Eminent Authors of the Nineteenth Century

He led the conversation from the theatre to English authors, and discussed with warmth two men as totally different from himself as Dickens and Carlyle. Thoroughly matter-of-fact as he was himself, he could appreciate as well as any one the poet with the great, warm heart, and the historian with the gushing, visionary imagination. Dickens was at that time just deceased; a few days previous to our conversation I had stood on the spot in Westminster Abbey where his body had but recently been laid to rest. His grave was still covered with living roses, while heavy, cold stone monuments covered the surrounding graves; it had the effect of a symbol. I communicated my impression to Mill, who expressed deep regret that he had not known Dickens personally, and had only learned through others of his amiability in private intercourse.

The last words we exchanged concerned the directly impending Franco-German War, to which Mill looked forward with gloomy misgivings. He considered it a misfortune for all humanity, for the entire European civilization.

I gazed long into his deep, blue eyes, before I could prevail upon myself to bid him a final farewell. It was my earnest desire to imprint upon my mind this so earnest and so stem, yet at the same time so bold, countenance, with all its youthful freshness. I wished to render it impossible to me to forget the peculiar greatness stamped on the man's form and on his every word. It is of considerable importance in grasping the character of an author to learn in what relation the impression of his human disposition stands to that of his disposition as an author. I have never known a great man in whom these two impressions were so thoroughly harmonious as in Mill. I have never discovered any quality in him as an author that I have not rediscovered in my personal intercourse with him, and I have found his different characteristics in both spheres exalted above and subordinated to one another in precisely the same order and manner. There are authors in whose writings some definite quality – for instance, philanthropy, or wit, or dignity – plays a more prominent rôle than in their lives; others whose writings display not a trace of those qualities, such as humor or free humanity, which render them amiable in their private lives. Most authors are far inferior to their books. In Stuart Mill no such inequality existed, for he was the very incarnation of truthfulness. There occurs in Mill's "Autobiography" a situation which affords an opportunity of measuring the degree of this truthfulness. I have in mind his position when he, the social reformer, who was so far removed from all demagogism, at a meeting of electors, comprised chiefly of the working class, was asked if he had written and made public the statement that the working classes of England were, as a rule, liars. He answered at once, and briefly, "I did." "Scarcely," he adds, "were these two words out of my mouth, when vehement applause resounded through the whole meeting. It was evident that the working people were so accustomed to expect equivocation and evasion from those who sought their suffrages, that when they found, instead of that, a direct avowal of what was likely to be disagreeable to them, instead of being affronted, they concluded at once that this was a person whom they could trust."

Mill gives the most modest interpretation of the proceeding, but the reader surmises what a halo of truthfulness must at that moment have hovered about him whose accusation of pervading falsehood was met with storms of applause from men spoiled by the flatteries of demagogues. In daily life, too, Mill bore that invisible nimbus of exalted love of truth. His whole being radiated with purity of character. It is needful to look back to the most sublime philosophic characters of antiquity, to Marcus Aurelius and his peers, if peers he has, to find a parallel to Mill. He was equally true and equally great, whether he addressed his maturely considered thought in some renowned work to a circle of readers spread over the whole globe, or whether, in his own home, without any assumption of superiority, he dropped an accidental remark to a chance visitor..

ERNEST RENAN

1880

It was not my intention to call on Renan during my stay in Paris from April to September, 1870, for I have always had an absolute horror of robbing celebrated men of their time under pretext of paying tribute to them. When, however, Taine – Renan's most intimate friend – repeatedly urged me to look up his "friend, the philologist," I gathered up my courage, and one day, provided with a letter of introduction from Taine, found myself on the third floor of a house in Rue de Vannes, where Renan lived. His surroundings were exceedingly simple. Since he had been deprived of the chair of Hebrew in the "Collège de France," he was without any fixed income, and his first popular publication was the only one of his books that had been at all remunerative.

Judging from his works and portrait, I had imagined Renan to be a refined reproduction of Jules Simon, philanthropic, gentle, with his head slightly inclined to one side; I found him decided, terse, and bold in his utterances, firm in his convictions, with somewhat of the modesty of the savant, but still more of the confidence and air of superiority of the man of the world. Renan was at the time forty-seven years of age. He was sitting at his writing-table when I entered his room, a little, broad-shouldered man, with a slight stoop, and a large, heavy head; his features were coarsely moulded, his complexion poor; he had blue eyes that displayed a wondrous power of penetration, and a mouth that, even in repose, was eloquent and indicative of shrewdness. His far from beautiful yet unquestionably attractive face, with its expression of lofty understanding and excessive industry, was framed in a mass of long brown hair that over the temples gradually shaded into white. In looking at him I was reminded of one of his own sentences, "La science est roturière".

I

In early youth I had been repelled by the works of Renan, who is by no means the author for youth. Moreover, his "Life of Jesus," the first of his writings that fell into my hands, is perhaps his weakest work; the trace of sentimentality, the occasional appearance of unction, that last remnant of a priestly education, all that to a young person must seem either unduly effeminate, or lacking in genuineness, prevented me from arriving at a correct estimation of his literary qualities. That first impression had later been lost; the noble collection, "Etudes d'histoire religieuse," had opened my eyes to the almost feminine delicacy of feeling that could only seem unmanly to very youthful and inexperienced minds, and I found it quite natural that he who had justly been called "the most gentle of the bold" should be unable to speak without melancholy of his exceptional position. "The worst penalty a man who has fought his way to a life of reflection is compelled to pay for the independent stand he has taken, is to see himself excluded from the great religious family to which belong the best souls on earth, and regarded by the very beings with whom he would most gladly live in spiritual harmony, as a corrupt man. One must be very sure of one's position not to be shaken when women and children clasp their hands and cry, Oh, believe as we do!"

I had, however, erred in my supposition that any reminder of this elegiac tone would ring through Renan's every-day mode of expression. The main characteristic of his conversation was a thorough intellectual freedom, the magnificent repose of a genial child of the world. The nerve and sinew of his words was an unbounded contempt for the majority and for the masses, such as I had never before encountered in any one who displayed neither misanthropy nor bitterness. The first time I saw him he led the conversation to human stupidity. He said, evidently in view of inspiring his younger fellow-laborer with tranquillity of mind for the coming storms of life, "Most men are not human beings at all, but apes"; but he said it without anger. The words of Géruzez occurred to my mind, "L'âge mûr méprise avec tolérance." Traces of this calm contempt may be found in the prefaces to his works; many years later it received poetic expression in his translation of Shakespeare's "Tempest"; but in his essay on Lamennais he has plainly defined it. He says: "There is found in Lamennais quite too much anger and not sufficient contempt. The literary consequences of this fault are very serious. Anger leads to declamation, bluntness, often coarse insults; while contempt, on the contrary, almost always produces a refined and dignified style. Anger bears within itself a need of being shared. Contempt is a subtile, penetrating delight which does not require the sympathy of others. It is discreet and all-sufficient to itself."

Renan's manner of speaking has a certain upward-soaring flight, a certain sprightly and redundant grace, without which no one ever gains the praise in Paris accorded to Renan, that in social intercourse and conversation he was "charmant." Of the solemnity which his style often displays there was not a trace in its oral form. There was nothing priestlike about him, and he was wholly devoid of the pathos of a martyr of free thought. It was his wont to introduce a turn in the discourse with his favorite expression, "Diable!" and he was so far removed from striking the bitter and elegiac tone, that his equanimity had rather a touch of Olympian cheerfulness. Whoever knew anything of the childishly odious attacks with which he was daily assailed from the orthodox ranks, and whoever, like myself, had observed in Veuillot's journalistic circles how opinions wavered between whether the right punishment for his heresy was hanging or shooting, could not but feel interested to inquire of Renan if he had not suffered a great deal for his convictions. "I!" was the answer; "not the least! I hold no intercourse with Catholics; I am only acquainted with one of them; we have one in the 'Academic des Inscriptions,' and we are very good friends. The sermons preached against me I do not hear; the pamphlets written against me I do not read. What possible harm could they do me?" According to Renan's opinion, the devout Catholics of France constitute about one-fifth of the population; and he thought they were far more fanatical than the orthodox Catholics of other places, because Catholicism in Spain and Italy is viewed almost as a matter of custom, while in France it is stimulated by intelligent opposition.

I found Renan, in June, 1870, very much exhilarated by the events in Rome. "A statue should be erected to Pius IX.," said he. "He is an extraordinary man. Since Luther no one has rendered such great service to religious freedom as he. He has advanced the cause about three hundred years. Without him Catholicism might very well have remained unchanged for three hundred years, shut up in a closed room with its spider's web and its thick dust. Now we are airing the room, and every one can see for himself that it is empty, and that nothing lies concealed within it." He had entertained a fear that during the negotiations concerning the infallibility of the Pope, even at the last moment, some compromise or other would be effected, through which everything would practically remain in the former channels; but this possibility had just vanished, and it could readily be foreseen that the bishops would shun no consequence, not even the result anticipated by Renan, which was, that a dismemberment would take place within Catholicism similar to that existing in Protestantism. It has been proved that the policy of the Catholic Church was wiser than its opponents at the first moment supposed. The division that took place was neither deep nor important, and there is not the slightest prospect of a dismemberment that can in any way be compared with the nature of the sects of Protestantism. Renan, who thought chiefly of France, hoped that time might open the eyes of the French bourgeoisie, which had thrown itself completely into the arms of the Church since the February Revolution, and was watching with profound anxiety the position so inimical to civilization assumed by the papal power.

In his interesting novel "Ladislaus Bolski," Victor Cherbuliez has turned into mild ridicule certain pet theories of Renan, by putting into the mouth of the good-natured yet thoroughly unpractical mentor of the hero, Renan's doctrine concerning the delicate nature of truth, and the consequent necessity of approaching it with the utmost deliberation and caution. George Richardet believes with Renan, that everything depends on some shade of meaning; that truth is not simply white or black, but is one shade of these colors, and he is wrecked because we cannot act in shades, but must act totally or not at all. In fact, Richardet aims at an actual realization of the idea expressed by Renan in one of many passages on the subject, as follows: "We might as well attempt to hit a winged insect with a club, as to grasp the truth in a moral science with the coarse claws of syllogism. Logic cannot grasp delicate shades of meaning, yet truths that are of a moral nature depend solely and entirely upon these shades. It is, therefore, of no avail to pounce on truth with the clumsy violence of a wild boar, for fleet and nimble truth will escape the ruthless attack, and all the pains taken to capture it will be in vain."

Whoever is familiar with Renan's literary activity knows how closely he adheres to this thought when he writes. How different is the fate of his beloved shades of meaning when he speaks! While Taine, whose writings are filled with such bold utterances, is ever moderate and subdued in conversation, only allowing himself to be guided by the strictest considerations of justice and fairness, Renan, when he speaks, goes to extremes, and is by no means the knight of the delicate shades of thought. In one point alone were the two men equally decided in their expressions. This was when the discourse turned on that spiritualistic philosophy of France which strove to gain strength in its tender alliance with the Church, that system of philosophy which originally won the hearts of fathers of families, by bearing on its shield dogmas and virtue, and that in the place of discoveries of new truths, promised to furnish the entire land with good morals as the fruits of its scientific research. It had at that time control of all the professorships of France. In Sorbonne it was represented by Janet and Caro. Janet, the more refined, more elegant spirit, endeavored to understand his opponents and set them right, while Caro, a specimen of genuine mediocrity, won the applause of the audiences he addressed, by flinging out his arms and vigorously beating his broad chest, and by his appeals to the freedom of the will. To Renan, who, nevertheless, has treated of Cousin as an orator and an author in so elegant an essay, the entire eclectic philosophy was orally mere "official soup," "children's pap," "product of mediocrity, calculated for mediocrity." Indeed, so obstinate was he on this point, that he, the advocate of fine shadings, could never be persuaded that spiritualism was not absolutely false. For Taine, on the other hand, he cherished an admiration that was almost passionate, "Taine, c'est l'homme du vrai, l'amour de la vérité même." In spite of the strikingly apparent difference of their natures, – Taine's style has the strength of a fountain, Renan's style flows as much like a stream as does the verse of Lamartine, – Renan declared himself to be in accord with his friend on all essentials. And when one day I led the conversation to the so frequently discussed question, namely, how much justice there was in the universal tendency to bewail the intellectual decadence of France, Renan immediately referred to Taine. "Decadence, what do you mean by that?" he exclaimed. "Everything is relative. Is not Taine, for instance, of vastly more importance than Cousin and Villemain put together? There is yet much intellect in France." Several times he repeated the words, "Il y a beaucoup d'esprit en France."

In common with nearly all cultivated Frenchmen, Renan was a reverential admirer of George Sand. This remarkable woman had been able to extend her dominion over the younger generation of France, without being in the least untrue to her youthful ideals. An idealist like Renan, she had won through her idealism; a naturalist like Taine, through the mysterious endowments that testified of her nearness to nature; the younger Dumas, to whom we might believe the heroes and heroines of George Sand, concerning whom his dramas often make bitter criticisms, would be especially odious, was perhaps the one among the post-romantic authors who stood personally nearest to her. The enthusiasm of Dumas for George Sand was, upon the whole, only a consequence of his literary susceptibility; the enthusiasm of Renan was of a deeper character. As strong as must necessarily be his hatred for Béranger, in whom he sees the personification of all that is frivolous and prosaic in the French national character, and whose narrow "Dieu des bonnes gens" is a thorn in the eye of the follower of Herder, the pantheistic thinker and dreamer, quite as lively must naturally be his sympathy for the authoress of "Lélia," "Spiridion," and so many other dreamily enthusiastic writings.

Notwithstanding his wide range of vision, Renan is not without national limitations in his literary sympathies. In a conversation about England, he had nothing whatever that was good to say of Dickens; he was not even inclined to be fair. "The pretentious style of Dickens," said he, "makes the same impression on me as the style of a provincial newspaper." His well-known unjust article on Feuerbach fills us with less astonishment, when we learn in how marked a degree the defects of Dickens caused him to overlook the merits. It is the same morbidly developed taste for a classic and well-tempered mode of expression which gives Renan an antipathy to the humorous peculiarities in the style of Dickens and to the passionate form of Feuerbach's style; the genial mannerism of the English seemed to him provincial; the violence of the German appeared to him to savor of a tobacco-like after-taste of the pedantry of German-student atheism.

II

In the spring of 1870 Renan was on the point of making a trip to Spitzbergen, in company with Prince Napoleon. Shortly before starting he was discussing politics with me one day. "You can become thoroughly acquainted with the Emperor," said he, "through his writings. He is a journalist on the throne, a publicist who takes pains to inquire into popular opinion. Since his whole power depends upon the latter, he has occasion to employ more art, notwithstanding his inferiority, than Bismarck, who can afford to disregard everything. Until now he has been merely physically, not intellectually, enfeebled, but he has been extremely cautious (extrêmement cauteleux), and he entertains a profound distrust of himself hitherto unknown to him." Renan's estimate of Napoleon was very similar to that expressed by Sainte-Beuve, in the well-known fragment on "The Life of Cæsar." Ollivier, whom he had known for a long time, he criticised severely. "He and the Emperor are admirably suited to each other," said he; "they have the same kind of ambitious mysticism; they are, as it were, allied through their chimeras." As early as the year 1851 Ollivier had often said to Renan, "As soon as I am at the helm, as soon as I become premier – "

When I, with my simple political principles, urged the necessity of obligatory education, a thought I constantly had occasion to advocate, and which was everywhere treated as an absurdity or as a long since abandoned whim, Renan was, in my estimation, so paradoxical that I could scarcely believe him to be in earnest. His arguments, however, are interesting, especially because similar ones were continually presented at that time by the most prominent men of France, although perhaps in a different form. Renan maintained, first of all, that enforced education was tyranny. "I have myself," said he, "a little child that is in feeble health. How despotic it would be to take that child from me in order to educate it!" I replied that there would be exceptions made by the law. "Then no one would send children to school," he answered. "You do not know our French peasants. They would gain nothing from such legislation. Let them till the soil and pay their taxes, or give them a musket in their hand, and a knapsack on their back, and they are the best soldiers in the world. But what is well adapted to one race does not always suit another. France is not like Scotland or the Scandinavian countries; Puritanic and Teutonic customs cannot take root in our soil. France is not a religious country, and every attempt to make it so would prove abortive. Ours is a land that produces two things, – what is great and what is fine (du grand et du fin). Respectable mediocrity will never thrive here. These two words express the ideal needs of the population; as for the rest, there is but one thing they want, and that is to amuse themselves, to experience through pleasure that they are living. And finally, believe me, it is my firm conviction that elementary education is a downright evil. What is a human being that can read and write – I mean a human being that can do nothing but read and write? An animal, a stupid and conceited animal. Give human beings an education of from fifteen to twenty years' duration, if you can; otherwise, nothing! Anything less, so far from making them any wiser, only destroys their natural amiability, their instinct, their innate sound reason, and renders them positively unendurable. Is there anything worse than to be governed by a seminarist? The sole reason why we are forced to occupy ourselves with this question is because this mass of street boys (ce tas de gamins) gained the upper hand and wrung from us the right of universal suffrage. No, let us agree that culture is only a good in the case of highly-cultivated people, and that the half-cultivated are to be regarded as useless, arrogant apes." I spoke of decentralization, of elevating the condition of the provincial cities, Lyons, for instance. "Lyons!" he burst out, in absolute earnest, "why, it would never occur to any one to transform the metropolitan cities of the provinces into intellectual focuses, for they would at once come under the control of the bishops. No," he added with droll conviction, "in such cities nothing but absurdities will ever be accomplished." After such utterances from the man of all others in France who fought most vigorously for a reform in the higher schools and universities, it is perhaps easier to understand why it was that the indifference of the liberals in that country went hand in hand with the zeal of the Catholic priesthood, whenever there arose a question of remedying that ignorance of the lower classes which later proved so dangerous for the outer and inner security of the land. Old Philarète Chasles, who was really no Chauvinist, made himself very merry one evening in May, 1870, over my faith in the efficacious power of compulsory education; he called it my Revalenta arabica, and facetiously declared that I hoped through it to make the human race happy through all eternity. He asked me, too, if I did not think the peasants made sufficiently good fathers of families and good soldiers, without the aid of the schoolmaster. The war soon taught these men that the soldier who can read and write has a power in his hands never before adequately appreciated. It was, indeed, remarkable to see how ideas we are apt to ascribe wholly to the Catholic priesthood – as, for instance, this idea of the absolute harmfulness of imperfect knowledge – had gradually gained such authority in a land saturated with Catholicism that, with a slight alteration of form, they even swayed the opponents of the Catholic faith.

Another equally interesting application of the Renan theory, that what was good in Germany or in the North was not necessarily suitable for France, I heard one day at Renan's country villa in Sèvres when he himself was absent. The conversation fell on French convenance marriages. A lady, closely allied to Renan, a German-born lady, who was thoroughly imbued with his ideas, defended the French custom of founding marriages on an agreement between the suitor and the parents, and of permitting the wedding to take place after a few obligato visits. "This manner of forming a matrimonial alliance," said she, "would not exist without very good reasons. Although brought up in France, I who am German by birth did not marry in this way. As often as it was proposed to me to take a suitor into consideration, I declared that I would not see him; the mere fact that he came as a suitor sufficed to make him odious in my eyes. I was acquainted with my husband several years before our marriage." Who can offer any protest against the French custom, however, that has seen, as I have in the case of so many of our friends – and she mentioned one and another – who were introduced but one week before their wedding-day, and yet whose union proved so happy and satisfactory to both parties.