Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  These theories may be transposed from language to ideas, manners, and everything in style that does not pertain to language. The same effects and the same causes will be found, and everywhere elegance or nobility will derive from what is unfamiliar, [1920] be it a proper meaning or a metaphoric one. These effects and causes will be all the more uniform, the more the parts of the style having to do with language are so tied to those that do not pertain to it, that they can hardly ever be separated. (14 Oct. 1821.)

  As smallness is graceful, so bigness in itself, in every aspect (even bigness, however, is relative), is contrary to grace. And the poet who personified, e.g., a mountain and attributed delicate, etc., qualities or feelings to it, or attributed bigness to any subject that he treated as graceful or delicate, or introduced bigness into a graceful context or argument, etc., unless it was by way of contrast, would not be well received. Yet speaking abstractly there is no reason why bigness cannot be graceful, and what is big for us is or can be small for others, etc. etc. [1921] (14 Oct. 1821.)

  It may be said that delicacy of form, etc., is none other than a well-proportioned and relative smallness of the whole or of the parts. And conversely with grossness, or with what is midway between the gross and the delicate. A proportion, a smallness that is determined by habituation. Smallness of foot among the Chinese to us seems ill-proportioned. Nature does not come into it here (as elsewhere) or does not suffice to produce such determinings. The widest waist of the biggest woman in today’s clothes is narrower than the thinnest waist of the smallest man, or smallish man at any rate, etc. etc.

  Apply these observations to immaterial, etc., delicacy.

  When we speak of a svelte figure we simply mean delicacy, that is to say, relative smallness, as of one proportion with regard to another, of breadth with regard to length, etc. The whole determined by habituation [1922] and liable to vary with it. (15 Oct. 1821.)

  Nobody can boast of being perfect in any human discipline if he is not also perfect in all possible disciplines and forms of human knowledge. Such is the weight and importance of the relationships that exist between the most disparate things that if those relationships are not known, no one thing is known perfectly.1 Now since what I have described is impossible for an individual, the human spirit does not make those immense advances that it could make. But it is certain that, if not perfectly then at least as far as possible, it really is necessary to be an encyclopedic man, not in order to devote oneself to all the disciplines and so not perfect or distinguish oneself in any of them, but to be as perfect as possible in one. In this, the current opinion is reasonable. Anyone who is not at least superficially encyclopedic cannot truly be regarded (and is not regarded today) as a great man of letters, or as outstanding in any intellectual discipline. Above all, you have [1923] to be encyclopedic within the ambit of those forms of knowledge, etc., which, though separate and distinct, have a greater and more certain and evident relationship and affinity with the discipline that you profess. (15 Oct. 1821.)

  Take note. Man in an absolute state of nature, the infant, only differs from the animals (especially from those that in the chain of animal kind are closer to the human species) by his very slightly greater disposition toward becoming habituated. The difference is therefore truly minimal, and perfectly graded, between man in nature and the most intelligent animal, as between this latter and another that is a little less intelligent, etc. But this minimal difference becomes paramount through being cultivated, that is to say, through man enacting and exercising the somewhat greater disposition he has to become habituated. A tiny little habit, which he can acquire but an animal cannot, because it is slightly less disposed to do so, enables him to acquire another. Two habits (if I may so put it) already acquired, thanks to [1924] that very small additional means that nature has given to man, help him to acquire another six or eight of them, and they boost the capacity to acquire more in the same proportion. That’s how man comes to acquire the faculty of habituation thanks to habituations alone. Which from a very small natural disposition, as it were from a mustard seed, grows steadily by degrees, but in ever increasing proportions, in such a way that by dint of acquired habituations, and the faculty of habituation, man comes to differentiate himself infinitely from any animal and from the whole of nature. And likewise through the progress of the generations he comes in the same increasing proportion to differentiate himself ever more from his natural state, from primitive men, from the ancients, etc. etc. The advance or so-called perfecting of the human spirit exactly resembles geometric progression, which from the most minimal term through increasing proportions arrives at infinity. And this is [1925] precisely how man through a minimal difference or superiority in natural disposition arrives at a boundless difference from the other animals. And there is no doubting the fact that what is called the perfectibility of man is susceptible to an infinite increase like geometric progression, and to an increase that is proportionately ever greater.1 (15 Oct. 1821.)

  Who would venture to say that a baby’s tongue has the faculty of speech? It only has the disposition to speak. Likewise that of someone who is mute. Likewise that of someone who through circumstances that are not physical has never acquired the ability to pronounce one or other letter. If that has occurred through physical circumstances, we would then be justified in saying that he did not have the disposition needed to acquire the capacity for pronouncing those sounds. (15 Oct. 1821.)

  For p. 1918. Rhetoricians know full well that naming a part instead of the whole invests discourse with as much nobility, elegance, grandeur as [1926] naming the whole instead of a part. (The same goes for other similar figures. The species for the genus, the individual or a few individuals for the genus or the species or the multitude, etc., the few for the many, etc.) The part is inferior to the whole, and you might suppose that naming it would be bound to diminish the idea. Yet the opposite comes about, because the utterance ceases to be ordinary, and is separate from the common people. And the striking effect of such figures, which augment the idea though they diminish the thing described, may also stem from the contrast, etc. (15 Oct. 1821.)

  The Italian language is certainly more suited to translations than its mother, Latin, would have been. Among the languages I know it is only Greek that I would not dare to subordinate to our own in this particular, in which, however, the Greeks experimented very little. (16 Oct. 1821.)

  All the time you can observe how difficult it is to root out popular opinions and customs (even those that are most false, harmful, shameful, and derive from the most foolish prejudices, etc.), for long after they had any reason for existing or usefulness, etc., they still endure, or you can still find notable traces of them, etc.1 And yet fashion changes people’s ways of dressing, and everything [1927] else within its sphere, even if those ways are very good, very useful, appropriate to the time, etc., and it changes them in an instant, and universally, and in such a manner that the previous ways quickly disappear without trace. This is chiefly among cultured peoples, who, however, are almost no less anxious than others to divest themselves of everything that is not subject to the sway of fashion, no matter how bad, false, pointless, harmful, ugly it may be.1 (16 Oct. 1821.)

  Many read or see good, classic works of poetry, literature, the fine arts, etc., that are published all the time, but no one studies them until they have become ancient. And were they to study them, they would not feel the pleasure they feel with ancient works, in no way would they find those beauties, etc. What else is this but opinion and prejudice regarding the beautiful?2

  What I have said elsewhere [→Z 1744‒47] about the effects of light or visible objects on the idea of infinity should likewise be applied to sound, to song, to everything [1928] that concerns hearing. A song (the most banal) heard from afar, or that seems far away without being so, or that is gradually fading and becoming imperceptible is pleasurable in itself, that is, for no other reason than the vague and indefinite idea that it awakens.1 Or also vice versa (but less so)
, or that is so distant, in appearance or in truth, that the ear and the mind all but lose it in the vastness of space; any sound you cannot quite make out, especially if it is due to distance; a song that is heard in such a way that you cannot see where it is coming from; a song that is echoing around the ceiling of a room, etc., but when you are not there; the song of farmers in the fields heard across the valleys, though they are not seen, and likewise the lowing of cattle, etc. When you are at home, and hear such songs or sounds in the street, especially at night, you are more open to such effects, because neither your hearing nor your other senses manage to define or circumscribe the sensation and its attendant effects.2 Any sound (even the meanest) that spreads far and wide is pleasurable, as in some of the situations described above, especially if you cannot see the object from which it emanates. These considerations apply to the pleasure that can be and is given (when we are not overcome by fear) by a thunderclap, especially when it is muffled, when we hear it [1929] in open countryside, the stirring of the wind, especially in the above circumstances, when it is blowing hither and thither in a forest, or amid the various objects in a landscape, or when we hear it from afar, or in a city when we are in the streets, etc. Because aside from the vastness and the uncertainty and confusion of the sound, we do not see the object that produces it, since the thunder and the wind are not seen. There is something pleasurable about an echoing place, an apartment, etc., when trampling feet reverberate, or a voice, etc. Because an echo is not seen, etc. And all the more so, the vaster the place and the echo are, the farther off the echo comes from, the wider it spreads. And yet more so again if you add to that the darkness of the place, which does not allow you to determine how vast the sound is, or the points from which it issues, etc. etc. And all these images in poetry, etc., are always very beautiful, and all the more so the more casually they are placed and touch on the subject without seeming to admit [1930] the intention with which it was done, indeed seeming to be unaware of the effect and the images that they are about to produce, and to touch upon them spontaneously and necessarily, and because of the nature of the subject, etc. See in this regard Virgil, Aeneid 7, ll. 8ff. Night or the image of night is the most apt for enhancing or even causing the above effects of sound. Virgil used it masterfully.1 (16 Oct. 1821.)

  Posteri [descendants], posterità [posterity] (and the latter still more so because more general), futuro [future], passato [past], eterno [eternal], lungo [long] as regards time, morte [death], mortale [mortal], immortale [immortal], and a hundred other such, are words whose sense and signification are as poetic and noble as they are indefinite, and therefore impart nobility, beauty, etc., to every style. (16 Oct. 1821.)

  The first cause and origin of the effect of meaning in the human physiognomy is also acknowledged to lie in experience and habituation. A baby knows nothing at all of what the [1931] liveliest and most expressive physiognomy might mean, and so far as its meaning is concerned cannot feel any effect either pleasant or unpleasant. As time passes, and all the sooner the more he is naturally disposed to becoming habituated, to paying attention, and hence to comparing and to establishing relationships, he becomes aware that the decent man, or the man who is kind to him, etc., has or assumes one or another expression in his physiognomy, etc., and very gradually he forms the ideas of the various correspondences that exist between the outside and the inside of men. But he is much more deceived than are adults, even though, indeed precisely because he is more susceptible to sense impressions, etc. etc. etc.

  The actual meaning that nature has given to human physiognomy should not be understood save as a minori,1 that is to say, it would not exist if each man did not observe the general effect, and the particular, [1932] momentary, etc., effects that what is inside naturally produces on the face (just as nature has given our internal feelings a full and varied influence upon and correspondence with the motions of the body, with natural voices, with the sounds of the voice and its modulations, with our actions, with the whole of the external constitution, with the slowness or promptness, vivacity or coldness of actions, etc.—where imitation of these qualities gives rise to musical expression and to the mimetic harmony of verses or of words, etc. etc.), effects that nature has furthermore placed entirely at the disposition of its own will, and without any consideration of beauty. For someone who is not observant, or who observes less than others, the physiognomy does not mean much, if anything, and he does not have much feeling for the human beauty that derives from the meaning of the physiognomy, as he does not for the beauty of the arts or poetry, etc. (16 Oct. 1821.)

  A blind creature (human or animal) is almost without expression (that is to say, without any living meaning) in their physiognomy, whether constant or fleeting. (16 Oct. 1821.)

  Self-praise, as I have said [→Z 1740‒41], is very natural to man, and is only condemned in society, and viewed with a measure of repugnance by the individual (which seems natural but is not), insofar as man hates his fellow man. Such praise is always more or less in evidence, etc., depending on whether society is more or less tight-knit, and civilization more [1933] or less advanced. Among the ancients it was never deemed so shameful nor so ridiculed as it is today. Example of Cicero.1 Modesty today is all the more petty and scrupulous in its laws the more civilized and sociable is the nation. Hence in France these rules are at their most rigorous, and in France the ancients seem intolerable when they praise themselves, as Cicero and Horace did (see Thomas’s apology for Cicero in this regard, in the Essai sur les éloges).2 It is prohibited under pain of the most savage ridicule for someone who writes or speaks to display overweening regard for themselves or their work, to speak of themselves artlessly, not to affect disdain for themselves and their work, etc. In other nations, these effects vary according to how French or otherwise their customs, or those of their individuals, are. (In France there is no difference between individuals, since it is all one individual.)3 The Germans [1934] are certainly not uncivilized, yet their writers readily speak about themselves, and attach a weight to themselves, their actions, families, circumstances, writings, etc., in a way that would appear ridiculous in France, etc. (17 Oct. 1821.) We can say the same about the Italians.

  I say that the impact of music chiefly has to do with sound. Let me explain what I mean. Sound (or singing) without harmony and melody does not have sufficient or lasting, but only momentary power over the human mind. But conversely, harmony or melody without sound or singing, and without a particular sound that may be musical, has no effect at all. Music, therefore, consists inseparably of sounds and harmony, and the one without the other is not music. Sound is musical inasmuch as it is harmonious, while harmony is harmony inasmuch as it is applied to sound. Up to this point, the game would be about even. But I attribute the principal effect to sound because it is precisely the [1935] sensation to which nature has given that miraculous power over the human mind (just as it has to smells, light, colors). Although it needs harmony, nonetheless at the first instant pure sound suffices to open and stir the human mind, something that even the most beautiful harmony when separate from sound cannot do. Furthermore, if the sound is not pleasurable, that is, if it is not one of those to which nature has given the power described above, and is then combined with the most beautiful harmony, it will have no effect, whereas one of the pleasurable, etc., sounds mentioned, combined with a negligible harmony, will have most striking effects.

  In any case, the same goes for music as for visible objects. It is in the nature of light and sound to refresh and delight. But the delight produced by either one is neither great nor enduring unless they are applied, the latter to harmony, the former not only to colors (because colors are like tones and do not procure a very enduring delight, although it is more enduring than that procured by clear light or by white), but also to [1936] visible objects, whether natural or artificial, as in painting, which applies, distributes, and orders gradations of light to the best effect, as harmony does those of sound. Colors have nothing to do with harmon
y, but have another way of giving pleasure. The tones of sound have only harmony to which they may be pleasingly applied.1 (17 Oct. 1821.)

  Everything can and does degenerate, aside from words and languages abstractly considered. A word changed in meaning and in form and so much so that its origin and its primordial qualities can scarcely if at all be discerned is not less good (in the fullest sense of the term) than one that was coming into being. The same is true of a language. There is therefore strictly speaking neither degeneration nor corruption in words or languages. And what we mean by corruption in languages is simply a divergence from their primordial state and form, or from the one they assumed when they were [1937] established and formed. There is no other sense in which languages and words can ever be said to be corrupted. Purity of language therefore cannot be, and is not anything other than uniformity with its primordial character. (17 Oct. 1821.) See p. 1984.

  When we begin to relish a new language, the features that please us the most and that smack of elegance, are those properties, those capacities, modes, forms, metaphors, uses of a word or expression that diverge from the custom and nature of our own language, without, however, being opposed to them, and without straying too far from them. (The same goes for the pronouncing of a foreign language or with hearing it pronounced, where the most pleasing sounds are those which are not characteristic of our own language, or of our custom, in which regard see p. 1965, end.)1 (That’s exactly what the nature of grace is: the extraordinary up to a certain point, and in such a way that it strikes us without choquer [shocking] our habituations, etc.) This happens to us when we read, speak, write a particular language. (In all three cases, however, there may be another source of pleasure, that is the ambition or satisfaction of being able to understand or use such phrases, of seeming foreign to ourselves, of having made progress, overcome difficulties, etc.) And that happens even if in that language or circumstance those particular forms are not, in truth, elegant. And where we discern a marked and to us excessive conformity with our own language, we feel a sense [1938] of triviality and inelegance, even when it is just the opposite, as happens when we first encounter the very elegant Celsus, who employs many turns of phrase and idioms that are decidedly similar to Italian in character. The same often occurs with ancient Latin writers, or with modern ones particularly (because the latter do not benefit from the prejudice, and the certainty, that they speak well). (17 Oct. 1821.) See p. 1965.