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D.    WILSON. 

BOOKSELLER, 

Kirkgate, 

BRADFORD. 


THE    SCOTT    LIBRARY, 


SENANCOUR'S  OBERMANN. 


THE  SCOTT  LIBRARY. 

,*,    FOR    FULL   LIST  OP   THE   VOLUMES   IN    THIS   SERIES, 
SEE  CATALOGUE   AT   END  OF   BOOiC 


Obermann.  By  £tienne  Pivert 
DE  Senancour.  Translated, 
WITH  Introduction  and  Notes, 
BY  J.  Anthony  Barnes,  b.a. 


VOL.  I. 


THE    WALTER    SCOTT    PUBLISHING    CO.,    LTD. 

LONDON    AND    FELLING-ON-TYNE. 

NEW  YORK:    3  EAST  14TH  STREET. 

AND    MELBOURNE. 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
SANTA  BARBARA 


INTRODUCTION. 

Every  reader  of  Matthew  Arnold  must  have  felt  his 
curiosity  aroused  by  the  two  poems  entitled  "Stanzas 
in  Memory  of  the  Author  of  Obermann,''''  and  '■''Ober- 
mann  Once  More,"  the  former  composed  in  1849,  and 
the  latter  some  twenty  years  afterwards.  They  tell  us 
little  about  the  person  to  whom  they  refer,  but  the 
air  of  mystery  with  which  they  surround  him  holds 
our  attention  with  a  spell  far  stronger  than  the  interest 
of  personal  details.  They  hint  at  more  than  they  re- 
veal, like  the  silken  drapery  beneath  which  we  can 
trace  the  profile  of  a  recumbent  marble  figure.  They 
suggest  a  beauty  that  is  firm,  clear-cut,  and  noble, 
though  infinitely  sad  in  its  marble  coldness,  and  they 
make  us  eager  to  lift  the  veil  and  study  every  detail 
of  the  figure  for  ourselves.  They  call  up  the  image 
of  a  stern  and  lonely  spirit  wandering  amid  scenes  of 
Alpine  purity  and  grandeur,  wrapped  in  silent  and 
sorrowful  meditation — 

"  Ves,  though  the  virgin  mountain  air 
Fresh  through  these  pages  blows; 
Though  to  these  leaves  the  glaciers  spare 
The  soul  of  their  white  snows  ; 

Though  here  a  mountain-murmur  swells 
Of  many  a  dark-bough'd  pine  ; 
Though,  as  you  read,  you  hear  the  btlls 
Of  the  high-pasturing  kine  — 


vi  INTRODUCTION. 

Yet,  through  the  hum  of  torrent  lone, 
And  brooding  mountain-bee, 
There  sobs  I  know  not  wliat  ground-tone 
Of  human  agony.  " 

This  Alpine  recluse  is    ranked  as  a  seer  with  Words- 
worth and  Goethe — 


"  Yet,  of  the  spirits  who  have  reign'd 
In  this  our  troubled  day, 
I  know  but  two,  who  have  attain'd, 
Save  thee,  to  see  their  way. 


By  England's  lakes,  in  grey  old  age, 
His  quiet  home  one  keeps  ; 
And  one,  the  strong  much-toiling  Sage, 
In  German  Weimar  sleeps." 


When  the  poet  is  recalled  from  communion  with  this 
solitary  spirit  and  his  dreams  to  the  realities  of  daily 
life,  he  cries  : 

"  I  go,  Pate  drives  me  :  but  I  leave 
Half  of  my  life  with  you." 

And  in  the  later  poem,  Obermann  is  addressed  as  the 
"master  of  my  wandering-  youth."  Some  of  Arnold's 
finest  and  best  known  lines  are  put  into  his  lips  ;  the 
description,  for  instance,  of  the  effete  Roman  world,  be- 
ginning- : 

"  On  that  hard  Pagan  world  disgust 
And  secret  loathing  fell  ;  " 


INTRODUCTION.  vii 

and  the  beautiful,  if  despairing-,  reference  to  the  Founder 
of  Christianity  : 

"  Now  he  is  dead  !     Far  hence  he  lies 
In  the  lorn  Syrian  town  ; 
And  on  his  grave,  with  shining  eyes, 
The  Syrian  stars  look  down." 

The  place  assigned  to  Obermann  in  these  poems  is 
confirmed  by  a  note  appended  to  them  in  prose,  in 
which  Arnold  speaks  of  the  profound  inwardness, 
the  austere  sincerity  of  the  work,  the  delicate  feeling-  for 
nature  which  it  exhibits,  and  the  melancholy  eloquence 
of  many  passages  of  it,  and  sums  up  his  appreciation 
in  the  words:  "To  me,  indeed,  it  will  always  seem 
that  the  impressiveness  of  this  production  can  hardly 
be  rated  too  high." 

A  work  which  Matthew  Arnold,  "  the  literary  dictator 
of  the  nineteenth  century,"  could  eulogize  so  highly, 
must  always  appeal  to  the  curiosity,  even  if  it  fails  to 
command  the  admiration,  of  English  readers. 

Other  great  critics  have  held  Obermann  in  equally 
high  esteem,  though  it  had  to  wait  long  for  their 
verdict.  It  was  published  in  1804,  more  than  a  hundred 
years  ago,  and  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  it  endured  a 
neglect  as  profound  as  that  which  befell  Fitzgerald's 
Omar,  and  for  similar  reasons — the  diflidence  of  the 
author,  and  the  fact  that  the  book  appeared  before  the 
psychological  hour  for  its  appreciation  had  struck. 
Apparently  Senancour  himself  regarded  it  as  a  failure, 
for  he  announced  his  resolve  never  to  reprint  it,  and 
dismembered  it  to  incorporate  its  best  passages  in  later 
works.     Sainte-Beuve,  the  Matthew  Arnold  of  French 


viii  INTRODUCTION. 

critics,  was  one  of  the  first  to  call  attention  to  it,  and 
in  1S33  he  supphed  the  preface  to  a  new  edition  which 
Senancour  reluctantly  allowed  to  appear.  Seven  years 
later  a  third  edition  was  broug-ht  out,  this  time  with  a 
preface  by  Georg-e  Sand.  To  her  its  chief  interest  was 
psychological,  and  she  traces  its  affinities  with  Goethe's 
Werther  and  Chateaubriand's  Rene.  Werther  represents 
frustrated  passion ;  Rene  i\\Q.  consciousness  of  superior 
powers  without  the  will  to  exercise  them ;  Obennann 
the  clear,  persistent,  admitted  consciousness  of  inade- 
quate powers.  Rene  says:  "'If  I  could  will,  I  could 
Ao;''  Obermann  says:  'What  is  the  use  of  willing? 
I  am  powerless  to  do.  .  .  .'  Obermann  is  a  manly 
breast  with  feeble  arms,  an  ascetic  soul  possessed  by 
a  cankering"  doubt  which  betrays  its  impotence  instead 
of  exhibiting  its  daring.  He  is  a  philosopher  who  just 
missed  being;  a  saint."  She  traces  in  Obermann  a 
distant  kinship  with  Hamlet,  "that  obscure  yet  pro- 
found type  of  human  weakness,  so  complete  even  in  its 
failure,  so  logical  in  its  very  inconsistency." 

Vinet,  the  great  Swiss  theologian  and  critic,  also 
draws  out  an  elaborate  parallel  between  Obermann  and 
Rene,  not  to  the  advantage  of  the  former,  which  was 
sure  to  be  found  wanting  when  weighed  in  the  scales 
of  orthodoxy.  In  Norway,  Sweden,  F'inland,  and 
America  the  book  is  well  known  and  has  found  en- 
thusiastic admirers.  But  in  1804,  the  year  in  which 
Napoleon  was  proclaimed  Emperor,  France  was  en- 
g^rossed  by  the  agitations  and  hopes  that  followed  the 
Revolution  and  persisted  through  the  stormful  years  of 
Napoleon,  and  few  cared  to  listen  to  the  introspective 
musing's  of  a  solitary  dreamer.     The  popular  note  was 


INTRODUCTION.  ix 

dogmatic  Voltarianism,  that  ig-nored  the  maladies  of 
the  soul  and  was  confident  of  finding-  complete  satis- 
faction for  human  needs  in  external  prosperity  and 
splendour.  But  by  the  year  1830  this  mood  had 
changed;  Goethe  and  Byron  were  in  vogue;  doubt  had 
again  awakened,  doubt  of  materialism  itself  as  well  as 
of  the  religion  it  had  so  jubilantly  banished;  doubt  of 
the  wisdom  of  human  laws  and  the  worth  of  human 
ambitions,  as  well  as  of  the  laws  and  sanctions  once 
believed  in  as  divine.  Hence  the  men  of  1830  found  in 
Obennann  the  expression  of  a  mood  they  themselves 
were  passing  through,  a  phase  of  universal  doubt  that 
reduced  all  things  to  solution  in  the  hope  that  some 
clear  order  would  crystallize  out  of  them  by  laws  of 
nature's  own.  All  this  had  been  felt  and  uttered  a 
quarter  of  a  century  before  by  a  poor  and  unknown 
writer  now  growing  grey  in  their  midst. 

Many  who  turn  to  Obennann  in  the  hope  of  finding 
the  haunting,  elusive  charm  distilled  from  it  by  Matthew 
Arnold  will  be  disappointed,  and  will  agree  with 
A.  E.  Waite,  a  recent  critic  and  translator,  that  the 
poet  presents  him  "in  a  kind  of  transfigured  aspect." 
R.  L.  Stevenson  confesses  that  he  always  owed  Arnold 
a  grudge  for  leading  him  to  "  the  cheerless  fields  of 
Obennann  "  in  the  days  of  his  own  youthful  despon- 
dencies. Much  of  it  is  akin  to  one  of  Tennyson's 
poems,  "Confessions  of  a  Second-rate  Sensitive  Mind," 
and  might  be  aptly  described  by  that  title.  It  is 
perhaps  the  fullest  expression  in  literature  of  the  mood 
of  ennui,  that  untranslatable  word  which  occurs  in  so 
many  of  the  letters.  It  is  a  diagnosis  of  the  malady 
from  within,  as  Marie  Bashkirtseff's  Journal  is  a  diag- 


X  INTRODUCTION. 

nosis  of  frustrated  ambition.  Obermann  is  a  pure  and 
lofty  soul,  with  fine  sensibilities,  and  a  great  craving'  to 
love  and  to  serve,  but  disheartened  and  disenchanted; 
chafed  and  repelled  by  the  imperfections  of  the  existing 
social  order,  he  indulges  in  vague  and  beautiful  dreams 
of  unattainable  ideals,  only  to  wake  to  the  paralyzing" 
consciousness  of  his  own  impotence  and  life-weari- 
ness. 

Sometimes  this  mood  of  ennui  reflects  with  wonderful 
clearness  and  colour  Obermann's  natural  surroundings, 
as  some  still  forest  pool  reflects  the  flowers  that  fringe 
its  margin  and  the  trees  that  shut  it  in;  blue  sky  and 
floating  cloud  are  mirrored  in  it  by  day,  and  starry 
depths  of  space  by  night;  sometimes  an  impatient  gust 
ruffles  its  surface  with  chasing  ripples  as  though  it 
were  trying  to  break  away  and  flow  like  a  living 
stream,  a  source  of  energy  and  fertility,  but  the 
impulse  passes  by,  and  the  pool  is  there  still,  as 
motionless  as  ever. 

Obermann  is  the  pathology  of  a  soul  unequal  to  the 
demands  of  life,  and  scourged  to  exhaustion  by  the 
tyranny  of  the  ideal.  In  a  normal  human  being  every 
faculty  carries  in  itself  the  impulse  to  its  own  exercise, 
and  in  that  exercise  there  is  pleasure;  or  even  if  it  be 
arduous  and  painful  the  craving  of  the  whole  man  for 
some  end  is  sufficient  to  outweigh  the  discomfort  of 
particular  faculties.  But  in  Obermann  the  driving  force 
of  life  is  not  sufficient  for  the  machinery.  His  wheels 
move  slowly  and  painfully.  None  of  the  prizes  of  life 
are  sufficient  to  rouse  him  from  his  inertia.  Not  that 
he  is  blind  to  them.  He  sees  them  only  too  clearly;  he 
sees  throuirh  them  and  knows  beforehand  how  hollow 


INTRODUCTION.  xi 

and  unsatisfying;  they  are.  Mere  selfish  pleasure  has 
no  charms  for  him.  Power,  benevolently  used,  is  better 
worth  striving  for,  but  he  sees  that  the  reformer  is  often 
baffled,  and  that  his  greatest  triumphs  fall  far  short  of 
establishing"  the  ideal  order.  Love  is  the  one  illusion 
that  could  still  cast  over  him  a  spell,  but  he  has  seen 
its  bloom  rubbed  off  by  the  sordidness  of  poverty  and 
its  promise  blighted  by  fatal  incompatibility,  and  he 
prefers  to  let  it  hover  before  him  as  a  dream  rather 
than  risk  all  in  the  great  venture.  As  a  moralist  and 
philosopher  he  follows  Rousseau,  and  advocates  a 
return  to  nature  and  simplicity  of  life. 

His  one  intellectual  interest  is  in  analyzing  and 
recording  his  own  sensations,  and  he  has  sufficient 
physical  vigour  to  find  a  moderate  pleasure  in  bodily 
exertion.  In  Letter  ix.  he  describes  the  restfulness  of 
spirit  he  found  in  a  quiet  week  of  grape-gathering,  in 
terms  that  remind  us  of  Thoreau  and  his  bean-field. 
His  most  interesting  letters  are  those  describing  long 
solitary  walks  in  the  Forest  of  Fontainebleau  or  among 
the  Alps.  He  comes  nearest  to  the  true  and  joyous  self 
for  which  he  is  always  yearning  like  a  home-sick  exile, 
when  he  has  climbed  the  Dent  du  Midi  and  put  the 
world  beneath  his  feet  (vii.),  and  he  tastes  positive 
exhilaration  and  rapture  when  he  has  lost  his  way  in 
crossing  the  St.  Bernard,  and  commits  himself  in  the 
dark  to  the  course  of  a  mountain  torrent,  slipping, 
plunging,  falling,  forgetting  everything  in  the  tension 
of  muscular  exertion  and  the  effort  of  self-preservation. 
And  yet  even  then  his  delight  is  self-conscious,  and  he 
keeps  saying  to  himself:  "  For  this  one  moment  I  am 
willing  what  I  ought,  and  doing  what  I  will"  (xci.). 


xii  INTRODUCTION. 

There  is  little  plot  or  coherence  in  the  book,  and 
man}-  of  its  admirers,  including-  Saint-Beuve  and  George 
Sand,  think  it  would  be  seen  to  best  advantag^e  in 
extracts,  while  others  maintain,  with  the  late  M.  Leval- 
lois,  one  of  its  most  competent  critics,  that  "  it  exhibits 
the  only  unity  possible  in  a  work  of  this  kind,  unity  of 
soul  ...  a  personality  sometimes  in  harmony,  some- 
times disordered,  but  always  in  touch  with  Nature." 
Apart  from  considerations  of  literary  completeness,  the 
present  translator  would  have  preferred  to  omit  some 
of  the  reiterated  expressions  of  personal  moods  and 
tedious  philosophical  discussions  such  as  that  on  the 
nature  of  numbers  in  Letter  XLVii.,  or  the  two  frag- 
ments between  xxxv.  and  xxxvi.  on  the  good  man  and 
false  contempt  of  money,  or  the  fictitious  Manual  of 
Pseusophanes  in  xxxiii.  But  even  when  uninteresting 
in  themselves  these  passages  all  help  to  throw  light 
upon  the  working-  of  the  author's  mind,  and  have  their 
value  for  students  of  psychology. 

Though  the  epistolary  form  of  the  book  is  evidently 
a  mere  literary  device,  and  the  imaginary  friend  to 
whom  the  letters  are  addressed  is  a  lay  figure  of  whom 
no  clear  picture  is  presented,  the  contents  have  every 
appearance  of  being  a  genuine  record  of  experience. 
The  descriptions  of  scenery  both  in  Switzerland  and 
Fontainebleau  are  as  detailed  and  accurate  as  if  pen- 
cilled on  the  spot,  like  James  Smetham's  "ventilators," 
and  the  varying^  shades  of  the  writer's  mood,  his  self- 
contradictions  and  inconsistencies,  and  the  essential 
sameness  of  the  ground-tone  of  ennui,  have  an  equally 
convincing  appearance  of  verisimilitude.  It  is  probably 
safe   to  assume   that  we   have   here   the   contents   of  a 


INTRODUCTION.  xiii 

g'enuine  private  diary  disguised  in  the  form  of  letters, 
and  moulded  on  a  framework  of  incident  more  or  less 
fictitious.  In  later  life  Senancour  denied  the  strictly 
autobiographical  character  of  the  work,  just  as  Borrow 
did  in  the  case  ot  Laveiigro,  and  no  doubt  both  authors 
handled  their  materials  freely  enough  to  justify  them 
in  taking  shelter  under  this  denial  from  inferences 
based  on  the  supposition  that  their  works  were  auto- 
biographical. A  brief  comparison  of  the  story  of 
Obertnann  with  the  known  facts  of  Senancour's  life 
will  bring  out  the  intentional  discrepancies. 

The  letters  are  supposed  to  cover  a  period  of  ten 
years,  beginning  immediately  after  the  sudden  flight 
of  the  writer  from  his  home  in  France  to  Switzerland 
to  escape  the  prospective  yoke  of  an  uncongenial  voca- 
tion. He  represents  himself  as  being  not  yet  twenty- 
one  years  of  age.  After  a  few  months  of  wandering 
in  search  of  an  ideal  peace  and  well-being,  he  is  recalled 
to  Paris  to  save  the  remnants  of  his  fortune,  now  in 
the  hands  of  the  lawyers  (i.-ix.).  Weary  of  the  law's 
delays,  he  seeks  out  a  hermitage  in  the  Forest  of 
Fontainebleau,  and  spends  the  summer  of  the  second 
year  there  (x.-xxv.).  Spring  of  the  third  year  finds 
him  again  in  Paris,  and  his  aff"airs  are  at  last  wound 
up,  leaving  him  practically  penniless,  but  with  the 
remote  prospect  of  a  windfall  that  may  restore  to  him 
a  modest  competence  (xxvi.-xxxv.).  The  fourth  year 
is  passed  over  in  silence,  and  the  fifth  is  only  re- 
presented by  a  brief  fragment.  The  sixth  year  is  spent 
in  Lyons  (xxxvi.-xLix.),  where  a  chance  meeting  with 
a  former  object  of  his  affections,  now  married  to  a 
man    much   older  than    herself,   stirs  his    pulses  for   a 


xiv  INTRODUCTION. 

moment,  but  only  to  let  him  fall  back  into  a  deeper 
sense  of  his  helplessness.  The  letters  of  this  and  the 
following  year  include  discussions  on  various  topics, 
from  the  moral  influence  of  feminine  fashions  to  the 
ethics  of  suicide.  Three  letters  bridge  over  the  seventh 
year,  which  includes  a  visit  to  Paris  (l.-lii.).  In  spring- 
of  the  eighth  year  we  find  Obermann  again  in  Switzer- 
land, and  before  the  end  of  summer  he  settles  down 
at  Imenstrom,  near  the  head  of  Lake  Geneva,  on  a 
small  estate  which  an  improvement  in  his  fortunes 
has  enabled  him  to  purchase.  The  letters  take  a  more 
cheerful  tone  as  he  describes  the  erection  of  his  wooden 
chalet  and  outbuildings,  and  his  plans  for  spending  his 
time  (liii.-lxxiii.).  In  the  ninth  year  a  further  element 
of  interest  is  brought  into  his  life  by  the  arrival  of 
an  old  friend,  Fonsalbe,  to  share  his  solitude  (lxxiv.- 
Lxxxix.).  The  letters  of  the  tenth  year  were  added 
as  a  supplement  to  the  second  edition  (1833).  The 
sister  of  Fonsalbe,  who  is  the  old  love  of  Obermann 
already  referred  to,  now  appears  on  the  scene,  but  she 
is  bound  by  a  promise  to  her  late  husband's  family  not 
to  marry  again,  and  Obermann  has  not  sufficient  resolu- 
tion or  confidence  in  his  own  destiny  to  yield  to  his 
impulses  and  persuade  her  to  break  it.  So  once  again 
he  resigns  himself  to  the  austere  life  of  a  solitary 
thinker. 

Turning  now  to  the  life  of  Senancour  himself,  we  find 
its  main  outlines  are  clear,  but  in  details  there  is  either 
vagueness  or  complete  dearth  of  information.  Little 
was  known  of  him  by  his  own  contemporaries. 
Matthew  Arnold,  writing  three  years  after  his  death, 
was  uncertain  whether  he  was  buried: — 


INTRODUCTION.  xv 

"  Where  with  clear-rustling  wave 
The  scented  pines  of  Switzerland 
Stand  dark  round  thy  green  grave; 

Or  whether,  by  maligner  fate, 
Among  the  swarms  of  men, 
Where  between  granite  terraces 
The  blue  Seine  rolls  her  wave, 
The  Capital  of  Pleasure  sees 
Thy  hardly-heard-of  grave;" 

though  he  clears  up  the  point  in  the  second  poem: 

"  At  Sevres  by  the  Seine 

(If  Paris  that  brief  flight  allow) 
My  humble  tomb  explore! 
It  bears  :  Eternity,  be  thou 
My  refuge!  and  no  more.'" 

Doubtless  this  absence  of  personal  details  about  the 
author  constituted  part  of  the  charm  of  Obermann  to 
Matthew  Arnold,  who  was  fond  of  such  strange 
wandering  figures,  whether  real  or  imaginary — as,  for 
example,  The  Scholar  Gipsy,  The  Gipsy  Child  by  the 
Sea  Shore,  and  Empedocles  on  Etna.  The  best  authority 
is  a  monograph  on  the  life  and  works  of  Senancour, 
published  in  1897  by  the  late  M.  Jules  Levallois,  an 
enthusiast  who  devoted  a  great  part  of  his  life  to  the 
investigation  of  Senancour's  history,  and  who  had  the 
advantage  of  personal  acquaintance  with  Senancour's 
daughter  and  of  perusing  the  scanty  autobiographical 
material  in  her  possession.  But  even  this  book  is 
much  more  complete  and  luminous  as  a  study  of 
Senancour's  works  and  the  development  of  his  thought 
than  as  a  record  of  his  outer  life. 


xvi  INTRODUCTION. 

The  bare  facts,  as  established  by  Levallois,  are  as 
follows.  Etienne  Pivert  de  Senancour  was  born  in 
Paris  in  the  year  1770.  His  father  was  a  coiitrdlleur 
des  rentes,  and  had  also  the  title  of  conseiller  dti  roi. 
In  1789  {cct.  19),  in  consequence  of  some  domestic 
differences,  he  accompanied  his  mother  to  Fribourg-, 
in  Switzerland.  It  is  usually  supposed  that  their  de- 
parture was  due  to  Senancour's  revolt  ag^ainst  an 
attempt  on  the  part  of  his  father  to  make  him  a 
priest,  but  Levallois  treats  this  report  as  legendary, 
and  Senancour  himself  in  later  life  explicitly  denied 
that  he  and  his  father  were  not  on  good  terms. 

A  year  later  Senancour,  still  at  Fribourg,  married  a 
young-  lady  of  good  family  but  apparently  without  a 
dowry,  and  of  a  disposition  incompatible  with  that  of 
her  husband.  The  explanation  has  been  offered  that 
Senancour  married  in  haste,  and  more  from  a  too  scru- 
pulous conscientiousness  than  from  g^enuine  affection, 
and  the  facts  are  said  to  be  veiled  under  the  episode 
related  of  Fonsalbe  in  Letter  lxvii.  M.  Levallois 
was  unable  to  elicit  any  confirmation  of  this  view 
from  Mile.  Senancour,  who  simply  "  shrugg^ed  her 
shoulders"  when  he  mentioned  it.  But  it  was  not  a 
matter  on  which  a  father  would  be  likely  to  take  his 
daughter  into  his  confidence,  and  even  if  she  were 
aware  of  it  she  might  prefer  to  keep  her  own  counsel 
when  talking  to  his  biog^rapher.  Her  expressive 
gesture  might  mean  anything.  Senancour  had  seen 
this  analogy  to  Fonsalbe  delicately  suggested  in  an 
article  by  Saint-Beuve,  and  he  pencilled  in  the  margin 
of  his  copy:  "All  these  analogies  may  be  misleading"; 
but  the  mildness  of  his   disclaimer  does   not  leave  us 


INTRODUCTION.  xvii 

much  the  wiser,  Senancour's  wife  died  six  years  after 
the  marriag-e,  leaving-  him  with  a  son  and  daughter. 
Both  his  parents  seem  to  have  died  not  long-  before. 

The  Revolution  had  broken  out  a  few  weeks  before 
Senancour  left  Paris  in  17S9,  and  during-  the  Reign  of 
Terror  he  was  constantly  passing  to  and  fro  between 
France  and  Switzerland,  in  a  vain  endeavour  to  save 
some  remnants  of  the  family  property.  These  journeys 
were  full  of  risk,  and  he  was  several  times  arrested 
under  suspicion  of  being  a  refractory  priest  or  an 
emigre,  but  his  coolness  and  transparent  sincerity 
brought  him  off  safely.  Few  things  in  Obennann  are 
more  unaccountable  than  the  absence  of  any  reference 
to  the  scenes  of  the  Revolution.  The  storming  of  the 
Bastille  took  place  a  month  before  his  first  departure, 
and  in  his  later  visits  he  must  have  seen  something  of 
the  deluge  of  blood  in  the  streets  of  Paris,  but  no  hint 
of  guillotine  or  grape-shot  is  given  in  his  pages. 
Matthew  Arnold's  assertion  that  the  fiery  storm  of  the 
French  Revolution,  and  the  first  faint  promise  and 
dawn  of  the  new  world,  may  be  felt  and  almost  touched 
in  Ohermann,  is  only  true  of  the  general  spirit  of  the 
book.     The  writer  is  oblivious  of  current  events. 

After  the  death  of  his  wife  Senancour  reluctantly  left 
Switzerland  for  Paris,  and  began  the  long  struggle  for 
a  livelihood  as  an  author.  His  first  book,  Reveries 
sit r  la  nature  primitive  de  Vhoinjue,  was  written  in  1797 
at  the  house  of  a  friend  at  Villemetrie,  near  Senlis,  and 
published  in  1799,  but  it  fell  dead  from  the  press. 
Obermann  was  begun  in  Paris  in  1801,  and  finished  at 
Agis,  near  Fribourg,  in  1^03.  These  dates,  given  by 
M.  Levallois,  do  not  preclude  the  supposition  already 

2 


xviii  INTRODUCTION. 

stated  that  the  letters  were  worked  up  from  previously 
existing  material. 

The  chief  points  in  which  the  imaginary  circumstances 
of  Obermann  differ  from  the  actual  facts  of  Senancour's 
life  may  now  be  summarized  in  the  words  of  M. 
Levallois.  "Senancour  was  married,  Obermann  is  a 
bachelor  ;  Senancour  was  poor  and  became  still  poorer, 
Obermann  is  fairly  well  off  at  the  beginning  of  the 
book,  and  is  so  far  favoured  by  circumstances  that 
he  escapes  the  cares  of  wealth,  and  yet  fashions  for 
himself  eventually  a  very  comfortable  existence."  But 
in  the  main  the  outer  life  of  Obermann  coincides  with 
that  of  its  author,  and  in  a  book  that  is  chiefly  a  record 
of  solitary  musings  it  would  be  easy  to  introduce  the 
changes  in  matters  of  fact  enumerated  above.  Senan- 
cour's reluctance  to  have  it  regarded  as  autobiographical, 
and  his  subsequent  dislike  of  the  book  and  anxiety  to 
suppress  it,  were  probably  due  to  the  feeling  that  in  it 
he  had  laid  his  soul  too  bare  to  the  universal  prick  of 
light.  All  critics  are  argreed  that  Obermann  is  a  perfect 
portraiture  of  Senancour's  inner  life  between  the  ages 
of  twenty  and  thirty,  if  not  of  his  external  circumstances. 

On  its  first  appearance  in  1804,  the  book  attracted  no 
attention.  Its  author  was  too  guileless  and  diffident 
to  force  it  into  notice,  and  he  had  no  friendly  log-rollers 
to  perform  the  service  for  him.  But  in  the  following 
year  he  unwittingly  took  the  surest  means  of  gaining  a 
hearing  by  publishing  a  book  which  shocked  the  unco' 
guidy  and  aroused  some  hostility  in  the  religious  press. 
It  was  entitled  De  F Anion r  considcrc  dans  les  lois  rcelles 
et  dans  les  formes  sociales  de  rnnioti  des  sexes;  and  its 
object,  as  defined  by  its  author  in  a  later  edition,  was 


INTRODUCTION.  xix 

"to  combat  alike  the  levity  which  ignores  principles 
and  the  austerity  which  perverts  them."  A  sufficient 
idea  of  its  contents  may  be  formed  from  the  passage 
quoted  from  it  at  the  end  of  Letter  lxxx.,  and  the 
author's  views  on  the  same  topic  may  be  further 
illustrated  by  Letter  lxiii. 

Senancour's  career  henceforth  was  that  of  a  quiet, 
inoffensive,  hard-working-  man  of  letters  struggling  to 
support  himself  by  his  pen,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
find  such  expression  as  might  be  possible  for  those 
high  and  pure  ideals  that  were  the  source  of  his 
discontent  and  the  secret  of  whatever  charm  his  work 
still  possesses.  He  attempted  a  play,  wrote  several 
political  pamphlets,  contributed  to  Reviews  and 
Dictionaries  of  Biography,  and  compiled  to  order 
Histories  of  China  and  of  Rome.  All  these  were  mere 
hackwork  ;  the  books  in  which  Senancour  reveals 
the  development  of  his  soul  will  be  considered  more 
fully  after  this  outline  of  his  external  history. 

In  1827  the  second  edition  of  his  Resume  dc  Vhistoire 
des  traditions  morales  et  religieuscs  involves  him  in  a 
prosecution  by  the  public  prosecutor,  the  point  of  the 
accusation  being  that  he  had  referred  to  Jesus  as  "a 
youthful  sage"  and  "a  moralist  worthy  of  respect," 
and  that  these  terms  were  an  outrage  on  religion. 
Judgment  was  at  first  given  against  him,  the  penalty 
being  a  fine  of  300  francs  and  nine  months'  imprison- 
ment. An  appeal  was  at  once  entered,  and  Senancour 
defended  himself  with  great  modesty,  calmness,  and 
ability.  The  decision  was  then  reversed,  and  the  result 
was  hailed  by  the  whole  of  the  Liberal  press  as  a  victory 
for    toleration    and    freedom    of    conscience.     The    re- 


XX  INTRODUCTION. 

sultant  notoriety  widened  Senancour's  circle  of  literary 
acquaintance  and  increased  the  number  of  his  readers. 
Within  six  years  of  the  trial  De  VAmotir  and  Litres 
Meditations  each  passed  through  two  new  editions,  and 
Ohermann  was  dragged  from  its  long  obscurity  and 
repubhshed. 

Between  1832  and  1836  Senancour  made  several 
applications  to  be  admitted  to  the  select  fellowship  of 
the  x'Xcademy  of  Moral  Sciences,  but  they  were  on  each 
occasion  politely  refused.  He  was,  however,  elected  a 
member  of  the  Historic  Institute  in  1834,  and  retained 
his  place  in  it  until  1840,  when  he  resigned,  either 
because  of  the  infirmities  of  age,  or  for  the  still  more 
pathetic  reason  that  in  his  straitened  circumstances  a 
twenty-franc  subscription  was  more  than  he  could  well 
afford. 

In  1841  he  was  designated  tor  the  Legion  of  Honour, 
but  for  some  reason  or  other  the  Cross  never  came  into 
his  possession.  Documentary  evidence  of  the  dis- 
tinction exists  in  a  curious  and  flattering  letter  of 
congratulation  from  the  honimes  de  peine  or  men-of-all- 
work  attached  to  the  headquarters  of  the  Legion  of 
Honour.  As  M.  Levallois  naively  remarks,  "it  is  not 
easy  to  see  what  service  these  men  could  render 
Senancour,  but  it  is  obvious  that  the  art  of  extracting 
tips  had  already  reached  perfection." 

Unfortunately  neither  literary  friendships  nor  the 
measure  of  popularity  and  public  recognition  he  ob- 
tained brought  much  improvement  in  his  material 
resources,  though  he  always  succeeded  in  keeping  his 
head  above  water.  A  note  quoted  by  Levallois  from 
the    third  edition  of  the  Reveries  (1833)  is  no  doubt  a 


INTRODUCTION.  xxi 

cry  from  the  heart:  "To  spend  the  years  of  youth  In 
uncertainty  and  the  prime  of  Hfe  in  unavoidable  con- 
straint ;  to  forego,  through  lack  of  success,  the 
simpHcity  one  always  yearned  for ;  to  undertake 
useless  labours,  to  embrace  distasteful  cares,  to  struggle 
painfully  to  an  undesired  goal ;  to  sacrifice  oneself  for 
relations  whom  one  cannot  make  happy,  or  to  sedulously 
hold  aloof  from  people  one  might  have  deeply  cared 
for  ;  to  be  ill  at  ease  with  acquaintances  and  cool  with 
friends  ;  daily  to  speakand  act  without  grace,  naturalness, 
or  freedom ;  to  be  utterly  sincere  and  yet  suppress  one's 
frankness  ;  to  have  a  true  soul  and  refined  feelings  and 
yet  to  exhibit  neither  nobility  nor  energy  ;  to  be  for 
ever  silent  about  one's  dearest  projects,  and  only  to 
accomplish  others  very  imperfectly — that  is  what  it 
means  to  lose  the  whole  of  one's  fortune." 

Though  Senancour  was  never  robust,  he  seems  to 
have  retained  a  fair  measure  of  health  until  late  in  life, 
and  at  the  age  of  sixty-eight  was  still  fond  of  taking 
long  walks.  He  died  on  January  loth,  1846,  at  the 
age  of  seventy-five,  in  a  private  hospital  at  St.  Cloud. 
By  his  own  wish,  it  is  said,  no  minister  was  invited 
to  visit  him,  and  the  serenity  with  which  he  faced  the 
unknown  after  his  life-long  search  for  truth  was  grandly 
exhibited  in  his  last  request  to  his  son  to  inscribe  on 
his  tomb  the  words  :  Eteniitc,  sot's  vion  asilc. 

The  most  interesting  and  significant  of  the  works  that 
followed  Obennanv^  as  enabling  us  to  trace  the  develop- 
ment of  Senancour's  mind,  is  the  one  entitled  Litres 
Meditations  d'nn  solitaire  inconmi  sur  divers  ohjets  de 
la  morale  religieiise^  and  it  may  be  supplemented  by 
the  new  matter  introduced  into  successive  editions  of 


xxii  INTRODUCTION. 

the  Reveries.  These  later  works  afford  ample  evidence 
that  Obennajin  was  to  a  great  extent  a  mere  phase 
in  the  spiritual  history  of  Senancour,  the  preliminary 
burning  and  draining-  that  was  needful  to  prepare  his 
swampy  forest  land  for  cultivation.  True,  Senancour's 
low-lying  clearing  never  became  very  fertile  and  smiling; 
mists  of  doubt  often  overhung  it,  and  blighting  winds 
of  poverty  checked  its  most  promising  growths,  but 
it  was  made  of  some  service  to  the  community  and 
yielded  a  grudging  sustenance  to  its  struggling  culti- 
vator. He  himself  grew  calmer  as  years  went  on, 
and  learned  to  see  blue  sky  and  far  horizons  where 
once  he  only  saw  the  mist. 

In  the  second  edition  of  the  Reveries  (1809)  he  defends 
himself  from  the  charge  of  atheism  which  was  brought, 
not  without  reason,  against  his  earlier  works.  "  If  God 
is  not,  can  anything  be  at  all  ?  Might  of  all  existing 
ordered  being  !  A  sense  of  order  prostrates  me  at  thy 
feet,  but  if  my  recognition  of  that  order  were  more 
complete  I  should  sink  into  nothingness  before  thee, 
O  Changeless  One.  .  .  .  From  my  childhood  I  felt 
myself  under  the  eye  of  incorruptible  truth,  and  I 
cannot  conceive  of  anything  good  that  is  not  also 
the  true,  or  of  anything  real  outside  the  universal 
harmony.  Infinite  source  of  order  and  existence,  God 
or  Truth!" 

Ten  years  later  the  first  edition  of  the  Litres 
Meditations  appeared.  The  real  authorship  is  thinly 
veiled  by  the  device  of  ascribing  it  to  Lallemand,  a 
noted  hermit  of  Fontainebleau  [c.  1753),  in  whose  cell 
Senancour  professes  to  have  found  the  document  of 
which  he  poses  as  editor.     Compared  with  Obermann^ 


INTRODUCTION.  xxiii 

a  more  hopeful  outlook  pervades  the  whole  book.  The 
mood  of  ennui  has  disappeared  ;  the  stagnant  pool  has 
found  an  outlet.  If  Senancour  has  not  in  the  full  sense 
found  his  vocation,  he  has  at  least  found  something-  to 
do,  and  the  effort  to  know  what  he  can  work  at  has  de- 
livered him  from  the  barren  misery  of  trying  to  know 
himself  and  his  destiny.  The  endless  recurrence  of 
nature's  changes  that  once  filled  him  with  weariness 
now  stirs  ripples  of  gladness,  and  he  almost  recovers 
that  fresh  andchildish  delight  inoutward  thingsexpressed 
by  Stevenson's  lines  : 


"  I'm  sure  we  should  all  be  as  happy  as  kings, 
The  world  is  so  full  of  such  numbers  of  things." 


**  Men  complain  of  the  ennui  of  their  days,"  he  writes, 
"  but  the  ocean  lifts  its  waves,  the  sun  shines,  and  the 
flowers  expand,  and  the  endless  panorama  of  the  world's 
life  is  unrolled  before  us.  Inexhaustible  circulation  of 
waters,  secret  beauty  of  wilderness  flowers  !  you  pro- 
claim eloquently  and  unceasingly  that  the  end  of  man 
is  not  to  be  found  in  a  career  whose  noblest  prize  is 
human  applause,  and  that  the  divine  gleam  ought  never 
to  be  smothered  in  the  shade  of  our  dreary  customs, 
our  petty  jealousies,  and  our  unprofitable  cares." 

This  sense  of  something  above  and  beyond  human 
life  at  times  almost  rises  to  a  positive  aflirmation  of 
God:  "  If  one  were  to  conclude  that  God  is  not,  there 
would  then  be  nothing  great  to  look  forward  to,  and 
one  would  take  little  interest  in  the  passing  of  the 
irrevocable  hours."  In  Senancour's  darkest  days,  when 
all  that  he  touched 


xxiv  INTRODUCTION. 

"  Fell  into  dust,  and  he  was  left  alone 
And  wearying,  in  a  land  of  sand  and  thorns," 

his  quest  had  been  that  of  lig-ht  and  truth,  and  silent 
and  slowly  out  of  the  darkness  there  dawned  on  him 
the  Gleam,  indefinable  and  unknowable,  that  he  never 
ceased  to  follow 

"Until  to  the  land's 
Last  limit  he  came." 

One  characteristic  of  this  dawning  hope  in  God  and 
human  destiny  was  that  it  refused  to  be  bounded  by  the 
horizon  of  the  present  life.  In  Obermann  he  had  tacitly 
assumed  that  death  ended  all,  but  now,  even  if  he  has 
nothing-  positive  to  affirm,  he  permits  those  cravings 
for  continuance  and  emancipation  that  are  within  him 
to  lift  up  their  heads.  "  If  I  shared  the  misfortune  of 
those  who  regard  our  immortality  as  a  chimera,  I 
should  have  lost  the  sole  expectation  that  can  give 
worth  to  existence." 

This  change  had  come  about  by  no  sudden  conversion 
or  revulsion  of  feeling;  it  was  the  natural  development 
of  a  mind  always  seeking  reality.  He  does  not  seem 
to  have  been  aware  of  any  contradiction  in  terms  be- 
tween the  statements  in  Ohennann  and  those  made  in 
the  Libres  Meditations  until  his  critics  taxed  him  with 
it.  He  justifies  himself  by  saying  that  a  distinction 
must  be  made  between  fundamental  religious  notions 
and  the  accidental  beliefs  of  particular  countries.  The 
sarcasms  of  Obermann  are  directed  against  the  latter; 
as  to  the  former,  he  may  be  a  doubter,  but  is  never 
scornful.      The    solitary    of  the    Libres   Meditations   is 


INTRODUCTION.  xxv 

Obermann  grown  older.  "  He  still  doubts,  but  he  lays 
more  stress  on  the  verisimilitude  of  the  religious  ideas 
to  which  his  wider  thought  has  led  him.  .  .  .  After  his 
renunciation  of  the  rash  teaching-  of  the  sects,  he  first 
found  nothing  but  doubt,  but  afterwards  he  felt  deeply 
convinced  that  the  real  world,  the  world  unseen,  is  the 
expression  of  a  divine  thought." 

We  cannot  agree  with  Waite,  who  affirms  that 
Senancour  has  "a  distinct  bond  of  union"  with  the 
Christian  mystics,  and  in  particular  with  Saint-Martin, 
a  distinguished  exponent  of  that  school.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  characterize  as  Christian  the  attitude  of  one 
who  held  none  of  the  crucial  doctrines  of  Christianity, 
and  who  regarded  its  founder  as  *'a  youthful  sage." 
Senancour  is  as  far  from  Christianity  as  the  writer  of 
the  Book  of  Ecclesiastes;  and  indeed  it  would  be  easy 
to  find  striking  parallels  between  his  writings  and 
that  old  Hebrew  scripture.  But  we  may  admit  with 
M.  Levallois  that  of  mysticism  in  the  general  sense 
there  is  a  decided  flavour  in  the  Litres  Meditations. 
Senancour  is  an  illustration  of  the  fact  that  the  decadent 
and  the  mystic  are  but  two  faces  under  the  same  hood, 
a  remark  that  has  also  been  made  about  M.  Bourget. 
If  with  Bourget  himself  we  define  decadence  as  "the 
weariness  of  life  felt  by  those  whose  over-sensitiveness 
unfits  them  for  the  struggle  of  life  under  the  conditions 
of  modern  civilization,"  we  cannot  have  a  more  typical 
expression  of  this  mood  than  in  Obermann.  And  that 
very  sense  of  being  unequal  to  life  is  the  strongest 
stimulus  to  the  quest  of  a  supernatural  invigoration 
and  comfort.  Both  decadence  and  mysticism  are  phases 
of  a  lack  of  healthy-mindedness.     The  thorough-going 


xxvi  INTRODUCTION. 

mystic,  whether  Brahmui  or  Christian,  withdraws  him- 
self from  the  world  and  broods  over  his  conceptions 
of  the  deity  until  they  excite  within  him  an  ecstasy  as 
abnormal  as  his  previous  unrest  and  dejection.  His 
spiritual  satisfactions  are  the  projections  of  his  own 
hunger  of  soul.  Senancour  was  saved  from  the  excess 
of  mysticism  by  his  passion  for  reality.  His  belief  in 
God  never  went  beyond  a  reverent  recognition  of  an 
inscrutable  "  something-  more,"  and  his  religion  con- 
sisted in  the  effort  to  make  effectual  the  divine  order 
which  he  saw  hinted  at  but  obstructed  in  the  world 
around  him.  He  never  made  the  mystic's  claim  to 
conscious  fellowship  with  the  Supreme.  In  a  private 
letter  to  a  lady  he  writes:  "If  you  can  pray,  that  is 
a  refuge;  in  your  case  it  cannot  be  other  than  noble 
and  untrammelled  by  formulcE.  ...  I  know  no  speech 
common  to  the  creature  and  the  Infinite,  to  us  who 
pass  and  the  Unknown  Permanence." 

Senancour  escaped  from  the  Slough  of  Despond,  not 
on  the  side  of  his  intellect  into  abstract  theology  or 
rationalism,  nor  on  the  side  of  his  emotions  into 
mysticism,  but  on  the  volitional  and  active  side  of  his 
nature  into  a  working  theory  of  life.  The  only  sense 
in  which  that  theory  of  life  can  be  called  mystical  is  in 
its  recognition  of  a  spiritual  purpose  and  order  in  the 
Universe  transcending  human  thought. 

Some  will  say — why  publish  the  story  of  Senancour's 
wallowings  in  ennui  ?  Why  not  rather  give  us  the  more 
hopeful  utterances  of  his  later  life.-'  Such  people  will 
be  disposed  to  apply  to  Ohcrmann  a  sentence  penned 
by  Carlyle  after  reading  Froude's  Nemesis  of  Faith, 
another  book  of  the  Obcrmann  type:    "  What  on  earth 


INTRODUCTION.  xxvii 

is  the  use  of  a  wretched  mortal's  vomiting-  up  all  his 
interior  crudities,  dubitations,  and  spiritual  agonizing- 
bellyaches,  into  the  view  of  the  public,  and  howling 
tragically  'See!'"  But  even  Carlyle  found  relief  for 
his  soul  in  a  private  diary,  and  the  most  interesting  of 
his  works  is  the  one  in  which  he  reveals  his  own 
struggles  with  the  Everlasting  No.  We  may  justify 
Obermann  out  of  Carlyle's  own  mouth:  "The  Great 
Goethe,  in  passionate  words,  had  to  write  his  Sorroivs 
of  Wcrther  before  the  spirit  freed  herself,  and  he 
could  become  a  man.  .  .  .  For  your  nobler  minds,  the 
publishing  of  some  such  work  of  art,  in  one  or  the 
other  dialect,  becomes  almost  a  necessity.  For  what 
is  it  properly  but  an  altercation  with  the  devil,  before 
you  begin  honestly  fighting  him  ?  Your  Byron  publishes 
his  Sorrows  of  Lord  George^  in  verse  and  in  prose,  and 
copiously  otherwise  your  Buonaparte  represents  his 
Sorrows  of  Napoleon  opera,  in  an  ail-too  stupendous 
style."  So  for  Senancour  the  writing  of  Obermann 
was  a  spiritual  necessity  ;  it  was  an  anodyne  that  saved 
him  from  desperation  at  the  time,  and  when  once  he 
had  written  himself  out  he  was  freer  to  turn  to  external 
tasks. 

It  has  its  utility  to-day  for  two  classes  of  readers. 
First  for  those  whose  work  it  is  to  understand  and 
develop  the  character  of  others.  Even  the  pathology 
of  a  soul  may  be  a  contribution  to  the  science  of 
spiritual  health.  How  to  deal  with  minds  of  the 
Obermann  type  is  a  problem  that  Society  is  already 
face  to  face  with.  The  schoolmaster  does  his  best  to 
grapple  with  it,  guided  by  increasing  light  from 
psychology  and  medical  science.      His  aim  is  to  make 


xxviii  INTRODUCTION. 

every  child  under  his  care  equal  to  life  ;  to  awaken 
wholesome  interests,  to  qualify  for  useful  activities,  to 
check  morbid  tendencies  and  fixed  ideas,  and  to  develop 
the  joy  of  living.  Already  society  is  growing-  wiser  in 
the  treatment  of  its  waste  products.  We  are  learning 
how  to  train  the  ears  and  fingers  of  the  blind,  and  the 
eyes  and  lips  of  the  deaf,  and  to  keep  them  in  an 
environment  where  they  will  be  safeguarded  from  the 
dangers  to  which  their  defective  sense  would  expose 
them.  The  mentally  weak  are  taught  such  physical 
aptitudes  as  are  possible  to  them.  There  are  even 
indications  of  a  more  rational  treatment  of  criminals, 
an  attempt  to  safeguard  them  from  the  temptation  to 
which  a  defective  moral  sense  renders  them  liable,  and 
to  develop  those  powers  by  which  they  can  contribute 
to  the  welfare  of  Society  and  live  at  peace  with  them- 
selves and  their  fellows.  As  methods  of  discrimination 
improve  we  shall  learn  how  to  deal  with  every  shade  of 
morbidness  of  mind.  And  among  the  text-books 
essential  to  mastering  the  pathology  of  over-sensitive- 
ness to  which  some  of  the  best  minds  are  liable,  few 
could  be  more  useful  than  Obcrmann,  that  "handbook 
of  consistent  egoism,"  as  Stevenson  calls  it.  "The 
first  consideration  with  the  psychologist,"  says  George 
Sand,  "is  to  diagnose  the  complaint;  after  that  to 
look  for  the  remedy.  Possibly  the  human  race  will 
find  owe  for  its  moral  sufferings  when  it  has  probed  and 
analyzed  them  as  thoroughly  as  its  physical  maladies." 
Concurrently  with  the  improvement  of  methods  for 
developing  to  the  fullest  extent  every  human  individual 
will  go  some  attempt  to  improve  the  stuff  and  substance 
of    human    nature ;     the    segregation    of    all    who    are 


INTRODUCTION.  xxix 

physically  or  mentally  unfit  to  share  in  the  parentage  of 
the  coming  race,  thus  ensuring  as  far  as  may  be  that 
all  who  enter  life  shall  have  vitality  enough  to  find 
happiness  in  the  exercise  of  life's  activities. 

The  other  class  of  persons  for  whom  Obermann  will 
possess  interest  is  that  of  the  kindred  spirits  whom 
Senancour  has  in  mind  in  his  introduction,  those  who 
are  passing  through  a  similar  phase  of  development. 
It  may  console  them  to  know  that  one  who  struggled 
so  long-  and  wearily  in  the  Slough  of  Despond  did  at 
last  come  out  on  the  other  side,  even  if  like  Bunyan's 
Mr.  Fearing  he  carried  a  Slough  of  his  own  in  his 
heart  to  the  end  of  his  pilgrimage.  And  not  less 
cheering  is  it  to  find  that  in  these  "  wild  and  wandering 
cries "  of  Senancour's  darkest  days,  when  his  life 
seemed  an  utter  failure,  there  is  so  much  of  permanent 
worth — charm  of  description,  penetration  of  thought, 
and  purity  of  soul.  Some  of  the  shy  woodland  flowers 
of  his  uncleared  forest  have  a  fragrance  and  beauty 
that  is  unsurpassed  by  the  more  laboured  if  more 
useful  products  of  his  later  days. 

The  only  existing  English  translation  of  Obermann 
is  the  one  by  Waite,  to  which  reference  has  already 
been  made.  The  labours  of  the  present  translator 
have  been  much  lightened  by  the  fact  that  a  track 
had  been  made  over  the  untrodden  snow,  though  his 
footprints  rarely  coincide  with  those  of  his  predecessor, 
and  often  diverge  widely  from  them.  Why,  for  instance, 
send  Obermann  to  gather  grapes  into  a  iinnnoimiig- 
fan  (Letter  ix.)  instead  of  into  the  tub  that  is  used  in 
Switzerland?  And  why  translate  Uiistoirc  de  Japan  dc 
Kcenipfer  (xxi.)  as  "the  story  of  Japon  de  Kaempfer  " 


XXX  INTRODUCTION. 

instead  of  Kampfer's  History  of  Japan  (xxi.)  ?  Tabac, 
too,  means  snuff  as  well  as  tobacco,  or  we  miss  the 
point  of  the  reference  to  the  artisan  "who  goes  without 
his  tobacco  [sic)  when  he  is  at  work  inside  a  house 
because  he  has  no  handkerchief  which  he  can  dare  to 
use  before  everybody"  (lxv.).  "Muses"  as  a  trans- 
lation for  nourriccs,  wet-nurses,  must  surely  be  a 
misprint,  but  why  is  soiifflei,  a  box  on  the  ear,  tran- 
slated "  whistle,"  and  niarche  commode,  convenient 
market,  rendered  "broad  walk?"  it  is  true  that 
Obermann  is  often  obscure,  as  a  writer  must  be  who 
pours  out  the  whole  contents  of  his  mind,  whether 
digested  or  not;  when  his  mood  is  nebulous  his  descrip- 
tion of  it  will  be  so  too;  but  can  it  be  allowed  that 
"  Obermann's  pages  are  often  a  running  stream  of 
sound  ,  .  .  voicing  too  often  the  vaguest  qualities  of 
sense,  using  more  than  is  endurable  the  terminology 
of  the  nebulous  and  insignificant — construction,  in  a 
word,  without  tangible  meaning  ?  "  Waite  claims  that 
Obermann  is  a  philosophical  work  and  should  be  rendered 
into  philosophical  rather  than  colloquial  terminology. 
But  Senancour  endeavours  throughout  to  give  it  a 
colloquial  character.  Even  if  a  more  formal  style  is 
justifiable  when  Obermann  wanders  into  philosophical 
discussions,  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  render  such  a 
phrase  as  homme  a  gages  (hired  servant)  by  "one  in 
a  fiduciary  position." 

Senancour  in  his  Introduction  offers  an  apology  for 
the  prolixities  and  digressions  of  his  style  and  for  his 
rambling  and  inaccurate  meditations,  and  the  present 
translator  will  be  glad  to  take  fullest  advantage  of  that 
apology.     But  when  it  is  stretched  to  its  furthest  limits 


INTRODUCTION.  xxxi 

he  is  still  painfully  aware  of  many  imperfections  in  his 
work  that  it  fails  to  cover.  He  will  be  more  than 
satisfied  if  he  has  succeeded  to  any  extent  in  conveying" 
to  English  readers  the  same  impression  of  haunting- 
charm  that  may  be  felt  in  the  finest  passages  of  Senan- 
cour's  French, 

Notes  added  by  the  translator  are  indicated  by  the 
letters  Tr.  or  enclosed  in  square  brackets  ;  the  rest 
are  by  Senancour  himself,  and  are  sometimes  ex- 
planatory and  sometimes  intended  merely  to  maintain 
the  fiction  of  the  authorship.^ 

^  Since  the  preceding  pages  were  in  type  a  new  life  of  our  author 
has  appeared,  Senancour:  ses  .4 wis  et  ses  Ennetnis,  by  M.  G.  Michaut 
(Sansot).  It  supplies  further  details  of  his  career,  but  does  not  affect 
our  main  conclusions. — Tk. 

J.  A.  BARNES. 

March  igio. 


OBSERVATIONS. 

[By  Senancour.] 

It  will  be  seen  that  these  letters  were  penned  by  a  man 
of  feeling-,  not  by  a  man  of  action.  They  are  full  of 
interest  for  the  initiated,  though  they  possess  very  little 
for  outsiders.  Many  will  discover  with  pleasure  what 
one  of  themselves  has  experienced  :  many  indeed  have 
had  the  same  experience  themselves,  but  here  is  one 
who  has  described  it,  or  at  least  has  made  the  attempt. 
But  he  must  be  judged  by  the  whole  of  his  life,  not  by 
his  earliest  years  ;  by  all  his  letters,  not  by  some  casual 
passage  too  free  or  too  romantic  in  expression. 

Letters  like  these,  without  art  or  plot,  will  meet  with 
little  favour  outside  the  scattered  and  secret  brotherhood 
of  which  nature  had  made  their  writer  a  member.  Those 
who  belong  to  it  are  mostly  unknown  individuals,  and 
the  kind  of  private  monument  which  one  of  them  leaves 
behind  can  only  reach  the  others  through  a  public 
channel,  at  the  risk  of  boring  a  great  many  serious, 
learned,  and  worthy  people.  The  editor's  duty  is 
simply  to  state  at  the  outset  that  it  contains  neither  wit 
nor  science,  that  it  is  not  a  work,  and  that  possibly  it 
will  be  said  that  it  is  not  a  rational  book. 

We  have  many  writings  in  which  the  whole  race  is 
described  in  a  few  lines,  and  yet  if  these  long  letters 
were  to  make  a  single  man  approximately  known  they 
would  be  both   fresh   and  useful.      It  will  take  a  great 

3 


xxxiv  OBSERVATIONS. 

deal  for  them  to  attain  this  limited  object ;  but  if  they 
do  not  contain  all  one  mig-ht  expect,  they  do  at  any  rate 
contain  something-  ;  and  that  is  enough  to  justify  their 
publication. 

These  letters  are  not  a  novel. ^  There  is  in  them  no 
dramatic  movement,  no  deliberate  working-  up  of  events, 
no  climax,  nothing-  of  what  is  called  the  interest  of  a 
work — the  gradual  development,  the  incidents,  and  the 
stimulus  to  curiosity,  which  are  the  magic  of  many 
good  books  and  the  tricks  of  the  trade  in  bad  ones. 

There  are  descriptions  in  them,  such  as  help  to  a 
better  understanding  of  natural  objects,  and  throw 
light,  possibly  too  much  neglected,  on  the  relation  of 
man  to  what  he  calls  the  inaminate  world. 

There  are  passions  in  them  ;  but  they  are  those  of  a 
man  who  was  destined  to  reap  their  results  without 
actually  experiencing  them  ;  to  try  everything,  but  only 
to  have  a  single  aim. 

There  is  love  in  them,  but  love  felt  in  a  way  that  has 
perhaps  never  before  found  expression. 

There  are  prolixities  in  them,  but  so  there  are  in 
Nature  ;  the  heart  is  seldom  concise;  it  is  no  dialectician. 
There  are  repetitions  ;  but  if  a  thing  is  good  why  so  care- 
fully avoid  returning  to  it.  The  repetitions  in  Clarissa, 
the  lack  of  arrangement  and  the  feigned  selfishness  of 
Montaigne  have  never  repelled  any  but  merely  pedantic 
readers.  Jean-Jacques  was  often  long-winded.  The 
writer  of  these  letters  apparently  was  not  afraid  of  the 

^  I  am  far  from  imjjlying  by  this  that  a  good  novel  is  not  a  good  book. 
Moreover,  outside  what  I  should  strictly  call  novels  there  are  many  books 
of  real  worth  or  charm  that  are  usually  classed  under  this  head,  such  as  the 
Ckaumfefe  iniienne,  and  others. 


OBSERVATIONS.  xxxv 

prolixities  and  digressions  of  an  unconventional  style  ; 
he  wrote  as  he  thought.  True,  Jean-Jacques  was 
entitled  to  be  a  little  long- ;  if  our  author  has  used  the 
same  freedom,  it  is  simply  because  he  thought  it  good 
and  natural. 

There  are  contradictions  in  them  ;  at  any  rate  what 
are  often  called  such.  But  why  should  it  offend  one  to 
see  the  pros  and  cons  of  an  open  question  stated  by  the 
same  man?  Since  we  must  combine  both  sides  to  get 
the  sense  of  them,  to  deliberate,  to  decide,  to  make  one's 
choice,  does  it  matter  at  all  whether  they  are  in  a  single 
book  or  in  several?  Nay,  rather,  when  the  same  man 
states  both,  he  does  it  with  more  equal  emphasis,  in  a 
more  analogous  fashion,  and  you  can  see  better  what 
to  adopt.  Our  affections,  our  desires,  and  even  our 
feelings  and  opinions  are  modified  by  the  teaching  of 
experience,  by  opportunities  for  thought,  by  age,  and 
in  fact  by  our  whole  existence.  The  man  who  is  rigidly 
consistent  is  either  deceiving  you  or  himself.  He  has 
a  system;  he  is  acting  a  part.  The  sincere  man  says: 
"I  once  felt  like  that,  now  I  feel  like  this;  there  are 
my  materials,  build  up  for  yourself  the  edifice  of  your 
thought." 

A  phlegmatic  man  is  not  a  fit  judge  of  the  disparities 
of  human  feelings;  since  he  does  not  know  their  range, 
neither  does  he  know  their  fluctuations.  Why  should 
different  ways  of  looking  at  a  thing  be  more  surprising 
in  the  same  man  at  different  ages — sometimes  even  at 
the  same  moment — than  in  different  men.  One  may 
observe  and  investigate  without  deciding.  Surely  you 
do  not  expect  a  man  to  drop  on  the  right  weight  the 
moment  he   takes  up  the  scales  ?     Everything  should 


xxxvi  OBSERVATIONS. 

be  consistent  no  doubt  in  a  precise  and  formal  treatise 
on  matters  of  fact,  but  would  you  have  Montaigne  true 
after  the  fashion  of  Hume,  and  Seneca  as  exact  as 
Bezout  ?  I  imagine  one  might  well  expect  to  find  as 
great  or  greater  contrasts  between  different  ages  of 
the  same  man  than  between  several  cultured  men  of 
the  same  age.  That  is  why  it  is  not  a  good  thing  for 
legislators  to  be  all  old  men;  unless,  indeed,  they  are 
a  body  of  really  picked  men  capable  of  acting  on  their 
general  ideas  and  recollections  rather  than  on  their 
thought  at  the  time.  The  man  who  devotes  himself 
wholly  to  the  exact  sciences  is  the  only  one  who  has  no 
need  to  fear  being  surprised  by  what  he  wrote  when  he 
was  younger. 

These  letters  are  as  unequal  and  irregular  in  style  as 
in  other  respects.  Only  one  point  has  pleased  me;  I 
have  not  found  in  them  any  of  those  exaggerated  and 
trivial  phrases  which  a  writer  should  always  regard  as 
absurd,  or  weak,  to  say  the  least  of  it.^  These  expres- 
sions are  either  vicious  in  themselves,  or  else  their  too 
frequent  repetition,  by  forcing  them  into  wrong  appli- 
cations, has  debased  their  original  significance  and 
caused  their  force  to  be  lost  sight  of. 

Not  that  I  pretend  to  justify  the  style  of  these  letters. 

1  The  pastoral  and  descriptive  styles  are  full  of  hackneyed  phrases, 
the  most  intolerable  of  which,  in  my  opinion,  are  similes  that  have  been 
used  millions  of  times,  and  from  the  first  weakened  the  thing  they 
pretended  to  magnify.  The  enamelled  meadows,  the  azure  skies,  the 
crystal  waters,  the  lilies  and  roses  of  her  complexion,  the  pledges  of 
his  love,  village  innocence,  torrents  flowed  from  his  eyes,  to  contem- 
plate the  wonders  of  nature,  to  scatter  flowers  on  his  tomb ;  and  ever 
so  many  more  that  I  would  not  condemn  outright,  but  that  I  prefer 
not  to  meet  with. 


OBSERVATIONS.  xxxvii 

I  might  have  somethhig  to  say  in  defence  of  phrases 
which  may  seem  too  bold,  and  which  notwithstanding 
I  have  left  unchanged ;  but  I  know  of  no  valid  excuse 
for  the  inaccuracies.  I  am  well  aware  that  a  critic  will 
discover  plenty  to  find  fault  with;  it  has  not  been  my 
aim  to  "enrich  the  public"  with  a  finished  work,  but 
to  give  to  a  few  persons  here  and  there  in  Europe  the 
feelings,  the  opinions,  the  rambling  and  inaccurate 
meditations  of  an  often  solitary  man,  who  wTote  in 
privacy  and  not  for  a  bookseller. 

The  editor  has  had,  and  will  have,  only  one  object  in 
view.  Everything  that  bears  his  name  will  lead  in  the 
same  direction;  whether  he  writes  or  simply  edits  he 
will  never  swerve  from  a  moral  purpose.  He  is  not 
as  yet  attempting  to  reach  the  goal:  an  important 
treatise  and  one  likely  to  be  of  service — a  real  work, 
such  as  one  can  only  outline  but  never  hope  to  com- 
plete— should  not  be  hastily  published  or  even  entered 
on  too  soon.^ 

^  Obermann  needs  to  be  read  with  a  little  imagination.  He  is  far, 
for  instance,  from  taking  a  definite  stand  on  several  questions  that  he 
raises.  But  possibly  he  is  more  decisive  in  the  continuation  of  his 
letters.     Up  to  the  present  time  this  second  part  is  wholly  missing. 


OBERMANN. 

FIRST  YEAR. 

LETTER  I. 

Geneva, /«/)'  8//^  (I). 

It  is  only  some  three  weeks  since  I  wrote  to  you  from 
Lyons,  and  I  said  nothing  then  of  any  new  plan;  I  had 
none  in  fact ;  and  yet  now  I  have  left  everything-,  and 
am  here  on  foreign  soil. 

I  fear  my  letter  will  not  find  you  at  Chessel,^  and 
that  you  will  not  be  able  to  reply  as  soon  as  I  should 
like.  I  want  to  know  what  you  think,  or  rather  what 
you  will  think  when  you  have  read  this.  You  know 
how  I  should  feel  it  if  I  were  not  on  good  terms  with 
you,  yet  I  am  afraid  you  will  think  me  to  blame,  and 
I  am  not  quite  sure  that  I  do  not  deserve  it.  I  did  not 
even  wait  long  enough  to  consult  you.  I  should  have 
liked  to  do  so  in  a  crisis  of  this  kind;  even  yet  1  scarcely 
know  what  judgment  to  pass  on  a  decision  which  annuls 
all  previous  arrangements,  which  suddenly  transplants 

'  His  correspondent's  place  of  residence. 


2  OBERMANN. 

me  into  a  new  situation,  and  which  destines  me  to 
events  I  had  not  foreseen,  whose  sequence  and  results 
I  cannot  even  forecast. 

But  that  is  not  all.  It  is  true  my  action  was  as 
sudden  as  my  decision,  but  it  was  not  simply  lack  of 
time  that  kept  me  from  writing-.  Even  if  I  had  had 
plenty,  I  fear  you  would  still  have  been  left  in  the  dark. 
I  should  have  dreaded  your  prudence;  for  once  I  felt 
the  necessity  of  throwing  it  to  the  winds.  A  narrow 
and  timorous  prudence  on  the  part  of  those  among 
whom  my  lot  has  been  cast  has  spoiled  my  earlier 
years,  and  I  fear  done  me  life-long  injury.  Wisdom 
takes  the  difficult  middle  course  between  mistrust  and 
rashness,  and  is  to  be  followed  when  she  sees  what  is 
before  her,  but  in  things  unknown  we  have  only  instinct. 
If  that  is  a  more  dangerous  g-uide  than  prudence,  it 
achieves  greater  results;  it  is  a  case  of  kill  or  cure; 
its  rashness  sometimes  becomes  our  only  refug^e, 
and  it  may  possibly  repair  the  injuries  wrought 
by  prudence. 

It  was  a  case  of  letting  the  yoke  gall  me  for  ever,  or 
summarily  throwing  it  off;  so  far  as  I  could  see  there 
was  no  other  alternative.  If  you  are  of  the  same 
opinion,  reassure  me  by  saying  so.  Vou  are  well  aware 
what  a  wretched  chain  was  about  to  be  riveted.  I  was 
expected  to  do  what  I  could  not  possibly  do  well;  to 
undertake  a  profession  merely  for  its  profits,  to  employ 
my  faculties  in  what  went  utterly  against  the  grain. 
Ought  I  to  have  stooped  to  a  temporary  compliance, 
to  have  deceived  a  kinsman  by  pretending  that  I  was 
undertaking  permanently  what  I  should  have  wanted 
to  give  up  from  the  very  start?     Ought  I  to  have  lived 


LETTER  I.  3 

thus  in  a  state  of  strain  and  perpetual  repugnance  ? 
Let  him  recognize  how  powerless  I  was  to  satisfy  him, 
and  forgive  me.  He  will  one  day  realize  that  circum- 
stances so  varied  and  conflicting,  in  which  the  most 
diverse  types  of  character  find  what  is  congenial  to 
them,  cannot  be  suited  indiscriminately  to  all  types; 
that  if  a  profession  which  has  to  do  with  private  in- 
terests and  litigations  is  to  be  regarded  as  honest,  it 
needs  something  more  than  the  fact  that  one  can  make 
a  couple  of  thousand  a  year  by  it  without  stealing;  and 
that,  in  a  word,  I  could  not  forego  being  a  man  in  order 
to  be  a  business  man. 

I  am  not  trying  to  persuade  you ;  I  merely  state  the 
facts;  judge  for  yourself.  A  friend  should  not  be  too 
lenient  in  his  judgments,  as  you  yourself  once  remarked. 
If  you  had  been  at  Lyons  I  should  not  have  decided 
without  consulting  you,  for  in  that  case  I  should  have 
had  to  keep  out  of  your  way;  as  it  was,  I  had  simply 
to  be  silent.  As  one  tries  to  find  sanctions  even  in 
mere  chance  for  what  one  believes  to  be  necessary, 
your  very  absence  seemed  to  me  opportune.  I  could 
never  have  acted  contrary  to  your  advice,  but  I  felt  no 
uneasiness  in  acting  without  having  your  opinion,  so 
thoroughly  alive  I  was  to  all  that  reason  could  bring 
forward  against  the  law  that  was  laid  upon  me  by  a 
kind  of  necessity,  against  the  feeling  that  carried  me 
away.  I  paid  more  attention  to  this  secret  but  imperi- 
ous impulse  than  to  the  cold  inducements  to  hesitation 
and  delay,  which,  under  the  name  of  prudence,  arise 
largely  from  my  indolent  disposition  and  tendency  to 
shrink  from  carrying  things  out.  I  have  set  out,  and 
rejoice   in   the   fact;    but   who   can   ever  know  whether 


4  OBERMANN. 

he  has  acted  wisely  or  not  as  regards  the  far-off  conse- 
quences of  thuigfs. 

I  have  told  you  why  I  did  not  do  what  was  expected 
of  me;  I  must  also  tell  you  why  I  have  acted  as  I  have. 
I  began  by  considering  whether  I  should  throw  up 
entirely  the  line  I  was  desired  to  take,  and  that  led 
me  to  consider  what  other  I  should  take,  and  what 
resolution  I  should  come  to. 

I  had  to  choose  and  enter  upon,  possibly  for  life, 
what  so  many  people  who  have  nothing  else  to  boast 
of  call  a  profession.  I  did  not  discover  one  that  was 
not  foreign  to  my  nature  or  opposed  to  my  convictions. 
I  questioned  my  inmost  self;  I  rapidly  passed  in  review 
my  surroundings;  I  inquired  of  men  if  they  felt  as  I 
did.  I  inquired  of  the  facts  of  life  whether  they  were 
suited  to  my  tastes,  and  I  discovered  that  there  was  no 
harmony  either  between  myself  and  society,  or  between 
my  needs  and  what  society  has  produced.  I  stopped 
short  in  dismay,  perceiving  that  I  was  about  to  hand 
over  my  life  to  unbearable  tedium,  and  to  antipathies 
without  end  or  aim.  I  set  before  myself  in  turn  all 
that  men  strive  after  in  the  various  professions  they 
embrace.  I  even  tried  to  invest  with  a  glow  of  imagin- 
ation the  manifold  objects  they  offer  to  their  passions, 
and  the  visionary  quest  to  which  they  devote  their 
years.  I  tried,  but  it  was  no  use.  Why  is  the  world 
so  disenchanted  in  my  eyes  ?  1  know  nothing  of  satiety; 
everywhere  I  find  emptiness. 

On  that  day  when  I  first  perceived  the  nothingness 
around  me,  the  day  which  changed  the  current  of  my 
life,  if  the  pages  of  my  destiny  had  been  in  my  hands  to 
be  turned  over  or  closed  for  ever,  how  unconcernedly 


LETTER  I.  5 

I  would  have  resigned  the  vain  procession  of  these  long 
though  fleeting  hours,  blighted  by  so  much  bitterness 
and  never  to  be  cheered  by  any  real  joy.  It  is  my  mis- 
fortune, as  you  know,  not  to  be  able  to  feel  young;  the 
dreary  miseries  of  my  earliest  years  have  apparently 
destroyed  the  charm  of  life.  Gilded  appearances  do  not 
impose  upon  me  ;  my  half-closed  eyes  are  never  dazzled  ; 
they  are  too  fixed  to  be  surprised. 

That  day  of  indecision  was  at  least  a  day  of  enlight- 
enment; it  revealed  within  me  what  I  had  never  clearly 
seen.  In  this  supreme  anxiety  of  my  life  I  enjoyed 
for  the  first  time  the  consciousness  of  my  true  self. 
Hunted  out  of  the  gloomy  calm  of  my  settled  apathy, 
driven  to  be  something,  I  became  at  last  myself,  and 
in  those  hitherto  unknown  agitations  I  felt  an  energy 
whose  outflowing,  in  spite  of  some  strain  and  distress 
at  first,  was  a  kind  of  calm  I  had  never  before  ex- 
perienced. This  welcome  and  unexpected  state  of  mind 
gave  rise  to  the  consideration  which  decided  me.  I 
discovered  why  it  is  that  differences  in  external  circum- 
stances, as  one  daily  observes,  are  not  the  chief  sources 
of  human  happiness  or  misery. 

The  real  life  of  man,  I  argue,  is  within  himself;  what 
he  receives  from  without  is  only  accidental  and  sub- 
ordinate. The  effect  things  have  upon  him  depends 
much  more  on  the  state  of  mind  in  which  they  find 
him  than  on  their  intrinsic  character.  Their  lifelong 
influence  may  so  far  modify  him  that  he  becomes  their 
handiwork,  but  in  the  never-ending  procession  of  events 
he  alone  stands  fixed  though  plastic,  while  the  external 
objects  related  to  him  are  completely  altered.  The 
result   is   that  the   impression  each   of  them   makes  on 


6  OBERMANN. 

him  depends  far  more  for  weal  or  woe  on  the  mood 
in  which  it  finds  him  than  on  the  feeHng  it  awakens 
or  the  immediate  change  it  makes  in  him.  Thus  at 
each  several  moment  the  chief  thing"  is  that  man 
should  be  what  he  ought  to  be.  Next  to  that  must 
be  reckoned  favourable  circumstances;  they  are  useful 
from  moment  to  moment  in  a  secondary  sense.  But  as 
the  whole  series  of  these  impulses  becomes  the  real 
basis  of  man's  inward  motives,  it  follows  that  even 
though  each  one  makes  a  very  trifling  impression, 
their  sum  total  determines  our  destiny.  Must  we 
then  consider  everything  of  equal  importance  in  this 
chain  of  affinities  and  mutual  reactions  ?  Though 
man's  actual  freedom  is  so  questionable,  and  his 
apparent  freedom  so  restricted,  is  he  bound  to  a  con- 
tinual exercise  of  choice,  requiring  a  steadfast  will, 
always  free  and  powerful  ?  Though  he  can  influence 
his  circumstances  so  little,  and  cannot  control  the 
majority  of  his  inclinations,  can  he  only  attain  a  peace- 
ful life  by  foreseeing,  directing,  and  deciding  everything 
with  a  solicitude  which  would  of  itself  be  fatal  to  his 
peace,  even  if  attended  with  uninterrupted  success  ? 
If  it  seems  equally  necessary  to  control  these  two  re- 
ciprocal forces  [self  and  circumstances],  and  if  on  the 
other  hand  the  task  is  beyond  human  strength,  and 
every  eff'ort  in  that  direction  tends  to  produce  the  very 
opposite  of  the  calm  one  expects  from  it,  how  can  we 
come  anywhere  near  the  attainments  of  this  result  by 
giving  up  the  impracticable  method  [i.e.,  constant  exer- 
cise of  choice]  which  seemed  at  first  sight  the  only 
means  of  securing  it  ?  The  answer  to  this  question 
would  be  the  supreme  achievement  of  human  wisdom. 


LETTER  I.  7 

as  it  is  the  highest  aim  one  can  oflfer  to  the  inward 
hiw  which  compels  us  to  the  pursuit  of  happiness. 
I  think  I  have  found  a  solution  of  this  problem  adapted 
to  my  present  needs;  possibly  they  had  something  to 
do  with  making  me  accept  it. 

It  became  obvious  to  me  that  in  this  endless  action 
and  reaction  the  primary  combination  is  of  the  highest 
importance,  since  it  determines  more  or  less  the  whole 
series.  Let  us  then,  said  I,  first  of  all  be  what  we 
ought  to  be;  let  us  set  ourselves  where  our  nature 
demands ;  and  then  let  us  yield  to  the  drift  of  circum- 
stances, endeavouring  simply  to  be  true  to  ourselves. 
Thus,  whatever  happens,  we  shall  regulate  our  circum- 
stances without  superfluous  anxiety;  not  by  altering 
things  themselves,  but  by  controlling  the  impressions 
they  make  upon  us,  which  is  the  only  thing  that  con- 
cerns us.  It  is  easier  too,  and  does  more  to  establish 
our  true  self,  by  fixing  its  boundaries  and  economizing 
its  energy.  Whatever  effect  things  produce  on  us  by 
that  intrinsic  force  which  we  cannot  change,  we  shall 
at  any  rate  retain  much  of  our  initial  direction,  and 
shall  approximate  more  nearly  by  that  means  than  we 
could  hope  by  any  other  to  the  happy  perseverance  of 
the  wise  man. 

As  soon  as  man  begins  to  think  and  is  no  longer 
at  the  mercy  of  the  first  desire  or  of  the  unconscious 
laws  of  instinct,  all  justice  and  morality  become  to 
some  extent  a  matter  of  calculation,  and  prudence 
consists  in  reckoning  up  the  surplus  or  deficit.  The 
conclusion  I  reached  seemed  as  clear  to  me  as  the 
result  of  a  sum  in  arithmetic.  As  I  am  unfolding  to 
you    my   plans    and    not    my   soul,    and    as    I    am    less 


8  OBERMANN. 

anxious  to  justify  my  decision  than  to  tell  you  how  I 
reached  it,  I  will  not  try  to  give  you  a  better  account 
of  my  calculation. 

Following-  out  this  way  of  looking-  at  things,  I  am 
letting  go  the  far-off  and  manifold  cares  of  the  future, 
always  so  exhausting  and  often  so  profitless,  and  am 
devoting  myself  wholly  to  the  task  of  adjusting,  once 
for  all,  both  myself  and  circumstances.  I  am  well 
aware  how  far  from  complete  this  work  will  doubt- 
less always  be,  and  how  much  I  shall  be  impeded  by 
the  facts  of  life,  but  I  will  at  least  do  whatever  I  find 
feasible. 

I  thought  it  necessary  to  change  my  environment 
before  changing  myself.  The  first  end  can  be  more 
immediately  attained  than  the  second;  and  in  my  former 
manner  of  life  I  could  not  have  taken  mj'self  seriously 
In  hand.  The  diflficult  situation  in  which  I  found  myself 
left  me  no  alternative  but  to  contemplate  a  change  of 
surroundings.  It  is  in  freedom  from  the  constraint 
of  circumstances  as  in  the  silence  of  the  passions  that 
one  can  examine  oneself.  I  am  going  to  seek  out  a 
retreat  among  those  quiet  mountains  that  I  used 
to  gaze  at  in  the  distance  even  as  a  child.  ^  I  do 
not  know  where  I  shall  stay,  but  write  to  me  at 
Lausanne. 

^  From  near  Lyons  the  summits  of  the  Alps  are  distinctly  visible  on 
the  horizon. 


LETTER  II. 


LETTER   II. 

Lausanne,  July  ()'h,  (I.) 

I  arrived  in  Geneva  after  dark  and  spent  the  nig-ht 
in  a  somewhat  dismal  inn.  My  windows  looked  into 
a  courtyard,  but  I  did  not  at  all  beg-rudg-e  the  fact. 
As  I  was  entering"  such  a  beautiful  region  I  deliberately 
planned  for  myself  a  kind  of  surprise  view;  I  reserved 
it  for  the  best  hour  of  the  day;  1  wanted  to  enjoy  it  in 
all  its  fulness,  without  weakening-  its  effect  by  coming- 
upon  it  g-radually. 

On  leaving  Geneva  I  started  out  alone  and  free,  with 
no  fixed  aim  and  no  guide  but  an  adequate  map  I 
carry  with  me. 

I  was  entering  on  an  independent  life.  I  was  going 
to  live  in  perhaps  the  only  country  in  Europe  where  in 
a  fairly  congenial  climate  one  can  still  find  the  austere 
beauties  of  natural  scenery.  Calmed  by  that  very 
energy  which  the  circumstances  of  my  departure  had 
awakened  in  me,  happy  in  the  possession  of  my  true 
self  for  the  first  time  in  my  barren  existence,  seeking 
great  and  simple  delights  with  the  keenness  of  a  youth- 
ful heart,  and  with  a  susceptibility  which  was  the  bitter 
though  precious  fruit  of  my  dreary  miseries,  I  was  in 
a  strenuous  but  restful  mood.  I  felt  happy  under  the 
lovely  sky  of  Geneva^  when  the  sun  appeared  above 
the  snowclad  peaks  and  illumined  before  my  e3es  this 
wondrous  landscape.      It  was  near  Coppet  that  I  saw 

1  The  sky  at  Geneva  is  very  much  the  same  as  anywhere  else  in  the 
neighbourhood. 


lo  OBERMANN. 

the  dawn,  not  in  barren  splendour  as  I  had  so  often 
seen  it  before,  but  in  beauty  and  sublimity  g-reat  enough 
to  spread  again  the  veil  of  elusive  charm  before  my 
jaded  eyes. 

You  have  never  seen  this  country,  to  which  Tavernier 
thought  nothing  could  be  compared,  except  a  single 
place  in  the  East.  You  can  form  no  adequate  con- 
ception of  it  ;  Nature's  great  effects  cannot  be  im- 
agined as  they  really  are.  If  I  had  been  less  impressed 
by  the  magnificence  and  the  harmony  of  the  effect  as  a 
whole,  if  the  purity  of  the  air  had  not  given  it  a  tone 
which  words  cannot  describe,  if  I  had  been  someone 
else,  I  might  have  tried  to  picture  for  you  those  snow- 
clad  glowing  peaks,  those  misty  vales,  the  black 
escarpments  of  the  ridge  of  Savoy,  the  hills  of  Vaux 
and  Jorat,  themselves  perhaps  too  smiling,  but  over- 
topped by  the  Alps  of  Gruyere  and  Ormpnt  ;  and  then 
the  sweep  of  Leman's  waters,  the  motion  of  its  waves 
and  its  rhythmic  calm.  Possibly  my  inward  condition 
contributed  something  to  the  glamour  of  these  places  ; 
possibly  no  one  has  ever  felt  just  as  I  did  at  the  sight 
of  them. 

It  is  characteristic  of  a  deeply  sensitive  nature  to 
find  more  intense  pleasure  in  subjective  ideas  than  in 
objective  enjoyments;  the  latter  betray  their  limitations, 
but  those  which  are  offered  us  by  the  sense  of  limitless 
power  are  vast  as  the  power  itself,  and  seem  to  point 
the  way  to  that  unknown  world  that  we  are  always 
seeking.  I  would  almost  venture  to  say  that  the  man 
whose  heart  has  been  crushed  by  his  continual  sufferings 
has  gained  from  his  very  miseries  a  capacity  for 
pleasures  unknown  to  the  happy,  and  superior  to  theirs 


LETTER  II.  II 

in  being-  more  self-contained,  and  permanent  enoug;h  to 
be  his  stay  even  in  old  age.  For  my  part  I  realized  at 
that  moment,  when  the  only  thing-  wanting  was  another 
heart  in  sympathy  with  my  own,  how  an  hour  of  life 
may  be  worth  a  whole  year  of  existence,  how  completely 
everything  within  us  is  relative  to  what  is  without,  and 
how  our  miseries  chiefly  arise  from  our  mal-adjustments 
to  the  order  of  things. 

The  main  road  from  Geneva  to  Lausanne  is  pleasant 
throughout  ;  it  clings  as  a  rule  to  the  shore  of  the  lake, 
and  it  was  taking  me  towards  the  mountains,  so  I  was 
quite  content  to  follow  it.  I  did  not  stop  until  I  was 
close  on  Lausanne,  where,  on  a  hillside  not  overlooking 
the  town,  I  awaited  the  close  of  the  day. 

Evenings  in  an  inn  are  not  pleasant,  except  when 
the  fire  and  the  darkness  help  to  pass  the  time  till 
supper.  During  the  long  days  one  can  only  escape 
this  tedious  hour  by  making  a  halt  during  the  heat  of 
the  day,  and  that  is  what  I  never  do.  Since  my 
rambles  at  Forez  I  have  adopted  the  plan  of  going  on 
foot  if  the  country  is  interesting  ;  and  when  I  am 
walking,  a  kind  of  impatience  will  not  allow  me  to 
stop  until  I  am  nearly  at  my  journey's  end.  Carriages 
are  a  necessity  when  one  wants  to  leave  rapidly  behind 
the  dust  of  the  highways  and  the  muddy  ruts  of  the 
plains,  but  when  one  is  not  on  business,  and  in  genuine 
country,  I  see  no  reason  for  posting  it,  and  to  take 
o-ne's  own  horses  is  to  me  too  great  a  check  on  one's 
freedom.  I  confess  that  when  one  arrives  on  foot  one 
does  not  all  at  once  meet  with  so  good  a  reception  at 
an  inn,  but  if  the  landlord  knows  his  business  it  only 
takes  him  a  few  moments  to  discover  that  even  if  there 

4 


12  OBERMANN. 

is  dust  on  one's  shoes  there  is  no  pack  on  one's 
shoulder,  and  that  therefore  one  may  be  a  profitable 
enough  customer  to  make  it  worth  his  while  to  give 
one  some  sort  of  a  polite  salutation.  You  will  soon 
have  the  servants  asking  you,  just  as  they  would  any- 
one else,  "Are  you  being-  attended  to,  sir?" 

I  was  under  the  pines  of  Jorat ;  the  evening  was 
fine,  the  woods  silent,  and  the  air  still  ;  the  western 
sky  was  hazy,  but  cloudless.  Everything  seemed 
settled,  light-filled,  motionless,  and  when  I  happened 
to  lift  my  eyes  after  keeping  them  long  fixed  on  the 
moss  beneath  me,  I  experienced  a  wonderful  illusion 
which  my  pensive  mood  prolonged.  The  steep  slope 
which  fell  away  to  the  water's  edge  was  hidden  from 
me  by  the  knoll  on  which  I  sat,  and  the  surface  of  the 
lake  seeme-d  inclined  at  a  high  angle,  as  though  its 
opposite  shore  were  lifted  into  the  air.  The  Alps  of 
Savoy  were  partly  veiled  by  clouds  indistinguishable  from 
themselves  and  of  the  same  tint.  The  sunset  light,  and 
the  dim  air  in  the  depths  of  the  Valais,  lifted  these 
mountains  and  cut  them  off  from  the  earth  by  making 
their  bases  invisible  ;  and  their  huge  formless  bulk, 
neutral-tinted,  sombre  and  touched  with  snow,  light 
filled  and  yet  partly  invisible,  seemed  to  me  nothing 
but  a  mass  of  storm-clouds  suspended  in  the  air  ;  and 
the  only  solid  earth  was  that  which  held  me  up  over 
empty  space,  alone,  in  immensity. 

That  moment  was  worthy  of  the  first  day  of  a  new 
life  ;  I  shall  have  few  like  it.  I  was  intending  to  finish 
this  by  chatting  with  you  freely,  but  my  head  and  hand 
are  growing  heavy  with  sleep.  My  recollections  and 
the  pleasure  of  telling  them  to  you  cannot  stave  it  off, 


LETTER  III.  13 

and  I  do  not  want  to  go  on  describing"  to  you  so  feebly 
what  I  felt  so  much  more  keenly. 

Beside  Nyon  I  had  a  fairly  clear  view  of  Mont  Blanc 
from  its  base  upwards,  but  the  time  of  day  was  not  at 
all  suitable  ;  it  was  badly  lighted. 


LETTER  in. 

Cully,  /n/y  ii.'/i  (I.). 

I  have  no  wish  to  rush  through  Switzerland  as  a  mere 
traveller  or  novelty-hunter.  I  am  trying  to  settle  here, 
because  I  imagine  I  should  be  ill  at  ease  anywhere  else; 
it  is  the  only  country  within  reach  of  my  own  which 
possesses  in  the  main  the  things  I  require. 

I  do  not  even  yet  know  in  which  direction  I  shall  turn. 
I  know  no  one  here;  and  not  having  any  sort  of  ties,  I 
can  only  make  my  choice  on  grounds  based  upon  the 
character  of  the  localities.  In  the  places  I  should  like 
best  the  Swiss  climate  is  trying.  I  must  have  a  fixed 
place  to  stay  at  for  the  winter:  that  is  the  point  I  should 
like  to  settle  first;  but  the  winter  is  long  at  high 
elevations. 

At  Lausanne  I  was  told  :  "Here  is  the  finest  part  of 
Switzerland,  the  one  that  all  foreigners  like.  You 
have  seen  Geneva  and  the  shores  of  the  lake ;  you 
have  still  to  see  Yverdon,  Neuchatel,  and  Berne,  and 
you  should  also  go  to  Locle,  which  is  celebrated  for  its 
[watch-making-]  industry.  As  for  the  rest  of  Switzer- 
land, it    is  quite  an  outlandish   country,   and  one   gets 


14  OBERMANN. 

over  the  English  craze  for  wearhig"  oneself  out  and 
risking  one's  life  to  look  at  ice  and  sketch  waterfalls. 
Here  is  where  you  will  settle;  the  province  of  Vaud^  is 
the  only  one  suitable  to  a  foreigner ;  and  even  in  the 
province  of  Vaud  there  is  only  Lausanne,  especially  for 
a  Frenchman." 

I  assured  them  that  I  should  not  choose  Lausanne, 
and  they  quite  thought  I  was  making  a  mistake.  The 
province  of  Vaud  has  very  beautiful  features,  but  I  am 
satisfied  beforehand  that  the  greater  part  of  it  would  be 
to  me  among  the  least  attractive  of  the  Swiss  provinces. 
The  place  and  people  are  pretty  much  the  same  as  else- 
where ;  whereas  I  am  looking  out  for  other  modes  of 
life  and  different  natural  scenery.'^  If  I  knew  German  I 
think  I  should  make  for  Lucerne,  but  French  is  only 
spoken  in  a  third  of  Switzerland,  and  that  third  is  just 
the  part  that  is  most  gay  and  least  remote  from  French 
customs,  so  1  am  in  great  uncertainty.  I  have  almost 
made  up  my  mind  to  see  the  shores  of  Neuchatel  and 
the  Bas  Valais;  after  that  I  shall  go  to  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Schwitz,  or  into  the  Underwalden,  in  spite  of 
the  very  serious  drawback  of  a  language  which  is  quite 
unfamiliar  to  me. 

I  had  noticed  a  little  lake,  called  Bre  or  Bray  in  the 

^  The  word  l^aiid  does  not  here  mean  valley,  but  it  comes  from  the 
Celtic  word  from  which  Welsh  is  derived.  The  German  Swiss  call  the 
province  of  Vaud  Welschland.  The  ancient  Germans  used  to  designate 
the  Gauls  by  the  word  Wale,  whence  come  the  names  of  the  principality 
of  Wales,  of  the  province  of  Vaud,  of  the  place  in  Belgium  called  Walon, 
of  Gascony,  etc. 

-  Il  is  quite  likely  that  at  the  present  time  Oberiiiann  would  willingly 
settle  in  the  canton  of  \'aud,  and  would  consider  it  a  delightful  place  to 
live  in. 


LETTER  III.  15 

maps,  situated  in  the  highlands  above  Cully,  and  I  came 
to  this  town  in  order  to  visit  its  shores,  which  are  far 
from  the  main  roads  and  almost  unknown.  I  have 
g"iven  up  the  idea.  I  fear  the  district  is  too  ordinary, 
and  that  the  mode  of  life  of  the  country  folk,  so  near 
Lausanne,  would  suit  me  still  less. 

I  was  anxious  to  cross  the  lake,  and  yesterday  I  had 
engfaged  a  boat  to  take  me  to  the  Savoy  side.  I  hav^e 
had  to  defer  the  project ;  the  weather  has  been  bad  all 
day,  and  the  lake  is  still  very  rough.  The  storm  has 
gfone  by,  and  the  evening'  is  fine.  My  windows  look  out 
on  the  lake;  the  white  foam  of  the  waves  is  sometimes 
flung-  rig^ht  into  my  room;  it  has  even  wet  the  roof. 
The  wind  is  blowing-  from  the  south-west  in  such  a 
way  that  just  at  this  point  the  waves  are  strong-est  and 
hig-hest.  I  assure  you  that  this  display  of  energy  and 
these  rhythmic  sounds  give  a  powerful  stimulus  to  the 
soul.  If  I  had  to  break  away  from  ordinary  life  and 
really  live,  and  if  notwithstanding  I  felt  disheartened, 
I  should  like  to  spend  a  quarter  of  an  hour  alone  by  a 
lake  in  storm.  I  fancy  it  would  not  be  great  things 
that  would  daunt  me. 

I  am  somewhat  impatiently  awaiting  the  reply  I  asked 
you  for;  and  though  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  cannot  arrive 
just  yet,  I  am  constantly  thinking  of  sending  to  Lau- 
sanne to  see  if  they  have  neglected  to  forward  it.  It 
will  no  doubt  tell  me  quite  definitely  what  you  think, 
and  what  you  anticipate  for  the  future,  and  also  whether 
I  did  wrong,  being  the  man  I  am,  to  take  a  step  which 
in  many  people  would  have  been  the  essence  of  caprice. 
I  used  to  consult  you  about  trifles,  and  yet  I  came  to  a 
conclusion  of  the  utmost  importance  without  you.     Vou 


1 6  OBERMANN. 

will  surely  not  refuse  to  give  me  your  opinion ;  I  need 
it  to  check  or  to  encourage  me.  You  have  forgotten  by 
this  time,  I  hope,  that  I  schemed  this  matter  as  if  I 
wanted  to  keep  it  a  secret  from  you;  the  errors  of  a 
friend  can  affect  our  thoughts  but  not  our  feelings.  I 
congratulate  you  on  having  to  forgive  me  some  weak- 
nesses;  but  for  that  I  should  not  have  so  much  pleasure 
in  leaning  on  you ;  my  own  strength  would  not  make 
me  feel  so  safe  as  yours. 

I  write  to  you  just  as  I  should  speak,  or  as  if  I  were 
talking  to  myself.  There  are  times  when  people  have 
nothing  particular  to  tell  each  other,  and  yet  they  yearn 
for  a  talk;  it  is  often  then  that  they  chat  most  com- 
fortably. The  only  kind  of  walk  I  know  that  gives 
genuine  pleasure  is  one  that  has  no  object,  when  one 
rambles  for  the  sake  of  rambling,  observant  without 
wanting  anything  in  particular  ;  when  the  weather  is 
calm  and  nearly  cloudless,  when  one  has  no  business 
on  hand  and  no  wish  to  know  the  time ;  when  one  sets 
out  to  explore  at  random  the  swamps  and  forests  of  an 
unknown  region;  when  one's  talk  is  of  mushrooms, 
and  deer,  and  reddening  leaves  just  beginning  to  fall; 
when  I  remark:  "This  place  is  just  like  one  where  my 
father  stopped,  ten  years  ago  now,  to  play  quoits  with 
me,  and  where  he  left  his  hunting-knife,  which  next 
day  we  could  not  find";  and  you  chime  in:  "  My  father 
would  have  been  charmed  with  the  place  where  we  just 
now  crossed  the  brook.  Towards  the  end  of  his  days 
he  used  to  drive  out  a  good  league  from  the  town  into 
a  dense  wood,  where  there  were  rocks  and  water;  then 
he  would  leave  his  carriage  and  take  his  seat  on  a 
block   of  grit,   sometimes   alone,   sometimes   with   me, 


LETTER  III.  17 

and  there  we  would  read  the  Lives  of  the  Desert 
Fathers.  He  would  say  to  me:  'If  I  had  entered  a 
monastery  in  my  youth,  as  God  called  me,  I  should 
not  have  had  all  the  afflictions  that  have  befallen  me 
in  the  world  outside,  and  I  should  not  now  he  so  weak 
and  shattered  ;  but  then  I  should  have  no  son,  and 
dying-  should  leave  nothing-  behind  me.'  .  .  .  And  now 
he  is  no  more!     They  are  no  more!" 

There  are  men  who  imagine  they  are  taking-  a  country 
walk  when  they  trudg-e  along  a  gravel  path.  They 
have  dined;  they  ^o  as  far  as  the  statue  and  return  to 
backgammon.  But  when  we  used  to  lose  ourselves  in 
the  woods  of  Forez,  we  roamed  freely  and  at  random. 
There  was  something  sacred  in  those  recollections  of  a 
time  even  then  remote,  coming  to  us  as  they  did  in 
the  depth  and  grandeur  of  the  woods.  How  the  soul 
expands  when  it  comes  face  to  face  with  what  is 
beautiful  and  unforeseen.  In  what  concerns  the  soul 
I  do  not  like  to  have  things  cut  and  dried  beforehand. 
Let  the  understanding  pursue  its  end  methodically  and 
reduce  to  system  its  achievements.  But  the  heart,  it 
toils  not;  and  if  you  ask  it  to  produce  it  will  produce 
nothing;  cultivation  makes  it  barren.  Vou  remember 
the  letters  R.  used  to  write  to  L.,  whom  he  called 
his  friend.  There  was  plenty  of  cleverness  in  those 
letters  but  no  abandon.  Each  one  contained  some- 
thing different  and  treated  of  a  special  topic  ;  every 
paragraph  had  its  purpose  and  line  of  thought.  Every- 
thing was  arranged  as  if  for  printing,  like  the  chapters 
of  a  text-book.  That  will  not  be  our  method,  I  think; 
what  do  we  want  with  cleverness  ?  When  friends 
converse  it  is  to  sav  whatever  comes  into  their  heads. 


i8  OEERMANN. 

One  request  I  will  make;  let  your  letters  be  long*  ones; 
take  plenty  of  time  to  write,  that  I  may  be  as  long  in 
reading-;  I  will  often  set  you  the  example.  As  to  the 
contents  I  am  not  greatly  concerned  ;  of  course  we 
shall  sa)'  what  we  think,  and  what  we  feel,  and  is  not 
that  just  what  we  ought  to  say?  When  one  wants  to 
gossip,  does  one  think  of  saying  "  Let  us  talk  of  such 
a  subject;  let  us  divide  it  up,  and  begin  here?  " 

They  were  bringing  supper  in  when  I  started  to 
write,  and  now  they  have  just  announced  that  "really 
the  fish  is  quite  cold;  at  any  rate,  It  will  not  be  nice." 
Good-bye,  then.  They  are  Rhone  trout.  They  praise 
them  up  to  me  as  if  they  did  not  see  that  I  shall  take 
my  meal  alone. 


LETTER   IV. 

Thiei.e,  fitly  \()/h  (I.). 

I  have  been  to  Yverdon,  and  I  have  seen  Neuchatel, 
Bienne  and  its  surroundings.  I  am  sta3-ing  a  few 
days  at  Thiele,  on  the  frontier  between  Neuchatel  and 
Berne.  I  engaged  at  Lausanne  one  of  those  hired 
chaises  that  are  so  common  in  Switzerland.  I  was 
not  afraid  of  the  monotony  of  the  carriage  ;  I  was 
too  engrossed  in  my  situation,  in  my  faint  hopes,  my 
uncertain  future,  my  already  barren  present,  and  in  the 
intolerable  emptiness  I  find  everywhere.  I  am  sending 
you  a  few  jottings  made  at  various  places  on  my  way. 

From  Yverdon.     I  enjoyed  for  a  little  while  the  feel- 


LETTER  IV.  19 

ing"  of  being-  free  and  in  finer  scenery.  I  thoug-ht  I 
should  find  here  a  better  life,  but  I  confess  to  you  that 
I  am  not  satisfied.  At  Moudon,  in  the  heart  of  the 
province  of  Vaud,  I  asked  myself,  "Could  I  live  happily 
in  these  be-praised  and  soug-ht-after  regions  ?  "  But 
a  deep  sense  of  dissatisfaction  compelled  me  to  leave 
it  at  once.  Afterwards  I  tried  to  delude  myself  into 
thinking'  that  this  impression  was  due  chiefly  to  some- 
thing dreary  in  the  locality.  The  landscape  at  Moudon 
is  wooded  and  picturesque,  but  there  is  no  lake.  I 
resolved  to  spend  the  nig^ht  at  Yverdon,  in  the  hope 
of  recovering  by  its  shores  that  state  of  well-being 
tinged  with  sadness  which  I  prefer  to  joy.  It  is  a 
beautiful  valley,  and  the  town  is  one  of  the  prettiest 
in  Switzerland.  But  in  spite  of  the  scenery,  in  spite 
of  the  lake,  in  spite  of  the  loveliness  of  the  day,  I 
found  Yverdon  more  dreary  than  Moudon.  Whatever 
sort  of  place  ivill  suit  me,  I  wonder  ? 

From  NeuchdteL  I  left  Yverdon  this  morning;  the 
town  is  pretty  enough,  and  to  other  eyes  agreeable, 
but  dreary  in  mine.  I  do  not  exactly  know  even  yet 
what  makes  it  so  for  me,  but  I  feel  myself  quite  a 
different  man  to-day.  If  I  had  to  postpone  my  choice 
of  that  fixed  abode  I  am  on  the  look  out  for,  I  would 
far  sooner  decide  to  pass  a  year  at  Neuchatel  than  a 
month  at  Yverdon. 

From  Saint-Blaise.  I  am  returning  from  a  tour  in 
the  Val  de  Travers.  There  I  began  to  realize  what 
sort  of  country  1  am  in.  The  shores  of  the  lake  of 
Geneva  are  no  doubt  very  fine,  and  yet  it  seems  to 
me  that  one  could  find  the  same  beauties  elsewhere, 
while  as  for  the  people,  one  can  see  at  a  glance  that 


20  OBERMANN. 

they  are  just  like  those  m  the  lowlands,  they  and  all 
their  belongings.^  But  this  vale,  in  a  fold  of  the  Jura, 
wears  an  aspect  of  grandeur  and  simplicity,  it  is  wild 
and  yet  cheerful,  it  is  at  once  peaceful  and  romantic; 
and  though  it  has  no  lake  it  impressed  me  more  than 
the  shores  of  Neuchatel  or  even  of  Geneva.  The  earth 
seems  there  less  dominated  by  man,  and  man  less  en- 
slaved to  pitiful  conventionalities.  The  eye  is  not 
everlastingly  confronted  with  ploughed  fields,  with 
vineyards  and  country  houses,  the  counterfeit  wealth 
of  so  many  unhappy  regions.  But  alas !  there  were 
big  villages,  stone  houses,  aristocracy,  affectation, 
vanity,  smartness,  irony.  Where  were  my  idle  dreams 
leading  me?  At  every  step  one  takes  here  the  enchant- 
ment comes  and  goes  ;  at  every  step  one  hopes  and 
loses  heart;  one's  mood  is  ever  changing  in  this  land, 
so  different  both  from  others  and  from  itself.  I  am 
going  to  the  Alps. 

From  Thicle.  I  was  on  my  way  to  Vevey  by  Morat, 
and  did  not  think  of  stopping  here,  but  to-day,  on 
awaking,  I  was  captivated  by  the  finest  spectacle  the 
dawn  can  create  in  a  landscape  whose  special  type  of 
beauty  is  rather  genial  than  sublime.  That  has  induced 
me  to  spend  a  few  days  here. 

My  window  had  been  open  all  night,  as  usual.  About 
four  o'clock  I  was  awakened  by  the  coming  of  daylight 
and  by  the  scent  of  the  hay  which  had  been  cut  in  the 
cool  of  the  night,  by  moonlight.  I  expected  quite  an 
ordinary  view,    but   I    had   a   shock   of  surprise.     The 


'  This  is  not  true  if  it  is  meant  to  apply  to  llie  \vliole  of  the  north 
bani<, 


LETTER  IV.  21 

rains  of  the  solstice  had  kept  up  the  flood  previously 
caused  by  the  melting"  snows  of  the  Jura,  and  the  space 
between  the  lake  and  the  Thiele  was  almost  entirely 
under  water.  The  higher  ground  formed  isolated 
pastures  amid  these  plains  of  water  ruffled  by  the  cool 
morning"  breeze.  One  could  see  in  the  distance  the 
waves  of  the  lake  as  the  wind  drove  them  upon  its  half 
submerg-ed  shore.  Some  gloats  and  cows  with  their 
herdsman,  who  was  drawing"  rustic  sounds  from  his 
horn,  were  just  passing"  along"  a  strip  of  land  left  dry 
between  the  flooded  plain  and  the  Thiele.  At  the 
worst  places  stones  had  been  set  to  help  out  or  continue 
this  kind  of  natural  causeway.  I  could  not  disting"uish 
the  pasture  for  which  these  placid  creatures  were 
making,  and  to  judg"e  by  their  slow  and  hesitating-  steps 
one  would  have  said  they  were  g"oing"  right  into  the  lake 
to  perish.  The  heig"hts  of  Anet  and  the  dense  woods 
of  Julemont  rose  from  the  bosom  of  the  water  like  an 
uninhabited  desert  island.  The  mountainous  rang-e  of 
Vuilly  skirted  the  lake  on  the  horizon.  Southwards 
the  outlook  stretched  away  behind  the  hills  of  Mont- 
mirail,  and  beyond  all,  sixty  leagues  of  aeonian  snow- 
fields  dominated  the  whole  landscape  with  the  inimitable 
grandeur  of  those  bold  natural  features  that  make  a 
scene  sublime. 

I  dined  with  the  toll-collector,  whose  ways  rather 
pleased  me.  He  is  more  given  to  smoking  and  drinking 
than  to  spite,  scheming,  and  worry.  I  rather  like 
these  habits  in  other  people,  though  I  shall  certainly 
not  acquire  them  myself.  They  banish  ennui  ;  they 
occupy  the  time  without  our  having  to  bother  about  it; 
they  sav'e  a  man  from  many  worse  things,  and  instead 


22  OBERMANN. 

of  the  calm  of  happiness,  which  one  never  sees  on  any 
brow,  they  do  at  least  give  that  of  a  satisfying"  diversion 
which  reconciles  everything,  and  is  only  harmful  to 
intellectual  progress. 

In  the  evening  I  took  the  key  so  that  I  could  come 
in  late,  without  being  bound  to  time.  The  moon  was 
not  up,  and  I  strolled  along  by  the  green  waters  of  the 
Thiele.  But  feeling  inclined  for  long  musing,  and 
finding  it  warm  enough  to  stay  out  all  night,  I  took 
the  road  to  Saint-Blaise.  I  left  it  again  at  a  little 
village  called  Marin,  which  has  the  lake  to  the  south, 
and  descended  a  steep  slope  to  the  sand  on  which  the 
waves  were  breaking.  The  air  was  calm  ;  not  a  trace 
of  haze  was  visible  on  the  lake.  Everybody  was 
asleep  ;  forgetful,  some  of  labours,  others  of  griefs. 
The  moon  appeared  ;  I  stayed  on  and  on.  Towards 
morning  she  diffused  over  land  and  water  the  exquisite 
melancholy  of  her  last  beams.  Nature  seemed  grand 
indeed,  as  one  heard  in  one's  long  meditation  the  roll 
of  the  waves  on  the  lonely  shore,  in  the  calm  of  a  night 
still  glowing  w  ith  the  radiance  of  a  dying  moon. 

Inexpressible  responsiveness,  alike  the  charm  and 
torment  of  our  idle  years,  profound  sense  of  a  Nature 
everywhere  overwhelming  and  everywhere  inscrutable  ; 
infinite  passion,  ripened  wisdom,  ecstatic  self-surrender, 
everything  a  human  heart  can  hold  of  need  and  utter 
weariness,  I  felt  them  all,  sounded  the  depths  of  all, 
during  that  memorable  night.  I  took  an  ominous 
stride  towards  the  age  of  decline  ;  I  swallowed  up  ten 
years  of  my  life.  Happy  the  simple-minded  man  whose 
heart  is  always  young  ! 

There,   in   the   quiet  of  the  night,    I    questioned   my 


LETTER  IV.  23 

problematic  destiny,  my  storm-tossed  heart,  and  that 
incomprehensible  Nature  which  includes  all  things  and 
yet  seems  not  to  include  the  satisfactions  of  my  desires. 
What  in  the  world  am  I  ?  said  I  to  myself.  What 
pathetic  combination  of  boundless  affection  with  in- 
difference to  all  the  concrete  objects  of  real  life?  Is 
imag'inatlon  leading  me  to  seek  in  an  arbitrary  scheme  of 
thing-s  objects  that  are  preferable  for  this  sole  reason, 
that  their  fictitious  existence,  which  can  be  moulded  at 
will,  assumes  in  my  eyes  attractive  forms  and  a  pure 
unalloyed  beauty  even  more  unreal  than  themselves. 

In  that  case,  seeing  in  things  relations  which  can 
hardly  be  said  to  exist,  and  always  seeking  what  I 
shall  never  attain,  an  alien  in  nature  and  an  oddity 
among  men,  I  shall  have  none  but  barren  affections, 
and  whether  I  live  in  my  own  way  or  the  world's, 
eternal  constraint  in  the  one  case  and  my  own  limita- 
tions in  the  other,  will  be  the  ceaseless  torment  of  a 
life  always  repressed  and  always  miserable.  But  the 
vagaries  of  a  vivid  and  unregulated  imagination  are  as 
fickle  as  they  are  wayward  ;  a  man  of  that  type,  the 
sport  of  his  fluctuating  passions  and  of  their  blind 
ungoverned  energy,  will  neither  have  constancy  in  his 
tastes  nor  peace  in  his  heart. 

What  have  I  in  common  with  such  a  man?  All  my 
tastes  are  invariable,  everything  I  care  for  is  feasible 
and  natural  ;  I  only  want  simple  habits,  peaceable 
friends,  an  evenly-flowing  life.  How  can  my  wishes 
be  ill-regulated?  I  see  nothing  in  them  but  the  need, 
nay,  the  sense  of  harmony  and  the  proprieties  of  life. 
How  can  my  affections  be  distasteful  to  other  men  ? 
I   only  like  what  the  best   among   them   have   liked,    I 


24  OBERMANN. 

seek  nothing"  at  the  expense  of  any  one  of  them  ;  I  seek 
only  what  everyone  can  have,  what  the  needs  of  all 
require,  what  would  end  their  woes,  what  draws  men 
together,  unites,  and  consoles  them  ;  I  only  want  the 
life  of  the  g'ood,  my  peace  in  the  peace  of  all. 

True,  I  love  nothing-  but  Nature,  and  yet  for  that  very 
reason  my  self-love  is  not  exclusive,  and  what  I  love 
most  in  Nature  is  mankind.  A  resistless  impulse  sways 
me  to  all  loving-  emotions;  my  heart  has  been  too  much 
concerned  with  itself,  with  humanity,  and  with  the 
original  harmony  of  existence  to  have  ever  known 
selfish  or  vindictive  passions.  I  love  myself,  but  it  is  as 
a  part  of  Nature,  in  the  order  she  desires,  in  fellowship 
with  man  as  she  desires  him  to  be,  in  fellowship  with 
man  as  she  made  him,  and  in  harmony  with  the  scheme 
of  things  as  a  whole.  To  tell  the  truth,  up  to  the  present 
time  at  any  rate,  no  existing  thing  has  fully  claimed  my 
affection,  and  an  emptiness  beyond  words  is  the  prevail- 
ing mood  of  my  thirsty  soul.  But  everything  I  crave 
might  exist,  the  whole  world  might  be  after  my  own 
heart,  without  anything  being  changed  in  nature  or  in 
man  himself,  except  the  fleeting  accidental  features  of 
the  social  fabric. 

The  eccentric  man  is  not  of  this  type.  The  grounds 
of  his  madness  are  artificial.  There  is  no  sequence  of 
unity  in  his  affections;  and  as  error  and  absurdity  only 
exist  in  human  innovations,  all  the  objects  about  which 
he  is  crazed  are  found  in  the  sphere  which  rouses  the 
lawless  passions  of  men,  and  agitates  their  minds  with 
a  continual  ferment  of  conflicting  desires. 

1,  on  the  other  hand,  love  existing  things,  and  I  love 
them  as  they  are.      I  neither  desire  nor  seek,  nor  imagine 


LETTER  IV.  25 

anything-  outside  Nature.  Nay,  far  from  letting-  my 
thoughts  wander  and  settle  on  objects  that  are  difficult 
of  attainment  or  absurd,  remote  or  extraordinary,  far 
from  being  indifferent  to  what  comes  to  hand,  to  what 
Nature  regularly  produces,  and  aspiring  to  what  is 
denied  me,  to  things  strange  and  infrequent,  to 
improbable  surroundings  and  a  romantic  destiny,  the 
very  opposite  is  the  case.  I  only  want,  I  only  demand 
of  Nature  and  of  men  for  my  whole  life,  what  Nature  of 
necessity  contains,  and  what  all  men  ought  to  possess, 
that  alone  which  can  occupy  our  days  and  fill  our  hearts, 
that  which  makes  life. 

As  I  do  not  need  things  that  are  privileged  or  difficult 
of  attainment,  no  more  do  1  need  things  that  are  new- 
fangled, changing,  manifold.  What  has  already  pleased 
me  will  always  please  me;  what  has  satisfied  my  wants 
will  always  satisfy  them.  A  day  like  a  previous  happy 
day  is  just  as  much  a  happy  one  for  me;  and  as  the 
practical  needs  of  my  Nature  are  always  pretty  much 
the  same,  simply  seeking  what  is  essential,  I  always 
desire  pretty  much  the  same  things.  If  I  am  satisfied 
to-day,  I  shall  be  also  to-morrow,  for  a  twelvemonth,  for 
a  lifetime;  and  if  my  environment  remains  the  same, 
my  modest  wants  will  always  be  supplied. 

The  love  of  power  or  of  wealth  is  almost  as  foreign  to 
my  disposition  as  envy,  hatred,  or  revenge.  There  is 
nothing-  in  me  to  alienate  the  affections  of  others.  I 
am  not  the  rival  of  any  of  them ;  I  can  no  more  envy 
than  hate  them;  I  should  decline  what  infatuates  them, 
I  should  refuse  to  triumph  over  them,  and  1  have  no 
wish  even  to  excel  them  in  virtue.  I  am  content  with 
my  native    goodness.      Happy  in    being  able    to   avoid 


26  OBERMANN. 

wrong-doing-  without  special  effort,  I  will  not  torment 
myself  needlessly ;  and  so  long  as  1  am  an  honest  sort 
of  fellow  I  will  not  set  up  to  be  virtuous.  That  is  a  very 
praiseworthy  quality,  but  fortunately  it  is  not  in- 
dispensable to  me,  and  I  resign  it  in  their  favour,  thus 
abolishing  the  only  ground  of  rivalry  that  could  exist 
between  us.  Their  virtues  are  ambitious  like  their 
passions;  they  parade  them  ostentatiously,  and  what 
they  seek  above  all  to  get  by  them  is  pre-eminence.  I 
am  not  their  rival,  and  will  not  be  even  in  that.  What 
shall  I  lose  if  I  resign  to  them  this  superiority? 

Among  their  so-called  virtues,  some — the  only  useful 
ones,  in  fact — exist  spontaneously  in  a  man  constituted 
as  I  am,  and  as  I  would  gladly  believe  every  man  is  at 
bottom;  the  others,  which  are  complex,  hard  to  acquire, 
impressive  and  brilliant,  are  not  an  essential  outgrowth 
of  human  nature,  and  for  that  reason  1  count  them 
either  spurious  or  barren,  and  am  not  specially  anxious 
to  have  the  doubtful  merit  of  possessing  them.  I  have 
no  need  to  struggle  for  what  is  part  of  my  nature,  and 
what  is  contrary  to  that  nature  I  certainly  will  not 
struggle  to  attain.  My  reason  rejects  it,  and  assures 
me  that  in  my  case  at  any  rate  these  ostentatious 
virtues  would  be  defects  and  the  beginning  of  deterior- 
ation. 

The  only  effort  required  of  me  by  the  love  of  good  is 
a  continual  watchfulness,  which  never  allows  the  maxims 
of  our  spurious  morality  to  gain  admission  to  a  soul  that 
is  too  honest  to  wear  them  for  outside  shovv^,  and  too 
simple  to  contain  them  within.  Such  is  the  virtue  I 
owe  to  myself,  and  the  duty  1  accept.  I  have  an 
irresistible  conciousness  that  my  inclinations  are  natural ; 


LETTER  IV.  27 

it  only  remains  that  I  should  watch  myself  carefully  to 
ward  off  from  this  general  tendency  any  special  impulse 
that  mig"ht  interfere  with  it,  and  to  keep  myself  always 
simple  and  honest,  amid  the  endless  changes  and 
confusions  which  may  arise  from  the  pressure  of  my 
precarious  future,  and  from  the  frustrations  of  so  many 
unstable  circumstances.  Whatever  happens  I  must 
always  keep  the  same,  and  always  be  myself, — I  do  not 
mean  exactly  what  I  am  in  habits  opposed  to  my  real 
needs,  but  what  I  feel  myself  to  be,  what  I  wish  to  be, 
what  I  really  am  in  that  inner  life  which  is  the  one 
refuge  of  my  sorrowful  emotions. 

I  will  question  myself,  I  will  study  myself,  I  will  probe 
to  the  bottom  this  heart  of  mine,  naturally  so  true 
and  loving,  but  already  staled  perchance  by  its  many 
mortifications.  I  will  ascertain  what  I  am,  or  rather, 
what  I  should  be;  and  when  once  that  point  is  cleared 
up  I  will  set  myself  to  be  loyal  to  it  all  my  life,  assured 
that  nothing  which  is  natural  to  me  is  either  dangerous 
or  blamable,  satisfied  that  the  only  state  of  well-being 
is  one  in  harmony  with  Nature,  and  resolved  never  to 
repress  anything  within  me  but  what  would  tend  to 
deteriorate  my  original  form. 

I  have  felt  the  spell  of  arduous  virtues.  In  that 
sublime  mistake  I  thought  to  replace  all  the  motives 
of  social  life  by  this  other  motive,  as  illusory  as  they. 
My  stoical  hardihood  defied  alike  misfortune  and 
passion,  and  I  felt  sure  of  being  the  happiest  of  men 
if  only  I  were  the  most  virtuous.  The  delusion  lasted 
nearly  a  month  in  full  vigour ;  a  single  incident  shattered 
it.  Then  it  was  that  all  the  bitterness  of  a  grey  and 
fleeting  life  overflowed  my  soul  as  the  last  mirage  that 

5 


28  OBERMANN. 

had  deceived  it  was  dissipated.  Since  then  I  have 
made  no  pretence  of  using  my  life ;  I  only  seek  to  get 
through  it;  I  no  longer  desire  to  enjoy  it,  but  only 
to  endure  it ;  I  am  not  concerned  that  it  should  be 
virtuous,  but  simply  that  it  should  never  be  culpable. 

And  yet  even  that,  where  shall  I  hope  for  it,  where 
attain  it?  Where  shall  I  find  congenial,  simple,  well- 
spent,  equable  days  ?  Where  shall  I  escape  misfortune  ? 
That  is  all  I  desire.  But  what  a  career  is  that  in  which 
sorrows  remain  and  joys  exist  no  more !  Possibly  some 
peaceful  days  may  be  given  me,  but  as  for  charm, 
increase  of  that  means  increasing  delirium  ;  never  a 
moment  of  pure  joy — never !  And  I  am  not  yet 
twenty-one!  And  I  was  born  so  responsive,  so  eager! 
And  I  have  never  known  the  taste  of  joy!  And  after 
death.  .  .  .  Nothing  left  in  life,  nothing  in  Nature. 
...  I  did  not  weep;  the  fountain  of  my  tears  is  dry. 
I  felt  myself  growing  cold;  I  rose  and  started  to  walk, 
and  the  exercise  did  me  good. 

Insensibly  I  returned  to  my  first  inquiry.  How  shall 
I  settle  down?  Can  I  do  it?  And  what  place  shall 
I  select?  How,  among  men,  can  I  live  otherwise  than 
they  do,  and  how  can  I  get  away  from  them  in  a 
world  whose  furthest  recesses  they  profane  ?  Without 
money  one  cannot  even  get  what  money  cannot  buy, 
or  avoid  what  money  procures.  The  fortune  I  had 
reason  to  expect  is  falling  to  pieces,  and  the  little 
I  now  have  is  becoming  insecure.  My  absence  will 
probably  mean  the  loss  of  everything,  and  I  am  not 
the  kind  of  man  to  launch  out  afresh.  I  fancy  in 
this  matter  I  must  let  things  take  their  chance.  Mv 
position    depends    on    circumstances   whose    issues   are 


LETTER  IV.  29 

still  remote.  It  is  not  certain  that  even  if  I  sacrificed 
my  present  years  to  the  task  I  could  earn  enough  to 
arrange  the  future  to  my  liking.  I  will  wait,  I  will 
give  no  heed  to  a  futile  prudence,  which  would  yoke 
me  afresh  to  burdens  that  had  become  unbearable. 
And  yet  I  cannot  at  present  settle  myself  once  for  all 
and  adopt  a  fixed  location  and  a  constant  mode  of  life. 
I  must  put  it  off,  perhaps  for  a  long  time;  and  so  life 
slips  away.  I  must  for  years  to  come  be  subject  to 
the  freaks  of  fate,  to  the  bondage  of  circumstances, 
and  to  the  so-called  proprieties  of  life.  I  mean  to  live 
in  a  haphazard  fashion,  without  a  definite  purpose, 
until  the  time  arrives  when  I  can  adopt  the  only  one 
that  suits  me.  Well  for  me  if  in  this  fallow  period  I 
succeed  in  evolving  a  better;  if  I  can  select  the  loca- 
tion, the  mode,  the  habits  of  my  future  life,  rule  my 
affections,  control  myself,  and  confine  this  yearning, 
simple  heart  of  mine,  to  which  nothing  will  be  given, 
in  the  loneliness  and  limitations  imposed  upon  it  by 
accidental  circumstances.  Well  for  me  if  I  can  teach 
it  to  be  self-sufiicing  in  its  desolation,  to  rest  in 
vacancy,  to  be  still  in  this  galling  silence,  to  endure 
though  Nature  is  dumb. 

You  who  know  me,  who  understand  me,  but  who, 
happier  and  wiser  than  I,  submit  without  impatience 
to  the  customs  of  life,  you  know  what  are  the  needs 
in  me  which  cannot  be  satisfied,  separated  as  we  are 
doomed  to  live.  One  thing  indeed  consoles  me — that 
I  am  sure  of  your  friendship ;  that  feeling  will  never 
desert  me.  But  as  we  always  declared,  we  ought  both 
to  feel  alike,  to  share  the  same  destiny,  to  spend  our 
lives   together.      How   often   have   I   regretted   that  we 


30  OBERMANN. 

were  not  so  placed  to  each  other  !  With  whom  would 
unreserved  confidence  be  so  sweet  to  me,  and  so 
natural?  Have  you  not  been  until  now  my  only 
comrade  ?  You  know  that  fine  saying- :  Est  aliqiiid 
sacri  in  antiqiiis  necessitiidinibiis.  I  am  sorry  it  was 
not  uttered  by  Epicurus,  or  even  by  Leontius,  rather 
than  by  an  orator.^ 

You  are  the  centre  where  I  love  to  rest  amid  the 
distraction  that  sways  me,  to  which  I  love  to  return 
when  I  have  wandered  everywhere  and  have  found 
myself  alone  in  the  world.  If  we  lived  together,  if 
we  sufficed  each  other,  I  would  take  my  stand  there, 
I  would  know  the  meaning  of  rest,  I  would  do  some- 
thing in  the  world,  and  my  life  would  begin.  But  I 
must  wait,  and  seek,  and  hurry  on  to  the  unknown, 
and  though   I  know   not  whither  I  am   bound   I  must 

^  Cicero  was  no  common  man;  he  was  even  a  great  man.  He  had 
fine  qualities  and  fine  talents;  he  occupied  a  distinguished  position;  he 
wrote  well  on  philosophical  topics;  but  I  fail  to  see  that  he  had  the 
soul  of  a  wise  man.  Obermann  objected  to  his  having  merely  a  wise 
man's  pen.  He  was  of  opinion  too  that  a  statesman  has  opportunity 
enough  of  showing  what  he  is;  he  also  believed  that  a  statesman  may 
make  mistakes,  but  must  not  be  weak,  that  a  "father  of  his  country" 
has  no  need  to  deal  in  flattery,  that  vanity  is  sometimes  the  almost 
unavoidable  expedient  of  the  unknown,  but  in  other  cases  it  is  only 
due  to  littleness  of  soul.  I  fancy  also  that  he  objected  to  a  Roman 
consul  weeping  phirimis  lacrymis,  because  the  wife  of  his  bosom  was 
obliged  to  change  her  abode.  That  was  most  likely  his  attitude  towards 
this  orator,  whose  genius  was  perhaps  not  so  great  as  his  talents.  I 
fear  I  may  be  mistaken,  however,  in  my  interpretation  of  his  feeling 
from  the  point  of  view  of  these  letters,  for  I  find  I  am  attributing  to 
him  exactly  my  own.  I  am  quite  content  that  the  author  of  De  Officiis 
succeeded  in  the  affair  of  Catiline;  but  I  would  have  liked  him  to  be 
great  in  his  reverses. 


LETTER  V.  31 

flee  from  the  present  as  if  I  had  something-  to  hope  for 
in  the  future. 

You  excuse  my  departure;  you  even  justify  it;  and 
that  in  full  view  of  the  fact  that  friendship  demands 
a  stricter  justice  than  your  leniency  w^ould  mete  out 
to  strangers.  You  are  quite  right;  I  had  to  do  it; 
circumstances  compelled  me.  I  cannot  look  without  a 
kind  of  indignation  on  the  preposterous  life  I  have  left, 
but  I  am  under  no  delusion  about  the  one  before  me. 
I  enter  with  dread  on  years  full  of  uncertainties,  and  I 
see  something  ominous  in  the  dense  cloud  which  rests 
in  front  of  me. 


LETTER   V. 

Saint-Maurice,  August  i^th  (I.)- 

I  have  been  waiting  for  a  settled  abode  before  writing 
to  you.  At  last  I  have  made  up  my  mind  ;  I  shall  spend 
the  winter  here.  I  shall  make  first  of  all  some  little 
excursions  ;  but  as  soon  as  autumn  is  set  in  I  shall 
not  move  again. 

I  meant  to  traverse  the  Canton  of  Fribourg,  and 
enter  the  Valais  through  the  mountains,  but  the  rains 
compelled  me  to  make  for  Vevey,  by  way  of  Payerne 
and  Lausanne.  The  weather  had  taken  up  when  I 
entered  Vevey,  but  whatever  the  weather  had  been,  I 
could  not  have  determined  to  proceed  by  carriage. 
Between  Lausanne  and  Vevey  the  road  is  all  ups  and 
downs,  generally  along-  the  hillside,  among  vineyards 
which  seem  to  me  in  such  a  region  somewhat  monot- 


32  OBERMANN. 

onous.  But  Vevey,  Clarens,  Chillon,  the  three  leagues 
from  Saint-Saphorien  to  Villeneuve,  surpass  everythuig' 
I  have  hitherto  seen.  People  generally  admire  the 
lake  of  Geneva  near  Rolle.  Well,  I  have  no  wish  to 
settle  the  point,  but  for  my  part  I  think  it  is  at  Vevey, 
and  still  more  at  Chillon,  that  one  sees  it  in  all  its 
beauty.  If  only  there  were  in  this  wonderful  basin,  in 
sight  of  the  Dent  de  Jaman,  of  the  Aiguille  du  Midi 
and  the  snows  of  Velan,  just  there,  in  front  of  the  cliffs 
of  Meillerie,  a  peak  rising  from  the  water,  a  rock-bound 
islet,  well-wooded,  difficult  of  access,  and  on  that 
island  two,  or  at  most  three,  houses  !  I  would  budge 
no  further.  Why  does  Nature  hardly  ever  contain 
what  imagination  creates  for  our  needs?  Is  it  that 
men  oblige  us  to  imagine  and  long  for  what  Nature 
does  not  usually  produce,  and  that  if  she  happens  to 
have  produced  it  anywhere,  they  soon  destroy  it? 

I  slept  at  Villeneuve,  a  dreary  place  in  so  fine  a 
region.  I  traversed  before  the  day  grew  hot  the 
wooded  hills  of  Saint-Tryphon,  and  the  succession  of 
orchards  filling  the  valley  as  far  as  Bex.  I  was  ad- 
vancing between  two  ranges  of  Alps  of  great  elevation  ; 
looking  up  to  their  snows  I  was  following  a  level  road 
through  fertile  country,  which  seemed  as  though  in 
limes  gone  by  it  had  been  almost  entirely  under  water. 

The  valley  along  which  the  Rhone  flows  from 
Martigny  to  the  lake  is  cut  in  two,  about  the  middle, 
by  cliffs  crowned  with  pastures  and  forests.  These 
cliffs  are  the  lowest  terraces  of  the  Dents  de  Morcle 
and  du  Midi  respectively,  and  are  only  separated  by 
the  bed  of  the  river.  On  the  northern  side  the  rocks 
are  partly  covered  by  chestnut  woods,  and  above  that 


LETTER  V.  33 

by  pines.  Here,  in  these  somewhat  outlandish  regions, 
is  my  residence  at  the  foot  of  the  Aiguille  du  Midi. 
This  peak  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  in  the  Alps,  and 
also  one  of  the  loftiest,  if  judged  not  merely  by  its 
height  above  sea  level,  but  also  by  its  apparent 
elevation  and  the  well-proportioned  amphitheatre  which 
brings  out  all  the  grandeur  of  its  outlines.  Of  all  the 
summits  whose  height  has  been  determined  by  trigono- 
metrical survey  or  barometrical  readings,  I  do  not  see 
one,  so  far  as  I  can  tell  from  a  glance  at  the  maps  and 
from  the  water  system,  whose  base  lies  in  such  deep 
valleys.  I  think  I  am  safe  in  assigning  to  it  an 
apparent  elevation  almost  as  great  as  that  of  any  other 
summit  in  Europe. 

On  seeing  these  tenanted,  fertile,  and  yet  wild 
ravines,  I  left  the  road  to  Italy,  which  turns  off  at  this 
point  for  Bex,  and  made  for  the  bridge  over  the  Rhone, 
taking  footpaths  through  meadows  the  like  of  which 
our  painters  hardly  ever  depict.  The  bridge,  the 
castle,  and  the  flowing  Rhone  form  at  this  point  a 
most  charming  picture  ;  as  for  the  town,  the  only 
special  feature  I  noticed  was  a  kind  of  simplicity.  Its 
situation  has  a  touch  of  melancholy,  but  the  sort  of 
melancholy  I  like.  The  mountains  are  fine,  the  valley 
level ;  the  cliffs  verge  on  the  town  and  seem  to  over- 
hang it;  the  muffled  roll  of  the  Rhone  gives  a  tone  of 
melancholy  to  this  little  self-contained  world,  whose 
sunken  floor  seems  shut  in  on  all  sides.  Though 
populous  and  cultivated,  it  seems  notwithstanding  to 
be  frowned  upon,  or  shall  I  say  beautified,  by  all  the 
austerity  of  the  desert,  when  the  black  clouds  over- 
shadow  it,    rolling  along  the  sides  of  the   mountains, 


34  OBERMANN. 

darkening-  the  sombre  pines,  drawing-  together,  piling 
in  masses,  and  hanging  motionless  like  a  gloom-filled 
roof;  or  when,  on  a  cloudless  day,  the  heat  of  the  sun 
pours  down  upon  it,  fermenting  its  invisible  vapours, 
pursuing  with  relentless  energy  whatever  breathes 
beneath  the  arid  sky,  and  making  of  this  too  lovely 
solitude  a  bitter  desolation. 

The  cold  rains  I  had  just  experienced  as  I  passed  the 
Jorat,  which  is  a  mere  hillock  compared  to  the  Alps, 
and  the  snows  under  which  at  the  same  time  I  saw  the 
mountains  of  Savoy  grow  white,  even  in  the  middle  of 
summer,  made  me  think  more  seriously  of  the  severity 
and  still  more  of  the  duration  of  the  winters  in  the 
higher  parts  of  Switzerland.  I  was  anxious  to  com- 
bine the  beauty  of  the  mountains  with  the  climate  of 
the  plains.  I  was  hoping  to  find  in  the  high  mountain 
valleys  some  slopes  of  southern  aspect,  a  serviceable 
precaution  for  clear  cold  weather,  but  of  very  little 
avail  against  the  months  of  fog,  and  least  of  all  against 
the  lateness  of  the  spring.  As  I  had  quite  decided  not 
to  live  down  here  in  the  towns  I  thought  I  should  be 
well  compensated  for  these  disadvantages  if  I  could 
lodge  with  worthy  mountaineers,  on  some  little  dairy- 
farm,  sheltered  from  the  cold  winds,  beside  a  mountain- 
stream,  amid  pasture  lands  and  evergreen  pines. 

Circumstances  have  decided  otherwise.  Here  I  have 
found  a  mild  climate,  not  in  the  mountains,  it  is  true, 
but  surrounded  by  them.  I  have  let  myself  be  prevailed 
upon  to  stay  near  Saint-Maurice.  I  will  not  tell  you 
how  that  came  about,  in  fact  1  should  be  at  a  loss  how 
to  explain  it  if  I  were  obliged. 

What  you  may  think   on  the  face  of  it  rather  odd,  is 


LETTER  V.  35 

that  the  utter  ennui  I  felt  here  during-  four  wet  days 
contributed  largely  to  my  staying-.  My  heart  failed  me; 
it  was  not  the  monotony  of  solitude  I  dreaded  in  the 
winter,  but  that  of  the  snow.  And  then,  too,  I  was 
led  to  decide  involuntarily,  without  choice,  by  a  kind 
of  instinct  which  seemed  to  tell  me  that  so  it  had  to  be. 

When  it  was  known  that  I  thought  of  staying  in  the 
neighbourhood,  several  people  expressed  their  good- 
will in  a  very  kind  and  unassuming  way.  The  only  one 
with  whom  I  became  intimate  is  the  owner  of  a  pretty 
house  not  far  from  the  town.  He  urged  me  to  stay  at 
his  country  residence,  or  to  make  choice  among  some 
others  he  mentioned,  belonging-  to  his  friends.  But 
I  wanted  a  picturesque  locality  and  a  house  to  myself. 
Fortunately  I  realized  in  time  that  if  I  went  to  inspect 
these  various  residences  I  should  let  myself  be  betrayed 
into  taking  one  out  of  mere  politeness  or  in  weak  com- 
pliance, even  if  they  were  all  far  from  what  I  wanted. 
Then  if  I  regretted  a  wrong  choice  I  could  not  without 
discourtesy  have  tried  any  other  alternative  than  that 
of  leaving  the  district  altogether.  I  frankly  told  him 
my  reasons,  and  he  seemed  to  appreciate  them.  I  set 
out  to  explore  the  neighbourhood,  visiting  the  scenes 
I  liked  best,  and  casually  looking  out  for  a  house, 
without  even  ascertaining  beforehand  whether  any  were 
to  be  found  there  or  not. 

I  had  been  engaged  in  the  search  for  a  couple  of 
days,  in  a  neighbourhood  not  far  from  the  town,  where 
there  were  places  as  secluded  as  any  to  be  found  in  the 
heart  of  a  wilderness,  and  where  accordingly  I  only 
meant  to  spend  three  days  on  a  quest  that  I  did  not 
want  to  push  very  far.      I   had  seen  many  habitations 


36  OBERMANN. 

in  places  that  did  not  suit  me,  and  many  lovely  spots 
without  buildings,  or  with  such  wretchedly-built  stone 
houses  that  they  made  me  think  of  giving  up  my 
scheme,  and  then  I  noticed  a  trace  of  smoke  behind 
a  grove  of  chestnuts. 

The  waters,  the  depth  ot  the  shade,  the  solitude  ot 
the  meadows  over  the  whole  slope  greatly  charmed  me; 
but  it  faced  the  north,  and  as  I  wanted  a  more  genial 
aspect,  I  should  not  have  stopped  but  for  this  smoke. 
After  a  good  deal  of  winding  about  and  crossing  rapid 
streamlets  I  reached  a  solitary  house  on  the  edge  of 
the  woods  and  in  the  loneliest  of  meadows.  A  decent 
dwelling-house,  a  wooden  barn,  a  kitchen  garden 
bounded  by  a  fair-sized  stream,  two  springs  of  good 
water,  some  rocks,  the  sound  of  torrents,  sloping 
ground,  quick-set  hedges,  luxuriant  vegetation,  a  sweep 
of  meadow  stretching  away  under  scattered  beeches 
and  chestnuts  right  up  to  the  pines  of  the  mountain — 
such  is  Charrieres,  The  very  same  evening  I  made 
arrangements  with  the  tenant ;  then  I  went  to  see  the 
landlord,  who  lives  at  Monthey,  half  a  league  further 
on.  He  offered  me  the  most  generous  terms,  and  we 
settled  the  matter  at  once,  though  not  on  the  too 
favourable  basis  of  his  first  suggestion.  His  first  offer 
could  only  have  been  accepted  by  a  friend,  and  the  one 
he  insisted  on  my  accepting  would  have  been  generous 
if  we  had  been  old  acquaintances.  Conduct  like 
this  must  be  native  to  some  localities,  especially  in 
certain  families.  When  I  mentioned  it  to  his  people 
at  Saint- Maurice,  nobody  seemed  in  the  least  sur- 
prised. 

I  want  to  taste  the  joys  of  Charrieres  before  winter. 


LETTER  V.  37 

I  vv^ant  to  be  there  for  the  chestnut-gathering',  and  I 
have  quite  decided  not  to  miss  the  quiet  autumn. 

In  three  weeks  I  take  possession  of  the  house,  the 
chestnut  grove,  and  part  of  the  meadows  and  orchards. 
I  leave  to  the  farmer  the  rest  of  the  pastures  and  fruit- 
trees,  the  kitchen-garden,  the  hemp-ground,  and,  above 
all,  the  ploughed  land. 

The  stream  winds  through  the  part  I  have  kept  for 
myself.  This  is  the  poorest  land,  but  it  has  the  finest 
woods  and  the  loneliest  nooks.  The  moss  spoils  the 
hay  crop  and  the  chestnuts  are  too  crowded  to  bear 
much  fruit ;  no  outlook  has  been  contrived  over  the 
long  valley  of  the  Rhone;  everything  is  wild  and 
neglected.  They  have  not  even  cleared  a  place  shut 
in  by  rocks,  where  trees  blown  down  by  the  wind  and 
rotted  with  age  hold  the  mud  and  form  a  kind  of  dam. 
Alders  and  hazels  have  taken  root  on  it  and  com- 
pletely block  the  way.  But  the  brook  filters  through 
the  debris  and  pours  from  it  all  foaming  into  a  natural 
pool  of  wonderful  purity.  Thence  it  finds  its  way 
between  the  rocks,  dashing  headlong  over  the  moss, 
and  far  below  it  slackens  its  pace,  leaves  the  woods, 
and  flows  in  front  of  the  house  under  a  bridge  made 
of  three  planks  of  pine.  They  say  that  the  wolves, 
driven  by  the  heavy  snows,  come  down  in  winter  and 
hunt  right  up  to  the  doors  for  the  bones  and  scraps 
of  the  flesh  meat  that  man  cannot  do  without  even  in 
pastoral  valleys.  Dread  of  these  animals  has  long 
kept  this  house  uninhabited.  That  is  not  what  I  am 
afraid  of  there.  Let  me  be  undisturbed  by  men,  at 
any  rate  near  the  dens  of  the  wolves ! 


38  OBERMANN. 


LETTER  VI. 

Saint-Maurice,  August  26(k  (I.). 

A  moment  may  transform  one's  mood,  though  such 
moments  are  rare. 

It  happened  yesterday.  I  put  off  writing  to  you  till 
next  day ;  I  did  not  want  the  agitation  to  subside  so 
quickly.  I  felt  I  was  really  in  contact  with  something. 
I  had  what  seemed  like  joy ;  I  let  myself  go ;  it  is  always 
good  to  have  that  experience. 

Now  do  not  smile  at  me  because  I  acted  for  a  whole 
day  as  if  I 'were  taking  leave  of  my  senses.  To  tell  you 
the  truth,  I  only  just  missed  being  so  stupid  as  not  to 
keep  up  my  infatuation  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour. 

I  was  entering  Saint-Maurice.  A  travelling  carriage 
was  passing  at  a  walking  pace,  and  there  were  several 
people  also  coming  off  the  bridge.  You  already 
conclude  that  one  of  the  number  was  a  woman.  My 
French  dress  apparently  drew  attention  to  me;  they 
bowed.  Her  lips  are  full ;  her  glance.  ...  As  to  her 
figure  and  everything  else,  I  have  no  more  idea  than  I 
have  of  her  age;  I  am  not  at  all  concerned  about  that; 
it  is  even  possible  that  she  is  not  specially  pretty. 

I  did  not  inquire  to  what  inn  they  were  going,  but  I 
stayed  the  night  at  Saint-Maurice.  I  suppose  the 
innkeeper  (the  one  to  whose  place  I  always  go)  must 
have  put  me  at  the  same  table  because  they  are  French ; 
I  fancy  he  suggested  it  to  me.  You  may  be  sure  I 
ordered  something  dainty  for  dessert  that  I  might  offer 
her  some  of  it. 


LETTER  VI.  39 

I  spent  the  rest  of  the  day  by  the  Rhone.  They  must 
have  left  this  morning-;  they  are  goings  as  far  as  Sion, 
on  the  way  to  Leuk,  where  one  of  the  travellers  intends 
to  take  the  baths.      It  is  said  to  be  a  fine  route. 

It  is  really  amazing-  how  a  man  who  is  not  without 
vigour  will  let  his  life  be  swallowed  up  in  depression, 
when  it  takes  so  little  to  rouse  him  from  his  lethargy. 

Do  you  think  that  a  man  who  ends  his  days  without 
ever  having  been  in  love  has  really  entered  into  the 
mysteries  of  life,  that  his  heart  is  thoroughly  known  to 
him,  and  that  the  range  of  his  being  has  been  revealed 
to  him?  It  seems  to  me  that  he  has  remained  anoutsider, 
and  has  only  seen  from  afar  what  the  world  might  have 
been  to  him. 

I  let  myself  talk  freely  to  you,  because  you  will  not 
say:  "Ah!  he  is  love  sick."  Never  may  that  stupid 
remark  be  made  about  me  by  any  but  fools,  for  it  makes 
ridiculous  either  him  who  says  it  or  him  of  whom  it  is 
said. 

When  a  couple  of  glasses  of  punch  have  put  to  flight 
our  misgivings,  and  have  given  a  sustaining  impetus  to 
our  ideas,  we  fancy  that  henceforth  we  shall  have  more 
energy  of  disposition  and  enjoy  a  freer  life,  but  next 
morning  we  are  more  out  of  conceit  with  ourselves  than 
ever. 

If  the  weather  were  not  stormy  I  do  not  know  how  I 
should  get  through  the  day;  but  the  thunder  is  already 
resounding  among  the  crags,  the  wind  is  growing 
furious.  I  revel  in  this  turmoil  of  the  elements.  If  it 
rains  this  afternoon  it  will  be  cooler,  and  in  any  case  I 
can  read  by  the  fire. 

The  postman  who  is  due  in  an  hour  should  bring  me 


40  OBERMANN. 

some  books  from  Lausanne,  where  I  paid  a  subscription  ; 
but  if  he  forgets  I  will  do  somethmg  better,  and  the  time 
will  slip  away  all  the  same, — I  will  write  you  a  letter,  if 
I  only  have  courage  enough  to  begin. 


LETTER  VII. 

Saint-Maurice,  Sept.  yd{\.). 

I  have  been  up  as  far  as  the  perennial  snow-fields,  on 
the  Dent  du  Midi.  Before  the  sun  had  risen  on  the 
valley  I  had  already  reached  the  top  of  the  great  cliff 
which  overhangs  the  town,  and  was  crossing  the  partly- 
cultivated  terrace  above  it.  I  kept  on  up  a  steep  slope, 
through  thick  pine-forests,  which  in  places  had  been 
laid  low  in  winters  long  gone  by,  forming  an  inextricable 
tangle  of  decaying  remains  and  vegetation  growing  out 
of  it.  At  eight  o'clock  I  arrived  at  the  bare  peak  which 
rises  above  this  slope  and  forms  the  first  step  of  that 
stupendous  stairway  from  whose  summit  I  was  still  so 
remote. 

At  this  point  I  sent  back  my  guide  and  trusted  to  my 
own  resources.  I  did  not  want  any  mercenary  bond  to 
interfere  with  this  mountain  freedom,  or  any  mere  plain- 
dweller  to  tone  down  the  sternness  of  nature  at  her 
wildest.  I  felt  my  whole  being  expand  as  I  thus  faced 
alone  these  forbidding  obstacles  and  dangers,  far  from 
the  artificial  restrictions  and  tyrannical  ingenuity  of 
men. 

With  a  thrill  of  delicious  independence  I  watched  the 


LETTER  VII.  41 

disappearing  figure  of  the  only  man  I  was  likely  to  meet 
among  those  great  precipices.  I  left  on  the  ground  my 
watch,  my  money,  and  everything  I  had  with  me,  as 
well  as  most  of  my  clothing,  and  strode  away  without 
even  troubling  to  hide  them.  So  you  will  say  that  my 
first  independent  action  was  an  eccentric  one,  to  say  the 
least  of  it,  and  that  I  was  like  children  who  have  been 
too  much  repressed,  and  who  do  all  sorts  of  absurd 
things  when  left  to  themselves.  I  admit  that  there  was 
something  childish  in  my  eagerness  to  leave  everything 
behind,  and  in  my  hovel  get-up,  but  I  moved  more 
freely  for  it,  and  set  myself  to  climb  on  hands  and  knees 
the  rocky  ridge  which  joins  this  minor  peak  to  the  main 
body  of  the  hill,  most  of  the  time  holding  between  my 
teeth  the  stick  I  had  cut  to  help  me  on  the  downward 
slopes.  Here  and  there  I  crawled  along  between  two 
abysses  which  I  could  not  see  to  the  bottom  of.  Thus 
I  reached  at  last  the  granite. 

My  guide  had  told  me  that  I  should  not  be  able  to 
climb  beyond  that  point,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  I  was 
brought  to  a  standstill  for  some  time  ;  but  at  last  by 
going  down  again  a  little,  I  found  an  easier  ascent. 
Attacking  it  with  the  daring  of  a  mountaineer,  I 
reached  a  basin-like  depression,  full  of  hard  frozen  snow 
which  summer  never  melted.  I  climbed  much  higher 
still,  but  when  I  arrived  at  the  foot  of  the  highest  peak 
in  the  range  I  could  not  scale  it.  The  face  of  the  rock 
was  almost  perpendicular,  and  towered  to  a  height  of 
some  500  feet  above  where  I  stood. 

Although  the  snow  I  had  crossed  was  trifling  in 
extent,  I  had  made  no  provision  for  it:  my  eyes  were 
tired  with  its  glare,  and  dazzled  by  the  reflection  of  the 


42  OBERMANN. 

midday  sun  from  its  frozen  surface,  and  I  could  not  see 
anything-  distinctly.  Moreover,  many  of  the  peaks  I 
did  see  were  unknown  to  me ;  I  could  only  be  sure  of 
the  most  striking-.  Since  I  came  to  Switzerland  I  have 
given  all  my  time  to  reading  de  Saussure,  Bourrit,  the 
Tableau  de  la  Suisse,  and  the  like,  but  I  am  still  quite 
a  novice  among  the  Alps.  I  could  not,  however, 
mistake  the  huge  bulk  of  Mont  Blanc,  which  towered 
perceptibly  above  me,  nor  that  of  Velan  ;  another  further 
off  but  higher,  I  took  to  be  Mont  Rosa.  On  the 
opposite  side  of  the  valley,  not  far  away,  but  lower 
down,  beyond  the  abysses,  was  the  Dent  de  Morcle. 
The  mass  I  could  not  climb  interfered  considerably  with 
what  was  probably  the  most  striking  part  of  this 
mag-nificent  view.  Behind  that  lay  the  long  deep  trough 
of  the  Valais,  streaked  on  either  hand  by  the  glaciers 
of  Sanetsch,  Lauter-brunnen,  and  the  Pennines,  and 
closed  by  the  domes  of  Gotthard  and  Titlis,  the  snows 
of  Furka,  the  pyramids  of  the  Schreckhorn  and 
Finster-aar-horn. 

But  this  view  of  mountain  tops  beneath  one's  feet, 
grand  and  imposing-  as  it  was,  and  far  removed  from 
the  blank  monotony  of  the  plains,  was  not  after  all  the 
object  of  my  quest  in  this  region  of  unfettered  Nature, 
of  silent  stillness  and  pure  air.  On  lower  levels  man  as 
he  is  by  nature  cannot  but  be  warped  by  breathing  the 
turbid  and  restless  atmosphere  of  social  life,  full  of 
ferment  as  it  is,  always  disturbed  by  the  din  of  human 
occupations,  and  the  bustle  of  so-called  pleasures,  by 
cries  of  hate  and  never-ending  groans  of  anxiety  and 
pain.  But  there,  in  mountain  solitudes,  where  the  sky 
is  vast,  the  air  calmer,   the  flight  of  time  less  hurried, 


LETTER  VII.  43 

and  life  more  permanent;  there,  all  nature  expresses  a 
nobler  plan,  a  more  evident  harmony,  an  eternal  whole- 
ness. There,  man  recovers  that  true  self  which  may  be 
warped,  but  cannot  perish;  he  breathes  a  free  air 
untainted  by  the  exhalations  of  social  life.  He  exists 
for  himself  as  he  does  for  the  Universe;  he  lives  a  real 
life  of  his  own  in  the  sublime  unity  of  things. 

This  was  what  I  wanted  to  experience,  what  I  was  in 
quest  of  at  least.  Unsure  of  myself  in  the  scheme  of 
thing's  arranged  at  great  cost  by  a  race  of  clever 
children,^  I  went  to  the  hills  to  inquire  of  Nature  why 
I  am  ill  at  ease  among  my  fellows.  1  wanted  to  settle 
the  point  whether  it  is  my  existence  that  is  alien  to  the 
human  scheme,  or  the  actual  social  order  that  has 
drifted  away  from  the  eternal  harmony,  and  become 
something  abnormal  and  exceptional  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  world.  Now  at  last  I  believe  I  am  sure  of 
myself.  There  are  single  moments  that  put  to  flight 
doubt,  mistrust,  prejudice;  moments  in  which  one 
recognizes  the  real  by  an  imperative  and  unshakable 
conviction. 

Be  it  so  then.  I  shall  live  unhappy,  and  almost  an 
object  of  ridicule,  in  a  world  enslaved  to  the  fancies  of 
this  fleeting  age,  counteracting  my  boredom  by  the 
conviction   which   sets   me   inwardly   beside   man   as  he 

^  If  any  youthful  reader  shares  this  feeling,  let  him  not  conclude  that 
it  will  be  permanent.  Though  you  may  not  alter  yourself,  time  will 
calm  you  ;  you  will  accept  what  is,  instead  of  what  you  would  like. 
Sheer  fatigue  will  incline  you  to  an  easy  life,  and  nothing  is  easier  than 
this  acquiescence.  Vou  will  seek  relaxation  ;  sit  at  table,  see  the  comic 
side  ot  things,  and  inwardly  smile.  Vou  will  find  an  enjoyable  kind  of 
luxury  in  your  very  ennui,  and  will  j)ass  away  forgetting  that  you  have 
never  really  lived.      So  has  many  another  passed  away  before  you. 

0 


44  OBERMANN. 

might  be.  And  if  there  ever  crosses  my  path  any  one 
with  a  disposition  so  unyielding  that  his  nature, 
moulded  on  the  primal  type,  cannot  take  the  stamp  of 
social  forms — if,  I  say,  it  should  ever  be  my  lot  to  meet 
such  a  man,  we  shall  understand  each  other;  he  will 
link  himself  with  me,  and  I  will  be  his  for  all  time. 

Each  of  us  will  transfer  to  the  other  his  relations  with 
the  world  outside,  and  rid  of  other  men  whose  vain 
desires  we  will  pity,  we  will  follow  if  possible  a  more 
natural  and  evenly  balanced  life.  And  yet  who  can  tell 
whether  it  would  be  any  happier,  since  it  would  still  be 
out  of  tune  witM  its  surroundings,  and  spent  in  the 
midst  of  suffering  humanity  ! 

I  should  be  at  a  loss  to  give  you  a  clear  idea  of  this 
new  world,  and  to  describe  the  permanence  of  the 
mountains  in  the  vocabulary  of  the  plains.  The  hours 
seemed  to  me  alike  calmer  and  more  fruitful,  and  in 
the  deliberateness  and  intensity  of  my  thought  I  was 
conscious  of  a  progress  which  was  more  rapid  than 
usual  and  }'et  unhurried,  as  though  the  spheric  revolu- 
tions had  been  slowed  down  in  the  all-pervading  calm. 
When  I  wanted  to  reckon  how  long  this  march  of 
thought  had  lasted,  I  found  the  sun  had  not  kept  pace 
with  it,  and  1  inferred  that  the  consciousness  of  exist- 
ence actually  weighs  more  heavily  and  is  more  barren 
in  the  vmrest  of  human  surroundings.  I  saw  that  on 
tranquil  mountain  heights,  where  thought  is  less 
'  hurried,  it  is  more  truly  active,  in  spite  of  the  apparent 
slowness  of  its  movements.  The  dweller  in  the  valley 
devours  without  enjoyment  his  chafed  and  restless 
span  of  life,  like  those  unresting  insects  that  waste 
their  energies  in  idly  darting  to   and   fro,   and  are  left 


LETTER  VII.  45 

behind  by  others,  as  weak  as  themselves  but  calmer, 
that  keep  steadily  moving"  onward. 

The  day  was  hot,  the  horizon  dim,  and  the  valleys 
ha^^y.  The  reflected  glare  of  the  ice-fields  scattered 
gleams  of  light  through  the  lower  air,  but  an  unknown 
purity  seemed  characteristic  of  the  air  I  breathed.  At 
that  height  no  exhalation  from  below,  no  play  of  light, 
disturbed  or  divided  up  the  dark  and  limitless  depth  of 
the  sky.  Its  apparent  colour  was  not  that  pale  and 
luminous  blue  which  vaults  the  plains,  that  charming 
and  delicate  tint  which  gives  the  inhabited  world  a 
palpable  sphere  as  the  resting-place  and  boundary  of 
vision.  Up  there  the  impalpable  ether  allows  the  sight 
to  lose  itself  in  boundless  space;  from  amid  the  glare 
of  sun  and  glaciers  it  goes  out  in  quest  of  other  worlds 
and  other  suns,  as  though  under  a  midnight  sky;  it 
reaches  a  universe  of  night  beyond  the  air  illumined  by 
the  lights  of  day. 

Imperceptibly  vapours  rose  from  the  glaciers  and 
formed  clouds  beneath  my  feet.  The  glare  of  the  snow 
no  longer  tired  my  eyes,  and  the  sky  grew  darker  and 
deeper  than  ever.  A  mist  settled  upon  the  Alps,  and 
only  a  few  solitary  peaks  stood  out  above  the  sea  of 
cloud  ;  some  streaks  of  snow  that  lingered  in  their 
furrowed  sides  made  the  granite  look  all  the  more 
black  and  forbidding.  The  snow-clad  dome  of  Mount 
Blanc  heaved  its  ponderous  bulk  out  of  this  grey  and 
shifting  sea,  above  the  piling  fogs,  which  the  wind 
ridged  and  furrowed  into  mighty  waves.  A  black  speck 
appeared  in  the  midst  of  them ;  it  rose  swiftly  and  came 
straight  towards  me;  it  was  the  mighty  Alpine  eagle; 
its  wings  were  mist-drenched  and  its  eye  was  ravenous ; 


46  OBERMANN. 

it  was  hunting'  for  prey,  but  on  seeing-  a  human  form 
it  turned  to  flee  with  an  ominous  cry,  and  disappeared 
headlong  in  the  clouds.  The  cry  was  twenty  times 
re-echoed,  but  in  sharp,  dry  sounds,  like  so  many 
separate  cries  in  the  all-pervading  silence.  Then  an 
absolute  calm  fell  upon  everything;  it  was  as  if  sound 
itself  had  ceased  to  be,  as  if  the  property  of  sonorous 
bodies  had  been  struck  out  of  the  universe.  Such 
silence  is  never  known  in  the  bustling  valleys ;  it  is 
only  on  the  cold  heights  that  stillness  like  this  holds 
sway  ;  no  tongue  can  describe,  no  imagination  con- 
ceive, its  impressive  abidingness.  But  for  memories 
brought  from  the  plains  one  could  not  believe  that 
outside  oneself  there  was  such  a  thing-  as  movement 
in  Nature;  the  revolution  of  the  heavenly  bodies  would 
be  inexplicable,  and  everything  would  seem  permanent 
in  the  very  act  of  chang-ing,  even  the  transformation 
of  the  clouds  themselves.  Each  present  moment  seem- 
ing endless,  one  would  witness  the  fact  without  having 
the  feeling  of  the  succession  of  events,  and  the  un- 
ceasing changes  of  the  universe  would  be  to  one's 
thought  an  insoluble  problem. 

I  should  have  liked  to  retain  more  definite  impres- 
sions not  only  of  my  moods  of  mind  in  those  silent 
regions — there  is  no  fear  of  my  forgetting  them — but 
of  the  thoughts  they  gave  rise  to,  for  of  these  my 
memory  has  retained  scarcely  anything.  In  places  so 
different,  imagination  can  scarcely  recapture  a  train 
of  thought  which  surrounding  objects  seem  to  banish. 
I  should  have  had  to  write  down  what  I  felt,  but  in 
that  case  the  mood  of  exaltation  would  soon  have  de- 
serted me.      In  the  very  act  of  recording  one's  thought 


LETTER  VII.  47 

for  future  reference  there  is  somethings  that  savours  of 
bondage  and  the  cares  of  a  life  of  dependence.  In 
moments  of  intensity  one  is  not  concerned  with  other 
times  and  other  men  ;  one  does  not  then  pay  any  heed 
to  artificial  conventions,  to  fame,  or  even  public  good. 
We  are  more  spontaneous,  not  even  considering  how 
to  utilize  the  present  moment;  we  do  not  control  our 
ideas,  or  will  to  follow  out  a  train  of  thought,  we  do 
not  set  ourselves  to  get  to  the  bottom  of  a  thing,  to 
make  new  discoveries,  to  say  what  has  not  been  said 
before.  Thought  at  such  times  is  not  aggressive  and 
directed,  but  passive  and  free;  we  dream  and  let  our- 
selves go;  we  think  profoundly  without  mental  effort; 
we  are  great  without  enthusiasm,  energetic  without 
volition;    it  is  dreaming,   not  meditation. 

You  need  not  be  surprised  that  I  have  nothing  to 
tell  you  after  experiencing  for  more  than  six  hours 
emotions  and  ideas  which  the  whole  of  my  future  life 
will  perhaps  never  bring  me  again.  You  know  how 
disappointed  those  men  of  Dauphind  were  when  they 
went  botanizing  with  Jean  Jacques.  They  reached  a 
hill-top  which  was  just  the  place  to  kindle  poetic 
genius ;  they  waited  for  a  fine  outburst  of  eloquence, 
but  the  author  oi  Julia  sat  himself  down,  started  play- 
ing with  some  grass  blades,  and  said  never  a  word. 

It  might  be  about  five  o'clock  when  I  noticed  how 
the  shadows  were  lengthening,  and  felt  a  touch  of 
cold  in  the  westward-facing  nook  where  I  had  stayed 
motionless  so  long  on  the  granite.  I  could  not  have 
moved  about ;  walking  was  too  difficult  among  those 
crags.  The  clouds  had  dispersed,  and  I  saw  that  the 
evening  would  be  fine,  even  in  the  valleys. 


48  OBERMANN. 

If  the  clouds  had  thickened  I  should  have  been  in 
real  danger,  but  this  had  never  occurred  to  me  till 
that  very  moment.  The  stratum  of  turbid  air  which 
clings  to  the  earth  was  too  remote  from  me  in  the 
pure  air  I  was  breathing,  close  to  where  ether  begins^; 
all  caution  had  deserted  me,  as  if  it  were  only  a  con- 
vention of  artificial  life. 

As  I  came  down  to  inhabited  regions  I  felt  that  I 
was  taking  up  again  the  long  chain  of  cares  and 
boredoms.  I  reached  home  at  ten  o'clock;  the  moon 
was  shining  in  at  my  window.  The  Rhone  babbled 
noisily  along;  there  was  no  wind,  the  whole  town  was 
asleep.  I  dreamt  of  the  mountains  I  was  about  to 
leave,  of  Charrieres  where  I  am  going  to  live,  of  the 
freedom  I  had  won. 


LETTER   VIII. 

Saint-Maurice,  Sept.   i\th  (I.). 

I  am  just  home  from  a  tour  in  the  mountains,  lasting 
several  days.  I  do  not  mean  to  give  you  any  descrip- 
tion of  it;  I  have  other  things  to  tell  you.  I  had  found 
a  bit  of  lovely  scenery,  and  was  looking  forward  to 
many  another  visit  to  it  ;  it  is  not  far  from  Saint- 
Maurice.  Before  going  to  bed  I  opened  a  letter.  It 
was  not  in  your  hand,  and  the  word  urgent,  con- 
spicuously written,  gave  me  some  uneasiness.  Every- 
thing arouses  suspicion  in  the  man  who  is  laboriously 
freeing    himself    from    long-standing    restrictions.       In 

^  It  is  not  known  exactly  where  the  so-called  ether  does  begin. 


LETTER  VIII.  49 

my  present  tranquillity  any  change  was  bound  to  be 
distasteful;  I  expected  nothing  good,  and  I  felt  there 
was  much  to  fear. 

You  will  readily  guess,  I  think,  what  was  the  matter. 
I  was  stunned,  overwhelmed  ;  then  I  resolved  to  let 
everything  go,  to  rise  above  it  all,  and  resign  for  ever 
what  would  entangle  me  again  with  the  things  I  had 
left.  Nevertheless,  after  much  hesitation  I  came  to 
the  conclusion,  either  wisely  or  weakly,  that  I  must 
sacrifice  part  of  my  time  to  ensure  quiet  in  the  future. 
I  submit  ;  I  am  giving  up  Charri^res,  and  making 
ready  to  leave.  We  will  discuss  this  unhappy  affair 
when  we  meet. 

This  morning  I  could  not  bear  the  thought  of  such  a 
revolution,  and  I  even  began  to  reconsider  it.  In  the 
end  I  went  to  Charrieres  to  make  other  arrangements 
and  to  announce  my  departure.  It  was  there  that  I 
finally  decided,  while  trying'  to  keep  at  bay  the  idea  of 
the  approaching  season  and  of  the  tedium  that  already 
began  to  weigh  upon  me.  I  went  into  the  meadows; 
they  were  being  cut  for  the  last  time.  I  lay  back  on  a 
rock  so  as  to  see  nothing  but  sky;  it  was  hidden  by  a 
pall  of  cloud.  I  looked  at  the  chestnuts,  and  saw  falling 
leaves.  Then  I  wandered  to  the  brook,  as  if  I  feared 
even  that  would  be  dried  up,  but  it  was  running  just  the 
same. 

How  inexplicable  is  the  grip  of  compulsion  on  human 
affairs!  I  am  going  to  Lyons,  then  on  to  Paris;  so  far 
things  are  settled.  Good-bye.  Pity  the  man  who  finds 
but  little,  and  from  whom  that  little  is  again  snatched 
away. 

Well,  well;  we  shall  meet  at  Lyons. 


50  OBERMANN. 


LETTER  IX. 

Lyons,  October  22nd {\.). 

I  set  out  for  Meterville  on  the  second  day  after  you  left 
Lyons,  and  spent  eighteen  days  there.  You  know  how 
unsettled  I  am  and  in  what  wretched  cares  I  am  en- 
tangled, with  no  prospect  of  any  satisfactory  result. 
But  while  waiting  for  a  letter  which  could  not  arrive 
for  twelve  or  fifteen  days,  I  went  to  spend  the  interval 
at  Meterville. 

If  I  cannot  be  calm  and  unconcerned  amid  the  worries 
I  have  to  take  in  hand  when  the  issue  seems  to  depend 
on  myself,  I  am  at  any  rate  quite  capable  of  forgetting 
them  completely  when  there  is  nothing  more  I  can  do. 
I  can  calmly  await  the  future,  however  threatening  it 
may  be,  as  soon  as  the  task  of  preparing  for  it  no 
longer  demands  immediate  attention,  and  I  am  left  free 
to  banish  the  memory  of  it  and  turn  my  thoughts 
elsewhere. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  I  could  not  desire  for  the  happiest 
days  of  my  life  a  deeper  peace  than  I  have  enjoyed  in 
this  short  interval.  And  yet  it  was  secured  amid  cares 
whose  duration  cannot  be  foreseen.  How?  think  you. 
By  means  so  simple  that  they  would  excite  the  laughter 
of  many  who  will  never  know  the  same  calm. 

This  estate  is  of  no  great  importance,  and  its  sur- 
roundings are  more  restful  than  imposing.  You  know 
the  owners  of  it,  their  dispositions,  mode  of  life, 
unassuming  friendliness,  and  engaging  manners.  I 
arrived  at  an  opportune  moment.     The  very  next  day 


LETTER  IX.  51 

they  were  to  begin  g-athering-  the  grapes  on  a  terraced 
slope  facing  the  south  and  overlooking  the  forest  of 
Armand.  It  was  decided  at  supper-time  that  these 
grapes,  which  were  meant  for  a  choice  brand  of  wine, 
should  be  gathered  by  our  own  hands  alone,  selecting 
the  ripest,  so  that  the  backward  bunches  might  be 
allowed  a  few  days  longer.  Next  day,  as  soon  as  the 
mist  had  somewhat  thinned,  I  put  my  tub  on  a  barrow 
and  was  the  first  to  make  my  way  into  the  heart  of  the 
enclosure  and  begin  the  vintage.  I  did  it  almost  alone, 
without  seeking  any  quicker  method ;  I  enjoyed  the 
very  slowness  of  it,  and  felt  sorry  when  I  saw  any  one  else 
at  work.  It  lasted,  I  think,  twelve  days.  My  barrow 
went  and  came  along  neglected  paths  overgrown  with 
damp  grass.  I  chose  the  roughest  and  most  toilsome, 
and  the  days  slipped  imperceptibly  away  amid  autumn 
mists,  and  fruits,  and  sunshine.  When  evening  came 
we  drank  our  tea  with  milk  warm  from  the  cow ;  we 
laughed  at  those  who  seek  for  pleasures ;  we  wandered 
among  the  aged  hornbeams,  and  went  to  bed  contented. 
I  have  seen  the  vanities  of  life,  and  I  kave  within  me 
the  living  germ  of  the  greatest  passions;  I  have 
also  an  interest  in  great  social  movements  and  In  the 
philosophic  ideal;  I  have  read  Marcus  Aurellus  and 
found  nothing  in  him  to  surprise  me;  I  appreciate 
arduous  virtues,  even  monastic  heroism.  All  these  can 
stir  my  soul  and  yet  not  fill  it.  This  barrow  that  I  load 
with  fruit  and  trundle  gently  before  me,  supports  it 
better.  It  seems  to  wheel  m}'  hours  peacefully  along, 
and  this  slow  and  useful  exercise,  this  measured  pace, 
seems  suited  to  the  normal  course  of  life. 


SECOND   YEAR. 

LETTER  X. 

Paris, y^we  zoth  (II.). 

Nothing  makes  any  headway;  the  wretched  business 
that  keeps  me  here  drags  on  from  day  to  day,  and  the 
more  I  chafe  at  these  delays  the  more  doubtful  it  be- 
comes how  long-  it  will  last.  Men  of  the  agent  tribe  do 
business  with  the  unconcern  of  those  who  are  used  to 
its  tardiness,  and  they  delight  in  that  slow  obstructed 
pace;  it  matches  their  crafty  souls,  and  is  convenient 
for  their  underhand  wiles,  I  should  have  more  of  their 
mischief  to  report  to  you  if  they  were  doing  less  to  me. 
Besides,  you  know  my  opinion  of  the  trade;  I  have 
always  looked  upon  it  as  most  questionable  or  most 
pernicious.  A  lawyer  is  now  dragging  me  through 
quibble  after  quibble ;  supposing  me  to  be  selfish  and 
unprincipled,  he  is  haggling  for  his  own  side.  He  thinks 
if  he  wears  me  out  with  delays  and  formalities  he  will 
get  me  to  give  what  I  cannot  bestow,  because  I  do  not 
possess  it.  So  after  spending  six  months  at  Lyons 
against  my  will,  I  am  still  doomed  to  spend  perhaps 
longer  than  that  here. 

The  year  is  slipping  away;  one  more  to  deduct  from 
my  existence.      I  bore  the  loss  of  spring  almost  without 

52 


LETTER  X.  53 

a  murmur,  but  summer  in  Paris  !  I  spend  part  of  my 
time  in  the  irksome  tasks  inseparable  from  what  is 
called  attending-  to  business,  and  when  I  would  fain  be 
at  peace  for  the  rest  of  the  day,  and  seek  at  home  a 
kind  of  refuge  from  these  long--drawn  irritations,  I  am 
irritated  there  more  unbearably  still.  There  I  am  in 
silence  surrounded  by  uproar,  and  I  alone  have  nothing' 
to  do  in  a  bustling-  world.  There  is  no  mean  here 
between  turmoil  and  inaction ;  one  cannot  but  be  bored 
if  one  is  free  from  business  and  from  passions.  I 
occupy  a  room  which  vibrates  to  the  continual  din 
of  all  the  cries,  the  labours,  and  the  turmoil  of  an 
energfetic  people.  Beneath  my  window  there  is  a  kind 
of  open  space  frequented  by  quacks,  conjurers,  coster- 
mongers,  and  hawkers  of  every  description.  Opposite 
is  the  high  wall  of  a  public  building;  the  sun  shines  on 
it  from  two  o'clock  until  evening;  its  white  and  glaring 
expanse  clashes  harshly  with  the  blue  sky,  and  the 
brightest  days  are  to  me  the  most  excruciating.  An 
indefatigable  newsvendor  reiterates  the  names  of  his 
papers;  his  rasping  monotonous  voice  seems  to  make 
the  sun-scorched  square  more  arid  still ;  and  if  I  hear 
some  washer-woman  singing  at  her  attic  window  I  lose 
patience  and  clear  out.  For  three  days  past  a  lame 
and  ulcerated  beggar  has  stationed  himself  at  the 
corner  of  a  street  close  by,  and  there  he  whines  in 
a  doleful,  high  pitched  voice  for  twelve  long  hours. 
Imagine  the  effect  of  this  wail  repeated  at  regular 
intervals  right  through  the  settled  fine  days.  There 
is  nothing  for  it  but  to  stay  out  all  day  long,  until  he 
finds  a  fresh  place.  But  where  can  I  go  ?  I  know  very 
few  people    here,   and    it  would   be   a   mere    chance   if 


54  OBERMANN. 

among  so  few  there  were  a  single  one  to  whom  I  should 
be  congenial,  so  I  go  nowhere.  As  for  public  promen- 
ades, there  are  in  Paris  very  fine  ones ;  but  not  one 
where  I  can  spend  half  an  hour  without  ennui. 

I  know  nothing  so  exhausting  as  this  everlasting 
dilatoriness  of  all  things.  It  keeps  one  in  a  continual 
attitude  of  expectation ;  it  lets  life  slip  away  before  one 
has  reached  the  point  at  which  one  really  begins  to  live. 
And  yet  what  have  I  to  complain  of !  How  few  there  are 
who  make  anything  of  life !  Not  to  mention  those  who 
spend  it  in  dungeons  beneficently  provided  by  the  laws  ! 
How  can  such  a  one  make  up  his  mind  to  go  on  living? 
One,  for  instance,  who  holds  out  through  twenty  years 
of  his  youth  in  a  dungeon  ?  Well,  he  never  knows  how 
much  longer  he  will  have  to  stay;  what  if  the  moment 
of  deliverance  be  at  hand  !  I  was  forgetting  those  who 
would  not  dare  to  end  it  of  their  own  free  will;  they 
have  lived  on  simply  because  men  have  not  allowed 
them  to  die.     And  we  dare  to  bemoan  ourselves  ! 


LETTER  XI. 

FAUiSj/ime  2'jth  (11.)- 

Occasionally  I  spend  a  couple  of  hours  in  the  library; 
not  exactly  to  improve  my  mind — that  longing  is  per- 
ceptibly cooling— but  because  I  am  at  a  loss  for  some- 
thing to  fill  these  hours  which  all  the  same  are  slipping 
irrevocably  away,  and  they  seem  less  irksome  when 
I  occupy  them  outside  than  when  I  have  to  struggle 


LETTER  XI.  55 

through  them  at  home.  Tasks  to  some  extent  com- 
pulsory suit  my  mood  of  depression ;  too  much  freedom 
would  leave  me  a  prey  to  indolence.  I  have  more  peace 
of  mind  in  the  company  of  folk  who  are  silent  like 
myself,  than  alone  in  a  noisy  neii^hbourhood.  1  like 
these  long-  rooms,  some  empty,  others  full  of  people 
engrossed  in  study,  in  that  cool  and  venerable  store- 
house of  human  efforts  and  vanities. 

When  I  read  Bougainville,^  Chardin,-  or  Laloubere,^ 
1  am  impressed  by  old-time  memories  of  effete  civiliza- 
tions, by  the  fame  of  far-off  wisdom,  or  by  the  youthful 
vigour  of  the  happy  islands;  but  in  the  end  losing  sight 
of  Persepolis  and  Benares,  and  even  Tinian,*  I  fore- 
shorten all  time  and  place  into  the  point  of  present 
consciousness  in  which  the  human  mind  perceives  them. 
I  see  the  eager  minds  around  me  acquiring  knowledge 
in  silent  intensity  of  application,  while  endless  oblivion 
flows  over  their  absorbed  and  learned  heads,  bringing 
with  it  their  inevitable  end,  and  the  dissolution  in  what 
to  nature  is  but  a  moment,  both  of  their  being  and  their 
thought  and  their  age. 

The  rooms  surround  a  long,  quiet,  grass-grown  court, 
in  which  are  two  or  three  statues,  some  ruins,  and  a 
basin,  which  looks  as  old  as  the  monuments,  full  of 
green  water.  1  seldom  leave  without  spending  a 
quarter  of  an  hour  in  this  silent  enclosure;   I  love  to 

^  Navigator,  1729-1811;  wrote  Voyage  autour  da  monde. — Tr. 

-  Traveller  in  India  and  Persia,  1643-1713. — Tk. 

^  Sent  by  Louis  XIV.  to  Siam  to  establish  diplomatic  and  commercial 
relations,  1687.  Wrote  a  full  account  of  origin,  manners,  and  govern- 
ment of  Siamese. — Tk. 

*  One  of  the  Ladrones  or  Mariana  Islands  in  the  North  Pacific. — Tk. 


56  OBERMANN. 

pace  meditatively  these  old  stones  riven  from  their 
quarries  to  afford  a  clean,  dry  surface  for  the  foot  of 
man.  But  time  and  neg^lect  are  replacing-  them,  as  it 
were,  in  the  earth,  by  covering  them  with  a  fresh  layer 
and  restoring  to  the  soil  its  vegetation  and  natural 
hues.  Sometimes  I  find  these  stones  more  eloquent 
than  the  books  I  have  just  been  reading. 

Yesterday  while  consulting  the  Encyclopcvdia  I  opened 
the  volume  at  a  place  I  was  not  in  search  of,  and  I  do 
not  remember  now  the  title  of  the  article,  but  it  was 
about  a  man  worn  out  by  distraction  and  disappoint- 
ment, who  broke  away  into  absolute  solitude  by  one  of 
those  masterful  resolutions  whose  force  of  will  is  ever 
after  g^round  for  self-congratulation.  The  notion  of  this 
independent  life  did  not  sugg^est  to  me  the  freedom  and 
solitude  of  Imaiis,  nor  the  genial  islands  of  the  Pacific, 
nor  the  more  accessible  Alps,  already  so  much  regretted, 
but  a  vivid  and  impressive  reminiscence  brought  up 
with  a  flash  of  surprise  and  inspiration  the  bare  rocks 
and  the  woods  of  Fontainebleau. 

Let  me  tell  you  something-  more  of  this  outlandish 
place  in  the  midst  of  our  pastoral  landscapes.  You 
will  then  better  understand  why  I  am  so  fond  of  it. 

You  know  that  as  a  child  I  lived  several  years  in 
Paris.  The  relations  with  whom  I  stayed,  in  spite  of 
their  liking  for  the  city,  on  several  occasions  spent  the 
month  of  September  with  friends  in  the  country.  One 
year  it  was  at  Fontainebleau,  and  on  two  subsequent 
occasions  we  visited  the  same  people,  who  then  lived 
on  the  edge  of  the  forest  next  the  river.  I  think  I 
should  be  fourteen,  fifteen,  and  seventeen  when  I  saw 
Fontainebleau.      After   my  stay-at-home,    inactive,   and 


LETTER  XI.  57 

wearisome  childhood,  I  was  still  a  child  in  many  re- 
spects, if  I  felt  myself  a  man  in  others.  I  was  awkward, 
hesitating  ;  having-  a  presentiment  possibly  of  every- 
thing, but  knowing  nothing;  alien  to  my  surroundings, 
my  only  fixed  trait  was  that  of  being  restless  and  un- 
happy. On  the  first  occasion  I  did  not  go  alone  into 
the  forest,  and  remember  little  of  what  I  felt  in  it ;  I 
only  know  that  I  preferred  this  place  to  all  others  1 
had  seen,  and  that  it  was  the  only  one  I  wanted  to 
revisit. 

The  year  after  I  eagerly  explored  these  solitudes;  I 
used  to  lose  myself  on  purpose,  happy  in  being  com- 
pletely out  of  my  bearings,  with  no  beaten  track  in 
sight.  Whenever  I  reached  the  edge  of  the  forest,  I 
shrank  from  the  sight  of  those  wide  bare  plains  and 
those  steeples  in  the  distance.  I  turned  my  back  on 
them  at  once  and  plunged  into  the  thickest  of  the 
woods,  and  when  I  found  a  clear  space  shut  in  all 
round,  where  I  could  see  nothing  but  sand  and  junipers, 
then  I  had  a  sense  of  peace,  of  freedom,  and  of  un- 
tutored joy — Nature's  power  realized  for  the  first  time, 
at  an  age  when  one  is  easily  made  happy.  And  yet 
I  was  not  exuberant;  I  just  missed  happiness  and  only 
felt  a  wholesome  eagerness.  I  grew  weary  even  while 
enjoying  it,  and  always  came  home  sad.  Several  times 
I  was  in  the  woods  before  sunrise.  I  toiled  up  summits 
still  wrapped  in  gloom,  I  drenched  myself  in  the  dewy 
heather,  and  when  the  sun  appeared  I  thought  regret- 
fully of  the  dim  light  which  heralded  the  dawn.  I 
loved  the  hollows,  the  dusky  vales,  the  thick  woods; 
I  loved  the  heather-covered  hills;  I  greatly  loved  the 
scattered  boulders  and  the  crumbling  rocks;  still  more 


58  OBERMANN. 

I  loved  those  shiftingf  sands,  whose  arid  surface  showed 
no  mark  of  human  foot,  but  here  and  there  was  ruffled 
by  the  hurried  tracks  of  flying"  deer  or  hare.  If  I  heard 
a  squirrel  or  put  up  a  stag-,  I  stopped  short,  my  spirits 
rose,  and  for  the  moment  I  wanted  nothing  more. 

It  was  in  those  days  that  I  noticed  the  birch,  that 
solitary  tree  which  even  so  early  made  me  sad,  though 
since  I  have  never  seen  it  without  pleasure.  I  love 
the  birch  ;  I  love  its  white,  smooth-peeling-  bark,  its 
sylvan  stem,  its  branches  drooping  to  the  ground,  its 
fluttering  leaves,  and  all  its  careless,  native  grace  and 
wilding  pose. 

Ah  me!  the  days  gone  by,  that  one  never  can  forget! 
How  vain  the  glamour  of  an  ardent,  sympathetic  soul! 
How  great  is  man  in  his  inexperience!  How  fruitful 
he  would  be  if  the  cold  glance  of  his  fellows,  and  the 
parching  breath  of  injustice,  did  not  come  to  dry  up 
his  heart !  I  yearned  for  happiness  ;  I  was  born  to 
suffer.  You  know  those  dismal  days  just  before  the 
hoar-frosts,  whose  very  dawn  thickens  the  mists  and 
only  heralds  the  light  of  day  by  ominous  streaks  of 
glowing  colour  on  the  piling  clouds.  That  pall  of 
gloom,  those  stormy  squalls,  those  pale  gleams,  that 
whistling  of  the  wind  through  bending  and  shuddering 
trees,  those  long-drawn  wails  like  funereal  lamentations 
— such  is  the  morning  of  life;  at  noon,  still  colder  and 
more  lasting  gales  ;  at  nightfall,  thicker  gloom,  and 
the  day  of  man  is  done. 

That  infinite  bewitching  charm,  born  with  the  heart 
of  man,  and  seeming  as  like  to  last  as  he,  one  day 
revived;  I  even  fancied  I  should  have  the  joy  of  satisfied 
desires.     But  the  sudden  and  too  violent  flame  blazed 


LETTER  XII.  59 

up  in  vacancy,  and  died  away  without  an  object  to 
illuminate.  So  in  thundery  weather,  startling-  what- 
ever lives,  come  swift  flashes  in  the  gloomy  night. 

It  was  in   March  ;    I   was   at   Lu .      There   were 

violets  at  the  roots  of  the  bushes,  and  lilacs  in  a 
delightfully  quiet  vernal  meadow,  facing  the  noonday 
sun.  The  house  was  above,  much  higher  up  ;  a  terraced 
garden  hid  the  windows  from  sight.  Below  the  meadow 
rocks  dropped  steep  and  straight  as  a  wall  ;  at  their 
feet  a  full  torrent,  and  beyond  that  another  wall  of 
rock,  with  meadows,  hedges,  and  pines  above  it. 
Through  all  ran  the  antiquated  city  walls;  there  was 
an  owl  in  their  ancient  towers.  At  night  the  moon 
shone  ;  horns  answered  each  other  in  the  distance, 
and  the  voice  that  I  shall  hear  no  more  .  .  . !  I  was 
carried  away  by  it  all.  It  was  the  sole  illusion  of  my 
life.  Why  then  this  memory  of  Fontainebleau,  and 
not  that  of  Lu ? 


LETTER  XII. 

[Near  Fontainrhleau] //^/j/  zZih  (II.). 

At  last  I  can  really  fancy  myself  in  the  desert.  There 
are  regions  here  where  not  a  trace  of  man  is  to  be  seen. 
I  have  fled  for  a  while  from  those  uneasy  cares  which 
wear  away  our  term  of  days,  and  overcast  our  life  with 
the  shadows  before  and  after,  making  it  seem  but  a 
more  restless  emptiness  than  they. 

This   evening,   when    I    traversed    the    length   of  the 

7 


6o  OBERMANN. 

forest,  and  came  down  to  Valvin,  beneath  the  woods,  in 
silence,  it  looked  as  though  I  should  be  lost  among 
torrents  and  morasses,  in  awesome  and  romantic  scenes. 
What  I  found  were  mounds  of  tumbled  boulders,  little 
patches  of  sand,  a  landscape  almost  level  and  hardly 
picturesque;  but  its  silence,  its  desolation,  and  its 
barrenness  sufficed  me. 

Do  you  understand  the  pleasure  I  feel  when  my  foot 
sinks  in  loose  burning  sand,  when  I  make  headway 
with  difficulty,  and  there  is  neither  water,  coolness,  nor 
shade,  nothing  but  an  untilled,  silent  waste;  bare, 
crumbling,  shattered  rocks;  Nature's  forces  conquered 
by  the  forces  of  time?  Does  it  not  seem  as  if  the 
condition  of  peace  with  me  is  to  find  outside,  under  a 
burning  sky,  other  difficulties  and  other  devastations 
than  those  in  my  own  heart  ? 

I  never  take  my  bearings;  on  the  contrary,  I  lose 
myself  when  I  can.  Often  I  keep  straight  on,  ignoring 
the  footpaths.  I  try  not  to  retain  any  impressions  of 
the  landmarks,  not  to  get  to  know  the  forest,  so  that  I 
may  always  have  something  fresh  to  find  in  it.  There 
is  one  road  I  like  to  follow;  it  describes  a  circle  like  the 
forest  itself,  leading  neither  to  the  plains  nor  the  town; 
it  does  not  take  any  usual  line;  it  is  neither  in  the  vales 
nor  on  the  hills;  it  seems  to  have  no  destination;  it 
wanders  everywhere  and  arrives  nowhere.  I  can 
imagine  myself  tramping  it  for  a  lifetime. 

"  But  one  must  come  home  at  night,"  say  you,  not 
taking  seriously  what  I  say  about  my  solitude.  You 
are  mistaken,  however;  you  imagine  I  am  at  Fontaine- 
bleau,  or  in  a  village,  or  a  cottage.  Nothing  of  the  sort. 
I  like  the  rural  dwellinir^  of  these  resfions  as  little  as  their 


LETTER  XII.  6i 

villages,  and  their  villages  as  little  as  their  towns.  If 
I  condemn  luxury,  I  hate  squalor.  Were  it  not  so,  I 
had  better  have  stayed  in  Paris;  I  might  have  found 
both  there. 

But  now  for  the  point  I  omitted  to  explain  in  my  last 
letter,  which  was  full  of  the  unsettlement  that  often 
agitates  me. 

Once  when  I  was  roaming  these  woods,  I  saw,  in  a 
part  where  they  were  very  dense,  two  deer  flying  from  a 
wolf.  It  was  close  upon  them  ;  I  concluded  it  was  sure 
to  overtake  them,  and  I  followed  in  the  same  direction 
to  watch  the  struggle  and  to  render  help  if  possible. 
They  broke  from  the  wood  into  an  open  space,  covered 
with  rocks  and  heather,  but  when  I  reached  the  spot 
they  were  no  longer  to  be  seen.  It  was  an  undulating 
and  uneven  kind  of  moor,  where  a  quantity  of  stone 
had  been  quarried  for  paving;  I  explored  all  its  hollows, 
but  found  nothing.  On  taking  another  direction  to 
re-enter  the  wood,  I  caught  sight  of  a  dog.  At  first  he 
watched  me  in  silence,  and  did  not  bark  until  I  moved 
away.  I  was  really  making  straight  for  the  entrance  of 
the  dwelling  he  was  guarding.  It  was  a  kind  of  under- 
ground place,  formed  partly  by  natural  rock,  partly  by 
piled  up  boulders,  branches  of  juniper,  heather,  and 
moss.  A  workman  who  had  quarried  paving  stones  in 
the  adjoining  quarries  for  more  than  thirty  years,  being 
without  property  or  family,  had  taken  refuge  there,  so 
that  he  might  escape  the  necessity  of  slaving  till  the 
day  of  his  death,  without  submitting  to  the  degradation 
of  the  workhouse.  I  saw  he  had  a  larder,  and  in  a 
patch  of  poor  soil  beside  his  bit  of  rock  were  a  few 
vegetables.     There  they  were  living,  himself,  his  dog. 


62  OBERMANN. 

and  his  cat,  on  bread  and  water  and  freedom.  "I  have 
worked  hard,"  he  said,  "and  never  had  a  thing  to  call 
my  own;  but  I  am  having-  a  quiet  time  now,  and  the 
end  will  soon  come."  In  those  words  the  simple  fellow 
had  told  me  the  story  of  mankind;  but  did  he  know  it? 
Did  he  fancy  other  men  happier  than  himself?  Did  he 
suffer  as  he  compared  himself  with  them?  I  made  no 
enquiriesabout  all  that ;  I  wasquite  young.  His  boorish, 
half-savage  look  haunted  my  thoughts.  I  had  offered 
him  a  five-franc  piece;  he  took  it,  and  said  he  would 
get  some  wine.  That  lowered  him  in  my  estimation. 
Wine !  thought  I ;  there  are  more  useful  things  than 
that;  possibly  it  is  wine  and  misconduct  that  have 
brought  him  here,  and  not  love  of  solitude.  Forgive 
me,  simple  fellow,  unhappy  hermit!  I  had  not  then 
learned  that  one  may  drink  to  forget  one's  sorrows.  I 
know  now  the  bitterness  which  chafes  our  energies  and 
the  aversions  which  paralyze  them  ;  I  can  respect  the 
man  whose  first  want  is  to  have  a  moment's  rest  from 
groaning;  I  am  indignant  when  I  see  men  with  whom 
everything  goes  smoothly,  harshly  rebuking  some  poor 
fellow  for  drinking  wine  when  he  has  no  bread.  What- 
ever sort  of  soul  can  these  people  have,  if  they  know 
no  greater  misery  than  that  of  being  hungry! 

Now  you  can  understand  the  force  of  the  reminiscence 
that  unexpectedly  flashed  upon  me  in  the  library.  That 
sudden  image  filled  me  with  the  idea  of  a  real  life,  of  a 
wise  simplicity,  of  being  independent  of  man  in  a  Nature 
all  one's  own. 

Not  that  I  imagine  the  life  I  lead  here  is  such  a  one 
as  that,  or  that  amid  my  boulders  oi\  these  dismal  moors 
I  fancy  myself  to  be  man  in  harmony  with  nature.     Just 


LETTER  XII.  63 

as  well  mlg-ht  I,  like  some  denizen  of  the  ward  of  Saint- 
Paul,  exhibit  to  my  neighbours  the  rural  charms  of  a 
pot  of  mignonette  standing  in  a  spout,  and  of  a  bed  of 
parsley  boxed  up  on  a  window-ledge,  or  give  to  a  half- 
acre  of  ground  encircled  by  a  streamlet  the  names  of  the 
capes  and  lonely  shores  of  another  hemisphere,  in  order 
to  recall  striking  memories  and  far-off"  customs  amid  the 
thatch  and  plaster  of  a  hamlet  in  Champagne. 

The  simple  fact  is,  since  I  am  doomed  to  be  always 
waiting  for  life,  I  am  trying  to  vegetate  in  perfect 
loneliness  and  solitude  ;  I  prefer  to  spend  four  months 
so  than  to  waste  them  in  Paris  on  greater  and  more 
pitiful  stupidities.  I  will  tell  you  when  we  meet  how  I 
chose  my  hermitage  and  how  I  enclosed  it ;  how  I 
conveyed  here  the  few  things  I  have  brought,  without 
letting  anybody  into  my  secret  ;  how  I  live  on  fruit  and 
a  few  vegetables  ;  where  I  go  for  water,  what  I  wear 
when  it  rains  ;  and  all  the  precautions  I  take  to  keep 
well  out  of  sight,  so  that  no  Parisian,  spending  a  week 
in  the  country,  may  come  here  to  ridicule  me. 

You  also  laugh,  but  I  do  not  mind  that ;  your  laugh 
is  not  like  theirs.  I  have  laughed  at  it  all  myself  before 
now.  All  the  same,  I  find  great  charm  in  this  life, 
when,  the  better  to  feel  its  superiority,  I  leave  the 
forest  and  enter  the  cultivated  lands,  and  see  in  the 
distance  some  pretentious  mansion  in  a  bare  landscape, 
when  beyond  a  league  of  blank  ploughed  fields  I  notice 
a  hundred  thatched  cottages,  huddled  into  a  wretched 
heap,  whose  streets,  stables,  gardens,  walls,  floors, 
dank  roofs,  and  even  clothes  and  furniture  seem  all  one 
slough,  in  which  all  the  women  screech,  the  children 
sob,  and   the  men  sweat.     And  if  amid   these  squalid 


64  OBERMANN. 

miseries  I  look  for  any  moral  peace  or  religious  hopes 
for  these  wretched  people,  I  find  as  their  patriarch  a 
greedy  priest,  soured  by  regrets,  set  apart  too  soon 
from  the  world;  a  melancholy  stripling,  without  dignity, 
without  wisdom,  without  fervour,  who  enjoys  no 
respect  and  no  privacy,  who  damns  the  weak  and  does 
not  comfort  the  good  ;  for  any  symbol  of  hope  and 
unity  I  find  a  symbol  of  dread  and  of  sacrifice  ;  a 
strange  emblem,  the  mournful  relic  of  great  and  vener- 
able institutions  that  have  been  miserably  perverted. 

And  yet  there  are  men  who  regard  all  that  quite 
calmly,  and  who  never  even  suspect  that  it  is  possible 
to  take  another  view  of  it. 

Ah  sad  and  vain  ideal  of  a  better  world  !  Unutterable 
out-going  of  love !  Regret  for  the  hours  that  slip 
fruitlessly  away  !  Universal  Consciousness,^  sustain 
and  swallow  up  my  life  ;  what  would  it  be  without 
thy  awful  beauty?  Through  thee  that  life  is  realized, 
and  through  thee  it  will  perish. 

Ah,  sometimes  again,  under  an  autumn  sky,  in  those 

^The  current  conception  of  a  man  ot  feeling  is  too  narrow.  It  is 
usual  to  represent  an  absurd  sort  of  person,  sometimes  even  a  woman, 
I  mean  one  of  those  women  who  cry  over  the  illness  of  a  pet  bird,  who 
faint  at  the  blood  of  a  needle-prick,  and  who  shudder  at  the  sound  of 
such  words  as  serpent,  spider,  grave-digger,  small-pox,  tomb,  old  age. 

My  conception  includes  a  certain  restraint  in  our  emotions,  a  sudden 
combination  of  opposite  feelings,  an  attitude  of  superiority  even  to  the 
affection  which  sways  us,  a  seriousness  of  soul  and  a  depth  of  thought, 
a  breadth  of  view  which  instantly  calls  up  in  us  tlie  secret  generalization 
with  which  Nature  would  have  us  meet  a  particular  sensation ;  a 
wisdom  of  tlie  heart  in  its  continual  agitation ;  in  a  word,  a  blending, 
a  harmony  of  all  things  that  only  a  man  of  deep  feeling  is  capable  of. 
In  his  energy  he  has  a  foretaste  of  all  that  is  in  store  for  man  ;  in  his 


LETTER  XIII.  65 

lingering  fine  days  all  mellowed  by  the  mists,  sitting- 
where  some  stream  bears  away  the  yellow  leaves,  may 
I  hear  the  simple  moving  tones  of  a  rustic  melody  ! 
One  day  climbing  high  on  Grimsel  or  on  Titlis,  alone 
with  some  herdsman  of  the  mountains,  may  I  hear  in 
the  short-cropped  pastures  that  border  on  the  snow  the 
well-known  romantic  tinkling  of  the  herds  of  Under- 
vvalden  and  of  Hasly  ;  and  there  just  once  before  I  die, 
may  I  say  to  a  man  who  understands — *'  Had  we 
but  lived  !" 

LETTER   XIII. 

FONTAINEBLEAU,    July   ^ist  (11.)- 

When  we  are  carried  away  by  a  resistless  tide  of 
feeling,  and  filled  with  ecstasy,  soon  followed  by  regret, 
at  the  idea  of  bliss  which  nothing  can  impart,  this  deep 

restraint  he  alone  has  known  the  melancholy  of  pleasure  and  the 
charm  of  sorrow. 

The  man  who  feels  warmly,  and  even  deeply,  without  restraint, 
wastes  that  almost  supernatural  energy  on  things  of  no  importance. 
I  do  not  say  that  he  will  be  deficient  in  it  when  there  are  opportunities 
for  genius  ;  some  men  who  are  great  in  little  things  are  notwithstanding 
just  as  much  so  on  great  occasions.  In  spite  of  their  real  worth,  this 
temperament  has  two  drawbacks.  They  will  be  counted  mad  by  fools 
and  by  many  clever  people,  and  they  will  be  prudently  avoided  even 
by  men  who  realize  their  value,  and  form  a  high  opinion  of  tliein. 
They  degrade  their  genius  by  prostituting  it  to  utterly  base  uses, 
among  the  lowest  types  of  men.  Thus  they  supply  the  general  public 
with  plausible  grounds  for  asserting  that  commonsense  is  worth  more 
than  genius,  because  it  has  not  its  aberrations,  and  for  asserting  what 
is  more  fatal  still,  that  strong,  upright,  outspoken,  and  generous  men 
are  not  superior  to  those  who  are  prudent,  ingenious,  methodical, 
always  reserved,  and  often  selfish. 


66  OBERMANN. 

yet  evanescent  mood  is  nothing-  but  an  inward  testi- 
mony to  the  fact  that  our  capacities  are  superior  to  our 
lot.  That  is  why  it  is  so  brief  and  turns  so  soon  to 
regret;  it  is  delicious,  then  heartrending.  Prostration 
inevitably  follows  excessive  stimulation.  We  suffer 
from  not  being  what  we  might  be,  and  yet  if  we  really 
were  in  a  scheme  of  things  adjusted  to  our  desires,  we 
should  no  longer  possess  that  over-plus  of  desires  and 
capacities,  we  should  cease  to  enjoy  the  pleasure  of 
being  above  our  lot,  greater  than  our  environment,  and 
more  creative  than  necessity  requires. 

If  we  experienced  those  delights  which  imag^ination 
paints  in  such  glowing  colours,  we  should  remain  cold 
and  often  absent-minded,  uninterested,  perhaps  even 
bored;  for  no  one  can  really  be  more  than  himself. 
We  should  become  aware  of  the  rigid  limitations  of  our 
nature — of  the  fact  that  we  cannot  have  our  faculties 
eng-rossed  in  things  around  us  and  at  the  same  time 
use  them  to  transport  us  beyond,  into  that  imaginary 
sphere  where  ideal  circumstances  are  at  the  beck  and 
call  of  the  actual  man. 

But  why  should  such  circumstances  be  wholly  ideal  ? 
That  is  what  I  am  at  a  loss  to  understand.  Why 
should  that  which  is  not  seem  more  in  harmony  with 
human  nature  than  that  which  is?  Our  actual  life 
itself  is  like  a  dream;  it  has  no  unity,  no  sequence, 
and  no  aim;  some  of  its  elements  are  sure  and  stable, 
others  are  mere  chance  and  discord,  fading-  like 
shadows,  and  never  yielding  to  us  what  they  seemed 
to  promise.  In  like  fashion  there  enter  our  minds  in 
sleep  things  true  and  consecutive  along  with  others 
that  are  fantastic,  disconnected,   and  incongruous,  yet 


LETTER  XIV.  67 

somehow  bound  up  with  the  first.  The  feeHng-s  of  the 
day  are  a  medley  Hke  the  dreams  of  the  nig-ht.  The 
wisdom  of  the  ancients  said  the  waking  moment  would 
arrive  at  last. 


LETTER   XIV. 

FONTAINEBLEAU,    AltgUSt   "JSt   (II.)- 

Mr.  W ,  whom  you  know,  remarked  the  other  day, 

"When  I  am  sipping  my  coffee,  I  arrange  the  world 
beautifully."  I  too  indulge  in  dreams  of  this  kind,  and 
sometimes  as  I  tramp  through  the  heather,  between  the 
still  dewy  junipers,  I  catch  myself  picturing^  men  as 
happy.  Honestly,  it  seems  to  me  they  might  be.  I  do 
not  want  another  species,  or  another  globe;  I  do  not 
want  to  reform  everything;  schemes  of  that  kind,  you 
say,  never  come  to  anything",  because  they  are  not 
applicable  to  things  as  we  know  them.  Very  well,  let 
us  take  what  exists  of  necessity;  take  it  as  it  is,  simply 
adjusting  what  is  accidental.  I  do  not  desire  new  or 
Utopian  species;  given  the  materials,  with  them  I  will 
work  out  my  ideal  scheme. 

Two  things  I  should  like  to  have — a  settled  climate 
and  true  men.  If  I  know  when  the  rain  will  flood  the 
river,  when  the  sun  will  scorch  my  plants,  when  the 
storm  will  shake  my  dwelling,  it  rests  with  my  diligence 
to  cope  with  the  natural  forces  opposed  to  my  interests; 
but  if  I  know  not  when  anything  will  happen,  if  misfor- 
tune overtakes  me  without  warning,  if  caution  may 
ruin   me,  and  the  concerns  of  others   entrusted  to  my 


/ 


68  OBERMANN. 

care  prevent  me  from  taking-  things  easily  or  even 
feeling  secure,  must  not  my  life  of  necessity  be  ill-at- 
ease  and  unhappy  ?  Must  not  inaction  alternate  with 
over-exertion,  and  as  Voltaire  has  so  well  said,  must  I 
not  spend  all  my  days  in  the  pangs  of  anxiety  or  in  the 
stagnation  of  ennui  ? 

If  men  are  nearly  all  deceivers,  if  the  double-dealing 
of  some  compels  others  to  be  at  least  on  their  guard, 
is  it  not  a  necessary  consequence  that  there  will  be 
added  to  the  evil  which  many  are  trying  to  do  to  others 
for  selfish  ends  a  far  greater  number  of  gratuitous 
evils?  In  spite  of  themselves  people  will  mutually 
injure  each  other,  every  one  watching  and  guarding 
against  his  fellow;  enemies  will  be  cunning  and  friends 
cautious.  A  good  reputation  will  be  liable  to  be  lost 
through  a  rash  statement  or  an  error  in  judgment; 
enmity  based  on  misunderstanding  will  become  deadly; 
the  well-meaning  will  be  discouraged;  false  principles 
established,  craft  prove  more  serviceable  than  wisdom, 
courage,  and  magnanimity.  Children  will  reproach 
their  father  for  neglecting  sharp  practice,  and  States 
will  perish  for  not  stooping  to  crime.  What  becomes 
of  morality,  in  the  dark  as  we  are  about  our  fellows  ? 
What  of  security,  in  our  equal  uncertainty  about  things 
around  us  ?  And  without  security  or  morality,  is  not 
happiness  a  mere  infant's  dream  ? 

I  would  let  the  moment  of  death  remain  unknown. 
When  existence  ends,  evil  ends  too ;  and  for  twenty 
other  reasons  death  should  not  be  counted  a  misfortune. 
It  is  well  not  to  know  when  the  end  will  come;  we 
would  seldom  begin  what  we  knew  could  not  be 
finished.      I    admit   then   that    man's    ignorance   of  the 


LETTER  XIV.  69 

length  of  his  Hfe,  even  in  his  present  condition,  is  more 
profitable  than  disadvantageous,  but  uncertainty  about 
what  will  happen  in  life  is  not  at  all  the  same  thing  as 
uncertainty  about  its  duration.  An  unforeseen  event 
dislocates  your  plans  and  lets  you  in  for  long-continued 
obstructions,  but  death  does  not  dislocate,  it  annihilates; 
what  you  know  nothing  about  you  will  not  suffer  from. 
The  scheme  of  those  who  are  left  behind  may  perhaps 
be  obstructed  by  it,  but  if  we  have  light  for  our  own 
affairs  we  have  light  enough,  and  I  have  no  wish  to 
conceive  a  state  of  things  absolutely  satisfactory  from 
man's  point  of  view.  I  should  have  misgivings  about 
the  world  I  am  planning  if  there  were  no  evil  left  in  it, 
and  I  should  be  dismayed  at  the  idea  of  a  perfect 
harmony;  Nature  seems  to  me  not  to  admit  of  one. 

A  settled  climate,  and  above  all  true  men,  inevitably 
true,  would  satisfy  me.  I  am  happy  when  I  know 
things  as  they  are.  The  sky  may  still  keep  its  storms 
and  thunderbolts,  the  earth  its  mud  and  drought,  the 
soil  its  barrenness,  our  bodies  their  weakness  and 
decay;  men  may  keep  their  inequalities  and  incom- 
patibilities, their  fickleness,  their  mistakes,  even  their 
vices  and  their  ineradicable  selfishness  ;  time  may  still 
be  tardy  and  irrevocable  ;  my  Utopia  will  be  happy  if 
the  course  of  events  is  regular  and  men's  motives  are 
known.  Nothing  more  is  needed  but  good  legislation, 
and  that  cannot  be  lackin""  if  motives  are  known. 


70  OBERMANN. 


LETTER    XV. 

FONTAINEBLEAU,    AugtlSt   (jth    (II.)- 

Among"  some  handy  volumes  I  brought  with  me,  I 
hardly  know  why,  I  have  discovered  that  clever  romance, 
Phrosine  and  Mclidor^ ;  I  have  been  through  it,  and 
read  and  re-read  the  conclusion.  There  are  days  when 
sorrows  seem  in  season;  when  we  love  to  seek  them 
within  us,  to  sound  their  depths  and  stand  aghast  at 
their  huge  proportions  ;  we  taste  in  our  miseries,  if 
nowhere  else,  that  attribute  of  affinity  with  which  we 
would  fain  invest  our  empty  shade  before  the  breath 
of  time  effaces  it. 

What  a  terrible  moment  in  the  story,  what  a  tragic 
situation,  is  that  death  in  the  night,  within  reach  of 
mystic  raptures!  So  much  love,  such  depths  of  loss, 
such  horrors  of  revenge,  enveloped  in  that  shroud  of 
mist  !  And  then  that  rending  of  a  heart  deceived, 
when  Phrosine,  swimming  for  the  rock  and  the  torch, 
is  led  astray  by  a  treacherous  light  and  perishes  ex- 
hausted in  the  mighty  deep.  I  know  no  catastrophe 
more  impressive,   no  death   more  pathetic. 

The  daylight  was  fading;  there  was  no  moon;  every- 
thing was  still;  the  sky  was  calm,  the  trees  motionless. 
A  few  insects  among  the  grass  and  a  single  far-away 
bird  were  piping  in  the  warm  night.  I  sat  down  and 
did  not  stir  for  a  long  time,  vague  ideas  drifting  through 

'  [An  ojjera  in  three  acts  by  Arnault  pire ;  played  at  the  Opera 
Comiquc,  IMay  4th,  1794.  A  story  of  virtuous  lovers  persecuted  by 
cruel  parents. — Tk.] 


LETTER  XVI.  71 

my  mind.  I  viewed  the  world  and  its  past  ages,  and 
shuddered  at  the  handiwork  of  man.  I  came  back  to 
myself,  and  found  chaos  and  a  wasted  life  ;  I  dipped 
into  the  future  of  the  world.  Ah,  cliffs  of  Rigi,  if  you 
had  been  at  my  feet !  ^ 

By  this  time  it  was  dark.  I  wandered  slowly  back, 
stepping"  aimlessly,  utterly  heart-weary.  I  longed  for 
tears,  but  could  only  groan.  My  early  da3'S  are  gone; 
I  hav^e  the  sufferings  of  youth  but  none  of  its  con- 
solations. My  heart,  still  vexed  by  the  fires  of  a 
useless  past,  is  wilted  and  dried  up,  as  if  its  strength 
were  sapped  by  chill  old  age.  I  am  deadened  without 
being  calmed.  Some  there  are  who  find  pleasure  in 
their  woes,  but  with  me  all  is  over;  I  have  neither  joy, 
nor  hope,  nor  rest;  nothing  is  left,  not  even  tears. 


LETTER   XVL 

FONTAINEBLEAU,    AltgilSt    12///    (II.). 

What  generous  emotions  !  What  memories!  What 
calm  sublimity  there  is  on  a  mild,  still,  starlight  night! 
What  grandeur!  And  yet  the  soul  is  sunk  in  perplexity. 
We  see  that  the  impressions  made  upon  us  by  external 
things  are  misleading;  we  see  that  truth  exists,  but 
how  terribly  remote.  Nature  passes  our  understanding 
when  we  gaze  on  those  vast  stars  in  the  unchanging 
sky.     Its  permanence  overwhelms  us;  to  man  it  seems 

^  The  Rigi  is  near  Lucerne;  the  lake  is  at  the  foot  of  the  precipices 
referred  to. 


72  OBERMANN. 

an  appalling  eternity.  Everything  else  passes  away, 
man  himself  passes;  but  the  worlds  above  never  pass! 
Thought  hangs  in  an  abyss  between  the  changes  of  the 
earth  and  the  unvarying  skies. 


LETTER    XVII. 

FONTAINEBLEAU,    Aupisl    I4//1    (II.). 

I  wander  into  the  woods  before  the  sun  is  up ;  I  watch 
him  rise  with  promise  of  a  lovely  day;  I  tramp  through 
dewy  ferns  and  brambles,  among  the  deer  and  under 
the  birch  trees  of  Mont  Chauvet;  a  sense  of  the  happi- 
ness that  might  have  been  throbs  powerfully  within 
me,  urgent  and  yet  oppressive.  Up  hill  and  down  dale 
I  go,  like  one  who  means  to  enjoy  himself;  then  a 
sigh,  a  touch  of  bitterness,  and  a  whole  day  of  misery. 


LETTER    XVIIL 

FONTAINHBLEAU,    AllgUSt    IJth    {II. ). 

Even  here,  it  is  only  the  evening  that  I  love.  The 
dawn  gladdens  me  for  a  moment;  I  fancy  I  could  feel 
the  charm  of  it  if  the  day  that  is  to  follow  were  not 
bound  to  be  so  long!  I  certainly  have  a  free  domain 
to  wander  in,  but  it  is  not  wild  and  impressive  enough. 
Its  features  are  tame,  its  rocks  small  and  uninteresting, 
the  vegetation  as  a  rule  lacks  the  luxuriance  and  pro- 


LETTER  XVIII.  73 

fusion  I  like  to  see;  one  never  catches  here  the  murmur 
of  a  torrent  far  down  in  the  depths  ;  it  is  a  land  of 
plains.  Nothing"  burdens  me  here ;  nothing-  satisfies 
me.  I  fancy,  if  anything-,  my  boredom  increases; 
simply  because  I  have  not  enoug-h  to  suffer.  I  am 
happier  then,  you  think  ?  Not  a  bit  of  it ;  to  suffer 
and  to  be  unhappy  are  not  at  all  the  same  thing-,  no 
more  than  enjoyment  is  identical  with  happiness. 

I  am  delightfully  circumstanced,  and  yet  I  live  a 
melancholy  life.  I  could  not  be  better  off  than  I  am 
here:  free,  undistracted,  well  in  health,  unyoked  from 
business,  unconcerned  about  a  future  from  which  I 
expect  nothing-,  and  leaving-  behind  without  regret  a 
past  I  have  not  enjoyed.  But  there  is  within  me  a 
persistent  unrest,  a  yearning  I  cannot  define,  imperative 
and  absorbing,  which  takes  me  out  of  the  sphere  of 
perishable  creatures.  .  .  .  No,  it  is  not  the  yearning 
to  love  ;  you  are  mistaken  there,  as  I  once  was  mis- 
taken myself.  The  interval  is  wide  enough  between 
the  emptiness  of  my  heart  and  the  love  it  has  so 
eagerly  desired,  but  the  distance  between  what  I  am 
and  what  I  want  to  be  is  infinite.  Love  is  vast,  but 
it  is  not  infinite.  I  do  not  want  to  enjoy  possession; 
I  want  to  hope,  I  should  like  to  know.  I  need  limitless 
illusions,  receding  before  me  to  keep  me  always  under 
their  spell.  What  use  to  me  is  anything  that  can  end  ? 
The  hour  which  will  arrive  in  sixty  years'  time  is  already 
close  at  hand.  I  have  no  liking  for  anything  that  takes 
its  rise,  draws  near,  arrives,  and  is  no  more.  I  want 
a  good,  a  dream,  in  fact  a  hope  that  is  ever  in  advance, 
ever  beyond  me,  greater  than  my  expectation  itself, 
greater  than   the  things   which   pass  away.      I    would 


74  OBERMANN. 

like  to  be  pure  intellig-ence,  I  would  like  the  eternal 
order  of  the  world.  .  .  .  And  yet,  thirty  years  a.go, 
that  order  was,   and   I   had  no  existence. 

Worthless  and  accidental  creature  of  a  day,  I  used 
not  to  exist,  and  soon  I  shall  exist  no  more.  I  dis- 
cover with  surprise  that  my  thought  is  greater  than 
my  being,  and  when  I  consider  that  my  life  is  absurd 
in  my  own  eyes,  I  lose  my  way  in  hopeless  darkness. 
Truly,  happier  is  he  who  fells  trees  and  burns  charcoal, 
and  flies  to  holy  water  when  the  thunder  peals.  He 
lives  like  the  brute.  Nay;  for  he  sings  at  his  work. 
I  shall  never  know  his  peace,  and  yet  I  shall  pass  like 
him.  His  life  will  glide  along  with  time,  but  mine  is 
led  astray  and  hurried  on  by  excitement  and  unrest, 
and  by  the  phantoms  of  an  unknown  greatness. 


LETTER    XIX. 

FONTAINEELEAU,    AugJtsi    \%th    (II.). 

There  are  moments,  however,  when  I  find  myself  full  of 
hope  and  freedom  ;  time  and  events  unroll  before  me 
in  majestic  harmony,  and  I  feel  happy,  as  if  a  happy 
life  might  be  in  store.  I  surprise  myself  returning  to 
my  early  years  ;  I  recapture  in  the  rose  its  delightful 
charm  and  heavenly  eloquence.  Happy  !  I  ?  Yes, 
even  I  am  happy  ;  happy  to  overflowing,  like  one  who 
wakes  from  the  terrors  of  a  dream  to  a  life  of  peace 
and  liberty  ;  like  one  who  leaves  behind  the  filth  of 
dungeons    and    sees    once    more,   after  ten    years,   the 


LETTER  XX.  75 

peaceful  sky  ;  happy  as  the  man  who  loves — her  whom 
he  has  saved  from  death  !  But  the  moment  passes  by  ; 
a  cloud  before  the  sun  cuts  off  his  sthnulating"  lig-ht  ; 
the  birds  fall  silent,  the  spreading  shadow  involves 
and  drives  before  it  my  dream  and  joy  alike. 

Then  I  start  to  my  feet ;  I  hurry  sadly  homewards, 
and  soon  return  to  the  woods,  because  the  sun  may 
agfain  appear.  In  all  this  there  is  something  which 
calms  and  consoles.  What  it  is  I  do  not  exactly 
know  ;  but  even  when  I  am  benumbed  by  sorrow,  time 
does  not  stand  still,  and  I  love  to  watch  the  ripening- 
of  the  fruit  which  an  autumn  gust  will  bring  to  the 
"•round. 


LETTER    XX. 

FONTAINEBLEAU,    Aligns/   lyk    (11.). 

How  little  is  needed  by  the  man  who  wishes  simply  to 
live,  and  how  much  by  him  who  wishes  to  live  with 
satisfaction  and  to  make  good  use  of  his  time.  If  one 
had  strength  to  renounce  happiness  as  too  impracticable 
one  would  be  far  happier,  but  must  one  remain  always 
alone  ?  Peace  itself  is  a  mournful  gift  if  one  has  no 
hope  of  sharing  it. 

I  know  that  many  do  not  look  beyond  the  good  of 
the  moment,  and  that  others  can  put  up  with  a  mode  of 
life  without  order  and  refinement.  I  have  seen  such  a 
one  trimming  his  beard  before  a  broken  mirror  ;  the 
children's  linen  was  hung  out  of  the  window,  and  one 
of  their  frocks  over  the  handle  of  the  frying-pan  ;  their 


76  OBERMANN. 

mother  was  washing-  them  beside  the  table,  on  the  bare 
top  of  which  some  hashed  beef  and  the  remains  of 
Sunday's  turkey  were  set  out  in  cracked  dishes.  There 
would  have  been  some  soup,  if  the  cat  had  not  upset 
the  broth. ^  That  is  called  a  simple  life  ;  I  call  it  an 
unhappy  life,  if  it  is  temporary  ;  a  life  of  misery  if  it  is 
compulsory  and  permanent  ;  but  if  it  is  voluntary  and 
not  irksome,  if  one  takes  it  as  a  matter  of  course,  I  call 
it  a  ridiculous  existence. 

Contempt  of  riches  is  a  very  fine  thing-  in  books,  but 
with  a  house  to  keep  up  and  no  money,  one  must  either 
be  devoid  of  susceptibility  or  have  unquenchable 
vitality  ;  now  I  doubt  whether  a  strong  character  would 
tolerate  such  a  life.  One  can  put  up  with  what  is 
accidental,  but  to  give  in  permanently  to  this  wretched- 
ness is  to  make  it  one's  own.  Are  Stoics  like  this 
devoid  of  that  sense  of  the  fitn-ess  of  things  which  tells 
a  man  that  to  live  thus  is  not  living-  according  to  his 
nature  ?  Simplicity  like  theirs,  without  order,  refine- 
ment, or  decency,  is  more  akin,  in  my  opinion,  to  the 
sordid  self-denial  of  a  begging  friar,  or  the  brutal 
penance  of  a  fakir,  than  to  philosophical  resignation. 

In  simplicity  itself  there  is  neatness,  carefulness, 
harmony,  unit}'.  The  people  I  refer  to  have  not  a 
tenpenny  mirror  and  yet  they  g-o  to  the  play ;  they  have 
broken  china  and  clothes  of  fine  material  ;  they  have 
stylish  cuffs  on  shirts  of  coarse  cotton.  If  they  take 
a  stroll,  it  is  to  the  Champs-Elysees  ;  they  say  they  go 
to  see  the  passers-by,  hermits  though  they  are  ;  and  in 

^  No  doubt  ihe  author  of  these  letters  would  have  apolot^ised  for 
ihese  and  other  details  if  he  had  foreseen  their  publication. 


LETTER  XX.  77 

order  to  see  them  they  submit  to  their  contempt,  and 
sit  on  some  patch  of  turf  amid  the  dust  raised  by 
the  crowd.  In  their  philosophic  apathy  they  disdain 
appearances,  and  sit  munching"  their  cakes  on  the 
ground,  among  dogs  and  children  and  the  feet  of 
those  who  are  passing  to  and  fro.  There  they  study 
man,  while  gossiping  with  servant-girls  and  nurses; 
there  they  plan  a  treatise  in  which  kings  will  be  warned 
of  the  dangers  of  ambition,  the  luxury  of  high  life  be 
reformed,  and  all  men  be  taught  to  moderate  their 
desires,  to  live  according  to  nature,  and  to  eat  the 
cakes  of  Nanterre.^ 

I  will  say  no  more  about  it.  If  I  put  you  too  much 
into  the  humour  for  joking  on  certain  topics,  you 
might  also  poke  fun  at  my  curious  mode  of  life  in  my 
forest ;  there  is  certainly  something  childish  in  creating 
for  oneself  a  desert  close  to  a  capital.  You  must  admit, 
however,  that  there  is  a  vast  difference  between  my 
woods  near  Paris  and  a  tub  in  Athens, ^  and  I  will  grant 
on  my  side  that  the  Greeks,  though  as  cultured  as  our- 
selves, were  freer  than  we  are  to  do  eccentric  things, 
because  they  were  nearer  primitive  times.  The  tub 
was  chosen  in  order  to  exhibit  publicly,  in  the  maturity 
of  age,  a  wise  man's  life.  That  is  certainly  extra- 
ordinary, but  the  extraordinary  was  no  special  bugbear 
to  the  Greeks.  Custom  and  the  usual  thing  were  not 
their  ruling  principles.  Everything  with  them  could 
preserve  its  individual  character,  and  the  rare  thing 
was  to  meet  with  anything  common  and  universal.     As 

^  Nanterre  is  famous  for  a  special  kind  of  cake,  of  which  children  are 
very  fond. 
'■'  This  incident  of  ihe  tub  is  disputed  on  several  grounds. 


78  OBERMANN. 

a  people  whose  social  life  was  still  tentative,  they 
seemed  to  be  trying"  experiments  with  institutions  and 
customs,  and  to  be  still  in  the  dark  as  to  what  lines  of 
conduct  were  entirely  satisfactory.  But  we  who  have 
no  doubt  on  the  matter,  we  who  have  adopted  the  best 
way  possible  in  everything-,  we  rightly  consecrate  our 
minor  manners,  and  punish  with  contempt  the  man 
who  is  stupid  enough  to  leave  so  obvious  a  track. 
Joking  apart,  however,  it  is  excuse  enough  for  me, 
who  have  no  wish  to  imitate  the  cynics,  that  I  do  not 
pretend  either  to  be  proud  of  this  juvenile  freak,  or 
when  living"  among  my  fellows,  to  set  up  my  mode  of 
life  in  opposition  to  theirs,  in  things  which  duty  does 
not  prescribe.  I  take  the  liberty  of  being  singular  in 
a  matter  which  is  of  itself  indifferent,  and  in  some 
respects,  I  consider,  wholesome  for  me.  It  would  clash 
with  their  way  of  thinking",  and  as  that  seems  to  me 
the  only  drawback  it  could  have,  I  avoid  it  by  keeping 
out  of  their  sisfht. 


LETTER  XXI. 

FONTAINEIJLEAU,    Sept.    ls(   (II.). 

The  weather  is  simply  perfect,  and  I  am  in  a  mood  of 
utter  calm.  Once  I  should  have  felt  keener  delight  in 
this  complete  freedom,  this  throwing  up  of  all  business 
and  plannmg,  this  indifference  to  whatever  may  happen. 
I  begin  to  realize  that  I  am  getting  on  in  life.  Those 
rapturous  impressions,  those  sudden  emotions  that 
once  used  to  thrill  me  and  transport  me  so  far  from  a 


LETTER  XXI.  79 

world  of  sadness,  I  now  only  recover  In  a  modified  and 
weakened  form.  The  desire  that  every  perception  of 
beauty  in  external  objects  used  to  awaken  in  me,  the 
vag"ue  and  captivating^  hope,  the  heavenly  fire  which 
dazzles  and  consumes  a  youthful  heart,  the  overflowing 
ecstasy  with  which  it  irradiates  the  mighty  phantom 
before  it,  all  these  are  even  now  no  more.  I  begin  to 
have  an  eye  for  what  is  useful  and  convenient,  and  no 
longer  for  what  is  beautiful. 

Tell  me,  you  who  know  my  limitless  needs,  what  I 
shall  make  of  life  when  I  have  lost  these  moments  of 
enchantment  which  glowed  in  the  darkness  like  stormy 
glimmers  on  a  lurid  night.  They  made  it  darker  I 
confess,  but  they  showed  that  it  might  change,  and 
that  light  existed  still.  But  what  will  become  of  me 
now  if  I  must  restrict  myself  to  what  is,  and  be  tied 
down  to  my  mode  of  life,  my  personal  interests,  and 
the  cares  of  getting  up,  killing  time,  and  going  to  bed 
again  ? 

I  was  quite  diff"erent  in  those  days  when  love  was 
still  a  possibility.  I  had  been  romantic  as  a  child,  and 
still  pictured  a  haven  suited  to  my  tastes.  I  had  mis- 
takenly imagined,  somewhere  in  Dauphiny,  a  combina- 
tion of  Alpine  features  with  a  climate  fit  for  olives  and 
citrons.  Eventually  the  name  Chartreuse  took  my 
fancy,  and  it  was  there  near  Grenoble  that  I  fixed  my 
dream  dwelling.  In  those  days  I  used  to  fancy  that 
pleasant  places  went  far  to  make  a  pleasant  life,  and 
that  there,  with  a  loved  one  by  my  side,  I  might  possess 
that  incorruptible  felicity  for  which  my  deluded  heart 
was  yearning. 

Now  here  is  a  very  curious  thing,  from  which  I  can 


8o  OBERMANN. 

draw  no  conclusion  and  about  which  I  will  assert 
nothing  except  that  it  is  literal  fact.  I  had  never  seen 
and  never  read  anything,  so  far  as  I  know,  to  give  me 
any  idea  of  the  surroundings  of  the  Grande  Chartreuse. 
The  only  thing  I  knew  was  that  this  solitary  spot  was 
among  the  mountains  of  Dauphiny.  My  imagination 
fashioned  out  of  this  vague  idea  and  its  own  inclinations 
the  situation  the  monastery  would  be  in,  and  close  by 
it,  my  dwelling.  It  came  remarkably  near  the  truth. 
Long  after,  on  seeing  an  engraving  of  this  very  place, 
I  said  to  myself,  before  reading  the  title,  "That  is  the 
Grande  Chartreuse,"  so  vividly  did  it  recall  what  I  had 
pictured.  And  when  it  proved  to  be  really  so,  it  gave 
me  a  shock  of  surprise  and  regret ;  it  seemed  as  if  I 
had  lost  something  which  was,  as  it  were,  destined  to 
be  mine.  Since  that  project  of  my  earliest  youth  I  have 
never  heard  the  word  Chartreuse  without  a  pang. 

The  further  I  go  back  into  my  youth  the  deeper 
impressions  I  find.  If  I  go  beyond  the  age  when  my 
ideas  had  begun  to  expand,  if  I  look  in  my  childhood 
for  the  first  notions  of  a  mournful  heart,  which  never 
had  a  real  childhood,  and  which  was  drawn  to  powerful 
emotions  and  things  out  of  the  common  before  it  had 
even  decided  whether  to  be  fond  of  games  or  not;  if, 
I  say,  I  try  to  find  out  what  I  felt  at  seven,  at  six,  at 
five  years  old,  I  find  impressions  as  ineffaceable  as  any 
since,  more  trustful  too  and  sweeter,  and  based  on 
those  perfect  illusions  which  no  later  age  has  been 
fortunate  enough  to  possess. 

I  am  not  mistaken  as  to  the  time.  I  am  perfectly 
sure  how  old  I  was  when  I  thought  of  certain  things 
and  read  a  certain  book.      I   read  Kiimpfer's  History  of 


LETTER  XXI.  8i 

Japan^  in  my  usual  seat  by  a  particular  window  in  that 
house  by  the  Rhone  which  my  father  left  a  little  before 
his  death.  The  summer  after,  I  read  Robinson  Crusoe. 
That  was  the  time  when  I  lost  the  exactness  for  which 
I  had  been  remarkable.  I  became  unable  to  do,  with- 
out a  pen,  less  difficult  sums  than  one  I  had  done  at 
four  and  a  half  without  writing-  anything  and  without 
knowing  a  single  rule  of  arithmetic,  unless  it  were 
addition;  a  sum  which  amazed  all  who  were  present  at 

Madame  Belp 's,  at  a  certain  party  you  have  heard 

about. 

At  that  age  the  power  to  perceive  indeterminate 
relations  got  the  better  of  the  power  to  combine 
mathematical  relations.  Moral  relations  were  becoming 
apparent,  the  sense  of  beauty  was  being  born.   .   .   . 


September  2nd  (II.)- 

I  found  I  was  drifting  into  a  line  of  argument,  so  I 
broke  off.  In  matters  of  feeling  one  can  only  consult 
oneself,  but  in  things  open  to  discussion  it  is  alwaj's  an 
advantage  to  know  what  other  people  have  thought. 
I  have  by  me  a  volume  containing  the  Pensces  Philo- 
sophiques  of  Diderot,^  his  Traiti'  dn  Beau^  etc.  I  took 
it  up  and  went  out. 

If  I  hold  Diderot's  opinion  it  may  seem  to  be  because 
he  has  spoken  last,  and  I  own  this  usually  counts  for 

^  Kiimpfer  spent  two  years  in  Japan,  1692-94.  —  Tk. 

^  Diderot,  1713-84,  a  voluminous  writer,  and  editor  of  the  notorious 
CyclopeJie.  The  re)istes  were  burned  liy  the  parliament  of  Paris, 
1746.— Tr. 


82  OBERMANN. 

much  ;  but  I  modify  his  thought  in  my  own  way,  for  I 
still  have  the  last  word. 

Leaving"  out  Wolf,^  Crouzas,"  and  the  sixth  sense 
of  Hutcheson,^  I  agree  in  the  main  with  all  the  rest, 
and  for  that  reason  I  do  not  think  the  definition  of  the 
beautiful  admits  of  such  brief  and  simple  expression  as 
Diderot  has  given  it.  I  believe  with  him  that  the 
feeling  for  beauty  cannot  exist  apart  from  the  per- 
ception of  relations,  but  of  what  relations  ?  If  one  has 
a  notion  of  beauty  at  the  sight  of  any  relations  whatso- 
ever, it  is  not  because  one  actually  perceives  it ;  one 
only  imagines  it.  Seeing  relations,  we  assume  a 
centre  ;  we  conceive  analogies,  we  anticipate  a  fresh 
expansion  cf  soul  ideas  ;  but  what  is  beautiful  does 
not  make  us  think  of  all  that  merely  by  suggestion, 
or  incidentally;  it  contains  and  exhibits  it.  It  is  an 
advantage,  no  doubt,  when  a  definition  can  be  stated 
in  a  single  phrase,  but  this  conciseness  must  not  make 
it  too  general  and  therefore  false. 

This  is  my  statement  of  it :  The  beautiful  is  that 
which  evokes  in  iis  the  idea  of  relations  tending  to  a 
conmioji  end,  on  lines  in  harmony  with  our  nature. 
This  definition  includes  the  notions  of  order,  proportion, 
unity,  and  even  utility. 

These  relations  are  directed  to  a  centre  or  end;  that 

'  Wolf,  German  philosopher,  1679-1754;  popularized  Leibnitz  and 
gave  a  great  impulse  to  Rationalism. — Tr. 

-  Crouzas,  Swiss  philosopher  and  mathematician,  1613-1748;  tried 
to  conciliate  contemporary  systems  and  refute  extreme  ones,  especially 
Bayle's  scepticism  and  the  formalism  of  Wolf  and  Leibnitz. — Tr. 

^  Ilutcheson,  1694-1746,  Professor  of  Moral  Philosophy  in  Glasgow, 
one  of  the  founders  of  the  Scottish  School  of  Metaphysics. — Tr. 


LETTER  XXI.  83 

gives  order  and  unity.  They  move  on  lines  which  are 
nothing-  but  proportion,  regularity,  symmetry,  and 
simplicity,  according  as  one  or  other  of  these  principles 
happens  to  be  more  or  less  essential  to  the  nature  of 
the  whole  constituted  by  these  relations.  This  whole 
is  the  unity  without  which  there  is  no  result,  no  work 
of  beauty,  because  in  that  case  there  is  not  a  work  at 
all.  Every  product  must  be  a  thing  in  itself;  we  have 
made  nothing  if  we  have  not  made  it  a  coherent  whole. 
Without  this  coherence  nothing  is  beautiful;  it  is  not 
a  thing  at  all,  but  a  collection  of  things  which  may 
produce  unity  and  beauty  when  they  are  combined  to 
form  a  whole  with  what  is  still  lacking.  Until  then 
they  are  mere  materials ;  their  association  does  not 
generate  beauty,  though  they  may  be  severally  beauti- 
ful, like  those  private  note-books  whose  formless 
contents  do  not  constitute  a  work,  though  they  may 
be  filled  up  and  entire.  Thus  a  compilation  of  random 
and  disjointed  moral  reflections  of  the  noblest  kind  is 
far  from  being  a  treatise  on  morals. 

If  this  coherent  whole,  complete  in  itself  though 
more  or  less  composite,  is  perceptibly  adapted  to  the 
nature  of  man,  it  is  directly  or  indirectly  serviceable 
to  him.  It  can  supply  his  needs,  or  at  any  rate  extend 
his  knowj^edge;  it  may  serve  as  a  new  instrument,  or 
afford  scope  for  a  new  industry;  it  may  intensify  his  life 
and  gratify  his  restless,  grasping  spirit. 

The  object  is  more  beautiful  and  has  a  genuine  unity 
when  the  relations  we  perceive  in  it  are  exact,  and 
converge  to  a  common  centre;  and  if  there  is  absolutely 
nothing  but  what  is  necessary  to  produce  this  result, 
its    beauty   is  greater   still;    it  has    simplicity.     Every 


84  OBERMANN. 

quality  is  impaired  by  the  admixture  of  a  foreign 
quality;  when  there  is  no  admixture  the  thing  is  more 
exact,  more  symmetrical,  simpler,  more  of  a  unity, 
more  beautiful;  it  is  perfect. 

There  are  two  chief  ways  in  which  the  idea  of  utility 
enters  into  that  of  beauty.  First,  the  utility  of  every 
part  to  the  common  end;  next,  the  utility  of  the  whole 
to  us  who  have  correspondences  with  that  whole. 

In  the  rhilosophie  de  la  Nature  we  read:  "  It  seems 
to  me  that  the  philosopher  may  define  beauty  as  the 
obvious  harmony  of  a  whole  with  its  parts."  I  find 
from  a  note  that  you  once  defined  it  thus:  "The 
adaptation  of  the  different  parts  of  a  thing  to  their 
common  end  on  the  most  effective  and  at  the  same 
time  the  simplest  lines."  That  has  almost  the  very 
flavour  of  the  statement  of  Crouzas.  He  gives  five 
characteristics  of  the  beautiful,  and  thus  defines  pro- 
portion, which  is  one  of  them:  ^'•\}\\\\.y  flavoured  with 
variety,  with  regularity  and  order  in  each  part." 

Given  something  which  is  well-adjusted,  adapted  to 
our  requirements,  and  evoking  a  sense  of  beauty,  if 
it  seems  to  be  superior  or  equal  to  what  we  contain 
within  us  we  call  it  beautiful;  if  it  seems  inferior  we 
call  it  pretty.  If  its  adaptation  to  ourselves  has 
reference  to  matters  of  slight  importance,  though  they 
minister  directly  to  our  habits  and  immediate  desires, 
we  call  it  agreeable.  If  its  correspondences  are  with 
our  souls,  inspiring  and  broadening  our  thought, 
expanding  and  ennobling  our  aflfections,  showing  us 
in  external  objects  new  and  striking  adaptations  which 
awaken  in  us  the  sense  of  a  universal  order,  of  an  end 
common  to  a  host  of  beings,  then  we  call  it  sublime. 


LETTER  XXI.  85 

The  perception  of  definite  relations  is  the  source  of 
the  idea  of  beauty,  and  the  expansion  of  soul  resulting- 
from  their  adaptation  to  our  nature  constitutes  the 
feeling-  of  beauty. 

When  the  relations  referred  to  have  a  touch  of 
vagueness  and  immensity,  when  their  correspondences 
with  ourselves  and  with  part  of  Nature  are  better  felt 
than  seen,  they  evoke  a  delightful  mood,  full  of  hope 
and  charm,  an  indefinable  joy  that  gives  promise  of 
joys  unbounded;  that  is  the  kind  of  beauty  which 
enchants  and  enthrals.  What  is  pretty  diverts  us;  the 
beautiful  sustains  the  soul,  the  sublime  astounds  or 
uplifts  it;  but  that  which  ravishes  and  captivates 
the  heart  is  that  still  more  elusive  and  pervading 
beauty,  little  known,  never  explained,  mysterious  and 
ineffable. 

Thus  it  is  that  in  hearts  meant  for  love,  love  gives 
radiance  to  all  things,  and  makes  every  phase  of  con- 
sciousness an  ecstasy.  As  it  sets  up  within  us  the 
highest  relation  we  can  have  with  anything  external, 
it  makes  us  readily  responsive  to  all  relations,  to  all 
harmonies;  it  reveals  a  new  world  to  our  affections. 
Borne  along  by  its  rapid  movement,  carried  away  by 
that  energy  which  promises  everything,  and  even  yet 
in  spite  of  all  deludes  us,  we  seek,  we  feel,  we  love,  we 
long  for  all  that  Nature  has  in  store  for  man. 

But  the  frustrations  of  life  come  to  curb  us,  driving 
us  in  upon  ourselves.  As  we  retreat  we  set  ourselves 
to  renounce  eternal  things,  and  limit  ourselves  to  actual 
needs ;  a  melancholy  sphere,  where  bitterness  and 
baffled  questioning  do  not  wait  until  we  die,  but  dig 
a  yawning  grave  within  our  hearts  which  swallows  up 


86  OBERMANN. 

and  extinguishes  all  they  might  have   had  of  candour, 
charm,  desire,  and  native  goodness. 


LETTER    XXII. 

FONTAINEBLEAU,  August  ()th  {II.). 

I  felt  I  must  see  once  more  all  the  places  I  used  to  be 
so  fond  of,  and  I  am  visiting  the  most  distant  before 
the  nights  grow  cold,  the  trees  are  stripped,  and  the 
birds  take  their  flight. 

Yesterday  I  set  out  before  daybreak ;  the  moon  was 
still  shining,  and  the  shadows  it  cast  were  perceptible 
in  spite  of  the  dawn.  The  valley  of  Changy  was  still 
in  darkness  while  I  was  on  the  heights  of  Avon.  I 
dropped  down  to  Basses-Loges,  and  was  just  arriving 
at  Valvin  when  the  sun  rose  behind  Samoreau  and 
glowed  on  the  rocks  of  Samois. 

Valvin  is  not  a  village  and  has  no  arable  land.  Its 
inn  stands  solitary  at  the  foot  of  an  eminence,  on  a 
smooth  strip  of  beach  between  the  river  and  the  woods. 
To  see  the  place  at  its  best,  one  ought  either  to  put  up 
with  the  tedium  of  the  coach,  a  horrid  conveyance,  and 
reach  Valvin  or  Thomery  by  water  in  the  evening,  when 
the  slope  is  in  gloom  and  the  stags  are  belling-  in  the 
forest,  or  else  at  sunrise,  when  everything  is  still  asleep, 
when  the  deer  are  put  to  flight  by  the  cry  of  the  boat- 
man as  it  rings  through  the  tall  poplars  and  echoes 
from  the  heather-clad  hills  all  steaming  in  the  first  rays 
of  the  sun. 

In  a  level  country,  mild  effects  like  this  are  worth  a 


LETTER  XXII.  87 

great  deal.  At  the  very  least  they  are  hiteresting  at 
certain  hours.  But  the  slightest  alteration  spoils  them; 
rid  the  neighbouring  woods  of  fallow  deer,  or  cut  down 
the  trees  that  clothe  the  hill,  and  Valvin  will  be  nothing. 
Even  as  it  is,  I  should  not  care  to  stay  there;  in  broad 
daylight  it  is  a  very  ordinary  place;  besides,  the  inn  is 
not  fit  to  sleep  in. 

On  leaving  Valvin  I  took  an  uphill  road  to  the  north, 
skirting  a  mass  of  sandstone  whose  situation  in  flat 
and  open  country,  encircled  by  woods  and  facing  the 
west,  gives  a  sense  of  desolation  touched  with  melan- 
choly. As  I  walked  on,  I  compared  this  place  with 
one  near  Bourron  which  had  given  me  just  the  opposite 
impression.  Finding  the  two  places  very  much  alike 
in  all  save  aspect,  it  dawned  on  me  at  last  why,  among 
the  Alps,  places  identical  in  appearance  had  produced 
on  me  such  contrary  effects.  Thus  BuUe  and  Plan- 
fayon  saddened  me,  though  they  have  the  characteristic 
features  of  La  Gruy^re,  on  the  borders  of  which  they 
are  situated  ;  and  in  both  localities  the  tone  and  customs 
of  a  mountain  region  are  at  once  perceptible.  On  the 
other  hand,  I  felt  sorry  when  I  was  prevented  from 
settling  in  a  wild  and  barren  gorge  of  the  Dent  du 
Midi.^  So  I  found  ennui  at  Yverdon'^;  but  at  Neu- 
chatel,  on  the  same  lake,  an  exceptional  sense  of  well- 
being.  The  charm  of  Vevey  and  the  melancholy  of 
Unterwalden  are  thus  accounted  for,  and  possibly  the 
different  characteristics  of  the  people  may  be  explained 
on  similar  grounds.  People  are  influenced  as  much, 
or  even   more,   by  diff'erences   in   aspect,   climate,   and 

'  See  Letter  V.— Tr.  -  Ibid.,  IV.— Tr. 


88  OBERMANN. 

humidity  than  by  differences  in  laws  and  customs.  In 
fact,  the  last-mentioned  variations  have  themselves 
arisen,   in  the  first  instance,   from  physical  causes. 

I  next  turned  westward  and  hunted  up  the  fountain 
of  Mont  Chauvet.  With  the  boulders  that  strew  the 
ijround  a  shelter  has  been  contrived  to  protect  the 
spring-  from  the  sun  and  the  drifting  sand,  and  there 
is  also  a  circular  mound  where  it  is  usual  to  breakfast 
when  one  comes  to  draw  water.  Sometimes  one  meets 
with  sportsmen,  ramblers,  working  men  ;  but  some- 
times also  with  a  dismal  gathering-  of  Parisian  valets, 
and  shopkeepers  from  the  Quartier  Saint-Martin  or 
the  Rue  Saint-Jacques,  who  have  retired  to  a  town 
patronized  by  the  king.  Here  they  cluster,  either  by 
the  water,  which  is  convenient  when  one  wants  to  cat 
a  meat  pie  with  one's  friends,  or  by  a  certain  naturally 
hollowed  boulder  near  the  road,  which  greatly  interests 
them.  They  regard  it  with  reverence  and  call  it  the 
confessional,  recognizing  in  it  with  emotion  one  of  those 
freaks  of  Nature  that  mimic  sacred  objects  and  prove 
that  the  national  religion  is  the  end  and  aim  of  all 
things. 

I,  however,  plunged  into  the  lonely  vale,  where  this 
feeble  rivulet  sinks  away  without  forming  a  brook. 
Turning  towards  the  cross  of  Grand-Veneur,  I  dis- 
covered a  solitude  as  stern  as  the  renunciation  I  am 
striving  after.  I  went  round  the  rocks  of  Cuvier, 
steeped  in  sadness,  and  stayed  a  long  time  in  the 
gorges  of  Aspremont.  Towards  evening  I  neared  the 
solitudes  of  Grand-Franchart,  an  old  monastery  isolated 
among  hills  and  stretches  of  sand  ;  its  now  deserted 
ruins  were  originally  dedicated  by  human  vanity,  even 


LETTER  XXII.  89 

in  this  uninhabited  reg-ion,  to  morbid  humility  and  the 
craving"  for  notoriety.  At  a  later  time  brigands,  they 
say,  replaced  the  monks ;  they  restored  the  principles 
of  freedom,  but  in  a  way  disastrous  to  any  who  were 
not  free,  as  they  were.  Night  was  coming  on,  so  I 
selected  a  shelter  in  a  kind  of  parlour,  the  ancient 
door  of  which  I  burst  open.  I  collected  into  it  some 
brushwood  along  with  bracken  and  other  herbage,  so 
as  not  to  spend  the  night  on  the  bare  stone,  and  then 
I  wandered  off  for  some  hours  longer,  for  the  moon 
was  due  to  shine.  As  a  matter  of  fact  so  it  did,  and 
yet  dimly,  as  if  to  add  to  the  solitude  of  that  desolate 
relic.  Not  a  cry,  not  a  bird,  not  a  movement  broke 
the  silence  the  whole  night  long.  But  when  all  that 
chafes  us  is  still,  when  everything  sleeps  and  leaves 
us  in  peace,  then  awake  the  spectres  in  our  own  hearts. 

Next  day  I  turned  southwards,  and  while  I  was 
among  the  hills  a  storm  passed  over.  I  was  delighted 
to  see  it  brewing,  and  easily  found  a  shelter  among 
the  rocks,  which  were  full  of  clefts  and  piled  one  upon 
another.  From  the  back  of  my  cave  I  loved  to  see 
how  the  junipers  and  birches  withstood  the  gusts  of 
wind,  defrauded  though  they  were  of  a  fertile  habitat 
and  congenial  soil,  and  how  they  maintained  their  free 
though  impoverished  existence,  with  no  support  but 
the  walls  of  fissured  rock  between  which  they  hung, 
and  no  nourishment  but  a  little  earthy  moisture  collected 
in  the  crevices  their  roots  had  penetrated. 

When  the  rain  began  to  pass  ofT,  I  plunged  into  the 
moist  and  freshened  woods  and  skirted  the  edge  of  the 
forest  towards  Reclose,  La  Vignette,  and  Bourron. 
Then   I   veered  aijain  towards  Little   Mont  Chauvet  as 


90  -  OBERMANN. 

far  as  Croix-Herant  and  took  my  way  between  Mal- 
montagne  and  Route-aux-Nymphes.  I  reached  home 
regretfully  towards  evening,  well  pleased  with  my 
ramble  ;  if  anything  can  strictly  be  said  to  give  me 
either  pleasure  or  regret. 

There  is  within  me  something  out  of  joint  ;  a  kind  of 
delirium  which  is  not  that  of  the  passions,  any  more 
than  that  of  insanity  ;  it  is  the  irritation  of  ennui,  the 
discord  it  has  set  up  between  myself  and  circumstances, 
the  uneasiness  that  long-suppressed  wants  have  sub- 
stituted for  desires. 

Not  that  I  still  crave  for  desires  ;  they  do  not  in  the 
least  delude  me.  No  more  do  I  wish  for  their  extinc- 
tion ;  that  utter  silence  would  be  more  dreadful  still. 
Desires  are  but  the  futile  beauty  of  the  rose  before  an 
eye  for  ever  closed  ;  they  point  to  what  I  can  scarcely 
see  and  could  never  possess.  If  hope  still  seems  to 
fling  a  gleam  into  the  darkness  round  me,  it  tells  of 
nothing  but  the  gloom  it  will  leave  behind  when  it 
fades;  it  only  reveals  the  vastness  of  that  void  in  which 
I  have  groped  and  found  nothing. 

Lovely  climates,  beautiful  places,  nightly  skies, 
special  sounds,  old  memories,  times  and  seasons. 
Nature  full  of  charm  and  meaning,  noble  affections, 
all  have  passed  before  my  eyes  ;  all  entice  and  all  elude 
me.  I  am  alone.  The  energies  of  my  heart  have  no 
outlet,  they  react  upon  themselves  ;  they  wait  and 
wait.  Here  I  am,  wandering  and  solitary  in  the  earth, 
amid  a  crowd  which  to  me  is  nothing,  like  a  man  long 
since  by  accident  deprived  of  hearing.  His  eager  eye 
is  fixed  on  all  the  silent  beings  who  pass  and  bustle 
before    him  ;     he    sees    everything,    and    everything     is 


LETTER  XXIII.  91 

denied  him  ;  he  imagines  the  sounds  he  loves,  he  listens 
for  them,  and  hears  them  not  ;  he  endures  the  silence 
of  all  things  amid  a  world  of  noise.  Everything- 
presents  itself  to  his  gaze  but  he  cannot  grasp  it ;  an 
all-pervading  melody  is  in  external  things,  it  is  in  his 
imagination,  but  no  longer  in  his  heart ;  he  is  cut  off 
from  the  universe  of  life,  there  is  no  longer  any  point  of 
contact  between  them  ;  everything  exists  before  him  in 
vain,  he  lives  alone,  he  is  an  alien  in  the  living  world. 


LETTER    XXIII. 

FONTAINEBI.EAU,   October  iS//^  (11.). 

Can  there  be  for  man  too  the  long  peace  of  autumn, 
after  the  unrest  of  his  years  of  vigour  ?  Like  a  fire  that 
blazes  furiously  and  then  dies  lingeringly  away. 

Long  before  the  equinox  the  leaves  were  falling 
thick  and  fast,  and  yet  the  forest  still  keeps  much  of  its 
greenness  and  all  its  beauty.  Six  weeks  ago  every- 
thing seemed  as  if  it  must  end  before  its  time,  and  yet 
here  it  is  still,  holding  out  beyond  the  expected  limit, 
having  obtained  a  reprieve  on  the  brink  of  destruction  ; 
and  as  this  added  term  glides  swiftly  to  dissolution,  it 
is  poised  a  moment  in  graceful  security,  and  then  slips 
gently  away  in  lingering  sweetness  which  seems  to 
blend  the  peace  of  its  on-coming  death  with  the  charm 
of  the  life  left  behind. 


92  ORERMANN. 


LETTER  XXIV. 

FONTAINEBI.EAU,  October  2%lh  (II.). 

When  the  days  of  hoar-frost  are  over  I  scarcely  miss 
them;  spring- passes  and  leaves  me  unmoved;  summer 
too,  and  I  feel  no  regret;  but  I  do  enjoy  tramping;  over 
the  fallen  leaves  in  the  bare  forest  during  these  last  fine 
days  of  the  year. 

Whence  comes  this  most  abiding-  joy  of  man's  heart, 
this  ecstasy  of  melancholy,  this  mystic  charm,  which 
g-ives  him  life  through  its  sorrows  and  self-contentment 
even  in  the  consciousness  of  its  decay?  I  love  this  happy 
season  which  so  soon  will  be  over.  It  awakens  a  belated 
interest,  a  kind  of  self-conflicting-  pleasure,  just  as  it  is 
drawing  to  a  close.  The  same  moral  law  makes  me  on 
the  one  hand  shrink  from  the  idea  of  dissolution,  and  on 
the  other  makes  me  in  love  with  the  signs  of  it  here,  in 
what  must  end  before  myself.  It  is  natural  to  feel  a 
deeper  joy  in  our  perishable  existence  when,  with  open 
eyes  to  all  its  frailty,  we  feel  it  holding  out  within 
ourselves.  When  death  severs  us  from  external  things 
they  live  on  without  us.  But  at  the  fall  of  the  leaf 
vegetation  stops  and  dies,  while  we  remain  to  watch  its 
generations  come  and  ^o.  Autumn  is  delicious  because 
for  us  another  spring  will  come. 

So  far  as  Nature  herself  is  concerned  spring  is  more 
beautiful;  but  to  man,  as  he  has  made  himself,  autumn 
is  sweeter.  Ah,  breaking  buds  and  singing  birds,  and 
opening    flowers!     Returning    warmth     that    quickens 


LETTER  XXV.  93 

life,  protecting-  shade  of  dim,  secluded  nooks,  luxuriant 
herbage,  wilding  fruits,  genial  nights  that  leave  one 
free  to  wander!  Ah,  happy,  dreaded  time  to  me,  all 
vehement  and  restless  as  I  am!  I  find  more  calm  in 
the  eventide  of  the  year;  the  season  when  all  seems 
ending  is  the  only  one  in  which  I  sleep  in  peace  in  the 
world  of  men. 


LETTER  XXV. 

FoNTAlNEBLEAU,  November  6th  (II.). 

I  am  leaving  my  woods.  I  had  some  notion  of  staying 
here  for  the  winter,  but  if  I  want  to  get  rid  finally  of 
the  business  that  brought  me  to  Paris  I  cannot  any 
longer  neglect  it.  They  keep  sending  for  me,  urging 
me,  dinning  it  into  me  that  since  I  calmly  stay  on  in 
the  country,  I  can  apparently  afford  not  to  have  it  settled 
at  all.  They  have  little  idea  how  I  live  here;  if  they 
had,  they  would  say  just  the  reverse;  they  would  think 
it  was  for  the  sake  of  economy. 

Even  apart  from  that,  I  fancy  I  should  have  decided 
to  leave  the  forest.  By  great  good  luck  I  have  hitherto 
remained  undiscovered.  Smoke  would  betray  me;  I 
could  not  escape  the  notice  of  woodcutters,  charcoal- 
burners  and  sportsmen ;  I  do  not  forget  that  I  am  in  a 
well-patrolled  district.  Besides  I  have  not  been  able  to 
make  the  arrangements  that  would  be  necessary  for 
living  here  all  the  year  round;  I  might  not  quite  know 
what  to  do  with  myself  during  the  deep  snows,  the 
thaw^s  and  cold  rains. 


94  OBERMANN. 

So  I  am  leaving  the  forest  with  its  wandering,  pensive 
life,  and  its  faint  though  restful  suggestion  of  a  land  of 
liberty. 

You  ask  me  what  I  think  of  Fontainebleau  apart 
from  the  memories  that  give  me  a  special  interest  in  it, 
and  from  my  mode  of  life  during  this  visit. 

The  district  as  a  whole  is  no  great  things,  and  it 
would  not  take  much  to  spoil  the  best  corners  of  it. 
The  impressions  produced  by  places  which  Nature  has 
not  invested  with  grandeur  are  inevitably  variable,  and 
in  some  sense  precarious.  It  takes  twenty  centuries  to 
alter  the  look  of  an  Alp,  but  a  wind  from  the  north,  the 
felling  of  a  few  trees,  a  new  plantation,  or  comparison 
with  other  places,  are  quite  enough  to  transform  the 
appearance  of  an  ordinary  landscape.  A  forest  full  of 
fallow  deer  suffers  much  from  their  removal,  and  a 
place  that  is  merely  pleasant  suffers  still  more  when 
seen  through  older  eyes. 

What  I  like  about  it  is  the  great  extent  of  the  forest, 
the  magnificence  of  the  woods  in  certain  parts  of  it, 
the  solitude  of  its  tiny  valleys,  the  freedom  of  its  tracts 
of  sand,  its  wealth  of  beech  and  birch;  I  like,  too,  the 
trim  and  comfortable  appearance  of  the  town,  the  very 
considerable  advantage  of  never  being  muddy,  and  the 
no  less  rare  one  of  seeing  little  poverty.  Then  there 
are  fine  roads,  a  great  choice  ot  byways,  and  a  host  of 
accidental  features;  though  these,  to  tell  the  truth,  lack 
prominence  and  variety.  But  as  a  place  of  residence  it 
could  only  be  really  congenial  to  some  one  who  had 
never  known  or  imagined  anything  better.  One  could 
not  seriously  compare  these  low-lying  regions  with  any 
scenery  of  real  grandeur;  they  have  neither  waves  nor 


LETTER  XXV.  95 

torrents,  nor  anything  to  surprise  or  charm — a  mere 
monotonous  surface  which  would  have  no  beauty  left 
if  its  woods  were  felled ;  a  dull  and  commonplace  medley 
of  little  tracts  of  heather,  little  gorges,  and  paltry, 
regular  cliffs;  a  land  of  plains,  where  one  can  find 
plenty  of  men  greedy  for  the  lot  they  mean  to  win,  but 
not  one  satisfied  with  that  which  he  has. 

The  calm  of  a  place  like  this  is  only  the  silence  of  a 
brief  spell  of  charm;  its  solitude  is  not  wild  enough. 
To  create  the  spell  there  must  be  a  clear  evening  sky; 
or  a  dim  yet  settled  autumn  sky,  with  the  forenoon  sun 
shining  through  the  haze.  There  must  be  deer  and 
other  woodland  creatures  to  haunt  the  solitudes,  filling 
them  with  romantic  interest — the  sound  of  the  stags 
belling  near  and  far  in  the  night,  the  squirrel  leaping 
from  branch  to  branch  of  the  lovely  woods  of  Tillas 
with  its  chatter  of  alarm.  Ah,  lonely  cries  of  living 
creatures  !  Ye  do  not  people  the  solitudes,  as  the  trite 
phrase  wrongly  puts  it,  you  make  them  more  impressive 
and  mysterious;  it  is  through  you  that  they  become 
romantic. 


THIRD   YEAR. 

LETTER  XXVI. 

Paris,  February  <)th  (HI.)- 

I  must  tell  you  all  my  weaknesses  so  that  you  may 
help  me  out,  for  I  am  in  a  hopeless  muddle.  Some- 
times I  feel  sorry  for  myself,  and  sometimes  just  the 
reverse. 

When  I  meet  a  carriage  driven  by  a  woman  anything 
like  my  ideal,  I  go  close  alongside  the  horse  until 
the  wheel  almost  touches  me;  then  I  drop  my  eyes, 
clutch  the  lamp-bracket  and  bend  a  little,  and  the  wheel 
goes  past. 

Once  I  was  dreaming  like  this,  looking  hard,  though 
not  exactly  staring.  I  had  forgotten  the  wheel,  so  she 
was  obliged  to  pull  up.  She  was  both  young  and 
womanly,  verging  on  the  beautiful,  and  exceedingly 
gracious.  She  reined  in  her  horse,  and  seemed  to 
check  a  rising  smile.  I  still  kept  my  eyes  on  her,  and 
found  myself  smiling  in  reply,  heedless  of  the  horse 
and  the  wheel.  I  am  sure  my  gaze  was  even  then  full 
of  sadness.  The  horse  cleared  me,  and  she  leaned  over 
to  see  if  the  wheel  had  not  touched  me.  1  still  dreamed 
on,  but  directly  after  I  stumbled  over  those  bundles  of 
firewood  that  fruiterers  make  up  to  sell  to  the  poor,  and 

96 


LETTER  XXVII.  97 

the  spell  was  broken.  Is  it  not  high  time  to  display 
firmness,  to  be  oblivious,  or  rather,  to  be  eng^rossed 
only  in  things  meet  for  manhood  ?  Ought  I  not  to 
leave  behind  these  puerile  fancies  that  make  me  so 
weak  and  weary  ? 

I  should  be  only  too  glad  to  get  rid  of  them ;  but  I 
do  not  know  what  to  put  in  their  place;  and  if  I  say  to 
myself,  I  really  must  be  a  man  at  last,  I  find  myself 
wholly  at  a  loss.  In  your  next  letter,  tell  me  what  it 
is  to  be  a  man. 


LETTER  XXVII. 

Paris,  Febriia'y  iil'i  (HI.)- 

I  cannot  make  out  at  all  what  people  mean  by  Self- 
love  \amour-propre\.  They  condemn  it,  and  yet  they 
say  one  ought  to  have  it.  From  this  I  might  have 
inferred  that  the  love  of  self  and  of  proprieties  is  good 
and  necessary,  that  it  is  inseparable  from  a  sense  of 
honour,  that  its  excess  alone  is  pernicious,  as  all  excess 
must  be,  and  that  in  the  case  of  actions  prompted  by 
self-love,  one  ought  to  consider  whether  they  are  good 
or  bad,  and  not  to  censure  them  solely  on  the  ground 
that  self-love  seems  to  have  prompted  them. 

That  is  not  what  one  finds  in  practice.  One  must 
have  self-love — or  be  a  servile  toady  [picd-plaf,  flat- 
footj,  and  yet  one  must  never  act  from  self-love  ; 
things  good  in  themselves,  or  at  any  rate  indiff"erent, 
become  bad  when  self-love  instigates  them.     You  are 


98  OBERMANN. 

more  used  to  society  than  I  am ;  unravel  its  mysteries 
for  me,  please.  I  fancy  you  will  find  this  question  easier 
to  answer  than  the  one  in  my  last  letter.  Moreover, 
as  you  have  no  patience  with  the  abstract,  here  is  a 
concrete  instance,  so  that  the  problem  to  be  solved 
may  be  one  of  practical  experience. 

A  visitor  was  recently  staying  with  some  well-to-do 
friends  in  the  country  ;  he  considered  it  a  duty  to  his 
friends  and  himself  not  to  lower  himself  in  the  estima- 
tion of  the  servants,  and  he  assumed  that  appearances 
would  be  everything'  with  that  class  of  people.  He 
received  and  paid  no  calls,  but  one  solitary  individual, 
a  relative  who  chanced  to  turn  up,  happened  to  be  an 
oddity,  and  badly  off  to  boot,  and  his  eccentric  manner 
and  somewhat  common  appearance  were  bound  to  give 
the  servants  the  impression  that  he  was  a  low  kind  of 
person.  One  does  not  talk  to  servants  ;  one  cannot 
enlighten  them  by  a  word,  or  enter  into  explanations  ; 
they  do  not  know  who  you  are,  and  they  see  none  of 
your  acquaintances  except  a  man  who  is  far  from 
commanding  their  respect,  and  at  whom  they  may 
indulge  in  a  laugh.  The  gentleman  I  refer  to  was 
therefore  greatly  annoyed.  He  was  blamed  for  it  all 
the  more  because  it  was  a  relative  who  provoked  it. 
There  you  have  a  reputation  for  self-love  established  at 
once,  and  yet  in  my  opinion  it  was  undeserved. 


LETTER  XXVIII.  99 

LETTER    XXVIII. 

Paris,  Febniary  zjih  (III.). 

You  could  not  have  asked  me  at  a  more  opportune 
moment  for  the  origin  of  the  term  pied-plat.  This 
morning  I  knew  no  more  about  it  than  you,  and  I  fear 
I  am  not  much  wiser  this  evening,  though  I  have  been 
told  what  I  am  about  to  tell  you. 

The  Gauls  submitted  to  the  Romans,  therefore  they 
were  meant  for  servants ;  the  Franks  invaded  the 
Gauls,  therefore  they  were  born  to  conquer  :  startling 
conclusions  !  Now  the  Gauls  or  Welsh  had  very  flat 
feet,  and  the  Franks  had  high-arched  ones.  The 
Franks  despised  all  these  flat-feet,  these  conquered 
serfs  and  clod-hoppers,  and  now  when  the  descendants 
of  the  Franks  are  in  danger  of  having  to  obey  the 
children  of  the  Gauls,  a  flat-foot  is  still  a  man  meant 
for  a  servant.  I  do  not  remember  where  I  was  reading 
lately  that  there  is  not  a  single  family  in  France  that 
can  claim  with  any  show  of  reason  to  be  descended 
from  that  northern  horde  which  took  an  already  con- 
quered country  that  its  masters  could  not  keep.  But 
origins  which  elude  the  noble  art  of  heraldry  are 
demonstrated  by  existing  facts.  In  the  most  hetero- 
geneous mob  one  can  easily  pick  out  the  grand-nephews 
of  the  Scythians,^  and  all  the  flat-feet  recognize  their 
masters.     I    have   not  the  faintest   recollection  of  the 

'  Some  erudite  gentlemen  allege  that  the  Franks  and  the  Russians 
are  the  same  race. 


loo  OBERMANN. 

more  or  less  aristocratic  outlines  of  your  foot,  but  I 
warn  you  that  mine  is  that  of  the  conquerors  ;  it  is 
for  you  to  see  whether  you  can  still  address  me  in 
familiar  style. 


LETTER  XXIX. 

Paris,  March  2nd{\\\.). 

I  cannot  endure  a  country  where  the  beggar  must 
enforce  his  plea  in  the  name  of  Heaven.  What  a  people 
is  that  to  whom  man  for  his  own  sake  counts  for 
nothing! 

When  some  forlorn  creature  says  to  me:  "May  the 
good  Virgin  bless  you!" — when  he  thus  voices  his 
pathetic  gratitude,  I  am  far  from  hugging  myself  in 
secret  pride  because  I  am  free  from  the  bondage  of 
superstitions  and  from  those  anti-religious  prejudices 
which  also  sway  the  minds  of  men.  Nay,  my  head 
droops  involuntarily,  my  eyes  are  fixed  on  the  ground, 
and  I  am  distressed  and  humbled  to  see  the  mind  of 
man  so  vast  and  so  obtuse. 

When  it  happens  to  be  some  feeble  creature,  begging 
all  day  long  with  the  wail  of  tedious  suffering  in  the 
heart  of  a  crowded  city,  I  am  roused  to  indignation, 
and  could  find  it  in  my  heart  to  roughly  handle  those 
who  go  out  of  their  way  to  avoid  him,  who  see  him  only 
to  ignore  him.  I  am  chafed  to  rawness  in  such  a  mob 
of  sordid  tyrants.  I  take  a  just  and  manly  delight  in 
fancying  an  avenging  conflagration  annihilating  those 
cities  and  all  their  handiwork,  their  petty  crafts,  their 


LETTER  XXX.  loi 

worthless  books,  their  studios,  forges  and  wood-yards. 
And  yet  do  I  know  what  should,  what  can  be  done?  I 
have  not  the  least  idea. 

I  look  at  the  facts  of  life,  and  am  sunk  in  doubt; 
everything'  is  wrapped  in  gloom.  I  will  resign  the  very 
idea  of  a  better  world.  Frustrated  and  weary,  I  only 
bewail  my  barren  existence  and  chance  desires.  Know- 
ing not  where  I  am,  I  wait  for  the  day  that  will  end 
everything  and  explain  nothing. 

At  the  dress-circle  entrance  to  the  theatre  the  poor 
fellow  did  not  find  a  single  person  to  give  him  anything; 
they  had  nothing  to  give,  and  the  doorkeeper  who  was 
looking  after  the  smart  people  roughly  ordered  him  off. 
He  went  towards  the  booking-office  for  the  pit,  where 
the  doorkeeper,  with  a  less  imposing  function,  pretended 
not  to  see  him.  I  still  kept  my  eyes  on  him.  At  last  a 
man  who  looked  to  me  like  a  shop-assistant,  and  who 
already  had  in  his  hand  the  coin  he  needed  for  his  ticket, 
refused  the  beggar  courteously,  then  hesitated,  felt  his 
pockets  but  found  nothing,  and  finally  handed  over  to 
him  the  silver  coin  and  turned  away.  The  beggar 
realized  the  sacrifice;  watched  him  going  away,  and 
stepped  out  as  best  he  could,  impelled  to  try  and 
overtake  him. 


LETTER  XXX. 

Paris,  March  1th  (III.)- 

The  day  was  dull  and  somewhat  cold ;  I  was  feeling 
depressed  and  was  taking  a  walk  because  I  could  do 
nothing  else.      I  passed  some  flowers  set  out  on  a  wall 


I02  OBERMANN. 

breast-high.  A  single  jonquil  was  in  bloom.  It  is  the 
strongest  expression  of  desire,  and  it  was  the  first 
fragrance  of  the  year.  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  all  the 
happiness  meant  for  man.  That  indescribable  harmony 
of  creation,  the  vision  of  the  ideal  world,  was  rounded 
to  completeness  within  me ;  I  have  never  felt  anything 
so  sudden  and  inspiring.  I  should  be  at  a  loss  to  say 
what  form,  what  likeness,  what  subtle  association  it  was 
that  suggested  to  me  in  this  flower  an  illimitable  beauty, 
the  expression,  the  refinement,  and  the  pose  of  a  happy, 
artless  woman  in  all  the  grace  and  splendour  of  the 
days  of  love.  I  cannot  picture  to  myself  that  power, 
that  vastness  which  nothing  concrete  can  display ;  that 
form  which  nothing  can  reveal ;  that  conception  of  a 
better  world  which  may  be  felt,  but  never  found  in 
Nature;  that  heavenly  radiance  which  we  think  to 
grasp,  which  captivates  and  enthralls  us,  and  which  is 
but  an  intangible  phantom,  wandering  and  astray  in 
depths  of  gloom. 

But  what  man  could  catch  a  single  glimpse  of  that 
phantom,  that  vague  and  lovely  vision,  and  ever  forget 
it,  mighty  as  it  is  with  all  the  charm  of  the  unknown, 
essential  to  us  in  our  miseries,  and  natural  to  our  over- 
weighted hearts  ? 

When  the  blank  resistance  of  a  mere  sordid  brute 
force  fetters  and  entangles  us,  binding  us  down  and 
keeping  us  sunk  in  doubts,  loathings,  puerilities,  and 
weak  or  cruel  follies ;  when  we  know  nothing  and 
possess  nothing  ;  when  all  things  pass  before  us  like 
the  weird  figures  of  an  absurd  and  hideous  dream  ; 
who  can  still  within  us  the  craving  for  another  order 
and  another  nature  ? 


LETTER  XXXI.  103 

Is  that  light  nothing  but  a  capricious  gleam  ?  In 
the  all-pervading  darkness  it  entices  and  overcomes  us; 
we  yield  to  it  and  follow;  even  if  it  betrays  us,  at  any 
rate  it  enlightens  and  inspires.  We  give  reins  to 
fancy,  and  see  a  world  of  peace,  order,  unity,  and 
justice,  in  which  all  men  feel,  desire,  and  enjoy  with  the 
restraint  that  makes  pleasure  and  with  the  simplicity 
that  enhances  it.  When  one  has  had  a  glimpse  of 
delights  that  cannot  be  tarnished  or  destroyed,  when 
one  has  imagined  unstinted  ecstasy, '  how  vain  and 
pitiful  seem  many  of  the  cares,  the  longings,  and  the 
pleasures  of  the  visible  world.  Everything  feels  cold 
and  hollow;  we  languish  in  a  place  of  exile,  and  from 
the  core  of  our  loathings  we  set  our  outweary  heart 
on  its  imagined  homeland.  Everything  that  occupies 
and  detains  it  here  is  then  only  a  degrading  chain  ;  we 
should  smile  in  pity  if  we  were  not  overwhelmed  with 
grief.  And  when  imagination  reverts  once  more  to 
those  better  regions  and  compares  a  reasonable  world 
with  the  world  in  which  everything  over-taxes  and  chafes 
us,  we  no  longer  feel  sure  whether  that  glorious  vision 
is  a  mere  happy  fancy  which  distracts  our  thoughts  from 
things  as  they  are,  or  whether  social  life  is  not  itself  one 
lonof  distraction. 


LETTER  XXXI. 

Paris,  March  30///  (III.). 

I  take  great  pains  in  little  things,  and  in  such  matters 
have  an  eye  to  my  interests.  I  never  neglect  the  details 
of  anything,  those  niceties  which  would  evoke  a  smile 


I04  OBERMANN. 

of  pity  in  practical  men.  If  serious  affairs  seem  to  me 
trifling-,  trifles  on  the  other  hand  are  precious  to  me. 
I  must  try  to  account  for  these  pecuHarities,  and  see 
whether  I  am  naturally  precise  and  faddy. 

If  it  were  a  question  of  really  important  concerns,  it 
I  were  responsible  for  the  welfare  of  a  nation,  I  know 
I  should  rise  to  the  occasion  under  the  heavy  and  noble 
burden.  But  I  am  ashamed  of  the  concerns  of  every- 
day life  ;  the  cares  of  men  all  seem  to  me  but  childish 
worries.  Many  great  schemes  I  can  only  regard  as 
wretched  encumbrances,  in  which  man  would  not  seek 
his  g-reatness,  if  he  were  not  weakened  and  confused 
by  a  delusive  ideal. 

I  tell  you  in  all  sincerity,  if  I  look  at  things  thus  it  is 
because  I  cannot  help  it  ;  I  am  not  bigoted  with  empty 
conceit  on  the  matter.  I  have  many  a  time  wanted  to 
regard  things  differently,  but  have  never  succeeded. 
What  shall  I  say  ?  More  wretched  than  others,  I 
suffer  among  them  because  they  are  weak  ;  and  even 
if  I  were  naturally  stronger  than  they,  I  should  suffer 
all  the  same,  because  they  have  weakened  me  to  their 
level. 

If  you  only  knew  how  engrossed  I  am  in  trifles  that 
one  should  dispense  with  at  the  age  of  twelve,  how 
fond  I  am  of  those  discs  of  hard  clean  wood  which 
serve  for  plates  in  the  mountains  ;  how  I  save  up  old 
newspapers,  not  to  be  re-read,  but  because  one  can 
wrap  things  up  in  soft  paper  !  How  at  the  sight  of  a 
straight  smooth  board  I  cannot  but  exclaim,  "  Is  not 
that  fine?"  While  a  well-cut  jewel  scarcely  seems  to 
me  worth  notice,  and  a  string  of  diamonds  makes  me 
shrug  my  shoulders. 


LETTER  XXXI.  105 

I  only  recognize  immediate  utilities  ;  indirect  ad- 
vantages do  not  readily  occur  to  me  ;  I  should  feel  the 
loss  of  ten  louis  less  acutely  than  that  of  a  handy  knife 
I  had  long  carried  about  with  me. 

You  used  to  tell  me  long  ago  "Be  sure  not  to 
neglect  your  affairs  and  let  slip  what  you  have  left ; 
you  are  not  the  sort  of  man  to  make  money."  I  do 
not  think  you  will  have  changed  your  mind  even  3-et. 

Am  I  then  in  bondage  to  trifles  ?  Shall  I  assign 
these  peculiarities  to  a  taste  for  simplicity  and  to  revolt 
from  boredom,  or  are  they  a  mere  childish  craze,  the 
sign  of  incapacity  for  social,  manly,  and  generous 
interests  ?  When  I  hear  so  many  over-grown  children, 
shrivelled  by  age  and  self-interest,  talking  of  their 
serious  occupations,  when  I  glance  with  disgust  at  my 
own  fettered  life,  when  I  consider  that  nothing  of  all 
the  human  race  requires  is  being  produced,  then  it  is 
that  a  frown  gathers  on  my  brow,  the  light  fades  from 
my  face,  and  an  involuntary  quiver  trembles  on  my 
lips.  My  eyes  grow  sunken  and  discouraged,  and  I 
look  like  a  man  worn-out  with  sleepless  nights.  A 
person  of  some  importance  once  said  to  me,  "You 
must  be  hard-worked  !"  Luckily  I  did  not  laugh.  My 
embarrassment  did  not  tell  of  diligence. 

All  these  people  who  essentially  are  nobodies,  yet 
whom  I  have  to  meet  sometimes,  compensate  me  a 
little  for  the  ennui  inflicted  by  their  towns.  The  more 
sensible  among  them  I  like  fairly  well  ;  they  interest 
me. 


io6  OBERMANN. 


LETTER    XXXII. 


Paris,  Ap-il  29///  (HI.)- 

Some  time  agfo  in  the  Library  I  heard  the  celebrated 

L addressed  by  name   close   beside   me.     Another 

time  I  happened  to  be  at  the  same  table,  and  as  there 
was  no  ink,  I  passed  him  my  inkstand.  This  morning' 
I  noticed  him  as  I  entered,  and  seated  myself  near  him. 
He  very  kindly  showed  me  some  idylls  he  had  dis- 
covered in  an  old  Latin  manuscript  by  a  little-known 
Greek  author.  I  copied  the  shortest  only,  as  it  was 
nearly  closing-time. 


LETTER    XXXIII. 

Paris,  iMay  -jth  (III.). 

"If  I  am  not  mistaken,  my  idylls  do  not  g"reatly 
interest  you,"  remarked  to  me  yesterday  the  author  of 
whom  I  told  you.  He  was  looking-  out  for  me,  and 
beckoned  when  I  arrived.  I  was  trying  to  find  a  reply 
that  would  be  polite  and  yet  true,  but  he  kept  his  eyes 
on  me  and  spared  me  the  trouble  by  adding  at  once — 
"  Perhaps  you  would  prefer  this  moral  or  philosophical 
fragment,  which  has  been  attributed  to  Aristippus,^  and 
is  mentioned  by  Varro,-  but  has  since  been  considered 

^  Greek  philosopher,  c.  390  B.C.;  puj)il  of  Socrates  and  founder  of 
hedonistic  philosophy. — Tk. 

-  Probably  M.  Terentius  Varro,  116- 125  B.C.,  said  to  have  been  the 
most  learned  of  all  the  Romans. — Tr. 


LETTER  XXXIII.  107 

lost.  It  was  not  so,  however,  for  it  was  translated  in 
the  fifteenth  century  into  the  French  of  that  period. 
I  have  found  it  in  manuscript,  bound  up  with  a  set  of 
Plutarch,  in  a  copy  printed  by  Amyot  that  nobody  had 
used,  because  many  of  its  leaves  were  missing." 

I  admitted  that,  not  being-  a  scholar,  I  really  had  the 
misfortune  to  prefer  facts  to  words,  and  was  therefore 
much  more  interested  in  the  opinions  of  Aristippus  than 
in  an  eclogue,  were  it  even  by  Bion  or  Theocritus.^ 

There  is  no  sufficient  proof,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  that 
this  little  document  is  really  by  Aristippus,  and  it  is 
due  to  his  memory  that  one  should  not  attribute  to 
him  what  he  would  perhaps  repudiate.  But  if  it  is  by 
him,  then  that  noted  Greek,  as  grossly  misjudged  as 
Epicurus,  set  down  as  an  eflfeminate  voluptuary  or  the 
advocate  of  a  loose  philosophy,  had  after  all  the  strict- 
ness required  by  prudence  and  order,  the  only  strictness 
meet  for  man,  who  was  born  to  enjoy  his  brief  passage 
through  the  world. 

I  have  turned  its  occasionally  choice  though  anti- 
quated style  into  modern  French  as  best  I  could.  In 
several  passages  it  cost  me  some  trouble  to  get  at 
its  meaning.  Here  then  is  the  whole  piece,  with  the 
exception  of  the  greater  part  of  two  lines  that  could 
not  be  made  out.  Its  title  in  the  manuscript  is  The 
Manual  of  Pseusophancs. 

The  Manual. 

Suppose  you  have  just  awakened  dull  and  depressed,  already 
weary  of  the  coming  day.    You  face  life  with  aversion;  it  seems 

'  Greek  pastoral  poets  of  third  century  B.C.;  llie  latter  especially 
famous  for  his  Idylls. — Tr. 

10 


loS  OBERMANN. 

profitless  and  burdensome  ;  an  hour  later  it  will  seem  more 
endurable;  is  the  change  then  in  life? 

It  has  no  definite  quality;  everything  man  experiences  is  in 
his  heart,  eveiy thing  he  knows  is  in  his  thought.  He  is  wholly 
self-contained. 

What  losses  can  thus  overwhelm  you .''  What  have  you  to 
lose?  Does  anything  belong  to  you  outside  yourself?  What 
do  things  perishable  matter  ?  Everything  passes  away,  except 
the  justice  veiled  behind  the  transient  show  of  things.  Every- 
thing is  profitless  for  man  if  he  does  not  advance  with  calm 
and  steady  pace  according  to  the  laws  of  intelligence. 

Everything  around  you  is  restless  and  threatening  ;  if  you 
give  way  to  fears,  your  anxieties  will  be  endless.  You  cannot 
possess  what  is  beyond  possession,  and  you  will  lose  your  life, 
which  does  belong  to  you.  Whatever  happens  is  gone  for  ever. 
Events  occur  in  an  endless  circle  of  necessity;  they  vanish  like 
an  unforeseen  and  fleeting  shadow. 

What  are  your  evils?  Imaginary  fears,  fancied  needs,  the 
frustrations  of  a  day.  Weak  slave  !  You  cling  to  what  has  no 
existence,  you  follow  phantoms.  Leave  to  the  deluded  crowd 
whatever  is  illusive,  unprofitable,  and  transitory.  Take  account 
only  of  intelligence,  which  is  the  source  of  order  in  the  world, 
and  of  man  who  is  its  instrument — of  intelligence  to  be  followed 
and  man  to  be  aided. 

Intelligence  wrestles  with  the  resistance  of  matter,  and  with 
the  blind  laws  whose  unknown  consequences  used  to  be  called 
chance.  When  the  strength  bestowed  upon  you  has  followed 
intelligence,  when  you  have  served  the  order  of  the  world,  what 
would  you  more  ?  You  have  acted  according  to  your  nature ; 
and  what  is  there  better  for  a  being  who  feels  and  knows,  than 
to  exist  according  to  his  nature. 

Daily,  as  you  are  reborn  to  life,  call  to  mind  that  you  have 
resolved  not  to  pass  through  the  world  in  vain.  The  world  is 
travelling  to  its  goal.  But  you,  you  stand  still,  you  lose  ground, 
you  are  still  drifting  and  languid.  Can  the  days  gone  by  be 
lived  again  in  happier  times?     Life  rests  wholly  on  that  present 


LETTER  XXXIII,  109 

which  you  neglect  for  the  sake  of  the  future ;  the  present  alone 
is  time,  the  future  is  but  its  reflection. 

Live  in  yourself,  and  seek  what  does  not  perish.  Examine 
what  it  is  that  our  heedless  passions  seek.  Among  so  many 
things,  is  there  one  to  suffice  the  heart  of  man.''  Intelligence 
only  finds  in  itself  the  food  of  its  life;  be  just  and  strong.  No 
one  knows  the  morrow ;  you  will  never  find  peace  in  external 
things;  seek  it  in  your  heart.  Force  is  the  rule  of  Nature;  will 
is  power;  energy  in  suffering  is  better  than  apathy  in  pleasure. 
One  who  obeys  and  suffers  is  often  greater  than  one  who  enjoys 
or  commands.  What  you  fear  is  vain,  and  what  you  desire  is 
vain  too.  The  only  thing  that  can  profit  you  is  to  be  what 
Nature  intended. 

You  are  made  up  of  intelligence  and  matter.  The  world 
itself  is  nothing  more.  Bodies  are  modified  by  a  presiding 
harmony,  and  the  whole  tends  to  perfection  by  the  continual 
improvement  of  its  different  parts.  That  law  of  the  Universe 
is  also  the  law  of  individuals. 

Thus  everything  is  good  when  intelligence  directs  it,  and 
everything  is  bad  when  intelligence  forsakes  it.  Use  the  good 
things  of  the  body,  but  with  the  prudence  which  makes  them 
subservient  to  order.  A  pleasure  enjoyed  in  accordance  with 
Nature  is  better  than  a  privation  she  does  not  require,  and  the 
most  immaterial  action  of  our  life  is  less  harmful  than  the 
struggle  of  those  superfluous  virtues  which  check  the  spread 
of  wisdom. 

There  is  for  us  no  other  morality  than  that  of  man's  own  heart, 
no  other  knowledge  or  wisdom  than  the  recognition  of  its  needs 
and  a  true  estimate  of  the  means  of  happiness.  Have  nothing 
to  do  with  useless  knowledge,  supernatural  systems,  and  mystic 
doctrines.  Leave  to  other  intelligences  of  a  higher  order  or  a 
different  type  what  is  remote  from  yourself.  What  cannot  be 
clearly  discerned  by  your  intelligence  was  never  intended  for  it. 

Comfort,  enlighten,  and  support  your  fellows.  The  part  you 
are  to  play  is  fi.\ed  by  the  place  you  fill  in  the  vast  scale  of 


no  OBERMANN. 

being.  Recognize  and  follow  the  laws  of  manhood,  and  you 
will  help  other  men  to  know  and  follow  them.  Ponder  and 
show  to  them  the  centre  and  end  of  things ;  let  them  see  the 
cause  of  what  astounds  them,  the  instability  of  what  disturbs 
them,  the  nothingness  of  what  allures  them. 

Do  not  hold  aloof  from  the  rest  of  the  world;  always  take 
account  of  the  Universe,  and  be  mindful  of  justice.  You  will 
have  spent  your  life  worthily  and  played  the  man. 


LETTER  XXXIV. 

EXTRACT    FRO.M    TWO    LETTERS. 

Faris,  /line  2nd  and  \th  (III.). 

Actors  of  the  front  rank  occasionally  visit  Bordeaux, 
Marseilles,  and  Lyons,  but  to  see  a  good  play  you  must 
go  to  Paris.  Tragedy  and  genuine  comedy  require  an 
ensemble  that  cannot  be  found  elsewhere.  The  per- 
formance of  high-class  plays  becomes  tame  or  even 
ridiculous  if  they  are  not  acted  with  almost  perfect 
skill;  they  afford  no  gratification  to  a  man  of  taste 
when  he  cannot  applaud  In  them  a  worthy  and  faithful 
representation  of  natural  expression.  In  plays  of  the 
second-rate  comic  order  it  is  sufficient  if  the  leading 
actor  has  real  talent.  Burlesque  does  not  require  the 
same  strict  harmony;  it  even  admits  of  incongruities, 
because  it  is  itself  based  on  a  fine  sense  of  incongruity; 
but  when  the  subject  is  heroic  one  cannot  tolerate  faults 
that  raise  a  laugh  in  the  pit. 

Some    spectators    are    so    happy    as    not    to    need    a 


LETTER  XXXIV.  iii 

realistic  setting-;  they  always  fancy  the  thing  is  real, 
and  whatever  the  acting  they  are  sure  to  weep  at  sighs 
or  a  dagger.  But  people  not  given  to  weeping  would 
hardly  go  to  the  play  to  hear  what  they  could  read  at 
home;  they  go  to  see  it  interpreted,  and  to  compare 
one  actor's  treatment  of  a  passage  with  another's. 

I  have  seen  at  intervals  of  a  few  days  the  difficult 
part  of  Mahomet  played  by  the  only  three  actors  who 

are  equal  to  attempting  it.     La  R was  badly  got  up, 

and  spouted  away  with  too  much  animation  and  too 
little  dignity,  exaggerating-  the  final  speech  most  of  all, 
and  only  pleased  me  in  three  or  four  passages  where  I 
recognized  the  able  tragedian  one  admires  in  parts  that 
suit  him  better. 

S.    P plays    the    part    well;    he    has    studied    it 

thoroughly,  and  interprets  it  satisfactorily,  but  he  is 
always  the  actor,  never  Mahomet. 

B seemed  to  me  really  to  understand  this  wonder- 
ful part.  His  manner,  in  itself  remarkable,  seemed 
just  that  of  an  Oriental  prophet,  though  perhaps  not  so 
great,  so  stately,  so  imposing,  as  befitted  a  conquering 
lawgiver,  a  divinely-sent  messenger  ordained  to  con- 
vince by  astounding,  to  subdue,  to  triumph,  to  reign. 
True,  Mahomet — 

"Charge  des  soins  de  Fautel  et  du  trone  " 

was  not  so  ostentatious  as  Voltaire  has  made  him,  nor 
was  he  such  a  knave.  But  the  actor  I  refer  to  is 
perhaps  not  exactly  the  Mahomet  of  history,  though 
one  might  reasonably  expect  him  to  be  the  Mahomet 
of  the  tragedy.     He  satisfied  me  better  than  the  other 


112  OBERMANN. 

two,  however,  thoug-h  the  second  has  a  finer  presence, 

and  the  first  greater   resources  on  the  whole.      B 

alone  was  tactful  in  checking-  the  imprecation  of  Pal- 
myra.     S.  P drew  his  sivord,  and   I  feared  a  burst 

of  laughter.     La  R put  his  hand  on  it,  and  cowed 

Palmyra  with  his  look;  what  then  was  the  use  of 
putting  his   hand  on  his  scimitar — that  threat  against 

a  woman,  against  Palmyra,  young-  and  beloved  ?    B 

was  not  even  armed;  I  liked  that  to  begin  with.  Then 
whan  he  was  Vv^eary  of  listening  to  Palmyra  and  wished 
to  silence  her,  his  piercing,  terrible  glance  seemed  to 
command  her  in  the  name  of  God,  and  compelled  her 
to  stand  wavering-  between  the  dread  inspired  by  her 
former  faith  and  the  despair  she  felt  when  love  and 
conscience  were  deceived. 

How  can  one  seriously  assert  that  the  mode  of 
representation  is  a  mere  matter  of  convention  ?  It  is 
a  mistake  akin  to  the  false  application  usually  given 
to  the  saying,  "There's  no  accounting  for  tastes." 

What  did  M.  R.  prove  by  singing-  to  the  same  notes, 
"  I  have  lost  my  Eurydice,"  and  "  I  have  found  my 
Eurydice?"  Admitting  that  the  same  notes  may  be 
used  to  express  the  highest  joy  or  the  bitterest  sorrow, 
is  the  significance  of  the  music  entirely  contained  in  the 
notes?  In  substituting  the  word  found  for  lost,  in 
replacing  sorrow  by  joy,  though  you  keep  the  same 
notes,  you  completely  transform  the  secondary  signs  of 
expression.  Even  a  foreigner  who  understood  neither 
of  the  words  would  infallibly  perceive  the  difference. 
These  secondary  signs  also  form  part  of  the  music;  one 
might  say  the  particular  note  is  immaterial. 

This  play  \Mahomct^  is  one  of  Voltaire's  finest;  but 


LETTER  XXXIV.  113 

perhaps  for  an  audience  of  different  nationality  he  would 
not  have  made  the  conquering"  prophet  the  lover  of 
Palmyra.  True,  the  love  of  Mahomet  is  manly,  im- 
perious, somewhat  fierce  even;  he  does  not  love  like 
Titus, ^  but  it  would  have  been  better  had  he  not  loved 
at  all.  Mahomet's  fondness  for  women  is  well  known, 
but  it  is  probable  that  in  his  great  ambitious  heart, 
after  so  many  years  of  deception,  retreat,  peril,  and 
triumph,  it  was  not  the  fondness  of  love. 

This  love  for  Palmyra  is  not  in  keeping-  with  his 
noble  destiny  and  his  genius.  Love  is  out  of  a  place 
in  a  stern  heart  engrossed  in  its  schemes,  aged  by  the 
hunger  for  power — a  heart  to  which  pleasures  would 
be  impossible  without  forgetfulness,  and  even  happiness 
would  only  be  a  distraction. 

What  signifies  his  "Love  alone  consoles  me?" 
Who  compelled  him  to  seek  the  throne  of  the  Orient, 
to  leave  his  wives  and  his  humble  independence  for 
the  censer,  the  scepfre,  and  arms?  "  Love  alone  con- 
soles me!"  Was  it  then  so  dull  and  sluggish  a  life 
of  inactivity  to  shape  the  destiny  of  nations,  to  trans- 
form the  worship  and  laws  of  half  the  globe,  to  exalt 
Arabia  on  the  wreck  of  a  world?  It  was  a  difficult 
task,  no  doubt,  but  just  the  one  to  leave  no  room 
for  love.  The  cravings  of  the  heart  arise  from  the 
emptiness  of  the  soul;  he  who  has  great  things  in 
hand  has  the  less  need  of  love. 

One  could  understand  it  if  this  man  who  had  long 
distanced   his   fellows,   and   had  to   reign   as  God  in  a 

^  The  reference  is  probably  lo  the  Roman  emperor  of  that  name 
(40-81  A.D.);  a  humane  and  benevolent  prince,  beloved  of  his  subjects. 
— Tk. 


114  OBERMANN. 

spell-bound  universe,  if  this  favourite  of  the  God  of 
battles  had  loved  a  woman  who  could  help  him  to 
bewitch  the  universe,  or  a  woman  born  to  rule  like 
Zenobia;^  or  even  if  he  had  been  loved  in  return;  but 
here  we  have  that  Mahomet,  who  subdued  nature  to 
his  stern  will,  besotted  with  love  for  a  child  who  cared 
nothing  for  him. 

A  nig"ht  with  Lais-  may  perhaps  be  man's  greatest 
pleasure,  yet  after  all  it  is  a  pleasure  only.  But  to  be 
devoted  to  an  extraordinary  woman,  by  whom  one  is 
loved,  is  more  ;  it  is  even  a  duty,  though  after  all  only 
a  secondary  duty. 

I  cannot  understand  those  great  ones  to  whom  a 
glance  of  their  mistress  is  law.  I  know  pretty  well 
what  love  can  do,  but  a  man  who  governs  is  not  at  its 
mercy.  Love  entails  mistakes,  illusions,  blunders  ; 
and  the  blunders  of  a  great  man  are  too  far-reaching 
and  deadly  ;  they  are  public  misfortunes. 

I  cannot  endure  those  men  entrusted  with  great 
authority  who  forget  to  g-overn  as  soon  as  they  find 
anything  else  to  do  ;  who  set  their  affections  above 
their  duty,  and  think  that  everything  has  been  placed 
at  their  disposal  for  their  own  pleasure  ;  who  manipu- 
late the  affairs  of  nations  to  suit  the  caprices  of  their 
private  life,  and  who  would  make  mincemeat  of  their 
army  to  get  a  sight  of  their  mistress.  I  pity  the  nation 
whose  monarch  rates  it  lowest  in  the  scale  of  his  loves, 
and  whose  fate  would  be  sealed  if  some  favourite's 
chamber-maid  saw  a  prospect  of  gain  by  betraying  it. 

^  Queen  of  Palmyra  and  governor  of  the  East ;  led  in  triumph  to 
Rome  by  Aurelian,  272  li.c. — Tk. 

-  A  notorious  Corinthian  courtesan. — Tr. 


LETTER  XXXV.  115 

LETTER  XXXV. 

Paris, ////j/  %th  (III.). 

At  last  I  have  found  a  reliable  man  to  wind  up  the 
affairs  that  have  been  detaining-  me.  There  was  not 
much  left  of  them  in  any  case  ;  there  is  no  help  for  it ; 
everybody  knows  I  am  beggared.  I  have  not  even  a 
bare  pittance,  until  a  contingency,  that  may  be  very 
remote,  occurs  to  improve  my  position.  I  am  not  at 
all  distressed  about  it,  and  I  do  not  seem  to  have  lost 
much  in  losing  all,  for  I  got  no  pleasure  out  of  it. 
True  I  may  have  more  unhappiness  than  I  had,  but  I 
cannot  well  have  less  happiness.  I  am  alone,  I  have 
only  my  own  wants  to  supply,  and  so  long  as  I  am 
neither  ill  nor  in  prison,  my  lot  will  ahvays  be  bearable. 
I  have  little  fear  of  bad  luck,  for  I  am  sick  to  death  of 
futile  good.  Life  must  needs  have  its  reverses  ;  then 
is  the  time  for  endurance  and  courage.  Then  hope 
awakens  and  we  say  "  I  am  passing  through  my  time 
of  trial,  I  am  working  off  my  share  of  misfortune, 
better  days  will  surely  follow."  But  in  prosperity, 
when  circumstances  seem  to  rank  us  with  the  happier, 
and  yet  the  heart  has  joy  of  nothing,  we  begrudge  the 
loss  of  what  fortune  will  not  continue  to  bestow.  We 
bewail  the  sadness  of  our  best  days,  and  we  dread  the 
misfortune  that  aw^aits  us  in  the  ups  and  downs  of 
life,— all  the  more  because  we  are  so  unhappy  even  as 
things  are  that  we  cannot  but  regard  the  fresh  burden 
it  will  lay  upon  us  as  quite  unsupportable.     Thus  it  is 


ii6  OBERMANN. 

that  people  who  live  in  the  country  can  better  endure 
its  tedium  in  winter,  which  they  call  beforehand  the 
dismal  season,  than  in  summer,  when  they  expect  the 
compensations  of  country  life. 

I  can  do  nothing  more  to  remedy  what  is  past,  and 
I  cannot  tell  what  step  to  take  in  the  future  until  we 
have  talked  it  over  together,  so  I  think  of  nothing"  but 
the  present.  What  a  happy  riddance  of  all  anxiety  ! 
Never  have  I  been  so  tranquil.  I  am  starting  for 
Lyons  ;  I  will  spend  some  ten  days  with  you  in  blissful 
indifference  to  my  fate,  and  then — we  shall  see. 


FIFTH  YEAR. 


FIRST  FRAGMENT. 


If  happiness  were  proportioned  to  our  privations  or 
our  prosperity  there  would  be  too  much  inequahty 
between  men.  If  happiness  were  solely  dependent  on 
character  that  inequality  would  still  be  too  i^reat.  If  it 
were  absolutely  dependent  on  the  combination  of 
character  with  circumstances,  those  whom  their  pru- 
dence and  their  destiny  agreed  to  favour  would  have 
too  many  advantages.  Some  men  would  be  very 
happy  and  others  profoundly  unhappy.  But  it  is  not 
circumstances  alone  that  constitute  our  lot,  nor  even 
the  concurrence  of  existing-  circumstances  with  the 
effect  or  with  the  established  habits  of  past  circum- 
stances, or  with  the  distinctive  features  of  our  character. 
This  combination  of  causes  has  far-reaching  effects,  but 
it  is  not  sufficient  to  account  for  our  awkward  temper 
and  vexation,  our  discontent,  our  dissatisfaction  with 
men  and  things,  and  with  human  life  as  a  whole.  We 
have  within  ourselves  this  general  principle  of  coldness 
and  aversion  or  indifference;  we  all  have  it,  quite  apart 
from  anything  our  personal  inclination  may  have  to  do 
with  augmenting  it  or  modifying  its  consequences. 
A  specific  mood  of  mind,  or  a  certain  attitude  of  our 
whole  being  is  bound  to  produce  in  us  this  moral  affec- 

117 


ii8  OBERMANN. 

tion.  Sorrow  is  necessary  to  vis  as  well  as  joy;  we 
have  as  much  need  to  be  chafed  by  things  as  we  have 
to  enjoy  them. 

Man  can  no  more  desire  and  possess  uninterruptedly 
than  he  can  suffer  without  intermission.  Neither  happy 
sensations  nor  unhappy  ones  can  last  long  in  the  com- 
plete absence  of  contrary  sensations.  The  instability  of 
the  affairs  of  life  does  not  admit  of  constancy  in  the 
affection  that  life  inspires  in  us,  and  even  if  external 
things  were  otherwise  ordered,  our  own  organization 
is  not  capable  of  invariability. 

If  the  man  who  believes  in  his  luck  does  not  see 
misfortune  approaching  from  without,  he  is  not  slow  to 
find  it  within,  and  the  poor  wretch  who  receives  no  out- 
ward consolations  soon  finds  them  in  his  heart.  When 
we  have  planned  and  obtained  everything  essential  to 
constant  enjoyment  we  are  far  from  achieving  happi- 
ness. There  must  still  be  some  unwelcome  and  dis- 
tressing factor,  for  if  we  had  succeeded  in  banishing  all 
evil,  then  the  good  itself  would  fail  to  please  us. 

But  if  neither  the  faculty  of  enjoyment  nor  of  suffer- 
ing can  be  exercised  to  the  complete  exclusion  of  what 
was  meant  by  our  very  nature  to  counterbalance  it, 
either  of  them  for  the  time  being  may  be  greatly  in 
excess  of  the  other;  hence  circumstances,  without  being 
all  in  all  to  us,  have  a  powerful  influence  over  our 
inner  moods.  If  the  favourites  of  fortune  have  no  great 
provocatives  of  suffering,  small  ones  are  sufficient  to 
produce  it  in  them ;  causes  being  absent,  everything 
becomes  an  occasion.  The  victims  of  adversity,  with 
their  great  occasions  for  suffering,  will  suffer  acutely, 
but  when  they  have  suffered  enough  for  the  present  they 


FIRST  FRAGMENT.  119 

will  not  suffer  habitually;  as  soon  as  circumstances 
leave  them  in  peace  they  will  suffer  no  longer,  because 
the  need  of  suffering-  is  satisfied  within  them,  and  they 
will  even  enjoy,  because  each  need  reacts  with  all  the 
more  regularity  when  the  satisfaction  of  its  opposite 
has  carried  us  too  far  in  the  other  direction.^ 

These  two  forces  tend  to  equilibrium,  but  they  never 
reach  it,  unless  it  be  for  the  race  as  a  whole.  If  there 
were  no  tendency  to  ecjuilibrium  there  would  be  no 
order,  and  if  equilibrium  were  established  in  details, 
all  would  be  rigid,  there  would  be  no  movement.  On 
either  supposition  there  would  be  no  unity  with  variety, 
the  world  would  not  be. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  man  who  is  very  unhappy, 
but  by  fits  and  starts,  is  bound  to  have  a  steadfast 
inclination  towards  joy,  calm,  delights  of  affection, 
confidence,  friendship,  integrity. 

The  man  who  is  very  unhappy  but  in  a  steady,  pro- 
tracted, monotonous  fashion,  will  be  continually  torn  by 
two  impulses;  his  temper  will  be  uncertain,  awkward, 
irritable.  Always  imagining  the  good,  and  for  that 
very  reason  always  chafed  by  evil,  conscious  in  every 
detail  of  this  antithesis,  he  will  be  more  wearied  than 
captivated  by  the  least  illusions;  he  is  at  once  dis- 
enchanted, and  is  equally  interested  and  disheartened 
by  everything. 

He  who  is  constantly  half  happy  and  half  unhappy, 
so  to  speak,  will  verge  on  equilibrium,  and  in  this  even 
mood  will   be  good  rather  than  great  ;  his  life  will  be 

^  In  the  state  of  unhappiness  the  reaction  will  he  all  the  stronger, 
for  the  nature  of  an  organized  being  urges  him  more  definitely  to  his  well- 
being  and  self  preservation. 


120  OBERMANN. 

pleasant  rather  than  happy;  he  will  have  judgment,  but 
little  genius. 

He  who  is  always  enjoying,  and  never  has  any  out- 
ward misfortune,  will  be  captivated  by  nothing  ;  he  has 
no  further  need  of  enjoyment,  and  amid  his  external 
well-being  he  is  secretly  conscious  of  a  perpetual  need 
of  suffering.  He  will  not  be  generous,  indulgent, 
loving,  but  will  be  unmoved  by  the  greatest  joys,  apt 
to  find  a  grievance  in  the  smallest  inconvenience.  Un- 
accustomed to  experience  reverses,  he  will  have  con- 
fidence, but  it  will  be  in  himself  and  his  luck,  not  in  his 
fellows  ;  he  feels  no  need  of  their  support,  and  as  he  is 
more  fortunate  than  the  majority,  he  almost  fancies 
himself  wiser  than  all.  He  would  fain  always  enjoy, 
and  most  of  all  would  like  to  seem  to  be  enjoying  him- 
self to  the  full,  and  yet  he  experiences  an  inner  need 
for  suffering  ;  hence  on  the  slightest  pretext  he  readily 
finds  reason  for  quarrelling  with  circumstances  and 
being  unsociable  with  his  fellows.  Devoid  of  real  well- 
being,  yet  having  nothing  better  to  hope  for,  he  will 
desire  nothing  definitely,  but  will  be  fond  of  change  in 
general,  and  will  like  it  better  in  details  than  in  his 
life  as  a  whole.  Possessing  too  much,  he  will  be  ready 
to  part  with  all.  He  will  take  a  certain  pleasure  and 
foster  a  kind  of  vanity  in  being  irritable,  unsociable, 
suffering,  discontented.  He  will  be  hard  to  please, 
exacting  ;  for  otherwise  what  would  remain  to  him  of 
the  superiority  he  claims  over  others,  a  superiority  he 
would  still  aspire  to  even  if  he  no  longer  claimed  it  ? 
He  will  be  a  hard  man,  seeking  to  surround  himself  with 
slaves,  so  that  others  may  admit  his  superiority,  and  at 
least  suffer  from  it  \\  hen  he  himself  has  no  joy  of  it. 


FIRST  FRAGMENT.  121 

I  question  whether  it  is  good  for  man  in  his  present 
state  to  be  uniformly  fortunate  without  ever  having- 
the  fates  against  him.  Perhaps  the  happy  man,  among 
beings  Hke  ourselves,  is  he  who  has  suffered  much,  but 
not  constantly,  nor  in  that  protracted  wearing  manner 
which  enervates  our  faculties  without  being  extreme 
enough  to  rouse  the  secret  energy  of  the  soul  and  bring 
it  to  the  happy  resolve  to  seek  for  iinknown  resources 
within.^  It  is  a  lifelong  advantage  to  have  been  un- 
happy at  the  age  when  mind  and  heart  were  beginning 
to  live.  It  is  the  admonition  of  fate  ;  it  fashions  good 
men,-  it  broadens  ideas,  and  matures  the  heart  before 
old  age  enfeebles  it  ;  it  develops  man  soon  enough  for 
him  to  be  man  in  the  fullest  sense.  If  it  rob  us  of  joy 
and  gaiety,  it  inspires  a  sense  of  order  and  a  taste  for 
domestic  blessings;  it  bestows  the  greatest  happiness 
we  ought  to  expect,  that  of  expecting  nothing  beyond 
a  vegetative  existence  in  usefulness  and  peace.  We 
are  far  less  miserable  when  we  are  content  simply  to 
live;  we  are  far  nearer  being  useful  when  even  in  the 
very  prime  of  life  we  seek  nothing  for  self.  I  am  not 
aware  of  anything  but  unhappiness  that  can  thus 
mature  the  average  man  before  he  reaches  old  age. 

True  goodness  requires  broadened  conceptions,  a 
great  soul,  and  curbed  passions.  If  goodness  is  man's 
highest  merit,  if  moral  perfections  are  essential  to 
happiness,  then  it  is  among  those  who  have  suffered 
deeply  in  the  early  years  of  their  heart's  life  that  we 

'  All  this,  though  expressed  in  a  positive  manner,  must  not  be  taken 
as  rif^orously  tiue. 

-  There  are  men  whom  it  embitters;  those  who  are  not  wicked  and 
yet  fall  short  of  goodness. 


122  OBERMANN. 

shall  find  characters  best  moulded  for  their  own  ends 
and  for  the  interest  of  all,  most  gifted  with  justice  and 
intelligence,  nearest  to  happiness,  and  most  inflexibly 
loyal  to  virtue. 

What  matters  it  to  the  social  order  that  an  old  man 
renounces  the  objects  of  his  passions,  or  that  a  weak 
man  harbours  no  destructive  schemes?  Goody-goody 
folk  are  not  good  men ;  those  who  only  do  good 
through  weakness  would  do  much  harm  under  other 
circumstances.  Capable  of  mistrust,  of  animosity, 
superstition,  and,  most  of  all,  of  obstinacy,  he  who  is 
a  blind  instrument  in  various  laudable  undertakings  in 
which  his  fancy  has  enlisted  him  will  equally  become 
the  base  sport  of  any  mad  idea  that  turns  his  brain,  or 
craze  that  perverts  his  heart,  or  pernicious  scheme  in 
which  some  rogue  or  other  will  employ  him. 

But  the  good  man  is  invariable ;  he  shares  the  passions 
of  no  set,  and  the  habits  of  no  class,  he  is  not  made  a 
tool  of;  he  is  incapable  either  of  animosity,  ostentation, 
or  foolish  crazes;  goodness  does  not  surprise  him,  be- 
cause he  would  have  done  the  same  himself;  nor  does 
evil,  because  it  is  part  of  nature;  he  is  indignant  at 
crime  without  hating  the  culprit;  he  scorns  baseness 
of  soul,  but  he  is  not  angry  with  the  worm  for  not 
having  wings. 

He  is  no  enemy  of  the  superstitious  man,  for  he 
cherishes  no  contrary  superstitions.  He  inquires  into 
the  origin,  often  rational  enough,^  of  many  a  senseless 

^  Obscure  or  profound  ideas  deteriorate  with  time,  and  we  become 
accustomed  to  regard  them  in  a  difl'erent  light;  when  they  begin  to 
be  false  the  masses  begin  to  think  them  divine,  and  when  they  have 
become  utterly  absurd  then  men  are  willing  to  die  for  them. 


FIRST  FRAGMENT.  123 

opinion,  and  laughs  to  see  how  men  have  followed  a 
false  scent.  His  virtues  spring-  from  love  of  order,  not 
from  fanaticism;  he  does  good  that  his  life  may  be 
more  useful;  he  sets  the  joys  of  others  before  his  own, 
for  enjoyment  is  possible  to  them  though  scarcely  to 
himself;  he  wants  simply  to  keep  for  himself  the  means 
of  being  of  some  use,  and  to  live  in  peace  and  quietness, 
for  calm  is  indispensable  to  one  who  has  no  pleasures 
in  prospect.  He  is  by  no  means  suspicious;  but  as  he 
is  not  taken  in,  he  sometimes  thinks  it  well  not  to  give 
himself  away;  he  can  enjoy  being  played  with  a  little, 
but  he  does  not  mean  to  be  a  dupe.  He  may  have 
something  to  put  up  with  from  rascals,  but  he  is  not 
their  cat's-paw.  At  times  he  will  allow  certain  men  to 
whom  he  is  serviceable  to  secretly  pride  themselves 
on  being  his  protectors.  He  is  not  content  with  his 
achievements,  for  he  feels  they  might  be  much  greater; 
it  is  only  with  his  intentions  that  he  feels  a  measure  of 
satisfaction,  though  without  being  prouder  of  these 
inward  features  than  he  would  be  of  a  well-shaped  nose. 
Thus  he  will  spend  his  time  in  pressing  on  towards  the 
best,  sometimes  with  vigorous  though  encumbered 
steps  ;  more  often  with  faltering  hesitation,  and  the 
smile  of  one  who  has  lost  heart. 

When  it  is  necessary  to  contrast  human  merit  with 
other  feigned  or  useless  merits  by  which  men  try  to 
confuse  and  debase  everything,  he  maintains  that  the 
supreme  merit  is  the  calm  integrity  of  the  good  man, 
for  that  is  the  most  infallibly  useful ;  and  on  being  taxed 
with  pride  he  laughs.  When  he  endures  the  discom- 
forts and  forgives  the  injuries  of  domestic  life,  and  is 
asked    why    he    does    not    attempt    greater    things,    he 

1  I 


124  OBERMANN. 

laughs.  When  such  great  things  are  entrusted  to  him, 
and  he  is  accused  by  the  friends  of  a  traitor  and  blamed 
by  the  victim  of  their  treachery,  he  smiles  and  goes  on 
his  way.  His  own  people  tell  him  it  is  an  unheard  of 
injustice,  and  he  laughs  still  more. 


SIXTH  YEAR. 


SECOND  FRAGMENT. 

I  AM  not  surprised  that  accuracy  o{  ideas  on  ethical 
matters  should  be  so  rare.  The  ancients,  even  without 
the  experience  of  centuries  to  guide  them,  sometimes 
thought  of  entrusting-  the  control  of  the  human  heart  to 
sages.  Our  modern  policy  improves  on  that;  it  leaves 
the  supreme  science  to  the  tender  mercy  of  preachers, 
and  the  mob  called  men  of  letters  by  the  printers,  while 
it  religiously  protects  the  art  of  icing  cakes  and 
inventing  new  styles  of  wigs. 

When  we  turn  our  attention  to  the  grievances  of  a 
certain  class  of  people  and  begin  to  ascertain  the 
grounds  of  them,  we  discover  that  one  of  the  most 
novel  and  serviceable  tasks  we  could  undertake  would 
be  that  of  warning  men  against  deceptive  truths  and 
destructive  virtues. 

Contempt  for  money  is  absurd.  No  doubt  it  is  a 
crime  to  prefer  gold  to  duty,  but  we  all  know  that  the 
dictates  of  reason  set  duty  before  life  as  well  as  before 
riches.  And  if  life  is  none  the  less  a  good  thing,  speaking 
generally,  why  should  not  gold  be  good  too?     Certain 

125 


126  OBERMANN. 

independent  and  isolated  individuals  do  right  to  dispense 
with  it,  but  all  are  not  in  that  categ-ory,  and  great  harm 
is  done  to  virtue  by  such  vain  and  half  false  declamations. 
The  principles  of  conduct  are  thereby  filled  with  contra- 
dictions; and  if  virtue  is  nothing  but  a  struggle  for 
order,  will  it  be  furthered  among  men  by  all  this  disorder 
and  confusion?  Though  I  myself  set  greater  store  on 
qualities  of  heart  than  of  head,  I  still  think  that  the 
educator  of  a  people  would  find  it  easier  to  curb  the 
bad-hearted  than  to  conciliate  the  wrong-headed. 

Christians  and  others  have  declared  perpetual  chastity 
to  be  a  virtue,  but  they  have  not  exacted  it  of 
men;  they  have  not  even  advised  it,  except  for  those 
who  were  aiming  at  perfection.  Though  a  law  from 
heaven  should  be  absolute  and  indiscriminating,  it  did 
not  dare  to  go  further  than  this.  And  in  telling  men  not 
to  love  money  we  cannot  display  too  much  moderation 
and  precision  of  language.  Religious  and  philosophical 
abnegation  have  inspired  in  various  individuals  a  genuine 
indifference  to  riches  and  even  to  ownership  of  any  kind, 
but  in  everyday  life  the  desire  for  gold  is  unavoidable. 
With  gold,  in  whatever  inhabited  region  I  find  myself, 
I  make  a  sign  that  means — prepare  for  me,  feed  me, 
clothe  me,  amuse  me,  respect  me,  wait  on  me  and  mine, 
let  all  around  me  be  merry,  let  the  sufferer  speak  and 
see  the  end  of  his  troubles!  x'Vnd  straightway  the  order 
is  carried  out. 

Despisers  of  gold  are  like  despisers  of  glory,  of  women, 
of  talents,  of  bravery,  of  merit.  When  feebleness  of 
mind,  impotence  of  body,  or  coarseness  of  soul  render 
them  incapable  of  using  any  privilege  without  perverting 
it,  they  revile  the  privilege  itself  without  realizing  that 


SECOND  FRAGMENT.  127 

they  are  holding"  up  to  reprobation  tlieir  own  baseness. 
A  dissolute  man  despises  women;  a  dull  thinker  rails 
at  mind,  a  sophist  utters  platitudes  against  money. 
Doubtless  the  weak  slaves  of  passion,  fools  who  try  to 
be  clever,  and  gaping  Philistines,  would  be  either  more 
miserable  or  more  depraved  if  they  were  rich;  people  of 
that  sort  ought  to  own  little,  for  with  them  to  possess 
and  to  abuse  are  one  and  the  same.  Doubtless,  too, 
the  man  who  grows  rich,  and  sets  himself  to  get  all  out 
of  life  that  a  rich  man  can,  does  not  gain,  and  often 
loses,  by  his  altered  circumstances.  But  why  is  he  no 
better  off  than  before?  Because  he  is  not  really  richer; 
with  increase  of  wealth  he  has  more  worry  and  uneasi- 
ness. He  has  a  large  income,  and  he  lives  in  such 
style  that  the  merest  trifle  creates  a  deficit,  and  his 
debts  multiply  until  he  is  ruined.  Obviously  such  a 
man  is  poor.  To  multiply  his  wants  a  hundred-fold,  to 
do  everything  for  show,  to  keep  twenty  horses  because 
someone  else  has  fifteen,  and  to  raise  the  number  to 
thirty  next  day  if  his  neighbour  reaches  twenty — all  this 
is  to  load  himself  with  the  fetters  of  a  more  galling  and 
anxious  penury  than  he  lived  in  at  first.  But  to  have 
a  convenient  house  in  a  healthy  situation,  clean  and 
tidy  within,  to  have  something  to  spare,  and  combine 
simplicity  with  elegance,  to  live  in  the  same  style  even 
if  one's  wealth  is  increased  four-fold,  to  employ  the 
surplus  in  relieving  the  embarrassment  of  a  friend,  in 
preparing  for  a  rainy  day,  in  restoring  to  a  good  man 
in  adversity  what  he  gave  in  his  youth  to  those  now 
more  prosperous  than  himself,  in  making  up  the  loss  of 
her  one  cow  to  some  good  mother,  in  sending  corn  to 
the    farmer   whose   crop   has   been    spoiled    by    hail,    in 


128  OBERMANN. 

mending-  the  road  where  wagons  have  been  upset^  and 
horses  injured,  in  exercising-  one's  own  faculties  and 
tastes,  in  developing^  the  intelligence,  orderliness,  and 
talents  of  a  family — all  this  is  well  worth  the  privation 
so  inaptly  extolled  by  spurious  wisdom. 

Contempt  of  gold,  when  really  encouraged  in  those 
of  an  age  ignorant  of  its  value,  has  often  robbed 
superior  men  of  one  of  the  greatest  and  perhaps  most 
infallible  means  of  living  more  usefully  than  the  crowd. 

How  many  girls,  in  choosing  a  husband,  pride  them- 
selves in  caring  nothing  for  worldly  goods,  and  thus 
plunge  themselves  into  all  the  sordidness  of  straitened 
circumstances  and  into  the  settled  ennui  which  in  itself 
contains  so  many  evils  ? 

A  quiet  and  sensible  man  who  despises  a  frivolous 
character  is  apt  to  be  captivated  by  similarity  in  tastes; 
he  leaves  to  the  crowd  gaiety  and  merriment,  and  even 
vivacity  and  energy  ;  he  chooses  a  serious,  pensive 
wife,  who  grows  melancholy  over  the  first  obstacle, 
who  is  soured  by  worries,  who  becomes  taciturn, 
brusque,  exacting,  and  austere  with  increasing  years, 
who  grudgingly  submits  to  forego  anything,  and  finally 
foregoes  everything  in  a  spirit  of  pique  and  to  set 
an  example  to  others,  and  ends  by  making  the  whole 
household  miserable. 

It  was  in  no  trivial  sense  that  Epicurus  used  to  say, 
"The  wise  man  chooses  a  friend  of  a  cheerful  and 
cordial  disposition."     The  philosopher  of  twenty  lightly 

^  The  word  Char  is  not  used  in  this  sense  in  the  greater  part  of 
France,  where  two-wheeled  carts  {charettes  h  deu.x  roues)  ■^xc  more  used. 
But  in  Switzerland  and  elsewhere  the  term  is  applied  to  liglit  wains  and 
four-wheeled  country  carriages. 


LETTER  XXXVI.  129 

ig^nores  this  advice,  and  it  is  much  if  he  does  not  resent 
it,  for  he  has  cast  off  popular  prejudices;  but  he  will 
realize  its  importance  when  he  has  outgrown  the  pre- 
judices of  philosophy. 

It  is  a  small  thing  to  be  superior  to  the  common  herd 
of  men,  but  it  is  a  real  step  towards  wisdom  to  be 
superior  to  the  ruck  of  philosophers. 


LETTER   XXXVI. 

Lyons,  April  Tlh  (VI.). 

What  would  Nature  be  to  man  if  she  did  not  speak 
to  him  of  other  men?  Glorious  mountains,  shuddering" 
rush  of  drifted  snows,  lonely  peace  of  wooded  vales, 
yellow  leaves  borne  down  by  some  still  stream — all 
would  be  dumb,  if  our  fellows  were  no  more.  If  I 
were  left  the  last  man  on  the  earth,  what  meaning 
could  I  find  in  the  weird  sounds  of  night,  in  the  solemn 
stillness  of  wide  valleys,  in  the  sunset  glow  of  a  pensive 
sky  above  unruffled  waters.  We  are  only  conscious  of 
Nature  under  human  relationships,  and  the  eloquence 
of  things  is  nothing  but  the  eloquence  of  man.  The 
fruitful  earth,  the  vast  skies,  the  running  streams,  are 
only  phrases  to  express  relationships  which  our  hearts 
alone  create  and  contain. 

Could  we  but  have  a  perfect  understanding,  an  old- 
time  friendship!  When  he  who  enjoyed  an  unstinted 
aflfection  received  the  pages  on  which  he  recognized  the 
hand   of  a  friend,  had   he   any  eyes   left  to   study  the 


I30  OBERMANN. 

beauties  of  a  landscape  or  the  dimensions  of  a  glacier? 
But  human  life  has  grown  more  complicated;  our  con- 
sciousness of  its  relationships  is  vague  and  uneasy, 
beset  with  coolnesses  and  jars ;  the  older  friendship  is 
far  remote  from  our  hearts  and  our  lot.  Its  links 
are  un welded  as  we  hover  between  hope  and  caution, 
between  the  delights  we  look  for  and  the  bitterness  we 
experience.  Fellowship  itself  is  clogged  by  boredom, 
or  weakened  by  participation,  or  thwarted  by  circum- 
stances. Man  grows  old,  and  his  baffled  heart  ages 
faster  than  himself.  If  in  his  fellows  there  is  all  he 
could  love,  all  that  he  shrinks  from  is  there  too. 
Where  one  finds  so  much  social  aflfinity,  there  inevitably 
are  all  discords  as  well.  Thus  he  whose  fear  is  greater 
than  his  hope  holds  himself  aloof  from  men.  Inanimate 
things  have  less  grip,  but  they  are  more  at  our  dis- 
posal; they  are  what  we  make  them.  They  afford  less 
of  what  we  seek,  but  what  they  do  afford  we  are  more 
sure  of  finding  when  we  like.  They  are  average  bless- 
ings ;  limited,  but  secure.  Passion  draws  us  to  our 
kind,  but  reason  sometimes  drives  us  to  leave  them 
for  inferior  but  less  fateful  beings.  Thus  has  arisen  a 
strong  bond  between  man  and  the  friend  he  has  chosen 
from  another  species,  a  friend  who  suits  him  so  well 
because  less  tlian  himself  and  yet  more  than  inanimate 
things.  If  a  man  had  to  choose  a  friend  by  mere 
chance  he  would  do  better  to  take  one  from  the  canine 
than  the  human  race.  The  lowest  of  his  fellows  would 
be  a  less  fruitful  source  of  peace  and  comfort  than  the 
lowest  of  dogs. 

But  when  a  family  is  lonely  and  friendless,  when  its 
weak  and  harassed  members,  with  so  many  avenues  of 


LETTER  XXXVII.  131 

unhappiness  and  so  few  of  satisfaction,  with  but  a 
moment  for  enjoyment  and  only  a  day  to  live — when 
husband  and  wife,  mother  and  daughter,  have  no  for- 
bearance and  no  unity,  when  they  will  not  share  the 
same  interests  or  bring  themselves  to  accept  the  same 
hardships  and  bear  up  unitedly  at  equal  distances  the 
chain  of  sorrows;  when  each  one  through  selfishness 
or  ill-nature  refuses  his  help,  and  lets  it  drag  heavily 
over  the  rough  ground,  ploughing  the  long  furrow  from 
which  with  fatal  productiveness  spring  the  briers  that 

tear  them  all Alas!  alas!     How  rasping  then  are 

his  fellows  to  man! 

When  any  little  attention,  or  word  of  peace  and 
good-will  and  forgiveness  is  met  with  disdain  and  ill- 
temper  or  with  freezing  indifference  ...  so  it  has  been 
ordained  by  the  nature  of  things,  that  virtue  might 
grow  stronger  and  the  heart  of  man  become  still  nobler 
and  more  resisfned  under  the  load  that  crushes  it. 


LETTER    XXXVIL 

Lyons,  J\Iay  ziid  (VI.). 

There  are  times  when  I  almost  despair  of  controlling 
the  restlessness  that  tears  me  to  pieces.  At  such  times 
everything  allures  and  mightily  elates  me,  only  to  let 
me  fall  back  and  be  lost  in  the  gulf  my  misgivings  have 
opened. 

If  I  were  absolutely  alone  such  moments  would  be 
unbearable,  but  I  write,  and  the  effort  to  express  to 
you  what  I  feel  seems  to  relax  and  alleviate  the  feeling. 


132  OBERMANN. 

to  whom  could  I  reveal  myself  thus  freely?  Who  else 
ould  put  up  with  the  wearisome  babble  of  my  dismal 
moods  and  idle  sensitiveness.  The  only  pleasure  I  have 
is  that  of  telling  you  what  I  can  say  to  you  alone,  what 
/I  should  not  care  to  say  to  any  one  else,  and  what  no 
one  else  would  care  to  hear.  I  care  little  about  the 
contents  of  my  letters.  The  longer  they  are,  and  the 
more  time  I  spend  on  them,  the  more  good  they  do  me; 
and  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  the  bulk  of  the  packet  has 
never  repelled  you.  One  can  spend  ten  hours  at  a 
stretch  in  talking,  why  should  one  not  write  for  two? 

Not  that  I  want  to  cast  any  reflection  on  you.  You 
are  briefer,  less  prolix  than  I.  Your  duties  exhaust 
you,  and  you  find  less  pleasure  than  I  do  in  writing, 
even  to  those  you  love.  You  tell  me  what  as  an 
intimate  friend  you  have  to  say;  but  I,  hermit  and 
eccentric  dreamer  that  I  am,  have  nothing  to  say,  and 
yet  take  all  the  longer  to  say  it.  Whatever  enters 
my  head,  whatever  I  would  say  if  we  were  chatting 
together,  I  write  if  a  chance  occurs;  but  what  I  think 
and  feel,  that  I  write  of  necessity;  it  is  a  need  of  my 
nature.  When  I  give  it  up,  you  may  conclude  that  I 
am  past  feeling,  that  my  soul  is  quenched,  that  I  have 
grown  calm  and  sensible,  and  am  spending  my  days 
in  eating,  sleeping,  and  playing  cards.  I  should  be 
happier  so  ! 

I  wish  I  had  a  trade;  it  would  invigorate  my  arms 
and  soothe  my  head.  An  accomplishment  would  not 
serve  so  well;  though  I  think  I  should  not  be  so  rest- 
less if  I  could  paint.  For  a  long  time  I  was  in  a  kind 
of  torpor,  and  am  sorry  to  find  myself  aroused.  My 
depression  then  was  calmer  than  it  is  now. 


LETTER  XXXVII.  133 

Of  all  the  brief,  uncertain  moments  when  I  have 
fancied  in  my  simplicity  that  we  were  sent  into  the 
world  to  live^  not  one  has  left  deeper  impressions  than 
three  weeks  of  unreflecting  hopefulness,  when  one 
springtime,  beside  a  mountain  stream  at  the  foot  of 
the  rocks  between  the  smiling  hyacinth  and  the  lowly 
violet,  I  began  to  think  that  it  might  be  given  me  to 
love. 

I  touched  what  I  was  never  to  grasp.  Had  I  been 
without  inclinations  and  without  hope  I  could  have 
vegetated  in  placid  boredom ;  I  should  have  felt  the 
faint  pulsation  of  human  energy,  but  have  found  it 
tolerable  to  doze  through  my  darkened  life.  What 
baneful  influence  showed  me  a  vision  of  the  world  just 
to  rob  me  of  the  bliss  of  ignorance  ? 

Inspired  with  generous  activity,  eager  to  love,  sus- 
tain, and  comfort  everything;  always  buff'eted  to  and 
fro  between  the  longing  to  see  so  many  harmful  things 
altered  and  the  conviction  that  they  will  not  be  altered, 
I  am  worn  out  by  the  ills  of  life,  and  even  more  in- 
dignant at  the  treacherous  allurements  of  pleasure,  my 
gaze  always  fixed  on  the  vast  sum  of  hatred,  injustice, 
infamy,  and  wretchedness  in  this  distorted  world. 

And  myself!  Here  I  am  in  my  twenty-seventh  year, 
my  best  days  gone,  and  I  have  never  had  a  glimpse  of 
them.  Unhappy  at  the  age  of  happiness,  what  can  I 
expect  from  my  later  years?  I  have  spent  the  golden 
age  of  confidence  and  hope  in  emptiness  and  ennui. 
Frustrated  and  suff"ering  at  every  point,  with  a  bruised 
and  empty  heart,  I  have  reached  while  still  young  the 
regrets  of  old  age.  So  used  am  I  to  see  all  the  flowers 
of  life  wither  under  my  blighting  footsteps,  that  I  am 


134  OBERMANN. 

like  those  old  men  who  have  lost  all;  but  more  pitiable 
than  they,  for  I  have  lost  it  long-  before  my  own  end 
has  come.  Still  hungry  of  soul,  I  cannot  be  at  peace  in 
this  death-like  silence. 

Ah,  memory  of  days  long-  past,  of  things  for  ever 
g'one,  of  places  I  shall  never  see  again,  of  men  no 
longer  what  they  were  !  Alas,  the  pang  of  a  life  that 
is  spoiled  ! 

What  places  ever  were  to  me  what  they  are  to  others? 
What  times  were  endurable,  and  under  what  sky  did 
I  ever  find  rest  of  heart?  I  have  seen  the  bustle  of 
towns  and  the  dulness  of  country  places,  and  the 
austerity  of  the  mountains;  I  have  seen  the  boorishness 
of  ignorance  and  the  strain  of  art;  I  have  seen  barren 
virtues,  fruitless  successes,  and  the  swallowing  up  of  all 
blessings  in  all  calamities;  man  and  his  destiny,  always 
unequally  matched,  endlessly  cheating  each  other;  and 
in  the  unbridled  struggle  of  all  the  passions  I  have  seen 
the  hateful  victor  receive  as  the  prize  of  his  triumph  the 
heaviest  link  in  the  chain  of  evils  he  had  forged. 

If  man  were  adapted  to  unhappiness  I  would  pity 
him  much  less,  and  in  view  of  his  fleeting  existence  I 
would  despise  on  his  account  as  well  as  my  own  the 
anguish  of  a  day.  But  he  is  surrounded  by  all  good 
things,  all  his  powers  command  him  to  enjoy;  every- 
thing bids  him  "  Be  happy  ;"  and  yet  man  has  said, 
"  Be  happiness  for  the  brute;  art,  science,  glory,  great- 
ness, shall  be  mine."  His  mortality,  his  sufferings,  even 
his  crimes,  are  the  merest  fraction  of  his  wretchedness. 
I  bewail  his  losses,  calmness,  freedom  of  choice,  unity, 
and  undisturbed  possession.  I  bewail  the  wasting  of  a 
centurv  bv   millions   of   thinkinir    bein^rs    in    cares    and 


LETTER  XXXVII.  135 

bondage  amid  everything-  that  could  give  safety,  free- 
dom, and  joy;  living-  a  life  of  bitterness  in  a  w^orld  of 
rapture,  because  their  hearts  were  set  on  imaginary 
and  exclusive  blessings. 

Yet  all  that  amounts  to  little;  half  a  century  ago  I 
saw  nothing  of  it,  and  half  a  century  hence  I  shall  see 
it  no  more. 

I  used  to  say  in  those  bygone  days,  "If  it  is  not  my 
lot  to  re-establish  primitive  customs  in  some  circum- 
scribed and  isolated  region,  if  I  must  compel  myself  to 
forget  the  world,  and  count  myself  sufficiently  happy 
in  securing  passable  days  for  myself  on  this  deluded 
earth,  then  I  only  ask  one  blessing,  one  phantom  in 
the  dream  from  which  I  would  fain  never  more  awake. 
There  remains  on  the  earth,  even  as  it  is,  one  illusion 
which  can  still  enthral  me;  it  is  the  only  one;  I  should 
be  wise  enough  to  yield  to  it;  nothing  else  is  worth 
the  effort." 

So  I  used  to  think  then ;  but  chance  alone  could 
grant  me  this  priceless  infatuation.  Chance  is  slow 
and  uncertain,  life  swift  and  irrevocable;  its  spring- 
time is  passing,  and  that  frustrated  yearning,  by  causing 
the  wreck  of  my  life,  is  bound  at  length  to  estrange  my 
heart  and  warp  my  nature..  Sometimes  even  now  I 
feel  myself  growing  sour  and  cynical,  and  my  affections 
contracting;  impatience  will  make  me  headstrong,  and 
a  kind  of  contempt  inclines  me  to  great  but  austere 
schemes.  But  this  bitterness  soon  flags,  and  then  I 
let  myself  drift,  as  if  I  realized  that  distracted  men  and 
uncertain  events  and  my  own  brief  life  were  unworthy 
of  a  day's  anxiety,  and  that  a  rude  awakening  is  useless 
when  one  must  so  soon  fall  asleep  for  ever. 


136  OBERMANN. 


LETTER  XXXVIII. 

Lyons,  May  %th  (VI.). 

I  have  been  to  Blammont  to  visit  the  surgeon  who 
set  so  skilfully  the  arm  of  that  officer  who  fell  from  his 
horse  on  his  way  home  from  Chessel. 

You  will  not  have  forgotten  how,  when  we  entered 
his  house  on  that  occasion,  more  than  a  dozen  years 
ago,  he  hurried  out  to  gather  from  his  garden  the 
finest  apricots,  and  how  as  he  came  back  with  his  hands 
full,  the  old  gentleman,  even  then  a  little  shaky, 
stumbled  over  the  door-step  and  scattered  nearly  all 
the  fruit.  His  daughter  exclaimed  harshly,  "There 
you  go  again  !  You  will  put  your  finger  into  every- 
thing, and  you  only  make  a  mess  of  it;  can't  you  stay 
quietly  in  your  chair  !  Here's  a  pretty  state  of  things  ! " 
He  felt  it,  but  made  no  reply,  and  our  hearts  were  sore 
for  him,  poor  fellow  !  He  is  now  more  to  be  pitied 
than  ever.  He  is  paralyzed,  laid  on  a  real  bed  of 
suffering,  no  one  near  him  but  this  wretch  of  a  daughter. 
Some  months  ago  he  lost  his  speech,  but  his  right  arm 
is  not  yet  affected  and  he  uses  it  to  make  signs.  He 
made  one  which,  to  my  regret,  it  was  not  for  me  to 
interpret,  and  his  daughter,  as  often  happens,  did  not 
understand  it.  He  wanted  to  tell  her  to  offer  me  some 
refreshment.  When  she  was  called  away  by  duties  out- 
side I  took  the  opportunity  to  let  her  unhappy  father 
know  that  I  understood  his  misfortunes  ;  his  hearing  is 
still  quite  good.  He  gave  me  to  understand  that  his 
daughter,    considering   his    end    very    near,    begrudged 


LETTER  XXXVIII.  137 

him  everything;  that  would  lessen  by  a  few  pence  the 
very  comfortable  fortune  he  was  leaving  her;  but  that 
though  he  had  often  been  grieved,  he  forgfave  her  every- 
thing-, so  that  he  might  not  in  his  last  hour  cease  to 
love  the  only  being  left  him  to  love.  Fancy  an  old  man 
watching  his  life  ebb  away  like  this  !  A  father  ending 
his  days  in  bitterness  in  his  own  house  !  And  our  laws 
are  helpless  ! 

Depths  of  wretchedness  like  this  cannot  but  appeal 
to  our  instincts  of  immortality.  If  it  were  possible  that 
after  reaching  years  of  discretion  I  had  radically  failed 
in  duty  to  my  father  I  should  be  unhappy  for  the  rest  of 
my  life,  because  he  is  no  more,  and  my  fault  would  be 
as  irretrievable  as  it  was  unnatural.  True,  one  might 
argue  that  a  wrong  done  to  one  who  no  longer  feels  it, 
who  no  longer  exists,  is  strictly  speaking  imaginary,  as 
it  were,  and  of  no  consequence,  as  things  are  that  are 
dead  and  done  with.  I  could  not  deny  it,  and  yet  it 
would  bring  me  no  comfort.  The  cause  of  this  feeling 
is  very  hard  to  find.  If  it  were  merely  the  conscious- 
ness of  having  missed  the  opportunity  of  retrieving  a 
disgraceful  failure  with  a  nobility  that  would  give 
inward  consolation,  we  might  still  find  compensation 
in  the  sincerity  of  our  intention.  When  nothing  but 
our  own  self-esteem  is  involved,  the  will  to  do  a  praise- 
worthy thing  should  satisfy  us  as  well  as  its  execution. 
The  latter  only  differs  from  the  former  in  its  conse- 
quence, and  there  can  be  none  when  tlie  injured  person 
is  no  more.  And  yet  one  finds  that  the  consciousness 
of  an  injustice  whose  effects  are  no  longer  present  to 
overwhelm  us  may  humiliate  and  torment  us  as  if  its 
results  were  to  be  eternal.      One  mi<rht  think  that  the 


138  OBERMANN. 

victim  of  it  was  merely  absent,  and  that  we  should  have 
to  re-assume  our  old  relations  with  him  in  a  sphere 
which  will  admit  of  no  change  and  no  reparation,  where 
the  wrong  will  last  for  ever  in  spite  of  our  remorse. 

The  human  mind  is  always  baffled  by  this  connection 
between  deeds  done  and  their  unforeseen  results.  It  is 
conceivable  that  these  notions  of  a  future  life  and  an 
infinite  series  of  consequences  have  no  other  basis  than 
that  of  being"  thinkable,  and  that  they  must  be  reckoned 
among  the  agencies  which  tie  man  down  to  the  insta- 
bility, the  contradictions,  and  the  continual  uncertainty 
into  which  he  is  plunged  by  his  partial  view  of  the 
qualities  and  causal  relations  of  events. 

As  my  letter  is  not  sealed,  I  must  give  you  a  quota- 
tion from  Montaigne.  I  have  just  dropped  on  a  passage 
so  apt  to  the  idea  in  my  mind  that  I  was  quite  struck 
and  delighted  with  it.  In  a  coincidence  of  thought  like 
this  there  is  a  thrill  of  secret  joy ;  it  is  the  basis  of  man's 
need  for  man,  because  it  fertilizes  our  ideas,  gives  con- 
fidence to  our  imagination,  confirms  our  self-assurance. 

In  Montaigne  one  does  not  find  what  one  seeks  ;  one 
takes  what  there  is  to  find.  He  should  be  opened 
haphazard,  and  that  is  a  compliment  to  his  style.  He 
is  very  original,  without  caricature  or  affectation,  and  I 
am  not  surprised  that  some  Englishman  has  placed  the 
Essays  above  everything.  Montaigne  has  been  blamed 
for  two  things  which  gave  him  distinction,  and  for 
which  I  need  not  vindicate  him  between  you  and  me. 

In  Chapter  VIII.  of  Book  II.,  he  writes  :—"  As  I  know 
by  certaine  experience,  there  is  no  comfort  so  sweet  in 
the   losse   of  friends   as    that   our   owne   knowledge   or 


LETTER  XXXVIII.  139 

conscience  tells  vs  we  never  omitted  to  tell  them  every- 
thing, and  expostulate  all  matters  vnto  them,  and  to 
have  had  a  perfect  and  free  communication  with  them." 
[Florio's  Translation.] 

This  complete  understanding"  with  a  moral  being"  like 
ourselves,  side  by  side  with  us  in  honourable  fellowship, 
seems  an  essential  feature  of  the  part  allotted  us  in  the 
play  of  life.  We  are  dissatisfied  with  ourselves  if,  when 
the  act  is  over,  we  have  failed  irrevocably  in  the  per- 
formance of  the  scene  entrusted  to  us. 

That  proves,  you  will  perhaps  reply,  that  we  have  a 
premonition  of  another  life.  I  grant  it  ;  and  we  shall 
agtee  too  that  the  dog  which  starves  out  its  life 
because  its  master  has  lost  his,  or  which  flings  itself 
into  the  blazing  pyre  that  consumes  his  body,  is  bent 
on  dying  with  him  because  it  firmly  believes  in  im- 
mortality, and  has  the  comforting  assurance  of  rejoining 
him  in  another  world. 

I  do  not  like  to  ridicule  anything  that  men  would 
fain  substitute  for  despair,  and  yet  I  was  almost  on  the 
point  of  jesting.  The  confidence  with  which  man 
buttresses  himself  in  opinions  that  please  him,  on 
matters  beyond  his  ken,  is  worthy  of  respect  in  so  far 
as  it  assuages  the  bitterness  of  his  woes,  but  there  is  a 
touch  of  absurdity  in  the  religious  infallibility  with 
which  he  tries  to  invest  it.  He  would  not  accuse  of 
sacrilege  any  one  who  asserted  that  a  son  might  law- 
fully cut  his  father's  throat  ;  he  would  take  him  to  the 
asylum,  and  think  no  more  about  it  ;  but  he  grows 
furious  if  one  ventures  to  hint  that  perhaps  he  will  die 
like  a  dog  or  a  fox,  so  terribly  afraid  is  he  of  believing 
it.     Cannot  he  see  that  he  is  giving  proof  of  his  own 

12 


140  OBERMANN. 

uncertainty  ?  His  faith  is  as  hollow  as  that  of  certain 
pious  folk  who  would  raise  the  cry  of  profanity  if  one 
doubted  whether  eating-  a  chicken  on  Friday  would 
doom  one  to  hell,  and  yet  would  eat  it  themselves  on 
the  sly  ;  so  little  does  the  dread  of  eternal  punish- 
ment weigh  against  the  pleasure  of  eating-  a  couple  of 
mouthfuls  of  meat  without  waiting  for  Sunday. 

Why  not  leave  to  each  man's  own  fancy  the  choice 
of  what  tickles  his  sense  of  humour,  and  even  of  the 
hopes  that  all  cannot  equally  share?  Morality  would 
gain  much  by  resigning  the  support  of  a  spasmodic 
fanaticism  and  basing  itself  firmly  on  inviolable  evi- 
dence. If  you  want  principles  to  appeal  to  the  heart 
take  those  that  exist  in  the  heart  of  every  normally 
constituted  man. 

Let  your  motto  be — In  a  world  of  delight  and  of 
sadness  man's  destiny  is  to  augment  the  sense  of  joy, 
to  develop  a  radiant  energy,  and  to  do  battle  in  every 
phase  of  experience  with  the  source  of  degradation 
and  sufferinof. 


THIRD    FRAGMENT. 

THE  ROMANTIC  IN  NATURE,  AND  THE  "  RANZ  DES  VACHES." 

The  sensational  captivates  crude  and  lively  imagina- 
tions, but  thoughtful  minds  of  genuine  susceptibility 
are  satisfied  with  the  purely  romantic.  Nature  abounds 
in  romantic  effects  in  out-of-the  way  places,  but  in 
time-worn  regions  they  are  spoiled  by  incessant  culti- 


THIRD  FRAGMENT.  141 

vation,  especially  in  plains  which  have  readily  sub- 
mitted in  every  part  to  the  sway  of  man.^ 

Romantic  effects  are  the  accents  of  a  tongue  which 
is  not  intelligible  to  all  men,  and  is  becoming"  in  some 
places  quite  a  dead  language.  We  soon  cease  to 
understand  them  when  we  no  longer  live  in  their  midst, 
and  yet  this  romantic  harmony  is  the  only  thing  which 
can  keep  fresh  in  our  hearts  the  colours  of  youth  and 
the  bloom  of  life.  The  society  man  is  no  longer 
conscious  of  these  effects  ;  they  are  too  remote  from 
his  mode  of  life,  and  he  ends  by  saying  "What  use 
are  they?"  His  constitution  is  burnt  out,  as  it  were, 
by  the  parching  heat  of  a  slow  and  constant  poison  ; 
he  is  old  when  he  should  be  in  full  vigour,  and  the 
springs  of  life  are  relaxed  within  him  though  he  still 
wears  the  husk  of  a  man. 

But  you,  whom  the  man  in  the  street  considers  his 
equals,  because  you  live  simply  and  make  no  display  of 
cleverness  with  your  gifts,  or  just  because  your  life  is 
open  to  him  and  he  sees  that  you  eat  and  sleep  as  he 
does — you,  men  of  primitive  tastes,  dispersed  here  and 
there  to  preserve  the  flavour  of  natural  things  in  this 
age  of  vanity,  you  recognize  each  other,  you  hold  con- 
verse in  a  tongue  the  crowd  knows  nothing  of,  when 
the  October  sun  shines  through  the  mist  above  the 
yellowing  woods ;  when  beneath  the  setting  moon  a 
tumbling  streamlet  drops  into  a  wood-girt  meadow; 
when  in  a  cloudless  summer  dawn,  a  woman's  voice  is 
heard  not  far  away  singing  amid  the  walls  and  roofs  of 
some  great  town. 

^  The  force  of  the  word  romantic  lias  been  modified  since  the  period 
when  these  words  were  written. 


142  OBERMANN. 

Imag-ine  a  vast  though  bounded  sheet  of  clear  trans- 
parent water,  oblong-  in  shape,  and  sweeping-  in  a  wide 
curve  towards  the  western  horizon.^  Lofty  peaks  and 
g-lorious  ranges  enclose  it  on  three  sides.  You  are 
seated  on  the  mountain  side  that  slopes  down  to  the 
northern  beach  on  which  the  waves  are  breaking. 
Behind  you  sheer  precipices  lift  their  heads  to  the 
clouds;  the  dreary  polar  wind  has  never  breathed  on 
this  happy  shore.  On  your  left  the  mountains  open 
out  and  a  quiet  valley  stretches  far  into  their  depths; 
a  mountain  stream  comes  tumbling  downward  from 
the  snow-clad  heights  that  bound  it.  Then  when  the 
morning  sun  appears  between  the  icy  peaks  above  the 
mists,  when  mountain  voices  betray  the  whereabouts 
of  chalets  above  the  meadows  still  in  shadow,  that  is 
the  awakening  of  an  unspoiled  world,  and  the  proof  of 
what  a  destiny  we  have  ignored. 

Or  take  the  hour  of  twilight,  the  time  of  rest  and 
soul-expanding  pensiveness.  The  valley  is  hazy  and 
darkening  fast.  Southward  night  has  fallen  on  the 
lake;  the  rocks  beyond  it  form  a  belt  of  gloom  below 
the  icy  dome  that  crowns  them,  where  the  light  of  day 
still  lingers  on  the  frozen  snow.  Its  last  gleams  gild 
the  countless  chestnuts  above  the  desolate  crags,  they 
shoot  in  long  rays  between  the  tall  stems  of  the 
mountain  pines,  they  glow  on  the  Alps,  they  kindle 
the  snows,  they  flame  in  the  air,  and  the  unruffled  lake, 
radiant  with  light  from  the  skies  reflected  in  its  breast, 
becomes  infinite  like  them,  and  purer,  more  ethereal, 
more  lovely  even  than  they.      Its  calm  is  a  marvel,  its 

^  The  passage  that  follows  is  evidently  a  description  of  the  head  of 
Lake  Geneva,  near  Montreux. — Tr. 


THIRD  FRAGMENT.  143 

clearness  a  mystery ;  the  aerial  splendour  it  mirrors 
seems  ensphered  in  its  depths,  and  under  those  moun- 
tains, cut  off  from  the  earth  as  though  hung-  in  mid  air, 
you  see  at  your  feet  the  vaulted  heavens  and  the  great 
round  world.  It  is  a  time  of  enchantment  and  ecstasy. 
Sky  and  mountains  and  the  solid  ground  beneath  you 
seem  adrift  in  space;  the  level  lake  and  the  horizon  are 
dissolved.  Your  ideas  are  transformed,  your  sensations 
wholly  new,  common  life  is  left  behind,  and  when  the 
dusk  has  settled  on  this  sheet  of  water,  when  the  eye 
can  no  longer  distinguish  objects  and  distances,  when 
the  evening  breeze  ripples  the  surface,  then  the  western 
extremity  of  the  lake  alone  gleams  with  pale  light, 
but  the  part  encircled  by  mountains  is  all  one  gulf  of 
thickest  gloom.  Then  from  the  depths  of  shadow  and 
silence  a  thousand  feet  below  there  reaches  your  ear 
the  ceaseless  wash  of  the  waves,  as  billow  follows 
billow  without  intermission  to  surge  over  the  sand 
with  measured  pulse,  to  be  shattered  by  the  rocks  or 
to  break  on  the  shore,  while  its  peals  reverberate  with 
a  long-drawn  murmur  in  the  invisible  abyss. 

It  is  in  sounds  that  Nature  has  vested  the  most  force- 
ful expression  of  the  romantic  element;  it  is  through 
the  sense  of  hearing  above  all  that  one  can  bring  to 
mind  extraordinary  places  and  things  with  the  fewest 
touches  and  in  the  most  effective  way.  The  associations 
stirred  by  scents  are  swift  and  vast,  but  vague;  those 
of  sight  have  more  interest  for  the  mind  than  the  heart; 
seeing  evokes  wonder;  hearing,  emotion. ^ 

The  voice  of  a  loved  one  is  sweeter  than  her  features ; 

^  The  harpsichord  of  colours  was  ingenious ;  a  corresponding  one  of 
scents  would  have  been  more  interesting. 


144  OBERMANN. 

sublime  scenery  makes  ri  deeper  and  more  lasting  im- 
pression by  the  sounds  that  haunt  it  than  by  its  forms. 
I  have  seen  no  picture  of  the  Alps  which  recalled  them 
to  me  so  vividly  as  a  g-enuine  Alpine  melody. 

The  "  Ranz  des  Vaches "  does  more  than  awaken 
reminiscences;  it  paints  a  picture.  I  know  that  Rous- 
seau has  stated  the  opposite,  but  I  think  he  is  wrong^. 
It  is  not  mere  imagination;  a  case  in  point  is  that  of 
two  people  looking  through  the  plates  of  the  Tableaux 
pittoresqiies  de  la  Suisse  independently,  and  remarking 
at  the  sight  of  the  Grimsel,  "That  is  the  place  to 
hear  the  '  Ranz  des  Vaches.'  "  If  it  is  performed  with 
sympathy  rather  than  art,  if  the  player's  soul  is  in  it, 
the  first  notes  transport  us  to  the  high  valleys  on  the 
fringe  of  the  bare,  reddish  gray  rocks,  beneath  the  sun 
that  burns  in  a  cool  sky.  We  rest  on  some  rounded 
grass-grown  knoll,  steeped  in  the  unhasting  calm  of 
things  and  in  the  grandeur  of  the  scene;  we  see  the 
plodding  step  of  the  cows  and  the  measured  swing  of 
their  big  bells,  close  under  the  cloud  belt,  on  the  gently 
sloping  breast  between  the  solid  granite  crags,  and  the 
granite  screes  of  the  snow-streaked  ghylls.  The  wind 
moans  desolately  through  the  distant  larches,  and  one 
can  distinguish  the  hum  of  the  unseen  torrent  deep 
sunk  in  the  gorge  it  has  carved  out  in  the  course  of 
ages.  To  these  lonely  sounds  succeed  the  hurried 
doleful    tones    of  the    cowherds'^    songs,    the    pastoral 

1  Kuhei-  in  German,  Annailli  in  Romance,  a  man  who  drives  the  cows 
up  the  mountains  and  spends  the  whole  season  in  the  high  pastures 
making  cheese.  Usually  the  Armaillis  spend  four  or  five  months  in 
the  high  Alps,  quite  cut  oft' from  the  society  of  women,  and  often  even 
from  that  of  other  men. 


THIRD  FRAGMENT.  145 

expression  of  sober  g^ladness  and  mountain  exhilaration. 
The  song-s  come  to  an  end ;  the  man  disappears  in  the 
distance;  the  cow-bells  have  passed  the  larches;  and 
now  one  only  hears  the  rattle  of  falling-  stones  and  the 
intermittent  crash  of  trees  borne  down  by  the  torrent  to 
the  valley  below.  These  Alpine  sounds  swell  out  and 
fail  on  the  wind;  and  in  the  intervals  of  silence,  all 
seems  chill,  motionless,  and  dead.  It  is  the  domain  of 
the  phlegmatic  man.  He  sets  out  from  his  low  and 
ample  roof,  secured  with  heavy  stones  against  the  gales, 
and  whether  the  wind  rages  or  the  thunder  rolls  beneath 
his  feet  it  is  all  one  to  him.  He  trudges  off  to  where 
his  cows  should  be,  and  there  they  are;  he  calls  them 
and  they  gather  up  and  take  their  turns;  then  back  he 
goes  with  the  same  steady  pace,  carrying  milk  for  the 
plains  he  will  never  see.  The  cows  stand  chewing  the 
cud;  nothing  stirs,  not  a  soul  is  visible.  The  air  is 
chilly;  the  wind  drops  as  twilight  falls;  and  nothing  is 
left  but  the  glimmer  of  perpetual  snows,  and  the  plunge 
of  torrents  whose  lonely  hum  comes  up  from  below,  and 
seems  to  emphasize  the  unbroken  silence  of  the  tower- 
ing peaks,  the  glaciers,  and  the  night. ^ 

^  Several  attempts  have  been  made  to  write  words  for  this  Shepherds' 
March.  One  such  attempt,  in  the  dialect  of  La  Gruyere,  contains 
forty-eight  lines:  — 

"  Les  armailiis  di  Columbette 
De  bon  matin  se  son  leva,  "  etc. 

Another  of  these  ballads,  said  lo  have  been  composed  at  Appenzell,  is 
in  German,  and  ends  somewhat  as  follows: — "Retreats  profound, 
unruffled  calm !  O  peace  of  men  and  fields,  O  peace  of  vales  and 
lakes!  Ye  sturdy  shepherds  with  your  rural  homes  and  artless  ways  ! 
Ah,  give  to  our  hearts  the  charm  of  your  chalets  and  the  resignation 
learnt  beneath  your  frigid  skies.  Untrodden  peaks!  Chill  sanctuary. 
Last  resting-place  of  a  free  and  simple  soul !" 


146  OBERMANN. 

LETTER   XXXIX. 

Lyons,  May  wih  (VI.). 

The  glamour  that  is  possible  in  all  the  relations  that 
bind  each  man  to  his  fellows  and  the  Universe,  the 
eager  longing  that  a  young  heart  feels  when  all  the 
world  is  before  it,  the  unknown  and  wonderful  territory 
there  is  to  explore — that  charm  is  faded,  transient,  fled. 
The  outside  world  to  which  I  must  re-act  has  become 
desolate  and  bare;  I  thought  to  find  in  it  the  life  of  the 
soul,  but  it  is  not  there. 

I  have  seen  a  valley  suffused  with  mellow  light  be- 
neath a  lovely  veil  of  morning  mist;  then  it  was 
beautiful.  I  have  seen  it  change  and  tarnish;  the 
devouring  orb  passed  over  it,  scorching  and  exhausting 
it  with  its  glare,  and  leaving  it  burnt  up,  sapless,  and 
pitifully  barren.  So  the  happy  veil  of  our  days  is  slowly 
lifted  and  dispersed.  There  no  longer  remain  any  of 
those  half-lights  and  hidden  regions  so  delightful  to 
explore.  There  are  no  more  misty  beams  to  take  the  eye. 
Everything  is  arid  and  exhausting  like  the  burning  sand 
beneath  the  sky  of  the  Sahara.  Stripped  of  this  misty 
robe  all  objects  exhibit  with  ghastly  realism  the  ingenious 
but  dreary  mechanism  of  their  naked  skeleton.  Their 
ceaseless,  inevitable,  resistless  movements  involve  me 
without  interesting  me,  and  disquiet  me  without 
quickening    my    life. 

For  years  past  this  misery  has  been  threatening, 
accumulating,  becoming  definite  and  chronic.  If  no- 
thing occurs,  not  even  calamity,  to  break  this  deadly 
monotony,  I  shall  be  driven  to  end  the  whole  concern. 


LETTER  XL.  147 

LETTER  XL. 

Lyons,  May  i^^/i  (VI.). 

I  was  under  the  long  wall  on  the  bank  of  the  Saone, 
where  formerly  as  growing-  lads  we  used  to  stroll 
together  and  talk  of  Tinian/  when  our  hearts  were 
set  on  happiness  and  we  really  meant  to  live.  I  was 
watching  the  river  rolling  on  as  it  did  then  and  the 
autumn-  sky,  as  calm  and  fine  as  in  those  days  of  which 
no  trace  remains.  A  carriage  approached;  I  drew  to 
one  side  unconsciously  and  kept  walking  on,  gazing  at 
the  yellow  leaves  which  the  wind  was  sweeping  over 
the  dry  grass  and  along  the  dusty  road.  The  carriage 
stopped;  Madame  Dellemar  alone  and  her  six  year  old 
daughter  were  in  it.  I  got  in  and  went  as  far  as  her 
country  house,  but  declined  to  enter.  You  know  that 
Madame  Dellemar  is  not  yet  twenty-five,  and  that  she 
is  greatly  altered;  but  she  stills  talks  with  the  same 
simple  and  perfect  grace;  her  eyes  have  a  more  sorrow- 
ful but  not  less  lovely  expression.  We  did  not  mention 
her  husband.  You  will  remember  that  he  is  thirty  years 
her  senior,  a  capitalist  of  some  sort,  well  up  in  money 
matters,  but  a  nonentity  in  everything  else.  Unhappy 
woman!  Hers  is  a  spoiled  life,  and  yet  fate  seemed  to 
promise  her  such  a  happy  one!  She  had  every 
qualification  for  happiness  and  for  making  another 
happy.     And  it  is  all  thrown  away.     It   will    soon    be 

^  See  note  on  Letter  XI. — Tk. 

-  The  reference  to  autumn  sky  and  yellow  leaves  is  inconsistent  with 
the  date  at  the  head  of  the  letter. — Tk. 


148  OBERMANN. 

five  years  since  I  last  saw  her.  She  sent  the  carriage 
back  to  town  with  me,  but  I  got  out  near  the  place 
where  she  overtook  me,  and  stayed  till  a  late  hour. 

On  my  way  home  a  feeble,  broken-spirited  old  man 
came  up  to  me,  looking-  hard  at  me  the  while.  He 
addressed  me  by  name  and  appealed  for  charity.  I 
failed  to  recognize  him  at  the  time,  but  afterwards  I 
was  quite  shocked  by  the  recollection  that  it  could  be 
none  other  than  our  old  Third  Form  master,  good  and 
painstaking  fellow  that  he  was.  I  made  some  enquiries 
this  morning,  but  am  not  sure  whether  I  shall  succeed 
in  discovering  the  wretched  attic  in  which  no  doubt  he 
is  spending  his  last  days.  The  poor  fellow  would 
conclude  that  I  did  not  want  to  recognize  him.  If  I 
find  him,  we  must  see  that  he  has  a  room  and  a  few 
books  to  keep  him  in  touch  with  his  old  ways.  His 
sight  seems  still  quite  good.  I  do  not  know  what  I  am 
at  liberty  to  promise  him  on  your  behalf;  let  me  know, 
please.  It  is  not  a  question  of  temporary  relief,  but 
for  the  rest  of  his  life.  I  will  do  nothing  without  your 
instructions. 

I  had  spent,  I  should  think,  more  than  an  hour  that 
evening  hesitating  in  which  of  two  directions  to  take  a 
short  stroll,  and  though  the  place  where  I  met  her  was 
the  further  from  my  house,  something  drew  me  that 
way  ;  it  must  have  been  the  yearning  in  another  of  a 
sadness  fit  to  match  my  own. 

I  should  readily  have  declared  that  I  should  never 
see  her  again.  That  resolution  had  been  firmly  taken, 
and  yet.  .  .  .  Her  image,  though  dimmed  by  de- 
pression, by  time,  and  even  by  the  shaking  of  my 
confidence    in    aftections    too    often    disappointed    and 


LETTER  XL.  149 

useless,  is  still  bound  up  with  my  inner  consciousness 
and  all  my  outlook  on  life.  I  see  it  with  the  mind's 
eye,  but  it  is  like  the  persistent  memory  of  a  vanished 
dream,  like  those  castles  in  the  air  of  which  the  mind 
retains  a  trace,  though  at  my  time  of  life  they  are  no 
more. 

For  I  have  really  come  to  man's  estate.  My  repul- 
sions have  matured  me,  and  thanks  to  my  destiny,  I 
have  no  other  master  than  that  grain  of  sense  one 
receives  from  above,  one  knows  not  why.  I  am  not 
under  the  yoke  of  passion,  nor  led  astray  by  desire  ; 
pleasure  will  not  corrupt  me.  I  have  said  g-ood-bye  to 
all  those  vagaries  of  strong  souls.  I  shall  not  make 
myself  ridiculous  by  going  into  raptures  over  sensational 
things  and  then  having  to  recant,  or  by  becoming  the 
dupe  of  a  fine  sentiment.  I  feel  equal  to  looking  with 
indifference  on  a  lovely  view,  a  fine  sky,  a  virtuous 
deed,  or  a  touching  display  of  feeling  ;  and  if  I  thought 
it  worth  while,  I  could,  like  any  well-bred  gentleman, 
perpetually  yawn  and  smile,  pretend  to  be  amused 
though  bored  to  extinction,  and  die  of  ennui  with  the 
utmost  calmness  and  dignity. 

I  was  taken  by  surprise  when  I  met  her,  and  am  so 
even  yet,  because  I  do  not  see  what  it  can  lead  to. 
But  what  necessity  is  there  for  it  to  lead  anywhere  ? 
Plenty  of  isolated  events  happen  in  the  world,  or  events 
which  have  no  perceptible  results.  And  yet  I  cannot 
rid  myself  of  a  kind  of  instinctive  habit  of  looking  for 
a  sequel  and  consequences  to  everything  ;  most  of  all 
to  things  brought  about  by  chance,  I  cannot  help 
trying  to  see  a  purpose  in  it  and  the  working  out  of 
some   necessity.     This  curious    tendency   amuses    me  ; 


I50  OBERMANN. 

we  have  more  than  once  laughed  over  it  together,  and 
just  at  present  it  is  not  at  all  inopportune. 

I  am  quite  sure  I  should  not  have  chosen  that  road, 
if  I  had  known  I  should  meet  her ;  but  I  believe  it 
would  have  been  a  mistake  all  the  same.  A  visionary 
should  see  everything,  and  a  visionary  unfortunately 
has  nothing  special  to  fear.  Besides,  is  there  any  need 
to  shun  everything  which  pertains  to  the  life  of  the 
soul,  and  everything  which  may  remind  it  of  its  losses? 
Is  it  possible  so  to  do?  A  scent,  a  sound,  a  ray  of 
light  will  bring  home  to  me  equally  well  that  there  is 
more  m  human  nature  than  mere  digestion  and  sleep. 
A  throb  of  joy  in  the  heart  of  an  unhappy  man,  or  the 
sigh  of  one  who  is  merry  can  equally  reveal  to  me  that 
mysterious  duality  which  the  understanding  maintains 
in  an  infinite  series  of  perpetual  oscillations,  a  duality 
in  which  our  bodies  are  only  the  materials  with  which 
an  eternal  idea  sketches  out  the  plan  of  something 
invisible,  and  which  it  casts  like  dice,  or  manipulates 
like  numbers. 

When  back  on  the  bank  of  the  Saone  I  said  to 
myself.  How  incomprehensible  is  the  eye  !  Not  only 
does  it  receive,  so  to  speak,  the  infinite  ;  it  seems  also 
to  reflect  it.  It  sees  a  whole  world,  but  it  mirrors,  it 
reveals,  it  expresses  something  vaster  still.  An  all- 
captivating  grace,  a  profound  and  tender  eloquence,  a 
significance  deeper  than  the  things  signified,  a  universal 
bond  of  harmony — all  this  is  in  the  eye  of  a  woman. 
All  this,  and  even  more,  is  in  her  voice  if  she  feels 
deeply.  When  she  speaks  she  arouses  lapsed  emotions 
and  ideas  ;  she  wakes  the  soul  from  its  lethargy  and 
charms   it   to  follow  her   through  the   whole  sphere  of 


LETTER  XL.  151 

moral  life.  When  she  sings  she  seems  to  influence 
and  transform  our  surroundings  and  to  create  new 
sensations.  Natural  life  is  no  longer  commonplace  ; 
everything  is  romantic,  inspired,  intoxicating.  There, 
sitting  quietly,  or  busy  with  some  task  or  other,  she 
transports  us  with  her  into  the  full  swing  of  the  mighty 
world,  and  our  life  gains  dignity  from  its  sublime, 
unhasting  revolution.  How  tame  seem  then  those 
men  who  make  so  much  to  do  about  mere  trifles  !  To 
what  nonentity  they  limit  us,  and  how  exhausting  it  is 
to  live  among  such  noisy,  uninspiring  creatures. 

And  yet  when  training  and  talent,  successes  and  gifts 
of  chance,  have  all  united  to  fashion  a  lovely  face,  a 
shapely  form,  a  polished  manner,  a  noble  soul,  a  tender 
heart,  and  a  broad  mind,  it  only  takes  a  day  for  ennui 
and  despondency  to  set  about  the  obliteration  of  them 
all,  in  the  desolation  of  a  cloister,  in  the  repulsions  of 
a  mistaken  marriage,  or  in  the  bareness  of  an  irksome 
life. 

I  shall  continue  to  meet  her.  She  no  longer  expects 
anything  from  life,  so  we  shall  get  on  well  together. 
She  will  not  be  surprised  to  find  me  consumed  with 
ennui,  and  I  need  not  fear  that  I  shall  add  to  hers. 
The  situation  of  each  of  us  is  fixed,  and  so  definitely 
that  I  shall  not  alter  mine  by  going  to  see  her  when 
she  returns  to  town. 

I  already  picture  to  myself  the  smiling  grace  with 
which  she  hides  her  weariness  and  receives  the  visitors 
who  tire  her  out,  and  how  eagerly  she  longs  for  the 
morrow  on  her  days  of  pleasure.  Almost  every  day 
brings  the  same  irksome  round.  Concerts,  parties, 
and  all  such  entertainments  are  the  toil  of  the  so-called 


152  OBERMANN. 

happy;  it  is  their  task,  as  the  toil  of  the  vineyard  is  the 
labourer's;  but  heavier,  for  it  does  not  bring  its  own 
compensation  ;  it  produces  nothing. 


LETTER    XLI. 

Lyons,  May  iS//i  (VI.). 

It  almost  seems  as  if  Fate  set  itself  to  rivet  upon  us 
again  the  fetters  we  try  to  snap  oft'  in  spite  of  it.  What 
have  I  gained  by  leaving  everything  in  quest  of  a  freer 
life  ?  Ev^en  if  I  have  seen  things  suited  to  my  nature, 
it  was  only  in  passing,  without  enjoying  them,  as  if  to 
increase  my  craving  for  them. 

I  am  not  the  slave  of  passion,  but  am  none  the 
happier  for  that.  Its  vanity  will  not  delude  me;  but 
then  one  must  fill  life  with  something.  What  satis- 
faction is  there  in  an  empty  existence?  If  life  is  a 
mere  distracted  nothingness,  is  it  not  better  to  forsake 
it  for  a  nothingness  without  the  distraction.  One's 
understanding  postulates  a  result;  I  wish  some  one 
would  tell  me  what  the  result  of  my  life  is  to  be.  I 
want  something  to  mark  and  charm  away  my  hours ; 
I  cannot  go  on  for  ever  with  them  dragging  past  so 
heavily  in  slow  succession,  without  desires,  illusions, 
or  aim.  If  I  can  know  nothing  of  life  but  its  miseries, 
was  the  gift  worth  having  ?     Is  it  wise  to  keep  it? 

You  will  not  suppose  me  so  weak  in  face  of  the  ills 
of  humanity  that  I  cannot  even  endure  the  dread  of 
them;  you  know  me  better  than  that.      It  is  not  mis- 


LETTER  XLI.  153 

fortune  that  would  make  me  think  of  fling-ing  away  my 
life.  Resistance  invigorates  the  soul  and  gives  it  a 
nobler  air;  we  feel  our  feet  in  the  struggle  with  great 
griefs ;  we  find  pleasure  in  the  effort  of  it,  there  is  at 
least  something  to  be  done.  But  the  obstructions,  the 
boredoms,  the  limitations,  the  insipidity  of  life,  it  is 
these  that  wear  me  out  and  sicken  me.  A  man  domin- 
ated by  passion  can  brace  himself  to  suffer  because  he 
means  to  enjoy  by-and-by,  but  what  motive  can  sustain 
the  man  who  has  nothing  to  expect  ?  I  am  weary  of 
leading  so  vain  a  life.  True,  my  patience  might  hold 
out  longer,  but  life  is  slipping  away  without  my  doing 
anything  useful,  and  as  devoid  of  enjoyment  and  hope 
as  it  is  of  peace.  Do  you  suppose  an  unconquerable 
soul  could  submit  to  that  for  long  years  to  come? 

I  might  assume  that  there  is  also  a  purpose  in  out- 
ward events,  and  that  necessity  itself  has  a  regular 
route  and  some  sort  of  aim  which  the  understanding 
can  foresee.  I  sometimes  ask  myself  whither  I  shall 
be  led  by  this  enforced  ennui,  this  apathy  I  cannot 
shake  off,  this  blank  and  insipid  environment  from 
which  I  cannot  free  myself,  and  in  which  there  is 
nothing  but  disappointment,  delay,  and  elusiveness ; 
where  every  probability  vanishes,  effort  is  frustrated, 
and  every  change  miscarries ;  where  expectation  is 
always  deceived,  even  the  expectation  of  some  calamity, 
which  would  at  least  be  stimulating;  where  one  might 
almost  conclude  some  hostile  will  had  set  itself  to  keep 
me  in  a  state  of  indecision  and  embarrassment,  or  to 
delude  me  by  vague  circumstances  and  baffling  hopes  in- 
to spending  my  whole  life  without  attaining,  producing, 
or  possessing  anything  whatever. 


154  OBERMANN. 

I  review  the  dreary  vista  of  my  long-  and  wasted 
years.  I  see  how  the  ever  seductive  future  changes 
and  dwindles  as  it  draws  near.  Struck  with  a  deadly 
blight  by  the  funereal  glimmer  of  the  present,  it  loses 
its  glow  the  very  moment  one  seeks  to  enjoy  it,  and 
dropping-  its  mask  of  seductions  and  already  vapid 
charm,  it  glides  past  neglected  and  alone,  dragging 
heavily  its  battered  and  dingy  sceptre,  as  if  mocking 
the  weariness  inflicted  by  the  terrible  clanking  of  its 
endless  chain.  When  I  forecast  the  disenchanted  years 
through  which  the  rest  of  my  youth  and  of  my  life  must 
be  dragged  out,  when  I  follow  in  thought  the  downward 
grade  on  which  everything  is  slipping  to  destruction, 
what  do  you  suppose  I  can  expect  at  the  end  of  it,  and 
who  can  hide  from  me  the  abyss  in  which  everything 
must  perish  ?  Baffled  and  weary,  and  convinced  of  my 
impotence,  must  I  not  at  any  rate  seek  rest?  And 
when  a  force  I  cannot  escape  relentlessly  weighs  me 
down,  how  can  I  rest  unless  I  fling  myself  headlong  ? 

Everything;  must  have  an  aim  congenial  to  itself. 
Since  my  life  on  the  social  side  is  severed  from  the  rest 
of  the  world,  why  should  I  vegetate  on  through  long 
years,  alike  useless  to  others  and  wearisome  to  myself? 
For  the  mere  instinct  of  self-preservation  !  Just  to 
draw  breath  and  grow  older  !  To  wake  in  bitterness 
when  everything-  sleeps,  and  to  long  for  night  when 
the  earth  is  blossoming;  to  be  utterly  blank  of  desire 
and  only  to  dream  of  existence;  to  be  dislocated  and 
solitary  in  this  world  of  sorrows,  making  no  one  the 
happier,  and  having  only  a  theory  of  the  part  man 
should  play;  to  cling  to  a  blighted  life,  an  abject  slave 
excluded  from   life   and    yet   grasping    at    its    shadow; 


LETTER  XLI.  155 

greedy  of  existence,  as  if  real  existence  were  still  within 
reach,  and  submitting-  to  live  miserably  for  lack  of 
courage  to  die. 

What  use  to  me  are  the  specious  arguments  of  a 
comfortable  and  flattering  philosophy,  the  hollow  mask 
of  a  cowardly  instinct,  the  empty  wisdom  of  sufferers 
who  prolong  the  evils  they  endure  so  meekly,  and 
who  find  sanction  for  our  bondage  in  an  imaginary 
necessity  ? 

"Wait  awhile,"  they  tell  me;  "moral  suffering 
wears  itself  out  in  course  of  time:  wait;  times  will 
improve,  and  you  will  be  satisfied;  or  if  they  remain 
the  same,  you  yourself  will  alter.  By  making  the  best 
of  the  present  you  will  tone  down  your  too  glowing 
conception  of  a  better  future,  and  by  taking  life  as  it 
is  you  will  find  it  grow  better  as  your  heart  grows 
calmer."  A  passion  may  cool,  a  loss  be  forgotten,  a 
misfortune  be  retrieved;  but  I  have  no  passions,  I 
bewail  neither  loss  nor  misfortune — nothing  that  can 
cool,  be  forgotten,  or  retrieved.  A  new  passion  may 
compensate  us  for  an  old  one,  but  on  what  shall  I  stay 
my  heart  if  it  loses  the  thirst  which  consumes  it  ?  It 
longs  for  everything,  wills  to  do  everything,  embraces 
everything.  VVhat  can  replace  the  infinite  my  thought 
demands?  Regrets  may  be  forgotten,  banTsfied~By 
other  advantages;  but  what  advantages  can  outweigh 
boundless  regrets.  Everything  adapted  to  human 
nature  has  to  do  with  my  being;  I  have  tried  to  feed 
on  it  in  harmony  with  my  nature,  and  have  pined 
away  on  an  impalpable  shadow.  Do  you  know  any 
compensation  for  the  loss  of  a  world?  If  my  calamity 
is   simply  the  emptiness  of  my  life,  will  time  cure  the 

I ;! 


156  OBERMANN. 

ills  it  aggravates,  and  must  I  hope  they  are  abating 
when  it  is  just  their  duration  that  is  making  them 
intolerable  ? 

"Wait;  better  days  will  perhaps  bring  about  what 
your  present  lot  seems  to  make  impossible."  Ye  men  of 
a  day  who  keep  planning  as  you  grow  older,  scheming 
for  a  distant  future  though  death  is  on  your  track, 
dreaming  of  comforting  illusions  amid  the  instability  of 
everything,  do  you  never  realize  the  flight  of  time  ?  Do 
you  not  see  that  your  life  is  being  rocked  to  sleep,  and 
that  this  vicissitude,  which  is  the  stay  of  your  deluded 
hearts,  is  just  the  preliminary  to  their  annihilation  in 
one  final  and  imminent  catastrophe  ?  If  man's  life  were 
endless,  or  if  it  were  merely  longer,  and  if  it  remained 
uniform  almost  to  his  last  hour,  then  hope  might  be- 
guile me,  and  1  might  possibly  look  forward  to  what 
w'ould  at  any  rate  be  possible.  But  is  there  any  per- 
manence in  life  ?  Will  the  future  have  the  wants  of 
the  present,  and  will  what  we  need  to-day  be  good  to- 
morrow ?  Our  heart  changes  more  swiftly  than  the 
seasons;  their  alternations  have  at  least  some  con- 
stancy, for  they  are  repeated  through  the  course  of 
ages.  But  our  days,  which  nothing  can  renew,  have 
never  two  hours  alike;  their  seasons,  which  never  recur, 
have  each  their  own  wants,  and  if  a  single  one  of  them 
misses  its  due,  it  is  gone  for  ever,  and  at  no  later  age 
can  we  enjoy  what  we  have  missed  in  the  prime  of  life. 

"It  is  only  a  madman  who  tries  to  fight  against 
necessity.  The  wise  man  takes  things  as  they  come ; 
he  only  gives  heed  to  those  aspects  of  them  which  can 
make  him  happier;  without  needless  anxiety  about  the 
track  he  shall  follow  through  the  world,  he  knows  how 


LETTER  XLI.  157 

to  secure  at  each  stage  of  his  journey  the  comforts  of 
civiHzation  and  a  good  night's  rest,  and  in  view  of  the 
nearness  of  his  destination  he  travels  without  exertion, 
and  even  loses  his  way  without  uneasiness.  What 
would  it  profit  him  to  want  more,  to  withstand  the 
force  of  the  world  and  to  try  to  evade  its  fetters  and 
inevitable  catastrophe  ?  No  individual  can  check  the 
whole  trend  of  things,  and  nothing  is  more  futile  than 
to  bewail  the  ills  which  are  inseparable  from  our 
nature."  But  if  everything  is  necessitated,  what  fault 
can  you  find  with  my  ennuis  ?  Why  censure  them  ? 
Can  I  feel  differently?  If,  on  the  other  hand,  our  in- 
dividual lot  is  in  our  own  hands,  if  man  can  exercise 
choice  and  volition,  there  may  exist  for  him  obstacles 
he  cannot  overcome,  and  miseries  he  cannot  evade,  but 
the  united  effort  of  the  human  race  cannot  do  more 
than  end  his  life.  The  only  man  who  can  be  subjected 
to  everything  is  the  man  who  is  determined  to  live  at 
any  price ;  he  who  claims  nothing  can  be  subjected  to 
nothing.  You  expect  me  to  be  resigned  to  inevitable 
ills;  I  am  perfectly  willing  to  be  so,  but  as  soon  as  I 
resolve  to  quit  the  whole  concern,  inevitable  ills  no 
longer  exist  for  me. 

The  many  blessings  man  enjoys  even  in  misfortune 
would  not  detain  me.  No  doubt  in  the  abstract,  goods 
outnumber  evils,  but  we  should  be  strangely  mistaken 
if  we  estimated  things  thus  in  practice.  A  single  evil 
we  cannot  overlook  outweighs  twenty  goods  we  seem 
to  enjoy,  and  whatever  reason  may  say  there  are  many 
evils  that  only  time  and  effort  can  cure,  unless  one 
happens  to  be  a  crank  with  a  touch  of  fanaticism. 
Time,  it  is  true,  dispels  these  evils,  and  a  wise  man's 


158  OBERMANN. 

firmness  makes  still  shorter  work  of  them,  but  the  busy 
imagniation  of  other  men  has  so  multiplied  them  that 
new  ones  are  always  ready  to  take  their  place.  Joys, 
too,  pass  away  as  well  as  sorrows,  and  even  if  man  had 
ten  pleasures  for  a  single  pain,  so  long  as  one  pain  can 
mar  a  hundred  pleasures  while  it  lasts,  life  will  be,  to 
say  the  least  of  it,  insipid  and  unprofitable  to  one  who 
is  stripped  of  illusions.  The  ill  is  permanent,  the  good 
temporary;  by  what  attraction,  for  what  end,  should  I 
tolerate  life?  The  climax  of  the  plot  is  known — what 
is  there  left  to  be  done  ?  The  one  irreparable  loss  is 
the  loss  of  desire. 

I  know  that  a  natural  inclination  binds  man  to  life, 
but  it  is  a  kind  of  instinctive  habit,  and  in  no  way 
proves  that  life  is  good.  A  living  creature  clings  to 
existence  simply  because  it  exists;  it  is  reason  alone 
that  can  enable  us  to  view  annihilation  without  dread. 
It  is  strange  that  man,  whose  reason  professes  to 
despise  instinct,  should  fall  back  on  the  blindest  of  his 
instincts  to  sanction  the  fallacies  of  that  same  reason. 

It  will  be  objected  that  habitual  impatience  is  due  to 
the  violence  of  the  passions,  and  that  the  more  an  old 
man  is  calmed  and  enlightened  by  age  the  more  firmly 
he  clings  to  life.  I  will  not  stop  to  inquire  at  present 
whether  the  reason  of  a  man  in  the  decline  of  life  is 
worth  more  than  that  of  one  in  his  prime;  nor  whether 
each  stage  of  life  has  not  a  type  of  feeling  appropriate 
at  the  time  but  unseasonable  before  and  after;  nor, 
finally,  whether  our  futile  institutions  and  those  senile 
virtues  which  are  the  product  in  the  first  instance  of 
decay  are  a  solid  argument  in  favour  of  the  age  at 
which  the  fires  of  life  are  cooled.      I  will  simply  reply 


LETTER  XLl.  159 

that  every  mixed  blessing  is  regretted  when  we  lose  it; 
an  irrevocable  loss  after  long  possession  is  never  viewed 
dispassionately;  our  imagination,  as  experience  shows, 
always  disregards  a  benefit  as  soon  as  won,  to  direct 
our  energies  to  what  there  still  remains  to  win,  and, 
when  a  thing  ends,  only  gives  heed  to  the  good  we 
lose,  not  to  the  ill  from  which  we  are  set  free. 
.  This  is  not  the  way  to  estimate  the  worth  of  actual 
life  to  the  majority  of  men.  But  ask  them  each  day  of 
their  ever-hoping  existence  whether  the  present  moment 
satisfies,  disappoints,  or  is  indifferent  to  them;  your 
conclusions  will  then  be  reliable.  Every  other  estimate 
is  simply  a  mode  of  self-deception,  and  I  want  to  sub- 
stitute a  clear  and  simple  truth  for  confused  ideas  and 
exploded  fallacies. 

This  advice  will  then  be  given  me:  "Curb  your 
desires;  limit  your  too-grasping  needs;  set  your  heart 
on  things  attainable.  Why  seek  for  what  circumstances 
forbid?  Why  exact  what  men  can  so  well  do  without? 
Why  wish  for  things  that  are  useful?  So  many  people 
never  even  think  of  them  !  Why  mourn  over  public 
calamities?  Do  you  find  that  they  disturb  the 
sleep  of  anybody  who  is  happy?  W^hat  gain  is 
there  in  these  throes  of  a  strong  soul,  this  instinct 
for  things  sublime?  Can  you  not  dream  of  perfec- 
tion without  attempting  to  crane  up  to  it  the  crowd 
which  ridicules  it,  even  amidst  its  groaning?  Must 
you  have  greatness  or  simplicity,  a  stimulating  en- 
vironment, unique  scenery,  men  and  things  just  to 
your  taste,  before  you  can  enjoy  life  ?  Given  existence, 
everything  is  good  for  man ;  and  wherever  he  can  live 
at   all   there   he   can  live  in  contentment.      If  he  has  a 


i6o  OBERMANN. 

g"ood  reputation,  a  few  acquaintances  who  wish  him 
well,  a  house  and  something'  respectable  to  turn  out  in, 
what  more  does  he  need?"  Quite  right;  I  have  no 
fault  to  find  with  such  counsels  as  these  which  a  practical 
man  would  give  me;  in  fact,  I  believe  them  to  be  very 
good — for  those  who  find  them  so. 

Nevertheless,  I  am  calmer  than  I  used  to  be,  and  am 
beginning  to  tire  even  of  my  impatience.  Grim  but 
tranquil  thoughts  visit  me  more  frequently.  I  ponder 
freely  on  those  who  have  found  their  eternal  night  in 
the  morning  of  their  days ;  this  mood  rests  and  comforts 
me;  it  is  the  premonition  of  eventide.  "But  why," 
they  ask,  "this  craving  for  darkness?  Why  does  the 
light  distress  me?"  They  will  know  some  day;  when 
they  too  have  changed ;  when  I  shall  be  no  more. 

"  When  you  will  be  no  more  !  .  .  .  Are  you  contem- 
plating a  crime  ?" 

If,  worn  out  with  the  ills  of  life  and  supremely  dis- 
enchanted as  to  its  goods,  already  dangling  over  the 
abyss  and  marked  to  fall,  restrained  by  friends,  accused 
by  moralists,  condemned  by  my  country, ^if,  I  say,  I 
had  to  reply  to  the  arguments  and  reproaches  of  the 
social  man  in  whose  eyes  I  am  guilty,  this  it  seems  to 
me  is  what  I  might  say: — 

I  have  sifted  everything  thoroughly,  if  not  by  actual 
experience,  at  any  rate  by  anticipation.  Your  sorrows 
have  blighted  my  soul,  they  are  unbearable  because 
they  are  aimless.  Your  pleasures  are  illusory  and 
fleeting;  it  takes  but  a  day  to  ransack  and  leave  them. 
I  sought  happiness  within  me,  though  not  like  a  fanatic, 
and  I  found  that  it  was  not  meant  for  man  in  isolation ; 
I   suggested  it   to  those  around  me,   but  they  had  no 


LETTER  XLI.  i6i 

time  to  think  of  it.  I  questioned  the  multitude  enervated 
by  misery  and  the  favoured  oppressed  by  ennui ;  they 
replied:  "  We  suffer  to-day,  but  we  shall  be  happy  to- 
morrow." For  my  part  I  know  that  the  coming-  day 
will  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  the  one  that  is  passing^. 
Live  on,  you  whom  a  bright  illusion  can  still  deceive, 
but  as  for  me,  weary  of  hope  betrayed,  bereft  of  expec- 
tation and  almost  of  desire,  I  am  no  longer  bound  to 
live.  I  regard  life  from  the  standpoint  of  a  man  on  the 
brink  of  the  grave;  let  it  open  to  receive  me.  Shall 
I  postpone  the  end  when  it  is  already  at  hand  ?  Nature 
presents  illusions  to  faith  and  love;  she  only  lifts  the 
veil  when  the  hour  of  death  has  struck.  She  has  not 
lifted  it  for  you,  live  on  then;  she  has  lifted  it  for  me, 
my  life  is  already  over. 

It  may  be  that  man's  real  good  is  moral  independence, 
and  that  his  miseries  are  only  the  consciousness  of  his 
innate  weakness  in  manifold  situations  ;  that  everything 
outside  himself  is  a  dream,  and  that  peace  dwells  in  the 
heart  that  is  inaccessible  to  illusions.  But  where  can 
disenchanted  thought  find  rest  ?  What  is  there  to  do 
in  life  when  one  is  indifferent  to  all  it  contains  ?  When 
the  passion  for  all  things — that  infinite  yearning  of 
strong-  souls — has  consumed  our  hearts,  the  spell  on 
our  desires  is  rudely  broken,  and  irreparable  ennui 
springs  from  the  cold  ashes.  Funereal  and  ominous, 
it  swallows  up  all  hope  ;  it  holds  sway  over  the  ruins 
of  life  ;  it  devours  and  extinguishes  ;  with  resistless 
force  it  digs  our  grave,  that  refuge  which  will  at  least 
give  rest  through  oblivion  and  calm  in  annihilation. 

Without  desires,  what  can  one  make  of  life?  To 
vegetate  in  stupidity  ;  to  drag-  oneself  through   the  dull 


i62  OBERMANN. 

round  of  cares  and  business  ;  to  g^rovel  abjectly  with 
the  meanness  of  the  slave  or  the  vacancy  of  the  mob  ; 
to  think  without  serving-  the  universal  order,  to  feel 
without  living- !  Thus,  the  pitiful  sport  of  an  inexplic- 
able fate,  man  will  abandon  his  life  to  the  chances  of 
things  and  of  time.  Thus,  baffled  by  the  conflict  between 
his  wishes,  his  reason,  his  laws,  and  his  nature,  he 
hastens  with  a  gay  and  daring  step  towards  the  dark- 
ness of  the  tomb.  With  eager,  restless,  spectre-haunted 
eyes  and  sorrow-laden  heart,  he  seeks  and  goes  astray, 
he  vegetates  and  lulls  himself  to  sleep. 

World-wide  harmony,  glorious  dream  !  Moral  aim, 
social  obligation,  laws,  duties — words  sacred  among 
men  !  It  is  only  in  the  opinion  of  the  deluded  crowd 
that  I  shall  seem  to  set  you  at  defiance. 

Of  a  truth,  I  leave  some  friends  whom  I  shall  distress, 
my  country  whose  obligations  I  have  far  from  repaid, 
all  men  whom  I  ought  to  serve  ;  but  these  are  occasions 
for  regret,  not  remorse.  Who  can  prize  more  than  I 
the  worth  of  unity,  the  authority  of  duties,  the  delight 
of  being  useful  ?  I  once  hoped  to  do  some  good- 
it  was  the  most  flattering  and  the  wildest  of  my  dreams. 
You,  in  the  perpetual  uncertainty  of  your  ever  dis- 
tracted and  precarious  life  of  bondage,  all  follow  with 
blind  docility  the  beaten  track  of  the  established  state  of 
things,  thus  handing  over  your  life  to  use  and  wont, 
and  wasting  it  without  regret  as  you  would  waste  a 
day.  Had  I  too  been  swept  away  by  this  all-prevailing 
deviation,  I  might  have  left  behind  me  some  kind 
actions  in  these  paths  of  error  ;  but  such  kindness  is 
easy  to  all  men,  and  will  be  done  without  me  by  good 
men.     There  are  such  men  ;   long  may  they  live,   and 


LETTER  XLI.  163 

be  happy  in  finding-  themselves  useful.  It  will  be  no 
comfort  to  me,  I  confess,  in  this  gulf  of  misery,  if  I  can 
do  no  more  than  that.  A  single  poor  fellow  at  my  side 
may  possibly  be  relieved,  but  a  hundred  thousand  still 
groan,  and  I  shall  look  helplessly  on  while  the  bitter 
fruits  of  human  error  are  attributed  to  the  nature  of 
things,  and  while  those  miseries  in  which  I  find  the 
accidental  caprice  of  tentative  experiments  towards 
perfection  are  perpetuated  as  if  they  were  the  inevitable 
result  of  necessity  !  Let  me  be  severely  blamed  if  I 
refuse  to  sacrifice  a  happy  life  for  the  general  good  ; 
but  when,  in  prospect  of  a  useless  future,  I  court  a 
repose  too  long  delayed,  it  is  regret,  I  repeat,  and  not 
remorse  that  I  feel. 

Under  the  burden  of  temporary  misfortune,  having 
regard  to  the  fluctuations  of  moods  and  circumstances, 
I  should  no  doubt  look  forward  to  better  days.  But 
the  calamity  that  burdens  my  years  is  no  temporary 
one.  Who  can  fill  the  emptiness  in  which  they  glide 
sluggishly  away  ?  Who  can  restore  desires  to  my  life 
and  expectation  to  my  will  ?  It  is  the  good  itself  that 
I  find  useless  ;  let  men  see  to  it  that  they  have  nothing 
but  ills  to  deplore  !  During  a  storm  we  are  buoyed  up 
by  hope,  and  are  fortified  against  the  risk  because  it 
will  come  to  an  end,  but  if  calm  itself  wearies  you, 
what  can  you  hope  for  then  ?  If  to-morrow  may  be 
good,  I  am  willing  to  wait  ;  but  if  my  lot  is  such  that 
to-morrow  cannot  be  better  but  may  be  unhappier  still, 
I  will  not  see  that  fatal  day. 

If  it  is  a  real  duty  to  live  out  the  life  that  has  been 
given  me,  I  will  certainly  face  its  miseries;  swift  time 
will  soon  sweep  them  away.      However  oppressed  our 


i64  OBERMANN. 

days  may  be,  they  are  bearable,  because  they  are 
limited.  Death  and  life  are  in  my  power;  I  do  not 
cling  to  the  one,  nor  do  I  yearn  for  the  other;  let 
reason  decide  whether  I  have  the  right  to  choose 
between  them. 

I  am  told  it  is  a  crime  to  desert  life.  And  yet  those 
very  sophists  who  debar  me  from  death  will  expose  me 
or  send  me  to  it.  Their  innovations  multiply  it  around 
me;  their  maxims  lead  me  to  it;  their  laws  inflict  it 
upon  me.  It  is  glory  to  renounce  life  when  it  is  sweet; 
it  is  justice  to  kill  a  man  who  wants  to  live ;  and  the 
death  one  must  court  when  dreaded  it  would  be  a  crime 
to  seek  when  desired!  You  trifle  with  my  existence  on 
a  hundred  pretexts,  either  plausible  or  absurd ;  I  alone 
have  no  rights  over  myself!  Wlien  I  love  life,  I  must 
despise  it;  when  I  am  happy,  you  doom  me  to  die;  but 
if  I  long  for  death,  then  it  is  that  you  debar  me  from  it; 
you  thrust  life  upon  me  when  I  abhor  it  !^ 

^  Beccaria  has  some  excellent  arguments  against  capital  punish- 
ment, but  I  cannot  see  my  way  to  agree  with  him.  He  asserts  that 
the  citizen — "  who  can  only  part  with  the  merest  fraction  of  his  liberty," 
cannot  consent  to  the  loss  of  his  life  ;  and  further,  that  "as  he  has  no 
right  to  kill  himself"  he  cannot  hand  over  the  right  of  killing  him  to 
the  State.  [Beccaria  was  a  celebrated  writer  on  jurisprudence  ;  his 
treatise  On  Crimes  and  Punishments  led  to  many  reforms  in  the  penal 
codes  of  Europe.  — Tk.] 

One  should  be  very  careful  only  to  say  what  is  just  and  incontestable 
when  discussing  the  principles  on  which  positive  laws  and  ethics  are 
based.  It  is  dangerous  to  buttress  the  best  causes  with  merely  specious 
arguments,  for  when  some  day  the  illusion  is  dispelled,  the  truth  itself 
which  they  seemed  to  support  totters  with  them.  Things  that  are  true 
have  real  reasons  in  their  favour ;  there  is  no  need  to  seek  arbitrary 
ones.  If  the  moral  and  political  legislation  of  antiquity  had  been 
based  only  on  evident  princijiles,  its  validity,  though  less  plausible  at  first 


LETTER  XLI.  165 

If  I  cannot  put  an  end  to  my  life,  no  more  can  I 
expose  myself  to  imminent  death.  Is  that  the  kind  of 
prudence  you  expect  of  your  subjects?  Then  on  the 
battlefield  they  oug-ht  to  estimate  the  probabilities 
before  charging  the  enemy,  and  your  heroes  are  all  of 
them  criminals.  The  command  you  give  them  does 
not  justify  them ;  you  have  no  right  to  send  them  to 
death  if  they  had  no  right  to  agree  to  be  sent.  An 
identical  unreason  sanctions  your  martial  fury  and 
dictates  your  maxims,  and  by  glaring  inconsistency 
you  justify  injustice  equally  glaring. 

If  I  have  not  this  right  of  death  over  myself,  who 
has  given  it  to  society?  Have  I  surrendered  what  was 
not  mine  to  give?  What  social  principle  have  you 
devised  which  will  explain  to  me  how  a  society  can 
acquire  an  internal  and  mutual  authority  which  was  not 

and  less  calculated  to  make  enthusiasts,  would  have  remained  unshaken. 
If  an  attempt  were  made  now  to  erect  that  still  unbuilt  edifice,  I  admit 
that  possibly  it  would  only  be  of  service  when  time  had  cemented  it, 
but  that  consideration  by  no  means  detracts  from  its  beauty  or  dispenses 
us  from  undertaking  it. 

Obermann  does  nothing  but  doubt,  theorize,  and  dream  ;  he  ponders 
but  scarcely  ever  reasons  things  out;  he  examines  without  deciding  or 
reaching  a  conclusion.  What  he  says  is  nothing,  if  you  like,  but  may 
lead  to  something.  If  in  his  independent,  unsystematic  way  he  still 
follows  some  principle,  it  is  primarily  that  of  trying  to  utter  nothing 
but  truth  in  support  of  truth  itself,  of  admitting  nothing  that  all  ages 
would  not  acknowledge,  of  not  confusing  good  intention  with  accuracy 
of  proof,  and  of  not  thinking  it  immaterial  by  what  argument  one 
supports  a  good  cause.  The  history  of  ever  so  many  religious  and 
political  sects  proves  that  expeditious  methods  only  produce  ephemeral 
results.  This  attitude  seems  to  me  of  the  utmost  importance,  and  it  is 
my  chief  reason  for  publishing  these  letters,  which  in  other  respects  are 
so  lacking  in  matter  and  clearness. 


i66  OBERMANN. 

possessed  by  its  members,  and  how  I  have  conferred  a 
right  which  may  be  used  to  oppress  me,  when  I  did  not 
possess  it  even  to  escape  from  oppression?  Shall  I  be 
told  that  if  man  in  isolation  enjoys  this  natural  right  he 
forfeits  it  by  becoming  a  member  of  society?  But  this 
right  is  in  its  nature  inalienable,  and  no  one  can  make 
a  contract  which  deprives  him  entirely  of  the  power  to 
break  it  when  it  is  being  used  to  his  detriment.  Others 
have  proved  before  me  that  man  has  no  right  to  part 
with  his  liberty,  or  in  other  words,  to  cease  to  be  a 
man;  how  then  can  he  forego  the  most  essential,  the 
most  secure,  the  most  irresistible  right  of  that  same 
liberty,  the  only  one  which  guarantees  his  independence, 
his  last  resort  against  calamity?  How  long  will  such 
palpable  absurdities  keep  men  in  bondage? 

If  it  can  be  considered  a  crime  to  abandon  life  I  will 
lay  the  blame  on  you,  for  it  is  your  fatal  innovations 
that  have  driven  me  to  desire  death;  apart  from  you  I 
might  have  staved  it  off.  Death  is  an  absolute  loss 
which  nothing  can  retrieve,  and  even  of  that  last 
melancholy  refuge  you  would  dare  to  deprive  me,  as  if 
some  control  over  my  last  hour  was  in  your  hands,  and 
as  if,  too,  your  legal  forms  could  limit  rights  beyond  their 
sphere  of  government.  Oppress  my  life  if  you  like, 
law  is  often  the  strongest  reason  ;  but  death  is  the  limit 
I  set  to  your  power.  Elsewhere  you  command;  here 
you  must  prove. 

Tell  me  plainly,  without  )'Our  usual  circumlocutions, 
without  that  sham,  wordy  eloquence  which  does  not 
deceive,  me,  without  the  great  perverted  words — force, 
virtue,  eternal  order,  moral  destiny;  tell  me  simply 
whether  the  laws  of  societv  are  made  for  the  actual  and 


LETTER  XLI.  167 

visible  world,  or  for  a  distant  future  life.  If  they  are 
made  for  the  existing'  world,  tell  me  how  laws  relative 
to  a  definite  order  of  things  can  be  binding  when  that 
order  is  no  more;  how  that  which  regulates  life  can 
extend  beyond  it;  how  the  fashion  to  which  we  have 
conformed  our  relationships  can  exist  when  those 
relationships  are  ended ;  and  how  I  could  ever  consent 
that  conventions  should  bind  me  when  I  have  had 
enough  of  them?  What  is  the  basis,  or  rather,  the 
pretext,  of  your  laws?  Did  they  not  promise  the 
happiness  of  all?  When  I  desire  death,  obviously  I  am 
not  happy.  Must  the  contract  that  oppresses  me  be 
irrevocable?  An  irksome  engagement  in  the  details  of 
life  may  have  compensations,  and  we  can  forego  one 
advantag'e  when  we  retain  the  privilege  of  enjoying 
others,  but  can  the  idea  of  absolute  abnegation  be 
entertained  by  any  man  with  a  sense  of  right  and  truth? 
All  society  is  based  on  co-operation  and  mutual  service ; 
but  if  I  injure  society,  does  it  not  withdraw  its  pro- 
tection? If  then  it  does  me  no  g"ood,  or  a  great  deal  of 
harm,  I  have  also  the  right  of  refusing  to  serve  it. 
When  our  contract  no  longer  suits  society,  it  breaks  it; 
when  it  no  longer  suits  me,  I  break  it  too.  I  do  not 
revolt;  I  make  my  exit. 

It  is  the  last  effort  of  your  jealous  tyranny.  Too 
many  of  your  victims  would  escape  you,  too  many  sig-ns 
of  the  prevailing  wretchedness  would  contradict  the 
empty  noise  of  your  promises  and  would  display  your 
crafty  codes  in  all  their  dreary  nakedness  and  financial 
corruption.  It  was  foolish  of  me  to  speak  to  you  of 
justice!  I  saw  the  pitying  smile  in  your  paternal  look. 
It  told  me  that  men  are  swayed  by  force  and  self-interest. 


i68  OBERMANN. 

Still,  you  have  decreed  ag^ainst  self-destruction. 
Well,  how  will  your  law  be  enforced?  On  whom  will 
fall  the  penalty  for  its  infraction?  Can  it  touch  the 
man  who  is  no  more?  Will  it  take  veng-eance  on  his 
family  for  the  act  it  contemns?  What  futile  madness ! 
Multiply  our  miseries,  you  will  need  to  for  the  g^reat 
thing's  you  purpose;  you  will  need  to  for  the  glory  you 
seek;  enslave  and  torture  if  you  will,  but  do  at  least 
have  an  object;  perpetrate  iniquity  and  cold-blooded 
cruelty,  but  at  least  let  it  not  be  aimless.  What 
mockery — a  law  of  slavery  that  is  neither  obeyed  nor 
avenged ! 

Where  your  power  ends,  there  your  false  pretences 
begin,  so  essential  it  is  to  your  sway  not  to  cease 
making  men  your  sport.  It  is  nature,  you  say,  it  is  the 
Supreme  Intelligence  that  would  have  me  bow  my  neck 
under  the  heavy  and  insulting  yoke.  They  would  have 
me  hug"  my  chain  and  drag-  it  meekly,  until  the  moment 
when  it  pleases  you  to  break  it  over  my  head.  What- 
ever you  do,  you  claim  that  a  God  has  put  my  life  in 
your  hands,  and  that  the  order  of  the  world  would  be 
turned  upside  down  if  your  slave  escaped. 

The  Eternal,  say  you,  has  given  me  existence  and  set 
me  my  part  in  the  harmony  of  his  works ;  I  must  fulfil 
it  to  the  end,  and  I  have  no  right  to  elude  his  sway. 
You  are  very  soon  forgetting  the  soul  with  which 
you  credited  me.  This  earthly  body  is  but  dust, 
you  remember,  surely.  But  my  intelligence,  an  im- 
perishable breath  derived  from  the  universal  Intelligence, 
can  never  evade  His  law.  How  can  I  desert  the  empire 
of  the  Master  of  all  things?  I  only  change  my  place; 
places  are  nothing  with  Him  who  contains  and  governs 


LETTER  XLI.  169 

all.  He  has  no  more  bound  me  exclusively  to  the  earth 
than  to  the  country  where  he  fixed  my  birth. 

You  argue,  agahi,  that  Nature  cares  for  my  preserva- 
tion ;  I  ought  to  do  the  same  in  obedience  to  her  laws,  and 
by  giving  me  the  fear  of  death  she  forbids  me  to  seek  it. 
That  sounds  very  fine;  but  Nature  preserves  me  or 
sacrifices  me  at  will ;  the  course  of  events  shows  no 
trace  of  a  known  law  in  that.  When  I  want  to  live  a 
gulf  opens  and  swallows  me  up,  the  bolt  falls  and 
annihilates  me.  If  Nature  takes  away  the  life  she  has 
made  me  love,  I  vi^ill  take  it  away  myself  when  I  no 
longer  love  it;  if  she  robs  me  of  a  good,  I  renounce  an 
ill;  if  she  places  my  existence  at  the  mercy  of  events, 
I  forsake  it  or  preserve  it  as  I  please.  Since  she  has 
given  me  the  power  to  will  and  to  choose,  I  will  make 
use  of  it  when  I  have  to  decide  in  the  most  important 
matters  of  all ;  and  I  cannot  see  that  in  availing  myself 
of  the  liberty  she  has  given  me  to  choose  what  she 
suggests  I  am  violating  it.  As  a  product  of  Nature, 
I  investigate  her  laws,  and  find  in  them  my  freedom. 
As  a  member  of  the  social  order  I  dispute  the  erroneous 
maxims  of  moralists,  and  I  repudiate  any  laws  that  no 
legislator  had  a  right  to  make. 

In  everything  not  forbidden  by  a  higher  and  obvious 
law,  my  desire  is  my  law,  for  it  is  the  sign  of  natural 
impulse;  it  is  my  right  by  the  mere  fact  of  being  my 
desire.  Life  is  not  sweet  to  me  if  I  am  disenchanted 
as  to  its  goods  and  have  nothing  left  but  its  ills.  It 
then  becomes  my  bane,  and  I  have  the  right  as  a  being 
who  chooses  and  wills,  to  leave  it. 

If  I  dare  to  decide  where  so  many  have  doubted,  it 
is   the  outcome   of  profound   conviction.       Even   if  mv 


I70  OBERMANN. 

decision  happens  to  tally  with  my  wants,  at  any  rate 
it  has  not  been  dictated  by  any  partiality;  if  I  am  in 
error,  I  venture  to  affirm  that  I  am  not  guilty,  for  I 
cannot  conceive  where  the  error  lies. 


My  object  in  all  this  has  been  to  ascertain  what  I 
could  do ;  I  make  no  statement  as  to  what  I  shall  do. 
I  feel  neither  despair  nor  passion ;  it  is  sufficient  for  my 
peace  of  mind  if  I  am  certain  that  the  useless  burden 
can  be  shaken  off  when  it  weighs  too  heavily.  Life  has 
long  been  a  weariness  to  me,  and  every  day  it  becomes 
more  so,  but  I  am  far  from  desperation.  I  still  feel 
some  repugnance  to  parting  irrevocably  with  my  being. 
If  I  had  to  decide  here  and  now  either  to  break  all 
bonds  or  to  be  held  by  them  of  necessity  forty  years 
more,  I  do  not  think  I  should  feel  much  hesitation;  but 
there  is  the  less  reason  for  hurry  because  I  can  do  it 
just  as  well  a  few  months  hence  as  to-day,  and  the 
Alps  are  the  only  region  suited  to  the  particular  way 
in  which  I  should  like  to  put  an  end  to  my  existence. 


LETTER    XLII. 

Lyons,  May  29///  (VI.). 

I  have  read  your  letter  several  times  through.  A  too 
kindly  interest  dictated  it.  I  appreciate  the  friendship 
that  misleads  you ;  you  have  made  me  feel  that  I  am 
not  so  lonely  as  I  professed  to  be.  You  ingeniously 
set  forth  some  very  praiseworthy  motives ;  but  believe 


LETTER  XLIi.  171 

me,  thoLig-h  a  great  deal  might  be  said  to  a  passionate 
man  in  the  grip  of  despair,  there  is  not  a  single  valid 
answer  to  a  tranquil  man  discussing  his  own  death. 

Not  that  I  have  decided  anything.  I  am  over- 
whelmed with  ennui,  steeped  in  disgust.  I  know  the 
evil  is  in  myself.  Why  cannot  I  be  content  just  to  eat 
and  sleep?  For  I  do  manage  to  eat  and  sleep  The 
life  I  lead  is  one  of  no  great  hardship.  Every  one  of 
my  days  is  endurable,  but  it  is  their  totality  that  over- 
whelms me.  An  organized  being  must  act,  and  act 
according  to  his  nature.  Does  it  suffice  him  to  be 
well  sheltered  and  warmed,  softly  pillowed,  fed  on 
delicate  fruits,  surrounded  by  the  murmur  of  waters 
and  the  scent  of  flowers?  If  you  keep  him  passive, 
this  softness  wearies  him,  these  fragrances  pall  on 
him,  these  choice  fruits  fail  to  nourish  him.  Take 
back  your  gifts  and  your  chains;  let  him  act,  let  him 
suffer  even ;  for  action  is  enjoyment  and  life. 

Nevertheless,  apathy  has  become  almost  natural  to 
me.  The  idea  of  an  active  life  seems  to  dismay  or  to 
stun  me.  A  narrow  sphere  repels  me,  yet  I  cannot  get 
out  of  its  groove.  A  wide  sphere  always  attracts  me, 
but  my  indolence  dreads  it.  I  know  neither  what  I 
am,  nor  what  I  like,  nor  yet  what  I  want;  i  groan 
without  cause  ;  I  desire  without  object,  and  the  only 
thing  I  see  is  that  I  am  not  in  my  right  place. 

1  regard  this  inalienable  privileg'e  of  ceasing  to  be 
not  as  an  object  of  steadfast  desire  or  fixed  resolution, 
but  as  the  consolation  which  is  left  in  long  continued 
calamities,  as  a  limit  to  disgusts  and  annoyances  that 
is  always  within  reach. 

You  call  my  attention  to  the  concluding  sentence  in 

14 


172  OBERMANN. 

one  of  Lord  Edward's  letters.^  I  see  nothing'  in  it  to 
disprove  my  point.  I  agree  as  to  the  principle,  but 
the  law  which  forbids  under  all  circumstances  the 
voluntary  surrender  of  life  does  not  seem  to  me  a 
necessary  inference. 

Man's  morality  and  enthusiasm,  his  restless  wishes 
and  perpetual  craving  for  expansion,  seem  to  suggest 
that  his  goal  is  not  in  things  that  pass  away,  that  his 
activity  is  not  confined  to  visible  phenomena,  that  his 
thought  is  concerned  with  necessary  and  eternal  con- 
ceptions, that  his  business  is  to  work  for  the  betterment 
or  the  reformation  of  the  world,  that  his  vocation  is  in 
some  sense  to  develop,  to  refine,  to  organize,  to  give 
more  energy  to  matter,  more  power  to  living  beings, 
more  perfection  to  instruments,  more  fecundity  to 
germs,  better  adjustment  to  correspondences,  wider 
sway  to  order. 

He  is  often  regarded  as  Nature's  agent,  employed 
by  her  to  give  the  finishing  touches  to  her  work,  to 
turn  to  account  whatever  portions  of  brute  matter  are 
accessible  to  him,  to  bring  shapeless  masses  under  the 
laws  of  harmony,  to  refine  metals,  improve  plants,  dis- 
entangle or  combine  principles,  to  volatilize  solids  anc! 
transform  inertia  into  energy,  to  bring  up  to  his  level 
those  who  fall  short  of  it,  and  himself  to  rise  and  pro- 
gress towards  the  universal  principle  of  fire,  light, 
order,   and  harmony. 

On  this  supposition,  the  man  who  is  worthy  of  so 
high  a  calling  will  stay  at  his  post  to  the  last  moment, 
victorious  over  obstacles  and  aversions.     I  respect  such 

^  Perhaps  a  character  in  a  drama  by  Alexander  Duval  (1S02),  based 
on  \'oltaire's  Sikle  de  Louis  XIV. — Tk. 


LETTER  XLII.  173 

constancy,  but  I  am  not  convinced  that  that  is  his  post. 
If  man  survives  apparent  death,  why,  I  repeat,  should 
his  post  be  Hiuited  to  earth  any  more  than  to  the 
circumstances  or  the  place  he  was  born  in?  If  on  the 
other  hand  death  ends  all,  what  more  can  be  expected 
of  him  than  the  betterment  of  society?  He  has  duties 
to  fulfil,  but  as  they  are  necessarily  confined  to  the 
present  life,  they  can  neither  bind  him  beyond  nor 
compel  him  to  remain  under  their  sway.  While  in 
the  social  order  he  must  maintain  order;  among-  men 
he  must  serve  men.  No  doubt  a  g^ood  man  will  not 
forsake  life  so  long-  as  he  can  be  useful  in  it;  to  be 
useful  and  to  be  happy  are  for  him  the  same  thing.  If 
he  suflfers  and  yet  at  the  same  time  is  doing  much 
good,  he  is  more  pleased  than  dissatisfied.  But  when 
the  ill  he  experiences  outweighs  the  good  he  achieves, 
he  may  quit  everything,  and  indeed  must  do  so  when 
he  is  useless  and  unhappy,  if  only  he  can  be  sure  that 
in  these  two  particulars  his  lot  will  not  change.  Life 
was  given  him  without  his  consent,  and  if  he  were  also 
bound  to  keep  it,  what  freedom  would  he  have  left? 
He  can  part  with  his  other  rights,  but  never  with  that; 
without  that  last  refuge  his  dependence  would  be 
appalling.  To  suffer  much  for  the  sake  of  being  a 
little  useful  is  a  virtue  one  may  recommend  during  life, 
but  not  a  duty  one  can  prescribe  for  a  man  who  is 
leaving  it.  So  long  as  you  are  using  the  things  of  life 
it  is  an  obligatory  virtue;  it  is  on  that  condition  that 
you  become  a  member  of  the  State;  but  when  you  sur- 
render the  contract,  it  no  longer  binds  you.  Besides, 
what  is  meant  by  being  useful,  when  it  is  said  that 
each  of  us  may  be   so  ?     A   shoemaker   who   does   his 


174  OBERMANN. 

work  properly  spares  his  customers  some  discomfort, 
and  yet  I  doubt  whether  an  utterly  miserable  shoe- 
maker is  in  conscience  bound  to  go  on  measuring  feet 
until  he  dies  of  paralysis.  When  we  are  useful  in  this 
sense  it  is  quite  permissible  to  discontinue  our  useful- 
ness. It  is  often  noble  in  a  man  to  bear  the  burden 
of  life,  but  that  does  not  mean  that  he  is  always  bound 
to  do  it. 

I  seem  to  have  said  a  great  deal  about  a  very  simple 
matter.  But  simple  though  I  take  it  to  be,  do  not 
imagine  that  I  am  infatuated  with  the  idea  and  attribute 
more  importance  to  the  voluntary  act  which  puts  an 
end  to  life  than  to  any  other  act  of  that  life.  I  fail  to 
see  that  dying  is  such  a  very  great  concern ;  plenty  of 
men  die  without  having  time  to  think  about  it,  without 
even  being  aware  of  it!  No  doubt  a  voluntary  death 
ought  to  be  well  considered,  but  so  should  all  actions 
whose  consequences  are  not  confined  to  the  present 
moment. 

When  a  contingency  becomes  probable,  let  us  forth- 
with see  what  it  will  require  of  us.  It  is  worth  while 
to  consider  it  beforehand,  so  as  not  to  be  oppressed 
by  the  alternative  of  acting  without  deliberation  or  of 
losing  in  deliberation  the  opportunity  of  acting.  If  a 
man  who  has  not  determined  his  principles  finds  himself 
alone  with  a  woman,  he  does  not  set  himself  to  think 
out  his  duties;  he  begins  by  failing  in  his  most  sacred 
obligations;  he  will  perhaps  think  of  them  later.  How 
many  heroic  deeds  too  would  never  have  been  done 
if  it  had  been  necessary,  before  risking  one's  life,  to 
spend  an  hour  in  considering  the  matter? 

As  I  say,  I  have  come  to  no  resolution,  but  I  like  to 


LETTER  XLIII.  175 

feel  that  I  am  not  debarred  from  a  resource  which  is 
in  itself  infallible,  and  the  mere  idea  of  which  can  often 
lessen  my  impatience. 


LETTER    XLIIL 

Lyons,  Ilfay  30///  (VI.). 

La  Bruyere^  somewhere  remarks — "  I  should  not 
object  to  entrust  myself  in  confidence  to  a  reasonable 
person,  to  be  governed  by  him  in  all  circumstances, 
both  absolutely  and  for  ever.  I  should  be  sure  of 
doing  the  right  thing  without  the  anxiety  of  delibera- 
tion; I  should  enjoy  the  peace  of  mind  of  one  who  is 
governed  by  reason." 

For  my  own  part,  I  can  say  to  you  what  I  would 
say  to  no  one  else,  that  I  should  like  to  be  a  slave  in 
order  to  be  independent,  though  perhaps  you  will  think 
I  am  jesting.  A  man  who  has  a  part  to  play  in  the 
world,  and  who  can  bend  things  to  his  will,  is  no  doubt 
freer  than  a  slave,  or  at  any  rate  leads  a  more  satisfy- 
ing life,  since  he  can  live  according  to  his  thought. 
But  there  are  men  who  are  bound  hand  and  foot.  If 
they  make  a  movement,  the  inextricable  chain  which 
holds  them  like  a  snare  drags  them  back  into  futility; 
it  is  a  spring  that  reacts  with  more  force  the  further 
it  is  stretched.  What  can  you  expect  of  a  poor  wretch 
entangled  like  this?     hi  spite  of  his  so-called  freedom 

'  French  author,  1645-96;  tutor  to  the  Dauphin  along  with  Bossuet; 
an  opponent  of  Fcnelon. — Tk. 


176  OBERMANN. 

he  can  no  more  manifest  his  vital  activities  than  a  man 
who  wears  away  his  Hfe  in  a  dungeon.  Those  who 
have  found  a  weak  point  in  their  cage,  and  whose 
fetters  fate  has  forgotten  to  rivet,  come  and  say: 
"Courage!  you  must  make  an  effort;  be  daring;  do 
as  we  do."  They  do  not  see  that  it  was  not  themselves 
who  did  it.  I  do  not  say  that  chance  produces  human 
affairs,  but  I  believe  they  are  controlled,  partly  at  any 
rate,  by  a  force  extraneous  to  man,  and  that  a  com- 
bination of  circumstances  Independent  of  our  will  is 
essential  to  success. 

Were  there  no  moral  power  modifying  what  we  call 
the  probabilities  of  chance,  the  course  of  the  world 
would  be  far  more  unstable  than  it  is.  By  the  laws  of 
probability  the  lot  of  a  nation  would  oftener  fluctuate, 
every  destiny  would  be  at  the  mercy  of  an  abstruse 
calculation;  the  world  would  be  different,  it  would  no 
longer  have  laws  because  they  would  have  no  causality. 
Who  does  not  see  the  impossibility  of  it?  There  would 
be  a  contradiction  ;  good  men  would  be  free  in  their 
projects. 

If  there  is  no  general  power  controlling  all  things, 
what  strange  delusion  prevents  men  from  seeing  with 
dismay  that  in  order  to  keep  up  Roman  candles,  clerical 
collars,  and  christening-  cakes,  they  have  so  ordered 
everything  that  a  single  fault  or  a  single  occurrence 
can  blight  and  ruin  a  man's  whole  existence  ?  A 
woman,  for  losing  sight  of  the  future  for  one  minute, 
has  nothing  to  look  forward  to  in  that  future  but  nine 
months  of  bitter  anxiety  and  a  lifetime  of  infamy.  The 
heedless  scoundrel  who  has  just  killed  his  victim  will 
next  day  ruin  his  health  for  ever  by  forgetting  in  his 


LETTER  XLIII.  177 

turn.  And  yet  you  fail  to  see  that  the  present  scheme 
of  things,  in  which  one  incident  can  wreck  a  moral 
career,  or  a  single  caprice  cost  a  thousand  lives,  though 
you  call  it  the  social  edifice,  is  nothing  but  a  con- 
glomeration  of  masked  wretchedness  and  delusions, 
and  that  you  are  like  children  who  fancy  their  toys 
are  very  costly  because  they  are  covered  with  gilt 
paper.  You  calmly  assert  "That  is  how  the  world  is 
made."  Exactly;  and  is  not  that  a  proof  that  we  are 
nothing  else  in  the  universe  but  marionettes  worked  by 
a  showman,  set  in  opposition,  whirled  here  and  there, 
made  to  laugh,  to  fight,  to  weep,  to  jump,  for  the 
entertainment  of — whom  ?  I  cannot  tell.  But  that  is 
why  I  should  like  to  be  a  slave;  my  will  would  be  in 
subjection,  and  my  thought  would  be  free.  As  it  is, 
in  my  alleged  independence  it  is  a  necessity  to  act 
according  to  my  thought,  and  yet  I  am  unable  to  do 
so,  and  cannot  clearly  see  why  I  am  unable;  the  con- 
sequence is  that  my  whole  being  is  in  bondage,  without 
the  resolution  to  endure  it. 

I  do  not  really  know  what  I  want.  Happy  the  man 
who  only  wants  to  attend  to  business  ;  he  can  define  to 
himself  his  aim.  I  feel  deeply  that  nothing  great, 
nothing  that  is  possible  to  man  and  sublime  in  his 
conceptions,  is  beyond  the  reach  of  my  nature  ;  and 
yet  I  feel  just  as  much  that  I  have  missed  my  aim, 
wrecked  and  rendered  futile  my  life  ;  it  is  already 
death-stricken;  its  agitation  is  as  idle  as  it  is  excessive; 
it  is  energetic  but  barren,  inactive  and  ardent  amid  the 
calm  and  endless  travail  of  creation.  I  do  not  know 
what  to  wish  for,  so  I  am  driven  to  wish  for  everything, 
for  after  all  I  can  find  no  rest  so  long  as  I  am  devoured 


178  OBERMANN, 

with  longing; ;  I  cannot  find  any  foothold  in  emptiness. 
I  would  fain  be  happy  !  But  what  man  has  a  right  to 
expect  happiness  in  a  world  where  nearly  all  wear 
themselves  out  completely  in  merely  lessening  their 
miseries. 

If  I  have  not  the  peace  of  happiness,  I  must  have  the 
activity  of  power.  Verily,  I  have  no  wish  to  drag 
myself  from  grade  to  grade,  to  take  a  position  in 
society,  to  have  superiors  whom  I  acknowledge  for  the 
sake  of  having  inferiors  to  disdain.  Nothing  is  so 
absurd  as  that  hierarchy  of  contempt  which  descends 
in  accurately  proportioned  shades,  and  includes  the 
whole  state,  from  the  prince  who  claims  to  be  subject 
to  God  alone,  down  to  the  poorest  street  shoeblack, 
subject  to  the  woman  who  lets  him  sleep  on  fusty  straw. 
A  steward  dare  not  walk  into  his  master's  room  ;  but 
once  back  in  the  kitchen,  see  how  he  lords  it.  You 
might  take  the  scullion  who  trembles  under  him  to  be 
the  lowest  of  men.  Not  a  bit  of  it.  He  roughly 
orders  about  the  poor  woman  who  comes  to  carry  away 
the  sweepings,  and  who  earns  a  few  coppers  by  his 
patronage.  The  valet  entrusted  with  orders  is  a  con- 
fidential person,  and  he  in  turn  gives  orders  to  the 
valet  whose  less  handsome  figure  is  put  to  rough 
work.  The  beggar  who  has  found  a  good  line  bullies 
with  his  cleverness  the  beggar  who  cannot  boast 
of  a  sore. 

He  alone  is  completely  victorious  who  spends  the 
whole  of  his  life  in  the  place  for  which  his  temperament 
fits  him,  or  he  whose  genius  grasps  many  objects, 
whose  destiny  places  him  in  every  situation  possible  to 
man,  and  who  is  equal  to  the  situation  in  all  of  theni. 


LETTER  XLIII.  179 

In  the  midst  of  dang-er  he  is  a  Morgan  ;^  as  a  ruler,  a 
Lycurg-us  ;  among-  barbarians  he  is  Odin  ;  among- 
Greeks,  Alcibiades  ;  in  the  credulous  East,  Zoroaster  ; 
in  retirement  he  lives  like  Philocles  ;  '^  he  g-overns  like 
Trajan  ;  in  the  wilds  he  hardens  himself  for  times  to 
come  ;  he  vanquishes  allig-ators,  swims  rivers,  chases 
the  wild  gfoat  on  frozen  crag-s,  lights  his  pipe  at  volcanic 
lava ;  ^  he  slaug-hters  near  his  hut  the  polar  bear, 
pierced  with  arrows  made  by  his  own  hands.  But  man 
has  so  short  a  time  to  live,  and  the  permanence  of 
what  he  leaves  behind  him  is  so  uncertain  !  Were  his 
heart  not  so  ravenous  perhaps  his  reason  would  advise 
him  simply  to  steer  clear  of  suffering-,  while  imparting 
happiness  to  a  few  friends  worthy  to  enjoy  it  without 
stultifying  his  work. 

It  is  said  that  wise  men,  living  without  passion,  live 
without  impatience,  and  as  they  see  everything  in  the 
same  mood,  they  find  peace  and  the  dignity  of  life  in 
their  stability.  But  there  are  often  great  obstacles  in 
the  way  of  this  tranquil  unconcern.  In  order  to  take 
things  as  they  come,  sitting  lightly  to  the  hope  as  well 
as  the  fears  of  the  future,  there  is  only  one  sure  way,  a 
simple  and  easy  one;  and  that  is  to  banish  the  future 

^  Perhaps  Henry  Morgan,  1635-88,  born  in  Glamorgan,  became  a 
buccaneer  in  the  Barbadoes,  and  distinguished  himself  in  e.\j)editions 
against  Spanish  possessions. — Tk. 

-  Tragic  Athenian  poet,  nepliew  of  .llschylus,  I\'.  Cent.  B.C., 
surnamed  Bile,  and  Salt  from  his  acerbity.  The  ether  names  in  this 
paragraph  need  no  explanation. — Tk. 

^  A  case  in  point  is  related  in  the  Histoire  des  Voyages.  An  Ice- 
lander told  a  Danish  scientist  that  he  had  several  times  lighted  his 
pipe  at  a  stream  of  fire  in  Iceland  which  flowed  for  nearly  two  years. 


i8o  OBERMANN. 

from  one's  mind.     The  thought  of  it  is  always  distracting- 
because  always  uncertain. 

To  be  free  from  fears  and  desires  we  must  resign 
everything  to  circumstances  as  though  to  a  kind  of 
necessity,  accepting  joy  or  suffering  as  they  come,  and 
utilizing  the  present  moment  none  the  less  calmly  though 
the  hour  of  one's  death  were  in  its  wake.  A  strong 
soul  accustomed  to  high  thinking  may  attain  to  the 
wise  man's  unconcern  about  what  the  distracted  and 
prejudiced  call  calamities  and  blessings,  but  how  avoid 
distraction  when  the  future  has  to  be  considered?  How 
forget  it,  If  it  has  to  be  provided  for?  How  escape 
anxiety  if  one  must  arrange,  make  plans,  and  manage 
things?  Events,  hindrances,  successes,  must  be  fore- 
seen, and  to  foresee  them  is  to  dread  or  to  hope  for 
them.  Doing  implies  desiring,  and  to  desire  is  to  be 
dependent.  The  great  misfortune  is  to  be  driven  to  act 
freely.  The  slave  has  far  more  facility  for  being  really 
free.  He  has  only  himself  to  consider;  he  is  led  by  the 
law  of  his  nature,  and  that  is  natural  to  man,  and  simple. 
He  is  subject  also  to  his  master,  but  that  law  too  is 
obvious.  Epictetus  was  happier  than  Marcus  Aurelius. 
The  slave  is  free  from  anxieties,  they  are  for  the  free 
man;  the  slave  is  not  obliged  to  be  always  trying  to 
adjust  himself  to  the  scheme  of  things,  an  adjustment 
always  insecure  and  disturbing,  the  standing  difficulty 
of  one  who  would  live  a  human  life  reasonably.  It  is 
certainly  a  necessity,  nay  more,  a  duty,  to  consider  the 
future,  to  be  engrossed  with  it,  even  to  set  one's  affections 
on  it,  when  one  is  responsible  for  the  welfare  of  others. 
Indifference  is  then  no  longer  permissible  ;  and  what 
man  is  there,  however  apparently  isolated,  who  is  not 


LETTER  XLIII.  i8i 

gfood  for  something",  and  who  oug^ht  not  therefore  to 
seek  opportunities  of  beings  so?  Who  is  there  whose 
carelessness  will  injure  no  one  but  himself? 

The  Epicurean  should  have  neither  wife  nor  children, 
and  even  that  is  not  sufficient.  No  sooner  are  the 
interests  of  another  dependent  on  our  prudence  than 
little  distracting-  cares  mar  our  peace,  disturb  our  soul, 
and  often  even  quench  our  g-enius. 

What  will  become  of  a  man  bound  in  such  fetters  and 
born  to  be  chafed  by  them?  He  will  be  racked  between 
the  cares  in  which  he  is  reluctantly  engrossed,  and  the 
contempt  which  makes  them  uncongenial  to  him.  He 
will  neither  be  superior  to  circumstances — for  his  duty 
will  not  let  him — nor  equal  to  making  good  use  of  them. 
In  wisdom  he  will  be  uncertain,  and  in  business  impatient 
or  clumsy  ;  he  will  do  no  good  because  he  can  do  nothing 
according  to  his  nature.  If  one  would  live  independent 
one  should  be  neither  father  nor  husband,  perhaps  even 
not  have  a  friend;  but  to  be  thus  alone  is  to  live  very 
sadly  and  uselessly.  A  man  in  control  of  public  affairs 
who  plans  and  carries  out  great  undertakings  can  do 
without  special  attachments  ;  the  people  are  his  friends, 
and  as  a  benefactor  of  men  he  can  dispense  with  being 
such  to  any  one  man.  But  in  an  obscure  life  it  seems  to 
me  there  must  be  at  least  one  person  to  whom  we  have 
duties  to  fulfil.  Philosophic  independence  is  a  con- 
venient sort  of  life,  but  a  cold  one.  Any  one  but  an 
enthusiast  would  find  it  Insipid  in  the  long  run.  It  is 
dreadful  to  end  one's  days  by  saying:  "No  heart  has 
been  made  happy  through  me;  I  have  wrought  nothing 
for  the  welfare  of  man ;  I  have  lived  unmoved  and 
ineffective,    like    some    glacier    in    a    mountain     hollow 


i82  OBERMANN. 

which  has  withstood  the  noonday  sun  but  has  not 
descended  to  the  valley  to  refresh  with  its  water  the 
herbage  withered  by  the  scorching'  rays." 

Religion  settles  all  these  anxieties;^  it  resolves  so 
many  uncertainties  ;  it  gives  an  end  which  is  never 
unveiled  because  never  attained  ;  it  dominates  us  in 
order  to  make  us  at  peace  with  ourselves;  it  offers  us 
blessings  for  which  we  can  always  hope,  because  we 
cannot  verify  them  ;  it  banishes  the  idea  of  annihilation 
and  the  passions  of  life  ;  it  frees  us  from  our  hopeless 
ills  and  fleeting-  goods,  and  gives  us  instead  a  dream, 
the  hope  of  which  is  perhaps  better  than  all  concrete 
gains,  lasting  at  least  until  death.  If  it  did  not  pro- 
claim appalling  punishment  it  would  seem  as  beneficent 
as  it  is  solemn,  but  it  plunges  the  thought  of  man  into 
fresh  abysses.  It  is  based  on  dogmas  which  many 
cannot  believe  ;  they  desire  its  effects,  but  cannot  ex- 
perience them  ;  they  yearn  for  its  security,  but  cannot 
enjoy  it.  They  seek  for  its  heavenly  visions,  but  see 
only  a  mortal  dream;  they  love  the  good  man's  reward, 
but  do  not  see  that  Nature  is  their  debtor  ;  they  would 
like  to  live  for  ever,  and  they  see  that  everything  passes 
away.  While  newly-tonsured  novices  distinctly  hear 
an  angel  commending  their  fasts  and  their  merits, 
those  who  have  a  feeling  for  virtue  know  well  that 
they  cannot  rise  so  high  ;  overwhelmed  with  their 
weakness  and  the  emptiness  of  their  lot,  they  look  for- 
ward to  nothing  but  desire  and  distraction,  and  to 
vanishing  like  an  unconscious  shadow. 

^  The  author  does  not  say  definitely  what  he  means  here  by  religion, 
but  it  is  clear  that  he  has  in  view  more  particularly  the  belief  of 
western  nations, 


LETTER  XLIV.  183 

LETTER    XLIV. 

Lyons,  June  15///  (VI.). 

I  have  re-read  and  pondered  your  objections,  or  if 
you  like,  your  reproaches.  The  question  is  a  very 
serious  one,  and  1  am  going  to  reply  fully.  If  the  time 
spent  in  argument  is  generally  wasted,  that  spent  in 
writing  is  by  no  means  so. 

Do  you  really  think  that  those  views  of  mine  which 
you  say  add  to  my  unhappiness,  depend  on  myself? 
I  do  not  dispute  that  the  safest  plan  is  to  believe.  You 
confront  me  also  with  that  other  assertion,  that  belief 
is  necessary  as  a  sanction  of  morality. 

First  of  all  let  me  say  that  I  do  not  set  up  to  be 
positive  ;  I  should  like  not  to  deny,  but  I  find  it  rash, 
to  say  the  least  of  it,  to  affirm.  No  doubt  it  is  a 
misfortune  to  be  disposed  to  regard  as  impossible  what 
one  would  fain  believe  true,  but  I  do  not  know  how 
one  can  escape  this  misfortune,^  when  one  has  been 
overtaken  by  it. 

Death,  you  say,  has  no  existence  for  man.  You 
think  hie  jacet  is  profane.  The  man  of  character  and 
of  genius  is  not  there,  under  that  cold  marble,  in  those 
dead  ashes.  Who  said  he  was  ?  In  that  sense  hie 
jaeet  would  be  false  on  the  grave  o'i  a  dog  ;  its  loyal, 
busy  instinct  is  not  there  eillier.  \Yiiere  is  it  then  ? 
It  is  no  more. 

^  Perhaps  by  deeper  rellcction,  wliicli  would  restore  l]ioir  independ- 
ence to  more  religious  doubts. 


1 84  OBERMANN. 

You  ask  me  what  has  become  of  the  activity,  the 
intelligence,  the  soul,  of  that  body  which  has  just 
collapsed.  The  answer  is  very  simple.  When  the  fire 
on  your  hearth  goes  out,  as  everybody  knows,  its  light 
and  warmth  and  energy  leave  it  and  pass  into  another 
world,  to  be  there  eternally  rewarded  for  warming  your 
feet,  or  eternally  punished  for  burning  your  slippers  ! 
In  the  same  way  the  music  of  the  lyre  just  shattered  by 
the  ephor^  will  be  shrilled  from  pipes  until  it  has  ex- 
piated by  more  austere  sounds  those  voluptuous  modu- 
lations which  formerly  corrupted  morality. 

"  Nothing  can  be  annihilated,"  \ov\  say.  Not  so  ;  a 
being  or  an  atom  cannot,  but  a  form,  a  relation,  a 
faculty,  can.  I  should  be  glad  indeed  to  think  that  the 
soul  of  a  good  and  struggling  man  survived  him  for 
eternal  happiness.  But  if  the  mere  idea  of  this  blessed- 
ness has  itself  a  touch  of  heavenly  radiance,  that  does 
not  prove  it  to  be  more  than  a  dream.  The  dogma  is 
no  doubt  beautiful  and  comforting,  but  its  beautiful 
and  comforting  elements  do  not  even  give  the  hope  of 
believing  in  it,  much  less  convince  me  of  its  existence. 
When  some  charlatan  professes  to  tell  me  that  if  I 
implicitly  follow  his  instructions  for  ten  days  I  shall 
receive  at  the  end  of  that  time  supernatural  powers, 
becoming  invulnerable,  ever  young,  possessing  every- 
thing essential  to  happiness,  equal  to  every  good  action 
and  incapable  of  desiring  evil  ;  the  dream  will  captivate 
my  imagination  no  doubt  ;  I  may  possibly  hanker  for 
its  fascinating  promises,  but  I  could  not  persuade 
myself  they  were    true.      In  vain  will  he   object  that   1 

^  A  Spartan  magistrate.  —  Tr. 


LETTER  XLIV.  185 

run  no  risk  in  believingf  him.  If  he  used  even  more 
lavish  promises  to  persuade  me  that  the  sun  was  shining" 
at  midnight,  it  would  not  be  in  my  power  to  believe  it. 
If  he  turned  round  and  said:  "Frankly,  I  told  you  a 
lie,  and  other  men  are  taken  in  by  it  ;  but  do  not  tell 
them;  it  is  all  for  their  comfort;" — might  I  not  reply 
that  in  this  harsh  and  sordid  world,  where  some 
hundreds  of  millions  of  immortals  argue  and  suffer  in 
the  same  uncertainty,  some  cheerful,  exhilarated,  and 
sprightly,  others  dejected,  morose,  and  disappointed, 
no  one  has  yet  proved  it  a  duty  to  say  what  one  believes 
to  be  comforting  and  to  suppress  what  one  believes  to 
be  true. 

Full  of  unrest  and  more  or  less  unhappy  we  are 
always  looking  forward  to  the  next  hour,  next  day, 
next  year.  Last  of  all  we  need  a  next  life.  We  have 
existed  without  living,  so  we  shall  live  some  day  ;  an 
inference  more  tempting  than  accurate.  If  it  is  a 
comfort  to  the  unhappy,  all  the  more  reason  to  suspect 
the  truth  of  it.  It  is  a  beautiful  dream  which  lasts 
until  we  fall  asleep  for  ever.  Let  us  cling  to  the  hope; 
happy  he  who  has  it  !  But  let  us  admit  that  the  ground 
of  its  universality  is  not  difficult  to  find. 

It  is  true  that  one  risks  nothing  by  believing  it  if  one 
can,  but  it  is  no  less  true  that  Pascal's  dictum  was 
puerile — "  Believe,  because  you  risk  nothing  by  be- 
lieving, but  much  by  not  believing."  This  argument  is 
decisive  in  matters  of  conduct,  but  absurd  in  a  question 
of  faith.     When  did  belief  ever  depend  on  the  will  ? 

A  good  man  cannot  but  desire  immortality,  and  from 
that  the  daring  inference  has  been  drawn  that  only  a 
bad   man   will   not   believe   in    it.     This   rash  judgment 


i86  OBERMANN. 

classes  with  those  who  have  reason  to  dread  the 
eternity  of  justice  many  of  the  wisest  and  greatest  of 
men.  It  would  be  atrocious  in  its  intolerance  were  it 
not  so  imbecile. 

It  is  further  alleged  that  every  man  who  believes 
death  will  be  the  end  of  him  is  necessarily  selfish  and 
vicious  as  a  matter  of  calculation.  Another  mistake. 
Helvetius  ^  showed  more  knowledge  of  the  differences 
in  human  hearts  when  he  said:  "There  are  men  so 
unfortunately  constituted  that  they  can  only  find  happi- 
ness in  acts  which  lead  to  the  gallows."  There  are 
also  men  who  can  only  be  at  ease  when  those  around 
them  are  happy  ;  who  sympathize  with  everything  that 
enjoys  or  suffers,  and  who  would  be  dissatisfied  with 
themselves  if  they  were  not  serving  their  day  and 
generation.  Such  as  these  try  to  do  good  without 
having  much  faith  in  the  lake  of  brimstone. 

"At  any  rate,"  it  will  be  objected,  "the  masses  are 
not  like  that.  With  the  common  herd  each  individual 
looks  after  his  selfish  interests,  and  will  be  vicious  if 
not  wholesomely  hoodwinked."  That  may  be  true  so 
far.  If  men  neither  should  nor  could  be  undeceived,  it 
would  then  only  be  a  question  of  deciding  whether  the 
public  well-being  justifies  lying,  and  whether  it  is  a 
crime,  or  at  any  rate  an  injury,  to  reveal  the  true  state 
of  the  case.  But  if  this  wholesome — or  supposed 
wholesome — error  can  only  last  so  long",  and  if  belief 
on  hear-say  will  one  day  inevitably  end,  is  it  not 
obvious  that  your  whole  moral   structure  will   be   left 

^  A  French  philosopher,  1715-71;  retired  in  1751  from  his  oBlce  as 
cjueen's  chamberlain,  and  gave  himself  up  to  literary  labours,  the 
education  of  his  children,  and  the  care  of  a  small  estate  at  Vore. — Tk. 


LETTER  XLIV.  1S7 

without  support,  when  once  its  imposing-  scaffolding- 
has  collapsed?  In  order  to  find  a  short  and  easy  way 
of  safeguarding  the  present  you  involve  the  future  in  a 
catastrophe  that  may  be  irretrievable.  On  the  other 
hand  if  you  had  known  how  to  find  in  the  human  heart 
the  natural  foundations  of  its  morality,  if  you  had 
known  how  to  base  upon  them  whatever  was  necessary 
to  social  organization  and  state  institutions,  your  work, 
though  more  difficult  and  more  intelligent,  would  have 
been  permanent  as  the  world  itself. 

If  then,  ye  ministers  of  dogmatic  truth,  some  one 
unconvinced  of  what  the  most  respected  among  your- 
selves have  not  believed  were  to  come  and  say  :  "  The 
nations  are  beginning  to  want  certainties  and  to 
recognize  things  that  are  practical  ;  ethics  are  being 
transformed,  and  faith  has  died  out ;  no  time  must  be 
lost  in  showings  men  that,  apart  from  a  future  life, 
justice  is  a  necessity  of  their  hearts,  and  that  even  for 
the  individual  there  is  no  happiness  without  reason, 
while  in  society  the  virtues  are  as  essentially  laws  of 
Nature  as  the  laws  of  a  man's  physical  ne&ds  " — if  I 
say,  some  of  those  instinctively  just  and  order-loving 
men  whose  chief  aim  is  to  restore  unity,  harmony,  and 
gladness  to  their  fellows,  were  to  declare  the  incon- 
testable principles  of  justice  and  universal  love,  while 
leaving  in  doubt  what  cannot  be  proved  ;  if  they 
ventured  to  speak  of  the  invariable  channels  of  happi- 
ness, and  if,  constrained  by  the  truth  they  see  and  feel, 
and  you  yourselves  admit,  they  were  to  devote  their 
lives  to  proclaiming  it  in  various  ways  and  eventually 
with  success — pardon,  I  pray  you,  the  methods  which 
are  not  exactly  your  own  ;   bear  in   mind  that  stoning 

15 


1 88  OBERMANN. 

is  no  longer  in  fashion,  that  modern  miracles  have 
provoked  too  much  laughter,  that  times  are  changed 
and  you  must  change  with  them. 

Leaving  then  these  interpreters  of  heaven,  vi^hose 
high  function  makes  them  very  useful  or  very  perni- 
cious, wholly  good  or  wholly  bad,  some  of  them  vener- 
able, others  despicable,  I  come  back  to  your  letter.  It 
would  make  mine  too  long  if  I  replied  to  all  its  points, 
but  there  is  one  plausible  objection  1  cannot  allow  to 
pass  without  remarking  that  it  is  not  so  well  grounded 
as  at  first  sight  it  might  seem  to  be. 

"Nature,"  you  say,  "is  controlled  by  unknown 
forces  and  according  to  mysterious  laws ;  order  is  its 
rule,  intelligence  its  mainspring,  and  it  is  not  far  from 
these  established  though  obscure  premises  to  our  in- 
explicable dogmas."     Much  further  than  you  think. ^ 

"Many  remarkable  men  have  believed  in  presenti- 
ments, dreams,  secret  workings  of  invisible  powers; 
many  remarkable  men  have  therefore  been  super- 
stitious." Granted,  but  at  least  they  were  not  so 
after  the  fashion  of  small  minds.  The  biographer  of 
Alexander  says  that  he  was  superstitious,  so  also  was 
Brother  Labre;  but  Alexander  and  Brother  Labre  were 
not  superstitious  in  the  same  way  ;  there  were  con- 
siderable differences  in  their  mental  processes.  But 
we  will  discuss  that  another  time. 

^  There  is  certainly  a  vast  difTerence  between  admitting  that  there 
exist  things  inexplicable  to  man,  and  affirming  that  an  inconceivable 
explanation  of  those  things  is  correct  and  infallible.  It  is  one  thing  to 
say  in  the  dark,  "  I  do  not  see,"  and  another  thing  to  say,  "I  see  a 
divine  light ;  you  who  follow  me,  do  not  say  you  fail  to  see  it,  but  see 
it  or  be  anathema. " 


LETTER  XLIV.  189 

I  do  not  see  any  valid  proof  of  divine  origin  in  the 
almost  supernatural  efforts  religion  has  inspired.  All 
kinds  of  fanaticism  have  produced  results  which  seem 
surprising-  in  cold  blood. 

If  your  saints  bestow  their  coppers  freely  on  the  poor 
out  of  an  income  of  thirty  thousand  a  year,  they  are 
lauded  for  charity.  If  as  martyrs  the  executioner 
"opens  the  gate  of  heaven"  for  them,  everybody 
exclaims  that  without  grace  from  on  high  they  would 
never  have  had  strength  to  accept  eternal  blessedness. 
As  a  rule  I  fail  to  see  anything  in  their  virtues  that  is 
surprising  from  their  point  of  view.  The  prize  is  great 
enough,  but  they  are  often  very  small.  To  keep  straight 
they  have  need  always  to  see  hell  on  the  left,  purgatory 
on  the  right,  and  heaven  in  front.  I  do  not  say  there 
are  no  exceptions;  it  is  enough  for  my  point  that  they 
are  rare. 

If  religion  has  done  great  things  it  has  been  by  great 
inducements.  Those  accomplished  by  natural  goodness 
are  less  dazzling  perhaps,  less  opinionated  and  less 
eulogized,  but  more  stable  and  more  serviceable. 

Stoicism  also  had  its  heroes,  even  without  eternal 
promises  and  infinite  threats.  If  a  religious  cult  had 
done  so  much  with  so  little,  grand  proofs  of  its  divine 
institution  would  have  been  drawn  from  it,  I  will 
resume  to-morrow. 

There  are  two  points  to  consider:  whether  religion 
is  not  one  of  the  weakest  influences  with  the  class 
which  receives  what  is  called  education,  and  whether 
it  is  not  absurd  that  education  should  only  be  given 
to  a  tenth  part  of  mankind. 


I90  OBERMANN. 

To  say  that  the  virtue  of  the  Stoic  was  spurious 
because  he  made  no  claim  to  eternal  life  is  the  height 
of  bigoted  insolence. 

A  no  less  curious  instance  of  the  absurdity  into  which 
rabid  dogmatism  can  betray  even  an  acute  mind  is 
found  in  this  saying  of  the  celebrated  Tillotson^:  "  The 
real  ground  of  a  man's  atheism  is  vice." 

I  admit  that  civil  laws  are  found  inefficient  with  the 
untutored  and  uncared  for  masses,  whom  we  allow  to 
be  born  and  leave  at  the  mercy  of  foolish  propensities 
and  intemperate  habits;  but  this  only  proves  that  under 
the  apparent  calm  of  powerful  States  there  is  nothing 
but  wretchedness  and  confusion,  that  policy  in  the 
true  sense  of  the  word  has  vanished  from  this  earth  of 
ours,  where  diplomacy  and  finance  create  countries  that 
flourish  in  poetry,  and  gain  victories  to  report  in  gazettes. 

I  have  no  wish  to  discuss  a  complicated  problem ; 
let  history  decide!  But  is  it  not  notorious  that  the 
dread  of  the  future  has  restrained  very  few  who  were 
beyond  restraint  by  anything  else  ?  For  others  there 
exist  more  natural  and  direct,  and  therefore  more 
powerful  restrictions.  What  should  have  been  done 
was  to  make  every  man  conscious  of  the  need  of  that 
order  for  which  he  possesses  an  intuitive  appreciation. 
There  would  then  have  been  fewer  scoundrels  than 
your  dogmas  have  failed  to  restrain,  and  you  would 
have  been  minus  all  those  that  dogmas  have  made. 

It  is  said  that  first  offences  at  once  plant  the  torture 
of   remorse   in   the   heart    and    leave   it  rankling  there 

1  One  of  the  greatest  of  English  preachers,  1630-94;  originally  a 
Presbyterian,  but  submitted  in  1662  to  Act  of  Uniformity  and  became 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  1691.— Tr. 


LETTER  XUV.  191 

for  ever,  and  it  is  also  said  that  a  consistent  atheist 
will  fleece  his  friend  and  murder  his  enemy.  That  is 
one  of  the  contradictions  I  think  I  see  in  the  writings 
of  defenders  of  the  faith.  But  of  course  it  cannot  be 
one,  for  men  who  write  on  revealed  truth  should  have 
no  excuse  for  ambiguity  and  discrepancies ;  they  are 
so  superior  to  them  that  they  cannot  tolerate  the  mere 
semblance  of  them  in  those  profane  people  who  say 
they  are  endowed  with  a  reason  that  is  weak,  not 
inspired,   and  with  doubt,   not  infallibility. 

"What  matters  inward  self-satisfaction,"  say  they 
again,  "if  one  does  not  believe  in  a  future  life?"  It 
matters  to  one's  peace  of  mind  in  this  life,  which  in 
that  case  is  the  only  one. 

"If  there  is  no  immortality,"  they  continue,  "what 
has  the  virtuous  man  gained  by  doing  right?"  He 
has  gained  what  the  virtuous  man  prizes,  and  lost  only 
what  he  lightly  esteems — namely,  what  your  passions 
often  covet  in  spite  of  your  belief. 

The  only  motive  you  recognize  is  the  hope  and  dread 
of  a  future  life ;  but  may  not  a  tendency  to  order  be  an 
essential  feature  of  our  inclinations,  of  our  instinct, 
like  self-preservation  or  reproduction?  Is  it  nothing 
to  enjoy  the  calm  and  security  of  the  upright  man  ? 

Accustomed  as  you  are  to  link  every  magnanimous 
sentiment  and  every  just  and  pure  idea  exclusively  with 
your  immortal  desires  and  other-worldly  notions,  you 
always  conclude  that  everything  not  supernatural  is 
base,  that  everything  which  does  not  exalt  man  to  the 
realms  of  the  blessed  inevitably  sinks  him  to  the  level 
of  the  brute,  that  earthly  virtues  are  only  a  miserable 
pretence,   and  that  a  soul    confined  to  the  present  life 


192  OBERMANN. 

has  only  debased  desires  and  impure  thoug-hts.  So 
you  would  make  out  that  if  a  good  and  upright  man, 
after  forty  years  of  patience  in  sufferings,  of  equity 
among  rogues,  and  of  g"enerous  efforts  worthy  of  divine 
approval,  were  to  recognize  the  falsity  of  the  dogmas 
which  consoled  him,  and  sustained  his  arduous  life  with 
the  hope  of  lasting-  repose,  then  this  wise  man,  whose 
soul  is  nourished  on  the  calm  of  virtue,  and  for  whom 
doing  right  is  life,  would  alter  his  present  needs 
because  he  has  altered  his  views  of  the  future,  and 
no  longer  desiring  present  happiness  because  he  cannot 
live  for  ever,  would  begin  to  plot  against  an  old  friend 
who  has  never  doubted  him?  He  would  busy  himself 
with  base  and  secret  schemes  for  getting  wealth  and 
power,  and  so  long  as  he  could  evade  human  justice 
would  imagine  that  for  the  future  it  would  be  to  his 
interest  to  deceive  the  good,  to  oppress  the  unfortunate, 
to  keep  up  the  mere  prudent  exterior  of  an  honest  man, 
while  cherishing  in  his  heart  all  the  vices  he  had  pre- 
viously abhorred  ?  Seriously,  I  should  hesitate  to  put 
this  question  to  your  bigots,  with  their  monopoly  oi' 
virtue;  for  if  they  replied  in  the  negative  I  should  tell 
them  they  were  very  inconsistent.  Now  one  must 
never  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  inconsistency  is  just 
what  inspired  men  have  no  excuse  for.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  they  dared  to  assert  the  affirmative — well, 
I  should  be  sorry  for  them. 

"If  the  idea  of  immortality  has  all  the  characteristics 
of  a  beautiful  dream,  that  of  annihilation  does  not 
admit  of  rigid  proof.  The  good  man  necessarily  desires 
not  to  perish  entirely;  is  not  that  ground  enough  to 
confirm  it  ?" 


LETTER  XLIV.  193 

If  one  could  not  be  just  without  hope  in  a  future  life, 
that  vague  possibility  would  still  be  sufficient.  It  is 
superfluous  to  him  who  lives  by  reason  ;  temporal  con- 
siderations may  afford  him  less  satisfaction,  but  they 
are  just  as  convincing- ;  he  feels  a  present  craving  to  be 
just.  Other  men  heed  only  the  interests  of  the  moment. 
They  think  of  Paradise  when  religious  rites  are  in 
question,  but  in  matters  of  morality  they  are  swayed 
solely  by  fear  of  consequences,  of  public  opinion,  of  law, 
and  by  the  bias  of  their  minds.  Imaginary  duties  are 
faithfully  attended  to  by  some,  but  re-al  ones  are  set  aside 
by  nearly  all  when  there  is  no  temporal  risk  involved. 

If  men  were  gifted  with  sound  understanding  and 
goodness  of  heart  there  would  be  such  a  majority  on 
the  side  of  right  that  the  rest  would  be  constrained  to 
follow,  even  by  the  most  obvious  and  mercenary  ot 
their  interests.  As  it  is,  you  pervert  the  understanding 
and  dwarf  the  soul.  For  thirty  centuries  the  results 
have  been  worthy  of  the  wisdom  displayed.  All  kinds 
of  compulsion  have  pernicious  consequences  and  only 
ephemeral  success  ;  the  right  thing  then  is  to  convince 
by  persuasion. 

I  am  loth  to  leave  a  subject  as  important  as  it  is 
inexhaustible. 

I  am  so  far  from  having  any  prejudice  against 
Christianity  that  I  regret  in  one  sense  what  most  of 
its  zealous  defenders  would  scarcely  think  of  regretting 
themselves.  I  am  as  ready  as  they  are  to  lament  the 
neglect  of  Christianity,  but  with  this  diff'erence:  they 
regret  it  as  it  was  in  practice,  as  it  existed  a  century 
ago,  whereas  I  do  not  consider  we  are  much  worse  off 
without  that  sort  of  Christianity. 


194  OBERMANN. 

Conquerors,  slaves,  poets,  pag"an  priests,  and  nurses 
have  succeeded  in  distorting-  the  traditions  of  ancient 
wisdom  by  ming-Hng^  races,  destroying  manuscripts, 
interpreting-  and  confusing-  alleg-ories,  overlooking-  the 
real  intrinsic  meaning-  in  the  quest  for  absurd  ideas 
to  evoke  admiration,  and  personifying-  abstractions  in 
order  to  have  more  to  worship. 

Great  conceptions  became  debased.  The  Principle 
of  Life,  Intelligence,  Light,  the  Eternal,  was  simply 
the  husband  of  Juno  ;  Harmony,  Fecundity,  Union, 
henceforth  became  Venus  ;  imperishable  Wisdom  was 
only  known  by  its  owl  ;  the  great  ideas  of  immortality 
and  recompense  were  reduced  to  the  dread  of  turning  a 
wheel  and  the  hope  of  roaming  through  green  wood- 
lands. The  indivisible  Divinity  was  split  up  into  a 
complex  hierarchy  swayed  by  sordid  passions  ;  the 
product  of  the  genius  of  primitive  races,  the  symbols 
of  universal  laws  sank  to  mere  superstitious  practices 
for  city  children  to  laugh  at. 

Rome  had  changed  most  of  the  world,  and  began 
herself  to  change.  The  frenzied,  restless  West,  op- 
pressed or  threatened,  educated  yet  deluded,  ignorant 
though  disenchanted,  had  lost  everything  without  gain- 
ing anything  in  its  place  ;  still  fast  asleep  in  error,  it 
was  already  startled  by  confused  murmurs  of  the  truths 
that  science  was  in  quest  of. 

Under  the  same  rule,  with  identical  fears  and  interests, 
sharing  the  same  spirit  of  resentment  and  revenge 
against  the  Romans,  all  nations  were  drawn  together. 
Their  customs  had  lapsed,  their  constitutions  vanished  ; 
patriotism,  the  spirit  of  aloofness  and  isolation  and 
hatred    of    outsiders    were    weakened    in    the    common 


LETTER  XLIV.  195 

desire  to  withstand  the  conquerors,  or  by  the  necessity 
of  accepting-  their  laws.  The  name  of  Rome  had 
levelled  all  differences.  The  ancient  national  religions 
were  now  merely  local  traditions  ;  the  God  of  the 
Capitol  had  banished  their  own  gods,  and  he  in  turn 
had  been  banished  by  the  deification  of  the  emperors. 
The  most  popular  altars  were  those  of  the  Csesars. 

It  was  one  of  the  greatest  epochs  in  the  world's 
history;  there  was  room  for  a  shrine  of  majestic  sim- 
plicity to  be  raised  above  the  ruins  of  these  manifold 
local  shrines. 

There  was  need  of  a  moral  faith,  since  morality  pure 
and  simple  was  unrecognized  ;  there  was  need  of 
dogmas,  inscrutable  perhaps,  but  in  no  way  ridiculous, 
for  light  was  spreading.  Since  all  forms  of  worship 
were  debased,  there  was  need  of  some  majestic  form 
worthy  of  the  man  who  endeavours  to  uplift  his  soul 
by  the  idea  of  a  God  of  the  world.  Rites  were  needed 
that  would  be  impressive,  seldom  performed,  longed 
for,  mysterious,  yet  simple  ;  rites  on  the  one  hand 
transcendent,  and  on  the  other  adapted  to  man's  reason 
as  well  as  his  heart.  There  was  needed  what  a  great 
genius  alone  could  establish,  and  what  I  cannot  give 
more  than  a  glimpse  of. 

But  you  have  invented,  patched  up,  experimented, 
corrected,  and  begun  again  a  medley  of  paltry  cere- 
monies and  of  dogmas  cjuite  calculated  to  scandalize 
the  weak  ;  you  have  associated  this  random  con- 
glomeration with  a  morality  sometimes  spurious,  often 
very  beautiful,  and  always  austere — the  only  point  in 
which  you  have  not  been  clumsy.  You  spend  several 
hundred  years   in   settling  all   that  by  inspiration,   and 


196  OBERMANN. 

the  tardy  result,  diligently  patched  up  but  badly  planned, 
is  calculated  to  last  barely  as  long  as  you  have  taken 
to  accomplish  it. 

Nothing  could  be  more  supremely  tactless  than  to 
entrust  the  priesthood  to  all  comers,  and  to  have  a 
horde  of  men  of  God.  A  sacrifice  whose  nature  was 
essentially  unique  was  multiplied  beyond  all  bounds. 
There  seemed  to  be  no  regard  for  anything  but  im- 
mediate results  and  present  convenience ;  offerers  of 
sacrifice  and  confessors  were  planted  everywhere  ; 
everywhere  priests  and  monks  were  manufactured  ; 
they  meddled  in  everything,  and  crowds  of  them  existed 
everywhere  in  luxury  or  in  beggary. 

This  multiplication  is  convenient,  they  say,  for  the 
faithful.  But  it  is  not  a  good  thing  in  religious  matters 
for  the  people  to  find  everything  they  want  at  the  next 
street  corner.  It  is  folly  to  entrust  religious  functions 
to  a  million  persons  ;  they  are  thus  constantly  being 
left  to  the  lowest  of  men,  and  their  dignity  is  com- 
promised ;  their  sacred  character  wears  off"  by  too 
frequent  repetition,  and  the  time  is  rapidly  hastened 
when  everything  will  perish  that  has  not  imperishable 
foundations. 


LETTER    XLV. 

CiiEssEL,  July  2Tlh  (VI.). 

I  have  never  considered  it  a  weakness  to  shed  a  tear 
over  the  ills  of  others,  over  a  misfortune  outside  our- 
selves but  well  known  to  us.     So  he  is  dead — a  little 


LETTER  XLV.  197 

thing-  in  itself,  for  who  escapes  death  ?  But  he  had 
always  been  unfortunate  and  sad  ;  life  had  never  been 
sweet  to  him  ;  he  had  nothing-  but  sorrow,  and  now  he 
has  nothing-  at  all,  I  have  seen  him  and  pitied  him  ;  I 
respected  him,  for  he  was  g-ood  though  unhappy.  He 
had  no  striking"  misfortunes,  but  he  found  himself  on 
entering-  life  in  a  dreary  track  of  irksomeness  and 
boredom  ;  he  stuck  to  it,  he  lived  in  it,  he  g-rew  old  in 
it  before  his  time,  and  now  he  has  ended  his  days  in  it. 

I  have  not  forgotten  that  country  property  he 
wanted,  and  that  I  went  with  him  to  look  at,  because 
I  knew  the  owner.  "You  will  be  comfortable  here," 
I  told  him;  "better  years  will  be  in  store  for  you  to 
banish  the  memory  of  the  past.  You  will  take  these 
rooms  and  find  solitude  and  quiet  in  them."  "  I  could 
be  happy  here,"  he  said,  "but  it  is  too  good  to  be 
true." 

"You  will  realize  it  to-morrow,  when  you  have 
signed  the  deed." 

"You  will  see  I  shall  never  get  it." 

Nor  did  he ;  you  know  how  it  all  fell  through. 
The  bulk  of  living  men  are  sacrificed  to  the  prosperity 
of  a  few,  just  as  the  majority  of  infants  are  sacrificed 
for  the  sake  of  those  who  survive,  or  as  millions  of 
acorns  to  the  beauty  of  the  mighty  oaks  that  flourish 
over  some  great  tract  of  country.  And  the  pity  of  it  is 
that  among  this  crowd  whom  fate  abandons  and 
tramples  into  the  mud  of  life's  marshes  there  are  some 
who  cannot  adapt  themselves  to  their  lot,  but  wear  out 
their  energies  in  impotent  chafing  against  it.  General 
laws  are  very  fine  things,  and  I  would  gladly  sacrifice 
to  them  one,  two,  or  even  ten  years  of  my  life  ;  but  my 


igS  OBERMANN. 

whole  existence,  that  is  too  much.  Though  nothing  to 
Nature,  it  is  everything  to  me.  In  this  great  scramble 
the  cry  is— "  Look  out  for  yourself!"  That  would  be 
all  very  well  if  every  man's  turn  came  sooner  or  later, 
or  even  if  one  could  keep  on  hoping  for  it ;  but  when 
life  is  slipping  away,  one  knows  well  that  the  end  is 
drawing  near,  even  though  the  moment  of  death  be 
uncertain.  What  hope  is  there  left  in  a  man  who 
reaches  sixty  without  anything  but  hope  to  go  upon  ? 
These  cosmic  laws,  this  care  for  types  and  contempt 
for  individuals,  this  progress  of  species  is  very  hard  on 
us  poor  individuals.  I  admire  the  providence  that 
carves  everything  on  such  a  scale  ;  but  how  man  is 
tipped  out  with  the  rubbish  !  And  how  absurdly  we 
fancy  ourselves  to  be  something  !  Gods  in  thought, 
insects  in  happiness,  we  are  that  Jupiter  whose  temple 
is  in  Bedlam  ;  he  takes  for  a  censer  the  wooden  platter, 
steaming  with  the  soup  they  bring  to  his  cell ;  he  reigns 
on  Olympus  till  the  buffet  of  his  villainous  gaoler 
brings  him  back  to  reality,  to  grovel  and  moisten  with 
tears  his  mouldy  bread. 

Poor  fellow  !  You  lived  to  see  your  hair  turn  grey, 
and  yet  in  all  that  time  you  had  not  a  single  day  of 
satisfaction,  not  one  ;  not  even  the  day  of  your  fatal 
marriage  ;  that  love  match  which  gave  you  an  estim- 
able wife  and  yet  was  the  ruin  of  you  both.  Even- 
tempered,  affectionate,  discreet,  virtuous  and  pious, 
both  of  you  the  soul  of  goodness,  you  got  on  worse 
together  than  those  maniacs  who  are  carried  away  by 
passion  and  unrestrained  by  principle,  and  who  cannot 
conceive  what  profit  there  is  in  goodness  of  heart. 
You  said  that  you  married  for  mutual  help,  to  soothe 


LETTER  XLV.  199 

your  pains  by  sharing  them,  to  work  out  your  salva- 
tion ;  and  the  same  evening,  the  very  first,  dissatisfied 
with  each  other  and  your  lot,  you  had  no  virtue  nor 
consolation  left  to  look  forward  to  but  that  of  patience 
to  support  you  to  the  grave.  What  then  was  your 
misfortune,  your  crime?  That  of  desiring  the  good,  of 
desiring  it  too  keenly,  of  being  unable  to  ignore  it,  of 
desiring  it  scrupulously  and  with  so  much  passion  that 
you  could  only  consider  it  in  the  detail  of  the  moment. 

You  will  have  gathered  that  I  knew  them.  They 
seemed  glad  to  see  me;  they  wanted  to  convert  me; 
and  although  that  scheme  did  not  quite  succeed,  we  had 
many  a  chat  together.  It  was  he  whose  unhappiness 
struck  me  most.  His  wife  was  no  less  good  and 
estimable,  but  being  weaker,  she  found  in  her  abnega- 
tion a  kind  of  peace  which  dulled  her  misery.  Tenderly 
devout,  consecrating  her  griefs,  and  full  of  the  idea  of 
future  recompense,  she  suffered,  but  in  a  way  that  was 
not  without  its  compensations.  There  was  something 
voluntary,  too,  in  her  woes;  she  was  unhappy  for  the 
love  of  it,  and  her  groans,  like  those  of  saints,  though 
sometimes  full  of  pain,  were  precious  and  needful  to 
her. 

As  for  him,  he  was  religious  without  being  wrapped 
up  in  devotion ;  he  was  religious  as  a  duty,  but  as  free 
from  fads  and  fanaticisms  as  from  mummery;  he  used  it 
to  repress  his  passions  and  not  to  indulge  some  particular 
one.  I  could  not  even  say  positively  that  he  enjoyed 
the  assurance  without  which  religion  can  please,  but 
cannot  satisfy. 

That  is  not  all.  One  could  sec  how  he  might 
have  been  happy;    one  realized  that  the  causes  of  his 


200  OBERMANN. 

unhappiness  were  outside  himself.  But  his  wife  would 
have  been  pretty  much  the  same  wherever  she  had  lived; 
she  would  have  found  scope  everywhere  for  torturing- 
herself  and  distressing  others,  while  only  seeking  to  do 
good,  and  in  no  wise  self-centred;  always  under  the 
impression  she  was  sacrificing  herself  for  all,  yet  never 
sacrificing  her  ideas,  and  undertaking  every  task  except 
that  of  altering  her  manner.  Her  unhappiness  therefore 
seemed  in  some  sense  to  be  part  of  her  nature,  and  one 
felt  more  disposed  to  sympathize  with  her,  and  to  take 
it  for  granted,  as  one  does  a  consequence  of  irrevocable 
destiny.  Her  husband,  on  the  other  hand,  might  have 
lived  as  others  do,  had  he  lived  with  any  one  else  but  her. 
One  knows  how  to  set  about  the  cure  of  an  ordinary  ill, 
especially  one  that  is  hardly  worth  considering,  but  one 
can  see  no  end  to  the  wretchedness  of  being  doomed  to 
pity  her  whose  perpetual  foolishness  annoys  us  with  the 
best  of  intentions,  pesters  us  in  tenderness,  is  always 
provoking  us  with  unruffled  serenity,  hurts  us  by  a  kind 
of  necessity,  meets  our  indignation  with  nothing  but 
pious  tears,  makes  matters  far  worse  by  excuses,  and 
incredibly  blind  though  possessed  of  intelligence,  drives 
us  to  the  point  of  desperation  by  lamentations. 

If  any  men  have  been  a  scourge  to  mankind  it  is  surely 
those  far-seeing  legislators  who  have  made  marriage 
indissoluble  to  cotiipcl  mutual  love.  To  complete  the 
story  of  human  wisdom  we  still  need  a  law-giver  who, 
realizing  the  necessity  of  keeping  a  grip  on  a  suspected 
criminal  and  also  the  injustice  of  making  a  possibly 
innocent  man  miserable  while  awaiting  his  trial,  shall 
ordain  in  all  cases  two  years  in  the  cells  as  a  preliminary 
instead  of  a  month  in   prison,   so  that  the  necessity  of 


LETTER  XLV.  201 

putting-  up  with  it  may  sweeten  the  prisoner's  lot  and 
make  him  fond  of  his  chain  ! 

We  do  not  sufficiently  take  into  account  the  intolerable 
succession  of  crushing-  and  often  mortal  suffering's  pro- 
duced in  private  life  by  those  awkward  tempers,  those 
bickering  moods,  those  proud  yet  paltry  attitudes  in 
which  so  many  women  casually  indulge,  without 
suspecting  it  and  without  being  able  to  get  out  of  it, 
because  we  have  never  tried  to  make  them  understand 
the  human  heart.  They  end  their  days  without  dis- 
covering how  useful  it  is  to  know  how  to  live  with 
men ;  they  bring  up  children  as  stupid  as  themselves, 
and  so  the  evil  is  handed  down,  until  there  turns  up  a 
happy  disposition  which  strikes  out  a  line  of  its  own ; 
and  all  that  because  we  have  thought  they  were  well 
enough  educated  if  taught  to  sew,  to  dance,  to  lay  the 
table,  and  to  read  the  Psalms  in  Latin. 

I  do  not  know  what  g-ood  can  come  of  narrow  ideas, 
and  I  fail  to  see  that  doltish  ignorance  constitutes 
simplicity;  on  the  contrary,  breadth  of  view  produces 
less  selfishness,  less  obstinacy,  more  honesty,  helpful 
tact,  and  a  hundred  ways  of  compatibility.  Among 
people  of  limited  outlook,  unless  unusually  good- 
hearted — and  that  is  exceptional — you  find  nothing  but 
ill-temper,  differences,  ridiculous  obstinacy,  endless 
altercations  ;  and  the  slightest  altercation  grows  in  a 
couple  of  minutes  to  a  bitter  dispute.  Harsh  reproaches, 
ugly  suspicions,  and  brutal  manners  seem  to  keep  them 
in  perpetual  discord  on  the  slightest  provocation.  There 
is  just  one  thing  in  their  favour  :  as  they  are  swayed 
by  temper  only,  if  any  trifle  happens  to  distract  them, 
or  if  some  grudge  against  an  outsider  unites  them,  you 


202  OBERMANN. 

have  them  laughing-  and  whispering  together,  after 
treating  each  other  with  supreme  contempt.  Half  an 
hour  later  comes  a  fresh  disturbance  ;  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  after  that  they  are  singing  «.  chorus.  One  must 
give  such  people  credit  for  this,  that  as  a  rule  nothing 
comes  of  their  brutality,  unless  it  be  the  unconquerable 
aversion  of  those  who  are  compelled  by  special  circum- 
stances to  live  among  them. 

You  who  call  yourselves  Christians  are  still  men,  and 
yet  in  spite  of  the  laws  you  cannot  repudiate,  and  in 
spite  of  those  you  adore,  you  foster  and  perpetuate  the 
most  glaring  disparities  in  the  culture  and  interests  of 
your  fellow-men.  The  inequality  exists  in  Nature,  but 
you  have  exaggerated  it  beyond  measure,  though  you 
ought  rather  to  have  striven  to  reduce  it.  The 
prodigies  created  by  your  efforts  may  well  be  a  drug 
in  the  market,  for  you  have  neither  time  nor  skill  to 
do  so  many  things  that  need  doing.  The  mass  of 
mankind  is  brutal,  stupid,  and  left  to  its  own  devices  ; 
all  our  miseries  spring  from  that.  Either  do  not  bring 
them  into  being,  or  give  them  a  chance  of  living  like 
men. 

What  then  do  all  these  long  arguments  of  mine  lead 
up  to  ?  That  as  man  is  insignificant  in  Nature,  and 
everything  to  himself,  he  ought  to  concern  himself 
somewhat  less  with  the  laws  of  the  world  and  some- 
what more  with  his  own  ;  dispensing  perhaps  with 
abstract  sciences  that  have  never  dried  a  single  tear  in 
hamlet  or  attic  ;  dispensing  too  with  certain  fine  but 
useless  arts,  and  with  heroic  but  destructive  passions, 
he  ought  to  aim,  if  he  can,  at  having  institutions  that 
will    keep   man   human   instead   of  brutalizing    him,   at 


LETTER  XI  AT.  203 

having  less  science  but  also  less  ignorance,  and  to 
admit  that  if  man  is  not  a  blind  force  which  must  be 
left  at  the  mercy  of  fatalism,  if  his  activities  have  any 
spontaneity,  then  morality  is  the  only  science  for  man 
whose  fate  is  in  the  hands  of  his  fellows. 

You  are  letting  his  widow  enter  a  convent,  and  quite 
rightly,  I  think.  That  is  where  she  should  have  lived  ; 
she  was  born  for  the  cloister,  though  I  maintain  she 
would  have  been  no  happier  there.  So  it  is  not  on  her 
account  that  I  say  you  are  doing  the  right  thing.  But 
if  you  took  her  into  your  own  house  you  would  display 
a  futile  generosity;  she  would  be  none  the  happier  for 
it.  Your  prudent  and  enlightened  beneficence  cares 
little  for  appearances,  and  in  considering  what  is  best 
to  be  done  only  takes  account  of  the  larger  or  smaller 
sum  total  of  ""ood  that  will  come  of  it. 


LETTER  XLVL 

Lyons,  Aug.  2ud  (VI.). 

When  day  begins  I  am  depressed,  sad,  and  uneasy; 
I  can  settle  to  nothing,  and  see  not  how  to  fill  up  so 
many  hours.  Midday  overwhelms  me  ;  I  go  inside  and 
try  to  work,  shutting  everything  up  to  keep  out  the 
cloudless  glare.  But  when  the  light  is  fading  and  1 
feel  around  me  that  sweet  evening"  charm  now  grown 
so  strange  to  me,  1  am  distressed  and  overcome  ;  in 
my  easy-going  life  I  have  more  bitterness  to  weary  me 
than  a  man  weighed  down  by  misfortunes.  Yet  people 
say,  "  You  enjov  quiet  now." 

16 


204  OBERMANN. 

So  does  the  paralytic  on  his  bed  of  suffering'.  To 
waste  the  days  of  one's  vigour  as  an  old  man  passes 
those  of  repose  !  Always  to  wait,  with  nothing  to 
hope  for  ;  always  unrest  without  desire,  agitation  with- 
out object ;  time  constantly  a  blank  ;  conversations  in 
which  one  makes  talk  and  avoids  speaking  of  facts  ; 
meals  where  one  eats  from  utter  ennui  ;  dreary  picnics 
of  which  nothing  is  welcome  but  the  end  ;  friends  with- 
out fellowship  ;  pleasures  for  the  sake  of  appearances  ; 
laughing  to  please  those  who  are  yawning  like  oneself  ; 
and  not  a  throb  of  joy  in  two  whole  years.  Ever- 
lastingly to  have  a  sluggish  body,  a  restless  brain,  a 
doleful  soul,  and  barely  to  escape  in  sleep  from  this 
consciousness  of  bitterness,  repression,  and  uneasy 
boredom  ;  it  is  a  long-drawn  agony  of  heart ;  it  is  not 
thus  that  man  should  live. 

"  If  he  does  live  thus,"  you  will  say,  "it  follows  that 
thus  he  should  live  ;  what  exists  is  in  accordance  with 
order ;  where  would  you  look  for  causes  if  not  in 
Nature?"  I  am  bound  to  agree  with  you;  but  this 
order  of  things  is  only  temporary,  it  is  not  in  accord- 
ance with  essential  order,  unless  ever3-thing  is  irre- 
sistibl}'  predetermined.  If  everything  is  necessitated,' 
so  is  the  fact  that  I  must  act  as  if  there  were  no 
necessity;  it  is  futile  to  argue;  there  is  no  feeling 
preferable  to  its  opposite,  no  such  thing  as  error,  or 
utility.  But  if  it  be  otherwise,  let  us  admit  we  have 
gone  astray,  let  us  ascertain  where  we  are  ;  let  us  see 
how  we  can  recover  the  ground  we  have  lost.  Re- 
signation  is  often   good  for  individuals  ;   it  can   only  be 


LETTER  XLVI.  205 

fatal  to  the  species.  "  It's  the  way  of  the  world,"  is 
the  reply  of  the  man  in  the  street  when  one  talks  of 
widespread  miseries  ;  it  is  that  of  the  wise  man  only  in 
particular  cases. 

Will  it  be  said  that  one  ought  to  fix  one's  attention 
on  details  of  immediate  utility  in  the  existing^  state  ot 
things,  not  on  ideal  beauty  or  absolute  happiness,  and 
that  as  perfection  is  beyond  the  reach  of  humanity, 
still  more  of  individual  men,  it  is  both  useless  and 
quixotic  to  discuss  it  with  them  ?  But  even  in  Nature 
preparation  is  always  more  lavish  than  result.  Of  a 
thousand  seeds  a  single  one  will  germinate.  We 
should  try  to  see  what  is  the  highest  possible,  not 
simply  in  the  hope  of  reaching  it,  but  so  that  we  may 
come  nearer  to  it  than  if  we  regarded  the  attainable 
as  the  goal  of  our  efforts.  I  am  looking  for  indications 
of  man's  needs,  and  I  look  for  them  in  myself  to  lessen 
the  risk  of  error.  I  find  in  my  own  sensations  a  limited 
but  reliable  instance,  and  by  observing  the  only  man 
I  can  thoroughly  know,  I  set  myself  to  discover  the 
characteristics  of  mankind  as  a  whole. 

You  alone  know  how  to  fill  your  lives,  you  just  and 
unaffected  men,  full  of  trust  and  generous  affections, 
of  calm,  deep  feeling,  you  who  taste  the  fulness  of  life, 
and  want  to  see  the  fruit  of  your  days !  You  find  your 
happiness  in  order  and  domestic  peace,  on  the  clear 
brow  of  a  friend,  on  the  smiling  lips  of  a  wife.  Beware 
of  coming  under  the  yoke  of  wretched  mediocrity  and 
haughty  ennui  in  our  towns.  Do  not  lose  sight  of 
natural  things ;  do  not  subject  your  heart  to  the  useless 
torture  of  questionable  passions;  their  object,  which  is 
always  remote,  wears  life  out  with  suspense,  until  old 


2o6  OBERMANN. 

age  too  late  deplores  the  vacuity  in  which  the  power 
of  doing-  good  has  been  swallowed  up. 
^/  I  am  like  those  pitiable  creatures  in  whom  a  too  vivid 
impression  has  caused  the  permanent  hyper-sensitive- 
ness of  certain  fibres,  and  who  cannot  help  the  re- 
currence of  their  mania  every  time  that  first  emotion 
is  revived  in  them  by  imagination  at  the  stimulus  of 
a  like  object.  A  feeling  for  relations  is  always  hinting 
to  me  of  institutions  congenial  to  order  and  the  aim  of 
Nature.  That  need  of  looking  for  conclusions  when- 
ever I  see  premises,  that  instinct  to  which  the  idea  of 
existing  in  vain  is  repulsive — do  you  suppose  I  can 
overcome  it  ?  Do  you  not  see  that  it  is  part  of  me, 
stronger  than  my  will,  necessary  to  me  ;  and  that  it 
needs  must  enlighten  or  mislead  me,  make  me  unhappy 
and  yet  compel  me  to  obey  it  ?  Do  you  not  see  that 
I  am  out  of  place,  isolated,  making  no  headway  ?  I 
regret  all  that  passes  away  ;  I  rush  and  hurry  from 
disgust ;  I  flee  the  present  without  desiring  the  future. 
I  wear  myself  out,  I  gulp  down  my  days,  I  plunge  on 
towards  the  end  of  my  ennuis,  with  no  desire  for  any- 
thing after  them.  They  say  time  is  only  swift  to  the 
happy  man,  but  they  are  wrong.  I  see  it  slipping 
away  now  faster  than  ever  1  knew  it.  May  the  worst 
man  living  never  be  happy  like  this! 

■-^  I  will  make  no  secret  of  it  ;  1  once  did  count  on 
inward  satisfaction,  but  I  have  been  sadly  undeceived. 
What  was  it  then  that  I  looked  forward  to  ?  I  thought 
men  would  learn  to  adjust  those  details  left  to  them  by 
circumstances,  to  utilize  any  advantages  offered  them 
by  their  talents  or  temperament,  to  take  up  those 
hobbies  of  which  one  does  not  tire  and  that  brighten 


LETTER  XLVI.  207 

or  while  away  the  time  ;  I  thoug-ht  they  would  learn 
not  to  waste  the  best  of  their  years,  and  not  to  be 
more  unhappy  throug"h  their  ill-management  than  ill- 
luck  ;  that  they  would  learn  how  to  live!  Should  I 
then  have  ig"nored  the  lack  of  all  this  ?  Was  I  not 
well  aware  that  this  apathy,  and  still  more  this  kind  of 
mutual  fear  and  distrust,  this  hesitation,  this  ridiculous 
reserve  which  with  some  is  an  instinct  and  hence  with 
others  a  duty,  were  dooming  all  men  to  be  bored  by 
each  other's  society,  to  be  slack  in  comradeship, 
languid  in  love,  futile  in  co-operation,  and  to  yawn 
together  all  their  days  for  lack  of  saying,  once  for  all, 
*'  Let  us  yawn  no  more  ?  " 

In  all  circumstances  and  everywhere  men  waste  their 
existence,  and  then  they  are  angry  with  themselves 
under  the  impression  it  was  their  own  fault.  In  spite 
of  our  tenderness  for  our  own  failings,  perhaps  we  are 
too  severe  in  that  particular,  too  prone  to  put  down  to 
ourselves  what  we  could  not  avoid.  When  the  time 
has  gone  by,  we  forget  the  details  of  that  fatality  which 
is  inscrutable  in  its  causes  and  barely  perceptible  in  its 
results. 

All  our  hopes  are  secretly  sapped  ;  the  flowers  all 
fade,  the  seeds  all  come  to  nothing;  everything  drops 
like  setting  fruits  death-stricken  by  frost;  they  will  not 
ripen,  all  will  perish,  and  yet  they  still  hang  vegetating 
for  a  while  from  the  blighted  branches,  as  if  the  cause 
of  their  ruin  had  tried  to  remain  unperceived. 

One  may  have  health  and  comradeship,  one  may  see 
in  one's  possession  the  essentials  for  a  happy  sort  of 
life;  the  means  are  quite  simple  and  natural;  we  hold 
them  and  yet  they  escape  us.      How  does  it  happen  ? 


2o8  OBERMANN. 

The  explanation  would  be  long-  and  difficult,  and  yet 
I  should  prefer  it  to  no  end  of  philosophical  treatises; 
it  is  not  to  be  found  even  in  the  three  thousand  laws  of 
Pythagoras. 

Possibly  we  are  too  much  given  to  neglecting  things 
which  are  in  themselves  immaterial,  and  yet  which  one 
ought  to  desire,  or  at  any  rate  accept,  so  as  to  occupy 
our  time  without  languor.  There  is  a  kind  of  indiffer- 
ence which  is  very  empty  affectation,  and  yet  into  which 
we  are  betrayed  unawares.  We  meet  a  great  many 
people,  and  every  one  of  them  is  so  engrossed  in  his  own 
pursuits  that  he  either  is  or  seems  to  be  uninterested 
in  many  things  about  which  we  do  not  like  to  seem 
more  keen  than  himself.  So  there  grows  up  in  us  a 
settled  attitude  of  indifference  and  detachment;  it 
requires  no  sacrifices,  but  it  adds  to  our  boredom; 
trifles  that  are  of  no  use  separately  become  serviceable 
as  a  whole ;  they  provide  scope  for  that  exercise  of  the 
affections  which  makes  life.  They  ar.e  inadequate  as 
causes  of  sensation,  but  they  do  deliver  us  from  the 
calamity  of  not  having-  any  at  all.  Poor  as  they  are, 
these  interests  are  better  suited  to  our  nature  than  the 
childish  superiority  which  scorns  them  and  yet  cannot 
supply  their  place.  Vacancy  becomes  irksome  in  the 
long  run;  it  deg-enerates  into  chronic  gloom,  and,  hood- 
winked by  our  haughty  indolence,  we  let  the  flame  of 
life  smoulder  away  in  dismal  smoke  for  want  of  a 
breath  of  air  to  quicken  it. 

As  I  have  said  before,  time  flies  ever  the  faster  as 
one  g-rows  older.  The  days  I  have  lost  accumulate 
behind  me  ;  they  crowd  the  dim  past  with  their  gray 
spectres;    they  pile  up  their  wasted  skeletons  like  the 


LETTER  XLVI.  209 

gloomy  phantom  of  a  sepulchral  monument.  And  if 
my  restless  eyes  turn  to  g-aze  on  the  future,  brighter 
once  than  the  past,  I  find  the  full  outlines  and  dazzling 
images  of  its  successive  days  have  sadly  fallen  off. 
Their  colours  are  fading;  that  veil  of  distance  whose 
magic  dimness  invested  them  with  heavenly  radiance 
is  now  stripped  from  their  barren,  dreary  shapes.  By 
the  austere  glimmer  which  reveals  them  in  the  eternal 
darkness  I  already  see  the  last  of  them  standing  out 
alone  on  the  brink  of  the  abyss  with  nothing  beyond  it. 

Do  you  remember  our  idle  wishes  and  boyish  schemes? 
The  rapture  of  a  lovely  sky,  of  forgetfulness  of  men,  and 
desert  freedom  ! 

What  has  become  of  that  simplicity  of  hope,  that 
young  enchantment  of  a  heart  which  believes  in  happi- 
ness and  wills  whatever  it  desires  in  ignorance  of  life? 
In  those  days  the  silent  woods,  clear  streams,  wild 
fruits,  and  our  own  comradeship  sufficed  us.  The 
world  around  us  has  nothing  to  supply  the  place  of 
those  yearnings  of  an  upright  heart  and  restive  mind, 
of  that  first  dream  of  our  earliest  spring  times. 

If  some  brighter  hour  chance  to  smooth  our  brows 
with  unforeseen  tranquillity,  the  fleeting  trace  of  peace 
and  well-being,  the  hour  that  follows  soon  prints  upon 
them  morose  and  weary  lines,  eflfacing  for  ever  their 
pristine  freshness  with  wrinkles  steeped  in  bitterness. 

Since  that  age,  now  so  remote,  the  rare  moments 
which  have  revived  the  notion  of  happiness  do  not 
make  up  in  my  life  a  single  day  that  I  would  care  to 
live  over  again.  That  is  the  characteristic  of  my  weari- 
some lot;  others  are  more  positively  unhappy,  but  I 
doubt  if  there  ever  was  a  man  Icss'happy.     I  tell  myself 


2IO  OBERMANN. 

that  one  is  prone  to  complain,  and  that  one  feels  ev'ery 
detail  of  one's  own  miseries  while  minimizing-  or  over- 
looking- those  not  experienced  by  oneself,  and  yet  I 
think  I  am  rig-ht  in  supposing-  that  no  one  could  have 
less  enjoyment  of  life  or  more  uniformly  come  short  of 
his  needs  than  myself. 

Not  that  I  am  actively  suffering-,  provoked,  irritated; 
I  am  just  wear}'-,  low-spirited,  sunk  in  dejection.  Some- 
times, it  is  true,  an  unexpected  wave  of  feeling-  lifts  me 
out  of  the  narrow  sphere  in  which  I  am  confined.  It  is 
too  sudden  to  g-uard  against;  it  fills  me  and  carries 
me  away  before  I  have  time  to  realize  the  futility  of 
the  impulse;  thus  I  lose  that  philosophic  calm  which 
g-ives  permanence  to  our  woes  by  measuring  them  up 
with  its  mechanical  instruments  and  pedantic,  finite 
formulae. 

At  such  times  I  forget  these  accidental  circum- 
stances— mere  wretched  links  of  the  brittle  chain  my 
weakness  has  forged  ;  I  see  on  the  one  hand  my  soul 
alone,  with  its  energies  and  desires,  as  a  circumscribed 
but  independent  centre  of  activity,  which  nothing  can 
save  from  final  extinction,  and  yet  which  nothing  can 
hinder  from  being  true  to  itself;  and  on  the  other 
hand  I  see  everything  in  the  world  as  its  appropriate 
sphere,  as  its  instruments,  and  the  materials  of  its  life. 
I  disdain  that  timid  and  dilatory  prudence  which  over- 
looks the  force  of  genius  and  lets  the  fire  of  the  heart 
die  out  for  the  sake  of  the  toys  it  is  shaping,  and 
letting  slip  for  ever  the  reality  of  life  to  arrange  mere 
puerile  shadows. 

I  ask  myself  what  I  am  doing  ;  why  I  do  not  set 
myself  to   live  ;    what    force    enslaves    me  when   I   am 


LETTER  XLAI.  211 

free  ;  what  weakness  checks  me  when  I  am  conscious 
of  an  energ-y  whose  suppressed  strug'g-les  wear  me  out  ; 
what  I  expect  when  I  hope  for  nothing"  ;  what  I  am 
seeking-  here,  when  I  love  and  desire  nothings  ;  what 
fatality  compels  me  to  do  what  is  ag-ainst  my  will  with- 
out my  seeing  how  it  compels  me  ? 

It  is  easy  to  g'et  out  of  it  ;  it  is  time  I  did  ;  I  must, 
in  fact  ;  and  yet  scarcely  is  the  word  spoken  when  the 
impulse  is  checked,  the  energ-y  flag-s,  and  I  am  plung-ed 
once  more  into  the  sleep  that  stultifies  my  life.  Time 
flows  steadily  away;  I  rise  with  reluctance,  I  g-o  to  bed 
weary,  I  wake  without  desires.  I  shut  myself  up,  and 
am  bored  ;  I  g^o  out,  and  g-roan.  If  the  weather  is 
dull,  I  find  it  melancholy;  if  fine,  to  me  it  is  profitless. 
The  town  is  insipid,  the  country  hateful  to  me.  The 
sight  of  the  unhappy  distresses  me,  that  of  the  happy 
does  not  deceive  me.  I  laug^h  bitterly  when  I  see 
men  making-  themselves  miserable,  and  if  some  are 
calmer,  I  smile  to  think  that  they  are  supposed  to  be 
contented. 

I  see  how  ridiculous  is  the  attitude  I  assume.  I  snub ' 
myself  and  laugh  at  my  impatience.  None  the  less 
I  seek  in  every  circumstance  that  strange  two-fold 
aspect  which  makes  it  a  source  of  our  miseries,  and 
that  comedy  of  contrasts  which  makes  the  world  of 
men  a  conflicting  scene,  where  everything  is  important 
amid  universal  insignificance.  Thus  I  blunder  along, 
not  knowing  which  way  to  turn.  I  am  restless  because 
I  have  nothing  to  do  ;  I  talk  to  escape  thinking  ;  I  am 
lively,  through  sheer  dulness.  I  believe  I  even  jest  ; 
I  turn  my  grief  to  laughter  and  it  is  taken  for  mirth. 
"  Look  how  well  he  is,"  they  say  ;   "  he  is  pulling  him- 


212  OBERMANN. 

self  together."    It  is  a  case  of  necessity ;   I  cannot  stand 

it  any  longer. 

August  yh. 

I  fancy,  nay,  am  sure,  that  a  change  is  imminent. 
The  more  closely  I  study  my  experience,  the  more 
deeply  I  am  convinced  that  the  facts  of  life  are  fore- 
shadowed, arranged,  and  developed  in  a  forward  move- 
ment directed  by  an  unknown  power. 

As  soon  as  any  series  of  events  approaches  a  climax, 
the  forthcoming  result  immediately  becomes  a  focus  to 
which  many  other  events  definitely  converge.  The 
tendency  which  binds  them  to  the  centre  by  universal 
ties  makes  it  appear  to  us  an  end  that  Nature  has 
deliberately  adopted,  a  link  she  has  forged  in  accord- 
ance with  the  general  laws,  and  we  try  to  discover  in 
it  and  to  trace  out  in  detail  the  progress,  the  order,  and 
the  harmonies  of  the  scheme  of  the  world. 

If  we  are  mistaken  in  that,  it  is  perhaps  wholly  due 
to  our  eagerness.  Our  desires  always  try  to  anticipate 
the  order  of  events,  and  our  impatience  cannot  wait  for 
their  tardy  development. 

It  almost  seems  as  if  an  unknown  will,  an  intelligence 
of  an  indefinable  nature,  betrayed  us  by  appearances, 
by  numerical  progressions,  and  by  dreams  whose  corre- 
spondences with  fact  far  exceed  the  probabilities  of 
chance.  One  might  think  that  it  used  all  ways  of 
seducing  us;  that  the  occult  sciences,  the  extraordinary 
results  of  divination,  and  the  enormous  effects  due  to 
imperceptible  causes  wrought  by  its  secret  operations; 
that  it  thus  brought  about  what  we  think  we  are 
managing  ourselves,  and  that  it  led  us  astray  to  give 
varietv  to  the  world.      If  vou  want  to  form  some  idea 


LETTER  XLVI.  2x3 

of  that  invisible  force  and  of  the  impotence  of  order 
itself  to  produce  perfection,  reckon  up  all  ascertained 
causes,  and  you  will  see  that  they  do  not  account  for 
the  resultant  effect.  Go  a  step  further;  imagine  a  state 
of  things  in  which  each  separate  rule  was  observed, 
and  each  individual  destiny  fulfilled  ;  you  will  find,  I 
think,  that  the  order  of  every  detail  would  not  produce 
the  true  order  of  thing's  as  a  whole.  Everything  would 
be  too  perfect;  that  is  not  the  way  things  work,  nor 
indeed  could  it  be;  a  continual  variation  and  conflict 
in  detail  seems  to  be  the  great  law  of  the  universe. 

Here,  for  instance,  are  certain  facts  in  a  matter 
which  admits  of  an  exact  calculation  of  probabilities. 
Twelve  or  fifteen  instances  of  dreams  prior  to  the 
drawings  of  the  Paris  lottery  have  come  under  my 
own  notice.  The  old  lady  who  had  them  was  certainly 
not  possessed  of  the  demon  of  Socrates  nor  of  any 
other  cabalistic  gift,  and  yet  she  had  better  ground 
for  obstinacy  about  her  dreams  than  I  had  for  shaking 
her  faith.  Most  of  them  came  true,  though  the  chances 
were  at  least  twenty  thousand  to  one  that  they  would 
not  be  thus  verified  by  the  event.  She  was  taken  in 
by  it;  she  dreamed  again,  staked  her  money,  and  this 
time  nothing  came  of  it. 

I  am  quite  aware  that  men  are  deceived  by  false 
reckonings  and  by  passion,  but  in  matters  admitting  of 
mathematical  calculation,  have  they  in  all  ages  ever 
believed  what  was  only  supported  by  as  many  occur- 
rences as  the  laws  of  chance  would  give  ? 

I  myself,  who  have  certainly  paid  little  heed  to 
dreams  of  this  kind,  once  dreamed  three  times  that 
I  saw  the  numbers  drawn.     One  of  these  dreams  about 


214  OBERMANN. 

the  event  of  next  day  was  quite  out  of  it;  the  second 
was  as  striking  as  if  I  had  correctly  g"uessed  a  number 
above  80,000.  The  third  Avas  stranger  still;  I  saw 
the  numbers  7,  39,  72,  81,  in  the  order  given.  I  did 
not  see  the  fifth  number,  nor  the  third  very  distinctly; 
I  was  not  sure  whether  it  was  72  or  70.  I  had  even 
made  a  note  of  both,  but  I  decided  for  72.  On  that 
occasion  I  wanted  to  try  for  the  quaternion  at  least, 
so  I  staked  on  7,  39,  72,  81.  If  I  had  chosen  70  I 
should  have  won  the  quaternion,  a  remarkable  fact  in 
itself,  but  a  still  more  remarkable  one  is  that  my  note, 
made  in  the  exact  order  in  which  I  had  seen  the  four 
numbers,  bore  a  determinate  sequence  of  three,  and 
it  would  have  been  one  of  four  if,  when  hesitating 
between  70  and  72,   I  had  chosen  70. 

Is  there  in  Nature  an  intention  to  hoodwink  men,  or 
at  any  rate  many  of  them  ?  Is  this  [the  excess  of  coin- 
cidences over  probabilit}']  one  of  its  methods  ?  is  it  a 
law  necessary  to  make  men  what  they  are  ?  Or  have 
all  nations  been  insane  in  supposing  that  actual  occur- 
rences exceeded  the  number  intrinsically  probable? 
Modern  philosophy  denies  the  discrepancy  ;  it  denies 
the  existence  of  everything  it  cannot  explain.  It  has 
supplanted  the  philosophy  which  explained  what  did 
not  exist. 

I  am  far  from  asserting  and  literally  believing  that 
there  really  is  in  Nature  a  force  which  deludes  men 
apart  from  the  glamour  of  their  passions,  and  that 
there  exists  an  occult  chain  of  correspondences  either 
in  numbers  or  in  our  em.otions,  by  which  we  can 
judge,  or  have  a  presentiment  of  those  future  events 
that  we  consider  accidental.      I  do  not   sav  :    "There 


LETTER  XLVI.  215 

is;"  but  is  it  not  somewhat  rash  to  say:  "There 
is  not  "  ?  ^ 

Can  it  be  that  presentiments  are  associated  with  a 
special  type  of  mind  and  are  denied  to  other  men  ? 
We  see,  for  instance,  that  most  people  cannot  imagine 
any  relation  between  the  fragrance  of  a  plant  and  the 
means  of  world-wide  happiness.  Ought  they  on  that 
account  to  regard  the  consciousness  of  such  a  relation- 
ship as  a  freak  of  imagination  ?  Because  those  tw  o 
conceptions  are  so  remote  from  each  other  in  many 
minds,  are  they  equally  so  for  anyone  who  can  trace 
the  chain  that  unites  them.  He  who  struck  off  the 
tall  poppy  heads-  knew  well  that  he  would  be  under- 
stood, and  he  knew  too  that  his  slaves  would  not 
comprehend  the  act,  and  get  at  his  secret. 

You  must  not  take  all  this  more  seriously  than  I 
mean  it.  But  I  am  sick  of  things  that  are  certain,  and 
am  looking  everywhere  for  doors  of  hope. 

If  you  are  coming  soon,  the  prospect  will  somewhat 
revive  my  courage.  Even  that  of  always  looking 
forward  to  the  morrow  is  better  than  none  at  all. 

^  "It  is  stupid  presumption  to  disdain  and  condemn  as  false  what 
does  not  seem  to  us  likely,  and  it  is  a  common  fault  with  those  who 
think  they  have  more  than  average  capacity.  I  used  to  do  it  myself 
once  .  .  .  and  now  I  think  I  was  at  least  as  much  to  be  pitied 
myself. " — DIontaigtte. 

'"  Tarcjuin's  reply  to  his  son  Sextus,  who  sent  to  ask  Ikjw  he  should 
betray  the  city  of  Gabii  into  Tarquin's  hands.  The  answer  meant  that 
he  was  to  behead  the  leading  citizens. — Tk. 

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THE  STORY  OF  THE  HARP.     By  WILLIAM  H.  GRATTAN 

FLOOD,  Author  of  "  History  of  Irish  Music." 

THE     STORY     OF     ORGAN     MUSIC.      By    C.    F.    ABDY 
WILLIAMS,  M.A.,  Mus.  Bac. 

THE  STORY  OF  ENGLISH  MUSIC   (1604-1904):    being   the 
Worshipful  Company  of  Musicians'  Lectures. 

THE  STORY  OF  MINSTRELSY.     By  EDMONDSTOUNE 

DUNCAN. 
THE    STORY    OF    MUSICAL    FORM.        By    CLARENCE 

LUCAS. 
THE  STORY  OF  OPERA.      By  E.  MARKHAM    LEE,   Mus. 

Doc. 

IN     PREPARATION. 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  PIANOFORTE.     By  ALGERNON  S. 

ROSE,  Author  of  "  Talks  with  Bandsmen." 

THE    STORY    OF    MUSICAL    SOUND.     By  CHURCHILL 
SIBLEY,  Mus.  Doc. 

The  Walter  Scott  Publishing  Company,  Limited, 
london  and  felling-on-tynb. 


THE  LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


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THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW.  1 


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UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA    001  252  902   o 


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