It is fitting that we conclude this sketch of Fénelon with some account of his writings, because it is so largely through them that he lives today. The most complete collection of his works, issued from Paris between 1820 and 1830, is in thirty-four volumes, 8vo, of which eleven volumes are given to the correspondence. Many of these literary labors have been translated into English; for instance, the treatise on the “Education of Daughters,” the “Dialogues on Eloquence,” the “Demonstration of the Existence of God,” and the “Spiritual Letters.” The last has by far the greatest importance at the present time, has indeed an importance for all time. But before taking it up, a few words concerning some of his other productions will be in place.
While he was superior at the institution for the New Catholics, in 1687 or 1688, he wrote a treatise on the authority of the priesthood or the dogma of the Apostolical Succession, of course defending it; which established his reputation as a writer, and attracted the notice of the king. Much more important was his work on the “Education of Girls;” this has been sufficiently dwelt upon in the first chapter. A treatise on the “Existence of God” was begun in these earlier years, but leisure did not seem to be found for its full development. Even the first part was not published till 1712, and the second did not see the light until three years after his death. It is of little value now, but it made a strong impression on the metaphysical philosophers of the eighteenth century, and is especially praised by Thomas Reid. His “Dialogues on Eloquence,” with special reference to that of the pulpit (an admirable treatise on oratory), was not published at all until after his death; neither was his “Refutation of Malebranche,” his “Letters to the King,” treatise on the “Authority of the Sovereign Pontiff,” “Questions for Self-Examination on the Duties of a King,” “Letters on Religion” to the Duke of Orleans, “Plans of Government,” and “Letter to the Academy.” The latter, written a few months before his death, constitutes his answer to the chief literary questions of his age, and treats more especially of the controversy between the Classic and Romantic Schools. He was a thoroughgoing Classicist, an Ancient of the Ancients, insisting on the study of Greek as a panacea for most literary diseases. He has also in the letter a chapter on the “Art of Writing History,” making symmetry the first requirement, and impartiality next. In his eyes a history was a work of art, with something in it of the epic poem. He suggested, furthermore, that the Academy should devote itself to a detailed examination of the standard works in the French language, and prepare popular editions with notes.
All Fénelon’s writings, it may be said, show much grandeur and delicacy of sentiment, great fertility of genius, a correct taste, and excited sensibility. A poetical character appears in them all. By assiduous study the works of the best writers of antiquity were familiar to him, and his intimate acquaintance with their productions furnished him a resource in every vicissitude of life; they were his ornament in prosperity, his comfort in adversity. The charm of his manner in society is largely communicated to the products of his pen. They abound in passages of splendor and pathos, but their chief excellence is in their tender simplicity, by which the reader’s heart is irresistibly drawn to the writer.
Of much higher rank in a literary point of view than any of those previously mentioned was his “Adventures of Telemachus; or, The Education of a Prince.” It is a fabulous narrative in the form of a heroic poem, in which he sets down the truths most necessary to be known by one about to reign; and the faults that cling most closely to sovereign power are also fully described. It was composed by Fénelon while he was preceptor to the royal dukes, and designed exclusively for their instruction; “written at chance moments, hurriedly, and piece by piece,” says the author, “sent to the press by an unfaithful copyist, and never intended for the world.” He insisted that he did not borrow from real persons, or sketch in the characters of his own time. This was undoubtedly true; but no human power could convince Louis XIV that it was so, and the unauthorized publication of it in 1698, just when the Quietist controversy was at its height, was extremely unfortunate for Fénelon, and filled the king’s cup of wrath to overflowing. He had been more than sufficiently embittered before, but after this there was not the slightest hope of reconciliation; for the book is an idealistic portrayal of a commonwealth where virtue has its own again, where there is no tyranny, where the king is the father of all his people and the chief servant of the State, where duty is lifted far above rights, and justice is supreme. Since nothing could be more opposite to all this than the character and conduct of King Louis, it is no wonder that he took it as a personal insult and a deliberate satire. In every part of it disrespectful mention is made of ambition, of extensive conquests, of military fame, of magnificence, and of almost everything else which Louis considered as the glory of his reign. While the author must be acquitted of any intention to affront the monarch, which would have been most ungrateful and most ridiculous, it is evident that he must have had unconsciously in mind the principal actors in the scenes around him, was wholly out of sympathy with them, and was training the young princes on a totally different model. The book, suppressed, of course, in Paris, was brought out at once in Holland, and became everywhere the rage, immensely popular all over Europe, and, even to the present day, much read. It has stood the test of two centuries of existence, has been translated into many languages, and has made his name familiar to those whom he could not otherwise have touched. Nevertheless, the effect of its publication on his fortunes at that time was exceedingly disastrous, and his enemies made the utmost use of it against him.
“The Explanation of the Maxims of the Saints on the Interior Life,” and the great part it played in Fénelon’s career has been already referred to in a previous chapter. The reader will enjoy getting a little fuller idea of its contents. Dr. T. C. Upham devoted forty-five pages to summarizing, in a free translation, the forty-five articles constituting the book, and the following extracts are taken from his work, now out of print:
“Pure love is mixed love carried to its true result. When this result is attained, the motive of God’s glory so expands itself, and so fills the mind, that the other motive, that of our own happiness, becomes so small and so recedes from our inward notice as to be practically annihilated. It is then that God becomes what He ever ought to be,—the center of the soul, to which all its affections tend; the great moral sun of the soul, from which all its light and all its warmth proceed. It is then that a man thinks no more of himself. He has become the man of a single eye. His own happiness and all that regards himself are entirely lost sight of, in his simple and fixed look to God’s will and God’s glory.”
“When the sun shines the stars disappear. When God is in the soul, who can think of himself? So that we love God and God alone; and all other things in and for God.”
“The second state, which follows that of holy resignation, is that of holy indifference. Such a soul not only desires and wills in submission, but absolutely ceases either to desire or to will, except in co-operation with the Divine leading. Its desires for itself, as it has greater light, are more completely and permanently merged in the one higher and more absorbing desire of God’s glory, and the fulfillment of His will. It desires and wills, therefore, only what God desires and wills.”
“Holy indifference is not inactivity. It is the furthest possible from it. It is indifference to anything and everything out of God’s will; but it is the highest life and activity to everything in that will.”
“One of the principles in the doctrine of holy living is, that we should not be premature in drawing the conclusion that the process of inward crucifixion is complete, and that our abandonment to God is without any reservation whatever. The act of consecration, which is a sort of incipient step, may be sincere; but the reality of the consecration in the full extent to which we suppose it to exist, and which may properly be described as abandonment or entire self-renunciation, can be known only when God has applied the appropriate tests. We can not know whether we have renounced ourselves, except by being tried on those very points to which our self-renunciation relates. The trial will show whether or not we are wholly the Lord’s. Those who prematurely draw the conclusion that they are so, expose themselves to great illusion and injury.”