greater -part of the poems of Æschylus would be found in the libraries of the -monasteries of Mount Athos, just as the five books of the "Annals" of -Tacitus had been discovered in the Convent of Corwey in Germany, and -the "Institutions" of Quintilian, in an old tower of the Abbey of St. -Gall.</p> - -<p>A tradition, not undisputed, would have it that Euergetes II. had -returned to Athens, not the original copy of Æschylus, but a copy, -leaving the fifteen talents as a compensation.</p> - -<p>Independently of the story about Euergetes and Omar that we have -related, and which, very true in the whole, is perhaps legendary -in more than one particular, the loss of so many beautiful works of -antiquity is but too well explained by the small number of copies. -Egypt, in particular, transcribed everything on papyrus. The papyrus, -being very dear, became very rare. People were reduced to write on -pottery. To break a vase was to destroy a book. About the time when -Jesus Christ was painted on the walls at Rome, with the hoofs of an -ass, and this inscription, "The God of the Christians, hoof of an ass," -in the third century, to make ten manuscripts of Tacitus yearly,—or, -as we should say to-day, to strike off ten copies of his works,—a -Cæsar must needs call himself Tacitus, and believe Tacitus to be his -uncle. And yet Tacitus is nearly lost. Of the twenty-eight years of his -"History of the Cæsars,"—from the year 69 to the year 96,—we have -but one complete year, 69, and a fragment of the year 70. Euergetes -prohibited the exportation of papyrus, which caused parchment to be -invented. The price of papyrus was so high that Firmius the Cyclop, -manufacturer of papyrus in 270, made by his trade enough money to raise -armies, wage war against Aurelian, and declare himself emperor.</p> - -<p>Gutenberg is a redeemer. These submersions of the works of the mind, -inevitable before the invention of printing, are impossible at present. -Printing is the discovery of the inexhaustible. It is perpetual motion -found for social science. From time to time a despot seeks to stop or -to slacken it, and he is worn away by the friction. The impossibility -to shackle thought, the impossibility to stop progress, the book -imperishable,—such is the result of printing. Before printing, -civilization was subject to losses of substance; the essential signs -of progress, proceeding from such a philosopher or such a poet, were -all at once lacking: a page was suddenly torn from the human book. -To disinherit humanity of all the great bequests of genius, the -stupidity of a copyist or the caprice of a tyrant sufficed. No such -danger in the present day. Henceforth the unseizable reigns. No one -could serve a writ upon thought and take up its body. It has no longer -a body. The manuscript was the body of the masterpiece; the manuscript -was perishable, and carried off the soul,—the work. The work, made -a printed sheet, is delivered. It is now only a soul. Kill now this -immortal! Thanks to Gutenberg, the copy is no longer exhaustible. -Every copy is a root, and has in itself its own possible regeneration -in thousands of editions; the unit is pregnant with the innumerable. -This prodigy has saved universal intelligence. Gutenberg, in the -fifteenth century, emerges from the awful obscurity, bringing out -of the darkness that ransomed captive, the human mind. Gutenberg is -forever the auxiliary of life; he is the permanent fellow-workman in -the great work of civilization. Nothing is done without him. He has -marked the transition of the man-slave to the free-man. Try and deprive -civilization of him, you become Egypt. The decrease of the liberty of -the press is enough to diminish the stature of a people.</p> - -<p>One of the great features in this deliverance of man by printing, -is, let us insist on it, the indefinite preservation of poets and -philosophers. Gutenberg is like the second father of the creations of -the mind. Before him, yes, it was possible for a <i>chef-d'œuvre</i> to die.</p> - -<p>Greece and Rome have left—mournful thing to say—vast ruins of books. -A whole facade of the human mind half crumbled, that is antiquity. Here -the ruin of an epic poem, there a tragedy dismantled; great verses -effaced, buried, and disfigured; pediments of ideas almost entirely -fallen; geniuses truncated like columns; palaces of thought without -ceiling and door; bleached bones of poems; a death's-head which has -been a strophe; immortality in ruins. Fearful nightmare! Oblivion, -dark spider, hangs its web between the drama of Æschylus and the -history of Tacitus.</p> - -<p>Where is Æschylus? In pieces everywhere. Æschylus is scattered in -twenty texts. His ruins must be sought in innumerable different places. -Athenæus gives the dedication "To Time," Macrobius the fragment of -"Etna" and the homage to the Palic gods, Pausanias the epitaph. The -biographer is anonymous; Goltzius and Meursius give the titles of the -lost pieces.</p> - -<p>We know from Cicero, in the "Disputationes Tusculanæ," that Æschylus -was a Pythagorean; from Herodotus, that he fought bravely at Marathon; -from Diodorus of Sicily, that his brother Amynias behaved valiantly at -Platæa; from Justin, that his brother Cynegyrus was heroic at Salamis. -We know by the didascalies that "The Persians" were represented under -the archon Meno, "The Seven Chiefs before Thebes" under the archon -Theagenides, and the "Orestias" under the archon Philocles; we know -from Aristotle that Æschylus was the first to venture to make two -personages speak at a time on the stage; from Plato that the slaves -were present at his plays; from Horace, that he invented the mask -and the buskin; from Pollux, that pregnant women miscarried at the -appearance of his Furies; from Philostratus, that he abridged the -monodies; from Suidas, that his theatre tumbled down under the pressure -of the crowd; from Ælian, that he committed blasphemy; from Plutarch, -that he was exiled; from Valerius Maximus, that an eagle killed him by -letting a tortoise fall on his head; from Quintilian, that his plays -were re-cast; from Fabricius, that his sons are accused of this crime -of laze-paternity; from the Arundel marbles, the date of his birth, the -date of his death, and his age,—sixty-nine years.</p> - -<p>Now, take away from the drama the East and replace it by the North; -take away Greece and put England, take away India and put Germany, that -other immense mother, <i>All-men</i> (Allemagne); take away Pericles and -put Elizabeth; take away the Parthenon and put the Tower of London; -take away the plebs and put the mob; take away the fatality and put -the melancholy; take away the gorgon and put the witch; take away -the eagle and put the cloud; take away the sun and put on the heath, -shuddering in the evening wind, the livid light of the moon, and you -have Shakespeare.</p> - -<p>Given the dynasty of men of genius, the originality of each being -absolutely reserved, the poet of the Carlovingian formation being the -natural successor of the poet of the Jupiterian formation and the -gothic mist of the antique mystery, Shakespeare is Æschylus II.</p> - -<p>There remains the right of the French Revolution, creator of the third -world, to be represented in Art. Art is an immense gaping chasm, ready -to receive all that is within possibility.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="BOOK_Va" id="BOOK_Va">BOOK V.</a></h4> - - -<h4>THE SOULS.</h4> - - - -<h5>CHAPTER I.</h5> - - -<p>The production of souls is the secret of the unfathomable depth. The -innate, what a shadow! What is that concentration of the unknown -which takes place in the darkness, and whence abruptly bursts forth -that light, a genius? What is the law of these events, O Love? The -human heart does its work on earth, and that moves the great deep. -What is that incomprehensible meeting of material sublimation and -moral sublimation in the atom, indivisible if looked at from life, -incorruptible if looked at from death? The atom, what a marvel! No -dimension, no extent, nor height, nor width, nor thickness, independent -of every possible measure, and yet, everything in this nothing! -For algebra, the geometrical point. For philosophy, a soul. As a -geometrical point, the basis of science; as a soul, the basis of faith. -Such is the atom. Two urns, the sexes, imbibe life from the infinite; -and the spilling of one into the other produces the being. This is the -normal condition of all, animal as well as man. But the man more than -man, whence comes he?</p> - -<p>The Supreme Intelligence, which here below is the great man, what is -the power which invokes it, incorporates it, and reduces it to a human -state? What part do the flesh and the blood take in this prodigy? -Why do certain terrestrial sparks seek certain celestial molecules? -Where do they plunge, those sparks? Where do they go? How do they -manage? What is this gift of man to set fire to the unknown? This -mine, the infinite, this extraction, a genius, what more wonderful! -Whence does that spring up? Why, at a given moment, this one and not -that one? Here, as everywhere, the incalculable law of affinities -appears and escapes. One gets a glimpse, but sees not. O forger of the -unfathomable, where art thou?</p> - -<p>Qualities the most diverse, the most complex, the most opposed in -appearance, enter into the composition of souls. The contraries do -not exclude each other,—far from that; they complete each other. -More than one prophet contains a scholiast; more than one magian -is a philologist. Inspiration knows its own trade. Every poet is a -critic: witness that excellent piece of criticism on the theatre -that Shakespeare puts in the mouth of Hamlet. A visionary mind may -be at the same time precise,—like Dante, who writes a book on -rhetoric, and a grammar. A precise mind may be at the same time -visionary,—like Newton, who comments on the Apocalypse; like Leibnitz, -who demonstrates, <i>nova inventa logica</i>, the Holy Trinity. Dante knows -the distinction between the three sorts of words, <i>parola piana, -parola sdrucciola, parola tronca</i>; he knows that the <i>piana</i> gives a -trochee, the <i>sdrucciola</i> a dactyl, and the <i>tronca</i> an iambus. Newton -is perfectly sure that the Pope is the Antichrist. Dante combines and -calculates; Newton dreams.</p> - -<p>No law is to be grasped in that obscurity. No system is possible. The -currents of adhesions and of cohesions cross each other pell-mell. At -times one imagines that he detects the phenomenon of the transmission -of the idea, and fancies that he distinctly sees a hand taking the -light from him who is departing, to give it to him who arrives. 1642, -for example, is a strange year. Galileo dies, Newton is born, in that -year. Good. It is a thread; try and tie it, it breaks at once. Here is -a disappearance: on the 23d of April, 1616, on the same day, almost -at the same minute, Shakespeare and Cervantes die. Why are these two -flames extinguished at the same moment? No apparent logic. A whirlwind -in the night.</p> - -<p>Enigmas constantly. Why does Commodus proceed from Marcus Aurelius?</p> - -<p>These problems beset in the desert Jerome, that man of the caves, -that Isaiah of the New Testament He interrupted his deep thoughts on -eternity, and his attention to the trumpet of the archangel, in order -to meditate on the soul of some Pagan in whom he felt interested. He -calculated the age of Persius, connecting that research with some -obscure chance of possible salvation for that poet, dear to the -cenobite on account of his strictness; and nothing is so surprising as -to see this wild thinker, half naked on his straw, like Job, dispute on -this question, so frivolous in appearance, of the birth of a man, with -Rufinus and Theophilus of Alexandria,—Rufinus observing to him that -he is mistaken in his calculations, and that Persius having been born -in December under the consulship of Fabius Persicus and Vitellius, and -having died in November, under the consulship of Publius Marius and -Asinius Gallus, these periods do not correspond rigorously with the -year II. of the two hundred and third Olympiad, and the year II. of -the two hundred and tenth, the dates fixed by Jerome. The mystery thus -attracts deep thinkers.</p> - -<p>These calculations, almost wild, of Jerome, or other similar ones, are -made by more than one dreamer. Never to find a stop, to pass from one -spiral to another like Archimedes, and from one zone to another like -Alighieri, to fall, while fluttering about in the circular well, is the -eternal lot of the dreamer. He strikes against the hard wall on which -the pale ray glides. Sometimes certainty comes to him as an obstacle, -and sometimes clearness as a fear. He keeps on his way. He is the bird -under the vault. It is terrible. No matter, the dreamer goes on.</p> - -<p>To dream is to think here and there,—<i>passim.</i> What means the birth -of Euripides during that battle of Salamis where Sophocles, a youth, -prays, and where Æschylus, in his manhood, fights? What means the -birth of Alexander in the night which saw the burning of the temple -of Ephesus? What tie between that temple and that man? Is it the -conquering and radiant spirit of Europe which, destroyed under the -form of the <i>chef-d'œuvre</i>, revives under the form of the hero? For -do not forget that Ctesiphon is the Greek architect of the temple of -Ephesus. We have mentioned just now the simultaneous disappearance of -Shakespeare and Cervantes. Here is another case not less surprising. -The day when Diogenes died at Corinth, Alexander died at Babylon. -These two cynics, the one of the tub, the other of the sword, depart -together; and Diogenes, longing to enjoy the immense unknown radiance, -will again say to Alexander: "Stand out of my sunlight!"</p> - -<p>What is the meaning of certain harmonies in the myths represented by -divine men? What is this analogy between Hercules and Jesus which -struck the Fathers of the Church, which made Sorel indignant, but -edified Duperron, and which makes Alcides a kind of material mirror -of Christ? Is there not a community of souls, and, unknown to them, a -communication between the Greek legislator and the Hebrew legislator, -creating at the same moment, without knowing each other, and -without their suspecting the existence of each other, the first the -Areopagus, the second the Sanhedrim? Strange resemblance between the -jubilee of Moses and the jubilee of Lycurgus! What are these double -paternities,—paternity of the body, paternity of the soul, like that -of David for Solomon? Giddy heights, steeps, precipices.</p> - -<p>He who looks too long into this sacred horror feels immensity racking -his brain. What does the sounding-line give you when thrown into -that mystery? What do you see? Conjectures quiver, doctrines shake, -hypotheses float; all the human philosophy vacillates before the -mournful blast rising from that chasm.</p> - -<p>The expanse of the possible is, so to speak, under your eyes. The -dream that you have in yourself, you discover it beyond yourself. All -is indistinct. Confused white shadows are moving. Are they souls? One -catches, in the depths below, a glimpse of vague archangels passing -along; will they be men at some future day? Holding your head between -your hands, you strive to see and to know. You are at the window -looking into the unknown. On all sides the deep layers of effects -and causes, heaped one behind the other, wrap you with mist. The man -who meditates not lives in blindness; the man who meditates lives in -darkness. The choice between darkness and darkness, that is all we -have. In that darkness, which is up to the present time nearly all our -science, experience gropes, observation lies in wait, supposition moves -about If you gaze at it very often, you become <i>vates.</i> Vast religious -meditation takes possession of you.</p> - -<p>Every man has in him his Patmos. He is free to go or not to go on that -frightful promontory of thought from which darkness is seen. If he -goes not, he remains in the common life, with the common conscience, -with the common virtue, with the common faith, or with the common -doubt; and it is well. For the inward peace it is evidently the best. -If he ascends to that peak, he is caught. The profound waves of the -marvellous have appeared to him. No one sees with impunity that -ocean. Henceforth he will be the thinker enlarged, magnified, but -floating,—that is to say, the dreamer. He will partake of the poet and -of the prophet A certain quantity of him now belongs to darkness. The -boundless enters into his life, into his conscience, into his virtue, -into his philosophy. He becomes extraordinary in the eyes of other men, -for his measure is different from theirs. He has duties which they have -not. He lives in a sort of vague prayer, attaching himself, strangely -enough, to an indefinite certainty which he calls God. He distinguishes -in that twilight enough of the anterior life and enough of the ulterior -life to seize these two ends of the dark thread, and with them to tie -up his soul again. Who has drunk will drink; who has dreamed will -dream. He will not give up that alluring abyss, that sounding of the -fathomless, that indifference for the world and for life, that entrance -into the forbidden, that effort to handle the impalpable and to see the -invisible; he returns to them, he leans and bends over them; he takes -one step forward, then two,—and thus it is that one penetrates into -the impenetrable; and thus it is that one plunges into the boundless -chasms of infinite meditation.</p> - -<p>He who walks down them is a Kant; he who falls down them is a -Swedenborg.</p> - -<p>To keep one's own free will in that dilatation, is to be great. But, -however great one may be, the problems cannot be solved. One may ply -the fathomless with questions. Nothing more. As for the answers, they -are there, but mingled with shadows. The huge lineaments of truth seem -at times to appear for one moment, then go back, and are lost in the -absolute. Of all those questions, that among them all which besets the -intellect, that among them all which rends the heart, is the question -of the soul.</p> - -<p>Does the soul exist? Question the first. The persistency of the self is -the thirst of man. Without the persistent self, all creation is for him -but an immense <i>cui bono?</i> Listen to the astounding affirmation which -bursts forth from all consciences. The whole sum of God that there is -on the earth, within all men, condenses itself in a single cry,—to -affirm the soul. And then, question the second: Are there great souls?</p> - -<p>It seems impossible to doubt it. Why not great minds in humanity as -well as great trees in the forest, as well as great peaks in the -horizon? The great souls are seen as well as the great mountains. Then, -they exist. But here the interrogation presses further; interrogation -is anxiety: Whence come they? What are they? Who are they? Are these -atoms more divine than others? This atom, for instance, which shall -be endowed with irradiation here below, this one which shall be -Thales, this one Æschylus, this one Plato, this one Ezekiel, this one -Macchabœus, this one Apollonius of Tyana, this one Tertullian, this -one Epictetus, this one Marcus Aurelius, this one Nestorius, this one -Pelagius, this one Gama, this one Copernicus, this one Jean Huss, -this one Descartes, this one Vincent de Paul, this one Piranesi, this -one Washington, this one Beethoven, this one Garibaldi, this one John -Brown,—all these atoms, souls having a sublime function among men, -have they seen other worlds, and do they bring on earth the essence -of those worlds? The master souls, the leading intellects, who sends -them? Who determines their appearance? Who is judge of the actual -want of humanity? Who chooses the souls? Who musters the atoms? Who -ordains the departures? Who premeditates the arrivals? Does the atom -conjunction, the atom universal, the atom binder of worlds, exist? Is -not that the great soul?</p> - -<p>To complete one universe by the other; to pour upon the too little of -the one the too much of the other; to increase here liberty, there -science, there the ideal; to communicate to the inferiors patterns of -superior beauty; to exchange the effluvia; to bring the central fire to -the planet; to harmonize the various worlds of the same system; to urge -forward those which are behind; to mix the creations,—does not that -mysterious function exist?</p> - -<p>Is it not fulfilled, unknown to them, by certain elects, who, -momentarily and during their earthly transit, partly ignore themselves? -Is not the function of such or such atom, divine motive power called -soul, to give movement to a solar man among earthly men? Since the -floral atom exists, why should not the stellary atom exist? That -solar man will be, in turn, the savant, the seer, the calculator, the -thaumaturge, the navigator, the architect, the magian, the legislator, -the philosopher, the prophet, the hero, the poet. The life of humanity -will move onward through them. The volutation of civilization will be -their task; that team of minds will drag the huge chariot. One being -unyoked, the others will start again. Each completion of a century -will be one stage on the journey. Never any solution of continuity. -That which one mind will begin, another mind will finish, soldering -phenomenon to phenomenon, sometimes without suspecting that welding -process. To each revolution in the fact will correspond an adequate -revolution in the ideas, and reciprocally. The horizon will not be -allowed to extend to the right without stretching as much to the -left. Men the most diverse, the most opposite, sometimes will adhere -by unexpected parts; and in these adherences will burst forth the -imperious logic of progress. Orpheus, Bouddha, Confucius, Zoroaster, -Pythagoras, Moses, Manou, Mahomet, with many more, will be the links -of the same chain. A Gutenberg discovering the method for the sowing -of civilization, and the means for the ubiquity of thought, will -be followed by a Christopher Columbus discovering a new field. A -Christopher Columbus discovering a world will be followed by a Luther -discovering a liberty. After Luther, innovator in the dogma, will come -Shakespeare, innovator in art. One genius completes the other.</p> - -<p>But not in the same region. The astronomer follows the philosopher; the -legislator is the executor of the poet's wishes; the fighting liberator -lends his assistance to the thinking liberator; the poet corroborates -the statesman. Newton is the appendix to Bacon; Danton originates from -Diderot; Milton confirms Cromwell; Byron supports Botzaris; Æschylus, -before him, has assisted Miltiades. The work is mysterious even for -the very men who perform it. Some are conscious of it, others not. At -great distances, at intervals of centuries, the correlations manifest -themselves, wonderful. The modification in human manners, begun by the -religious revealer, will be completed by the philosophical reasoner, -so that Voltaire follows up Jesus. Their work agrees and coincides. If -this concordance rested with them, both would resist, perhaps,—the -one, the divine man, indignant in his martyrdom, the other, the human -man, humiliated in his irony; but that is so. Some one who is very high -orders it in that way.</p> - -<p>Yes, let us meditate on these vast obscurities. The characteristic of -revery is to gaze at darkness so intently that it brings light out of -it.</p> - -<p>Humanity developing itself from the interior to the exterior is, -properly speaking, civilization. Human intelligence becomes radiance, -and step by step, wins, conquers, and humanizes matter. Sublime -domestication! This labour has phases; and each of these phases, -marking an age in progress, is opened or closed by one of those beings -called geniuses. These missionary spirits, these legates of God, do -they not carry in them a sort of partial solution of this question, -so abstruse, of free will? The apostolate, being an act of will, is -related on one side to liberty, and on the other, being a mission, is -related by predestination to fatality. The voluntary necessary. Such is -the Messiah; such is Genius.</p> - -<p>Now let us return,—for all questions which append to mystery form -the circle, and one cannot get out of it,—let us return to our -starting-point, and to our first question: What is a genius? Is it not -perchance a cosmic soul, a soul imbued with a ray from the unknown? In -what depths are such souls prepared? How long do they wait? What medium -do they traverse? What is the germination which precedes the hatching? -What is the mystery of the ante-birth? Where was this atom? It seems as -if it was the point of intersection of all the forces. How come all the -powers to converge and tie themselves into an indivisible unity in this -sovereign intelligence? Who has bred this eagle? The incubation of the -fathomless on genius, what an enigma! These lofty souls, momentarily -belonging to earth, have they not seen something else? Is it for that -reason that they arrive here with so many intuitions? Some of them seem -full of the dream of a previous world. Is it thence that comes to them -the scared wildness that they sometimes have? Is it that which inspires -them with wonderful words? Is it that which gives them strange -agitations? Is it thence that they derive the hallucination which makes -them, so to speak, see and touch imaginary things and beings? Moses -had his fiery thicket; Socrates his familiar demon; Mahomet his dove; -Luther his goblin playing with his pen, and to whom he would say, "Be -still, there!" Pascal his gaping chasm that he hid with a screen.</p> - -<p>Many of those majestic souls are evidently conscious of a mission. They -act at times as if they knew. They seem to have a confused certainty. -They have it. They have it for the mysterious <i>ensemble.</i> They have it -also for the detail. Jean Huss dying predicts Luther. He exclaims, "You -burn the goose [Huss], but the swan will come." Who sends these souls? -Who creates them? What is the law of their formation anterior and -superior to life? Who provides them with force, patience, fecundation, -will, passion? From what urn of goodness have they drawn sternness? -In what region of the lightnings have they culled love? Each of these -great newly arrived souls renews philosophy or art or science or -poetry, and re-makes these worlds after its own image. They are as -though impregnated with creation. At times a truth emanates from these -souls which lights up the questions on which it falls. Some of these -souls are like a star from which light would drip. From what wonderful -source, then, do they proceed, that they are all different? Not one -originates from the other, and yet they have this in common, that they -all bring the infinite. Incommensurable and insoluble questions. That -does not stop the good pedants and the clever men from bridling up, -and saying, while pointing with the finger at the sidereal group of -geniuses on the heights of civilization: "You will have no more men -such as those. They cannot be matched. There are no more of them. We -declare to you that the earth has exhausted its contingent of master -spirits. Now for decadence and general closing. We must make up our -minds to it We shall have no more men of genius."—Ah, you have seen -the bottom of the unfathomable, you!</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER II</h5> - - -<p>No, Thou art not worn out. Thou hast not before thee the bourn, the -limit, the term, the frontier. Thou has nothing to bound thee, as -winter bounds summer, as lassitude the birds, as the precipice the -torrent, as the cliff the ocean, as the tomb man. Thou art boundless. -The "Thou shalt not go farther," is spoken <i>by</i> thee, and it is not -said <i>of</i> thee. No, thou windest not a skein which diminishes, and the -thread of which breaks; no, thou stoppest not short; no, thy quantity -decreaseth not; no, thy thickness becometh not thinner; no, thy faculty -miscarrieth not; no, it is not true that they begin to perceive in -thy all-powerfulness that transparence which announces the end, and -to get a glimpse behind thee of another thing besides thee. Another -thing! And what then? The obstacle. The obstacle to whom? The obstacle -to creation, the obstacle to the everlasting, the obstacle to the -necessary! What a dream!</p> - -<p>When thou hearest men say, "This is as far as God advances,—do not -ask more of him; he starts from here, and stops there. In Homer, in -Aristotle, in Newton, he has given you all that he had; leave him at -rest now,—he is empty. God does not begin again; he could do that -once, he cannot do it twice; he has spent himself altogether in this -man,—enough of God does not remain to make a similar man;"—when -thou hearest them say such things, if thou wast a man like them, thou -wouldst smile in thy terrible depth; but thou art not in a terrible -depth, and being goodness, thou hast no smile. The smile is but a -passing wrinkle, unknown to the absolute.</p> - -<p>Thou struck by a powerless chill; thou to leave off; thou to break -down; thou to say "Halt!" Never. Thou shouldst be compelled to take -breath after having created a man! No; whoever that man may be, -thou art God. If this weak swarm of living beings, in presence of -the unknown, must feel wonder and fear at something, it is not at -the possibility of seeing the germ-seed dry up and the power of -procreation become sterile; it is, O God, at the eternal unleashing of -miracles. The hurricane of miracles blows perpetually. Day and night -the phenomena surge around us on all sides, and, not less marvellous, -without disturbing the majestic tranquillity of the Being. This tumult -is harmony.</p> - -<p>The huge concentric waves of universal life are boundless. The -starry sky that we study is but a partial apparition. We steal from -the network of the Being but some links. The complication of the -phenomenon, of which a glimpse can be caught, beyond our senses, only -by contemplation and ecstasy, makes the mind giddy. The thinker who -reaches so far, is, for other men, only a visionary. The necessary -entanglement of the perceptible and of the imperceptible strikes -the philosopher with stupor. This plenitude is required by thy -all-powerfulness, which does not admit any blank. The permeation of -universes into universes makes part of thy infinitude. Here we extend -the word universe to an order of facts that no astronomer can reach. -In the Cosmos that the vision spies, and which escapes our organs of -flesh, the spheres enter into the spheres without deforming each other, -the density of creations being different; so that, according to every -appearance, with our world is amalgamated, in some inexplicable way, -another world invisible to us, as we are invisible to it.</p> - -<p>And thou, centre and place of all things, as though thou, the Being, -couldst be exhausted! that the absolute serenities could, at certain -moments, fear the want of means on the part of the Infinite! that there -would come an hour when thou couldst no longer supply humanity with the -lights which it requires! that mechanically unwearied, thou couldst be -worn out in the intellectual and moral order! that it would be proper -to say, "God is extinguished on this side!" No! no! no! O Father!</p> - -<p>Phidias created does not stop you from making Michael Angelo. Michael -Angelo completed, there still remains to thee the material for -Rembrandt. A Dante does not tire thee. Thou art no more exhausted -by a Homer than by a star. The auroras by the side of auroras, the -indefinite renewing of meteors, the worlds above the worlds, the -wonderful passage of these incandescent stars called comets, the -geniuses and again the geniuses, Orpheus, then Moses, then Isaiah, then -Æschylus, then Lucretius, then Tacitus, then Juvenal, then Cervantes -and Rabelais, then Shakespeare, then Molière, then Voltaire, those who -have been and those who will be,—that does not weary thee. Swarm of -constellations! there is room in thy immensity.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="PART_II-BOOK_Ib" id="PART_II-BOOK_Ib">PART II.-BOOK I.</a></h4> - - -<h4>SHAKESPEARE.—HIS GENIUS.</h4> - - - -<h5>CHAPTER I.</h5> - - -<p>"Shakespeare," says Forbes, "had neither the tragic talent nor the -comic talent. His tragedy is artificial, and his comedy is but -instinctive." Johnson confirms the verdict: "His tragedy is the result -of industry, and his comedy the result of instinct." After Forbes and -Johnson had contested his claim to drama, Green contested his claim -to originality. Shakespeare is "a plagiarist;" Shakespeare is "a -copyist;" Shakespeare "has invented nothing;" he is "a crow adorned -with the plumes of others;" he pilfers Æschylus, Boccaccio, Bandello, -Holinshed, Belleforest, Benoist de St. Maur; he pilfers Layamon, Robert -of Gloucester, Robert of Wace, Peter of Langtoft, Robert Manning, -John de Mandeville, Sackville, Spenser; he steals the "Arcadia" of -Sidney; he steals the anonymous work called the "True Chronicle of King -Leir;" he steals from Rowley in "The Troublesome Reign of King John" -(1591), the character of the bastard Faulconbridge. Shakespeare pilfers -Thomas Greene; Shakespeare pilfers Dekker and Chettle. Hamlet is not -his;—Othello is not his; Timon of Athens is not his, nothing is -his. As for Green, Shakespeare is for him not only "a blower of blank -verses," a "shakescene," a <i>Johannes factotum</i> (allusion to his former -position as call-boy and supernumerary); Shakespeare is a wild beast. -Crow no longer suffices; Shakespeare is promoted to a tiger. Here is -the text: "Tyger's heart wrapt in a player's hyde."<a name="FNanchor_1_15" id="FNanchor_1_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_15" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> - -<p>Thomas Rhymer judges "Othello:"—</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>"The moral of this story is certainly very instructive. It -is a warning to good housewives to look after their linen."</p></blockquote> - -<p>Then the same Rhymer condescends to give up joking, and to take -Shakespeare in earnest:—</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>"What edifying and useful impression can the audience -receive from such poetry? To what can this poetry serve, -unless it is to mislead our good sense, to throw our -thoughts into disorder, to trouble our brain, to pervert our -instincts, to crack our imaginations, to corrupt our taste, -and to fill our heads with vanity, confusion, clatter, and -nonsense?"</p></blockquote> - -<p>This was printed eighty years after the death of Shakespeare, in 1693. -All the critics and all the connoisseurs were of one opinion.</p> - -<p>Here are some of the reproaches unanimously addressed to Shakespeare: -Conceits, play on words, puns; improbability, extravagance, absurdity; -obscenity; puerility; bombast; emphasis, exaggeration; false glitter, -pathos; far-fetched ideas, affected style; abuse of contrast and -metaphor; subtilty; immorality; writing for the mob; pandering to the -<i>canaille</i>; delighting in the horrible; want of grace; want of charm; -overreaching his aim; having too much wit; having no wit; overdoing his -works.</p> - -<p>"This Shakespeare is a coarse and savage mind," says Lord Shaftesbury. -Dryden adds, "Shakespeare is unintelligible." Mrs. Lennox gives -Shakespeare this slap: "This poet alters historical truth." A German -critic of 1680, Bentheim, feels himself disarmed, because, says he, -"Shakespeare is a mind full of drollery." Ben Jonson, Shakespeare's -protégé, relates this. "I recollect that the comedians mentioned to the -honour of Shakespeare, that in his writings he never erased a line. -I answered, 'Would to God he had erased a thousand.'"<a name="FNanchor_2_16" id="FNanchor_2_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_16" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> This wish, -moreover, was granted by the worthy publishers of 1623,—Blount and -Jaggard. They struck out of Hamlet alone two hundred lines; they cut -out two hundred and twenty lines of "King Lear." Garrick played at -Drury Lane only the "King Lear" of Nahum Tate. Listen again to Rhymer: -"'Othello' is a sanguinary farce without wit." Johnson adds, "'Julius -Cæsar,' a cold tragedy, and lacking the power to move the public." -"I think," says Warburton, in a letter to the Dean of St. Asaph, -"that Swift has much more wit than Shakespeare, and that the comic in -Shakespeare, altogether low as it is, is very inferior to the comic -in Shadwell." As for the witches in "Macbeth," "Nothing equals," says -that critic of the seventeenth century, Forbes, repeated by a critic of -the nineteenth, "the absurdity of such a spectacle." Samuel Foote, the -author of the "Young Hypocrite," makes this declaration: "The comic in -Shakespeare is too heavy, and does not make one laugh. It is buffoonery -without wit." At last, Pope, in 1725, finds a reason why Shakespeare -wrote his dramas, and exclaims, "One must eat!"</p> - -<p>After these words of Pope, one cannot understand with what object -Voltaire, aghast about Shakespeare, writes: "Shakespeare whom the -English take for a Sophocles, flourished about the time of Lopez -[Lope, if you please, Voltaire] de Vega." Voltaire adds, "You are not -ignorant that in 'Hamlet' the diggers prepare a grave, drinking, -singing ballads, and cracking over the heads of dead people the jokes -usual to men of their profession." And, concluding, he qualifies thus -the whole scene,—"these follies." He characterizes Shakespeare's -pieces by this word, "monstrous farces called tragedies," and completes -the judgment by declaring that Shakespeare "has ruined the English -theatre."</p> - -<p>Marmontel comes to see Voltaire at Ferney. Voltaire is in bed, holding -a book in his hand; all at once he rises up, throws the book away, -stretches his thin legs across the bed, and cries to Marmontel, "Your -Shakespeare is a barbarian!" "He is not my Shakespeare at all," replies -Marmontel.</p> - -<p>Shakespeare was an occasion for Voltaire to show his skill at the -target Voltaire missed him rarely. Voltaire shot at Shakespeare as -the peasants shoot at the goose. It was Voltaire who had commenced -in France the attack against that barbarian. He nicknamed him the -Saint Christopher of Tragic Poets. He said to Madame de Graffigny, -"Shakespeare pour rire." He said to Cardinal de Bernis, "Compose pretty -verses; deliver us, monsignor, from plagues, witches, the school of -the King of Prussia, the Bull Unigenitus, the constitutionalists and -the convulsionists, and from that ninny Shakespeare! <i>Libera nos, -Domine</i>," The attitude of Fréron toward Voltaire has, in the eyes of -posterity, as an attenuating circumstance, the attitude of Voltaire -toward Shakespeare. Nevertheless, throughout the eighteenth century, -Voltaire gives the law. The moment that Voltaire sneers at Shakespeare, -Englishmen of wit, such as my Lord Marshal follow suit. Johnson -confesses the ignorance and vulgarity of Shakespeare. Frederic II. -comes in for a word also. He writes to Voltaire <i>à propos</i> of "Julius -Cæsar:" "You have done well in re-casting, according to principles, -the crude piece of that Englishman." Behold, then, where Shakespeare -is in the last century. Voltaire insults him. La Harpe protects him: -"Shakespeare himself, coarse as he was, was not without reading and -knowledge."<a name="FNanchor_3_17" id="FNanchor_3_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_17" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> - -<p>In our days, the class of critics of whom we have just seen some -samples, have not lost courage. Coleridge speaks of "Measure for -Measure:" "a painful comedy," he hints. "Revolting," says Mr. Knight. -"Disgusting," responds Mr. Hunter.</p> - -<p>In 1804 the author of one of those idiotic <i>Biographies Universelles</i>, -in which they contrive to relate the history of Calas without -pronouncing the name of Voltaire, and to which governments, knowing -what they are about, grant readily their patronage and subsidies, a -certain Delandine feels himself called upon to be a judge, and to -pass sentence on Shakespeare; and after having said that "Shakespear, -which is pronounced Chekspir," had, in his youth, "stolen the deer of -a nobleman," he adds: "Nature had brought together in the head of this -poet the highest greatness we can imagine, with the lowest coarseness, -without wit." Lately, we read the following words, written a short time -ago by an eminent dolt who is living: "Second-rate authors and inferior -poets, such as Shakespeare," etc.</p> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_15" id="Footnote_1_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_15"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> A Groatsworth of Wit. 1592.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2_16" id="Footnote_2_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_16"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Works, vol IX. p. 175, Gifford's edition.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_3_17" id="Footnote_3_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_17"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> La Harpe: <i>Introduction au Cours de Littérature.</i></p></div> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER II.</h5> - - -<p>Poet must at the same time, and necessarily, be a historian and a -philosopher. Herodotus and Thales are included in Homer. Shakespeare, -likewise, is this triple man. He is, besides, the painter, and what -a painter!—the colossal painter. The poet in reality does more than -relate; he exhibits. Poets have in them a reflector, observation, and -a condenser, emotion; thence those grand luminous spectres which burst -out from their brain, and which go on blazing forever on the gloomy -human wall. These phantoms have life. To exist as much as Achilles, -would be the ambition of Alexander. Shakespeare has tragedy, comedy, -fairy-land, hymn, farce, grand divine laughter, terror and horror, and, -to say all in one word, the drama. He touches the two poles. He belongs -to Olympus and to the travelling booth. No possibility fails him.</p> - -<p>When he grasps you, you are subdued. Do not expect from him any pity. -His cruelty is pathetic. He shows you a mother,—Constance, mother -of Arthur; and when he has brought you to that point of tenderness -that your heart is as her heart, he kills her child. He goes farther -in horror even than history, which is difficult. He does not content -himself with killing Rutland and driving York to despair; he dips in -the blood of the son the handkerchief with which he wipes the eyes of -the father. He causes elegy to be choked by the drama, Desdemona by -Othello. No attenuation in anguish. Genius is inexorable. It has its -law and follows it. The mind also has its inclined planes, and these -slopes determine its direction. Shakespeare glides toward the terrible. -Shakespeare, Æschylus, Dante, are great streams of human emotion -pouring from the depth of their cave the um of tears.</p> - -<p>The poet is only limited by his aim; he considers nothing but the idea -to be worked out; he does not recognize any other sovereignty, any -other necessity but the idea; for, art emanating from the absolute, -in art, as in the absolute, the end justifies the means. This is, it -may be said parenthetically, one of those deviations from the ordinary -terrestrial law which make lofty criticism muse and reflect, and -which reveal to it the mysterious side of art. In art, above all, is -visible the <i>quid divinum.</i> The poet moves in his work as providence -in its own; he excites, astounds, strikes, then exalts or depresses, -often in inverse ratio to what you expected, diving into your soul -through surprise. Now, consider. Art has, like the Infinite, a Because -superior to all the <i>Why's.</i> Go and ask the wherefore of a tempest -from the ocean, that great lyric. What seems to you odious or absurd -has an inner reason for existing. Ask of Job why he scrapes the pus on -his ulcer with a bit of glass, and of Dante why he sews with a thread -of iron the eyelids of the larvas in purgatory, making the stitches -trickle with fearful tears!<a name="FNanchor_1_18" id="FNanchor_1_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_18" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Job continues to clean his sore with his -broken glass and wipes it on his dungheap, and Dante goes on his way. -The same with Shakespeare.</p> - -<p>His sovereign horrors reign, and force themselves upon you. He mingles -with them, when he chooses, the charm, that august charm of the -powerful, as superior to feeble sweetness, to slender attraction, to -the charm of Ovid or of Tibullus, as the Venus of Milo to the Venus -de Medici. The things of the unknown; the unfathomable metaphysical -problems; the enigmas of the soul and of Nature, which is also a -soul; the far-off intuitions of the eventual included in destiny; -the amalgams of thought and event,—can be translated into delicate -figures, and fill poetry with mysterious and exquisite types, the more -delightful that they are rather sorrowful, somewhat invisible, and at -the same time very real, anxious concerning the shadow which is behind -them, and yet trying to please you. Profound grace does exist.</p> - -<p>Prettiness combined with greatness is possible (it is found in Homer; -Astyanax is a type of it); but the profound grace of which we speak -is something more than this epic delicacy. It is linked to a certain -amount of agitation, and means the infinite without expressing it. It -is a kind of light and shade radiance. The modern men of genius alone -have that depth in the smile which shows elegance and depth at the same -time.</p> - -<p>Shakespeare possesses this grace, which is the very opposite to the -unhealthy grace, although it resembles it, emanating as it does -likewise from the grave.</p> - -<p>Sorrow,—the great sorrow of the drama, which is nothing else but human -constitution carried into art,—envelops this grace and this horror.</p> - -<p>Hamlet, doubt, is at the centre of his work; and at the two -extremities, love,—Romeo and Othello, all the heart. There is light -in the folds of the shroud of Juliet; yet nothing but darkness in the -winding-sheet of Ophelia disdained and of Desdemona suspected. These -two innocents, to whom love has broken faith, cannot be consoled. -Desdemona sings the song of the willow under which the water bears -Ophelia away. They are sisters without knowing each other, and kindred -souls, although each has her separate drama. The willow trembles over -them both. In the mysterious chant of the calumniated who is about to -die, floats the dishevelled shadow of the drowned one.</p> - -<p>Shakespeare in philosophy goes at times deeper than Homer. Beyond Priam -there is Lear; to weep at ingratitude is worse than weeping at death. -Homer meets envy and strikes it with the sceptre; Shakespeare gives the -sceptre to the envious, and out of Thersites creates Richard III. Envy -is exposed in its nakedness all the better for being clothed in purple; -its reason for existing is then visibly altogether in itself. Envy on -the throne, what more striking!</p> - -<p>Deformity in the person of the tyrant is not enough for this -philosopher; he must have it also in the shape of the valet, and he -creates Falstaff. The dynasty of common-sense, inaugurated in Panurge, -continued in Sancho Panza, goes wrong and miscarries in Falstaff. The -rock which this wisdom splits upon is, in reality, lowness. Sancho -Panza, in combination with the ass, is embodied with ignorance. -Falstaff-glutton, poltroon, savage, obscene, human face and stomach, -with the lower parts of the brute—walks on the four feet of turpitude; -Falstaff is the centaur man and pig.</p> - -<p>Shakespeare is, above all, an imagination. Now,—and this is a -truth to which we have already alluded, and which is well known to -thinkers,—imagination is depth. No faculty of the mind goes and sinks -deeper than imagination; it is the great diver. Science, reaching the -lowest depths, meets imagination. In conic sections, in logarithms, -in the differential and integral calculus, in the calculation of -probabilities, in the infinitesimal calculus, in the calculations -of sonorous waves, in the application of algebra to geometry, the -imagination is the co-efficient of calculation, and mathematics -becomes poetry. I have no faith in the science of stupid learned men.</p> - -<p>The poet philosophizes because he imagines. That is why Shakespeare -has that sovereign management of reality which enables him to have his -way with it; and his very whims are varieties of the true,—varieties -which deserve meditation. Does not destiny resemble a constant whim? -Nothing more incoherent in appearance, nothing less connected, nothing -worse as deduction. Why crown this monster, John? Why kill that child, -Arthur? Why have Joan of Arc burned? Why Monk triumphant? Why Louis XV. -happy? Why Louis XVI. punished? Let the logic of God pass. It is from -that logic that the fancy of the poet is drawn. Comedy bursts forth -in the midst of tears; the sob rises out of laughter; figures mingle -and clash; massive forms, nearly animals, pass clumsily; larvas—women -perhaps, perhaps smoke—float about; souls, libellulas of darkness, -flies of the twilight, quiver among all these black reeds that we call -passions and events. At one pole Lady Macbeth, at the other Titania. A -colossal thought, and an immense caprice.</p> - -<p>What are the "Tempest," "Troilus and Cressida," "The Two Gentlemen of -Verona," "The Merry Wives of Windsor," the "Midsummer Night's Dream," -"The Winter's Tale?" They are fancy,—arabesque work. The arabesque -in art is the same phenomenon as vegetation in Nature. The arabesque -grows, increases, knots, exfoliates, multiplies, becomes green, blooms, -branches, and creeps around every dream. The arabesque is endless; it -has a strange power of extension and aggrandizement; it fills horizons, -and opens up others; it intercepts the luminous deeds by innumerable -intersections; and, if you mix the human figure with these entangled -branches, the <i>ensemble</i> makes you giddy; it is striking. Behind -the arabesque, and through its openings, all philosophy can be seen; -vegetation lives; man becomes pantheist; a combination of infinite -takes place in the finite; and before such work, in which are found -the impossible and the true, the human soul trembles with an emotion -obscure and yet supreme.</p> - -<p>For all this, the edifice ought not to be overrun by vegetation, nor -the drama by arabesque.</p> - -<p>One of the characteristics of genius is the singular union of faculties -the most distant. To draw an astragal like Ariosto, then to dive into -souls like Pascal,—such is the poet Man's inner conscience belongs -to Shakespeare; he surprises you with it constantly. He extracts -from conscience every unforeseen contingence that it contains. Few -poets surpass him in this psychical research. Many of the strangest -peculiarities of the human mind are indicated by him. He skilfully -makes us feel the simplicity of the metaphysical fact under the -complication of the dramatic fact. That which the human creature does -not acknowledge inwardly, the obscure thing that he begins by fearing -and ends by desiring,—such is the point of junction and the strange -place of meeting for the heart of virgins and the heart of murderers; -for the soul of Juliet and the soul of Macbeth. The innocent fears and -longs for love, just as the wicked one for ambition. Perilous kisses -given on the sly to the phantom, smiling here, fierce there.</p> - -<p>To all these prodigalities, analysis, synthesis, creation in flesh -and bone, revery, fancy, science, metaphysics, add history,—here the -history of historians, there the history of the tale; specimens of -everything,—of the traitor, from Macbeth the assassin of his guest, -up to Coriolanus, the assassin of his country; of the despot, from -the intellectual tyrant Cæsar, to the bestial tyrant Henry VIII.; of -the carnivorous, from the lion down to the usurer. One may say to -Shylock: "Well bitten, Jew!" And, in the background of this wonderful -drama, on the desert heath, in the twilight, in order to promise crowns -to murderers, three black outlines appear, in which Hesiod, through -the vista of ages, perhaps recognizes the Parcæ. Inordinate force, -exquisite charm, epic ferocity, pity, creative faculty, gayety (that -lofty gayety unintelligible to narrow understandings), sarcasm (the -cutting lash for the wicked), star-like greatness, microscopic tenuity, -boundless poetry, which has a zenith and a nadir; the <i>ensemble</i> vast, -the detail profound,—nothing is wanting in this mind. One feels, on -approaching the work of this man, the powerful wind which would burst -forth from the opening of a whole world. The radiancy of genius on -every side,—that is Shakespeare. "Totus in antithesi," says Jonathan -Forbes.</p> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_18" id="Footnote_1_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_18"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> -</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>And as the sun does not reach the blind, so the spirits of -which I was just speaking have not the gift of heavenly -light. An iron wire pierces and fastens together their -eyelids, as it is done to the wild hawk in order to tame it.</p> -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 50%;">—<i>Purgatory, chap. XIII.</i></span> -</p></blockquote></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER III.</h5> - - -<p>One of the characteristics which distinguish men of genius from -ordinary minds, is that they have a double reflection,—just as the -carbuncle, according to Jerome Cardan, differs from crystal and glass -in having a double refraction.</p> - -<p>Genius and carbuncle, double reflection, double refraction; the same -phenomenon in the moral and in the physical order.</p> - -<p>Does this diamond of diamonds, the carbuncle, exist? It is a question. -Alchemy says yes, chemistry searches. As for genius, it exists. It is -sufficient to read one verse of Æschylus or Juvenal in order to find -this carbuncle of the human brain.</p> - -<p>This phenomenon of double reflection raises to the highest power in -men of genius what rhetoricians call antithesis,—that is to say, the -sovereign faculty of seeing the two sides of things.</p> - -<p>I dislike Ovid, that proscribed coward, that licker of bloody hands, -that fawning cur of exile, that far-away flatterer disdained by the -tyrant, and I hate the <i>bel esprit</i> of which Ovid is full; but I do not -confound that <i>bel esprit</i> with the powerful antithesis of Shakespeare.</p> - -<p>Complete minds having everything, Shakespeare contains Gongora as -Michael Angelo contains Bernini; and there are on that subject -ready-made sentences: "Michael Angelo is a mannerist, Shakespeare is -antithetical." These are the formulas of the school; but it is the -great question of contrast in art seen by the small side.</p> - -<p><i>Totus in antithesi.</i> Shakespeare is all in antithesis. Certainly, it -is not very just to see all the man, and such a man, in one of his -qualities. But, this reserve being made, let us observe that this -saying, <i>Totus in antithesi</i>, which pretends to be a criticism, might -be simply a statement. Shakespeare, in fact, has deserved, like all -truly great poets, this praise,—that he is like creation. What is -creation? Good and evil, joy and sorrow, man and woman, roar and song, -eagle and vulture, lightning and ray, bee and drone, mountain and -valley, love and hate, the medal and its reverse, beauty and ugliness, -star and swine, high and low. Nature is the Eternal bifronted. And this -antithesis, whence comes the antiphrasis, is found in all the habits -of man; it is in fable, in history, in philosophy, in language. Are -you the Furies, they call you Eumenides,—the Charming; do you kill -your brothers, you are called Philadelphus; kill your father, they -will call you Philopator; be a great general, they will call you <i>le -petit caporal.</i> The antithesis of Shakespeare is universal antithesis, -always and everywhere; it is the ubiquity of antinomy,—life and -death, cold and heat, just and unjust, angel and demon, heaven and -earth, flower and lightning, melody and harmony, spirit and flesh, -high and low, ocean and envy, foam and slaver, hurricane and whistle, -self and not-self, the objective and subjective, marvel and miracle, -type and monster, soul and shadow. It is from this sombre palpable -difference, from this endless ebb and flow, from this perpetual yes -and no, from this irreducible opposition, from this immense antagonism -ever existing, that Rembrandt obtains his chiaroscuro and Piranesi his -vertiginous height.</p> - -<p>Before removing this antithesis from art, commence by removing it from -Nature.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER IV.</h5> - - -<p>"He is reserved and discreet. You may trust him; he will take no -advantage. He has, above all, a very rare quality,—he is sober."</p> - -<p>What is this? A recommendation for a domestic? No. It is the panegyric -of a writer. A certain school, called "serious," has in our days -hoisted this programme of poetry: sobriety. It seems that the only -question should be to preserve literature from indigestion. Formerly, -the motto was "Prolificness and power;" to-day it is "tisane." You -are in the resplendent garden of the Muses, where those divine -blossoms of the mind that the Greeks called "tropes" blow in riot and -luxuriance on every branch; everywhere the ideal image, everywhere the -thought-flower, everywhere fruits, metaphors, golden apples, perfumes, -colours, rays, strophes, wonders; touch nothing, be discreet. Whoever -gathers nothing there proves himself a true poet. Be of the temperance -society. A good critical book is a treatise on the dangers of drinking. -Do you wish to compose the Iliad, put yourself on diet Ah, thou mayest -well open thy eyes wide, old Rabelais!</p> - -<p>Lyricism is heady, the beautiful intoxicates, greatness inebriates, -the ideal causes giddiness; whoever proceeds from it is no longer -in his right senses; when you have walked among the stars, you are -capable of refusing a prefecture; you are no longer a sensible being; -they might offer you a seat in the senate of Domitian and you would -refuse it; you no longer give to Cæsar what is due to Cæsar; you have -reached that point of mental alienation that you will not even salute -the Lord Incitatus, consul and horse. See what is the result of your -having drunk in that shocking place, the Empyrean! You become proud, -ambitious, disinterested. Now, be sober. It is forbidden to haunt the -tavern of the sublime.</p> - -<p>Liberty means libertinism. To restrain yourself is well, to geld -yourself is better.</p> - -<p>Pass your life in restraining yourself.</p> - -<p>Observe sobriety, decency, respect for authority, an irreproachable -toilet. There is no poetry unless it be fashionably dressed. An -uncombed savannah, a lion which does not pare its nails, an unsifted -torrent, the navel of the sea which allows itself to be seen, the cloud -which forgets itself so far as to show Aldebaran—oh, shocking! The -wave foams on the rock, the cataract vomits into the gulf, Juvenal -spits on the tyrant. Fie!</p> - -<p>We like not enough better than too much. No exaggeration. Henceforth -the rose-tree shall be compelled to count its roses. The prairie shall -be requested not to be so prodigal of daisies; the spring shall be -ordered to restrain itself. The nests are rather too prolific. The -groves are too rich in warblers. The Milky Way must condescend to -number its stars; there are a good many.</p> - -<p>Take example from the big Mullen Serpentaria of the Botanical Garden, -which blooms only every fifty years. That is a flower truly respectable.</p> - -<p>A true critic of the sober school is that garden-keeper who, to this -question, "Have you any nightingales in your trees?" replied, "Ah, -don't mention it! For the whole month of May these ugly beasts have -been doing nothing but bark."</p> - -<p>M. Suard gave to Marie Joseph Chénier this certificate: "His style has -the great merit of not containing comparisons." In our days we have -seen that singular eulogium reproduced. This reminds us that a great -professor of the Restoration, indignant at the comparisons and figures -which abound in the prophets, crushes Isaiah, Daniel, and Jeremiah, -with this profound apothegm: "The whole Bible is in 'like' (<i>comme</i>)." -Another, a greater professor still, was the author of this saying, -which is still celebrated at the normal school: "I throw Juvenal back -to the romantic dunghill." Of what crime was Juvenal guilty? Of the -same as Isaiah,—namely, of readily expressing the idea by the image. -Shall we return, little by little, in the walks of learning, to the -metonymy term of chemistry, and to the opinion of Pradon on metaphor?</p> - -<p>One would suppose, from the demands and clamours of the doctrinary -school, that it has to supply, at its own expense, all the consumption -of metaphors and figures that poets can make, and that it feels -itself ruined by spendthrifts such as Pindar, Aristophanes, Ezekiel, -Plautus, and Cervantes. This school puts under lock and key passions, -sentiments, the human heart, reality, the ideal, life. Frightened, -it looks at the men of genius, hides from them everything, and says, -"How greedy they are!" Therefore it has invented for writers this -superlative praise: "He is temperate."</p> - -<p>On all these points sacerdotal criticism fraternizes with doctrinal -criticism. The prude and the devotee help each other.</p> - -<p>A curious bashful fashion tends to prevail. We blush at the coarse -manner in which grenadiers meet death; rhetoric has for heroes modest -vine-leaves which they call periphrases; it is agreed that the bivouac -speaks like the convent, the talk of the guardroom is a calumny; a -veteran drops his eyes at the recollection of Waterloo, and the Cross -of Honour is given to these modest eyes. Certain sayings which are in -history have no right to be historical; and it is well understood, for -example, that the gendarme who fired a pistol at Robespierre at the -Hôtel-de-Ville was called <i>La-garde-meurt-et-ne-se-rend-pas.</i></p> - -<p>One salutary reaction is the result of the combined effort of two -critics watching over public tranquillity. This reaction has already -produced some specimens of poets,—steady, well-bred, prudent, whose -style always keeps good time; who never indulge in an orgy with all -those mad things, ideas; who are never met at the corner of a wood, -<i>solus cum sola</i>, with that Bohemian, Revery; who are incapable of -having connection either with Imagination, a dangerous vagabond, or -with Inspiration, a Bacchante, or with Fancy, a <i>lorette</i>; who have -never in their life given a kiss to that beggarly chit, the Muse; -who do not sleep out, and who are honoured with the esteem of their -door-keeper, Nicholas Boileau. If Polyhymnia goes by with her hair -rather flowing, what a scandal! Quick, they call the hairdresser. M. -de la Harpe comes hastily. These two sister critics, the doctrinal and -the sacerdotal, undertake to educate. They bring up writers from the -birth. They keep houses to wean them, a boarding-school for juvenile -reputations.</p> - -<p>Thence a discipline, a literature, an art. Dress right, fall into line! -Society must be saved in literature as well as in politics. Every one -knows that poetry is a frivolous, insignificant thing, childishly -occupied in seeking rhymes, barren, vain; therefore nothing is more -formidable. It behooves us to well secure the thinkers. Lie down, -dangerous beast! What is a poet? For honour, nothing; for persecution, -everything.</p> - -<p>This race of writers requires repression. It is useful to have -recourse to the secular arm. The means vary. From time to time a -good banishment is expedient. The list of exiled writers opens with -Æschylus, and does not close with Voltaire. Each century has its -link in this chain. But there must be at least a pretext for exile, -banishment, and proscription. That cannot apply to all cases. It is -rather unmanageable; it is important to have a lighter weapon for -every-day skirmishing. A State criticism, duly sworn in and accredited, -can render service. To organize the persecution of writers by means of -writers is not a bad thing. To entrap the pen by the pen is ingenious. -Why not have literary policemen?</p> - -<p>Good taste is a precaution taken by good order. Sober writers are the -counterpart of prudent electors. Inspiration is suspected of love for -liberty. Poetry is rather outside of legality; there is, therefore, an -official art, the offspring of official criticism.</p> - -<p>A whole special rhetoric proceeds from those premises. Nature has in -that particular art but a narrow entrance, and goes in through the side -door. Nature is infected with demagogy. The elements are suppressed as -being bad company, and making too much uproar. The equinox is guilty of -breaking into reserved grounds; the squall is a nightly row. The other -day, at the School of Fine Arts, a pupil-painter having caused the wind -to lift up the folds of a mantle during a storm, a local professor, -shocked at this lifting up, said, "The style does not admit of wind."</p> - -<p>After all, reaction does not despair. We get on; some progress is -accomplished. A ticket of confession sometimes gains admittance for -its bearer into the Academy. Jules Janin, Théophile Gautier, Paul de -Saint-Victor, Littré, Renan, please to recite your creed.</p> - -<p>But that does not suffice; the evil is deep-rooted. The ancient -Catholic society, and the ancient legitimate literature, are -threatened. Darkness is in peril To war with new generations! to war -with the modern spirit! and down upon Democracy, the daughter of -Philosophy!</p> - -<p>Cases of rabidness—that is to say, the works of genius—are to be -feared. Hygienic prescriptions are renewed. The public high-road is -evidently badly watched. It appears that there are some poets wandering -about. The prefect of police, a negligent man, allows some spirits to -rove about. What is Authority thinking of? Let us take care. Intellects -can be bitten; there is danger. It is certain, evident. It is rumoured -that Shakespeare has been met without a muzzle on.</p> - -<p>This Shakespeare without a muzzle is the present translation.<a name="FNanchor_1_19" id="FNanchor_1_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_19" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_19" id="Footnote_1_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_19"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The Complete Works of Shakespeare, translated by François -Victor Hugo.</p></div> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER V.</h5> - - -<p>If ever a man was undeserving of the good character of "he is sober," -it is most certainly William Shakespeare. Shakespeare is one of the -worst rakes that serious æsthetics ever had to lord over.</p> - -<p>Shakespeare is fertility, force, exuberance, the overflowing breast, -the foaming cup, the brimful tub, the overrunning sap, the overflooding -lava, the whirlwind scattering germs, the universal rain of life, -everything by thousands, everything by millions, no reticence, no -binding, no economy, the inordinate and tranquil prodigality of -the creator. To those who feel the bottom of their pocket, the -inexhaustible seems insane. Will it stop soon? Never. Shakespeare is -the sower of dazzling wonders. At every turn, the image; at every turn, -contrast; at every turn, light and darkness.</p> - -<p>The poet, we have said, is Nature. Subtle, minute, keen, microscopical -like Nature; immense. Not discreet, not reserved, not sparing. Simply -magnificent. Let us explain this word, <i>simple.</i></p> - -<p>Sobriety in poetry is poverty; simplicity is grandeur. To give to each -thing the quantity of space which fits it, neither more nor less, is -simplicity. Simplicity is justice. The whole law of taste is in that. -Each thing put in its place and spoken with its own word. On the only -condition that a certain latent equilibrium is maintained and a certain -mysterious proportion preserved, simplicity may be found in the most -stupendous complication, either in the style, or in the <i>ensemble.</i> -These are the arcana of great art. Lofty criticism alone, which -takes its starting-point from enthusiasm, penetrates and comprehends -these learned laws. Opulence, profusion, dazzling radiancy, may be -simplicity. The sun is simple.</p> - -<p>Such simplicity does not evidently resemble the simplicity recommended -by Le Batteux, the Abbé d'Aubignac, and Father Bouhours.</p> - -<p>Whatever may be the abundance, whatever may be the entanglement, even -if perplexing, confused, and inextricable, all that is true is simple. -A root is simple.</p> - -<p>That simplicity which is profound is the only one that art recognizes.</p> - -<p>Simplicity, being true, is artless. Artlessness is the characteristic -of truth. Shakespeare's simplicity is the great simplicity. He is -foolishly full of it. He ignores the small simplicity.</p> - -<p>The simplicity which is impotence, the simplicity which is meagreness, -the simplicity which is short-winded, is a case for pathology. It has -nothing to do with poetry. An order for the hospital suits it better -than a ride on the hippogriff.</p> - -<p>I admit that the hump of Thersites is simple; but the breastplates of -Hercules are simple also. I prefer that simplicity to the other.</p> - -<p>The simplicity which belongs to poetry may be as bushy as the oak. Does -the oak by chance produce on you the effect of a Byzantine and of a -refined being? Its innumerable antitheses,—gigantic trunk and small -leaves, rough bark and velvet mosses, reception of rays and shedding -of shade, crowns for heroes and fruit for swine,—are they marks of -affectation, corruption, subtlety and bad taste? Could the oak be too -witty? Could the oak belong to the Hôtel Rambouillet? Could the oak -be a <i>précieux ridicule?</i> Could the oak be tainted with Gongorism? -Could the oak belong to the age of decadence? Is by chance complete -simplicity, <i>sancta simplicitas</i>, condensed in the cabbage?</p> - -<p>Refinement, excess of wit, affectation, Gongorism,—that is what they -have hurled at Shakespeare's head. They say that those are the faults -of littleness, and they hasten to reproach the giant with them.</p> - -<p>But then this Shakespeare respects nothing, he goes straight on, -putting out of breath those who wish to follow; he strides over -proprieties; he overthrows Aristotle; he spreads havoc among the -Jesuits, methodists, the Purists, and the Puritans; he puts Loyola -to flight, and upsets Wesley; he is valiant, bold, enterprising, -militant, direct. His inkstand smokes like a crater. He is always -laborious, ready, spirited, disposed, going forward. Pen in hand, his -brow blazing, he goes on driven by the demon of genius. The stallion -abuses; there are he-mules passing by to whom this is offensive. To -be prolific is to be aggressive. A poet like Isaiah, like Juvenal, -like Shakespeare, is, in truth, exorbitant. By all that is holy! -some attention ought to be paid to others; one man has no right to -everything. What! always virility, inspiration everywhere, as many -metaphors as the prairie, as many antitheses as the oak, as many -contrasts and depths as the universe; what! forever generation, -hatching, hymen, parturition, vast ensemble, exquisite and robust -detail, living communion, fecundation, plenitude, production! It is too -much; it infringes the rights of human geldings.</p> - -<p>For nearly three centuries Shakespeare, this poet all brimming with -virility, has been looked upon by sober critics with that discontented -air that certain bereaved spectators must have in the seraglio.</p> - -<p>Shakespeare has no reserve, no discretion, no limit, no blank. What -is wanting in him is that he wants nothing. No box for savings, no -fast-day with him. He overflows like vegetation, like germination, -like light, like flame. Yet, it does not hinder him from thinking -of you, spectator or reader, from preaching to you, from giving -you advice, from being your friend, like any other kind-hearted La -Fontaine, and from rendering you small services. You can warm your -hands at the conflagration he kindles.</p> - -<p>Othello, Romeo, Iago, Macbeth, Shylock, Richard III., Julius Cæsar, -Oberon, Puck, Ophelia, Desdemona, Juliet, Titania, men, women, witches, -fairies, souls,—Shakespeare is the grand distributor; take, take, -take, all of you! Do you want more? Here is Ariel, Parolles, Macduff, -Prospero, Viola, Miranda, Caliban. More yet? Here is Jessica, Cordelia, -Cressida, Portia, Brabantio, Polonius, Horatio, Mercutio, Imogene, -Pandarus of Troy, Bottom, Theseus. <i>Ecce Deus!</i> It is the poet, he -offers himself: who will have me? He gives, scatters, squanders -himself; he is never empty. Why? He cannot be. Exhaustion with him -is impossible. There is in him something of the fathomless. He fills -up again, and spends himself; then recommences. He is the bottomless -treasury of genius.</p> - -<p>In license and audacity of language Shakespeare equals Rabelais, whom, -a few days ago, a swan-like critic called a swine.</p> - -<p>Like all lofty minds in full riot of Omnipotence, Shakespeare decants -all Nature, drinks it, and makes you drink it. Voltaire reproached -him for his drunkenness, and was quite right. Why on earth, we repeat -why has this Shakespeare such a temperament? He does not stop, he -does not feel fatigue, he is without pity for the poor weak stomachs -that are candidates for the Academy. The gastritis called "good -taste," he does not labour under it. He is powerful. What is this vast -intemperate song that he sings through ages,—war-song, drinking-song, -love-ditty,—which passes from King Lear to Queen Mab, and from Hamlet -to Falstaff, heart-rending at times as a sob, grand as the Iliad? "I -have the lumbago from reading Shakespeare," said M. Auger.</p> - -<p>His poetry has the sharp perfume of honey made by the vagabond -bee without a hive. Here prose, there verse; all forms, being but -receptacles for the idea, suit him. This poetry weeps and laughs. The -English tongue, a language little formed, now assists, now harms him, -but everywhere the deep mind gushes forth translucent Shakespeare's -drama proceeds with a kind of distracted rhythm. It is so vast that -it staggers; it has and gives the vertigo; but nothing is so solid as -this excited grandeur. Shakespeare, shuddering, has in himself the -winds, the spirits, the philters, the vibrations, the fluctuations -of transient breezes, the obscure penetration of effluvia, the great -unknown sap. Thence his agitation, in the depth of which is repose. -It is this agitation in which Goethe is wanting, wrongly praised for -his impassiveness, which is inferiority. This agitation, all minds -of the first order have it. It is in Job, in Æschylus, in Alighieri. -This agitation is humanity. On earth the divine must be human. It -must propose to itself its own enigma and feel disturbed about it. -Inspiration being prodigy, a sacred stupor mingles with it. A certain -majesty of mind resembles solitudes and is blended with astonishment. -Shakespeare, like all great poets, like all great things, is absorbed -by a dream. His own vegetation astounds him; his own tempest appals -him. It seems at times as if Shakespeare terrified Shakespeare. He -shudders at his own depth. This is the sign of supreme intellects. It -is his own vastness which shakes him and imparts to him unaccountable -huge oscillations. There is no genius without waves. An inebriated -savage it may be. He has the wildness of the virgin forest; he has the -intoxication of the high sea.</p> - -<p>Shakespeare (the condor alone gives some idea of such gigantic gait) -departs, arrives, starts again, mounts, descends, hovers, dives, sinks, -rushes, plunges into the depths below, plunges into the depths above. -He is one of those geniuses that God purposely leaves unbridled, so -that they may go headlong and in full flight into the infinite.</p> - -<p>From time to time comes on this globe one of these spirits. Their -passage, as we have said, renews art, science, philosophy, or society.</p> - -<p>They fill a century, then disappear. Then it is not one century alone -that their light illumines, it is humanity from one end to another of -time; and it is perceived that each of these men was the human mind -itself contained whole in one brain, and coming, at a given moment, to -give on earth an impetus to progress.</p> - -<p>These supreme spirits, once life achieved and the work completed, go in -death to rejoin the mysterious group, and are probably at home in the -infinite.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="BOOK_IIb" id="BOOK_IIb">BOOK II.</a></h4> - - -<h4>SHAKESPEARE.—HIS WORK.—THE CULMINATING POINTS.</h4> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER I.</h5> - - -<p>The characteristic of men of genius of the first order is to -produce each a peculiar model of man. All bestow on humanity its -portrait,—some laughing, some weeping, others pensive. These last are -the greatest. Plautus laughs, and gives to man Amphitryon; Rabelais -laughs, and gives to man Gargantua; Cervantes laughs, and gives to man -Don Quixote; Beaumarchais laughs, and gives to man Figaro; Molière -weeps, and gives to man Alceste; Shakespeare dreams, and gives to man -Hamlet; Æschylus meditates, and gives to man Prometheus. The others are -great; Æschylus and Shakespeare are immense.</p> - -<p>These portraits of humanity, left to humanity as a last farewell by -those passers-by, the poets, are rarely flattered, always exact, -striking likenesses. Vice, or folly, or virtue, is extracted from the -soul and stamped on the visage. The tear congealed becomes a pearl; -the smile petrified ends by looking like a menace; wrinkles are the -furrows of wisdom; some frowns are tragic. This series of models of man -is the permanent lesson for generations; each century adds in some -figures,—sometimes done in full light and strong relief, like Macette, -Célimène, Tartuffe, Turcaret, and the Nephew of Rameau; sometimes -simple profiles, like Gil Bias, Manon Lescaut, Clarissa Harlowe, and -Candide.</p> - -<p>God creates by intuition; man creates by inspiration, strengthened by -observation. This second creation, which is nothing else but divine -action carried out by man, is what is called genius.</p> - -<p>The poet stepping into the place of destiny; an invention of men and -events so strange, so true to nature, and so masterly that certain -religious sects hold it in horror as an encroachment upon Providence, -and call the poet "the liar;" the conscience of man, taken in the act -and placed in a medium which it combats, governs or transforms,—such -is the drama. And there is in this something superior. This handling -of the human soul seems a kind of equality with God,—equality, the -mystery of which is explained when we reflect that God is within -man. This equality is identity. Who is our conscience? He. And He -counsels good acts. Who is our intelligence? He. And He inspires the -<i>chef-d'œuvre.</i></p> - -<p>God may be there, but it removes nothing, as we have proved, from -the sourness of critics; the greatest minds are those which are most -brought into question. It even sometimes happens that true intellects -attack genius; the inspired, strangely enough, do not recognize -inspiration. Erasmus, Bayle, Scaliger, St. Evremond, Voltaire, many of -the Fathers of the Church, whole families of philosophers, the whole -School of Alexandria, Cicero, Horace, Lucian, Plutarch, Josephus, Dion -Chrysostom, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Philostratus, Metrodorus of -Lampsacus, Plato, Pythagoras, have severally criticised Homer. In this -enumeration we omit Zoïlus. Men who deny are not critics. Hatred is -not intelligence. To insult is not to discuss. Zoïlus, Mævius, Cecchi, -Green, Avellaneda, William Lauder, Visé, Fréron,—no cleansing of these -names is possible. These men have wounded the human race through her -men of genius; these wretched hands forever retain the colour of the -mud that they have thrown.</p> - -<p>And these men have not even either the sad renown that they seem to -have acquired by right, or the whole quantity of shame that they have -hoped for. One scarcely knows that they have existed. They are half -forgotten,—a greater humiliation than to be wholly forgotten. With -the exception of two or three among them who have become by-words -of contempt, despicable owls, nailed up for an example, all these -wretched names are unknown. An obscure notoriety follows their -equivocal existence. Look at this Clement, who had called himself -the "hypercritic," and whose profession it was to bite and denounce -Diderot; he disappears, and is confounded, although born at Geneva, -with Clement of Dijon, confessor to Mesdames; with David Clement, -author of the "Bibliothèque Curieuse;" with Clement of Baize, -Benedictine of St. Maur; and with Clement d'Ascain, Capuchin, definator -and provincial of Béarn. What avails it him to have declared that the -work of Diderot is but an "obscure verbiage," and to have died mad at -Charenton, to be afterward submerged in four or five unknown Clements? -In vain did Famien Strada rabidly attack Tacitus; one scarcely knows -him now from Fabien Spada, called <i>L'Epée de Bois</i>, the jester of -Sigismond Augustus. In vain did Cecchi vilify Dante; we are not -certain whether his name was not Cecco. In vain did Green fasten on -Shakespeare; he is now confounded with Greene. Avellaneda, the "enemy" -of Cervantes, is perhaps Avellanedo. Lauder, the slanderer of Milton, -is perhaps Leuder. The unknown De Visé, who tormented Molière, turns -out to be a certain Donneau; he had surnamed himself De Visé, through a -taste for nobility. Those men relied, in order to create for themselves -a little <i>éclat</i>, on the greatness of those whom they outraged. But -no, they have remained obscure. These poor insulters did not get their -salary. Contempt has failed them. Let us pity them.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER II.</h5> - - -<p>Let us add that calumny loses its labour. Then what purpose can it -serve? Not even an evil one. Do you know anything more useless than the -sting which does not sting?</p> - -<p>Better still. This sting is beneficial. In a given time it is found -that calumny, envy, and hatred, thinking to labour against, have worked -in aid of truth. Their insults bring fame, their blackening makes -illustrious. They succeed only in mingling with glory an outcry which -increases it.</p> - -<p>Let us continue.</p> - -<p>So, each of the men of genius tries on in his turn this immense human -mask; and such is the strength of the soul which they cause to pass -through the mysterious aperture of the eyes, that this look changes the -mask, and, from terrible, makes it comic, then pensive, then grieved, -then young and smiling, then decrepit, then sensual and gluttonous, -then religious, then outrageous; and it is Cain, Job, Atreus, Ajax, -Priam, Hecuba, Niobe, Clytemnestra, Nausicaa, Pistoclerus, Grumio, -Davus, Pasicompsa, Chimène, Don Arias, Don Diego, Mudarra, Richard -III., Lady Macbeth, Desdemona, Juliet, Romeo, Lear, Sancho Panza, -Pantagruel, Panurge, Arnolphe, Dandin Sganarelle, Agnes, Rosine, -Victorine, Basile, Almaviva, Cherubin, Manfred.</p> - -<p>From the direct divine creation proceeds Adam, the prototype. From -the indirect divine creation,—that is to say, from the human -creation,—proceed other Adams, the types.</p> - -<p>A type does not produce any man in particular; it cannot be exactly -superposed upon any individual; it sums up and concentrates under -one human form a whole family of characters and minds. A type is no -abridgment; it is a condensation. It is not one, it is all Alcibiades -is but Alcibiades, Petronius is but Petronius, Bassompierre is -but Bassompierre, Buckingham is but Buckingham, Fronsac is but -Fronsac, Lauzun is but Lauzun; but take Lauzun, Fronsac, Buckingham, -Bassompierre, Petronius, and Alcibiades, and pound them in the mortar -of imagination, and from that process you have a phantom more real -than them all,—Don Juan. Take the usurers one by one; no one of them -is that fierce merchant of Venice, crying, "Go, Tubal, fee me an -officer, bespeak him a fortnight before; I will have the heart of him -if he forfeit." Take all the usurers together; from the crowd of them -comes a total,—Shylock. Sum up usury, you have Shylock. The metaphor -of the people, who are never mistaken, confirms, without knowing it, -the inventions of the poet; and while Shakespeare makes Shylock, it -creates the <i>gripe-all.</i> Shylock is the Jewish bargaining. He is also -Judaism; that is to say, his whole nation,—the high as well as the -low, faith as well as fraud; and it is because he sums up a whole race, -such as oppression has made it, that Shylock is great. Jews, even -those of the Middle Ages, might with reason say that not one of them -is Shylock. Men of pleasure may with reason say that not one of them -is Don Juan. No leaf of the orange-tree when chewed gives the flavour -of the orange, yet there is a deep affinity, an identity of roots, a -sap rising from the same source, the sharing of the same subterraneous -shadow before life. The fruit contains the mystery of the tree, and -the type contains the mystery of the man. Hence the strange vitality -of the type. For—and this is the prodigy—the type lives. If it were -but an abstraction, men would not recognize it, and would allow this -shadow to pass by. The tragedy termed classic makes larvæ; the drama -creates types. A lesson which is a man; a myth with a human face so -plastic that it looks at you, and that its look is a mirror; a parable -which warns you; a symbol which cries out "Beware!" an idea which -is nerve, muscle, and flesh, and which has a heart to love, bowels -to suffer, eyes to weep, and teeth to devour or laugh, a psychical -conception with the relief of actual fact, and which, if it bleeds, -drops real blood,—that is the type. O power of true poetry! Types are -beings. They breathe, palpitate, their steps are heard on the floor, -they exist. They exist with an existence more intense than that of any -creature thinking himself living there in the street. These phantoms -have more density than man. There is in their essence that amount of -eternity which belongs to <i>chefs-d'œuvre</i>, and which makes Trimalcion -live, while M. Romieu is dead.</p> - -<p>Types are cases foreseen by God; genius realizes them. It seems that -God prefers to teach man a lesson through man, in order to inspire -confidence. The poet is on the pavement of the living; he speaks to -them nearer to their ear. Thence the efficacy of types. Man is a -premise, the type the conclusion; God creates the phenomenon, genius -puts a name on it; God creates the miser only, genius Harpagon; God -creates the traitor only, genius makes Iago; God creates the coquette, -genius makes Célimène; God creates the citizen only, genius makes -Chrysale; God creates the king only, genius makes Grandgousier. -Sometimes, at a given moment, the type proceeds complete from some -unknown partnership of the mass of the people with a great natural -comedian, involuntary and powerful realizer; the crowd is a mid-wife. -In an epoch which bears at one of its extremities Talleyrand, and at -another Chodruc-Duclos, springs up suddenly, in a flash of lightning, -under the mysterious incubation of the theatre, that spectre, Robert -Macaire.</p> - -<p>Types go and come firmly in art and in Nature. They are the ideal -realized. The good and the evil of man are in these figures. From each -of them results, in the eyes of the thinker, a humanity.</p> - -<p>As we have said before, so many types, so many Adams. The man of Homer, -Achilles, is an Adam; from him comes the species of the slayers: the -man of Æschylus, Prometheus, is an Adam; from him comes the race of the -fighters: Shakespeare's man, Hamlet, is an Adam; to him belongs the -family of the dreamers. Other Adams, created by poets, incarnate, this -one passion, another duty, another reason, another conscience, another -the fall, another the ascension. Prudence, drifting to trepidation, -goes on from the old man Nestor to the old man Géronte. Love, drifting -to appetite, goes on from Daphne to Lovelace. Beauty, entwined with the -serpent, goes from Eve to Melusina. The types begin in Genesis, and a -link of their chain passes through Restif de la Bretonne and Vadé. The -lyric suits them, Billingsgate is not unbecoming to them. They speak -in country dialects by the mouth of Gros-René; and in Homer they say -to Minerva, holding them by the hair of the head: "What dost thou want -with me, goddess?"</p> - -<p>A surprising exception has been conceded to Dante. The man of Dante -is Dante. Dante has, so to speak, created himself a second time in -his poem. He is his own type; his Adam is himself. For the action -of his poem he has sought out no one. He has only taken Virgil as -supernumerary. Moreover, he made himself epic at once, without even -giving himself the trouble to change his name. What he had to do was -in fact simple,—to descend into hell and remount to heaven. What good -was it to trouble himself for so little? He knocks gravely at the door -of the infinite and says, "Open! I am Dante."</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER III.</h5> - - -<p>Two marvellous Adams, we have just said, are the man of Æschylus, -Prometheus, and the man of Shakespeare, Hamlet.</p> - -<p>Prometheus is action. Hamlet is hesitation.</p> - -<p>In Prometheus the obstacle is exterior; in Hamlet it is interior.</p> - -<p>In Prometheus the will is securely nailed down by nails of brass and -cannot get loose; besides, it has by its side two watchers,—Force -and Power. In Hamlet the will is more tied down yet; it is bound by -previous meditation,—the endless chain of the undecided. Try to get -out of yourself if you can! What a Gordian knot is our revery! Slavery -from within, that is slavery indeed. Scale this enclosure, "to dream!" -escape, if you can, from this prison, "to love!" The only dungeon is -that which walls conscience in. Prometheus, in order to be free, has -but a bronze collar to break and a god to conquer; Hamlet must break -and conquer himself. Prometheus can raise himself upright, if he -only lifts a mountain; to raise himself up, Hamlet must lift his own -thoughts. If Prometheus plucks the vulture from his breast, all is -said; Hamlet must tear Hamlet from his breast. Prometheus and Hamlet -are two naked livers; from one runs blood, from the other doubt.</p> - -<p>We are in the habit of comparing Æschylus and Shakespeare by Orestes -and Hamlet, these two tragedies being the same drama. Never in fact was -a subject more identical. The learned mark an analogy between them; the -impotent, who are also the ignorant, the envious, who are also the -imbeciles, have the petty joy of thinking they establish a plagiarism. -It is after all a possible field for erudition and for serious -criticism. Hamlet walks behind Orestes, parricide through filial -love. This easy comparison, rather superficial than deep, strikes us -less than the mysterious confronting of those two enchained beings, -Prometheus and Hamlet.</p> - -<p>Let us not forget that the human mind, half divine as it is, creates -from time to time superhuman works. These superhuman works of man are, -moreover, more numerous than it is thought, for they entirely fill art. -Out of poetry, where marvels abound, there is in music Beethoven, in -sculpture Phidias, in architecture Piranesi, in painting Rembrandt, and -in painting, architecture, and sculpture Michael Angelo. We pass many -over, and not the least.</p> - -<p>Prometheus and Hamlet are among those more than human works.</p> - -<p>A kind of gigantic determination; the usual measure exceeded; greatness -everywhere; that which astounds ordinary intellects demonstrated when -necessary by the improbable; destiny, society, law, religion, brought -to trial and judgment in the name of the Unknown, the abyss of the -mysterious equilibrium; the event treated as a <i>rôle</i> played out, and, -on occasion, hurled as a reproach against Fatality or Providence; -passion, terrible personage, going and coming in man; the audacity and -sometimes the insolence of reason; the haughty forms of a style at ease -in all extremes, and at the same time a profound wisdom; the gentleness -of the giant; the goodness of a softened monster; an ineffable dawn -which cannot be accounted for and which lights up everything,—such are -the signs of those supreme works. In certain poems there is starlight.</p> - -<p>This light is in Æschylus and in Shakespeare.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER IV.</h5> - - -<p>Nothing can be more fiercely wild than Prometheus stretched on the -Caucasus. It is gigantic tragedy. The old punishment that our ancient -laws of torture call extension, and which Cartouche escaped because -of a hernia, Prometheus undergoes it; only, the wooden horse is a -mountain. What is his crime? Right. To characterize right as crime, -and movement as rebellion, is the immemorial talent of tyrants. -Prometheus has done on Olympus what Eve did in Eden,—he has taken -a little knowledge. Jupiter, identical with Jehovah (<i>Iovi, Iova</i>), -punishes this temerity,—the desire to live. The Eginetic traditions, -which localize Jupiter, deprive him of the cosmic personality of -the Jehovah of Genesis. The Greek Jupiter, bad son of a bad father, -in rebellion against Saturn, who has himself been a rebel against -Cœlus, is a <i>parvenu.</i> The Titans are a sort of elder branch, which -has its legitimists, of whom Æschylus, the avenger of Prometheus, was -one. Prometheus is right conquered. Jupiter has, as is always the -case, consummated the usurpation of power by the punishment of right. -Olympus claims the aid of Caucasus. Prometheus is fastened there to the -<i>carcan.</i> There is the Titan, fallen, prostrate, nailed down. Mercury, -the friend of everybody, comes to give him such counsel as follows -generally the perpetration of <i>coups d'état.</i> Mercury is the type of -cowardly intellect, of every possible vice, but of vice full of wit. -Mercury, the god of vice, serves Jupiter the god of crime. This fawning -in evil is still marked to-day by the veneration of the pickpocket -for the assassin. There is something of that law in the arrival of the -diplomatist behind the conqueror. The <i>chefs-d'œuvre</i> are immense -in this, that they are eternally present to the deeds of humanity. -Prometheus on the Caucasus, is Poland after 1772; France after 1815; -the Revolution after Brumaire. Mercury speaks; Prometheus listens but -little. Offers of amnesty miscarry when it is the victim who alone -should have the right to grant pardon. Prometheus, though conquered, -scorns Mercury standing proudly above him, and Jupiter standing above -Mercury, and Destiny standing above Jupiter. Prometheus jests at the -vulture which gnaws at him; he shrugs disdainfully his shoulders as -much as his chain allows. What does he care for Jupiter, and what good -is Mercury? There is no hold on this haughty sufferer. The scorching -thunderbolt causes a smart, which is a constant call upon pride. -Meanwhile tears flow around him, the earth despairs, the women-clouds -(the fifty Oceanides), come to worship the Titan, the forests scream, -wild beasts groan, winds howl, the waves sob, the elements moan, the -world suffers in Prometheus; his <i>carcan</i> chokes universal life. -An immense participation in the torture of the demigod seems to be -henceforth the tragic delight of all Nature; anxiety for the future -mingles with it: and what is to be done now? How are we to move? What -will become of us? And in the vast whole of created beings, things, -men, animals, plants, rocks, all turned toward the Caucasus, is felt -this inexpressible anguish,—the liberator is enchained.</p> - -<p>Hamlet, less of a giant and more of a man, is not less grand,—Hamlet, -the appalling, the unaccountable, complete in incompleteness; all, -in order to be nothing. He is prince and demagogue, sagacious and -extravagant, profound and frivolous, man and neuter. He has but -little faith in the sceptre, rails at the throne, has a student for -his comrade, converses with any one passing by, argues with the first -comer, understands the people, despises the mob, hates strength, -suspects success, questions obscurity, and says "thou" to mystery. He -gives to others maladies which he has not himself: his false madness -inoculates his mistress with true madness. He is familiar with spectres -and with comedians. He jests with the axe of Orestes in his hand. He -talks of literature, recites verses, composes a theatrical criticism, -plays with bones in a cemetery, dumbfounds his mother, avenges his -father, and ends the wonderful drama of life and death by a gigantic -point of interrogation. He terrifies and then disconcerts. Never has -anything more overwhelming been dreamed. It is the parricide saying: -"What do I know?"</p> - -<p>Parricide? Let us pause on that word. Is Hamlet a parricide? Yes, and -no. He confines himself to threatening his mother; but the threat is so -fierce that the mother shudders. His words are like daggers. "What wilt -thou do? Thou wilt not murder me? Help! help! ho!" And when she dies, -Hamlet, without grieving for her, strikes Claudius with this tragic -cry: "Follow my mother!" Hamlet is that sinister thing, the possible -parricide.</p> - -<p>In place of the northern ice which he has in his nature, let him have, -like Orestes, southern fire in his veins, and he will kill his mother.</p> - -<p>This drama is stern. In it truth doubts, sincerity lies. Nothing can -be more immense, more subtile. In it man is the world, and the world -is zero. Hamlet, even full of life, is not sure of his existence. -In this tragedy, which is at the same time a philosophy, everything -floats, hesitates, delays, staggers, becomes discomposed, scatters, -and is dispersed. Thought is a cloud, will is a vapour, resolution is -a crepuscule; the action blows each moment in an opposite direction; -man is governed by the winds. Overwhelming and vertiginous work, in -which is seen the depth of everything, in which thought oscillates only -between the king murdered and Yorick buried, and in which what is best -realized is royalty represented by a ghost, and mirth represented by a -death's-head.</p> - -<p>"Hamlet" is the <i>chef-d'œuvre</i> of the tragedy-dream.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER V.</h5> - - -<p>One of the probable causes of the feigned madness of Hamlet has not -been up to the present time indicated by critics. It has been said, -"Hamlet acts the madman to hide his thought, like Brutus." In fact, it -is easy for apparent imbecility to hatch a great project; the supposed -idiot can take aim deliberately. But the case of Brutus is not that -of Hamlet. Hamlet acts the madman for his safety. Brutus screens his -project, Hamlet his person. The manners of those tragic courts being -known, from the moment that Hamlet, through the revelation of the -ghost, is acquainted with the crime of Claudius, Hamlet is in danger. -The superior historian within the poet is here manifested, and one -feels the deep insight of Shakespeare into the ancient darkness of -royalty. In the Middle Ages and in the Lower Empire, and even at -earlier periods, woe unto him who found out a murder or a poisoning -committed by a king! Ovid, according to Voltaire's conjecture, was -exiled from Rome for having seen something shameful in the house of -Augustus. To know that the king was an assassin was a State crime. -When it pleased the prince not to have had a witness, it was a matter -involving one's head to ignore everything. It was bad policy to have -good eyes. A man suspected of suspicion was lost. He had but one -refuge,—folly; to pass for "an innocent" He was despised, and that was -all. Do you remember the advice that, in Æschylus, the Ocean gives to -Prometheus: "To look a fool is the secret of the wise man." When the -Chamberlain Hugolin found the iron spit with which Edrick the Vendee -had empaled Edmond II., "he hastened to put on madness," says the Saxon -Chronicle of 1016, and saved himself in that way. Heraclian of Nisibe, -having discovered by chance that Rhinomete was a fratricide, had -himself declared mad by the doctors, and succeeded in getting himself -shut up for life in a cloister. He thus lived peaceably, growing old -and waiting for death with a vacant stare. Hamlet runs the same peril, -and has recourse to the same means. He gets himself declared mad like -Heraclian, and puts on folly like Hugolin. This does not prevent the -restless Claudius from twice making an effort to get rid of him,—in -the middle of the drama by the axe or the dagger in England, and toward -the conclusion by poison.</p> - -<p>The same indication is again found in "King Lear;" the Earl of -Gloster's son takes refuge also in apparent lunacy. There is in that a -key to open and understand Shakespeare's thought. In the eyes of the -philosophy of art, the feigned folly of Edgar throws light upon the -feigned folly of Hamlet.</p> - -<p>The Amleth of Belleforest is a magician; the Hamlet of Shakespeare -is a philosopher. We just now spoke of the strange reality which -characterizes poetical creations. There is no more striking example -than this type,—Hamlet. Hamlet has nothing belonging to an abstraction -about him. He has been at the University; he has the Danish rudeness -softened by Italian politeness; he is small, plump, somewhat -lymphatic; he fences well with the sword, but is soon out of breath. -He does not care to drink too soon during the assault of arms with -Laërtes,—probably for fear of producing perspiration. After having -thus supplied his personage with real life, the poet can launch him -into full ideal. There is ballast enough.</p> - -<p>Other works of the human mind equal "Hamlet;" none surpasses it. The -whole majesty of melancholy is in "Hamlet." An open sepulchre from -which goes forth a drama,—this is colossal "Hamlet" is to our mind -Shakespeare's chief work.</p> - -<p>No figure among those that poets have created is more poignant and -stirring. Doubt counselled by a ghost,—that is Hamlet. Hamlet has -seen his dead father and has spoken to him. Is he convinced? No, he -shakes his head. What shall he do? He does not know. His hands clench, -then fall by his side. Within him are conjectures, systems, monstrous -apparitions, bloody recollections, veneration for the spectre, hate, -tenderness, anxiety to act and not to act, his father, his mother, -his duties in contradiction to each other,—a deep storm. Livid -hesitation is in his mind. Shakespeare, wonderful plastic poet, makes -the grandiose pallor of this soul almost visible. Like the great larva -of Albert Dürer, Hamlet might be named "Melancholia." He also has above -his head the bat which flies disembowelled; and at his feet science, -the sphere, the compass, the hour-glass, love; and behind him in the -horizon an enormous, terrible sun, which seems to make the sky but -darker.</p> - -<p>Nevertheless, at least one half of Hamlet is anger, transport, outrage, -hurricane, sarcasm to Ophelia, malediction on his mother, insult to -himself. He talks with the gravediggers, nearly laughs, then clutches -Laërtes by the hair in the very grave of Ophelia, and stamps furiously -upon the coffin. Sword-thrusts at Polonius, sword-thrusts at Laërtes, -sword-thrusts at Claudius. From time to time his inaction is tom in -twain, and from the rent comes forth thunder.</p> - -<p>He is tormented by that possible life, intermixed with reality and -chimera, the anxiety of which is shared by all of us. There is in -all his actions an expanded somnambulism. One might almost consider -his brain as a formation; there is a layer of suffering, a layer of -thought, then a layer of dreaminess. It is through this layer of -dreaminess that he feels, comprehends, learns, perceives, drinks, eats, -frets, mocks, weeps, and reasons. There is between life and him a -transparency; it is the wall of dreams. One sees beyond, but one cannot -step over it. A kind of cloudy obstacle everywhere surrounds Hamlet. -Have you ever while sleeping, had the nightmare of pursuit or flight, -and tried to hasten on, and felt anchylosis in the knees, heaviness in -the arms, the horror of paralysed hands, the impossibility of movement? -This nightmare Hamlet undergoes while waking. Hamlet is not upon the -spot where his life is. He has ever the appearance of a man who talks -to you from the other side of a stream. He calls to you at the same -time that he questions you. He is at a distance from the catastrophe in -which he takes part, from the passer-by whom he interrogates, from the -thought that he carries, from the action that he performs. He seems not -to touch even what he grinds. It is isolation in its highest degree. It -is the loneliness of a mind, even more than the loftiness of a prince. -Indecision is in fact a solitude. You have not even your will to keep -you company. It is as if your own self was absent and had left you -there. The burden of Hamlet is less rigid than that of Orestes, but -more undulating. Orestes carries predestination; Hamlet carries fate.</p> - -<p>And thus apart from men, Hamlet has still in him a something which -represents them all. <i>Agnosco fratrem.</i> At certain hours, if we felt -our own pulse, we should be conscious of his fever. His strange reality -is our own reality after alL He is the mournful man that we all are in -certain situations. Unhealthy as he is, Hamlet expresses a permanent -condition of man. He represents the discomfort of the soul in a life -which is not sufficiently adapted to it He represents the shoe that -pinches and stops our walking; the shoe is the body. Shakespeare -frees him from it, and he is right Hamlet—prince if you like, but -king never—Hamlet is incapable of governing a people; he lives too -much in a world beyond. On the other hand, he does better than to -reign; he <i>is.</i> Take from him his family, his country, his ghost, and -the whole adventure at Elsinore, and even in the form of an inactive -type, he remains strangely terrible. That is the consequence of the -amount of humanity and the amount of mystery that is in him. Hamlet is -formidable, which does not prevent his being ironical. He has the two -profiles of destiny.</p> - -<p>Let us retract a statement made above. The chief work of Shakespeare -is not "Hamlet" The chief work of Shakespeare is all Shakespeare. That -is, moreover, true of all minds of this order. They are mass, block, -majesty, bible, and their solemnity is their ensemble.</p> - -<p>Have you sometimes looked upon a cape prolonging itself under the -clouds and jutting out, as far as the eye can go, into the deep -water? Each of its hillocks contributes to make it up. No one of its -undulations is lost in its dimension. Its strong outline is sharply -marked upon the sky, and enters as far as possible into the waves, and -there is not a useless rock. Thanks to this cape, you can go amidst the -boundless waters, walk among the winds, see closely the eagles soar -and the monsters swim, let your humanity wander mid the eternal hum, -penetrate the impenetrable. The poet renders this service to your mind. -A genius is a promontory into the infinite.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER VI</h5> - - -<p>Near "Hamlet," and on the same level, must be placed three grand -dramas,—"Macbeth," "Othello," "King Lear."</p> - -<p>Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, Lear,—these four figures tower upon the -lofty edifice of Shakespeare. We have said what Hamlet is.</p> - -<p>To say, "Macbeth is ambition," is to say nothing. Macbeth is hunger. -What hunger? The hunger of ten monsters, which is always possible in -man. Certain souls have teeth. Do not wake up their hunger.</p> - -<p>To bite at the apple, that is a fearful thing. The apple is called -<i>Omnia</i>, says Filesac, that doctor of the Sorbonne who confessed -Ravaillac. Macbeth has a wife whom the chronicle calls Gruoch. This Eve -tempts this Adam. Once Macbeth has given the first bite he is lost. The -first thing that Adam produces with Eve is Cain; the first thing that -Macbeth accomplishes with Gruoch is murder.</p> - -<p>Covetousness easily becoming violence, violence easily becoming -crime, crime easily becoming madness,—this progression is Macbeth. -Covetousness, crime, madness,—these three vampires have spoken to him -in the solitude, and have invited him to the throne. The cat Graymalkin -has called him: Macbeth will be cunning. The toad Paddock has called -him: Macbeth will be horror. The <i>unsexed</i> being, Gruoch, completes -him. It is done; Macbeth is no longer a man. He is nothing more than -an unconscious energy rushing wildly toward evil. Henceforth, no -notion of right; appetite is everything. Transitory right, royalty; -eternal right, hospitality,—Macbeth murders them all. He does more -than slay them,—he ignores them. Before they fell bleeding under -his hand, they already lay dead within his soul. Macbeth commences -by this parricide,—the murder of Duncan, his guest; a crime so -terrible that from the counter-blow in the night, when their master -is stabbed, the horses of Duncan again become wild. The first step -taken, the fall begins. It is the avalanche. Macbeth rolls headlong. -He is precipitated. He falls and rebounds from one crime to another, -always deeper and deeper. He undergoes the mournful gravitation of -matter invading the soul. He is a thing that destroys. He is a stone -of ruin, flame of war, beast of prey, scourge. He marches over all -Scotland, king as he is, his bare legged kernes and his heavily-armed -gallowglasses, devouring, pillaging, slaying. He decimates the Thanes, -he kills Banquo, he kills all the Macduffs except the one who shall -slay him, he kills the nobility, he kills the people, he kills his -country, he kills "sleep." At length the catastrophe arrives,—the -forest of Birnam moves against him. Macbeth has infringed all, burst -through everything, violated everything, torn everything, and this -desperation ends in arousing even Nature. Nature loses patience, Nature -enters into action against Macbeth, Nature becomes soul against the man -who has become brute force.</p> - -<p>This drama has epic proportions. Macbeth represents that frightful -hungry one who prowls throughout history, called brigand in the forest -and on the throne conqueror. The ancestor of Macbeth is Nimrod. These -men of force, are they forever furious? Let us be just; no. They have a -goal, which being attained, they stop. Give to Alexander, to Cyrus, to -Sesostris, to Cæsar, what?—the world; they are appeased. Geoffroy St. -Hilaire said to me one day: "When the lion has eaten, he is at peace -with Nature." For Cambyses, Sennacherib, and Genghis Khan, and their -parallels, to have eaten is to possess all the earth. They would calm -themselves down in the process of digesting the human race.</p> - -<p>Now, what is Othello? He is night; an immense fatal figure. Night is -amorous of day. Darkness loves the dawn. The African adores the white -woman. Desdemona is Othello's brightness and frenzy! And then how easy -to him is jealousy! He is great, he is dignified, he is majestic, he -soars above all heads, he has as an escort bravery, battle, the braying -of trumpets, the banner of war, renown, glory; he is radiant with -twenty victories, he is studded with stars, this Othello: but he is -black. And thus how soon, when jealous, the hero becomes monster, the -black becomes the negro! How speedily has night beckoned to death!</p> - -<p>By the side of Othello, who is night, there is Iago, who is -evil,—evil, the other form of darkness. Night is but the night of the -world; evil is the night of the soul. How deeply black are perfidy -and falsehood! To have ink or treason in the veins is the same thing. -Whoever has jostled against imposture and perjury knows it. One must -blindly grope one's way with roguery. Pour hypocrisy upon the break -of day, and you put out the sun; and this, thanks to false religions, -happens to God.</p> - -<p>Iago near Othello is the precipice near the landslip. "This way!" -he says in a low voice. The snare advises blindness. The being of -darkness guides the black. Deceit takes upon itself to give what -light may be required by night. Jealousy uses falsehood as the -blind man his dog. Othello the negro, Iago the traitor, opposed to -whiteness and candour,—what can be more terrible! These ferocities -of the darkness act in unison. These two incarnations of the eclipse -conspire together,—the one roaring, the other sneering; the tragic -extinguishment of light.</p> - -<p>Sound this profound thing. Othello is the night, and being night, and -wishing to kill, what does he take to slay with? Poison, the club, -the axe, the knife? No; the pillow. To kill is to lull to sleep. -Shakespeare himself perhaps did not take this into account. The creator -sometimes, almost unknown to himself, yields to his type, so much is -that type a power. And it is thus that Desdemona, spouse of the man -Night, dies stifled by the pillow, which has had the first kiss, and -which has the last sigh.</p> - -<p>Lear is the occasion for Cordelia. Maternity of the daughter toward -the father,—profound subject; maternity venerable among all other -maternities, so admirably translated by the legend of that Roman girl, -who, in the depth of a prison, nurses her old father. The young breast -near the white beard,—there is not a spectacle more holy. This filial -breast is Cordelia.</p> - -<p>Once this figure dreamed of and found, Shakespeare created his -drama. Where should he put this consoling vision? In an obscure age. -Shakespeare has taken the year of the world 3105, the time when -Joas was king of Judah, Aganippus, king of France, and Leir, king -of England. The whole earth was at that time mysterious. Represent -to yourself that epoch: the temple of Jerusalem is still quite new; -the gardens of Semiramis, constructed nine hundred years previously, -begin to crumble; the first gold coin appears in Ægina; the first -balance is made by Phydon, tyrant of Argos; the first eclipse of the -sun is calculated by the Chinese; three hundred and twelve years have -passed since Orestes, accused by the Eumenides before the Areopagus, -was acquitted; Hesiod is just dead; Homer, if he still lives, is a -hundred years old; Lycurgus, thoughtful traveller, re-enters Sparta; -and one may perceive in the depth of the sombre cloud of the East -the chariot fire which carries Elias away. It is at that period that -Leir—Lear—lives, and reigns over the dark islands. Jonas, Holofernes, -Draco, Solon, Thespis, Nebuchadnezzar, Anaximenes who is to invent the -signs of the zodiac, Cyrus, Zorobabel, Tarquin, Pythagoras, Æschylus, -are not born yet Coriolanus, Xerxes, Cincinnatus, Pericles, Socrates, -Brennus, Aristotle, Timoleon, Demosthenes, Alexander, Epicurus, -Hannibal, are larvæ waiting their hour to enter among men. Judas -Maccabæus, Viriatus, Popilius, Jugurtha, Mithridates, Marius and Sylla, -Cæsar and Pompey, Cleopatra and Antony, are far away in the future; -and at the moment when Lear is king of Brittany and of Iceland, there -must pass away eight hundred and ninety-five years before Virgil says, -"Penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos," and nine hundred and fifty -years before Seneca says "Ultima Thule." The Picts and the Celts (the -Scotch and the English) are tattooed. A redskin of the present day -gives a vague idea of an Englishman then. It is this twilight that -Shakespeare has chosen,—a broad night well adapted to the dream in -which this inventor at his pleasure puts everything that he chooses, -this King Lear, and then a King of France, a Duke of Burgundy, a Duke -of Cornwall, a Duke of Albany, an Earl of Kent, and an Earl of Gloster. -What does your history matter to him who has humanity? Besides, he -has with him the legend, which is a kind of science also, and as -true as history perhaps, but in another point of view. Shakespeare -agrees with Walter Mapes, archdeacon of Oxford,—that is something; -he admits, from Brutus to Cadwalla, the ninety-nine Celtic kings who -have preceded the Scandinavian Hengist and the Saxon Horsa: and since -he believes in Mulmutius, Cinigisil, Ceolulf, Cassibelan, Cymbeline, -Cynulphus, Arviragus, Guiderius, Escuin, Cudred, Vortigern, Arthur, -Uther Pendragon, he has every right to believe in King Lear, and to -create Cordelia. This land adopted, the place for the scene marked out, -this foundation established, he takes everything and builds his work. -Unheard of edifice. He takes tyranny, of which, at a later period, -he will make weakness,—Lear; he takes treason,—Edmond; he takes -devotion,—Kent; he takes ingratitude which begins with a caress, and -he gives to this monster two heads,—Goneril, whom the legend calls -Gornerille, and Regan, whom the legend calls Ragaü; he takes paternity; -he takes royalty; he takes feudality; he takes ambition; he takes -madness, which he divides into three, and he puts in presence three -madmen,—the king's buffoon, madman by trade; Edgar of Gloster, mad for -prudence's sake; the king mad through misery. It is at the summit of -this tragic heap that he raises Cordelia.</p> - -<p>There are some formidable cathedral towers, like, for instance, the -Giralda of Seville, which seem made all complete, with their spirals, -their staircases, their sculptures, their cellars, their cœcums, their -aerial cells, their sounding chambers, their bells, and their mass -and their spire, and all their enormity, in order to carry an angel -spreading on their summit her golden wings. Such is this drama, "King -Lear."</p> - -<p>The father is the pretext for the daughter. This admirable human -creation, Lear, serves as a support to that ineffable divine creation, -Cordelia. The reason why that chaos of crimes, vices, madnesses, and -miseries exists is, for the more splendid setting forth of virtue. -Shakespeare, carrying Cordelia in his thoughts, created that tragedy -like a god who, having an Aurora to put forward, makes a world -expressly for it.</p> - -<p>And what a figure is that father! What a caryatid! He is man bent down -by weight, but shifts his burdens for others that are heavier. The more -the old man becomes enfeebled, the more his load augments. He lives -under an overburden. He bears at first power, then ingratitude, then -isolation, then despair, then hunger and thirst, then madness, then all -Nature. Clouds overcast him, forests heap shadow on him, the hurricane -beats on the nape of his neck, the tempest makes his mantle heavy as -lead, the rain falls on his shoulders, he walks bent and haggard as if -he had the two knees of night upon his back. Dismayed and yet immense, -he throws to the winds and to the hail this epic cry: "Why do you hate -me, tempests? Why do you persecute me? <i>You are not my daughters.</i>" -And then it is over; the light is extinguished,—reason loses courage -and leaves him. Lear is in his dotage. Ah, he is childish, this old -man. Very well! he requires a mother. His daughter appears,—his one -daughter Cordelia; for the two others Regan and Goneril, are no longer -his daughters, save to that extent which gives them a right to the name -of parricides.</p> - -<p>Cordelia approaches.—"Sir, do you know me?" "You are a spirit, -I know," replies the old man, with the sublime clairvoyance of -bewilderment. From this moment the adorable nursing commences. Cordelia -applies herself to nourish this old despairing soul, dying of inanition -in hatred. Cordelia nourishes Lear with love, and his courage revives; -she nourishes him with respect, and the smile returns; she nourishes -him with hope, and confidence is restored; she nourishes him with -wisdom, and reason revives. Lear, convalescent, rises again, and, step -by step, returns again to life. The child becomes again an old man; -the old man becomes a man again. And behold him happy, this wretched -one. It is on this expansion of happiness that the catastrophe is -hurled down. Alas! there are traitors, there are perjurers, there are -murderers. Cordelia dies. Nothing more heart-rending than this. The -old man is stunned; he no longer understands anything; and embracing -the corpse, he expires. He dies on this dead one. The supreme anguish -is spared him of remaining behind her among the living, a poor shadow, -to feel the place in his heart empty and to seek for his soul, carried -away by that sweet being who is departed. O God, those whom thou lovest -thou dost not allow to survive.</p> - -<p>To live after the flight of the angel; to be the father orphaned of -his child; to be the eye which no longer has light; to be the deadened -heart which has no more joy; from time to time to stretch the hands -into obscurity, and try to reclasp a being who was there (where, then, -can she be?); to feel himself forgotten in that departure; to have lost -all reason for being here below; to be henceforth a man who goes to -and fro before a sepulchre, not received, not admitted,—that would be -indeed a gloomy destiny. Thou hast done well, poet, to kill this old -man.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="BOOK_IIIb" id="BOOK_IIIb">BOOK III.</a></h4> - - -<h4>ZOILUS AS ETERNAL AS HOMER.</h4> - - - -<h5>CHAPTER I.</h5> - - -<blockquote> - -<p>"Ce courtisan grossier du profane vulgaire."<a name="FNanchor_1_20" id="FNanchor_1_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_20" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p></blockquote> - -<p>This Alexandrine is by La Harpe, who hurls it at Shakespeare. Somewhere -else La Harpe says, "Shakespeare panders to the mob."</p> - -<p>Voltaire, as a matter of course, reproaches Shakespeare with -antithesis: that is well. And La Beaumelle reproaches Voltaire with -antithesis: that is better.</p> - -<p>Voltaire, when he is himself in question, <i>pro domo sua</i>, gets angry. -"But," he writes, "this Langleviel, alias La Beaumelle, is an ass. I -defy you to find in any poet, in any book, a fine thing which is not an -image or an antithesis."</p> - -<p>Voltaire's criticism is double-edged. He wounds and is wounded. This is -how he characterizes the Ecclesiastes and the Canticle of Canticles: -"Works without order, full of low images and coarse expressions."</p> - -<p>A little while after, furious, he exclaims,—</p> - -<p> -"On m'ose préférer Crébillon le barbare!"<a name="FNanchor_2_21" id="FNanchor_2_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_21" class="fnanchor">[2]</a><br /> -</p> - -<p>An idler of the Œil-de-Bœuf, wearing the red heel and the blue -ribbon, a stripling and a marquis,—M. de Créqui,—comes to Ferney, -and writes with an air of superiority: "I have seen Voltaire, that -childish old man."</p> - -<p>That injustice should receive a counterstroke from injustice, is -nothing more than right; and Voltaire gets what he deserved. But to -throw stones at men of genius is a general law, and all have to bear -it. Insult is a crown, it appears.</p> - -<p>For Saumaise, Æschylus is nothing but farrago.<a name="FNanchor_3_22" id="FNanchor_3_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_22" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> Quintilian -understands nothing of the "Orestias." Sophocles mildly scorned -Æschylus. "When he does well, he does not know it," said Sophocles. -Racine rejected everything, except two or three scenes of the -"Choephori," which he condescended to spare by a note in the margin of -his copy of Æschylus. Fontenelle says in his "Remarques": "One does -not know what to make of the 'Prometheus' of Æschylus. Æschylus is a -kind of madman." The eighteenth century, without exception, railed at -Diderot for admiring the "Eumenides."</p> - -<p>"The whole of Dante is a hotch-potch," says Chaudon. "Michael Angelo -wearies me," says Joseph de Maistre. "Not one of the eight comedies of -Cervantes is supportable," says La Harpe. "It is a pity that Molière -does not know how to write," says Fénélon. "Molière is a worthless -buffoon," says Bossuet. "A schoolboy would avoid the mistakes of -Milton," says the Abbé Trublet, an authority as good as another. -"Corneille exaggerates, Shakespeare raves," says that same Voltaire, -who must always be fought against and fought for.</p> - -<p>"Shakespeare," says Ben Jonson, "talked heavily and without any wit." -How prove the contrary? Writings remain, talk passes away. Well, it is -always so much denied to Shakespeare. That man of genius had no wit: -how nicely that flatters the numberless men of wit who have no genius!</p> - -<p>Some time before Scudéry called Corneille "Corneille déplumée" -(unfeathered carrion crow), Green had called Shakespeare "a crow -decked out with our feathers." In 1752 Diderot was sent to the -fortress of Vincennes for having published the first volume of the -"Encyclopædia," and the great success of the year was a print sold -on the quays which represented a Franciscan friar flogging Diderot. -Although Weber is dead,—an attenuating circumstance for those who -are guilty of genius,—he is turned into ridicule in Germany; and for -thirty-three years a <i>chef-d'œuvre</i> has been disposed of with a pun. -The "Euryanthe" is called the "Ennuyante" (wearisome).</p> - -<p>D'Alembert hits at one blow Calderon and Shakespeare. He writes to -Voltaire:—</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>"I have announced to the Academy your 'Heraclius,' of -Calderon. The Academy will read it with as much pleasure as -the harlequinade of Gilles Shakespeare."<a name="FNanchor_4_23" id="FNanchor_4_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_23" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p></blockquote> - -<p>That everything should be perpetually brought again into question, that -everything should be contested, even the incontestable,—what does it -matter? The eclipse is a good trial for truth as well as for liberty. -Genius, being truth and liberty, has a claim to persecution. What -matters to genius that which is transient? It was before, and will be -after. It is not on the sun that the eclipse throws darkness.</p> - -<p>Everything can be written. Paper is patience itself. Last year a grave -review printed this: "Homer is now going out of fashion."</p> - -<p>The judgment passed on the philosopher, on the artist, on the poet is -completed by the portrait of the man.</p> - -<p>Byron has killed his tailor. Molière has married his own daughter. -Shakespeare has "loved" Lord Southampton.</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10em;"> -"Et pour voir à la fin tous les vices ensemble,<br /> -Le parterre en tumulte a demandé l'auteur."<a name="FNanchor_5_24" id="FNanchor_5_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_24" class="fnanchor">[5]</a><br /> -</p> - -<p>That <i>ensemble</i> of all vices is Beaumarchais.</p> - -<p>As for Byron, we mention this name a second time; he is worth the -trouble. Read "Glenarvon," and listen, on the subject of Byron's -abominations, to Lady Bl—-, whom he had loved, and who, of course, -resented it.</p> - -<p>Phidias was a procurer; Socrates was an apostate and a thief, -<i>décrocheur de manteaux</i>; Spinosa was a renegade, and sought to -obtain legacies by undue influence; Dante was a peculator; Michael -Angelo was cudgelled by Julius II., and quietly put up with it for -the sake of five hundred crowns; D'Aubigné was a courtier sleeping in -the water-closet of the king, ill-tempered when he was not paid, and -for whom Henri IV. was too kind; Diderot was a libertine; Voltaire a -miser; Milton was venal,—he received a thousand pounds sterling for -his apology, in Latin, of regicide: "Defensio pro se," etc. Who says -these things? Who relates these histories? That good person, your old -fawning friend, O tyrants, your ancient comrade, O traitors, your old -auxiliary, O bigots, your ancient comforter, O imbeciles!—calumny.</p> - - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_20" id="Footnote_1_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_20"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> This coarse flatterer of the vulgar herd.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2_21" id="Footnote_2_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_21"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> To me they dare to prefer Crébillon the barbarian.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_3_22" id="Footnote_3_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_22"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> The passage in Saumaise is curious and worth the trouble -of being transcribed:— -</p> -<blockquote> - -<p>Unus ejus Agamemnon obscuritate superat quantum est -librorum sacrorum cum suis hebraismis et syrianismis et -totâ hellenisticâ supellectile vel farragine. -—<i>De Re Hellenisticâ</i>, p. 38, ep. dedic.</p></blockquote> -</div> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_4_23" id="Footnote_4_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_23"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Letter CV.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_5_24" id="Footnote_5_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_24"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> - -"And at last, in order to see all the vices together,<br /> -The riotous pit called for the author."</p></div> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER II.</h5> - - -<p>Let us add a detail. Diatribe is, on certain occasions, a useful means -of government.</p> - -<p>Thus the hand of the police was in the print of Diderot Flogged, and -the engraver of the Franciscan friar must have been kindred to the -turnkey of Vincennes. Governments, more passionate than necessary, -neglect to remain strangers to the animosities of the lower orders. -Political persecution of former days—it is of former days that we are -speaking—willingly availed itself of a dash of literary persecution. -Certainly, hatred hates without being paid for it. Envy, to do its -work, does not need a minister of State to encourage it and to give -it a pension; and there is such a thing as unofficial calumny. But -a money-bag does no harm. When Roy, the court-poet, rhymed against -Voltaire, "Tell me, daring stoic," etc., the position of treasurer of -the chamber of Clermont, and the cross of St. Michael, were not likely -to damp his enthusiasm for the Court, and his spirit against Voltaire. -A gratuity is pleasant to receive after a service rendered; the masters -upstairs smile; you receive the agreeable order to insult some one -you detest; you obey richly; you are free to bite like a glutton; you -take your fill; it is all profit; you hate and you give satisfaction. -Formerly authority had its scribes. It was a pack of hounds as good as -any other. Against the free rebel spirit, the despot would let loose -the scribbler. To torture was not sufficient; teasing was resorted to -likewise. Trissotin held a confabulation with Vidocq, and from their -<i>tête-à-tête</i> would burst a complex inspiration. Pedagogism, thus -supported by the police, felt itself an integral part of authority, -and strengthened its æsthetics with legal means. It was arrogant. The -pedant raised to the dignity of policeman,—nothing can be so arrogant -as that vileness. See, after the struggle between the Arminians and -the Gomarists, with what a superb air Sparanus Buyter, his pocket full -of Maurice of Nassau's florins, denounces Josse Vondel, and proves, -Aristotle in hand, that the Palamède of Vondel's tragedy is no other -than Barneveldt,—useful rhetoric, by which Buyter obtains against -Vondel a fine of three hundred crowns, and for himself a fat prebend at -Dordrecht.</p> - -<p>The author of the book "Querelles Littéraires," the Abbé Irail, canon -of Monistrol, asks of La Beaumelle: "Why do you insult M. de Voltaire -so much?" "It is because it sells well," replies La Beaumelle. And -Voltaire, informed of the question and of the reply, concludes: "It is -just; the booby buys the writing, and the minister buys the writer. It -sells well."</p> - -<p>Françoise d'Issembourg de Happoncourt, wife of François Hugo, -chamberlain of Lorraine, and very celebrated under the name of Madame -de Graffigny, writes to M. Devaux, reader to King Stanislaus:—</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>My dear Pampam,—Atys being far off [read: Voltaire being -banished], the police cause to be published against him a -swarm of small writings and pamphlets, which are sold at -a sou in the cafés and theatres. That would displease the -marquise,<a name="FNanchor_1_25" id="FNanchor_1_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_25" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> if it did not please the king.</p></blockquote> - -<p>Desfontaines, that other insulter of Voltaire, by whom he had been -taken out of Bicêtre, said to the Abbé Prévost, who advised him to make -his peace with the philosopher: "If Algiers did not make war, Algiers -would die of famine."</p> - -<p>This Desfontaines, also an abbé, died of dropsy; and his well-known -tastes gained for him this epitaph: "Periit aqua qui meruit igne."</p> - -<p>Among the publications suppressed in the last century by decree of -Parliament, can be observed a document printed by Quinet and Besogne, -and destroyed doubtless because of the revelations it contained, and of -which the title gave promise: "L'Arétinade, ou Tarif des Libellistes et -Gens de Lettres Injurieux."</p> - -<p>Madame de Staël, sent in exile forty-five leagues from Paris, stops -exactly at the forty-five leagues,—at Beaumont-sur-Loire,—and thence -writes to her friends. Here is a fragment of a letter addressed to -Madame Gay, mother of the illustrious Madame de Girardin:—</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>"Ah, dear madame, what a persecution are these exiles!... -[We suppress some lines.] You write a book; it is forbidden -to speak of it. Your name in the journals displeases. -Permission is, however, fully given to speak ill of it."</p></blockquote> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_25" id="Footnote_1_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_25"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Madame de Pompadour.</p></div> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER III.</h5> - - -<p>Sometimes the diatribe is sprinkled with quicklime. All those black -pen-nibs finish by digging ill-omened ditches.</p> - -<p>Among the writers abhorred for having been useful, Voltaire and -Rousseau hold a conspicuous rank. They were reviled when alive, mangled -when dead. To have a bite at these renowned ones was a splendid deed, -and reckoned as such in favour of literary constables. A man who -insulted Voltaire was at once promoted to the dignity of pedant. Men in -power encouraged the men of libellous propensity. A swarm of mosquitoes -have rushed upon those two illustrious minds, and ate yet buzzing.</p> - -<p>Voltaire is the most hated, being the greatest. Everything was good for -an attack on him, everything was a pretext: Mesdames de France, Newton, -Madame du Châtelet, the Princess of Prussia, Maupertuis, Frederic, the -Encyclopædia, the Academy, even Labarre, Sirven, and Calas,—never -a truce. His popularity suggested to Joseph de Maistre this: "Paris -crowned him; Sodom would have banished him." Arouet was translated into -<i>A rouer.</i><a name="FNanchor_1_26" id="FNanchor_1_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_26" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> At the house of the Abbess of Nivelles, Princess of the -Holy Empire, half recluse and half worldling, and having recourse, it -is said, in order to make her cheeks rosy, to the method of the Abbess -of Montbazon, charades were played,—among others, this one: The first -syllable is his fortune; the second should be his duty. The word -was <i>Vol-taire.</i><a name="FNanchor_2_27" id="FNanchor_2_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_27" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> A celebrated member of the Academy of Sciences, -Napoleon Bonaparte, seeing in 1803, in the library of the Institute, -in the centre of a crown of laurels, this inscription: "Au grand -Voltaire," scratched with his nail the last three letters, leaving -only, <i>Au grand Volta!</i></p> - -<p>There is round Voltaire particularly a <i>cordon sanitaire</i> of priests, -the Abbé Desfontaines at the head, the Abbé Nicolardot at the tail. -Fréron, although a layman, is a critic after the priestly fashion, and -belongs to this band.</p> - -<p>Voltaire made his first appearance at the Bastille. His cell was next -to the dungeon in which had died Bernard Palissy. Young, he tasted the -prison; old, exile. He was kept twenty-seven years away from Paris.</p> - -<p>Jean-Jacques, wild and rather surly, was tormented in consequence of -those traits in his nature. Paris issued a writ against his person; -Geneva expelled him; Neufchâtel rejected him; Motiers-Travers damned -him; Bienne stoned him; Berne gave him the choice between prison and -expulsion; London, hospitable London, scoffed at him.</p> - -<p>Both died, following closely on each other. Death caused no -interruption to the outrages. A man is dead; insult does not slacken -pursuit for such a trifle. Hatred can feast on a corpse. Libels -continued, falling furiously on these glories.</p> - -<p>The Revolution came and sent them to the Pantheon.</p> - -<p>At the beginning of this century, children were often brought to see -these two graves. They were told, "It is here." That made a strong -impression on their minds. They carried forever in their thoughts that -apparition of two sepulchres side by side,—the elliptical arch of the -vault; the antique form of the two monuments provisionally covered with -wood painted like marble; these two names, Rousseau, Voltaire, in the -twilight; and the arm carrying a flambeau which was thrust out of the -tomb of Jean-Jacques.</p> - -<p>Louis XVIII. returned. The restoration of the Stuarts had torn Cromwell -from his grave; the restoration of the Bourbons could not do less for -Voltaire.</p> - -<p>One night, in May, 1814, about two o'clock in the morning, a cab -stopped near the barrier of La Gare, which faces Bercy, at the door of -an enclosure of planks. This enclosure surrounded a large vacant piece -of ground, reserved for the projected <i>entrepôt</i>, and belonging to the -city of Paris. The cab was coming from the Pantheon, and the coachman -had been ordered to take the most deserted streets. The closed planking -opened. Some men alighted from the cab and entered the enclosure. Two -carried a sack between them. They were conducted, so tradition asserts, -by the Marquis of Puymaurin, afterward deputy to the Invisible Chamber, -and director of the mint, accompanied by his brother, the Comte de -Puymaurin. Other men, many in cassocks, were waiting for them. They -proceeded toward a hole dug in the middle of the field. This hole, -according to one of the witnesses, who since has been waiter at the -inn of the Marronniers at La Rapée, was round, and looked like a blind -well. At the bottom of the hole was quicklime. These men said nothing, -and had no light. The wan break of day gave a ghastly light. The sack -was opened. It was full of bones. These were, pell-mell, the bones -of Jean Jacques and of Voltaire, which had just been withdrawn from -the Pantheon. The mouth of the sack was brought close to the hole, -and the bones were thrown into that darkness. The two skulls struck -against each other; a spark, not likely to be seen by such men as those -present was doubtless exchanged between the head that had made the -"Dictionnaire Philosophique" and the head which had made the "Contrat -Social," and reconciled them. When that was done, when the sack had -been shaken, when Voltaire and Rousseau had been emptied into that -hole, a digger seized a spade, threw inside the opening all the earth -which was at the side, and filled tip the hole; the others stamped -with their feet on the ground, so as to remove from it the appearance -of having been freshly disturbed. One of the assistants took for his -trouble the sack, as the hangman takes the clothing of his victim; -they all left the enclosure, closed the door, got into the cab without -saying a word, and hastily, before the sun had risen, those men got -away.</p> - - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_26" id="Footnote_1_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_26"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Deserving of being broken on the wheel.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2_27" id="Footnote_2_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_27"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> <i>Vol</i> meaning <i>theft</i>, <i>taire</i> meaning to be silent.</p></div> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER IV.</h5> - - -<p>Saumaise, that worse Scaliger, does not comprehend Æschylus, and -rejects him. Who is to blame? Saumaise much, Æschylus little.</p> - -<p>The attentive man who reads great works feels at times, in the middle -of reading, certain sudden fits of cold followed by a kind of excess -of heat ("I no longer understand!—I understand!"), shivering and -burning,—something which causes him to be a little upset, at the same -time that he is very much struck. Only minds of the first order, only -men of supreme genius, subject to heedless wanderings in the infinite, -give to the reader this singular sensation,—stupor for most, ecstasy -for a few. These few are the <i>élite.</i> As we have already observed, this -<i>élite</i>, gathered from century to century, and always adding to itself, -at last makes up a number, becomes in time a multitude, and composes -the supreme crowd,—the definitive public of men of genius, sovereign -like them.</p> - -<p>It is with that public that at the end one must deal.</p> - -<p>Nevertheless, there is another public, other appraisers, other judges, -to whom we have lately alluded. They are not content.</p> - -<p>The men of genius, the great minds,—this Æschylus, this Isaiah, -this Juvenal, this Dante, this Shakespeare,—are beings, imperious, -tumultuous, violent, passionate, extreme riders of winged steeds, -"overleaping all boundaries," having their own goal, which "goes beyond -the goal," "exaggerated," taking scandalous strides, flying abruptly -from one idea to another, and from the north pole to the south pole, -crossing the heavens in three steps, making little allowance for short -breaths, tossed about by all the winds, and at the same time full of -some unaccountable equestrian confidence amidst their bounds across the -abyss, untractable to the "aristarchs," refractory to state rhetoric, -not amiable to asthmatical <i>literati</i>, unsubdued to academic hygiene, -preferring the foam of Pegasus to asses' milk.</p> - -<p>The worthy pedants are kind enough to be afraid for them. The ascent -gives rise to the calculation of the fall. The compassionate cripples -lament for Shakespeare. He is mad; he mounts too high! The crowd of -college fags (they are a crowd) look on in wonder, and get angry. -Æschylus and Dante make their connoisseurs blink their eyes every -moment. This Æschylus is lost! This Dante is near falling! A god is -soaring above; the worthy bourgeois cry out to him: "Look out for -yourself!"</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER V.</h5> - - -<p>Besides, these men of genius disconcert.</p> - -<p>One knows not on what to rely with them. Their lyric fever obeys -them; they interrupt it when they like. They seem wild. All at once -they stop. Their frenzy becomes melancholy. They are seen among the -precipices, alighting ou a peak and folding their wings, and then they -give way to meditation. Their meditation is not less surprising than -their transport. Just now they were soaring above, now they sink below. -But it is always the same boldness.</p> - -<p>They are pensive giants. Their Titanic revery needs the absolute and -the unfathomable in which to expand. They meditate, as the sun shines, -with the abyss around them.</p> - -<p>Their moving to and fro in the ideal gives the vertigo. Nothing is too -lofty for them, and nothing too low. They pass from the pygmy to the -Cyclops, from Polyphemus to the Myrmidons, from Queen Mab to Caliban, -and from a love affair to a deluge, and from Saturn's ring to the doll -of a little child. <i>Sinite parvulos venire.</i> One of the pupils of their -eye is a telescope, the other a microscope. They investigate familiarly -these two frightful opposite depths,—the infinitely great and the -infinitely small.</p> - -<p>And one should not be angry with them; and one should not reproach -them for all this! Indeed! Where should we go if such excesses were -to be tolerated? What! No scruple in the choice of subjects, horrible -or sad; and the idea, even if it be disquieting and formidable, -always followed up to its extreme limits, without pity for their -fellow-creatures! These poets only see their own aim; and in everything -are immoderate in their way of doing things. What is Job?—a worm on -an ulcer. What is the Divina Commedia?—a series of torments. What -is the Iliad?—a collection of plagues and wounds; not an artery -cut which is not complaisantly described. Go round for opinions on -Homer: ask of Scaliger, Terrasson, Lamotte, what they think of him. -The fourth of an ode to the shield of Achilles—what intemperance! He -who does not know when to stop never knew how to write. These poets -agitate, disturb, trouble, upset, overwhelm, make everything shiver, -break things, occasionally, here and there. They can cause great -misfortunes; it is terrible. Thus speak the Athenæa, the Sorbonnes, the -sworn-in professors, the societies called learned, Saumaise, successor -of Scaliger at the university of Leyden, and the <i>bourgeoisie</i> after -them,—all who represent in literature and art the great party of -order. What can be more logical? The cough quarrels with the hurricane.</p> - -<p>Those who are poor in wit are joined by those who have too much wit. -The septics lend assistance to the fools. Men of genius, with few -exceptions, are proud and stem; that is in the very marrow of their -bones. They have in company with them Juvenal, Agrippa d'Aubigné, -and Milton; they are prone to harshness; they despise the <i>panem et -circenses</i>; they seldom grow sociable, and they growl. People rail at -them in a pleasant way. Well done.</p> - -<p>Ah, poet! Ah, Milton! Ah, Juvenal!—ah, you keep up resistance! ah, -you perpetuate disinterestedness! ah, you bring together these two -firebrands, faith and will, in order to make the flame burst out from -them! ah, there is something of the Vestal in you, old grumbler! ah, -you have an altar,—your country! ah, you. have a tripod,—the ideal! -ah, you believe in the rights of man, in emancipation, in the future, -in progress, in the beautiful, in the just, in what is great! Take -care; you are behindhand. All this virtue is infatuation. You emigrate -with honour; but you emigrate. This heroism is no longer the fashion. -It no longer suits our epoch. There comes a moment when the sacred fire -is no longer fashionable. Poet, you believe in right and truth; you are -behind your century. Your very eternity causes you to pass away.</p> - -<p>So much the worse, without doubt, for those grumbling geniuses -accustomed to greatness, and scornful of what is no longer so. They -are slow in movement when shame is at stake; their back is struck with -anchylosis for anything like bowing and cringing. When success passes -along, deserved or not, but saluted, they have an iron bar keeping -their vertebral column stiff. That is their affair. So much the worse -for those people of old-fashioned Rome. They belong to antiquity and -to antique manners. To bristle up at every turn may have been all very -well in former days. Those long bristling manes are no longer worn; -the lions are out of fashion now. The French Revolution is nearly -seventy-five years old. At that age dotage comes. The people of the -present time mean to belong to their day, and even to their minute. -Certainly, we find no fault with it. Whatever is, must be. It is quite -right that what exists should exist The forms of public prosperity -are various. One generation is not obliged to imitate another. Cato -copied Phocion; Trimalcion is less like,—it is independence. You -bad-tempered old fellows, you wish us to emancipate ourselves? Let it -be so. We disencumber ourselves of the imitation of Timoleon, Thraseas -Artevelde, Thomas More, Hampden. It is our fashion to free ourselves. -You wish for a revolt; there it is. You wish for no insurrection; we -rise up against our rights. We affranchise ourselves from the care -of being free. To be citizens is a heavy load. Eights entangled with -obligations are restraints to whoever desires to enjoy life quietly. -To be guided by conscience and truth in all the steps that we take -is fatiguing. We mean to walk without leading-strings and without -principles. Duty is a chain; we break our irons. What do you mean by -speaking to us of Franklin? Franklin is a rather too servile copy of -Aristides. We carry our horror of servility so far as to prefer Grimod -de la Reynière. To eat and drink well, there is purpose in that. Each -epoch has its peculiar manner of being free. Orgy is a liberty. This -way of reasoning is triumphant; to adhere to it is wise. There have -been, it is true, epochs when people thought otherwise. In those times -the things which were trodden on would sometimes resent it, and would -rebel,—but that was the ancient system, ridiculous now; and those who -regret and grumble must be left to talk and to affirm that there was -a better notion of right, justice, and honour in the stones of olden -times than in the men of to-day.</p> - -<p>The rhetoricians, official and officious,—we have pointed out already -their wonderful sagacity,—take strong precautions against men of -genius. Men of genius are not great followers of the university; what -is more, they are wanting in insipidity. They are lyrists, colourists, -enthusiasts, enchanters, possessed, exalted, "rabid" (we have read the -word) beings who, when everybody is small, have a mania for creating -great things; in fact, they have every vice. A doctor has recently -discovered that genius is a variety of madness. They are Michael Angelo -handling giants; Rembrandt painting with a palette all bedaubed with -the sun's rays; they are Dante, Rabelais, Shakespeare, exaggerated. -They bring a wild art, roaring, flaming, dishevelled like the lion and -the comet. Oh, shocking! There is coalition against them, and it is -right. We have, luckily, the "teetotallers" of eloquence and poetry. -"I like paleness," said one day a literary <i>bourgeois.</i> The literary -<i>bourgeois</i> exists. Rhetoricians, anxious on account of the contagions -and fevers which are spread by genius, recommend with a lofty reason, -which we have commended, temperance, moderation, "common-sense," the -art of keeping within bounds, writers expurgated, trimmed, pruned, -regulated, the worship of the qualities that the malignant call -negative, continence, abstinence, Joseph, Scipio, the water-drinkers. -It is all excellent,—only, young students must be warned that by -following these sage precepts too closely they run the risk of -glorifying the chastity of the eunuch. Maybe, I admire Bayard; I admire -Origen less.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER VI.</h5> - - -<p>Résumé: Great minds are importunate; to deny them a little is judicious.</p> - -<p>After all, let us admit it at last, and complete our statement; there -is some truth in the reproaches that are hurled at them. This anger -is natural. The powerful, the grand, the luminous, are in a certain -point of view things calculated to offend. To be surpassed is never -agreeable; to feel one's own inferiority leads surely to feel offence. -The beautiful exists so truly by itself that it certainly has no -need of pride; nevertheless, given human mediocrity, the beautiful -humiliates at the same time that it enchants. It seems natural that -beauty should be a vase for pride,—it is supposed to be full of it; -one seeks to avenge one's self for the pleasure it gives, and this word -superb ends by having two senses,—one of which causes suspicion of -the other. It is the fault of the beautiful, as we have already said. -It wearies: a sketch by Piranesi bewilders you; a grasp of the hand -of Hercules bruises you. Greatness is sometimes in the wrong. It is -ingenuous, but obstructive. The tempest thinks to sprinkle you,—it -drowns you; the star thinks to give light,—it dazzles, sometimes -blinds. The Nile fertilizes, but overflows. The "too much" is not -convenient; the habitation of the fathomless is rude; the infinite -is little suitable for a lodging. A cottage is badly situated on the -cataract of Niagara or in the circus of Gavarnie. It is awkward to keep -house with these fierce wonders; to frequent them regularly without -being overwhelmed, one must be a cretin or a genius.</p> - -<p>The dawn itself at times seems to us immoderate: he who looks at it -straight suffers. The eye at certain moments thinks very ill of the -sun. Let us not then be astonished at the complaints made, at the -incessant objections, at the fits of passion and prudence, at the -cataplasms applied by a certain criticism, at the ophthalmies habitual -to academies and teaching bodies, at the warnings given to the reader, -at all the curtains let down, and at all the shades used against -genius. Genius is intolerant without knowing it, because it is itself. -How can people be familiar with Æschylus, with Ezekiel, with Dante?</p> - -<p>The <i>I</i> is the right to egotism. Now, the first thing that those -beings do, is to use roughly the <i>I</i> of each one. Exorbitant in -everything,—in thoughts, in images, in convictions, in emotions, in -passions, in faith,—whatever may be the side of your <i>I</i> to which they -address themselves, they inconvenience it. Your intellect, they surpass -it; your imagination, they dazzle it; your conscience, they question -and search it; your bowels, they twist them; your heart, they break it; -your soul, they carry it off.</p> - -<p>The infinite that is in them passes from them and multiplies them, and -transfigures them before your eyes every moment,—formidable fatigue -for your gaze. With them you never know where you are. At every turn -the unforeseen. You expected only men: they cannot enter your room, for -they are giants. You expected only an idea: cast your eyes down, they -are the ideal. You expected only eagles: they have six wings,—they are -seraphs. Are they then beyond Nature? Is it that humanity fails them?</p> - -<p>Certainly not, and far from that, and quite the reverse. We have -already said it, and we insist on it, Nature and humanity are in them -more than in any other beings. They are superhuman men, but men. <i>Homo -sum.</i> This word of a poet sums up all poetry. Saint Paul strikes his -breast and says, "Peccamus!" Job tells you who he is: "I am the son of -woman." They are men. That which troubles you is that they are men more -than you; they are too much men, so to speak. There where you have but -the part, they have the whole; they carry in their vast heart entire -humanity, and they are you more than yourself. You recognize yourself -too much in their work,—hence your outcry. To that total of Nature, -to that complete humanity, to that potter's clay, which is all your -flesh, and which is at the same time the whole earth, they add, and it -completes your terror, the wonderful reverberation of the unknown. They -have vistas of revelation; and suddenly, and without crying "Beware!" -at the moment when you least expect it, they burst the cloud, make in -the zenith a gap whence falls a ray, and they light up the terrestrial -with the celestial It is very natural that people should not greatly -fancy familiar intercourse with them, and should have no taste for -keeping neighbourly intimacy with them.</p> - -<p>Whoever has not a soul well-tempered by vigorous education avoids -them willingly. For great books there must be great readers. It is -necessary to be strong and healthy to open Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Job, -Pindar, Lucretius, and that Alighieri, and that Shakespeare. Homely -habits, prosy life, the dead calm of consciences, "good taste" and -"common-sense,"—all the small, placid egotism is deranged, let us own -it, by these monsters of the sublime.</p> - -<p>Yet, when one dives in and reads them, nothing is more hospitable for -the mind at certain hours than these stem spirits. They have all at -once a lofty gentleness, as unexpected as the rest. They say to you, -"Come in!" They receive you at home with a fraternity of archangels. -They are affectionate, sad, melancholy, consoling. You are suddenly at -your ease. You feel yourself loved by them; you almost imagine yourself -personally known to them. Their sternness and their pride cover a -profound sympathy. If granite had a heart, how deep would its goodness -be! Well, genius is granite with goodness. Extreme power possesses -great love. They join you in your prayers. They know well, those men, -that God exists. Apply your ear to these giants, you will hear them -palpitate. Do you want to believe, to love, to weep, to strike your -breast, to fall on your knees, to raise your hands to heaven with -confidence and serenity, listen to these poets. They will aid you -to rise toward the healthy and fruitful sorrow; they will make you -feel the celestial use of emotion. Oh, goodness of the strong! Their -emotion, which, if they will, can be an earthquake, is at moments so -cordial and so gentle that it seems like the rocking of a cradle. They -have just given birth within you to something of which they take care. -There is maternity in genius. Take a step, advance farther,—a new -surprise awaits you: they are graceful. As for their grace, it is light -itself.</p> - -<p>The high mountains have on their sides all climates, and the great -poets all styles. It is sufficient to change the zone. Go up, it is the -tempest; descend, the flowers are there. The inner fire accommodates -itself to the winter without; the glacier has no objection to be the -crater, and the lava never looks more beautiful than when it rashes out -through the snow. A sudden blaze of flame is not strange on a polar -summit. This contact of the extremes is a law in Nature, in which -the unforeseen wonders of the sublime burst forth at every moment. -A mountain, a genius,—both are austere majesty. These masses evolve -a sort of religious intimidation. Dante is not less perpendicular -than Etna. The depths of Shakespeare equal the gulfs of Chimborazo. -The peaks of poets are not less cloudy than the summits of mountains. -Thunders are rolling there, and at the same time, in the valleys, in -the passes, in the sheltered spots, in places between escarpments, -are streams, birds, nests, boughs, enchantments, wonderful floræ. -Above the frightful arch of the Aveyron, in the middle of the frozen -sea, there is that paradise called The Garden. Have you seen it? What -an episode! A hot sun, a shade tepid and fresh, a vague exudation of -perfumes on the grass-plots, an indescribable month of May perpetually -reigning among precipices,—nothing is more tender and more exquisite. -Such are poets: such are the Alps. These huge old gloomy mountains -are marvellous growers of roses and violets; they avail themselves of -the dawn and of the dew better than all your prairies and all your -hillocks can do it, although it is their natural business. The April -of the plain is flat and vulgar compared with their April; and they -have, those immense old mountains, in their wildest ravine, their own -charming spring, well known to the bees.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="BOOK_IVb" id="BOOK_IVb">BOOK IV.</a></h4> - - -<h4>CRITICISM.</h4> - - - -<h5>CHAPTER I.</h5> - - -<p>Every play of Shakespeare's, two excepted, "Macbeth" and "Romeo -and Juliet" (thirty-four plays out of thirty-six), offers to our -observation one peculiarity which seems to have escaped, up to this -day, the most eminent commentators and critics,—one that the Schlegels -and M. Villemain himself, in his remarkable labours, do not notice, -and on which it is impossible not to give an opinion. It is a double -action which traverses the drama, and reflects it on a small scale. -By the side of the storm in the Atlantic, the storm in the tea-cup. -Thus, Hamlet makes beneath himself a Hamlet: he kills Polonius, -father of Laërtes,—and there is Laërtes opposite him exactly in the -same situation as he is toward Claudius. There are two fathers to -avenge. There might be two ghosts. So, in King Lear: side by side and -simultaneously, Lear, driven to despair by his daughters Goneril and -Regan, and consoled by his daughter Cordelia, is reflected by Gloster, -betrayed by his son Edmond, and loved by his son Edgar. The bifurcated -idea, the idea echoing itself, a lesser drama copying and elbowing the -principal drama, the action trailing its own shadow (a smaller action -but its parallel), the unity cut asunder,—surely it is a strange fact. -These twin actions have been strongly blamed by the few commentators -who have pointed them out. We do not participate in their blame. Do -we then approve and accept as good these twin actions? By no means. -We recognize them, and that is all. The drama of Shakespeare (we said -so with all our might as far back as 1827,<a name="FNanchor_1_28" id="FNanchor_1_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_28" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> in order to discourage -all imitation),—the drama of Shakespeare is peculiar to Shakespeare. -It is a drama inherent to this poet; it is his own essence; it is -himself,—thence his originalities absolutely personal; thence his -idiosyncrasies which exist without establishing a law.</p> - -<p>These twin actions are purely Shakespearian. Neither Æschylus nor -Molière would admit them; and we certainly would agree with Æschylus -and Molière.</p> - -<p>These twin actions are, moreover, the sign of the sixteenth century. -Each epoch has its own mysterious stamp. The centuries have a seal that -they affix to <i>chefs-d'œuvre</i>, and which it is necessary to know how -to decipher and recognize. The seal of the sixteenth century is not -the seal of the eighteenth. The Renaissance was a subtle time,—a time -of reflection. The spirit of the sixteenth century was reflected in a -mirror. Every idea of the Renaissance has a double compartment. Look -at the jubes in the churches. The Renaissance, with an exquisite and -fantastical art, always makes the Old Testament repercussive on the -New. The twin action is there in everything. The symbol explains the -personage in repeating his gesture. If, in a basso-rilievo, Jehovah -sacrifices his son, he has close by, in the next low relief, Abraham -sacrificing his son. Jonas passes three days in the whale, and Jesus -passes three days in the sepulchre; and the jaws of the monster -swallowing Jonas answer to the mouth of hell engulfing Jesus.</p> - -<p>The carver of the jube of Fécamp, so stupidly demolished, goes so far -as to give for counterpart to Saint Joseph—whom? Amphitryon.</p> - -<p>These singular results constitute one of the habits of that profound -and searching high art of the sixteenth century. Nothing can be more -curious in that style than the part ascribed to Saint Christopher. -In the Middle Ages, and in the sixteenth century, in paintings and -sculptures, Saint Christopher, the good giant martyred by Decius in -250, recorded by the Bollandists and acknowledged without a question -by Baillet, is always triple,—an opportunity for the triptych. There -is foremost a first Christ-bearer, a first Christophorus; that is -Christopher, with the infant Jesus on his shoulders. Afterward the -Virgin enceinte is a Christopher, since she carries Christ Last, -the cross is a Christopher; it also carries Christ. This treble -illustration of the idea is immortalized by Rubens in the cathedral -of Antwerp. The twin idea, the triple idea,—such is the seal of the -sixteenth century.</p> - -<p>Shakespeare, faithful to the spirit of his time, must needs add Laërtes -avenging his father to Hamlet avenging his father, and cause Hamlet -to be persecuted by Laërtes at the same time that Claudius is pursued -by Hamlet; he must needs make the filial piety of Edgar a comment on -the filial piety of Cordelia, and bring out in contrast, weighed down -by the ingratitude of unnatural children, two wretched fathers, each -bereaved of a kind light,—Lear mad, and Gloster blind.</p> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_28" id="Footnote_1_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_28"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Preface to "Cromwell."</p></div> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER II.</h5> - - -<p>What then? No criticising? No.—No blame? No.—You explain everything? -Yes.—Genius is an entity like Nature, and requires, like Nature, to -be accepted purely and simply. A mountain must be accepted as such or -left alone. There are men who would make a criticism on the Himalayas, -pebble by pebble. Mount Etna blazes and slavers, throws out its glare, -its wrath, its lava, and its ashes; these men take scales and weigh -those ashes, pinch by pinch. <i>Quot libras in monte summo?</i> Meanwhile -genius continues its eruption. Everything in it has its reason for -existing. It is because it is. Its shadow is the inverse of its light. -Its smoke comes from its flame. Its depth is the result of its height. -We love this more and that less; but we remain silent wherever we feel -God. We are in the forest; the tortuosity of the tree is its secret. -The sap knows what it is doing. The root knows its own business. We -take things as they are; we are indulgent for that which is excellent, -tender, or magnificent; we acquiesce in <i>chefs-d'œuvre</i>; we do not -make use of one to find fault with the other; we do not insist upon -Phidias sculpturing cathedrals, or upon Pinaigrier glazing temples -(the temple is the harmony, the cathedral is the mystery; they are two -different forms of the sublime); we do not claim for the Münster the -perfection of the Parthenon, or for the Parthenon the grandeur of the -Münster. We are so far whimsical as to be satisfied with both being -beautiful. We do not reproach for its sting the insect that gives us -honey. We renounce our right to criticise the feet of the peacock, the -cry of the swan, the plumage of the nightingale, the butterfly for -having been caterpillar, the thorn of the rose, the smell of the lion, -the skin of the elephant, the prattle of the cascade, the pips of the -orange, the immobility of the Milky Way, the saltness of the ocean, the -spots on the sun, the nakedness of Noah.</p> - -<p>The <i>quandoque bonus dormitat</i> is permitted to Horace. We raise -no objection. What is certain is, that Homer would not say it of -Horace,—he would not take the trouble. Himself the eagle, Homer would -indeed find Horace, the chattering humming-bird, charming. I grant -it is pleasant to a man to feel himself superior, and say, "Homer is -puerile; Dante is childish." It is indulging in a pretty smile. To -crush these poor geniuses a little, why not? To be the Abbé Trublet, -and say, "Milton is a schoolboy," it is pleasing. How witty is the man -who finds that Shakespeare has no wit! That man is La Harpe, Delandine, -Auger; he is, was, or shall be, an Academician. "All these great men -are made up of extravagance, bad taste, and childishness." What a fine -decree to issue! These fashions tickle voluptuously those who have -them; and in reality, when they have said, "This giant is small," -they can fancy that they are great. Every man has his own way. As for -myself, the writer of these lines, I admire everything like a fool.</p> - -<p>That is why I have written this book.</p> - -<p>To admire, to be an enthusiast,—it has struck me that it was right to -give in our century this example of folly.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER III.</h5> - - -<p>Do not look, then, for any criticism. I admire Æschylus, I admire -Juvenal, I admire Dante, in the mass, in a lump, all. I do not cavil -at those great benefactors. What you characterize as a fault, I call -accent. I accept and give thanks. I do not inherit the marvels of -human wit conditionally. Pegasus being given to me, I do not look -the gift-horse in the mouth. A masterpiece offers its hospitality: -I approach it with my hat off, and think the visage of mine host -handsome. Gilles Shakespeare, it may be: I admire Shakespeare and I -admire Gilles. Falstaff is proposed to me: I accept him, and I admire -the "Empty the jorden." I admire the senseless cry, "A rat!" I admire -the jests of Hamlet; I admire the wholesale murders of Macbeth; I -admire the witches, "that ridiculous spectacle;" I admire "the buttock -of the night;" I admire the eye plucked from Gloster. I am simple -enough to admire all.</p> - -<p>Having recently had the honour to be called "silly" by several -distinguished writers and critics, and even by my illustrious friend M. -de Lamartine,<a name="FNanchor_1_29" id="FNanchor_1_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_29" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> I am determined to justify the epithet.</p> - -<p>We close with one last observation which we have specially to make -regarding Shakespeare.</p> - -<p>Orestes, that fatal senior of Hamlet, is not, as we have said, the -sole link between Æschylus and Shakespeare; we have noted a relation, -less easily perceptible, between Prometheus and Hamlet. The mysterious -close connection between the two poets is, in reference to this same -Prometheus, more strangely striking yet, and in a particular which, up -to this time, has escaped the observers and critics. Prometheus is the -grandsire of Mab.</p> - -<p>Let us prove it.</p> - -<p>Prometheus, like all personages become legendary,—like Solomon, like -Cæsar, like Mahomet, like Charlemagne, like the Cid, like Joan of Arc, -like Napoleon,—has a double prolongation, the one in history, the -other in fable. Now, the prolongation of Prometheus is this:</p> - -<p>Prometheus, creator of men, is also creator of spirits. He is father -of a dynasty of Divs, whose filiation the old metrical tales have -preserved: Elf, that is to say, the Rapid, son of Prometheus; then -Elfin, King of India; then Elfinan, founder of Cleopolis, town of the -fairies; then Elfilin, builder of the golden wall; then Elfinell, -winner of the battle of the demons; then Elfant, who made Panthea -entirely in crystal; then Elfar, who killed Bicephalus and Tricephalus; -then Elfinor, the magian, a kind of Salmoneus, who built over the sea -a bridge of copper, sounding like thunder, "non imitabile fulmen aere -et cornipedum pulsu simularat equorum;" then seven hundred princes; -then Elficleos the Sage; then Elferon the Beautiful; then Oberon; then -Mab,—wonderful fable, which, with a profound meaning, unites the -sidereal and the microscopic, the infinitely great and the infinitely -small.</p> - -<p>And it is thus that the infusoria of Shakespeare is connected with the -giant of Æschylus.</p> - -<p>The fairy, drawn over the nose of sleeping men in her carriage, covered -with the wing of a locust, by eight flies harnessed with the rays of -the moon, and whipped with a gossamer,—the fairy atom has for ancestor -the huge Titan, robber of stars, nailed on the Caucasus, one hand on -the Caspian gates, the other on the portals of Ararat, one heel on -the source of the Phasis, the other on the Validus-Murus, closing the -passage between the mountain and the sea,—a colossus, whose immense -shadow was, according as the rise or setting of light, projected by the -sun, now on Europe as far as Corinth, now on Asia as far as Bangalore.</p> - -<p>Nevertheless, Mab, who is also called Tanaquil, has all the wavering -inconsistency of the dream. Under the name of Tanaquil she is the -wife of Tarquin the Ancient; and she spins for young Servius Tullius -the first tunic worn by a young Roman after leaving off the pretexta. -Oberon, who turns out to be Numa, is her uncle. In "Huon de Bordeaux" -she is called Gloriande, and has for lover Julius Cæsar, and Oberon is -her son; in Spenser, she is called Gloriana, and Oberon is her father; -in Shakespeare she is called Titania, and Oberon is her husband. -Titania: this name unites Mab to the Titan, and Shakespeare to Æschylus.</p> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_29" id="Footnote_1_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_29"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> All the biography, sometimes rather puerile, even rather -silly, of Bishop Myriel.—Lamartine: <i>Cours de Littérature</i> (Entretien -LXXXIV. p. 385).</p></div> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER IV.</h5> - - -<p>An eminent man of our day, a celebrated historian a powerful orator, -one of the former translators of Shakespeare, is mistaken, according to -our views, when he regrets, or appears to regret, the slight influence -of Shakespeare on the theatre of the nineteenth century. We cannot -share that regret An influence of any sort, even that of Shakespeare, -could but mar the originality of the literary movement of our epoch. -"The system of Shakespeare," says the honourable and grave writer, -with reference to that movement, "can furnish, it seems to me, the -plans after which genius must henceforth work." We have never been of -that opinion, and we have said so as far back as forty years ago.<a name="FNanchor_1_30" id="FNanchor_1_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_30" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> -For us, Shakespeare is a genius, and not a system. On this point we -have already explained our views, and we mean soon to explain them at -greater length; but let us state now that what Shakespeare has done, -is done once for all,—it is impossible to do it over again. Admire or -criticise, but do not recast. It is finished.</p> - -<p>A distinguished critic who lately died,—M. Chaudesaigues,—lays a -stress on this reproach: "Shakespeare," says he, "has been revived -without being followed. The romantic school has not imitated -Shakespeare. In that it is wrong." In that it is right. It is blamed -for it; we praise it. The contemporary theatre is what it is, but it is -itself. The contemporary theatre has for device, <i>Sum non sequor.</i> It -belongs to no "system" It has its own law, and it accomplishes it. It -has its own life, and it lives it.</p> - -<p>The drama of Shakespeare expresses man at a given moment. Man passes -away; that drama remains, having for eternal foundation, life, the -heart, the world, and for surface the sixteenth century. That drama can -neither be continued nor recomposed. Another age, another art.</p> - -<p>The theatre of our day has not followed Shakespeare any more than it -has followed Æschylus. And without reckoning all the other reasons -that we shall note farther on, how perplexed would he be who wished to -imitate and copy, in making a choice between these two poets! Æschylus -and Shakespeare seem made to prove that contraries may be admirable. -The point of departure of the one is absolutely opposite to the point -of departure of the other. Æschylus is concentration; Shakespeare is -diffusion. One must be much applauded because he is condensed, and -the other because he is diffuse; to Æschylus unity, to Shakespeare -ubiquity. Between them they divide God. And as such intellects are -always complete, one feels in the condensed drama of Æschylus the free -agitation of passion, and in the diffuse drama of Shakespeare the -convergence of all the rays of life. The one starts from unity and -reaches a multiple; the other starts from the multiple and arrives at -unity.</p> - -<p>This appears strikingly evident, particularly when we compare "Hamlet" -with "Orestes,"—extraordinary double page, obverse and reverse of the -same idea, and which seems written expressly to prove to what an extent -two different geniuses, making the same thing, will make two different -things.</p> - -<p>It is easy to see that the theatre of our day has, rightly or wrongly, -traced out its own way between Greek unity and Shakespearian ubiquity.</p> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_30" id="Footnote_1_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_30"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Preface to "Cromwell."</p></div> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER V.</h5> - - -<p>Let us set aside for the present the question of contemporary art, and -take up again the general question.</p> - -<p>Imitation is always barren and bad.</p> - -<p>As for Shakespeare,—since Shakespeare is the poet who claims our -attention now,—he is, in the highest degree, a genius human and -general; but like every true genius, he is at the same time an -idiosyncratic and personal mind. Axiom: the poet starts from his own -inner self to come to us. It is that which makes the poet inimitable.</p> - -<p>Examine Shakespeare, dive into him, and see how determined he is to -be himself. Do not expect any concession from him. It is not egotism, -but it is stubbornness. He wills it. He gives to art his orders,—of -course in the limits of his work; for neither the art of Æschylus, -nor the art of Aristophanes, nor the art of Plautus, nor the art of -Macchiavelli, nor the art of Calderon, nor the art of Molière, nor the -art of Beaumarchais, nor any of the forms of art, deriving life each -of them from the special life of a genius, would obey the orders given -by Shakespeare. Art, thus understood, is vast equality and profound -liberty; the region of the equals is also the region of the free.</p> - -<p>One of the grandeurs of Shakespeare consists in his impossibility -to be a model. In order to realize his idiosyncrasy, open one of -his plays,—no matter which; it is always foremost and above all -Shakespeare.</p> - -<p>What more personal than "Troilus and Cressida"? A comic Troy! Here -is "Much Ado about Nothing,"—a tragedy which ends with a burst of -laughter. Here is the "Winter's Tale,"—a pastoral drama. Shakespeare -is at home in his work. Do you wish to see true despotism: look at his -fancy. What arbitrary determination to dream! What despotic resolution -in his vertiginous flight! What absoluteness in his indecision and -wavering! The dream fills some of his plays to that degree that man -changes his nature, and is the cloud more than the man. Angelo in -"Measure for Measure" is a misty tyrant. He becomes disintegrated, -and wears away. Leontes in the "Winter's Tale" is an Othello who -is blown away. In "Cymbeline" one thinks that Iachimo will become -an Iago, but he melts down. The dream is there,—everywhere. Watch -Manilius, Posthumus, Hermione, Perdita, passing by. In the "Tempest," -the Duke of Milan has "a brave son," who is like a dream in a dream. -Ferdinand alone speaks of him, and no one but Ferdinand seems to have -seen him. A brute becomes reasonable: witness the constable Elbow in -"Measure for Measure." An idiot is all at once witty: witness Cloten in -"Cymbeline." A King of Sicily is jealous of a King of Bohemia. Bohemia -has a seashore. The shepherds pick up children there. Theseus, a duke, -espouses Hippolyta, the Amazon. Oberon comes in also. For here it is -Shakespeare's will to dream; elsewhere he thinks.</p> - -<p>We say more: where he dreams he still thinks,—with a different but -equal depth.</p> - -<p>Let men of genius remain in peace in their originality. There is -something wild in these mysterious civilizers. Even in their comedy, -even in their buffoonery, even in their laughter, even in their smile, -there is the unknown. In them is felt the sacred dread that belongs to -art, and the all-powerful terror of the imaginary mixed with the real. -Each of them is in his cavern, alone. They hear one another from afar, -but never copy one another. We are not aware that the hippopotamus -imitates the roar of the elephant, neither do lions imitate one another.</p> - -<p>Diderot does not recast Bayle; Beaumarchais does not copy Plautus, and -has no need of Davus to create Figaro. Piranesi is not inspired by -Dædalus. Isaiah does not begin Moses over again.</p> - -<p>One day, at St. Helena, M. De Las Cases said, "Sire, when you were -master of Prussia, I would in your place have taken the sword of -Frederick the Great, which is deposited in the tomb at Potsdam; and I -would have worn it." "Fool!" replied Napoleon, "I had my own."</p> - -<p>Shakespeare's work is absolute, sovereign, imperious, eminently -solitary, unneighbourly, sublime in radiance, absurd in reflection, and -must remain without a copy.</p> - -<p>To imitate Shakespeare would be as insane as to imitate Racine would be -stupid.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER VI.</h5> - - -<p>Let us agree, by the way, respecting a qualificative much used -everywhere: <i>Profanum vulgus</i>,—the saying of a poet on which pedants -lay great stress. This <i>profanum vulgus</i> is rather the weapon of -everybody. Let us fix the meaning of this word. What is the <i>profanum -vulgus?</i> The school says, "It is the people." And we, we say, "It is -the school."</p> - -<p>But let us first define this expression, "the school." When we say, -"the school," what must be understood? Let us explain it. The school -is the resultant of pedantry; the school is the literary excrescence -of the budget; the school is intellectual mandarinship governing in -the various authorized and official teachings, either of the press -or of the State, from the theatrical <i>feuilleton</i> of the prefecture -to the biographies and encyclopædias duly examined, stamped, and -hawked about, and sometimes, as a refinement, made by republicans -agreeable to the police; the school is the circumvallating classic and -scholastic orthodoxy, the Homeric and Virgilian antiquity made use of -by <i>literati</i> licensed by government,—a kind of China self-called -Greece; the school is—summed up in one concretion which forms part -of public order—all the knowledge of pedagogues, all the history of -historiographers, all the poetry of laureates, all the philosophy -of sophists, all the criticism of pedants, all the ferule of the -"ignorantins," all the religion of bigots, all the modesty of prudes, -all the metaphysics of those who change sides, all the justice of -placemen, all the old age of the small young men who have undergone -the operation, all the flattery of courtiers, all the diatribes of -censer-bearers, all the independence of valets, all the certainty -of short sights and of base souls. The school hates Shakespeare. It -detects him in the very act of mingling with the people, going to and -fro in public thoroughfares, "trivial," speaking the language of the -people, uttering the human cry like any other man, welcome to those -that he welcomes, applauded by hands black with tar, cheered by all -the hoarse throats that proceed from labour and weariness. The drama -of Shakespeare is the people; the school is indignant and says, "Odi -profanum vulgus." There is demagogy in this poetry roaming at large; -the author of "Hamlet" "panders to the mob."</p> - -<p>Let it be so. The poet "panders to the mob."</p> - -<p>If anything is great, it is that.</p> - -<p>There in the foreground, everywhere, in full light, amidst the flourish -of trumpets, are the powerful men followed by the gilded men. The poet -does not see them, or, if he does, he disdains them. He lifts his eyes -and looks at God; then he lowers his eyes and looks at the people. -There in the depth of the shadow, nearly invisible, so much submerged -that it is the night, is that fatal crowd, that vast and mournful -heap of suffering, that venerable populace of the tattered and of the -ignorant,—chaos of souls. That crowd of heads undulates obscurely -like the waves of a nocturnal sea. From time to time there pass on -that surface, like squalls over the water, catastrophes,—a war, a -pestilence, a royal favourite, a famine. That causes a disturbance -which lasts a short time, the depth of sorrow being immovable as the -depth of the ocean. Despair deposits in us some weight as of lead. -The last word of the abyss is stupor; therefore it is the night. It -is, under the thick blackness, behind which all is indistinct, the -mournful sea of the needy.</p> - -<p>These overloaded beings are silent; they know nothing; they submit -<i>Plectuntur Achivi.</i> They are hungry and cold. Their indecent flesh is -seen through the holes in their tatters. Who makes those tatters? The -purple. The nakedness of virgins comes from the nudity of odalisques. -From the twisted rags of the daughters of the people fall pearls for -the Fontanges and the Châteauroux. It is famine which gilds Versailles. -The whole of that living and dying shadow moves; these larvæ are in the -pangs of death; the mother's breast is dry; the father has no work; -the brains have no light. If there is a book in that destitution, it -resembles the pitcher, so insipid or corrupt is what it offers to the -thirst of intellects. Mournful families!</p> - -<p>The group of the little ones is wan. All die away and creep along, not -having even the power to love; and unknown to them perhaps, while they -crouch down and resign themselves, from all that vast unconsciousness -in which Right dwells, from the rumbling murmur of those wretched -breaths mingled together, proceeds an indescribable confused voice, -mysterious mist of language, succeeding, syllable by syllable in the -darkness, in uttering extraordinary words,—Future, Humanity, Liberty, -Equality, Progress. And the poet listens, and he hears; and he looks, -and he sees; and he bends lower and lower, and he weeps; and all at -once, growing with a strange growth, drawing from all that darkness his -own transfiguration, he stands erect, terrible and tender, above all -those wretched ones,—those above as well as those below,—with flaming -eyes.</p> - -<p>And he demands a reckoning with a loud voice. And he says, Here is -the effect! And he says, Here is the cause! Light is the remedy. -<i>Erudimini.</i> And he looks like a great vase full of humanity shaken -by the hand which is in the cloud, and from whence fall on the earth -large drops,—fire for the oppressors, dew for the oppressed. Ah, you -find fault with that, you fellows! Well, then, we approve of it, we -do! We find it just that some one speaks when all suffer. The ignorant -who enjoy and the ignorant who suffer have an equal want of teaching. -The law of fraternity is derived from the law of labour. To kill one -another has had its day. The hour has come to love one another. It is -to promulgate these truths that the poet is good. For that, he must -be of the people; for that he must be of the populace,—that is to -say, that, bringing progress, he should not recoil before the pressure -of facts, however ugly the facts may be. The distance between the -real and the ideal cannot be measured otherwise. Besides, to drag the -cannon-ball a little completes Vincent de Paul. Hurrah, then, for the -trivial promiscuousness, for the popular metaphor, for the great life -in common with those exiles from joy who are catted the poor!—this is -the first duty of poets. It is useful; it is necessary, that the breath -of the people should fill those all-powerful souls. The people have -something to say to them. It is good that there should be in Euripides -a flavour of the herb-dealers at Athens, and in Shakespeare of the -sailors of London.</p> - -<p>Sacrifice to "the mob," O poet! Sacrifice to that unfortunate, -disinherited, vanquished, vagabond, shoeless, famished, repudiated, -despairing mob; sacrifice to it, if it must be and when it must be, thy -repose, thy fortune, thy joy, thy country, thy liberty, thy life. The -mob is the human race in misery. The mob is the mournful commencement -of the people. The mob is the great victim of darkness. Sacrifice to -it! Sacrifice thyself! Let thyself be hunted, let thyself be exiled as -Voltaire to Ferney, as D'Aubigné to Geneva, as Dante to Verona, as -Juvenal to Syene, as Tacitus to Methymna, as Æschylus to Gela, as John -to Patmos, as Elias to Horeb, as Thucydides to Thrace, as Isaiah to -Esiongeber! Sacrifice to the mob. Sacrifice to it thy gold, and thy -blood which is more than thy gold, and thy thought which is more than -thy blood, and thy love which is more than thy thought; sacrifice to it -everything except justice. Receive its complaint; listen to its faults, -and to the faults of others. Listen to what it has to confess and to -denounce to thee. Stretch forth to it the ear, the hand, the arm, the -heart. Do everything for it, excepting evil. Alas! it suffers so much, -and it knows nothing. Correct it, warm it, instruct it, guide it, bring -it up. Put it to the school of honesty. Make it spell truth; show it -that alphabet, reason; teach it to read virtue, probity, generosity, -mercy. Hold thy book wide open. Be there, attentive, vigilant, kind, -faithful, humble. Light up the brain, inflame the mind, extinguish -egotism, show good example. The poor are privation: be abnegation. -Teach! irradiate! They need thee; thou art their great thirst To learn -is the first step; to live is but the second. Be at their order, dost -thou hear? Be ever there, light! For it is beautiful, on this sombre -earth, during this dark life, short passage to something else, it is -beautiful that Force should have Right for a master, that Progress -should have Courage as a chief, that Intelligence should have Honour -as a sovereign, that Conscience should have Duty as a despot, that -Civilization should have Liberty as a queen, that Ignorance should have -a servant,—Light.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="BOOK_Vb" id="BOOK_Vb">BOOK V.</a></h4> - - -<h4>THE MINDS AND THE MASSES.</h4> - - - -<h5>CHAPTER I.</h5> - - -<p>For the last eighty years memorable things have been done. A wonderful -heap of demolished materials covers the pavement.</p> - -<p>What is done is but little by the side of what remains to be done.</p> - -<p>To destroy is the task: to build is the work. Progress demolishes with -the left hand; it is with the right hand that it builds.</p> - -<p>The left hand of Progress is called Force; the right hand is called -Mind.</p> - -<p>There is at this hour a great deal of useful destruction accomplished; -all the old cumbersome civilization is, thanks to our fathers, cleared -away. It is well, it is finished, it is thrown down, it is on the -ground. Now, up with you all, intellects! to work, to labour, to -fatigue, to duty; it is necessary to construct.</p> - -<p>Here three questions: To construct what? To construct where? To -construct how?</p> - -<p>We reply: To construct the people. To construct the people according to -the laws of progress. To construct the people according to the laws of -light.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER II.</h5> - - -<p>To work for the people,—that is the great and urgent necessity.</p> - -<p>The human mind—an important thing to say at this minute—has a greater -need of the ideal even than of the real.</p> - -<p>It is by the real that we exist; it is by the ideal that we live. Now, -do you wish to realize the difference? Animals exist, man lives.</p> - -<p>To live, is to understand. To live, is to smile at the present, to look -toward posterity over the wall. To live, is to have in one's self a -balance, and to weigh in it the good and the evil. To live, is to have -justice, truth, reason, devotion, probity, sincerity, common-sense, -right, and duty nailed to the heart. To live, is to know what one is -worth, what one can do and should do. Life is conscience. Cato would -not rise before Ptolemy. Cato lived.</p> - -<p>Literature is the secretion of civilization, poetry of the ideal. That -is why literature is one of the wants of societies. That is why poetry -is a hunger of the soul. That is why poets are the first instructors -of the people. That is why Shakespeare must be translated in France. -That is why Molière must be translated in England. That is why comments -must be made on them. That is why there must be a vast public literary -domain. That is why all poets, all philosophers, all thinkers, all the -producers of the greatness of the mind must be translated, commented -on, published, printed, reprinted, stereotyped, distributed, explained, -recited, spread abroad, given to all, given cheaply, given at cost -price, given for nothing.</p> - -<p>Poetry evolves heroism. M. Royer-Collard, that original and ironical -friend of routine, was, taken all in all, a wise and noble spirit Some -one we know heard him say one day, "Spartacus is a poet."</p> - -<p>That wonderful and consoling Ezekiel—the tragic revealer of -progress—has all kinds of singular passages full of a profound -meaning: "The voice said to me: Fill the palm of thy hand with red-hot -coals, and spread them on the city." And elsewhere: "The spirit having -gone into them, everywhere where the spirit went, they went" And again: -"A hand was stretched towards me. It held a roll which was a book. The -voice said to me: Eat this roll. I opened the lips and I ate the book. -And it was sweet in my mouth as honey." To eat the book is a strange -and striking image,—the whole formula of perfectibility, which above -is knowledge, and below, teaching.</p> - -<p>We have just said, "Literature is the secretion of civilization." Do -you doubt it? Open the first statistics you come across.</p> - -<p>Here is one which we find under our hand: Bagne de Toulon, 1862. Three -thousand and ten prisoners. Of these three thousand and ten convicts, -forty know a little more than to read and write, two hundred and -eighty-seven know how to read and write, nine hundred and four read -badly and write badly, seventeen hundred and seventy-nine know neither -how to read nor write. In this wretched crowd all the merely mechanical -trades are represented by numbers decreasing according as they rise -toward the enlightened pursuits, and you arrive at this final result: -goldsmiths and jewellers, four; ecclesiastics, three; lawyers, two; -comedians, one; artist musicians, one; men of letters, not one.</p> - -<p>The transformation of the crowd into the people,—profound labour! -It is to this labour that the men called socialists have devoted -themselves during the last forty years. The author of this book, -however insignificant he may be, is one of the oldest in this labour; -"Le Dernier Jour d'un Condamné" dates from 1828, and "Claude Gueux" -from 1834. He claims his place among these philosophers because it is -a place of persecution. A certain hatred of socialism, very blind, but -very general, has been at work for fifteen or sixteen years, and is -still at work most bitterly among the influential classes. (Classes, -then, are still in existence?) Let it not be forgotten, socialism, true -socialism, has for its end the elevation of the masses to the civic -dignity, and therefore its principal care is for moral and intellectual -cultivation. The first hunger is ignorance; socialism wishes then, -above all, to instruct. That does not hinder socialism from being -calumniated, and socialists from being denounced. To most of the -infuriated, trembling cowards who have their say at the present moment, -these reformers are public enemies. They are guilty of everything -that has gone wrong. "O Romans!" said Tertullian, "we are just, kind, -thinking, lettered, honest men. We meet to pray, and we love you -because you are our brethren. We are gentle and peaceable like little -children, and we wish for concord among men. Nevertheless, O Romans! if -the Tiber overflows, or if the Nile does not, you cry, 'To the lions -with the Christians!'"</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER III.</h5> - - -<p>The democratic idea, the new bridge of civilization, undergoes at this -moment the formidable trial of overweight. Every other idea would -certainly give way under the load that it is made to bear. Democracy -proves its solidity by the absurdities that are heaped on, without -shaking it. It must resist everything that people choose to place on -it. At this moment they try to make it carry despotism.</p> - -<p>The people have no need of liberty,—such was the pass-word of a -certain innocent and duped school, the head of which has been dead some -years. That poor honest dreamer believed in good faith that men can -keep progress with them when they turn out liberty. We have heard him -put forth, probably without meaning it, this aphorism: Liberty is good -for the rich. These kinds of maxims have the disadvantage of not being -prejudicial to the establishment of empires.</p> - -<p>No, no, no! Nothing out of liberty.</p> - -<p>Servitude is the blind soul. Can you figure to yourself a man blind -voluntarily? This terrible thing exists. There are willing slaves. A -smile in irons! Can anything be more hideous? He who is not free is not -a man; he who is not free has no sight, no knowledge, no discernment, -no growth, no comprehension, no will, no faith, no love; he has no -wife, he has no children: he has a female and young ones; he lives -not,—<i>ab luce principium.</i> Liberty is the apple of the eye. Liberty is -the visual organ of progress.</p> - -<p>Because liberty has inconveniences, and even perils, to wish to create -civilization without it is just the same as to try cultivation without -the sun; the sun is also a censurable heavenly body. One day, in the -too beautiful summer of 1829, a critic, now forgotten,—and wrongly, -for he was not without some talent,—M. P., suffering from the heat, -sharpened his pen, saying, "I am going to excoriate the sun."</p> - -<p>Certain social theories, very distinct from socialism such as we -understand and want it, have gone astray. Let us discard all that -resembles the convent, the barrack, the cell and the straight-line -system. Paraguay, minus the Jesuits, is Paraguay just the same. To -give a new fashion to evil is not a useful task. To recommence the old -slavery is idiotic. Let the nations of Europe beware of a despotism -made anew from materials they have to some extent themselves supplied. -Such a thing, cemented with a special philosophy, might well last. -We have just mentioned the theorists, some of whom otherwise right -and sincere, who, by dint of fearing the dispersion of activities -and energies, and of what they call "anarchy," have arrived at an -almost Chinese acceptation of absolute social concentration. They turn -their resignation into a doctrine. Provided man eats and drinks, all -is right. The happiness of the beast is the solution. But this is a -happiness which some other men would call by a different name.</p> - -<p>We dream for nations something else besides a felicity solely made -up of obedience. The bastinado procures that sort of felicity -for the Turkish fellah, the knout for the Russian serf, and the -cat-o'-nine-tails for the English soldier. These socialists by the -side of socialism come from Joseph de Maistre, and from Ancillon, -without suspecting it perhaps; for the ingenuousness of these theorists -rallied to the <i>fait accompli</i> has—or fancies it has—democratic -intentions, and speaks energetically of the "principles of '89." Let -these involuntary philosophers of a possible despotism think a moment. -To teach the masses a doctrine against liberty; to cram intellects with -appetites and fatalism, a certain situation being given; to saturate it -with materialism; and to run the risk of the construction which might -proceed from it,—that would be to understand progress in the fashion -of the worthy man who applauded a new gibbet, and who exclaimed, "This -is all right! We have had till now but the old wooden gallows. To-day -the age advances; and here we are with a good stone gibbet, which will -do for our children and grandchildren!"</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER IV.</h5> - - -<p>To enjoy a full stomach, a satisfied intestine, a satiated belly, is -doubtless something, for it is the enjoyment of the brute. However, one -may place one's ambition higher.</p> - -<p>Certainly, a good salary is a fine thing. To tread on this firm ground, -high wages, is pleasant. The wise man likes to want nothing. To insure -his own position is the characteristic of an intelligent man. An -official chair, with ten thousand sesterces a year, is a graceful and -convenient seat. Great emoluments give a fresh complexion and good -health. One lives to an old age in pleasant, well-paid sinecures. The -high financial world, rich in plentiful profits, is a place agreeable -to live in. To be well at Court settles a family well and brings a -fortune. As for myself, I prefer to all these solid comforts the old -leaky vessel in which Bishop Quodvultdeus embarks with a smile.</p> - -<p>There is something beyond gorging one's self. The goal of man is not -the goal of the animal.</p> - -<p>A moral enhancement is necessary. The life of nations, like the life -of individuals, has its minutes of depression; these minutes pass, -certainly, but no trace of them ought to remain. Man, at this hour, -tends to fall into the stomach. Man must be replaced in the heart; man -must be replaced in the brain. The brain,—behold the sovereign that -must be restored! The social question requires to-day, more than ever, -to be examined on the side of human dignity.</p> - -<p>To show man the human end, to ameliorate intelligence first, the animal -afterward, to disdain the flesh as long as the thought is despised, and -to give the example on their own flesh,—such is the actual, immediate, -urgent duty of writers.</p> - -<p>It is what men of genius have done at all times.</p> - -<p>You ask in what poets can be useful? In imbuing civilization with -light,-only that.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER V.</h5> - - -<p>Up to this day there has been a literature of <i>literati.</i> In France, -particularly, as we have said, literature had a disposition to form -a caste. To be a poet was something like being a mandarin. Words did -not all belong by right to the language. The dictionary granted or -did not grant the registration. The dictionary had a will of its own. -Imagine the botanist declaring to a vegetable that it does not exist, -and Nature timidly offering an insect to entomology, which refuses it -as incorrect. Imagine astronomy cavilling at the stars. We recollect -having heard an Academician, now dead, say in full academy that French -had been spoken in France only in the seventeenth century, and then -for only twelve years,—we do not remember which twelve. Let us give -up, for it is time, this order of ideas; democracy requires it. The -actual enlarging of thoughts needs something else. Let us leave the -college, the conclave, the cell, the weak taste, weak art, the small -chapel. Poetry is not a coterie. There is at this hour an effort -made to galvanize dead things. Let us strive against this tendency. -Let us insist on the truths which are urgent. The <i>chefs-d'œuvre</i> -recommended by the manual of bachelorship, compliments in verse and in -prose, tragedies soaring over the head of some king, inspiration in -full official dress, the brilliant nonentities fixing laws on poetry, -the <i>Arts poétiques</i> which forget La Fontaine, and for which Molière -is doubtful, the Planats castrating the Corneilles, prudish tongues, -the thoughts enclosed between four walls, and limited by Quintilian, -Longinus, Boileau, and La Harpe,—all that, although official and -public teaching is filled and saturated with it, all that belongs to -the past. Some particular epoch, which is called the grand century, -and for a certainty the fine century, is nothing else in reality but a -literary monologue. Is it possible to realize such a strange thing,—a -literature which is an aside? It seems as if one read on the frontal -of art "No admittance." As for ourselves, we understand poetry only -with the door wide open. The hour has struck for hoisting the "All for -All." What is needed by civilization, henceforth a grown-up woman, is a -popular literature.</p> - -<p>1830 has opened a debate, literary on the surface, at the bottom social -and human. The moment is come to close the debate. We close it by -asking a literature having in view this purpose: "The People."</p> - -<p>The author of these pages wrote, thirty-one years ago, in the preface -to "Lucrèce Borgia," a few words often repeated since: "Le poète a -charge d'âmes." He would add here, if it were worth saying, that, -allowing for possible error, the words, uttered by his conscience, have -been his rule throughout life.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER VI.</h5> - - -<p>Macchiavelli had a strange idea of the people. To heap the measure, -to overflow the cup, to exaggerate horror in the case of the prince, -to increase the crushing in order to stir up the oppressed to revolt, -to cause idolatry to change into a curse, to push the masses to -extremities,—such seems to be his policy. His "yes" signifies "no." He -loads the despot with despotism in order to make him burst. The tyrant -becomes in his hands a hideous projectile, which will break to pieces. -Macchiavelli conspires. For whom? Against whom? Guess. His apotheosis -of kings is just the thing to make regicides. On the head of his prince -he places a diadem of crimes, a tiara of vices, a halo of baseness; and -he invites you to adore his monster, with the air of a man expecting -an avenger. He glorifies evil with a squint toward the darkness,—the -darkness wherein is Harmodius. Macchiavelli, the getter-up of princely -outrages, the valet of the Medici and of the Borgias, had in his youth -been put to the rack for having admired Brutus and Cassius. He had -perhaps plotted with the Soderini the deliverance of Florence. Does -he recollect it? Does he continue? His advice is followed, like the -lightning, by a low rumbling in the cloud,—alarming reverberation. -What did he mean to say? On whom has he a design? Is the advice for or -against him to whom he gives it? One day, at Florence, in the garden -of Cosmo Ruccelaï, there being present the Duke of Mantua and John de -Medici, who afterward commanded the Black Bands of Tuscany, Varchi, -the enemy of Macchiavelli, heard him say to the two princes: "Let the -people read no book,—not even mine." It is curious to compare with -this remark the advice given by Voltaire to the Duke de Choiseul,—at -the same time advice to the minister, and insinuation for the king: -"Let the boobies read our nonsense. There is no danger in reading, my -lord. What can a great king like the King of France fear? The people -are but rabble, and the books are but trash." Let them read nothing, -let them read everything: these two pieces of contrary advice coincide -more than one would think. Voltaire, with hidden claws, is purring at -the feet of the king, Voltaire and Macchiavelli are two formidable -indirect revolutionists, dissimilar in everything, and yet identical -in reality by their profound hatred, disguised in flattery, of the -master. The one is malignant, the other is sinister. The princes of the -sixteenth century had as theorist on their infamies, and as enigmatical -courtier, Macchiavelli, an enthusiast dark at heart. The flattery of a -sphinx,—terrible thing! Better yet be flattered, like Louis XV., by a -cat.</p> - -<p>Conclusion: Make the people read Macchiavelli, and make them read -Voltaire.</p> - -<p>Macchiavelli will inspire them with horror of, and Voltaire with -contempt for, crowned guilt.</p> - -<p>But the hearts should turn, above all, toward the grand pure poets, -whether they be sweet like Virgil or bitter like Juvenal.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER VII.</h5> - - -<p>The progress of man by the education of minds,—there is no safety but -in that. Teach! learn! All the revolutions of the future are enclosed -and imbedded in this phrase: Gratuitous and obligatory instruction.</p> - -<p>It is by the unfolding of works of the highest order that this vast -intellectual teaching should be crowned. At the top the men of genius.</p> - -<p>Wherever there is a gathering of men, there ought to be in a special -place, a public expositor of the great thinkers.</p> - -<p>By a great thinker we mean a beneficent thinker.</p> - -<p>The perpetual presence of the beautiful in their works maintains poets -at the summit of teaching.</p> - -<p>No one can foresee the quantity of light which will be brought forth -by letting the people be in communication with men of genius. This -combination of the hearts of the people with the heart of the poet will -be the Voltaic pile of civilization.</p> - -<p>Will the people understand this magnificent teaching? Certainly. We -know of nothing too lofty for the people. The people are a great soul. -Have you ever gone on a fête-day to a theatre open gratuitously to -all? What do you think of that auditory? Do you know of any other -more spontaneous and intelligent? Do you know, even in the forest, -of a vibration more profound? The court of Versailles admires like a -well-drilled regiment; the people throw themselves passionately into -the beautiful. They pack together, crowd, amalgamate, combine, and -knead themselves in the theatre,—a living paste that the poet is about -to mould. The powerful thumb of Molière will presently make its mark -on it; the nail of Corneille will scratch this ill-shaped heap. Whence -does that heap come? Whence does it proceed? From the Courtille, from -the Porcherons, from the Cunette; it is shoeless, it is bare-armed, it -is ragged. Silence! This is the human block.</p> - -<p>The house is crowded, the vast multitude looks, listens, loves; all -consciences, deeply moved, throw off their inner fire; all eyes -glisten; the huge beast with a thousand heads is there,—the Mob of -Burke, the <i>Plebs</i> of Titus Livius, the <i>Fex urbis</i> of Cicero. It -caresses the beautiful; smiling at it with the grace of a woman. It -is literary in the most refined sense of the word; nothing equals the -delicacy of this monster. The tumultuous crowd trembles, blushes, -palpitates. Its modesty is surprising; the crowd is a virgin. No -prudery however; this brute is not brutal. Not a sympathy escapes -it; it has in itself the whole keyboard, from passion to irony, from -sarcasm to sobbing. Its compassion is more than compassion; it is real -mercy. God is felt in it. All at once the sublime passes, and the -sombre electricity of the abyss heaves up suddenly all this pile of -hearts and entrails; enthusiasm effects a transfiguration. And now, -is the enemy at the gates, is the country in danger? Appeal to that -populace, and it would enact the sublime drama of Thermopylæ. Who has -called forth such a metamorphosis? Poetry.</p> - -<p>The multitude (and in this lies their grandeur) are profoundly open to -the ideal. When they come in contact with lofty art they are pleased, -they shudder. Not a detail escapes them. The crowd is one liquid and -living expanse capable of vibration. A mass is a sensitive-plant. -Contact with the beautiful agitates ecstatically the surface of -multitudes,—sure sign that the depth is sounded. A rustling of leaves, -a mysterious breath, passes, the crowd trembles under the sacred -insufflation of the abyss.</p> - -<p>And even where the man of the people is not in a crowd, he is yet a -good hearer of great things. His ingenuousness is honest, his curiosity -healthy. Ignorance is a longing. His near connection with Nature -renders him subject to the holy emotion of the true. He has, toward -poetry, secret natural desires which he does not suspect himself. All -the teachings are due to the people. The more divine the light, the -more is it made for this simple soul. We would have in the villages a -pulpit from which Homer should be explained to the peasants.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER VIII.</h5> - - -<p>Too much matter is the evil of our day. Hence a certain dulness.</p> - -<p>It is necessary to restore some ideal in the human mind. Whence shall -you take your ideal? Where is it? The poets, the philosophers, the -thinkers are the urns. The ideal is in Æschylus, in Isaiah, in Juvenal, -in Alighieri, in Shakespeare. Throw Æschylus, throw Isaiah, throw -Juvenal, throw Dante, throw Shakespeare into the deep soul of the human -race.</p> - -<p>Pour Job, Solomon, Pindar, Ezekiel, Sophocles, Euripides, Herodotus, -Theocritus, Plautus, Lucretius, Virgil, Terence, Horace, Catullus, -Tacitus, Saint Paul, Saint Augustine, Tertullian, Petrarch, Pascal, -Milton, Descartes, Corneille, La Fontaine, Montesquieu, Diderot, -Rousseau, Beaumarchais, Sedaine, André Chenier, Kant, Byron, -Schiller,—pour all these souls into man. And with them pour all the -wits from Æsop up to Molière, all the intellects from Plato up to -Newton, all the encyclopædists from Aristotle up to Voltaire.</p> - -<p>By that means, while curing the illness for the moment, you will -establish forever the health of the human mind.</p> - -<p>You will cure the middle class and found the people.</p> - -<p>As we have said just now, after the destruction which has delivered the -world, you will construct the edifice which shall make it prosper.</p> - -<p>What an aim,—to make the people! Principles combined with science; -every possible quantity of the absolute introduced by degrees into the -fact; Utopia treated successively by every mode of realization,—by -political economy, by philosophy, by physics, by chemistry, by -dynamics, by logic, by art; union replacing little by little -antagonism, and unity replacing union; for religion God, for priest the -father, for prayer virtue, for field the whole earth, for language the -verb, for law the right, for motive-power duty, for hygiene labour, -for economy universal peace, for canvas the very life, for the goal -progress, for authority liberty, for people the man,—such is the -simplification.</p> - -<p>And at the summit the ideal.</p> - -<p>The ideal!—inflexible type of perpetual progress.</p> - -<p>To whom belong men of genius, if not to thee, people? They do belong to -thee; they are thy sons and thy fathers. Thou givest birth to them, and -they teach thee. They open in thy chaos vistas of light. Children, they -have drunk thy sap. They have leaped in the universal matrix, humanity. -Each of thy phases, people, is an avatar. The deep essence of life, -it is in thee that it must be looked for. Thou art the great bosom. -Geniuses are begotten from thee, mysterious crowd.</p> - -<p>Let them therefore return to thee.</p> - -<p>People, the author, God, dedicates them to thee.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="BOOK_VIb" id="BOOK_VIb">BOOK VI.</a></h4> - - -<h4>THE BEAUTIFUL THE SERVANT OF THE TRUE.</h4> - - - -<h5>CHAPTER I.</h5> - - -<p>Ah, minds, be useful! Be of some service. Do not be fastidious when it -is necessary to be efficient and good. Art for art may be beautiful, -but art for progress is more beautiful yet. To dream revery is well, -to dream Utopia is better. Ah, you must think? Then think of making -man better. You must dream? Here is the dream for you,—the ideal. The -prophet seeks solitude, but not isolation. He unravels and untwists -the threads of humanity, tied and rolled in a skein in his soul; he -does not break them. He goes into the desert to think—of whom? Of -the multitude. It is not to the forests that he speaks; it is to the -cities, It is not at the grass bending to the wind that he looks; it is -at man. It is not against lions that he wars; it is against tyrants. -Woe to thee, Ahab! woe to thee, Hosea! woe to you, kings! woe to you, -Pharaohs! is the cry of the great solitary one. Then he weeps.</p> - -<p>For what? For that eternal captivity of Babylon, undergone by Israel -formerly, undergone by Poland, by Roumania, by Hungary, by Venice -to-day. He grows old, the good and dark thinker; he watches, he lies -in wait, he listens, he looks,—ear in the silence, eye in the night, -claw half stretched toward the wicked. Go and speak to him, then, of -art for art, to that cenobite of the ideal. He has his aim, and he -walks straight toward it; and his aim is this: improvement. He devotes -himself to it.</p> - -<p>He does not belong to himself; he belongs to his apostleship. He is -intrusted with that immense care,—the progress of the human race. -Genius is not made for genius, it is made for man. Genius on earth -is God giving himself. Each time that a masterpiece appears, it is a -distribution of God that takes place. The masterpiece is a variety of -the miracle. Thence, in all religions, and among all peoples, comes -faith in divine men. They deceive themselves, those who think that we -deny the divinity of Christs.</p> - -<p>At the point now reached by the social question, everything should be -action in common. Forces isolated frustrate one another; the ideal and -the real strengthen each other. Art necessarily aids science. These two -wheels of progress should turn together.</p> - -<p>Generation of new talents, noble group of writers and poets, legion -of young men, O living posterity of my country, your elders love -and salute you! Courage! let us consecrate ourselves. Let us devote -ourselves to the good, to the true, to the just. In that there is -goodness.</p> - -<p>Some pure lovers of art, affected by a preoccupation which in its -way has its dignity and nobleness, discard this formula, "Art for -progress," the Beautiful Useful, fearing lest the useful should deform -the beautiful. They tremble lest they should see attached to the fine -arms of the Muse the coarse hands of the drudge. According to them, the -ideal may become perverted by too much contact with reality. They are -solicitous for the sublime if it is lowered as far as humanity. Ah, -they are mistaken.</p> - -<p>The useful, far from circumscribing the sublime, increases it. The -application of the sublime to human things produces unexpected -<i>chefs-d'œuvre.</i> The useful, considered in itself and as an element -combining with the sublime, is of several kinds; there is the useful -which is tender, and there is the useful which is indignant. Tender, it -refreshes the unfortunate and creates the social epopee; indignant, it -flagellates the wicked, and creates the divine satire. Moses hands the -rod to Jesus; and after having caused the water to gush from the rock, -that august rod, the very same, drives the vendors from the sanctuary.</p> - -<p>What! art should grow less because it has expanded? No. One service -more is one more beauty.</p> - -<p>But people cry out: To undertake the cure of social evils; to amend -the codes; to denounce the law to the right; to pronounce those -hideous words, "bagne," "galley-slave," "convict," "girl of the town;" -to control the police-registers; to contract the dispensaries; to -investigate wages and the want of work; to taste the black bread of -the poor; to seek labour for the work-girl; to confront fashionable -idleness with ragged sloth; to throw down the partition of ignorance; -to open schools; to teach little children how to read; to attack -shame, infamy, error, vice, crime, want of conscience; to preach the -multiplication of spelling-books; to proclaim the equality of the sun; -to ameliorate the food of intellects and of hearts; to give meat and -drink; to claim solutions for problems and shoes for naked feet,—that -is not the business of the azure. Art is the azure.</p> - -<p>Yes, art is the azure; but the azure from above, from which falls -the ray which swells the corn, makes the maize yellow and the apple -round, gilds the orange, sweetens the grape. I repeat it, one service -more is one more beauty. At all events, where is the diminution? To -ripen the beet-root, to water the potatoes, to thicken the lucern, the -clover, and the hay; to be a fellow-workman with the ploughman, the -vine-dresser, and the gardener,—that does not deprive the heavens of -one star. Ah, immensity does not despise utility, and what does it lose -by it? Does the vast vital fluid that we call magnetic or electric -lighten less splendidly the depth of the clouds because it consents -to perform the office of pilot to a bark, and to keep always turned -to the north the small needle that is trusted to it, the huge guide? -Is the aurora less magnificent, has it less purple and emerald, does -it undergo any decrease of majesty, of grace and radiancy, because, -foreseeing the thirst of a fly, it carefully secretes in the flower the -drop of dew which the bee requires?</p> - -<p>Yet, people insist: To compose social poetry, human poetry, popular -poetry; to grumble against the evil and for the good; to promote public -passions; to insult despots; to make rascals despair; to emancipate man -before he is of age; to push souls forward and darkness backward; to -know that there are thieves and tyrants; to clean penal cells; to empty -the pail of public filth,—what! Polyhymnia, sleeves tucked up to do -such dirty work? Oh, for shame!</p> - -<p>Why not?</p> - -<p>Homer was the geographer and the historian of his time, Moses the -legislator of his, Juvenal the judge of his, Dante the theologian of -his, Shakespeare the moralist of his, Voltaire the philosopher of his. -No region, in speculation or in real fact, is shut to the mind. Here a -horizon, there wings; right for all to soar.</p> - -<p>For certain sublime beings, to soar is to serve. In the desert not a -drop of water,—a horrible thirst; the wretched file of pilgrims drag -along overcome. All at once, in the horizon, above a wrinkle in the -sands, a griffin is seen soaring, and all the caravan cry out, "There -is water there!"</p> - -<p>What thinks Æschylus of art as art? Certainly, if ever a poet was a -poet, it is Æschylus. Listen to his reply. It is in the "Frogs" of -Aristophanes, line 1039. Æschylus speaks:—</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>"Since the beginning of time, the illustrious poet has -served men. Orpheus has taught the horror of murder, Musæus -oracles and medicine, Hesiod agriculture, and that divine -Homer, heroism. And I, after Homer, I have sung Patroclus, -and Teucer the lion-hearted; so that every citizen should -try to resemble the great men."</p></blockquote> - -<p>As all the sea is salt, so all the Bible is poetry. This poetry talks -politics at its own hours. Open 1 Samuel, chapter VIII. The Jewish -people demand a king:</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>"...And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice -of the people in all that they say unto thee; for they have -not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should -not reign over them.... And Samuel told all the words of the -Lord unto the people that asked of him a king. And he said, -This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over -you: He will take your sons and appoint them for himself, -for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall -run before his chariots.... And he will take your daughters -to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. -And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your -oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his -servants. And he will take your men-servants, and your -maid-servants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, -and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your -sheep: and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out -in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen -you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day."</p></blockquote> - -<p>Samuel, we see, denies the right divine; Deuteronomy shakes the -altar,—the false altar, let us observe; but is not the next altar -always the false altar? "You shall demolish the altars of the false -gods. You shall seek God where he dwells." It is almost Pantheism. -Because it takes part in human things, is democratic here, iconoclast -there, is that book less magnificent and less supreme? If poetry is not -in the Bible, where is it?</p> - -<p>You say: The muse is made to sing, to love, to believe, to pray. Yes -and no. Let us understand each other. To sing whom? The void. To love -what? One's self. To believe in what? The dogma. To pray to what? The -idol. No, here is the truth: To sing the ideal, to love humanity, to -believe in progress, to pray to the infinite.</p> - -<p>Take care, you who are tracing those circles round the poet, you put -him beyond man. That the poet should be beyond humanity in one way,—by -the wings, by the immense flight, by the sudden possible disappearance -in the fathomless,—is well; it must be so, but on condition of -reappearance. He may depart, but he must return. Let him have wings -for the infinite, provided he has feet for the earth, and that, after -having been seen flying, he is seen walking. Let him become man again, -after he has gone out of humanity. After he has been seen an archangel, -let him be once more a brother. Let the star which is in that eye weep -a tear, and that tear be the human tear. Thus, human and superhuman, he -shall be the poet. But to be altogether beyond man, is not to be. Show -me thy foot, genius, and let us see if, like myself, thou hast earthly -dust on thy heel.</p> - -<p>If thou hast not some of that dust, if thou hast never walked in my -pathway, thou dost not know me and I do not know thee. Go away. Thou -believest thyself an angel, thou art but a bird.</p> - -<p>Help from the strong for the weak, help from the great for the small, -help from the free for the slaves, help from the thinkers for the -ignorant, help from the solitary for the multitudes,—such is the law, -from Isaiah to Voltaire. He who does not follow that law may be a -genius, but he is only a useless genius. By not handling the things of -the earth, he thinks to purify himself; he annuls himself. He is the -refined, the delicate, he may be the exquisite genius; he is not the -great genius. Any one, roughly useful, but useful, has the right to -ask on seeing that good-for-nothing genius: "Who is this idler?" The -amphora which refuses to go to the fountain deserves the hooting of the -pitchers.</p> - -<p>Great is he who consecrates himself! Even when overcome, he remains -serene, and his misery is happiness. No, it is not a bad thing for the -poet to meet face to face with duty. Duty has a stern resemblance to -the ideal. The act of doing one's duty is worth all the trial it costs. -No, the jostling with Cato is not to be avoided. No, no, no; truth, -honesty, teaching the crowds, human liberty, manly virtue, conscience, -are not things to disdain. Indignation and emotion are but one faculty -turned toward the two sides of mournful human slavery; and those who -are capable of anger are capable of love. To level the tyrant and the -slave, what a magnificent effort! Now, the whole of one side of actual -society is tyrant, and all the other side is slave. To straighten this -out will be a wonderful thing to accomplish; yet it will be done. All -thinkers must work with that end in view. They will gain greatness in -that work. To be the servant of God in the march of progress and the -apostle of God with the people,—such is the law which regulates the -growth of genius.</p> - - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER II.</h5> - - -<p>There are two poets,—the poet of caprice and the poet of logic; and -there is a third poet, a component of both, amending them one by the -other, completing them one by the other, and summing them up in a -loftier entity,—the two statures in a single one. The third is the -first. He has caprice, and he follows the wind. He has logic, and he -follows duty. The first writes the Canticle of Canticles, the second -writes Leviticus, the third writes the Psalms and the Prophecies. The -first is Horace, the second is Lucan, the third is Juvenal. The first -is Pindar, the second is Hesiod, the third is Homer.</p> - -<p>No loss of beauty results from goodness. Is the lion less beautiful -than the tiger, because it has the faculty of merciful emotion? -Does that jaw which opens to let the infant fall into the hands of -the mother deprive that mane of its majesty? Does the vast noise of -the roaring vanish from that terrible mouth because it has licked -Androcles? The genius which does not help, even if graceful, is -deformed. A prodigy without love is a monster. Let us love! let us love!</p> - -<p>To love has never hindered from pleasing. Where have you seen one form -of the good excluding the other? On the contrary, all that is good is -connected. Let us, however, understand each other. It does not follow -that to have one quality implies necessarily the possession of the -other; but it would be strange that one quality added to another should -make less. To be useful, is but to be useful; to be beautiful is but -to be beautiful; to be useful and beautiful is to be sublime. That is -what Saint Paul is in the first century, Tacitus and Juvenal in the -second, Dante in the thirteenth, Shakespeare in the sixteenth, Milton -and Molière in the seventeenth.</p> - -<p>We have just now recalled a saying become famous: "Art for art." Let -us, once for all, explain ourselves in this question. If faith can -be placed in an affirmation very general and very often repeated (we -believe honestly), these words, "Art for art," would have been written -by the author of this book himself. Written? Never! You may read, from -the first to the last line, all that we have published; you will not -find these words. It is the opposite which is written throughout our -works, and, we insist on it, in our entire life. As for these words -in themselves, how far are they real? Here is the fact, which several -of our contemporaries remember as well as we do. One day, thirty-five -years ago, in a discussion between critics and poets on Voltaire's -tragedies, the author of this book threw out this suggestion: "This -tragedy is not a tragedy. It is not men who live, it is sentences -which speak in it! Rather a hundred times 'Art for art!'" This remark -turned, doubtless involuntarily, from its true sense to serve the wants -of discussion, has since taken, to the great surprise of him who had -uttered it, the proportions of a formula. It is this opinion, limited -to "Alzire" and to the "Orpheline de la Chine," and incontestable in -that restricted application, which has been turned into a perfect -declaration of principles, and an axiom to inscribe on the banner of -art.</p> - -<p>This point settled, let us go on.</p> - -<p>Between two verses, the one by Pindar, deifying a coachman or -glorifying the brass nails of the wheel of a chariot, the other by -Archilochus, so powerful that, after having read it, Jeffreys would -leave off his career of crimes and would hang himself on the gallows -prepared by him for honest people,—between these two verses, of equal -beauty, I prefer that of Archilochus.</p> - -<p>In times anterior to history, when poetry is fabulous and legendary, -it has a Promethean grandeur. What composes this grandeur? Utility. -Orpheus tames wild animals; Amphion builds cities; the poet, tamer and -architect, Linus aiding Hercules, Musæus assisting Dædalus, poetry a -civilizing power,—such is the origin. Tradition agrees with reason. -The common-sense of peoples is not deceived in that. It always invents -fables in the sense of truth. Everything is great in those magnifying -distances. Well, then, the wild-beast-taming poet that you admire in -Orpheus, recognize him in Juvenal.</p> - -<p>We insist on Juvenal. Few poets have been more insulted, more -contested, more calumniated. Calumny against Juvenal has been drawn -at such long date that it lasts yet. It passes from one literary -clown to another. These grand haters of evil are hated by all the -flatterers of power and success. The mob of fawning sophists, of -writers who have around the neck the mark of their slavery, of bullying -historiographers, of scholiasts kept and fed, of court and school -followers, stand in the way of the glory of the punishers and avengers. -They croak around those eagles. People do not willingly render justice -to the dispensers of justice. They hinder the masters and rouse the -indignation of the lackeys. There is such a thing as the indignation of -baseness.</p> - -<p>Moreover, the diminutives cannot do less than help one another, and -Cæsarion must at least have Tyrannion as a support The pedant snaps -the ferules for the benefit of the satrap. There is for this kind of -work a literary sycophancy and an official pedagogism. These poor, -dear-paying vices; these excellent indulgent crimes; his Highness -Rufinus; his Majesty Claudius; that august Madame Messalina who gives -such beautiful <i>fêtes</i>, and pensions out of her privy purse, and who -lasts and who is perpetuated, always crowned, calling herself Theodora, -then Fredegonde, then Agnes, then Margaret of Burgundy, then Isabel -of Bavaria, then Catherine de Medici, then Catherine of Russia, then -Caroline of Naples, etc.,—all these great lords, crimes, all these -fine ladies, turpitudes, shall they have the sorrow of witnessing -the triumph of Juvenal! No. War with the scourge in the name of -sceptres! War with the rod in the name of the shop! That is well! Go -on, courtiers, clients, eunuchs, and scribes. Go on, publicans and -pharisees. You will not hinder the republic from thanking Juvenal, or -the temple from approving Jesus.</p> - -<p>Isaiah, Juvenal, Dante,—they are virgins. Observe their eyes cast -down. There is chastity in the anger of the just against the unjust. -The Imprecation can be as holy as the Hosanna; and indignation, honest -indignation, has the very purity of virtue. In point of whiteness, the -foam has no reason to envy the snow.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER III.</h5> - - -<p>History proves the working partnership of art and progress. <i>Dictus ob -hoc lenire tigres.</i> Rhythm is a power,—a power that the Middle Ages -recognize and submit to not less than antiquity. The second barbarism, -feudal barbarism, dreads also this power,—poetry. The barons, not -over-timid, are abashed before the poet. Who is this man? They fear -lest a manly song be sung. The spirit of civilization is with this -unknown. The old donjons full of carnage open their wild eyes, and -suspect the darkness; anxiety seizes hold of them. Feudality trembles; -the den is disturbed. The dragons and the hydras are ill at ease. Why? -Because an invisible god is there.</p> - -<p>It is curious to find this power of poetry in countries where -unsociableness is deepest, particularly in England, in that extreme -feudal darkness, <i>penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos.</i> If we believe -the legend,—a form of history as true and as false as any other,—it -is owing to poetry that Colgrim, besieged by the Britons, is relieved -in York by his brother Bardulph the Saxon; that King Awlof penetrates -into the camp of Athelstan; that Werburgh, prince of Northumbria, is -delivered by the Welsh, whence, it is said, that Celtic device of the -Prince of Wales, <i>Ich dien</i>; that Alfred, King of England, triumphs -over Gitro, King of the Danes; and that Richard the Lion-hearted -escapes from the prison of Losenstein. Ranulph, Earl of Chester, -attacked in his castle of Rothelan, is saved by the intervention of -the minstrels, which was still authenticated under Elizabeth by the -privilege accorded to the minstrels patronized by the Lords of Dalton.</p> - -<p>The poet had the right of reprimand and menace. In 1316, on Pentecost -Day, Edward II. being at table in the grand hall of Westminster with -the peers of England, a female minstrel entered the hall on horseback, -rode all round, saluted Edward II., predicted in a loud voice to -the minion Spencer the gibbet and castration by the hand of the -executioner, and to the king the hoof by means of which a red-hot iron -should be buried in his intestines, placed on the table before the king -a letter, and departed; and no one said anything to her.</p> - -<p>At the festivals the minstrels passed before the priests, and were -more honourably treated. At Abingdon, at a festival of the Holy Cross, -each of the twelve priests received fourpence, and each of the twelve -minstrels two shillings. At the priory of Maxtoke, the custom was to -give supper to the minstrels in the Painted Chamber, lighted by eight -huge wax-candles.</p> - -<p>The more we advance North, it seems as if the increased thickness -of the fog increases the greatness of the poet. In Scotland he is -enormous. If anything surpasses the legend of the Rhapsodists, it is -the legend of the Scalds. At the approach of Edward of England, the -bards defend Stirling as the three hundred had defended Sparta; and -they have their Thermopylæ, as great as that of Leonidas. Ossian, -perfectly certain and real, has had a plagiary; that is nothing; but -this plagiarist has done more than rob him,—he has made him insipid. -To know Fingal only by Macpherson is as if one knew Amadis only by -Tressan. They show at Staffa the stone of the poet, <i>Clachan an -Bairdh</i>,—so named, according to many antiquaries, long before the -visit of Walter Scott to the Hebrides. This chair of the Bard—a great -hollow rock ready for a giant wishing to sit down—is at the entrance -of the grotto. Around it are the waves and the clouds. Behind the -Clachan an Bairdh is heaped up and raised the superhuman geometry of -basaltic prisms, the pell-mell of colonnades and waves, and all the -mystery of the fearful edifice. The gallery of Fingal runs next to the -poet's chair; the sea beats on it before entering under that terrible -ceiling. When evening comes, one imagines that he sees in that chair -a form leaning on its elbow. "It is the ghost!" say the fishermen of -Mackinnon's clan; and no one would dare, even in full day, to go up as -far as that formidable seat; for to the idea of the stone is allied the -idea of the sepulchre, and on the chair of granite no one can be seated -but the man of shade.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER IV.</h5> - - -<p>Thought is power.</p> - -<p>All power is duty. Should this power enter into repose in our age? -Should duty shut its eyes? and is the moment come for art to disarm? -Less than ever. The human caravan is, thanks to 1789, arrived on a high -plateau; and the horizon being more vast, art has more to do. This -is all. To every widening of horizon corresponds an enlargement of -conscience.</p> - -<p>We have not reached the goal. Concord condensed in happiness, -civilization summed up in harmony,—that is far off yet. In the -eighteenth century that dream was so distant that it seemed a guilty -thought. The Abbé de St. Pierre was expelled from the Academy for -having dreamed that dream,—an expulsion which seems rather severe at a -period when pastorals carried the day, even with Fontenelle, and when -St. Lambert invented the idyll for the use of the nobility. The Abbé -de St. Pierre has left behind him a word and a dream: the word is his -own,—"Benevolence;" the dream belongs to all of us,—"Fraternity." -This dream, which made Cardinal de Polignac foam and Voltaire smile, is -not now so much lost as it was once in the mist of the improbable. It -is a little nearer; but we do not touch it. The people, those orphans -who seek their mother, do not yet hold in their hand the hem of the -robe of peace.</p> - -<p>There remains around us a sufficient quantity of slavery, of sophistry, -of war and death, to prevent the spirit of civilization from giving up -any of its forces. The idea of the right divine is not yet entirely -done away with. That which has been Ferdinand VII. in Spain, Ferdinand -II. in Naples, George IV. in England, Nicholas in Russia, still floats -about; a remnant of these spectres is still hovering in the air. -Inspirations descend from that fatal cloud on some crown-bearers who, -leaning on their elbows, meditate with a sinister aspect.</p> - -<p>Civilization has not done yet with those who grant constitutions, -with the owners of peoples, and with the legitimate and hereditary -madmen, who assert themselves majesties by the grace of God, and think -that they have the right of manumission over the human race. It is -necessary to raise some obstacle, to show bad will to the past, and to -bring to bear on these men, on these dogmas, on these chimeras which -stand in the way, some hindrance. Intellect, thought, science, true -art, philosophy, ought to watch and beware of misunderstandings. False -rights contrive very easily to put in movement true armies. There -are murdered Polands looming in the future. "All my anxiety," said a -contemporary poet recently dead, "is the smoke of my cigar." My anxiety -is also a smoke,—the smoke of the cities which are burning in the -distance. Therefore, let us bring the masters to grief, if we can.</p> - -<p>Let us go again in the loudest possible voice over the lesson of the -just and the unjust, of right and usurpation, of oath and perjury, of -good and evil, of <i>fas et nefas</i>; let us come forth with all our old -antitheses, as they say. Let us contrast what ought to be with what -actually is. Let us put clearness into everything. Bring light, you -that have it. Let us oppose dogma to dogma, principle to principle, -energy to obstinacy, truth to imposture, dream to dream,—the dream -of the future to the dream of the past,—liberty to despotism. People -will be able to sit down, to stretch themselves at full length, and -to go on smoking the cigar of fancy poetry, and to enjoy Boccaccio's -"Decameron" with the sweet blue sky over their heads, whenever the -sovereignty of a king shall be exactly of the same dimension as the -liberty of a man. Until then, little sleep. I am distrustful.</p> - -<p>Put sentinels everywhere. Do not expect from despots a large share -of liberty. Break your own shackles, all of you Polands that may -be! Make sure of the future by your own exertions. Do not hope that -your chain will forge itself into the key of freedom. Up, children -of the fatherland! O mowers of the steppes, arise! Trust to the good -intentions of orthodox czars just enough to take up arms. Hypocrisies -and apologies, being traps, are one more danger.</p> - -<p>We live in a time when orations are heard praising the magnanimity of -white bears and the tender feelings of panthers. Amnesty, clemency, -grandeur of soul; an era of felicity opens; fatherly love is the order -of the day; see all that is already done; it must not be thought that -the march of the age is not understood; august arms are open; rally -still closer round the emperor; Muscovy is kind-hearted. See how happy -the serfs are! The streams are to flow with milk, with prosperity and -liberty for all. Your princes groan like you over the past; they are -excellent. Come, fear nothing, little ones! so far as we are concerned, -we confess candidly that we are of those who put no reliance in the -lachrymal gland of crocodiles.</p> - -<p>The actual public monstrosities impose stem obligations on the -conscience of the thinker, philosopher, or poet. Incorruptibility must -resist corruption. It is more than ever necessary to show men the -ideal,—that mirror in which is seen the face of God.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER V.</h5> - - -<p>There are in literature and philosophy men who have tears and laughter -at command,—Heraclituses wearing the mask of a Democritus; men often -very great, like Voltaire. They are irony keeping a serious, sometimes -tragic countenance.</p> - -<p>These men, under the pressure of the influences and prejudices of -their time, speak with a double meaning. One of the most profound is -Bayle,<a name="FNanchor_1_31" id="FNanchor_1_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_31" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> the man of Rotterdam, the powerful thinker. When Bayle coolly -utters this maxim, "It is better worth our while to weaken the grace -of a thought than to anger a tyrant," I smile; I know the man. I think -of the persecuted, almost proscribed one, and I know well that he has -given way to the temptation of affirming merely to give me the longing -to contest. But when it is a poet who speaks,—a poet wholly free, -rich, happy, prosperous almost to inviolability,—one expects a clear, -open, and healthy teaching, one cannot believe that from such a man can -emanate anything like a desertion of his own conscience; and it is with -a blush that one reads this:—</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>"Here below, in time of peace, let every man sweep his own -street-door. In war, if conquered, let every man fraternize -with the soldiery.... Let every enthusiast be put on the -cross when he reaches his thirtieth year. If he has once -experienced the world as it is, from the dupe he becomes -the rogue.... What utility, what result, what advantage -does the holy liberty of the press offer you? The complete -demonstration of it is this: a profound contempt of -public opinion.... There are people who have a mania for -railing at everything that is great,—they are the men who -have attacked the Holy Alliance; and yet nothing has been -invented more august and more salutary for humanity."</p></blockquote> - -<p>These things, which lower the man who has written them, are signed -<i>Goethe.</i> Goethe, when he wrote them, was sixty years old. Indifference -to good and evil excites the brain,—one may get intoxicated with it; -and that is what comes of it. The lesson is a sad one. Mournful sight! -Here the helot is a mind.</p> - -<p>A quotation may be a pillory. We nail on the public highway these -lugubrious sentences; it is our duty. Goethe has written that. Let it -be remembered; and let no one among the poets fall again into the same -error.</p> - -<p>To go into a passion for the good, for the true, for the just; to -suffer with the sufferers; to feel in our inner soul all the blows -struck by every executioner on human flesh; to be scourged with -Christ and flogged with the negro; to be strengthened and to lament; -to climb, a Titan, that wild peak where Peter and Cæsar make their -swords fraternize, <i>gladium cum gladio copulemus</i>; to heap up for -that escalade the Ossa of the ideal on the Pelion of the real; to -make a vast repartition of hope; to avail one's self of the ubiquity -of the book in order to be everywhere at the same time with a -comforting thought; to push pell-mell men, women, children, whites, -blacks, peoples, hangmen, tyrants, victims, impostors, the ignorant, -proletaries, serfs, slaves, masters, toward the future (a precipice -to some, deliverance to others); to go forth, to wake up, to hasten, -to march, to run, to think, to wish,—ah, indeed, that is well! It is -worth while being a poet. Beware! you lose your temper. Of course I -do; but I gain anger. Come and breathe into my wings, hurricane!</p> - -<p>There has been, of late years, an instant when impassibility was -recommended to poets as a condition of divinity. To be indifferent, -that was called being Olympian. Where had they seen that? That is -an Olympus very unlike the real one. Read Homer. The Olympians are -passion, and nothing else. Boundless humanity,—such is their divinity. -They fight unceasingly. One has a bow, another a lance, another a -sword, another a club, another thunder. There is one of them who -compels the leopards to draw him along. Another, Wisdom, has cut off -the head of Night, twisted with serpents, and has nailed it to his -shield. Such is the calm of the Olympians. Their angers cause the -thunders to roll from one end to the other of the Iliad and of the -Odyssey.</p> - -<p>These angers, when they are just, are good. The poet who has them -is the true Olympian. Juvenal, Dante, Agrippa d'Aubigné, and Milton -had these angers; Molière also. From the soul of Alcestes flashes -constantly the lightning of "vigorous hatreds." Jesus meant that hatred -of evil when he said, "I am come to bring war."</p> - -<p>I like Stesichorus indignant, preventing the alliance of Greece with -Phalaris, and fighting the brazen bull with strokes of the lyre.</p> - -<p>Louis XIV. found it good to have Racine sleeping in his chamber when -he, the king, was ill, turning thus the poet into an assistant to his -apothecary,—wonderful patronage of letters; but he asked nothing -more from the <i>beaux esprits</i>, and the horizon of his alcove seemed -to him sufficient for them. One day, Racine, somewhat urged by Madame -de Maintenon, had the idea to leave the king's chamber and to visit -the garrets of the people. Thence a memoir on the public distress. -Louis XIV. cast at Racine a killing look. Poets fare ill when, being -courtiers, they do what royal mistresses ask of them. Racine, on the -suggestion of Madame de Maintenon, risks a remonstrance which causes -him to be driven from Court, and he dies of it. Voltaire at the -instigation of Madame de Pompadour, tries a madrigal (an awkward one it -appears), which causes him to be driven from France; and he does not -die of it Louis XV. on reading the madrigal,—"Et gardez tous deux vos -conquêtes,"—had exclaimed, "What a fool this Voltaire is!"</p> - -<p>Some years ago, "a well-authorized pen," as they say in official and -academic <i>patois</i>, wrote this:—</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>"The greatest service that poets can render us is to be good -for nothing. We do not ask of them anything else."</p></blockquote> - -<p>Observe the extent and spread of this word, "the poets," which includes -Linus, Musæus, Orpheus, Homer, Job, Hesiod, Moses, Daniel, Amos, -Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Æsop, David, Solomon, Æschylus, Sophocles, -Euripides, Pindar, Archilochus, Tyrtæus, Stesichorus, Menander, Plato, -Asclepiades, Pythagoras, Anacreon, Theocritus, Lucretius, Plautus, -Terence, Virgil, Horace, Catullus, Juvenal, Apuleius, Lucan, Persius, -Tibullus, Seneca, Petrarch, Ossian, Saädi, Ferdousi, Dante, Cervantes, -Calderon, Lope de Vega, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Camoëns, Marot, Ronsard, -Régnier, Agrippa d'Aubigné, Malherbe, Segrais, Racan, Milton, Pierre -Corneille, Molière, Racine, Boileau, La Fontaine, Fontenelle, Reguard, -Lesage, Swift, Voltaire, Diderot, Beaumarchais, Sedaine, Jean-Jacques -Rousseau, André Chénier, Klopstock, Lessing, Wieland, Schiller, Goethe, -Hoffmann, Alfieri, Châteaubriand, Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth, Burns, -Walter Scott, Balzac, Musset, Béranger, Pellico, Vigny, Dumas, George -Sand, Lamartine,—all declared by the oracle "good for nothing," -and having uselessness for excellence. That sentence (a "success," -it appears) has been very often repeated. We repeat it in our turn. -When the conceit of an idiot reaches such proportions it deserves -registering. The writer who has emitted that aphorism is, so they -assure us, one of the high personages of the day. We have no objection. -Dignities do not lessen the length of the ears.</p> - -<p>Octavius Augustus, on the morning of the battle of Actium, met an ass -that the owner called Triumphus. This Triumphus, endowed with the -faculty of braying, appeared to him of good omen; Octavius Augustus -won the battle, remembered Triumphus, had the ass carved in bronze and -placed in the Capitol. That made a Capitoline ass, but still an ass.</p> - -<p>One can understand kings saying to the poet, "Be useless;" but one -does not understand the people saying so to him. The poet is for the -people. "Pro populo poëta," wrote Agrippa d'Aubigné; "All things to -all men," exclaimed Saint Paul. What is a mind? A feeder of souls. -The poet is at the same time a menace and a promise. The anxiety -with which he inspires oppressors calms and consoles the oppressed. -It is the glory of the poet that he places a restless pillow on the -purple bed of the tormentors; and, thanks to him, it is often that -the tyrant awakes, saying, "I have slept badly." Every slavery, -every disheartening faintness, every sorrow, every misfortune, every -distress, every hunger, and every thirst have a claim on the poet; he -has one creditor,—the human race.</p> - -<p>To be the great servant does not certainly derogate from the poet. -Because on certain occasions, and to do his duty, he has uttered the -cry of a people; because he has, when necessary, the sob of humanity -in his breast,—every voice of mystery sings not the less in him. -Speaking so loudly does not prevent him speaking low. He is not less -the confidant, and sometimes the confessor, of hearts. He is not less -intimately connected with those who love, with those who think, with -those who sigh, thrusting his head in the twilight between the heads -of two lovers. The love poems of André Chénier, without losing any -of their characteristics, border on the angry iambic: "Weep thou, O -Virtue, if I die!" The poet is the only living being to whom it is -granted both to thunder and to whisper, because he has in himself, -like Nature, the rumbling of the cloud and the rustling of the leaf. -He exists for a double function,—a function individual and a public -function: and it is for that that he requires, so to speak, two souls.</p> - -<p>Ennius said: "I have three of them,—an Oscan soul, a Greek soul, and a -Latin soul." It is true that he made allusion only to the place of his -birth, to the place of his education, and to the place where he was a -citizen; and besides, Ennius was but a rough cast of a poet, vast, but -unformed.</p> - -<p>No poet without that activity of soul which is the resultant of -conscience. The ancient moral laws require to be stated; the new moral -laws require to be revealed. These two series do not coincide without -some effort. That effort is incumbent on the poet He assumes constantly -the function of the philosopher. He must defend, according to the -side attacked, now the liberty of the human mind, now the liberty of -the human heart,—to love being no less holy than to think. There is -nothing of "Art for art" in all that.</p> - -<p>The poet arrives in the midst of those goers and comers that we call -the living, in order to tame, like ancient Orpheus, the tiger in -man,—his evil instincts,—and, like the legendary Amphion, to remove -the stumbling-blocks of prejudice and superstition, to set up the new -blocks, to relay the corner-stones and the foundations, and to build up -again the city,—that is to say, society.</p> - -<p>That this immense service—namely, to co-operate in the work of -civilization—should involve loss of beauty for poetry and of dignity -for the poet, is a proposition which one cannot enunciate without -smiling. Useful art preserves and augments all its graces, all its -charms, all its prestige. Indeed, because he has taken part with -Prometheus,—the man progress, crucified on the Caucasus by brutal -force, and gnawed at while alive by hatred,—Æschylus is not lowered. -Because he has loosened the ligatures of idolatry; because he has freed -human thought from the bands of religions tied over it (<i>arctis nodis -relligionum</i>), Lucretius is not diminished. The branding of tyrants -with the red-hot iron of prophecy does not lessen Isaiah; the defence -of his country does not taint Tyrtæus. The beautiful is not degraded -by having served liberty and the amelioration of human multitudes. -The phrase "a people enfranchised" is not a bad end to a strophe. No, -patriotic or revolutionary usefulness robs poetry of nothing. Because -the huge Grütli has screened under its cliffs that formidable oath of -three peasants from which sprang free Switzerland, it is all the same, -in the falling night, a lofty mass of serene shade alive with herds, -where are heard innumerable invisible bells tinkling gently under the -clear twilight sky.</p> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_31" id="Footnote_1_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_31"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Do not write <i>Beyle.</i></p></div> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="PART_III_BOOK_I" id="PART_III_BOOK_I">PART III.—BOOK I.</a></h4> - - -<h4>CONCLUSION.</h4> - - -<h4>AFTER DEATH.—SHAKESPEARE.—ENGLAND.</h4> - - - -<h5>CHAPTER I</h5> - - -<p>In 1784, Bonaparte, then fifteen years old, arrived at the Military -School of Paris from Brienne, being one among four under the escort -of a minim priest. He mounted one hundred and seventy-three steps, -carrying his small trunk, and reached, below the roof, the barrack -chamber he was to inhabit. This chamber had two beds, and a small -window opening on the great yard of the school. The wall was -whitewashed; the youthful predecessors of Bonaparte had scrawled upon -this with charcoal, and the new-comer read in this little cell these -four inscriptions that we ourselves read thirty-five years ago:—</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>It takes rather long to win an epaulet.—<i>De Montgivray.</i></p> - -<p>The finest day in life is that of a battle.—<i>Vicomte de -Tinténiac.</i></p> - -<p>Life is but a long falsehood.—<i>Le Chevalier Adolphe Delmas.</i></p> - -<p>All ends under six feet of earth.-<i>Le Comte de la Villette.</i></p></blockquote> - -<p>By substituting for "an epaulet" "an empire,"—a very slight -change,—the above four inscriptions were all the destiny of Bonaparte, -and a kind of "Mene Tekel Upharsin" written beforehand upon that wall. -Desmazis, junior, who accompanied Bonaparte, being his room-mate, and -about to occupy one of the two beds, saw him take a pencil (it is -Desmazis who has related the fact) and draw beneath the inscriptions -that he had just read a rough sketch of his house at Ajaccio; then, by -the side of that house, without suspecting that he was thus bringing -near the island of Corsica another mysterious island then hid in the -deep future, he wrote the last of the four sentences: "All ends under -six feet of earth."</p> - -<p>Bonaparte was right. For the hero, for the soldier, for the man of the -material fact, all ends under six feet of earth; for the man of the -idea everything commences there.</p> - -<p>Death is a power.</p> - -<p>For him who has had no other action but that of the mind, the tomb is -the elimination of the obstacle. To be dead, is to be all-powerful.</p> - -<p>The man of war is formidable while alive; he stands erect, the earth -is silent, <i>siluit</i>; he has extermination in his gesture; millions of -haggard men rush to follow him,—a fierce horde, sometimes a ruffianly -one; it is no longer a human head, it is a conqueror, it is a captain, -it is a king of kings, it is an emperor, it is a dazzling crown of -laurels which passes, throwing out lightning flashes, and allowing -to be seen in starlight beneath it a vague profile of Cæsar. All -this vision is splendid and impressive; but let only a gravel come -in the liver, or an excoriation to the pylorus,—six feet of ground, -and all is said. This solar spectrum vanishes. This tumultuous life -falls into a hole; the human race pursues its way, leaving behind -this nothingness. If this man hurricane has made some lucky rupture, -like Alexander in India, Charlemagne in Scandinavia, and Bonaparte -in ancient Europe, that is all that remains of him. But let some -passer-by, who has in him the ideal, let a poor wretch like Homer throw -out a word in the darkness, and die,—that word burns up in the gloom -and becomes a star.</p> - -<p>This vanquished one, driven from one town to another, is called Dante -Alighieri,—take care! This exiled one is called Æschylus, this -prisoner is called Ezekiel,—beware! This one-handed man is winged,—it -is Michael Cervantes. Do you know whom you see wayfaring there before -you? It is a sick man, Tyrtæus; it is a slave, Plautus; it is a -labourer, Spinoza; it is a valet, Rousseau. Well, that degradation, -that labour, that servitude, that infirmity, is power,—the supreme -power, mind.</p> - -<p>On the dunghill like Job, under the stick like Epictetus, under -contempt like Molière, mind remains mind. This it is that shall say -the last word. The Caliph Almanzor makes the people spit on Averroes -at the door of the mosque of Cordova; the Duke of York spits in -person on Milton; a Rohan, almost a prince,—"duc ne daigne, Rohan -suis,"—attempts to cudgel Voltaire to death; Descartes is driven from -France in the name of Aristotle; Tasso pays for a kiss given a princess -twenty years spent in a cell; Louis XV. sends Diderot to Vincennes; -these are mere incidents; must there not be some clouds? Those -appearances that were taken for realities, those princes, those kings -melt away; there remains only what should remain,—the human mind on -the one side, the divine minds on the other; the true work and the true -workers; society to be perfected and made fruitful; science seeking -the true; art creating the beautiful; the thirst of thought, torment -and happiness of man; inferior life aspiring to superior life. Men -have to deal with real questions,—with progress in intelligence and by -intelligence. Men call to their aid the poets, prophets, philosophers, -thinkers, the inspired. It is seen that philosophy is a nourishment and -poetry a want. There must be another bread besides bread. If you give -up poets, you must give up civilization. There comes an hour when the -human race is compelled to reckon with Shakespeare the actor and Isaiah -the beggar.</p> - -<p>They are the more present that they are no longer seen. Once dead, -these beings live.</p> - -<p>What life did they lead? What kind of men were they? What do we know -of them? Sometimes but little, as of Shakespeare; often nothing, as -of those of ancient days. Has Job existed? Is Homer one, or several? -Méziriac made Æsop straight, and Planudes made him a hunchback. -Is it true that the prophet Hosea, in order to show his love for -his country, even when fallen into opprobrium and become infamous, -espoused a prostitute, and called his children Mourning, Famine, Shame, -Pestilence, and Misery? Is it true that Hesiod ought to be divided -between Cumæ in Æolia, where he was born, and Ascra, in Bœotia, -where he had been brought up? Velleius Paterculus makes him live one -hundred and twenty years after Homer, of whom Quintilian makes him -contemporary. Which of the two is right? What matters it? The poets are -dead, their thought reigns. Having been, they are.</p> - -<p>They do more work to-day among us than when they were alive. Others who -have departed this life rest from their labours; dead men of genius -work.</p> - -<p>They work upon what? Upon minds. They make civilization.</p> - -<p>"All ends under six feet of earth "? No; everything commences there. -No; everything germinates there. No; everything flowers in it, and -everything grows in it, and everything bursts forth from it, and -everything proceeds from it! Good for you, men of the sword, are these -maxims!</p> - -<p>Lay yourselves down, disappear, lie in the grave, rot. So be it.</p> - -<p>During life, gildings, caparisons, drums and trumpets, panoplies, -banners to the wind, tumults, make up an illusion. The crowd gazes with -admiration on these things. It imagines that it sees something grand. -Who has the casque! Who has the cuirass? Who has the sword-belt? Who -is spurred, morioned, plumed, armed? Hurrah for that one! At death the -difference becomes striking. Juvenal takes Hannibal in the hollow of -his hand.</p> - -<p>It is not the Cæsar, it is the thinker, who can say when he expires, -"Deus fio." So long as he remains a man his flesh interposes between -other men and him. The flesh is a cloud upon genius. Death, that -immense light, comes and penetrates the man with its aurora. No more -flesh, no more matter, no more shade. The unknown which was within him -manifests itself and beams forth. In order that a mind may give all its -light, it requires death. The dazzling of the human race commences when -that which was a genius becomes a soul. A book within which there is -something of the ghost is irresistible.</p> - -<p>He who is living does not appear disinterested. People mistrust him; -people dispute him because they jostle against him. To be alive, and -to be a genius is too much. It goes and comes as you do, it walks on -the earth, it has weight, it throws a shadow, it obstructs. It seems -as if there was importunity in too great a presence. Men do not find -that man sufficiently like themselves. As we have said already, they -owe him a grudge. Who is this privileged one? This functionary cannot -be dismissed. Persecution makes him greater; decapitation crowns him. -Nothing can be done against him, nothing for him, nothing with him. -He is responsible, but not to you. He has his instructions. What he -executes may be discussed, not modified. It seems as though he had a -commission to execute from some one who is not man. Such exception -displeases. Hence more hissing than applause.</p> - -<p>Dead, he no longer obstructs. The hiss, now useless, dies out. Living, -he was a rival; dead, he is a benefactor. He becomes, according to the -beautiful expression of Lebrun "l'homme irréparable." Lebrun observes -this of Montesquieu; Boileau observes the same of Molière. "Avant -qu'un peu de terre" etc. This handful of earth has equally aggrandized -Voltaire. Voltaire, so great in the eighteenth century, is still -greater in the nineteenth. The grave is a crucible. Its earth, thrown -on a man, sifts his reputation, and allows it to pass forth purified. -Voltaire has lost his false glory and retained the true. To lose the -false is to gain. Voltaire is neither a lyric poet, nor a comic poet, -nor a tragic poet: he is the indignant yet tender critic of the old -world; he is the mild reformer of manners; he is the man who softens -men. Voltaire, who has lost ground as a poet, has risen as an apostle. -He has done what is good, rather than what is beautiful. The good being -included in the beautiful, those who, like Dante and Shakespeare, -have produced the beautiful, surpass Voltaire; but below the poet, -the place of the philosopher, is still very high, and Voltaire is the -philosopher. Voltaire is common-sense in a continual stream. Excepting -in literature, he is a good judge in everything. Voltaire was, in spite -of his insulters, almost adored during his lifetime; he is in our days -admired, now that the true facts of the case are known. The eighteenth -century saw his mind: we see his soul. Frederick II., who willingly -railed at him, wrote to D'Alembert, "Voltaire buffoons. This century -resembles the old courts. It has a fool, who is Arouet." This fool of -the century was its sage.</p> - -<p>Such are the effects of the tomb for great minds. That mysterious -entrance into the unknown leaves light behind. Their disappearance is -resplendent. Their death evolves authority.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER II.</h5> - - -<p>Shakespeare is the great glory of England. England has in politics -Cromwell, in philosophy Bacon, in science Newton,—three lofty men of -genius. But Cromwell is tinged with cruelty and Bacon with meanness; as -to Newton, his edifice is now shaking on its base. Shakespeare is pure, -which Cromwell and Bacon are not, and immovable, which Newton is not. -Moreover, he is higher as a genius. Above Newton there is Copernicus -and Galileo; above Bacon there is Descartes and Kant; above Cromwell -there is Danton and Bonaparte; above Shakespeare there is no one. -Shakespeare has equals, but not a superior. It is a singular honour for -a land to have borne that man. One may say to that land, "Alma parens." -The native town of Shakespeare is an elect place; an eternal light is -on that cradle; Stratford-on-Avon has a certainty that Smyrna, Rhodes, -Colophon, Salamis, Ohio, Argos, and Athens—the seven towns which -disputed the birthplace of Homer—have not.</p> - -<p>Shakespeare is a human mind; he is also an English mind. He is very -English,—too English. He is English so far as to weaken the horror -surrounding the horrible kings whom he places on the stage, when they -are kings of England; so far as to depreciate Philip Augustus in -comparison with John Lackland; so far as expressly to make a scapegoat, -Falstaff, in order to load him with the princely misdeeds of the young -Henry V.; so far as to partake in a certain measure of the hypocrisies -of a pretended national history. Lastly, he is English so far as to -attempt to attenuate Henry VIII.; it is true that the eye of Elizabeth -is fixed upon him. But at the same time, let us insist upon this,—for -it is by it that he is great,—yes, this English poet is a human -genius. Art, like religion, has its <i>Ecce Homo.</i> Shakespeare is one of -those of whom we may utter this grand saying: He is Man.</p> - -<p>England is egotistical. Egotism is an island. That which perhaps is -needed by this Albion immersed in her own business, and at times looked -upon with little favour by other nations, is disinterested greatness; -of this Shakespeare gives her some portion. He throws that purple on -the shoulders of his country. He is cosmopolite and universal by his -fame. On every side he overflows island and egotism. Deprive England of -Shakespeare and see how much the luminous reverberation of that nation -would immediately decrease. Shakespeare modifies the English visage and -makes it beautiful With him, England is no longer so much like Carthage.</p> - -<p>Strange meaning of the apparition of men of genius! There is no great -poet born in Sparta, no great poet born in Carthage. This condemns -those two cities. Dig, and you shall find this: Sparta is but the city -of logic; Carthage is but the city of matter; to one as to the other -love is wanting. Carthage immolates her children by the sword, and -Sparta sacrifices her virgins by nudity; here innocence is killed, and -there modesty. Carthage knows only her bales and her cases; Sparta -blends herself wholly with the law,—there is her true territory; it is -for the laws that her men die at Thermopylæ. Carthage is hard. Sparta -is cold. They are two republics based upon stone; therefore no books. -The eternal sower, who is never mistaken, has not opened for those -ungrateful lands his hand full of men of genius. Such wheat is not to -be confided to the rock.</p> - -<p>Heroism, however, is not refused to them; they will have, if necessary, -either the martyr or the captain. Leonidas is possible for Sparta, -Hannibal for Carthage; but neither Sparta nor Carthage is capable of -Homer. Some indescribable tenderness in the sublime, which causes the -poet to gush from the very entrails of a people, is wanting in them. -That latent tenderness, that <i>flebile nescio quid</i>, England possesses; -as a proof, Shakespeare. We may add also as a proof, Wilberforce.</p> - -<p>England, mercantile like Carthage, legal like Sparta, is worth more -than Sparta and Carthage. She is honoured by this august exception,—a -poet. To have given birth to Shakespeare makes England great.</p> - -<p>Shakespeare's place is among the most sublime in that <i>élite</i> of -absolute men of genius which, from time to time increased by some -splendid fresh arrival, crowns civilization and illumines with its -immense radiancy the human race. Shakespeare is legion. Alone, he forms -the counterpoise to our grand French seventeenth century, and almost to -the eighteenth.</p> - -<p>When one arrives in England, the first thing that he looks for is the -statue of Shakespeare. He finds the statue of Wellington.</p> - -<p>Wellington is a general who gained a battle, having chance for his -partner.</p> - -<p>If you insist on seeing Shakespeare's statue you are taken to a place -called Westminster, where there are kings,—a crowd of kings: there is -also a comer called "Poets' Corner." There, in the shade of four or -five magnificent monuments where some royal nobodies shine in marble -and bronze, is shown to you on a small pedestal a little figure, and -under this little figure, the name, "WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE."</p> - -<p>In addition to this, statues everywhere; if you wish for statues you -may find as many as you can wish. Statue for Charles, statue for -Edward, statue for William, statues for three or four Georges, of whom -one was an idiot. Statue of the Duke of Richmond at Huntley; statue -of Napier at Portsmouth; statue of Father Mathew at Cork; statue -of Herbert Ingram, I don't know where. A man has well drilled the -riflemen,—he gets a statue; a man has commanded a manœuvre of the -Horse Guards,—he gets a statue. Another has been a supporter of the -past, has squandered all the wealth of England in paying a coalition -of kings against 1789, against democracy, against light, against the -ascending movement of the human race,—quick! a pedestal for that; a -statue to Mr. Pitt. Another has knowingly fought against truth, in the -hope that it might be vanquished, and has found out one fine morning -that truth is hard-lived, that it is strong, that it might be intrusted -with forming a cabinet, and has then passed abruptly over to its -side,—one more pedestal; a statue for Mr. Peel. Everywhere, in every -street, in every square, at every step, gigantic notes of admiration -in the shape of columns,—a column to the Duke of York, which should -really take the form of points of interrogation; a column to Nelson, -pointed at by the ghost of Caracciolo; a column to Wellington, already -named: columns for everybody. It is sufficient to have played with a -sword somewhere. At Guernsey, by the seaside, on a promontory, there -is a high column, similar to a lighthouse,—almost a tower; this one -is struck by lightning; Æschylus would have contented himself with -it. For whom is this?—for General Doyle. Who is General Doyle?—a -general. What has this general done?—he has constructed roads. At his -own expense?—no, at the expense of the inhabitants. He has a column. -Nothing for Shakespeare, nothing for Milton, nothing for Newton; the -name of Byron is obscure. That is where England is,—an illustrious and -powerful nation.</p> - -<p>It avails little that this nation has for scout and guide that generous -British press, which is more than free,—which is sovereign,—and -which through innumerable excellent journals throws light upon every -question,—that is where England is; and let not France laugh too -loudly, with her statue of Négrier; nor Belgium, with her statue -of Belliard; nor Prussia, with her statue of Blücher; nor Austria, -with the statue that she probably has of Schwartzenberg; nor Russia, -with the statue that she certainly has of Souwaroff. If it is not -Schwartzenberg, it is Windischgrätz; if it is not Souwaroff, it is -Kutusoff.</p> - -<p>Be Paskiewitch or Jellachich,—they will give you a statue; be Augereau -or Bessières,—you get a statue; be an Arthur Wellesley, they will -make you a colossus, and the ladies will dedicate you to yourself, -quite naked, with this inscription: "Achilles." A young man, twenty -years of age, performs the heroic action of marrying a beautiful young -girl: they prepare for him triumphal arches; they come to see him out -of curiosity; the grand-cordon is sent to him as on the morrow of a -battle; the public squares are brilliant with fireworks; people who -might have gray beards put on perukes to come and make speeches to -him almost on their knees; they throw up in the air millions sterling -in squibs and rockets to the applause of a multitude in tatters, -who will have no bread to-morrow; starving Lancashire participates -in the wedding; people are in ecstasies; they fire guns, they ring -the bells,—"Rule Britannia!" "God save!" What! this young man has -the kindness to do this? What a glory for the nation! Universal -admiration,—a great people become frantic; a great city falls into -a swoon; a balcony looking upon the passage of the young man is let -for five hundred guineas; people heap themselves together, press upon -one another, thrust one another beneath the wheels of his carriage; -seven women are crushed to death in the enthusiasm, and their little -children are picked up dead under the trampling feet; a hundred -persons, partially stifled, are carried to the hospital: the joy is -inexpressible. While this is going on in London, the cutting of the -Isthmus of Panama is interrupted by a war; the cutting of the Isthmus -of Suez depends on one Ismail Pacha; a company undertakes the sale of -the water of Jordan at a guinea the bottle; walls are invented which -resist every cannon-ball, after which missiles are invented which -destroy every wall; an Armstrong cannon-shot costs fifty pounds; -Byzantium contemplates Abdul-Azis; Rome goes to confession; the frogs, -encouraged by the stork, demand a heron; Greece, after Otho, again -wants a king; Mexico, after Iturbide, again wants an emperor; China -wants two of them,—the king of the Centre, a Tartar, and the king of -Heaven (Tien Wang), a Chinese. O earth! throne of stupidity.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER III.</h5> - - -<p>The glory of Shakespeare reached England from abroad. There was almost -a day and an hour when one might have assisted at the landing of his -fame at Dover.</p> - -<p>It required three hundred years for England to begin to hear those two -words that the whole world cries in her ear: "William Shakespeare."</p> - -<p>What is England? She is Elizabeth. There is no incarnation more -complete. In admiring Elizabeth, England loves her own looking-glass. -Proud and magnanimous, yet full of strange hypocrisies; great, yet -pedantic; haughty, albeit able; prudish, yet audacious; having -favourites but no masters; her own mistress, even in her bed; -all-powerful queen, inaccessible woman,—Elizabeth is a virgin as -England is an island. Like England, she calls herself Empress of the -Sea, <i>Basilea maris.</i> A fearful depth, in which are let loose the angry -passions which behead Essex and the tempests which destroy the Armada, -defends this virgin and defends this island from every approach. -The ocean is the guardian of this modesty. A certain celibacy, in -fact, constitutes all the genius of England. Alliances, be it so; no -marriage. The universe always kept at some distance. To live alone, -to go alone, to reign alone, to be alone,—such is Elizabeth, such is -England.</p> - -<p>On the whole, a remarkable queen and an admirable nation.</p> - -<p>Shakespeare, on the contrary, is a sympathetic genius. Insularism is -his ligature, not his strength. He would break it willingly. A little -more and Shakespeare would be European. He loves and praises France; he -calls her "the soldier of God." Besides, in that prudish nation he is -the free poet.</p> - -<p>England has two books: one which she has made, the other which has made -her,—Shakespeare and the Bible. These two books do not agree together. -The Bible opposes Shakespeare.</p> - -<p>Certainly, as a literary book, the Bible, a vast cup from the East, -more overflowing in poetry even than Shakespeare, might fraternize -with him; in a social and religious point of view, it abhors him. -Shakespeare thinks, Shakespeare dreams, Shakespeare doubts. There is in -him something of that Montaigne whom he loved. The "to be or not to be" -comes from the <i>que sais-je?</i></p> - -<p>Moreover, Shakespeare invents. A great objection. Faith excommunicates -imagination. In respect to fables, faith is a bad neighbour, and -fondles only its own. One recollects Solon's staff raised against -Thespis. One recollects the torch of Omar brandished over Alexandria. -The situation is always the same. Modern fanaticism has inherited -that staff and that torch. That is true in Spain, and is not false in -England. I have heard an Anglican bishop discuss the Iliad and condense -everything in this remark, with which he meant to annihilate Homer: "It -is not true." Now, Shakespeare is much more a "liar" than Homer.</p> - -<p>Two or three years ago the journals announced that a French writer was -about to sell a novel for four hundred thousand francs. This made quite -a noise in England. A Conformist paper exclaimed, "How can a falsehood -be sold at such a price?"</p> - -<p>Besides, two words, all-powerful in England, range themselves against -Shakespeare, and constitute an obstacle against him: "Improper, -shocking." Observe that, on a host of occasions, the Bible also is -"improper" and Holy Writ is "shocking." The Bible, even in French, and -through the rough lips of Calvin, does not hesitate to say, "Tu as -paillardé, Jerusalem." These crudities are part of poetry as well as of -anger; and the prophets, those angry poets, do not abstain from them. -Gross words are constantly on their lips. But England, where the Bible -is continually read, does not seem to realize it. Nothing equals the -power of voluntary deafness in fanatics. Would you have another example -of their deafness? At this hour Roman orthodoxy has not yet admitted -the brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, although averred by the four -Evangelists. Matthew, may say, "Behold, thy mother and thy brethren -stand without.... And his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and -Judas. And his sisters, are they not all with us?" Mark may insist: -"Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, -and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with -us?" Luke may repeat: "Then came to him his mother and his brethren." -John may again take up the question: "He, and his mother, and his -brethren.... Neither did his brethren believe in him.... But when his -brethren were gone up." Catholicism does not hear.</p> - -<p>To make up for it, in the case of Shakespeare, "somewhat of a Pagan, -like all poets"<a name="FNanchor_1_32" id="FNanchor_1_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_32" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Puritanism has a delicate hearing. Intolerance -and inconsequence are sisters. Besides, in the matter of proscribing -and damning, logic is superfluous. When Shakespeare, by the mouth -of Othello, calls Desdemona "whore," general indignation, unanimous -revolt, scandal from top to bottom. Who then is this Shakespeare? -All the biblical sects stop their ears, without thinking that Aaron -addresses exactly the same epithet to Sephora, wife of Moses. It is -true that this is in an Apocryphal work, "The Life of Moses." But the -Apocryphal books are quite as authentic as the canonical ones.</p> - -<p>Thence in England, for Shakespeare, a depth of irreducible coldness. -What Elizabeth was for Shakespeare, England is still,—at least we fear -so. We should be happy to be contradicted. We are more ambitious for -the glory of England than England is herself. This cannot displease her.</p> - -<p>England has a strange institution,—"the poet laureate,"—which attests -the official admiration and a little the national admiration. Under -Elizabeth, England's poet was named Drummond.</p> - -<p>Of course, we are no longer in the days when they placarded "Macbeth, -opera of Shakespeare, altered by Sir William Davenant." But if -"Macbeth" is played, it is before a small audience. Kean and Macready -have tried and failed in the endeavour.</p> - -<p>At this hour they would not play Shakespeare on any English stage -without erasing from the text the word <i>God</i> wherever they find it. In -the full tide of the nineteenth century, the lord-chamberlain still -weighs heavily on Shakespeare. In England, outside the church, the -word God is not made use of. In conversation they replace "God" by -"Goodness." In the editions or in the representations of Shakespeare, -"God" is replaced by "Heaven." The sense suffers, the verse limps; no -matter. "Lord! Lord! Lord!" the last appeal of Desdemona expiring, was -suppressed by command in the edition of Blount and Jaggard in 1623. -They do not utter it on the stage. "Sweet Jesus!" would be a blasphemy; -a devout Spanish woman on the English stage is bound to exclaim, "Sweet -Jupiter!" Do we exaggerate? Would you have a proof? Let us open -"Measure for Measure." There is a nun, Isabella. Whom does she invoke? -Jupiter. Shakespeare had written "Jesus."<a name="FNanchor_2_33" id="FNanchor_2_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_33" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> - -<p>The tone of a certain Puritanical criticism toward Shakespeare is, most -certainly, improved; yet the cure is not complete.</p> - -<p>It is not many years since an English economist, a man of authority, -making, in the midst of social questions, a literary excursion, -affirmed in a lofty digression, and without exhibiting the slightest -diffidence, this:—</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>"Shakespeare cannot live because he has treated specially -foreign or ancient subjects—'Hamlet,' 'Othello,' 'Romeo and -Juliet,' 'Macbeth,' 'Lear,' 'Julius Cæsar,' 'Coriolanus,' -'Timon of Athens,' etc. Now, nothing is likely to live in -literature except matters of immediate observation and works -made on contemporary subjects."</p></blockquote> - -<p>What say you to the theory? We would not mention it if this system -had not met approvers in England and propagators in France. Besides -Shakespeare, it simply excludes from literary "life" Schiller, -Corneille, Milton, Virgil, Euripides, Sophocles, Æschylus, and Homer. -It is true that it surrounds with a halo of glory Aulus-Gellius and -Restif of Bretonne. O critic, this Shakespeare is not likely to live, -he is only immortal!</p> - -<p>About the same time, another—English also, but of the Scotch -school, a Puritan of that discontented variety of which Knox is the -head—declared poetry childishness; repudiated beauty of style as an -obstacle interposed between the idea and the reader; saw in Hamlet's -soliloquy only "a cold lyricism," and in Othello's adieu to standards -and camps only "a declamation;" likened the metaphors of poets to -illustrations in books,—good for amusing babies; and showed a -particular contempt for Shakespeare, as besmeared from one end to the -other with that "illuminating process."</p> - -<p>Not later than last January, a witty London paper,<a name="FNanchor_3_34" id="FNanchor_3_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_34" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> with indignant -irony, was asking which is the most celebrated, in England, Shakespeare -or "Mr. Calcraft, the hangman:"—</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>"There are localities in this enlightened country where, -if you pronounce the name of Shakespeare they will answer -you: 'I don't know what this Shakespeare may be about whom -you make all this fuss, but I will back Hammer Lane of -Birmingham to fight him for five pounds.' But no mistake is -made about Calcraft."</p></blockquote> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_32" id="Footnote_1_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_32"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Rev. John Wheeler.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2_33" id="Footnote_2_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_33"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> On the other hand, however, in spite of all the -lords-chamberlain, it is difficult to beat the French censorship. -Religions are diverse, but bigotry is one, and is the same in all its -specimens. What we are about to write is an extract from the notes (on -"Richard II." and "Henry IV.") added to his translation by the new -translator of Shakespeare:— -</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>"'Jesus! Jesus!' This exclamation of Shallow was expunged -in the edition of 1623, conformably to the statute which -forbade the uttering of the name of the Divinity on the -stage. It is worthy of remark that our modern theatre -has had to undergo, under the scissors of the censorship -of the Bourbons, the same stupid mutilations to which -the censorship of the Stuarts condemned the theatre of -Shakespeare. I read what follows in the first page of the -manuscript of 'Hernani,' which I have in my hands:— -</p> -<p class="center"> -'Received at the Théâtre-Français, Oct. 8, 1829.<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 10%;">'The Stage-manager,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 60%;">'Albertin.'</span> -</p> -<p> -"And lower down, in red ink:— -</p> -<p> -'On condition of expunging the name of "Jesus" wherever -found, and conforming to the alterations marked at pages 27, -28, 29, 62, 74, and 76. -</p> -<p style="margin-left: 10%;"> -'The Secretary of State for the Department of the Interior,<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 60%;">'La Bourdonnate.'"</span></p></blockquote> - -<p> -We may add that in the scenery representing Saragossa (second act of -"Hernani") it was forbidden to put any belfry or any church, which made -resemblance rather difficult, Saragossa having in the sixteenth century -three hundred and nine churches and six hundred and seventeen convents.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_3_34" id="Footnote_3_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_34"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Daily Telegraph, 13 Jan., 1864.</p></div> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER IV.</h5> - - -<p>At all events, Shakespeare has not the monument that England owes to -Shakespeare.</p> - -<p>France, let me admit, is not, in like cases, much more speedy. Another -glory, very different from Shakespeare, but not less grand,—Joan of -Arc,—waits also, and has waited longer for a national monument, a -monument worthy of her.</p> - -<p>This land which has been Gaul, and where the Velledas reigned, -has, in a Catholic and historic sense, for patronesses two august -figures,—Mary and Joan. The one, holy, is the Virgin; the other, -heroic, is the Maid. Louis XIII. gave France to the one; the other has -given France to France. The monument of the second should not be less -high than the monument of the first Joan of Arc must have a trophy as -grand as Notre-Dame. When shall she have it?</p> - -<p>England has failed utterly to pay its debt to Shakespeare; but so also -has France failed toward Joan of Arc.</p> - -<p>These ingratitudes require to be sternly denounced. Doubtless the -governing aristocracies, which blind the eyes of the masses, deserve -the first accusation of guilt; but on the whole, conscience exists -for a people as for an individual. Ignorance is only an attenuating -circumstance; and when these denials of justice last for centuries, -they remain the fault of governments, but become the fault of nations. -Let us know, when necessary, how to tell nations of their shortcomings. -France and England, you are wrong.</p> - -<p>To flatter peoples would be worse than to flatter kings. The one is -base, the other would be cowardly.</p> - -<p>Let us go further, and since this thought has been presented to us, -let us generalize it usefully, even if we should leave our subject for -a while. No; the people have not the right to throw indefinitely the -fault upon governments. The acceptation of oppression by the oppressed -ends in becoming complicity. Cowardice is consent whenever the duration -of a bad thing, which presses on the people, and which the people could -prevent if they would, goes beyond the amount of patience endurable by -an honest man; there is an appreciable solidarity and a partnership in -shame between the government guilty of the evil and the people allowing -it to be done. To suffer is worthy of veneration; to submit is worthy -of contempt. Let us pass on.</p> - -<p>A noteworthy coincidence: the man who denies Shakespeare, Voltaire, -is also the insulter of Joan of Arc. But then what is Voltaire? -Voltaire—we may say it with joy and sadness—is the French mind. Let -us understand: it is the French mind, up to the Revolution exclusively. -From the French Revolution, France increasing in greatness, the French -mind grows larger, and tends to become the European mind; it is less -local and more fraternal, less Gallic and more human. It represents -more and more Paris, the city heart of the world. As for Voltaire, -he remains as he is,—the man of the future, but also the man of the -past. He is one of those glories which make the thinker say yes and no; -he has against him two sarcasms, Joan of Arc and Shakespeare. He is -punished through what he sneered at.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER V.</h5> - - -<p>In truth, a monument to Shakespeare, <i>cui bono?</i> The statue that he -has made for himself is worth more, with all England for a pedestal. -Shakespeare has no need of a pyramid; he has his work.</p> - -<p>What do you suppose marble could do for him? What can bronze do where -there is glory? Malachite and alabaster are of no avail; jasper, -serpentine, basalt, red porphyry, such as that at the Invalides, -granite, Paros and Carrara, are of no use,—genius is genius without -them. Even if all the stones had a part in it, would they make that man -an inch greater? What vault shall be more indestructible than this; -"The Winter's Tale," "The Tempest," "The Merry Wives of Windsor," "The -Two Gentlemen of Verona," "Julius Cæsar," "Coriolanus?" What monument -more grandiose than "Lear," more wild than "The Merchant of Venice," -more dazzling than "Romeo and Juliet," more amazing than "Richard -III."? What moon could throw on that building a light more mysterious -than "The Midsummer Night's Dream"? What capital, were it even London, -could produce around it a rumour so gigantic as the tumultuous soul -of "Macbeth"? What framework of cedar or of oak will last as long -as "Othello"? What bronze will be bronze as much as "Hamlet"? No -construction of lime, of rock, of iron and of cement, is worth the -breath,—the deep breath of genius, which is the breathing of God -through man. A head in which is an idea,—such is the summit; heaps -of stone and brick would be useless efforts. What edifice equals a -thought? Babel is below Isaiah; Cheops is less than Homer; the Coliseum -is inferior to Juvenal; the Giralda of Seville is dwarfish by the side -of Cervantes; St. Peter of Rome does not reach to the ankle of Dante. -How could you manage to build a tower as high as that name: Shakespeare.</p> - -<p>Ah, add something, if you can, to a mind!</p> - -<p>Suppose a monument. Suppose it splendid; suppose it sublime,—a -triumphal arch, an obelisk, a circus with a pedestal in the centre, a -cathedral. No people is more illustrious, more noble, more magnificent, -and more magnanimous than the English people. Couple these two ideas, -England and Shakespeare, and make an edifice arise therefrom. Such -a nation celebrating such a man, it will be superb. Imagine the -monument, imagine the inauguration. The Peers are there, the Commons -give their adherence, the bishops officiate, the princes join the -procession, the queen is present. The virtuous woman in whom the -English people, royalist as we know, see and venerate their actual -personification,—this worthy mother, this noble widow, comes, with the -deep respect which is called for, to incline material majesty before -ideal majesty; the Queen of England salutes Shakespeare. The homage of -Victoria repairs the disdain of Elizabeth. As for Elizabeth, she is -probably there also, sculptured somewhere on the surbase, with Henry -VIII., her father, and James I., her successor,—pygmies beneath the -poet. The cannon booms, the curtain falls, they uncover the statue, -which seems to say, "At length!" and which has grown in the shade -during three hundred years,—three centuries; the growth of a colossus; -an immensity. All the York, Cumberland, Pitt, and Peel bronzes have -been made use of, in order to produce this statue; the public places -have been disencumbered of a heap of uncalled-for metal-castings; -in this lofty figure have been amalgamated all kinds of Henrys and -Edwards; the various Williams and the numerous Georges have been -melted, the Achilles in Hyde Park has made the great-toe. This is fine; -behold Shakespeare almost as great as a Pharaoh or a Sesostris. Bells, -drums, trumpets, applause, hurrahs.</p> - -<p>What then?</p> - -<p>It is honourable for England, indifferent to Shakespeare.</p> - -<p>What is the salutation of royalty, of aristocracy, of the army, and -even of the English populace, ignorant yet to this moment, like -nearly all other nations,—what is the salutation of all these groups -variously enlightened to him who has the eternal acclamation, with its -reverberation, of all ages and all men? What orison of the Bishop of -London or of the Archbishop of Canterbury is worth the cry of a woman -before Desdemona, of a mother before Arthur, of a soul before Hamlet?</p> - -<p>And thus, when universal outcry demands from England a monument to -Shakespeare, it is not for the sake of Shakespeare, it is for the sake -of England.</p> - -<p>There are cases in which the repayment of a debt is of greater import -to the debtor than to the creditor.</p> - -<p>A monument is an example. The lofty head of a great man is a light. -Crowds, like the waves, require beacons above them. It is good that -the passer-by should know that there are great men. People may not -have time to read; they are forced to see. People pass by that way, -and stumble against the pedestal; they are almost obliged to raise the -head and to glance a little at the inscription. Men escape a book; they -cannot escape the statue. One day on the bridge of Rouen, before the -beautiful statue due to David d'Angers, a peasant mounted on an ass -said to me: "Do you know Pierre Corneille?" "Yes," I replied. "So do -I," he rejoined. "And do you know 'The Cid'?" I resumed. "No," said he.</p> - -<p>To him, Corneille was the statue.</p> - -<p>This beginning in the knowledge of great men is necessary to the -people. The monument incites them to know more of the man. They desire -to learn to read in order to know what this bronze means. A statue is -an elbow-thrust to ignorance.</p> - -<p>There is then, in the execution of such monuments, popular utility as -well as national justice.</p> - -<p>To perform what is useful at the same time as what is just, that will -at the end certainly tempt England. She is the debtor of Shakespeare. -To leave such a debt in abeyance is not a good attitude for the pride -of a people. It is a point of morality that nations should be good -payers in matters of gratitude. Enthusiasm is probity. When a man is a -glory in the face of his nation, that nation which does not perceive -the fact astounds the human race around.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER VI.</h5> - - -<p>England, as it is easy to foresee, will build a monument to her poet.</p> - -<p>At the very moment we finished writing the pages you have just read, -was announced in London the formation of a committee for the solemn -celebration of the three-hundredth anniversary of the birth of -Shakespeare. This committee will dedicate to Shakespeare, on the 23d -April, 1864, a monument and a festival which will surpass, we doubt -not, the incomplete programme we have just sketched out. They will -spare nothing. The act of admiration will be a striking one. One may -expect everything, in point of magnificence, from the nation which -has created the prodigious palace at Sydenham, that Versailles of a -people. The initiative taken by the committee will doubtless secure -the co-operation of the powers that be. We discard, for our part, and -the committee will discard, we think, all idea of a manifestation by -subscription. A subscription, unless of one penny,—that is to say, -open to all the people,—is necessarily fractional. What is due to -Shakespeare is a national manifestation;—a holiday, a public <i>fête</i>, -a popular monument, voted by the Chambers and entered in the Budget -England would do it for her king. Now, what is the King of England -beside the man of England? Every confidence is due to the Jubilee -Committee of Shakespeare,—a committee composed of persons highly -distinguished in the press, the peerage, literature, the stage, and -the church. Eminent men from all countries, representing intellect -in France, in Germany, in Belgium, in Spain, in Italy, complete this -committee, in all points of view excellent and competent. Another -committee, formed at Stratford-on-Avon, seconds the London committee. -We congratulate England.</p> - -<p>Nations have a dull ear and a long life,—which latter makes their -deafness by no means irreparable: they have time to change their mind. -The English are awake at last to their glory. England begins to spell -that name, Shakespeare, upon which the universe has laid her finger.</p> - -<p>In April, 1664, a hundred years after Shakespeare was born, England was -occupied in cheering loudly Charles II., who had sold Dunkirk to France -for two hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling, and in looking at -something that was a skeleton and had been Cromwell, whitening under -the north-east wind and rain on the gallows at Tyburn. In April, 1764, -two hundred years after Shakespeare was born, England was contemplating -the dawn of George III.,—a king destined to imbecility,—who at that -epoch, in secret councils, and in somewhat unconstitutional asides -with the Tory chiefs and the German Landgraves, was sketching out that -policy of resistance to progress which was to strive, first against -liberty in America, then against democracy in France, and which, during -the single ministry of the first Pitt, had, in 1778, raised the debt of -England to the sum of eighty millions sterling. In April, 1864, three -hundred years since Shakespeare's birth, England raises a statue to -Shakespeare. It is late, but it is well.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="BOOK_II" id="BOOK_II">BOOK II.</a></h4> - - -<h4>THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.</h4> - - - -<h5>CHAPTER I.</h5> - - -<p>The nineteenth century springs from itself only; it does not receive -its impulse from any ancestor; it is the offspring of an idea. -Doubtless, Isaiah, Homer, Aristotle, Dante, Shakespeare, have been or -could be great starting-points for important philosophical or poetical -formations; but the nineteenth century has an august mother,—the -French Revolution. It has that powerful blood in its veins. It honours -men of genius. When denied it salutes them, when ignored it proclaims -them, when persecuted it avenges them, when insulted it crowns them, -when dethroned it replaces them upon their pedestal; it venerates -them, but it does not proceed from them. The nineteenth century has -for family itself, and itself alone. It is the characteristic of its -revolutionary nature to dispense with ancestors.</p> - -<p>Itself a genius, it fraternizes with men of genius. As for its source, -it is where theirs is,—beyond man. The mysterious gestations of -progress succeed each other according to a providential law. The -nineteenth century is born of civilization. It has a continent to bring -into the world. France has borne this century; and this century bears -Europe.</p> - -<p>The Greek stock bore civilization, narrow and circumscribed at first by -the mulberry leaf, confined to the Morea; then civilization, gaining -step by step, grew broader, and formed the Roman stock. It is to-day -the French stock,—that is to say, all Europe,—with young shoots in -America, Africa, and Asia.</p> - -<p>The greatest of these young shoots is a democracy,—the United States, -the sprouting of which was aided by France in the last century. France, -sublime essayist in progress, has founded a republic in America before -making one in Europe. <i>Et vidit quod esset bonum.</i> After having lent -to Washington an auxiliary, Lafayette, France, returning home, gave to -Voltaire, dismayed within his tomb, that formidable successor, Danton. -In presence of the monstrous past, hurling every thunder, exhaling -every miasma, breathing every darkness, protruding every talon, -horrible and terrible, progress, constrained to use the same weapons, -has had suddenly a hundred arms, a hundred heads, a hundred tongues of -fire, a hundred roarings. The good has transformed itself into a hydra. -It is this that is termed the Revolution.</p> - -<p>Nothing can be more august.</p> - -<p>The Revolution ended one century and began another.</p> - -<p>An intellectual awakening prepares the way for an overthrow of -facts,—and this is the eighteenth century. After which the political -revolution, once accomplished, seeks expression, and the literary and -social revolution completes it: this is the nineteenth century. With -ill-will, but not unjustly, has it been said that romanticism and -socialism are identical: hatred, in its desire to injure, very often -establishes, and, so far as is in its power, consolidates.</p> - -<p>A parenthesis. This word, romanticism, has, like all war-cries, the -advantage of readily summing up a group of ideas. It is brief,—which -pleases in the contest; but it has, to our idea, through its militant -signification, the objection of appearing to limit the movement that -it represents to a warlike action. Now, this movement is a matter of -intellect, a matter of civilization, a matter of soul; and this is why -the writer of these lines has never used the words <i>romanticism</i> or -<i>romantic.</i> They will not be found in any of the pages of criticism -that he has had occasion to write. If to-day he derogates from his -usual prudence in polemics, it is for the sake of greater rapidity -and with all reservation. The same observation may be made on the -subject of the word <i>socialism</i>, which admits of so many different -interpretations.</p> - -<p>The triple movement—literary, philosophical, and social—of the -nineteenth century, which is one single movement, is nothing but the -current of the revolution in ideas. This current, after having swept -away facts, is perpetuated in minds with all its immensity.</p> - -<p>This term, "literary '93," so often quoted in 1830 against -contemporaneous literature, was not so much an insult as it -was intended to be. It was certainly as unjust to employ it as -characterizing the whole literary movement as it is iniquitous to -employ it to describe all the political revolutions; there is in these -two phenomena something besides '93. But this term, "literary '93," was -relatively exact, insomuch as it indicated, confusedly but truthfully, -the origin of the literary movement which belongs to our epoch, while -endeavouring to dishonour that movement. Here again the clairvoyance -of hatred was blind. Its daubings of mud upon the face of truth are -gilding, light, and glory.</p> - -<p>The Revolution, turning climacteric of humanity, is made up of several -years. Each of these years expresses a period, represents an aspect, or -realizes a phase of the phenomenon. Tragic '93 is one of those colossal -years. Good news must sometimes have a mouth of bronze. Such a mouth is -'93.</p> - -<p>Listen to the immense proclamation proceeding from it. Give attention, -remain speechless, and be impressed. God himself said the first time -<i>Fiat lux</i>, the second time he has caused it to be said.</p> - -<p>By whom?</p> - -<p>By '93.</p> - -<p>Therefore, we men of the nineteenth century hold in honour that -reproach, "You are '93."</p> - -<p>But do not stop there. We are '89 as well as '93. The Revolution, -the whole Revolution,—such is the source of the literature of the -nineteenth century.</p> - -<p>On these grounds put it on its trial, this literature, or seek its -triumph; hate it or love it. According to the amount of the future that -you have in you, outrage it or salute it; little do animosities and -fury affect it. It is the logical deduction from the great chaotic and -genesiacal fact that our fathers have witnessed, and which has given a -new starting-point to the world. He who is against that fact is against -that literature; he who is for that fact is on its side. What the fact -is worth the literature is worth. The reactionary writers are not -mistaken; wherever there is revolution, patent or latent, the Catholic -and royalist scent is unfailing. Those men of letters of the past award -to contemporaneous literature an honourable amount of diatribe; their -aversion is convulsive. One of their journalists, who is, I believe a -bishop, pronounces this word <i>poet</i> with the same accent as the word -<i>Septembrist</i>; another, less of a bishop, but quite as angry, writes, -"I feel in all this literature Marat and Robespierre." This last writer -is rather mistaken; there is in "this literature" Danton rather than -Marat.</p> - -<p>But the fact is true: democracy is in this literature.</p> - -<p>The Revolution has forged the clarion; the nineteenth century sounds it.</p> - -<p>Ah, this affirmation suits us, and, in truth, we do not recoil before -it; we avow our glory,—we are revolutionists. The thinkers of the -present time,—poets, writers, historians, orators, philosophers,—all -are derived from the French Revolution. They come from it, and it -alone. It was '89 that demolished the Bastille; it was '93 that took -the crown from the Louvre. From '89 sprung Deliverance, and from -'93 Victory. From '89 and '93 the men of the nineteenth century -proceed: these are their father and their mother. Do not seek for -them another affiliation, another inspiration, another insufflation, -another origin. They are the democrats of the idea, successors to the -democrats of action. They are the emancipators. Liberty bent over their -cradles,—they all have sucked her vast breast; they all have her milk -in their entrails, her marrow in their bones, her sap in their will, -her spirit of revolt in their reason, her flame in their intellect.</p> - -<p>Even those among them (there are some) who were born aristocrats, who -came to the world banished in some degree among families of the past, -who have fatally received one of those primary educations whose stupid -effort is to contradict progress, and who have commenced the words -that they had to say to our century with an indescribable royalist -stuttering,—these, from that period, from their infancy (they will -not contradict me), felt the sublime monster within them. They had -the inner ebullition of the immense fact. They had in the depth of -their conscience a whispering of mysterious ideas; the inward shock of -false certainties troubled their mind; they felt their sombre surface -of monarchism, Catholicism, and aristocracy tremble, shudder, and by -degrees split up. One day, suddenly and powerfully, the swelling of -truth within them prevailed, the hatching was completed, the eruption -took place; the light flamed in them, causing them to burst open,—not -falling on them, but (more beautiful mystery!) gushing out of these -amazed men, enlightening them, while it burned within them. They were -craters unknown to themselves.</p> - -<p>This phenomenon has been interpreted to their reproach as a treason. -They passed over, in fact, from right divine to human right. They -turned their back on false history, on false tradition, on false -dogmas, on false philosophy, on false daylight, on false truth. The -free spirit which soars up,—bird called by Aurora,—offends intellects -saturated with ignorance and the fœtus preserved in spirits of wine. -He who sees offends the blind; he who hears makes the deaf indignant; -he who walks offers an abominable insult to cripples. In the eyes of -dwarfs, abortions, Aztecs, myrmidons, and pygmies, forever subject to -rickets, growth is apostasy.</p> - -<p>The writers and poets of the nineteenth century have the admirable -good fortune of proceeding from a genesis, of arriving after an end -of the world, of accompanying a reappearance of light, of being the -organs of a new beginning. This imposes on them duties unknown to -their predecessors—the duties of intentional reformers and direct -civilizers. They continue nothing; they remake everything. For new -times, new duties. The function of thinkers in our days is complex; to -think is no longer sufficient,—they must love; to think and love is -no longer sufficient,—they must act; to think, to love, and to act, -no longer suffices,—they must suffer. Lay down the pen, and go where -you hear the grapeshot. Here is a barricade; be one on it. Here is -exile; accept it. Here is the scaffold; be it so. Let John Brown be -in Montesquieu, if needful. The Lucretius required by this century in -labour should contain Cato. Æschylus, who wrote the "Orestias" had for -a brother Cynegyrus, who fastened with his teeth on the ships of the -enemies: that was sufficient for Greece at the time of Salamis, but -it no longer suffices for France after the Revolution. That Æschylus -and Cynegyrus are brothers is not enough; they must be the same -man. Such are the actual requirements of progress. Those who devote -themselves to great and pressing things can never be too great. To -set ideas in motion, to heap up evidence, to pile up principles, that -is the redoubtable movement. To heap Pelion on Ossa is the labour of -infants beside that work of giants, the placing of right upon truth. -To scale that afterward, and to dethrone usurpations in the midst of -thunders,—such is the work.</p> - -<p>The future presses. To-morrow cannot wait. Humanity has not a minute to -lose. Quick! quick! let us hasten; the wretched ones have their feet -on red-hot iron. They hunger, they thirst, they suffer. Ah, terrible -emaciation of the poor human body! Parasitism laughs, the ivy grows -green and thrives, the mistletoe is flourishing, the tapeworm is happy. -What a frightful object the prosperity of the tapeworm! To destroy that -which devours,—in that is safety. Your life has within itself death, -which is in good health. There is too much misery, too much desolation, -too much immodesty, too much nakedness, too many brothels, too many -prisons, too many rags, too many crimes, too much weakness, too much -darkness, not enough schools, too many little innocents growing up -for evil! The truckle-beds of poor girls are suddenly covered with -silk and lace,—and in that is worse misery; by the side of misfortune -there is vice, the one urging the other. Such a society requires prompt -succour. Let us seek for the best. Go all of you in this search. Where -are the promised lands? Civilization would go forward; let us try -theories, systems, ameliorations, inventions, progress, until the shoe -for that foot shall be found. The attempt costs nothing, or costs but -little,—to attempt is not to adopt,—but before all, above all, let -us be lavish of light. All sanitary purification begins in opening -windows wide. Let us open wide all intellects. Let us supply souls with -air.</p> - -<p>Quick, quick, O thinkers! Let the human race breathe; give hope, give -the ideal, do good. Let one step succeed another, horizon expand -into horizon, conquest follow conquest. Because you have given what -you promised do not think you have performed all that is required of -you. To possess is to promise; the dawn of to-day imposes on the sun -obligations for to-morrow.</p> - -<p>Let nothing be lost. Let not one strength be isolated. Every one to -work! there is vast urgency for it. No more idle art. Poetry the worker -of civilization, what more admirable? The dreamer should be a pioneer; -the strophe should mean something. The beautiful should be at the -service of honesty. I am the valet of my conscience; it rings for me: I -come. "Go!" I go. What do you require of me, O truth, sole majesty of -this world? Let each one feel in haste to do well. A book is sometimes -a source of hoped-for succour. An idea is a balm, a word may be a -dressing for wounds; poetry is a physician. Let no one tarry. Suffering -is losing its strength while you are idling. Let men leave this dreamy -laziness. Leave the kief to the Turks. Let men labour for the safety of -all, and let them rush into it and be out of breath. Do not be sparing -of your strides. Nothing useless; no inertia. What do you call dead -nature? Everything lives. The duty of all is to live; to walk, to run, -to fly, to soar, is the universal law. What do you wait for? Who stops -you? Ah, there are times when one might wish to hear the stones murmur -at the slowness of man!</p> - -<p>Sometimes one goes into the woods. To whom does it not happen at times -to be overwhelmed?—one sees so many sad things. The stage is a long -one to go over, the consequences are long in coming, a generation is -behindhand, the work of the age languishes. What! so many sufferings -yet? One might think he has gone backward. There is everywhere -increase of superstition, of cowardice, of deafness, of blindness, of -imbecility. Penal laws weigh upon brutishness. This wretched problem -has been set,—to augment comfort by putting off right; to sacrifice -the superior side of man to the inferior side; to yield up principle -to appetite. Cæsar takes charge for the belly, I make over to him the -brains,—it is the old sale of at birth-right for the dish of porridge. -A little more, and this fatal anomaly would cause a wrong road to be -taken toward civilization. The fattening pig would no longer be the -king, but the people. Alas! this ugly expedient does not even succeed. -No diminution whatever of the malady. In the last ten years—for the -last twenty years—the low water-mark of prostitution, of mendicity, of -crime, has been stationary, below which evil has not fallen one degree. -Of true education, of gratuitous education, there is none. The infant -nevertheless requires to know that he is man, and the father that he is -citizen. Where are the promises? Where is the hope? Oh, poor wretched -humanity! one is tempted to shout for help in the forest; one is -tempted to claim support, assistance, and a strong arm from that grand -mournful Nature. Can this mysterious ensemble of forces be indifferent -to progress? We supplicate, appeal, raise our hands toward the shadow. -We listen, wondering if the rustlings will become voices. The duty of -the springs and streams should be to babble forth the word "Forward!" -One could wish to hear nightingales sing new Marseillaises.</p> - -<p>Notwithstanding all this, these times of halting are nothing beyond -what is normal. Discouragement would be puerile. There are halts, -repose, breathing spaces in the march of peoples, as there are winters -in the progress of the seasons. The gigantic step, '89, is all the same -a fact. To despair would be absurd, but to stimulate is necessary.</p> - -<p>To stimulate, to press, to chide, to awaken, to suggest to inspire,—it -is this function, fulfilled everywhere by writers, which impresses -on the literature of this century so high a character of power and -originality. To remain faithful to all the laws of art, while combining -them with the law of progress,—such is the problem, victoriously -solved by so many noble and proud minds.</p> - -<p>Thence this word <i>deliverance</i>, which appears above everything in the -light, as if it were written on the very forehead of the ideal.</p> - -<p>The Revolution is France sublimed. There was a day when France was -in the furnace,—the furnace causes wings to grow on certain warlike -martyrs,—and from amid the flames this giant came forth archangel. -At this day, by all the world, France is called Revolution; and -henceforth this word <i>revolution</i> will be the name of civilization, -until it can be replaced by the word <i>harmony.</i> I repeat it: do not -seek elsewhere the starting-point and the birth-place of the literature -of the nineteenth century. Yes, as many as there be of us, great and -small, powerful and unknown, illustrious and obscure, in all our works -good or bad, whatever they may be,—poems, dramas, romances, history, -philosophy,—at the tribune of assemblies as before the crowds of the -theatre, as in the meditation of solitudes; yes, everywhere; yes, -always; yes, to combat violence and imposture; yes, to rehabilitate -those who are stoned and run down; yes, to sum up logically and to -march straight onward; yes, to console, to succour, to relieve, to -encourage, to teach; yes, to dress wounds in hope of curing them; -yes, to transform charity into fraternity, alms into assistance, -sluggishness into work, idleness into utility, centralization into a -family, iniquity into justice, the <i>bourgeois</i> into the citizen, the -populace into the people, the rabble into the nation, nations, into -humanity, war into love, prejudice into free examination, frontiers -into solderings, limits into openings, ruts into rails, vestry-rooms -into temples, the instinct of evil into the desire of good, life into -right, kings into men; yes, to deprive religions of hell and societies -of the galley; yes, to be brothers to the wretched, the serf, the -fellah, the <i>prolétaire</i>, the disinherited, the banished, the betrayed, -the conquered, the sold, the enchained, the sacrificed, the prostitute, -the convict, the ignorant, the savage, the slave, the negro, the -condemned, and the damned,—yes, we are thy sons, Revolution!</p> - -<p>Yes, men of genius; yes, poets, philosophers, historians; yes, -giants of that great art of previous ages which is all the light of -the past,—O men eternal, the minds of this day salute you, but do -not follow you; in respect to you they hold to this law,—to admire -everything, to imitate nothing. Their function is no longer yours. -They have business with the virility of the human race. The hour which -makes mankind of age has struck. We assist, under the full light of -the ideal, at that majestic junction of the beautiful with the useful. -No actual or possible genius can surpass you, ye men of genius of old; -to equal you is all the ambition allowed: but, to equal you, one must -conform to the necessities of our time, as you supplied the necessities -of yours. Writers who are sons of the Revolution have a holy task. -O Homer, their epic poem must weep; O Herodotus, their history must -protest; O Juvenal, their satire must dethrone; O Shakespeare, their -"thou shalt be king," must be said to the people; O Æschylus, their -Prometheus must strike Jupiter with thunderbolts; O Job, their -dunghill must be fruitful; O Dante, their hell must be extinguished; -O Isaiah, thy Babylon crumbles, theirs must blaze forth with light! -They do what you have done; they contemplate creation directly, they -observe humanity directly; they do not accept as a guiding light any -refracted ray,—not even yours. Like you, they have for their sole -starting-point, outside them, universal being: in them, their soul. -They have for the source of their work the one source whence flows -Nature and whence flows art, the infinite. As the writer of these lines -said forty years ago: "The poets and the writers of the nineteenth -century have neither masters nor models."<a name="FNanchor_1_35" id="FNanchor_1_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_35" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> No; in all that vast -and sublime art of all peoples, in all those grand creations of all -epochs,—no, not even thee, Æschylus, not even thee, Dante, not even -thee, Shakespeare,—no, they have neither models nor masters. And why -have they neither masters nor models? It is because they have one -model, Man, and because they have one master, God.</p> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_35" id="Footnote_1_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_35"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Preface to "Cromwell."</p></div> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="BOOK_III" id="BOOK_III">BOOK III.</a></h4> - - -<h4>TRUE HISTORY.—EVERY ONE PUT IN HIS RIGHT PLACE.</h4> - - - -<h5>CHAPTER I.</h5> - - -<p>Here is the advent of the new constellation. It is certain that at the -present hour that which has been till now the light of the human race -grows pale, and that the old flame is about to disappear from the world.</p> - -<p>The men of brutal force have, since human tradition existed, shone -alone in the empyrean of history; theirs was the only supremacy. -Under the various names of kings, emperors, captains, chiefs, -princes,—summed up in the word heroes,—this group of an apocalypse -was resplendent. They were all dripping with victories. Terror -transformed itself into acclamation to salute them. They dragged after -them an indescribable tumultuous flame. They appeared to man in a -disorder of horrible light. They did not light up the heavens,—they -set them on fire. They looked as if they meant to take possession of -the Infinite. Rumbling crashes were heard in their glory. A red glare -mingled with it. Was it purple? Was it blood? Was it shame? Their light -made one think of the face of Cain. They hated one another. Flashing -shocks passed from one to the other; at times these enormous planets -came into collision, striking out lightnings. Their look was furious. -Their radiance stretched out into swords. All that hung terrible above -us.</p> - -<p>That tragic glare fills the past. To-day it is in full process of -waning.</p> - -<p>There is decline in war, decline in despotism, decline in theocracy, -decline in slavery, decline in the scaffold. The blade becomes shorter, -the tiara is fading away, the crown is simplified; war is raging, the -plume bends lower, usurpation is circumscribed, the chain is lightened, -the rack is out of countenance. The antique violence of the few against -all, called right divine, is coming to an end. Legitimacy, the grace of -God, the monarchy of Pharamond, nations branded on the shoulder with -the <i>fleur-de-lis</i>, the possession of peoples by the right of birth, -the long series of ancestors giving right over the living,—these -things are yet striving in some places; at Naples, in Prussia, etc; but -they are struggling rather than striving,—it is death that strains for -life. A stammering which to-morrow will be utterance, and the day after -to-morrow a full declaration, proceeds from the bruised lips of the -serf, of the vassal, of the <i>prolétaire</i>, of the pariah. The gag breaks -up between the teeth of the human race. The human race has had enough -of the sorrowful path, and the patient refuses to go farther.</p> - -<p>From this very time certain forms of despotism are no longer possible. -The Pharaoh is a mummy, the sultan a phantom, the Cæsar a counterfeit. -This stylite of the Trajan columns is anchylosed on its pedestal; it -has on its head the excrement of free eagles; it is nihility rather -than glory; the bands of the sepulchre fasten this crown of laurels.</p> - -<p>The period of the men of brutal force is gone. They have been glorious, -certainly, but with a glory that melts away. That species of great men -is soluble in progress. Civilization rapidly oxidizes these bronzes. -At the point of maturity to which the French Revolution has already -brought the universal conscience, the hero is no longer a hero without -a good reason; the captain is discussed, the conqueror is inadmissible. -In our days Louis XIV. invading the Palatinate would look like a -robber. From the last century these realities began to dawn. Frederick -II., in the presence of Voltaire, felt and owned himself somewhat of -a brigand. To be a great man of matter, to be pompously violent, to -govern by the sword-knot and the cockade, to forge right upon force, to -hammer out justice and truth by blows of accomplished facts, to make -brutalities of genius,—is to be grand, if you like; but it is a coarse -manner of being grand,—glories announced with drums which are met with -a shrug of the shoulders. Sonorous heroes have deafened human reason -until to-day; that pompous noise begins now to weary it. It shuts -its eyes and ears before those authorized slaughters that they call -battles. The sublime murderers of men have had their time; it is in a -certain relative forgetfulness that henceforth they will be illustrious -and august; humanity, become greater, requires to dispense with them. -The food for guns thinks; it reflects, and is actually losing its -admiration for being shot down by a cannon-ball.</p> - -<p>A few figures by the way may not be useless.</p> - -<p>All tragedy is part of our subject. The tragedy of poets is not the -only one; there is the tragedy of politicians and statesmen. Would you -like to know how much that tragedy costs?</p> - -<p>Heroes have an enemy; that enemy is called finance. For a long time -the amount of money paid for that kind of glory was ignored. In order -to disguise the total, there were convenient little fireplaces like -that in which Louis XIV. burned the accounts of Versailles. That day -the smoke of one thousand millions of francs passed out the chimney of -the royal stove. The nation did not even take notice. At the present -day nations have one great virtue,—they are miserly. They know that -prodigality is the mother of abasement. They reckon up; they learn -book-keeping by double entry. Warlike glory henceforth has its debit -and credit account: that renders it impossible.</p> - -<p>The greatest warrior of modern times is not Napoleon, it is Pitt -Napoleon carried on warfare; Pitt created it. It is Pitt who willed all -the wars of the Revolution and of the empire; they proceeded from him. -Take away Pitt and put Fox in his place, there would then be no reason -for that exorbitant battle of twenty-three years, there would be no -longer any coalition. Pitt was the soul of the coalition, and he dead, -his soul remained amidst the universal war. What Pitt cost England and -the world, here it is. We add this bas-relief to his pedestal.</p> - -<p>In the first place, the expenditure in men. From 1791 to 1814 France -alone, striving against Europe, coalesced by England,—France -constrained and compelled, expended in butcheries for military glory -(and also, let us add, for the defence of territory) five millions of -men; that is to say, six hundred men per day. Europe, including the -total of France, has expended sixteen millions six hundred thousand -men; that is to say, two thousand deaths per day during twenty-three -years.</p> - -<p>Secondly, the expenditure of money. We have, unfortunately, no -authentic total, save the total of England. From 1791 to 1814 England, -in order to make France succumb to Europe, became indebted to the -extent of eighty-one millions, two hundred and sixty five thousand, -eight hundred and forty-two pounds sterling. Divide this total by -the total of men killed, at the rate of two thousand per day for -twenty-three years, and you arrive at this result,—that each corpse -stretched on the field of battle has cost England alone fifty pounds -sterling.</p> - -<p>Add the total of Europe,—total unknown, but enormous.</p> - -<p>With these seventeen millions of dead men, they might have peopled -Australia with Europeans. With the eighty millions expended by England -in cannon-shots, they might have changed the face of the earth, begun -the work of civilization everywhere, and suppressed throughout the -entire world ignorance and misery.</p> - -<p>England pays eighty millions for the two statues of Pitt and Wellington.</p> - -<p>It is a fine thing to have heroes, but it is an expensive luxury. Poets -cost less.</p> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER II.</h5> - - -<p>The discharge of the warrior is signed: it is splendour in the -distance. The great Nimrod, the great Cyrus, the great Sennacherib, -the great Sesostris, the great Alexander, the great Pyrrhus, the great -Hannibal, the great Cæsar, the great Timour, the great Louis, the great -Frederic, and more great ones,—all are going away.</p> - -<p>It would be a mistake to think that we reject these men purely and -simply. In our eyes five or six of those that we have named are -legitimately illustrious; they have even mingled something good in -their ravages; their definitive total embarrasses the absolute equity -of the thinker, and they weigh nearly even weights in the balance of -the injurious and the useful.</p> - -<p>Others have been only injurious. They are numerous, innumerable even; -for the masters of the world are a crowd.</p> - -<p>The thinker is the weigher. Clemency suits him. Let us therefore -say. Those others who have done only evil have one attenuating -circumstance,—imbecility.</p> - -<p>They have another excuse yet,—the mental condition of the human race -itself at the moment they appeared; the medium surrounding facts, -modifiable, but encumbering.</p> - -<p>It is not men that are tyrants, but things. The real tyrants are called -frontier, track, routine; blindness under the form of fanaticism, -deafness and dumbness under the form of diversity of languages; quarrel -under the form of diversity of weights, measures, and moneys; hatred -resulting from quarrel, war resulting from hatred. All these tyrants -may be called by one name,—separation. Division, whence proceeds -irresponsible government,—this is despotism in the abstract.</p> - -<p>Even the tyrants of flesh are mere things. Caligula is much more a -fact than a man; he is a result more than an existence. The Roman -proscriber, dictator, or Cæsar, refuses the vanquished fire and -water,—that is to say, puts his life out. One day of Gela represents -twenty thousand proscribed, one day of Tiberius thirty thousand, one -day of Sylla seventy thousand. One evening Vitellius, being ill, sees -a house lighted up, where people were rejoicing. "Do they think me -dead?" says Vitellius. It is Junius Blesus who sups with Tuscus Cæcina; -the emperor sends to these drinkers a cup of poison, that they may -realize by this sinister end of too joyous a night that Vitellius is -living. (Reddendam pro intempestiva licentia mœstam et funebrem -noctem qua sentient vivere Vitellius et impresser.) Otho and this same -Vitellius forward assassins to each other. Under the Cæsars, it is a -marvel to die in one's bed; Pison, to Whom this happened, is noted for -that strange incident. The garden of Valerius Asiaticus pleases the -emperor; the face of Stateless displeases the empress,—state crimes: -Valerius is strangled because he has a garden, And Statilius because -he has a face. Basil II., Emperor of the East, makes fifteen thousand -Bulgarians prisoners; they are divided into bands of a hundred, and -their eyes are put out, with the exception of one, who is charged -to conduct his ninety-nine blind comrades. He afterward sends into -Bulgaria the whole of this army without eyes. History thus describes -Basil II.: "He was too fond of glory."<a name="FNanchor_1_36" id="FNanchor_1_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_36" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Paul of Russia gave out this -axiom: "There is no man powerful save him to whom the emperor speaks; -and his power endures as long as the word that he hears." Philip V. -of Spain, so ferociously calm at the <i>auto-da-fés</i>, is frightened at -the idea of changing his shirt, and remains six months in bed without -washing and without trimming his nails, for fear of being poisoned, by -means of scissors, or by the water in the basin, or by his shirt, or by -his shoes. Ivan, grandfather of Paul, had a woman put to the torture -before making her lie in his bed; had a newly married bride hanged, -and placed the husband as sentinel by her side, to prevent the rope -from being cut; had a father killed by his son; invented the process of -sawing men in two with a cord; burns Bariatinski himself by slow fire, -and, while the patient howls, brings the embers together with the end -of his stick. Peter, in point of excellence, aspires to that of the -executioner; he exercises himself in cutting off heads. At first he -cuts off but five per day,—little enough; but, with application, he -succeeds in cutting off twenty-five. It is a talent for a czar to tear -away a woman's breast with one blow of the knout.</p> - -<p>What are all those monsters? Symptoms,—running sores, pus which oozes -from a sickly body. They are scarcely more responsible than the sum of -a column is responsible for the figures in that column. Basil, Ivan, -Philip, Paul, etc., are the products of vast surrounding stupidity. The -clergy of the Greek Church, for example, having this maxim, "Who can -make us judges of those who are our masters?" what more natural than -that a czar,—Ivan himself,—should cause an archbishop to be sewn in -a bear's skin and devoured by dogs? The czar is amused,—it is quite -right. Under Nero, the man whose brother was killed goes to the temple -to return thanks to the gods; under Ivan, a Boyard empaled employs -his agony, which lasts for twenty-four hours, in repeating, "O God! -protect the czar." The Princess Sanguzko is in tears; she presents, -upon her knees, a supplication to Nicholas: she implores grace for -her husband, conjuring the master to spare Sanguzko (a Pole guilty of -loving Poland) the frightful journey to Siberia. Nicholas listens in -silence, takes the supplication, and writes beneath it, "On foot." Then -Nicholas goes into the streets, and the crowd throw themselves on his -boot to kiss it What have you to say? Nicholas is a madman, the crowd -is a brute. From "khan" comes "knez;" from "knez" comes "tzar;" from -"tzar" the "czar,"—a series of phenomena rather than an affiliation -of men. That after this Ivan you should have this Peter, after this -Peter this Nicholas, after this Nicholas this Alexander, what more -logical? You all rather contribute to this result. The tortured accept -the torture. "This czar, half putrid, half frozen," as Madame de Staël -says,—you made him yourselves. To be a people, to be a force, and to -look upon these things, is to find them good. To be present, is to -give one's consent. He who assists at the crime, assists the crime. -Unresisting presence is an encouraging submission.</p> - -<p>Let us add that a preliminary corruption began the complicity even -before the crime was committed. A certain putrid fermentation of -pre-existing baseness engenders the oppressor.</p> - -<p>The wolf is the fact of the forest; it is the savage fruit of solitude -without defence. Combine and group together silence, obscurity, easy -victory, monstrous infatuation, prey offered from all parts, murder in -security, the connivance of those who are around, weakness, want of -weapons, abandonment, isolation,—from the point of intersection of -these things breaks forth the ferocious beast. A dark forest, whence -cries cannot be heard, produces the tiger. A tiger is a blindness -hungered and armed. Is it a being? Scarcely. The claw of the animal -knows no more than does the thorn of a plant. The fatal fact engenders -the unconscious organism. In so far as personality is concerned, and -apart from killing for a living, the tiger does not exist. Mouravieff -is mistaken if he thinks that he is a being.</p> - -<p>Wicked men spring from bad things. Therefore let us correct the things.</p> - -<p>And here we return to our starting-point: An attenuating circumstance -for despotism is—idiocy. That attenuating circumstance we have just -pleaded.</p> - -<p>Idiotic despots, a multitude, are the mob of the purple; but above -them, beyond them, by the immeasurable distance which separates that -which radiates from that which stagnates,—there are the despots of -genius; there are the captains, the conquerors, the mighty men of war, -the civilizers of force, the ploughmen of the sword.</p> - -<p>These we have just named. The truly great among them are called Cyrus, -Sesostris, Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar, Charlemagne, Napoleon; and, with -the qualifications we have laid down, we admire them.</p> - -<p>But we admire them on the condition of their disappearance. Make room -for better ones! Make room for greater ones!</p> - -<p>Those greater, those better ones, are they new? No. Their series is as -ancient as the other; more ancient, perhaps, for the idea has preceded -the act, and the thinker is anterior to the warrior. But their place -was taken, taken violently. This usurpation is about to cease; their -hour comes at last; their predominance gleams forth. Civilization, -returned to the true light, recognizes them as its only founders; their -series becomes clothed in light, and eclipses the rest; like the past, -the future belongs to them; and henceforth it is they whom God will -perpetuate.</p> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_36" id="Footnote_1_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_36"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Delandine.</p></div> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER III.</h5> - - -<p>That history has to be re-made is evident. Up to the present time, it -has been nearly always written from the miserable point of view of -accomplished fact; it is time to write it from the point of view of -principle,—and that, under penalty of nullity.</p> - -<p>Royal gestures, warlike uproars, princely coronations; marriages, -baptisms, and funerals, executions and fêtes; the finery of one -crushing all; the triumph of being born king, the prowess of sword -and axe; great empires, heavy taxes; the tricks played by chance upon -chance; the universe having for a law the adventures of any being, -provided he be crowned; the destiny of a century changed by a blow from -the lance of a fool through the skull of an imbecile; the majestic -<i>fistula in ano</i> of Louis XIV.; the grave words of the dying Emperor -Mathias to his doctor, trying for the last time to feel his pulse -beneath his coverlet and making a mistake,—"Erras, amice hoc est -membrum nostrum imperiale sacrocæsareum;" the dance, with castanets of -Cardinal Richelieu, disguised as a shepherd before the Queen of France, -in the private villa of the Rue de Gaillon; Hildebrand completed by -Cisneros; the little dogs of Henri III.; the various Potemkins of -Catherine II.,—Orloff here, Godoy there, etc.; a great tragedy with a -petty intrigue,—such was history up to our days, alternating between -the throne and the altar, lending one ear to Dangeau and another to -Dom Calmet, sanctimonious and not stern, not comprehending the true -transitions from one age to the other, incapable of distinguishing the -climacteric crises of civilization, making the human race mount upward -by ladders of silly dates, well versed in puerilities while ignorant of -right, of justice, and of truth, and modelled far more upon Le Ragois -than upon Tacitus.</p> - -<p>So true is this, that in our days Tacitus has been the object of strong -attack.</p> - -<p>Tacitus on the other hand,—we do not weary of insisting upon it,—is, -like Juvenal, like Suetonius and Lampridius, the object of a special -and merited hatred. The day when in the colleges professors of rhetoric -shall put Juvenal above Virgil, and Tacitus above Bossuet, will be the -eve of the day in which the human race shall have been delivered; when -all forms of oppression shall have disappeared,—from the slave-owner -up to the pharisee, from the cottage where the slave weeps to the -chapel where the eunuch sings. Cardinal Du Perron, who received for -Henri IV. blows from the Pope's stick, had the goodness to say, "I -despise Tacitus."</p> - -<p>Up to the epoch in which we live, history has been a courtier. The -double identification of the king with the nation and of the king with -God, is the work of courtier history. The grace of God begets the right -divine. Louis XIV. says, "I am the State!" Madame du Barry, plagiarist -of Louis XIV., calls Louis XV. "France;" and the pompously haughty -saying of the great Asiatic king of Versailles ends with "France, your -coffin taints the camp!"</p> - -<p>Bossuet writes without hesitation, though palliating facts here -and there, the frightful legend of those old thrones of antiquity -covered with crimes, and, applying to the surface of things his vague -theocratic declamation, satisfies himself by this formula: "God holds -in his hand the hearts of kings." That is not the case, for two -reasons,—God has no hand, and kings have no heart.</p> - -<p>We are only speaking, of course, of the kings of Assyria.</p> - -<p>History, that old history of which we have spoken, is a kind person for -princes. It shuts its eyes when a highness says, "History, do not look -this way." It has, imperturbably, with the face of a harlot, denied -the horrible skull-breaking casque with an inner spike, destined by -the Archduke of Austria for the Swiss magistrate Gundoldingen. At the -present time this machine is hung on a nail in the Hôtel de Ville of -Lucerne; anybody can go and see it: yet history repeats its denial. -Moréri calls St. Bartholomew's day "a disturbance." Chaudon, another -biographer, thus characterizes the author of the saying to Louis XV., -cited above: "A lady of the court, Madame du Barry." History accepts -for an attack of apoplexy the mattress under which John II. of England -stifled the Duke of Gloucester at Calais.<a name="FNanchor_1_37" id="FNanchor_1_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_37" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Why is the head of the -Infant Don Carlos separated from the trunk in his bier at the Escurial? -Philip II., the father, answers: "It is because the Infant having died -a natural death, the coffin prepared for him was not found long enough, -and they were obliged to cut off the head." History blindly believes in -the coffin being too short. What! the father to have his son beheaded! -Oh, fie! Only demagogues would say such things.</p> - -<p>The ingenuousness with which history glorifies the fact, whatever it -may be, and however impious it may be, shines nowhere better than -in Cantemir and Karamsin,—the one a Turkish historian, the other a -Russian historian. The Ottoman fact and the Muscovite fact evidence, -when confronted and compared with each other, the Tartar identity. -Moscow is not less sinisterly Asiatic than Stamboul. Ivan is in -the one as Mustapha is in the other. The gradation is imperceptible -between that Christianity and that Mahometanism. The Pope is brother -of the Ulema, the Boyard of the Pacha, the knout of the bowstring, and -the moujik of the mute. There is to men passing through the streets -little difference between Selim who pierces them with arrows, and -Basil who lets bears loose on them. Cantemir, a man of the South, an -ancient Moldavian hospodar, long a Turkish subject, feels, although he -has passed over to the Russians, that he does not displease the Czar -Peter by deifying despotism, and he prostrates his metaphors before -the sultans: this crouching upon the belly is Oriental, and somewhat -Western also. The sultans are divine; their scimitar is sacred, -their dagger is sublime, their exterminations are magnanimous, their -parricides are good. They call themselves merciful, as the furies are -called Eumenides. The blood that they spill smokes in Cantemir with -an odour of incense, and the vast slaughtering which is their reign -blooms into glory. They massacre the people in the public interest. -When some padischah (I know not which)—Tiger IV. or Tiger VI.—causes -to be strangled one after the other his nineteen little brothers -running frightened round the chamber, the Turkish native historian -declares that "it was executing wisely the law of the empire." The -Russian historian, Karamsin, is not less tender to the Tzar than was -Cantemir to the Sultan; nevertheless, let us say it, in comparison -with Cantemir's, the fervency of Karamsin is lukewarmness. Thus Peter, -killing his son Alexis, is glorified by Karamsin, but in the same tone -in which we excuse a fault. It is not the acceptation pure and simple -of Cantemir, who is more upon his knees. The Russian historian only -admires, while the Turkish historian adores. No fire in Karamsin, no -nerve,—a dull enthusiasm, grayish apotheoses, good-will struck into -an icicle, caresses benumbed with cold. It is poor flattery. Evidently -the climate has something to do with it. Karamsin is a chilled Cantemir.</p> - -<p>Thus is the greater part of history made up to the present day; it -goes from Bossuet to Karamsin, passing by the Abbé Pluche. That -history has for its principle obedience. To what is obedience due? To -success. Heroes are well treated, but kings are preferred. To reign is -to succeed every morning. A king has to-morrow: he is solvent. A hero -may be unsuccessful,—such things happen,—in which case he is but a -usurper. Before this history, genius itself, even should it be the -highest expression of force served by intelligence, is compelled to -continual success. If it fails, ridicule; if it falls, insult. After -Marengo, you are Europe's hero, the man of Providence, anointed by the -Lord; after Austerlitz, Napoleon the Great; after Waterloo, the ogre -from Corsica. The Pope anointed an ogre.</p> - -<p>Nevertheless, impartial Loriquet, in consideration of services -rendered, makes you a marquis. The man of our day who has best executed -that surprising gamut from Hero of Europe to Ogre of Corsica, is -Fontanes, chosen during so many years to cultivate, develop, and direct -the moral sense of youth.</p> - -<p>Legitimacy, right divine, negation of universal suffrage, the throne a -fief, the nation an entailed estate, all proceed from that history. The -executioner is also part of it; Joseph de Maistre adds him, divinely, -to the king. In England such history is called "loyal" history. The -English aristocracy, to whom similar excellent ideas sometimes occur, -have imagined a method of giving to a political opinion the name of -a virtue,—<i>Instrumentum regni.</i> In England, to be a royalist, is to -be loyal. A democrat is disloyal; he is a variety of the dishonest -man. This man believes in the people,—shame! He would have universal -suffrage,—he is a chartist! are you sure of his probity? Here is a -republican passing,—take care of your pockets! That is clever. All the -world is more witty than Voltaire: the English aristocracy has more wit -than Macchiavelli.</p> - -<p>The king pays, the people do not pay,—this is about all the secret of -that kind of history. It has also its own tariff of indulgences. Honour -and profit are divided,—honour to the master, profit to the historian. -Procopius is prefect, and, what is more. Illustrious by special decree -(which does not prevent him from being a traitor); Bossuet is bishop, -Fleury is prelate prior of Argenteuil, Karamsin is senator, Cantemir is -prince. But the finest thing is to be paid successively by For and by -Against, and, like Fontanes, to be made senator through idolatry of, -and peer of France through spitting upon, the same idol.</p> - -<p>What is going on at the Louvre? What is going on at the Vatican, in -the Seraglio, Buen Retiro, at Windsor, at Schoenbrünn, at Potsdam, at -the Kremlin, at Oranienbaum? Further questions are needless; for there -is nothing interesting for the human race beyond those ten or twelve -houses, of which history is the door-keeper.</p> - -<p>Nothing can be insignificant that relates to war, the warrior, the -prince, the throne, the court. He who is not endowed with grave -puerility cannot be a historian. A question of etiquette, a hunt, a -gala, a grand levee, a procession, the triumph of Maximilian, the -number of carriages the ladies have following the king to the camp -before Mons, the necessity of having vices congenial with the faults -of his majesty, the clocks of Charles V., the locks of Louis XVI.; how -the broth refused by Louis XV. at his coronation, showed him to be a -good king; how the Prince of Wales sits in the Chamber of the House -of Lords, not in the capacity of Prince of Wales, but as Duke of -Cornwall; how the drunken Augustus has appointed Prince Lubormirsky, -who is starost of Kasimirow, under-cupbearer to the crown; how Charles -of Spain gave the command of the army of Catalonia to Pimentel because -the Pimentels have the title of Benavente since 1308; how Frederic of -Brandenburg granted a fief of forty thousand crowns to a huntsman who -enabled him to kill a fine stag; how Louis Antoine, grand-master of -the Teutonic Order and Prince Palatine, died at Liége from displeasure -at not being able to make the inhabitants choose him bishop; how the -Princess Borghèse, dowager of Mirandole and of the Papal House, married -the Prince of Cellamare, son of the Duke of Giovenazzo; how my Lord -Seaton, who is a Montgomery, followed James II. into France; how the -Emperor ordered the Duke of Mantua, who is vassal of the empire, to -drive from his court the Marquis Amorati; how there are always two -Cardinal Barberins living, and so on,—all that is the important -business. A turned-up nose becomes an historical fact. Two small fields -contiguous to the old Mark and to the duchy of Zell, having almost -embroiled England and Prussia, are memorable. In fact the cleverness of -the governing and the apathy of the governed have arranged and mixed -things in such a manner that all those forms of princely nothingness -have their place in human destiny; and peace and war, the movement of -armies and fleets, the recoil or the progress of civilization, depend -on the cup of tea of Queen Anne or the fly-flap of the Dey of Algiers.</p> - -<p>History walks behind those fooleries, registering them.</p> - -<p>Knowing so many things, it is quite natural that it should be ignorant -of others. If you are so curious as to ask the name of the English -merchant who in 1612 first entered China by the north; of the worker -in glass who in 1663 first established in France a manufactory of -crystal; of the citizen who carried out in the States General at Tours, -under Charles VIII.: the sound principle of elective magistracy (a -principle which has since been adroitly obliterated); of the pilot -who in 1405 discovered the Canary Islands; of the Byzantine lutemaker -who in the eighth century invented the organ and gave to music its -grandest voice; of the Campanian mason who invented the clock by -establishing at Rome on the temple of Quirinus the first sundial; -of the Roman lighterman who invented the paving of towns by the -construction of the Appian Way in the year 312 B.C.; of the Egyptian -carpenter who devised the dove-tail, one of the keys of architecture, -which may be found under the obelisk of Luxor; of the Chaldean keeper -of flocks who founded astronomy by his observation of the signs of -the zodiac, the starting-point taken by Anaximenes; of the Corinthian -calker who, nine years before the first Olympiad, calculated the power -of the triple lever, devised the trireme, and created a tow-boat -anterior by two thousand six hundred years to the steamboat; of the -Macedonian ploughman who discovered the first gold mine in Mount -Pangæus,—history, does not know what to say to you: those fellows are -unknown to history. Who is that,—a ploughman, a calker, a shepherd, -a carpenter, a lighterman, a mason, a lutemaker, a sailor, and a -merchant? History does not lower itself to such rabble.</p> - -<p>There is at Nüremberg, near the Egydienplatz, in a chamber on the -second floor of a house which faces the church of St Giles, on an -iron tripod, a little ball of wood twenty inches in diameter, covered -with darkish vellum, marked with lines which were once red, yellow, -and green. It is a globe on which is sketched out an outline of the -divisions of the earth in the fifteenth century. On this globe is -vaguely indicated, in the twenty-fourth degree of latitude, under -the sign of the Crab, a kind of island named Antilia, which one day -attracted the attention of two men. The one who had constructed the -globe and draw Antilia showed this island to the other, placed his -finger upon it, and said, "It is there." The man who looked on was -called Christopher Columbus; the man who said, "It is there," was -called Martin Behaim. Antilia is America. History speaks of Fernando -Cortez, who ravaged America, but not of Martin Behaim, who divined it.</p> - -<p>Let a man have "cut to pieces" other men; let him have "put them to the -sword;" let him have made them "bite the dust,"—horrible expressions, -which have become hideously familiar,—and if you search history for -the name of that man, whoever he may be, you will find it. But search -for the name of the man who invented the compass, and you will not find -it.</p> - -<p>In 1747, in the eighteenth century, under the gaze even of -philosophers, the battles of Raucoux and Lawfield, the siege of -Sas-de-Gand and the taking of Berg-op-Zoom, eclipse and efface -that sublime discovery which to-day is in course of modifying the -world,—electricity. Voltaire himself, about that year, celebrated -passionately some exploit of Trajan.<a name="FNanchor_2_38" id="FNanchor_2_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_38" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> - -<p>A certain public stupidity is the result of that history which is -superimposed upon education almost everywhere. If you doubt it, see, -among others, the publications of Périsse Brothers, intended by the -editors, says a parenthesis, for primary schools.</p> - -<p>A prince who gives himself an animal's name makes us laugh. We rail -at the Emperor of China, who makes people call him "His Majesty the -Dragon," and we placidly say "Monseigneur le Dauphin."</p> - -<p>History is the record of domesticity. The historian is no more than the -master of ceremonies of centuries. In the model court of Louis the -Great there are four historians, as there are four chamber violinists. -Lulli leads the one, Boileau the others.</p> - -<p>In this old method of history,—the only authorized method up to -1789, and classic in every acceptation of the word,—the best -narrators, even the honest ones (there are few of them), even those -who think themselves free, place themselves mechanically in drill, -stitch tradition to tradition, submit to accepted custom, receive the -pass-word from the antechamber, accept, pell-mell with the crowd, -the stupid divinity of coarse personages in the foreground,—kings, -"potentates," "pontiffs," soldiers,—and, all the time thinking -themselves historians, end by donning the livery of historiographers, -and are lackeys without knowing it.</p> - -<p>This kind of history is taught, is compulsory, is commended and -recommended; all young intellects are more or less saturated with -it, its mark remains upon them, their thought suffers through it and -releases itself only with difficulty,—we make schoolboys learn it by -heart, and I who speak, when a child, was its victim.</p> - -<p>In such history there is everything except history. Shows of princes, -of "monarchs," and of captains, indeed; but of the people, of laws, -of manners, very little; and of letters, of arts, of sciences, of -philosophy, of the universal movement of thought,—in one word, of -man,—nothing. Civilization dates by dynasties, and not by progress; -some king or other is one of the stages along the historical road; -the true stages, the stages of great men, are nowhere indicated. It -explains how Francis II. succeeds to Henri II., Charles IX. to Francis -II., and Henri III. to Charles IX.; but it does not tell us how Watt -succeeds to Papin, and Fulton to Watt; behind the heavy scenery of the -hereditary rights of kings a glimpse of the mysterious sovereignty -of men of genius is scarcely obtained. The lamp which smokes on the -opaque facades of royal accessions hides the starry light which the -creators of civilization throw over the ages. Not one of this series -of historians points out the divine relation of human affairs,—the -applied logic of Providence; not one makes us see how progress -engenders progress. That Philip IV. comes after Philip III., and -Charles II. after Philip IV., it would indeed be shameful not to know; -but that Descartes continues Bacon, and that Kant continues Descartes; -that Las Casas continues Columbus, that Washington continues Las Casas, -and that John Brown continues and rectifies Washington; that John Huss -continues Pelagius, that Luther continues John Huss, and that Voltaire -continues Luther,—it is almost a scandal to be aware of this!</p> - - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_37" id="Footnote_1_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_37"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> There was but one John of England, who put to death (as -is supposed) his nephew Arthur, Duke of Bretagne. Perhaps this is what -Hugo had in mind.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2_38" id="Footnote_2_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_38"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> For Trajan, read Louis XV.</p></div> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<h5>CHAPTER IV.</h5> - - -<p>It is time that all this should be altered. It is time that the men of -action should take their place behind, and the men of ideas come to the -front. The summit is the head. Where thought is, there is power. It is -time that men of genius should precede heroes. It is time to render to -Cæsar what is Cæsar's, and to the book what is the book's: such or such -a poem, such a drama, such a novel, does more work than all the Courts -of Europe together. It is time that history should proportion itself to -the reality, that it should allow to each influence its true measure, -and that it should cease to place the masks of kings on epochs made in -the image of poets and philosophers. To whom belongs the eighteenth -century,—to Louis XV. or to Voltaire? Confront Versailles with Ferney, -and see from which of these two points civilization flows.</p> - -<p>A century is a formula; an epoch is a thought expressed,—after which, -civilization passes to another. Civilization has phrases: these phrases -are the centuries. It does not repeat here what it says there; but its -mysterious phrases are bound together by a chain,—logic (<i>logos</i>) is -within,—and their series constitutes progress. All these phrases, -expressive of a single idea,—the divine idea,—write slowly the word -Fraternity.</p> - -<p>All light is at some point condensed into a flame; in the same way -every epoch is condensed into a man. The man having expired, the epoch -is closed,—God turns the page. Dante dead, is the full-stop put at -the end of the thirteenth century: John Huss can come. Shakespeare -dead, is the full-stop put at the end of the sixteenth century; after -this poet, who contains and sums up every philosophy, the philosophers -Pascal, Descartes, Molière, Le Sage, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Diderot, -Beaumarchais can come. Voltaire dead, is the full-stop put at the end -of the eighteenth century: the French Revolution, liquidation of the -first social form of Christianity, can come.</p> - -<p>These different periods, which we name epochs, have all their dominant -points. What is that dominant point? Is it a head that wears a crown, -or is it a head that bears a thought? Is it an aristocracy, or is it -an idea? Answer yourself. Do you see where the power is? Weigh Francis -I. in the scales with Gargantua: put all chivalry in the scale against -"Don Quixote."</p> - -<p>Therefore, every one to his right place. Right about face! and let us -now regard the centuries in their true light. In the first rank, minds; -in the second, in the third, in the twentieth, soldiers and princes. -To the warrior the darkness, to the thinker the pedestal. Take away -Alexander, and put in his place Aristotle. Strange thing, that up to -this day humanity should have read the Iliad in such a manner as to -annihilate Homer under Achilles!</p> - -<p>I repeat it, it is time that all this should be changed. Moreover, -the first impulse is given. Already, noble minds are at work; future -history begins to appear, some specimens of the new and magnificent -though partial treatments of the subject being already in existence; a -general recasting is imminent,—<i>ad usum populi.</i> Compulsory education -demands true history; and true history will be given: it is begun.</p> - -<p>Effigies must be stamped afresh. That which was the reverse will become -the face, and that which was the face will become the reverse. Urban -VIII. will be the reverse of Galileo.</p> - -<p>The true profile of the human race will re-appear on the different -proofs of civilization that the successive ages will offer.</p> - -<p>The historical effigy will no longer be the man-king; it will be the -man-people.</p> - -<p>Doubtless,—and we shall not be reproached for not insisting on -it,—real and veracious history, in indicating the sources of -civilization wherever they may be, will not lose sight of the -appreciable utility of the sceptre-bearers and sword-bearers at given -periods and in special states of humanity. Certain wrestling matches -necessitate some resemblance between the two combatants; barbarity must -sometimes be pitted against savageness. There are cases of progress by -violence. Cæsar is good in Cimmeria, and Alexander in Asia; but for -Alexander and Cæsar the second rank suffices.</p> - -<p>Veracious history, real history, definitive history henceforth charged -with the education of the royal infant,—namely, the people,—will -reject all fiction, will fail in complaisance, will logically classify -phenomena, will unravel profound causes, will study philosophically -and scientifically the successive commotions of humanity, and will -take less account of the great strokes of the sword than of the grand -strokes of the idea. The deeds of light will pass first; Pythagoras -will be a much greater event than Sesostris. We have just said -it,—heroes, men of the twilight, are relatively luminous in the -darkness; but what is a conqueror beside a sage? What is the invasion -of kingdoms compared with the opening up of intellects? The winners of -minds efface the gainers of provinces. He through whom we think, he is -the true conqueror. In future history, the slave Æsop and the slave -Plautus will have precedence over kings; and there are vagabonds who -will weigh more than certain victors, and comedians who will weigh more -than certain emperors.</p> - -<p>Without doubt, to illustrate what we are saying by means of facts, it -is useful that a powerful man should have marked the halting-place -between the ruin of the Latin world and the growth of the Gothic world; -it is also useful that another powerful man, coming after the first, -like cunning on the footsteps of daring, should have sketched out -under the form of a catholic monarchy the future universal group of -nations, and the beneficial encroachments of Europe upon Africa, Asia, -and America. But it is more useful yet to have written the "Divina -Commedia" and "Hamlet." No bad action is mixed up with these great -works; nor is here to be charged to the account of the civilizer a debt -of nations ruined. The improvement of the human mind being given as the -result to be obtained, Dante is of greater importance than Charlemagne, -and Shakespeare of greater importance than Charles the Fifth.</p> - -<p>In history, as it will be written on the pattern of absolute truth, -that intelligence of no account, that unconscious and trivial -being,—the <i>Non pluribus impar</i>, the Sultan-sun of Marly,—will appear -as nothing more than the almost mechanical preparer of the shelter -needed by the thinker disguised as a buffoon, and of the environment of -ideas and men required for the philosophy of Alceste. Thus Louis XIV. -makes Molière's bed.</p> - -<p>These exchanges of parts will put people in their true light; the -historical optic, renewed, will re-adjust the ensemble of civilization, -at present a chaos; for perspective, that justice of geometry, will -size the past,—making such a plan to advance, placing another in the -background. Every one will assume his real stature; the head-dresses -of tiaras and of crowns will only make dwarfs more ridiculous; stupid -genuflexions will vanish. From these alterations will proceed right.</p> - -<p>That great judge We ourselves,—We all,—having henceforth for measure -the clear idea of what is absolute and what is relative, deductions -and restitutions will of themselves take place. The innate moral sense -within man will know its power; it will no longer be obliged to ask -itself questions like this,—Why, at the same minute, do people revere -in Louis XV. and all the rest of royalty the act for which they bum -Deschauffours on the Place de Grève? The quality of kingship will -no longer be a false moral weight. Facts fairly placed will place -conscience fairly. A good light will come, sweet to the human race, -serene, equitable, with no interposition of clouds henceforth between -truth and the brain of man, but a definitive ascent of the good, the -just, and the beautiful toward the zenith of civilization.</p> - -<p>Nothing can escape the law which simplifies. By the mere force of -things, the material side of facts and of men disintegrates and -disappears. There is no shadowy solidity; whatever may be the mass, -whatever may be the block, every combination of ashes (and matter is -nothing else) returns to ashes. The idea of the atom of dust is in -the word "granite,"—inevitable pulverizations. All those granites of -oligarchy, aristocracy, and theocracy are doomed to be scattered to the -four winds. The ideal alone is indestructible. Nothing lasts save the -mind.</p> - -<p>In this indefinite increase of light which is called civilization, the -processes of reduction and levelling are accomplished. The imperious -morning light penetrates everywhere,—enters as master, and makes -itself obeyed. The light is at work; under the great eye of posterity, -before the blaze of the nineteenth century, simplifications take place, -excrescences fall away, glories drop like leaves, reputations are riven -in pieces. Do you wish for an example,—take Moses. There is in Moses -three glories,—the captain, the legislator, the poet. Of these three -men contained in Moses, where is the captain to-day? In the shadow, -with brigands and murderers. Where is the legislator? Amidst the waste -of dead religions. Where is the poet? By the side of Æschylus.</p> - -<p>Daylight has an irresistible corroding power on the things of night. -Hence appears a new historic sky above our heads, a new philosophy of -causes and results, a new aspect of facts.</p> - -<p>Certain minds, however, whose honest and stern anxiety pleases us, -object: "You have said that men of genius form a dynasty; now, we will -not have that dynasty any more than another." This is to misapprehend, -and to fear the word where the thing is reassuring. The same law which -wills that the human race should have no owners, wills that it should -have guides. To be enlightened is quite different from being enslaved. -Kings possess; men of genius conduct,—there is the difference. Between -"I am a Man" and "I am the State" there is all the distance from -fraternity to tyranny. The forward-march must have a guide-post. To -revolt against the pilot can scarcely improve the ship's course; we do -not see what would have been gained by throwing Christopher Columbus -into the sea. The direction "this way" has never humiliated the man who -seeks his road. I accept in the night the guiding authority of torches. -Moreover, a dynasty of little encumbrance is that of men of genius, -having for a kingdom the exile of Dante, for a palace the dungeon of -Cervantes, for a civil list the wallet of Isaiah, for a throne the -dunghill of Job, and for a sceptre the staff of Homer.</p> - -<p>Let us resume.</p> - - -<hr class="full" /> -<h5>CHAPTER V.</h5> - - -<p>Humanity, no longer owned but guided,—such is the new aspect of facts.</p> - -<p>This new aspect of facts history henceforth is compelled to reproduce. -To change the past, that is strange; yet it is what history is about -to do. By falsehood? No, by speaking the truth. History has been a -picture; she is about to become a mirror. This new reflection of the -past will modify the future.</p> - -<p>The former king of Westphalia, who was a witty man, was looking one day -at an inkstand on the table of some one we know. The writer, with whom -Jerome Bonaparte was at that moment, had brought home from an excursion -among the Alps, made some years before in company with Charles Nodier, -a piece of steatitic serpentine carved and hollowed in the form of an -inkstand, and purchased of the chamois-hunters of the Mer de Glace. It -was this that Jerome Bonaparte was looking at "What is this?" he asked. -"It is my inkstand," said the writer; and he added, "it is steatite. -Admire how Nature with a little dirt and oxide has made this charming -green stone." Jerome Bonaparte replied, "I admire much more the men -who out of this stone made an inkstand." That was not badly said for -a brother of Napoleon, and due credit should be given for it; for -the inkstand is to destroy the sword. The decrease of warriors,—men -of brutal force and of prey; the undefined and superb growth of men -of thought and of peace; the re-appearance on the scene of the true -colossals,—in this is one of the greatest facts of our great epoch. -There is no spectacle more pathetic and sublime,—humanity delivered -from on high, the powerful ones put to flight by the thinkers, the -prophet overwhelming the hero, force routed by ideas, the sky cleaned, -a majestic expulsion.</p> - -<p>Look! raise your eyes! the supreme epic is accomplished. The legions of -light drive backward the hordes of flame.</p> - -<p>The masters are departing; the liberators are arriving! Those who hunt -down nations, who drag armies behind them,—Nimrod, Sennacherib, Cyrus, -Rameses, Xerxes, Cambyses Attila, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Alexander, -Cæsar, Bonaparte,—all these immense wild men are disappearing. They -die away slowly,—behold them touch the horizon; they are mysteriously -attracted by the darkness; they claim kindred with the shade,—thence -their fatal descent. Their resemblance to other phenomena of the night -restores them to that terrible unity of blind immensity, a submersion -of all light; forgetfulness, shadow of the shadow, awaits them.</p> - -<p>But though they are thrown down, they remain formidable. Let us not -insult what has been great. Hooting would be unbecoming before the -burying of heroes; the thinker should remain grave in presence of this -donning of shrouds. The old glory abdicates, the strong lie down: mercy -for those vanquished conquerors! peace to those warlike spirits now -extinguished! The darkness of the grave interposes between their glare -and ourselves. It is not without a kind of religious terror that one -sees planets become spectres.</p> - -<p>While in the engulfing process the flaming pleiad of the men of brutal -force descends deeper and deeper into the abyss with the sinister -pallor of approaching disappearance, at the other extremity of space, -where the last cloud is about to fade away, in the deep heaven of -the future, henceforth to be azure, rises in radiancy the sacred -group of true stars,—Orpheus, Hermes, Job, Homer, Æschylus, Isaiah, -Ezekiel, Hippocrates, Phidias. Socrates, Sophocles, Plato, Aristotle, -Archimedes, Euclid, Pythagoras, Lucretius, Plautus, Juvenal, Tacitus, -Saint Paul, John of Patmos, Tertullian, Pelagius, Dante, Gutenberg, -Joan of Arc, Christopher Columbus, Luther, Michael, Angelo, Copernicus, -Galileo, Rabelais, Calderon, Cervantes Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Kepler, -Milton, Molière, Newton, Descartes, Kant, Piranesi, Beccaria, Diderot, -Voltaire, Beethoven, Fulton, Montgolfier, Washington. And this -marvellous constellation, at each instant more luminous, dazzling as a -glory of celestial diamonds, shines in the clear horizon, and ascending -mingles with the vast dawn of Jesus Christ.</p> - -<h4>THE END.</h4> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of William Shakespeare, by Victor Hugo - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE *** - -***** This file should be named 53490-h.htm or 53490-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/4/9/53490/ - -Produced by Laura Natal Rodriguez and Marc D'Hooghe at -Free Literature (online soon in an extended version, also -linking to free sources for education worldwide ... MOOC's, -educational materials,...) 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