CLXXXI. Intellectual excellence can seldom be a source of much satisfaction to the possessor. In a gross period, or in vulgarsociety, it is not understood; and among those who are refined enough to appreciate its value, it ceases to be a distinction.
CLXXXII. There is, I think, an essential difference of character in mankind, between those who wishto do, and those who wish tohavecertain things. I observe persons expressing a great desire to possess fine horses, hounds, dress, equipage, &c. and an envy of those who have them. I myself have no such feeling, nor the least ambition to shine, except by doing something better than others. I have the love of power, but not of property. I should like to be able to outstrip a greyhound in speed; but I should be ashamed to take any merit to myself from possessing the fleetest greyhound in the world. I cannot transfer my personal identity from myself to what I merely callmine. The generality of mankind are contented to be estimated by what they possess, instead of what they are.
CLXXXIII. Buonaparte observes, that the diplomatists of the new school were no match for those brought up under the ancientregime. The reason probably is, that the modern style of intellect inclines to abstract reasoning and general propositions, and pays less attention to individual character, interests, and circumstances. The moderns have, therefore, less tact in watching the designs of others, and less closeness in hiding their own. They perhaps have a greater knowledge of things, but less of the world. They calculate the force of an argument, and rely on its success, movingin vacuo, without sufficiently allowing for the resistance of opinion and prejudice.
CLXXXIV. The most comprehensive reasoners are not always the deepest or nicest observers. They are apt to take things for granted too much, as parts of a system. Lord Egmont, in a speech in Parliament, in the year 1750, has the following remarkable observations on this subject. ‘It is not common-sense, but downright madness, to follow general principles in this wild manner without limitation or reserve; and give me leave to say one thing, which I hope will be long remembered, and well thought upon by all those who hear me—that those gentlemen who plume themselves thus upon their open and extensive understandings, are in fact, the men of the narrowest principles in the kingdom. For what is a narrow mind? It is a mind that sees any proposition in one single contracted point of view, unable to complicate any subject with the circumstances, or considerations, that are or may or ought to be combined with it. And pray, what is that understanding which looks upon the question ofnaturalizationonly in this general view, that naturalization is anincrease of the people, and the increase of the people is the riches of the nation? Never admitting the least reflection, what the people are whom you let in upon us; how, in the present bad regulation of the police, they are to be employed or maintained; how their principles, opinions, or practice may influence the religion or politics of the state, or what operation their admission may have upon the peace and tranquillity of the country. Is not such a genius equally contemptible and narrow with that of the poorest mortal upon earth, who grovels for his whole life within the verge of the opposite extreme?’
CLXXXV. In an Englishman, a diversity of profession and pursuit (as the having been a soldier, a valet, a player, &c.) implies a dissipation and dissoluteness of character, and a fitness for nothing. In a Frenchman, it only shews a natural vivacity of disposition, and a fitness for everything.
CLXXXVI. Impudence, like everything else, has its limits. Let a man be ever so hardened and unblushing, there is a point at which his courage is sure to fail him; and not being able to carry off the matter with his usual air of confidence, he becomes more completely confused and awkward than any one else would in the same circumstances.
CLXXXVII. Half the miseries of human life proceed from our not perceiving the incompatibility of different attainments, and consequently aiming at too much. We make ourselves wretched in vainly aspiring after advantages we are deprived of; and do not consider that if we had these advantages, it would be quite impossible for us to retain those which we actually do possess, and which, after all, if it were put to the question, we would not consent to part with for the sake of any others.
CLXXXVIII. If we use no ceremony towards others, we shall be treated without any. People are soon tired of paying trifling attentions to those who receive them with coldness, and return them with neglect.
CLXXXIX. Surly natures have more pleasure in disobliging others than in serving themselves.
CXC. People in general consult their prevailing humour or ruling passion (whatever it may be) much more than their interest.
CXCI. One of the painters (Teniers,) has represented monkeys with a monk’s cloak and cowl. This has a ludicrous effect enough.To a superior race of beings the pretensions of mankind to extraordinary sanctity and virtue must seem equally ridiculous.
CXCII. When we speak ill of people behind their backs, and are civil to them to their faces, we may be accused of insincerity. But the contradiction is less owing to insincerity than to the change of circumstances. We think well of them while we are with them; and in their absence recollect the ill we durst not hint at or acknowledge to ourselves in their presence.
CXCIII. Our opinions are not our own, but in the power of sympathy. If a person tells us a palpable falsehood, we not only dare not contradict him, but we dare hardly disbelieve himto his face. A lie boldly uttered has the effect of truth for the instant.
CXCIV. A man’s reputation is not in his own keeping, but lies at the mercy of the profligacy of others. Calumny requires no proof. The throwing out malicious imputations against any character leaves a stain, which no after-reputation can wipe out. To create an unfavourable impression, it is not necessary that certain things should betrue, but that theyhave been said. The imagination is of so delicate a texture, that even words wound it.
CXCV. A nickname is a mode of insinuating a prejudice against another under some general designation, which, as it offers no proof, admits of no reply.
CXCVI. It does not render the person less contemptible or ridiculous in vulgar opinion, because it may be harmless in itself, or even downright nonsense. By repeating it incessantly, and leaving out every other characteristic of the individual, whom we wish to make a bye-word of, it seems as if he were an abstraction of insignificance.
CXCVII. Want of principle is power. Truth and honesty set a limit to our efforts, which impudence and hypocrisy easily overleap.
CXCVIII. There are many who talk on from ignorance, rather than from knowledge; and who find the former an inexhaustible fund of conversation.
CXCIX. Nothing gives such a blow to friendship as the detecting another in an untruth: it strikes at the root of our confidence ever after.
CC. In estimating the value of an acquaintance or even friend, we give a preference to intellectual or convivial over moral qualities.The truth is, that in our habitual intercourse with others, we much oftener require to be amused than assisted. We consider less, therefore, what a person with whom we are intimate is ready to do for us in critical emergencies, than what he has to say on ordinary occasions. We dispense with his services, if he only saves us fromennui. In civilised society, words are of as much importance as things.
CCI. We cultivate the society of those who are above us in station, and beneath us in capacity. The one we do from choice, the other from necessity. Our interest dictates our submission to the first; our vanity is flattered by the homage of the last.
CCII. A man of talents, who shrinks from a collision with his equals or superiors, will soon sink below himself. We improve by trying our strength with others, not by shewing it off. A person who shuts himself up in a little circle of dependants and admirers for fear of losing ground in his own opinion by jostling with the world at large, may continue to be gaped at by fools, but will forfeit the respect of sober and sensible men.
CCIII. There are others, who entertaining a high opinion of themselves, and not being able (for want of plausible qualities) to gather a circle of butterflies round them, retire into solitude, and there worship theEchoesand themselves. They gain this advantage by it—theEchoesdo not contradict them. But it is a question, whether by dwelling always on their own virtues and merits, unmolested, they increase the stock. They, indeed, pamper their ruling vices, and pile them mountain-high; and looking down on the world from the elevation of their retreat, idly fancy that the world has nothing to do but to look up to them with wondering eyes.
CCIV. It is a false principle, that because we are entirely occupied with ourselves, we must equally occupy the thoughts of others. The contrary inference is the fair one.
CCV. It is better to desire than to enjoy—to love than to be loved.
CCVI. Every one would rather be Raphael than Hogarth. Without entering into the question of the talent required for their different works, or the pleasure derived from them, we prefer that which confers dignity on human nature to that which degrades it. We would wish todowhat we would wish tobe. And, moreover, it is most difficult to do what it is most difficult to be.
CCVII. A selfish feeling requires less moral capacity than a benevolent one: a selfish expression requires less intellectual capacity to execute it than a benevolent one; for in expression, and all that relates to it, the intellectual is the reflection of the moral. Raphael’s figures are sustained byideas: Hogarth’s are distorted by mechanical habits and instincts. It is elevation of thought that gives grandeur and delicacy of expression to passion. The expansion and refinement of the soul are seen in the face as in a mirror. An enlargement of purpose gives a corresponding enlargement of form. Themind, as it were, acts over the whole body, and animates it equally; while petty and local interests seize on particular parts, and distract it by contrary and mean expressions. Now, if mental expression has this superior grandeur and grace, we can account at once for the superiority of Raphael. For there is no doubt, that it is more difficult to give a whole continuously and proportionably than to give the parts separate and disjointed, or to diffuse the same subtle but powerful expression over a large mass than to caricature it in a single part or feature. The actions in Raphael are like a branch of a tree swept by the surging blast; those in Hogarth like straws whirled and twitched about in the gusts and eddies of passion. I do not mean to say that goodness alone constitutes greatness, but mental power does. Hogarth’s Good Apprentice is insipid: Raphael has clothed Elymas the Sorcerer with all the dignity and grandeur of vice. Selfish characters and passions borrow greatness from the range of imagination, and strength of purpose; and besides, have an advantage in natural force and interest.
CCVIII. We find persons who are actuated in all their tastes and feelings by a spirit of contradiction. They like nothing that other people do, and have a natural aversion to whatever is agreeable in itself. They read books that no one else reads; and are delighted with passages that no one understands but themselves. They only arrive at beauties through faults and difficulties; and all their conceptions are brought to light by a sort of Cæsarean process. This is either an affectation of singularity; or a morbid taste, that can relish nothing that is obvious and simple.
CCIX. An unaccountable spirit of contradiction is sometimes carried into men’s behaviour and actions. They never do anything from a direct motive, or in a straightforward manner. They get rid of all sorts of obligations, and rush on destruction without the shadow of an excuse. They take a perverse delight in acting not only contrary to reason, but in opposition to their own inclinations and passions, and are for ever in a state of cross-purposes with themselves.
CCX. There are some persons who never decide from deliberate motives at all, but are the mere creatures of impulse.
CCXI. Insignificant people are a necessary relief in society. Such characters are extremely agreeable, and even favourites, if they appear satisfied with the part they have to perform.
CCXII. Little men seldom seem conscious of their diminutive size; or make up for it by the erectness of their persons, or a peculiarly dapper air and manner.
CCXIII. Any one is to be pitied, who has just sense enough to perceive his deficiencies.
CCXIV. I had rather be deformed than a dwarf and well-made. The one may be attributed to accident; the other looks like a deliberate insult on the part of nature.
CCXV. Personal deformity, in the well-disposed, produces a fine placid expression of countenance; in the ill-tempered and peevish, a keen, sarcastic one.
CCXVI. People say ill-natured things without design, but not without having a pleasure in them.
CCXVII. A person who blunders upon system, has a secret motive for what he does, unknown to himself.
CCXVIII. If any one by his general conduct contrives to part friends, he may not be aware that such is the tendency of his actions, but assuredly it is their motive. He has more pleasure in seeing others cold and distant, than cordial and intimate.
CCXIX. A person who constantly meddles to no purpose, means to do harm, and is not sorry to find he has succeeded.
CCXX. Cunning is natural to mankind. It is the sense of our weakness, and an attempt to effect by concealment what we cannot do openly and by force.
CCXXI. In love we never think of moral qualities, and scarcely of intellectual ones. Temperament and manner alone (with beauty) excite love.
CCXXII. There is no one thoroughly despicable. We cannot descend much lower than an ideot; and an ideot has some advantages over a wise man.
CCXXIII. Comparisons are odious, because they reduce every one to a standard he ought not to be tried by, or leave us in possession only of those claims which we can set up, to the entire exclusion of others. By striking off the common qualities, the remainder of excellence is brought down to a contemptible fraction. A man may be six feet high, and only an inch taller than another. In comparisons, this difference of an inch is the only thing thought of or ever brought into question. The greatest genius or virtue soon dwindles into nothing by such a mode of computation.
CCXXIV. It is a fine remark of Rousseau’s, that the best of us differ from others in fewer particulars than we agree with them in. The difference between a tall and a short man is only a few inches, whereas they are both several feet high. So a wise or learned man knows many things, of which the vulgar are ignorant; but there is a still greater number of things, the knowledge of which they share in common with him.
CCXXV. I am always afraid of a fool. One cannot be sure that he is not a knave as well.
CCXXVI. Weakness has its hidden resources, as well as strength. There is a degree of folly and meanness which we cannot calculate upon, and by which we are as much liable to be foiled, as by the greatest ability or courage.
CCXXVII. We can only be degraded in a contest with low natures. The advantages that others obtain over us are fair and honourable to both parties.
CCXXVIII. Reflection makes men cowards. There is no object that can be put in competition with life, unless it is viewed through the medium of passion, and we are hurried away by the impulse of the moment.
CCXXIX. The youth is better than the old age of friendship.
CCXXX. In the course of a long acquaintance we have repeated all our good things, and discussed all our favourite topics several times over, so that our conversation becomes a mockery of social intercourse. We might as well talk to ourselves. The soil of friendship is worn out with constant use. Habit may still attach us to each other, but we feel ourselves fettered by it. Old friends might be compared to old married people without the tie of children.
CCXXXI. We grow tired of ourselves, much more of otherpeople. Use may in part reconcile us to our own tediousness, but we do not adopt that of others on the same paternal principle. We may be willing to tell a story twice, never to hear one more than once.
CCXXXII. If we are long absent from our friends, we forget them: if we are constantly with them, we despise them.
CCXXXIII. There are no rules for friendship. It must be left to itself; we cannot force it any more than love.
CCXXXIV. The most violent friendships soonest wear themselves out.
CCXXXV. To be capable of steady friendship or lasting love, are the two greatest proofs, not only of goodness of heart, but of strength of mind.
CCXXXVI. It makes us proud when our love of a mistress is returned: it ought to make us prouder that we can love her for herself alone, without the aid of any such selfish reflection. This is the religion of love.
CCXXXVII. An English officer who had been engaged in an intrigue in Italy, going home one night, stumbled over a man fast asleep on the stairs. It was a bravo who had been hired to assassinate him. Such, in this man, was the force of conscience!
CCXXXVIII. An eminent artist having succeeded in a picture which drew crowds to admire it, received a letter from a shuffling old relation in these terms, ‘Dear Cousin, now you may draw good bills with a vengeance.’ Such is the force of habit! This man only wished to be a Raphael that he might carry on his old trade of drawing bills.
CCXXXIX. Mankind are a herd of knaves and fools. It is necessary to join the crowd, or get out of their way, in order not to be trampled to death by them.
CCXL. To think the worst of others, and to do the best we can ourselves, is a safe rule, but a hard one to practise.
CCXLI. To think ill of mankind and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue.
CCXLII. We may hate and love the same person, nay even at the same moment.
CCXLIII. We never hate those whom we have once loved, merely because they have injured us. ‘We may kill those of whom we are jealous,’ says Fielding, ‘but we do not hate them.’ We are enraged at their conduct and at ourselves as the objects of it, but this does not alter our passion for them. The reason is, we loved them without their loving us; we do not hate them because they hate us. Love may turn to indifference with possession, but is irritated by disappointment.
CCXLIV. Revenge against the object of our love is madness. No one would kill the woman he loves, but that he thinks he can bring her to life afterwards. Her death seems to him as momentary as his own rash act.See Othello.—‘My wife! I have no wife,’ &c. He stabbed not at her life, but at her falsehood; he thought to kill the wanton, and preserve the wife.
CCXLV. We revenge in haste and passion: we repent at leisure and from reflection.
CCXLVI. By retaliating our sufferings on the heads of those we love, we get rid of a present uneasiness, and incur lasting remorse. With the accomplishment of our revenge our fondness returns; so that we feel the injury we have done them, even more than they do.
CCXLVII. I think men formerly were more jealous of their rivals in love—they are now more jealous of their mistresses, and lay the blame on them. That is, we formerly thought more of the mere possession of the person, which the removal of a favoured lover prevented, and we now think more of a woman’s affections, which may still follow him to the tomb. To kill a rival is to kill a fool; but the Goddess of our idolatry may be a sacrifice worthy of the Gods. Hackman did not think of shooting Lord Sandwich, but Miss Ray.
CCXLVIII. Many people in reasoning on the passions make a continual appeal to common sense. But passion is without common sense, and we must frequently discard the one in speaking of the other.
CCXLIX. It is provoking to hear people at their ease talking reason to others in a state of violent suffering. If you can remove their suffering by speaking a word, do so; and then they will be in a state to hear calm reason.
CCL. There is nothing that I so hate as I do to hear a common-place set up against a feeling of truth and nature.
CCLI. People try to reconcile you to a disappointment in love, by asking why you should cherish a passion for an object that has proved itself worthless. Had you known this before, you would not have encouraged the passion; but that having been once formed, knowledge does not destroy it. If we have drank poison, finding it out does not prevent its being in our veins: so passion leaves its poison in the mind! It is the nature of all passion and of all habitual affection; we throw ourselves upon it at a venture, but we cannot return by choice. If it is a wife that has proved unworthy, men compassionate the loss, because there is a tie, they say, which we cannot get rid of. But has the heart no ties? Or if it is a child, they understand it. But is not true love a child? Or when another has become a part of ourselves, ‘where we must live or have no life at all,’ can we tear them from us in an instant?—No: these bargains are for life; and that for which our souls have sighed for years, cannot be forgotten with a breath, and without a pang.
CCLII. Besides, it is uncertainty and suspense that chiefly irritate jealousy to madness. When we know our fate, we become gradually reconciled to it, and try to forget a useless sorrow.
CCLIII. It is wonderful how often we see and hear of Shakspeare’s plays without being annoyed with it. Were it any other writer, we should be sick to death of the very name. But his volumes are like that of nature, we can turn to them again and again:
‘Age cannot wither, nor custom staleHis infinite variety.’
‘Age cannot wither, nor custom staleHis infinite variety.’
‘Age cannot wither, nor custom staleHis infinite variety.’
‘Age cannot wither, nor custom stale
His infinite variety.’
CCLIV. The contempt of a wanton for a man who is determined to think her virtuous, is perhaps the strongest of all others. He officiously reminds her of what she ought to be; and she avenges the galling sense of lost character on the fool who still believes in it.
CCLV. To find that a woman whom we loved has forfeited her character, is the same thing as to learn that she is dead.
CCLVI. The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.
CCLVII. Once a renegado, and always a renegado.
CCLVIII. By speaking truth to the really beautiful, we learn to flatter other women.
CCLIX. There is a kind of ugliness which is not disagreeable to women. It is that which is connected with the expression of strong but bad passions, and implies spirit and power.
CCLX. People do not persist in their vices because they are not weary of them, but because they cannot leave them off. It is the nature of vice to leave us no resource but in itself.
CCLXI. Our consciousness of injustice makes us add to the injury. By aggravating a wrong, we seem to ourselves to justify it. The repetition of the blow inflames our passion and deadens reflection.
CCLXII. In confessing the greatest offences, a criminal gives himself credit for his candour. You and he seem to have come to an amicable understanding on his character at last.
CCLXIII. A barefaced profligacy often succeeds to an overstrained preciseness in morals. People in a less licentious age carefully conceal the vices they have; as they afterwards, with an air of philosophic freedom, set up for those they have not.
CCLXIV. It is a sign that real religion is in a state of decay, when passages in compliment to it are applauded at the theatre. Morals and sentiment fall within the province of the stage; but religion, except where it is considered as a beautiful fiction which ought to be treated with lenity, does not depend upon our suffrages.
CCLXV. There are persons to whom success gives no satisfaction, unless it is accompanied with dishonesty. Such people willingly ruin themselves in order to ruin others.
CCLXVI. Habitual liars invent falsehoods, not to gain any end or even to deceive their hearers, but to amuse themselves. It is partly practice and partly habit. It requires an effort in them to speak truth.
CCLXVII. A knave thinks himself a fool, all the time he is not making a fool of some other person.
CCLXVIII. Fontenelle said, ‘If his hand were full of truths, he would not open his fingers to let them out.’ Was this a satire on truth or on mankind?
CCLXIX. The best kind of conversation is that which is made up of observations, reflections, and anecdotes. A string of stories without application is as tiresome as a long-winded argument.
CCLXX. The most insignificant people are the most apt to sneer at others. They are safe from reprisals, and have no hope of rising in their own esteem, but by lowering their neighbours. The severest critics are always those, who have either never attempted, or who have failed in original composition.
CCLXXI. More remarks are made upon any one’s dress, looks, &c. in walking twenty yards along the streets of Edinburgh, or other provincial towns, than in passing from one end of London to the other.
CCLXXII. There is less impertinence and more independence in London than in any other place in the kingdom.
CCLXXIII. A man who meets thousands of people in a day who never saw or heard of him before, if he thinks at all, soon learns to think little of himself. London is the place where a man of sense is soonest cured of his coxcombry, or where a fool may indulge his vanity with impunity, by giving himself what airs he pleases. A valet and a lord are there nearly on a level. Among a million of men, we do not count the units, for we have not time.
CCLXXIV. There is some virtue in almost every vice, except hypocrisy; and even that, while it is a mockery of virtue, is at the same time a compliment to it.
CCLXXV. It does not follow that a man is a hypocrite, because his actions give the lie to his words. If he at one time seems a saint, and at other times a sinner, he possibly is both in reality, as well as in appearance. A person may be fond of vice and of virtue too; and practise one or the other, according to the temptation of the moment. A priest may be pious, and a sot or bigot. A woman may be modest, and a rake at heart. A poet may admire the beauties of nature, and be envious of those of other writers. A moralist may act contrary to his own precepts, and yet be sincere in recommending them to others. These are indeed contradictions, but they arise out of the contradictory qualities in our nature. A man is a hypocrite only when he affects to take a delight in what he does not feel, not because he takes a perverse delight in opposite things.
CCLXXVI. The greatest offence against virtue is to speak ill of it. To recommend certain things is worse than to practise them. There may be an excuse for the last in the frailty of passion; but the former can arise from nothing but an utter depravity of disposition. Any one may yield to temptation, and yet feel a sincere love andaspiration after virtue; but he who maintains vice in theory, has not even the idea or capacity for virtue in his mind. Men err: fiends only make a mock at goodness.
CCLXXVII. The passions make antitheses and subtle distinctions, finer than any pen.
CCLXXVIII. I used to think that men were governed by their passions more than by their interest or reason, till I heard the contrary maintained in Scotland,viz.that themain-chanceis the great object in life, and the proof given of it was, that every man in the street where we were talking, however he might have a particularhobby, minded his business as the principal thing, and endeavoured to make both ends meet at the end of the year. This was a shrewd argument, and it was Scotch. I could only answer it in my own mind by turning to different persons among my acquaintance who have been ruined with their eyes open by some whim or fancy. One, for instance, married a girl of the town: a second divorced his wife to marry a wench at a lodging-house, who refused him, and whose cruelty and charms are the torment of his own life, and that of all his friends: a third drank himself to death: a fourth is the dupe and victim of quack advertisements: a fifth is the slave of his wife’s ill-humour: a sixth quarrels with all his friends without any motive: a seventh lies on to the end of the chapter, and to his own ruin, &c. It is true none of these are Scotchmen; and yet they live in houses, rather than in the open air, and follow some trade or vocation to avoid starving outright. If this is what is meant by a calculation of consequences, the doctrine may hold true; but it does not infringe upon the main point. It affects the husk, the shell, but not the kernel of our dispositions. The pleasure or torment of our lives is in the pursuit of some favourite passion or perverse humour.
‘Within our bosoms reigns another lord,Passion, sole judge and umpire of itself.’
‘Within our bosoms reigns another lord,Passion, sole judge and umpire of itself.’
‘Within our bosoms reigns another lord,Passion, sole judge and umpire of itself.’
‘Within our bosoms reigns another lord,
Passion, sole judge and umpire of itself.’
CCLXXIX. There are few things more contemptible than the conversation of men of the town. It is made up of the technicalities and cant of all professions, without the spirit or knowledge of any. It is flashy and vapid, and is like the rinsings of different liquors at a night-cellar, instead of a bottle of fine old port. It is without clearness or body, and a heap of affectation.
CCLXXX. The conversation of players is either dull or bad. They are tempted to say gay or fine things from the habit of uttering them with applause on the stage, and unable to do it from the habit ofrepeating what is set down for them by rote. A good comic actor, if he is a sensible man, will generally be silent in company. It is not his profession to inventbon mots, but to deliver them; and he will scorn to produce a theatrical effect by grimace and mere vivacity. A great tragic actress should be amute, except on the stage. She cannot raise the tone of common conversation to that of tragedy, and any other must be quite insipid to her. Repose is necessary to her. She who died the night before in Cleopatra, ought not to revive till she appears again as Cassandra or Aspasia. In the intervals of her great characters, her own should be a blank, or an unforced, unstudied part.
CCLXXXI. To marry an actress for the admiration she excites on the stage, is to imitate the man who boughtPunch.
CCLXXXII. To expect an author to talk as he writes is ridiculous; or even if he did, you would find fault with him as a pedant. We shouldreadauthors, and not converse with them.
CCLXXXIII. Extremes meet. Excessive refinement is often combined with equal grossness. They act as a relief to each other, and please by contrast.
CCLXXXIV. The seeds of many of our vices are sown in our blood: others we owe to the bile or a fit of indigestion. A sane mind is generally the effect of a sane body.
CCLXXXV. Health and good temper are the two greatest blessings in life. In all the rest, men are equal, or find an equivalent.
CCLXXXVI. Poverty, labour, and calamity are not without their luxuries; which the rich, the indolent, and the fortunate, in vain seek for.
CCLXXXVII. Good and ill seem as necessary to human life as light and shade are to a picture. We grow weary of uniform success, and pleasure soon surfeits. Pain makes ease delightful; hunger relishes the homeliest food, fatigue turns the hardest bed to down; and the difficulty and uncertainty of pursuit in all cases enhance the value of possession. The wretched are in this respect fortunate, that they have the strongest yearnings after happiness; and to desire is in some sense to enjoy. If the schemes of Utopians could be realised, the tone of society would be changed from what it is, into a sort of insipid high life. There could be no fine tragedies written; nor would there be any pleasure in seeing them. We tend to this conclusion already with the progress of civilisation.
CCLXXXVIII. The pleasure derived from tragedy is to be accounted for in this way, that, by painting the extremes of human calamity, it by contrast kindles the affections, and raises the most intense imagination and desire of the contrary good.
CCLXXXIX. The question respecting dramatic illusion has not been fairly stated. There are different degrees and kinds of belief. The point is not whether we do or do not believe what we see to be a positive reality, but how far and in what manner we believe in it. We do not say every moment to ourselves, ‘This is real:’ but neither do we say every moment, ‘This is not real.’ The involuntary impression steals upon us till we recollect ourselves. The appearance of reality, in fact, is the reality, so long and in as far as we are not conscious of the contradictory circumstances that disprove it. The belief in a well-acted tragedy never amounts to what the witnessing the actual scene would prove, and never sinks into a mere phantasmagoria. Its power of affecting us is not, however, taken away, even if we abstract the feeling of identity; for it still suggests a stronger idea of what the realitywould be, just as a picture reminds us more powerfully of the person for whom it is intended, though we are conscious it is not the same.
CCXC. We have more faith in a well-written romance, while we are reading it, than in common history. The vividness of the representations in the one case, more than counterbalances the mere knowledge of the truth of the facts in the other.
CCXCI. It is remarkable how virtuous and generously disposed every one is at a play. We uniformly applaud what is right and condemn what is wrong, when it costs us nothing but the sentiment.
CCXCII. Great natural advantages are seldom combined with great acquired ones, because they render the labour required to attain the last superfluous and irksome. It is only necessary to be admired; and if we are admired for the graces of our persons, we shall not be at much pains to adorn our minds. If Pope had been a beautiful youth, he would not have written The Rape of the Lock.[22]A beautiful woman, who has only to shew herself to be admired, and is famous by nature, will be in no danger of becoming abluestocking, to attract notice by her learning, or to hide her defects.
CCXCIII. Those people who are alwaysimproving, never become great. Greatness is an eminence, the ascent to which is steep andlofty, and which a man must seize on at once by natural boldness and vigour, and not by patient, wary steps.
CCXCIV. The late Mr Opie remarked, that an artist often put his best thoughts into his first works. His earliest efforts were the result of the study of all his former life, whereas his later and more mature performances (though perhaps more skilful and finished) contained only the gleanings of his after-observation and experience.
CCXCV. The effort necessary to overcome difficulty urges the student on to excellence. When he can once do well with ease, he grows comparatively careless and indifferent, and makes no farther advances to perfection.
CCXCVI. When a man can do better than every one else in the same walk, he does not make any very painful exertions to outdo himself. The progress of improvement ceases nearly at the point where competition ends.
CCXCVII. We are rarely taught by our own experience; and much less do we put faith in that of others.
CCXCVIII. We do not attend to the advice of the sage and experienced, because we think they are old, forgetting that they once were young, and placed in the same situations as ourselves.
CCXCIX. We are egotists in morals as well as in other things. Every man is determined to judge for himself as to his conduct in life, and finds out what he ought to have done, when it is too late to do it. For this reason, the world has to begin again with each successive generation.
CCC. We should be inclined to pay more attention to the wisdom of the old, if they shewed greater indulgence to the follies of the young.
CCCI. The best lesson we can learn from witnessing the folly of mankind is not to irritate ourselves against it.
CCCII. If the world were good for nothing else, it is a fine subject for speculation.
CCCIII. In judging of individuals, we always allow something tocharacter; for even when this is not agreeable or praiseworthy, it affords exercise for our sagacity, and baffles the harshness of our censure.
CCCIV. There are persons to whom we never think of applying the ordinary rules of judging. They form a class by themselves and are curiosities in morals, like nondescripts in natural history. We forgive whatever they do or say, for the singularity of the thing, and because it excites attention. A man who has been hanged, is not the worse subject for dissection; and a man who deserves to be hanged, may be a very amusing companion or topic of discourse.
CCCV. Every man, in his own opinion, forms an exception to the ordinary rules of morality.
CCCVI. No man ever owned to the title of amurderer, atyrant, &c. because, however notorious the facts might be, the epithet is accompanied with a reference to motives and marks of opprobrium in common language and in the feelings of others, which he does not acknowledge in his own mind.
CCCVII. There are some things, theideaof which alone is a clear gain to the human mind. Let people rail at virtue, at genius and friendship as long as they will—the verynamesof these disputed qualities are better than anything else that could be substituted for them, and embalm even the most angry abuse of them.
CCCVIII. If goodness were only a theory, it were a pity it should be lost to the world.
CCCIX. Were good and evil ever so nearly balanced in reality, yet imagination would add a casting-weight to the favourable scale, by anticipating the bright side of what is to come, and throwing a pleasing melancholy on the past.
CCCX. Women, when left to themselves, talk chiefly about their dress: they think more about their lovers than they talk about them.
CCCXI. With women, the great business of life is love; and they generally make a mistake in it. They consult neither the heart nor the head, but are led away by mere humour and fancy. If instead of a companion for life, they had to choose a partner in a country-dance or to trifle away an hour with, their mode of calculation would be right. They tie their true-lover’s knots with idle, thoughtless haste, while the institutions of society render it indissoluble.
CCCXII. When we hear complaints of the wretchedness or vanity of human life, the proper answer to them would be that thereis hardly any one who at some time or otherhas not been in love. If we consider the high abstraction of this feeling, its depth, its purity, its voluptuous refinement, even in the meanest breast, how sacred and how sweet it is, this alone may reconcile us to the lot of humanity. That drop of balm turns the bitter cup to a delicious nectar—
‘And vindicates the ways of God to man.’
‘And vindicates the ways of God to man.’
‘And vindicates the ways of God to man.’
‘And vindicates the ways of God to man.’
CCCXIII. It is impossible to love entirely, without being loved again. Otherwise, the fable of Pygmalion would have no meaning. Let any one be ever so much enamoured of a woman who does not requite his passion, and let him consider what he feels when he finds her scorn or indifference turning to mutual regard, the thrill, the glow of rapture, the melting of two hearts into one, the creation of another self in her—and he will own that he was before only half in love!
CCCXIV. Women never reason, and therefore they are (comparatively) seldom wrong. They judge instinctively of what falls under their immediate observation or experience, and do not trouble themselves about remote or doubtful consequences. If they make no profound discoveries, they do not involve themselves in gross absurdities. It is only by the help of reason and logical inference, according to Hobbes, that ‘man becomes excellently wise, or excellently foolish.’[23]
CCCXV. Women are less cramped by circumstances or education than men. They are more the creatures of nature and impulse, and less cast in the mould of habit or prejudice. If a young man and woman in common life are seen walking out together on a holiday, the girl has the advantage in point of air and dress. She has a greater aptitude in catching external accomplishments and the manners of her superiors, and is less depressed by a painful consciousness of her situation in life. A Quaker girl is often as sensible and conversable as any other woman: while a Quaker man is a bundle of quaint opinions and conceit. Women are not spoiled by education and an affectation of superior wisdom. They take their chance for wit and shrewdness, and pick up their advantages, according to their opportunities and turn of mind. Their faculties (such as they are) shoot out freely and gracefully, like the slender trees in a forest; and are not clipped and cut down, as the understandings of men are, into uncouth shapes and distorted fancies, like yew-trees in an old-fashioned garden. Women in short resemble self-taught men, with more pliancy and delicacy of feeling.
CCCXVI. Women have as little imagination as they have reason. They are pure egotists. They cannot go out of themselves. There is no instance of a woman having done anything great in poetry or philosophy. They can act tragedy, because this depends very much on the physical expression of the passions—they can sing, for they have flexible throats and nice ears—they can write romances about love—and talk for ever about nothing.
CCCXVII. Women are not philosophers or poets, patriots, moralists, or politicians—they are simply women.
CCCXVIII. Women have a quicker sense of the ridiculous than men, because they judge from immediate impressions, and do not wait for the explanation that may be given of them.
CCCXIX. English Women have nothing to say on general subjects: French Women talk equally well on them or any other. This may be obviously accounted for from the circumstance that the two sexes associate much more together in France than they do with us, so that the tone of conversation in the women has become masculine, and that of the men effeminate. The tone of apathy and indifference in France to the weightier interests of reason and humanity is ascribable to the same cause. Women have no speculative faculty or fortitude of mind, and wherever they exercise a continual and paramount sway, all must be soon laughed out of countenance, but the immediately intelligible and agreeable—but the shewy in religion, the lax in morals, and the superficial in philosophy.
CCCXX. The texture of women’s minds, as well as of their bodies, is softer than that of men’s: but they have not the same strength of nerve, of understanding, or of moral purpose.
CCCXXI. In France knowledge circulates quickly from the mere communicativeness of the national disposition. Whatever is once discovered, be it good or bad, is made no secret of; but is spread quickly through all ranks and classes of society. Thought then runs along the surface of the mind like an electrical fluid; while the English understanding is anon-conductorto it, and damps it with itstorpedotouch.
CCCXXII. The French are fond of reading as well as of talking. You may constantly see girls tending an apple-stall in the coldest day in winter, and reading Voltaire or Racine. Such a thing was never known in London as a barrow-woman reading Shakespear. Yet we talk of our widespread civilisation, and ample provisions for the education of the poor.
CCCXXIII. In comparing notes with the French, we cannot boast even of our superior conceit; for in that too they have the advantage of us.
CCCXXIV. It is curious that the French, with all their vivacity and love of external splendour, should tolerate nothing but their prosing, didactic style of tragedy on the stage; and that with all their flutter and levity they should combine the most laborious patience and minute finishing in works of art. A French student will take several weeks to complete a chalk drawing from a head of Leonardo da Vinci, which a dull, plodding Englishman would strike off in as many hours.
CCCXXV. The Dutch perhaps finished their landscapes so carefully, because there was a want of romantic and striking objects in them, so that they could only be made interesting by the accuracy of the details.
CCCXXVI. An awkward Englishman has an advantage in going abroad. Instead of having his deficiency more remarked, it is less so; for all Englishmen are thought awkward alike. Any slip in politeness or abruptness of address is attributed to an ignorance of foreign manners, and you escape under the cover of the national character. Your behaviour is no more criticised than your accent. They consider the barbarism of either as a compliment to their own superior refinement.
CCCXXVII. The difference between minuteness and subtlety or refinement seems to be this—that the one relates to the parts, and the other to the whole. Thus, the accumulation of a number of distinct particulars in a work, as the threads of a gold-laced buttonhole, or the hairs on the chin in a portrait of Denner’s, is minute or high finishing: the giving the gradations of tone in a sky of Claude’s from azure to gold, where the distinction at each step is imperceptible, but the whole effect is striking and grand, and can only be seized upon by the eye and taste, is true refinement and delicacy.
CCCXXVIII. Theforteof the French is a certain facility and grace of execution. The Germans, who are the opposite to them, are full of throes and labour, and do everything by an overstrained and violent effort.
CCCXXIX. The conversation of a pedantic Scotchman is like a canal with a great number oflocksin it.
CCCXXX. The most learned are often the most narrowminded men.
CCCXXXI. The insolence of the vulgar is in proportion to their ignorance. They treat everything with contempt which they do not understand.
CCCXXXII. Our contempt for others proves nothing but the illiberality and narrowness of our own views. The English laugh at foreigners, because, from their insular situation, they are unacquainted with the manners and customs of the rest of the world.
CCCXXXIII. The true barbarian is he who thinks everything barbarous but his own tastes and prejudices.
CCCXXXIV. The difference between the vanity of a Frenchman and an Englishman seems to be this—the one thinks everything right that is French, the other thinks everything wrong that is not English. The Frenchman is satisfied with his own country; the Englishman is determined to pick a quarrel with every other.
CCCXXXV. The national precedence between the English and Scotch may be settled by this, that the Scotch are always asserting their superiority over the English, while the English never say a word about their superiority over the Scotch. The first have got together a great number of facts and arguments in their own favour; the last never trouble their heads about the matter, but have taken the point for granted as self-evident.
CCCXXXVI. The great characteristic of the Scotch is that of all semi-barbarous people,—namely, a hard defiance of other nations.
CCCXXXVII. Those who are tenacious on the score of their faults shew that they have no virtues to bring as a set-off against them.
CCCXXXVIII. An Englishman in Scotland seems to be travelling in a conquered country, from the suspicion and precautions he has to encounter; and this is really the history of the case.
CCCXXXIX. We learn a great deal from coming into contact and collision with individuals of other nations. The contrast of character and feeling—the different points of view from which they see things—is an admirable test of the truth or reasonableness of our opinions. Among ourselves we take a number of things for granted,which, as soon as we find ourselves among strangers, we are called upon to account for. With those who think and feel differently from our habitual tone, we must have a reason for the faith that is in us, or we shall not come off very triumphantly. By this comparing of notes, by being questioned and cross-examined, we discover how far we have taken up certain notions on good grounds, or barely on trust. We also learn how much of our best knowledge is built on a sort of acquired instinct, and how little we can analyse those things that seem to most of us self-evident. He is no mean philosopher who can give a reason for one half of what he thinks. It by no means follows that our tastes or judgments are wrong, because we may be at fault in an argument. A Scotchman and a Frenchman would differ equally from an Englishman, but would run into contrary extremes. He might not be able to make good his ground against the levity of the one or the pertinacity of the other, and yet he might be right, for they cannot both be so. By visiting different countries and conversing with their inhabitants, we strike a balance between opposite prejudices, and have an average of truth and nature left.
CCCXL. Strength of character as well as strength of understanding is one of the guides that point the way to truth. By seeing the bias and prejudices of others marked in a strong and decided manner, we are led to detect our own—from laughing at their absurdities we begin to suspect the soundness of our own conclusions, which we find to be just the reverse of them. When I was in Scotland some time ago, I learnt most from the person, whose opinions were, not most right (as I conceive) but most Scotch. In this case, as in playing a game at bowls, you have only to allow for a certain bias in order to hit the Jack: or, as in an algebraic equation, you deduct so much for national character and prejudice, which is a known or given quantity, and what remains is the truth.
CCCXLI. We learn little from mere captious controversy, or the collision of opinions, unless where there is this collision of character to account for the difference, and remind one, by implication, where one’s own weakness lies. In the latter case, it is a shrewd presumption that inasmuch as others are wrong, so are we: for the widest breach in argument is made by mutual prejudice.
CCCXLII. There are certain moulds of national character in which all our opinions and feelings must be cast, or they are spurious and vitiated. A Frenchman and an Englishman, a Scotchman and an Irishman, seldom reason alike on any two points consecutively. It is vain to think of reconciling these antipathies: they are somethingin the juices and the blood. It is not possible for a Frenchman to admire Shakspeare, except out of mere affectation: nor is it at all necessary that he should, while he has authors of his own to admire. But then his not admiring Shakspeare is no reason why we should not. The harm is not in the natural variety of tastes and dispositions, but in setting up an artificial standard of uniformity, which makes us dissatisfied with our own opinions, unless we can make them universal, or impose them as a law upon the world at large.
CCCXLIII. I had rather be a lord than a king. A lord is a private gentleman of the first class, amenable only to himself. A king is a servant of the public, dependent on opinion, a subject for history, and liable to be ‘baited with the rabble’s curse.’ Such a situation is no sinecure. Kings indeed were gentlemen, when their subjects were vassals, and the world (instead of a stage on which they have to perform a difficult and stubborn part) was a deer-park through which they ranged at pleasure. But the case is altered of late, and it is better and has more of the sense of personal dignity in it to come into possession of a large old family estate and ‘ancestral’ groves, than to have a kingdom to govern—or to lose.
CCCXLIV. The affectation of gentility by people without birth or fortune is a very idle species of vanity. For those who are in middle or humble life to aspire to be always seen in the company of the great is like the ambition of a dwarf who should hire himself as an attendant to wait upon a giant. But we find great numbers of this class—whose pride or vanity seems to be sufficiently gratified by the admiration of the finery or superiority of others, without any farther object. There are sycophants who take a pride in being seen in the train of a great man, as there are fops who delight to follow in the train of a beautiful woman (from a mere impulse of admiration and excitement of the imagination) without the smallest personal pretensions of their own.
CCCXLV. There is a double aristocracy of rank and letters, which is hardly to be endured—monstrum ingens, biforme. A lord, who is a poet as well, regards the House of Peers with contempt, as a set of dull fellows; and he considers his brother authors as a Grub-street crew. A king is hardly good enough for him to touch: a mere man of genius is no better than a worm. He alone is all-accomplished. Such people should besent to Coventry; and they generally are so, through their insufferable pride and self-sufficiency.
CCCXLVI. The great are fond of patronising men of genius,when they are remarkable for personal insignificance, so that they can dandle them like parroquets or lapdogs, or when they are distinguished by some awkwardness which they can laugh at, or some meanness which they can despise. They do not wish to encourage or shew their respect for wisdom or virtue, but to witness the defects or ridiculous circumstances accompanying these, that they may have an excuse for treating all sterling pretensions with supercilious indifference. They seek at best to be amused, not to be instructed. Truth is the greatest impertinence a man can be guilty of in polite company; and players and buffoons are thebeau idealof men of wit and talents.
CCCXLVII. We do not see nature merely from looking at it. We fancy that we see the whole of any object that is before us, because we know no more of it than what we see. The rest escapes us, as a matter of course; and we easily conclude that the idea in our minds and the image in nature are one and the same. But in fact we only see a very small part of nature, and make an imperfect abstraction of the infinite number of particulars, which are always to be found in it as well as we can. Some do this with more or less accuracy than others, according to habit or natural genius. A painter, for instance, who has been working on a face for several days, still finds out something new in it which he did not notice before, and which he endeavours to give in order to make his copy more perfect, which shews how little an ordinary and unpractised eye can be supposed to comprehend the whole at a single glance. A young artist, when he first begins to study from nature, soon makes an end of his sketch, because he sees only a general outline and certain gross distinctions and masses. As he proceeds, a new field opens to him; differences crowd upon differences; and as his perceptions grow more refined, he could employ whole days in working upon a single part, without satisfying himself at last. No painter, after a life devoted to the art and the greatest care and length of time given to a single study of a head or other object, ever succeeded in it to his wish, or did not leave something still to be done. The greatest artists that have ever appeared are those who have been able to employ some one view or aspect of nature, and no more. Thus Titian was famous for colouring; Raphael for drawing; Correggio for the gradations, Rembrandt for the extremes of light and shade. The combined genius and powers of observation of all the great artists in the world would not be sufficient to convey the whole of what is contained in any one object in nature; and yet the most vulgar spectator thinks he sees the whole of what is before him, at once and without any trouble at all.
CCCXLVIII. A copy is never so good as an original. This would not be the case indeed, if great painters were in the habit of copying bad pictures; but as the contrary practice holds, it follows that the excellent parts of a fine picture must lose in the imitation, and the indifferent parts will not be proportionally improved by anything substituted at a venture for them.
CCCXLIX. The greatest painters are those who have combined the finest general effect with the highest degree of delicacy and correctness of detail. It is a mistake that the introduction of the parts interferes or is incompatible with the effect of the whole. Both are to be found in nature. The most finished works of the most renowned artists are also the best.
CCCL. We are not weaned from a misplaced attachment by (at last) discovering the unworthiness of the object. The character of a woman is one thing; her graces and attractions another; and these last acquire even an additional charm and piquancy from the disappointment we feel in other respects. The truth is, a man in love prefers his passion to every other consideration, and is fonder of his mistress than he is of virtue. Should she prove vicious, she makes vice lovely in his eyes.
CCCLI. An accomplished coquet excites the passions of others, in proportion as she feels none herself. Her forwardness allures, her indifference irritates desire. She fans the flame that does not scorch her own bosom; plays with men’s feelings, and studies the effect of her several arts at leisure and unmoved.
CCCLII. Grace in women is the secret charm that draws the soul into its circle, and binds a spell round it for ever. The reason of which is, that habitual grace implies a continual sense of delight, of ease and propriety, which nothing can interrupt, ever varying, and adapting itself to all circumstances alike.
CCCLIII. Even among the most abandoned of the sex, there is generally found to exist one strong and individual attachment, which remains unshaken through all circumstances. Virtue steals like a guilty thing into the secret haunts of vice and infamy, clings to their devoted victim, and will not be driven quite away. Nothing can destroy the human heart.
CCCLIV. There is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have their altars and their religion. This makes nothing in their favour, but is a proud compliment to man’s nature.Whatever he is or does, he cannot entirely efface the stamp of the Divinity on him. Let him strive ever so, he cannot divest himself of his natural sublimity of thought and affection, however he may pervert or deprave it to ill.
CCCLV. We judge of character too much from names and classes and modes of life. It alters very little with circumstances. The theological doctrines ofOriginal Sin, ofGrace, andElection, admit of a moral and natural solution. Outward acts or events hardly reach the inward disposition or fitness for good or evil. Humanity is to be met with in a den of robbers, nay, modesty in a brothel. Nature prevails, and vindicates its rights to the last.
CCCLVI. Women do not become abandoned with the mere loss of character. They only discover the vicious propensities which they before were bound to conceal. They do not (all at once) part with their virtue, but throw aside the veil of affectation and prudery.
CCCLVII. It is enough to satisfy ambition to excel in some one thing. In everything else, one would wish to be a common man. Those who aim at every kind of distinction turn out mere pretenders and coxcombs. One of the ancients has said that ‘the wisest and most accomplished man is like the statues of the Gods placed against a wall—in front an Apollo or a Mercury, behind a plain piece of marble.’
CCCLVIII. The want of money, according to the poet, has the effect of making men ridiculous. It not only has this disadvantage with respect to ourselves, but it often shews us others in a very contemptible point of view. If we sink in the opinion of the world from adverse circumstances, the world is apt to sink equally in ours. Poverty is the test of civility and the touchstone of friendship.
CCCLIX. There are those who borrow money, in order to lend it again. This is raising a character for generosity at an easy rate.
CCCLX. The secret of the difficulties of those people who make a great deal of money, and yet are always in want of it, is this—they throw it away as soon as they get it on the first whim or extravagance that strikes them, and have nothing left to meet ordinary expenses or discharge old debts.
CCCLXI. Those who have the habit ofbeing generous before they are just, fancy they are getting out of difficulties all their lives, because it is in their power to do so whenever they will; and forthis reason they go on in the same way to the last, because the time never comes for baulking their inclinations or breaking off a bad habit.
CCCLXII. It is a mistake that we court the society of the rich and the great merely with a view to what we can obtain from them. We do so, because there is something in external rank and splendour that gratifies and imposes on the imagination, just as we prefer the company of those who are in good health and spirits to that of the sickly and hypochondriacal, or as we would rather converse with a beautiful woman than with an ugly one.
CCCLXIII. Shakspeare says, ‘Men’s judgments are a parcel of their fortunes.’ A person in depressed circumstances is not only not listened to—he has not the spirit to say a good thing.
CCCLXIV. Wearevery much what othersthink of us. The reception our observations meet with, gives us courage to proceed or damps our efforts. A man is a wit and a philosopher in one place, who dares not open his mouth and is considered as a blockhead in another. In some companies nothing will go down but coarse practical jests, while the finest remark or sarcasm would be disregarded.
CCCLXV. Men of talent rise with their company, and are brought out by the occasion. Coxcombs and pedants have no advantage but over the dull and ignorant, with whom they talk on by rote.
CCCLXVI. In France or abroad one feels one’s self at a loss; but then one has an excuse ready in an ignorance of the language. In Scotland they speak the same language, but do not understand a word that you say. One cannot get on in society, without ideas in common. To attempt to convert strangers to your notions, or to alter their whole way of thinking in a short stay among them, is indeed making a toil of a pleasure, and enemies of those who may be inclined to be friends.
CCCLXVII. In some situations, if you say nothing you are called dull; if you talk, you are thought impertinent or arrogant. It is hard to know what to do in this case. The question seems to be whether your vanity or your prudence predominates.
CCCLXVIII. One has sometimes no other way of escaping from a sense of insignificance, but by offending the self-love of others. Weshould recollect, however, that good manners are indispensable at all times and places, whereas no one is bound to make a figure, at the expense of propriety.
CCCLXIX. People sometimes complain that you do not talk, when they have not given you an opportunity to utter a word for a whole evening. The real ground of disappointment has been, that you have not shewn a sufficient degree of attention to what they have said.
CCCLXX. I can listen with patience to the dullest or emptiest companion in the world, if he does not require me to do anything more than listen.
CCCLXXI. Wit is the rarest quality to be met with among people of education, and the most common among the uneducated.
CCCLXXII. Are we to infer from this, that wit is a vulgar faculty, or that people of education are proportionably deficient in liveliness and spirit?
CCCLXXIII. We seldom hear and seldomer make a witty remark. Yet we read nothing else in Congreve’s plays.
CCCLXXIV. Those who object to wit are envious of it.
CCCLXXV. The persons who make the greatest outcry against bad puns, are the very same who also find fault with good ones. A bad pun at least generally leads to a wise remark—that it is a bad one.
CCCLXXVI. A grave blockhead should always go about with a lively one—they shew one another off to the best advantage.
CCCLXXVII. A lively blockhead in company is a public benefit. Silence or dullness by the side of folly looks like wisdom.
CCCLXXVIII. It is not easy to write essays like Montaigne, nor Maxims in the manner of the Duke de la Rochefoucault.
CCCLXXIX. The most perfect style of writing may be that which treats strictly and methodically of a given subject; the most amusing (if not the most instructive) is that, which mixes up the personal character of the author with general reflections.
CCCLXXX. The seat of knowledge is in the head; of wisdom, in the heart. We are sure to judge wrong, if we do not feel right.
CCCLXXXI. He who exercises a constant independence of spirit, and yet seldom gives offence by the freedom of his opinions, may be presumed to have a well-regulated mind.
CCCLXXXII. There are those who never offend by never speaking their minds; as there are others who blurt out a thousand exceptionable things without intending it, and because they are actuated by no feelings of personal enmity towards any one.
CCCLXXXIII. Cowardice is not synonymous with prudence. It often happens that the better part of discretion is valour.
CCCLXXXIV. Mental cowards are afraid of expressing a strong opinion, or of striking hard, lest the blow should be retaliated. They throw themselves on the forbearance of their antagonists, and hope for impunity in their insignificance.
CCCLXXXV. No one ever gained a good word from friend or foe, from man or woman, by want of spirit. The public know how to distinguish between a contempt for themselves and the fear of an adversary.
CCCLXXXVI. Never be afraid of attacking a bully.
CCCLXXXVII. An honest man speaks truth,thoughit may give offence; a vain man,in order thatit may.
CCCLXXXVIII. Those only deserve a monument who do not need one; that is, who have raised themselves a monument in the minds and memories of men.
CCCLXXXIX. Fame is the inheritance not of the dead, but of the living. It is we who look back with lofty pride to the great names of antiquity, who drink of that flood of glory as of a river, and refresh our wings in it for future flight.
CCCXC. The inhabitant of a metropolis is apt to think this circumstance alone gives him a decided superiority over every one else, and does not improve that natural advantage so much as he ought.