And yet it is seduction, and not reward, which mere fashionable society offers the man of true genius. He will be sought for with enthusiasm, but he cannot escape from his certain fate—that of becoming tiresome to his pretended admirers.
At first the idol—shortly he is changed into a victim. He forms, indeed, a figure in their little pageant, and is invited as a sort of improvisatore; but the esteem they concede to him is only a part of the system of politeness; and should he be dull in discovering the favourite quality of their self-love, or in participating in their volatile tastes, he will find frequent opportunities of observing, with the sage at the court of Cyprus, that "what he knows is not proper for this place, and what is proper for this place he knows not." This society takes little personal interest in the literary character. HORACE WALPOLE lets us into this secret when writing to another man of fashion, on such a man of genius as GRAY—"I agree with you most absolutely in your opinion about Gray; he is the worst company in the world. From a melancholy turn, from living reclusely, and from a little too much dignity, he never converses easily; all his words are measured and chosen, and formed into sentences: his writings are admirable—he himself is not agreeable." This volatile being in himself personified the quintessence of that society which is called "the world," and could not endure that equality of intellect which genius exacts. He rejected Chatterton, and quarrelled with every literary man and every artist whom he first invited to familiarity—and then hated. Witness the fates of Bentley, of Muntz, of Gray, of Cole, and others. Such a mind was incapable of appreciating the literary glory on which the mighty mind of BURKE was meditating. WALPOLE knew BURKE at a critical moment of his life, and he has recorded his own feelings:—"There was a young Mr. BURKE who wrote a book, in the style of Lord Bolingbroke, that was much admired. He is a sensible man, but has not worn off his authorism yet, and thinks there is nothing so charming as writers, and to be one: he will know better one of these days" GRAY and BURKE! What mighty men must be submitted to the petrifying sneer—that indifference of selfism for great sympathies—of this volatile and heartless man of literature and rank!
That thing of silk,
Sporus, that mere white curd of ass's milk!
The confidential confession of RACINE to his son is remarkable:—"Do not think that I am sought after by the great for my dramas; Corneille composes nobler verses than mine, but no one notices him, and he only pleases by the mouth of the actors. I never allude to my works when with men of the world, but I amuse them about matters they like to hear. My talent with them consists, not in making them feel that I have any, but in showing them that they have." Racine treated the great like the children of society; CORNEILLE would not compromise for the tribute he exacted, but he consoled himself when, at his entrance into the theatre, the audience usually rose to salute him. The great comic genius of France, who indeed was a very thoughtful and serious man, addressed a poem to the painter MIONARD, expressing his conviction that "the court," by which a Frenchman of the court of Louis XIV. meant the society we call "fashionable," is fatal to the perfection of art—
Qui se donne à la cour se dérobe à son art;
Un esprit partagé rarement se consomme,
Et les emplois de feu demandent tout l'homme.
Has not the fate in society of our reigning literary favourites been uniform? Their mayoralty hardly exceeds the year: they are pushed aside to put in their place another, who, in his turn, must descend. Such is the history of the literary character encountering the perpetual difficulty of appearing what he really is not, while he sacrifices to a few, in a certain corner of the metropolis, who have long fantastically styled themselves "the world," that more dignified celebrity which makes an author's name more familiar than his person. To one who appeared astonished at the extensive celebrity of BUFFON, the modern Pliny replied, "I have passed fifty years at my desk." HAYDN would not yield up to society more than those hours which were not devoted to study. These were indeed but few: and such were the uniformity and retiredness of his life, that "He was for a long time the only musical man in Europe who was ignorant of the celebrity of Joseph Haydn." And has not one, the most sublime of the race, sung,
—che seggendo in piuma,
In Fama non si vien, nè sotto coltre;
Sanza la qual chi sua vita consuma
Cotal vestigio in terra di se lascia
Qual fummo in aere, ed in acqua la schiuma
For not on downy plumes, nor under shade
Of canopy reposing, Fame is won:
Without which, whosoe'er consumes his days,
Leaveth such vestige of himself on earth
As smoke in air, or foam upon the wave.[A]
[Footnote A: Cary's Dante, Canto xxiv.]
But men of genius, in their intercourse with persons of fashion, have a secret inducement to court that circle. They feel a perpetual want of having the reality of their talents confirmed to themselves, and they often step into society to observe in what degree they are objects of attention; for, though ever accused of vanity, the greater part of men of genius feel that their existence, as such, must depend on the opinion of others. This standard is in truth always problematical and variable; yet they cannot hope to find a more certain one among their rivals, who at all times are adroitly depreciating their brothers, and "dusking" their lustre. They discover among those cultivators of literature and the arts who have recourse to them for their pleasure, impassioned admirers, rather than unmerciful judges—judges who have only time to acquire that degree of illumination which is just sufficient to set at ease the fears of these claimants of genius.