Topical Guide 73
Mark Dorset
Motives for Memoir: L’Esprit de L’Escalier
If I were responding to that remark now, I would say, “No, it wouldn’t, Dudley. It would be essentially the same: it would be the same in purpose and in function. It would pull in the same frightening programs about shipwrecked boys, …”
At the time, however, I said, “I want a radio that gets different programs.” …
Ah, Beaker, I wish I had you here now. The conversation would be considerably different today from what it was then. …
Heh-heh-heh. Oh, I am rolling now, Dud. I can feel myself taking the upper hand, I can feel your grip loosening with each word. Where was I?Little Follies, “The Static of the Spheres”
Borrowed from French, the expression esprit de l’escalier, or esprit d’escalier, literally wit of (the) staircase, denotes a retort or remark that occurs to a person after the opportunity to make it has passed.
It originally referred to a witty remark coming to mind on the stairs leading away from a social gathering. The image seems to have originated in Paradoxe sur le Comédien (Paradox of the Actor), an essay on theatre by the French philosopher, writer and critic Denis Diderot …
Sedaine debuted The Philosopher Who Did Not Know He Was a Philosopher. I was more interested in the success of the play than he was; jealousy of talents is a vice that is foreign to me … . The Philosopher Who Did Not Know He Was a Philosopher staggers at the first, at the second performance, and I am very distressed; at the third he went to the skies, and I was overjoyed. The next morning I throw myself in a cab, I run after Sedaine; … . I approach him; I throw my arms around his neck; my voice deserts me, and tears run down my cheeks. Behold the sensitive and mediocre man. Sedaine, motionless and cold, looks at me and says: “Ah! Monsieur Diderot, how handsome you are!” Behold the observer and the man of genius.
I recounted this episode one day at table, with a man whose superior talents made him destined to occupy the most important place of the State, M. Necker; there were quite a few men of letters there, among them Marmontel, whom I love and to whom I am dear. The latter said to me ironically: “You will see that when Voltaire is sorry at the simple story of a pathetic trait and that Sedaine keeps his cool at the sight of a friend who bursts into tears, it is Voltaire who is the ordinary man and Sedaine the man of genius!” This apostrophe disconcerted me and reduced me to silence, because a sensitive man, like me, loses his mind completely over what is objected to him, and does not recover his wits until he’s at the bottom of the stairs. Another, cold and master of himself, would have replied to Marmontel: “Your reflection would be better in another mouth than yours, because you do not feel more than Sedaine and that you also do very beautiful things, and that, running the same career as him, you could leave it to your neighbor to assess his merit impartially. But without wanting to prefer Sedaine to Voltaire, or Voltaire to Sedaine, could you tell me what would have come out of the mind of the author of The Philosopher Who Did Not Know He Was a Philosopher, of The Deserter, of Paris Saved, if, instead of spending thirty-five years of his life to spoil the plaster and cut the stone, he would have spent all this time, like Voltaire, you and me, in reading and meditating on Homer, Virgil, Tasso, Cicero, Demosthenes, and Tacitus? We will never know how to see like him, and he would have learned to say like us. I look at him as one of Shakespeare’s great-nephews; this Shakespeare, whom I will compare neither to the Apollo of Belvedere, nor to the Gladiator, nor to the Antinous, nor to the Hercules of Glycon, but indeed to Saint Christopher of Our Lady, a shapeless colossus, crudely sculpted, but between whose legs we would all pass without our forehead touching its shameful parts.”1Denis Diderot, The Paradox of the Actor (translated by Google, with some assistance from me, MD)
[Note to self: L’esprit de l’escalier must be included in The Topical Autobiography of Mark Dorset. I can think of half a dozen illustrative anecdotes just off the top of my head.]
[more to come on Tuesday, August 24, 2021]
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Sedaine [Michel-Jean Sedaine] donne Le Philosophe sans le savoir. Je m’intéressais plus vivement que lui au succès de la pièce ; la jalousie de talents est un vice qui m’est étranger, j’en ai assez d’autres sans celui-là : j’atteste tous mes confrères en littérature, lorsqu’ils ont daigné quelquefois me consulter sur leurs ouvrages, Le Philosophe sans le savoir chancelle à la première, à la seconde représentation, et j’en suis bien affligé ; à la troisième, il va aux nues, et j’en suis transporté de joie. Le lendemain matin je me jette dans un fiacre, je cours après Sedaine ; c’était en hiver, il faisait le froid le plus rigoureux ; je vais partout où j’espère le trouver. J’apprends qu’il est au fond du faubourg Saint-Antoine, je m’y fais conduire. Je l’aborde ; je jette mes bras autour de son cou ; la voix me manque, et les larmes me coulent le long des joues. Voilà l’homme sensible et médiocre. Sedaine, immobile et froid, me regarde et me dit : « Ah ! Monsieur Diderot, que vous êtes beau ! » Voilà l’observateur et l’homme de génie.
Ce fait, je le racontais un jour à table, chez un homme queses talents supérieurs destinaient à occuper la place la plusimportante de l’État, chez M. Necker; il y avait un assezgrand nombre de gens de lettres, entre lesquels Marmontel, que j’aime et à qui je suis cher. Celui-ci me dit ironiquement : « Vous verrez que lorsque Voltaire se désole au simple récitd’un trait pathétique et que Sedaine garde son sang-froid à la vue d’un ami qui fond en larmes, c’est Voltaire qui est l’homme ordinaire et Sedaine l’homme de génie ! » Cette apostrophe me déconcerte et me réduit au silence, parce que l’homme sensible, comme moi, tout entier à ce qu’on lui objecte, perd la tête et ne se retrouve qu’au bas de l’escalier. Un autre, froid et maître de lui-même, aurait répondu à Marmontel : « Votre réflexion serait mieux dans une autre bouche que la vôtre, parce que vous ne sentez pas plus que Sedaine et que vous faites aussi de fort belles choses, et que, courant la même carrière que lui, vous pouviez laisser à votre voisin le soin d’apprécier impartialement son mérite. Mais sans vouloir préférer Sedaine à Voltaire, ni Voltaire à Sedaine, pourriez-vous me dire ce qui serait sorti de la tête de l’auteur du Philosophe sans le savoir, du Déserteur et de Paris sauvé, si, au lieu de passer trente-cinq ans de sa vie à gâcher le plâtre et à couper la pierre, il eût employé tout ce temps, comme Voltaire, vous et moi, à lire et à méditer Homère, Virgile, le Tasse, Cicéron, Démosthène et Tacite ? Nous ne saurons jamais voir comme lui, et il aurait appris à dire comme nous. Je le regarde comme un des arrière-neveux de Shakespeare ; ce Shakespeare, que je ne comparerai ni à l’Apollon du Belvédère, ni au Gladiateur, ni à l’Antinoüs, ni à l’Hercule de Glycon, mais bien au saint Christophe de Notre-Dame, colosse informe, grossièrement sculpté, mais entre les jambes duquel nous passerions tous sans que notre front touchât à ses parties honteuses.»
Denis Diderot, Paradoxe sur le comédien, Wikisource, la bibliothèque libre