JOSEPH JOUBERT.*

ONE would fain hope that the name and works of the good Joseph Joubert are better known to English readers than is sup- posed by the writer of a charming article in the last number of the "National Review." At Any rate, the reviewer has earned our gratitude. The notice in itself is not only by far the ablest on the subject we have ever seen (M. Sainte-Beuve's not ex- cepted), but the translations have a spirit and meaning given to them in their English dress which make them not merely equal, but in some respects superior expressions of the same thought. The only doubt we now and then have is whether they are not a little too good. Generally speaking, however well a translation may read, we think it ought to bear distinct traces of its origin. One should feel that one is not merely reading a very good sample of English, but something also that is not the product of English thought. A difficult matter this—especially difficult, when French is the language to be rendered into English ; for who can describe the badness of a literal rendering into English of a French sentence ? However, seeing that Joseph Joubert is by no means'easy in his expression of thoughts, and seeing that he could hardly ever by any means satisfy himself in elaborating the thought itself, it must be confessed that a reviewer who, by natural bent and careful study, has come nearer to his meaning than any one, has a right to render it in his own most expressive terms.

No one can read the memoir written by M. Paul Raynal, and afterwards prefixed to the second edition of the "Penedos," " Essais," itc., by Mons. A. Joubert (when the death of M. Raynal had for a third time changed the editorship of the whole,) without an impression of the sweetness, the social qualities, the playful wit of Joubert in his daily intercourse with family and friends. The reviewer is aware of this ; but as it is in his corres- pondence that these qualities are most apparent, while the letters

* National Review." No. XXXT., p. 168.

do not come in for so much notice as the "Pensees," we miss this part of the proper idea of Joubert. It is not so much their fun, or even wit, that strikes us. The letters have none of the irresistible drollery of Charles Lamb's, nor even of some of Cowper's. They much more resemble those of Gray ; only that being often addressed to women, they have a tone of easy gallantry not called into play by the English poet. It would be very difficult to do justice to them in translation, and the first that occurs to us is, in fact, not one of the playful ones, but one that commends itself by its genial, sweet-natured manner of dealing with sorrow. Every word of it, we believe, to be natural—the expression of the inward wish to be the occasion, even in death, of gentle, pleasing thoughts rather than of melancholy. It was addressed to the lady he afterwards married, as an attempt to dissuade her from the indulgence of the sorrowful side alone of these dispensations.

"'May I tell you,' says he, how I myself should like to be mourned This will explain what I think is beautiful in such sorrow.'

''I should wish that my remembrance should never present itself be- fore my friends without bringing some moisture to the eyes and a smile to the lips. I should like them to think of we at all hours, in the height of their joys, without disturbance, and even at the table, in the midst of their festivities, and when rejoicing with strangers, that they should mention me, reckoning among their pleasures that of having loved and been loved by me. I would desire to have had enough of happiness and of pleasant qualities for them to be able to give even new friends some proof of my good temper, good sense, or good feeling ; that these anecdotes might make the listeners' hearta more gay, better ordered, and more contented. I should like that even to the end they should remember me thus, and that they may live long, that they may remember me the longer. I should like to have my grave where they might come altogether, in a beautiful season on a fine day, to speak together of me with some sadness, if they like it, but a tempered sadness, which by no means excludes all joy. Above all, I 'could wish and would even command, if I could, that during the last tender ceremony, in going and in returning, there should be nothing lugubrious and repul- sive in their thoughts and on their countenances, but that the spectacle might be such a one as it is pleasant to have beheld. What I wish, in a word, is to call forth only such sorrow as those who behold it shall neither dread to feel nor to inspire. It is the picture of the torturing sorrows which we leave to those we love when we depart which makes death so bitter. . . . . Our institutions and customs have created associations with the event which drive us to make haste and forget the hideous details as soon as ever we can. Instead of accustoming ourselves from childhood by thought and by the sense to look on this separation but as the moment of departure of a journey without return, a journey which we must all one day make, beyond a doubt to be united in the un- seen world, we omit nothing which can make it an object of horror. We are made to think of it as a chastisement, as the blow dealt by an executioner, and our friends and neighbours, when we cease to live, quit our bed of rest as if they were quitting the scaffold on which we have been put to death."

This is but a sample of his easy habitually cheerful view of life and death, and yet Joseph Joubert keenly felt the sorrows of his friends, and in spite of his endeavours at equanimity did mourn their loss. If Gray could from experience warn his friend Nicholls that "in one's life one can never have more than one mother," so felt also Joubert. In her latter days he took his mother to live with him ; she died not long after :— "'I have not told you about my poor, good mother ' he writes to Madame de Beaumont; very long letters would be needful if I wore to tell of the sadness and the sweetness of our re-union. She has had many sorrows I myself have occasioned her some by my far away and philosophic life. Since I left her, the employments to which I have been devoted must have seemed more idleness to her, who could neither understand their end nor their nature. They have procured me sometimes testimonials of esteem, possibilities of advancement, praises by which I might well be flattered, but none of these are worth so much to me as the good opinion of my mother. I will talk to you about her when we are together, for I shall be possessed by the thought of her as long as life lasts.'" (Vol. II. p. 278.) Joubert was very discriminating as to the peculiarities of his friends ; loving and yet making fun out of small eccentricities, and visiting with not an unfair measure of wrath the leOreti which pdts the lives and fortunes of others to risk. Thus, when he writes about Chateaubriand, though loving him extremely, and, per- haps, even overrating his higher qualities, he details his extravagances without sparing. The man of genius is just setting off for the East. Joubert writes to Madame de Vint-

mille

"Issy, 8 „tat, 1808.

"Chateaubriand set out from Paris on Sunday, July 13th, at three o'clock in the afternoon, that he might have the pleasure of travelling all night. In the morning before starting he had nothing to do, and employed part of his time in calling on his dearest friends, though be had received their farewell the evening before. He saw, among other's, M. Mold, to whom, in a parenthesis, he committed, in case of a fatal event, his funeral oration, marking the place (perhaps of its delivery), but leaving to his own choice the text and its divisions. Also he recom- mended, if he never returned, that M. Mold should go to England in search of papers left there in his exile, which M. Mold promised.

"If you ask in what temper of mind he was while making these prudent and lugubrious provisions, I reply that some say be was treats;

but I believe he was gay. He spent more than an hopr with me, and we laughed like mad. Fontanes also talks of his good spirits. "Returned to his house, there was still time on hand, and to amuse himself by some fancy he sent for arms—I mean purchaseable arms, pistols, cambinea, apingoks. I name the latter on the information of my reporters, for I myself don't know what they are. I never read nor heard the word since Louvet.

"The ennui was great, apparently, and the fancy strong. He bought much of this sense artillery. M. de Clause], a man worthy of belief, declares that he saw him disburse 800 francs for them. I suppose it had come into his mind that when be got to Trieste, if he did not find the navigation free he would equip same little vessel at his own expense, and that all these precautions were taken to ensure his getting to Athens by force of arms, if he could do so in no other way. "However it might be, there is no doubt that some skill was necessary to distribute this additional equipment in an already full carriage, and, above all, in order to hide it from the penetrating eyes of Madame de Chateaubriand, who had declared, only the night before, in my presence, that she would rather see a brigand than a pistol.

"All these arrangements made, the horses came, and they set off. It was a huge carriage, a Dormeuse. It is his baton de voyageur."

Here follows an account of the carriage and servants, humorous but somewhat lengthy :—

" He has written to me three times. By his first letter, written from Lyons, I learn that at Nevers, they had overturned him into the Loire. One can say nothing to that; one is not responsible for the acts of othars if one is drowned.

"But in the second, written from Turin, he tells me that he had been nearly blown up, and that it was his own fault. Conceive, if you can, the excess of my wrath when you read what I am going to write. "First, it appears that on the day of leaving Lyons he wished, as before, to set out late and travel in the night, for what is the good else of

having a Dormeuse It seems, then, that in the morning he had spare time on his hands as at Paris, and not knowing what to do with it, and out of pure horror of doing nothing, he set himself to work to load his arms. Take note that it was done in secret, and as a pastime, not to be known of by any one but himself. I have told you the reason. All that understood, just see what did happen, and think what might have happened.

"He set out. Just as the carriage arrived at the Place Bellecour, one of the loaded pistols want off under the seat. At the noise Madame de Chateaubriand fainted ; the horses stopped ; people ran up and sur- rounded them. They descended, nobody, thank Heaven ! was hurt. Madame de Chateaubriand came to herself, and was already congratu- lating herself upon her escape from danger when some one exclaimed that the carriage was on fire. I suppose the sight of smoke and the thought that the pistol was not the only source of mischief made all dread a fresh explosion ; Chateaubriand says nothing, but we suppose it, for every one ran away. Then he remembered that he had concealed, in a

corner, four or five livres' worth of powder ! Happily,' be says, 'be did not lose his presence of mind. He opened the carriage, mounted, seized the fatal parcel, and,findiall the cord which tied it was on fire he put it out.' But for his courage and promptitude,' he adds (for the abomin- able man dares to praise himself, and even make a joke), he, his wife, the carriage, postillions, and servants, would all have been in the air.' He ends by assuring me that in half-an-hour everything was set right, and that at Turin all goes on as well as can be. I am charmed to hear it—but after such intelligence, we have deliberated and settled (Madame de Coialin and 1)-1st. That we will keep our counsel about these imprudences. 2nd. That we will look about everywhere for a man as capable of pleasing and making us love him as be is. 3rd. That if we do find such a matt we will prohibit him from any commerce with us, and all administration of his own affairs. In short, we want a wiser and more prudent Chateaubriand. See if you know of such an one ; we will willingly quarrel with the old one, if you can furnish a better, and we advise you to do so. But I ant very much afraid that head belongs only to one man, and that we are eternally condemned to love him, such as he con6tantly and passionately, though ever so angry with him It appears, though he says nothing about it, that, the powder, and perhaps the arms, their existence and their neighbour- hood to Madame de Chateaubriand being proclaimed, she made him throw them into the Rhone ; for her husband, who certainly would have employed his time at Milan in furbishing them up, if they had been at his disposal, was only occupied in writing me a long letter, and in regretting his friends. He is ready to wee,',' he says, when he thinks he cannot have news of us. He considers that one is foolish and even guilty in voluntarily leaving those one luves. And why?' he adds, 'to go where?' 'He does not know.' In short, he shows himself, as he often does, the best and most amiable fellow in the world,—from which I conclude that he is disarmed." (Letter, Vol. II, p. 365-6.) It ought to be recorded that after the death of Joubert's only son, and stii1 later of his widow, a vast repository of papers was for the first time made known to his surviving connections. Many of them were rough draughts of the "Pensees," many were on detached sheets; but in addition to these there were not less than two hundred "small books on great subjects," in which he had inscribed day after day his thoughts and maxims, the analysis of his reading, and the events of his life. Only a portion of these —the journal—had been exhibited by Madame Joubert, who had been extremely tenacious of his relics. Many of these entries were abbreviated, soma written only with a piaci!. All required groat care and patienca in the deciphering. In the mitht of the examination the editor came upon an incomplete and yet ex- pressive note, traced, he believes, towards the close of life :— " If I die," writes Jonbert, "leaving some scattered thoughts on important subjects, I charge, in the name of our humanity, those to whom they may be committed not to suppress any- thing that may be in advance of commonly received ideas. During my life I have loved truth above everything. I have reason to think I may have discerned it on some great subjects. Perhaps one of these sayings, which I have thrown out in haste . . . ." Here the sentence breaks off; but who does not see what the thoughtful old man meant?—that he was looking to future light dawning on younger minds to complete his work. And so be went to rest, his very last entry (on the 22nd of March, 1824), being " Le vrai, le beau, Is farts, le saint !" He died early in the May following.