A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 10

François-Marie Arouet (AKA Voltaire)

A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 10

STYLE

It is very strange that since the French people became literary they have had no book written in a good style, until the year 1654, when the "Provincial Letters" appeared; and why had no one written history in a suitable tone, previous to that of the "Conspiracy of Venice" of the Abbé St. Réal? How is it that Pellisson was the first who adopted the true Ciceronian style, in his memoir for the superintendent Fouquet?

Nothing is more difficult and more rare than a style altogether suitable to the subject in hand.

The style of the letters of Balzac would not be amiss for funeral orations; and we have some physical treatises in the style of the epic poem or the ode. It is proper that all things occupy their own places.

Affect not strange terms of expression, or new words, in a treatise on religion, like the Abbé Houteville; neither declaim in a physical treatise. Avoid pleasantry in the mathematics, and flourish and extravagant figures in a pleading. If a poor intoxicated woman dies of an apoplexy, you say that she is in the regions of death; they bury her, and you exclaim that her mortal remains are confided to the earth. If the bell tolls at her burial, it is her funeral knell ascending to the skies. In all this you think you imitate Cicero, and you only copy Master Littlejohn…

Without style, it is impossible that there can be a good work in any kind of eloquence or poetry. A profusion of words is the great vice of all our modern philosophers and anti-philosophers. The "Système de la Nature" is a great proof of this truth. It is very difficult to give just ideas of God and nature, and perhaps equally so to form a good style.

As the kind of execution to be employed by every artist depends upon the subject of which he treats – as the line of Poussin is not that of Teniers, nor the architecture of a temple that of a common house, nor music of a serious opera that of a comic one – so has each kind of writing its proper style, both in prose and verse. It is obvious that the style of history is not that of a funeral oration, and that the despatch of an ambassador ought not to be written like a sermon; that comedy is not to borrow the boldness of the ode, the pathetic expression of the tragedy, nor the metaphors and similes of the epic.

Every species has its different shades, which may, however, be reduced to two, the simple and the elevated. These two kinds, which embrace so many others, possess essential beauties in common, which beauties are accuracy of idea, adaptation, elegance, propriety of expression, and purity of language. Every piece of writing, whatever its nature, calls for these qualities; the difference consists in the employment of the corresponding tropes. Thus, a character in comedy will not utter sublime or philosophical ideas, a shepherd spout the notions of a conqueror, not a didactic epistle breathe forth passion; and none of these forms of composition ought to exhibit bold metaphor, pathetic exclamation, or vehement expression.

Between the simple and the sublime there are many shades, and it is the art of adjusting them which contributes to the perfection of eloquence and poetry. It is by this art that Virgil frequently exalts the eclogue. This verse: Ut vidi ut perii, ut me malus abstulit error! (Eclogue viii, v. 41) – I saw, I perished, yet indulged my pain! (Dryden) – would be as fine in the mouth of Dido as in that of a shepherd, because it is nature, true and elegant, and the sentiment belongs to any condition. But this:

Castaneasque nuces me quas Amaryllis amabat.– Eclogue, ii, v. 52..And pluck the chestnuts from the neighboring grove,Such as my Amaryllis used to love.– DRYDEN.

belongs not to an heroic personage, because the allusion is not such as would be made by a hero.

These two instances are examples of the cases in which the mingling of styles may be defended. Tragedy may occasionally stoop; it even ought to do so. Simplicity, according to the precept of Horace, often relieves grandeur. Et tragicus plerumque dolet sermone pedestri (Ars Poet., v. 95) – And oft the tragic language humbly flows (Francis).

These two verses in Titus, so natural and so tender:

Depuis cinq ans entiers chaque jour je la vois.Et crois toujours la voir pour la première fois.– BÉRÉNICE, acte ii, scene 1.Each day, for five years, have I seen her face,And each succeeding time appears the first.

would not be at all out of place in serious comedy; but the following verse of Antiochus: Dans l'orient desert quel devint mon ennui! (Id., acte i, scene 4) – The lonely east, how wearisome to me! – would not suit a lover in comedy; the figure of the "lonely east" is too elevated for the simplicity of the buskin. We have already remarked, that an author who writes on physics, in allusion to a writer on physics, called Hercules, adds that he is not able to resist a philosopher so powerful. Another who has written a small book, which he imagines to be physical and moral, against the utility of inoculation, says that if the smallpox be diffused artificially, death will be defrauded.

The above defect springs from a ridiculous affectation. There is another which is the result of negligence, which is that of mingling with the simple and noble style required by history, popular phrases and low expressions, which are inimical to good taste. We often read in Mézeray, and even in Daniel, who, having written so long after him, ought to be more correct, that "a general pursued at the heels of the enemy, followed his track, and utterly basted him" —à plate couture. We read nothing of this kind in Livy, Tacitus, Guicciardini, or Clarendon.

Let us observe, that an author accustomed to this kind of style can seldom change it with his subject. In his operas, La Fontaine composed in the style of his fables; and Benserade, in his translation of Ovid's "Metamorphoses," exhibited the same kind of pleasantry which rendered his madrigals successful. Perfection consists in knowing how to adapt our style to the various subjects of which we treat; but who is altogether the master of his habits, and able to direct his genius at pleasure?

VARIOUS STYLES DISTINGUISHED

The Feeble.

Weakness of the heart is not that of the mind, nor weakness of the soul that of the heart. A feeble soul is without resource in action, and abandons itself to those who govern it. The heart which is weak or feeble is easily softened, changes its inclinations with facility, resists not the seduction or the ascendency required, and may subsist with a strong mind; for we may think strongly and act weakly. The weak mind receives impressions without resistance, embraces opinions without examination, is alarmed without cause, and tends naturally to superstition.

A work may be feeble either in its matter or its style; by the thoughts, when too common, or when, being correct, they are not sufficiently profound; and by the style, when it is destitute of images, or turns of expression, and of figures which rouse attention. Compared with those of Bossuet, the funeral orations of Mascaron are weak, and his style is lifeless.

Every speech is feeble when it is not relieved by ingenious turns, and by energetic expressions; but a pleader is weak, when, with all the aid of eloquence, and all the earnestness of action, he fails in ratiocination. No philosophical work is feeble, notwithstanding the deficiency of its style, if the reasoning be correct and profound. A tragedy is weak, although the style be otherwise, when the interest is not sustained. The best-written comedy is feeble if it fails in that which the Latins call the "vis comica," which is the defect pointed out by Cæsar in Terence: "Lenibus atque utinam scriptis adjuncta foret vis comica!"

This is above all the sin of the weeping or sentimental comedy (larmoyante). Feeble verses are not those which sin against rules, but against genius; which in their mechanism are without variety, without choice expression, or felicitous inversions; and which retain in poetry the simplicity and homeliness of prose. The distinction cannot be better comprehended than by a reference to the similar passages of Racine and Campistron, his imitator.

Flowery Style.

"Flowery," that which is in blossom; a tree in blossom, a rose-bush in blossom: people do not say, flowers which blossom. Of flowery bloom, the carnation seems a mixture of white and rose-color. We sometimes say a flowery mind, to signify a person possessing a lighter species of literature, and whose imagination is lively.

A flowery discourse is more replete with agreeable than with strong thoughts, with images more sparkling than sublime, and terms more curious than forcible. This metaphor is correctly taken from flowers, which are showy without strength or stability.

The flowery style is not unsuitable to public speeches or addresses which amount only to compliment. The lighter beauties are in their place when there is nothing more solid to say; but the flowery style should be banished from a pleading, a sermon, or a didactic work.

While banishing the flowery style, we are not to reject the soft and lively images which enter naturally into the subject; a few flowers are even admissible; but the flowery style cannot be made suitable to a serious subject.

This style belongs to productions of mere amusement; to idyls, eclogues, and descriptions of the seasons, or of gardens. It may gracefully occupy a portion of the most sublime ode, provided it be duly relieved by stanzas of more masculine beauty. It has little to do with comedy, which, as it ought to possess a resemblance to common life, requires more of the style of ordinary conversation. It is still less admissible in tragedy, which is the province of strong passions and momentous interests; and when occasionally employed in tragedy or comedy, it is in certain descriptions in which the heart takes no part, and which amuse the imagination without moving or occupying the soul.

The flowery style detracts from the interest of tragedy, and weakens ridicule in comedy. It is in its place in the French opera, which rather flourishes on the passions than exhibits them. The flowery is not to be confounded with the easy style, which rejects this class of embellishment.

Coldness of Style.

It is said that a piece of poetry, of eloquence, of music, and even of painting, is cold, when we look for an animated expression in it, which we find not. Other arts are not so susceptible of this defect; for instance, architecture, geometry, logic, metaphysics, all the principal merit of which is correctness, cannot properly be called warm or cold. The picture of the family of Darius, by Mignard, is very cold in comparison with that of Lebrun, because we do not discover in the personages of Mignard the same affliction which Lebrun has so animatedly expressed in the attitudes and countenances of the Persian princesses. Even a statue may be cold; we ought to perceive fear and horror in the features of an Andromeda, the effect of a writhing of the muscles; and anger mingled with courageous boldness in the attitude and on the brow of Hercules, who suspends and strangles Antæus.

In poetry and eloquence the great movements of the soul become cold, when they are expressed in common terms, and are unaided by imagination. It is this latter which makes love so animated in Racine, and so languid in his imitator, Campistron.

The sentiments which escape from a soul which seeks concealment, on the contrary, require the most simple expression. Nothing is more animated than those verses in "The Cid": "Go; I hate thee not – thou knowest it; I cannot." This feeling would become cold, if conveyed in studied phrases.

For this reason, nothing is so cold as the timid style. A hero in a poem says, that he has encountered a tempest, and that he has beheld his friend perish in the storm. He touches and affects, if he speaks with profound grief of his loss – that is, if he is more occupied with his friend than with all the rest; but he becomes cold, and ceases to affect us, if he amuses us with a description of the tempest; if he speaks of the source of "the fire which was boiling up the waters, and of the thunder which roars and which redoubles the furrows of the earth and of the waves." Coldness of style, therefore, often arises from a sterility of ideas; often from a deficiency in the power of governing them; frequently from a too common diction, and sometimes from one that is too far-fetched.

The author who is cold only in consequence of being animated out of time and place, may correct this defect of a too fruitful imagination; but he who is cold from a deficiency of soul is incapable of self-correction. We may allay a fire which is too intense, but cannot acquire heat if we have none.

On Corruption of Style.

A general complaint is made, that eloquence is corrupted, although we have models of almost all kinds. One of the greatest defects of the day, which contributes most to this defect, is the mixture of style. It appears to me, that we authors do not sufficiently imitate the painters, who never introduce the attitudes of Calot with the figures of Raphael. I perceive in histories, otherwise tolerably well written, and in good doctrinal works, the familiar style of conversation. Some one has formerly said, that we must write as we speak; the sense of which law is, that we should write naturally. We tolerate irregularity in a letter, freedom as to style, incorrectness, and bold pleasantries, because letters, written spontaneously, without particular object or act, are negligent conversations; but when we speak or treat of a subject formally, some attention is due to decorum; and to whom ought we to pay more respect than to the public?

Is it allowable to write in a mathematical work, that "a geometrician who would pay his devotions, ought to ascend to heaven in a right line; that evanescent quantities turn up their noses at the earth for having too much elevated them; that a seed sown in the ground takes an opportunity to release and amuse itself; that if Saturn should perish, it would be his fifth and not his first satellite that would take his place, because kings always keep their heirs at a distance; that there is no void except in the purse of a ruined man; that when Hercules treats of physics, no one is able to resist a philosopher of his degree of power?" etc.

Some very valuable works are infected with this fault. The source of a defect so common seems to me to be the accusation of pedantry, so long and so justly made against authors. "In vitium ducit culpæ fuga." It is frequently said, that we ought to write in the style of good company; that the most serious authors are becoming agreeable: that is to say, in order to exhibit the manners of good company to their readers, they deliver themselves in the style of very bad company.

Authors have sought to speak of science as Voiture spoke to Mademoiselle Paulet of gallantry, without dreaming that Voiture by no means exhibits a correct taste in the species of composition in which he was esteemed excellent; for he often takes the false for the refined, and the affected for the natural. Pleasantry is never good on serious points, because it always regards subjects in that point of view in which it is not the purpose to consider them. It almost always turns upon false relations and equivoque, whence jokers by profession usually possess minds as incorrect as they are superficial.

It appears to me, that it is as improper to mingle styles in poetry as in prose. The macaroni style has for some time past injured poetry by this medley of mean and of elevated, of ancient and of modern expression. In certain moral pieces it is not musical to hear the whistle of Rabelais in the midst of sounds from the flute of Horace – a practice which we should leave to inferior minds, and attend to the lessons of good sense and of Boileau. The following is a singular instance of style, in a speech delivered at Versailles in 1745:

Speech Addressed to the King (Louis XV.) by M. le Camus, First President of the Court of Aids.

"Sire – The conquests of your majesty are so rapid, that it will be necessary to consult the power of belief on the part of posterity, and to soften their surprise at so many miracles, for fear that heroes should hold themselves dispensed from imitation, and people in general from believing them.

"But no, sire, it will be impossible for them to doubt it, when they shall read in history that your majesty has been at the head of your troops, recording them yourself in the field of Mars upon a drum. This is to engrave them eternally in the temple of Memory.

"Ages the most distant will learn, that the English, that bold and audacious foe, that enemy so jealous of your glory, have been obliged to turn away from your victory; that their allies have been witnesses of their shame, and that all of them have hastened to the combat only to immortalize the glory of the conqueror.

"We venture to say to your majesty, relying on the love that you bear to your people, that there is but one way of augmenting our happiness, which is to diminish your courage; as heaven would lavish its prodigies at too costly a rate, if they increased your dangers, or those of the young heroes who constitute our dearest hopes."

SUPERSTITION

SECTION I

I have sometimes heard you say – We are no longer superstitious; the reformation of the sixteenth century has made us more prudent; the Protestants have taught us better manners.

But what then is the blood of a St. Januarius, which you liquefy every year by bringing it near his head? Would it not be better to make ten thousand beggars earn their bread, by employing them in useful tasks, than to boil the blood of a saint for their amusement? Think rather how to make their pots boil.

Why do you still, in Rome, bless the horses and mules at St. Mary's the Greater? What mean those bands of flagellators in Italy and Spain, who go about singing and giving themselves the lash in the presence of ladies? Do they think there is no road to heaven but by flogging?

Are those pieces of the true cross, which would suffice to build a hundred-gun ship – are the many relics acknowledged to be false – are the many false miracles – so many monuments of an enlightened piety?

France boasts of being less superstitious than the neighbors of St. James of Compostello, or those of Our Lady of Loretto. Yet how many sacristies are there where you still find pieces of the Virgin's gown, vials of her milk, and locks of her hair! And have you not still, in the church of Puy-en-Velay, her Son's foreskin preciously preserved?

You all know the abominable farce that has been played, ever since the early part of the fourteenth century, in the chapel of St. Louis, in the Palais at Paris, every Maundy Thursday night. All the possessed in the kingdom then meet in this church. The convulsions of St. Médard fall far short of the horrible grimaces, the dreadful howlings, the violent contortions, made by these wretched people. A piece of the true cross is given them to kiss, encased in three feet of gold, and adorned with precious stones. Then the cries and contortions are redoubled. The devil is then appeased by giving the demoniacs a few sous; but the better to restrain them, fifty archers of the watch are placed in the church with fixed bayonets.

The same execrable farce is played at St. Maur. I could cite twenty such instances. Blush, and correct yourselves.

There are wise men who assert, that we should leave the people their superstitions, as we leave them their raree-shows, etc.; that the people have at all times been fond of prodigies, fortune-tellers, pilgrimages, and quack-doctors; that in the most remote antiquity they celebrated Bacchus delivered from the waves, wearing horns, making a fountain of wine issue from a rock by a stroke of his wand, passing the Red Sea on dry ground with all his people, stopping the sun and moon, etc.; that at Lacedæmon they kept the two eggs brought forth by Leda, hanging from the dome of a temple; that in some towns of Greece the priests showed the knife with which Iphigenia had been immolated, etc.

There are other wise men who say – Not one of these superstitions has produced any good; many of them have done great harm: let them then be abolished.

SECTION II

I beg of you, my dear reader, to cast your eye for a moment on the miracle which was lately worked in Lower Brittany, in the year of our Lord 1771. Nothing can be more authentic: this publication is clothed in all the legal forms. Read: —

"Surprising Account of the Visible and Miraculous Appearance of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar; which was worked by the Almighty Power of God in the Parish Church of Paimpole, near Tréguier, in Lower Brittany, on Twelfth-day.

"On January 6, 1771, being Twelfth-day, during the chanting of the Salve, rays of light were seen to issue from the consecrated host, and instantly the Lord Jesus was beheld in natural figure, seeming more brilliant than the sun, and was seen for a whole half-hour, during which there appeared a rainbow over the top of the church. The footprints of Jesus remained on the tabernacle, where they are still to be seen; and many miracles are worked there every day. At four in the afternoon, Jesus having disappeared from over the tabernacle, the curate of the said parish approached the altar, and found there a letter which Jesus had left; he would have taken it up, but he found that he could not lift it. This curate, together with the vicar, went to give information of it to the bishop of Tréguier, who ordered the forty-hour prayers to be said in all the churches of the town for eight days, during which time the people went in crowds to see this holy letter. At the expiration of the eight days, the bishop went thither in procession, attended by all the regular and secular clergy of the town, after three days' fasting on bread and water. The procession having entered the church, the bishop knelt down on the steps of the altar; and after asking of God the grace to be able to lift this letter, he ascended to the altar and took it up without difficulty; then, turning to the people, he read it over with a loud voice, and recommended to all who could read to peruse this letter on the first Friday of every month; and to those who could not read, to say five paternosters, and five ave-marias, in honor of the five wounds of Jesus Christ, in order to obtain the graces promised to such as shall read it devoutly, and the preservation of the fruits of the earth! Pregnant women are to say, for their happy delivery, nine paters and nine aves for the benefit of the souls in purgatory, in order that their children may have the happiness of receiving the holy sacrament of baptism.

"All that is contained in this account has been approved by the bishop, by the lieutenant-general of the said town of Tréguier, and by many persons of distinction who were present at this miracle."

"Copy of the Letter Found Upon the Altar, at the Time of the Miraculous Appearance of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, on Twelfth-day, 1771.

"Everlasting life, everlasting punishments, or everlasting delights, none can forego; one part must be chosen – either to go to glory, or to depart into torment. The number of years that men pass on earth in all sorts of sensual pleasures and excessive debaucheries, of usurpation, luxury, murder, theft, slander, and impurity, no longer permitting it to be suffered that creatures created in My image and likeness, redeemed by the price of My blood on the tree of the cross, on which I suffered passion and death, should offend Me continually, by transgressing My commands and abandoning My divine law – I warn you all, that if you continue to live in sin, and I behold in you neither remorse, nor contrition, nor a true and sincere confession and satisfaction, I shall make you feel the weight of My divine arm. But for the prayers of My dear mother, I should already have destroyed the earth, for the sins which you commit one against another. I have given you six days to labor, and the seventh to rest, to sanctify My Holy Name, to hear the holy mass, and employ the remainder of the day in the service of God My Father. But, on the contrary, nothing is to be seen but blasphemy and drunkenness; and so disordered is the world that all in it is vanity and lies. Christians, instead of taking compassion on the poor whom they behold every day at their doors, prefer fondling dogs and other animals, and letting the poor die of hunger and thirst – abandoning themselves entirely to Satan by their avarice, gluttony, and other vices; instead of relieving the needy, they prefer sacrificing all to their pleasures and debauchery. Thus do they declare war against Me. And you, iniquitous fathers and mothers, suffer your children to swear and blaspheme against My holy name; instead of giving them a good education, you avariciously lay up for them wealth, which is dedicated to Satan. I tell you, by the mouth of God My Father and My dear mother, of all the cherubim and seraphim, and by St. Peter, the head of My church, that if you do not amend your ways, I will send you extraordinary diseases, by which all shall perish. You shall feel the just anger of God My Father; you shall be reduced to such a state that you shall not know one another. Open your eyes, and contemplate My cross, which I have left to be your weapon against the enemy of mankind, and your guide to eternal glory; look upon My head crowned with thorns, My feet and hands pierced with nails; I shed the last drop of My blood to redeem you, from pure fatherly love for ungrateful children. Do such works as may secure to you My mercy; do not swear by My Holy Name; pray to Me devoutly; fast often; and in particular give alms to the poor, who are members of My body – for of all good works this is the most pleasing to Me; neither despise the widow nor the orphan; make restitution of that which does not belong to you; fly all occasions of sin; carefully keep My commandments; and honor Mary My very dear mother.