No More Learning

In interpreting the Scripture, many do as if a man
should see one have ten pounds, which he reckoned by 1. 2. 3. 4.
5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10,- meaning four was but four Unities, and five,
five Unities, etc. , and that he had in all but ten pounds; the
other that sees him, takes not the Figures together as he doth,
but picks here and there, and thereupon reports that he hath
five pounds in one Bag, and six pounds in another Bag, and
nine pounds in another Bag, &c. , whenas in truth he has but ten
pounds in all. So we pick out a Text here and there to make
it serve our turn; whereas, if we take it all together, and con-
sider'd what went before and what followed after, we should
find it meant no such thing.
THE BISHOPS
THE Bishops were too hasty, else with a discreet slowness
they might have had what they aim'd at. The old Story of the


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13102
JOHN SELDEN
Fellow that told the Gentleman that he might get to such a
place if he did not ride too fast, would have fitted their turn.
Bishops are now unfit to Govern, because of their Learning.
They are bred up in another Law; they run to the Text for
something done amongst the Jews that nothing concerns England.
'Tis just as if a Man would have a Kettle, and he would not go
to our Brazier to have it made as they make Kettles, but he
would have it as Hiram made his Brass work, who wrought in
Solomon's Temple.
They that would pull down the Bishops and erect a new
way of Government, do as he that pulls down an old House and
builds another in another fashion: there's a great deal of do, and
a great deal of trouble; the old rubbish must be carryed away,
and new materials must be brought; Workmen must be provided:
and perhaps the old one would have serv'd as well.
Books
IN ANSWERING a Book, 'tis best to be short; otherwise he that
I write against will suspect I intend to weary him, not to satisfy
him. Besides, in being long I shall give my Adversary a huge
advantage: somewhere or other he will pick a hole.
To quote a modern Dutch Man where I may use a Classic
Author, is as if I were to justify my Reputation, and I neglect
all Persons of Note and Quality that know me, and bring the
Testimonial of the Scullion in the Kitchen.
CEREMONY
•
CEREMONY keeps up all things. 'Tis like a Penny-Glass to a
rich Spirit, or some Excellent Water: without it the water were
spilt, the Spirit lost.
Of all people, Ladies have no reason to cry down Ceremonies,
for they take themselves slighted without it. And were they
not used with Ceremony,- with Compliments and Addresses, with
Legs, and Kissing of Hands,- they were the pittyfullest Creat-
ures in the World; but yet methinks to kiss their Hands after
their Lips as some do, is like little Boys, that after they eat the
Apple, fall to the paring, out of a Love they have to the Apple.


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JOHN SELDEN
13103
CLERGY
THE Clergy would have us believe them against our own Rea-
son, as the Woman would have her Husband against his own
Eyes. "What! will you believe your own Eyes before your own
sweet Wife ? »
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
THE House of Commons is called the Lower House in Twenty
Acts of Parliament; but what are Twenty Acts of Parliament
amongst Friends?
COMPETENCY
THAT which is a Competency for one Man, is not enough for
another: no more than that which will keep one Man warm, will
keep another Man warm; one man can go in Doublet and Hose,
when another Man cannot be without a Cloak and yet have no
more Cloaths than is necessary for him.
-
CONSCIENCE
HE THAT hath a Scrupulous Conscience is like a Horse that is
not well weigh'd: he starts at every Bird that flies out of the
Hedge.
A Knowing Man will do that which a tender Conscience Man
dares not do, by reason of his Ignorance: the other knows there
is no hurt,- as a Child is afraid to go into the dark, when a
Man is not, because he knows there is no danger.
CONSECRATED PLACES
ALL things are God's already: we can give him no right by
consecrating any, that he had not before; only we set it apart to
his Service. Just as when a Gardiner brings his Lord and Mas-
ter a Basket of Apricocks, and presents them, his Lord thanks
him, perhaps gives him something for his pains; and yet the
Apricocks were as much his Lord's before as now.
COUNCIL
THEY talk (but blasphemously enough) that the Holy Ghost is
President of their General Councils; when the truth is, the odd
man is still the Holy Ghost.


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13104
JOHN SELDEN
DEVILS
A PERSON of Quality came to my Chamber in the Temple,
and told me he had two Devils in his head (I wonder'd what
he meant), and just at that time one of them bid him kill me
(with that I begun to be afraid, and thought he was mad); he
said he knew I could Cure him, and therefore entreated me to
give him something, for he was resolv'd to go to nobody else. I,
perceiving what an Opinion he had of me, and that 'twas only
Melancholy that troubl'd him, took him in hand, warranted him
if he would follow my directions to Cure him in a short time.
I desired him to let me be alone about an hour, and then to
come again, which he was very willing to. In the mean time
I got a Card, and lapt it up handsome in a piece of Taffata, and
put strings to the Taffata, and when he came, gave it to him to
hang about his Neck; withal charged him that he should not dis-
order himself, neither with eating or drinking, but eat very little
of Supper, and say his Prayers duly when he went to Bed, and
I made no question but he would be well in three or four days.
Within that time I went to Dinner to his House, and askt him
how he did? He said he was much better, but not perfectly
well; for in truth he had not dealt clearly with me: he had four
Devils in his head, and he perceiv'd two of them were gone,
with that which I had given him, but the other two troubled him
still. Well, said I, I am glad two of them are gone; I make no
doubt but to get away the other two likewise. So I gave him
another thing to hang about his Neck: three days after, he came
to me to my Chamber and protest he was now as well as ever
he was in his life, and did extreamly thank me for the great
care I had taken of him. I, fearing lest he might relapse into
the like Distemper, told him that there was none but my self
and one Physitian more in the whole Town, that could Cure
the Devils in the head; and that was Dr. Harvey (whom I had
prepared), and wisht him if ever he found himself ill in my
absence to go to him, for he could Cure his Disease, as well
as my self. The Gentleman lived many Years, and was never
troubl'd after.
FRIENDS
OLD Friends are best. King James us'd to call for his Old
Shoos: they were easiest for his Feet.


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JOHN SELDEN
13105
HUMILITY
HUMILITY is a Vertue all preach, none practice; and yet every
body is content to hear. The Master thinks it good Doctrine for
his Servant, the Laity for the Clergy, and the Clergy for the
Laity.
JEWS
TALK what you will of the Jews, that they are Cursed, they
thrive where e'er they come; they are able to oblige the Prince
of their Country by lending him money; none of them beg;
they keep together: and for their being hated, my life for yours,
Christians hate one another as much.
THE KING
THE King calling his Friends from the Parliament, because he
had use of them at Oxford, is as if a man should have use of a
little piece of wood, and he runs down into the Cellar, and takes
the Spiggot; in the mean time all the Beer runs about the House:
when his Friends are absent the King will be lost.
THE COURT OF ENGLAND
THE Court of England is much alter'd. At a solemn Dan-
cing, first you had the grave Measures, then the Corrantoes and
the Galliards, and this is kept up with Ceremony, at length to
French-more, and the Cushion-Dance, and then all the Company
Dance, Lord and Groom, Lady and Kitchen-Maid, no distinction.
So in our Court in Queen Elizabeth's time Gravity and State
were kept up. In King James's time things were pretty well.
But in King Charles's time, there has been nothing but French-
more and the Cushion-Dance, omnium gatherum, tolly, polly, hoite
come toite.
LANGUAGE
IF YOU look upon the Language spoken in the Saxon time,
and the Language spoken now, you will find the difference to
be just as if a man had a Cloak that he wore plain in Queen
Elizabeth's days, and since, here has put in a piece of Red,
and there a piece of Blew, and here a piece of Green, and there
XXII-820


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13106
JOHN SELDEN
a piece of Orange-tawny.
We borrow words from the French,
Italian, Latine, as every Pedantick man pleases.
We have more words than Notions,- half a dozen words for
the same thing. Sometime we put a new signification to an old
word, as when we call a Piece a Gun. The word Gun was in
use in England for an Engine to cast a thing from a man, long
before there was any Gun-powder found out.
Words must be fitted to a man's mouth: 'twas well said of
the Fellow that was to make a Speech for my Lord Mayor, he
desir'd to take the measure of his Lordship's mouth.
LIBELS
THO' Some make slight of Libels, yet you may see by them
how the wind fits: as take a straw and throw it up into the
Air, you shall see by that which way the Wind is; which you
Ishall not do by casting up a Stone. More solid things do not
show the Complexion of the times so well as Ballads and Libels.
MARRIAGE
OF ALL Actions of a man's life, his Marriage does least con-
cern other people; yet of all Actions of our Life, 'tis most
medled with by other people.
MEASURE OF THINGS
WE MEASURE the Excellency of other men by some Excel-
lency we conceive to be in our selves. Nash, a Poet, poor enough
(as Poets us'd to be), seeing an Alderman with his Gold Chain,
upon his great Horse, by way of scorn said to one of his Com-
panions, Do you see yon fellow, how goodly, how big he looks:
why, that fellow cannot make a blank Verse!
NUMBER
ALL those misterious things they observe in numbers, come
to nothing, upon this very ground; because number in it self is
nothing, has not to do with Nature, but is merely of Human
Imposition, a meer sound. For Example, when I cry one a
Clock, two a Clock, three a Clock,- that is but Man's division of
time; the time itself goes on, and it had been all one in Nature
if those Hours had been call'd nine, ten, and eleven. So when


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JOHN SELDEN
13107
they say the Seventh Son is Fortunate, it means nothing; for
if you count from the seventh backwards, then the first is the
seventh: why is not he likewise Fortunate?
OATHS
WHEN men ask me whether they may take an Oath in their
own Sense, 'tis to me as if they should ask whether they may
go to such a place upon their own Legs: I would fain know how
they can go otherwise.
OPINION
OPINION and Affection extremely differ: I may affect a Woman
best, but it does not follow I must think her the Handsomest
Woman in the World. I love Apples the best of any Fruit, but
it does not follow I must think Apples to be the best Fruit.
Opinion is something wherein I go about to give Reason why
all the World should think as I think. Affection is a thing
wherein I look after the pleasing of myself.
'Tis a vain thing to talk of an Heretick; for a man for his
heart can think no otherwise than he does think. In the Primi-
tive times there were many Opinions, nothing scarce but some
or other held. One of these Opinions being embrac'd by some
Prince, and received into his Kingdom, the rest were Condemn'd
as Heresies; and his Religion, which was but one of the several
Opinions, first is said to be Orthodox, and so have continu'd ever
since the Apostles.
PEACE
THOUGH We had Peace, yet 'twill be a great while e'er things
be settled. Tho' the Wind lye, yet after a Storm the Sea will
work a great while.
PLEASURE
WHILST you are upon Earth enjoy the good things that are
here (to that end were they given), and be not melancholly, and
wish yourself in Heaven. If a King should give you the keeping
of a Castle, with all things belonging to it,—Orchards, Gardens,
etc. ,- and bid you use them; withal promise you that after
twenty years to remove you to Court, and to make you a Privy


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13108
JOHN SELDEN
Councillor, if you should neglect your Castle, and refuse to eat
of those fruits, and sit down, and whine, and wish you were a
Privy Councillor, do you think the King would be pleased with
you?
――――
PRAYER
"God hath given gifts unto men. General Texts prove noth-
ing: let him shew me John, William, or Thomas in the Text, and
then I will believe him. If a man hath a voluble Tongue, we
say, He hath the gift of Prayer. His gift is to pray long,— that
I see; but does he pray better?
We take care what we speak to men, but to God we may say
any thing.
Prayer should be short, without giving God Almighty Rea-
sons why he should grant this or that: he knows best what is
good for us. If your Boy should ask you a Suit of Cloaths, and
give you Reasons, "otherwise he cannot wait upon you, he cannot
go abroad, but he shall discredit you,” would you endure it? You
know it better than he: let him ask a Suit of Cloaths.
>>
PREACHING
THE main Argument why they would have two Sermons a
day, is, because they have two Meals a Day; the Soul must
be fed as well as the Body. But I may as well argue, I ought
to have two Noses because I have two Eyes, or two Mouths
because I have two Ears. What have Meals and Sermons to do
one with another?
PREFERMENT
WHEN the Pageants are a coming there's a great thrusting
and a riding upon one another's backs, to look out at the Win-
dow: stay a little, and they will come just to you; you may see
them quietly. So 'tis when a new Statesman or Officer is chosen:
there's great expectation and listening who it should be; stay a
while, and you may know quietly.
REASON
THE Reason of a Thing is not to be inquired after, till you
are sure the Thing it self be so. We commonly are at "What's


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JOHN SELDEN
13109
the Reason of it? " before we are sure of the Thing. 'Twas an
excellent Question of my Lady Cotten, when Sir Robert Cotten
was magnifying of a Shooe which was Moses's or Noah's, and
wondring at the strange Shape and Fashion of it: But Mr. Cot-
ten, says she, are you sure it is a Shooe?
RELIGION
MEN say they are of the same Religion for Quietness's sake;
but if the matter were well Examin'd, you would scarce find
Three any where of the same Religion in all Points.
Disputes in Religion will never be ended, because there wants
a Measure by which the Business would be decided. The Puri-
tan would be judged by the Word of God: if he would speak
clearly, he means himself, but he is ashamed to say so; and he
would have me believe him before a whole Church, that has
read the Word of God as well as he. One says one thing, and
another another; and there is, I say, no Measure to end the
Controversie. 'Tis just as if Two men were at Bowls, and both
judg'd by the Eye: one says 'tis his Cast, the other says 'tis
my Cast; and having no Measure, the Difference is Eternal.
Ben Jonson Satyrically express'd the vain Disputes of Divines
by Inigo Lanthorne, disputing with his Puppet in a Bartholomew
Fair: It is so; It is not so; It is so; It is not so,-crying thus
one to another a quarter of an Hour together.
'Tis to no purpose to labor to Reconcile Religions, when the
Interest of Princes will not suffer it. 'Tis well if they could be
Reconciled so far that they should not cut one another's Throats.
THANKSGIVING
AT FIRST We gave Thanks for every Victory as soon as ever
'twas obtained; but since we have had many now we can stay
a good while. We are just like a Child: give him a Plum, he
makes his Leg; give him a second Plum, he makes another Leg;
at last when his Belly is full, he forgets what he ought to do:
then his Nurse, or somebody else that stands by him, puts him
in mind of his Duty- Where's your Leg?


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13110
JOHN SELDEN
WIFE
HE THAT hath a handsome Wife, by other men is thought
happy; 'tis a pleasure to look upon her and be in her company:
but the Husband is cloy'd with her. We are never content with
what we have.
You shall see a Monkey sometime, that has been playing up
and down the Garden, at length leap up to the top of the Wall,
but his Clog hangs a great way below on this side; the Bishop's
Wife is like that Monkey's Clog,- himself is got up very high,
takes place of the Temporal Barons, but his wife comes a great
way behind.
'Tis reason
a man that will have a Wife should be at the
charge of her Trinkets, and pay all the scores she sets on him.
He that will keep a Monkey, 'tis fit he should pay for the
Glasses he breaks.
WISDOM
NEVER tell your Resolution before hand; but when the Cast is
thrown, Play it as well as you can to win the Game you are at.
'Tis but folly to study how to Play Size-ace, when you know not
whether you shall throw it or no.


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13111
ÉTIENNE PIVERT DE SENANCOUR
(1770-1846)
NE work of Senancour's has lived. The others- moral and
philosophical treatises, and one feeble novel, 'Isabelle,' writ-
ten in his old age as a sequel to his famous 'Obermann'-
are now forgotten. "But Obermann,>» says Matthew Arnold, "has
qualities which make it permanently valuable to kindred minds. "
Arnold himself, while suffering the spiritual isolation there portrayed,
did not go off alone to suffer; but did a great and practical work in
the world of men. Other noble minds have sympathized with Ober-
mann, among them George Sand and Sainte-Beuve; but for most
people, such writing, however noble and eloquent, must needs be
somewhat futile. It must after all be healthy instinct which guides
men as well as children to turn from abstractions to accounts of
positive achievement. Heroic action is far more thrilling than even
its prompting impulse, unfulfilled. It is so much more satisfactory
to receive some practical lesson in living, some stimulus to richer
sensation, than to be disheartened by the wailings of failure.
Senancour early showed a want of adaptability to existing social
conditions. He was born at Paris in November 1770, of a noble
family, to whom the Revolution brought ruin. Sickly from child-
hood, he was destined to the Church. Obliged by his father to enter
St. Sulpice, he rebelled against the monastic constraint, and aided by
his mother, escaped to Switzerland. There he married, and lived till
toward the end of the century; when, after his wife's death, he
returned to Paris.
'Obermann' appeared in 1804. It is a treatise on disillusion and
hopelessness, lacking in vitality; and although noble in tone, has not
been widely appreciated. It is less a novel than an exposition, in a
series of letters, of Senancour's own point of view. Obermann, the
hero, is Senancour in very slight disguise. He is "a man who does
not know what he is, what he likes, what he wants; who sighs with-
out cause; who desires without object; and who sees nothing except
that he is not in his place: in short, who drags himself through
empty space and in an infinite tumult of vexations. "
'Obermann' is valuable and interesting as a pathological study; as
a reflection of the spirit of revolt and discouragement which swept
over Europe, and spurred on Rousseau, Byron, and many others.


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13112
ÉTIENNE PIVERT DE SENANCOUR
Senancour strongly felt himself a product of his time. Voltairean
cynicism struggled in him with Rousseauesque sensibility,-the lat-
ter augmenting a longing to believe, while the former made faith
impossible. He had the terrible controlling self-consciousness which
prevented a moment's escape from his own unsatisfied desires. He
was too noble, too much of an idealist, to enjoy what was petty and
possible; but there are envious tones in Obermann, who sometimes
seems half to despise himself that he cannot do and feel like other
men.
The strong note of Senancour's character was an uncompromising
need of sincerity. He detested hypocrisy in himself and others. He
sought truth at the price of all pleasant illusion. His work evidences
Rousseau's influence; but unlike Rousseau, he never posed. His con-
fidences are genuinely unreserved. His constant unhappiness-as
George Sand pointed out in an appreciation which prefaces the later
editions of 'Obermann'. was caused by want of proportion between
his power of conception and his capacity to perform. He had a life-
long realization of failure. He was akin to Amiel, but less scholarly;
more emotional and less intellectual.
In love of nature he found perhaps his keenest satisfaction. He
is eloquent in description of the Alpine summits with their fair cold
austerity, and the pleasant valleys, the mountain streams, and the
green pastures, upon which he loved to look down.
Senancour was always oppressed by poverty. Forced to write
for his living for half a century, and unable to win favor, he fell into
want in his old age. His friends' efforts, especially those of Thiers
and Villemain, obtained for him a small pension from Louis Philippe,
which rendered him comfortable until his death at St. Cloud in 1846.
ALPINE SCENERY
From Obermann'
IMA
MAGINE a plain of white and limpid water. It is vast but
circumscribed; in shape oblong and somewhat circular, it
stretches toward the winter sunset. From lofty summits,
majestic chains close it in on three sides. You are seated on
the slope of the mountain, above the northern strand which the
waves alternately quit and then recover. Perpendicular rocks
are behind you. They rise to the region of clouds. The sad
polar wind has never breathed upon this happy shore. At your
left open the mountains: a tranquil valley stretches along their


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ÉTIENNE PIVERT DE SENANCOUR
13113
depths; a torrent descending from snowy summits closes it; and
when the morning sun shines on the mists between the frozen
peaks, when voices from the mountains indicate châlets above
the meadows still in shadow, it is the awakening of primitive
earth, it is a monument of our destinies ignored!
Behold the first nocturnal moments, the hour of repose and
sublime sadness. The valley is hazy, it begins to grow dark.
Toward noon, the lake is in night. The rocks surrounding it
are a shadowy belt under the icy dome which surmounts them,
and which seems to retain the daylight in its rime. Its last fires
gild the numerous chestnut-trees on the wild rocks: they pass
in long rays under the lofty spires of the Alpine pines, they bur-
nish the mountains, they illume the snows, they kindle the air;
and the waveless water, glowing with light and blending with the
heavens, becomes infinite like them, and still purer, more ethe-
real, more beautiful. Its calm astonishes, its limpidity deceives,
the airy splendor it reflects seems to penetrate its depths; and
under these mountains, separated from the globe, and as it were
suspended in space, you find at your feet the emptiness of heaven.
and the immensity of the world. Then there is a time of illus-
ion and oblivion. You no longer know where the sky is, where
the mountains are, nor where you stand. You no longer find a
level; there is no longer a horizon. Your ideas change, your
sensations are novel, you have emerged from common life. And
when the darkness has covered this valley of water, when the
eye no longer discerns objects or distances, when the evening
wind has raised the waves,-then the end of the lake toward
the sunset is illumined by a pale light, but all that the mount-
ains surround is only an indistinguishable gulf. And in the
midst of darkness and silence, you hear, a thousand feet below,
the rhythmic cadence of the ceaseless waves which tremble on
the beach at regular intervals, are swallowed up in the rocks, and
break against the wall with a sound which echoes like a long
murmur in the invisible abyss.
It is in sounds that nature has placed the strongest expres-
sion of the romantic character. Especially by the sense of hear-
ing we receive strongly, and in a few touches, the realization
of extraordinary places and things. Odors produce quick and
immense but vague perceptions; those of sight seem to affect
the mind rather than the heart: we admire what we see, but we
feel what we hear. The voice of a beloved woman is still more
――――


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13114
ÉTIENNE PIVERT DE SENANCOUR
beautiful than her features. The sounds which render places
sublime make an impression profounder and more durable than
is created by their forms. I have never seen a picture of the
Alps which made them as truly present to me as the Alpine air
itself.
The Ranz des Vaches' does not merely recall memories, it
paints.
I know that Rousseau has said the contrary, but I think
he was mistaken. This is not an imaginary effect: it happened
that as two persons were glancing over the Tableaux Pitto-
resques de la Suisse' [Picturesque Views of Switzerland], both
said at sight of the Grimsel, "There is the spot to hear the 'Ranz
des Vaches. " If expressed with truth rather than skill, if he
who plays it feels it deeply, the first sounds take us to the high
valleys, under the bare reddish-gray rocks, under the cold sky,
under the burning sun. You are on the top of the rounding
summits covered with pastures. You realize the slowness of
things, and the grandeur of the place. There is the slow march
of the cows and the measured movement of their great bells,
near the clouds, in the gently sloping stretch from the crests of
immovable granite to the ruined granite of the snowy ravines.
The winds shiver austerely in the distant larches; you discern the
rolling of a torrent in the precipices where it has been excavat-
ing for long centuries. To these sounds isolated in the space,
succeed the hurried heavy accents of the küheren [the men who
lead the cows to the high pastures and care for them there];
nomad expression of a pleasure without gayety,—of a mountain
joy. The songs cease. The men are going away; the bells have
passed the larches; you hear nothing but the shock of falling
pebbles, and the interrupted fall of trees pushed toward the val-
ley by the torrent. The wind intensifies or holds back these
Alpine sounds; and when you lose them, all seems cold, dead,
and motionless. It is the domain of the man who feels no eager-
ness. He comes out from under the broad low roof which is
assured against tempests by heavy stones. If the sun is burning,
if the wind is strong, if the thunder is rolling under his feet,
he does not know it. He goes where the cows should be: they
are there. He calls them: they gather together, they approach
one after another; and he returns with the same slowness, loaded
with the milk destined for the plains he will not know. The
cows stop; they chew the cud. There is no visible movement,
there are no more men. The air is cold, the wind has ceased


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ÉTIENNE PIVERT DE SENANCOUR
13115
with the evening light; there remain only the gleam of the
ancient snows and the fall of waters, the wild murmur of which,
rising from the depths, seems to add to the silent permanence of
the glaciers, the lofty summits, and the night.
CONDITIONS OF HAPPINESS
-
From Obermann'
FONTAINEBLEAU, August 7.
M
ONSIEUR W, whom you know, said lately: "While I take
my cup of coffee I put all the world in order. " I too
permit myself similar dreams; and when I walk on the
heaths among the junipers still wet, I sometimes surprise myself
imagining men happy. I assure you, it seems to me they might
be. I do not wish to create another species or another globe.
I do not wish to reform everything. Such hypotheses lead to
nothing, you will say, since they are not applicable to anything
known. Very well: let us take what necessarily exists; let us
take it as it is, and only arrange what is accidental therein.
do not desire new or chimerical species; but behold my materials,
with them I will make my plan according to my thought.
I
I desire two things certain: a fixed climate, true men. If I
knew when the rain would cause the waters to overflow, when
the sun would dry up my plants, when the hurricane would shake
my dwelling, my industry would have to fight against the nat-
ural forces opposed to my needs; but when I am ignorant of the
moment anything will happen, when the evil oppresses me with-
out the danger having warned me, when prudence may destroy
me, and when the interests of others confided to my precautions
forbid unconcern and even security,- is it not necessary that my
life should be anxious and unhappy? Is it not true that inaction
succeeds forced labor, and that, as Voltaire has so well said, I
consume all my days in convulsions of disquiet or in the leth-
argy of weariness?
If men nearly all dissimulate, if the duplicity of a part forces
others at least to be reserved, does it not follow necessarily that
they augment the inevitable harm which many for their own ben-
efit do to others, with a much greater mass of needless injuries?
Does it not follow that people harm each other reciprocally in
spite of themselves, that each is eying the other, that each is


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13116
ÉTIENNE PIVERT DE SENANCOUR
prejudiced, that enemies are inventive and friends are cautious?
Does it not follow that an honest man is ruined in public opinion
by an indiscreet suggestion, by a false judgment; that an enmity
born of an ill-founded suspicion becomes mortal; that those who
would have liked to do right are discouraged; that false princi-
ples are established; that cunning is more useful than wisdom,
courage, magnanimity; that children reproach their father for not
having committed a trickery, and that States perish from not
committing a crime? In this perpetual uncertainty, I ask what
becomes of morality; and in the uncertainty of all things, what
becomes of surety? Without surety, without morality, I ask if
happiness is not a child's dream?
The moment of death should remain unknown. There is no
evil without duration; and for twenty other reasons death should
not be put in the number of misfortunes. It is well to ignore
when all must finish: one rarely begins what may not be con-
cluded. I think then that with man about what he is, ignorance
as to the length of life is more useful than embarrassing; but the
uncertainty of the things of life is not like that of their duration.
An incident that you could not foresee deranges your plan, and
prepares you long vexations. As for death, it annihilates your
plan, it does not derange it: you will not suffer from what you
do not know. The plan of those who remain may be thwarted,
but to be certain about one's own affairs is to have certainty
enough; and I do not wish to imagine things altogether good
according to man. I should doubt the world I am arranging if
it did not contain more evil, and I cannot suppose perfect har-
mony except with a kind of fright. It seems to me that nature
does not admit of it.
A fixed climate, and above all, men who are true, inevitably
true, these suffice me. I am happy if I understand things. I
leave to the sky its storms and thunderbolts; to the earth its wet
and dry; to the soil its sterility; to our bodies their weakness
and degeneration; to men their differences and incompatibilities,
their inconstancy, their errors, even their vices and their necessary
egoism; to time its slowness and irrevocability: my city is happy
if everything is ruled, if thoughts are known. It needs only a
good legislation; and if thoughts are known, it cannot fail to have
one.
―――――――


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ÉTIENNE PIVERT DE SENANCOUR
13117
OBERMANN'S ISOLATION
From Obermann ›
WISH I had a trade: it would animate my arms and tranquil-
lize my head. A talent would not do this; yet if I knew
how to paint, I think I should be less unquiet. I have long
been in a stupor; I am sorry to have waked. I was in a de-
pression more tranquil than actual depression.
Of all the rapid and uncertain moments when I have thought
in my simplicity that one was on this earth to live, none have
left me such profound remembrances as those twenty days of
forgetfulness and hope, when, about the period of the March
equinox, near the torrent before the rocks, between the happy
hyacinth and the simple violet, I imagined it would be given me
to love.
I was touching what I could never seize. Without inclina-
tions, without hope, I might have been able to vegetate, bored
but tranquil. I had a presentiment of human energy, but in
my shadowy life I endured my sleep. What sinister force opened
the world to me, and thus removed the consolations of nothing-
ness?
Drawn into an expansive activity, eager to love all, to sustain
all, to console all; ever struggling between a need of seeing
a change in many sad things and a conviction that no change
will occur,- I am wearied with the evils of life, and still more
indignant at the perfidious seduction of pleasure; my eyes always
arrested by the immense heap of hatreds, iniquities, opprobriums,
and miseries upon this misguided earth.
And I! I am in my twenty-seventh year: the fine days are
over, I did not even see them. Unhappy in the age of happi-
ness, what can I expect of other ages? I spent in emptiness and
weariness the happy season of confidence and hope. Everywhere
oppressed, suffering, my heart empty and torn, I have attained
while still young the regrets of old age. Accustomed to see all
the flowers of life shrivel under my sterile steps, I am like those
old men from whom everything has escaped; but more unhappy
than they, I have lost all long before my own end.
With my
ardent spirit I cannot rest in this silence of death.
What places were ever to me what they are to other men?
What times were tolerable, and under what skies did I find
repose of heart? I have seen the stir of towns, the emptiness of
country places, and the austerity of mountains. I have seen the
•


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ÉTIENNE PIVERT DE SENANCOUR
grossness of ignorance and the torment of the arts. I have seen
the useless virtues, the indifferent successes, and all good things
lost in evil things; man and fate always unequal, ceaselessly
deceiving themselves; and in the mad struggle of all the pas-
sions, the odious conqueror receiving as price of his triumph the
heaviest link of the ills it has caused.
If man were adapted to unhappiness, I should pity him far
less; and considering his transitory duration, I should despise for
him as for myself the torment of a day. But all good things sur-
round him; all his faculties bid him enjoy, all say to him, “Be
happy" and man has said, "Happiness shall be for the brute:
art, science, glory, grandeur, shall be for me. " His mortality, his
griefs, his crimes themselves, are but the slightest part of his
wretchedness. I deplore his losses,- calm, choice, union, tran-
quil possession. I deplore a hundred years that millions of sen-
tient beings have wasted in anxiety and restrictions, in the midst
of what would make security, liberty, joy; living with bitterness
upon a voluptuous earth, because they have desired imaginary
and exclusive good things.
However, all that amounts to very little. I did not witness it
half a century ago, and in half a century more I shall see it no
longer.
I said to myself: If it was not part of my destiny to recall
to primordial morals an isolated circumscribed land, if I ought to
force myself to forget the world, and think myself happy enough
in obtaining tolerable days upon this deluded earth,- then I
would ask but one favor, one spirit in that dream from which I no
longer wish to awaken. There rests upon earth, such as it is, an
illusion which can still deceive me; it is the only one. I would
have the wisdom to be deceived by it: the rest is not worth an
effort. This is what I said then; but chance alone could grant
me the inestimable mistake. Chance is slow and uncertain: life
rapid and irrevocable, its springtime passes; and this unsatisfied
craving, by wasting my life, must finally alienate my heart and
change my nature. Sometimes already I feel myself growing sour:
I become angry, my affections narrow; impatience makes my will
fierce, and a kind of contempt bears me toward great but aus-
tere designs. However, this bitterness does not endure in all its
force: afterward I abandon myself as if I felt that distracted
men, and uncertain things, and my life so short, did not merit a
day's uneasiness, and that a severe awakening is useless when
one must soon sleep forever.


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13119
700
SENECA
(ABOUT 4 B. C. –65 A. D. )
HE greatest of Christian evangelists was haunted by the awful
dread lest, while he pointed out to others the path to bliss,
he himself "should become a castaway. " The most fluent,
tolerant, and persuasive of Roman ethical teachers, Seneca, demon-
strated by his tragic failure in the trying crises of his life, how hard
it was to be brave, consistent, or even free from crime, under the
mad despotism of a Caligula, a Claudius, and a Nero.
At Cordova there is still shown a ruined villa bearing by tradition
the name "House of Seneca. " In Spain, then, the native land of so
many Roman scholars and authors, the great philosopher's father
was born. The race was already wealthy, and enjoyed the privileges
of Roman knighthood. The father was at least a devoted amateur
student of rhetoric, and endowed with a memory as phenomenal as
Macaulay's. After once hearing a speech of several thousand words,
he could easily repeat it verbatim. He knew the world-city well, for
he had repeatedly heard all the orators and pleaders since Cicero.
Still, especially after his rather late marriage, he seems to have pre-
ferred more and more the security and quiet of his estates in Spain.
The two books by the elder Seneca of which we hear, were prob-
ably both undertaken largely for the education of his three sons.
His history of the civil wars and the early empire is wholly lost.
We are told that in a general preface he compared the earlier epochs
in the development of the State to the stages of human life. This
comparison itself has a certain pedagogical sound. His other work,
extant in a fragmentary form, is chiefly made up of quotations from
the noted rhetoricians he had heard, taking both sides in a series of
very academic Adversaria, or subjects for debate, such as- "Should
Leonidas retreat from Thermopyla ? » "Should Cicero beg his life
from Antony? " etc. , etc. In his prefaces to the various books the
elder Seneca shows a pleasing wit, an unexpectedly pure Latin style,
- and his prodigious memory.
―
The three sons already mentioned are memorable for very differ-
ent reasons. The youngest, Mela, was merely the father of the poet
Lucan, whose brief life ended in utter ignominy and cowardice, drag-
ging his parents down with him.
The eldest of the trio was adopted by his father's friend Gallio.
Under that name he has enjoyed an unwelcome fame among Christians,


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SENECA
as the Roman governor of Greece who "cared for none of these
things" (Acts, xviii. 12-17). As to the strife between the old Hebrew
Paul of Tarsus and his fellow Jews, or even as to street brawls in
Corinth, though the Greeks mobbed and beat the Israelitish high priest
before the very judgment-seat of the Prætor, Gallio of course main-
tained the indifference and contempt shown by the typical Roman
aristocrat toward all quarrels among the subject races of the empire.
Canon Farrar reminds us effectively how trifling and soon forgotten
this incident was to the man who was destined to be remembered
chiefly thereby, and not by his famous brother's loving words: "No
mortal was ever so sweet (dulcis) to any one as he was to all men. ",
The greatest man of the race, however, the most brilliant lit-
erary figure of three imperial reigns,— was the second son, Lucius
Annæus Seneca, like his father a native of Corduba. Born shortly
before the Christian era, and always of a delicate and sickly constitu-
tion, he devoted himself, not like his kinsmen chiefly to rhetoric, but
rather to philosophy. The Stoic school was far more sympathetic to
Roman character than its only powerful rival, the sect of Epicurus.
With these devotees to duty rather than to pleasure as the chief end
of life, Seneca associated himself. He also had a strong regard for
the Cynics, whose school may be regarded as the superlative degree —
or as the reductio ad absurdum-of Stoicism. But it is a pleasing
trait in this genial and tolerant nature, that he saw too how nearly
Epicurus himself and his austerest followers had, arrived by a dif-
ferent road at the same ethical goal. Indeed, in Rome at any rate,
such commonplaces as the uncertainty of all prosperity, or the duty
of meeting calamity with fortitude, needed in those evil days no
instiller save the demoniacal caprice of "Cæsar," and the insatiate
cruelty and greed of countless satellites, informers, and spies.
Such lessons Seneca has left us in a hundred sermons,- under
which general title we may include nearly all his epistles, the
avowed essays, and the "dialogues," which narrow to monologues as
inevitably as a Ciceronian treatise or a poem of Wordsworth. The
themes are few, and not often new; the illustrations, epigrams,
tropes, disguise the monotony and obviousness of the thought. As
Quintilian sternly says, the style is an essentially vicious one, and
doubly dangerous because its errors are clothed in brilliant beauty.
The tendency of Seneca is constantly to put manner above matter,
to hide familiar and undisputed truth under striking and picturesque
ornament.
This advocate of contented poverty was the wealthiest and most
profuse of courtiers. He assured his disciples that contentment abides
only in the huts of humility,- and entertained them at five hundred
splendid tables of cedar and ivory. Such inconsistency, indeed, he


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SENECA
13121
frankly confesses; bidding us follow rather his aspirations and future
intentions than his present example.
The very prominence of Seneca's position exposed him to yet
more deadly perils and temptations. His youthful successes as an
advocate exposed him to the dangerous jealousy of Caligula, who
was only mollified by the assurance that the feeble consumptive was
already at death's door. Promptly banished by the next emperor,
Claudius, Seneca for eight years (41-49 A. D. ) languished an exile in
Corsica. Thence he addressed to the dissolute freedman Polybius,
favorite of the half-witted tyrant Claudius, the most fulsome flatteries
intended for the ears of both. One of the great philosophic treat-
ises On Consolation' is nominally written to condole with this arch-
villain upon the death of a brother. The long-prayed-for return to
Rome came at last through the infamous Agrippina, when she had
destroyed her imperial rival, and begun her lifelong machinations
for the advancement of her ungrateful son, the future emperor Nero.
Of this precocious monster Seneca became the guardian or tutor.
Whether the sage connived at the murder of the emperor Claudius
(54 A. D. ), is an insoluble problem of court scandal. He did not
denounce the guilty, and he shared the fruits of the crime. He
even composed and read, to amuse his pupil and the guilty queen
mother, a heartless and irreverent account of Claudius's reception
and condemnation in the world of the dead. This is the same Clau-
dius who was so extolled and flattered in the 'De Consolatione ad
Polybium'!
Nero in the first five years of his reign gave some promise of
statesmanlike development and a juster balance of character. Doubt-
less for the best acts of this period his mentor deserves the chief
credit. While his fellow guardian, the sturdy Burrus, lived to con-
trol the turbulent prætorian guards, Seneca was as secure in his
position as he can be who draws his breath by the permission of a
young tyrant with madness in his blood, bred to folly and self-
indulgence. The culminating horror in Nero's lurid reign is of course
the monarch's assassination of his own mother, whose worst crimes
had been committed in the son's interest. After condoning at least,
and justifying as a political necessity, this awful deed, Seneca himself
must have felt that his pulpit should be vacated. He soon realized
that his only hope of life was in the abdication of all authority, the
"voluntary" proffer of his wealth to the young emperor, and a
prompt retirement to Cordova or some equally remote retreat. Even
this path he found blocked. Accused of treason, he was commanded
to put an end to his own life. Thus set face to face with the
inevitable, Seneca offered the usual example of a philosophic death
(an example, by the way, which his pupil Nero, almost alone among
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13122
SENECA
eminent Romans, failed to follow). This was in 65 A. D. His wife
attempted to share his fate, and was rescued against her will.
There are numberless pleasing traits in Seneca's character. In-
deed, it is much the same here as with his literary style. The cen-
tral motive we may be forced to condemn, yet a hundred charming
touches lend to it a dangerous attractiveness. He loved power,
wealth, glory; and to them sacrificed his own approval and his after
fame. But he was faithful to all the ties of human friendship, in a
century when betrayal and ghastly selfishness were inbred in most
men. Especially in his love for children, and his delight in them, he
is almost un-Roman. In many of his educational and social doctrines
he is surprisingly in advance of his age. And after all, the errors of
his life are largely inferred rather than proven,- and certainly have
long since ceased to do harm. Many of his ethical doctrines are of
so lofty a nature that he has actually been recognized by popes and
councils as at least in part an authority for Christian doctrine.
Perhaps to the same cause we may attribute the well-invented but
baseless legend that Seneca was in correspondence, and even on
terms of personal friendship, with the apostle Paul, during his two
years' imprisonment in Rome. Seneca, like the other Romans of his
day, made no distinction between the Christians and the other sects
of the "most detestable" Jews. Indeed, he never mentions the new
sect by name. When Seneca's brother Gallio refused to hear Paul
speak in his own defense, the opportunity for personal influence of
the great apostle upon that gifted and haughty family undoubtedly
passed by forever.
Most of Seneca's prose works we have already characterized.
There is indeed one series of essays, in which he attempts to dis-
cuss the laws and phenomena of the physical world. Based of course
upon the Ptolemaic system, these books had much influence through-
out the Middle Ages, but have become mere curiosities in the broader
daylight of modern science.
The mocking satire upon the dead Claudius is written partly in
prose and partly in verse; and so may be classed as an example of
"Menippean" satire. Most of Seneca's other poetic productions have
perished.
An important exception to the last statement must probably be
made, in that ten tragedies have been handed down to us under his
name. Composed long after the decay of drama, rhetorical and
bombastic, unsuited to our ideas of scenic effect, these have neverthe-
less an extreme interest and importance, as the only specimens of
serious Roman drama still extant. The Octavia' in particular, a har-
rowing tragedy of contemporary court life under Nero, is absolutely
unique. It contains, however, unmistakable allusions to the manner
I


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SENECA
13123
of Nero's death; and must therefore be from the hand of some sur-
vivor of both teacher and pupil. The other nine all bear Greek titles;
and like the Roman comedies which we possess, are no doubt rather
adaptations than creative work.
The complete prose works of Seneca in Latin are excellently
edited in the Teubner text. There is also a satisfactory edition of
the tragedies by Leo. He is not an author who demands elaborate
annotation. There is no satisfactory translation in English of recent
date. Two volumes have been contributed within a few years to the
Bohn Library by Aubrey Stewart, M. A.