(33.) It is the business of a newsmonger to inform us when any book is published; if it is printed by Cramoisy,[67] and with what type; if it is well bound, and on what paper, and at what price it is sold; he ought even to know what the booksellerʼs sign is; but it is foolish in him to pretend to criticise it.
The highest point a newsmonger can reach is to reason in a vague manner on politics.
A newsmonger lies down at night quietly, after having received some information, but it is spoiled overnight, and he is obliged to throw it away when he wakes in the morning.[68]
(34.) A philosopher[69] wastes his life in observing men, and wears himself out in exposing vice and folly. If he shapes his thoughts into words, it is not so much from his vanity as an author as to place entirely in its proper light some truth he has discovered, that it may make the desired impression. Yet some readers think they repay him with interest if they say, with a magisterial air, “that they have read his book, and that there is some sense in it;” but he does not mind their praise, for he has not laboured and passed many sleepless nights to obtain it: he has higher aims, and acts from nobler motives: he demands from mankind greater and more uncommon results than empty praise, and even than rewards; he expects them to lead better lives.
(35.) A fool reads a book and does not understand it; a man of ordinary mind reads it and fancies he perfectly understands it; a man of intelligence sometimes does not wholly understand it; he perceives what is really obscure and what is really clear, whilst witlings[70] imagine those passages obscure which are not so, and think they do not understand what is really intelligible.
(36.) In vain an author endeavours to obtain admiration by his works. A fool may sometimes admire him, but then he is only a fool; an intelligent man has within him the germs of all truth and of all sentiments; nothing is new to him; he admires few things, but he finds that many things deserve some praise.
(37.) I question if it be possible to write more clever letters in a more agreeable manner and in a better style than those of Balzac[71] or Voiture;[72] but they are void of those sentiments which have swayed us since their time and originated with the ladies. That sex excels ours in this kind of writing; from their pens flow naturally those turns and expressions which often are with us the effects of tedious labour and troublesome research; they are fortunate in the selection of their wordings, which they employ so cleverly, that though they are not new, they have all the charm of novelty, and seem only designed for the use they put them to; they alone can express an entire sentiment in a single word, and render a delicate thought as delicately; their arguments are connected in an inimitable manner, follow one another naturally, and are only linked together by the sense. If the ladies wrote always correctly, I might affirm that perhaps the letters of some of them would be among the best in our language.[73]
(38.) Terentius[74] wanted nothing but to be less cold. What purity! what preciseness! what polish! what elegance! what characters! Molière wanted nothing but to avoid the vulgar tongue and barbarisms and to write elegantly.[75] What fire! what artlessness! what original and good jokes! how well he imitates manners! what imagery! and how he lashes what is ridiculous! But what an author might have been formed of these two comic writers!
(39.) I have read Malherbe and Théophile.[76] They both understood nature, with this difference: the first, in a nervous and uniform style, displays at one and the same time whatever is beautiful, noble, ingenuous and simple, and depicts or describes it; the other, without choice or accuracy, with a loose and uneven pen, some times overloads his descriptions, goes into too many details, and analyses too much; sometimes he imagines certain things,[77] exaggerates, outstrips what is true in nature, and becomes a romancer.
(40.) In both Ronsard[78] and Balzac, each in their kind, are found a sufficient number of good and bad things to form after them very great men either in verse or prose.