The Goncourts risk a characteristically dashing generalization on the national characters of England and France: “L’Anglais, filou comme peuple, est honnête comme individu. Il est le contraire du Français, honnête comme peuple, et filou comme individu.” If one is going to make a comparison Voltaire’s is more satisfactory because less pretentious. Strange are the ways of you Englishmen,
qui, des mêmes couteaux,
Coupez la tête au roi et la queue aux chevaux.
Nous Français, plus humains, laissons aux rois leurs têtes,
Et la queue à nos bêtes.
It is unfortunate that history should have vitiated the truth of this pithy and pregnant statement.
But the bright spots in this enormous tome are rare. After turning over a few hundred pages one is compelled, albeit reluctantly, to admit that the Great Thought or Maxim is nearly the most boring form of literature that exists. Others, it seems, have anticipated me in this grand discovery. “Las de m’ennuyer des pensées des autres,” says d’Alembert, “j’ai voulu leur donner les miennes; mais je puis me flatter de leur avoir rendu tout l’ennui que j’avais reçu d’eux.” Almost next to d’Alembert’s statement I find this confession from the pen of J. Roux (1834-1906): “Emettre des pensées, voilà ma consolation, mon délice, ma vie!” Happy Monsieur Roux!
Turning dissatisfied from Dr. Legat’s anthology of thought, I happened upon the second number of Proverbe, a monthly review, four pages in length, directed by M. Paul Eluard and counting among its contributors Tristan Tzara of Dada fame, Messrs. Soupault, Breton and Aragon, the directors of Littérature, M. Picabia, M. Ribemont-Dessaignes and others of the same kidney. Here, on the front page of the March number of Proverbe, I found the very comment on Great Thoughts for which I had, in my dissatisfaction, been looking. The following six maxims are printed one below the other: the first of them is a quotation from the Intransigeant; the other five appear to be the work of M. Tzara, who appends a footnote to this effect: “Je m’appelle dorénavant exclusivement Monsieur Paul Bourget.” Here they are:
Il faut violer les règles, oui, mais pour les violer il faut les connaître.
Il faut régler la connaissance, oui, mais pour la régler il faut la violer.