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lent nature, these two brothers with their hot tempers and sharp tongues remained linked to each other by a passionate affection which knows no break, coldness, or distrust. They may disagree, they may disapprove each other's conduct, and then each stands to his guns with a valor becoming the sons of old col d'argent. But never a trace of bitterness, alienation, or offense, can be spied. Soft, hushed, loving words conclude every remonstrance, every altercation. With a sob of affection, they fall on each other's breast with peaceful confidence that their love can never fail. Truly, a love passing the love of woman, and, between two such stalwart, self-reliant men, very beautiful and touching. They had found indeed the true secret of lasting affection, in complete and utter unselfishness in all their mutual dealings, or rather in the settled practice of each, to think of the other always in preference to himself. The affectionate tutoiement can not be rendered, but even in the cold second person plural some of their warmth will no doubt appear. "If I had not been your brother," says the Bailli, "and had only known you by chance, I should have been your friend. I have more confidence in you than in myself, which is not to say that I am always of your opinion." "I declare to you," says the Marquis, "as solemnly as if on the point of death, that since a certain day, somewhat distant now, for then I was stronger than you" (the Bailli was much the larger and more powerful man), "when I gave you a good thrashing, not without some good cuffs in return, from that day and all others ever since, I have never had a matter of which I have concealed from you the smallest particle." And to such words the deeds correspond. Questions of money, the most vulgar and common source of quarrel between relatives, between this singular pair give constant occasion for mutual self-sacrifice and endearment. The Bailli never would allow his elder brother to pay him his légitime, or portion of fifty thousand francs, to which he was entitled under his father's will; it would be a wrong to the family, he says. The younger brother, who certainly has the advantage in this contest of generosity and self-abnegation, pushes his deference to his senior to a degree which would be affected and suspicious in a man of less transparent candor and sincerity. He leaves it entirely to the Marquis to decide whether he shall get married or not. "If you judge that it is for the good of the family that I should leave offspring, you will know what to do in reference to a certain young lady." But the good Bailli, it must be confessed, had one fault with all his virtues; he was a confirmed misogynist. So perhaps, if his elder forbade marriage, he was in no great danger of sacrificing a tender passion

on the altar of fraternal devotion. But then it seems he would readily have got married if his brother had wished it. It is no use, in fact, trying to find spots in the purity of his disinterestedness. After he had commanded ships, and had been governor of a West Indian island, on his return to France he writes to his brother like a lad in his teens: "If you consider that I ought to come to Paris, let me know, and supply me with enough to live upon. If you think it best, I am ready to stay here at Brest, and to live very quietly as regards expense." The Marquis can not bear this, and replies: "As regards what you say about staying down there, tears came to my eyes in thinking of the greatness, simplicity, and goodness of your heart. When you seriously propose to go and hide yourself in a hole in Brittany, I should be sorry not to put on record that I owe you fifteen thousand livres. You must come here as soon as you can, and I only wait for you to clear myself out, and you will find all you need.”

Among other things, the younger Mirabeau was a Knight of Malta, where he rose to the grade of bailli, the title by which he is generally known. The Order of the Knights of Malta, degenerate successors of the Knights of Rhodes, and of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, had become in the eighteenth century a ridiculous and somewhat scandalous anachronism. Recruited among the younger sons of nobles' families in all Europe, it had decayed into a collection of extravagant and licentious revelers, who joined it partly from vanity, but more still in expectation of obtaining one or more of the rich benefices, priories, commanderies, etc., which the Order had to give. It was not a company to suit the grave and thoughtful Bailli, and for twenty-four years he never went near the place, having seen enough of it and its ways in his youth. He liked hard useful work, and was never anxious about the pay it might bring him. But his brother, who has him in charge with his own consent, as we have seen, has resolved that this Knighthood of Malta shall produce something of tangible value to the family; that the Bailli by taking the proper steps shall obtain a rich commandery worth many thousand livres a year, that will be a great help to the common finances, which are far from prosperous, and threatening to become worse. proper steps are serious and involve an enormous outlay in ready money, and the return is uncertain in date if not altogether. They consist in this, that the Bailli shall go to Malta and accept the post of General of the Galleys, to which his age and rank entitle him, hold the office the usual time of two years, and then put in his claim, which can hardly be refused to an ex-general, for one of the superior commanderies. The Marquis's plan

The

is cut and dried; for him the whole scheme lies in a nutshell. He will find the money, the Bailli must go and make his fortune, and there is an end of it. 'This is all very fine,” the Bailli answers; "but supposing I die before getting the commandery, you will lose your money, and the family will be half ruined through me." He implores his brother to think twice before embarking in so venturesome a scheme. He is quite content to live quietly, without regret or impatience, waiting for a commandery which will come in time to him by mere seniority; he does not care much what happens. As a consummate master of Entsagen, detachment, indifference to outward goods of every description, the Bailli has not his equal. For he differs from the religious quietist, who cares for no sublunary thing, by his zeal as an officer, his ardor for reform, his patriotism, his ceaseless energy. However, the Marquis will listen to no objections, and the Bailli goes to Malta, where for two years he will have to spend money like water. As Malta produces nothing, all commodities have to be sent from France. The Marquis looks after everything, and dispatches the means and materials of a two years' feasting before his brother gets there. "Linen, furniture, clothes, liveries covered with gold, glass, porcelain, wine, liqueurs, not forgetting the cuffs of Valenciennes lace indispensable to a General of Galleys, and six silver buckets to cool the bottles, all accompanied with enormous provisions for the table," costing in round number something like one hundred and fifty thousand francs, all to disappear in idle pomp and riotous living, very harmful to everybody concerned.

To such a character as the Bailli's, simple, 'frugal, and detesting show, these two years of reveling at Malta must have been as unpleasant and distasteful as any he ever experienced. To the man of naturally sober and moderate tastes, wasteful extravagance and profusion are perhaps more offensive than parsimony and stinting are to the self-indulgent and luxurious. To be compelled to live with, and constantly entertain, frivolous gormandizers and topers, must have been, one would think, a trial too heavy to be borne. The Bailli bears it with the quiet stoicism he brings to all things. He does not seem to have been wearied to death, as unconsciously he must have been. He expresses no nausea and disgust at the company he has to keep, at the time he has to waste. At his brother's persuasion he has made a venture, and he waits for the result. He is indeed at times terribly anxious lest the money should be spent in vain. But in the mean while he spends his money for a given object, just as a naval officer would spend ammunition to carry a fort. He gives the roisterers more and

VOL. VII.-II

better wine than they ever had before, and says to them, "As it was only got for you, you shall have it while it lasts." "We do not deserve to have such a general," one of them appreciatingly said. In a word, by his sumptuosities and punctual payments, the Bailli acquitted himself in his odd position with his usual exactness to universal satisfaction. Only on one point did he risk nearly complete failure, but it was a point on which he would brook no expostulation. His hatred of rogues nearly wrecked him in Malta as it had done in Guadaloupe. The Grand Master Pinto, who was his friend, was also in extreme old age, and his probable, almost certain, successor was the Bailli de Tencin (a near relative of D'Alembert's mother), a man without probity or courage, and altogether offensive to the moral sense. His relations with such a man as the Bailli de Mirabeau might safely be predicted, and they soon became openly hostile. But here was a threatening prospect. If old Pinto died, as in the course of nature he soon must, and Tencin succeeded him, what hope was there for the rich commandery in view of which all this lavish expense had been incurred? None whatever. Still nothing shall make the brave Bailli bend the knee to Baal. "If Providence," he says, "puts me like Job on a dunghill, and ruins my family, nothing shall induce me to give my vote to a man whom I consider unworthy."

Though we may be certain that he would have stood the test, he happily was never put to it. Instead of Pinto, Tencin died, and at once liberated several of the richest commanderies of the Order. After a little delay one of them was given to the good Bailli, who thus secured an income for life of some fifty thousand francs a year.

It was just in time. The Marquis de Mirabeau, with his abortive speculations and ruinous lawsuits, from easy circumstances had fallen into a condition akin to poverty. Whether the Bailli, with his now well-filled purse, was ready to help him need not be said. But it presently strikes him that he (the Bailli) may die first, and then what will become of his brother? He soon hits upon an expedient, viz., to make an arrangement with the authorities at Malta, by which, on consideration that he during his life drew only a moiety of his emoluments, the other moiety should devolve on his brother after his own death. An offer so advantageous to the Order would certainly have been accepted, but the Marquis promptly interposes his veto. "As regards mutilating yourself for me, my answer is that I want you to be rich; and, by my faith, if I ever lose you, I shall not need anything fifteen days after!"

Space fails to say more of this interesting work at present. I have dwelt chiefly on one

individual, because he is at once very interesting and little known. But several other characters, whose fortunes are recounted in these pages, are well fitted to attract attention. A third brother, Louis Alexandre, whose career was short and not always creditable, was evidently no commonplace man, and full of the Mirabeau fire and originality. The three women who appear in the book, the two Marquises de Mirabeau, and Madame de Pailly, are interesting figures in very op

posite ways, especially the last. Most interesting and original of all, the old Marquis, “the crabbed Friend of Man," is well worthy of the elaborate study which M. de Loménie has devoted to him. Not only is his life, but his works and their connection with some of the most important lines of speculation in the eighteenth century are discussed with a quiet fullness and mastery which render this book a very valuable addition to the higher literature on that period.

JAS. COTTER MORISON, in Macmillan's Magazine.

SCHOPENHAUER ON MEN, BOOKS, AND MUSIC.

M

ANY readers who have neither leisure nor inclination to master Schopenhauer's scheme of metaphysics, nor German enough to read his non-philosophical works with ease, may yet like to know what the great pessimist thought on men considered as social and intellectual beings, on books and authors, lastly on music and art generally; topics on which he mused perpetually, and had much to say. The metaphysician was ever the keen observer to whom nothing human was alien. He could not be said to live in the world, but he knew it as few practical men have done, and not only its outer but its inner life, its æsthetic as well as its material side.

Insight led him further than experience leads the majority, and, theoretic pessimist par excellence though he was, as a moral teacher he has nevertheless some valuable lessons to give us, and cheerful lessons, too. What, indeed, will many readers ask with pardonable incredulity, can this cynic of cynics, this uncompromising misanthrope and unparalleled misogynist, teach the rest of mankind? A little patience, good reader, and the question shall be satisfactorily answered. It must first be borne in mind that Schopenhauer does not profess to instruct the great, unthinking, unlettered multitude, the common herd," for whom he can not conceal his contempt. He says, somewhere, "Nature is intensely aristocratic with regard to the distribution of intellect. The demarkations she has laid down are far greater than those of birth, rank, wealth, or caste in any country, and in Nature's aristocracy, as in any other, we find a thousand plebeians to one noble, many millions to one prince, the far greater proportion consisting of mere Pöbel, canaille, mob." For the latter class from his point of view the preponderating bulk

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of mankind-it may be excellent citizens and heads of families, but without pretense either to originality, thought, or learning, and dominated by the commonplace, he entertains a positive aversion. It was less the incapacity of ordinary mortals that irritated him than their love of talking about what they do not understand, and that worst of all conceits, the conceit of knowledge without the reality. Stupidity was Schopenhauer's bugbear; mental obtuseness, in his eyes, the cardinal sin, the curse of Adam, the plaguespot in the intellectual world; and whenever opportunity arose he fell to the attack with Quixotic fury and impatience. "Conversation between a man of genius and a nonentity," he says somewhere, "is like the casual meeting of two travelers going the same way, the first mounted on a spirited steed, the other on foot. Both will soon get heartily tired of each other, and be glad to part company."

Equally good is the following psychological reflection:

The seal of commonness, the stamp of vulgarity written upon the greater number of physiognomies we meet with, is chiefly accounted for in the fact of the entire subjection of the intellect to the will; consequently, the impossibility of grasping things except in their relation to the individual self. It is quite the contrary with the expression of men of genius or richly endowed natures, and herein consists the family likeness of the latter throughout the world. We see written on their faces the emancipamind over volition; hence the lofty brow, the clear, tion of the intellect from the will, the supremacy of contemplative glance, the occasional look of supernatural joyousness we find there in perfect keeping with the pensiveness of the other features, notably the mouth. This relation is finely indicated in the saying of Giordano Bruno: "In tristitia, hilaris; in hilaritate, tristis."

Here he brings his sledge-hammer upon the the reverse is the case; and this objectivity, or dunderheads without mercy:

Brainless pates are the rule, fairly furnished ones the exception, the brilliantly endowed very rare, genius a portentum. How otherwise could we account for the fact that out of upward of eight hundred millions of existing human beings, and after the chronicled experiences of six thousand years, so much should still remain to discover, to think out and to be said?

emancipation from the will, enables them to live outside the restricted little world of self; and, instead of being interested in things only as they immediately affect their own wills-i. e., interests, feelings, and passions-they are interested in the larger, wider life of thought and humanity. 'Every man of genius," he says somewhere, "regards the world with purely objective interest—indeed, as a foreign country"; and in another passage, following out the same line of thought, he gives an apt simile by way of illustrating his theories:

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The average individual (Normal Mensch) is engrossed in the vortex and turmoil of existence, to which he is bound hand and foot by his will. The objects and circumstances of daily life are ever present to him, but of such taken objectively he has not the faintest conception. He is like the merchants on the Bourse at Amsterdam, who take in every word of what their interlocutor says, but are wholly insensible to the surging noise of the multitude

around them.

True enough, it required a Pascal to invent a wheelbarrow, and doubtless we must wait for another before discovering the cure for a smoking chimney and other every-day nuisances. But Schopenhauer does not content himself with scourging stupidity; he goes to the bottom of the matter, and, at the risk of touching metaphysical ground, we extract the following elucidation of an every-day mystery. Who has not gazed with puzzledom on the initial letters, names, and even mottoes cut upon ancient public monuments in all countries, from the pyramids of Egypt to the monoliths of Carnac, from the crumbling walls of the Dionysiac theatre at Cynical although this may sound, no one can Athens to the tombs in the Campagna? No- write more genially than Schopenhauer when on thing is too solemn or too sacred for these incor- his favorite theme of genius. If he castigates rigible scratchers or scribblers, who seem, indeed, his arch-enemy-the Normal Mensch, nonentity, to have made the journey to the uttermost ends dunderhead, fool, as the case may be―he glows of the world for the sake of carving John Smith with poetic ardor and descants with appropriate or Tom Brown on some conspicuous relic of warmth on the Genialer: which word we may former ages. As far as we know, Schopenhauer take to mean the man of genius as well as the is the first to explain this mischievous and ab- gifted, the intellectually genial, the uncommon as surd habit of the tourists whose name is Legion: compared with the commonplace in humanity. It By far the greater part of humanity [he says] are was not only that Schopenhauer realized the worth wholly inaccessible to purely intellectual enjoyments. and value of genius and rare mental endowments They are quite incapable of the delight that exists to the world at large, but he comprehended what in ideas as such; everything standing in a certain those precious gifts are to the individual himself. relation to their own individual will-in other words, He understood that inscrutable felicity, that hapto themselves and their own affairs-in order to in- piness past finding out, neither to be bestowed terest them, it is necessary that their wills should be nor acquired, which is based on intellectual suacted upon, no matter in how remote a degree. A premacy, a high spirit, a noble, unworldly nature. naïve illustration of this can be seen in every-day Characters of the loftiest type had inexhaustible trifles; witness the habit of carving names in cele- fascinations for him; it was the wine with which brated places. This is done in order that the indi- he loved to intoxicate himself; the ambrosia on vidual may in the faintest possible manner influence or act upon the place, since he is by it not influenced which he fed like an epicure. He never wearies or acted upon at all. of descanting upon the nature of that true joy which, to use the words of Seneca, is a serious thing, "The joy born of thought and intellectual beauty." Would that space permitted a translation of his entire chapter entitled "Von Dem, was Einer ist," "Parerga," vol. i.; for this, if nothing else, would put Schopenhauer before us in the light of a moral teacher, inculcating the superiority of spiritual, moral, and intellectual truth over material good and worldly well-being. "Happiness depends on what we are on our individuality. For only that which a man has in himself, which he carries with him into solitude,

To understand Schopenhauer's classification of mankind we should master his metaphysical scheme; but, for our present purpose, the following explanation will suffice: The world of dunderheads the stupid, the ignorant, and the selfsufficient-are, according to his theory, to be distinguished from the intellectual, the gifted, the high-souled, and the noble-minded, in the subjectivity of their intellect-in other words, the subjection of intellect to will; while with the choice spirits, the flower and élite of mankind,

which none can give or take away, is intrinsically mankind, since in substance it amounts to this: his"; and elsewhere he says:

As an animal remains perforce shut up in the

narrow circle to which nature has condemned it, our

endeavors to make our domestic pets happy being limited by their capacities, so is it with human beings. The character or individuality of each is the measure of his possible happiness, meted out to him beforehand, natural capacities having for once and for all set bounds to his intellectual enjoyments: are these capacities narrow, then no endeavors or influences from without, nothing that men or joys can do for him, suffice to lead an individual beyond the measure of the commonplace, and he is thrown back upon mere material enjoyments, domestic life, sad or cheerful as the case may be, mean companionship and vulgar pastime, culture being able to do little in widening the circle. For the highest, the most varied, the most lasting enjoyments are those of the intellect, no matter how greatly in youth we may deceive ourselves as to the fact. Hence it becomes clear how much our happiness depends on what we are, while for the most part fate or chance bring into computation only what we have, or what we appear to be.

Not in this passage only, but in a dozen others, Schopenhauer has contrasted the existence of the worldling, the devotee of business or pleasure, the materialist, or the empty-pated, living, intellectually speaking, from hand to mouth, with that of the thinker, the student, the man of wide culture and many-sided knowledge and aspiration. "There is no felicity on earth like that which a beautiful and fruitful mind finds at its happiest moments in itself," he writes; and this consideration leads him to some rather uncharitable remarks upon society, so called, and its unsatisfactoriness in so far as the Genialer, intellectual or genial-minded, are concerned :

The more a man has in himself, the less he needs

of others, and the less they can teach him. This supremacy of intelligence leads to unsociableness. Ay; could the quality of society be compensated by quantity, it might be worth while to live in the world! Unfortunately, we find, on the contrary, a hundred fools in the crowd to one man of understanding! The brainless, on the other hand, will seek companionship and pastime at any price. For in solitude, when all of us are thrown upon our own resources, what he has in himself will be made manifest. Then sighs the empty-pated, in his purple and fine linen, under the burden of his wretched Ego, while the man rich in mental endowments fills and animates the dreariest solitude with his own thoughts. Accordingly we find that every one is sociable and craves society in proportion as he is intellectually poor and ordinary. For we have hardly a choice in the social world between solitude and commonplace

ness.

Wise men and fools, thinkers and empty-pates, illuminating spirits and bores-he is never tired of drawing the distinction between them, and ringing the changes on their respective merits and demerits. Bitter, cynical, sarcastic as he is, his strictures are for the most part true, and if boredom or stupidity, like other human infirmities, admit of alleviation, Schopenhauer shows the way. All that he has to say on education, the cultivation of good habits in youth, the proper subjection of the passions to reason, is admirable. He, as usual, goes to the root of the matter, and begins with trying to hammer into the understandings of his countrypeople those elementary notions of hygiene and physical training we find so wanting among them:

As we ought above all things to cultivate the habit of cheerfulness, and as nothing less affects it than wealth, and nothing more so than bodily health, we should strive after the highest possible degree of health, by means of temperance and moderation, physical as well as mental; two hours' brisk movement in the open air daily [Heavens! what do German professors say to that? and the next prescription also must alarm them still more], and the free use of cold water, also dietary rules.

All who are familiar with German domestic life know how, even in the best educated classes, such things are still neglected, to the great detriment of health, sedentary habits especially being carried to a pitch which appears to ourselves incredible. When Schopenhauer reprimands his countrymen severely upon their want of common sense in these matters, we feel the strictures to be deserved, and must remember that he wrote thirty years ago; his voice being among the first, if not the very first, raised in Germany on behalf of soap-and-water, and exercise. In a sentence he happily enunciates the primary principles of education, not considered as merely a system of instruction, but in the comprehensive sense of the

word:

Above all things, children should learn to know life in its various relations, from the original, not a copy. Instead of making haste to put books in their hands, we should teach them by degrees the nature stand to each other. of things and the relation in which human beings

From education we pass to the subject of culture, so called; in other words, that self-education which men and women pursue for themselves throughout the various stages of their existence. We find such a process going on in all classes. Some people have one way of instructing themselves, some another; but we may fairly take it for granted that books are or profess to

So much for Schopenhauer's classification of be the principal instructors of adult humanity.

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