Will you have it that the trees shunned by travellers, young maidens, and birds figure those renowned books, worthy of their fame as works of art, which do not contain a grain of the hidden manna, nor one of the sweet, beneficent thoughts that nourish the soul and relax it after fatigue?—books that maidenly hands dare not touch, and that put to flight everything fresh and innocent—a thought to make one die of shame and grief! Will you have it so? I yield the point with good grace, for in truth my thoughts bear your interpretation as well as if I had really hidden it therein, and I will follow you no further in your suspicious investigations, feeling sure that my test will not suffer violence from you, [{694}] and that you will go on to the end without losing your way.
What conclusion do you draw from all this? First, that, resolved to enter the lists, I am preparing in secret my lance and chariot, and kindling my wrath. But are my peaceful inclinations unknown to you, or the weakness of my arm and my very doubtful courage? I a combatant! Just remember that the least tumult scares and routs me like a flying prey, and that my strength bravely suffices to drag me out of danger; so how could it drag me in?
In the second place, you will suppose that I am nursing an aversion for the new school and calling out for a classical reform. M. Nisard, of course, does not wish the new school to perish, but to amend its ways; and it is with that belief, and, I dare to say, on that condition, that I pray ardently for the success of the campaign he is about to open. The Catholic faith would never allow me to sympathize entirely with a sceptical and fatalist literature, that sets no value upon morality. But, on the other hand, the same faith makes me feel a certain interest in it; for is not this disorderly, frantic new school a truant from our fold?
No, dear friend, I am not a prey to devouring anger; but I must groan in solitude over the wanderings of this literature, which has forgotten the home and the teaching of its father, and has so hopelessly lost itself, until the last and most terrible romance, in that style, would now be its own history. Amid these sighs there come to me a few reflections upon the cause of the evil and the means to remedy it; and that is what I meant to announce to you in this incoherent letter, in which I beg you to see only a whimsical prelude of my imagination, turning, as it always does, toward you.
MAURICE DE GUÉRIN TO
M. H. DE LA MORVONNAIS,
AU VAL SAINT POTAN.
AU PARC, July 9th, 1834.
I wrote to you on leaving Paris a short letter, of which I begged you not to take any notice. To-day, dear Hippolyte, when I have all possible leisure, and the untroubled peace of the country is around me, I resume our talk with every intention of carrying my confidence to the utmost limits; that is, to the point where I shall begin to fear that my chattering bores you.
I announced to you a complete account of my affairs and my position during these five months past. Now I am going to begin and you must listen. You know what my hopes were when I left Le Val; I felt a decided taste for literary life, the profession of a journalist smiled upon me, and I was hugging some bright phantom or other of the future that had sprung up in my imagination; and in spite of the distrust that you know I mingled with my love, I had given myself up to this dream with intense ardor. For, let me tell you, en passant, that I throw myself impetuously into every new project that can modify my existence; and whether a walk is proposed to me for the next day, or whether I am told, "To-morrow your destiny is to be completely altered," I feel equally excited, and rush to meet the two events with equal impatience. A strange activity of thought possesses me, and I shake myself and champ my bit because time prevents me from seizing at a bound what I am already devouring with my eyes. You may imagine that, with a soul subject to such ardent cravings, I reached Paris full of enthusiasm and seized the journalist's pen with a quiver of delight. But, as usual, my enthusiasm did not last long, and difficulties, personal as well as external, made themselves felt. I saw the entrance to the journals bolted and barred by that selfishness which guards the gates of everyplace against the approach of poor young fellows who come to Paris full of innocent hopes. Catholic France alone admitted me within its circle; but this journal, notwithstanding the good-will of its directors, could not satisfy my needs. My articles were favorably received, [{695}] but the narrow frame of the journal cut me off from frequent contributions, and in four months I had only appeared four times.
In the mean time expenses were not behindhand, and, although I lived in a very small way, my expenditure was large in comparison to my resources. I was exhausting fruitlessly time and money, my own patience and my father's. For several months I persisted in this disposition, holding my ground against adverse fortune in order to save appearances and not yield the field without making fight. But at last everything went so badly that I had to decide promptly upon a plan suggested by the extremity of the ease. If I had been alone, I don't know what would have become of me in my utter failure of strength and courage; but God, as if for my preservation, has placed around my wavering soul friends who prop and sustain it, restoring me to myself with touching solicitude. I went to Paul, and laid before him the whole story of my painful position. I proposed to him the terrible enigma of my destiny and asked him for a solution. Without an effort he untied the Gordian knot with these words: "If you leave Paris, the future will slip through your hands. Do not let go your hold at any cost. Make your father feel that this concerns your whole life, that our last effort may save everything, and a first refusal may ruin everything." And thereupon we set to work to compute article by article all the necessities to be satisfied, all the debts to be paid, all the most threatening possibilities of the future; and the whole account, amounting to the sum of twelve hundred francs, I sent to my father, with a petition written by my cousin in order to give it more weight.
At the end of a fortnight my father returned it with his approbation and a gift of the sum I had asked. What happiness it was to go in search of Paul that I might thank him, triumph with him, overwhelm him with joy for my joy; for I knew his kindness too well to doubt that he would share all my transports. I was not mistaken; his rejoicings over my success were sweeter to me than my own, and I had the inestimable pleasure of seeing it communicated to my other friends, François, Elic, etc. How delightful it is to receive such proofs of pure, heartfelt sympathy! In short, my dear Hippolyte, here I am launched upon the waves, provisioned with money and courage, and walking with assured step to meet the future; I feel as if a light were guiding me, and as if I were advancing toward an unknown goal. For the present this is what I mean to do: I shall spend the end of August and the whole of September at the College Stanislas, where I shall have a class during vacation: when the term begins, I shall establish myself in the college if there is a place for me; if not, I can have quite an advantageous situation at my cousin's, by helping him to keep his little pension d'elèves. This is an abridged history of these last five months; it gives only a superficial view, but you are well enough acquainted with my inner life to understand the course of my thoughts during the time. Here I am at rest, dreaming of the future, giving myself up to the pleasures of friendship and conversation, and drinking in the country-life and all the dear idleness that one can never fully enjoy except in the fields. Our solitude is so profound that we do not even know the result of the elections. Another ignorance, harder to bear, is concerning all that is going on among our friends and affairs in Paris. I know nothing more than when I left them, and it is a very long time also since I heard from my sister.
Pray, present my respectful compliments to Madame Morvonnais, and my remembrances at Mordreux and Saint-Malo. I am going to write to Amédée. Ask Marie, who can answer me now, if she remembers M. Guérin, who sends her a thousand kisses.