ll pursued, along widely different paths, those illusive
secrets of the human heart which had escaped the notice of earlier
generations. But La Rochefoucauld reduced the desultory psychology of
his predecessors to a system, so that for us the moralizing tendencies
of the seventeenth century in France seem to have found their final
expression less in the sob of Pascal's conscience than in the resigned
ironic nonchalance of La Rochefoucauld, who, as Voltaire so admirably
says, "dissolves every virtue in the passions which surround it."
Perhaps what the "Maximes" most resembled was the then
recently-published analysis of egotism in "Leviathan." But the cool
and atrocious periods of what Sir Leslie Stephen calls "the unblushing
egotism" of Hobbes have really little in common with the sparkling
rapier-strokes of La Rochefoucauld, except that both these moralists--
who may conceivably have met and compared impressions in Paris--
combined a resolute pessimism about the corruption of mankind with an
epicurean pursuit of happiness.

The Maxims of La Rochefoucauld were atoms of gold sifted through the
mesh of discussions at the dinner-table, around the fire in winter,
under the hawthorns and lilacs which Mme de Sevigne describes, in
endless talk between two or more trained and intelligent persons,
along the course of which thought oscillated from extreme to extreme,
until at last the company dispersed, leaving La Rochefoucauld to
capture and to fix the essential result of all that desultory
conversation. It is not impossible for us to conjecture the general
character of this brilliant and illusive talk. It had one central aim,
more or less clearly perceived, namely the desire to reach a Latin
standard of perfection. It sought to exchange for the romantic
barbarism which had underlain so much that was picturesque in the
sixteenth century--a barbarism which had come down from the late
Middle Ages, and which was really a dissolution of strong things
outworn--to exchange for this a preciousness of quality as against
mere rude bulk. It desired to introduce depth of purpose in the place
of chaotic moral disorder, originality in place of a frenzied and
incoherent eccentricity, and to found a solid structure upon a basis
of intellectual discipline.

But in order to carry out this fine scheme, and especially in order
successfully to check that decadence which had alarmed the best minds
in France, there was a pioneer work to be done. It