The Physiology of Taste | Page 7

to certain things which savants seemed to have reserved to themselves. If, in spite of all these efforts, I have not presented to my readers a science rarely understood, I shall sleep just as calmly, being certain that the MAJORITY will acquit me of all evil intention.
It may perhaps be said that sometimes I wrote too rapidly, and that sometimes I became garrulous. Is it my fault that I am old? Is it my fault that, like Ulysses, I have seen the manners and customs of many cities? Am I therefore blamable for writing a little bit of autobiography? Let the reader, however, remember that I do not inflict my political memoirs on him, which he would have to read, as he has many others, since during the last thirty years I have been exactly in the position to see great men and great things.
Let no one assign me a place among compilers; had I been reduced thus low, I would have laid down my pen, and would not have lived less happily.
I said, like Juvenal:
"Semper ego auditor tantum! nunquamne reponam!"
and those who know me will easily see that used to the tumult of society and to the silence of the study I had to take advantage of both one and the other of these positions.
I did too many things which pleased me particularly; I was able to mention many friends who did not expect me to do so, and recalled some pleasant memories; I seized on others which would have escaped, and, as we say familiarly, took my coffee.
It may be a single reader may in some category exclaim,----"I wished to know if----." "What was he thinking of," etc., etc. I am sure, though, the others will make him be silent and receive with kindness the effusions of a praiseworthy sentiment.
I have something to say about my style, which, as Buffon says, is all the man.
Let none think I come to ask for a favor which is never granted to those who need it. I wish merely to make an explanation.
I should write well, for Voltaire, Jean Jacques, Fenelon, Buffon, and Cochin and Aguesseau were my favorite authors. I knew them by heart.
It may be though, that the gods ordered otherwise; if so, this is the cause of the will of the gods.
I know five languages which now are spoken, which gives me an immense refectory of words.
When I need a word and do not find it in French, I select it from other tongues, and the reader has either to understand or translate me. Such is my fate.
I could have acted otherwise, but was prevented by a kind of system to which I was invincibly attached.
I am satisfied that the French language which I use is comparatively poor. What could I do? Either borrow or steal.
I did neither, for such borrowings, cannot be restored, though to steal words is not punishable by the penal code.
Any one may form an idea of my audacity when I say I applied the Spanish word volante to any one I had sent on an errand, and that I had determined to GALLICISE the English word TO SIP, which means to drink in small quantities. I however dug out the French word siroter, which expresses nearly the same thing.
I am aware the purists will appeal to Bosseux, to Fenelon, Raceri, Boilleau, Pascal, and others of the reign of Louis XIV. I fancy I hear their clamor.
To all this I reply distinctly, that I do not depreciate the merit of those authors; but what follows? Nothing, except that if they played well on an inferior instrument, how much better would they have done on a superior one. Therefore, we may believe that Tartini would have played on the violin far better than he did, if his bow had been long as that of Baillot.
I do not belong to the neologues or even to the romanticists; the last are discoverers of hidden treasures, the former are like sailors who go about to search for provisions they need.
The people of the North, and especially the English, have in this respect an immense advantage over us. Genius is never restricted by the want of expression, which is either made or created. Thus it is that of all subjects which demand depth and energy, our translations make but pale and dull infusions.
Once I heard at the institute a pleasant discourse on the danger of neologism, and on the necessity of maintaining our language as it was when the authors of the great century wrote.
"Like a chemist, I sifted the argument and ascertained that it meant:
"We have done so well, that we neither need nor can do better."
Now; I have lived long enough to know that each generation has done as much, and that each one laughs at his