Reflections | Page 7

François Duc De La Rochefoucauld
every day of your
life, is, I fear, too like and too exact a picture of human nature. I own it
seems to degrade it, but yet my experience does not convince me that it
degrades it unjustly.”
Bishop Butler, on the other hand, blames the book in no measured
terms. “There is a strange affecta- tion,” says the bishop, “in some
people of explaining away all particular affection, and representing the
whole life as nothing but one continued exercise of self-love. Hence
arise that surprising confusion and perplexity in the Epicureans of old,
Hobbes, the author of 'Reflexions Morales,' and the whole set of writers,
of calling actions interested which are done of the most manifest
known interest, merely for the gratification of a present passion.”
The judgment the reader will be most inclined to adopt will perhaps be
either that of Mr. Hallam, “Con- cise and energetic in expression,
reduced to those short aphorisms which leave much to the reader's
acuteness and yet save his labour, not often obscure, and never
wearisome, an evident generalisation of long experience, without
pedantry, without method, without deductive reasonings, yet wearing
an appear- ance at least of profundity; they delight the intelli- gent
though indolent man of the world, and must be read with some
admiration by the philosopher . . . . yet they bear witness to the
contracted observation and the precipitate inferences which an

intercourse with a single class of society scarcely fails to generate.” Or
that of Addison, who speaks of Rochefoucauld “as the great
philosopher for administering consola- tion to the idle, the curious, and
the worthless part of mankind.”
We are fortunately in possession of materials such as rarely exist to
enable us to form a judgment of Rochefoucauld's character. We have,
with a vanity that could only exist in a Frenchman, a description or
portrait of himself, of his own painting, and one of those inimitable
living sketches in which his great enemy, Cardinal De Retz, makes all
the chief actors in the court of the regency of Anne of Austria pass
across the stage before us.
We will first look on the portrait Rochefoucauld has left us of himself:
“I am,” says he, “of a medium height, active, and well-proportioned.
My complexion dark, but uniform, a high forehead; and of moderate
height, black eyes, small, deep set, eyebrows black and thick but well
placed. I am rather embarrassed in talking of my nose, for it is neither
flat nor aquiline, nor large; nor pointed: but I believe, as far as I can say,
it is too large than too small, and comes down just a trifle too low. I
have a large mouth, lips generally red enough, neither shaped well nor
badly. I have white teeth, and fairly even. I have been told I have a little
too much chin. I have just looked at myself in the glass to ascertain the
fact, and I do not know how to decide. As to the shape of my face, it is
either square or oval, but which I should find it very diffi- cult to say. I
have black hair, which curls by nature, and thick and long enough to
entitle me to lay claim to a fine head. I have in my countenance
somewhat of grief and pride, which gives many people an idea I
despise them, although I am not at all given to do so. My gestures are
very free, rather inclined to be too much so, for in speaking they make
me use too much action. Such, candidly, I believe I am in out- ward
appearance, and I believe it will be found that what I have said above of
myself is not far from the real case. I shall use the same truthfulness in
the remainder of my picture, for I have studied my- self sufficiently to
know myself well; and I will lack neither boldness to speak as freely as
I can of my good qualities, nor sincerity to freely avow that I have
faults.
“In the first place, to speak of my temper. I am melancholy, and I have
hardly been seen for the last three or four years to laugh above three or

four times. It seems to me that my melancholy would be even
endurable and pleasant if I had none but what be- longed to me
constitutionally; but it arises from so many other causes, fills my
imagination in such a way, and possesses my mind so strongly that for
the greater part of my time I remain without speaking a word, or give
no meaning to what I say. I am ex- tremely reserved to those I do not
know, and I am not very open with the greater part of those I do. It is
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