Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  You can also see how everything is habituation in living creatures in the effects of [1541] reading. A man becomes eloquent by dint of reading eloquent books; he becomes inventive, original, a thinker, a mathematician, a reasoner, a poet, by dint of, etc. Develop this thought, applying it to my own case,1 and differentiate between degrees of adaptability and conformability, natural or acquired, in individuals. Novelists whose fecundity, etc., of invention astonishes us have for the most part read a great quantity of novels, stories, etc., and their imagination has thereby acquired a faculty that any intelligence, in comparable outward circumstances and irrespective of its nature, would be capable of acquiring, to a degree that is at least similar. (21 Aug. 1821.)

  The same is true of other studies that are independent of reading. And so true is it that these faculties derive from habit, that they are acquired and lost with the interruption of practice, and someone who a short time ago was highly disposed to reason is no longer so today. And if he moves on from writings based on reason to imaginative writers, his mind, once his habits have altered, [1542] acquires a faculty of imagining, etc. etc. etc. This has happened to me a thousand times over. Certainly, as is natural, these habits can be consolidated (always through habituation) in such a way that, even if their use has been interrupted, they are not lost, although they may be weakened, or can quickly be picked up again, etc. etc. etc. This effect is general in all habituation. (21 Aug. 1821.)

  There is a further habit that we are also bound to contract, especially in childhood, namely, that of applying these habits to practice, putting them to good use, and making them serve the execution of our own projects. E.g., there are many who have exquisite judgment, are very widely read, well informed, etc. Only the lack of this further habit prevents them from being illustrious writers, and yet, on account of this lack, ask them to write and they won’t know how to do anything. They do not have the habit, and hence the faculty of application, and the ability to do something of their own, etc. Therefore a man who (to continue with the example given above) has read many novels, and who has very good judgment, etc. etc., may very well not know how to either write or plan them, because he does not have the habit [1543] of application, and of so fixing the mind that it can derive profit through its own work from those habits. He does not have the practice of writing, nor that of thinking about this objective, nor that of aiming for it by becoming habituated, etc. etc. etc.1 He is not in the habit of attending to minutiae, and reflecting on them, something that is necessary if one is to be habituated to setting the other habituations to work. He is not in the habit of working hard, etc. And so many, indeed most, may even read a great deal, not only without acquiring the ability to execute a plan (which is, in a word, the ability to imitate), but even without acquiring the ability to think, and without profiting at all, or acquiring any habit, that is, aptitude. See p. 1558. (22 Aug. 1821.)

  Everyone in the course of their lives (especially those who have cultivated their intellect, and developed its qualities, those who have mastered many experiences, etc.), to a greater or lesser degree conceives some ideas, trains of thought, images, etc., that are either new, or seen in a new light, or such, in short, that if they were well and fittingly expressed in writing, they could be useful or pleasant and mark out that writer, if in no other way, from the mass of those who simply copy. But because men of intelligence (especially in Italy) are not used to looking into their own minds and delimiting and clarifying their ideas, these ideas remain in their heads for the most part in such a state that they cannot be put into and employed in writing. And the majority, when they begin to write, find nothing that is their own to suit their purpose, and settle for copying, or compiling, or caricaturing the ideas of others. They do not even remember or believe or [1544] imagine or in any way think of those ideas of their own, which actually they do have, and which they could make such good use of. They also lack the habit of knowing how to express ideas that are new, or in a new way, that is, how to apply for the first time the appropriate word or expression to an idea, how to fashion clothes for it that are adapted to writing. And so, even when they conceive ideas clearly, they set them aside, because they do not know how to bring them into the light of day, and they despair of being able to do so, indeed, do not even want to do so, and they revert to other people’s ideas that already have clothes ready and waiting. So that if writers of this sort sometimes allow themselves to be prevailed upon to express their own ideas, because they lack any ability acquired through practice, they do it badly. So necessary is this practice that I will, on the one hand, lavish praise upon, and, conversely, place the highest hopes in, a child or youth who, when setting out to write and compose, always follows his own ideas, and seeks at all costs to express them, even if they are frivolous, as is only natural with those who are just beginning to reflect, and poorly expressed, as is natural with those who are just beginning to write and to apply [1545] signs to thoughts. It seems to me that I was one of these. (22 Aug. 1821.)

  A man without hope is absolutely incapable of living, as is one without self-love. Despair itself contains hope. Not only because a hope always remains in the depths of the heart, an idea directly or almost directly or obliquely opposed to whatever is the object of despair, but because despair itself is born from, and maintained by, the hope either to suffer less by neither hoping nor desiring anything more, and perhaps also by this means to enjoy something, or to be more free, unbound, and master of oneself and ready to do as one wants, there being nothing left to lose, to be more secure, indeed (if this is possible and see p. 1477) totally secure in the midst of anything that might happen in life; or the hope of some other similar benefit; or, finally, if despair is extreme and complete, that is to say, extending over all of life, the hope of taking revenge on fortune or on oneself, the hope of enjoying despair itself, the very agitation, the inner life, the powerful feelings that it arouses, etc. The pleasure of despair is well known, and even if one renounces hope and desire for all other pleasures, one never leaves off hoping for [1546] and desiring this one. In short, despair itself would not subsist without hope, and man would not despair if he did not hope. Indeed, the weakest and least vigorous despair is that of an old man, who has long been ill-fated, sorely tried, etc., and who really does hope for less. The strongest, most complete, sensitive, and formidable despair is that of the ardent, inexperienced youth, who is full of hope, and who therefore enjoys to the utmost degree, though barbarously, despair itself, etc. (22 Aug. 1821.)

  Those who hope less enjoy their despair less, and despair less also, and more easily retain a hope, albeit a faint one, yet distinct and visible in the midst of despair. Such is the case of men who have long been unfortunate, and accustomed and habituated to suffering and despair. The same goes, conversely, for others. The despair of the man who is ordinarily happy is terrifying. (22 Aug. 1821.)

  Since there is no unhappiness that cannot increase (p. 1477), so too there is no man so utterly desperate that, if a new, [1547] unforeseen, and great misfortune is added to it, he will not experience fresh sorrow. Indeed, very often even if it is foreseen, even if it is that same misfortune that brought him to despair. He therefore still had hope. And, although someone may begin to believe that he can no longer feel greater pain and that he is secure in the fullness of his despair, no one is ever so despairing that in reality he is not subject to an increase of woe. There is no invalid so reasonable and capable of knowing that he is necessarily bound to die of his illness (as a doctor, etc., might be) who, when he receives notice that he is going to die, does not become exceptionally agitated. So he hoped that he would not die. This observation is Buffon’s.1 And just as there is no misfortune so great that it cannot be greater, so too there is no human despair that cannot increase. Hence, no matter how great it may be, it is never complete, and hence it never completely excludes hope. (22 Aug. 1821.)

  Observe that man who despairs completely of all that life has to offer, who is utterly disenchanted with every ill
usion, and is about to kill himself. What do you suppose he is thinking about? He thinks that his death will either be regretted, or admired, or will arouse fear, or will make his courage known to family, friends, acquaintances, fellow citizens; that he will be talked about, at least for a few moments, with deep emotion; that minds will feel exalted, at least by one degree, on his [1548] account; that his death will make his enemies, his faithless lover, etc., detested, or it will disappoint them, etc. Do you suppose that he is not fearful? He fears (even if very fleetingly) that these hopes might not come true. I am as certain as can be that no man has died in the midst of any society without such hopes and such fears, more or less in the forefront of his mind; and when I say died, I do not only mean voluntarily, but in whatever way. And if he has ever lived in society, etc., even supposing that he is to die in the desert, and by his own hand, he still hopes (even if very remotely) that his death, whenever it may be, will be known about, etc. See p. 1551.1 So far is it from the truth that hope or desire will ever abandon a creature which only exists to love itself, and to obtain its own good, and only to the extent that it loves itself. (22 Aug. 1821.)

  For p. 1449. It is true furthermore that the imagination of the old will never be as fertile or as vivid, etc., as that of the young, nor will that of the moderns ever be, etc. etc., as that of the ancients, nor the imagination under orders ever be, etc. etc., as the spontaneous imagination. And hence the poetry of the moderns will always yield to ancient poetry where the imagination is concerned. And you can issue orders to the imagination, and make it even more fertile and more vivid than ancient poetry by the use of force, but by doing that you will never succeed in giving its progeny the beauty, grace, and life that only [1549] its spontaneous productions can have. They may be even more energetic, and therefore less vivid and less beautiful, indeed, the more energetic they are, the less vivid, etc., they will be, since this energy derives from the torture and strain to which imagination is subject, in order to extract from it things that create a powerful impression, and suggest originality, etc. Such, generally speaking, is the progeny of northern imaginings, progeny whose exceptional power does not come from life, but is like the power got through brandy, and although it is much stronger than Greek inventions, it is very far from having their vitality and their healthy complexion.

  It has to be agreed, however, that modern man, just as soon as he is thoroughly disenchanted, not only can more readily command his imagination than he can his feelings, which is invariably what happens, but is even better suited to imagining than to feeling. When men are known well, it is no longer possible to feel anything for them; every motion of the heart is faint, and is anyway stifled almost before it is born. Feeling is incompatible with knowledge of man’s wickedness and the vanity [1550] of human affairs. A disenchanted man no longer has a heart because feelings, even if they are roused by something utterly different, are always in some sort of relation, whether close or distant, to our fellows. And how can man get heated about things whose perversity or complete vanity he knows? Once the human world, the only place where his heart could function, has vanished from human eyes, once the idea of virtue, heroism, etc. etc. etc., has disappeared, feeling is destroyed. Hatred or boredom are not fruitful emotions. They furnish us with precious little eloquence, and little or none that is poetic. But nature, and inanimate things, are always the same. They do not speak to man as they once did, science and experience muffle their voices, yet in solitude, in the midst of the delights of the countryside, man, being weary of the world, is able after a certain time to revert to a relationship with them, albeit one that is much less close, constant, and secure. He is able in some way to revert to being a child, and to reestablish the bonds of friendship with creatures that have not offended him, that have no other fault save that of having been examined and dissected in too meticulous a fashion, and that, according to science also, have purposes that are beneficial to him. Then comes a kind of [1551] rebirth of the imagination arising from man’s forgetting the pettinesses of nature that science makes known to him, whereas it is almost impossible for him to forget the pettinesses and weaknesses of men, that is, of his fellows. He himself, being greatly altered from what he was before, and known much more intimately by himself than he was before, he himself, from whom he can neither distance nor separate himself, would serve to remind him of the idea of human wretchedness, vanity, and sorrow.1 In this state, modern man is more capable of imitating Homer than Virgil. (23 Aug. 1821.) See p. 1556, end.

  For p. 1548, margin. Hence the care taken by suicides to leave some note, some sign concerning their death, and its manner; how it really was voluntary, and didn’t stem from madness, or sickness, or the violence of others. Many also go to some lengths to describe all its causes and circumstances, and spend a lot of time addressing, informing, and in short winning over the world that they are just on the point of leaving, which they abominate, despise, and from which they despair of obtaining anything. [1552] And if some skip all of that, they do so simply to win greater admiration either from others or, indubitably, from themselves. (23 August 1821.)

  Some falsified voices in men greatly please women. So too perhaps vice versa,1 even if we are better informed and aware of what befits women in relation to us than of what befits us in relation to women. In any case, this effect pertains to the grace that derives from the extraordinary and indeed from the defective. (23 Aug. 1821.)

  Montesquieu’s Essai sur le goût has some thoughts on grace, analogous to those in which I have explained [→Z 198–203, 1322–27] how grace derives from the irregular, which, although not fitting, does not go so far as to destroy what is.2 (23 August 1821.)

  The weakening of memory is not a canceling of images or impressions, etc., but the organs’ loss of their ability to execute their usual operations, both general and particular, to which they are habituated, and to contract [1553] new habituations that are particular, that is, new reminiscences. (23 Aug. 1821.)

  You see people from mountain regions who come to the big city and quickly contract civilized and graceful manners, and other people born in much less rough places who live for a long time in the big city and go back home with the same manners as before. This is difference in talent: a greater or lesser facility to become habituated or dishabituated. I will always have high hopes for a boy who displays this facility in the slightest things, who is exceptionally given to imitation, who quickly and easily contracts the manners, pronunciation, etc. etc., and even the defects of those with whom he lives, who quickly shakes them off and loses them according to the novelty of his circumstances, etc. etc., who when he is transported to a new place or a new circle adopts its virtues or vices immediately. I mean until that boy can lay claim to some discernment, which comes from a lengthy and varied series of habituations. (23 August 1821.)

  Everyone says that man is an imitative animal, that he is peculiarly prone [1554] to imitation, influenced by example, etc. Is this not tantamount to saying that he is wholly dependent upon habituation, that he only learns through becoming accustomed to things, and that he alone of all the animals has the preeminent capacity to learn because he has the preeminent inclination and disposition to imitate, that almost all his capacities and attributes are acquired, etc. etc.? (23 Aug. 1821.)

  As I have explained elsewhere [→Z 461–62, 658–59, 1260–62], not only do we do badly what we do with too much care, but if such care is really excessive, the thing absolutely cannot be done, and in order to succeed in doing something we must set aside our care somewhat, and our intention to do it. (24 Aug. 1821.)

  As things stand at present, we do not have great ills, it is true, but we have no good, and this lack is a huge, continuous, intolerable ill, which renders all of life painful, whereas partial ills afflict only a part of it. If self-love, and hence the most ardent desire for happiness, a perpetual and crucial accompaniment to human [1555] life, is not assuaged by any intense pleasure, it afflicts our existence cruelly, even if there are no other ills.
And ills are less harmful to existence than boredom, etc., indeed, sometimes they are useful to happiness itself. Indifference is no fit state for man, it is directly opposed to his nature, and hence to his happiness. See my theory of pleasure [→Z 165–83] and apply it to these observations, which demonstrate the superiority of the ancient world over the modern, with regard to happiness, just as childhood or youth are superior to adulthood. (24 Aug. 1821.)

  Let us contemplate nature. At what age has nature so arranged things that man achieves the greatest happiness of which he is capable? Is it old age perhaps, when man’s faculties are in visible decline, and when he withers, languishes, and fades? This would be a contradiction in terms, to suppose that happiness, or the perfection of being, should naturally occur in a time of decay and virtual corruption of that same being. Hence it must be youth, or the flower of youth, when man’s faculties are in full vigor, etc. etc. [1556] This is the age of perfection and hence of the possible happiness of both man and other creatures. Now youth is the obvious image of antiquity, as old age is of the modern. The young and the ancient present great evils combined with great goods, intense passions, activity, enthusiasm, not a few follies, movement, life of every kind. If youth is therefore visibly the age destined by nature for the greatest happiness, the ἀκμὴ [pinnacle] of life, and consequently of happiness, etc. etc., if our inner intuition convinces us of this (so that no old man does not desire to be young, and no youth would wish to be old), if our contemplation of the system and harmonies of nature demonstrates this to us at first glance, then antiquity was happier than modern times, then what is the longed-for perfectibility of man? Then, etc. etc. This observation has the most far-reaching implications. (24 Aug. 1821.)