Hippolyte Taine

“ Even with Crébillon fils, even with Laclos, at the most exciting moments, the terms their characters employ are circumspect and irreproachable. Whatever indecency there may be, it is never expressed in words, the sense of propriety in language imposing itself not only on the outbursts of passion, but again on the grossness of instincts. Thus do the sentiments which are naturally the strongest lose their point and sharpness; their rich and polished remains are converted into playthings for the drawing room, and, thus cast to and fro by the whitest hands, fall on the floor like a shuttlecock. ”

“ They occupy the whole of the upper story, and there, with a pleasing murmur, they weave the web of interminable conversation; their buzzing lasts throughout the century; never have the drawing-rooms seen such an outpouring of fine sentences and of fine words. Something of all this drops from the upper to the lower story, if only as dust, I mean to say, hope, faith in the future, belief in Reason, a love of truth, the generous and youthful good intentions, the enthusiasm that quickly passes but which may, for a while, become self-abnegation and devotion. ”

“ Philosophy demands a writer whose principal occupation is a diffusion of it, who is unable to keep it to himself; who pours it out like a gushing fountain, who offers it to everybody, daily and in every form, in broad streams and in small drops, without exhaustion or weariness, through every crevice and by every channel, in prose, in verse, in imposing and in trifling poems, in the drama, in history, in novels, in pamphlets, in pleadings, in treatises, in essays, in dictionaries, in correspondence, openly and in secret, in order that it may penetrate to all depths and in every soil ”

“ To the people who since antiquity has been subject to masters, it is so sweet, so intoxicating to put themselves in their places, to put the former masters in their place, to say to himself, they are my representatives, to regard himself a member of the sovereign power, king of France in his individual sphere, the sole legitimate author of all rights and of all functions!—In conformity with the doctrines of Rousseau the registers of the Third-Estate unanimously insist on a constitution for France; none exists, or at least the one she possesses is of no value. ”

“ Elegance annoys him, luxury makes him uncomfortable, politeness is a lie, conversation mere prattle, ease of manner a grimace, gaiety a convention, wit a parade, science so much charlatanry, philosophy an affection and morals utter corruption. All is factitious, false and unwholesome,3334 from the make-up, toilet and beauty of women to the atmosphere of the apartments and the ragouts on the dinner-table, in sentiment as in amusement, in literature as in music, in government as in religion. ”

“ To render an aristocracy inactive is to render it rebellious; people are more willing to submit to rules they have themselves helped to enforce. Would you rally them to the support of the government? Then let them take part in it. If not they stand by as an onlooker and see nothing but the mistakes it commits, feeling only its irritations, and disposed only to criticize and to hoot at it. In fact, in this case, they are as if in the theater, where they go to be amused, and, especially, not to be put to any inconvenience. ”

“ Night after night, in each drawing-room, sugar-plums of this description are served up, two or three along with the drop of acidity, all the rest not less exquisite, but possessing only the sweetness and the perfume. Such is the art of social worldliness, an ingenious and delightful art, which, entering into all the details of speech and of action, transforms them into graces; which imposes on man not servility and falsehood, but civility and concern for others, and which, in exchange, extracts for him out of human society all the pleasure it can afford. ”

“ People devoted to pleasure could not dispense with the liveliest comedy of the age. They came to applaud a satire on themselves; and better still, they themselves acted in it.—When a prevalent taste is in fashion, it leads, like a powerful passion, to extreme extravagance; the offered pleasure must, at any price, be had. Faced with a momentary pleasure gratification, it is as a child tempted by fruit; nothing arrests it, neither the danger to which it is insensible, nor the social norms as these are established by itself. ”

“ We see the same outburst of faith, hope and enthusiasm, the same spirit of propaganda and of dominion, the same rigidity and intolerance, the same ambition to recast man and to remodel human life according to a preconceived type. The new doctrine is also to have its scholars, its dogmas, its popular catechism, its fanatics, its inquisitors and its martyrs. It is to speak as loudly as those preceding it, as a legitimate authority to which dictatorship belongs by right of birth, and against which rebellion is criminal or insane. ”

“ Familiarity, moreover, engenders sympathy; one cannot remain insensible to the trials of a poor man to whom, for over twenty years, one says good-morning every day on passing him, with whose life one is acquainted, who is not an abstract unit in the imagination, a statistical cipher, but a sorrowing soul and a suffering body.—And so much the more because, since the writings of Rousseau and the economists, a spirit of humanity, daily growing stronger, more penetrating and more universal, has arisen to soften the heart. ”

“ Under this constant régime of distractions and diversions there are no longer any profound sentiments; we have nothing but an epidermic exterior; love itself is reduced to "the exchange of two fantasies."—And, as one always falls on the side to which one inclines, levity becomes deliberate and a matter of elegance.2305 Indifference of the heart is in fashion; one would be ashamed to show any genuine emotion. One takes pride in playing with love, in treating woman as a mechanical puppet, in touching one inward spring, and then another, to force out, at will, her anger or her pity. ”

“ Men have been kept separate, prevented from acting in concert, the work being so successful that they no longer understand each other, each class ignoring the other class, each forming of the other a chimerical picture, each bestowing on the other the hues of its own imagination, one composing an idyll, the other framing a melodrama, one imagining peasants as sentimental swains, the other convinced that the nobles are horrible tyrants.—Through this mutual misconception and this secular isolation, the French lose the habit, the art and the faculty for acting in an entire body. ”

“ In prison both men and women dress themselves with great care, pay each other visits and keep up a drawing-room; it may be at the end of a corridor, by the light of three or four candles; but here they circulate jests, compose madrigals, sing songs and pride themselves on being as gallant, as gay and as gracious as ever: need people be morose and ill-behaved because accident has consigned them to a poor inn? ”

“ To people disposed to put restraints on power and to abolish privileges, what guide is more sympathetic than the writer of genius, the powerful logician, the impassioned orator, who establishes natural law, who repudiates historic law, who proclaims the equality of men, who contends for the sovereignty of the people, who denounces on every page the usurpation, the vices, the worthlessness, the malefactions of the great and of kings! ”

“ Add to all this the exquisite art of the cooks, their talent in commingling, in apportioning and in concealing the condiments, in varying and arranging the dishes, the certainty of their hand, the finesse of their palate, their experience in processes, in the traditions and practices which, already for a hundred years, form of French prose the most delicate nourishment of the intellect. It is not strange to find them skilled in regulating human speech, in extracting from it its quintessence and in distilling its full delight. ”

“ The gravity of old doctrines oppressed us. The cheerful philosophy of Voltaire amused and took possession of us. Without fathoming that of graver writers we admired it for its stamp of fearlessness and resistance to arbitrary power. . . . Liberty, what-ever its language, delighted us with its spirit, and equality on account of its convenience. It is a pleasant thing to descend so long as one thinks one can ascend when one pleases; we were at once enjoying, without forethought, the advantages of the patriciate and the sweets of a commoner philosophy. ”

“ Persecutors there, about to strike, are arrested by an invisible hand; wild beasts become docile; the stags of the forest come of their own accord every morning to draw the chariots of the saints; the country blooms for them like a new Paradise; they die only when it pleases them. Meanwhile they comfort mankind; goodness, piety, forgiveness flows from their lips with ineffable sweetness; with eyes upturned to heaven, they see God, and without effort, as in a dream, they ascend into the light and seat themselves at His right hand. ”

“ I who am able to observe, to comprehend beings and their associations; who can appreciate order, beauty and virtue; who can contemplate the universe and exalt myself to the hand which controls it; who can love the good and do good, should I compare myself to brutes!" Man is free, capable of deciding between two actions, and therefore the creator of his actions; he is accordingly a first and original cause, "an immaterial substance," distinct from the body, a soul hampered by the body and which may survive the body.—This immortal soul imprisoned within the flesh has conscience for its organ. ”

“ Mere pleasure, in the long run, ceases to gratify, and however agreeable this drawing room life may be, it ends in a certain hollowness. Something is lacking without any one being able to say precisely what that something is; the soul becomes restless, and slowly, aided by authors and artists, it sets about investigating the cause of its uneasiness and the object of its secret longings. Barrenness and artificiality are the two traits of this society, the more marked because it is more complete, and, in this one, pushed to extreme, because it has attained to supreme refinement. ”

“ And still better, it is an imbroglio displaying a superabundance of action, amidst intrigues that cross, interrupt and renew each other, through a pêle-mêle of travesties, exposures, surprises, mistakes, leaps from windows, quarrels and slaps, and all in sparkling style, each phrase flashing on all sides, where responses seem to be cut out by a lapidary, where the eyes would forget themselves in contemplating the multiplied brilliants of the dialogue if the mind were not carried along by its rapidity and the excitement of the action. ”

“ It is against the nature of a political body for the sovereign to impose a law on himself which he cannot set aside."—There is no sacred and inviolable charter "binding a people to the forms of an established constitution. The right to change these is the first guarantee of all rights. There is not, and never can be, any fundamental, obligatory law for the entire body of a people, not even the social contract."—It is through usurpation and deception that a prince, an assembly, and a body of magistrates declare themselves representatives of the people. ”

“ Applause bursts out in the theater at any verse containing an allusion to princes, and, a moment after, at the speech which exalts the merits of the people, the princes return the compliment by applauding in their turn.2319—On all sides, just as this society is vanishing, a mutual deference, a spirit of kindliness arises, like a soft and balmy autumnal breeze, to dissipate whatever harshness remains of its aridity and to mingle with the radiance of its last hours the perfume of dying roses. ”

“ There was none of that absorption in business which spoils a man inwardly and dulls his brain. People knew how to ruin themselves without letting it appear, like good gamblers who lose their money without showing uneasiness or spite. A man would be carried half dead to a hunt. It was thought better to die at a ball or at the play than in one's bed, between four wax candles and horrid men in black. People were philosophers; they did not assume to be austere, but often were so without making a display of it. ”

“ To defend ourselves we must, first of all, look carefully around us, see and foresee, and provide for danger. How could they do this living as they did? Their circle is too narrow and too carefully enclosed. Confined to their castles and mansions they see only those of their own sphere, they hear only the echo of their own ideas, they imagine that there is nothing beyond the public seems to consist of two hundred persons. Moreover, disagreeable truths are not admitted into a drawing-room, especially when of personal import, an idle fancy there becoming a dogma because it becomes conventional. ”

“ The grave and disciplined court of Louis XIV became at the end of the century, under the smiles of the youthful queen, the most seductive and gayest of drawing-rooms. Through this universal relaxation, a worldly existence gets to be perfect. "He who has not lived before 1789," says Talleyrand at a later period, "knows nothing of the charm of living." It was too great; no other way of living was appreciated; it engrossed man wholly. When society becomes so attractive, people live for it alone. ”