Part 3 — CHARACTERISTICS IN THE MANNER OF ROCHEFOUCAULD’S MAXIMS (continued 2)

‘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.

393CCLIX. 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.

394CCLXX. 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 and 395aspiration 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 the main-chance is 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 particular hobby, 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.’

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 of 396repeating 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 invent bon 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 a mute, 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 bought Punch.

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 should read authors, 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.

397CCLXXXVIII. 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 reality would 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 a bluestocking, to attract notice by her learning, or to hide her defects.

CCXCIII. Those people who are always improving, never become great. Greatness is an eminence, the ascent to which is steep and 398lofty, 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 to character; for even when this is not agreeable or praiseworthy, it affords exercise for our sagacity, and baffles the harshness of our censure.

399CCCIV. 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 a murderer, a tyrant, &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, the idea of 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 very names of 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 there 400is hardly any one who at some time or other has 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.’

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.

401CCCXVI. 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 a non-conductor to it, and damps it with its torpedo touch.

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.

402CCCXXIII. 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. The forte of 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 of locks in it.

403CCCXXX. 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, 404which, 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 something 405in 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 be sent to Coventry; and they generally are so, through their insufferable pride and self-sufficiency.

CCCXLVI. The great are fond of patronising men of genius, 406when 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 the beau ideal of 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.

407CCCXLVIII. 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. 408Whatever 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 of Original Sin, of Grace, and Election, 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 of being 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 for 409this 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. We are very much what others think 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. We 410should 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.

411CCCLXXXI. 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, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it 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.

CCCXCI. A true-bred cockney fancies his having been born in London is a receipt in full for every other species of merit. He belongs, in his own opinion, to a privileged class.

CCCXCII. The number of objects we see from living in a large city amuses the mind like a perpetual raree-show, without supplying 412it with any ideas. The understanding thus becomes habitually mechanical and superficial.

CCCXCIII. In proportion to the number of persons we see, we forget that we know less of mankind.

CCCXCIV. Pertness and conceit are the characteristics of a true cockney. He feels little respect for the greatest things, from the opportunity of seeing them often and without trouble; and at the same time he entertains a high opinion of himself from his familiarity with them. He who has seen all the great actors, the great public characters, the chief public buildings, and the other wonders of the metropolis, thinks less of them from this circumstance; but conceives a prodigious contempt for all those who have not seen what he has.

CCCXCV. The confined air of a metropolis is hurtful to the minds and bodies of those who have never lived out of it. It is impure, stagnant—without breathing-space to allow a larger view of ourselves or others—and gives birth to a puny, sickly, unwholesome, and degenerate race of beings.

CCCXCVI. Those who, from a constant change and dissipation of outward objects have not a moment’s leisure left for their own thoughts, can feel no respect for themselves, and learn little consideration for humanity.

CCCXCVII. Profound hypocrisy is inconsistent with vanity: for the last would betray our designs by some premature triumph. Indeed, vanity implies a sympathy with others, and consummate hypocrisy is built on a total want of it.

CCCXCVIII. A hypocrite despises those whom he deceives, but has no respect for himself. He would make a dupe of himself too, if he could.

CCCXCIX. There is a degree of selfishness so complete, that it does not feel the natural emotions of resentment, contempt, &c. against those who have done all they could to provoke them. Everything but itself is a matter of perfect indifference to it. It feels towards others no more than if they were of a different species; and inflicts torture or imparts delight, itself unmoved and immovable.

CCCC. Egotism is an infirmity that perpetually grows upon a man, till at last he cannot bear to think of anything but himself, or even to suppose that others do.

413CCCCI. He will never have true friends who is afraid of making enemies.

CCCCII. The way to procure insults is to submit to them. A man meets with no more respect than he exacts.

CCCCIII. What puts the baseness of mankind in the strongest point of view is, that they avoid those who are in misfortune, instead of countenancing or assisting them. They anticipate the increased demand on their sympathy or bounty, and escape from it as from a falling house.

CCCCIV. Death puts an end to rivalship and competition. The dead can boast no advantage over us; nor can we triumph over them.

CCCCV. We judge of an author by the quality, not the quantity, of his productions. Unless we add as much to our reputation by a second attempt as we did by our first, we disappoint expectation, and lose ground with the public. Those therefore who have done the least have often the greatest reputation. The author of Waverley has not risen in public estimation by the extreme voluminousness of his writings: for it seems as if that which is done so continually could not be very difficult to do, and that there is some trick or knack in it. The miracle ceases with the repetition! The Pleasures of Hope and the Pleasures of Memory, on the contrary, stand alone and increase in value, because they seem unrivalled and inimitable, even by the authors themselves. An economy of expenditure is the way to grow rich in fame, as well as in other pursuits.

CCCCVI. It is better to drink of deep griefs than to taste shallow pleasures.

CCCCVII. Those who can command themselves, command others.

CCCCVIII. A surfeit of admiration or friendship often ends in an indifference worse than hatred or contempt. It is not a lively perception of faults, but a sickly distaste to the very idea of the persons formerly esteemed, a palling of the imagination, or a conscious inertness and inability to revive certain feelings—a state from which the mind shrinks with greater repugnance than from any other.

CCCCIX. The last pleasure in life is the sense of discharging our duty.

414CCCCX. Those people who are fond of giving trouble like to take it; just as those who pay no attention to the comforts of others, are generally indifferent to their own. We are governed by sympathy; and the extent of our sympathy is determined by that of our sensibility.

CCCCXI. No one is idle, who can do anything.

CCCCXII. Friendship is cemented by interest, vanity, or the want of amusement: it seldom implies esteem, or even mutual regard.

CCCCXIII. Some persons make promises for the pleasure of breaking them.

CCCCXIV. Praise is no match for blame and obloquy. For, were the scales even, the malice of mankind would throw in the casting-weight.

CCCCXV. The safest kind of praise is to foretell that another will become great in some particular way. It has the greatest shew of magnanimity, and the least of it in reality. We are not jealous of dormant merit, which nobody recognises but ourselves, and which in proportion as it developes itself, demonstrates our sagacity. If our prediction fails, it is forgotten; and if it proves true, we may then set up for prophets.

CCCCXVI. Men of genius do not excel in any profession because they labour in it, but they labour in it, because they excel.

CCCCXVII. Vice is man’s nature: virtue is a habit—or a mask.

CCCCXVIII. The foregoing maxim shews the difference between truth and sarcasm.

CCCCXIX. Exalted station precludes even the exercise of natural affection, much more of common humanity.

CCCCXX. We for the most part strive to regulate our actions, not so much by conscience or reason, as by the opinion of the world. But by the world we mean those who entertain an opinion about us. Now, this circle varies exceedingly, but never expresses more than a part. In senates, in camps, in town, in country, in courts, in a prison, a man’s vices and virtues are weighed in a separate scale by those who know him, and who have similar feelings and pursuits. We care about no other opinion. There is a moral 415horizon which bounds our view, and beyond which the rest is air. The public is divided into a number of distinct jurisdictions for different claims; and posterity is but a name, even to those who sometimes dream of it.

CCCCXXI. We can bear to be deprived of everything but our self-conceit.

CCCCXXII. Those who are fond of setting things to rights, have no great objection to seeing them wrong. There is often a good deal of spleen at the bottom of benevolence.

CCCCXXIII. The reputation of science which ought to be the most lasting, as synonymous with truth, is often the least so. One discovery supersedes another; and the progress of light throws the past into obscurity. What has become of the Blacks, the Lavoisiers, the Priestleys, in chemistry? In political economy, Adam Smith is laid on the shelf, and Davenant and De Witt have given place to the Says, the Ricardos, the Malthuses, and the Macullochs. These persons are happy in one respect—they have a sovereign contempt for all who have gone before them, and never dream of those who are to come after them and usurp their place. When any set of men think theirs the only science worth studying, and themselves the only infallible persons in it, it is a sign how frail the traces are of past excellence in it, and how little connection it has with the general affairs of human life. In proportion to the profundity of any inquiry, is its futility. The most important and lasting truths are the most obvious ones. Nature cheats us with her mysteries, one after another, like a juggler with his tricks; but shews us her plain honest face, without our paying for it. The understanding only blunders more or less in trying to find out what things are in themselves: the heart judges at once of its own feelings and impressions; and these are true and the same.

CCCCXXIV. Scholastic divinity was of use in its day, by affording exercise to the mind of man. Astrology, and the finding-out the philosopher’s stone, answered the same purpose. If we had not something to doubt, to dispute and quarrel about, we should be at a loss what to do with our time.

CCCCXXV. The multitude who require to be led, still hate their leaders.

CCCCXXVI. It has been said that any man may have any woman.

416CCCCXXVII. Many people are infatuated with ill-success, and reduced to despair by a lucky turn in their favour. While all goes well, they are like fish out of water. They have no confidence or sympathy with their good fortune, and look upon it as a momentary delusion. Let a doubt be thrown on the question, and they begin to be full of lively apprehensions again; let all their hopes vanish, and they feel themselves on firm ground once more. From want of spirit or of habit, their imaginations cannot rise from the low ground of humility, cannot reflect the gay, flaunting colours of the rainbow, flag and droop into despondency, and can neither indulge the expectation, nor employ the means of success. Even when it is within their reach, they dare not lay hands upon it, and shrink from unlooked-for prosperity, as something of which they are ashamed and unworthy. The class of croakers here spoken of are less delighted at other people’s misfortunes than at their own. Querulous complaints and anticipations of failure are the food on which they live, and they at last acquire a passion for that which is the favourite subject of their thoughts and conversation.

CCCCXXVIII. There are some persons who never succeed, from being too indolent to undertake anything; and others who regularly fail, because the instant they find success in their power, they grow indifferent, and give over the attempt.

CCCCXXIX. To be remembered after we are dead, is but a poor recompense for being treated with contempt while we are living.

CCCCXXX. Mankind are so ready to bestow their admiration on the dead, because the latter do not hear it, or because it gives no pleasure to the objects of it. Even fame is the offspring of envy.

CCCCXXXI. Truth is not one, but many; and an observation may be true in itself that contradicts another equally true, according to the point of view from which we contemplate the subject.

CCCCXXXII. Much intellect is not an advantage in courtship. General topics interfere with particular attentions. A man, to be successful in love, should think only of himself and his mistress. Rochefoucault observes that lovers are never tired of each other’s company, because they are always talking of themselves.

CCCCXXXIII. The best kind of oratory or argument is not that which is most likely to succeed with any particular person. In the latter case, we must avail ourselves of our knowledge of individual 417circumstances and character: in the former, we must be guided by general rules and calculations.

CCCCXXXIV. The picture of the Misers, by Quintin Matsys, seems to proceed upon a wrong idea. It represents two persons of this description engaged and delighted with the mutual contemplation of their wealth. But avarice is not a social passion; and the true miser should retire into his cell to gloat over his treasures alone, without sympathy or observation.

The End.

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