Hence it is, that the persons we talk to are not those with whom we converse; their sentiments do not come from the heart; their knowledge is not the acquisition of their own genius; their conversation does not discover their thoughts; and one perceives nothing of them but their figure. Thus, a man in company here, is nearly in the same situation as if he were spectator of a moving picture, where he himself is the only figure capable of self-motion.
Such are the notions I have formed of great societies, by that which I have seen at Paris. They may, nevertheless, be rather adapted to my own particular situation than to the true state of things; and will doubtless improve as I become more acquainted with the manners of the world. Besides this, I have hitherto kept no other company than that into which I have been introduced by the friends of Lord B----, and am sensible it is necessary to descend to persons of different ranks, to know the peculiar manners of a country; those of the opulent being almost every where the same. I shall endeavour to inform myself better hereafter; in the mean time, I leave you to judge whether I had not sufficient reason to call this crowded scene a desert, and to be terrified by a solitude, where I find only an empty appearance of sentiments and of sincerity, that falsifies itself in the instant of expression; and where I perceive only the mere apparitions of men, phantoms that strike the eye for a moment, but are insensible to the touch? Hitherto I have seen a great number of masks; when shall I behold the faces of mankind?
Letter LXXX. From Eloisa.
Yes, my friend, we shall continue to be united, notwithstanding our separation; we shall be happy in spite of fortune. It is the union of minds which constitutes their true felicity; the mutual attraction of hearts does not follow the _ratio_ of their distance, and ours would be in contact, were they distant as the poles asunder. I am sensible with you that true lovers have a thousand expedients to sooth the pains of absence, and to fly to each other’s arms in a moment. Hence have they more frequent interviews even in absence, than when they see each other every day; for, no sooner is either alone, than they are both together. If you, my friend, can taste that pleasure every evening, I feast on it a hundred times a day. I am more alone, and am surrounded by objects I cannot look on without calling you to mind, without finding you ever near me.
_Qui canto dolcemente e qui s’assise Qiu si revolve, e qui ritenne il passo Qui co ’begli occhi me trafise il core Qui disse una parola, e qui sorrise._
But is it so with you? can you thus alleviate the pains of absence? can you experience the sweets of a peaceful and tender passion, that speaks to the heart without inflaming the senses? Are your griefs at present more prudent than were formerly your desires? the violence of your first letter still makes me tremble. I dread those deceitful transports, by so much the more dangerous as the imagination which excites them, is the less subject to controul; and, I fear, lest even your excess of love should prove injurious to the object of it. Alas! you know not, your sensations are too indelicate to perceive how offensive to love is an irrational homage. You do not consider that your life is mine, nor that self-preservation leads us frequently to destruction. Sensual man! will you never learn to love? call to mind those peaceful, those tender sensations you once felt, and so affectingly described. If such be the highest pleasures which even happy lovers can taste, they are the only ones wherein those who pine in absence are permitted to indulge themselves; and those who once have felt them, though but for a moment, should never regret the loss of any other. I remember the reflections we made in reading your Plutarch, on the sensuality and depravity of taste, which debase our nature. Were such wretched pleasures attended only with the circumstance of their not being mutual, it were enough, we said, to render them insipid and contemptible. Let us apply the same conclusion to the sallies of an extravagant imagination, to which it is no less applicable. What can the wretch enjoy whose pleasures are confined to himself alone? his pleasures are lifeless, but thine, O love! are animated and generous delights. It is the union of souls: we receive more pleasure from that which we excite, than from our own enjoyment.
But, pray, tell me, my friend, in what language, or rather, in what jargon, is the description you give me in your last letter? did you not make use of it as an occasional display of your wit? if you intend to repeat it in your letters to me, it will be necessary to send me a dictionary. What is it you mean by the opinions of a garb? by a conscience that is to be put off and on, like a livery? by laying down maxims by the rod? how would you have a poor, simple Swiss comprehend those sublime tropes and figures? have you not already borrowed some of the tinsel understanding of the people you describe? take care, my good friend, how you proceed. Do you not think the metaphors of the chevalier Marini, which you have so often laughed at, bear some resemblance to your own? if a garment may be said to think, in a letter, why not that fire may sweat in a sonnet? [23]
To observe in the space of three weeks all the different company that is kept in a great city; to pass judgment on their conversation; to distinguish precisely the false from the true, the real from the affected; the difference between their thoughts and words: this is the very thing for which the French are frequently censured by people of other countries; but this nation especially deserves to be studied more at leisure. I as little approve also of persons speaking ill of a country where they reside and are well received: they had better, in my judgment, submit to be deceived by appearances, than to moralize at the expense of their hosts. In short, I always suspect the candour of those observers, who set up for wits. I am always apprehensive lest they should insensibly sacrifice the real state of things to the arts of description, and affect a brilliancy of stile at the expense of truth.
You know, my friend, the saying of Muralt, that wit is the epidemical madness of the French: I am mistaken if I do not discover some marks of your being yourself infected with this phrenzy. There is this difference, however, that while it is agreeable enough in the French, the Swiss are of all people in the world those it becomes the least. There is something very quaint and far-fetched in many passages of your letter. I do not speak of the lively turn or animated expressions, which are dictated by any peculiar strength of sentiments, but of that affected prettiness of stile, which being unnatural in itself, can be natural to no people whatever, but betrays the absurd pretensions of the person who uses it. Pretensions, with those we love, good God! ought not all our pretensions to be confined to the object beloved? It may be permitted to enliven an indifferent conversation with such rhetorical flourishes, and they may pass off as fine strokes of wit; but this is not the language adapted to the intercourse of lovers; the florid jargon of gallantry comes less from the heart than the most rude and simple of all dialects. I appeal to yourself: did wit ever find an opportunity to intrude into our private parties? if those fond, those endearing conversations had a charm to dispel and keep wit at a distance, how ill-suited are its embellishments to the letters of absence, always clouded in some measure with sorrow; and in which the heart expresses itself with peculiar tenderness? but, though every passion truly great should be serious, excess of joy sooner calling forth our tears than our smiles, I would not have love be always sad; its chearfulness should, nevertheless, be simple and unaffected, without art, without embellishment, and undissembled as the passion itself. In a word, I would have love appear in its native graces, and not in the false ornaments of wit.
My _constant companion_, in whose apartment I write this letter, pretends, that in the beginning of it I had just that pleasantry of disposition which love inspires; but I know not what is become of it. In proportion as I proceed, a languor invades my heart, and hardly leaves me spirits to write the reproaches she would have me make you. For you are to know the above hypercriticisms are rather hers than my own. It was she that dictated in particular the first article, laughing like an idiot, and insisting on my not altering a single syllable. She says, it is to teach you to respect Marini, whom she patronizes and you have the presumption to ridicule.
But can you guess the cause of our good humour? it is her approaching marriage. The contract was signed last night, and the day is fixed for Monday sevennight. If ever love was a chearful passion, it is surely so with her: surely no girl was ever so droll upon the like occasion.