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the contrary, from the very circumstance that I thought to doubt
of the truth of other things, it most clearly and certainly fol-
lowed that I was; while on the other hand, if I had only ceased
to think, although all the other objects which I had ever im-
agined had been in reality existent, I would have had no reason
to believe that I existed; I thence concluded that I was a sub-
stance whose whole essence or nature consists only in thinking,
and which, that it may exist, has need of no place, nor is
dependent on any material thing; so that "I"-that is to say,
the mind by which I am what I am-is wholly distinct from
the body, and is even more easily known than the latter, and is
such that although the latter were not, it would still continue to
be all that it is.
After this I inquired in general into what is essential to the
truth and certainty of a proposition; for since I had discovered.
one which I knew to be true, I thought that I must likewise be
able to discover the ground of this certitude. And as I observed
that in the words "I think, hence I am," there is nothing at all
which gives me assurance of their truth beyond this, that I see
very clearly that in order to think it is necessary to exist,—I con-
cluded that I might take, as a general rule, the principle that all
the things which we very clearly and distinctly conceive are true;
only observing however that there is some difficulty in rightly
determining the objects which we distinctly conceive.
In the next place, from reflecting on the circumstance that I
doubted, and that consequently my being was not wholly perfect
(for I clearly saw that it was a greater perfection to know than
to doubt), I was led to inquire whence I had learned to think of
something more perfect than myself; and I clearly recognized
that I must hold this notion from some Nature which in reality
was more perfect. As for the thoughts of many other objects
external to me, as of the sky, the earth, light, heat, and a thou-
sand more, I was less at a loss to know whence these came; for
since I remarked in them nothing which seemed to render them
superior to myself, I could believe that if these were true, they
were dependences on my own nature in so far as it possessed a
certain perfection; and if they were false, that I held them from
nothing,— that is to say, that they were in me because of a cer-
tain imperfection of my nature. But this could not be the case
with the idea of a Nature more perfect than myself: for to re-
ceive it from nothing was a thing manifestly impossible; and


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4592
because it is not less repugnant that the more perfect should be
an effect of and dependence on the less perfect, than that some-
thing should proceed from nothing, it was equally impossible
that I could hold it from myself: accordingly it but remained
that it had been placed in me by a Nature which was in reality
more perfect than mine, and which even possessed within itself
all the perfections of which I could form any idea,- that is to
say, in a single word, which was God.
the
I was disposed straightway to search for other truths; and
when I had represented to myself the object of the geometers,
which I conceived to be a continuous body, or a space indefi-
nitely extended in length, breadth, and height or depth, divisible
into divers parts which admit of different figures and sizes, and
of being moved or transposed in all manner of ways (for all this
the geometers suppose to be in the object they contemplate), I
went over some of their simplest demonstrations. And in
first place, I observed that the great certitude which by common
consent is accorded to these demonstrations is founded solely
upon this, that they are clearly conceived in accordance with the
rules I have already laid down. In the next place, I perceived
that there was nothing at all in these demonstrations which could
assure me of the existence of their object: thus, for example,
supposing a triangle to be given, I distinctly perceived that
three angles were necessarily equal to two right angles, but I did
not on that account perceive anything which could assure
that any triangle existed; while on the contrary, recurring to the
examination of the idea of a Perfect Being, I found that the
existence of the Being was comprised in the idea in the same
way that the equality of its three angles to two right angles is
comprised in the idea of a triangle, or as in the idea of a sphere,
the equidistance of all points on its surface from the centre,
even still more clearly; and that consequently it is at least
certain that God, who is this Perfect Being, is, or exists, as
demonstration of geometry can be.
its
Ine
or
as
any


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4593
――――
THE IDEA OF GOD
From the Meditations >
THER
HERE only remains, therefore, the idea of God, in which I
must consider whether there is anything that cannot be
supposed to originate with myself. By the name God I
understand a substance infinite, eternal, immutable, independent,
all-knowing, all-powerful, and by which I myself, and every other
thing that exists, if any such there be,-were created. But
these properties are so great and excellent, that the more atten-
tively I consider them, the less I feel persuaded that the idea I
have of them owes its origin to myself alone. And thus it is
absolutely necessary to conclude, from all that I have before
said, that God exists; for though the idea of substance be in my
mind owing to this,- that I myself am a substance,-I should
not however have the idea of an infinite substance, seeing I am
a finite being, unless it were given me by some substance in
reality infinite.
And I must not imagine that I do not apprehend the infinite
by a true idea, but only by the negation of the finite, in the
same way that I comprehend repose and darkness by the nega-
tion of motion and light: since, on the contrary, I clearly perceive
that there is more reality in the infinite substance than in the
finite, and therefore that in some way I possess the perception
(notion) of the infinite before that of the finite, that is, the per-
ception of God before that of myself; for how could I know that
I doubt, desire, or that something is wanting to me, and that I
am not wholly perfect, if I possessed no idea of a being more
perfect than myself, by comparison with which I knew the
deficiencies of my nature?
And it cannot be said that this idea of God is perhaps ma-
terially false, and consequently that it may have arisen from
nothing (in other words, that it may exist in me from my im-
perfection), as I before said of the ideas of heat and cold, and
the like; for on the contrary, as this idea is very clear and dis-
tinct, and contains in itself more objective reality than any other,
there can be no one of itself more true, or less open to the
suspicion of falsity.
The idea, I say, of a being supremely perfect and infinite, is
in the highest degree true; for although perhaps we may imagine
VIII-288


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RENÉ DESCARTES
4594
that such a being does not exist, we nevertheless cannot suppose
that this idea represents nothing real, as I have already said
of the idea of cold. It is likewise clear and distinct in the high-
est degree, since whatever the mind clearly and distinctly con-
ceives as real or true, and as implying any perfection, is
contained entire in this idea. And this is true, nevertheless,
although I do not comprehend the infinite, and although there
may be in God an infinity of things that I cannot comprehend,
nor perhaps even compass by thought in any way; for it is of
the nature of the infinite that it should not be comprehended by
the finite and it is enough that I rightly understand this, and
judge that all which I clearly perceive, and in which I know
there is some perfection, and perhaps also an infinity of proper-
ties of which I am ignorant, are formally or eminently in God,
in order that the idea I have of him may become the most true,
clear, and distinct of all the ideas in my mind.
But perhaps I am something more than I suppose myself to
be; and it may be that all those perfections which I attribute to
God in some way exist potentially in me, although they do not
yet show themselves and are not reduced to act. Indeed, I am
already conscious that my knowledge is being increased and per-
fected by degrees; and I see nothing to prevent it from thus
gradually increasing to infinity, nor any reason why, after such
increase and perfection, I should not be able thereby to acquire
all the other perfections of the Divine nature; nor in fine, why
the power I possess of acquiring those perfections, if it really
now exist in me, should not be sufficient to produce the ideas of
them. Yet on looking more closely into the matter I discover
that this cannot be; for in the first place, although it were true
that my knowledge daily acquired new degrees of perfection, and
although there were potentially in my nature much that was not
as yet actually in it, still all these excellences make not the
slightest approach to the idea I have of the Deity, in whom
there is no perfection merely potentially, but all actually exist-
ent; for it is even an unmistakable token of imperfection in my
knowledge, that it is augmented by degrees. Further, although
my knowledge increase more and more, nevertheless I am not
therefore induced to think that it will ever be actually infinite,
since it can never reach that point beyond which it shall be
incapable of further increase. But I conceive God as actually
infinite, so that nothing can be added to his perfection.
And in


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RENÉ DESCARTES
4595
fine, I readily perceive that the objective being of an idea cannot
be produced by a being that is merely potentially existent,-
which properly speaking is nothing, but only a being existing
formally or actually.
And truly, I see nothing in all that I have now said which it
is not easy for any one who shall carefully consider it, to dis-
cern by the natural light; but when I allow my attention in
some degree to relax, the vision of my mind being obscured and
as it were blinded by the images of sensible objects, I do not
readily remember the reason why the idea of a being more per-
fect than myself must of necessity have proceeded from a being
in reality more perfect. On this account I am here desirous to
inquire further whether I, who possess this idea of God, could
exist supposing there were no God. And I ask, from whom
could I in that case derive my existence? Perhaps from myself,
or from my parents, or from some other causes less perfect than
God; for anything more perfect, or even equal to God, cannot be
thought or imagined. But if I were independent of every other
existence, and were myself the author of my being, I should
doubt of nothing, I should desire nothing, and in fine, no per-
fection would be wanting to me; for I should have bestowed
upon myself every perfection of which I possess the idea, and I
should thus be God. And it must not be imagined that what is
now wanting to me is perhaps of more difficult acquisition than
that of which I am already possessed; for on the contrary, it is
quite manifest that it was a matter of much higher difficulty
that I, a thinking being, should arise from nothing, than it
would be for me to acquire the knowledge of many things of
which I am ignorant, and which are merely the accidents of a
thinking substance; and certainly, if I possessed of myself the
greater perfection of which I have now spoken,-in other words,
if I were the author of my own existence,-I would not at least
have denied to myself things that may be more easily obtained,
as that infinite variety of knowledge of which I am at present
destitute. I could not indeed have denied to myself any prop-
erty which I perceive is contained in the idea of God, because
there is none of these that seems to be more difficult to make
or acquire; and if there were any that should happen to be
more difficult to acquire, they would certainly appear so to me
(supposing that I myself were the source of the other things I
possess), because I should discover in them a limit to my power.


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4596
PAUL DESJARDINS
BY GRACE KING
HAT a man stands for, in the life and literature of his day, is
easily enough estimated when his name passes current in
his language for a hitherto undesignated shade of meaning.
One of the most acute and sensitive of contemporary French critics,
M. Jules Lemaître, in an article on an evolutionary phase in modern
literature, expresses its significant characteristic to be - "L'idéal de
vie intérieure, la morale absolue, si je puis m'exprimer ainsi, le
Desjardinisme" (The ideal of spiritual life, absolute morality,- if
I may so express myself, Desjardinism). The term, quickly appro-
priated by another French critic, and one of the remarkable women
of letters of her day,- the late Baronne Blaze de Bury,—is literally
interpreted as "summing up whatever is highest and purest and
of most rare attainment in the idealism of the present hour. " And
she further, with the intuition of her sex, feeling a pertinent ques-
tion before it is put, singles out the vital germ of difference which
distinguishes this young writer as typical of the idealism of the
hour, and makes him its name-giver:-"What is in other men the
indirect and hidden source of their public acts, is in Paul Desjardins
the direct source of life itself - the life to be lived; and also of the
mode in which that life is to be conceived and to be made apparent
to the world. " Of the life, "sincerity is its prime virtue. Each
leader proves his faith by his individual conduct, as by his judgments
on events and men. The pure passion of abstract thought fires each
to do the best that is his to do. His life is to be the word-for-word
translation of his own spirit. "
The death-bed repentance of a century, born skeptical, re ared
decadent, and professing practical materialism; the conversion of a
literature from the pure passion of the senses to the pure passion
of abstract thought; the assumption of an apostolic mission by jour-
nalists, novelists, playwrights, college professors, and scientific mas-
ters, will doubtless furnish the century to come with one of its
most curious and interesting fields of study. It is an episode in evo-
lution which may indeed be termed dramatic, this fifth act of the
nineteenth-century epic of France, or it might be called, of Paris;
the story of its pilgrimage from revolution to evolution. M. Melchior
de Voguë, himself one of the apostles of the new life, or of the new
-


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PAUL DESJARDINS
4597
work in the old life, of France, describes the preparation of the
national soil for the growth of Desjardinism. He says:-
"The French children who were born just before 1870 grew up in an
atmosphere of patriotic mourning and amidst the discouragement of defeat.
National life, such as it became reconstituted after that terrible shock, re-
vealed to them on all sides nothing but abortive hopes, paltry struggles of
interest, and a society without any other hierarchy but that of money, and
without other principle or ideal than the pursuit of material enjoyment.
Literature
reflected these same tendencies; it was dejected or vile,
and distressed the heart by its artistic dryness or disgusted it by its trivial
realism. Science itself .
began to appear to many what it is in reality,
namely, a means, not an end; its prestige declined and its infallibility was
questioned.
Above all, it was clear from too evident social symptoms
that if science can satisfy some very distinguished minds, it can do nothing
to moralize and discipline societies.
«For a hundred years after the destruction of the religious and political
dogmas of the past, France had lived as best she could on some few fragile
dogmas, which had in their turn been consecrated by a naïve superstition;
these dogmas were the principles of 1789 — the almightiness of reason, the
efficacy of absolute liberty, the sovereignty of the people—in a word, the
whole credo of the revolution.
In order to shake that faith [in these
principles] . . it was necessary that human reason, proclaimed infalli-
ble, should turn its arms against itself. And that is what happened. Scien-
tific criticism, after having ruined old dogmatism,
made as short
work of the revolutionary legend as of the monarchical one, and showed itself
as pitiless for the rights of man as it had been for the rights of God. All
these causes combined, sufficiently explain the nihilism and pessimism which
invaded the souls of the young during the past ten years.
Clear-
sighted boys analyzed life with a vigor and a precision unknown to their pred-
ecessors; having analyzed it, they found it bad; they turned away from life
with fear and horror. There was heard from the peaks of intelligence a great
cry of discouragement: 'Beware, of deceitful nature; fear life, emancipate
yourselves from life! ' This cry was first uttered by the masters of con-
temporary thought,-. Schopenhauer, a Taine, a Tolstoy; below them, thou-
sands of humbler voices repeat it in chorus. According to each one's turn of
mind, the new philosophy assumed shades different in appearance — Buddhist
nirvana, atheistic nihilism, mystic asceticism; but all these theories proceeded
from the same sentiment, and all these doctrines may be reduced to the
same formula:-'Let us depreciate life, let us escape from its snares. »»
·
·
Paul Desjardins, by name and family, belongs to the old bourgeoisie
of France, that reserve force of Gallic virtue to which the French
people always look for help in political and moral crises. Like most
of the young men of distinction in the French world of letters, he
combines professional and literary work; he is professor of rhetoric
at the College of St. Stanislas in Paris, and a member of the brilliant
editorial staff of the Journal des Débats. Paris offered to his grasp


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4598
PAUL DESJARDINS
(
her same old choice of subjects, to his eye the same aspects of life.
which form her one freehold for all artists, and he had but the
instrument of his guild-his pen; the series of his collected contri-
butions to journals and magazines bear a no more distinctive title
than the hackneyed one of 'Notes Contemporaines,' but the sub-titles
betray at once the trend of originality: 'Great Souls and Little
Lives,' The Obscure Ones,' 'Companions of the New Life'; and in
the treatment of these subjects, and especially in his sketches of
character and critical essays upon the literature of his day, Desjar-
dins's originality resolves itself more and more clearly into spiritual-
ity of thought, expressed in an incorruptible simplicity of style. To
quote from Madame de Bury again:— "One of the chief character-
istics of Paul Desjardins's utterances is their total disinterestedness,
their absolute detachment from self. Nowhere else have you the
same indescribable purity, the same boundless generosity of joy in
others' good, the same pervading altruism. "
These writings were the expression of a mind on a journey, a
quest,—not of any one definite mind, for so completely has the per-
sonality of the author been subdued to his mission, that his mind
seems typical of the general mind of young France in quest of spir-
ituality, his individuality a common one to all participants in the new
movement, as it is called.
In 1892 the boldest effort of Desjardins's, -a small pamphlet, The
Present Duty,'-appeared. It created a sensation in the thinking
world of Paris. It marked a definite stage accomplished in the new
movement, and an arrival at one stopping-place at least. While the
critics were still diagnosing over the pamphlet as a theory, a small
band of men, avowing the same convictions as Desjardins, proceeded
to test it as a practical truth. They enrolled themselves into a
"Union for Moral Action," which had for its object to associate
together, without regard to religious or political beliefs, all serious-
minded men who cared to work for the formation of a healthy public
opinion, for a moral awakening, and for the education and strength-
ening of the modern decadent or enervated will power. In general,
it is common interests, doctrines, needs, that bring men together in
associations. The Union for Moral Action sought, on the contrary,
to associate men of diverse interests and opinions. adversaries even,
into collaboration for the common morality. In response to the
interpellations, questions, and doubts evoked by The Present Duty,'
Desjardins published in the Débats a series of articles on 'The Con-
version of the Church. ' They contributed still more to differentiate
him from the other leaders of the new movement; in fact, few caring
to share the responsibility of such radical utterances, he has been
left in literary isolation in his advanced position: a position which,
-


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PAUL DESJARDINS
4599
although it can but command the admiration and respect of the press
and the educational and religious contingent of Paris, none the less
attracts sarcasm and irony in the world's centre of wit, sensual
tolerance, and moral skepticism. As the reproach of his literary con-
frères expresses it, the author has given way before the apostle.
The "life to be lived" commanded the sacrifice. Desjardins makes
now but rare appearances in his old journalistic places, and in litera-
ture he has determinately severed connections through which fame
and fortune might confidently be expected. He now gives his writ-
ings anonymously to the small weekly publication, the official organ
of the Union for Moral Action, depending for his living upon his pro-
fessorial position in the Collège St. Stanislas.
'Une Critique,' one of Desjardins's earliest essays, strikes the note
of his life and writings at a time when he himself was unconscious
of its portentous meaning to his world and his literature:-
―
"Whatever deserves to be, deserves the best attention of our intellect.
Everything calls for interest, only it must be an interest divested of self-
interest, and sincere. But above all we must labor-labor hard-to under-
stand, respect, and tenderly love in others whatever contains one single grain
of simple intrinsic Goodness. Believe me, this is everywhere, and it is every-
where to be found, if you will only look for it. .
"The supremacy of the truly Good! -here lies the root of the whole
teaching - the whole new way of looking at things and judging men.
"New views of the universality of our world, of poetry, of religion, of
kindness (human kindness), of virtue, of worth!
Think it over; these
are the objects on which our new generation is fixing its thoughts, and try-
ing to awaken yours. This it is which is so new! »
•
Translation of Madame Blaze de Bury.
Uran King


## p. 4600 (#390) ###########################################

4600
PAUL DESJARDINS
THE PRESENT DUTY
THE
HERE are many of us who at times have forgotten our per-
sonal troubles, however great they were, by picturing to
ourselves the moral distress of souls around us, and by
meditating on the possible remedy for this universal ill. Some
remain serene before this spectacle; they resign themselves to
fatal evil and inextricable doubt; they look with cold blood on
that which is. Others, like the one who speaks here, are more
affirmative because they are more impassioned, more wounded,
knowing neither how to forget nor how to be patient, nor yet
how to despair peaceably; they are less troubled by that which
is, than by that which ought to be; they have even turned
towards that which ought to be, as towards the salvation for
which their whole heart is calling. It is their weakness not to
know how to interest themselves for any length of time in what
does not in some way assume the aspect of a duty that concerns
them. They do not contest, in fact, that it is a weakness not to
be able to look with a disinterested eye on disease, corporal or
spiritual; a weakness to feel the necessity of having something to
do at the bedside of the dying, even if that something be in
vain, to employ the anguish of one's heart in preparing,
even up to the supreme moment, remedies in the shadow of the
chamber.
—
We are in a state of war. It would be almost cowardly to
be silent about our intimate beliefs, for they are contradicted and
attacked. We must not content ourselves with a pacification or
truce which will permit us with facile weakness to open all the
pores of our intelligence to ideas contrary to our conviction. It
is necessary on the contrary to gird ourselves, to intrench our-
selves. There is to-day, between us and many of our contem-
poraries, an irreconcilable disagreement that must be faced, a
great combat in which parts must be taken. As far as I can see
this is what it is. In a word, are subjection to animal instinct,
egoism, falsehood, absolutely evil, or are they merely “inele-
gances"? —that is to say, things deprecated just at present, but
which, well ornamented and perfumed with grace, might not
again attract us, satisfy us, furnish us a type of life equivalent
after all to the life of the sages and saints; for nothing shows us
with certainty that the latter is any better than the former.


## p. 4601 (#391) ###########################################

PAUL DESJARDINS
4601
Are justice and love a sure good, a sure law, and the harbor of
safety? Or are they possible illusions, probable vanities? Have
we a destiny, an ideal, or are we agitating ourselves without
cause and without purpose for the amusement of some malicious
demiurge, or simply for the absurd caprice of great Pan? This
is the question that divides consciences. A great subject of dis-
pute; surely greater than that of the divinity of Jesus Christ, for
example, than that even of the existence of a personal God, or
of any other purely speculative question you please; and above
all, one more urgent: for there are counter-blows in it, which
frighten me in my every-day existence,-me, a man kept to the
business of living from the hour I awake to the light until the
hour I go to sleep; and according to the answer I may give
myself on this point, is the spirit in which I dig in my little
garden.
Personally I have taken sides, after reflection; after experi-
ence also, I do profess with conviction that humanity has a des-
tiny and that we live for something. What is to be understood
exactly by this word humanity? In short, I know not, only that
this, of which I know nothing, does not exist yet, but it is on
the road to existence, on the road to make itself known; and
that it concerns me who am here. What must be understood
by this word destiny? I do not know much more; I have only,
so far, dreams about it, dreams born of some profound but
incommunicable love, which an equal love only could under-
stand; my conscience is not pure enough to conceive a stronger
conviction; I only affirm that this destiny of humanity, if it were
known, would be such that all men, ignorant or simple, could
participate in it. It is already something to know that, in short,
I see at least by lightning-flashes, from which side the future.
will shine; and I walk towards it, and live thus, climbing up
in a steep dark forest towards a point where a light is divined,
a light that cannot deceive me, but which the obtruding branches
of a complicated and apparent life hide from me. That which
will bring me nearer it is not arguing about the probable nature
of the light, but walking; I mean, fortifying in myself and
others a will for the Good.
We have on one side undecided and lukewarm allies, on the
other adversaries; and we are forced necessarily to combat. This
necessity will become clearer each day;
it is the "antag-
onism of negatives and positives—of those who tend to destroy


## p. 4602 (#392) ###########################################

4602
PAUL DESJARDINS
and those who tend to reconstruct. "
There is no ques-
tion here, be it understood, of knowing whether we are deceiving
ourselves in choosing such or such a particular duty; that I
would concede without trouble, having always estimated that our
moral judgments, like our acts, have need of ceaseless revision
and amelioration, according to an endless progression. There is
a question of much more; of knowing in an absolute manner
whether there be a duty for us or not.
Good is in fact
that which ought to be. Like Christ, who according to St. Paul
is not a Yes and a No, but a Yes, duty is a Yes; to slip into it
the shadow of a possibility of a No is to destroy it. .
The men of to-day are thus negatives or positives, as they
range themselves under one opinion or the other.
And they
must range themselves under one of the two. They cannot
escape. The question which divides us, to know whether we
live in vain, imposes itself upon every one who opens his lips or
moves his finger, upon every conscious being who breathes.
That So-and-so never speaks of it, never thinks of it, may be;
but their lives answer for them and testify loudly enough. I
confess that at first sight the negatives seem for the moment
the more numerous. They include many groups, which I shall
not enumerate here. I range with them the charming uncertain
ones, like M. Renan and his melodious disciples, the sombre and
nihilistic Buddhists; all those to whom the law of the completion
of man through the good is indeed foolish and chimerical, since
their lives imply the negation of it: I mean to say the immense
multitude of those who live in any kind of way, good easy
people, refined possibly, from caprice, coquetry or laziness, but in
complete moral anæsthesia.
Now we come to the positives. They include first of all, true
Christians, and all true Jews, attached to the profound spirit of
their religion; then the philosophers and poets who affirm or
sing the moral ideal, the new disciples of Plato, the Stoics, the
Kantians, famous or unknown, to whom life alone, outside of all
speculation, is a solid affirmation of the possibility and sufficiency
of the good. That the actions of these men and women, on the way
to creating themselves free beings, human beings, have the same
value as doctrine, cannot be denied. They labor and suffer here
and there, each one in his own cell; each one making his own
goodness consist in the realization of what he believes to be the
absolute good; making themselves faithful servants of something;


## p. 4603 (#393) ###########################################

PAUL DESJARDINS
4603
existing outside of themselves; the city, religion, charity, justice,
truth even, or beauty, conceived as modes of adoration.
All these compose, it seems to me, one and the same Church,
having the philosophers and poets of duty for doctors of divinity,
the heroes of duty for congregation. These may be called by
the general name of "Positives. "
Let our eyes be opened: everything that surrounds us is
vitiated; many of the children playing on the promenades are
sickly, their little faces are often enough marked with livid
blotches, their bones are often enough twisted, sad symptoms of
the degradation of parents. At every street corner are distrib-
uted libertine productions by traders in the depravity of the
weak. If any one wishes to recognize the furnace of vice
burning within us, let him observe merely the looks cast upon
an honest woman as she passes, by respectable men, old men.
What savage expressions intercepted under the feverish light of
the electric lamps! What tension, what spasms of covetousness!
What hallucinations of pleasure and of gold! Tragic matter
here, but low tragedies à la Balzac, not those acted under an
open sky by heroes. A few pistol-shots from time to time, a few
poisonings, some drownings: that is all that transpires of the
interior evil. The rest passes away in suppressed tears, brooding
hatreds, in accepted shame. In such confusion the consciences
of the best, of the most disinterested ones, lose the cleanness of
their stamp.
"You are smiling there at an obscenity," said I to
a friend; he protested; then reflecting, agreed with me, quite
astonished that he had not perceived it. Honest men are trou-
bled by all this circumjacent corruption. And rightly so, for at
the bottom they are parts of it; they are distinguished from it
only by more cleanliness, education, elegance, but not by prin-
ciple.
In fact, from top to bottom, all this society lives on sensation;
that is the common trait through it all, and it is graded accord-
ing to the quality of its sensations. . . Fundamentally there
is only sensation, with here and there unequally subtle nerves.
There are no terms less reconcilable one to another than research
of sensation and moral obligation. There is nothing more op-
posed. Therefore he who expects all from his sensations depends
absolutely on externals, upon the fortuitous things of life, in all
their incoherence; he is no longer a self-centre, he feels himself
no longer responsible, his personality is dissolved, evaporated; it


## p. 4604 (#394) ###########################################

4604
PAUL DESJARDINS
does not react, and ambient nature already absorbs him, like some
dead thing.
And this is where we are. I recognize then the evil; I see
it in its extent. Nevertheless, to paint this lamentable picture
once more is not to show our moral ideas. Our moral idea is
what we believe touching the life which shall be best; it is not
exactly our life.
Ever since the antique Medea of Ovid uttered that cry, many
others, one after another, have groaned over the fact that, seeing
the best and approving it, they yet follow the worst-alas!
Such a sorrow is to-day profound and universal; there where
vice abounds, sorrow superabounds. It is no longer that melan-
choly born of the insufficiency of external reality, once for all
recognized, that felt by Obermann and proud romanticists; but a
humble, narrow, ragged rancor, mixed with disdain, with dis-
gust, born of our insufficiency to ourselves, perceived thoroughly.
Never, I believe, have we been more generally sad than in these
times. And it is that which saves us; I find here our greatness.
He alone is lost who feels himself at ease and healthful in evil;
consciences without anxiety are the only hopeless ones.
Let us
hope then, for it cannot be denied that we feel we are very ill.
It is apparent that we are in labor with something which shall
be our cure. The symptoms of this painful labor are not lack-
ing. The works which are appearing now, pre-eminent in form,
but obscure and hesitating in principles, bear signs of the stress
in which they were conceived; soon they will seem merely spe
cious. In the poetry, romance, painting, music, of to-day, how
many exquisite works are born, not of energy guided by love,
but only of a dream of energy, a dream of love, on the shores
of inconsolable exile! The truth is, we no longer know what
become; when any one of the antique misfortunes strikes us,
death, abandonment, ruin,- we no longer bear it as our fathers
did. We no longer know the dignified, peaceful mournings of
old; but under an unexpected stroke, the torment, the compli
cated rending in the heart, show that it has been secretly under·
mined. We feel indeed divided within ourselves, and we need
to be unified; but the inward unification is possible only for the
absolutely debauched or the absolutely good man; there is
via media; half-virtue rends us.
to
no
-


## p. 4605 (#395) ###########################################

PAUL DESJARDINS
4605
Our spiritual life being in truth miracle and mystery, I do
not know how to explain what each one knows so well; I do not
know how there is developed within us that sublime state known
and described under different names by Socrates, Plato, Plotinus,
Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, St. Paul, St.
Augustine, Tauler, the
author of the 'Imitation,' Shelley, Emerson, Tolstoy: but I
know that such a state, which we all know by experience, merits
alone the name of positive morality.
Well then, history
shows that what is true of each one of us personally, is true of
society.
THE CONVERSION OF THE CHURCH
WHIL
HILE a purer spirit is visibly awakening in ailing humanity
and turning it again to Christ, the religion of Christ is
rejuvenating. His church is no longer motionless. Thus,
in the midst of a great confusion, two religious movements
which correspond with one another are defining themselves with
sufficient clearness.
On the one side, men without any precise faith, and who
thought themselves without any faith, have perceived that they
carry within themselves that which they sought: an explanation.
of themselves, say a principle of salvation. At whatever point
these thinking men arrive, it is apparent at the present that
they are progressing in the way of the Evangel, and following
the path of the cross.
On the other side, the Roman
Catholic Church, governed by a vigilant Pope, has declared
herself. She has spoken of love, at the moment when all were
thirsty for love and self-forgetfulness; she intercedes for the suf-
fering masses, at the moment when others were going to do it
outside of her, perhaps against her. And more, she is resolutely
to-day accenting spirituality, after having so long accented ritual
or policy. The new spiritualists and the renewed Christians are
thus pushed forward to a meeting with one another by the need
of their practical co-operation, and also perhaps by the conscious-
ness of their intimate kinship. They are marching from both
sides, with the same rallying cry, Fraternity and sacrifice! Here
they are flying from the city of the plain, where a material civ-
ilization reigns, and claiming to suffice all; they are emigrating,
they know not whither, if it be only towards the heights; there
1


## p. 4606 (#396) ###########################################

4606
PAUL DESJARDINS
they are descending from their high, narrow, clerical, shut-in
fastness.
The conversion that the Church should make is a conversion
of the heart. It must become again a school of true liberty and
love. Herein lies all the anxiety of the moment; and the great
Catholic question lies not between the Church and the Republic,
but between the Church and the People, or rather between the
Church and the pure Spirit. By loving the people in truth, and
by making itself the people, it is clear that the Catholic Church
would simply be returning to its original source. Now, returning
to its original source is, in a word, all that the Church should
do; and that which, following her example, all old institutions
should do so as to live and to make us live. To last, means to
be re-born perpetually. In truth, each one of these institutions
was born in former times, from a definite need of the soul. And
at first they responded exactly to it, and that is why they pre-
vailed; all their strength came from the fact that they were
necessary; their weakness comes from the fact that they are no
longer so. At first the religious community was formed of the
imperious necessity of a deliverance from evil; it was not for
ornament, not for the charm of burning incense under arches;
neither was it formed to do what kings, warriors, and
judges are sufficient to do; these last would have absorbed it,
but they cannot, although they try to do so every day; but
they can never do so, unless the Church abandons her own func-
tions to usurp theirs. She would then, by forgetting her desti-
nation, commit suicide. But even then, another church would
form in response to the spiritual hunger and thirst which never
ceases. Thus the whole problem of the existence of an institu-
tion is to remain forever necessary, and therefore faithful to its
original source.
wc
Let us add that civil society cannot maintain itself without
also constant rejuvenation,- becoming young again; it also exists
only by the active consent of willing minds. It is essential for
the harmony of the whole that each person should be an indi-
vidual and not an automaton. As men, divided by the external
accidents of habit, condition, fortune, and united by that which is
fundamental within them, the weakening of that which is within
them disintegrates them; and thence the principal cause of our
divisions comes from hardly any one to-day being in his heart
that which he appears to be. Therefore, to bring back diverse


## p. 4607 (#397) ###########################################

PAUL DESJARDINS
4607
conditions to their original source and to the reason of their
being, to re-establish the principle in the centre of the life of
each, is to do the work of unification. To say to the priests,
"Be primitive Christians, imitate the chosen Master," is, socially
speaking, a good action which all Christians and non-Christians
should applaud, for the salvation of all depends upon it. The
remedy of our malady, without doubt, lies not in having all
France to mass, but first that all should make their faith the
rule of their actions. That which lies at the bottom of our con-
sciences is the thing by which we are brothers.
TWO IMPRESSIONS
From Notes Contemporaines >
Tw
wo impressions have remained with me. They date from a
month's wandering in Switzerland, at a time when there are
no tourists to be met. The first is of the exquisite scenes of
wintry Nature, as she shows herself at this season, when none
come to visit her- still, reposeful, silent, veiled-how much more.
touching and impressive than when profaned by the summer
crowd! This is the moment when the Jura should be seen! The
pine woods on the hills are but faintly powdered with snow, and
the patches of dry rusty vegetation beneath lie on the gray stones
like the broad red stains of blood. Seeds hang here and there on
the bare branches, mixed with the tendrils of the wild vine, or
with ghostly clusters of what were the flowers of the clematis.
The falling leaves are golden; those already fallen are of an
ashen gray.
The delicate tracery overhead is of infinite com-
plexity, exquisite in its endless detail; and the whole of this
disrobed Nature, in its unadorned simplicity, has an impress of
sincerity that reminds you of the drawings of Holbein. Flat
pools of shallow water lie about, carpeted with mosses and mir-
roring the sky; the smoke of the huts rises upward gaunt and
straight. No one is near; there are no passers-by; and there is
no sound, except that of a waterfall, fuller in its rush than at
any other season. Silence a silence so fragile that the step of
a single wayfarer on the road would be enough to break it—
reigns undisturbed, and covers everything like a winding-sheet.
My second impression is of another kind, though almost as
comforting, at least by the contrast; it was given me by the con-
versation of the peasant folk, plain humble mountaineers. The
—


## p. 4608 (#398) ###########################################

4608
PAUL DESJARDINS
speech and thought of these men is plain and direct, devoid of
artifice, clear and fathomable; they furnish you an unvarnished
tale of their own simple experience — the life experience of a
man, no more! They neither invent nor disguise, and are totally
incapable of presenting either fact or circumstances in a way that
shall suggest to the hearer another or a different sense. Our
woeful habit of ridiculing what lies indeed at the bottom
of our
hearts they have never learned; they copy, line by line and
stroke by stroke, the meaning that is in them, the intentions of
their inner mind. In our Parisian haunts, it seems to me that
their success would be a problem; but they are heedless of
<< success"; and to us, when we escape from our vitiated centres,
from an atmosphere poisoned by that perpetual straining after
effect, the pure undressed simplicity of these "primitives" is as
refreshing as to our over-excited and exhausted nerves are the
green, quiet, hidden nooks of their Alpine solitudes. With them
there is no need of imaginative expression; the trouble of
thought is useless; their words are the transparent revelation of
their beliefs. The calm brought to the hyper-civilized spirit by
this plainness and directness of Nature is absolutely indescribable;
and when I came to reflect on the profoundness of mental
quietude-I might say of consolation—that I had attained
during my wanderings, I could not help recognizing what a cruel,
fatal part is played in the lives of all of us by irony. It is, with
Frenchmen, a kind of veneer, worn even by the most unpreten-
tious in place of whatever may be real in them; and where
outward seeming is absent, they are completely at a loss.
to
Well-bred Frenchmen rarely if ever have or pronounce
an
an air of
opinion, or pass a judgment—unless with a playful obliquity of
judgment, and on things in general. They assume
knowing what they are talking about, and of having probed the
vanity of all human effort before they have ever
attempted or
approached it; and even this indifference, this disdain, this appar-
ent dislike to the responsibility of so much as an opinion,-
this is not natural, not innate; its formula is not of its own cre-
ation; it is but the repetition of what was originated by some
one else. The truth is, that in our atmosphere all affirmative
―――――――――
This habit of
It is a
action is difficult; it is hard either to be or to do.
irony has destroyed all healthful activity here.
instrument of evil; if you grasp it, it turns to mischief in your
hands, and either slips from and eludes them, or wounds you,
often as not, mortally.
mere
as


## p. 4609 (#399) ###########################################

4609
SIR AUBREY DE VERE
(1788-1846)
F
T CURRAGH CHASE, in the picturesque county of Limerick, Ire-
land, Aubrey Hunt was born in 1788. On the death of his
father he succeeded to the baronetcy and took the name
of De Vere. Though his deep love of nature prompted him while
very young to write descriptive verses, it was the drama that first
seriously attracted him. This form he chose for his first painstaking
work, Julian the Apostate. ' The play opens at the time when
Julian, having renounced the faith of his household oppressors, is
allowed as a pagan worshiper to participate
in the Eleusinian mysteries; when, it is
said, he consented to the assassination of
his uncle the Emperor Constantius. It
found an admiring and enthusiastic audi-
ence and received unstinted praise from the
critics. One wrote, "Lord Byron has pro-
duced nothing equal to it;" and another,
"Scott has nothing so intellectual or so ele-
vated among his exquisite sketches. "

SIR AUBREY DE VERE
'Mary Tudor,' a drama written two
years before his death in 1846, is his "most
considerable work," says his son, and "an
expression of his sympathy with great qual-
ities obscured by great errors and great calamities. " The sonnet
was however the form of composition he preferred, and as a son-
neteer he will be remembered. His sonnets are mainly historical,
though he wrote also some religious and descriptive ones which
Wordsworth considered "the most perfect of our age. " His earlier
ones, modeled after those of Petrarch and Filicaja, are inferior in
imagery, phraseology, and nobility of thought to those produced
under the influence of Wordsworth, a poet whose genius De Vere was
among the first to acknowledge, and whose friendship he regarded
as one of the chief honors of his life.
Like his friend, De Vere was a patriot, and in his historical son-
nets he has recorded his love for the land of his remoter ancestors,
whereas in the Lamentations of Ireland' he has expressed with
great ardor his love for the land of his birth. In 1842 he published
'The Song of Faith,' which with the exception of a few translations
was all he gave the world in twenty years. Devoted to his occu-
pations as a country gentleman, and being of a singularly modest
VIII-289


## p. 4610 (#400) ###########################################

4610
SIR AUBREY DE VERE
disposition, he neither loved nor courted fame, nor found in it any
incentive to action.
Sir Aubrey De Vere was not in the modern acceptance of the
term a national poet, nor was he, as so many of his contemporaries,
anti-Irish. He modeled his poems on the great English writers, but
all he wrote is pervaded with a deep sympathy for Ireland, and that
at a time when such sympathy was rare.
THE CRUSADERS
THE
HE flattering crowd wreathe laurels for the brow
Of blood-stained chief or regal conqueror;
To Cæsar or the Macedonian bow;
Meteors of earth that set to rise no more:
A hero-worship, as of old? Not now
Should chieftain bend with servile reverence o'er
The fading pageantry of Paynim lore.
True heroes they whose consecrated vow
Led them to Jewry, fighting for the Cross;
While not by Avarice lured, or lust of power
Inspired, they combated that Christ should reign,
And life laid down for him counted no loss.
On Dorylæum's plain, by Antioch's tower,
And Ascalon, sleep well the martyred slain.
A
THE CHILDREN BAND
From The Crusaders'
LL holy influences dwell within
The breast of childhood; instincts fresh from God
Inspire it, ere the heart beneath the rod
Of grief hath bled, or caught the plague of sin.
How mighty was this fervor which could win
Its way to infant souls! -and was the sod
Of Palestine by infant Croises trod?
Like Joseph went they forth, or Benjamin,
In all their touching beauty to redeem?
And did their soft lips kiss the Sepulchre?
Alas! the lovely pageant, as a dream,
Faded! They sank not through ignoble fear;
They felt not Moslem steel. By mountain stream,
In sands, in fens, they died no mother near!
-


## p. 4611 (#401) ###########################################

SIR AUBREY DE VERE
4611
THE ROCK OF CASHEL
R
OYAL and saintly Cashel! I would gaze
Upon the wreck of thy departed powers
Not in the dewy light of matin hours,
Nor in the meridian pomp of summer blaze,
But at the close of dim autumnal days,
When the sun's parting glance, through slanting showers,
Sheds o'er thy rock-throned battlements and towers
Such awful gleams as brighten o'er decay's
Prophetic cheek. At such a time, methinks,
There breathes from thy lone courts and voiceless aisles
A melancholy moral; such as sinks
On the lone traveler's heart amid the piles
Of vast Persepolis on her mountain stand,
Or Thebes half buried in the desert sand.
THE RIGHT USE OF PRAYER
TH
HEREFORE when thou wouldst pray, or dost thine alms,
Blow not a trump before thee; hypocrites
Do thus, vaingloriously; the common streets
Boast of their largess, echoing their psalms.
On such the laud of man, like unctuous balms,
Falls with sweet savor. Impious counterfeits!
Prating of heaven, for earth their bosom beats!
Grasping at weeds, they lose immortal palms!
God needs not iteration nor vain cries:
That man communion with his God might share
Below, Christ gave the ordinance of prayer:
Vague ambages and witless ecstasies
Avail not: ere a voice to prayer be given,
The heart should rise on wings of love to heaven.
THE CHURCH
Y, WISELY do we call her Mother-she
Α΄
Who from her liberal breath breathes sustenance
To nations; a majestic charity!
No marble symbol cold, in suppliant glance
Deceitful smiling; strenuous her advance,


## p. 4612 (#402) ###########################################

4612
SIR AUBREY DE VERE
Yet calm; while holy ardors, fancy-free,
Direct her measured steps: in every chance
Sedate as Una 'neath the forest tree
-
Encompassed by the lions. Why, alas!
Must her perverse and thoughtless children turn
From her example? Why must the sulky breath
Of Bigotry stain Charity's pure glass?
Poison the springs of Art and Science-burn
The brain through life, and sear the heart in death?
SONNET
SAD
AD is our youth, for it is ever going,
Crumbling away beneath our very feet;
Sad is our life, for onward it is flowing
In currents unperceived, because so fleet;
Sad are our hopes, for they were sweet in sowing —
But tares, self-sown, have overtopped the wheat;
Sad are our joys, for they were sweet in blowing —
And still, oh still, their dying breath is sweet;
And sweet is youth, although it hath bereft us
Of that which made our childhood sweeter still;
And sweet is middle life, for it hath left us
A nearer good to cure an older ill;
And sweet are all things, when we learn to prize them
Not for their sake, but His who grants them, or denies them!


## p. 4613 (#403) ###########################################

4613
BERNAL DIAZ DEL CASTILLO
(1498-1593)
B
ERNAL DIAZ DEL CASTILLO, one of the chief chroniclers of the
conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards, was born at Medina
del Campo in Old Castile, about the year 1498. Concerning
the date of his death, authorities differ widely. He died in Guate-
mala, perhaps not long after 1570, but some say not until 1593.
Of humble origin, he determined while still a youth to seek his
fortune in the New World. In 1514 he went with Pedrarias to Darien
and Cuba. He was a common soldier with Córdoba in the first expe-
dition to Yucatan in 1517. He accompanied Grijalva to Mexico in
the following year, and finally enlisted under the banner of Cortés.
In every event that marked the career of that brilliant commander
in Mexico, Diaz had a part; he was engaged in one hundred and nine-
teen battles, and was present at the siege and surrender of the cap-
ital in 1521. Of unswerving loyalty and bravery, according to his own
naïve statement, he was frequently appointed by Cortés to highly
important missions. When Cortés set out to subdue the defection
under Cristoval de Olid at Honduras, Diaz followed his old chief in
the terrible journey through the forests and swamps.
On his return he presumably adopted the life of a planter,
although he had complained loudly of the meagre allotment of land
and laborers which the conqueror gave him. In 1568, however, after
the lapse of half a century, when Cortés had been dead twenty-one
years, we find the veteran comfortably established as regidor (a civic
officer) of the city of Guatemala, and busily engaged on the narra-
tive of the heroic deeds of his youth. In his introduction to the
'Historia Diaz frankly admits that his principal motive in taking
up his pen was to vindicate the valor of himself and others, who
had been completely overshadowed by the exaggerated reputation of
Cortés.
When fairly started, he happened to run across the 'Crónica de la
Nueva España (Saragossa, 1554) of Gomara, secretary and chaplain.
to Cortés, 1540-47. At first the rough old soldier threw down his
pen in despair, on noting the polished style of the scholar; but when
he became aware of the gross inaccuracies of his predecessor, who
had never even set foot in America, he determined, so he declares,
to write above all things a faithful narrative of the stirring events
in which he had participated. Thus was completed his 'Historia


## p. 4614 (#404) ###########################################

4614
BERNAL DIAZ DEL CASTILLO
Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva España. ' For some reason
this valuable manuscript lay neglected in a private library for about
sixty years.
Finally it fell into the hands of Father Alonso Remor,
a sagacious priest, who published it at Madrid in 1632.
The narrative of this soldier historian, although clumsy, full of
digressions and repetitions, and laying bare his ignorance, simplicity,
and vanity, will nevertheless always be read with far more interest
than the weightier works of Las Casas, Gomara, or Herrera. Pres-
cott explained the secret of its fascination when he said:
"Bernal Diaz, the untutored child of nature, is a most true and literal
copyist of nature. He transfers the scenes of real life by a sort of daguerreo-
type process, if I may so say, to his pages. He is among chroniclers what
Defoe is among novelists.
All the picturesque scenes and romantic
incidents of the campaign are reflected in his pages as in a mirror. The
lapse of fifty years has had no power over the spirit of the veteran. The fire
of youth glows in every line of his rude history, and as he calls up the scenes
of the past, the remembrance of the brave companions who are gone gives, it
may be, a warmer coloring to the picture than if it had been made at an
earlier period. »
A fairly good English translation of the work of Bernal Diaz ap-
peared in London in 1800, under the title of True History of the
Conquest of Mexico. '
FROM THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO›
Translation of Maurice Keatinge: London, 1800
THE CAPTURE OF GUATIMOTZIN
SAND
ANDOVAL at this moment made a signal for the flotilla to close
up to him, and perceived that Guatimotzin was prisoner to
Holguin, who was taking him to Cortés. Upon this he
ordered his rowers to exert their utmost to bring him up to Hol-
guin's vessel, and having arrived by the side of it, he demanded
Guatimotzin to be delivered to him as general of the whole force;
but Holguin refused, alleging that he had no claim whatever.
A vessel which went to carry the intelligence of the great
event, brought also to Cortés, who was then on the summit of the
great temple in the Taltelulco, very near the part of the lake
where Guatimotzin was captured, an account of the dispute be-
tween his officers. Cortés immediately dispatched Luis Marin and
Francisco de Lugo to bring the whole party together to his quar-
ters, and thus to stop all litigation; but he enjoined them not to
omit treating Guatimotzin and his queen with the greatest respect.


## p. 4615 (#405) ###########################################

BERNAL DIAZ DEL CASTILLO
4615
During the interval he employed himself in arranging a state, as
well as he could, with cloths and mantles. He also prepared a
table with refreshments, to receive his prisoners. As soon as
they appeared he went forward to meet them, and embracing
Guatimotzin, treated him and all his attendants with every mark
of respect.
The unfortunate monarch, with tears in his eyes, and sinking
under affliction, then addressed him in the following words:-
«< Malintzin! I have done that which was my duty in the defense
of my kingdom and people; my efforts have failed, and being
now brought by force a prisoner in your hands, draw that pon-
iard from your side and stab me to the heart. ”
Cortés embraced and used every expression to comfort him, by
assurances that he held him in high estimation for the valor and
firmness he had shown, and that he had required a submission
from him and the people at the time that they could no longer
reasonably hope for success, in order to prevent further destruc-
tion; but that was all past, and no more to be thought of it; he
should continue to reign over the people as he had done before.
Cortés then inquired after his queen, to which Guatimotzin re-
plied that in consequence of the compliance of Sandoval with his
request, she and her women remained in the piraguas until Cortés
should decide as to their fate. The general then caused them to
be sent for, and treated them in the best manner his situation
afforded. The evening was drawing on, and it appeared likely
to rain; he therefore sent the whole royal family to Cuyoacan,
under the care of Sandoval. The rest of the troops then returned
to their former quarters; we to ours of Tacuba, and Cortés, pro-
ceeding to Cuyoacan, took the command there, sending Sandoval
to resume his station at Tepeaquilla. Thus was the siege of
Mexico brought to a conclusion by the capture of Guatimotzin
and his chiefs, on the thirteenth of August, at the hour of ves-
pers, being the day of St. Hyppolitus, in the year of our Lord
one thousand five hundred and twenty-one. Glorified by our Lord
Jesus Christ, and Our Lady the Holy Virgin Mary his blessed
mother, Amen!
Guatimotzin was of a noble appearance both in person and
countenance; his features were rather large and cheerful, with
lively eyes.
His age was about twenty-three or four years, and
his complexion very fair for an Indian. His queen, the niece of
Montezuma, was young and very handsome.


## p. 4616 (#406) ###########################################

4616
BERNAL DIAZ DEL CASTILLO
THE MORTALITY AT THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO
say
WHAT I am going to mention is truth, and I swear and
amen to it. I have read of the destruction of Jerusalem, but I
cannot conceive that the mortality there exceeded this of Mex-
ico; for all the people from the distant provinces which belonged
to this empire had concentrated themselves here, where they
mostly died. The streets, the squares, the houses, and the courts
of the Taltelulco were covered with dead bodies; we could not
step without treading on them; the lake and canals were filled
with them, and the stench was intolerable. For this reason, our
troops, immediately after the capture of the royal family, retired
to their former quarters. Cortés himself was for some time ill
from the effect of it.
CORTÉS
I WILL now proceed to describe the person and disposition of
the Marquis [Cortés]. He was of good stature and strongly built,
of a rather pale complexion and serious countenance. His feat-
ures were, if faulty, rather too small; his eyes mild and grave.
His beard was black, thin, and scanty; his hair in the same
manner. His breast and shoulders were broad, and his body
very thin.
He was very well limbed, and his legs rather bowed;
an excellent horseman, and dexterous in the use of arms. He
also possessed the heart and mind which is the principal part of
the business. I have heard that when he was a lad in Hispan-
iola he was very wild about women, and that he had several
duels with able swordsmen, in which he always came off with
victory. He had the scar of a sword wound near his under lip,
which appeared through his beard if closely examined, and which
he received in some of those affairs. In his appearance, man-
ners, transactions, conversation, table, and dress, everything bore
the appearance of a great lord. His clothes were according to
the fashion of the time; he was not fond of silks, damasks, or
velvets, but everything plain, and very handsome; nor did he
wear large chains of gold, but a small one of fine workmanship
bearing the image of Our Lady the Blessed Virgin with her
precious Son in her arms, and a Latin motto; and on the reverse,
St. John the Baptist with another motto. He wore on his finger
a ring with a very fine diamond, and in his cap, which according
to the fashion of that day was of velvet, he bore a medal, the


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BERNAL DIAZ DEL CASTILLO
4617
head and motto of which I do not recollect; but latterly he wore
a plain cloth cap without any ornament.
His table was always magnificently attended and served, with
four major-domos or principal officers, a number of pages, and a
great quantity of plate, both gold and silver. He dined heartily
at midday, and drank a glass of wine mixed with water, of about
half a pint. He was not nice in his food, nor expensive, except
on particular occasions where he saw the propriety of it. He
was very affable with all his captains and soldiers, especially
those who accompanied him in his first expedition from Cuba.
He was a Latinist, and as I have been told, a bachelor of laws.
He was also something of a poet, and a very good rhetorician;
very devout to Our Holy Virgin and to St. Peter, St. Jago, and
St. John the Baptist, and charitable to the poor. When he swore
he used to say, "By my conscience! " and when he was angry
with any of us his friends, he would say, "Oh! may you repent
it. »
When he was very angry, the veins in his throat and fore-
head used to swell, and when in great wrath he would not utter
a syllable to any one. He was very patient under insults or
injuries; for some of the soldiers were at times very rude and
abusive to him; but he never resented their conduct, although he
had often great reason to do so. In such cases he used only to
"Be silent! " or
say
«< Go away, in God's name, and take care not
to repeat this conduct or I will have you punished. " He was very
determined and headstrong in all business of war, not attending
to any remonstrances on account of danger; an instance of
which he showed in the attack of those fortresses called the
Rocks of the Marquis, which he forced us to scale, contrary
to our opinions, and when neither courage, council, nor wisdom
could give any rational hope of success.
Where we had to erect a fortress, Cortés was the hardest
laborer in the trenches; when we were going into battle, he was
as forward as any.
Cortés was very fond of play, both at cards and dice, and
while playing he was very affable and good-humored. He used
frequently at such times those cant expressions which are cus-
tomary amongst persons who game. In military service he prac-
ticed the most strict attention to discipline, constantly going the
rounds in person during the night, visiting the quarters of the
soldiers and severely reprehending those whom he found with-
out their armor and appointments and not ready to turn out;


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