A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux | Page 8

but it was not for some years yet that he expressed himself, as he did in the _Spectateur fran?ais_: "Ainsi je ne suis point auteur, et j'aurais ��t��, je pense, fort embarrass�� de le devenir... je ne sais point cr��er, je sais seulement surprendre en moi les pens��es que le hasard me fait na?tre, et je serais fach�� d'y mettre rien du mien."[38]
In the Mercure for August, September, and October, 1717, and for March and June, 1718, appeared from the pen of Marivaux "five letters to M. de M----, containing an adventure, and four letters to Mme. ----, containing reflections on the populace, the _bourgeois_, the merchants, the men and women of rank, and the beaux esprits." This seems to be a turning point in his literary life. He appears now to have grasped the idea of his own limitations and of his own powers, powers which will be disclosed, not only in his journalistic work, but in his novels and his plays. I refer to those excellences which are the direct result of the acuteness of his observation. These writings gained for him the agnomen of _Th��ophraste moderne_, which his sense of fitness and natural dislike of over-praise led him to disclaim in a letter to the Mercure of October, 1717. That same year a _Portrait de Clim��ne, ode anacr��ontique_, proves that he had yet to sustain a real defeat in the line of verse before he came to realize that he should confine himself to prose alone. The Mercure of March, 1719, contained some _Pens��es sur divers sujets: sur la clart�� du discours, sur la pens��e sublime_. The next year, 1720, however, was one of the utmost importance in determining his future career.
The statement has already been made that when Marivaux came to Paris his fortune, if not munificent, was at least ample for his needs, and, fond of his ease and indifferent to business affairs, he might have enjoyed independence for the rest of his life, had he not yielded to the influence of certain friends and entrusted his fortune to the speculations of the Law system. When the crash came, in May, 1720, he lost all that he had. In a letter, written in 1740, he relates the circumstances of the affair in so philosophical a tone that it is well worth reading. He says: "Oui, mon cher ami, je suis paresseux et je jouis de ce bien-l��, en d��pit de la fortune qui n'a pu me l'enlever et qui m'a r��duit �� tr��s peu de chose sur tout le reste: et ce qui est fort plaisant, ce qui prouve combien la paresse est raisonnable, combien elle est innocente de tous les blames dont on la charge, c'est que je n'aurais rien perdu des autres biens si des gens, qu'on appelait sages, �� force de me gronder, ne m'avaient pas fait cesser un instant d'��tre paresseux, je n'avais qu'�� rester comme j'��tais, m'en tenir �� ce que j'avais, et ce que j'avais m'appartiendrait encore: mais ils voulaient, disaient-ils, doubler, tripler, quadrupler mon patrimoine �� cause de la commodit�� du temps, et moiti�� honte de para?tre un sot en ne faisant rien. moiti�� b��tise d'adolescence et adh��rence de petit gar?on au conseil de ces gens sens��s, dont l'autorit�� ��tait regard��e comme respectable, je les laissai disposer, vendre pour acheter, et ils me menaient comme ils voulaient... Ah! sainte paresse! salutaire indolence! si vous ��tiez rest��es mes gouvernantes, je n'aurais pas vraisemblablement ��crit tant de n��ants plus ou moins spirituels, mais j'aurais eu plus de jours heureux que je n'ai eu d'instants supportables..."[39]
Marivaux acknowledges his fondness of ease and idleness elsewhere, as well as in this letter,[40] and it would certainly seem natural, from what we know of the man, to accept his own statement. However, all men fond of idleness are not necessarily idle, nor do all lazy men lack industry. There are various motives that force them to labor, often mere pride, and more often still, necessity. Marivaux was a great worker, as his works in ten large volumes (as edited by Duviquet) prove, but they do not in the least disprove his statement that he was not fond of work, and it is undoubtedly true that, had it not been for the spur of necessity, he would not have written "tant de n��ants plus ou moins spirituels," and the world would have been deprived of his best writings, for the poorest work that he produced was done while he was rich.
The loss of his fortune was a cruel blow, for it deprived him of the means of gratifying his fondness for dress and good living[41], and, worst of all, it debarred him largely from indulging his passion for charity. His generosity and fellow-feeling for others were so great that he really suffered at sight of