1.7 Diderot and his soul mates
Tuesday, 25. August 2009
One day in 1742, when Diderot was passing time in a café, he was introduced to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a young man coming from Geneva who had just arrived in town. Rousseau had moved to Paris to get rich. He had developed a complicated mathematical system that according to him could be useful for musical notation. He planned to sell it to some of the great musicians in Paris. However, nobody was interested in his ideas and Rousseau had to work in other ways for a living. He tried to do so by being a copyist of musical notation, before he became famous as a philosopher and writer.
Diderot and Rousseau liked each other. They were about the same age, around thirty. They shared several interests, for instance they both liked to play chess (although most of the games were won by Rousseau who was a much stronger player); they both loved music and mathematics. Later on Rousseau became one of the contributors to the Encyclopedia, for which he wrote a series of articles on music. The friendship lasted for fifteen years.
Gradually they drifted apart. Then Rousseau, suffering from paranoia, publicly broke off his bonds with Diderot.
The other fundamental friendship in Diderot’s life was with the German Friedrich Melchior Grimm who was ten years younger. Before Grimm arrived in Paris, coming from Regensburg, he had developed a keen interest in music and drama. He became the secretary to various aristocratic persons. Later he wrote a gazette for several royal courts in Europe. Diderot and Grimm stayed friends for many years and it is only three years before Diderot died that their relationship came to an end, because of a deep disappointment from Diderot’s side with regard to his friend’s political ambitions.
We could say that Diderot has practised fully his ideas concerning friendship; we can see how his friendships sadly ended because of the habit forming part and when it came to interference with each other’s lives.
Apparently these are the touchy issues and not only three hundred years ago…
Stan Wright Says:
Hi Cora
I am constantly amazed at how what appears to be the smallest of matters can breakdown and destroy friendships that have lasted for many years. I have been on the outside looking-in on a number of occasions where this has happened; but thankfully not yet experienced it myself.
It’s almost like a hardwired switch has been operated in the brain and no amount of talking or reasoning is going to make the slightest bit of difference. Why is this?
Stan
Cora Says:
Hi Stan
Strange, isn’t it, how easily people can destroy their friendships…
But is it really that easy, let’s presume there’s something underneath.
A friendship has been ended because one of both feels terribly hurt by the other, by a misjudgement, a misunderstanding, or another grief… To show how horrific this experience is the injured friend wants to make a big, serious gesture, the worst that he can think of, that is by ending the friendship. And suffering from ending it.
In the case of Diderot and Rousseau, after their break they both lived for another twenty five years. Both were well-known men and thus informed about each other’s activities in life. By their letters we know that they never stopped regretting the loss of their friendship, and yet, they never succeeded in repairing this loss.
So I think we do suffer from such deeds like ending a cherished friendship. It shows as well our incompetence, that it is hard to fill up each other’s gaps…