Born in a family devoted to morals and piety, brought up afterwards with gentleness at the house of 60 THIRD PROMENADE a minister who was full of wisdom and religion, I received from my earliest infancy principles, maxims —others would say prejudices—which have never. entirely abandoned me, While Still a child, and left to myself, flattered by caresses, seduced by vanity, deceived by hope, forced by necessity, I became Catho- lic, but I always remained Christian; and soon, won over by habit, my heart attached itself sincerely to my new religion, The teachings and example of Madame de Warens confirmed me in this attachment. The solitude of the fields where I passed the flower of my youth, the Study of good books to which I gave myself up entirely, reinforced near her my natural dispositions and affeétionate sentiments and made me devout almost in the manner of Fénelon, Meditation in retreat, Study of nature, the contemplation of the universe, force a solitary to direét himself incessantly towards the author of things and to seek with a tender regtlessness the end of all that he sees and the cause of all that he feels. When my destiny cast me into the torrent of the world, I did not find anything there which could flatter my heart for a moment. Regret for my sweet leisure followed me everywhere and cast indifference and disgust upon all that which could be found within reach of my ambition, able to carry me to fortune and honour, Uncertain in my restless desires, I hoped little, I obtained less, and I felt, in the flashes even of prosperity that when I had obtained all that I believed I sought, I had not yet found there the 61 REVERIES OF A SOLITARY happiness for which my heart was eager without know- ing how to discern its objet. Thus all contributed to detach my affections from this world, even before the misfortunes that were to make me entirely Strange toit. [attained the age of forty years, floating between poverty and fortune, between wisdom and heedlessness, full of vices of habit without any evil tendency in my heart, living at hazard without principles decided upon by my reason, and distracted from my duties without despising them, but often without really understanding them, From my youth up I fixed this epoch of forty years as the term of my efforts at success, and as that of my ambitions in all respects; fully resolved, when that age was attained, and in whatever situation I found myself, not any more to struggle on to emerge from it, but to pass the rest of my days in living from day to day, without occupying myself any more with the future. The moment having come, I executed this projet without trouble, and though then my fortune seemed to be reaching a more secure position, I re- nounced it, not only without regret, but with real pleasure. In delivering myself from all these snares, from all these vain hopes, I yielded myself fully to heed- lessness and to the repose of spirit which was always my most dominant taste and my moét lasting aim. I quitted the world and its pomps. I renounced all fine apparel; no more sword, no more watch, no more white Stockings, gold thread, coiffure; a simple periwig, 62 THIRD PROMENADE a good coarse suit of cloth; and better than all this, I uprooted from my heart the cupidities and the covet- ings which gave a value to all that I had quitted. I. renounced the post which I then occupied, for which I was in no way fitted, and I set myself to copying music at so much the page, an occupation for which I had always a decided taste.
I did not limit my reform to external things. I felt that this reform itself exaéted another more painful doubtless, but more necessary, in my opinion; and, resolved not to make it twice, 1 undertook to submit my inner being to a severe examination which would regulate it for the rest of my life, making it such as I wished to find it upon my death.
A great revolution which came about in me, another moral world which unveiled itself to my gaze; the senseless judgments of men, of which, without fore- seeing how I would be the viftim, I began to feel the absurdity; the ever-increasing need of another good than literary glory, of which scarcely the breath had Struck me when I was already disgusted; the desire finally to follow for the rest of my career a road less uncertain than that in which I had already passed the better half of my life; everything obliged me to under- take this great review of myself of which I had long felt the need. I undertook it then, and I negleéted nothing that was in my power in order to execute this enterprise well.
It is from this epoch that I can date my entire 63 REVERIES OF A SOLITARY renunciation of the world, and this vivid taste for soli- tude, which has not quitted me from that time onward. The work which I undertook could not be executed except in an absolute retreat; it demanded long and peaceful meditations which the tumult of society would notallow. This forced me to take up fora time another way of living in which I found myself so happy that, not having interrupted it since then except by force and for a few moments, I resumed it with all my heart, and limited myself to it without difficulty, as soon as I could; so when finally men reduced me to living alone, I found that in banishing me to make me miserable, they did more for my happiness than I knew how to do myself.
I yielded myself to the labour that I undertook with a zeal proportioned both to the importance of the thing and to the need which I felt I had for it. I lived then with the modern philosophers who scarcely resemble the ancients: in place of easing my doubts and fixing my irresolutions, they had shaken all the certitudes that I thought I had upon the points which it most imported me to know: because, ardent mission- aries of Atheism and very imperious dogmatists, they did not endure without anger, that on any point that might exit anyone dared to think otherwise than they. I defended myself often very weakly through dislike for dispute, and through small talent to sustain it; but never did I adopt their desolating doftrine: and this resiftance to men so intolerant, who moreover 64 THIRD PROMENADE had their own aims, was not one of the least causes for attracting their animosity.
They did not persuade, but they disquieted me. Their arguments shook me, without ever convincing; I did not find 2 good answer, but I felt there should be one. I accused myself less of error than of feebleness, and my heart replied to them better than my reason, I said finally: Shall I allow myself to be eternally swayed by the sophisms of the best-reputed talkers, of whom J am not even sure that the opinions they preach, and which they have so much ado to get adopted by others, are even theirs for themselves? ‘Their passions which govern their do€trine, their interest to have this or that believed, makes it impossible to know what they believe themselves. Can one seek for good faith in the leaders of a party? Their philosophy is for others; it is necessary to have one for myself. Let me seek then with all my strength while it is Still time, in order to have a fixed rule of condu& for the rest of my days. Here I am in the maturity of my age, in all the force of my understanding; already I approach my decline; if T wait till, I shall no longer have, in my tardy delibera- tion, the use of all my forces; my intellectual faculties will have already lost their adtivity; I shall do less well that which I can do to-day in the best possible manner; let me grasp this favourable moment: it is the period of my external and material reform, let it be also that of my intellectual and moral reform, Let me fix once 65 FE REVERIES OF A SOLITARY and for all my opinions, my principles: and let me be for the rest of my life that which I find I ought to be after having well thought upon it.
I carried out this projec slowly and after several attempts, but with all the effort and all the attention of which I was capable. I felt Strongly that the repose of the rest of my days and my whole fate depended upon it, I found myself at first in such a labyrinth of embarrassments, of difficulties, of objeétions, of tor- tuosities, of darkness, that twenty times tempted to abandon all, I was ready, renouncing vain searches, to hold, in my deliberations, to the rules of common prudence, without searching further into principles which I had so much trouble to unravel: but this prudence itself was so foreign to me, I felt myself so little apt to acquire it, that to take it for my guide was nothing less than to attempt without rudder or com- pass in the midst of seas and storms, to reach an almost inaccessible lighthouse which did not indicate to me any harbour.
I persisted: for the first time in my life I had courage, and I owe to its Strength the ability I had to sustain the horrible deStiny which from thenceforth began to envelop me, although I had not the least suspicion of it. After the most ardent and moét sincere researches that perhaps had ever been made by any mortal, I decided for the rest of my life upon the feelings which it was necessary for me to have; and if I may have been de- ceived in my results, I am sure at least that my mistake 66 THIRD PROMENADE 66 THIRD PROMENADE cannot be imputed to me as a crime: for I have made every effort to protect myself from it. I do not doubt, it is true, that the prejudices of my childhood and the secret wishes of my heart have made the balance incline to the side mos consoling to myself. It is with diffi- culty that one forbids oneself from believing what one seeks with so much ardour, and who can doubt that the interest of admitting or rejecting the judgments of another life determines the faith of most men accord- ing to their hope or their fear? All this might fasci- nate my judgment, I admit, but could not alter my good faith; for I feared to deceive myself in everything. If all consisted in the usages of this life, it would be im- portant to know them in order to choose at least the best lot that was in my power while it was still time, and not to be entirely duped. But that which I had the most to fear from the world, in my then state of mind, was to risk the eternal fate of my soul for the enjoyment of the goods of this world, which have never appeared to me of great value.
I admit that I did not always answer to my satis- faCtion all the difficulties which have embarrassed me, and with which our philosophers had so often disturbed my ears. But, resolved to decide finally upon matters of which the human intelligence has so little grasp, and finding on all sides impenetrable mysteries and insoluble objections, I adopted direttly in each question the sentiment which appeared to me the bes established, without Stopping at objections 67 REVERIES OF A SOLITARY which I could not resolve, but which were contra- diéted by other objeétions not less Strong in the opposite system. The dogmatic tone in these matters does not suit any except charlatans; but it is necessary to have a sentiment for oneself and to choose it with all the maturity of judgment that one can bestow. If despite this we fall into error, we shall not in justice bear the suffering, because we have not the guilt, This is the unshakable principle which is at the base of my security.
The result of my painful researches was practically that which I gave out in the profession of faith of the Savoyard Vicar,) a work unworthily prostituted and profaned in the present generation, but which some day may make a revolution among men, if ever good sense and good faith are born again among them.
From that time on, resting tranquilly in the prin- ciples which I have adopted after a meditation so long and so thought out, I have made it an unchangeable rule of my conduét and my faith, without any more disquieting myself either upon the objections which I have been unable to resolve, or on those which I have been unable to foresee, and which present them- selves newly from time to time to my spirit. They have disquieted me sometimes, but they have never shaken me. I have always said: All this is nothing but 7 The profession of faith of the Savoyard Vicar appears in the novel of “ Emile,” which was condemned by the Parlement de Paris 68 THIRD PROMENADE quibbles and metaphysical subtleties, which are of no weight after the fundamental principles adopted by my reason, confirmed by my heart, and which all carry the seal of interior assent in the silence of my passions. In matters so superior to human understanding, can an objection which I cannot resolve reverse the whole body of solid do€trine, so well linked and formed with so much meditation and care, so well appropriated to my reason, to my heart, to all my being, and reinforced with the inner assent which I feel to be lacking to all others? No; vain arguments do not destroy ever the agreement which I perceive between my immortal being and the constitution of this world, and the phy- sical order that I see reigning there; I have found in the corresponding moral order, the system of which is the result of my searches, those footholds which I need to support the miseries of my life. In every other system, I should live without resources and die without hope; I should be the most miserable of creatures, Let me hold fast to that which alone suffices to render me happy, in despite of fortune and of men. This deliberation and the conclusion I drew from it, do they not seem to have been di@tated by Heaven itself to prepare me for the destiny which awaited me, and to put me into the condition of enduring it? What might I have become, what shall I become still in the frightful agonies which await me, and in the incredible situation to which I am reduced for the rest of my life, if, remaining without an asylum where 69 REVERIES OF A SOLITARY I could escape my implacable persecutors, without compensation for the opprobrium which they made me suffer in this world, and without hope of ever obtaining the justice which is my due, I saw myself given over to the most horrible fate which any mortal has endured on the earth? On the other hand, tranquil in my innocence, I did not imagine anything but esteem and benevolence for myself amongst men; and while my open and confiding heart poured itself out with friends and brothers, traitors surrounded me in silence, with nets forged in the depths of hell. Sur- prised by the most unforeseen of all evils, and the most terrible for a proud soul, dragged into the mud without ever knowing by whom nor wherefore, plunged into an abyss of ignominy, surrounded by horrible darkness across which I did not perceive aught but sinister objects, at my first surprise I was overwhelmed; and never should I have recovered from the discouragement in which this unforeseen class of misfortunes threw me, if I had not reserved in advance some strength to raise me up from my falls.
It was not until after years of agitation that, recover- ing finally my spirits, and beginning to return to myself, I knew the value of the resources which I had reserved for adversity. Decided upon all things of which it was necessary for me to judge, I saw on comparing my maxims to my situation that I was giving to the sense- less judgments of men and to the small events of this brief life much more importance than they merited; Jo THIRD PROMENADE that this life was nothing but a State of trial—it mattered little that these trials were of such or such a sort, pro- vided that there occurred the result for which they were destined, and that, in consequence, the more the trials were great, strong, multiplied, the more it was advan- tageous to know how to endure them. All the keenest sufferings lose their force for whoever sees in them a great and sure compensation; and the certainty of this compensation was the principal fruit that I drew from my preceding meditations.
It is true that in the mids of outrages without number and indignities without bounds by which I felt myself attacked on all sides, intervals of inquietude and doubt came, from time to time, to shake my hope and trouble my tranquillity. The powerful objections which I had not been able to resolve presented them- selves thus to my spirit with the more force, to achieve my overthrow precisely at the moments when, over- charged with the weight of my destiny, I was ready to fall into discouragement; often new arguments, which I was able to form, returned into my spirit to aid those which had already tormented me, Ah! said I then in torments of heart ready to stifle me, who will guarantee me from despair if, in the horror of my lot, I do not see anything but delusions in the consolations which my reason furnishes me; if, deStroying so its own work, it reverses all the support of hope and confidence which it has granted to me in adversity? What support can illusions offer which do not console any but myself 7i REVERIES OF A SOLITARY in this world? The whole present generation does not see anything but errors and prejudices in the sentiments by which I nourish myself: it finds truth and evidence in the system contrary to mine: it seems even not to believe that I have adopted it in good faith; and I myself in yielding to it with all my will have found insurmountable difficulties which it is impossible for me to resolve and which do not prevent me from per~ sisting in it. Am I then alone wise, alone enlightened amongst mortals? to believe that things are so, suf- fices it that they are to my liking? Can I take an enlightened confidence in appearances which have nothing solid in the eyes of men, and which seem to me illusory to myself if my heart does not uphold my reason? Would it not be better to fight my persecu- tors with equal weapons by adopting their maxims than to remain under the delusion of mine as a prey of their attempts, without acting so as to cast them off? I believe myself wise, and I am nothing but dupe, viGtim, and martyr of a vain error.
How many times, in moments of doubt and uncer- tainty, I was ready to abandon myself to despair! If ever I had passed in this state a whole month, it would have been the end of my life and of myself. But these crises, though for the rest sufficiently common, have always been short; and now though I am not yet entirely delivered, they are so rare and so rapid, that they have not the power to trouble my rest. They are light troubles which do not affeé&t my soul any more 72 THIRD PROMENADE than a feather falling into a river can alter the course of the Stream. I have felt that to re-argue the same points, upon which I had already decided, was to suppose for myself new illumination, or 2 more formed judgment, or more zeal for truth than I had at the time of my researches; that since not one of these cases was capable of being mine, I could not prefer, by any solid reason, opinions which, in the overthrow of despair, did not attack me except to augment my misery, to sentiments adopted in the vigour of age, in all the maturity of spirit, after the most careful examination, and in times when the calm of my life did not leave one other dominant interest than that of knowing the truth. To-day when my heart is wrung with distress, my soul worn out with ennui, my imagination upset, my mind troubled with so many frightful mysteries with which Tam environed; to-day when all my faculties, weakened by old age and pain, have lost all their vigour, shall I go about to deprive myself at pleasure of all the re- sources which I have reserved, and give more confi- dence to my declining reason in order to render myself unjustly unhappy, than to my full and vigorous reason in order to compensate me for the ills which I suffer without meriting them? No; I am not either more wise, nor better disposed, nor of better faith than when T decided upon these great questions: I did not ignore, then, the difficulties with which I let myself be troubled to-day; they did not op me, and if there have been presented some new ones of which I was not then 73 REVERIES OF A SOLITARY aware, these are sophisms of a subtle metaphysic, which cannot balance the eternal truths admitted from all time, by all the sages, recognised by all nations, and graved on the human heart in ineffaceable letters. I know, in meditating on these matters, that the human understanding, circumscribed in all respeéts, cannot embrace them in all their extent; I hold, then, to that which is within my faculty, without engaging myself in that which surpasses it. This choice was reason- able; I embraced it formerly, and held to it with the assent of my heart and my reason. Upon what founda- tion should I renounce it to-day when so many power- ful motives should hold me attached? What danger do I see in following it? What profit do I find in abandoning it? In taking up the do@trine of my persecutors, should I take on also their morale, this morale without root and without fruit, which they spread out pompously in their books or in some glittering action on the Stage, wherein nothing pene- trates into the heart or the reason, or should I take on that other morale, secret and cruel, an interior do@trine of all their initiates, to which the other does not serve except as a mask, which they follow alone in their conduét, and which they have so skilfully practised in my respeét? This morale, purely offen- sive, does not serve for defence, and is not good except for aggression. How could it serve me in the State to which they have reduced me? My innocence alone upholds me in my sorrows; and how much would I 14 THIRD PROMENADE render myself sill more unhappy, if depriving myself of this unique but powerful resource I substituted maliciousness for it? Should I surpass them in the art of doing injury? And when I had succeeded, of what ill would that which I could do them relieve me? I should lose my own esteem, and I should gain nothing in place of it.
It is thus that, reasoning with myself, I succeeded in not letting myself be any more shaken in my principles by captious arguments, by insoluble objections, and by difficulties which pass the bounds of my comprehension, and perhaps that of the human mind itself. Mine, resting on the most solid basis that I could have given it, accustomed itself so well to remaining under the protection of my conscience, that no strange doétrine, old or new, could move it, nor trouble for 2 moment my repose, Fallen into languor and heaviness of spirit, I have forgotten even the reasonings upon which I founded my belief and my maxims: but I shall not ever forget the conclusions which I have drawn from them with the approbation of my conscience and my reason, and I hold to them henceforward. Let all the philosophers come to argue against them; they will lose their time and their trouble: I remain for the rest of my life, in everything, on the side which I took when I was best in a position to make a right choice.
Tranquil in these arrangements, I have found, with the agreement of myself, the hope and the consola- tion which I need in my situation: it is not possible 75 REVERIES OF A SOLITARY that a solitude so complete, so permanent, so sad in itself, the ever perceptible and active animosity of the whole of the present generation, the indignities with which it overwhelms me without ceasing, do not cast me down sometimes into despair; hope shaken, dis- couraging doubts return from time to time to trouble my soul and fill it with sadness. It is then that, in- capable of the operations of the mind, necessary to reassure myself, I need to recall my former resolutions; the cares, the attention, the sincerity of heart, that I have put into taking them, return to my memory, and give me back all my confidence. I refuse to give myself to all new ideas as to evil errors, which have only a false appearance, and are useless except to trouble my repose.
Thus held in the narrow sphere of my former knowledge, I have not, like Solon, the pleasure of being able to learn each day as I grow older, and I ought even to keep myself from the dangerous pride of wishing to grasp that which I am henceforward in no condition to know well. But if there remain for me few acquisitions to hope for on the side of useful know- ledge, there remain very important ones to make on the side of the virtues necessary to my state; it is there that I shall have time to enrich and to ornament my soul with an acquisition which it can carry away with itself. When, delivered from this body which offends and blinds it, and seeing the truth unveiled, it perceives the vanity of all that knowledge of which our false THIRD PROMENADE wise men are so vain, it will bewail the moments wasted in this life in trying to acquire them. But patience, sweetness, resignation, integrity, impartial justice, are good which we carry about with ourselves, and with which we can be enriched without ceasing, with- out fearing that death itself can make us lose the prize: it is to this unique and useful udy that I have con- sectated the rest of my old age. Happy if, by pro- gressing upon myself, I learn to leave life not better, because that is not possible, but more virtuous than I have entered it | 77 FOURTH PROMENADE 'N the small number of books which I Sill read sometimes, Plutarch is the one which attraéts me and profits me the most. This was the first reading of my childhood, it will be the last of my old age: he is almost the only author which J have never read without profit to myself. Day before yesterday, I read in his Moral Essays the treatise “How One Can Obtain Profit from One’s Enemies.” The same day, in arranging certain pamphlets which have been sent me by the authors, I fell on one of the journals of the Abbé Royou, to the title of which he had put these words; “ Vitam vero impendenti,! Royou.” Too much aware of the turns of phrase of these gentlemen to be moved by this, I understood that he had meant, under this air of politeness, to tell mea cruel counter- truth; but founded upon what? Wherefore this sarcasm? What subjeft could I have given him there? To put into profit the lessons of the good Plutarch, I resolved to employ the promenade of the next day in examining myself upon deceitfulness, and I came to this examination already confirmed in the opinion taken that the “Know thyself” of the Temple of > Life truly expended. 7B FOURTH PROMENADE Delphi was not a maxim so easy to follow as I had believed in my “ Confessions.”