Chapter LXV: Preface (1)

The following work was suggested by a perusal of Rochefoucault’s Maxims and Moral Reflections. I was so struck with the force and beauty of the style and matter, that I felt an earnest ambition to embody some occasional thoughts of my own in the same form. This was much easier than to retain an equal degree of spirit. Having, however, succeeded indifferently in a few, the work grew under my hands; and both the novelty and agreeableness of the task impelled me forward. There is a peculiar _stimulus_, and at the same time a freedom from all anxiety, in this mode of writing. A thought must tell at once, or not at all. There is no opportunity for considering how we shall make out an opinion by labour and prolixity. An observation must be self-evident; or a reason or illustration (if we give one) must be pithy and concise. Each Maxim should contain the essence or ground-work of a separate Essay, but so developed as of itself to suggest a whole train of reflections to the reader; and it is equally necessary to avoid paradox or common-place. The style also must be sententious and epigrammatic, with a certain pointedness and involution of expression, so as to keep the thoughts distinct, and to prevent them from running endlessly into one another. Such are the conditions to which it seemed to me necessary to conform, in order to insure anything like success to a work of this kind, or to render the pleasure of the perusal equal to the difficulty of the execution. There is only one point in which I dare even allude to a comparison with Rochefoucault—_I have had no theory to maintain_; and have endeavoured to set down each thought as it occurred to me, without bias or prejudice of any sort.

CHARACTERISTICS

I. Of all virtues, magnanimity is the rarest. There are a hundred persons of merit for one who willingly acknowledges it in another.

II. It is often harder to praise a friend than an enemy. By the last we may acquire a reputation for candour; by the first we only seem to discharge a debt, and are liable to a suspicion of partiality. Besides, though familiarity may not breed contempt, it takes off the edge of admiration; and the shining points of character are not those we chiefly wish to dwell upon. Our habitual impression of any one is very different from the light in which he would choose to appear before the public. We think of him _as a friend_: we must forget that he is one, before we can extol him to others.

III. To speak highly of one with whom we are intimate, is a species of egotism. Our modesty as well as our jealousy teaches us caution on this subject.

IV. What makes it so difficult to do justice to others is, that we are hardly sensible of merit, unless it falls in with our own views and line of pursuit; and where this is the case, it interferes with our own pretensions. To be forward to praise others, implies either great eminence, that can afford to part with applause; or great quickness of discernment, with confidence in our own judgments; or great sincerity and love of truth, getting the better of our self-love.

V. Many persons are so narrow in this respect, that they cannot bring themselves to allow the most trifling merit in any one else. This is not altogether ill-nature, but a meanness of spirit or want of confidence in themselves, which is upset and kicks the beam, if the smallest particle of praise is thrown into another’s scale. They are poor feeble insects tottering along the road to fame, that are crushed by the shadow of opposition, or stopped by a whisper of rivalship.

VI. There are persons, not only whose praise, but whose very names we cannot bear to hear.

VII. There are people who cannot praise a friend for the life of them. With every effort and all the good-will in the world, they shrink from the task through a want of mental courage; as some people shudder at plunging into a cold-bath from weak nerves.

VIII. Others praise you behind your back, who will not, on any account, do so to your face. Is it that they are afraid of being taken for flatterers?—Or that they had rather any one else should know they think well of you than yourself;—as a rival is the last person we should wish to hear the favourable opinion of a mistress, because it gives him most pleasure?

IX. To deny undoubted merit in others, is to deny its existence altogether, and consequently our own. The example of illiberality we set is easily turned against ourselves.

X. Magnanimity is often concealed under an appearance of shyness, and even poverty of spirit. Heroes, according to Rousseau, are not known by the loftiness of their carriage; as the greatest braggarts are generally the merest cowards.

XI. Men of the greatest genius are not always the most prodigal of their encomiums. But then it is when their range of power is confined, and they have in fact little perception, except of their own particular kind of excellence.

XII. Popularity disarms envy in well-disposed minds. Those are ever the most ready to do justice to others, who feel that the world has done them justice. When success has not this effect in opening the mind, it is a sign that it has been ill-deserved.

XIII. Some people tell us all the harm—others as carefully conceal all the good they hear of us.

XIV. It signifies little what we say of our acquaintance, so that we do not tell them what others say against them. Tale-bearers make all the real mischief.

XV. The silence of a friend commonly amounts to treachery. His not daring to say anything in our behalf implies a tacit censure.

XVI. It is hard to praise those who are dispraised by others. He is little short of a hero, who perseveres in thinking well of a friend who has become a butt for slander, and a bye-word.

XVII. However we may flatter ourselves to the contrary, our friends think no higher of us than the world do. They see us with the jaundiced or distrustful eyes of others. They may know better, but their feelings are governed by popular prejudice. Nay, they are more shy of us (when under a cloud) than even strangers; for we involve them in a common disgrace, or compel them to embroil themselves in continual quarrels and disputes in our defence.

XVIII. We find those who are officious and troublesome through sheer imbecility of character. They can neither resolve to do a thing, nor to let it alone; and, by getting in the way, hinder where perhaps they meant to help. To _volunteer_ a service and shrink from the performance, is to prevent others from undertaking it.

XIX. Envy, among other ingredients, has a mixture of the love of justice in it. We are more angry at undeserved than at deserved good-fortune.

XX. We admit the merit of some, much less willingly than that of others. This is because there is something about them, that is at variance with their boasted pretensions, either a heaviness importing stupidity, or a levity inferring folly, &c.

XXI. The assumption of merit is easier, less embarrassing, and more effectual than the positive attainment of it.

XXII. Envy is the most universal passion. We only pride ourselves on the qualities we possess or think we possess; but we envy the pretensions we have, and those which we have not, and do not even wish for. We envy the greatest qualities and every trifling advantage. We envy the most ridiculous appearance or affectation of superiority. We envy folly and conceit: nay, we go so far as to envy whatever confers distinction or notoriety, even vice and infamy.

XXIII. Envy is a littleness of soul, which cannot see beyond a certain point, and if it does not occupy the whole space, feels itself excluded.

XXIV. Or, it often arises from weakness of judgment. We cannot make up our minds to admit the soundness of certain pretensions; and therefore hate the appearance, where we are doubtful about the reality. We consider every such tax on our applause as a kind of imposition or injustice; so that the withholding our assent is from a fear of being tricked out of our good opinion under false pretences. This is the reason why sudden or upstart advantages are always an object of such extreme jealousy, and even of contempt; and why we so readily bow to the claims of posthumous and long-established reputation. The last is the sterling coin of merit, which we no longer question or cavil at. The other, we think, may be tinsel; and we are unwilling to give our admiration in exchange for a bauble. It is not that the candidates for it in the one case are removed out of our way, and make a diversion to the more immediate claims of our contemporaries; but that their own are so clear and universally acknowledged, that they come home to our feelings and bosoms with their full weight, without any drawbacks of doubt in our own minds, or objection on the part of others. If our envy were intrinsically and merely a hatred of excellence and of the approbation due to it, we should hate it the more, the more distinguished and unequivocal it was. On the other hand, our faith in standard reputation is a kind of religion; and our admiration of it, instead of a cold servile offering, an enthusiastic homage. There are people who would attempt to persuade us that we read Homer or Milton with pleasure, only to _spite_ some living poet. With them, all our best actions are hypocrisy; and our best feelings, affectation.

XXV. The secret of our self-love is just the same as that of our liberality and candour. We prefer ourselves to others, only because we have a more intimate consciousness and confirmed opinion of our own claims and merits than of any other person’s.

XXVI. It argues a poor opinion of ourselves, when we cannot admit any other class of merit besides our own, or any rival in that class.

XXVII. Those who are the most distrustful of themselves, are the most envious of others; as the most weak and cowardly are the most revengeful.

XXVIII. Some persons of great talents and celebrity have been remarkable for narrowness of mind and an impatience of everything like competition. Garrick and other public favourites might be mentioned as instances. This may perhaps be accounted for, either from an undue and intoxicating share of applause, so that they became jealous of popularity, as of a mistress; or from a want of other resources, so as to be unable to repose on themselves without the constant stimulus of incense offered to their vanity.

XXIX. We are more jealous of frivolous accomplishments with brilliant success, than of the most estimable qualities without it. Dr. Johnson envied Garrick whom he despised, and ridiculed Goldsmith whom he loved.

XXX. Persons of slender intellectual _stamina_ dread competition, as dwarfs are afraid of being run over in the street. Yet vanity often prompts them to hazard the experiment, as women through foolhardiness rush into a crowd.

XXXI. We envy others for any trifling addition to their acknowledged merit, more than for the sum-total, much as we object to pay an addition to a bill, or grudge an acquaintance an unexpected piece of good fortune. This happens, either because such an accession of accomplishment is like stealing a march upon us, and implies a versatility of talent we had not reckoned upon; or it seems an impertinence and affectation for a man to go out of his way to distinguish himself; or it is because we cannot account for his proficiency mechanically and as a thing of course, by saying _It is his trade!_ In like manner, we plume ourselves most on excelling in what we are not bound to do, and are most flattered by the admission of our most questionable pretensions. We nurse the ricketty child, and want to have our faults and weak sides pampered into virtues. We feel little obliged to any one for owning the merit we are known to have—it is an old story—but we are mightily pleased to be complimented on some fancy we set up for—it is _a feather in our cap_, a new conquest, an extension of our sense of power. A man of talent aspires to a reputation for personal address or advantages. Sir Robert Walpole wished to pass for a man of gallantry, for which he was totally unfit. A woman of sense would be thought a beauty, a beauty a great wit, and so on.

XXXII. Some there are who can only find out in us those good qualities which nobody else has discovered: as there are others who make a point of crying up our deserts, after all the rest of the world have agreed to do so. The first are patrons, not friends: the last are not friends, but sycophants.

XXXIII. A distinction has been made between acuteness and subtlety of understanding. This might be illustrated by saying, that acuteness consists in taking up the points or solid atoms, subtlety in feeling the _air_ of truth.

XXXIV. Hope is the best possession. None are completely wretched but those who are without hope; and few are reduced so low as that.

XXXV. Death is the greatest evil; because it cuts off hope.

XXXVI. While we desire, we do not enjoy; and with enjoyment desire ceases, which should lend its strongest zest to it. This, however, does not apply to the gratification of sense, but to the passions, in which distance and difficulty have a principal share.

XXXVII. To deserve any blessing is to set a just value on it. The pains we take in its pursuit are only a consequence of this.

XXXVIII. The wish is often ‘father to the thought’: but we are quite as apt to believe what we dread as what we hope.

XXXIX. The amiable is the voluptuous in expression or manner. The sense of pleasure in ourselves is that which excites it in others; or, the art of pleasing is to seem pleased.

XL. Let a man’s talents or virtues be what they may, we only feel satisfaction in his society, as he is satisfied in himself. We cannot enjoy the good qualities of a friend, if he seems to be none the better for them.

XLI. We judge of others for the most part by their good opinion of themselves: yet nothing gives such offence or creates so many enemies as that extreme self-complacency or superciliousness of manner, which appears to set the opinion of every one else at defiance.

XLII. Self-sufficiency is more provoking than rudeness or the most unqualified or violent opposition, inasmuch as the latter may be retorted, and implies that we are worth notice; whereas the former strikes at the root of our self-importance, and reminds us that even our good opinion is not worth having. Nothing precludes sympathy so much as a perfect indifference to it.

XLIII. The confession of our failings is a thankless office. It savours less of sincerity or modesty than of ostentation. It seems as if we thought our weaknesses as good as other people’s virtues.

XLIV. A coxcomb is generally a favorite with women. To a certain point _his_ self-complacency is agreeable in itself; and beyond that, even if it grows fulsome, it only piques their vanity the more to make a conquest of _his_. He becomes a sort of rival to them in his own good opinion, so that his conceit has all the effect of jealousy in irritating their desire to withdraw his admiration from himself.

XLV. Nothing is more successful with women than that sort of condescending patronage of the sex, which goes by the general name of gallantry. It has the double advantage of imposing on their weakness and flattering their pride. By being indiscriminate, it tantalizes and keeps them in suspense; and by making a profession of an extreme deference for the sex in general, naturally suggests the reflection, what a delightful thing must be to gain the exclusive regard of a man who has so high an opinion of what is due to the female character. It is possible for a man, by talking of what is _feminine_ or _unfeminine_, _vulgar_ or _genteel_, by saying _how shocking such an article of dress is_, or that _no lady ought to touch a particular kind of food_, fairly to starve or strip a whole circle of simpletons half-naked, by mere dint of impertinence, and an air of common-place assurance. How interesting to be acquainted with a man whose every thought turns upon the sex! How charming to make a conquest of one who sets up for a consummate judge of female perfections!

XLVI. We like characters and actions which we do not approve. There are amiable vices and obnoxious virtues, on the mere principle that our sympathy with a person who yields to obvious temptations and agreeable impulses (however prejudicial) is itself agreeable, while to sympathise with exercises of self-denial or fortitude, is a painful effort. Virtue costs the spectator, as well as the performer, something. We are touched by the immediate motives of actions, we judge of them by the consequences. We like a convivial character better than an abstemious one, because the idea of conviviality in the first instance is pleasanter than that of sobriety. For the same reason, we prefer generosity to justice, because the imagination lends itself more easily to an ebullition of feeling, than to the suppression of it on remote and abstract principles; and we like a good-natured fool, or even knave better than the severe professors of wisdom and morality. Cato, Brutus, &c. are characters to admire and applaud, rather than to love or imitate.

XLVII. Personal pretensions alone ensure female regard. It is not the eye that sees whatever is sublime or beautiful in nature that the fair delight to see gazing in silent rapture on themselves, but that which is itself a pleasing object to the sense. I may look at a Claude or a Raphael by turns, but this does not alter my own appearance; and it is that which women attend to.

XLVIII. There are persons that we like, though they do not like us. This happens very rarely; and, indeed it argues a strong presumption of merit both in them and in ourselves. We fancy they only want to know us better, to be convinced of the prize they would obtain in our friendship. There are others, to whom no civilities or good offices on their parts can reconcile us, from an original distaste: yet even this repugnance would not, perhaps, be proof against time and custom.

XLIX. We may observe persons who seem to have a peculiar delight in the _disagreeable_. They catch all sorts of uncouth tones and gestures, the manners and dialect of clowns and hoydens, and aim at vulgarity as others ape gentility. (This is what is often understood by a love of low life.) They say all sorts of disagreeable things without meaning or feeling what they say. What startles or shocks other people is to them an amusing excitement, a fillip to their constitutions; and from the bluntness of their perceptions and a certain wilfulness of spirit, not being able to enter into the refined and pleasurable, they make a merit of being insensible to everything of the kind. Masculine women, for instance, are those who, not being possessed of the charms and delicacy of the sex, affect a superiority over it by throwing aside all decorum.

L. We find another class who continually do and say what they ought not, and what they do not intend; and who are governed almost entirely by an instinct of absurdity. Owing to a perversity of imagination or irritability of nerve, the idea that a thing is improper acts as a mechanical inducement to do it; the fear of committing a blunder is so strong, that they _bolt_ out whatever is uppermost in their minds, before they are aware of it. The dread of some object haunts and rivets attention to it; and a continual, uneasy, morbid apprehensiveness of temper takes away their self-possession, and hurries them into the very mistakes they wish to avoid.

LI. There are few people quite above, or completely below _par_.

LII. Society is a more level surface than we imagine. Wise men or absolute fools are hard to be met with, as there are few giants or dwarfs. The heaviest charge we can bring against the general texture of society is, that it is commonplace; and many of those who are singular, had better be commonplace. Our fancied superiority to others is in some one thing, which we think most of, because we excel in it, or have paid most attention to it; whilst we overlook their superiority to us in something else, which they set equal and exclusive store by. This is fortunate for all parties. I never felt myself superior to any one, who did not go out of his way to affect qualities which he had not. In his own individual character and line of pursuit, every one has knowledge, experience, and skill:—and who shall say which pursuit requires most, thereby proving his own narrowness and incompetence to decide? Particular talent or genius does not imply general capacity. Those who are most versatile are seldom great in any one department: and the stupidest people can generally do something. The highest pre-eminence in any one study commonly arises from the concentration of the attention and faculties on that one study. He who expects from a great name in politics, in philosophy, in art, equal greatness in other things, is little versed in human nature. Our strength lies in our weakness. The learned in books is ignorant of the world. He who is ignorant of books is often well acquainted with other things: for life is of the same length in the learned and the unlearned; the mind cannot be idle; if it is not taken up with one thing, it attends to another through choice or necessity; and the degree of previous capacity in one class or another is a mere lottery.

LIII. Some things, it is true, are more prominent, and lead to more serious consequences than others, so as to excite a greater share of attention and applause. Public characters, authors, warriors, statesmen, &c. nearly monopolise public consideration in this way, and are apt to judge of their merit by the noise they make in the world. Yet none of these classes would be willing to make the rule absolute; for a favourite player gains as much applause as any of them. A poet stands a poor chance either of popularity with the vulgar, or influence with the great, against a fashionable opera-dancer or singer. Reputation or notoriety is not the stamp of merit. Certain professions, like certain situations, bring it into greater notice, but have, perhaps, no more to do with it than birth or fortune. Opportunity sometimes indeed ‘throws a cruel sunshine on a fool.’ I have known several celebrated men, and some of them have been persons of the weakest capacity; yet accident had lifted them into general notice, and probably will hand their memories down to posterity. There are names written in her immortal scroll at which FAME blushes!

LIV. The world judge of men by their ability in their profession, and we judge of ourselves by the same test; for it is that on which our success in life depends. Yet how often do our talents and pursuits lie in different directions! The best painters are not always the cleverest men; and an author who makes an unfavourable or doubtful impression on the public, may in himself be a person of rare and agreeable qualifications. One cause of this is affectation. We constantly aim at what we are least fit for, thwarting or despising our natural bent; so that our performances and our characters are unaccountably at variance.

LV. If a man is disliked by one woman, he will succeed with none. The sex (one and all) have the same secret, or _freemasonry_, in judging of men.

LVI. Any woman may act the part of a coquet successfully, who has the reputation without the scruples of modesty. If a woman passes the bounds of propriety for our sakes, and throws herself unblushingly at our heads, we conclude it is either from a sudden and violent liking, or from extraordinary merit on our parts, either of which is enough to turn any man’s head, who has a single spark of gallantry or vanity in his composition.

LVII. The surest way to make ourselves agreeable to others is by seeming to think them so. If we appear fully sensible of their good qualities, they will not complain of the want of them in us.

LVIII. We often choose a friend as we do a mistress, for no particular excellence in themselves, but merely from some circumstance that flatters our self-love.

LIX. Silence is one great art of conversation. He is not a fool who knows when to hold his tongue; and a person may gain credit for sense, eloquence, wit, who merely says nothing to lessen the opinion which others have of these qualities in themselves.

LX. There are few things in which we deceive ourselves more than in the esteem we profess to entertain for our friends. It is little better than a piece of quackery. The truth is, we think of them as we please—that is, as _they_ please or displease us. As long as we are in good humour with them, we see nothing but their good qualities; but no sooner do they offend us than we rip up all their bad ones (which we before made a secret of, even to ourselves) with double malice. He who but now was little less than an angel of light shall be painted in the blackest colours for a slip of the tongue, ‘some trick not worth an egg,’ for the slightest suspicion of offence given or received. We often bestow the most opprobrious epithets on our best friends, and retract them twenty times in the course of a day, while the man himself remains the same. In love, which is all rhapsody and passion, this is excusable; but in the ordinary intercourse of life, it is preposterous.

LXI. A man who is always defending his friends from the most trifling charges, will be apt to make other people their enemies.

LXII. There are those who see everything through a medium of enthusiasm or prejudice; and who therefore think, that to admit any blemish in a friend, is to compromise his character altogether. The instant you destroy their heated exaggerations, they feel that they have no other ground to stand upon.

LXIII. We are ridiculous enough in setting up for patterns of perfection ourselves, without becoming answerable for that of others. It is best to confine our absurdities at home.

LXIV. We do not like our friends the worse because they sometimes give us an opportunity to rail at them heartily. Their faults reconcile us to their virtues. Indeed, we never have much esteem or regard, except for those that we can afford to speak our minds of freely; whose follies vex us in proportion to our anxiety for their welfare, and who have plenty of redeeming points about them to balance their defects. When we ‘spy abuses’ of this kind, it is a wiser and more generous proceeding to give vent to our impatience and ill-humour, than to brood over it, and let it, by sinking into our minds, poison the very sources of our goodwill.

LXV. To come to an explanation with a friend is to do away half the cause of offence; as to declare the grounds of our complaints and chagrin to a third party, is tacitly to pass them over. Our not daring to hint at the infirmities of a friend implies that we are ashamed to own them, and that we can only hope to keep on good terms with him by being blind to his real character.

LXVI. It is well that there is no one without a fault; for he would not have a friend in the world. He would seem to belong to a different species.

LXVII. Even among actors, painters, &c. those who are the most perfect, are not always the most admired. It is those who strike by their inequalities, and whose faults and excellences keep up a perpetual warfare between the partizans on both sides, that are the most talked of and produce the greatest effect. Nothing is prominent that does not act as a foil to itself. Emery’s acting was without a fault. This was all that was ever said about it. His merit was one of those things that nobody insisted on, because it was taken for granted. Mr Kean agitates and almost convulses the public mind by contrary extremes. It is a question whether Raphael would have acquired so great a name, if his colouring had been equal to his drawing or expression. As it is, his figures stand out like a rock, severed from its base: while Correggio’s are lost in their own beauty and sweetness. Whatever has not a mixture of imperfection in it, soon grows insipid, or seems ‘stupidly good.’

LXVIII. I have known persons without a friend—never any one without some virtue. The virtues of the former conspired with their vices to make the whole world their enemies.

LXIX. The study of metaphysics has this advantage, at least—it promotes a certain integrity and uprightness of understanding, which is a cure for the spirit of lying. He who has devoted himself to the discovery of truth feels neither pride nor pleasure in the invention of falsehood, and cannot condescend to any such paltry expedient. If you find a person given to vulgar shifts and rhodomontade, and who at the same time tells you he is a metaphysician, do not believe him.

LXX. It is the mischief of the regular study of all art and science, that it proportionably unfits a man for those pursuits or emergencies in life, which require mere courage and promptitude. To any one who has found how difficult it is to arrive at truth or beauty, with all the pains and time he can bestow upon them, everything seems worthless that can be obtained by a mere assumption of the question, or putting a good face upon the matter. Let a man try to produce a fine picture, or to solve an abstruse problem by giving himself airs of self-importance, and see what he will make of it. But in the common intercourse of life, too much depends on this sort of assurance and quackery. This is the reason why scholars and other eminent men so often fail in what personally concerns themselves. They cannot take advantage of the follies of mankind; nor submit to arrive at the end they have in view by unworthy means. Those who cannot make the progress of a single step in a favourite study without infinite pains and preparation, scorn to carry the world before them, or to win the good opinion of any individual in it, by vapouring and impudence. Yet these last qualities often succeed without an atom of true desert; and ‘fools rush in where angels fear to tread.’ In nine cases out of ten, the mere sanguineness of our pursuit ensures success; but the having tasked our faculties as much as they will bear, does not tend to enhance our overweening opinion of ourselves. The labours of the mind, like the drudgery of the body, impair our animal spirits and alacrity. Those who have done nothing, fancy themselves capable of everything: while those who have exerted themselves to the utmost, only feel the limitation of their powers, and evince neither admiration of themselves nor triumph over others. Their work is still to do, and they have no time or disposition for _fooling_. This is the reason why the greatest men have the least appearance of it.

LXXI. Persons who pique themselves on their understanding are frequently reserved and haughty: persons who aim at wit are generally courteous and sociable. Those who depend at every turn on the applause of the company, must endeavour to conciliate the good opinion of others by every means in their power.

‘A jest’s prosperity lies in the ear
Of him who hears it.’

If a habit of jesting lowers a man, it is to the level of humanity. Wit nourishes vanity; reason has a much stronger tincture of pride in it.

LXXII. Satirists gain the applause of others through fear, not through love.

LXXIII. Some persons can do nothing but ridicule others.

LXXIV. Parodists, like mimics, seize only on defects, or turn beauties into blemishes. They make bad writers and indifferent actors.

LXXV. People of the greatest gaiety of manners are often the dullest company imaginable. Nothing is so dreary as the serious conversation or writing of a professed wag. So the gravest persons, divines, mathematicians, and so on, make the worst and poorest jokes, puns, &c.

LXXVI. The expression of a Frenchman’s face is often as melancholy when he is by himself, as it is lively in conversation. The instant he ceases to talk, he becomes ‘quite chop-fallen.’

LXXVII. To point out defects, one would think it necessary to be equally conversant with beauties. But this is not the case. The best caricaturists cannot draw a common outline; nor the best comic actors speak a line of serious poetry without being laughed at. This may be perhaps accounted for in some degree by saying, that the perfection of the ludicrous implies that looseness or disjointedness of mind, which receives most delight and surprise from oddity and contrast, and which is naturally opposed to the steadiness and unity of feeling required for the serious, or the sublime and beautiful.

LXXVIII. Different persons have different limits to their capacity. Thus, some excel in one profession generally, such as acting; others in one department of it, as tragedy; others in one character only. Garrick was equally great in tragedy and comedy; Mrs. Siddons only shone in tragedy; Russell could play nothing but Jerry Sneak.[21]

LXXIX. Comic actors have generally attempted tragedy first, and have a hankering after it to the last. It was the case with Weston, Shuter, Munden, Bannister, and even Liston. _Prodigious!_ The mistake may perhaps be traced to the imposing _eclat_ of tragedy, and the awe produced by the utter incapacity of such persons to know what to make of it.

LXXX. If we are not first, we may as well be last in any pursuit. To be _worst_ is some kind of distinction, and implies, by the rule of contrary, that we ought to excel in some opposite quality. Thus, if any one has scarcely the use of his limbs, we may conceive it is from his having exercised his mind too much. We suppose that an awkward boy at school is a good scholar. So, if a man has a strong body, we compliment him with a weak mind, and _vice versâ_.

LXXXI. There is a natural principle of _antithesis_ in the human mind. We seldom grant one excellence but we hasten to make up for it by a contrary defect, to keep the balance of criticism even. Thus we say, _Titian was a great colourist, but did not know how to draw_. The first is true: the last is a mere presumption from the first, like alternate rhyme and reason; or a compromise with the weakness of human nature, which soon tires of praise.

LXXXII. There is some reason for this cautious distribution of merit; for it is not necessary for one man to possess more than one quality in the highest perfection, since no one possesses all, and we are in the end forced to collect the idea of perfection in art from a number of different specimens. It is quite sufficient for any one person to do any one thing better than everybody else. Anything beyond this is like an impertinence. It was not necessary for Hogarth to paint his Sigismunda; nor for Mrs. Siddons to abridge Paradise Lost.

LXXXIII. On the stage none but originals can be counted as anything. The rest are ‘men of no mark or likelihood.’ They give us back the same impression we had before, and make it worse instead of better.

LXXXIV. It was ridiculous to set up Mr Kean as a rival to Mr Kemble. Whatever merits the first might have, they were of a totally different class, and could not possibly interfere with, much less injure those of his great predecessor. Mr Kemble stood on his own ground, and he stood high on it. Yet there certainly was a _reaction_ in this case. Many persons saw no defect in Mr Kemble till Mr Kean came, and then finding themselves mistaken in the abstract idea of perfection they had indulged in, were ready to give up their opinion altogether. When a man is a great favourite with the public, they incline by a natural spirit of exaggeration and love of the marvellous, to heap all sorts of perfections upon him, and when they find by another’s excelling him in some one thing that this is not the case, they are disposed to strip their former idol, and leave him ‘bare to weather.’ Nothing is more unjust or capricious than public opinion.

LXXXV. The public have neither shame nor gratitude.

LXXXVI. Public opinion is the mixed result of the intellect of the community acting upon general feeling.

LXXXVII. Our friends are generally ready to do everything for us, except the very thing we wish them to do. There is one thing in particular they are always disposed to give us, and which we are as unwilling to take, namely, _advice_.

LXXXVIII. Good-nature is often combined with ill temper. Our own uncomfortable feelings teach us to sympathise with others, and to seek relief from our own uneasiness in the satisfactions we can afford them. Ill-nature combined with good temper is an unnatural and odious character. Our delight in mischief and suffering, when we have no provocation to it from being ill at ease ourselves, is wholly unpardonable. Yet I have known one or two instances of this sort of callous levity, and gay, laughing malignity. Such people ‘poison in jest.’

LXXXIX. It is wonderful how soon men acquire talents for offices of trust and importance. The higher the situation, the higher the opinion it gives us of ourselves; and as is our confidence, so is our capacity. We _assume_ an equality with circumstances.

XC. The difficulty is for a man to rise to high station, not to fill it; as it is easier to stand on an eminence than to climb up to it. Yet he alone is truly great who is so without the aid of circumstances and in spite of fortune, who is as little lifted up by the tide of opinion, as he is depressed by neglect or obscurity, and who borrows dignity only from himself. It is a fine compliment which Pope has paid to Lord Oxford—

‘A soul supreme, in each hard instance tried,
Above all pain, all passion, and all pride;
The rage of power, the blast of public breath,
The lust of lucre, and the dread of death!’

XCI. The most silent people are generally those who think most highly of themselves. They fancy themselves superior to every one else; and not being sure of making good their secret pretensions, decline entering the lists altogether. They thus ‘lay the flattering unction to their souls,’ that they could have said better things than others, or that the conversation was beneath them.

XCII. There are writers who never do their best; lest if they should fail, they should be left without excuse in their own opinion. While they trifle with a subject, they feel superior to it. They will not take pains, for this would be a test of what they are actually able to do, and set a limit to their pretensions, while their vanity is unbounded. The more you find fault with them, the more careless they grow, their affected indifference keeping pace with and acting as a shield against the disapprobation or contempt of others. They fancy whatever they condescend to write must be good enough for the public.

XCIII. Authors who acquire a high celebrity and conceal themselves, seem superior to fame. Producing great works _incognito_ is like doing good by stealth. There is an air of magnanimity in it, which people wonder at. Junius, and the author of Waverley are striking examples. Junius, however, is really unknown; while the author of Waverley enjoys all the credit of his writings without acknowledging them. Let any one else come forward and claim them; and we should then see whether Sir Walter Scott would stand idle by. It is a curious argument that he cannot be the author, because the real author could not help making himself known; when, if he is not so, the real author has never even been hinted at, and lets another run away with all the praise.

XCIV. Some books have a _personal_ character. We are attached to the work for the sake of the author. Thus we read WALTON’S ANGLER as we should converse with an agreeable old man, not for what he says, so much as for his manner of saying it, and the pleasure he takes in the subject.

XCV. Some persons are exceedingly shocked at the cruelty of WALTON’S ANGLER—as if the most humane could be expected to trouble themselves about fixing a worm on a hook, at a time when they burnt men at a stake ‘in conscience and tender heart.’ We are not to measure the feelings of one age by those of another. Had Walton lived in our day, he would have been the first to cry out against the cruelty of angling. As it was, his flies and baits were only a part of his tackle. _They_ had not, at this period, the most distant idea of setting up as candidates for our sympathy! Man is naturally a savage, and emerges from barbarism by slow degrees. Let us take the streaks of light, and be thankful for them, as they arise and tinge the horizon one by one, and not complain because the noon is long after the dawn of refinement.

XCVI. Livery-servants (I confess it) are the only people I do not like to sit in company with. They offend not only by their own meanness, but by the ostentatious display of the pride of their masters.

XCVII. It has been observed, that the proudest people are not nice in love. In fact, they think they raise the object of their choice above every one else.

XCVIII. A proud man is satisfied with his own good opinion, and does not seek to make converts to it. Pride erects a little kingdom of its own, and acts as sovereign in it. Hence we see why some men are so proud they cannot be affronted, like kings who have no peer or equal.

XCIX. The proudest people are as soon repulsed as the most humble. The last are discouraged by the slightest objection or hint of their conscious incapacity, while the first disdain to enter into any competition, and resent whatever implies a doubt of their self-evident superiority to others.

C. What passes in the world for talent or dexterity or enterprise, is often only a want of moral principle. We may succeed where others fail, not from a greater share of invention, but from not being nice in the choice of expedients.

CI. Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people’s weaknesses. Or it is taking advantages of others which they do not suspect, because they are contrary to propriety and the settled practice. We feel no inferiority to a fellow who picks our pockets; though we feel mortified at being over-reached by trick and cunning. Yet there is no more reason for it in the one case than in the other. Any one may win at cards by cheating—_till he is found out_. We have been playing against odds. So any one may deceive us by lying, or take an unfair advantage of us, who is not withheld by a sense of shame or honesty from doing so.

CII. The completest hypocrites are so by nature. That is, they are without sympathy with others to distract their attention—or any of that nervous weakness, which might revolt or hesitate at the baseness of the means necessary to carry on their system of deception. You can no more tell what is passing in the minds of such people than if they were of a different species. They, in fact, are so as to all moral intents and purposes; and this is the advantage they have over you. You fancy there is a common link between you, while in reality there is none.

CIII. The greatest hypocrites are the greatest dupes. This is either because they think only of deceiving others and are off their guard, or because they really know little about the feelings or characters of others from their want of sympathy, and of consequent sagacity. Perhaps the resorting to trick and artifice in the first instance implies not only a callousness of feeling, but an obtuseness of intellect, which cannot get on by fair means. Thus a girl who is ignorant and stupid may yet have cunning enough to resort to silence as the only chance of conveying an opinion of her capacity.

CIV. The greatest talents do not generally attain to the highest stations. For though high, the ascent to them is narrow, beaten, and crooked. The path of genius is free, and its own. Whatever requires the concurrence and co-operation of others, must depend chiefly on routine and an attention to rules and _minutiæ_. Success in business is therefore seldom owing to uncommon talents or original power, which is untractable and self-willed, but to the greatest degree of common-place capacity.

CV. The error in the reasonings of Mandeville, Rochefoucault, and others, is this: they first find out that there is something mixed in the motives of all our actions, and they then proceed to argue, that they must all arise from one motive, _viz._ self-love. They make the exception the rule. It would be easy to reverse the argument, and prove that our most selfish actions are disinterested. There is honour among thieves. Robbers, murderers, &c. do not commit those actions, from a pleasure in pure villainy, or for their own benefit only, but from a mistaken regard to the welfare or good opinion of those with whom they are immediately connected.

CVI. It is ridiculous to say, that compassion, friendship, &c. are at bottom only selfishness in disguise, because it is _we_ who feel pleasure or pain in the good or evil of others; for the meaning of self-love is not that it is I who love, but that I love myself. The motive is no more selfish because it is I who feel it, than the action is selfish because it is I who perform it. To prove a man selfish, it is not surely enough to say, that it is _he who feels_ (this is a mere quibble) but to shew that he does not feel _for another_; that is, that the idea of the suffering or welfare of others does not excite any feeling whatever of pleasure or pain in his mind, except from some reference to or reflection on himself. Self-love or the love of self means, that I have an immediate interest in the contemplation of my own good, and that this is a motive to action; and benevolence or the love of others means in like manner, that I have an immediate interest in the idea of the good or evil that may befall them, and a disposition to assist them, in consequence. Self-love, in a word, is sympathy with myself, that is, it is I who feel it, and I who am the object of it: in benevolence or compassion, it is I who still feel sympathy, but another (not myself) is the object of it. If I feel sympathy with others at all, it must be disinterested. The pleasure it may give me is the consequence, not the cause, of my feeling it. To insist that sympathy is self-love because we cannot feel for others, without being ourselves affected pleasurably or painfully, is to make nonsense of the question; for it is to insist that in order to feel for others properly and truly, we must in the first place feel nothing. _C’est une mauvaise plaisanterie._ That the feeling exists in the individual must be granted, and never admitted of a question: the only question is, how that feeling is caused, and what is its object—and it is to express the two opinions that may be entertained on this subject, that the terms _self-love_ and _benevolence_ have been appropriated. Any other interpretation of them is an evident abuse of language, and a subterfuge in argument, which, driven from the fair field of fact and observation, takes shelter in verbal sophistry.

CVII. Humility and pride are not easily distinguished from each other. A proud man, who fortifies himself in his own good opinion, may be supposed not to put forward his pretensions through shyness or deference to others: a modest man, who is really reserved and afraid of committing himself, is thought distant and haughty: and the vainest coxcomb, who makes a display of himself and his most plausible qualifications, often does so to hide his deficiencies and to prop up his tottering opinion of himself by the applause of others. Vanity does not refer to the opinion a man entertains of himself, but to that which he wishes others to entertain of him. Pride is indifferent to the approbation of others; as modesty shrinks from it, either through bashfulness, or from an unwillingness to take any undue advantage of it. I have known several very forward, loquacious, and even overbearing persons, whose confidential communications were oppressive from the sense they entertained of their own demerits. In company they talked on in mere _bravado_, and for fear of betraying their weak side, as children make a noise in the dark.

CVIII. True modesty and true pride are much the same thing. Both consist in setting a just value on ourselves—neither more nor less. It is a want of proper spirit to fancy ourselves inferior to others in those things in which we really excel them. It is conceit and want of common-sense to arrogate a superiority over others, without the most well-founded pretensions.

CIX. A man may be justly accused of vanity and presumption, who either thinks he possesses qualifications which he has not, or greatly overrates those which he has. An egotist does not think well of himself because he possesses certain qualities, but fancies he possesses a number of excellences, because he thinks well of himself through mere idle self-complacency. True moderation is the bounding of our self-esteem within the extent of our acquirements.

CX. Conceit is the most contemptible and one of the most odious qualities in the world. It is vanity driven from all other shifts, and forced to appeal to itself for admiration. An author, whose play has been _damned_ overnight, feels a paroxysm of conceit the next morning. Conceit may be defined as a restless, overweening, petty, obtrusive, mechanical delight in our own qualifications, without any reference to their real value, or to the approbation of others, merely because they are ours, and for no other reason whatever. It is the extreme of selfishness and folly.

CXI. Confidence or courage is conscious ability—the sense of power. No man is ever afraid of attempting what he knows he can do better than any one else. Charles Fox felt no diffidence in addressing the House of Commons: he was reserved and silent in company, and had no opinion of his talent for writing; that is, he knew his powers and their limits. The torrent of his eloquence rushed upon him from his knowledge of the subject and his interest in it, unchecked and unbidden, without his once thinking of himself or his hearers. As a man is strong, so is he bold. The thing is, that wherever we feel at home, there we are at our ease. The late Sir John Moore once had to review the troops at Plymouth before the King; and while he was on the ground and had to converse with the different persons of the court, with the ladies, and with Mr Pitt whom he thought a great man, he found himself a good deal embarrassed; but the instant he mounted his horse and the troops were put in motion, he felt quite relieved, and had leisure to observe what an awkward figure Mr Pitt made on horseback.

CXII. The truly proud man knows neither superiors nor inferiors. The first he does not admit of: the last he does not concern himself about. People who are insolent to those beneath them crouch to those above them. Both shew equal meanness of spirit and want of conscious dignity.