Jeu de piste

Mathieu Lindon, « Ce que Shandy », Libération, 26 février 2004 :

Dans Abrégé d’histoire de la littérature portative [Historia abreviada de la literatura portátil], son premier livre traduit en français (chez Bourgois) l’écrivain espagnol contemporain Enrique Vila-Matas invente une sorte de société secrète d’écrivains et d’artistes, de Ramón Gómez de la Serna à Marcel Duchamp, qu’il caractérise comme étant composée de «shandys», faisant un substantif du nom propre. Il prétend que Valery Larbaud imposait une formule pour les impétrants qui n’était autre qu’une citation de Tristram Shandy :

« Le sérieux est un continent mystérieux du corps, utilisé pour cacher
les défauts de l’esprit. »

Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy (1759), livre I, chap. XI :

Poor Yorick […] was utterly unpractised in the world; and at the age of twenty-six, knew just about as well how to steer his course in it, as a romping, unsuspicious girl of thirteen: So that upon his first setting out, the brisk gale of his spirits, as you will imagine, ran him foul ten times in a day of somebody’s tackling; and as the grave and more slow-paced were oftenest in his way,—you may likewise imagine, ’twas with such he had generally the ill luck to get the most entangled. For aught I know there might be some mixture of unlucky wit at the bottom of such Fracas:—For, to speak the truth, Yorick had an invincible dislike and opposition in his nature to gravity;—not to gravity as such;—for where gravity was wanted, he would be the most grave or serious of mortal men for days and weeks together;—but he was an enemy to the affectation of it, and declared open war against it, only as it appeared a cloak for ignorance, or for folly: and then, whenever it fell in his way, however sheltered and protected, he seldom gave it much quarter.

Sometimes, in his wild way of talking, he would say, that Gravity was an errant scoundrel, and he would add,—of the most dangerous kind too,— because a sly one; and that he verily believed, more honest, well-meaning people were bubbled out of their goods and money by it in one twelve-month, than by pocket-picking and shop-lifting in seven. In the naked temper which a merry heart discovered, he would say there was no danger,—but to itself:—whereas the very essence of gravity was design, and consequently deceit;—’twas a taught trick to gain credit of the world for more sense and knowledge than a man was worth; and that, with all its pretensions,—it was no better, but often worse, than what a French wit had long ago defined it,—viz. ‘A mysterious carriage of the body to cover the defects of the mind;’—which definition of gravity, Yorick, with great imprudence, would say, deserved to be wrote in letters of gold.

François de La Rochefoucauld, maxime 257 (éd. de 1678) :

« La gravité est un mystère du corps inventé pour cacher les défauts de l’esprit. »



Je trouve déplaisant de supposer que Valery Larbaud ait pu, lui, ne pas reconnaître chez Sterne la maxime de La Rochefoucauld.