The Lily of the Valley - Honoré de Balzac (best classic literature .TXT) 📗

more from a man than it returns to him? I think so; but
as to whether the individual man finds more cost than profit, or
buys too dear the advantages he obtains, concerns the legislator
only; I have nothing to say to that. In my judgment you are bound
to obey in all things the general law, without discussion, whether
it injures or benefits your personal interests. This principle may
seem to you a very simple one, but it is difficult of application;
it is like sap, which must infiltrate the smallest of the
capillary tubes to stir the tree, renew its verdure, develop its
flowers, and ripen fruit. Dear, the laws of society are not all
written in a book; manners and customs create laws, the more
important of which are often the least known. Believe me, there
are neither teachers, nor schools, nor text-books for the laws
that are now to regulate your actions, your language, your visible
life, the manner of your presentation to the world, and your quest
of fortune. Neglect those secret laws or fail to understand them,
and you stay at the foot of the social system instead of looking
down upon it. Even though this letter may seem to you diffuse,
telling you much that you have already thought, let me confide to
you a woman's ethics.

To explain society on the theory of individual happiness adroitly
won at the cost of the greater number is a monstrous doctrine,
which in its strict application leads men to believe that all they
can secretly lay hold of before the law or society or other
individuals condemn it as a wrong is honestly and fairly theirs.
Once admit that claim and the clever thief goes free; the woman
who violates her marriage vow without the knowledge of the world
is virtuous and happy; kill a man, leaving no proof for justice,
and if, like Macbeth, you win a crown you have done wisely; your
selfish interests become the higher law; the only question then is
how to evade, without witnesses or proof, the obstacles which law
and morality place between you and your self-indulgence. To those
who hold this view of society, the problem of making their
fortune, my dear friend, resolves itself into playing a game where
the stakes are millions or the galleys, political triumphs or
dishonor. Still, the green cloth is not long enough for all the
players, and a certain kind of genius is required to play the
game. I say nothing of religious beliefs, nor yet of feelings;
what concerns us now is the running-gear of the great machine of
gold and iron, and its practical results with which men's lives
are occupied. Dear child of my heart, if you share my horror at
this criminal theory of the world, society will present to your
mind, as it does to all sane minds, the opposite theory of duty.
Yes, you will see that man owes himself to man in a thousand
differing ways. To my mind, the duke and peer owe far more to the
workman and the pauper than the pauper and the workman owe to the
duke. The obligations of duty enlarge in proportion to the
benefits which society bestows on men; in accordance with the
maxim, as true in social politics as in business, that the burden
of care and vigilance is everywhere in proportion to profits. Each
man pays his debt in his own way. When our poor toiler at the
Rhetoriere comes home weary with his day's work has he not done
his duty? Assuredly he has done it better than many in the ranks
above him.

If you take this view of society, in which you are about to seek a
place in keeping with your intellect and your faculties, you must
set before you as a generating principle and mainspring, this
maxim: never permit yourself to act against either your own
conscience or the public conscience. Though my entreaty may seem
to you superfluous, yet I entreat, yes, your Henriette implores
you to ponder the meaning of that rule. It seems simple but, dear,
it means that integrity, loyalty, honor, and courtesy are the
safest and surest instruments for your success. In this selfish
world you will find many to tell you that a man cannot make his
way by sentiments, that too much respect for moral considerations
will hinder his advance. It is not so; you will see men
ill-trained, ill-taught, incapable of measuring the future, who are
rough to a child, rude to an old woman, unwilling to be irked by
some worthy old man on the ground that they can do nothing for
him; later, you will find the same men caught by the thorns which
they might have rendered pointless, and missing their triumph for
some trivial reason; whereas the man who is early trained to a
sense of duty does not meet the same obstacles; he may attain
success less rapidly, but when attained it is solid and does not
crumble like that of others.

When I show you that the application of this doctrine demands in
the first place a mastery of the science of manners, you may think
my jurisprudence has a flavor of the court and of the training I
received as a Lenoncourt. My dear friend, I do attach great
importance to that training, trifling as it seems. You will find
that the habits of the great world are as important to you as the
wide and varied knowledge that you possess. Often they take the
place of such knowledge; for some really ignorant men, born with
natural gifts and accustomed to give connection to their ideas,
have been known to attain a grandeur never reached by others far
more worthy of it. I have studied you thoroughly, Felix, wishing
to know if your education, derived wholly from schools, has
injured your nature. God knows the joy with which I find you fit
for that further education of which I speak.

The manners of many who are brought up in the traditions of the
great world are purely external; true politeness, perfect manners,
come from the heart, and from a deep sense of personal dignity.
This is why some men of noble birth are, in spite of their
training, ill-mannered, while others, among the middle classes,
have instinctive good taste and only need a few lessons to give
them excellent manners without any signs of awkward imitation.
Believe a poor woman who no longer leaves her valley when she
tells you that this dignity of tone, this courteous simplicity in
words, in gesture, in bearing, and even in the character of the
home, is a living and material poem, the charm of which is
irresistible; imagine therefore what it is when it takes its
inspiration from the heart. Politeness, dear, consists in seeming
to forget ourselves for others; with many it is social cant, laid
aside when personal self-interest shows its cloven-foot; a noble
then becomes ignoble. But--and this is what I want you to
practise, Felix--true politeness involves a Christian principle;
it is the flower of Love, it requires that we forget ourselves
really. In memory of your Henriette, for her sake, be not a
fountain without water, have the essence and the form of true
courtesy. Never fear to be the dupe and victim of this social
virtue; you will some day gather the fruit of seeds scattered
apparently to the winds.

My father used to say that one of the great offences of sham
politeness was the neglect of promises. When anything is demanded
of you that you cannot do, refuse positively and leave no
loopholes for false hopes; on the other hand, grant at once
whatever you are willing to bestow. Your prompt refusal will make
you friends as well as your prompt benefit, and your character
will stand the higher; for it is hard to say whether a promise
forgotten, a hope deceived does not make us more enemies than a
favor granted brings us friends.

Dear friend, there are certain little matters on which I may
dwell, for I know them, and it comes within my province to impart
them. Be not too confiding, nor frivolous, nor over enthusiastic,
--three rocks on which youth often strikes. Too confiding a nature
loses respect, frivolity brings contempt, and others take
advantage of excessive enthusiasm. In the first place, Felix, you
will never have more than two or three friends in the course of
your life. Your entire confidence is their right; to give it to
many is to betray your real friends. If you are more intimate with
some men than with others keep guard over yourself; be as cautious
as though you knew they would one day be your rivals, or your
enemies; the chances and changes of life require this. Maintain an
attitude which is neither cold nor hot; find the medium point at
which a man can safely hold intercourse with others without
compromising himself. Yes, believe me, the honest man is as far
from the base cowardice of Philinte as he is from the harsh virtue
of Alceste. The genius of the poet is displayed in the mind of
this true medium; certainly all minds do enjoy more the ridicule
of virtue than the sovereign contempt of easy-going selfishness
which underlies that picture of it; but all, nevertheless, are
prompted to keep themselves from either extreme.

As to frivolity, if it causes fools to proclaim you a charming
man, others who are accustomed to judge of men's capacities and
fathom character, will winnow out your tare and bring you to
disrepute, for frivolity is the resource of weak natures, and
weakness is soon appraised in a society which regards its members
as nothing more than organs--and perhaps justly, for nature
herself puts to death imperfect beings. A woman's protecting
instincts may be roused by the pleasure she feels in supporting
the weak against the strong, and in leading the intelligence of
the heart to victory over the brutality of matter; but society,
less a mother than a stepmother, adores only the children