In Paris (continued 2)

Nothing is more difficult than that which is too easy. Nobody would imagine that he could play the violin without having learned how; and if he did, the least attempt would at once extinguish his pretense. But to see? What more simple than that? All one has to do is open one's eyes. "I saw it," is the reply of a witness whose story is contested; "Do you take me for a fellow suffering from hallucination?" Precisely, or else for a purblind person, as the case may be. As a matter of fact, when it comes to seeing, men display two tendencies: they see what they wish to see, what is useful to them, what is agreeable. The second is the tendency toward inhibition; they do not see what they do not wish to see, what is useless to them, or disagreeable.

The great rule by which almost everything may be explained, is the rule of utility. Certain artisans were visiting the Universal Exposition. They looked about, walked along, and had seen nothing. Farther on they continued to look about, and this time they stopped; they had caught sight of a machine that could be of use to them in their particular work. We do not see that to which we are indifferent. The image glides by, fades and dies out before having had time to become fixed, and we make no effort to retain it.

I knew a colonial functionary who had travelled around the globe, and who spent years in our various colonies in Africa, Asia and America. Once in a while I am tempted to question him. But he is at a loss for reply. Occupied only with his advancement and with his family affairs, he really saw nothing. Of Singapore, the strange city whence a young writer, M. Cassel, has brought us such dazzling, magic impressions, this fine fellow said to me: "Pretty place; a few houses in the European style." I have asked many a question in my life, but never have I received so stupid an answer. But I understand that questions are always indiscreet. To ask anybody what he has seen is to subject him to torture. He sinks a fishing-line into his memory and brings up nothing. Then he tries to invent, and the result is wretched. Hence, for tourists, the great usefulness of the guide-books. Without these books they would have seen nothing, and without them they would recall nothing. "What did I see at Rome?" They open to the marked page. "Rome, Rome?" said a hosier whom his wife had dragged off to Italy. "Ah! I remember! That's the place where I purchased this miserable flannel waistcoat."

In company of those who see nothing or almost nothing are those who see crooked or inversely altogether,—those who allow themselves to be guided far less by their eyes than by their sensibility, who believe that a thing exists because it seems to them that they have received such an impression. Whoever has a department under him, said a telegraph inspector, has been able to prove how inexact the reports he receives often are, and how necessary it is to verify the assertions of agents as to events in which they have been actors or spectators. The account of an event that has just taken place is founded upon the impressions received rather than upon direct observation. At the end of several days the imagination has come into play and it adds the finishing touch to the crystallization of one's conviction. At this moment, if there was an initial error, it has become ineradicable. This explains all those disputes between the public and administrative agents. Each one is actuated by good faith, but each has beheld the event in a different light,—that of his own particular interest,—the one intent upon upholding respect for law or rule, the other eager only to violate it or circumvent it. If the case is taken to court, the judge, whose authoritarian tendency is very marked, almost always finds the agent of the law in the right. It is nevertheless quite certain that the agent is not to be believed more than once out of two times on the average. Even this proportion is perhaps highly exaggerated.

It so happens that according to special plans there is, at the University of Geneva, a large window opening upon an interior corridor, which is to the left as the students enter opposite the janitor's lodge. One day, M. Claparède questioned fifty-four students as to the existence of this window, which they passed by every day. Do you know how many asserted categorically that the window did not exist? Forty-four! Astounded, M. Claparède declares that such a collective testimony is disconcerting and discouraging. And who would not agree with him? Who does not think with horror, after this experiment, of all those criminal trials where a verdict is rendered on the strength of witnesses? testimony? M. Claparède comes to the conclusion that a single witness may be right despite many opposing witnesses whose stories agree. Unanimity itself should be severely controlled, and he adds, quite in accord with my own notions upon the matter: "One is led to ask whether it is not the rule to disregard those objects about us which are without interest to us, and if it is not only by accident, and exceptionally, that such objects leave an imprint upon the sensitive plate of our memory?" Accident, of a surety, or else a particularly sensitive plate. If indeed our eye functions mechanically somewhat in the manner of a photograph lens, we are compelled, in order not to clutter the storehouse of our memory, to make a choice of the images which we classify therein. In this an instinct guides us, though not always infallibly, and calls to our attention those images useful to the conservation or the defense of our life.

Without education, without civilized habits, which constantly increase the number of our requirements of every kind, we should, like animals, have need to retain but a small number of images.

The life of animals moves in a rather restricted circle, and there is not one of their acts that is not dictated by utility. Men, too, obey the rule of utility, but their imagination magnifies this field of the useful in a singular manner, and they find themselves obliged, for the purpose of mere existence, to open their memory to a considerable number of images to which animals are absolutely indifferent. We behold on a table, in a single glance, the plates, the food, the flowers, the glasses and all the rest; the dog sees only the food; the flowers that give us pleasure, the general arrangement that charms us, leave him utterly insensible to their attraction. There are also things to the sight of which we are ourselves insensible: those which are neither beautiful nor ugly, nor useful, nor harmful, neither good nor bad,— everything that is not worth the trouble of being qualified, everything that is neutral to our senses as to our imagination. If, then, we are asked to give testimony regarding the existence of these objects, regarding the reality of those things that cause us neither pain nor pleasure, and which, therefore, we have neglected to retain in our memory, we should be greatly embarrassed.

In general, when we are questioned we have a tendency to affirm that which we believe probable and to deny the case that seems to us improbable. Thus, in the case of the window, this window, opening upon an interior corridor, seemed to the students who were questioned quite improbable, since the thing was useless, even absurd.

In the second place, and this is very important, we hold in our minds a series of types of fact to which invariably we relate the new events that we happen to witness. If, for example, we are in principle assured that every automobile accident is due to the drivers of these vehicles, it is with difficulty that we admit, even if we have seen it with our own eyes, that the accident was the fault of the victim. The case will be just the contrary with the chauffeur: to him, the victim is always in the wrong. But if, for us, the chauffeur is always wrong, our attitude is equally unreasonable. In either case, the images will be distorted and if we are questioned, we will reply with lies uttered in all good faith: "This is so because it ought to be so." M. Claparède even goes so far as to admit that the evidence of various individuals may be erroneous, even if they all agree. I am of his opinion, because it is quite normal that the same interest or the same absence of interest unconsciously guides witnesses of diverse origin and condition. All the ancient explorers of the Kerguelen Isles saw there only sterile and uninhabitable lands. Yet in recent days a colony composed of men from Havre and Norwegians has established itself there and finds the country rough, but healthful and well suited not only to fishing but also to pasturage.

It appears, from all this, that our eyes are uncertain. Two persons look at the same clock and there is a difference of two or three minutes in their reading of the time. One has a tendency to put back the hands, the other to advance them. Let us not too confidently try to play the part of the third person who wishes to set the first two aright; it may well happen that we are mistaken in turn. Besides, in our daily life, we have less need of certainty than of a certain approximation to certainty. Let us learn how to see, but without looking too closely at things and men: they look better from a distance.

THE RIVERS OF FRANCE

A river is a beautiful thing. It runs along, its sings, it laughs, it glints in the sunlight and becomes darker beneath the trees. Sometimes one may see the bottom, where there are stones and grasses, while at times it is a sombre abyss that fills one with shudders. The river comes from afar and goes no one knows whither. True, people say that it has a beginning and that its source lies yonder, in the mountains, but that is not at all so certain. What is a source? When you see a river, it is already a river and it never occurs to you that it may ever have been only a tiny ribbon of water trickling down from a rock. In olden days, when the world was happy, things were far different. Rivers flowed from a marble pitcher which was held in the hands of an eternally youthful, drooping maiden. But the wicked god of the Christians, who is not fond of maidens? beauty, broke those marble pitchers; the mothers of rivers died of grief and now the rivers are born by accident, as best they may be. If we are not so well informed about their birth, we know their life and their death. Their life is to bound along or to flow nonchalantly on, to prattle over the pebbles and dream amid the rushes. Often, when traversing the blooming meadows they love to spread across the grass. If dikes or tree-trunks bar the way they are provoked and even wax furious. But if it is a mill that rises before them, they turn its wheels with docile promptness, and continue on their way unperturbed. The river is the mother of men and trees, of beasts and plants. Without the river there are no fish; there are no birds. There are no crops, no flowers, no wine, no cattle, and man flees, parched by the sun. After having given life, the river has two ways of dying; either it expands into the bosom of a larger river or flows directly to mingle with the sea; the sea is the vast cemetery of all the rivers,—of the smallest as well as the greatest. But the river that dies is nevertheless just as eternal as the ocean that receives it into its depths. The clouds are born of the sea, and the wind wafts them toward the forests, where they make rain and swell the streams. There is in the world a circulation of water as in our bodies there is a circulation of blood. All this is well regulated. The sea loves the river. It comes to meet the stream and sends it as greeting the salt tang of its waves. The river fears this infinitude. For a long time it resists. At last, the sweet waters yield and melt under the powerful kisses of the brine: the swell of the waves lulls the wedded waters to rest.

The river is a person. It has a name. This name is very ancient, because the river, although perpetually young, is very old. It existed before men and before birds. Ever since men were born they loved the rivers, and as soon as they learned how to speak they gave them names. Even when we no longer understand them, the names of the rivers are the most beautiful in the world. There is the Gironde and the Adour; the Loire and the Vienne, the Rhône and the Ariège. But perhaps it is possible to understand these names. Let us try, by having recourse to the studies of a geographical scholar, M. Raoul de Félice. Our rivers have received their names from the various races that anciently occupied Gaul: The Iberians, an unknown people, the Ligurians, the Celts. At the moment of the Roman conquest, almost all the streams of France possess a name. So that modern names are very rare. The Iberians were probably Basques, if not in race at least in language. Even if this is contested, that would not prevent us from tracing the word Adour back to the Basque word iturria, which means spring, source. It is to the Iberians that we likewise owe names such as the Aude, the Orbieu, the Urugne. Here probably came a people yet unknown, but of Indo-European language, which was perhaps the godfather to many of our rivers. To this people it may be we owe the names Somme, Sèvre, Herault,—names that are derived from various roots signifying water, liquid, source. According to the same theory, Durance, Drône, Drot, Drac might be translated by "the running water," and the same idea would be found in the name Rhône, while the Loire would be "the stream that waters;" the Meurthe, "she who moistens." As to the Garonne, that would be, "the rapid one"; but the matter is still under discussion: the Garonne has not given up its secret, any more than the Gironde. We may note, in passing, that there are in France three other Garonnes, without taking into account a Garon, a Garonnette, and a Garonnelle; there are seven or eight Girondes, of which two are in the environs of Paris, tributaries of the Orge and the Marne. The Oise and the Isdre stand for the same thing, namely, "the rapid one," which seems rather hazardous to me in the case of the Oise. Certain rivers flow in a deep-cut bed; thus they have received a name which would signify something like case, vase or sheath: these are the Couse, the Cousin, the Cusom, the Cousanne, the Couzeau, and the names Couzon.

We now come to the part played by the Ligurians. In their language they called the alder-tree that grows along the banks of so many rivers, alisos, alsia or alison. They gave this name to a number of streams; Alzon, Alzou, Alzau, Auzon, Auzonne, Auzonnet, Arzon, Auze, Auzenne, Auzelle, Auzotte, Auzette, Auzigue, Auzolle, Auzone,—all of which would signify the rivers of the alder-trees. There would also be left to be explained the origin of names ending in enque, such as Allarenque, Laurenque, Durenque, Virenque, but it is not known what they mean. Finally, one could not deny to the Ligurians the name Ligoure, which seems to be the name of the people itself. The Aude and the Orb probably owe their designation to the Phoenician settlers; the second of these is perhaps Greek. With the Celtic period the etymologies become a trifle less uncertain. The Celtic word for water, dour, is clearly found in the Dourbie, the Dourdene and the Dourdèze, the Dourdon, the Dore and the Doire. Another Celtic name for water, esca is seen in the Ouche, the Essonne. They called a river avar; hence, the Abron, the Jabron, the Aveyron, the Arveiron, the Auron; hence probably also the Eure, the Auterne, the Authre, the Automne, the Autruche. Aven means river in the present Breton dialect; now, we find rivers called: Avène, Avon, Avègne, Avignon. From glanos, meaning brilliant, gleaming, are perhaps derived the Gland, the Glane; from vernos, alder-tree, they have like the Ligurians christened many rivers: the Vern, the Vernaison, the Vernazon; from der, oak, came the Dère. It should be added that all these words came down to us through the Latin form before acquiring their French form. Thus Bièvre and its derivatives Beuvron, Brevenne, Brevonne, derive from the Latin bibrum, itself borrowed from a Celtic word meaning beaver. Is it to the Gauls or the Romans that we owe the names Dive, Divette, Divonne? Does this mean here the fairy, or the divine one? It is difficult to ascertain. There were great resemblances between the tongues.

French and its dialects have naturally named a large number of rivers, either by rechristening them or modifying the old names to give them a French meaning. In this class we have the names suggested by the appearance or the qualities of the river:[1] the Blanche, the Claire, the Brune, the Noire, the Brillant, the Hideuse, the Vilaine, the Furieuse, the Rongeant, the Sonnant, the Creuse, the Sensée. At other times the names come from plants,[2] such as Fusain, Orge, Viorne, Liane, Gland, Orne, Oignon, Trèfle, Rouvre, Lys, Aunes, Bruyère, Troëne; names of animals:[3] Oie, Loir, Louvette, Chèvre, Heron, Ourse, Lionne, Autruche; names of every kind:[4] Mère, Cousin, Sueur, Coquille, Oeil, Oeuf, Rognon, Brêche, Vie, Automne, Blaise, Armance, Abîme. Some proudly bear absolute names: le Fleuve (the Stream), la Rivière (the River); it so happens that they are only rivulets, the one in la Manche, the other in the Alps. And finally, a little river that is probably very wise is called la Même (the Same). The majority of these later names I have taken directly from the map, but a good part of my learning I have borrowed from M. de Félice, who has given us a great deal, free from all pedantry, in his book upon les Noms de nos Rivières (The Names of our Rivers.) Is it not pleasant to know that the Seine means "the gushing one?" Those who wish to learn more may consult the source I have indicated. It is with pain that I wrest myself away from the charms of the rivers of France, for

La rivière est la mère de toute la nature.

The river is the mother of all nature.