The Adventures of David Simple (1904)/Chapter 34
CHAPTER IV
"There were two young English ladies at Paris with a married lady of their acquaintance, who were celebrated for their beauty throughout the whole town: one of them was named Corinna, and the other Sacharissa; and, notwithstanding they were sisters, yet were they as perfectly different, in both person and temper, as if they had been no way related. Corinna was tall, well-proportioned, and had a majesty in her person and a lustre in her countenance which at once surprised and charmed all her beholders. Her eyes were naturally full of fire; and yet she had such a command of them that she could lower their fierceness, and turn them into the greatest softness imaginable, whenever she thought proper: she spoke in so many different turns of voice, according to what she desired to express, and had such various gestures in her person, that it might be truly said, in her was found 'variety in one.' In short, the constant flow of spirits which the consciousness of an unlimited power of pleasing supplied her with, enabled her in the most simple manner to execute that power.
"Sacharissa's person was very well made, and in her countenance was a great sweetness. She spoke but seldom, but what she said was always a proof of her good understanding. Her manner was grave and reserved, and her behaviour had something of that kind of quietness and stillness in it which is often imputed by the injudicious to a want of spirit. In short, notwithstanding her beauty and good sense, she wanted those little ways of setting off her charms to the best advantage which Corinna had to the greatest perfection; and, quite contrary to her sister, from her great modesty and fear of displeasing, often lost opportunities of gaining lovers which she otherwise might have had.
"These two ladies set out in the world with very different maxims: Corinna's whole delight was in admiration; she proposed no other pleasure but in first gaining and then keeping her conquests; and she laid it down as a certain rule, that few men's affections were to be kept by any other method than that of sometimes endeavouring to vex and hurt them; for that difficulty and disappointments in the pursuit were the only things that made any blessing sweet, and gave a relish to all the enjoyments of life.
"Her conversation, when she was only amongst women, continually ran on this subject: she used to try to prove her assertion by everything she met with: if she went into a room adorned with all the different arts invented by mankind, such as painting, sculpture, etc., she would always ask her sister whether she thought, if that room was her own property, and she might make use of it whenever she pleased, it would not become perfectly indifferent to her, the beauties of it fade in her eyes, and all the pleasure be lost in the custom of seeing it? Nay, she said she believed variety would make the plainest building or the homeliest cottage sometimes a more agreeable sight.
"Sachariasa could not help agreeing with her in this, and then Corinna had all she wanted. 'Why, then,' said she, 'should we expect men to go from the common rule of nature in our favour? And if we will satiate them with our kindness, how can we blame them for the natural consequence of it, viz., their being tired of us? Health itself loses its relish to a man who knows not what it is to be sick; and wealth is never so much enjoyed as by one who has known what it is to be poor: all the pleasures of life are heightened by sometimes experiencing their contrary. Even fuel burns the stronger for being dashed with cold water; but then, indeed, we ought to have judgment enough not to throw too much, lest we extinguish instead of increasing the flame. We must examine the different tempers of men, and see how much they will bear, before we attempt the dealing with them at all.'
"In this manner would she run on for an hour together. On the other hand, Sacharissa had no levity in her temper, and consequently no vanity in having variety of lovers. The only pleasure she proposed in life was that of making a good wife to the man she liked, by which means she did not dnubt but she should make a good husband of him; and used often to say, that as she did not value having many admirers, she did not fear but an honest plain behaviour would fix the affections of one worthy man. But if her sister was in the right, and no man was to be dealt with but by using art and playing tricks, she could content herself very well to live all her lifetime a single woman; for she thought the love of a man which was to be kept that way was not worth having. Nay, she resolved to make that trial of a man's goodness that, whenever she liked him, she would tell him of it; and if he grew cold upon it, she should think she was happily delivered of such a lover. Corinna laughed, and told her she might tell a man she liked him, provided she would but now and then be cold enough to him to give him a small suspicion and fear of losing her.
"Sacharissa was as much talked of for her beauty, by those who had only seen them in public, as her sister; but amongst the men who visited them Corinna had almost all the lovers. She had six in a set of English gentlemen, who generally kept together the whole time they were at Paris; whose characters, as every two of them were a perfect contrast to each other, I will give you before I go any further.
"The gentleman whose character I shall begin with had the reputation, amongst all his acquaintance, of being the most artful man alive; he had very good sense, and talked with great judgment on every subject he happened to fall upon, but he had not learned that most useful lesson of reducing his knowledge to practice; and whilst everybody was suspecting him, and guarding against those very deep designs they fancied he was forming, he, who in reality was very credulous, constantly fell into the snares of people who had not half his understanding. He could not do the most indifferent action, but all the wise heads, who fancy they prove their judgments by being suspicious, saw something couched under that apparent simplicity, which they said was hid from the injudicious and unwary eye. I have really seen people, when they have been repeating some saying or talking of a transaction of his, hum—and ha —for half an hour, and put on that look which some people are spiteful enough to call dull; whilst others are so excessively good-natured as to give it the term of serious, only to consider what great mystery was concealed under such his words or actions.
"The poor man led a miserable life from being thus reputed to have art. That open generosity of temper, which for my part I thought very apparent in him, was generally esteemed only to be put on in order to cover those cunning views he had continually before his eyes. Thus, because he did not talk like a fool he must act like a villain; which, in my opinion, is the falsest conclusion imaginable; and, as a proof of it, I will let you into the character of a man who was in every respect perfectly opposite to the other.
"This person's understanding was but very small; the best things he said were trite, and such as he had picked up from others: he had the reputation in the world of a very silly fellow, but of one who had no harm in him; whereas in reality he spent his whole time in laying plots which way he might do the most mischief. And as things in this world, even of the greatest consequence, sometimes turn on very small hinges, and his capacity was exactly suited to the comprehension and management of trifles, he often succeeded in his pernicious schemes better than a man of sense would have done whose ideas were more enlarged, and his thoughts so much fixed on great affairs that small ones might frequently have escaped his notice.
"I look upon the difference between a man who has a real understanding, and one who has a little low cunning, to be just as great as that between a man who sees clearly and one who is purblind. The man to whom nature has been so kind as to enable him to extend his views afar off, often employs his thoughts and raises his imagination with a beautiful distant prospect, and perhaps he overlooks the shrubs and rubbish that lie just before him, which, notwithstanding, are capable of throwing him down and doing him an injury; whilst the man who is purblind, from the impossibility he finds of seeing farther, is in a manner forced to fix his eyes on nearer objects, and, by that means, often escapes the falls which those who neglect the little stumbling-blocks in their way are subject to. In this case I fancy it would be thought very ridiculous if the one who walked steadily, because he can only see what is just under his feet, should swear the other has no eyes, because he sometimes makes a false step while he is wandering over and delighting himself with the beauties of the creation.
"But let mankind divide understanding, or sense (or whatever they please to call it) into ever so many parts, or give it ten thousand different names, that every one may catch hold of something to flatter themselves with, and strut and look big in the fancied possession of; I can never believe but that he who has the quickest apprehension, and the greatest comprehension, will always judge best of everything he attends to. But the mind's eye (as Shakespeare calls it) is not formed to take in many ideas, no more than the body's many objects at once; and therefore I should not at all wonder to see a man who was admiring the beauties of the rising sun, and greedily devouring the various prospect of hills and valleys, woods and water, fall over a cabbage-stump which he thought unworthy his notice.
" But to return to my gentleman. I actually knew several instances of his deceiving and imposing on people in the most egregious manner, only because they could not suspect such a head as his of forming any schemes; but if ever there was a visible proof that he had done any mischief, then the artful man (though perhaps he had never known anything of the matter) had set him on, and it was a thousand pities the poor innocent creature should thus be made a tool of another's villainy, for he certainly would never have thought of it himself. I could not help laughing sometimes to see how much this man endeavoured at the reputation of art (foolishly thinking it a sign of sense) without being able to attain it; while the other, with full as ill success, did all he could to get rid of it, that he might converse with mankind without their being afraid of him.
"The third gentleman of this community passed for the best-natured man in the world; he never heard of another's misfortunes but he shrugged up his shoulders, expressing a great deal of sorrow for them, although he never thought of them afterwards: the real truth was, he had not tenderness enough in his disposition to love anybody; and therefore kept up a continual cheerfulness, as he never felt the disappointments and torments of mind those people feel who are ill-used by the person they have set their affections on. He was beloved, that is, he was liked, by all who conversed with him; for, as he was seldom vexed, he had that sort of complaisance which makes people ready to dance, play, or do anything they are desired; and I believe such sort of reasons as Shakespeare put in Falstaff's mouth for Prince Harry's loving Poins,[1] are the grounds of most of the friendships professed in the world; and this makes them so lasting as they are. Whoever can accompany another in his diversions, and be like him in his taste of pleasures, will be more loved and better thought of by him than a man of much more merit, and from whom he has received many more real kindnesses, will be.
"But I now proceed to the contrast of this good-natured man, whose reputation was quite contrary; for whoever mentioned him was sure to hear he was the worst-natured, most morose creature living; and yet this man did all the benevolent actions that were in his power; but he had so much tenderness in him that he was continually hurt, and consequently out of humour. His love of mankind was the cause that he appeared to hate them; for often, when his heart was torn to pieces and ready to burst at either ill usage from his friends or some particular misfortune which had befallen them, and which he was incapable of removing, he cared so little what came of the world that he could hear a pitiful story without any emotion, and perhaps showed a carelessness at it which made the relater go away with a fixed opinion of his brutality and ill-nature.
"But there is nothing so false as the characters which are given to most people; and I am afraid this is not owing so much to men's ignorance as to their malignity; for whenever one man is envious of another, he endeavours to take from him what he really has, and gives him something else in the room of it which he knows he has not. He leaves it to the world to find out his deficiency in that point; if he can but hide from men's eyes whatever it is he envies him for, he is satisfied.
"The next character I am to give you is that of a man who has such strong sensations of everything that he is, as Mr. Pope finely says, 'Tremblingly alive all o'er.' His inclinations hurry him away, and his resolution is too weak ever to resist them. When he is with any one he loves, and tenderness is uppermost, he is melted into a softness equal to that of a fond mother with her smiling infant at her breast. On the other hand, if he either has, or fancies he has, the least cause for anger, he is, for the present, perfectly furious, and values not what he says or does to the person he imagines his enemy; but the moment this passion subsides, the least submission entirely blots the offence from his memory.
"He is of a very forgiving temper; but the worst is, he forgives himself with full as much ease as he does another, and this makes him have too little guard over his actions. He designs no ill, and wishes to be virtuous; but if any virtue interferes with his inclinations, he is overborne by the torrent, and does not deliberate a moment which to choose.
"Confer an obligation on him, and he is over' whelmed with thankfulness and gratitude; and this not at all owing to dissimulation, for he does not express half he feels. But this idea soon gives place to others; and then do anything which is in the least disagreeable to him, and he immediately sets his buagination (which is very strong) to work to lessen all you have done for him, and his whole mind is possessed by what he thinks your present ill-behaviour.
"He has often put me in mind of a story I once heard of a fellow who, accidentally falling into the Thames, and not knowing how to swim, had like to have been drowned; when a gentleman, who stood by, jumped into the river and saved him. The man fell on his knees, was ready to adore him for thus delivering him, and said he would joyfully sacrifice the life he had saved at any time on his least command. The next day the gentleman met him again, and asked him how he did after his fright? When the man, instead of being any longer thankful for his safety, upbraided him for pulling him by the ear in such a manner that it had pained him ever since. Thus that trifling inconvenience, in twenty-four hours, had entirely swallowed up the remembrance that his life was owing to it. Just so doth the gentleman I am speaking of act by all the world.
"He has the greatest aversion imaginable to see another in pain and uneasiness; and therefore, while any one is with him, he has not resolution enough to refuse them anything, be it ever so unreasonable. Importunity makes him uneasy, and therefore he cannot withstand it; but when they are absent from him, he gives himself no trouble what they suffer: let him not see it, and he cares not: he would not interrupt a moment of his own pleasure on any account whatever. He never considers what is right or wrong, but pursues the gratification of every inclination with the utmost vigour; and all the pains he takes is not in examining his actions either before or after he has done them, but in proving to himself that what he likes is best; and he has the art of doing this in such a manner that, while people are with him, it is very difficult to prevent being imposed on by his fallacious way of arguing. And yet, tell him a story of another's actions, and no one can judge better, only I think rather too rigidly; for, as he doth not feel their inclinations, he can see all their folly, and cannot find out any reason for their giving way to their passions.
"He has great parts; and when he is in good-humour, and nothing ruffles him, is one of the most agreeable men I ever knew; but it is in the power of every the least disappointment to discompose and shake his whole frame, and then he is much more offensive and disagreeable than the most insignificant creature in the world. He never considers the consequences of anything before he does it. He ruined his sister by his wrong-placed pride; for she had a lover who was greatly her superior in point of fortune, but there were some circumstances in his affairs which made it very inconvenient for him to marry her immediately. The brother took it into his head he was designing to dishonour his family, and challenged him. The gentleman overcame him, and gave him his life, but resolved never to speak to his sister more; for he said it should not be reported of him that he was compelled to marry her. The poor young creature, who had fixed her affections on him, had a slur cast on her reputation, and has been miserable ever since. He is not so ill-natured but that seeing her so makes him uneasy; and therefore the remedy he takes is not to see her at all, but to live at a distance from her; and he comforts himself that it was his love for her made him act in such a manner. Had it been another man's case, he would have soon found out that it was not tenderness for a sister, but pride and vanity, that caused so rash an action.
"One thing is very diverting in him, and has often "made me laugh; for it is very easy to know whether the last action he has done is good or bad by what he himself says; for when benevolence has prevailed in his mind, and he has done what he thinks right, then he employs all his wit and eloquence to prove the great goodness of human nature. But when, by giving way to pride, anger, or any other passion, he hath been hurried into the commission of what he cannot perfectly approve, he then immediately falls on the great wickedness of all mankind, and sets himself to work to argue every virtue out of the world. The inconsistency of his behaviour makes his character in the world very various; for people who have been witnesses of some parts of his conduct take him for the best of creatures; whilst others, who have known some of his worst actions, think him the vilest. It is not to be wondered at that he should be thus inconsistent with himself, for he has no fixed principles to act by: he gives way to every inclination that happens to be uppermost; and as it is natural for people to love to justify themselves, his conversation turns greatly on the irresistibleness of human passions, and an endeavour to prove that all men act by them. But people who have the reputation of wit or sense should take great care what they say or do, for the sake of others who are apt to be influenced by their example, and form their sentiments by their precepts.
"The last of the six characters I promised to give you, and the contrast to this gentleman, is a very odd one. His understanding is very indifferent, but he has a strong inclination to be thought both witty and wise; he envies the other, because he finds that, with all his faults, his company is more coveted than his own; and therefore, as he finds he cannot equal him in wit and entertainment, he fixes on wisdom and discretion, and exults in the superiority he imagines these give him; so that instead of being, like the other, hurried into actions by his own inclinations, he deliberates so long and weighs so nicely every circumstance that may attend whatever is proposed to him, that he puzzles his brain, and bewilders himself in his own wisdom, till he does not know how to act at all; and often, by these methods, loses opportunities of doing what would be very much for his advantage while he is considering whether he should do it or no. And it is not only in things of moment he is thus considerate, but also in the most trifling affairs in life. He will not go even to a party of pleasure till he has confused himself so long, whether it will be discreet or no, that, when he is resolved, he can have no enjoyment in it.
"I remember once, while we were at Paris, this knot of gentlemen, my lady, myself in the character of a toad-eater, and some more ladies, proposed spending a week at Versailles; this gentleman could not find out whether it would give him most pleasure or pain to accompany us, and was so long in deliberating, that at last Monsieur Le Vive (which was the name the gentleman who was so whimsically guided by his passions always went by while he was at Paris) swore he would stay no longer; and we drove away, leaving him at the gate in a thoughtful posture, as if he had been endeavouring to find out the most difficult problem in the mathematics.
"He pretends to a great affection for Le Vive, but I verily believe he hates him in his heart; for, when he is absent from him, his whole discourse turns on his indiscretions, which indeed he expresses great sorrow for; but, in my opinion, he only affects to pity him for an excuse to fix people's minds on his faults, and to make them see his own imagined superiority. I have known several of these friends, who go about lamenting every wrong thing done by the person they falsely pretend a friendship for; but to me they cannot give a stronger proof that they hate and envy them.
"For a man who is really concerned for another's frailties will keep them as much as possible even his own thoughts, as well as endeavour to hide them from the rest of the world. And whenever I hear one of these lamenters cry, 'It is a pity Such-a-one has such failings, for otherwise he would be a charming creature!' and then reckon them all up, without forgetting one circumstance, I cannot forbear telling them that 1 think this would better become an enemy than a friend. This man got the nickname of the Balancer, and was the diversion of all who knew him.
"Many other silly fellows who conversed with Le Vive acted quite contrary to the Balancer, and affected to imitate him. It was a common thing with him to say that people of the greatest understandings had generally the strongest sensations; for which reason, I really knew two men who were naturally of cold, phlegmatic dispositions, throw themselves into continual passions in order to prove their sense. They could not come up to Le Vive in their conversation; and therefore, with great penetration, they found out an easier way to be like him, and were so very humble as to imitate him in his failings.
"I visited the wife of one of them, and was sitting with her one day when the husband came in. She happened to say something he did not like; on which he, in appearance, threw himself into a violent agony, swore and stamped about the room like a madman, and at last catched up a great stick, with which he broke one of the finest sets of china I ever saw. The poor woman, who was really frighted, stood staring, and knew not what to say; but when his passion had continued just as long as he thought necessary to prove his wisdom, he grew calm again, and then asked his wife ten thousand pardons for what he had done; said he was very sorry he was so passionate; but all people acted by their passions, and he could not help his nature; it was a misfortune often attended persons of very good sense; and, as an instance of it, named Le Vive. I saw through the whole thing, and could hardly keep my countenance, but immediately took my leave, that I might have the liberty to make my own reflections without being observed—for nothing is so captious as a man who is acting a part, it being very natural for him to be in a continual fear of being found out.
"Corinna had another lover, who was a Frenchman, in a very high station. His mind was cast much in the same mould with hers. Vanity was the chief motive of all his actions, and the gratification of that vanity was the sole end of all his designs. He delighted in all manner of fine things; that is, he was pleased to call them his own; for the finest picture that ever Michael Angelo drew would have given him no pleasure unless the world had known he was in possession of it. And what is yet more strange, the most beautiful woman was only preferred to the rest by him, that it might be said his charms had made a conquest of the person others sighed for in vain. It was for this reason he followed Corinna; every new lover she got increased his affections; the greater crowd of admirers she had, the better he was pleased, provided she would but show to the world that she only kept them in her train whilst he was permitted to lead her by the hand."
Here Cynthia said she was tired, and would reserve the remainder of her story till the afternoon. They spent the interval, till she thought proper to begin again, in general conversation and remarks on the characters she had given them. As soon as Valentine thought she had rested long enough to make it agreeable to her to tell them the rest of the story, he begged her to go on with it; and she, who never wanted to be asked twice to oblige any of that company, proceeded as will be seen in the next chapter.
- ↑ That the reader may not have the trouble to turn to Shakespeare, to see what these strong ties of affection are which Falstaff speaks of, I have here set down the passage.
"Dol.—Why doth the prince love Poins so, then?
"Fal.—Because their legs are both of a bigness, and he plays at quoils well, and eats conger and fennel, and drinks off candles ends for flap-dragons, and rides the wild mare with the boys, and jumps upon joint-stools, and swears with a good grace, and wears his boot very smooth like unto the sign of the leg, and breeds no bait with telling discreet stories; and such other gambol faculties he hath, that's how a weak mind and an able body, for the which the prince admires him; for the prince himself is such another, the weight of an hair will turn the scale between their Avoirdupois."