Voltaire/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV.
A DIDACTIC POEM.
"The 'Essay on Man' of Pope," says Voltaire, "appears to me the finest didactic poem, the most useful, the most sublime that has ever appeared in any language." It is probable that his high opinion of Pope's work, and the admiration he expressed for the writings of Boileau, inspired him with the wish to rival their success. What he respected so much in Pope's poem could scarcely have been its philosophy, though it contains much that harmonises with his own views in support of natural religion. Nobody can ever have been convinced or consoled by a homily which, addressing an imaginary opponent as "Presumptuous Man!" and the preacher's fellow-man as "Vile worm!" comforts the miserable with the assurance that their sufferings are part of a general scheme of perfect benevolence, and, with complacent superiority, rebukes the foolish for not being wise, and the unfortunate for not being happy. The task of explaining "the riddle of the painful earth" has been always too hard for philosophy; and such questions as that of free-will, of the balance of happiness, of the relative position of man in the universe, are rather exercises for ingenuity than problems for solution. Endeavours to answer them are too much (to borrow the words of an old writer) like the attempt "to draw the likeness of Proteus, or to define the figure of the fleeting air." Never has the wit of man devised a faith which is consistent with the facts of life, or which renders them clear to the hapless being who stumbles darkling among them. Nor can it be said that Voltaire has been more successful than others in this adventure, the special object of which in his case is to explain how the bestowal of happiness on man, seemingly so fortuitous, is yet consistent with divine justice. His First Discourse endeavours to establish that the measure of good and evil is equally dealt out to men in all conditions of life—a doctrine which, after all indispensable limitations, must remain of very doubtful authority. The next affirms the doctrine of free-will, and the deduction that, as man is free, his happiness rests with himself. The Third asserts that the chief obstacle to happiness is envy; the Fourth, that moderation is an essential element of happiness; the Fifth affirms, in opposition to the ascetics of the time, that pleasure is a gift of heaven, and its pursuit, within just limits, praiseworthy; the Sixth, that perfect happiness cannot be the lot of man in this world, and that the inevitable fact forms no just ground for complaint; and the Seventh, that virtue consists in promoting the happiness of our fellows, and not in vain practices of mortification. Some of these themes require no proof, some admit of none; and the reader may be apt to think that so original a mind might be better employed than in ingenious attempts to solve either insoluble or self-evident propositions. But what both Voltaire and Pope have done in the matter, and what gives both of them a place among philosophic poets, is, that while conducting us along paths that lead to nowhere in particular, they invest with artistic and memorable interest a great deal of what is to be met with on the road. The "Essay on Man," of which nobody could explain the scheme or justify the logic, contains many passages which have permanently enriched the popular stock of thought, often even to the degree of endowing it with proverbs; and in the same way, the "Discourses on Man," which can never have had any influence on anybody's method of seeking happiness, have nevertheless contributed many striking verses and illustrations to French didactic poetry. But the styles of the two poets have not always much in common. Voltaire generally wants the condensity, the sharp effects, the careful, neat antitheses of Pope—for his compositions were always rapidly executed, and such attributes can only be, except by happy chance, the last results of the prolonged distillation of ideas and the fastidious selection of words; but these compositions possess all his characteristic ease and grace, and much happiness of illustration.
Whether there was any apparent novelty, or special force, for contemporary readers, in Voltaire's two first Discourses, is doubtful; but it is tolerably clear that they possess only small interest now. Into the third, however, his own experience infuses vigour: he who had all his life suffered from detraction, and had felt the keenest resentment against his calumniators, could scarcely treat in abstract fashion the subject of Envy; and this "Discourse"[1] contains many keen personal allusions. It begins with the following passage, and ends with the next quoted, in which the reference to Desfontaines, Fréron, and the like venomous foes, is sufficiently apparent:—
If pressed by tyrants he should break the chain.
His vices are the despots of his breast,
Their fell dominion all too manifest.
Direst of these in its capricious hate,
The basest and the most inveterate,
Dealing with poisoned blade a coward blow,
Is Envy, of fair Fame the stealthy foe.
Though born of Pride, it dreads the light of day,
Admits nor mercy's touch nor reason's ray,
Feels others' merit as a burthen vast,
And sinks beneath: so lies, 'neath Etna cast,
The giant, foe of gods, whom gods o'ercame,
Hurling in vain the fires that round him flame.
Blaspheming, writhing, in his earth-pent lair,
He thinks to shake the world with his despair;
Etna's vast load, by his huge heavings stirred,
Again subsides, and holds him sepulchred,
Courtiers I've seen, with pride of fools elate,
On conquering Villars turn the eye of hate;
They loathed the powerful arm, their surest stay;
He fought for them, they sneered his fame away.
Well might the hero, as the war drew near,
Tell Louis, ''Tis Versailles alone I fear;
Against your foes a dauntless front I bring;
Guard me from mine, for they stand near my king,"
After many illustrations of Envy, in which his contemporaries figure, the "Discourse" concludes thus:—
'I have no enemies'! My rivals? Nay,
Their good, their ill, their honour's mine in part,
Their triumphs, too, for we are kin through Art.
Thus folds the gracious earth to bosom wide
These oaks, these pines, that flourish side by side;
With equal sap impels the grove to rise,
Rooting in Hades, branching to the skies,
Their trunks unmoved, their heads, as in disdain,
Bent back, defying all the tempest's strain;
Whom brotherhood makes time-proof. And, the while,
Under their spreading shade do serpents vile
Hiss, venting each on each a poison-flood,
And stain the roots with their detested blood."
The Discourse on "Moderation" contains much excellent though not very original advice, besides a lament that his own too-unrestrained desire to rise in the world should have led him to waste his time in courts. He thus lectures the Sybarites of Paris:—
Learn both to recognise it and enjoy!
Pleasures are flowers, which our Master's care
'Mid the world's briers makes to blossom fair;
Each has its season, and a later bloom
May still survive to cheer our winter's gloom.
In gathering them the touch should lightly rest,
Their fleeting beauty fades too eager pressed.
Do not, upon the palled sense, lavish cast
All Flora's sweets in one voluptuous blast!
Somewhat the wise still leave unfelt, unknown,
And, by abstaining, hold the joy their own.
Luckless the drone, with leisure's load oppressed,
Who ne'er with labour freshens failing zest;
Nature no favours will unbought bestow—
Spontaneous harvests spring not here below."
To the general rule of "Moderation" he, however, makes afterwards one happy exception:—
"Divinest Friendship! perfect happiness!
The one emotion that can bear excess."
- ↑ The measure of the poem is, like that of the "'Henriade," rhymed Alexandrines, which are here rendered in the ten-syllable lines of the "Essay on Man."