A Dialogue Between a Man of Letters and Mr. J. J. Rousseau
N. There, take your Manuscript: I have read it quite through.
R. _Quite through?_ I understand you: you think there are not many readers will follow your example.
N. _Vel duo, vel nemo._
R. _Turpe & miserabile._ But let me have your sincere opinion.
N. I dare not.
R. You have dared to the utmost by that single word: Pray explain yourself.
N. My opinion depends upon your answer to this question: is it a real, or fictitious, correspondence?
R. I cannot perceive the consequence. In order to give one’s sentiments of a book, of what importance can it be to know how it was written?
N. In this case it is of great importance. A portrait has its merit if it resembles the original, be that original ever so strange; but in a picture which is the produce of imagination, every human figure should resemble human nature, or the picture is of no value: yet supposing them both good in their kind, there is this difference, the portrait is interesting but to a few people, whilst the picture will please the public in general.
R. I conceive your meaning. If these letters are portraits, they are uninteresting; if they are pictures, they are ill done. Is it not so?
N. Precisely.
R. Thus I shall snatch your answers before you speak. But, as I cannot reply, directly to your question, I must beg leave to propose one in my turn. Suppose the worst: my Eloisa----
N. Oh! if she had really existed.
R. Well.
N. But certainly it is no more than a fiction.
R. Be it so.
N. Why then, there never was any thing more absurd: the letters are no letters, the romance is no romance, and the personages are people of another world.
R. I am sorry for it, for the sake of this.
N. Console yourself; there is no want of fools among us; but yours have no existence in nature.
R. I could----No, I perceive the drift of your curiosity. But why do you judge so precipitately? Can you be ignorant how widely human nature differs from itself? how opposite its characteristics? how prejudice and manners vary according to times, places, and age. Who is it that can prescribe bounds to nature and say, Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther?
N. If such reasoning were allowed, monsters, giants, pygmies and chimeras of all kinds might be specifically admitted into nature: every object would be disfigured, and we should have no common model of ourselves. I repeat it, in a picture of human nature, every figure should resemble man.
R. I confess it; but then we should distinguish between the variety in human nature and that which is essential to it. What would you say of one who should only be able to know mankind in the picture of a Frenchman?
N. What would you say of one who, without expressing features or shape, should paint a human figure covered with a veil? Should we not have reason to ask, where is the man?
R. Without expressing features or shape? Is this just? There is no perfection in human nature: that is indeed chimerical. A young virgin in love with virtue, yet swerving from its dictates, but reclaimed by the horror of a greater crime; a too easy friend punished at last by her own heart for her culpable indulgence; a young man, honest and sensible, but weak, yet in words a philosopher; an old gentleman bigotted to his nobility, and sacrificing every thing to opinion; a generous and brave Englishman, passionately wise, and, without reason, always reasoning.
N. A husband, hospitable and gay, eager to introduce into his family his wife’s quondam paramour.
R. I refer you to the inscription of the plate. [1]
N. _Les belles ames_----Vastly fine!
R. O philosophy! What pains thou takest to contract the heart and lessen human nature!
N. It is fallaciously elevated by a romantic imagination. But to the point. The two friends----What do you say of them?----and that sudden conversion at the altar?----divine grace, no doubt.----
R. But Sir.
N. A pious Christian, not instructing her children in their catechism; who dies without praying; whose death nevertheless edifies the parson, and converts an Atheist----Oh!
R. Sir----
N. As to the reader being interested, his concern is universal, and therefore next to none. Not one bad action; not one wicked man to make us fear for the good. Events so natural, and so simple, that they scarce deserve the name of events; no surprize; no dramatic artifice; every thing happens just as it was expected. Is it worth while to register such actions as every man may see any day of his life in his own house or in that of his neighbour?
R. So that you would have common men, and _un_common events? Now I should rather desire the contrary. You took it for a romance: it is not a romance: but, as you said before, a collection of letters.
N. Which are no letters at all: this, I think, I said also. What an epistolary stile! how full of bombast! What exclamations! What preparation! How emphatical to express common ideas! What big words and weak reasoning! Frequently neither sense, accuracy, art, energy, nor depth. Sublime language and groveling thoughts. If your personages are in nature, confess, at least, that their stile is unnatural.
R. I own that in the light in which you are pleased to view them, it must appear so.
N. Do you suppose the public will not judge in the same manner; and did you not ask my opinion?
R. I did, and I answer you with a design to have it more explicitly: now it appears that you would be better pleased with letters written on purpose to be printed.
N. Perhaps I might; at least I am of opinion that nothing should be printed which is not fit for the press.
R. So that in books we should behold mankind only as they chuse to appear.
N. Most certainly, as to the author; those whom he represents, such as they are. But in these letters this is not the case. Not one strong delineation; not a single personage strikingly characterized; no solid observations; no knowledge of the world. What can be learnt in the little sphere of two or three lovers or friends constantly employed in matters only relative to themselves?
R. We may learn to love human nature, whilst in extensive society we learn to hate mankind. Your judgment is severe; that of the public ought to be still more so. Without complaining of injustice, I will tell you, in my turn, in what light these letters appear to me; not so much to excuse their defects, as to discover their source.
The perceptions of persons in retirement are very different from those of people in the great world; their passions being differently modified, are differently exprest; their imaginations constantly imprest by the same objects, are more violently affected. The same small number of images constantly return, mix with every idea, and create those strange and false notions so remarkable in people who spend their lives in solitude; but does it follow that their language is energic? No; ’tis only extraordinary: it is in our conversation with the world that we learn to speak with energy; first, because we must speak differently and better than others, and then, being every moment obliged to affirm what may not be believed, and to express sentiments which we do not feel, we endeavour at a persuasive manner which supplies the place of interior persuasion. Do you believe that people of real sensibility express themselves with that vivacity, energy, and ardor which you so much admire in our drama and romances? No; true passion, full of itself, is rather diffusive than emphatical; it does not even think of persuasion, as it never supposes that its existence can be doubtful. In expressing its feelings it speaks rather for the sake of its own ease, than to inform others. Love is painted with more vivacity in large cities, but is it in the village therefore less violent?
N. So that the weakness of the expression is a proof of the strength of their passion.
R. Sometimes, at least, it is an indication of its reality. Read but a love letter written by an author who endeavours to shine as a man of wit; if he has any warmth in his brain, his words will set fire to the paper; but the flame will spread no farther: you may be charmed, and perhaps a little moved, but it will be a fleeting agitation which will leave nothing except the remembrance of words. On the contrary, a letter really dictated by love, written by a lover influenced by a real passion, will be tame, diffuse, prolix, unconnected, and full of repetitions: his heart overflowing with the same sentiment, constantly returns to the same expressions, and like a natural fountain flows continually without being exhausted. Nothing brilliant, nothing remarkable; one remembers neither words nor phrases; there is nothing to be admired, nothing striking: yet we are moved without knowing why. Though we are not struck with strength of sentiment, we are touched with its truth, and our hearts, in spite of us, sympathize with the writer. But men of no sensibility, who know nothing more than the flowery jargon of the passions, are ignorant of those beauties and despise them.
N. I am all attention.