Page:The Yellow Book - 04.djvu/239

Rh illustrated by the Englishman's praise of his mistress, that there was nothing vulgar in her. It would take, Beyle says, eight days to explain that to a Milanese, and then he would have a fit of laughter.

These few references illustrate fairly the instincts and beliefs that are the basis of Stendhal's whole thought and life. The absolute degree of moral scepticism that is needed to make a sympathetic reader of him is—especially among people refined and cultivated enough to care for his subjects—everywhere rare. I call it a moral rather than an intellectual scepticism, because, while he would doubtless deny the possibility of knowing the best good of the greatest number, a more ultimate truth is that he is perfectly indifferent to the good of the greatest number. It is unabashed egotism. The assertion of his individual will, absolute loyalty to his private tastes, is his principle of thought and action, and his will and his tastes do not include the rest of the world, and its desires. "What is the ME? I know nothing about it. One day I awoke upon this earth, I found myself united to a certain body, a certain fortune. Shall I go into the vain amusement of wishing to change them, and in the meantime forget to live? That is to be a dupe; I submit to their failings. I submit to my aristocratic bent, after having declaimed for ten years, in good faith, against all aristocracy. I adore Roman noses, and yet, if I am a Frenchman, I resign myself to having received from heaven only a Champagne nose: what can I do about it? The Romans were a great evil for humanity, a deadly disease which retarded the civilisation of the world . . . . In spite of so many wrongs, my heart is for the Romans." Thus, in all the details of his extended comparison, Beyle tries to state with fairness the two sides, the general good and the personal, the need of obedience to its rules if some general ends of society are to be