A Selection of
Consoling Maxims upon Love
WHOEVER
writes maxims like to exaggerate his character - the young pretend to be old,
the old paint their faces.
Since the
world, this vast system of contradictions, holds all forms of decay in great
esteem - quick, let us darken our wrinkles; let us garland our hearts like a
frontispiece, for sentiment is widely fashionable.
To what purpose? If
you are no true men, be at least true animals.
Be unaffected, and you will, of necessity, be useful or agreeable to
somebody. Were my heart on my right
side, it would find at least a thousand co-pariahs among the three thousand
million of beings who browse upon the nettles of sentiment.
If I begin
with Love, it is because Love is for everyone - and they will deny it in vain -
the greatest thing in life!
All you who
feed some insatiable vulture - you Hoffmannesque
poets, whom the harmonica sends dancing through crystal regions, whom the
violin lacerates like a blade searching the heart - you eager and embittered
onlookers in whom the spectacle of nature herself promotes dangerous ecstasies;
let Love be your calmative.
You
tranquil, you objective poets, the noble partisans of technique,
architects of style - you prudent ones who have a daily task to accomplish; let
Love be your stimulant, an exhilarating and strengthening potion, and the
gymnastic of pleasure your perpetual encouragement to action! To those the soporifics, to
these the alcohols.
You for
whom nature is cruel and time precious; let Love be a burning draught which
inspires the soul.
It is
necessary, therefore, to choose one's loves.
Without
denying the coups de foudre, which is
impossible - see Stendhal (De l'Amour - book
one, chapter XXIII) - one must suppose that fate possesses a certain
elasticity, which is called human liberty.
In the same
way as, for theologians, liberty consists in avoiding occasions of temptation
rather than in resisting it; so, in Love, liberty consists in avoiding women of
a dangerous category - dangerous, that is to say, for yourself.
Your
mistress, the woman of your paradise, will be sufficiently indicated to you by
your natural sympathies, verified by Lavatar and by a
study of painting and statuary.
The physiognomical signs would be infallible if one knew them
all, and well. I cannot here set down
all the physiognomical signs of the woman eternally
suitable to such and such a man. Perhaps
one day I shall accomplish this enormous task in a book which will be entitled:
the catechism of the beloved woman; but I am certain that every man,
assisted by his imperious and vague desires and guided by observation, can
discover, after a time, the woman necessary to himself. Further, our sympathies are not, in general,
dangerous; nature, whether in cookery or in love, rarely gives us a taste for
what is bad for us.
As I
understand the word Love in its fullest sense, I am here obliged to set down
some special maxims upon delicate questions.
You man of
the North, you eager navigator lost in the mists, seeker of auroras more
beautiful than the sunlight, untiring in your thirst for the ideal; love cold
women. Love them well, for the toil is
greater and more bitter and you will find one day more
honour at the tribunal of Love, who is seated over thee in the blue of the
infinite!
You man of
the South, you whose open nature can have no taste for secrets and mysteries -
light-hearted man - of
Young man,
you who wish to become a great poet, beware of the paradoxical in Love; let
schoolboys excited by their first pipe sing at the top of their voice the
praises of the fat women; leave these falsehoods to the neophytes of the
pseudo-romantic school. If the fat woman
is sometimes a charming caprice, the then woman is a well of sombre delights!
Never
slander great Nature; if she has bestowed upon you a mistress without a bosom,
say: "I have a love - with such hips!" and go to the temple to render
thanks to the Gods.
You must
know how to make the best of ugliness itself - of your own, that is too easy -
everyone knows how Trenk (la greule
brûlée) was adored by women; [We could have cited
Mirabeau as an example, but he is too well known;
besides, we suspect that he had a full-blooded type of ugliness which is
particularly distasteful to us.] of hers! that
is a rarer and more beautiful art, but the association of ideas will
render it easy and natural. Let us
suppose that your idol is ill. Her
beauty has disappeared under the frightful crust of smallpox, like verdure
beneath the heavy winter ice. Still
shaken by long hours of anguish and the fluctuations of the disease, you are
regarding sorrowfully the ineffaceable stigmata upon the body of the dear
convalescent; then suddenly there vibrates in your ears a dying air
executed by the rapturous bow of Paganini, and this
air speaks to you with sympathy of yourself, seeming to reiterate the whole
poem of your dearest abandoned hopes.
Thenceforward, the traces of the smallpox will form a part of your happiness, beneath your tender gaze there will always echo
the mysterious air of Paganini. Henceforth they will be the objects, not only
of sweet sympathy but even of physical desire - if, that is, you are one of
those sensitive spirits for whom beauty is the promise of
happiness. Above all, it is an
association of ideas which makes one love ugly women - so much so that you run
a grave risk, if your pockmarked mistress betrays you, of being able to console
yourself only with pockmarked women.
For certain
spirits, more precious and more jaded, delight in ugliness proceeds from a
still more obscure sentiment - the thirst for the unknown and the taste for the
horrible. It is this sentiment, whose
germ, more or less developed, is carried within each of us, which drives
certain poets into the dissecting room or the clinic and women to public
executions. I am sincerely sorry for the
man who cannot understand this - he is a harp who lacks a bass string!
As for
illiteracy, which forms (according to some blockheads) a part of moral ugliness
- is it not superfluous to explain to you how this may be a whole naive poem of
memories and delights? The charming Alcibiades lisped so well; childhood has such a divine
jargon. Then beware, young adept of
pleasure, of teaching your love French - unless it is necessary to become her
French master that you may be her lover.
There are
those who blush to have loved a woman as soon as they perceive that she is
stupid. These are vainglorious
jackasses, born to crop the foulest thistles in creation or enjoy the favours
of a bluestocking. Stupidity is often an
ornament of beauty; it gives the eyes that mournful limpidity of dusky pools,
and that oily calm of tropical seas.
Stupidity always preserves beauty, it keeps away the wrinkles, it is the divine cosmetic which preserves our idols from the
gnawings of thought which we must suffer, miserable
scholars that we are.
There are
those who begrudge their mistress's extravagance. These are the misers, republicans ignorant of
the first principles of political economy.
The vices of a great nation are its greatest wealth.
There are
others, the sedate, the reasonable, moderate deists, followers of the middle
path in dogma, who are furious when their wives become devout. Oh! the fumblers,
who will never learn to play any instrument!
Oh, the thrice-foolish ones, who do not perceive that the most adorable
form religion can take - is that of their wife!
A husband to be converted, what a delicious apple! The beautiful fruit forbidden like some huge
impiety - on a stormy winter night, in a corner by the fire, with wine and
truffles - mute hymn of domestic bliss, victory over harsh Nature, who seems
herself to be blaspheming the gods!
I should
not have finished so soon had I wished to enumerate all the beautiful and noble
aspects of what is called vice and moral ugliness, but there is one problem
which often presents itself to men of feeling and understanding, a problem as
vexed and painful as a tragic drama; it is when they are caught between the
hereditary moral impulse implanted by their parents and the tyrannical desire
for a woman whom they ought to despise.
Numerous and ignoble infidelities, habits which betray their evil
haunts, shameful secrets unseasonably laid bare, inspire you with horror for
your idol, and it sometimes comes to pass that your joy makes you shudder. Here you are much embarrassed in your
platonic reasonings.
Virtue and Pride cry: Fly from her.
Nature speaks in your ear: wither can I fly? These are terrible alternatives, in face of
which even the strongest souls reveal the insufficiency of all our philosophic
education. The more cunning, seeing themselves constrained by nature to play the eternal drama
of Manon Lescaut and Leone Leoni, make their retreat, saying that contempt goes well
with love. I am going to give you a very
simple formula which will not only save you from these shameful
self-justifications but will make it possible for you even to leave your idol undisfigured, without injury to your crystallization.
[We know that all our readers have read their Stendhal.]
We will
suppose that the heroine of your heart has abused the fas
and nefas and is come to the limits of
perdition, after having - final infidelity! supreme
torture! - tried the power of her charms upon her gaolers and executioners. [Also 'L'ane Mort'.]
Are you
going to abjure your ideal so lightly, or, if nature throws you, faithful and
weeping, into the arms of this pale victim of the guillotine, will you say,
with the mortified accents of resignation: Contempt and Love are
cousins-germane? Not
at all. These are the paradoxes
of a timid nature and a clouded intelligence.
Say boldly and with the candour of the true philosopher: "Had she
been less criminal my ideal had been less complete. I contemplate her and I submit; great Nature
alone knows what she intends to make of such a glorious hussy. Supreme happiness and supreme absolute
reason! product of contrary forces. Ormuz and Ahriman, you are one!"
And thus,
thanks to a more synthetic outlook upon things, your admiration will lead you
quite naturally towards chaste love, that sunlight in whose intensity all
stains are swallowed up.
Remember this, that one must beware above all of the paradoxical in
love. It is simplicity which saves, it is simplicity which brings happiness, though your
mistress be as ugly as old Mab, the queen of
terrors. In general, for men of the
world, a subtle moralist has said, Love is but love of gambling, love of
fighting. That is altogether wrong. Love should be love,
fighting and gambling are permissible only as the politics of love.
The gravest
mistake of modern youth is that they force their emotions. A great number of lovers are imaginary
invalids who spend large sums on nostrums and pay M. Fleurant
and M. Purgon heavily, without enjoying the pleasures
and privileges of a genuine malady.
Observe how they irritate their stomachs with absurd drugs, wearing out
the digestive faculties of Love. It may
be necessary to belong to one's century, but beware of aping the illustrious
Don Juan, who was, according to Molière, at first
nothing more than a rude rascal, well trained and versed in love, crime and
cunning, but who has since become, thanks to MM. Alfred de Musset
and Théophile Gautier, an artistic lounger, chasing perfection through the bawdy-houses, and
who is finally only an old dandy worn out by his travels, the stupidest
creature in the world when he is in the company of an honest woman who loves
her husband.
A last,
general rule: in love, beware of the moon and the stars, beware
of the Venus de Milo, of lakes, guitars, rope-ladders, and of all love stories
- yes, even the most beautiful in the world, were it written by Apollo
himself! But love dearly, vigorously,
fearlessly, orientally, ferociously the woman you
love; so that your love - harmony being included - does not torment the love of
another; so that your choice does not cause disturbance to the community. Among the Incas a man could make love to his
sister; be content with your cousin. Do
not climb balconies or give trouble to the public authorities; do not on any
account deprive your mistress of the happiness of belief in the gods; and when
you accompany her to the temple remember to dip your fingers in orthodox
fashion in the pure, refreshing water of the stoup.
Since all
morality testifies to the good will of its legislators - since all religion is
a supreme consolation for the afflicted - since every woman is a part of essential
Woman - since love is the sole thing which merits the turning of a sonnet and
the putting-on of fine linen: I revere these things above all else and denounce
as a slanderer the man who sees in this fragment of a morality an occasion for
crossing himself and a cause for scandal.
Morality wrapped in tinsel, is it not? Coloured glass which tints
too brightly, perhaps, the eternal lamp of truth shining within? No, no.
Had I wished to prove that all is for the best in the best of all
possible worlds, the reader would have the right to tell me, like the ape of
genius: you are naughty! But I have
desired to prove that all is for the best in the worst of all possible
worlds. Much therefore will be forgiven
me because I have loved much - my male, or female reader!