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They were great artists, as we can see clearly enough in Absalom and Ahitophel, or in Candide, but their genius lay in other directions. 'Il faut cultiver notre jardin' is a great judgement of life, one very wholesome and necessary for all time, but it was not the mood of Othello or of Hamlet.
Voltaire's common sense withers the Ideal; but it remains common sense. 'Il faut cultiver notre jardin' is his final word one of the very few pieces of practical wisdom ever uttered by a philosopher. Voltaire's style reaches the summit of its perfection in Candide; but it is perfect in all that he wrote. His prose is the final embodiment of the most characteristic qualities of the French genius.
Which, being interpreted, may be taken to mean that it is no use relying on artists, poets, philosophers, or saints to make something of the enclosed spaces or the waste portions of our soul: Il faut cultiver notre jardin. Even before discovering that there was an old, gabled, lower town at Cassel, I felt the special gladness of the touch of Germany. It was an autumn morning, bright yet tender.
My heart is absorbed by tender thoughts, yet I am not the less ready for luncheon! Come, my children and fellow-mortals. Allons cultiver notre jardin!" With this quotation from "Candide," plaintively delivered, the old lady led the way out of the room, and was followed by her younger pupils. The eldest sister remained behind for a moment, and reminded me that the lunch was ready.
Our halls are silent compared to last year, but let us be thankful when we think how near the chance appeared but a week since that these halls would have been ours no longer. Barbarus has segetes? Nullum numen abest, si sit prudentia. There shall be no lack of wisdom. But come il faut cultiver notre jardin. "I make a vow, And keep it true."
"Tenez, mon ami!" he cried, squeezing my hand, as he looked round at the corvette, now less than a league distant. "You are vat you Anglais call 'good fellow. J'admire votre esprit! You have escape admirablement, and I shall have vifs regrets now to 'ave opportunité to cultiver votre connaissance. Mais, I most laafs, mille pardons, you
But with whatever we may choose to plant the portion of our life and our thought which is our own, and whatsoever its natural fertility and aspect, this much is certain, that it needs digging, watering, planting, and perhaps most of all, weeding. "Cela est bien dit," répondit Candide, "mais il faut cultiver notre jardin." He was, as you will recollect, answering Dr. Pangloss.
"Well, one forgets that when Voltaire said, 'Il faut cultiver notre jardin, he was quoting, with sardonic irony, Saint Teresa! You cannot be pleased at Mrs. Parflete's decision. The theatre in England is a sport not an art. In France it is an art, but," he added drily, "it embraces more than one profession."
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