Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  Anticipated good and evil are both usually much greater than good and evil in the present. The cause is the same in both cases, imagination determined by self-love inspired on the one hand by hope and on the other by fear.

  Why something that is not pleasing in itself nevertheless [189] gives pleasure when it happens unexpectedly—in short, what is the source of the pleasure of surprise, considered purely as surprise—can be explained in terms of the arguments about boredom discussed earlier in these thoughts. Because people feel pleasure whenever they are powerfully moved, unless by fear or evil. Why this unexpected pleasure is usually greater than one we are anticipating is explained partly by this reason and partly by the one already noted on p. 73. And, if you will, see Montesquieu, Essai sur le goût, “Des plaisirs de la surprise,” Amsterdam 1781, p. 386, “Du je ne sais quoi,”1 p. 394, “progression de la surprise,” p. 398.

  Affectation usually begets uniformity. As a result, people tire of it quickly. In all writing with an affected or false style, as in much foreign poetry and Eastern poetry as well, you notice that you always experience a sense of monotony, like what Montesquieu describes when looking at Gothic figures, loc. cit., “Des contrastes,” p. 383. This happens even when the poet or writer has tried as hard as possible to create variety. Reasons: (1) Art can never equal the richness of nature, in fact we can see how much variety disappears when art intrudes upon it, just as in the characters and customs and opinions of man and in the whole great system of human nature, once full of variety, both in ideas and imagination and materially, and now made uniform by art. Affectation does the same thing. (2) Persistent affectation creates a uniformity all its own insofar as it is a constant feature of a work of art. Do not say that in this case constant naturalness must also result in uniformity. (1) naturalness does not stand out or fatigue you, [190] nor does it hit you in the eye, like affectation (which is something independent of the object), unless it is deliberate or contrived, in which case it is no longer naturalness but affectation, like that often found in the poetry mentioned earlier. (2) naturalness can hardly be called a quality or manner, as it is not an arbitrary feature of things but a way of treating things naturally, as they really are, which means in a thousand different ways, and so things are just as varied in poetry, writing, or any true imitation as they are in reality. Apply these observations also to art, e.g., Flemish landscapes compared with those by the Venetian Canaletto (see Dionigi, Pittura de’ paesi)1 and with the prints of Albrecht Dürer, where the effort and accuracy evident in the engraving give an even, monotonous tone to the huge range of objects depicted, however varied and well executed they are. It follows that an apparent ease and abandon, by allowing everything to flow naturally in writing (and in painting, etc.), will ensure variety and thus avoid the tedium induced by other qualities of the writing, etc., including, e.g., elegance: since nothing is less tedious than nonchalance.

  For both these reasons, you can understand why the great bulk of French writing, especially poetry, is tedious beyond measure. Their eternal style of conversation (1) must be infinitely less varied than natural speech, like art compared with nature, (2) gives the most diverse subjects a uniform tone, which, because it seems inappropriate, stands out and rapidly becomes boring. In fact, observe that French poetry all sounds the same in its endless monotony, resulting in a sense that it is totally rigid and inflexible and fit [191] for nothing.

  The sound of j and ge and gi in French is a distinctive one, missing in our own language, and effectively forms another letter in the alphabet. It cannot be called a compound of g and s (1) because it is very distinct from the sound of each of these two letters, (2) because it is pronounced in a single instant and not successively, as we Italians would pronounce sgi or sghi or gsi, but instead like z, which is a perfectly good letter, quite distinct from the others, and not a compound of t and s. Notice the two different pronunciations of the z, one or other of which is, I think, missing in many languages, and the crushed s of the French, which is missing in ours. (28 July 1820.)

  The first author of the city or, in other words, of society was, according to Scripture, the first criminal, namely Cain, after his guilt, remorse, and punishment.1 It is good to think that the corruptor of human nature and the source of most of our vices and wickedness can somehow be regarded as the effect and child of and the consolation for guilt. And just as the first criminal was the founder of society, so the first person to challenge and curse society was the redeemer of our guilt, namely Jesus Christ, as I said on p. 112.

  Using what Montesquieu says in Essai sur le goût, “Des diverses causes qui peuvent produire un sentiment,” “De la sensibilité,” “De la délicatesse,” pp. 389–93,2 explain why we are so interested in Roman and Greek history, the events recounted by Homer and Virgil, etc., and the tragedies, etc., based [192] on these stories, etc. etc. And why the same interest has never been aroused by any other histories or poems about other events, however well told, like those by Ossian, or by tragedies on other themes even when these are drawn from our own recent history, like the events of the Middle Ages, etc., and even less by Oriental poetry and hundreds of other lovely things promoted and made fashionable by our Romantics, who do not have an inkling about true psychology. It all has to do with the multiplicity of causes that produce in us an emotion, including, in this case, memories of childhood, habits we have formed, the universal fame of those nations and poets, our almost involuntary affection for them, our having constantly heard them discussed, the respect, veneration, admiration, and love for those who have spoken of them, all reasons that, if lacking, would make it very difficult, if not impossible, to feel the same involvement in a new subject, especially in poetry, where the whole pleasure derives from our interest and not simply from curiosity or a desire to learn, etc., as with histories and the like. See my discourse on the Romantics.1 “Souvent notre ame se compose elle-même des raisons de plaisir, et elle y réussit surtout par les liaisons qu’elle met aux choses” [“Often our mind itself constitutes reasons for pleasure, and it succeeds in this above all through the associations it imparts to things”].2 This and everything else Montesquieu says is very noteworthy, and is applicable to many very different cases and situations where we find something pleasurable when others do not, or which [193] we ourselves would not have liked in other circumstances. For example, there was quite a long time when classical poetry gave me no pleasure at all, and I could not find any beauty in it. There was a time when the only work I found enjoyable was pure, dry philology, which other people find boring in the extreme. There was a time when the study of science seemed utterly intolerable to me. Lots of people find an enjoyment in their work that would astonish others, who cannot understand what pleasure such an occupation could offer! And, most notably in work concerned with literature and fine art, isn’t it obvious to everyone that the writer or the artist finds ever new, incredible pleasures in reading or contemplating this or that work, which, if ordinary people were to read or look at it, they couldn’t understand what the devil was so interesting. Yet these people will be delighted by any amount of cheap rubbish. This also explains variations in taste in different times, classes, nations, climates, etc. (29 July 1820.)

  It was a masterstroke for nature to interrupt life, as it were, with sleep. This interruption is almost a renewal, and waking up is like being reborn. In fact, the day also has its own youth, etc., see p. 151. As well as the great variety they provide, these continuous interruptions make a single life feel like so many different ones. And separating one day from another is an excellent remedy for the monotony of existence. Nor could existence be more greatly varied and diversified than by making it consist in [194] large part almost of its opposite, namely a kind of death.

  Discovering and obtaining the happiness that nature has destined for man is no longer a task for the private individual, not even just for himself. Not in society, because everyone can see what living in society is like, and the private individual cannot improve our in
stitutions. Not in solitary and primitive domestic life, because its pleasures will no longer appeal to people who have become disenchanted and whose imagination is exhausted. Providing exciting distractions, worthwhile employment, movement, life; renewing lost illusions, etc. etc., can be done only by people in power.

  Politics must not be guided solely by reason but must take account of nature, nature as it really is, not when it is artificial and corrupted. In how many ways the Christian code moves away from cold reason and toward nature! An example that is rarely or never observed by modern lawmakers.

  Not only is the virtuous man for the most part unknown and ignored or unacknowledged by the multitude, which is formed by the wretched, but such is the miserable condition of people in society and the twisted state of things that he is often despised and taken for quite the opposite, even by the few other good people. I have had the experience of admiring and loving two people of excellent character each of whom had become entirely convinced on the basis of a few encounters that the other was a most unpleasant and unworthy person.1 It is quite true, we judge men’s character by the way they behave toward us, because they either thought they needed or actually did need to behave in a particular way, whether arbitrarily or by force of circumstance, or indeed intentionally. And if [195] the wickedest person in the world has not done us any harm and for whatever reason has had occasion to help us, even just to treat us well, to be affable, polite, respectful, etc., this will be enough to ensure that we do not think badly of him and even take him for an honest man. Even if reason tells us otherwise, the heart and the imagination will always cling to this conviction. This ought to be the general rule whenever we hear people speaking well or badly of someone. If the person speaking is doing so on behalf of someone else or if he is in bad faith, his motives may be different. But with these two exceptions, normally in your dealings with people you should assume that if someone is telling you about someone else, he has been either well or badly treated by that person, and not expect to learn any more than that from what he is saying. (31 July 1820.)

  Men are like horses. To keep them obedient and respectful you need to insult, bully, threaten, and shout at them. You should follow the example of Tristram Shandy’s nuns.1 (1 August 1820.)

  Although all things great and beautiful and alive have been extinguished from the world, our inclination toward them remains. Though we may be denied these things, nothing has or ever could stop us from wanting them. Young people have not lost that longing which drives them to seek a life for themselves and to scorn nothingness and monotony. But if the goals that in ancient times fueled such ardor are taken away, you can see where it must and does, in fact, lead. Youthful ardor, so natural, universal, and important a phenomenon, once occupied a significant place in the thinking [196] of statesmen. This most vital and important force no longer appears in the reckoning of politicians and rulers but is treated as if it no longer existed. In the meantime, it continues to exist but without direction or provision and it operates to no advantage (it still operates because, however much our public institutions tend to destroy it, human nature will not allow it to be destroyed, especially nature in its first, freshest, and greatest vigor, as it is at that age), and whereas in ancient times it was a resource that was exploited and directed to great public advantage, now this natural, inextinguishable urge, being redundant and destructive to the system, circles and winds and silently devours, like an electrical charge that cannot be tamed or put to good use, or be prevented from exploding in storms, eruptions, etc. (1 August 1820.)

  For p. 164, first thought, add. If you see a child, a woman, or an old person struggling in vain at some task that weakness prevents them from fulfilling, it is impossible not to feel compassionate and not to try, if you can, to help them. And if you can see that you are causing harm or unhappiness, etc., to someone who is suffering and powerless to resist, you are made of marble or a bestial mindlessness if you have the heart to carry on.

  Even people who are inured to praise and convinced of their fame, which no longer depends on the opinion of this person or that, are touched by praise for some quality that has nothing to do with the thing they are famous for. Indeed, apart from people who are used to adulation for everything they do, no one becomes indifferent to praise in [197] general, but only for those particular qualities. What is more, the most valued praise is often for something where you would like appreciation but doubt yourself and think either that you do not deserve it or that others will not think you do.

  Diogenes Laertius writing about Chilon says that “προσέταττε … ἰσχυρὸν ὄντα πρᾷον εἶναι, ὅπως οἱ πλησίον αἰδῶνται μᾶλλον ἢ φοβῶνται” [“he maintained that physically strong men should be gentle, so that their neighbors should respect rather than fear them”].1 This precept should be extended, especially today when selfishness is so rife, to all the particular advantages that an individual might enjoy. Because if you are handsome, the only way to ensure that you will not be completely detestable to people is a particular affability, a sort of indifference toward yourself that appeases the self-love of those who might be resentful of your advantage over them, or even of your being their equal. Similarly if you are rich, learned, powerful, etc. The greater the advantage you have over others, the more necessary it is, if you are to avoid being hated, to be amiable, to be unconcerned, almost dismissive of yourself with respect to them, because you need to treat a cause of hatred that you have but they don’t: an absolute cause, which itself makes you hated without your needing to be unjust, arrogant, etc. etc. And this was something well known to the ancients, since they were so convinced of the hatefulness of individual advantages that they believed the gods themselves were envious of them, and in times of prosperity, they were anxious to invidiam deprecari [ward off envy] whether human or divine, and so an [198] uninterrupted period of happiness made them fearful of some major disaster. See Fronto, De bello Parthico.1 (4 August 1820.) See p. 453, last paragraph.

  According to Montesquieu (Essai sur le goût, “Du je ne sais quoi”) grace or that certain something consists mainly of the element of surprise, of giving something more than is expected, etc.2 On the subject of grace, which is just as obscure in artistic theory as divine grace is in theology, I note the following: (1) The effect of grace is not to exalt the soul, or to fill it up or to leave it amazed, as beauty does, but to shake it, the way tickling shakes the body, not powerfully, like an electric shock. It is true that little by little it can produce excitement and a raging fire in the soul, but not all at once. That is more the effect of beauty, which manifests itself in an instant rather than gradually. And perhaps this is also the reason that, as Montesquieu maintains, great passions are rarely inspired by great beauty but usually by grace, because the impact of beauty is felt at once, and after the soul is sated with that vision, it can desire or hope for nothing more if beauty is not accompanied by wit, virtue, etc. On the other hand, grace reveals itself bit by bit, in fact you cannot have grace without this succession. So that, having seen part of it, you desire and hope to see more. (2) Hence grace usually consists in movement: so we might say beauty belongs to the moment, grace to time. In movement I also include everything involved in speech. (3) Grace is not [199] synonymous with surprise. It is obvious that many surprises have nothing to do with grace, but even where women and beauty are concerned surprise does not always amount to grace. Imagine a very beautiful woman wearing a mask or with her face covered, and imagine that you do not know her, and she suddenly uncovers her face, and her beauty takes you unawares. This is a lovely, pleasurable surprise, but it is not grace. And to stick precisely to what Montesquieu says, that grace derives principally from the fact that “nous sommes touchés de ce qu’une personne nous plaît plus qu’elle ne nous a paru d’abord devoir nous plaire; et nous sommes agréablement surpris de ce qu’elle a su vaincre des défauts, que nos yeux nous montrent et que le coeur ne croit plus” [“we are touched when someone
pleases us more than it first struck us that the person ought to do; and we are agreeably surprised at his knowing how to overcome defects that our eyes reveal to us and that our heart no longer believes in”],1 suppose you see someone, a woman or a young man, with an unattractive appearance and looking him in the face you suddenly find him very beautiful; this is certainly a surprise, but it is not grace. (4) It seems that in some way grace consists in naturalness and cannot exist without it. However, mainly because, as Montesquieu also observes, nature is now more difficult to follow, and much rarer than artifice, note that those graces which consist in pure naturalness do not ordinarily occur without surprising us. If you hear or see a young boy speaking or doing something, his words, actions, and movements seem extraordinary; they have something fresh and unexpected about them that strikes you as wonderful and excites your curiosity. It is the same with any other example of naïveté. In the second place, there are some things that are not natural but still graceful; or indeed natural, but graceful for some reason other than their naturalness. For example, [200] certain minor flaws in a face are very attractive and many people think them graceful. Some people are attracted by a snub nose (like Marmontel’s Sultan),1 some by a slight squint. Many people think talking with a lisp, etc., is graceful. We see love inspired by some peculiarity or defect in the beloved all the time. The same with spiritual and moral qualities. Alfieri’s first love was for a young woman with a certain “haughtiness,” which, he said, “had a very powerful effect on me.”2 And you could list numerous things of this kind, which seem the height of gracefulness and inflame this or that person but leave others quite cold. So the sort of face described as piquant, which implies some imperfection or irregularity, is usually more appealing than one that is regular and perfect. It seems to be accepted that grace is associated with the small rather than the large, so if majesty, beauty, strength, etc., are appropriate to the large, grace and vivacity cannot be. The same applies to everything, generally speaking: people, statues, manufactured goods, poetry, etc. etc. etc. “Un piccolin si mette / Di buona grazia in tutto” [“A little child is graceful in everything”] says Frugoni.3 And it is quite common to call a small person graceful, often in such a way as to suggest that smallness is synonymous with gracefulness. (5) You can deduce from all this that in fact you cannot give a definition of grace, and Montesquieu has not provided one even though he seems to think he has, and you always have to resort to that certain something. Because: (I) Although surprise often accompanies grace, it is clearly something quite different, because for something to be graceful, it has to be more than just surprising, it has to be of that particular kind, [201] and what kind is it? (II) Not just natural, as we have seen; not perfect but often blemished, irregular, or unusual; obviously, however, not everything that is imperfect, irregular, or unusual: so what then? (III) I will allow that often a sense of grace involves surprise, although something is not graceful because it is surprising (otherwise everything surprising would be graceful) but because of something else. (IV) The way Montesquieu explains this certain something in the words quoted earlier applies only in a few cases. A piquant face, an irregular face nous plaît [pleases us] really d’abord [at first] just as it is, and this has nothing to do with whether the defect has been overcome, etc. This means that the face itself has something pleasing about it that we like independently of anything else. It is true that we may be surprised at liking an unusual face, but our pleasure is caused not only or mainly by being surprised; otherwise, we would find even more pleasure in a monstrous face. If you apply these arguments to the examples considered above, in all of them, offering more than is promised has nothing to do with that pleasure, or is not the main or innermost reason for it, but one that is extrinsic and accidental. (V) Grace is relative, like beauty, for this person or that. Experience teaches us that just as there is no one type of beauty, so there is no one type of grace. And although it might seem that the idea of naturalness is universal, nevertheless it is not, and innumerable things that seem natural to us are far from being so, and there will be hundreds of ways of doing things that seem natural and graceful to country people but coarse to us, etc. The same applies to different national customs, habits, opinions, etc. Not that nature does not have its own clear [202] and definite ways of arranging things, but the same thing happens as with the idea of beauty. A horse whose tail is docked, a dog whose ears are trimmed are unnatural, as is a woman wearing earrings or a man who shaves off his beard, etc., but people still like them.1 Tastes vary even more with regard to grace independent of naturalness; (VI) however impossible it might be to define this certain something, we can list some of its qualities: 1st. Very often simplicity is the source or the property of grace. 2nd. Although grace is usually associated with action, nevertheless it can exist without it, precisely in the sort of grace derived from simplicity, e.g., in works of art, in the dress of a shepherdess described by Montesquieu as graceful, along with the paintings of Raphael and Correggio.2 A face that is piquant but not beautiful could also be said to possess this certain something and can fascinate us without doing anything, as, e.g., when seen in a portrait, even if normally its effect is heightened by movement. 3rd. While naturalness is not the only source of grace, there cannot be grace where there is affectation. The fact is that although something may not be graceful on account of being natural, it cannot be graceful unless it is, or appears to be, natural, and the slightest sign of effort or calculation, etc. etc., is enough to destroy all gracefulness. I say appears to be, because the graces of poetry, speech, or the arts, etc., for the most part appear to be natural but aren’t really. 4th. We have seen what smallness has to do with grace. 5th. Similarly, agility and lightness may play a part. Notice that it is unsurprising for the soft, light movements of a person of slender build to be graceful because such people usually move lightly and easily. Rather, they inspire a sort of wonder and admiration [203] different from surprise, which derives from the unusual or from the opposite of what was expected. Thus, the wonder inspired by works of art, for all that it belongs to the beautiful, has nothing to do with grace. 6th. The effect of grace is usually as I described, to shake, tickle, and sting, with a sting that often goes straight to the heart, as when you see a woman’s knowing gaze fixed upon you, in which case the shock can also be compared with electricity. But with that grace which is linked, e.g., to simplicity it seems that if the effect is to tickle, it is not to sting, and perhaps on this basis you could draw a distinction between two types of grace, one of which is piquant and the other soft, insinuating, glissante [gliding] into the soul. Perhaps the first kind best describes that certain something. 7th. Vivacity is part of this first kind of grace. Nevertheless, vivacity is not grace. 8th. Food can also have a sort of grace, sometimes of the first, sometimes of the second kind. What are called ragoûts belong to the former. Here especially, tastes differ enormously.