ON THE ART OF GETTING-ON.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 14, Issue 1118, 14 January 1870, Page 3

ON THE ART OF GETTING- ON.

An English book of essays and a French book of essays, how different they be ! an English aufchor who should gather up the quintessence of his life-long experience into a series of such wicked observations as those set forth by the anonymous writer of L'Art de Parnevir would not find his work succeed, whether they were taken to represent his serious conclusions, or merely a brilliant tissue of ironic "chaff" of a highly intellectual kind. Wo don't understand irony beyond a certain point. Thackeray mingled at every turn a deep Germanic tenderness with his bitterest; speech. Arthur Helps' satire is of the mildest. Dickens indulges in delightful caricature, Carlyle laughs from the scorn of religious indignation. None of these can be doubted as holding by an ideal of excellence akin to thafc of the common conscience. But here is a Frenchman who dedicates to the Members of the Institute of France a work composed of numerous chapters on the separate acts which go to make up the one greafc act of Getting-Oa. As how, for instance, to succeed in politics,, secure to yourself a nice lucrative posfc, floor your enemies, wind round your princes, and always ride the winning horso. Such is one part of the book, marked by a most uncomfortable cachet of practical experience ; copiously illustrated by historical examples which you are asked to admire, such as Eichclieu, Mazarin, Potemkiu, and Madame de Main tenon. Leaving the governmental and political sphere, this caustic pen ranges through various other fields of action. A chapter on finance, oc" rather on financing, is printed in Chinese hieroglyphics, and extremely queer they look in the middle of the handsomely got-up book. But the mysteries thereof are, he affirms, too sacred and too complex for the vulgar eye aud the vulgar tongue ; and so he affixes merely a brief translation of the headings of the paragraphs, which are indeed a summary of the various modes by which you may dip your pen into the public ink and write a cheque upon your neighbor's balancew How, for instance, to make a hundred thousand francs without risking a halt-sous, pf the limitations of the penal code and a calculation of probabilities of escape. And a lucid exposition follows of the profound and daily- proved truth thafc the worst affairs produce the most money if only you know how to manipulate them, also of the principal combinations found to answer in all tliafc concerns the Stock Exchange and Banking System, — when you arc not a shareholder ; physiology of the shareholder, his ideas, way of acting and probably calculations ; signs by which to recognize those with whom it is profitable to do business ; principal methods of testing the same, so as to discover unerringly the animals born to be fleeoed, and who would indeed feel wounded if you did not fleece them. Such is the financial chapter ; and whatever" examples may have been, cited in the Chinese text, the use of names is, in the brief translation, scrupulously avoided. The book, cynical as ifc is, is really * Tho Life of Edmund Kaon. From Published and Origin.il Sources. By b\ \V. Hawkins. 2 vols* London: Tingslcy. 1869. * Reelierches stir I' Art de Parvnuir. Par un Contemporaiu. Pario: Amyofc. 1808.

worth reading ; and ifc i. - kI, to' understand how apt, and in. -iv .cense hove convincing, are the arguments and the illustrations crop oufc on every page. Ifc is true, unfortunately, that there is a Very" bad side to human life, and that when, according io George Eliot, did ifarry lias got his boots on, barefooted innocence is aa match for him. Allowing that the atithor, either' seriously or ironically,- takes too strong 1 atfci bitter a view of human society,- there still remains iftftch truth at the bottom of his cynicism.