Chapter LXVI: Preface (2)

CXIII. No elevation or success raises the humble man in his own opinion. To the proud the slightest repulse or disappointment is the last indignity. The vain man makes a merit of misfortune, and triumphs in his disgrace.

CXIV. We reserve our gratitude for the manner of conferring benefits; and we revolt against this, except when it seems to say we owe no obligation at all, and thus cancels the debt of gratitude as soon as it is incurred.

CXV. We do not hate those who injure us, if they do not at the same time wound our self-love. We can forgive any one sooner than those who lower us in our own opinion. It is no wonder, therefore, that we as often dislike others for their virtues as for their vices. We naturally hate whatever makes us despise ourselves.

CXVI. When you find out a man’s ruling passion, beware of crossing him in it.

CXVII. We sometimes hate those who differ from us in opinion worse than we should for an attempt to injure us in the most serious point. A favourite theory is a possession for life; and we resent any attack upon it proportionably.

CXVIII. Men will die for an opinion as soon as for anything else. Whatever excites the spirit of contradiction, is capable of producing the last effects of heroism, which is only the highest pitch of obstinacy in a good or a bad cause, in wisdom or in folly.

CXIX. We are ready to sacrifice life, not only for our own opinion, but in deference to that of others. Conscience, or its shadow, honour, prevails over the fear of death. The man of fortune and fashion will throw away his life, like a bauble, to prevent the slightest breath of dishonour. So little are we governed by self-interest, and so much by imagination and sympathy.

CXX. The most impertinent people are less so from design than from inadvertence. I have known a person who could scarcely open his lips without offending some one, merely because he harboured no malice in his heart. A certain excess of animal spirits with thoughtless good-humour will often make more enemies than the most deliberate spite and ill-nature, which is on its guard, and strikes with caution and safety.

CXXI. It is great weakness to lay ourselves open to others, who are reserved towards us. There is not only no equality in it, but we may be pretty sure they will turn a confidence, which they are so little disposed to imitate, against us.

CXXII. A man has no excuse for betraying the secrets of his friends, unless he also divulges his own. He may then seem to be actuated not by treachery, but indiscretion.

CXXIII. As we scorn them who scorn us, so the contempt of the world (not seldom) makes men proud.

CXXIV. Even infamy may be oftentimes a source of secret self-complacency. We smile at the impotence of public opinion, when we can survive its worst censures.

CXXV. Simplicity of character is the natural result of profound thought.

CXXVI. The affected modesty of most women is a decoy for the generous, the delicate, and unsuspecting; while the artful, the bold, and unfeeling either see or break through its slender disguises.

CXXVII. We as often repent the good we have done as the ill.

CXXVIII. The measure of any man’s virtue is what he would do, if he had neither the laws nor public opinion, nor even his own prejudices, to control him.

CXXIX. We like the expression of Raphael’s faces without an edict to enforce it. I do not see why there should not be a taste in morals formed on the same principle.

CXXX. Where a greater latitude is allowed in morals, the number of examples of vice may increase, but so do those of virtue: at least, we are surer of the sincerity of the latter. It is only the exceptions to vice, that arise neither from ignorance nor hypocrisy, that are worth counting.

CXXXI. The fear of punishment may be necessary to the suppression of vice; but it also suspends the finer motives to virtue.

CXXXII. No wise man can have a contempt for the prejudices of others; and he should even stand in a certain awe of his own, as if they were aged parents and monitors. They may in the end prove wiser than he.

CXXXIII. We are only justified in rejecting prejudices, when we can explain the grounds of them; or when they are at war with nature, which is the strongest prejudice of all.

CXXXIV. Vulgar prejudices are those which arise out of accident, ignorance, or authority. Natural prejudices are those which arise out of the constitution of the human mind itself.

CXXXV. Nature is stronger than reason: for nature is, after all, the text, reason but the comment. He is indeed a poor creature who does not _feel_ the truth of more than he _knows_ or can explain satisfactorily to others.

CXXXVI. The mind revolts against certain opinions, as the stomach rejects certain foods.

CXXXVII. The drawing a certain positive line in morals, beyond which a single false step is irretrievable, makes virtue formal, and vice desperate.

CXXXVIII. Most codes of morality proceed on a supposition of _Original Sin_; as if the only object was to coerce the headstrong propensities to vice, and there were no natural disposition to good in the mind, which it was possible to improve, refine, and cultivate.

CXXXIX. This _negative_ system of virtue leads to a very low style of moral sentiment. It is as if the highest excellence in a picture was to avoid gross defects in drawing; or in writing, instances of bad grammar. It ought surely to be our aim in virtue, as well as in other things, ‘to snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.’

CXL. We find many things to which the prohibition of them constitutes the only temptation.

CXLI. There is neither so much vice nor so much virtue in the world, as it might appear at first sight that there is. Many people commit actions that they hate, as they affect virtues that they laugh at, merely because others do so.

CXLII. When the imagination is continually led to the brink of vice by a system of terror and denunciations, people fling themselves over the precipice from the mere dread of falling.

CXLIII. The maxim—_Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor_—has not been fully explained. In general, it is taken for granted, that those things that our reason disapproves, we give way to from passion. Nothing like it. The course that persons in the situation of Medea pursue has often as little to do with inclination as with judgment: but they are led astray by some object of a disturbed imagination, that shocks their feelings and staggers their belief; and they grasp the phantom to put an end to this state of tormenting suspense, and to see whether it is human or not.

CXLIV. Vice, like disease, floats in the atmosphere.

CXLV. Honesty is one part of eloquence. We persuade others by being in earnest ourselves.

CXLVI. A mere sanguine temperament often passes for genius and patriotism.

CXLVII. Animal spirits are continually taken for wit and fancy; and the want of them, for sense and judgment.

CXLVIII. In public speaking, we must appeal either to the prejudices of others, or to the love of truth and justice. If we think merely of displaying our own ability, we shall ruin every cause we undertake.

CXLIX. Those who cannot miss an opportunity of saying a good thing or of bringing in some fantastical opinion of their own, are not to be trusted with the management of any great question.

CL. There are some public speakers who commit themselves and their party by extravagances uttered in heat and through vanity, which they retract in cold blood through cowardice and caution. They outrage propriety, and trim to self-interest.

CLI. An honest man is respected by all parties. We forgive a hundred rude or offensive things that are uttered from conviction or in the conscientious discharge of a duty—never one, that proceeds from design or with a view to raise the person who says it above us.

CLII. Truth from the mouth of an honest man, or severity from a good-natured one, has a double effect.

CLIII. A person who does not endeavour to _seem_ more than he _is_, will generally be thought nothing of. We habitually make such large deductions for pretence and imposture, that no real merit will stand against them. It is necessary to set off our good qualities with a certain air of plausibility and self-importance, as some attention to fashion is necessary to decency.

CLIV. If we do not aspire to admiration, we shall fall into contempt. To expect sheer, evenhanded justice from mankind, is folly. They take the gross inventory of our pretensions; and not to have them overlooked entirely, we must place them in a conspicuous point of view, as men write their trades or fix a sign over the doors of their houses. Not to conform to the established practice in either respect, is false delicacy in the commerce of the world.

CLV. There has been a considerable change in dress and manners in the course of a century or two, as well as in the signs and badges of different professions. The streets are no longer encumbered with numberless emblems of mechanical or other occupations, nor crowded with the pomp and pageantry of dress, nor embroiled by the insolent airs assumed by the different candidates for rank and precedence. Our pretensions become less gross and obtrusive with the progress of society, and as the means of communication become more refined and general. The simplicity and even slovenliness of the modern beau form a striking contrast to the dazzling finery and ostentatious formality of the oldfashioned courtier; yet both are studied devices and symbols of distinction. It would be a curious speculation to trace the various modes of affectation in dress from the age of Elizabeth to the present time, in connection with the caprices of fashion, and the march of opinion; and to shew in what manner Sir Isaac Newton’s _Principia_ or Rousseau’s Emilius have contributed to influence the gliding movements and curtail the costume of a modern _dandy_!

CLVI. Unlimited power is helpless, as arbitrary power is capricious. Our energy is in proportion to the resistance it meets. We can attempt nothing great, but from a sense of the difficulties we have to encounter: we can persevere in nothing great, but from a pride in overcoming them. Where our will is our law, we eagerly set about the first trifle we think of, and lay it aside for the next trifle that presents itself, or that is suggested to us. The character of despotism is apathy or levity—or the love of mischief, because the latter is easy and suits its pride and wantonness.

CLVII. Affectation is as necessary to the mind, as dress is to the body.

CLVIII. Man is an intellectual animal, and therefore an everlasting contradiction to himself. His senses centre in himself, his ideas reach to the ends of the universe; so that he is torn in pieces between the two, without a possibility of its ever being otherwise. A mere physical being, or a pure spirit, can alone be satisfied with itself.

CLIX. Our approbation of others has a good deal of selfishness in it. We like those who give us pleasure, however little they may wish for or deserve our esteem in return. We prefer a person with vivacity and high spirits, though bordering upon insolence, to the timid and pusillanimous; we are fonder of wit joined to malice, than of dullness without it. We have no great objection to receive a man who is a villain as our friend, if he has plausible exterior qualities; nay, we often take a pride in our harmless familiarity with him, as we might in keeping a tame panther; but we soon grow weary of the society of a good-natured fool who puts our patience to the test, or of an awkward clown who puts our pride to the blush.

CLX. We are fonder of visiting our friends in health than in sickness. We judge less favourably of their characters, when any misfortune happens to them; and a lucky hit, either in business or reputation, improves even their personal appearance in our eyes.

CLXI. An heiress, with a large fortune and a moderate share of beauty, easily rises into a reigning toast.

CLXII. One shining quality lends a lustre to another, or hides some glaring defect.

CLXIII. We are never so much disposed to quarrel with others as when we are dissatisfied with ourselves.

CLXIV. We are never so thoroughly tired of the company of any one else as we sometimes are of our own.

CLXV. People outlive the interest, which, at different periods of their lives, they take in themselves. When we forget old friends, it is a sign we have forgotten ourselves; or despise our former ways and notions, as much as we do their present ones.

CLXVI. We fancy ourselves superior to others, because we find that we have improved; and at no time did we think ourselves inferior to them.

CLXVII. The notice of others is as necessary to us as the air we breathe. If we cannot gain their good opinion, we change our battery, and strive to provoke their hatred and contempt.

CLXVIII. Some malefactors, at the point of death, confess crimes of which they have never been guilty, thus to raise our wonder and indignation in the same proportion; or to shew their superiority to vulgar prejudice, and brave that public opinion, of which they are the victims.

CLXIX. Others make an ostentatious display of their penitence and remorse, only to invite sympathy, and create a diversion in their own minds from the subject of their impending punishment. So that we excite a strong emotion in the breasts of others, we care little of what kind it is, or by what means we produce it. We have equally the feeling of power. The sense of insignificance or of being an object of perfect indifference to others, is the only one that the mind never covets nor willingly submits to.

CLXX. There are not wanting instances of those, who pass their whole lives in endeavouring to make themselves ridiculous. They only tire of their absurdities when others are tired of talking about and laughing at them, so that they have become a stale jest.

CLXXI. People in the grasp of death wish all the evil they have done (as well as all the good) to be known, not to make atonement by confession, but to excite one more strong sensation before they die, and to leave their interests and passions a legacy to posterity, when they themselves are exempt from the consequences.

CLXXII. We talk little, if we do not talk about ourselves.

CLXXIII. We may give more offence by our silence than even by impertinence.

CLXXIV. Obstinate silence implies either a mean opinion of ourselves or a contempt of our company: and it is the more provoking, as others do not know to which of these causes to attribute it, whether to humility or pride.

CLXXV. Silence proceeds either from want of something to say, or from a phlegmatic indifference which closes up our lips. The sea, or any other striking object, suddenly bursting on a party of mutes in a stage-coach, will occasion a general exclamation of surprise; and the ice being once broken, they may probably be good company for the rest of the journey.

CLXXVI. We compliment ourselves on our national reserve and taciturnity by abusing the loquacity and frivolity of the French.

CLXXVII. Nations, not being willing or able to correct their own errors, justify them by the opposite errors of other nations.

CLXXVIII. We easily convert our own vices into virtues, the virtues of others into vices.

CLXXIX. A person who talks with equal vivacity on every subject, excites no interest in any. _Repose_ is as necessary in conversation as in a picture.

CLXXX. The best kind of conversation is that which may be called _thinking aloud_. I like very well to speak my mind on any subject (or to hear another do so) and to go into the question according to the degree of interest it naturally inspires, but not to have to get up a thesis upon every topic. There are those, on the other hand, who seem always to be practising on their audience, as if they mistook them for a DEBATING-SOCIETY, or to hold a general retainer, by which they are bound to explain every difficulty, and answer every objection that can be started. This, in private society and among friends, is not desirable. You thus lose the two great ends of conversation, which are to learn the sentiments of others, and see what they think of yours. One of the best talkers I ever knew had this defect—that he evidently seemed to be considering less what he felt on any point than what might be said upon it, and that he listened to you, not to weigh what you said, but to reply to it, like counsel on the other side. This habit gave a brilliant smoothness and polish to his general discourse, but, at the same time, took from its solidity and prominence: it reduced it to a tissue of lively, fluent, ingenious _commonplaces_, (for original genuine, observations are like ‘minute drops from off the eaves,’ and not an incessant shower) and, though his talent in this way was carried to the very extreme of cleverness, yet I think it seldom, if ever, went beyond it.

CLXXXI. Intellectual excellence can seldom be a source of much satisfaction to the possessor. In a gross period, or in vulgar society, it is not understood; and among those who are refined enough to appreciate its value, it ceases to be a distinction.

CLXXXII. There is, I think, an essential difference of character in mankind, between those who wish _to do_, and those who wish to _have_ certain things. I observe persons expressing a great desire to possess fine horses, hounds, dress, equipage, &c. and an envy of those who have them. I myself have no such feeling, nor the least ambition to shine, except by doing something better than others. I have the love of power, but not of property. I should like to be able to outstrip a greyhound in speed; but I should be ashamed to take any merit to myself from possessing the fleetest greyhound in the world. I cannot transfer my personal identity from myself to what I merely call _mine_. The generality of mankind are contented to be estimated by what they possess, instead of what they are.

CLXXXIII. Buonaparte observes, that the diplomatists of the new school were no match for those brought up under the ancient _regime_. The reason probably is, that the modern style of intellect inclines to abstract reasoning and general propositions, and pays less attention to individual character, interests, and circumstances. The moderns have, therefore, less tact in watching the designs of others, and less closeness in hiding their own. They perhaps have a greater knowledge of things, but less of the world. They calculate the force of an argument, and rely on its success, moving _in vacuo_, without sufficiently allowing for the resistance of opinion and prejudice.

CLXXXIV. The most comprehensive reasoners are not always the deepest or nicest observers. They are apt to take things for granted too much, as parts of a system. Lord Egmont, in a speech in Parliament, in the year 1750, has the following remarkable observations on this subject. ‘It is not common-sense, but downright madness, to follow general principles in this wild manner without limitation or reserve; and give me leave to say one thing, which I hope will be long remembered, and well thought upon by all those who hear me—that those gentlemen who plume themselves thus upon their open and extensive understandings, are in fact, the men of the narrowest principles in the kingdom. For what is a narrow mind? It is a mind that sees any proposition in one single contracted point of view, unable to complicate any subject with the circumstances, or considerations, that are or may or ought to be combined with it. And pray, what is that understanding which looks upon the question of _naturalization_ only in this general view, that naturalization is an increase of the people, and the increase of the people is the riches of the nation? Never admitting the least reflection, what the people are whom you let in upon us; how, in the present bad regulation of the police, they are to be employed or maintained; how their principles, opinions, or practice may influence the religion or politics of the state, or what operation their admission may have upon the peace and tranquillity of the country. Is not such a genius equally contemptible and narrow with that of the poorest mortal upon earth, who grovels for his whole life within the verge of the opposite extreme?’

CLXXXV. In an Englishman, a diversity of profession and pursuit (as the having been a soldier, a valet, a player, &c.) implies a dissipation and dissoluteness of character, and a fitness for nothing. In a Frenchman, it only shews a natural vivacity of disposition, and a fitness for everything.

CLXXXVI. Impudence, like everything else, has its limits. Let a man be ever so hardened and unblushing, there is a point at which his courage is sure to fail him; and not being able to carry off the matter with his usual air of confidence, he becomes more completely confused and awkward than any one else would in the same circumstances.

CLXXXVII. Half the miseries of human life proceed from our not perceiving the incompatibility of different attainments, and consequently aiming at too much. We make ourselves wretched in vainly aspiring after advantages we are deprived of; and do not consider that if we had these advantages, it would be quite impossible for us to retain those which we actually do possess, and which, after all, if it were put to the question, we would not consent to part with for the sake of any others.

CLXXXVIII. If we use no ceremony towards others, we shall be treated without any. People are soon tired of paying trifling attentions to those who receive them with coldness, and return them with neglect.

CLXXXIX. Surly natures have more pleasure in disobliging others than in serving themselves.

CXC. People in general consult their prevailing humour or ruling passion (whatever it may be) much more than their interest.

CXCI. One of the painters (Teniers,) has represented monkeys with a monk’s cloak and cowl. This has a ludicrous effect enough. To a superior race of beings the pretensions of mankind to extraordinary sanctity and virtue must seem equally ridiculous.

CXCII. When we speak ill of people behind their backs, and are civil to them to their faces, we may be accused of insincerity. But the contradiction is less owing to insincerity than to the change of circumstances. We think well of them while we are with them; and in their absence recollect the ill we durst not hint at or acknowledge to ourselves in their presence.

CXCIII. Our opinions are not our own, but in the power of sympathy. If a person tells us a palpable falsehood, we not only dare not contradict him, but we dare hardly disbelieve him _to his face_. A lie boldly uttered has the effect of truth for the instant.

CXCIV. A man’s reputation is not in his own keeping, but lies at the mercy of the profligacy of others. Calumny requires no proof. The throwing out malicious imputations against any character leaves a stain, which no after-reputation can wipe out. To create an unfavourable impression, it is not necessary that certain things should be _true_, but that they _have been said_. The imagination is of so delicate a texture, that even words wound it.

CXCV. A nickname is a mode of insinuating a prejudice against another under some general designation, which, as it offers no proof, admits of no reply.

CXCVI. It does not render the person less contemptible or ridiculous in vulgar opinion, because it may be harmless in itself, or even downright nonsense. By repeating it incessantly, and leaving out every other characteristic of the individual, whom we wish to make a bye-word of, it seems as if he were an abstraction of insignificance.

CXCVII. Want of principle is power. Truth and honesty set a limit to our efforts, which impudence and hypocrisy easily overleap.

CXCVIII. There are many who talk on from ignorance, rather than from knowledge; and who find the former an inexhaustible fund of conversation.

CXCIX. Nothing gives such a blow to friendship as the detecting another in an untruth: it strikes at the root of our confidence ever after.

CC. In estimating the value of an acquaintance or even friend, we give a preference to intellectual or convivial over moral qualities. The truth is, that in our habitual intercourse with others, we much oftener require to be amused than assisted. We consider less, therefore, what a person with whom we are intimate is ready to do for us in critical emergencies, than what he has to say on ordinary occasions. We dispense with his services, if he only saves us from _ennui_. In civilised society, words are of as much importance as things.

CCI. We cultivate the society of those who are above us in station, and beneath us in capacity. The one we do from choice, the other from necessity. Our interest dictates our submission to the first; our vanity is flattered by the homage of the last.

CCII. A man of talents, who shrinks from a collision with his equals or superiors, will soon sink below himself. We improve by trying our strength with others, not by shewing it off. A person who shuts himself up in a little circle of dependants and admirers for fear of losing ground in his own opinion by jostling with the world at large, may continue to be gaped at by fools, but will forfeit the respect of sober and sensible men.

CCIII. There are others, who entertaining a high opinion of themselves, and not being able (for want of plausible qualities) to gather a circle of butterflies round them, retire into solitude, and there worship the ECHOES and themselves. They gain this advantage by it—the ECHOES do not contradict them. But it is a question, whether by dwelling always on their own virtues and merits, unmolested, they increase the stock. They, indeed, pamper their ruling vices, and pile them mountain-high; and looking down on the world from the elevation of their retreat, idly fancy that the world has nothing to do but to look up to them with wondering eyes.

CCIV. It is a false principle, that because we are entirely occupied with ourselves, we must equally occupy the thoughts of others. The contrary inference is the fair one.

CCV. It is better to desire than to enjoy—to love than to be loved.

CCVI. Every one would rather be Raphael than Hogarth. Without entering into the question of the talent required for their different works, or the pleasure derived from them, we prefer that which confers dignity on human nature to that which degrades it. We would wish to _do_ what we would wish to _be_. And, moreover, it is most difficult to do what it is most difficult to be.

CCVII. A selfish feeling requires less moral capacity than a benevolent one: a selfish expression requires less intellectual capacity to execute it than a benevolent one; for in expression, and all that relates to it, the intellectual is the reflection of the moral. Raphael’s figures are sustained by _ideas_: Hogarth’s are distorted by mechanical habits and instincts. It is elevation of thought that gives grandeur and delicacy of expression to passion. The expansion and refinement of the soul are seen in the face as in a mirror. An enlargement of purpose gives a corresponding enlargement of form. The _mind_, as it were, acts over the whole body, and animates it equally; while petty and local interests seize on particular parts, and distract it by contrary and mean expressions. Now, if mental expression has this superior grandeur and grace, we can account at once for the superiority of Raphael. For there is no doubt, that it is more difficult to give a whole continuously and proportionably than to give the parts separate and disjointed, or to diffuse the same subtle but powerful expression over a large mass than to caricature it in a single part or feature. The actions in Raphael are like a branch of a tree swept by the surging blast; those in Hogarth like straws whirled and twitched about in the gusts and eddies of passion. I do not mean to say that goodness alone constitutes greatness, but mental power does. Hogarth’s Good Apprentice is insipid: Raphael has clothed Elymas the Sorcerer with all the dignity and grandeur of vice. Selfish characters and passions borrow greatness from the range of imagination, and strength of purpose; and besides, have an advantage in natural force and interest.

CCVIII. We find persons who are actuated in all their tastes and feelings by a spirit of contradiction. They like nothing that other people do, and have a natural aversion to whatever is agreeable in itself. They read books that no one else reads; and are delighted with passages that no one understands but themselves. They only arrive at beauties through faults and difficulties; and all their conceptions are brought to light by a sort of Cæsarean process. This is either an affectation of singularity; or a morbid taste, that can relish nothing that is obvious and simple.

CCIX. An unaccountable spirit of contradiction is sometimes carried into men’s behaviour and actions. They never do anything from a direct motive, or in a straightforward manner. They get rid of all sorts of obligations, and rush on destruction without the shadow of an excuse. They take a perverse delight in acting not only contrary to reason, but in opposition to their own inclinations and passions, and are for ever in a state of cross-purposes with themselves.

CCX. There are some persons who never decide from deliberate motives at all, but are the mere creatures of impulse.

CCXI. Insignificant people are a necessary relief in society. Such characters are extremely agreeable, and even favourites, if they appear satisfied with the part they have to perform.

CCXII. Little men seldom seem conscious of their diminutive size; or make up for it by the erectness of their persons, or a peculiarly dapper air and manner.

CCXIII. Any one is to be pitied, who has just sense enough to perceive his deficiencies.

CCXIV. I had rather be deformed than a dwarf and well-made. The one may be attributed to accident; the other looks like a deliberate insult on the part of nature.

CCXV. Personal deformity, in the well-disposed, produces a fine placid expression of countenance; in the ill-tempered and peevish, a keen, sarcastic one.

CCXVI. People say ill-natured things without design, but not without having a pleasure in them.

CCXVII. A person who blunders upon system, has a secret motive for what he does, unknown to himself.

CCXVIII. If any one by his general conduct contrives to part friends, he may not be aware that such is the tendency of his actions, but assuredly it is their motive. He has more pleasure in seeing others cold and distant, than cordial and intimate.

CCXIX. A person who constantly meddles to no purpose, means to do harm, and is not sorry to find he has succeeded.

CCXX. Cunning is natural to mankind. It is the sense of our weakness, and an attempt to effect by concealment what we cannot do openly and by force.

CCXXI. In love we never think of moral qualities, and scarcely of intellectual ones. Temperament and manner alone (with beauty) excite love.

CCXXII. There is no one thoroughly despicable. We cannot descend much lower than an ideot; and an ideot has some advantages over a wise man.

CCXXIII. Comparisons are odious, because they reduce every one to a standard he ought not to be tried by, or leave us in possession only of those claims which we can set up, to the entire exclusion of others. By striking off the common qualities, the remainder of excellence is brought down to a contemptible fraction. A man may be six feet high, and only an inch taller than another. In comparisons, this difference of an inch is the only thing thought of or ever brought into question. The greatest genius or virtue soon dwindles into nothing by such a mode of computation.

CCXXIV. It is a fine remark of Rousseau’s, that the best of us differ from others in fewer particulars than we agree with them in. The difference between a tall and a short man is only a few inches, whereas they are both several feet high. So a wise or learned man knows many things, of which the vulgar are ignorant; but there is a still greater number of things, the knowledge of which they share in common with him.

CCXXV. I am always afraid of a fool. One cannot be sure that he is not a knave as well.

CCXXVI. Weakness has its hidden resources, as well as strength. There is a degree of folly and meanness which we cannot calculate upon, and by which we are as much liable to be foiled, as by the greatest ability or courage.

CCXXVII. We can only be degraded in a contest with low natures. The advantages that others obtain over us are fair and honourable to both parties.

CCXXVIII. Reflection makes men cowards. There is no object that can be put in competition with life, unless it is viewed through the medium of passion, and we are hurried away by the impulse of the moment.

CCXXIX. The youth is better than the old age of friendship.

CCXXX. In the course of a long acquaintance we have repeated all our good things, and discussed all our favourite topics several times over, so that our conversation becomes a mockery of social intercourse. We might as well talk to ourselves. The soil of friendship is worn out with constant use. Habit may still attach us to each other, but we feel ourselves fettered by it. Old friends might be compared to old married people without the tie of children.

CCXXXI. We grow tired of ourselves, much more of other people. Use may in part reconcile us to our own tediousness, but we do not adopt that of others on the same paternal principle. We may be willing to tell a story twice, never to hear one more than once.

CCXXXII. If we are long absent from our friends, we forget them: if we are constantly with them, we despise them.

CCXXXIII. There are no rules for friendship. It must be left to itself; we cannot force it any more than love.

CCXXXIV. The most violent friendships soonest wear themselves out.

CCXXXV. To be capable of steady friendship or lasting love, are the two greatest proofs, not only of goodness of heart, but of strength of mind.

CCXXXVI. It makes us proud when our love of a mistress is returned: it ought to make us prouder that we can love her for herself alone, without the aid of any such selfish reflection. This is the religion of love.

CCXXXVII. An English officer who had been engaged in an intrigue in Italy, going home one night, stumbled over a man fast asleep on the stairs. It was a bravo who had been hired to assassinate him. Such, in this man, was the force of conscience!

CCXXXVIII. An eminent artist having succeeded in a picture which drew crowds to admire it, received a letter from a shuffling old relation in these terms, ‘Dear Cousin, now you may draw good bills with a vengeance.’ Such is the force of habit! This man only wished to be a Raphael that he might carry on his old trade of drawing bills.

CCXXXIX. Mankind are a herd of knaves and fools. It is necessary to join the crowd, or get out of their way, in order not to be trampled to death by them.

CCXL. To think the worst of others, and to do the best we can ourselves, is a safe rule, but a hard one to practise.

CCXLI. To think ill of mankind and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue.

CCXLII. We may hate and love the same person, nay even at the same moment.

CCXLIII. We never hate those whom we have once loved, merely because they have injured us. ‘We may kill those of whom we are jealous,’ says Fielding, ‘but we do not hate them.’ We are enraged at their conduct and at ourselves as the objects of it, but this does not alter our passion for them. The reason is, we loved them without their loving us; we do not hate them because they hate us. Love may turn to indifference with possession, but is irritated by disappointment.

CCXLIV. Revenge against the object of our love is madness. No one would kill the woman he loves, but that he thinks he can bring her to life afterwards. Her death seems to him as momentary as his own rash act. _See Othello._—‘My wife! I have no wife,’ &c. He stabbed not at her life, but at her falsehood; he thought to kill the wanton, and preserve the wife.

CCXLV. We revenge in haste and passion: we repent at leisure and from reflection.

CCXLVI. By retaliating our sufferings on the heads of those we love, we get rid of a present uneasiness, and incur lasting remorse. With the accomplishment of our revenge our fondness returns; so that we feel the injury we have done them, even more than they do.

CCXLVII. I think men formerly were more jealous of their rivals in love—they are now more jealous of their mistresses, and lay the blame on them. That is, we formerly thought more of the mere possession of the person, which the removal of a favoured lover prevented, and we now think more of a woman’s affections, which may still follow him to the tomb. To kill a rival is to kill a fool; but the Goddess of our idolatry may be a sacrifice worthy of the Gods. Hackman did not think of shooting Lord Sandwich, but Miss Ray.

CCXLVIII. Many people in reasoning on the passions make a continual appeal to common sense. But passion is without common sense, and we must frequently discard the one in speaking of the other.

CCXLIX. It is provoking to hear people at their ease talking reason to others in a state of violent suffering. If you can remove their suffering by speaking a word, do so; and then they will be in a state to hear calm reason.

CCL. There is nothing that I so hate as I do to hear a common-place set up against a feeling of truth and nature.

CCLI. People try to reconcile you to a disappointment in love, by asking why you should cherish a passion for an object that has proved itself worthless. Had you known this before, you would not have encouraged the passion; but that having been once formed, knowledge does not destroy it. If we have drank poison, finding it out does not prevent its being in our veins: so passion leaves its poison in the mind! It is the nature of all passion and of all habitual affection; we throw ourselves upon it at a venture, but we cannot return by choice. If it is a wife that has proved unworthy, men compassionate the loss, because there is a tie, they say, which we cannot get rid of. But has the heart no ties? Or if it is a child, they understand it. But is not true love a child? Or when another has become a part of ourselves, ‘where we must live or have no life at all,’ can we tear them from us in an instant?—No: these bargains are for life; and that for which our souls have sighed for years, cannot be forgotten with a breath, and without a pang.

CCLII. Besides, it is uncertainty and suspense that chiefly irritate jealousy to madness. When we know our fate, we become gradually reconciled to it, and try to forget a useless sorrow.

CCLIII. It is wonderful how often we see and hear of Shakspeare’s plays without being annoyed with it. Were it any other writer, we should be sick to death of the very name. But his volumes are like that of nature, we can turn to them again and again:

‘Age cannot wither, nor custom stale
His infinite variety.’

CCLIV. The contempt of a wanton for a man who is determined to think her virtuous, is perhaps the strongest of all others. He officiously reminds her of what she ought to be; and she avenges the galling sense of lost character on the fool who still believes in it.

CCLV. To find that a woman whom we loved has forfeited her character, is the same thing as to learn that she is dead.

CCLVI. The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.

CCLVII. Once a renegado, and always a renegado.

CCLVIII. By speaking truth to the really beautiful, we learn to flatter other women.

CCLIX. There is a kind of ugliness which is not disagreeable to women. It is that which is connected with the expression of strong but bad passions, and implies spirit and power.

CCLX. People do not persist in their vices because they are not weary of them, but because they cannot leave them off. It is the nature of vice to leave us no resource but in itself.

CCLXI. Our consciousness of injustice makes us add to the injury. By aggravating a wrong, we seem to ourselves to justify it. The repetition of the blow inflames our passion and deadens reflection.

CCLXII. In confessing the greatest offences, a criminal gives himself credit for his candour. You and he seem to have come to an amicable understanding on his character at last.

CCLXIII. A barefaced profligacy often succeeds to an overstrained preciseness in morals. People in a less licentious age carefully conceal the vices they have; as they afterwards, with an air of philosophic freedom, set up for those they have not.

CCLXIV. It is a sign that real religion is in a state of decay, when passages in compliment to it are applauded at the theatre. Morals and sentiment fall within the province of the stage; but religion, except where it is considered as a beautiful fiction which ought to be treated with lenity, does not depend upon our suffrages.

CCLXV. There are persons to whom success gives no satisfaction, unless it is accompanied with dishonesty. Such people willingly ruin themselves in order to ruin others.

CCLXVI. Habitual liars invent falsehoods, not to gain any end or even to deceive their hearers, but to amuse themselves. It is partly practice and partly habit. It requires an effort in them to speak truth.

CCLXVII. A knave thinks himself a fool, all the time he is not making a fool of some other person.

CCLXVIII. Fontenelle said, ‘If his hand were full of truths, he would not open his fingers to let them out.’ Was this a satire on truth or on mankind?

CCLXIX. The best kind of conversation is that which is made up of observations, reflections, and anecdotes. A string of stories without application is as tiresome as a long-winded argument.

CCLXX. The most insignificant people are the most apt to sneer at others. They are safe from reprisals, and have no hope of rising in their own esteem, but by lowering their neighbours. The severest critics are always those, who have either never attempted, or who have failed in original composition.

CCLXXI. More remarks are made upon any one’s dress, looks, &c. in walking twenty yards along the streets of Edinburgh, or other provincial towns, than in passing from one end of London to the other.

CCLXXII. There is less impertinence and more independence in London than in any other place in the kingdom.

CCLXXIII. A man who meets thousands of people in a day who never saw or heard of him before, if he thinks at all, soon learns to think little of himself. London is the place where a man of sense is soonest cured of his coxcombry, or where a fool may indulge his vanity with impunity, by giving himself what airs he pleases. A valet and a lord are there nearly on a level. Among a million of men, we do not count the units, for we have not time.

CCLXXIV. There is some virtue in almost every vice, except hypocrisy; and even that, while it is a mockery of virtue, is at the same time a compliment to it.

CCLXXV. It does not follow that a man is a hypocrite, because his actions give the lie to his words. If he at one time seems a saint, and at other times a sinner, he possibly is both in reality, as well as in appearance. A person may be fond of vice and of virtue too; and practise one or the other, according to the temptation of the moment. A priest may be pious, and a sot or bigot. A woman may be modest, and a rake at heart. A poet may admire the beauties of nature, and be envious of those of other writers. A moralist may act contrary to his own precepts, and yet be sincere in recommending them to others. These are indeed contradictions, but they arise out of the contradictory qualities in our nature. A man is a hypocrite only when he affects to take a delight in what he does not feel, not because he takes a perverse delight in opposite things.

CCLXXVI. The greatest offence against virtue is to speak ill of it. To recommend certain things is worse than to practise them. There may be an excuse for the last in the frailty of passion; but the former can arise from nothing but an utter depravity of disposition. Any one may yield to temptation, and yet feel a sincere love and aspiration 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 repeating 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.

CCLXXXVIII. The pleasure derived from tragedy is to be accounted for in this way, that, by painting the extremes of human calamity, it by contrast kindles the affections, and raises the most intense imagination and desire of the contrary good.

CCLXXXIX. The question respecting dramatic illusion has not been fairly stated. There are different degrees and kinds of belief. The point is not whether we do or do not believe what we see to be a positive reality, but how far and in what manner we believe in it. We do not say every moment to ourselves, ‘This is real:’ but neither do we say every moment, ‘This is not real.’ The involuntary impression steals upon us till we recollect ourselves. The appearance of reality, in fact, is the reality, so long and in as far as we are not conscious of the contradictory circumstances that disprove it. The belief in a well-acted tragedy never amounts to what the witnessing the actual scene would prove, and never sinks into a mere phantasmagoria. Its power of affecting us is not, however, taken away, even if we abstract the feeling of identity; for it still suggests a stronger idea of what the 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.