Dialogues of the Dead | Page 5

to
resemble.
Plato.--Homer and Orpheus are impatient to see you in that region of
these happy fields which their shades inhabit. They both acknowledge
you to be a great poet, though you have written no verses. And they are
now busy in composing for you unfading wreaths of all the finest and
sweetest Elysian flowers. But I will lead you from them to the sacred
grove of philosophy, on the highest hill of Elysium, where the air is
most pure and most serene. I will conduct you to the fountain of
wisdom, in which you will see, as in your own writings, the fair image
of virtue perpetually reflected. It will raise in you more love than was
felt by Narcissus, when he contemplated the beauty of his own face in
the unruffled spring. But you shall not pine, as he did, for a shadow.
The goddess herself will affectionately meet your embraces and mingle
with your soul.
Fenelon.--I find you retain the allegorical and poetical style, of which
you were so fond in many of your writings. Mine also run sometimes
into poetry, particularly in my "Telemachus," which I meant to make a
kind of epic composition. But I dare not rank myself among the great
poets, nor pretend to any equality in oratory with you, the most

eloquent of philosophers, on whose lips the Attic bees distilled all their
honey.
Plato.--The French language is not so harmonious as the Greek, yet
you have given a sweetness to it which equally charms the ear and heart.
When one reads your compositions, one thinks that one hears Apollo's
lyre, strung by the hands of the Graces, and tuned by the Muses. The
idea of a perfect king, which you have exhibited in your "Telemachus,"
far excels, in my own judgment, my imaginary "Republic." Your
"Dialogues" breathe the pure spirit of virtue, of unaffected good sense,
of just criticism, of fine taste. They are in general as superior to your
countryman Fontenelle's as reason is to false wit, or truth to affectation.
The greatest fault of them, I think, is, that some are too short.
Fenelon.--It has been objected to them--and I am sensible of it
myself--that most of them are too full of commonplace morals. But I
wrote them for the instruction of a young prince, and one cannot too
forcibly imprint on the minds of those who are born to empire the most
simple truths; because, as they grow up, the flattery of a court will try
to disguise and conceal from them those truths, and to eradicate from
their hearts the love of their duty, if it has not taken there a very deep
root.
Plato.--It is, indeed, the peculiar misfortune of princes, that they are
often instructed with great care in the refinements of policy, and not
taught the first principles of moral obligations, or taught so
superficially that the virtuous man is soon lost in the corrupt politician.
But the lessons of virtue you gave your royal pupil are so graced by the
charms of your eloquence that the oldest and wisest men may attend to
them with pleasure. All your writings are embellished with a sublime
and agreeable imagination, which gives elegance to simplicity, and
dignity to the most vulgar and obvious truths. I have heard, indeed, that
your countrymen are less sensible of the beauty of your genius and
style than any of their neighbours. What has so much depraved their
taste?
Fenelon.--That which depraved the taste of the Romans after the ago of
Augustus--an immoderate love of wit, of paradox, of refinement. The

works of their writers, like the faces of their women, must be painted
and adorned with artificial embellishments to attract their regards. And
thus the natural beauty of both is lost. But it is no wonder if few of
them esteem my "Telemachus," as the maxims I have principally
inculcated there are thought by many inconsistent with the grandeur of
their monarchy, and with the splendour of a refined and opulent nation.
They seem generally to be falling into opinions that the chief end of
society is to procure the pleasures of luxury; that a nice and elegant
taste of voluptuous enjoyments is the perfection of merit; and that a
king, who is gallant, magnificent, liberal, who builds a fine palace, who
furnishes it well with good statues and pictures, who encourages the
fine arts, and makes them subservient to every modish vice, who has a
restless ambition, a perfidious policy, and a spirit of conquest, is better
for them than a Numa or a Marcus Aurelius. Whereas to check the
excesses of luxury--those excesses, I mean, which enfeeble the spirit of
a nation--to ease the people, as much as is possible, of the burden of
taxes; to give them the blessings