Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection
truncheon, and wealth and dignity are the rewards of their attainment.
What perversion! He who brings a bullock into a city for its
sustenance is called a butcher, and nobody has the civility to take
off the hat to him, although knowing him as perfectly as I know
Matthieu le Mince, who served me with those fine kidneys you must have
remarked in passing through the kitchen: on the contrary, he who
reduces the same city to famine is styled M. le General or M. le
Marechal, and gentlemen like you, unprejudiced (as one would think)
and upright, make room for him in the antechamber.
_Rochefoucault._ He obeys orders without the degrading influence of
any passion.
_La Fontaine._ Then he commits a baseness the more, a cruelty the
greater. He goes off at another man's setting, as ingloriously as a
rat-trap: he produces the worst effects of fury, and feels none: a
Cain unirritated by a brother's incense.
_Rochefoucault._ I would hide from you this little rapier, which, like
the barber's pole, I have often thought too obtrusive in the streets.
_La Fontaine._ Never shall I think my countrymen half civilized while
on the dress of a courtier is hung the instrument of a cut-throat. How
deplorably feeble must be that honour which requires defending at
every hour of the day!
_Rochefoucault._ Ingenious as you are, M. La Fontaine, I do not
believe that, on this subject, you could add anything to what you have
spoken already; but really, I do think one of the most instructive
things in the world would be a dissertation on dress by you.
_La Fontaine._ Nothing can be devised more commodious than the dress
in fashion. Perukes have fallen among us by the peculiar dispensation
of Providence. As in all the regions of the globe the indigenous have
given way to stronger creatures, so have they (partly at least) on the
human head. At present the wren and the squirrel are dominant there.
Whenever I have a mind for a filbert, I have only to shake my foretop.
Improvement does not end in that quarter. I might forget to take my
pinch of snuff when it would do me good, unless I saw a store of it on
another's cravat. Furthermore, the slit in the coat behind tells in a
moment what it was made for: a thing of which, in regard to ourselves,
the best preachers have to remind us all our lives: then the central
part of our habiliment has either its loop-hole or its portcullis in
the opposite direction, still more demonstrative. All these are for
very mundane purposes: but Religion and Humanity have whispered some
later utilities. We pray the more commodiously, and of course the more
frequently, for rolling up a royal ell of stocking round about our
knees: and our high-heeled shoes must surely have been worn by some
angel, to save those insects which the flat-footed would have crushed
to death.
_Rochefoucault._ Ah! the good dog has awakened: he saw me and my
rapier, and ran away. Of what breed is he? for I know nothing of dogs.
_La Fontaine._ And write so well!
_Rochefoucault._ Is he a truffler?
_La Fontaine._ No, not he; but quite as innocent.
_Rochefoucault._ Something of the shepherd-dog, I suspect.
_La Fontaine._ Nor that neither; although he fain would make you
believe it. Indeed he is very like one: pointed nose, pointed ears,
apparently stiff, but readily yielding; long hair, particularly about
the neck; noble tail over his back, three curls deep, exceedingly
pleasant to stroke down again; straw-colour all above, white all
below. He might take it ill if you looked for it; but so it is, upon
my word: an ermeline might envy it.
_Rochefoucault._ What are his pursuits?
_La Fontaine._ As to pursuit and occupation, he is good for nothing.
In fact, I like those dogs best ... and those men too.
_Rochefoucault._ Send Nanon then for a pair of silk stockings, and
mount my carriage with me: it stops at the Louvre.
LUCIAN AND TIMOTHEUS
_Timotheus._ I am delighted, my Cousin Lucian, to observe how popular
are become your _Dialogues of the Dead_. Nothing can be so gratifying
and satisfactory to a rightly disposed mind, as the subversion of
imposture by the force of ridicule. It hath scattered the crowd of
heathen gods as if a thunderbolt had fallen in the midst of them. Now,
I am confident you never would have assailed the false religion,
unless you were prepared for the reception of the true. For it hath
always been an indication of rashness and precipitancy, to throw down
an edifice before you have collected materials for reconstruction.
_Lucian._ Of all metaphors and remarks, I believe this of yours, my
good cousin Timotheus, is the most trite, and pardon me if I add, the
most untrue. Surely we ought to remove an error the instant we detect
it, although it may be out of our competence to state and establish
what is right. A lie should be exposed as soon as born: we are not to
wait until a healthier child is begotten. Whatever is evil in any way
should be abolished. The husbandman never hesitates to eradicate
weeds, or to burn them up, because he may not happen at the time to
carry a sack on his shoulder with wheat or barley in it. Even if no
wheat or barley is to be sown in future, the weeding and burning are
in themselves beneficial, and something better will spring up.
_Timotheus._ That is not so certain.
_Lucian._ Doubt it as you may, at least you will allow that the
temporary absence of evil is an advantage.
_Timotheus._ I think, O Lucian, you would reason much better if you
would come over to our belief.
_Lucian._ I was unaware that belief is an encourager and guide to
reason.
_Timotheus._ Depend upon it, there can be no stability of truth, no
elevation of genius, without an unwavering faith in our holy
mysteries. Babes and sucklings who are blest with it, stand higher,
intellectually as well as morally, than stiff unbelievers and proud
sceptics.
_Lucian._ I do not wonder that so many are firm holders of this novel
doctrine. It is pleasant to grow wise and virtuous at so small an
expenditure of thought or time. This saying of yours is exactly what I
heard spoken with angry gravity not long ago.
_Timotheus._ Angry! no wonder! for it is impossible to keep our
patience when truths so incontrovertible are assailed. What was your
answer?
_Lucian._ My answer was: If you talk in this manner, my honest friend,
you will excite a spirit of ridicule in the gravest and most saturnine
of men, who never had let a laugh out of their breasts before. Lie to
_me_, and welcome; but beware lest your own heart take you to task for
it, reminding you that both anger and falsehood are reprehended by all
religions, yours included.
_Timotheus._ Lucian! Lucian! you have always been called profane.
_Lucian._ For what? for having turned into ridicule the gods whom you
have turned out of house and home, and are reducing to dust?
_Timotheus._ Well; but you are equally ready to turn into ridicule the
true and holy.
_Lucian._ In other words, to turn myself into a fool. He who brings
ridicule to bear against Truth, finds in his hand a blade without a
hilt. The most sparkling and pointed flame of wit flickers and
expires against the incombustible walls of her sanctuary.
_Timotheus._ Fine talking! Do you know, you have really been called an
atheist?
_Lucian._ Yes, yes; I know it well. But, in fact, I believe there are
almost as few atheists in the world as there are Christians.
_Timotheus._ How! as few? Most of Europe, most of Asia, most of
Africa, is Christian.
_Lucian._ Show me five men in each who obey the commands of Christ,
and I will show you five hundred in this very city who observe the
dictates of Pythagoras. Every Pythagorean obeys his defunct
philosopher; and almost every Christian disobeys his living God. Where
is there one who practises the most important and the easiest of His
commands, to abstain from strife? Men easily and perpetually find
something new to quarrel about; but the objects of affection are
limited in number, and grow up scantily and slowly. Even a small house
is often too spacious for them, and there is a vacant seat at the
table. Religious men themselves, when the Deity has bestowed on them
everything they prayed for, discover, as a peculiar gift of
Providence, some fault in the actions or opinions of a neighbour, and
run it down, crying and shouting after it, with more alacrity and more
clamour than boys would a leveret or a squirrel in the playground. Are
our years and our intellects, and the word of God itself, given us for
this, O Timotheus?
_Timotheus._ A certain latitude, a liberal construction....
_Lucian._ Ay, ay! These 'liberal constructions' let loose all the
worst passions into those 'certain latitudes'. The priests themselves,
who ought to be the poorest, are the richest; who ought to be the most
obedient, are the most refractory and rebellious. All trouble and all
piety are vicarious. They send missionaries, at the cost of others,
into foreign lands, to teach observances which they supersede at home.
I have ridiculed the puppets of all features, all colours, all sizes,
by which an impudent and audacious set of impostors have been gaining
an easy livelihood these two thousand years.
_Timotheus._ Gently! gently! Ours have not been at it yet two hundred.
We abolish all idolatry. We know that Jupiter was not the father of
gods and men: we know that Mars was not the Lord of Hosts: we know who
is: we are quite at ease upon that question.
_Lucian._ Are you so fanatical, my good Timotheus, as to imagine that
the Creator of the world cares a fig by what appellation you adore
Him? whether you call Him on one occasion Jupiter, on another Apollo?
I will not add Mars or Lord of Hosts; for, wanting as I may be in
piety, I am not, and never was, so impious as to call the Maker the
Destroyer; to call Him Lord of Hosts who, according to your holiest of
books, declared so lately and so plainly that He permits no hosts at
all; much less will He take the command of one against another. Would
any man in his senses go down into the cellar, and seize first an
amphora from the right, and then an amphora from the left, for the
pleasure of breaking them in pieces, and of letting out the wine he
had taken the trouble to put in? We are not contented with attributing
to the gods our own infirmities; we make them even more wayward, even
more passionate, even more exigent and more malignant: and then some
of us try to coax and cajole them, and others run away from them
outright.
_Timotheus._ No wonder: but only in regard to yours: and even those
are types.
_Lucian._ There are honest men who occupy their lives in discovering
types for all things.
_Timotheus._ Truly and rationally thou speakest now. Honest men and
wise men above their fellows are they, and the greatest of all
discoverers. There are many types above thy reach, O Lucian!
_Lucian._ And one which my mind, and perhaps yours also, can
comprehend. There is in Italy, I hear, on the border of a quiet and
beautiful lake, a temple dedicated to Diana; the priests of which
temple have murdered each his predecessor for unrecorded ages.
_Timotheus._ What of that? They were idolaters.
_Lucian._ They made the type, however: take it home with you, and hang
it up in your temple.
_Timotheus._ Why! you seem to have forgotten on a sudden that I am a
Christian: you are talking of the heathens.
_Lucian._ True! true! I am near upon eighty years of age, and to my
poor eyesight one thing looks very like another.
_Timotheus._ You are too indifferent.
_Lucian._ No indeed. I love those best who quarrel least, and who
bring into public use the most civility and good humour.
_Timotheus._ Our holy religion inculcates this duty especially.
_Lucian._ Such being the case, a pleasant story will not be thrown