AUTHOR'S PREFACE
I will begin with this confession: whatever I have done in the course
of my life, whether it be good or evil, has been done freely; I am a
free agent.
The doctrine of the Stoics or of any other sect as to the force of
Destiny is a bubble engendered by the imagination of man, and is near
akin to Atheism. I not only believe in one God, but my faith as a
Christian is also grafted upon that tree of philosophy which has
never spoiled anything.
I believe in the existence of an immaterial God, the Author and
Master of all beings and all things, and I feel that I never had any
doubt of His existence, from the fact that I have always relied upon
His providence, prayed to Him in my distress, and that He has always
granted my prayers. Despair brings death, but prayer does away with
despair; and when a man has prayed he feels himself supported by new
confidence and endowed with power to act. As to the means employed
by the Sovereign Master of human beings to avert impending dangers
from those who beseech His assistance, I confess that the knowledge
of them is above the intelligence of man, who can but wonder and
adore. Our ignorance becomes our only resource, and happy, truly
happy; are those who cherish their ignorance! Therefore must we pray
to God, and believe that He has granted the favour we have been
praying for, even when in appearance it seems the reverse. As to the
position which our body ought to assume when we address ourselves to
the Creator, a line of Petrarch settles it:
'Con le ginocchia della mente inchine.'
Man is free, but his freedom ceases when he has no faith in it; and
the greater power he ascribes to faith, the more he deprives himself
of that power which God has given to him when He endowed him with the
gift of reason. Reason is a particle of the Creator's divinity.
When we use it with a spirit of humility and justice we are certain
to please the Giver of that precious gift. God ceases to be God only
for those who can admit the possibility of His non-existence, and
that conception is in itself the most severe punishment they can
suffer.
Man is free; yet we must not suppose that he is at liberty to do
everything he pleases, for he becomes a slave the moment he allows
his actions to be ruled by passion. The man who has sufficient power
over himself to wait until his nature has recovered its even balance
is the truly wise man, but such beings are seldom met with.
The reader of these Memoirs will discover that I never had any fixed
aim before my eyes, and that my system, if it can be called a system,
has been to glide away unconcernedly on the stream of life, trusting
to the wind wherever it led. How many changes arise from such an
independent mode of life! My success and my misfortunes, the bright
and the dark days I have gone through, everything has proved to me
that in this world, either physical or moral, good comes out of evil
just as well as evil comes out of good. My errors will point to
thinking men the various roads, and will teach them the great art of
treading on the brink of the precipice without falling into it. It
is only necessary to have courage, for strength without self-
confidence is useless. I have often met with happiness after some
imprudent step which ought to have brought ruin upon me, and although
passing a vote of censure upon myself I would thank God for his
mercy. But, by way of compensation, dire misfortune has befallen me
in consequence of actions prompted by the most cautious wisdom. This
would humble me; yet conscious that I had acted rightly I would
easily derive comfort from that conviction.
In spite of a good foundation of sound morals, the natural offspring
of the Divine principles which had been early rooted in my heart, I
have been throughout my life the victim of my senses; I have found
delight in losing the right path, I have constantly lived in the
midst of error, with no consolation but the consciousness of my being
mistaken. Therefore, dear reader, I trust that, far from attaching
to my history the character of impudent boasting, you will find in my
Memoirs only the characteristic proper to a general confession, and
that my narratory style will be the manner neither of a repenting
sinner, nor of a man ashamed to acknowledge his frolics. They are
the follies inherent to youth; I make sport of them, and, if you are
kind, you will not yourself refuse them a good-natured smile. You
will be amused when you see that I have more than once deceived
without the slightest qualm of conscience, both knaves and fools. As
to the deceit perpetrated upon women, let it pass, for, when love is
in the way, men and women as a general rule dupe each other. But on
the score of fools it is a very different matter. I always feel the
greatest bliss when I recollect those I have caught in my snares, for
they generally are insolent, and so self-conceited that they
challenge wit. We avenge intellect when we dupe a fool, and it is a
victory not to be despised for a fool is covered with steel and it is
often very hard to find his vulnerable part. In fact, to gull a fool
seems to me an exploit worthy of a witty man. I have felt in my very
blood, ever since I was born, a most unconquerable hatred towards the
whole tribe of fools, and it arises from the fact that I feel myself
a blockhead whenever I am in their company. I am very far from
placing them in the same class with those men whom we call stupid,
for the latter are stupid only from deficient education, and I rather
like them. I have met with some of them--very honest fellows, who,
with all their stupidity, had a kind of intelligence and an upright
good sense, which cannot be the characteristics of fools. They are
like eyes veiled with the cataract, which, if the disease could be
removed, would be very beautiful.
Dear reader, examine the spirit of this preface, and you will at once
guess at my purpose. I have written a preface because I wish you to
know me thoroughly before you begin the reading of my Memoirs. It is
only in a coffee-room or at a table d'hote that we like to converse
with strangers.
I have written the history of my life, and I have a perfect right to
do so; but am I wise in throwing it before a public of which I know
nothing but evil? No, I am aware it is sheer folly, but I want to be
busy, I want to laugh, and why should I deny myself this
gratification?
'Expulit elleboro morbum bilemque mero.'
An ancient author tells us somewhere, with the tone of a pedagogue,
if you have not done anything worthy of being recorded, at least
write something worthy of being read. It is a precept as beautiful
as a diamond of the first water cut in England, but it cannot be
applied to me, because I have not written either a novel, or the life
of an illustrious character. Worthy or not, my life is my subject,
and my subject is my life. I have lived without dreaming that I
should ever take a fancy to write the history of my life, and, for
that very reason, my Memoirs may claim from the reader an interest
and a sympathy which they would not have obtained, had I always
entertained the design to write them in my old age, and, still more,
to publish them.
I have reached, in 1797, the age of three-score years and twelve; I
can not say, Vixi, and I could not procure a more agreeable pastime
than to relate my own adventures, and to cause pleasant laughter
amongst the good company listening to me, from which I have received
so many tokens of friendship, and in the midst of which I have ever
lived. To enable me to write well, I have only to think that my
readers will belong to that polite society:
'Quoecunque dixi, si placuerint, dictavit auditor.'
Should there be a few intruders whom I can not prevent from perusing
my Memoirs, I must find comfort in the idea that my history was not
written for them.
By recollecting the pleasures I have had formerly, I renew them, I
enjoy them a second time, while I laugh at the remembrance of
troubles now past, and which I no longer feel. A member of this
great universe, I speak to the air, and I fancy myself rendering an
account of my administration, as a steward is wont to do before
leaving his situation. For my future I have no concern, and as a
true philosopher, I never would have any, for I know not what it may
be: as a Christian, on the other hand, faith must believe without
discussion, and the stronger it is, the more it keeps silent. I know
that I have lived because I have felt, and, feeling giving me the
knowledge of my existence, I know likewise that I shall exist no more
when I shall have ceased to feel.
Should I perchance still feel after my death, I would no longer have
any doubt, but I would most certainly give the lie to anyone
asserting before me that I was dead.
The history of my life must begin by the earliest circumstance which
my memory can evoke; it will therefore commence when I had attained
the age of eight years and four months. Before that time, if to
think is to live be a true axiom, I did not live, I could only lay
claim to a state of vegetation. The mind of a human being is formed
only of comparisons made in order to examine analogies, and therefore
cannot precede the existence of memory. The mnemonic organ was
developed in my head only eight years and four months after my birth;
it is then that my soul began to be susceptible of receiving
impressions. How is it possible for an immaterial substance, which
can neither touch nor be touched to receive impressions? It is a
mystery which man cannot unravel.
A certain philosophy, full of consolation, and in perfect accord with
religion, pretends that the state of dependence in which the soul
stands in relation to the senses and to the organs, is only
incidental and transient, and that it will reach a condition of
freedom and happiness when the death of the body shall have delivered
it from that state of tyrannic subjection. This is very fine, but,
apart from religion, where is the proof of it all? Therefore, as I
cannot, from my own information, have a perfect certainty of my being
immortal until the dissolution of my body has actually taken place,
people must kindly bear with me, if I am in no hurry to obtain that
certain knowledge, for, in my estimation, a knowledge to be gained at
the cost of life is a rather expensive piece of information. In the
mean time I worship God, laying every wrong action under an interdict
which I endeavour to respect, and I loathe the wicked without doing
them any injury. I only abstain from doing them any good, in the
full belief that we ought not to cherish serpents.
As I must likewise say a few words respecting my nature and my
temperament, I premise that the most indulgent of my readers is not
likely to be the most dishonest or the least gifted with
intelligence.
I have had in turn every temperament; phlegmatic in my infancy;
sanguine in my youth; later on, bilious; and now I have a disposition
which engenders melancholy, and most likely will never change. I
always made my food congenial to my constitution, and my health was
always excellent. I learned very early that our health is always
impaired by some excess either of food or abstinence, and I never had
any physician except myself. I am bound to add that the excess in
too little has ever proved in me more dangerous than the excess in
too much; the last may cause indigestion, but the first causes death.
Now, old as I am, and although enjoying good digestive organs, I must
have only one meal every day; but I find a set-off to that privation
in my delightful sleep, and in the ease which I experience in writing
down my thoughts without having recourse to paradox or sophism, which
would be calculated to deceive myself even more than my readers, for
I never could make up my mind to palm counterfeit coin upon them if I
knew it to be such.
The sanguine temperament rendered me very sensible to the attractions
of voluptuousness: I was always cheerful and ever ready to pass from
one enjoyment to another, and I was at the same time very skillful in
inventing new pleasures. Thence, I suppose, my natural disposition
to make fresh acquaintances, and to break with them so readily,
although always for a good reason, and never through mere fickleness.
The errors caused by temperament are not to be corrected, because our
temperament is perfectly independent of our strength: it is not the
case with our character. Heart and head are the constituent parts of
character; temperament has almost nothing to do with it, and,
therefore, character is dependent upon education, and is susceptible
of being corrected and improved.
I leave to others the decision as to the good or evil tendencies of
my character, but such as it is it shines upon my countenance, and
there it can easily be detected by any physiognomist. It is only on
the fact that character can be read; there it lies exposed to the
view. It is worthy of remark that men who have no peculiar cast of
countenance, and there are a great many such men, are likewise
totally deficient in peculiar characteristics, and we may establish
the rule that the varieties in physiognomy are equal to the
differences in character. I am aware that throughout my life my
actions have received their impulse more from the force of feeling
than from the wisdom of reason, and this has led me to acknowledge
that my conduct has been dependent upon my nature more than upon my
mind; both are generally at war, and in the midst of their continual
collisions I have never found in me sufficient mind to balance my
nature, or enough strength in my nature to counteract the power of my
mind. But enough of this, for there is truth in the old saying: 'Si
brevis esse volo, obscurus fio', and I believe that, without
offending against modesty, I can apply to myself the following words
of my dear Virgil:
'Nec sum adeo informis: nuper me in littore vidi
Cum placidum ventis staret mare.'
The chief business of my life has always been to indulge my senses; I
never knew anything of greater importance. I felt myself born for
the fair sex, I have ever loved it dearly, and I have been loved by
it as often and as much as I could. I have likewise always had a
great weakness for good living, and I ever felt passionately fond of
every object which excited my curiosity.
I have had friends who have acted kindly towards me, and it has been
my good fortune to have it in my power to give them substantial
proofs of my gratitude. I have had also bitter enemies who have
persecuted me, and whom I have not crushed simply because I could not
do it. I never would have forgiven them, had I not lost the memory
of all the injuries they had heaped upon me. The man who forgets
does not forgive, he only loses the remembrance of the harm inflicted
on him; forgiveness is the offspring of a feeling of heroism, of a
noble heart, of a generous mind, whilst forgetfulness is only the
result of a weak memory, or of an easy carelessness, and still
oftener of a natural desire for calm and quietness. Hatred, in the
course of time, kills the unhappy wretch who delights in nursing it
in his bosom.
Should anyone bring against me an accusation of sensuality he would
be wrong, for all the fierceness of my senses never caused me to
neglect any of my duties. For the same excellent reason, the
accusation of drunkenness ought not to have been brought against
Homer:
'Laudibus arguitur vini vinosus Homerus.'
I have always been fond of highly-seasoned, rich dishes, such as
macaroni prepared by a skilful Neapolitan cook, the olla-podrida of
the Spaniards, the glutinous codfish from Newfoundland, game with a
strong flavour, and cheese the perfect state of which is attained
when the tiny animaculae formed from its very essence begin to shew
signs of life. As for women, I have always found the odour of my
beloved ones exceeding pleasant.
What depraved tastes! some people will exclaim. Are you not ashamed
to confess such inclinations without blushing! Dear critics, you
make me laugh heartily. Thanks to my coarse tastes, I believe myself
happier than other men, because I am convinced that they enhance my
enjoyment. Happy are those who know how to obtain pleasures without
injury to anyone; insane are those who fancy that the Almighty can
enjoy the sufferings, the pains, the fasts and abstinences which they
offer to Him as a sacrifice, and that His love is granted only to
those who tax themselves so foolishly. God can only demand from His
creatures the practice of virtues the seed of which He has sown in
their soul, and all He has given unto us has been intended for our
happiness; self-love, thirst for praise, emulation, strength,
courage, and a power of which nothing can deprive us--the power of
self-destruction, if, after due calculation, whether false or just,
we unfortunately reckon death to be advantageous. This is the
strongest proof of our moral freedom so much attacked by sophists.
Yet this power of self-destruction is repugnant to nature, and has
been rightly opposed by every religion.
A so-called free-thinker told me at one time that I could not
consider myself a philosopher if I placed any faith in revelation.
But when we accept it readily in physics, why should we reject it in
religious matters? The form alone is the point in question. The
spirit speaks to the spirit, and not to the ears. The principles of
everything we are acquainted with must necessarily have been revealed
to those from whom we have received them by the great, supreme
principle, which contains them all. The bee erecting its hive, the
swallow building its nest, the ant constructing its cave, and the
spider warping its web, would never have done anything but for a
previous and everlasting revelation. We must either believe that it
is so, or admit that matter is endowed with thought. But as we dare
not pay such a compliment to matter, let us stand by revelation.
The great philosopher, who having deeply studied nature, thought he
had found the truth because he acknowledged nature as God, died too
soon. Had he lived a little while longer, he would have gone much
farther, and yet his journey would have been but a short one, for
finding himself in his Author, he could not have denied Him: In Him
we move and have our being. He would have found Him inscrutable, and
thus would have ended his journey.
God, great principle of all minor principles, God, who is Himself
without a principle, could not conceive Himself, if, in order to do
it, He required to know His own principle.
Oh, blissful ignorance! Spinosa, the virtuous Spinosa, died before
he could possess it. He would have died a learned man and with a
right to the reward his virtue deserved, if he had only supposed his
soul to be immortal!
It is not true that a wish for reward is unworthy of real virtue, and
throws a blemish upon its purity. Such a pretension, on the
contrary, helps to sustain virtue, man being himself too weak to
consent to be virtuous only for his own 'gratification. I hold as a
myth that Amphiaraus who preferred to be good than to seem good. In
fact, I do not believe there is an honest man alive without some
pretension, and here is mine.
I pretend to the friendship, to the esteem, to the gratitude of my
readers. I claim their gratitude, if my Memoirs can give them
instruction and pleasure; I claim their esteem if, rendering me
justice, they find more good qualities in me than faults, and I claim
their friendship as soon as they deem me worthy of it by the candour
and the good faith with which I abandon myself to their judgment,
without disguise and exactly as I am in reality. They will find that
I have always had such sincere love for truth, that I have often
begun by telling stories for the purpose of getting truth to enter
the heads of those who could not appreciate its charms. They will
not form a wrong opinion of me when they see one emptying the purse
of my friends to satisfy my fancies, for those friends entertained
idle schemes, and by giving them the hope of success I trusted to
disappointment to cure them. I would deceive them to make them
wiser, and I did not consider myself guilty, for I applied to my own
enjoyment sums of money which would have been lost in the vain
pursuit of possessions denied by nature; therefore I was not actuated
by any avaricious rapacity. I might think myself guilty if I were
rich now, but I have nothing. I have squandered everything; it is my
comfort and my justification. The money was intended for extravagant
follies, and by applying it to my own frolics I did not turn it into
a very different, channel.
If I were deceived in my hope to please, I candidly confess I would
regret it, but not sufficiently so to repent having written my
Memoirs, for, after all, writing them has given me pleasure. Oh,
cruel ennui! It must be by mistake that those who have invented the
torments of hell have forgotten to ascribe thee the first place among
them. Yet I am bound to own that I entertain a great fear of hisses;
it is too natural a fear for me to boast of being insensible to them,
and I cannot find any solace in the idea that, when these Memoirs are
published, I shall be no more. I cannot think without a shudder of
contracting any obligation towards death: I hate death; for, happy or
miserable, life is the only blessing which man possesses, and those
who do not love it are unworthy of it. If we prefer honour to life,
it is because life is blighted by infamy; and if, in the alternative,
man sometimes throws away his life, philosophy must remain silent.
Oh, death, cruel death! Fatal law which nature necessarily rejects
because thy very office is to destroy nature! Cicero says that death
frees us from all pains and sorrows, but this great philosopher books
all the expense without taking the receipts into account. I do not
recollect if, when he wrote his 'Tusculan Disputations', his own
Tullia was dead. Death is a monster which turns away from the great
theatre an attentive hearer before the end of the play which deeply
interests him, and this is reason enough to hate it.
All my adventures are not to be found in these Memoirs; I have left
out those which might have offended the persons who have played a
sorry part therein. In spite of this reserve, my readers will
perhaps often think me indiscreet, and I am sorry for it. Should I
perchance become wiser before I give up the ghost, I might burn every
one of these sheets, but now I have not courage enough to do it.
It may be that certain love scenes will be considered too explicit,
but let no one blame me, unless it be for lack of skill, for I ought
not to be scolded because, in my old age, I can find no other
enjoyment but that which recollections of the past afford to me.
After all, virtuous and prudish readers are at liberty to skip over
any offensive pictures, and I think it my duty to give them this
piece of advice; so much the worse for those who may not read my
preface; it is no fault of mine if they do not, for everyone ought to
know that a preface is to a book what the play-bill is to a comedy;
both must be read.
My Memoirs are not written for young persons who, in order to avoid
false steps and slippery roads, ought to spend their youth in
blissful ignorance, but for those who, having thorough experience of
life, are no longer exposed to temptation, and who, having but too
often gone through the fire, are like salamanders, and can be
scorched by it no more. True virtue is but a habit, and I have no
hesitation in saying that the really virtuous are those persons who
can practice virtue without the slightest trouble; such persons are
always full of toleration, and it is to them that my Memoirs are
addressed.
I have written in French, and not in Italian, because the French
language is more universal than mine, and the purists, who may
criticise in my style some Italian turns will be quite right, but
only in case it should prevent them from understanding me clearly.
The Greeks admired Theophrastus in spite of his Eresian style, and
the Romans delighted in their Livy in spite of his Patavinity.
Provided I amuse my readers, it seems to me that I can claim the same
indulgence. After all, every Italian reads Algarotti with pleasure,
although his works are full of French idioms.
There is one thing worthy of notice: of all the living languages
belonging to the republic of letters, the French tongue is the only
one which has been condemned by its masters never to borrow in order
to become richer, whilst all other languages, although richer in
words than the French, plunder from it words and constructions of
sentences, whenever they find that by such robbery they add something
to their own beauty. Yet those who borrow the most from the French,
are the most forward in trumpeting the poverty of that language, very
likely thinking that such an accusation justifies their depredations.
It is said that the French language has attained the apogee of its
beauty, and that the smallest foreign loan would spoil it, but I make
bold to assert that this is prejudice, for, although it certainly is
the most clear, the most logical of all languages, it would be great
temerity to affirm that it can never go farther or higher than it has
gone. We all recollect that, in the days of Lulli, there was but one
opinion of his music, yet Rameau came and everything was changed.
The new impulse given to the French nation may open new and
unexpected horizons, and new beauties, fresh perfections, may spring
up from new combinations and from new wants.
The motto I have adopted justifies my digressions, and all the
commentaries, perhaps too numerous, in which I indulge upon my
various exploits: 'Nequidquam sapit qui sibi non sapit'. For the
same reason I have always felt a great desire to receive praise and
applause from polite society:
'Excitat auditor stadium, laudataque virtus
Crescit, et immensum gloria calcar habet.
I would willingly have displayed here the proud axiom: 'Nemo laeditur
nisi a se ipso', had I not feared to offend the immense number of
persons who, whenever anything goes wrong with them, are wont to
exclaim, "It is no fault of mine!" I cannot deprive them of that
small particle of comfort, for, were it not for it, they would soon
feel hatred for themselves, and self-hatred often leads to the fatal
idea of self-destruction.
As for myself I always willingly acknowledge my own self as the
principal cause of every good or of every evil which may befall me;
therefore I have always found myself capable of being my own pupil,
and ready to love my teacher.
