The matter of
friendship
shocked me less.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v08 - Dah to Dra
Our own property is returned to us, that is all,
and I shall not consider myself in the slightest degree bound
by this.
Who knows? -these very thousands of pounds may
help us to recover the throne. "
The Queen impetuously raised her head, looked him straight
in the eyes for a moment, then shrugged her shoulders, saying:
"Do not make yourself out viler than you are. You know
that when once you have signed — but no. The truth is, you lack
strength and fortitude; you desert your kingly post at the most
perilous moment, when a new society, that will acknowledge
neither God nor master, pursues with its hatred the representa-
tives of Divine right, makes the heavens tremble over their heads
and the earth under their steps. The assassin's knife, bombs,
bullets, all serve their purpose. Treachery and murder are on
every side.
In the midst of our pageantry or our festivities, the
best of us as well as the worst, not one of us does not start if
only a man steps forward out of the crowd. Hardly a petition
that does not conceal a dagger. On leaving his palace what king
is certain of returning alive? And this is the hour you choose
to leave the field! "
## p. 4468 (#242) ###########################################
4468
ALPHONSE DAUDET
"Ah! if fighting could do it! " eagerly said Christian II. "But
to struggle as we do against ridicule, against poverty, against all
the petty meannesses of life, and feel that we only sink deeper
every day—"
A ray of hope lit up her eyes:-"Is it true? would you fight?
Then listen. "
Breathlessly she related, in a few rapid words, the expedition
she and Elysée had been preparing for the last three months by
letters, proclamations, and dispatches, which Father Alphée, ever
on the move, carried from one mountain village to the other.
This time it was not to the nobility they appealed, but to the
people; the muleteers, the porters of Ragusa, the market-gardeners
of Breno, of La Brazza, the islanders who go to market in their
feluccas, the nation which had remained faithful to the mon-
archical tradition, which was ready to rise and die for its king,
on condition that he should lead them. Companies were form-
ing, the watchword was already circulating, only the signal now
remained to be given.
The Queen, hurling her words at Christian to rout his weak-
ness by a vigorous charge, had a cruel pang when she saw
him shake his head, showing an indifference which was even
greater than his discouragement. Perhaps at the bottom of his
heart he was annoyed that the expedition should have been so
far organized without his knowledge. But he did not believe in
the feasibility of the plan. It would not be possible to advance
into the country; they would be compelled to hold the islands,
and devastate a beautiful country with very little chance of suc-
cess: a second edition of the Duc de Palma's adventure, a useless
effusion of blood.
"No, really, my dear Frédérique, you are led away by the
fanaticism of your chaplain and the wild enthusiasm of that hot-
headed Gascon. I also have my sources of information, far more
reliable than yours. The truth is, that in Dalmatia, as in many
other countries, monarchy has had its day. They are tired of it,
they will have no more of it. "
"Oh! I know the coward who will have no more of it," said
the Queen. And she went out hurriedly, leaving Christian much
surprised that the scene should have ended so abruptly.
He
hastily thrust the deed into his pocket, and prepared to go out
in his turn, when Frédérique reappeared, accompanied this time
by the little prince.
## p. 4469 (#243) ###########################################
ALPHONSE DAUDET
4469
Roused out of his sleep and hurriedly dressed, Zara, who had
passed from the hands of his nurse to those of the Queen with-
out a word having been uttered, opened wide his bewildered
eyes under his auburn curls, but asked no questions; he remem-
bered confusedly in his poor little dizzy head similar awakenings
for hasty flights, in the midst of pallid faces and breathless
exclamations. It was thus that he had acquired the habit of
passive obedience; that he allowed himself to be led anywhere,
provided the Queen called him in her grave and resolute voice,
and held ready for his childish weakness the shelter of her ten-
der arms and the support of her strong shoulder. She had said:
"Come! " and he had come with confidence, surprised only at the
surrounding silence, so different from those other stormy nights,
with their visions of blood and flames, roar of cannon, and rattle
of musketry.
He saw the King standing, no longer the careless good-
natured father who at times surprised him in his bed or crossed
the schoolroom with an encouraging smile, but a stern father,
whose expression of annoyance became more accentuated as he
saw them enter. Frédérique, without uttering one word, led the
child to the feet of Christian II. and abruptly kneeling, placed
him before her, crossing his little fingers in her joined hands:-
"The king will not listen to me, perhaps he will listen to
you, Zara. Come, say with me, 'Father. ' » The timid voice re-
peated, "Father. "
-
"My father! my king! I implore! do not despoil your child.
Do not deprive him of the crown he is to wear one day.
Remember that it is not yours alone; it comes from afar, from
God himself, who gave it six hundred years ago to the house of
Illyria. God has chosen me to be a king, father.
It is my
inheritance, my treasure; you have no right to take it from me. '»
The little prince accompanied his fervent murmur with the
imploring looks of a supplicant; but Christian turned away his
head, shrugged his shoulders, and furious though still polite, he
muttered a few words between his teeth: "Exaggeration! most
improper; turn the child's head. " Then he tried to withdraw
and gain the door. With one bound the Queen was on her feet,
caught sight of the table from which the parchment had disap-
peared, and comprehending at once that the infamous deed was.
signed, that the king had it in his possession, gave a despairing
shriek:
## p. 4470 (#244) ###########################################
ALPHONSE DAUDET
4470
"Christian! "
He continued to advance towards the door.
She made a step forward, picking up her dress as if to pur-
sue him; then suddenly said:—
"Well, be it so. "
He stopped short and turned round. She was standing before
the open window, her foot upon the narrow stone balcony, with
one arm clasping her son ready to bear him into death, the other
extended menacingly towards the cowardly deserter. The moon
lit up from without this dramatic group.
"To an operetta King, a Queen of tragedy," she said, stern
and terrible. "If you do not burn this instant what you have
just signed, and swear on the cross that it will never be re-
peated, your race is ended, crushed, wife and child, there on the
stones. "
Such earnestness seemed to inspire her vibrating tone, her
splendid figure bent towards the emptiness of space as though to
spring, that the King, terrified, dashed forward to stop her.
"Frédérique ! "
At the cry of his father, at the quiver of the arm that held
him, the child-who was entirely out of the window-thought
that all was finished, that they were about to die. He never
uttered a word nor a moan; was he not going with his mother?
Only, his tiny hands clutched the queen's neck convulsively, and
throwing back his head with his fair hair hanging down, the
little victim closed his eyes before the appalling horror of the
fall.
Christian could no longer resist. The resignation, the cour-
age of this child, who of his future kingly duties already knew
the first to die well-overcame him. His heart was bursting.
He threw upon the table the crumpled parchment which for a
moment he had been nervously holding in his hand, and fell sob-
bing in an arm-chair. Frédérique, still suspicious, read the deed
through from the first line to the very signature, then going up
to a candle, she burned it till the flame scorched her fingers,
shaking the ashes upon the table; she then left the room, carry-
ing off her son, who was already falling asleep in her arms in
his heroically tragic attitude.
Translation of Laura Ensor and E. Bartow.
## p. 4471 (#245) ###########################################
4471
MADAME DU DEFFAND
(MARIE DE VICHY-CHAMROND)
(1697-1780)
M
ADAME DU DEFFAND is interesting as a personality, a type,
and an influence. Living through nearly the whole of the
eighteenth century, she assimilated its wealth of new ideas,
and was herself a product of the thought-revolution already kindling
the spirit of 1789.
She very early showed her mental independence by puzzling
questions upon religion. The eloquent Massillon attempted to win
her to orthodoxy. But he soon gave up the task, told the Sisters to
buy her a catechism, and went off declar-
ing her charming. The inefficacy of the
catechism was proved later, when the
precocious girl developed into the grace-
ful, unscrupulous society woman. She was
always fascinating to the brightest men
and women of her own and other lands.
But the early years of social triumph, when
she still had the beautiful eyes admired
by Voltaire, are less significant than the
nearly thirty years of blindness in the con-
vent of St. Joseph, which after her afflic-
tion she made her home. Here she held
her famous receptions for the literary and
social celebrities of Paris. Here Mademoiselle Lespinasse endured a
miserable ten years as her companion, then rebelled against her
exactions, and left to establish a rival salon of her own, aided by
her devoted D'Alembert. His preference Madame du Deffand never
forgave. Henceforth she opposed philosophy, and demanded from
her devotees only stimulus and amusement. It was here that Hor-
ace Walpole found the "blind old woman" in her tub-like chair, and
began the friendship and intellectual flirtation of fifteen years. It
proved a great interest in her life, notwithstanding Walpole's dread
of ridicule at a suggestion of romance between his middle-aged self
and this woman twenty years older.
MADAME DU DEFFAND
She was a power in the lives of many famous people, intimate
with Madame de Staël, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Madame de Choiseul,
the Duchess of Luxembourg, Madame Necker, Hume, Madame de
1
## p. 4472 (#246) ###########################################
4472
MADAME DU DEFFAND
Genlis. In her salon old creeds were argued down, new ideas dis-
seminated, and bons mots and witty gossip circulated. She has re-
counted what went on, and explained the reign of clever women in
her century. Ignoring her blindness, she lived her life as gayly as
she could in visiting, feasting, opera-going, and letter-writing. But
even her social supremacy and brilliant correspondence with Voltaire,
Walpole, and others, did not satisfy her. She wished to appeal to
the heart, and she appealed only to the head. Of all ills she most
dreaded ennui, and the very dread of it made her unhappy. She
became more and more insufficient to herself, until at eighty-three
she died with clear-sighted indifference.
"She was perhaps the wittiest woman who ever lived," says
Saintsbury. Hers was an inextinguishable wit, always alert, epi-
grammatic, enriching the language with proverbial phrases.
During her life Voltaire's science of unbelief and Rousseau's
appeal to nature and sentiment were stimulating Europe. For Rous-
seau, Madame du Deffand had no respect; but Voltaire's philosophy
appealed to her egotism. It bade a human being investigate his own.
puzzles, and seek solution in himself. Madame du Deffand agreed,
but failed to find satisfaction in her anxious analysis; she envied
believers in God, and longed for illusions, yet allowed herself none.
Jealous, exacting, critical, with all the arrogance of the old aris-
tocracy, she was as merciless to herself as to others.
«All my
judgments have been false and daring and too hasty.
never known any one perfectly.
To whom then can I have
recourse? " she cries despairingly.
I have
•
Sainte-Beuve emphasizes her noblest quality: with all her faults
she was true. She lived out her life frankly, boldly, without self-
deception or imposition. So in the entertaining volumes of her let-
ters and pen-portraits of acquaintances, she has left a valuable record.
She takes us back a century, and shows not only how people looked
and what they did, but how they thought and felt.
TO THE DUCHESSE DE CHOISEUL
PARIS, Sunday, December 28th, 1766.
D
o You know, dear Grandmama [a pet name], that you are the
greatest philosopher that ever lived? Your predecessors
spoke equally well, perhaps, but they were less consistent
in their conduct. All your reasonings start from the same senti-
ment, and that makes the perfect accord one always feels be-
tween what you say and what you do. I know very well why,
## p. 4473 (#247) ###########################################
MADAME DU DEFFAND
4473
loving you madly, I am ill at ease with you. It is because I
know that you must pity everybody who is unlike yourself. My
desire to please you, the brief time that I am permitted with
you, and my eagerness to profit by it, all trouble, embarrass,
intimidate me and discompose me.
I exaggerate, I utter platitudes; and end by being disgusted
with myself, and eager to rectify the impression I may have
made upon you.
You wish me to write to M. de Choiseul, and to make my
letter pretty and bright. Ah, indeed! I'm the ruler of my own
imagination, am I! I depend upon chance. A purpose to do or
to say such or such a thing takes away the possibility. I am not
in the least like you. I do not hold in my hands the springs of
my spirit. However, I will write to M. de Choiseul. I will
seize a propitious moment. The surest means of making it come
is to feel hurried.
I am sending you an extract from an impertinent little pam-
phlet entitled 'Letter to the Author of the Justification of Jean
Jacques. ' You will see how it treats our friend. I am not sure
that it should be allowed; whether M. de Choiseul should not
talk to M. de Sartines about it. It is for you to decide, dear
Grandmama, if it is suitable, and if M. de Choiseul ought to
permit licenses so impertinent.
I am dying to see you. In spite of my fear, in spite of my
dreads, I am convinced that you love me because I love you.
TO MR. CRAWFORD
SUNDAY, March 9th, 1766.
I
READ your letter to Madame de Forcalquier, or rather I gave
it to her to read. I thought from her tone that she liked it,
but she will not commit herself. She is more than incom-
prehensible. The Trinity is not more mysterious. She is com-
posed of systems, which she does not understand herself; great
words, great principles, great strains of music, of which nothing
remains. However, I am of your opinion, that she is worth
more than all my other acquaintances. She agrees that it would
be delightful to have you live in this country; but if she were
only to see you en passant, it hardly matters whether you came
or not; that she has not forgotten you, but that she will forget
## p. 4474 (#248) ###########################################
4474
MADAME DU DEFFAND
you. Eh! Why shouldn't she forget you? She does not know
A hundred speeches of the sort which vex me.
you. .
What is certain is, that her
They say of people who have too much vivacity that they
were put in too hot an oven. They might say of her, on the
contrary, that she is underdone. She is the sketch of a beauti-
ful work, but it is not finished.
sentiments, if she has sentiments, are sincere, and that she does
not bore you.
I showed her your letter because I thought that
would give you pleasure; but be sure that no one in the world,
not even she, shall see what you write me in future except
Niart [her secretary], who as you know is a well.
I have just made you a fine promise that I will not show
your letters; perhaps I shall never be able to show them.
Truly, truly, I am like Madame de Forcalquier, and do not know
you!
I spent three hours with Mr. Walpole yesterday, but only half
an hour alone with him. Lord George and his wife returned his
short call, but your Dr. James stayed there all the time. He is
a very gloomy, uninteresting man.
Have you seen Jean Jacques? Is he still in London? Have
you seen your father? Imagine yourself tête-à-tête with me in
the corner of the fireplace, and answer all my questions, but
especially those which concern your health. Have you seen the
doctors? Have they ordered you the waters? And tell me too,
honestly, if I shall ever see you again. Reflect that you are
only twenty-five years old, that I am a hundred, and that it only
requires a brief kindness to put pleasure in my life. No, I will
not assume the pathetic. Do just what pleases you.
TO HORACE WALPOLE
TUESDAY, August 5th, 1766.
I
HAVE received your letter of July 31st-no number, sheets of
different sizes. All these observations mean nothing, unless
it is that a person without anything to do or to think occupies
herself with puerile things. Indeed, I should do very wrong not
to profit by all your lessons, and to persist in the error of believ-
ing in friendship, and regarding it as a good; no, no; I renounce
my errors, and am absolutely persuaded that of all illusions that
is the most dangerous.
## p. 4475 (#249) ###########################################
MADAME DU DEFFAND
4475
You who are the apostle of this wise doctrine, receive my
confession and my vows never to love, never to seek to be loved
by any one; but tell me if it is permitted to desire the return of
agreeable persons; if one may long for news of them, and if to
be interested in them and to let them know it is to lack virtue,
good sense, and proper behavior. I am awaiting enlightenment.
I cannot doubt your sincerity; you have given me too many
proofs of it; explain yourself without reserve.
WEDNESDAY, 6th.
Of all the things in your letter, what struck me the most yes-
terday were your moralizings on friendship, which forced me to
reply at once. I was interrupted by Monsieur and Madame de
Beauvan, who came to take me to supper with them in the
country at the good Duchess of Saint-Pierre's. I returned early.
I did not close my eyes during the night. I woke up Niart [her
secretary] earlier than usual to go on with my letter, and to
re-read me yours.
I am better pleased with it this morning than
I was yesterday.
The matter of friendship shocked me less. I
find that the conclusion is-let us be friends without friendship.
Ah well, so be it; I consent. Perhaps it is agreeable; let us
learn by experience, and for that- see each other the oftener! In
truth, you have only a comic actress, a deaf woman,
and some
chickens to leave, as you have only a blind woman and many
goslings to find; but I promise you that the blind woman will
have much to ask and much to tell.
I do not know what to say to you about your ministry. You
have entertained me so little with politics, that if others had not
informed me, all that goes on with you would be less intelligible
to me than the affairs of China. They have told me something
of the character of the count; and as for this certain good com-
rade [Conway], I think I know him perfectly. I am pleased that
he has remained, but not that he does not oppose your philos-
ophy. All your opinions are beautiful and praiseworthy; but if
I were in his place I should certainly hinder you from making
use of them, and not regulate my conduct by your moderation
and disinterestedness. Oh! as for my lord, you cannot keep
him,- that's the public cry. It seems to me that the brother and
sister-in-law are. not pleased. Do you not detest the people?
From the agrarian law to your monument, your lamps, and your
## p. 4476 (#250) ###########################################
4476
MADAME DU DEFFAND
black standard, its joy, its sadness, its applause, its complaints,
are all odious to me. But I am going back to speak to you about
yourself. You say that your fortune, instead of augmenting, will
suffer diminution. I am much afraid of that. No liberty with-
out a competency. Remember that. If your economy falls upon
your trips to France I shall be miserable. But listen to this with-
out getting vexed.
I possess, as you know, a small lodging-room belonging to
me, little worthy of the son of Robert Walpole, but which may
satisfy the philosopher Horace. If he found it convenient, he
could occupy it without incurring the slightest ridicule. He can
consult sensible people, and while waiting, be persuaded that it
is not my personal interest which induces me to offer it to him.
Honestly, my mentor, you could not do better than take it.
You would be near me or a hundred leagues from me if you
liked it better. It would not engage you to any attention nor
any assiduity; we would renew our vows against friendship. It
would even be necessary to render more observance to the Idol
[Comtesse de Boufflers]; for who could be shocked, if not she?
Pont-de-Veyle, who approves and advises this arrangement, claims
that even the Idol would find nothing to oppose. Think of that.
Grandmama returned yesterday morning. My favor with her
is better established. She will take supper with me Friday; and
as the supper was arranged without foreseeing that she would
be there, she will find a company which will not exactly suit
her, among others the Idol, and the Archbishop of Toulouse.
I shall have many things to tell you when I see you.
be that they will hardly interest you, but it will be the world of
my Strawberry Hill.
It may
You agree with me about the letters, which pleases me. I be-
lieve myself a genius when I find myself in agreement with you.
This Prince Geoffrin is excellent. Surely heaven is witness that I
do not love you, but I am forced to find you very agreeable.
Are you waiting until your arrival here to give a jug to the
Maréchale de Luxembourg? I see no necessity of making a
present to the Idol; incense, incense, that is all it wants!
I have a great desire that you should read a Memoir of La
Chalottais; it is very rare, very much "prohibited," but I am
intriguing to get it.
## p. 4477 (#251) ###########################################
MADAME DU DEFFAND
4477
M. de Beauvan begs you to send me a febrifuge for him. It
is from Dr. James, I think. There are two kinds; one is mild
and the other violent. He requires a louis's worth of each.
You are mightily deceiving yourself if you think Voltaire
author of the analysis of the romance of 'Héloise. ' The author
is a man from Bordeaux, a friend of M. de Secondat. Àpropos
of Voltaire, he has had the King of Prussia sounded to know if
he would consent to give him asylum at Wesel in case he were
obliged to leave his abode. This his Majesty has very willingly
granted.
Good-by. I am counting upon being able in future to give
you news of your court and your ministry. I have made a new
acquaintance, who is a favorite of Lord Bute and the most inti-
mate friend of Lord Holderness. I do not doubt that this lord
is aiming at my Lord Rochefort's place, who they say scarcely
troubles himself about the embassy.
Write me, I beg you, at least once a week.
Tell me if M. Crawford is in Scotland.
It is thought that the first news from Rome will inform us of
the death of Chevalier Macdonald.
N°
NOVEMBER, 1765.
I do not want to draw your likeness; nobody knows
you less than I. Sometimes you seem to me what I wish
you were, sometimes what I fear you may be, and per-
haps never what you really are. I know very well that you
have a great deal of wit of all kinds and all styles, and you
must know it better than any one.
O, NO!
PORTRAIT OF HORACE WALPOLE
But your character should be painted, and of that I am not a
good judge. It would require indifference, or impartiality at
least. However, I can tell you that you are a very sincere man,
that you have principles, that you are brave, that you pride
yourself upon your firmness; that when you have come to a
decision, good or bad, nothing induces you to change it, so that
your firmness sometimes resembles obstinacy. Your heart is
good and your friendship strong, but neither tender nor facile.
Your fear of being weak makes you hard. You are on your guard
against all sensibility. You cannot refuse to render valuable
## p. 4478 (#252) ###########################################
4478
MADAME DU DEFFAND
services to your friends; you sacrifice your own interest to them,
but you refuse them the slightest of favors. Kind and humane
to all about you, you do not give yourself the slightest trouble
to please your friends in little ways.
Your disposition is very agreeable although not very even.
All your ways are noble, easy, and natural. Your desire to
please does not lead you into affectation. Your knowledge of the
world and your experience have given you a great contempt for
men, and taught you how to live with them. You know that all
their assurances go for nothing. In exchange you give them
politeness and consideration, and all those who do not care about
being loved are content with you.
I do not know whether you have much feeling. If you have,
you fight it as a weakness. You permit yourself only that which
seems virtuous. You are a philosopher; you have no vanity,
although you have a great deal of self-love. But your self-love
does not blind you; it rather makes you exaggerate your faults
than conceal them. You never extol yourself except when you
are forced to do so by comparing yourself with other men. You
possess discernment, very delicate tact, very correct taste; your
tone is excellent.
You would have been the best possible companion in past
centuries; you are in this, and you would be in those to come.
Englishman as you are, your manners belong to all countries.
You have an unpardonable weakness to which you sacrifice
your feelings and submit your conduct-the fear of ridicule. It
makes you dependent upon the opinion of fools; and your friends
not safe from the impressions against them which fools
choose to give you.
Your judgment is easily confused. You are aware of this
weakness, which you control by the firmness with which you pur-
sue your resolutions. Your opposition to any deviation is some-
times pushed too far, and exercised in matters not worth the
trouble.
Your instincts are noble and generous. You do good for the
pleasure of doing it, without ostentation, without claiming grati-
tude; in short, your spirit is beautiful and high.
## p. 4478 (#253) ###########################################
į
## p. 4478 (#254) ###########################################
Grosch
DANIEL DEFOE.
## p. 4478 (#255) ###########################################
* i th
1- by.
## p. 4478 (#256) ###########################################
環と
2
DANIEL DEFOE.
## p. 4479 (#257) ###########################################
4479
DANIEL DEFOE
(1660? -1731)
BY CHARLES FREDERICK JOHNSON
D
ANIEL DEFOE, one of the most vigorous and voluminous writ-
ers of the last decade of the seventeenth and the first
quarter of the eighteenth centuries, was born in St. Giles
parish, Cripplegate, in 1660 or 1661, and died near London in 1731.
His father was a butcher named Foe, and the evolution of the son's
name through the various forms of D. Foe, De Foe, Defoe, to
Daniel Defoe, the present accepted form, did not begin much before
he reached the age of forty. He was educated at the "dissenting
school" of a Mr. Martin in Newington Green, and was intended for
the Presbyterian ministry. Although the training at this school was.
not inferior to that to be obtained at the universities, and indeed
superior in one respect, since all the exercises were in English,- the
fact that he had never been "in residence" set Defoe a little apart
from the literary society of the day. Swift, Pope, Addison, Arbuth-
not, and the rest, considered him untrained and uncultured, and
habitually spoke of him with the contempt which the regular feels.
for the volunteer. Swift referred to him as "an illiterate fellow
whose name I forget," and Pope actually inserted his name in the
'Dunciad':
"Earless on high stood unabashed De Foe. "
This line is false in two ways, for Defoe's ears were not clipped,
though he was condemned to stand in the pillory; and there can
hardly be a greater incongruity conceived than there is between our
idea of a dunce and the energetic, shifty, wide-awake Defoe,— though
for that matter a scholar like Bentley and a wit like Colley Cibber
are as much out of place in the poet's ill-natured catalogue. Defoe
angrily resented the taunts of the university men and their profes-
sional assumption of superiority, and answered Swift that "he had
been in his time master of five languages and had not lost them
yet," and challenged John Tutchin to "translate with him any Latin,
French, or Italian author, and then retranslate them crosswise, for
twenty pounds each book. ”
Notwithstanding the great activity of Defoe's pen (over two hun-
dred pamphlets and books, most of them of considerable length, are
## p. 4480 (#258) ###########################################
4480
DANIEL DEFOE
known to be his; and it is more than probable that much of his
work was anonymous and has perished, or could be only partly dis-
interred by laborious conjecture) he found time to engage twice in
business, once as a factor in hosiery and once as a maker of tiles.
In each venture he seems to have been unfortunate, and his business
experience is alluded to here only because his practical knowledge
of mercantile matters is evident in all his work. Even his pirates
like Captain Bob Singleton, and adventurers like Colonel Jack, have
a decided commercial flavor. They keep a weather eye on the profit-
and-loss account, and retire like thrifty traders on a well-earned
competency. It is worth mentioning, however, to Defoe's credit,
that in one or two instances at least he paid his debts in full, after
compromising with his creditors.
Defoe's writings, though all marked by his strong but limited per-
sonality, fall naturally into three classes:-
First, his political writings, in which may be included his wretched
attempts at political satire, and most of his journalistic work. This
is included in numberless pamphlets, broad-sheets, newspapers, and
the like, and is admirable expository matter on the public questions
of the day. Second, his fiction, Robinson Crusoe,' 'Captain Sin-
gleton, Colonel Jack,' 'Roxana,' and 'Moll Flanders. ' Third, his
miscellaneous work; innumerable biographies and papers like the
'History of the Plague,' the 'Account of the Great Storm,' 'The
True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs. Veal,' etc. Between the
last two classes there is a close connection, since both were written
for the market; and his fictions proper are cast in the autobiographi-
cal form and are founded on incidents in the lives of real persons,
and his biographies contain a large proportion of fiction.
Some knowledge of Defoe's political work is necessary to a com-
prehension of the early eighteenth century. During his life the
power of the people and of the House of Commons was slowly ex-
tended, and the foundations of the modern English Constitution were
laid. The trading and manufacturing classes, especially in the city
of London, increased in wealth and political consequence. The read-
ing public on which a popular writer could rely, widened. With these
changes-partly as cause and purely as consequence-came the
establishment of "News Journals" and "Reviews. " Besides Addison's
Spectator for the more cultured classes, multitudes of periodicals
were founded which aimed to reach a more general public. The
old method of a broad-sheet or the pamphlet, hawked in the streets
or exposed for sale and cried at the book-stalls, was still in use, but
the regular issue of a news-letter was taking its place. Defoe attacked
the public in both ways with unwearied assiduity. His poem The
True-Born Englishman' was sold in the streets to the astonishing
-
## p. 4481 (#259) ###########################################
DANIEL DEFOE
4481
number of eighty thousand.
In 1704 he established the Review, a
bi-weekly. It ran to 1713, and Defoe wrote nearly all of each num-
ber. Afterwards he was for eight years main contributor and sub-
stantially manager of Mist's Journal, a Tory organ; and one of the
most serious and well-founded charges against this first great jour-
nalist is, that he was deficient in journalistic honor, and remained in
the pay of the Whig Ministry while attached to the Opposition organ.
During this period he founded and conducted several other journals.
>>
Defoe possessed in a large measure the journalistic sense. No one
ever had a finer instinct in the subtle arts of "working the public
and of advertising. When the notorious Jack Sheppard was con-
demned, he visited him at Newgate, wrote his life, and had the high-
wayman, standing under the gallows, send for a copy and deliver
it as his "last speech and dying confession. " There is a certain
breadth and originality in this stroke, hardly to be paralleled in
modern journalism. Defoe had the knack of singling out from the
mass of passing events whatever would be likely to interest the pub-
lic. He brought out an account in some newspaper, and if successful,
made the occurrence the subject of a longer article in pamphlet or
book form. He was always on the lookout for matter, which he
utilized with a pen of marvelous rapidity. The gazette or embryonic
newspaper was at first confined to a rehearsal of news. Defoe
invented the leading article or "news-letter» of weekly comment,
and the society column of Mercure Scandaleuse.
The list of Defoe's political pamphlets is a large one, but they are
of more interest to the historian than to the general reader. While
they are far inferior in construction and victorious good sense to
Sydney Smith's magazine articles on kindred topics, and to Swift's
'Drapier's Letters' in subtle appeals to the prejudices of the igno-
rant, they show a remarkable command over the method of reaching
the plain people, to use President Lincoln's phrase, and taking it
to mean that great body of quiet persons who desire on the whole
to be fair in their judgments, but who must have their duty made
quite evident before they see it.
is, vituperative for a time when Pope and Swift and Dennis made
their personal invective so much higher flavored than modern taste
He seems to have been tolerant by nature; and although
this proceeds in his case from the fact that his moral enthusiasm
was never very warm, and not from any innate refinement of nature,
he is entitled to the credit of moderation in the use of abusive lan-
He is tolerant, too, of those who differ from him in pol-
Defoe is never vituperative—that
endures.
guage.
itics and religion; and though it is absurd to suppose, as some of
his biographers have done, that he was so far in advance of his
century as to have advocated the political soundness of free trade, he
VIII-281
-
## p. 4482 (#260) ###########################################
4482
DANIEL DEFOE
shows in his treatment of commercial questions the marks of a broad
and comprehensive mind. He speaks of foreigners in a cosmopolitan
spirit, with the exception of the Portuguese, for whom he seems to
feel a lively dislike, founded possibly on some of his early business
experiences. The reader will remember the dignified and courteous
demeanor of the Spaniards in 'Robinson Crusoe'; and although the
violent antipathy of the previous generation to Spanish Romanists
had abated, Defoe's freedom from insular prejudice is noteworthy,
the more so that a "discreet and sober bearing," such as he gives his
Spaniards, seems to have been his ideal of conduct. Defoe is a great
journalist, and although he is a typical hack, writing timely articles.
for pay, he has a touch of genius. He was always successful in
gaining the ear of his public; and in the one instance where he hit
upon a subject of universal interest, the life of the solitary castaway
thrown absolutely on his own resources, he wrote a book, without
any effort or departure from his usual style, which has been as pop-
ular with succeeding generations as it was with his own. It is a
mistake to call 'Robinson Crusoe' a "great boy's book," - unless we
regard the boy nature as persistent in all men, and perhaps it is in
all healthy men,- for. it treats the unaided conflict with nature and
circumstance, which is the essence of adult life, with unequaled
simplicity and force. Crusoe is not merely an adventurer; he is the
human will, courage, resolution, stripped of all the adventitious
support of society. He has the elements of universal humanity,
though in detail he is as distinctly English as Odysseus is Greek.
The characters of Defoe's other novels - Colonel Jack, Captain
Singleton, Moll Flanders, and Roxana - are so repulsive, and so en-
tirely unaware of their repulsiveness, that we can take little interest
in them. Possibly an exception might be made in favor of Colonel
Jack, who evinces at times an amusing humor. All are criminals, and
the conflict of the criminal with the forces of society may be the sub-
ject of the most powerful fiction. But these books are inartistic in sev-
eral regards. No criminals, even allowing them to be hypocrites, ever
disclose themselves in the open-hearted manner of these autobiogra-
phers. Vice always pays to virtue the homage of a certain reticence
in details. Despite all his Newgate experiences and his acquaintance
with noted felons, Defoe never understood either the weakness or
the strength of the criminal type. So all his harlots and thieves
and outcasts are decidedly amateurish. A serious transgression of
the moral law is to them a very slight matter, to be soon forgotten
after a temporary fit of repentance, and a long course of evil living
in no wise interferes with a comfortable and respectable old age.
His pirates have none of the desperation and brutal heroism of sin.
Stevenson's John Silver or Israel Hands is worth a schooner-load of
## p. 4483 (#261) ###########################################
DANIEL DEFOE
4483
them. Neither they nor their author seem to value virtue very
highly, though they are acutely sensitive to the discomfort of an
evil reputation. Possibly such people may be true to a certain type
of humanity, but they are exceedingly uninteresting. A writer who
takes so narrow a view cannot produce a great book, even though
his lack of moral scope and insight is partly compensated by a vivid
presentation of life on the low plane from which he views it.
'Moll Flanders' and 'Roxana' are very coarse books, but it can
hardly be said that they are harmful or corrupting. They are simply
vulgar. Vice has preserved all its evil by preserving all its gross-
ness. Passion is reduced to mere animalism, and is depicted with
the brutal directness of Hogarth. This may be good morals, but it is
unpleasant art. It is true that Defoe's test of a writer was that he
should "please and serve his public," and in providing amusement he
was not more refined nor more coarse than those whom he addressed;
but a writer should look a little deeper and aim a little higher than
the average morality of his day. Otherwise he may please but will
not serve his generation, in any true sense of literary service.
Defoe is sometimes spoken of as the first great realist. In a lim-
ited sense this may be true. No doubt he presents the surface of
a limited area of the eighteenth-century world with fidelity. With
the final establishment of Protestantism, the increase of trade, and
the building of physical science on the broad foundations laid down
by Newton, England had become more mundane than at any other
period. The intense faith and the imaginative quality of the sev-
enteenth century were deadened. The eighteenth century kept its
eyes on the earth, and though it found a great many interesting and
wonderful things there, and though it laid the foundations of Eng-
land's industrial greatness, it was neither a spiritual nor an artistic
age.
and I shall not consider myself in the slightest degree bound
by this.
Who knows? -these very thousands of pounds may
help us to recover the throne. "
The Queen impetuously raised her head, looked him straight
in the eyes for a moment, then shrugged her shoulders, saying:
"Do not make yourself out viler than you are. You know
that when once you have signed — but no. The truth is, you lack
strength and fortitude; you desert your kingly post at the most
perilous moment, when a new society, that will acknowledge
neither God nor master, pursues with its hatred the representa-
tives of Divine right, makes the heavens tremble over their heads
and the earth under their steps. The assassin's knife, bombs,
bullets, all serve their purpose. Treachery and murder are on
every side.
In the midst of our pageantry or our festivities, the
best of us as well as the worst, not one of us does not start if
only a man steps forward out of the crowd. Hardly a petition
that does not conceal a dagger. On leaving his palace what king
is certain of returning alive? And this is the hour you choose
to leave the field! "
## p. 4468 (#242) ###########################################
4468
ALPHONSE DAUDET
"Ah! if fighting could do it! " eagerly said Christian II. "But
to struggle as we do against ridicule, against poverty, against all
the petty meannesses of life, and feel that we only sink deeper
every day—"
A ray of hope lit up her eyes:-"Is it true? would you fight?
Then listen. "
Breathlessly she related, in a few rapid words, the expedition
she and Elysée had been preparing for the last three months by
letters, proclamations, and dispatches, which Father Alphée, ever
on the move, carried from one mountain village to the other.
This time it was not to the nobility they appealed, but to the
people; the muleteers, the porters of Ragusa, the market-gardeners
of Breno, of La Brazza, the islanders who go to market in their
feluccas, the nation which had remained faithful to the mon-
archical tradition, which was ready to rise and die for its king,
on condition that he should lead them. Companies were form-
ing, the watchword was already circulating, only the signal now
remained to be given.
The Queen, hurling her words at Christian to rout his weak-
ness by a vigorous charge, had a cruel pang when she saw
him shake his head, showing an indifference which was even
greater than his discouragement. Perhaps at the bottom of his
heart he was annoyed that the expedition should have been so
far organized without his knowledge. But he did not believe in
the feasibility of the plan. It would not be possible to advance
into the country; they would be compelled to hold the islands,
and devastate a beautiful country with very little chance of suc-
cess: a second edition of the Duc de Palma's adventure, a useless
effusion of blood.
"No, really, my dear Frédérique, you are led away by the
fanaticism of your chaplain and the wild enthusiasm of that hot-
headed Gascon. I also have my sources of information, far more
reliable than yours. The truth is, that in Dalmatia, as in many
other countries, monarchy has had its day. They are tired of it,
they will have no more of it. "
"Oh! I know the coward who will have no more of it," said
the Queen. And she went out hurriedly, leaving Christian much
surprised that the scene should have ended so abruptly.
He
hastily thrust the deed into his pocket, and prepared to go out
in his turn, when Frédérique reappeared, accompanied this time
by the little prince.
## p. 4469 (#243) ###########################################
ALPHONSE DAUDET
4469
Roused out of his sleep and hurriedly dressed, Zara, who had
passed from the hands of his nurse to those of the Queen with-
out a word having been uttered, opened wide his bewildered
eyes under his auburn curls, but asked no questions; he remem-
bered confusedly in his poor little dizzy head similar awakenings
for hasty flights, in the midst of pallid faces and breathless
exclamations. It was thus that he had acquired the habit of
passive obedience; that he allowed himself to be led anywhere,
provided the Queen called him in her grave and resolute voice,
and held ready for his childish weakness the shelter of her ten-
der arms and the support of her strong shoulder. She had said:
"Come! " and he had come with confidence, surprised only at the
surrounding silence, so different from those other stormy nights,
with their visions of blood and flames, roar of cannon, and rattle
of musketry.
He saw the King standing, no longer the careless good-
natured father who at times surprised him in his bed or crossed
the schoolroom with an encouraging smile, but a stern father,
whose expression of annoyance became more accentuated as he
saw them enter. Frédérique, without uttering one word, led the
child to the feet of Christian II. and abruptly kneeling, placed
him before her, crossing his little fingers in her joined hands:-
"The king will not listen to me, perhaps he will listen to
you, Zara. Come, say with me, 'Father. ' » The timid voice re-
peated, "Father. "
-
"My father! my king! I implore! do not despoil your child.
Do not deprive him of the crown he is to wear one day.
Remember that it is not yours alone; it comes from afar, from
God himself, who gave it six hundred years ago to the house of
Illyria. God has chosen me to be a king, father.
It is my
inheritance, my treasure; you have no right to take it from me. '»
The little prince accompanied his fervent murmur with the
imploring looks of a supplicant; but Christian turned away his
head, shrugged his shoulders, and furious though still polite, he
muttered a few words between his teeth: "Exaggeration! most
improper; turn the child's head. " Then he tried to withdraw
and gain the door. With one bound the Queen was on her feet,
caught sight of the table from which the parchment had disap-
peared, and comprehending at once that the infamous deed was.
signed, that the king had it in his possession, gave a despairing
shriek:
## p. 4470 (#244) ###########################################
ALPHONSE DAUDET
4470
"Christian! "
He continued to advance towards the door.
She made a step forward, picking up her dress as if to pur-
sue him; then suddenly said:—
"Well, be it so. "
He stopped short and turned round. She was standing before
the open window, her foot upon the narrow stone balcony, with
one arm clasping her son ready to bear him into death, the other
extended menacingly towards the cowardly deserter. The moon
lit up from without this dramatic group.
"To an operetta King, a Queen of tragedy," she said, stern
and terrible. "If you do not burn this instant what you have
just signed, and swear on the cross that it will never be re-
peated, your race is ended, crushed, wife and child, there on the
stones. "
Such earnestness seemed to inspire her vibrating tone, her
splendid figure bent towards the emptiness of space as though to
spring, that the King, terrified, dashed forward to stop her.
"Frédérique ! "
At the cry of his father, at the quiver of the arm that held
him, the child-who was entirely out of the window-thought
that all was finished, that they were about to die. He never
uttered a word nor a moan; was he not going with his mother?
Only, his tiny hands clutched the queen's neck convulsively, and
throwing back his head with his fair hair hanging down, the
little victim closed his eyes before the appalling horror of the
fall.
Christian could no longer resist. The resignation, the cour-
age of this child, who of his future kingly duties already knew
the first to die well-overcame him. His heart was bursting.
He threw upon the table the crumpled parchment which for a
moment he had been nervously holding in his hand, and fell sob-
bing in an arm-chair. Frédérique, still suspicious, read the deed
through from the first line to the very signature, then going up
to a candle, she burned it till the flame scorched her fingers,
shaking the ashes upon the table; she then left the room, carry-
ing off her son, who was already falling asleep in her arms in
his heroically tragic attitude.
Translation of Laura Ensor and E. Bartow.
## p. 4471 (#245) ###########################################
4471
MADAME DU DEFFAND
(MARIE DE VICHY-CHAMROND)
(1697-1780)
M
ADAME DU DEFFAND is interesting as a personality, a type,
and an influence. Living through nearly the whole of the
eighteenth century, she assimilated its wealth of new ideas,
and was herself a product of the thought-revolution already kindling
the spirit of 1789.
She very early showed her mental independence by puzzling
questions upon religion. The eloquent Massillon attempted to win
her to orthodoxy. But he soon gave up the task, told the Sisters to
buy her a catechism, and went off declar-
ing her charming. The inefficacy of the
catechism was proved later, when the
precocious girl developed into the grace-
ful, unscrupulous society woman. She was
always fascinating to the brightest men
and women of her own and other lands.
But the early years of social triumph, when
she still had the beautiful eyes admired
by Voltaire, are less significant than the
nearly thirty years of blindness in the con-
vent of St. Joseph, which after her afflic-
tion she made her home. Here she held
her famous receptions for the literary and
social celebrities of Paris. Here Mademoiselle Lespinasse endured a
miserable ten years as her companion, then rebelled against her
exactions, and left to establish a rival salon of her own, aided by
her devoted D'Alembert. His preference Madame du Deffand never
forgave. Henceforth she opposed philosophy, and demanded from
her devotees only stimulus and amusement. It was here that Hor-
ace Walpole found the "blind old woman" in her tub-like chair, and
began the friendship and intellectual flirtation of fifteen years. It
proved a great interest in her life, notwithstanding Walpole's dread
of ridicule at a suggestion of romance between his middle-aged self
and this woman twenty years older.
MADAME DU DEFFAND
She was a power in the lives of many famous people, intimate
with Madame de Staël, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Madame de Choiseul,
the Duchess of Luxembourg, Madame Necker, Hume, Madame de
1
## p. 4472 (#246) ###########################################
4472
MADAME DU DEFFAND
Genlis. In her salon old creeds were argued down, new ideas dis-
seminated, and bons mots and witty gossip circulated. She has re-
counted what went on, and explained the reign of clever women in
her century. Ignoring her blindness, she lived her life as gayly as
she could in visiting, feasting, opera-going, and letter-writing. But
even her social supremacy and brilliant correspondence with Voltaire,
Walpole, and others, did not satisfy her. She wished to appeal to
the heart, and she appealed only to the head. Of all ills she most
dreaded ennui, and the very dread of it made her unhappy. She
became more and more insufficient to herself, until at eighty-three
she died with clear-sighted indifference.
"She was perhaps the wittiest woman who ever lived," says
Saintsbury. Hers was an inextinguishable wit, always alert, epi-
grammatic, enriching the language with proverbial phrases.
During her life Voltaire's science of unbelief and Rousseau's
appeal to nature and sentiment were stimulating Europe. For Rous-
seau, Madame du Deffand had no respect; but Voltaire's philosophy
appealed to her egotism. It bade a human being investigate his own.
puzzles, and seek solution in himself. Madame du Deffand agreed,
but failed to find satisfaction in her anxious analysis; she envied
believers in God, and longed for illusions, yet allowed herself none.
Jealous, exacting, critical, with all the arrogance of the old aris-
tocracy, she was as merciless to herself as to others.
«All my
judgments have been false and daring and too hasty.
never known any one perfectly.
To whom then can I have
recourse? " she cries despairingly.
I have
•
Sainte-Beuve emphasizes her noblest quality: with all her faults
she was true. She lived out her life frankly, boldly, without self-
deception or imposition. So in the entertaining volumes of her let-
ters and pen-portraits of acquaintances, she has left a valuable record.
She takes us back a century, and shows not only how people looked
and what they did, but how they thought and felt.
TO THE DUCHESSE DE CHOISEUL
PARIS, Sunday, December 28th, 1766.
D
o You know, dear Grandmama [a pet name], that you are the
greatest philosopher that ever lived? Your predecessors
spoke equally well, perhaps, but they were less consistent
in their conduct. All your reasonings start from the same senti-
ment, and that makes the perfect accord one always feels be-
tween what you say and what you do. I know very well why,
## p. 4473 (#247) ###########################################
MADAME DU DEFFAND
4473
loving you madly, I am ill at ease with you. It is because I
know that you must pity everybody who is unlike yourself. My
desire to please you, the brief time that I am permitted with
you, and my eagerness to profit by it, all trouble, embarrass,
intimidate me and discompose me.
I exaggerate, I utter platitudes; and end by being disgusted
with myself, and eager to rectify the impression I may have
made upon you.
You wish me to write to M. de Choiseul, and to make my
letter pretty and bright. Ah, indeed! I'm the ruler of my own
imagination, am I! I depend upon chance. A purpose to do or
to say such or such a thing takes away the possibility. I am not
in the least like you. I do not hold in my hands the springs of
my spirit. However, I will write to M. de Choiseul. I will
seize a propitious moment. The surest means of making it come
is to feel hurried.
I am sending you an extract from an impertinent little pam-
phlet entitled 'Letter to the Author of the Justification of Jean
Jacques. ' You will see how it treats our friend. I am not sure
that it should be allowed; whether M. de Choiseul should not
talk to M. de Sartines about it. It is for you to decide, dear
Grandmama, if it is suitable, and if M. de Choiseul ought to
permit licenses so impertinent.
I am dying to see you. In spite of my fear, in spite of my
dreads, I am convinced that you love me because I love you.
TO MR. CRAWFORD
SUNDAY, March 9th, 1766.
I
READ your letter to Madame de Forcalquier, or rather I gave
it to her to read. I thought from her tone that she liked it,
but she will not commit herself. She is more than incom-
prehensible. The Trinity is not more mysterious. She is com-
posed of systems, which she does not understand herself; great
words, great principles, great strains of music, of which nothing
remains. However, I am of your opinion, that she is worth
more than all my other acquaintances. She agrees that it would
be delightful to have you live in this country; but if she were
only to see you en passant, it hardly matters whether you came
or not; that she has not forgotten you, but that she will forget
## p. 4474 (#248) ###########################################
4474
MADAME DU DEFFAND
you. Eh! Why shouldn't she forget you? She does not know
A hundred speeches of the sort which vex me.
you. .
What is certain is, that her
They say of people who have too much vivacity that they
were put in too hot an oven. They might say of her, on the
contrary, that she is underdone. She is the sketch of a beauti-
ful work, but it is not finished.
sentiments, if she has sentiments, are sincere, and that she does
not bore you.
I showed her your letter because I thought that
would give you pleasure; but be sure that no one in the world,
not even she, shall see what you write me in future except
Niart [her secretary], who as you know is a well.
I have just made you a fine promise that I will not show
your letters; perhaps I shall never be able to show them.
Truly, truly, I am like Madame de Forcalquier, and do not know
you!
I spent three hours with Mr. Walpole yesterday, but only half
an hour alone with him. Lord George and his wife returned his
short call, but your Dr. James stayed there all the time. He is
a very gloomy, uninteresting man.
Have you seen Jean Jacques? Is he still in London? Have
you seen your father? Imagine yourself tête-à-tête with me in
the corner of the fireplace, and answer all my questions, but
especially those which concern your health. Have you seen the
doctors? Have they ordered you the waters? And tell me too,
honestly, if I shall ever see you again. Reflect that you are
only twenty-five years old, that I am a hundred, and that it only
requires a brief kindness to put pleasure in my life. No, I will
not assume the pathetic. Do just what pleases you.
TO HORACE WALPOLE
TUESDAY, August 5th, 1766.
I
HAVE received your letter of July 31st-no number, sheets of
different sizes. All these observations mean nothing, unless
it is that a person without anything to do or to think occupies
herself with puerile things. Indeed, I should do very wrong not
to profit by all your lessons, and to persist in the error of believ-
ing in friendship, and regarding it as a good; no, no; I renounce
my errors, and am absolutely persuaded that of all illusions that
is the most dangerous.
## p. 4475 (#249) ###########################################
MADAME DU DEFFAND
4475
You who are the apostle of this wise doctrine, receive my
confession and my vows never to love, never to seek to be loved
by any one; but tell me if it is permitted to desire the return of
agreeable persons; if one may long for news of them, and if to
be interested in them and to let them know it is to lack virtue,
good sense, and proper behavior. I am awaiting enlightenment.
I cannot doubt your sincerity; you have given me too many
proofs of it; explain yourself without reserve.
WEDNESDAY, 6th.
Of all the things in your letter, what struck me the most yes-
terday were your moralizings on friendship, which forced me to
reply at once. I was interrupted by Monsieur and Madame de
Beauvan, who came to take me to supper with them in the
country at the good Duchess of Saint-Pierre's. I returned early.
I did not close my eyes during the night. I woke up Niart [her
secretary] earlier than usual to go on with my letter, and to
re-read me yours.
I am better pleased with it this morning than
I was yesterday.
The matter of friendship shocked me less. I
find that the conclusion is-let us be friends without friendship.
Ah well, so be it; I consent. Perhaps it is agreeable; let us
learn by experience, and for that- see each other the oftener! In
truth, you have only a comic actress, a deaf woman,
and some
chickens to leave, as you have only a blind woman and many
goslings to find; but I promise you that the blind woman will
have much to ask and much to tell.
I do not know what to say to you about your ministry. You
have entertained me so little with politics, that if others had not
informed me, all that goes on with you would be less intelligible
to me than the affairs of China. They have told me something
of the character of the count; and as for this certain good com-
rade [Conway], I think I know him perfectly. I am pleased that
he has remained, but not that he does not oppose your philos-
ophy. All your opinions are beautiful and praiseworthy; but if
I were in his place I should certainly hinder you from making
use of them, and not regulate my conduct by your moderation
and disinterestedness. Oh! as for my lord, you cannot keep
him,- that's the public cry. It seems to me that the brother and
sister-in-law are. not pleased. Do you not detest the people?
From the agrarian law to your monument, your lamps, and your
## p. 4476 (#250) ###########################################
4476
MADAME DU DEFFAND
black standard, its joy, its sadness, its applause, its complaints,
are all odious to me. But I am going back to speak to you about
yourself. You say that your fortune, instead of augmenting, will
suffer diminution. I am much afraid of that. No liberty with-
out a competency. Remember that. If your economy falls upon
your trips to France I shall be miserable. But listen to this with-
out getting vexed.
I possess, as you know, a small lodging-room belonging to
me, little worthy of the son of Robert Walpole, but which may
satisfy the philosopher Horace. If he found it convenient, he
could occupy it without incurring the slightest ridicule. He can
consult sensible people, and while waiting, be persuaded that it
is not my personal interest which induces me to offer it to him.
Honestly, my mentor, you could not do better than take it.
You would be near me or a hundred leagues from me if you
liked it better. It would not engage you to any attention nor
any assiduity; we would renew our vows against friendship. It
would even be necessary to render more observance to the Idol
[Comtesse de Boufflers]; for who could be shocked, if not she?
Pont-de-Veyle, who approves and advises this arrangement, claims
that even the Idol would find nothing to oppose. Think of that.
Grandmama returned yesterday morning. My favor with her
is better established. She will take supper with me Friday; and
as the supper was arranged without foreseeing that she would
be there, she will find a company which will not exactly suit
her, among others the Idol, and the Archbishop of Toulouse.
I shall have many things to tell you when I see you.
be that they will hardly interest you, but it will be the world of
my Strawberry Hill.
It may
You agree with me about the letters, which pleases me. I be-
lieve myself a genius when I find myself in agreement with you.
This Prince Geoffrin is excellent. Surely heaven is witness that I
do not love you, but I am forced to find you very agreeable.
Are you waiting until your arrival here to give a jug to the
Maréchale de Luxembourg? I see no necessity of making a
present to the Idol; incense, incense, that is all it wants!
I have a great desire that you should read a Memoir of La
Chalottais; it is very rare, very much "prohibited," but I am
intriguing to get it.
## p. 4477 (#251) ###########################################
MADAME DU DEFFAND
4477
M. de Beauvan begs you to send me a febrifuge for him. It
is from Dr. James, I think. There are two kinds; one is mild
and the other violent. He requires a louis's worth of each.
You are mightily deceiving yourself if you think Voltaire
author of the analysis of the romance of 'Héloise. ' The author
is a man from Bordeaux, a friend of M. de Secondat. Àpropos
of Voltaire, he has had the King of Prussia sounded to know if
he would consent to give him asylum at Wesel in case he were
obliged to leave his abode. This his Majesty has very willingly
granted.
Good-by. I am counting upon being able in future to give
you news of your court and your ministry. I have made a new
acquaintance, who is a favorite of Lord Bute and the most inti-
mate friend of Lord Holderness. I do not doubt that this lord
is aiming at my Lord Rochefort's place, who they say scarcely
troubles himself about the embassy.
Write me, I beg you, at least once a week.
Tell me if M. Crawford is in Scotland.
It is thought that the first news from Rome will inform us of
the death of Chevalier Macdonald.
N°
NOVEMBER, 1765.
I do not want to draw your likeness; nobody knows
you less than I. Sometimes you seem to me what I wish
you were, sometimes what I fear you may be, and per-
haps never what you really are. I know very well that you
have a great deal of wit of all kinds and all styles, and you
must know it better than any one.
O, NO!
PORTRAIT OF HORACE WALPOLE
But your character should be painted, and of that I am not a
good judge. It would require indifference, or impartiality at
least. However, I can tell you that you are a very sincere man,
that you have principles, that you are brave, that you pride
yourself upon your firmness; that when you have come to a
decision, good or bad, nothing induces you to change it, so that
your firmness sometimes resembles obstinacy. Your heart is
good and your friendship strong, but neither tender nor facile.
Your fear of being weak makes you hard. You are on your guard
against all sensibility. You cannot refuse to render valuable
## p. 4478 (#252) ###########################################
4478
MADAME DU DEFFAND
services to your friends; you sacrifice your own interest to them,
but you refuse them the slightest of favors. Kind and humane
to all about you, you do not give yourself the slightest trouble
to please your friends in little ways.
Your disposition is very agreeable although not very even.
All your ways are noble, easy, and natural. Your desire to
please does not lead you into affectation. Your knowledge of the
world and your experience have given you a great contempt for
men, and taught you how to live with them. You know that all
their assurances go for nothing. In exchange you give them
politeness and consideration, and all those who do not care about
being loved are content with you.
I do not know whether you have much feeling. If you have,
you fight it as a weakness. You permit yourself only that which
seems virtuous. You are a philosopher; you have no vanity,
although you have a great deal of self-love. But your self-love
does not blind you; it rather makes you exaggerate your faults
than conceal them. You never extol yourself except when you
are forced to do so by comparing yourself with other men. You
possess discernment, very delicate tact, very correct taste; your
tone is excellent.
You would have been the best possible companion in past
centuries; you are in this, and you would be in those to come.
Englishman as you are, your manners belong to all countries.
You have an unpardonable weakness to which you sacrifice
your feelings and submit your conduct-the fear of ridicule. It
makes you dependent upon the opinion of fools; and your friends
not safe from the impressions against them which fools
choose to give you.
Your judgment is easily confused. You are aware of this
weakness, which you control by the firmness with which you pur-
sue your resolutions. Your opposition to any deviation is some-
times pushed too far, and exercised in matters not worth the
trouble.
Your instincts are noble and generous. You do good for the
pleasure of doing it, without ostentation, without claiming grati-
tude; in short, your spirit is beautiful and high.
## p. 4478 (#253) ###########################################
į
## p. 4478 (#254) ###########################################
Grosch
DANIEL DEFOE.
## p. 4478 (#255) ###########################################
* i th
1- by.
## p. 4478 (#256) ###########################################
環と
2
DANIEL DEFOE.
## p. 4479 (#257) ###########################################
4479
DANIEL DEFOE
(1660? -1731)
BY CHARLES FREDERICK JOHNSON
D
ANIEL DEFOE, one of the most vigorous and voluminous writ-
ers of the last decade of the seventeenth and the first
quarter of the eighteenth centuries, was born in St. Giles
parish, Cripplegate, in 1660 or 1661, and died near London in 1731.
His father was a butcher named Foe, and the evolution of the son's
name through the various forms of D. Foe, De Foe, Defoe, to
Daniel Defoe, the present accepted form, did not begin much before
he reached the age of forty. He was educated at the "dissenting
school" of a Mr. Martin in Newington Green, and was intended for
the Presbyterian ministry. Although the training at this school was.
not inferior to that to be obtained at the universities, and indeed
superior in one respect, since all the exercises were in English,- the
fact that he had never been "in residence" set Defoe a little apart
from the literary society of the day. Swift, Pope, Addison, Arbuth-
not, and the rest, considered him untrained and uncultured, and
habitually spoke of him with the contempt which the regular feels.
for the volunteer. Swift referred to him as "an illiterate fellow
whose name I forget," and Pope actually inserted his name in the
'Dunciad':
"Earless on high stood unabashed De Foe. "
This line is false in two ways, for Defoe's ears were not clipped,
though he was condemned to stand in the pillory; and there can
hardly be a greater incongruity conceived than there is between our
idea of a dunce and the energetic, shifty, wide-awake Defoe,— though
for that matter a scholar like Bentley and a wit like Colley Cibber
are as much out of place in the poet's ill-natured catalogue. Defoe
angrily resented the taunts of the university men and their profes-
sional assumption of superiority, and answered Swift that "he had
been in his time master of five languages and had not lost them
yet," and challenged John Tutchin to "translate with him any Latin,
French, or Italian author, and then retranslate them crosswise, for
twenty pounds each book. ”
Notwithstanding the great activity of Defoe's pen (over two hun-
dred pamphlets and books, most of them of considerable length, are
## p. 4480 (#258) ###########################################
4480
DANIEL DEFOE
known to be his; and it is more than probable that much of his
work was anonymous and has perished, or could be only partly dis-
interred by laborious conjecture) he found time to engage twice in
business, once as a factor in hosiery and once as a maker of tiles.
In each venture he seems to have been unfortunate, and his business
experience is alluded to here only because his practical knowledge
of mercantile matters is evident in all his work. Even his pirates
like Captain Bob Singleton, and adventurers like Colonel Jack, have
a decided commercial flavor. They keep a weather eye on the profit-
and-loss account, and retire like thrifty traders on a well-earned
competency. It is worth mentioning, however, to Defoe's credit,
that in one or two instances at least he paid his debts in full, after
compromising with his creditors.
Defoe's writings, though all marked by his strong but limited per-
sonality, fall naturally into three classes:-
First, his political writings, in which may be included his wretched
attempts at political satire, and most of his journalistic work. This
is included in numberless pamphlets, broad-sheets, newspapers, and
the like, and is admirable expository matter on the public questions
of the day. Second, his fiction, Robinson Crusoe,' 'Captain Sin-
gleton, Colonel Jack,' 'Roxana,' and 'Moll Flanders. ' Third, his
miscellaneous work; innumerable biographies and papers like the
'History of the Plague,' the 'Account of the Great Storm,' 'The
True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs. Veal,' etc. Between the
last two classes there is a close connection, since both were written
for the market; and his fictions proper are cast in the autobiographi-
cal form and are founded on incidents in the lives of real persons,
and his biographies contain a large proportion of fiction.
Some knowledge of Defoe's political work is necessary to a com-
prehension of the early eighteenth century. During his life the
power of the people and of the House of Commons was slowly ex-
tended, and the foundations of the modern English Constitution were
laid. The trading and manufacturing classes, especially in the city
of London, increased in wealth and political consequence. The read-
ing public on which a popular writer could rely, widened. With these
changes-partly as cause and purely as consequence-came the
establishment of "News Journals" and "Reviews. " Besides Addison's
Spectator for the more cultured classes, multitudes of periodicals
were founded which aimed to reach a more general public. The
old method of a broad-sheet or the pamphlet, hawked in the streets
or exposed for sale and cried at the book-stalls, was still in use, but
the regular issue of a news-letter was taking its place. Defoe attacked
the public in both ways with unwearied assiduity. His poem The
True-Born Englishman' was sold in the streets to the astonishing
-
## p. 4481 (#259) ###########################################
DANIEL DEFOE
4481
number of eighty thousand.
In 1704 he established the Review, a
bi-weekly. It ran to 1713, and Defoe wrote nearly all of each num-
ber. Afterwards he was for eight years main contributor and sub-
stantially manager of Mist's Journal, a Tory organ; and one of the
most serious and well-founded charges against this first great jour-
nalist is, that he was deficient in journalistic honor, and remained in
the pay of the Whig Ministry while attached to the Opposition organ.
During this period he founded and conducted several other journals.
>>
Defoe possessed in a large measure the journalistic sense. No one
ever had a finer instinct in the subtle arts of "working the public
and of advertising. When the notorious Jack Sheppard was con-
demned, he visited him at Newgate, wrote his life, and had the high-
wayman, standing under the gallows, send for a copy and deliver
it as his "last speech and dying confession. " There is a certain
breadth and originality in this stroke, hardly to be paralleled in
modern journalism. Defoe had the knack of singling out from the
mass of passing events whatever would be likely to interest the pub-
lic. He brought out an account in some newspaper, and if successful,
made the occurrence the subject of a longer article in pamphlet or
book form. He was always on the lookout for matter, which he
utilized with a pen of marvelous rapidity. The gazette or embryonic
newspaper was at first confined to a rehearsal of news. Defoe
invented the leading article or "news-letter» of weekly comment,
and the society column of Mercure Scandaleuse.
The list of Defoe's political pamphlets is a large one, but they are
of more interest to the historian than to the general reader. While
they are far inferior in construction and victorious good sense to
Sydney Smith's magazine articles on kindred topics, and to Swift's
'Drapier's Letters' in subtle appeals to the prejudices of the igno-
rant, they show a remarkable command over the method of reaching
the plain people, to use President Lincoln's phrase, and taking it
to mean that great body of quiet persons who desire on the whole
to be fair in their judgments, but who must have their duty made
quite evident before they see it.
is, vituperative for a time when Pope and Swift and Dennis made
their personal invective so much higher flavored than modern taste
He seems to have been tolerant by nature; and although
this proceeds in his case from the fact that his moral enthusiasm
was never very warm, and not from any innate refinement of nature,
he is entitled to the credit of moderation in the use of abusive lan-
He is tolerant, too, of those who differ from him in pol-
Defoe is never vituperative—that
endures.
guage.
itics and religion; and though it is absurd to suppose, as some of
his biographers have done, that he was so far in advance of his
century as to have advocated the political soundness of free trade, he
VIII-281
-
## p. 4482 (#260) ###########################################
4482
DANIEL DEFOE
shows in his treatment of commercial questions the marks of a broad
and comprehensive mind. He speaks of foreigners in a cosmopolitan
spirit, with the exception of the Portuguese, for whom he seems to
feel a lively dislike, founded possibly on some of his early business
experiences. The reader will remember the dignified and courteous
demeanor of the Spaniards in 'Robinson Crusoe'; and although the
violent antipathy of the previous generation to Spanish Romanists
had abated, Defoe's freedom from insular prejudice is noteworthy,
the more so that a "discreet and sober bearing," such as he gives his
Spaniards, seems to have been his ideal of conduct. Defoe is a great
journalist, and although he is a typical hack, writing timely articles.
for pay, he has a touch of genius. He was always successful in
gaining the ear of his public; and in the one instance where he hit
upon a subject of universal interest, the life of the solitary castaway
thrown absolutely on his own resources, he wrote a book, without
any effort or departure from his usual style, which has been as pop-
ular with succeeding generations as it was with his own. It is a
mistake to call 'Robinson Crusoe' a "great boy's book," - unless we
regard the boy nature as persistent in all men, and perhaps it is in
all healthy men,- for. it treats the unaided conflict with nature and
circumstance, which is the essence of adult life, with unequaled
simplicity and force. Crusoe is not merely an adventurer; he is the
human will, courage, resolution, stripped of all the adventitious
support of society. He has the elements of universal humanity,
though in detail he is as distinctly English as Odysseus is Greek.
The characters of Defoe's other novels - Colonel Jack, Captain
Singleton, Moll Flanders, and Roxana - are so repulsive, and so en-
tirely unaware of their repulsiveness, that we can take little interest
in them. Possibly an exception might be made in favor of Colonel
Jack, who evinces at times an amusing humor. All are criminals, and
the conflict of the criminal with the forces of society may be the sub-
ject of the most powerful fiction. But these books are inartistic in sev-
eral regards. No criminals, even allowing them to be hypocrites, ever
disclose themselves in the open-hearted manner of these autobiogra-
phers. Vice always pays to virtue the homage of a certain reticence
in details. Despite all his Newgate experiences and his acquaintance
with noted felons, Defoe never understood either the weakness or
the strength of the criminal type. So all his harlots and thieves
and outcasts are decidedly amateurish. A serious transgression of
the moral law is to them a very slight matter, to be soon forgotten
after a temporary fit of repentance, and a long course of evil living
in no wise interferes with a comfortable and respectable old age.
His pirates have none of the desperation and brutal heroism of sin.
Stevenson's John Silver or Israel Hands is worth a schooner-load of
## p. 4483 (#261) ###########################################
DANIEL DEFOE
4483
them. Neither they nor their author seem to value virtue very
highly, though they are acutely sensitive to the discomfort of an
evil reputation. Possibly such people may be true to a certain type
of humanity, but they are exceedingly uninteresting. A writer who
takes so narrow a view cannot produce a great book, even though
his lack of moral scope and insight is partly compensated by a vivid
presentation of life on the low plane from which he views it.
'Moll Flanders' and 'Roxana' are very coarse books, but it can
hardly be said that they are harmful or corrupting. They are simply
vulgar. Vice has preserved all its evil by preserving all its gross-
ness. Passion is reduced to mere animalism, and is depicted with
the brutal directness of Hogarth. This may be good morals, but it is
unpleasant art. It is true that Defoe's test of a writer was that he
should "please and serve his public," and in providing amusement he
was not more refined nor more coarse than those whom he addressed;
but a writer should look a little deeper and aim a little higher than
the average morality of his day. Otherwise he may please but will
not serve his generation, in any true sense of literary service.
Defoe is sometimes spoken of as the first great realist. In a lim-
ited sense this may be true. No doubt he presents the surface of
a limited area of the eighteenth-century world with fidelity. With
the final establishment of Protestantism, the increase of trade, and
the building of physical science on the broad foundations laid down
by Newton, England had become more mundane than at any other
period. The intense faith and the imaginative quality of the sev-
enteenth century were deadened. The eighteenth century kept its
eyes on the earth, and though it found a great many interesting and
wonderful things there, and though it laid the foundations of Eng-
land's industrial greatness, it was neither a spiritual nor an artistic
age.
