LETTER LXVI
Rica to * * *
PEOPLE are very much devoted to the sciences here, but I question if they
are very learned. He who, as a philosopher, doubts of all, dare deny
nothing as a theologian: the inconsistent man is always well pleased
with himself provided you agree with him.
The passion of nearly every Frenchman,
is to pass for a wit; and the passion of those who wish to be thought wits,
is to write books.
There never was such an erroneous
idea: it seems to be a wise provision of nature that the follies of
men should be short-lived; but books interfere and immortalize them.
A fool, not content with having bored all those who have lived with him,
insists on tormenting generations to come; he would have his folly triumph
over oblivion, which should have been as welcome to him as death; he wishes
posterity to be informed of his existence, and he would have it remember
for ever that he was fool.
Of all the authors, there are none
whom I despise more than compilers. They crowd from all quarters to
pick up the shreds of other men’s works; these they fit into their own, as
one would patch the turf of a lawn: they are not one whit superior
to the compositor, whose type-setting may be called book-making if manual
labor is all. I would have original books respected; and it seems to
me a species of profanation, to take from them the matter of which they are
composed, as if from a sanctuary, and expose it to an undeserved contempt.
When a man has nothing new to say,
why can’t he be quiet? Why should one be troubled with these useless
repetitions? But I will give you a new illustration. You are a
man of ability! You come into my library; and you shift the books from
the lower shelves to the upper ones, and from the upper to the lower:
you have produced a masterpiece!
I write you, * * *, because I am exasperated
with a book which I have just laid down—a book so big that it seems to contain
all science: but it has only split my head without putting anything
into it. Farewell.
Paris, the 8th of the moon of Chahban, 1714.
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