Bernard Le Bouyer de Fontenelle

“ I have heard folk say that he is a very wicked man and that he carries away young ladies.”
“Yes,” replied Fontenelle, with a laugh, “and, above all, heiresses.”
He took the child in his arms and swung her on to the crupper of his saddle. Then, dashing the spurs into his charger’s flanks, he set off at a gallop for Saint-Malo, where he placed the little heiress in a convent, with the object of marrying her when she had arrived at the age of fourteen.
Years afterward Fontenelle and the heiress, who was now his wife, went to live at their manor of Coadelan. ”

“ The spretæ injuria formæ is the greatest with a woman. A man of rank, hearing that two of his female relations had quarrelled, asked, Did they call each other ugly? No. Well, well; I shall soon reconcile them.
1035. Wit, or even what the French term esprit, seems little compatible with feeling. Fontenelle was a great egotist, and thought of nothing but himself. One of his old acquaintances went one day to see him at his country house, and said he had come to eat a bit of dinner. What shall we have? Do you like asparagus? ”

“ Bailly showed in all the relations of life a degree of patience, a suavity, a deference to the opinions of others, that would have soothed the most irascible self-love.
Must we suspect jealousy to have been at work? No, no; the persons who constituted the town-council were too obscure, unless they were mad, to attempt to vie in public consideration and glory with the illustrious author of the History of Astronomy, with the philosopher, the writer, the erudite scholar who belonged to our three principal academies, an honour that Fontenelle alone had enjoyed before him. ”

“ Appointed perpetual secretary of the Académie des Sciences in 1697, Fontenelle pronounced during forty years the panegyrics of those who had been its members. These Éloges des Académiciens are masterpieces in a difficult art, luminous, dignified, generous without ostentation, plain without poverty of thought or expression. The discreet Fontenelle loved tranquillity—"If I had my hand full of truths, I should take good care before I opened it." He never lost a friend, acting on two prudent maxims, "Everything is possible," and "Every one is right." ”

“ My preference is, perhaps, the result of one of those blind partialities which fathers sometimes feel for one child rather than another: perhaps some self-love mingles with it, since this tragedy seems to me more entirely my own than any of its predecessors, on account of its surprising incidents, which are all my own invention, and which had never before been witnessed on the stage; and, finally, perhaps a little real merit renders this partiality not entirely unjust." Fontenelle mentions, as {Pg 52} another cause for it, the labour he bestowed ”

“ Footnote 13: The contemporary "keys," which were generally ill-informed and ill-forming, said that Cydias was Perrault. But it is almost certain that Fontenelle was meant. M.A. Chassang has brought together a formidable list of Fontenelle's activity. ”

“ His blue eyes, keen above a hawk-like nose, gleamed every now and then with a trace of irony; that irony which has become habitual, the recognized medium through which its possessor views the world. A shrewd observer would have guessed the character represented by such a face to be difficult and complex. Instinctively one knew that François Fontenelle would be no very [11] easy man to thwart; one guessed also that he might be a man apt to form his own rules of conduct, to carve his own path in life, without too much consideration for the convenience or the paths of others. ”

“ Fontenelle is a critic of whom it may be said, that he did more injury to fine taste and sensibility in works of imagination and sentiment, than any man without his good sense and natural acuteness could have done. He is systematically cold; if he seems to tolerate any flight of the poet, it is rather by caprice than by a genuine discernment of beauty ”

“ Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits. Fontenelle at the age of ninety, being asked what was the happiest time of his life, said he did not know that he had ever been much happier than he then was, but that perhaps his best years had been those when he was between fifty-five and seventy-five, and Dr Johnson placed the pleasures of old age far higher than those of youth. ”

“ Fontenelle, with all his abundant ingenuity, has one radical defect as a literary artist, and perhaps some will be disposed to add, as a student of Nature. He appears to have no power of moving or being moved by anything like emotion, or of perceiving anything not comprehensible to an intellect divorced from sympathetic intuition. ”

“ It is careless and incorrect to imply that Rapin's and Fontenelle's theories of pastoral poetry are similar, as Pope, Joseph Warton, and many other critics and scholars haveiii done. Judged by basic critical principles, method, or content there is a distinct difference between Rapin and Fontenelle. Rapin is primarily a neoclassicist in his "Treatise"; Fontenelle, a rationalist in his "Discours." It is this opposition, then, of neoclassicism and rationalism, that constitutes the basic issue of pastoral criticism in England during the Restoration and the early part of the eighteenth century. ”

“ A man who listens because he has nothing to say can hardly be a source of inspiration. The only listening that counts is that of the talker who alternately absorbs and expresses ideas. Sainte-Beuve says of Fontenelle that, while he had neither tears nor laughter, he smiled at wit, never interrupted, was never excited, nor ever in a hurry to speak. ”

“ He said he should be late; and I expect Fontenelle, too, but /he/ will not come before supper. I found Fontenelle this morning conversing with my cook on the best manner of dressing asparagus. I asked him the other day what writer, ancient or modern, had ever given him the most sensible pleasure? After a little pause, the excelient old man said, 'Daphnus.' 'Daphnus!' repeated I, 'who the devil is he?' 'Why,' answered Fontenelle, with tears of gratitude in his benevolent eyes, 'I had some hypochondriacal ideas that suppers were unwholesome ”

“ He translated Fontenelle's Dialogues of the Dead; and his version was perhaps read at the time, but is now neglected; for by a book not necessary, and owing its reputation wholly to its turn of direction, little notice can be gained but from those who can enjoy the graces of the original. To the dialogues of Fontenelle he added to composed by himself; and, though not only an honest but pious man, dedicated his work to the earl of Wharton. He judged skilfully enough of his own interest; for Wharton, when he went lord lieutenant to Ireland, offered to take Hughes with him, and establish him ”

“ This act of Roman courtesy recalls a very pretty expression of Fontenelle’s, which we cannot refrain from citing. This grand nephew of the great Corneille passed, on his way to the table, before Madame Helvétius, whom he had not perceived. Fontenelle was then ninety years of age. “See,” said she, “what esteem I must have for your gallantry: you pass before me without looking at me.” ”

“ I afterwards met in Prague the living portrait of that eminent writer in Count Francois Hardig, now plenipotentiary of the emperor at the court of Saxony.
The Abbe de Voisenon introduced me to Fontenelle, who was then ninety-three years of age. A fine wit, an amiable and learned man, celebrated for his quick repartees, Fontenelle could not pay a compliment without throwing kindness and wit into it. I told him that I had come from Italy on purpose to see him.
“Confess, sir,” he said to me, “that you have kept me waiting a very long time.” ”

“ It is one of those happy ideas which have been privileged monopolies of the first inventor; and it will be found accordingly that all attempts to copy this whimsical union of gallantry with science have been insipid almost to a ridiculous degree. Fontenelle throws so much gaiety and wit into his compliments to the lady whom he initiates in his theory, that we do not confound them with the nonsense of coxcombs; and she is herself so spirited, unaffected, and clever, that no philosopher could be ashamed of gallantry towards so deserving an object. ”

“ He set himself below Phædrus, and Fontenelle has declared that his doing so was one of his blunders—a piquant word, which we may translate in this instance as "a sincere and even exaggerated admiration for consecrated names." A feeling of and a taste for perfection are, moreover, the surest curb-reins to self-love. The playfulness, delicacy, and ingenuity of La Fontaine's spirit, as well as the natural simplicity of his character, preserved him from the illusions of vanity, and caused him even to misconceive the real value of his genius. ”

“ She left him to give the order, and when the library door closed, François abandoned the books, and crossed the room to him.
“But she’s charming!” he exclaimed, speaking in English. “Isn’t it an unusual type? That clear pale face and the soft hair, and the soft voice? I shall get her to sit for me.”
“She’s accustomed to be thought exceedingly plain,” remarked Dampierre.
Fontenelle made an impatient gesture.
“By the usual idiot perhaps. How do you know?”
“By her manner. She hasn’t any of the airs of a pretty woman. She thought we were laughing at her just now, in the garden.” ”

“ This sentence is an insertion (the first omission is as far back as p. 64.) . It speaks of Mrs. C. Barton as if she were dead: and it is worthy of note that this lady, who lived to communicate to Fontenelle materials for his éloge of Newton, had excellent opportunity, had it pleased her, to have contradicted or varied any part of the account given by Halifax's biographer; and this without appearing. The actual communication made to Fontenelle by her husband, Mr. Conduitt, is in existence, and was printed by Mr. Turnor; it contains no allusion to the subject. ”

“ He was educated in the Jesuits' school, went to the bar, and obtained certain small legal preferments which he afterwards sold. He practised, but 'sans goût et sans succès,' says Fontenelle, his nephew and biographer. His first comedy, Mélite, is said to have been suggested by a personal experience. It succeeded at Rouen, and the author took it to Paris. His next attempt was a tragedy or a tragi-comedy, Clitandre, of a really marvellous extravagance. It was followed by several other pieces, in all of which there is remarkable talent, though the author had not yet found his way. ”

“ Accustomed to royal goatherds in silk and lace, Fontenelle (a severe critic of Theocritus) could not believe in the delicacy of a Sicilian who wore a skin ‘stripped from the roughest of he-goats, with the smell of the rennet clinging to it still.’ Thus Fontenelle cries, ‘Can any one suppose that there ever was a shepherd who could say “Would I were the humming bee, Amaryllis, to flit to thy cave, and dip beneath the branches, and the ivy leaves that hide thee”?’ and then he quotes other graceful passages from the love-verses of Theocritean swains. ”

“ Upon Fontenelle's idea, that "mankind only settle into the right course after passing through and exhausting all the varieties of error," it is well to advise our readers of this particular form of error also—to show that it has already been tried—so that no patent of invention can be claimed upon it by those perverse persons who are not satisfied without constant change, and who seem to imagine that the ten commandments might be improved by a new edition. ”

“ These Fontenelle people have only the legend of the lost channel and the loss of the charter and the family jewels in this section. They haven’t a single clew which tells them to look in any special spot first.
“So far as I can make out, young Fontenelle and his friends come down here every summer, in answer to the demands of the elder Fontenelle, for a sort of a vacation. So far as I can make out, they have never honestly searched for the lost channel. In fact, the young man has doubts of its existence. ”

“ Dugald Stewart (Philos. of the Mind, vol. i. p. 357) says, ‘Nothing can be more just than the observation of Fontenelle, that “the number of those who believe in a system already established in the world, does not, in the least, add to its credibility; but that the number of those who doubt of it, has a tendency to diminish it.”’ Compare with this Newman on Development, Lond. 1845, p. 31; and the remark of Hylas in Berkeley's Works, edit. 1843, vol. i. pp. 151, 152, first dialogue.
[262] Compare Capefigue's Richelieu, vol. i. p. 293, with a remarkable passage in Mém. de Rohan, vol. i. p. ”

“ Fontenette, any true gentleman—at thirty- five—knows it all—himself. And he had better go and cut his throat than give himself airs, even of pity, over a lady who has made a misstep she cannot retrace. ”

“ Fontenette grew visibly older and less pretty, yet more nearly beautiful; while he, by every sign, was gradually awakening back—or, shall we not say, being now first born?—to life, through the pangs of a torn mind; mind, not conscience ”

“ His excellence as a man of wit was entirely limited to conversation. He is said, however, to have sold the MS. for 1500 livres; and it is added that when the MS. was brought to Fontenelle, then censor of the press, he refused to license it on account of the scandalous conduct imputed to the Court in a party at quinze, described in the third chapter.
It is a somewhat singular omission on the part of all the English editors and annotators of De Grammont, that they do not tell us when the first edition of the Memoirs appeared. ”