Chapter 17

[223]Fragment de l’Art de jouir, quoted by P.-M. Masson inLa Religion de J.-J. Rousseau,II, 228.[224]If nature merely reflects back to a man his own image, it follows that Coleridge’s celebrated distinction between fancy and imagination has little value, inasmuch as he rests his proof of the unifying power of the imagination, in itself a sound idea, on the union the imagination effects between man and outer nature—and this union is on his own showing fanciful.[225]If I had had this consecration Wordsworth says, addressing Peele Castle,I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pile,Amid a world how different from this!Beside a sea that could not cease to smile;On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss.…A Picture had it been of lasting ease,Elysian quiet, without toil or strife, etc.Elegiac Stanzas suggested by a picture of Peele Castle in a storm.[226]Cf. Doudan,Lettres,IV, 216: “J’ai parcouru leSaint-Paulde Renan. Je n’ai jamais vu dans un théologien une si grande connaissance de la flore orientale. C’est un paysagiste bien supérieur à Saint-Augustin et à Bossuet. Il sème des résédas, des anémones, des pâquerettes pour recueillir l’incrédulité.”[227]In hisMal romantique(1908) E. Seillière labels the generations that have elapsed since the rise of Rousseauism as follows:1. Sensibility (Nouvelle Héloïse, 1761).2. Weltschmerz (Schiller’sÆsthetic Letters, 1795).3. Mal du siècle (Hugo’sHernani, 1830).4. Pessimism (vogue of Schopenhauer and Stendhal, 1865).5. Neurasthenia (culmination offin de sièclemovement, 1900).[228]Eckermann, September 24, 1827.[229]SeeLa Nuit de Mai.[230]These lines are inscribed on the statue of Musset in front of the Théâtre Français. Cf. Shelley:Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.[231]Translation by J. E. Sandys of fragment cited in Stobæus,Flor.CIX,I.[232]Pythian Odes,III, 20 ff.[233]Pythian Odes,III, 81-82.[234]Song of the Banjo, in theSeven Seas.[235]XVII, 446-47.[236]A brief survey of melancholy among the Greeks will be found in Professor S. H. Butcher’sSome Aspects of the Greek Genius.[237]The exasperated quest of novelty is one of the main traits both of the ancient and the modern victim of ennui. See Seneca,De Tranquillitate animi: “Fastidio illis esse cœpit vita, et ipse mundus; et subit illud rabidorum deliciarum: quousque eadem?” (Cf. La Fontaine: Il me faut du nouveau, n’en fût-il plus au monde.)[238]“A quoi bon m’avoir fait naître avec des facultés exquises pour les laisser jusqu’à la fin sans emploi? Le sentiment de mon prix interne en me donnant celui de cette injustice m’en dédommageait en quelque sorte, et me faisait verser des larmes que j’aimais a laisser couler.”Confessions.LivreIX(1756).[239]Nouvelle Héloise, Pt.VI, LettreVIII.[240]“Encore enfant par la tête, vous êtes déjà vieux par le cœur.”Ibid.[241]See the examples quoted in Arnold:Essays in Criticism, Second Series, 305-06.[242]This is the thought of Keats’sOde to Melancholy:Ay, in the very temple of DelightVeil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine,Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongueCan burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine.Cf. Chateaubriand:Essai sur les Révolutions, Pt.II, ch.LVIII: “Ces jouissances sont trop poignantes: telle est notre faiblesse, que les plaisirs exquis deviennent des douleurs,” etc.[243]See his sonnetLes Montreurs. This type of Rousseauist is anticipated by “Milord” Bomston inLa Nouvelle Héloïse. Rousseau directed the engraver to depict him with “un maintien grave et stoïque sous lequel il cache avec peine une extrême sensibilité.”[244]“Qui es-tu? À coup sûr tu n’es pas un être pétri du même limon et animé de la même vie que nous! Tu es un ange ou un démon mais tu n’es pas une créature humaine. … Pourquoi habiter parmi nous, qui ne pouvons te suffire ni te comprendre?” G. Sand,Lélia,I, 11.[245]See p. 51.[246]SeeLara,XVIII, XIX, perhaps the best passage that can be quoted for the Byronic hero.[247]Cf. Gautier,Histoire du romantisme: “Il était de mode alors dans l’école romantique d’être pâle, livide, verdâtre, un peu cadavéreux, s’il était possible. Cela donnait l’air fatal, byronien, giaour, dévoré par les passions et les remords.”[248]Hugo,Hernani.[249]Lorsque, par un décret des puissances suprêmes,Le Poète apparaît dans ce monde ennuyé,Sa mère épouvantée et pleine de blasphèmesCrispe ses poings vers Dieu, qui la prend en pitié.Fleurs du mal: Bénédiction.Cf.Nouvelle Héloïse, Pt.III, LettreXXVI:“Ciel inexorable! … O ma mère, pourquoi vous donna-t-il un fils dans sa colère?”[250]Coleridge has a side that relates him to the author ofLes Fleurs du mal. In hisPains of Sleephe describes a dream in which he feltDesire with loathing strangely mix’d,On wild or hateful objects fix’d.[251]Keats according to Shelley was an example of thepoète maudit. “The poor fellow” he says “was literally hooted from the stage of life.” Keats was as a matter of fact too sturdy to be snuffed out by an article and had less of the quivering Rousseauistic sensibility than Shelley himself. Cf. letter of Shelley to Mrs. Shelley (Aug. 7, 1820): “Imagine my despair of good, imagine how it is possible that one of so weak and sensitive a nature as mine can run further the gauntlet through this hellish society of men.”[252]Euripides speaks of the Χάρις γόων in his Ἱκέτιδες (Latin, “dolendi voluptas”; German, “die Wonne der Wehmut”).[253]Chesterton is anticipated in this paradox by Wordsworth:In youth we love the darksome lawnBrushed by the owlet’s wing.Then Twilight is preferred to DawnAnd autumn to the spring.Sad fancies do we then affectIn luxury of disrespectTo our own prodigal excessOf too familiar happiness.Ode to Lycoris.[254]Souvenirs d’enfance et de jeunesse, 329-30.[255]“[Villiers] était de cette famille des néo-catholiques littéraires dont Chateaubriand est le père commun, et qui a produit Barbey d’Aurevilly, Baudelaire et plus récemment M. Joséphin Peladan. Ceux-là ont goûté par-dessus tout dans la religion les charmes du péché, la grandeur du sacrilège, et leur sensualisme a caressé les dogmes qui ajoutaient aux voluptés la suprême volupté de se perdre.” A. France,Vie Littéraire,III, 121.[256]Première Promenade.[257]Ibid.[258]E.g., Hölderlin and Jean Polonius.[259]A striking passage on solitude will be found in theLaws of Manu,IV, 240-42. (“Alone a being is born: alone he goes down to death.” His kin forsake him at the grave; his only hope then is in the companionship of the Law of righteousness [Dharma]. “With the Law as his companion he crosses the darkness difficult to cross.”)[260]“Be good and you will be lonely.”[261]In the poem by the Swiss poet C. Didier from which Longfellow’s poem seems to be derived, the youth who persists in scaling the heights in spite of all warnings is Byron!Et Byron … disparaît aux yeux du pâtre épouvanté.(See E. Estève,Byron en France, 147).[262]In theMémoires d’Outre-TombeChateaubriand quotes from the jottings of Napoleon on the island of Elba. “Mon cœur se refuse aux joies communes comme à la douleur ordinaire.” He says of Napoleon elsewhere in the same work: “Au fond il ne tenait à rien: homme solitaire, il se suffisait; le malheur ne fit que le rendre au désert de sa vie.”[263]The solitude of the “genius” is already marked in Blake:O! why was I born with a different face?Why was I not born like the rest of my race?When I look, each one starts; when I speak, I offend;Then I’m silent and passive and lose every friend.[264]Froude’sCarlyle,II, 377.[265]No finer lines on solitude are found in English than those in which Wordsworth relates how from his room at Cambridge he could look out onThe antechapel where the statue stoodOf Newton with his prism and silent face,The marble index of a mind for everVoyaging through strange seas of thought alone.(PreludeIII, 61-63.)Cf. also the line in the Sonnet on Milton:His soul was like a star and dwelt apart.[266]Eth. Nic., 1109 b.[267]James Thomson inThe City of Dreadful Nightsays that he would have entered hellgratified to gainThat positive eternity of painInstead of this insufferable inane.[268]R. Canat has taken this phrase as the title of his treatment of the subject:La Solitude morale dans le mouvement romantique.[269]Decadent Rome had the equivalent of Des Esseintes. Seneca (To Lucilius,CXXII) speaks of those who seek to affirm their originality and attract attention to themselves by doing everything differently from other people and, “ut ita dicam,retro vivunt.”[270]Tennyson has traced this change of the æsthetic dream into a nightmare in hisPalace of Art.[271]Contemporains,I, 332.[272]Génie du Christianisme, Pt.II, LivreIII, ch.IX.[273]L’orage est dans ma voix, l’éclair est sur ma bouche;Aussi, loin de m’aimer, voilà qu’ils tremblent tous,Et quand j’ouvre les bras, on tombe à mes genoux.[274]Que vous ai-je donc fait pour être votre élu?…Hélas! je suis, Seigneur, puissant et solitaire,Laissez-moi m’endormir du sommeil de la terre![275]Le juste opposera le dédain à l’absenceEt ne répondra plus que par un froid silenceAu silence éternel de la Divinité.[276]See Sainte-Beuve’s poetical epistleA. M. Villemain(Pensées d’Août 1837).[277]SeeMasters of Modern French Criticism, 233, 238.[278]Wordsworth writesA piteous lot it were to flee from manYet not rejoice in Nature.(Excursion,IV, 514.)This lot was Vigny’s:Ne me laisse jamais seul avec la NatureCar je la connais trop pour n’en avoir pas peur.[279]Madame Dorval.[280]La Maison du Berger.Note that in Wordsworth the “still sad music of humanity” is very closely associated with nature.[281]La Bouteille à la Mer.[282]See BookIXof theNicomachean Ethics.[283]“All salutary conditions have their root in strenuousness” (appamāda), says Buddha.[284]SeeMasters of Modern French Criticism, Essay on Taine,passim. Paul Bourget in hisEssais de Psychologie contemporaine(2 vols.) has followed out during this period the survivals of the older romantic melancholy and their reinforcement by scientific determinism.[285]“Le pauvre M. Arago, revenant un jour de l’Hôtel de Ville en 1848 après une épouvantable émeute, disait tristement à l’un de ses aides de camp au ministère de la marine: ‘En vérité ces gens-là ne sont pas raisonnables.’” Doudan,Lettres,IV, 338.[286]See Preface (pp. viii-ix) to hisSouvenirs d’enfance et de jeunesseand my comment inThe New Laokoon, 207-08.[287]Most of the political implications of the point of view I am developing I am reserving for a volume I have in preparation to be entitledDemocracy and Imperialism. Some of my conclusions will be found in two articles in the (New York)Nation: The Breakdown of Internationalism(June 17 and 24, 1915), andThe Political Influence of Rousseau(Jan. 18, 1917).[288]Reden an die deutsche Nation,XII.[289]I should perhaps allow for the happiness that may be experienced in moments of supernormal consciousness—something quite distinct from emotional or other intoxication. Fairly consistent testimony as to moments of this kind is found in the records of the past from the early Buddhists down to Tennyson.[290]I scarcely need say that I am speaking of the man of science only in so far as he is purely naturalistic in his point of view. There may enter into the total personality of Edison or any particular man of science other and very different elements.[291]M. René Berthelot has written a book on pragmatism and similar tendencies in contemporary philosophy entitledUn Romantisme utilitaire. I have not read it but the title alone is worth more than most books on the subject I have read.[292]Dedication of the Æneis(1697).[293]Adventure of one Hans Pfaal.[294]His attempt to rewriteHyperionfrom a humanitarian point of view is a dismal failure.[295]There is also a strong idyllic element inParadise Lostas Rousseau (Emile,V) and Schiller (Essay on Naïve and Sentimental Poetry) were among the first to point out. Critics may be found even to-day who, like Tennyson, prefer the passages which show a richly pastoral imagination to the passages where the ethical imagination is required but where it does not seem to prevail sufficiently over theology.[296]XII, 74.[297]Three Philosophical Poets, 188.[298]After telling of the days when “il n’y avait pour moi ni passé ni avenir et je goûtais à la fois les délices de mille siècles,” Saint-Preux concludes: “Hélas! vous avez disparu comme un éclair. Cette éternité de bonheur ne fut qu’un instant de ma vie. Le temps a repris sa lenteur dans les moments de mon désespoir, et l’ennui mesure par longues années le reste infortuné de mes jours” (Nouvelle Héloïse, Pt.III, LettreVI).[299]The Church, so far as it has become humanitarian, has itself succumbed to naturalism.[300]Sutta of the Great Decease.[301]If a man recognizes the supreme rôle of fiction or illusion in life while proceeding in other respects on Kantian principles, he will reach results similar to the “As-if Philosophy” (Philosophie des Als Ob) of Vaihinger, a leading authority on Kant and co-editor of theKantstudien. This work, though not published until 1911, was composed, the author tells us in his preface, as early as 1875-78. It will be found to anticipate very strikingly pragmatism and various other isms in which philosophy has been proclaiming so loudly of late its own bankruptcy.[302]“C’est en vain qu’on voudrait assigner à la vie un but, au sens humain du mot.”L’Evolution créatrice, 55.[303]Metaphysics, 1078 b.[304]In the beginning was the Word! To seek to substitute, like Faust, the Deed for the Word is to throw discrimination to the winds. The failure to discriminate as to thequalityof the deed is responsible for the central sophistry ofFaust(see p. 331) and perhaps of our modern life in general.[305]“J’adore la liberté; j’abhorre la gêne, la peine, l’assujettissement.”Confessions, LivreI.[306]Analects,XI, CXI. Cf.ibid.,VI, CXX: “To give one’s self earnestly to the duties due to men, and while respecting spiritual beings, to keep aloof from them, may be called wisdom.” Much that has passed current as religion in all ages has made its chief appeal, not to awe but to wonder; and like many humanists Confucius was somewhat indifferent to the marvellous. “The subjects on which the Master did not talk were: extraordinary things, feats of strength, disorder and spiritual beings” (ibid.,VII, CXX).[307]One of the last Chinese, I am told, to measure up to the Confucian standard was Tsêng Kuo-fan (1811-1872) who issued forth from poverty, trained a peasant soldiery and, more than any other one person, put down the Taiping Rebellion.[308]See J. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire’s Introduction to his translation of theNicomachean Ethics, p. cxlix.[309]Eth. Nic., 1122-25.[310]I have in mind such passages asP.,VIII, 76-78, 92-96;N.,VI, 1-4;N.,XI, 13-16.[311]“II n’y eut jamais pour moi d’intermédiaire entre tout et rien.”Confessions, LivreVII.[312]Some wag, it will be remembered, suggested as an alternative title for this work:Wild Religions I have known.[313]Letters,II, 298; cf.ibid., 291: “I have never known a life less wisely controlled or less helped by the wisdom of others than his. The whole retrospect of it is pathetic; waste, confusion, ruin of one of the most gifted and sweetest natures the world ever knew.”[314]Nic. Eth., 1145 b. The opposition between Socrates or Plato and Aristotle, when put thus baldly, is a bit misleading. Socrates emphasized the importance of practice (μελέτη) in the acquisition of virtue, and Plato has made much of habit in theLaws.[315]Analects,II, CIV.[316]This belief the Oriental has embodied in the doctrine of Karma.[317]“La seule habitude qu’on doit laisser prendre à l’enfant est de n’en contractor aucune.”Emile, LivreI.[318]Emile was to be trained to be a cabinet-maker.[319]Eth. Nic., 1172 b.[320]Doctrine of the Mean(c.XXXIII, v. 2).[321]See his poemIboinLes Contemplations.[322]La. 55, p. 51. (In my references La. stands for Lao-tzŭ, Li. for Lieh-tzŭ, Ch. for Chuang-tzŭ. The first number gives the chapter; the second number the page in Wieger’s edition.)[323]Ch. 22 C, p. 391.[324]Ch. 12 n, p. 305.[325]Ch. 11 D, p. 291. Ibid. 15, p. 331. See also Li. 31, p. 113.[326]Ch. 19 B, p. 357.[327]Ch. 19 L, p. 365.[328]Ch. 10, pp. 279-80.[329]Ch. 9, pp. 274-75.[330]Ch. 29, pp. 467 ff.[331]Ch. 2, p. 223.[332]La. 27, p. 37.[333]Ch. 8 A, p. 271.[334]Li. 5, p. 143.[335]Ch. 14 C, p. 321.[336]For an extreme form of Epicureanism see the ideas of Yang-chu, Li. 7, pp. 165 ff. For stoical apathy see Ch. 6 C., p. 253. For fate see Li. 6, p. 165, Ch. 6 K, p. 263.[337]Ch. 33, pp. 499 ff.[338]Ch. 33 C, p. 503.[339]Bk. III, Part 2, ch. 9.[340]Li. 3, p. 111. Ch. 24, pp. 225-27.

[223]Fragment de l’Art de jouir, quoted by P.-M. Masson inLa Religion de J.-J. Rousseau,II, 228.

[224]If nature merely reflects back to a man his own image, it follows that Coleridge’s celebrated distinction between fancy and imagination has little value, inasmuch as he rests his proof of the unifying power of the imagination, in itself a sound idea, on the union the imagination effects between man and outer nature—and this union is on his own showing fanciful.

[225]If I had had this consecration Wordsworth says, addressing Peele Castle,I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pile,Amid a world how different from this!Beside a sea that could not cease to smile;On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss.…A Picture had it been of lasting ease,Elysian quiet, without toil or strife, etc.Elegiac Stanzas suggested by a picture of Peele Castle in a storm.

[225]If I had had this consecration Wordsworth says, addressing Peele Castle,

I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pile,Amid a world how different from this!Beside a sea that could not cease to smile;On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss.…A Picture had it been of lasting ease,Elysian quiet, without toil or strife, etc.Elegiac Stanzas suggested by a picture of Peele Castle in a storm.

I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pile,

Amid a world how different from this!

Beside a sea that could not cease to smile;

On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss.

…

A Picture had it been of lasting ease,

Elysian quiet, without toil or strife, etc.

Elegiac Stanzas suggested by a picture of Peele Castle in a storm.

[226]Cf. Doudan,Lettres,IV, 216: “J’ai parcouru leSaint-Paulde Renan. Je n’ai jamais vu dans un théologien une si grande connaissance de la flore orientale. C’est un paysagiste bien supérieur à Saint-Augustin et à Bossuet. Il sème des résédas, des anémones, des pâquerettes pour recueillir l’incrédulité.”

[227]In hisMal romantique(1908) E. Seillière labels the generations that have elapsed since the rise of Rousseauism as follows:1. Sensibility (Nouvelle Héloïse, 1761).2. Weltschmerz (Schiller’sÆsthetic Letters, 1795).3. Mal du siècle (Hugo’sHernani, 1830).4. Pessimism (vogue of Schopenhauer and Stendhal, 1865).5. Neurasthenia (culmination offin de sièclemovement, 1900).

[227]In hisMal romantique(1908) E. Seillière labels the generations that have elapsed since the rise of Rousseauism as follows:

1. Sensibility (Nouvelle Héloïse, 1761).

2. Weltschmerz (Schiller’sÆsthetic Letters, 1795).

3. Mal du siècle (Hugo’sHernani, 1830).

4. Pessimism (vogue of Schopenhauer and Stendhal, 1865).

5. Neurasthenia (culmination offin de sièclemovement, 1900).

[228]Eckermann, September 24, 1827.

[229]SeeLa Nuit de Mai.

[230]These lines are inscribed on the statue of Musset in front of the Théâtre Français. Cf. Shelley:Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

[230]These lines are inscribed on the statue of Musset in front of the Théâtre Français. Cf. Shelley:

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

[231]Translation by J. E. Sandys of fragment cited in Stobæus,Flor.CIX,I.

[232]Pythian Odes,III, 20 ff.

[233]Pythian Odes,III, 81-82.

[234]Song of the Banjo, in theSeven Seas.

[235]XVII, 446-47.

[236]A brief survey of melancholy among the Greeks will be found in Professor S. H. Butcher’sSome Aspects of the Greek Genius.

[237]The exasperated quest of novelty is one of the main traits both of the ancient and the modern victim of ennui. See Seneca,De Tranquillitate animi: “Fastidio illis esse cœpit vita, et ipse mundus; et subit illud rabidorum deliciarum: quousque eadem?” (Cf. La Fontaine: Il me faut du nouveau, n’en fût-il plus au monde.)

[238]“A quoi bon m’avoir fait naître avec des facultés exquises pour les laisser jusqu’à la fin sans emploi? Le sentiment de mon prix interne en me donnant celui de cette injustice m’en dédommageait en quelque sorte, et me faisait verser des larmes que j’aimais a laisser couler.”Confessions.LivreIX(1756).

[239]Nouvelle Héloise, Pt.VI, LettreVIII.

[240]“Encore enfant par la tête, vous êtes déjà vieux par le cœur.”Ibid.

[241]See the examples quoted in Arnold:Essays in Criticism, Second Series, 305-06.

[242]This is the thought of Keats’sOde to Melancholy:Ay, in the very temple of DelightVeil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine,Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongueCan burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine.Cf. Chateaubriand:Essai sur les Révolutions, Pt.II, ch.LVIII: “Ces jouissances sont trop poignantes: telle est notre faiblesse, que les plaisirs exquis deviennent des douleurs,” etc.

[242]This is the thought of Keats’sOde to Melancholy:

Ay, in the very temple of DelightVeil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine,Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongueCan burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine.

Ay, in the very temple of Delight

Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine,

Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue

Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine.

Cf. Chateaubriand:Essai sur les Révolutions, Pt.II, ch.LVIII: “Ces jouissances sont trop poignantes: telle est notre faiblesse, que les plaisirs exquis deviennent des douleurs,” etc.

[243]See his sonnetLes Montreurs. This type of Rousseauist is anticipated by “Milord” Bomston inLa Nouvelle Héloïse. Rousseau directed the engraver to depict him with “un maintien grave et stoïque sous lequel il cache avec peine une extrême sensibilité.”

[244]“Qui es-tu? À coup sûr tu n’es pas un être pétri du même limon et animé de la même vie que nous! Tu es un ange ou un démon mais tu n’es pas une créature humaine. … Pourquoi habiter parmi nous, qui ne pouvons te suffire ni te comprendre?” G. Sand,Lélia,I, 11.

[245]See p. 51.

[246]SeeLara,XVIII, XIX, perhaps the best passage that can be quoted for the Byronic hero.

[247]Cf. Gautier,Histoire du romantisme: “Il était de mode alors dans l’école romantique d’être pâle, livide, verdâtre, un peu cadavéreux, s’il était possible. Cela donnait l’air fatal, byronien, giaour, dévoré par les passions et les remords.”

[248]Hugo,Hernani.

[249]Lorsque, par un décret des puissances suprêmes,Le Poète apparaît dans ce monde ennuyé,Sa mère épouvantée et pleine de blasphèmesCrispe ses poings vers Dieu, qui la prend en pitié.Fleurs du mal: Bénédiction.Cf.Nouvelle Héloïse, Pt.III, LettreXXVI:“Ciel inexorable! … O ma mère, pourquoi vous donna-t-il un fils dans sa colère?”

[249]

Lorsque, par un décret des puissances suprêmes,Le Poète apparaît dans ce monde ennuyé,Sa mère épouvantée et pleine de blasphèmesCrispe ses poings vers Dieu, qui la prend en pitié.Fleurs du mal: Bénédiction.

Lorsque, par un décret des puissances suprêmes,

Le Poète apparaît dans ce monde ennuyé,

Sa mère épouvantée et pleine de blasphèmes

Crispe ses poings vers Dieu, qui la prend en pitié.

Fleurs du mal: Bénédiction.

Cf.Nouvelle Héloïse, Pt.III, LettreXXVI:

“Ciel inexorable! … O ma mère, pourquoi vous donna-t-il un fils dans sa colère?”

[250]Coleridge has a side that relates him to the author ofLes Fleurs du mal. In hisPains of Sleephe describes a dream in which he feltDesire with loathing strangely mix’d,On wild or hateful objects fix’d.

[250]Coleridge has a side that relates him to the author ofLes Fleurs du mal. In hisPains of Sleephe describes a dream in which he felt

Desire with loathing strangely mix’d,On wild or hateful objects fix’d.

Desire with loathing strangely mix’d,

On wild or hateful objects fix’d.

[251]Keats according to Shelley was an example of thepoète maudit. “The poor fellow” he says “was literally hooted from the stage of life.” Keats was as a matter of fact too sturdy to be snuffed out by an article and had less of the quivering Rousseauistic sensibility than Shelley himself. Cf. letter of Shelley to Mrs. Shelley (Aug. 7, 1820): “Imagine my despair of good, imagine how it is possible that one of so weak and sensitive a nature as mine can run further the gauntlet through this hellish society of men.”

[252]Euripides speaks of the Χάρις γόων in his Ἱκέτιδες (Latin, “dolendi voluptas”; German, “die Wonne der Wehmut”).

[253]Chesterton is anticipated in this paradox by Wordsworth:In youth we love the darksome lawnBrushed by the owlet’s wing.Then Twilight is preferred to DawnAnd autumn to the spring.Sad fancies do we then affectIn luxury of disrespectTo our own prodigal excessOf too familiar happiness.Ode to Lycoris.

[253]Chesterton is anticipated in this paradox by Wordsworth:

In youth we love the darksome lawnBrushed by the owlet’s wing.Then Twilight is preferred to DawnAnd autumn to the spring.Sad fancies do we then affectIn luxury of disrespectTo our own prodigal excessOf too familiar happiness.Ode to Lycoris.

In youth we love the darksome lawn

Brushed by the owlet’s wing.

Then Twilight is preferred to Dawn

And autumn to the spring.

Sad fancies do we then affect

In luxury of disrespect

To our own prodigal excess

Of too familiar happiness.

Ode to Lycoris.

[254]Souvenirs d’enfance et de jeunesse, 329-30.

[255]“[Villiers] était de cette famille des néo-catholiques littéraires dont Chateaubriand est le père commun, et qui a produit Barbey d’Aurevilly, Baudelaire et plus récemment M. Joséphin Peladan. Ceux-là ont goûté par-dessus tout dans la religion les charmes du péché, la grandeur du sacrilège, et leur sensualisme a caressé les dogmes qui ajoutaient aux voluptés la suprême volupté de se perdre.” A. France,Vie Littéraire,III, 121.

[256]Première Promenade.

[257]Ibid.

[258]E.g., Hölderlin and Jean Polonius.

[259]A striking passage on solitude will be found in theLaws of Manu,IV, 240-42. (“Alone a being is born: alone he goes down to death.” His kin forsake him at the grave; his only hope then is in the companionship of the Law of righteousness [Dharma]. “With the Law as his companion he crosses the darkness difficult to cross.”)

[260]“Be good and you will be lonely.”

[261]In the poem by the Swiss poet C. Didier from which Longfellow’s poem seems to be derived, the youth who persists in scaling the heights in spite of all warnings is Byron!Et Byron … disparaît aux yeux du pâtre épouvanté.(See E. Estève,Byron en France, 147).

[261]In the poem by the Swiss poet C. Didier from which Longfellow’s poem seems to be derived, the youth who persists in scaling the heights in spite of all warnings is Byron!

Et Byron … disparaît aux yeux du pâtre épouvanté.

(See E. Estève,Byron en France, 147).

[262]In theMémoires d’Outre-TombeChateaubriand quotes from the jottings of Napoleon on the island of Elba. “Mon cœur se refuse aux joies communes comme à la douleur ordinaire.” He says of Napoleon elsewhere in the same work: “Au fond il ne tenait à rien: homme solitaire, il se suffisait; le malheur ne fit que le rendre au désert de sa vie.”

[263]The solitude of the “genius” is already marked in Blake:O! why was I born with a different face?Why was I not born like the rest of my race?When I look, each one starts; when I speak, I offend;Then I’m silent and passive and lose every friend.

[263]The solitude of the “genius” is already marked in Blake:

O! why was I born with a different face?Why was I not born like the rest of my race?When I look, each one starts; when I speak, I offend;Then I’m silent and passive and lose every friend.

O! why was I born with a different face?

Why was I not born like the rest of my race?

When I look, each one starts; when I speak, I offend;

Then I’m silent and passive and lose every friend.

[264]Froude’sCarlyle,II, 377.

[265]No finer lines on solitude are found in English than those in which Wordsworth relates how from his room at Cambridge he could look out onThe antechapel where the statue stoodOf Newton with his prism and silent face,The marble index of a mind for everVoyaging through strange seas of thought alone.(PreludeIII, 61-63.)Cf. also the line in the Sonnet on Milton:His soul was like a star and dwelt apart.

[265]No finer lines on solitude are found in English than those in which Wordsworth relates how from his room at Cambridge he could look out on

The antechapel where the statue stoodOf Newton with his prism and silent face,The marble index of a mind for everVoyaging through strange seas of thought alone.(PreludeIII, 61-63.)

The antechapel where the statue stood

Of Newton with his prism and silent face,

The marble index of a mind for ever

Voyaging through strange seas of thought alone.

(PreludeIII, 61-63.)

Cf. also the line in the Sonnet on Milton:

His soul was like a star and dwelt apart.

[266]Eth. Nic., 1109 b.

[267]James Thomson inThe City of Dreadful Nightsays that he would have entered hellgratified to gainThat positive eternity of painInstead of this insufferable inane.

[267]James Thomson inThe City of Dreadful Nightsays that he would have entered hell

gratified to gainThat positive eternity of painInstead of this insufferable inane.

gratified to gain

That positive eternity of pain

Instead of this insufferable inane.

[268]R. Canat has taken this phrase as the title of his treatment of the subject:La Solitude morale dans le mouvement romantique.

[269]Decadent Rome had the equivalent of Des Esseintes. Seneca (To Lucilius,CXXII) speaks of those who seek to affirm their originality and attract attention to themselves by doing everything differently from other people and, “ut ita dicam,retro vivunt.”

[270]Tennyson has traced this change of the æsthetic dream into a nightmare in hisPalace of Art.

[271]Contemporains,I, 332.

[272]Génie du Christianisme, Pt.II, LivreIII, ch.IX.

[273]L’orage est dans ma voix, l’éclair est sur ma bouche;Aussi, loin de m’aimer, voilà qu’ils tremblent tous,Et quand j’ouvre les bras, on tombe à mes genoux.

[273]

L’orage est dans ma voix, l’éclair est sur ma bouche;Aussi, loin de m’aimer, voilà qu’ils tremblent tous,Et quand j’ouvre les bras, on tombe à mes genoux.

L’orage est dans ma voix, l’éclair est sur ma bouche;

Aussi, loin de m’aimer, voilà qu’ils tremblent tous,

Et quand j’ouvre les bras, on tombe à mes genoux.

[274]Que vous ai-je donc fait pour être votre élu?…Hélas! je suis, Seigneur, puissant et solitaire,Laissez-moi m’endormir du sommeil de la terre!

[274]

Que vous ai-je donc fait pour être votre élu?…Hélas! je suis, Seigneur, puissant et solitaire,Laissez-moi m’endormir du sommeil de la terre!

Que vous ai-je donc fait pour être votre élu?

…

Hélas! je suis, Seigneur, puissant et solitaire,

Laissez-moi m’endormir du sommeil de la terre!

[275]Le juste opposera le dédain à l’absenceEt ne répondra plus que par un froid silenceAu silence éternel de la Divinité.

[275]

Le juste opposera le dédain à l’absenceEt ne répondra plus que par un froid silenceAu silence éternel de la Divinité.

Le juste opposera le dédain à l’absence

Et ne répondra plus que par un froid silence

Au silence éternel de la Divinité.

[276]See Sainte-Beuve’s poetical epistleA. M. Villemain(Pensées d’Août 1837).

[277]SeeMasters of Modern French Criticism, 233, 238.

[278]Wordsworth writesA piteous lot it were to flee from manYet not rejoice in Nature.(Excursion,IV, 514.)This lot was Vigny’s:Ne me laisse jamais seul avec la NatureCar je la connais trop pour n’en avoir pas peur.

[278]Wordsworth writes

A piteous lot it were to flee from manYet not rejoice in Nature.(Excursion,IV, 514.)

A piteous lot it were to flee from man

Yet not rejoice in Nature.

(Excursion,IV, 514.)

This lot was Vigny’s:

Ne me laisse jamais seul avec la NatureCar je la connais trop pour n’en avoir pas peur.

Ne me laisse jamais seul avec la Nature

Car je la connais trop pour n’en avoir pas peur.

[279]Madame Dorval.

[280]La Maison du Berger.Note that in Wordsworth the “still sad music of humanity” is very closely associated with nature.

[281]La Bouteille à la Mer.

[282]See BookIXof theNicomachean Ethics.

[283]“All salutary conditions have their root in strenuousness” (appamāda), says Buddha.

[284]SeeMasters of Modern French Criticism, Essay on Taine,passim. Paul Bourget in hisEssais de Psychologie contemporaine(2 vols.) has followed out during this period the survivals of the older romantic melancholy and their reinforcement by scientific determinism.

[285]“Le pauvre M. Arago, revenant un jour de l’Hôtel de Ville en 1848 après une épouvantable émeute, disait tristement à l’un de ses aides de camp au ministère de la marine: ‘En vérité ces gens-là ne sont pas raisonnables.’” Doudan,Lettres,IV, 338.

[286]See Preface (pp. viii-ix) to hisSouvenirs d’enfance et de jeunesseand my comment inThe New Laokoon, 207-08.

[287]Most of the political implications of the point of view I am developing I am reserving for a volume I have in preparation to be entitledDemocracy and Imperialism. Some of my conclusions will be found in two articles in the (New York)Nation: The Breakdown of Internationalism(June 17 and 24, 1915), andThe Political Influence of Rousseau(Jan. 18, 1917).

[288]Reden an die deutsche Nation,XII.

[289]I should perhaps allow for the happiness that may be experienced in moments of supernormal consciousness—something quite distinct from emotional or other intoxication. Fairly consistent testimony as to moments of this kind is found in the records of the past from the early Buddhists down to Tennyson.

[290]I scarcely need say that I am speaking of the man of science only in so far as he is purely naturalistic in his point of view. There may enter into the total personality of Edison or any particular man of science other and very different elements.

[291]M. René Berthelot has written a book on pragmatism and similar tendencies in contemporary philosophy entitledUn Romantisme utilitaire. I have not read it but the title alone is worth more than most books on the subject I have read.

[292]Dedication of the Æneis(1697).

[293]Adventure of one Hans Pfaal.

[294]His attempt to rewriteHyperionfrom a humanitarian point of view is a dismal failure.

[295]There is also a strong idyllic element inParadise Lostas Rousseau (Emile,V) and Schiller (Essay on Naïve and Sentimental Poetry) were among the first to point out. Critics may be found even to-day who, like Tennyson, prefer the passages which show a richly pastoral imagination to the passages where the ethical imagination is required but where it does not seem to prevail sufficiently over theology.

[296]XII, 74.

[297]Three Philosophical Poets, 188.

[298]After telling of the days when “il n’y avait pour moi ni passé ni avenir et je goûtais à la fois les délices de mille siècles,” Saint-Preux concludes: “Hélas! vous avez disparu comme un éclair. Cette éternité de bonheur ne fut qu’un instant de ma vie. Le temps a repris sa lenteur dans les moments de mon désespoir, et l’ennui mesure par longues années le reste infortuné de mes jours” (Nouvelle Héloïse, Pt.III, LettreVI).

[299]The Church, so far as it has become humanitarian, has itself succumbed to naturalism.

[300]Sutta of the Great Decease.

[301]If a man recognizes the supreme rôle of fiction or illusion in life while proceeding in other respects on Kantian principles, he will reach results similar to the “As-if Philosophy” (Philosophie des Als Ob) of Vaihinger, a leading authority on Kant and co-editor of theKantstudien. This work, though not published until 1911, was composed, the author tells us in his preface, as early as 1875-78. It will be found to anticipate very strikingly pragmatism and various other isms in which philosophy has been proclaiming so loudly of late its own bankruptcy.

[302]“C’est en vain qu’on voudrait assigner à la vie un but, au sens humain du mot.”L’Evolution créatrice, 55.

[303]Metaphysics, 1078 b.

[304]In the beginning was the Word! To seek to substitute, like Faust, the Deed for the Word is to throw discrimination to the winds. The failure to discriminate as to thequalityof the deed is responsible for the central sophistry ofFaust(see p. 331) and perhaps of our modern life in general.

[305]“J’adore la liberté; j’abhorre la gêne, la peine, l’assujettissement.”Confessions, LivreI.

[306]Analects,XI, CXI. Cf.ibid.,VI, CXX: “To give one’s self earnestly to the duties due to men, and while respecting spiritual beings, to keep aloof from them, may be called wisdom.” Much that has passed current as religion in all ages has made its chief appeal, not to awe but to wonder; and like many humanists Confucius was somewhat indifferent to the marvellous. “The subjects on which the Master did not talk were: extraordinary things, feats of strength, disorder and spiritual beings” (ibid.,VII, CXX).

[307]One of the last Chinese, I am told, to measure up to the Confucian standard was Tsêng Kuo-fan (1811-1872) who issued forth from poverty, trained a peasant soldiery and, more than any other one person, put down the Taiping Rebellion.

[308]See J. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire’s Introduction to his translation of theNicomachean Ethics, p. cxlix.

[309]Eth. Nic., 1122-25.

[310]I have in mind such passages asP.,VIII, 76-78, 92-96;N.,VI, 1-4;N.,XI, 13-16.

[311]“II n’y eut jamais pour moi d’intermédiaire entre tout et rien.”Confessions, LivreVII.

[312]Some wag, it will be remembered, suggested as an alternative title for this work:Wild Religions I have known.

[313]Letters,II, 298; cf.ibid., 291: “I have never known a life less wisely controlled or less helped by the wisdom of others than his. The whole retrospect of it is pathetic; waste, confusion, ruin of one of the most gifted and sweetest natures the world ever knew.”

[314]Nic. Eth., 1145 b. The opposition between Socrates or Plato and Aristotle, when put thus baldly, is a bit misleading. Socrates emphasized the importance of practice (μελέτη) in the acquisition of virtue, and Plato has made much of habit in theLaws.

[315]Analects,II, CIV.

[316]This belief the Oriental has embodied in the doctrine of Karma.

[317]“La seule habitude qu’on doit laisser prendre à l’enfant est de n’en contractor aucune.”Emile, LivreI.

[318]Emile was to be trained to be a cabinet-maker.

[319]Eth. Nic., 1172 b.

[320]Doctrine of the Mean(c.XXXIII, v. 2).

[321]See his poemIboinLes Contemplations.

[322]La. 55, p. 51. (In my references La. stands for Lao-tzŭ, Li. for Lieh-tzŭ, Ch. for Chuang-tzŭ. The first number gives the chapter; the second number the page in Wieger’s edition.)

[323]Ch. 22 C, p. 391.

[324]Ch. 12 n, p. 305.

[325]Ch. 11 D, p. 291. Ibid. 15, p. 331. See also Li. 31, p. 113.

[326]Ch. 19 B, p. 357.

[327]Ch. 19 L, p. 365.

[328]Ch. 10, pp. 279-80.

[329]Ch. 9, pp. 274-75.

[330]Ch. 29, pp. 467 ff.

[331]Ch. 2, p. 223.

[332]La. 27, p. 37.

[333]Ch. 8 A, p. 271.

[334]Li. 5, p. 143.

[335]Ch. 14 C, p. 321.

[336]For an extreme form of Epicureanism see the ideas of Yang-chu, Li. 7, pp. 165 ff. For stoical apathy see Ch. 6 C., p. 253. For fate see Li. 6, p. 165, Ch. 6 K, p. 263.

[337]Ch. 33, pp. 499 ff.

[338]Ch. 33 C, p. 503.

[339]Bk. III, Part 2, ch. 9.

[340]Li. 3, p. 111. Ch. 24, pp. 225-27.

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