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V

During rain there is a certain darkness that lengthens every object. Moreover, through the posture it obliges our body to assume, it causes a certain inward concentration that then makes the soul infinitely more sensitive. That very sound it causes, which the Latins expressed by calling it densissimus imber, continually occupies the ear, awakens attention, and keeps it alert. The kind of brown tint that dampness gives to walls, trees, and rocks adds still further to the impression these objects make. And the solitude and silence it spreads around the traveler, by obliging animals and men to be quiet and keep under shelter, complete the work of making impressions more distinct for him. Wrapped in his cloak, his head covered, and walking along deserted paths, he is struck by everything, and everything is enlarged before his imagination or his eyes. The streams are swollen, the grasses are thicker, minerals are more apparent; the sky is nearer the earth, and all objects, enclosed within a narrower horizon, have more space and importance.

— What makes waters consoling is their movement and their limpidity...

— The cold, which nevertheless obliges us to assume the same postures as rain, nevertheless does not give us the same dispositions. In the cold, everything shortens to the eye and grows smaller, diminishes to the ear. Everything then glides over our frozen senses, etc.

Note. Say, “I am chilled by the cold of winter and of age.” There is discrimination and a fitting grace in these expressions. On the contrary, there is none in these, though they are very similar — “I am burned by the fires of the sun and of love.” — It is because, by its natural disposition, the soul is strong when it speaks of misfortune and delicate when it speaks of pleasure.

Note. 2nd. If I said, “I am chilled by the years, and winter chills me too,” there is no longer any discrimination, any grace in that expression. In losing its brevity, it has lost all its merit, because it now indicates only a cold combination.

And, on the contrary, say, “Love burns me, and the sun burns me too”: these two ideas, which did not suit one another in their mixture, go very well together at a certain distance. These expressions, thus separated, have become lovable. They are the sign of a light soul that flits easily among its emotions and for which the slightest relation is enough to go from object to object and establish connections between them, but without muddling and confusing them, etc., etc.

— The people have a great respect for bread and a kind of religious veneration.

I do not know whether they could not sooner be compelled to any other sacrilege than to trample bread underfoot.

I am persuaded that, if some sovereign took it into his head to perform that mad act, he would arouse a horror that nothing would ever diminish and that would end by raising a dreadful rebellion in his dominions. Kings of the world, eat children and sleep peacefully, but do not outrage the bread the people eat, for you would die a thousand deaths.

Perhaps it is not only because bread nourishes them that the people revere it so, but because they have sown it, cultivated it, gathered it, winnowed it, sorted it, ground it, kneaded it; and above all because it is scarce.

I doubt that the savage reveres cassava as much as the European [reveres bread].

The religion that hid J.-C. beneath the appearances of bread could not have chosen a more touching symbol. For that alone it was worthy of being the religion of the unfortunate.

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VI

A great writer is one who knows how, 1st, to designate all objects by interesting names, to arrange these different expressions so that they heighten and bring out one another’s worth. In this way the art of making a bouquet consists first in choosing agreeable flowers and then in marrying them intelligently. A great author is one who expresses to me only important ideas and feelings, and knows how to distribute them and place them among one another so as to give each greater effect and power. In the writer and in the author, the invention is the same and the method is the same. In the first, each term taken separately has its beauty; in the second, each isolated proposition has its meaning.

— Take an excellent poem apart; separate all its expressions, and make a heap of them, a chaos. Give this chaos to a mediocre writer to disentangle, and tell him to create, at his fancy, a world, a work, from these scattered particles; if he adds nothing, it is impossible for him to make anything displeasing out of all this. Likewise, change the order of all the thoughts in a fine discourse; put consequences before principles, and what follows before what ought to precede; demolish, lay waste as much as you please: there will always be something in these overturned materials to hold and satisfy an observer’s gaze.

— The logic of style requires a rectitude of judgment and instinct superior to that needed to link together perfectly the infinite parts of the vastest system; for the number of words is infinite, the way in which each of their combinations must be varied is infinite, the number of these combinations is infinite. A system, however great it may be, cannot embrace this multitude of infinite details. Add that thoughts offer at their extremities a certain extent, and consequently a multitude of points, and that it is enough for them to touch at one point. But in style each thing is so slender and so fine that it in a sense eludes contact. And yet this contact must be perfect, for it can only be complete or absent. There is only one point, a single point, by which a word can correspond with a word as the occasion demands. To be a great writer requires greater perspicacity of mind, a finer touch, than to be a great philosopher.

— Notice how, in disputes, everyone gives his opinion an aphoristic form. It is because, of all forms of discourse, this is the most solid. It corresponds to the square form in architecture. And since everyone in a dispute seeks to fortify himself, everyone sets his opinion on the footing that instinct tells him is best suited to resist attack. As for things of acknowledged truth, which need fear no contradiction, no hostility, if I may put it so, they are ordinarily given a certain roundness, an expression with a contour: a form that joins grace to solidity and simplicity to richness. Now, in style, truths must be established as though they were universally acknowledged.

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VII

It is quite enough to obtain from men forbearance toward our natural imperfections, help for our essential needs, and indulgence for the infirmities to which we are inevitably subject. Why wish to overburden them by requiring them to accommodate disgusting fancies, depraved tastes, ridiculous inconveniences? Do you not impose a heavy enough weight on society with your misfortunes, your uselessness, your illnesses?

And will it be inhumane to throw out of the window the filthy... that you carry in your arms to the table and give as dining companions to decent people? Will it fail in the consideration men owe one another to drive off your insolent dogs when they deafen you with their barking, or to strike them with the foot if they dare to bite you? Do you dare call unfaithful friends those who desert your houses to escape the unbearable stench of your monkeys, your parrots, your small long-haired dogs?

Insolent women! It is for you to drive out your small long-haired dogs, your parrots, and your monkeys.

O actor Baron! Why the devil did you have servants?

— A woman dared tell me that her husband had wanted to fight because someone had taken a bichon from him. Your husband was a fool, and he was worthy of you, foolish woman that you are.

— “I want to die, I want to die”... Well, die. A great soul may sometimes have this fancy; it must be distracted from it. A child is capable of this fit of fury; he must be shut up. But you?...

— These solitary men imagine that everything is done if they breathe the air without corrupting it and eat bread while paying for it. Ah, my friends! Everything is not done; one must still fulfill one’s task. “But I practice my trade honestly.” Your trade! Your trade! Has nature not given all men as their trade to console one another, to help one another, to gladden one another, to forgive one another, to encourage one another, to strengthen one another through shared lamentations, and to make one another happy through kindly congratulations? “But one cannot do everything.” Who told you that? Laziness, cowardice, execrable egoism. “But I am occupied with music, statues, paintings.” Well, throw your music, your paintings, your statues into the fire, for you will never practice well your trade of musician, painter, sculptor if you do not first know how to practice your trade of man.

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VIII

Life is a country the old have seen and inhabited. Those who must travel through it can turn only to them to ask about its roads.

Note. — All delights arise from some communion. Those of love, from the sharing of touches, whether they take place through looks, through contact, or through thought. Those of friendship, from the sharing of moods and feelings or from the disposition to suffer the same fortunes together. Those of esteem and admiration arise from the mutual relation found between the qualities of one person and the taste, the opinions of the other. But the delights of the old lie in conversations about what one has seen, what one has known, what one has done, and what one has thought. No longer able to converse with themselves, etc., their pleasures come from outside.

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IX

We have received the world as an inheritance that none of us is permitted to impair, but that each generation, on the contrary, is obliged to leave better to posterity.

— When an individual capable of producing a great thought is born in a nation, another is born capable of understanding and admiring it.

The nobles at Athens were called in Greek Εὐπάτριδες, that is, born of good fathers. Theseus wished them to occupy the first rank in the state. See Plutarch.