For p. 58, last thought but one. Add that [313] Julian’s was a time of sophists, as he was in all his other works, and so were Libanius, Themistius, etc., the most famous writers among his contemporaries. But no one is a sophist when talking about himself and for himself, in a situation that really animates his mind.
Just as the natural exuberance of youth, a force that cannot in practice be subdued by any reasoning, study, philosophy, or precocious intellectual maturity, etc., ensures that young people easily become delirious with happiness, so the same can happen with unhappiness, when this is so severe that it overwhelms the natural inclination of the young to be cheerful and enjoy themselves, to be hopeful and carefree. And this is why the young see no consolation except death, as I said on p. 302. Neither religion, nor reason, nor anything else is sufficient to console a young person who is desperately unhappy, if he has the sort of strength of mind that is wholly set upon consolidating and making him feel the full depths of his misery.
French literature could be described as original in its lofty and singular unoriginality.
[314] For p. 252. Spain is a proof and a present, living example of what I said there. In barbarian Spain, whose barbarousness was not primitive but corrupted by superstition,1 decline from a much more thriving, civilized, cultured, and powerful state, the remains of Moorish customs, etc., in Spain, I say, ignorance sustained tyranny. This then had to collapse with the first glimmer of a certain philosophy derived from the French invasion and occupation and from the revolution of the world. Ignorance is like a frost, which makes seeds dormant and prevents them from germinating but does not kill them, as civilization does, and once winter has passed and spring arrives, the seeds will germinate. This is what happened in Spain, where the people, having returned to an almost virginal condition, once again felt a shiver of enthusiasm, as they had already demonstrated in the recent war. In this respect, it has shown itself to be the opposite of other countries, as the author of the Manuscrit venu de Sainte-Hélène observes,2 that is, the revolutionary spirit existed only in those who were more cultured on account of their status, priests, monks, noblemen, all those who could only lose from the revolution. [315] For the torpor of the nation was caused not by an excess of civilization but by a lack of it, and the few cultured people probably were not excessively so, as they were elsewhere, but just enough as was necessary, and no more. When Spain has become totally civilized, it will once again fall prey to tyranny, no longer sustained by ignorance but on the contrary by an excess of knowledge, cold reason, philosophical egoism, self-indulgence, and a genius for the arts and peaceful study. This tyranny will be more durable for being more moderate than the previous one.1 And if the King of Spain is really political, he will do all in his power to encourage his people to become civilized (and these days it is possible to achieve this more quickly and easily). In so doing, he will not further their independence, as is commonly believed, but subjugate them again and recover what he has lost. There is no condition that is resistant to tyranny or capable of being exempt from it other than the natural, primitive state, or a middling level of civilization,2 like that of Spain today, or like that of the Romans, etc. Athens and Greece when they were highly civilized were never really free. (10 Nov. 1820.)
[316] Theophrastus, who was known among the ancients as a very hardworking man and an indefatigable scholar, at the point of death, in extreme old age, thanks to his diligence as a writer, according to the Suda,1 when asked by his pupils whether he would leave them some precept to remember him by, replied “Only that a man forgoes many pleasures for the sake of glory. But no sooner does he start to live than death overcomes him. So the love of glory is as harmful as anything else. Be happy, and give up study, which demands great effort, or do it properly, which brings great fame. Except that the vanity of life is greater than its usefulness. I have no time left to think about it, the rest of you, think about what you should do.” And saying this, he died. (These are his own words as reported by Laertius in Theophrastus, bk. 5, § 41.)2
Anyway, it seems to me that Theophrastus, perhaps alone among ancient writers or more so than any other, while loving glory and his studies, still felt the inevitable unhappiness of human nature, the futility of struggle, and, above all, the empire of fortune and its dominance over virtue with respect to the happiness of man, including the wise man, unlike so many other less profound [317] and more arrogant philosophers, who usually consoled themselves with believing that the philosopher was happy in himself, and that virtue and knowledge alone were sufficient in themselves for happiness.1 Theophrastus, therefore, was not judged fairly by his contemporaries, who were incapable of understanding the depth of sadness and pain from which he spoke: “Vexatur Theophrastus et libris et scholis omnium philosophorum, quod in Callisthene suo laudarit illam sententiam: Vitam regit fortuna non sapientia” [“Theophrastus was abused in the books and schools of all the philosophers for having praised the following dictum in his Callisthenes: Fortune not wisdom rules life”], Cicero, Tusculanae, 3 and 5 (look at this because it contains various other things).2 “Quod maxime efficit Theophrasti de beata vita liber, in quo multum admodum fortunae datur” [“This is very apparent in Theophrastus’s book on the blessed life, in which great prominence is given to fortune”], Id., De finibus, bk. 5.3 Nor has he obtained from the moderns the esteem he deserves, since nearly all of his many works have been lost, apart from his Characters and some works on physics. I think I am the first person to note that Theophrastus, being a philosopher and teacher (whose school was much in demand) long before Epicurus, and definitely not Epicurean either in his life or in his maxims,4 perhaps comes closer than anyone else to recognizing the sad truths that only the last few centuries have revealed with clarity, and the falsity of those illusions which only in our own times lost their splendor and natural vigor.5 But we can also see that Theophrastus, knowing illusions for what they are, did not on that account [318] reject or proscribe them as our mad philosophers do, but fostered and treasured them, and was even blamed by other ancient philosophers precisely for honoring illusions much more than they did. “Itaque miror quid in mentem venerit Theophrasto in eo libro quem De divitiis scripsit: in quo multa praeclare, illud absurde. Est enim multus in laudanda magnificentia et apparatione popularium munerum, taliumque sumptuum facultatem, fructum divitiarum putat” [“And so I wonder what Theophrastus could have had in mind when he wrote his book On Wealth. It contains much that is fine, but his position is absurd when he praises at length the magnificent appointments of the popular games and festivals, and maintains that much of the benefit of wealth consists in being able to indulge in such expenditures”], Cicero, De officiis.1
So we see that the very people who understand and feel most profoundly and painfully the vanity of illusions are those who honor, desire, and extol them more than anyone else, like Rousseau, Staël, etc.
For if, when he was close to death, Theophrastus abandoned and almost disowned them, like Brutus, this in itself proves how much he had loved them, for you cannot repudiate something you never cared for, or abandon something you never pursued. Nor do you lie without reason at the point of death, etc. (11 Nov. 1820.)
[319] I have often been very impatient to possess or sample a good that was already certain, not out of greed for this good but out of the simple fear of wanting too much from it and spoiling it with my expectations. And I have noticed that such impatience was not caused by reflection but arose naturally while I was imagining or conjecturing about this good or pleasure. And so just as naturally, I tried to distract myself from that thought. Unless my general habit of reflection or the experience and reflection that had previously made knowledge of the vanity of pleasures natural to me, and my distrust of expectation, were then at work in me without my realizing it and seemed to me like nature. (11 Nov. 1820.)
Quintilian, bk. 10, ch. 1, says: “Quid ego commemorem Xenophontis iucunditatem illam inaffectatam, sed quam nulla possit affectatio consequi?” [“Why should I mention th
e unaffected grace of Xenophon, which was such that no affectation could ever reach it?”].1 It is certain that great merit in the arts and writing comes from nature, not from affectation or research. Now, a translator is necessarily affected, in that he is trying to convey someone else’s character and style and to reproduce what someone else says in the same way and with the same flavor. You can see, therefore, how difficult a good translation is where literature is concerned, [320] a work that must be composed of properties that seem discordant, incompatible, and contradictory. And likewise the soul and wit and intellect of the translator. Especially when the principal or one of the principal merits of the original lies precisely in its being unaffected, natural, and spontaneous, whereas the translator, by his nature, cannot be spontaneous. But on the other hand, the affectation I have described is so necessary to a translator that when stylistic merit is not the strong point of the original an unaffected translation according to what I have said can be called a slicing in half of the text, and when stylistic merit constitutes the main attraction of the work (as it does in a good part of the ancient classics) the translation is not so much a translation as a sophistical imitation, compilation, residue, or, if nothing else, a new work. The French easily dispose of this difficulty because they are never affected at all when they are translating. So they have no translations (and let them boast about Delille and suppose that he can ever be Virgil), but only summaries of the contents of foreign works, or else new works composed of other people’s ideas.
[321] One of the main reasons for the universality of the French language1 is its oneness. Because the Italian language (I hear the same is true, possibly more so, of German) is a complex of languages rather than a single one, and can vary so much with different subjects, styles, and the character of the writer, etc., that these different styles seem like different languages, having only a few features in common. Dante—Petrarch and Parini, etc. Davanzati—Boccaccio, Della Casa, etc. See p. 244. From which there follow infinite and very important advantages, and several disadvantages as well: (1) foreigners find our language very difficult and when they have understood one author and moved on to another, they do not understand him. (Likewise with the Greeks.) (2) since Italian can be written and spoken without being elegant, etc. etc. etc., the average Italian usually writes very badly, and the same applies to speaking, etc. The opposite of French, where there is only one path, with no diversions, and no one speaks French who does not speak it well. And so almost all French people write and speak elegantly, but the elegance is always the same, and, as for any differences there might be, they are so slight [322] that even if the French can hear them in their various authors, they are imperceptible to foreigners. Whereas in Italian, variations in good style are immediately apparent to anyone. And in Greek, too.
Note in passing that the Latin language follows a much more clearly defined and well-marked path and resembles French in this respect. The reason for this is that written Latin was a work of art (while ordinary spoken Latin was very different from the literary variety), as is well known, and this is immediately apparent from its very artificial and highly figurative construction. The form of the Greek and Italian languages, however, was the work of nature, or in other words they both developed before any rules emerged, or at least before these were formulated and codified and before writers were constrained by the precepts of art. So nature is always varied and art always uniform, or if nothing else always vastly inferior to nature in its variety.
In short, a foreigner and a Frenchman easily speak the language well, because there is no variety to create confusion or difficulty for the beginner.
[323] And the oneness of the French language and the multiplicity of Italian are even more apparent in their respective capacities for translation. German, too, is reputed to be particularly flexible in taking on the character and form of any other language, writer, and style, and thus is rich in translations that retain the liveliness of the original. I do not know, however, whether this capacity actually consists in the spirit of the style, or solely in its materiality, and it seems that Staël is similarly uncertain in her article on translation.1
The fact is that, in boasting about the universality of their language, the French are really boasting about its lack of beauty, its poverty, uniformity, and dryness, because if it had what is required to make it beautiful, and were rich and varied, and if it were less like geometry and more like a language, it would not be universal. But the world uses it as it does the formulas and terminology of science, which are familiar and easy for everyone, because they’re based on the model of reason, or as it does an art or practical science, a geometry, an arithmetic, which are common to all peoples, because all deduce from the same premises the same conclusions. (13 Nov. 1820.)
[324] From the observations above, you will see how justified is the wonder, and how deserved the praise, of those who say that in France since the time of Louis XIV onward people have not argued about their language and they write well, whereas in Italy people argue constantly about language and write badly. Before Louis XIV, when the French language was not yet geometricized, and lined up in single file, as Fénelon says,1 in the same way that writing could be better than it is now, it could also be bad.
Demetrius of Phalerum “τῶν τετυφωμένων ἀνδρῶν ἔφη τὸ μὲν ὕψος δεῖν περιαιρεῖν, τὸ δὲ φρόνημα καταλιπεῖν” [“he used to say of men puffed up with haughtiness that one should trim their height, but leave them their high opinion of themselves”] (Laertius, in Demetrius, bk. 5, § 82).2 That is to say, “hominum fastu turgidorum aiebat circumcidi oportere altitudinem, opinionem autem de se relinquere.” This is a very good translation. Unlike Méric Casaubon’s foolish note to a few words just after these in the same section.3
“Τοὺς φίλους ἐπὶ μὲν τὰ ἀγαθὰ παρακαλουμένους ἀπιέναι, ἐπὶ δὲ τὰς συμφορὰς, αὐτομάτους” [“True friends in prosperous times come only when invited, but in misfortune of their own accord”]. (δεῖν [should], which features in the previous sentence, is understood here.) Said by the same, in Laertius, loc. cit., § 83.
Wine is the surest and (incomparably) the most effective consolation.4 Meaning vigor, meaning nature.
To what I said a few pages earlier about Theophrastus [325] you should add his Characters,1 where, as you know, perhaps more than any ancient writer, particularly of Greek prose, he demonstrates how very advanced he was in his understanding of the human heart. Now, anyone with intimate knowledge of the human heart and the world knows the vanity of illusions and is inclined to melancholy, all the more so because the basis of this science is the sensitivity and susceptibility of one’s own heart, which is one’s main guide to the nature of man and things. (See what I am going to say about Massillon in these thoughts.)2 What’s more, Theophrastus twice freed his country from tyranny. Plutarch, Adversus Colotem, at the end, pp. 1126f.3 There is no reference to it apart from this, as is apparent from Fabricius.4
Just as the most ardent zealots on behalf of illusions are perhaps those who universally recognize their vanity and feel it most acutely, so their most ardent detractors are those who do not really recognize it or, if they do, do not feel it deeply in every aspect of their lives. In other words, they accept it in theory but not in practice. Such are the unprincipled and intolerant philosophizers of our time. [326] Because if they were to accept and feel it and comprehend fully its implications, they would be terrified, the loss of these illusions would almost take their breath away, they would once again seek refuge in the bosom of ignorance or forgetfulness of the truth and the cruelest doubt (forgetfulness that would not alienate them from religion but, rather, revive their allegiance), and they would recommend activity, etc. If nothing else they would not be so keen to combat illusions, they would not seek glory by demonstrating the vanity of all glory, they would not attach much importance to demonstrating and persuading us that nothin
g is important, and not even, therefore, this demonstration.
It is said that human happiness cannot exist without truth. So it would seem, because what happiness is there in something false? And why, if the world is made for happiness, would truth not make us happy? Yet I say that happiness consists in ignorance of the truth. Precisely because the world is made for happiness and nature made man happy. Now, it also made him ignorant, like the other animals. It would therefore have made [327] him unhappy, and the other creatures. So man for his part would be unhappy (and yet the other creatures for their part are happy). Therefore, many centuries would have had to pass for man to achieve the complementary, in fact the principal, goal of existence, which is happiness (since not even now have we gained absolute knowledge of the truth), and consequently ancient man would necessarily have been unhappy, and similarly all uncivilized people must still be unhappy today, and so necessarily must we ourselves be because we lack total knowledge of the truth. Whereas all living creatures (I am talking about species, not individuals) emerged as perfect examples of their kind from the hands of nature. And perfection consists of happiness where the individual is concerned and in the right balance with the order of things in every other regard. But we think of order in one way and nature does so in another. For us, it is incompatible with ignorance; in nature, it is incompatible with science. And if the happiness of living beings is an indisputable goal of nature, and supposing that where mankind is concerned happiness depends on knowledge, why has nature guarded the truth so jealously that centuries and centuries are needed to discover it? [328] Doesn’t this amount to a contradiction, a fundamental, organic failure in the system? Why has nature made the only means of achieving what it wanted above all else and set as its goal, namely happiness, so difficult? Especially the happiness of man, who obviously has supremacy over everything else here below? Why has it placed so many obstacles in the way of achieving its aim? But if man rightly claimed supremacy and would also have done so in what we regard as the primitive state of nature, he did not on this account have to place himself in a different order, and think of himself as belonging to another category, and make his dignity consist, not in his being first among beings, as he would always have done, but in placing himself totally outside their sphere, subject to his own rules and independent of the universal laws of nature. (14 Nov. 1820.)
Zibaldone Page 45
