The chapter on Venice is written after the manner of the ancients. However, the last chapter read always seems to be that which pleases most.
I was extremely unwell and very tired, not so much from fatigue occasioned by work, as from bodily indisposition. We amused ourselves this evening by reading the description of Ulysses’ departure from the Island of Calypso, and his arrival amongst the Pheacians.
ON SENSIBILITY.—ON THE INHABITANTS OF THE EAST AND
WEST; DIFFERENCES OBSERVABLE BETWEEN THEM, &C.
23d.—This morning the Emperor, conversing in his room, after touching on several subjects, spoke about sentiment, feelings, and sensibility, and having alluded to one of us who, as he observed, never pronounced the name of his mother but with tears in his eyes, he said, “But is this not peculiar to him? Is this a general feeling? Do you experience the same thing, or am I unnatural in that respect? I certainly love my mother with all my heart; there is nothing that I would not do for her, yet if I were to hear of her death, I do not think that my grief would manifest itself by even a single tear; but I would not affirm that this would be the case if I were to lose a friend, or my wife, or my son. Is this distinction founded on nature? What can be the cause of it? Is it that my reason has prepared me beforehand to expect the death of my mother, as being in the natural course of events, whereas the loss of my wife, or of my son, is an unexpected occurrence, a hardship inflicted by fate, which I endeavour to struggle against? Perhaps also this distinction merely proceeds from our natural disposition to egotism. I belong to my mother, but my wife and my son belong to me.” And he went on multiplying the reasons in support of his opinion, with his usual fertility of invention, in which there was always something original and striking.
It is certain that he was tenderly attached to his wife and his son. Those persons who have served in the interior of his household now inform us how fond he was of indulging his feelings of affection towards his family; and point out some shades in his disposition, the existence of which we were far from suspecting at the time.
He would sometimes take his son in his arms, and embrace him with the most ardent demonstrations of paternal love. But most frequently his affection would manifest itself by playful teazing or whimsical tricks. If he met his son in the gardens, for instance, he would throw him down or upset his toys. The child was brought to him every morning at breakfast time, and he then seldom failed to besmear him with every thing within his reach on the table. With respect to his wife, not a day passed here without his introducing her into his private conversations; if they lasted any length of time, she was sure to come in for a share in them, or to become the exclusive subject of them. There is no circumstance, no minute particular relating to her, which he has not repeated to me a hundred times. Penelope, after ten years’ absence, in order to convince herself that she is not deceived, puts some questions to Ulysses which he alone could answer. Well! I think that I should not find it difficult to present my credentials to Maria-Louisa.
In the course of the conversation in the evening, the Emperor, speaking of different nations, said he knew of only two,—the Orientals and the people of the West. “The English, the French, the Italians, &c.” said he, “compose one family, and form the western division; they have the same laws, the same manners, the same customs; and differ entirely from the Orientals, particularly with respect to their women and their servants. The Orientals have slaves; our servants are free: the Orientals shut up their women; our wives share in all our rights: the Orientals keep a seraglio, but polygamy has never been admitted in the West at any period. There are several other distinctions,” said the Emperor; “it is said that as many as eighty have been reckoned. The inhabitants of the East and of the West are therefore,” observed the Emperor, “really two distinct nations:—with the Orientals every thing is calculated to enable them to watch over their wives and make sure of them; all our institutions in the West tend, on the contrary, to put it out of our power to watch over ours, and to make it necessary for us to rely upon them alone. With us, every man who does not wish to pass for an idiot must have some occupation; and whilst he is attending to his business, or fulfilling the duties of his situation, who will watch for him? We must therefore, with our manners, rely entirely on the honour of our women, and place implicit confidence in them. For my part,” added he good-humouredly, “I have had both wives and mistresses; but it never came into my head to use any particular precaution to watch over them, because I thought that it was with these things as with the fear of daggers and poison in certain situations of life; the torment of guarding against them is greater than the danger we wish to avoid: it is better to trust to one’s fate.
“It is, however, a very knotty question to decide, which is the best method, ours or that of the Orientals; though, probably, not for you, ladies,” said he, casting an arch-look upon those who were present. “Yet it is certain that it would be a very great error to suppose that the Orientals have fewer enjoyments than we have, and are less happy than we are in the West. In the East, the husbands are very fond of their wives, and the wives are very much attached to their husbands. They have as many chances of happiness as we have, however different they may seem; for every thing is conventional amongst men, even in those feelings which, one would suppose, ought to be dictated by Nature alone. Besides, the women in the East have their rights and privileges, as ours have theirs: it would be quite as impossible to prevent them from going to the public bath, as it would be to prevent our women from going to church; and both abuse that liberty. You see, therefore, that the imagination, feelings, virtues, and failings of human nature, are circumscribed within a very narrow compass; and that the same things, with few exceptions and differences, are to be found everywhere.”
He then proceeded to account for, or to justify, polygamy among the Orientals in a very ingenious manner. “It never existed,” he said, “in the West: the Greeks, the Romans, the Gauls, the Germans, the Spaniards, the Britons, never had more than one wife. In the East, on the other hand, polygamy has existed in all ages: the Jews, the Assyrians, the Tartars, the Persians, the Turcomans, had all of them several wives. Whence could this universal and invariable difference have arisen? Was it owing to accident and to mere caprice? Did it depend on physical causes in individuals? No. Were woman less numerous, in proportion, among us than in Asia? No. Were they more numerous in the East than the men? No. Were the latter of superior stature, to us, or differently constituted? No. The fact is that the legislator, or that wisdom from on high which supplies his place, must have been guided by the force of circumstances arising from the respective localities. All the people of the West have the same form, the same colour; they compose but one nation, one family: it has been possible, as at the moment of the Creation, to assign to them but one helpmate—happy, admirable, beneficent law, which purifies the heart of the man, exalts the condition of the woman, and assures to both a multitude of moral enjoyments!
“The[“The] Orientals, on the other hand, differ from one another as much as day and night, in their forms and colours: they are white, black, copper-coloured, mixed, &c. The first thing to be thought of was their conservation, to establish a consanguineous fraternity among them, without which they would have been everlastingly persecuting, oppressing, exterminating one another: this could only be accomplished by the institution of polygamy, and by enabling them to have at one and the same time a white, black, mulatto, and copper-coloured wife. The different colours now constituting part of one and the same family, thus became blended in the affections of the chief and in the opinions of each of the females relatively to the others.