the damsel and the sage the damsel and the sage a woman's whimsies by elinor glyn harper & brothers publishers new york & london mdcccciii copyright, 1903, by elinor glyn. _all rights reserved._ published october, 1903. to the sun's rays _a tree stood alone surrounded by high and low hills. it could be observed from all sides, and it appeared different from each elevation._ _the tree was the same, only the point of view differed._ _everything depends upon the point of view._ * * * * * "_and as to the meaning, it's what you please._" _c. s. c._ the damsel and the sage and the damsel said to the sage: "now, what is life? and why does the fruit taste bitter in the mouth?" and the sage answered, as he stepped from his cave: "my child, there was once a man who had two ears like other people. they were naturally necessary for his enjoyment of the day. but one of these ears offended his head. it behaved with stupidity, thinking thereby to enhance its value to him--it heard too much. oh, it conducted itself with a gross stupidity. 'out upon you,' cried the man; 'since you have overstepped the limit of the functions of an ear, i shall cut you from my head!' and so, without hesitation, he took a sword and accomplished the deed. the poor ear then lay upon the ground bleeding, and the man went about with a mutilated head." "and what was the good of all that?" said the damsel. "there was no good in it," replied the sage. "but he was a man, and he had punished the too-fond-and-foolish ear--also he hoped a new and more suitable one would grow in its place. 'change,' he said, 'was a thing to be welcomed.'" "and tell me, sage, what became of the ear?" asked the damsel. "the ear fared better. another man of greater shrewdness came along, and, although he had two ears of his own, he said, 'a third will not come amiss,' and he picked up the ear and heard with three ears instead of two. so he became knowing and clever because of the information he acquired in this way. the grafted ear grew and flourished, and, in spite of its remaining abnormal, it obtained a certain enjoyment out of existence." "but who _really_ benefited by all this?" inquired the damsel. "no one," said the sage; "the first man went about with only one ear; the second man made himself remarkable with three--and the cut-off ear, although alive and successful, felt itself an excrescence." "then what _could_ be the pleasure of it all?" demanded the damsel. "out upon _you_!" exclaimed the sage, in a passion. "you asked me what was life--and why the fruit tasted bitter in the mouth? i have answered you." and he went back into his cave and barred the door. the damsel sat down upon a stone outside. "it seems to me that men are fools," she said, and she clapped her hands to her two ears. "when i am angry and offended with one of you, i will cut the ear from off the head of some one else." and she picked up an apple and ate it. and it tasted sweet. * * * * * _a man will often fling away a woman who has wronged him although in doing so he is deeply hurting himself. a woman will forgive a man who has wronged her because her own personal pleasure in him is greater than her outraged pride. hence women are more unconscious philosophers than men._ * * * * * the damsel returned again to the cave of the sage. there were other questions she wished to ask about life. the door was hard to push ajar, but at last she obtained entrance. "what do you want now?" he demanded, with a voice of grumbling. "were you not content with my last utterances?" "yes--and no," said the damsel. "i came to quite other conclusions myself. i would have kept the ear on my head, since cutting one off, however it had angered me, would have upset my own comfort." "we have finished with that matter now," said the sage, showing signs of impatience--he was still a man. "what next?" "i want to know," said the damsel, "why a woman who has diamonds and pearls and emeralds and rubies in her possession should set such store upon a topaz--a yellow topaz--the color she dislikes--and a topaz of uneven temper and peculiar properties. she never wears this stone that it does not bruise her, now her neck, now her arm. it is restless and slips from its chain. it will not remain in the case with the other jewels. and at last she has lost it--she fears for good and all. and so now all the other stones, which seemed very well in their way, have grown of even less value in her eyes, and she can only lament the loss of her topaz. 'i am brilliant,' cries the diamond. 'i set off your eyes, and i love you.' 'i am soft and caressing,' whispers the pearl. 'i lie close to your white skin and keep it cool, and i love you.' 'i am witty,' laughs the emerald. 'i make your thoughts flash, and i love you.' 'i am the color of blood, and i would die for you,' chants the ruby, 'and i love you.' and all these things the stones say all the day to her, and yet the woman only listens with half an ear, and their words have no effect upon her because of the charm of this tiresome topaz. what does it all mean, sage?" "it means, first of all," said the sage, "that the woman is a fool, as what is the value of a topaz in comparison with a diamond or a ruby? it means, secondly, that the topaz is a greater fool, because it would be more agreeable surely to lie close to the woman's soft neck than to be picked up by any stranger or lie neglected in the dust. but, above and beyond everything, it means that cherries are ripest when out of reach, and that the whole world is full of fools of either opinion, who do not know when they are well off." upon which the sage, with his usual lack of manners, retired into his cave and slammed his door. the damsel sat down upon the rock and came again to her own conclusions. the stone that apparently was a topaz was in reality a yellow diamond of great rarity and worth, and that was why the woman valued it so highly. her instincts were stronger than her reason. but if she had not made herself so cheap by adoring the stone, it would not have become restless and she would not have lost it. even stones cannot stand too much honey. if ever the woman should find this yellow diamond again she must be told to keep it in a cool box and not caress it or place it above the others. the damsel thought aloud and the sage heard her--he strode forth in a rage. "why do you come here demanding my advice if you moralize yourself? out upon you again!" he thundered. "the woman will not find her topaz, which is now revelling in the sun of freedom and will soon go down into nothingness and be forgotten. and after lamenting until her eyes look gaunt, the woman will begin to see some beauty in a sapphire and become consoled, and so all will be well." "i do not care what you say," said the damsel. "_it is better to have what one wants one's self than to try and learn to like anything else that other people think better._" and she refastened a bracelet with great care--which contained two cat's-eyes of no value--as she went on her way. * * * * * seize the occasion lest it pass thee by and fall into the lap of another. * * * * * no man likes shooting tame rabbits. * * * * * most men like the hunt more than the quarry--therefore the wise woman is elusive. * * * * * it is a good hostess who never inclines her guests unconsciously to look at the clock. * * * * * some things cause pride, some pleasure. there is only one thing which causes infinite bliss and oblivion of time, and this one thing, unless bound with chains, is called immoral. * * * * * it is a wise man who knows when he is happy and can appreciate the divine bliss of the tangible _now_. most of us retrospect or anticipate and so lose the present. * * * * * seize love at whatever age he comes to you--if you can avoid being ridiculous. * * * * * "more questions?" exclaimed the sage, as the damsel tapped gently upon the door of his cave. "women are never satisfied; they are as restless as the sea, and when they have received all the best advice they invariably follow their own inclinations." "it was not to discuss women," replied the damsel, timidly; "this time it is of a man i wish to ask." "begin, then, and have done quickly," growled the sage, averting his head. the damsel had an outline against the sky which caused ideas not tranquillizing for hermits. "i wish to know why a man who possessed the most beautiful and noble bird of paradise--a bird of rare plumage and wonderful qualities--should suddenly see more beauty in an ordinary cockatoo, whose only attraction was its yellow feathers--a cockatoo that screamed monotonously as it swung backward and forward on its perch, and would eat sugar out of the hand of any stranger while it cried 'pretty poll.' the man could not afford to buy this creature also, so he deliberately sold his exquisite bird of paradise to a person called circumstance and with the money became the possessor of the cockatoo, who pierced the drums of his ears with its eternal 'pretty poll' and wearied his sight with its yellow feathers. why did the man do this?" the sage laughed at so simple a question. "because he was a man, and even a screaming cockatoo belonging to some one else has more charm at times than the most divine bird of paradise belonging to himself." "but was it worth while to sell this rare thing for a very ordinary one?" demanded the damsel. "certainly not," said the sage, impatiently. "what childish questions you ask! the thing was a folly on the face of it; but, as i said before, he was a man--and the cockatoo belonged to some one else!" "then what will happen now?" asked the damsel, placing herself in the direction in which the sage had turned his head. "the bird of paradise will still be the most beautiful and glorious and desirable bird in the world; and when the man realizes he has lost it forever he will begin to value its every feather, and will spend his days in comparing all its remembered perfections and advantages with the screams and the yellow feathers of the cockatoo." "and what will the cockatoo do?" inquired the damsel. "it will probably continue to shriek 'pretty poll,' and eat sugar out of the hand of any stranger," replied the sage, plucking his heard. "and the man?" "the man will go on telling every one he has bought the most divine bird in the world, in the hope that some one will offer him a large sum of money for it. the only person who gains in the affair is the bird of paradise, who, instead of being caged as when in the possession of the man, is absolutely free to fly with its new master, circumstance, who only seeks to please and soothe this glorious bird and make life fair for it." "but what will be the very end?" persisted the damsel. the sage turned and looked full at her. he was angry with her importunity and would have answered sternly. then he saw that the ripples of her hair were golden and his voice softened. "that will depend--upon circumstance," he replied, and he closed his door softly in her face. * * * * * _a man wishes and a woman wishes, but circumstance frequently wins the game._ * * * * * life is short--avoid causing yawns. * * * * * it is possible for a woman to retain the amorous affection of a man for many years--if he only sees her for the two best hours out of each twenty-four. * * * * * "please open the door, sage," entreated the damsel, "and i will tell you a story." the sage pushed it ajar with his foot, but he did not come out. "there was once upon a time a man," she said, "who unexpectedly and for no apparent reason became the possessor of a tiger. it had been coveted by numbers of people and was of a certain value and beauty. it had an infinite variety of tricks. it was learned in caresses. it was fierce, and gentle, and it could love passionately. altogether a large price would have been offered the man for it by many others if he had wished to sell it. in the beginning he had greatly valued the possession of this strange beast, and had fed it with his own hand. the little anxiety as to whether it would eat him or not, or rush away, had kept him interested. but gradually, as he became certain the tiger adored him, and would show none but velvet claws and make only purring sounds, his keenness waned. he still loved it, but certainty is monotonous, and his eyes wandered to other objects. 'the tiger is nothing but a domestic cat,' he said; 'i will pet and caress it when the mood takes me, and for the rest of the time it can purr to itself by the fire.' at last one day, after the tiger was especially gracious and had purred with all essence of love, the man yawned. 'it is really a charming beast,' he said, 'but it is always the same; and then he went away and forgot even to feed it. the tiger felt hungry and restless. its quietness and gentleness became less apparent. the man on his travels chanced to think of it and sent it a biscuit. so the tiger waited, and when the man returned and expected the usual docile caresses, it bit his hand. 'vile beast!' said the man. 'have i not fed and kept you for weeks, and now you bite my hand!' now tell me, sage, which was right--the man or the tiger?" "both, and neither," said the sage, decidedly. "the man was only obeying the eternal law in finding what he was sure of monotonous; but he mistook the nature of the beast he had to deal with. tigers are not of the species that can ever be really monotonous, if he had known. the tiger was foolish to allow its true nature to be so disguised by its love for the man that he was deceived into looking upon it as a domestic cat. it thought to please him thereby and so lost its hold." "and what will be the end?" asked the damsel. "the man's hand will smart to the end of his life, and he will never secure another tiger. and the tiger will go elsewhere and console itself by letting its natural instincts have full play. it will not be foolish a second time." but the damsel's conclusion was different. "no," she said. "the man's hand will heal up, and the tiger will caress him and make him forget the bite, and they will love each other to eternity because they have both realized their own stupidity." and without speaking further she allowed the sage to close the door. * * * * * _it is wiser to know the species one is playing with: do not offer tigers hay--or antelopes joints of meat._ * * * * * next day, in a pouring shower of rain, the damsel knocked at the sage's door. it was for shelter, she said, this time, until the storm should pass. the sage was fairly gracious, and to while away the time the damsel began a story. "a man once owned a brown sparrow. it had no attractions, and it made a continuous and wearying noise as it chattered under the eaves. it did the same thing every day, and had monotonous domestic habits that often greatly irritated the man, but--he was accustomed to it, and did not complain. after several years a travelling showman came along; he had a large aviary of birds of all sorts, some for sale, some not. among them was a glorious humming bird of wonderful brilliancy and plumage, a creature full of beauty and grace and charm and elegance. the man became passionately attached to it; he was ready to perpetrate any folly for the sake of obtaining possession of it, and indeed he did commit numbers of regrettable actions, and at last stole the bird from the showman and carried it away. then, in a foreign palace, for a short while he revelled in its beauty and the joy of owning it. the humming bird did its best to be continually charming, but it felt its false position. and the worry and annoyance of concealing the theft from the showman, and the different food the humming bird required, and the care that had to be taken of it, at last began to weary the man. he chafed and was often disagreeable to it, although he realized its glory and beauty and the feather it was in his cap. finally, one day, in a fit of desperation, the man let the humming bird fly, and crept back home to the homely brown sparrow, with its irritating noises and utter want of beauty. why was this, sage?" the sage had not to think long. "custom, my child," he said. "custom forges stronger chains than the finest plumage of a humming bird. the man had to put himself out and exert himself to retain the humming bird in a way that was not agreeable to his self-love, whereas the brown sparrow lived on always the same, causing him no trouble, and custom had deadened the sense of its want of charm." "then it seems to me it was rather hard upon the poor humming bird!" said the damsel. "it is always hard upon the humming birds," replied the sage, and his voice was quite sad. * * * * * the rain did not cease for a long time. it was more than an hour before the damsel left the cave. * * * * * _if you are a humming bird it is wiser for you to remain in the possession of the travelling showman._ * * * * * a long period elapsed after this before the damsel again tapped at the sage's door. he looked out morning and evening, and attributed his lack of enthusiasm for his devotions to an attack of rheumatism from the damp of his cave. at last, one morning he spied her sauntering slowly up the hill, and he retired into the back of his cell, and the damsel had to knock twice before he opened the window shutter. she was in a gay mood, and demanded a story, so the sage began: "there was once upon a time a fish with glittering scales who swam about in a deep river. it had been tempted by the flies of many fishermen, but had laughed at them all and swam away, just under the surface of the water, so that the sun might shine on its glittering scales to please the eyes of the fishermen and to excite their desire to secure it. it was a fish who laughed a good deal at life. but one fine day a new angler came along; he was young and beautiful, and seemed lazy and happy, and not particularly anxious to throw the line. the fish peeped at him from the sheltering shadow of a rock. 'this is the most perfect specimen of a fisherman i have ever seen,' it said to itself. 'i could almost believe it would be agreeable to swallow the fly and let him land me and put me in his basket.' the young fisherman threw the line, and the sun caught the glittering scales of the fish at that moment. the laziness vanished from the fisherman, and he began to have a strong desire to secure the fish. "he fished for some time, and the fish swam backward and forward, making up its mind. it saw the hook under the fly, but the attraction of the angler growing stronger and stronger, at last it deliberately decided to come up and bite. 'i know all the emotions of swimming on the surface and letting my scales shine in the sun,' it mused, 'but i know nothing about the bank and the basket, and perhaps the tales that are drilled into the heads of us fish from infancy about suffocation and exhaustion are not true.' and it mused again: 'he is a perfectly beautiful fisherman and looks kind, and i want to be closer to him and let him touch my glittering scales. after all, one ought to know everything before one dies.' "so, its heart beating and its eyes melting, the fish deliberately rose to the surface and swallowed the fly. the hook caught in a gristly place and did not hurt much, and the novel experience of being pulled onto the green meadow delighted the fish. it saw the fisherman close, and felt his hands as he tenderly disengaged the hook. he was full of joy and pride at securing the difficult fish and admired its scales. he talked aloud and told it how bright he found it, and he was altogether charming and delightful, and the fish adored him and was glad it had been caught. "then after some time of this admiration and dalliance, the fisherman put it in the basket among the cool rushes. the fish lay quiet, still content. it had not yet begun to pant. for an hour almost the fisherman gloried in his catch. he opened the lid frequently and smiled at the fish. "then he lay down on the bank beside the basket and let his rod float idly in the stream. the sun was warm and pleasant. "'i wish,' he said to himself, 'after all, i had not secured the fish yet; the throwing of the fly and the excitement of trying to catch the creature are better fun than having it safely landed and lying in the basket,' and he yawned, and his eyes gradually closed and he slept. "now the fish heard very plainly what he had said. tell me, damsel--you who ask questions and answer them finally yourself--tell me, what did the fish do?" the damsel mused a moment. she stirred with her white fingers the water in the basin of the fountain that sprang from the rock close by. then she looked at the sage from under the shadow of her brows and answered, thoughtfully: "the fish was stunned at first by this truth being uttered so near it. it suddenly realized what it had done and what it had lost. 'i, who swam about freely and showed my glittering scales in the sun, am now caught and in a basket, with no prospect but suffocation and death in front of me,' it said to itself. 'i could have even supported that, and the knowledge that my scales will become dull and unattractive in the near future, if the fisherman had only continued to lift the lid and admire me a little longer.' and it sighed and began to feel the sense of suffocation. but it was a fish of great determination and resources. 'i have learned my lesson,' it gasped; 'the fisherman has taught it to me himself. now i will make a great jump and try to get out of the basket.' "so it jumped and opened the lid. the fisherman stirred in his sleep and put out his hand vaguely to close it again, but he was too sleepy to fasten the catch, and with less noise the fish bounced up again and succeeded in floundering upon the grass. it lay panting and in great distress, but it looked at the beautiful angler with regret. he was so beautiful and so desirable. 'i could almost stay now,' the fish sighed. then it braced itself up and gave one more bound, and this time reached the rock at the edge of the stream. "again the fisherman awoke, and now casually, with his eyes still closed, fastened up the basket before he slept again; but the fish with its third bound reached the river, and darted out into the middle of the stream. "'good-bye, beautiful angler!' it said, sadly. 'you were sweet, but you have taught me a lesson, and freedom is sweeter.' "the splash of its reaching the water fully awakened the fisherman, but he saw the basket with the lid shut, and had no anxieties until his eye caught the pink of the water where the fish sheltered under the rock. its gill was still bleeding from the hook wound, and colored a circle round it. then he opened the lid and found the basket empty. "'good-bye,' said the fish. 'your wish has been granted, and your pleasure can begin all over again!' "but the fisherman suddenly realized that his rod, while he slept, had fallen into the river, and was floating away down the stream. "'good-bye again,' said the fish; 'i have suffered, but i have now experience, and i am grateful to you, and my gill will heal up, and i will smile at you sometimes from just under the surface of the water, and so all is well!' and it flashed its glittering scales in the sun before it darted away out of sight in the strong current." and the damsel folded her hands and looked into distance. "thank you, damsel," said the sage, gently for him; "but the fisherman could procure another rod--rods are not rarities. what then?" "that would be for another day," said the damsel; "and--for another fish!" and she tripped away down the hill, and was deaf to the sage, who gruffly called after her. * * * * * _when you have caught your fish, it may be wiser to cook it and eat it._ * * * * * the sun was setting when the damsel next came to the cave. she had a pet falcon with her, and kept caressing it as she propounded her question. "there lived a woman in a castle who had three knights devoted to her. she loved one, and her vanity was pleased with the other two. while she continued to play with them all, they all loved her to distraction; but presently her preference for the one knight became evident, and the two others, after doing their utmost to supplant the third without success, at last left the castle and rode away. they were no sooner gone, and things had become quiet, and no combats occurred to interrupt the lovers' intercourse, when the chosen knight began to weary, and he, too, at last rode away, although before he had been the most ardent of all. why was this, sage? and what should the woman do?" "it was because the knight had won the prize and the woman gave him no trouble to keep it," replied the sage. "he was bound to weary. when a man's profession is fighting and he has fought hard and succeeded, after sufficient rest he wishes to fight again. so if the woman wants her lover back, she had better first summon the other two." for once the damsel had nothing to say, and had no excuse to remain longer in the cave. the sage, however, was not in the mind to let her go so soon, so he began a question: "why do you caress that bird so much? it appears completely indifferent to you. surely that is waste of time?" "it is agreeable to waste time," replied the damsel. "upon an insensible object?" "yes." "more so than if it returned your caresses?" "probably--there is the speculation. it might one day respond, while certainly if it repaid warmly my love now, one day it would not. nothing lasts in this world. you have told me so yourself." the sage was nettled. "yes, there is one thing that lasts, that is friendship," he said. "friendship!" exclaimed the damsel; "but that is not made up of caresses. it does not make the heart beat." "we were not talking of beating hearts," said the sage, sententiously. "very well. good-bye, then, sage," laughed the damsel. "you must think of more stories for me before i come again." and, continuing to caress the falcon, she walked away, stately and fair, into the setting sun. when she had gone the sage wondered why there was no twilight that evening, and why it had suddenly become night. * * * * * _most men prefer to possess something that the other men want._ * * * * * it would be a peaceful world if we could only realize that the fever of love is like other fevers. it comes to a crisis, and the patient either dies or is cured. it cannot last at the same point forever. * * * * * the damsel came back again next day. she had remarked, the day she spent with him in the rain, that the sage was not so old or so uncomely as she had at first supposed. "if he were to shave off his beard and wear a velvet doublet, he would look as well as many a cavalier of the court," she mused. and she called out before she reached the door: "sage, i have come back because i want to ask you just another question. will you not come out and sit in the sun while you answer?" so the sage advanced in a recalcitrant manner, but he would not sit down beside her. then the damsel began: "a woman once possessed a ball of silk. it was of so fine and rare a kind that, although of many thousand yards, it took up no space, and she unwound it daily for her pleasure without any appreciable difference in the size of the ball. at last she suddenly fancied she perceived some alteration. it came upon her as a shock, but still she continued to use the silk with the casual idea that a thing she had employed so long _must_ go on forever. then again, in about a week, there came another shock. the ball was certainly smaller, and felt cold and hard and firm. the thought came to her, 'what if it should not be silk all through and i have come to the end of matters? what shall i do?' now tell me, sage, should the woman go on to the end and find perhaps a stone? or should she try to rewind the silk? which is the best course?" the damsel took up the sage's staff, which he had dropped for the moment, and with its point she drew geometrical figures in the sand. but the sun made shadows with her eyelashes, and the sage felt his voice tremble, so he answered, tartly: "that would depend upon the nature of the woman. if she continues to unwind the silk she will certainly find a piece of adamant, which has been cunningly covered with this rare, soft substance. if she tries to rewind, she will discover the thread has become tangled, and the ball can never again look smooth and even as before. she must choose which she would prefer, a clean piece of adamant or an uneven ball of silk." "but that is no answer to my question," said the damsel, pouting. "i asked which must she do for the best." "neither is better nor worse!" replied the sage with asperity. "and there is no best." "you are quite wrong, sage," returned the damsel. "there is a third course. she can cut the thread and leave the ball as it is, a coating of smooth silk still--and an undiscovered possibility inside." "you are too much for me!" exclaimed the sage in a fury. "answer your own questions, to begin with, in future! i will have no more of you!" and he went into his cave and ostentatiously fastened the door. the damsel smiled to herself and continued to draw geometrical figures with the point of the sage's staff in the sand. * * * * * _there are always three courses in life: the good, the bad, and the--indifferent. the good gives you calm, and makes you sleep; the bad gives you emotions, and makes you weep; and the indifferent gives you no satisfaction, and makes you yawn, so--choose wisely._ * * * * * one can swear to be faithful eternally, but how can one swear to love eternally? the one is a question of will, the other a sentiment beyond all human control. one might as sensibly swear to keep the wind in the south, or the sun from setting! * * * * * and yet we swear both vows--and break both vows. * * * * * a woman is always hardest upon her own sins, committed by others. a man is sometimes lenient to them. a fool can win the love of a man, but it requires a woman of resources to keep it. * * * * * the damsel did not go away from the cave, as was her custom. she continued to draw geometrical figures in the sand. presently she called to the sage once more. "come out again, dear sage! listen, i have something more to say." he unfastened the window and stood leaning on the sill. "well?" he said, sternly. "well?" "a ring dove once was owned by a man. it was the sweetest and most gentle of birds, besides being extremely beautiful. it adored the man and lived contentedly in its cage. the perches, which the man had had prepared especially for it, were endeared to it from association with the happy hours when it had been caressed by the man. altogether to it the cage appeared a palace, and it lived content. "the man was a brutal creature, more or less, and at last he cruelly ill-treated the ring dove, and exalted a cuckoo in its place. this conduct greatly saddened the sweet dove, but it over and over again forgave its tormentor, so great was its love, and even saw the cuckoo advanced to the highest honors without anger, only a bleeding heart. how long things would have continued in this way no one knows; but the man suddenly gave the cuckoo the ring dove's cage, and let the cuckoo sleep on the perches which the dove was accustomed to consider its very own. this overcame the gentle dove. its broken heart mended, and it flew away. tell me, sage, why did this action cure the dove of its great love for the man, when it had borne all the blows and cruelty without resentment?" "that is an easy question to answer," replied the sage. "the dove was really growing tired and seized this as a good opportunity to be off." "oh, how little you know of the female sex, even of doves!" laughed the damsel. "i can give you the true reason myself. it was the bad taste of the man in giving the cuckoo the cage and perches of the ring dove, which he had consecrated to her. that cured her, and enabled her to fly away." and the damsel curtsied to the sage and sauntered off, laughing and looking back over her shoulder. * * * * * _an action committed in bad taste is more curing and disillusionizing to love than the cruelest blows of rage and hate._ * * * * * a man would often be the lover of his wife--if he were married to some one else. * * * * * there come moments in life when we regret the old gods. * * * * * time and place--temperature and temperament--and after the sunset the night--and then to-morrow. * * * * * all the winter passed and the damsel remained at the court and the sage in his cave. both found the days long and their occupation insufficient. at last, when spring came, the damsel again mounted the hill one morning before dawn and tapped at the sage's door. his heart gave a bound, and he flew to open it without more ado. "so you have come back?" he said; and his voice was eager, though it was a gray light and he could not see her plainly. "yes," said she; "i want you to tell me one more story of life before i go on a long voyage." so the sage began: "there was once upon a time a man of half-measures, whose brain was filled with dreams for his own glory, and he possessed a woman of flesh and blood, who loved him, and would have turned the dreams into realities. but _because_ he was happy with her, and because her hair was black and her eyes were green, and her flesh like alabaster, he said to himself, 'this is a fiend and a vampire. nothing human can be so delectable.' so he ran a stake through her body, and buried her at the cross-roads. then he found life an emptiness, and went down into nothingness and was forgotten--" "oh, hush, sage!" said the damsel, trembling; "i wish to hear no more. come, shave off your beard, and put on a velvet doublet, and return with me to the court. see, life is short, and i am fair." and the sage suddenly felt he had found the philosopher's stone, and knew the secret he had come into the wilds to find. so he went back to his cave, and shaved his beard, and donned a velvet doublet, long since lain by in lavender. and he took the damsel by the hand, and they gladly ran down the hill. and the zephyrs whispered, and the day dawned, and all the world smiled young--and gay. * * * * * _remember the tangible now._ "_sic transit gloria mundi!_" * * * * * by mrs. humphry ward lady rose's daughter. illustrated by howard chandler christy. post 8vo, ornamented cloth, $1.50. this is mrs. humphry ward's latest novel. it has been hailed as undoubtedly her best, while julie le breton, the heroine, has been called "the most appealing type of heroine in english fiction." "a story that must be read."--_new york sun._ "vividly alive from the first line."--_chicago record-herald._ "the most marvellous work of its wonderful author."--_new york world._ "absolutely different from anything else that has ever appeared in fiction."--_brooklyn eagle._ "love is not here the sentimental emotion of the ordinary novel or play, but the power that purges the weaknesses and vivifies the dormant nobilities of men and women."--_the academy_, london, england. "quite sure to be the most widely and most highly considered book of the year."--_chicago evening post._ "the story is the combat between two powers of a brilliant woman's nature. sometimes you are sure the lawless, the vagabond, and the intriguing side will win. but it doesn't...."--_boston transcript._ * * * * * harper & brothers, publishers new york and london [symbol: pointing hand] _the above work will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the united states, canada, or mexico, on receipt of the price._ * * * * * by henry seton merriman the vultures. illustrated. post 8vo, ornamented cloth, $1.50. a new novel by henry seton merriman is always eagerly welcomed by every reader of fiction. this is a story of intrigue, conspiracy, and exciting adventure among the political factions of the great european nations. one of the scenes is in russia at the time of the assassination of the czar. the _attachã©s_ of the various foreign offices play an important part. it is full of exciting, dramatic situations, most of which centre around the love interest of the story--the love of a young english diplomatist for the beautiful countess wanda of warsaw. * * * * * harper & brothers, publishers new york and london [symbol: pointing hand] _the above work will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the united states, canada, or mexico, on receipt of the price._ by robert w. chambers the maid-at-arms. illustrated by howard chandler christy. post 8vo, ornamented cloth, $1.50. mr. chambers has long since won a most enviable position among contemporary novelists. the great popular success of "cardigan" makes this present novel of unusual interest to all readers of fiction. it is a stirring novel of american life in days just after the revolution. it deals with the conspiracy of the great new york land-owners and the subjugation of new york province to the british. it is a story with a fascinating love interest, and is alive with exciting incident and adventure. some of the characters of "cardigan" reappear in this new novel. * * * * * harper & brothers, publishers new york and london [symbol: pointing hand] _the above work will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the united states, canada, or mexico, on receipt of the price._ by john fox, jr. a mountain europa. with portrait. post 8vo, cloth, ornamental, $1.25. the story is well worth careful reading for its literary art and its truth to a phase of little-known american life.--_omaha bee._ the kentuckians. a novel. illustrated by w. t. smedley. post 8vo, cloth, ornamental, $1.25. this, mr. fox's first long story, sets him well in view, and distinguishes him as at once original and sound. he takes the right view of the story-writer's function and the wholesale view of what the art of fiction can rightfully attempt.--_independent_, n. y. "hell fer sartain," and other stories. post 8vo, cloth, ornamental, $1.00. mr. fox has made a great success of his pictures of the rude life and primitive passions of the people of the mountains of west virginia and kentucky. his sketches are short but graphic; he paints his scenes and his hill people in terse and simple phrases and makes them genuinely picturesque, giving us glimpses of life that are distinctively american.--_detroit free press._ a cumberland vendetta, and other stories. illustrated. post 8vo, cloth, ornamental, $1.25. these stories are tempestuously alive, and sweep the heart-strings with a master-hand.--_watchman_, boston. * * * * * harper & brothers, publishers new york and london [symbol: pointing hand] _any of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the united states, canada, or mexico, on receipt of the price._ [illustration] wise or otherwise by lydia leavitt and thad. w.h. leavitt wise or otherwise _entered according to act of parliament in the year 1898, by lydia leavitt and thad. w.h. leavitt, at the department of agriculture._ wise or otherwise by lydia leavitt author of "bohemian society," "a trip around the world," etc., etc. and thad. w.h. leavitt author of "the witch of plum hollow," "kaffir, kangaroo, klondike, tales of the gold fields, etc." _illustrated by anna lake_ wells publishing co. toronto 1898 contents _book the first_ "lead kindly light." a fable. the wind. passing thoughts. _book the second_ odds and ends. preface it is probable that the reader will discover among the "short sayings" some familiar acquaintance and even old friend, unconsciously appropriated. should such be the case, kindly credit to the "wise" and leave the "otherwise" to the authors. book the first by lydia leavitt lead kindly light [illustration] "lead, kindly light," the words are lightly spoken by the young, who tread life's pathway with nimble feet, whose eager hands are outstretched to gather life's roses, regardless of thorns, whose voice is rippling with laughter and mirth, with blood coursing through the veins and bright eyes looking fearlessly into the future; the words have merely a joyous, musical ring. "lead, kindly light." "lead, kindly light." the words are gravely spoken by the middle-aged, whose feet have grown a trifle weary, whose hands have gathered the roses, only to find them turned to ashes, whose laughter has more sadness than mirth, whose eyes have grown dim, whose lips tremblingly plead, "lead, kindly light." "lead, kindly light." the words are whispered by the old, whose tired feet are unable to move, whose palsied hands are helpless, whose head is bowed by the weight of years, whose eyes are sightless, from whose trembling lips are scarcely heard the whispered prayer, "lead, kindly light." "lead, kindly light." the sunken eyes are closed in death, the tired hands are folded, the heart has ceased to beat, the mute lips are stilled, the weary feet are at rest, a look of ineffable peace rests upon the still face, while all the air is filled with sweet music and the murmur of gentle voices pleading, "lead, kindly light." a fable [illustration] in one of the german forests the stood a tree, which could not be classified by any of the learned scientists. it was not more beautiful than many others, but there were distinctive peculiarities which no other tree possessed. her dress was of a sadder hue than that of her companions, and the birds refused to build their nests in her branches. she was unable to understand the language of her brothers and sisters and so stood alone and unheeded in the dense forest. one morning she awakened and found standing by her side a companion tree, odd, like herself, and she said in her heart:--"i shall be no longer alone. he will understand my language and we shall hold sweet converse." but he, in his heart, was saying--"what strange tree is this? we two are unlike all our companions. i like it not." but she did not hear the murmur of discontent, and her heart grew glad within her at the great joy that had come to her and she said in her heart:--"i will cause him to forget that we are unlike our companions; i will sing to him my softest songs and gradually her dress of sombre green assumed a brighter hue, young buds sprang forth, her branches waved softly in the breeze and she wooed the birds by gentle voice to build their nests in her arms, and, "in foul weather and in fair, day by day in vaster numbers, flocked the poets of the air." at eventide she folded them in her bosom, that their songs might not disturb the sleep of her companion, and while all the forest slept, she alone was awake and, in the silence of the night, she murmured softly, "ich liebe dich," and when the sun arose the birds from her arms flew through the forest, singing, "ich liebe dich," and all the trees took up the song; the birds, the trees and the brooks caught up the refrain and all the great forest sang, "ich liebe dich, ich liebe dich." so the summer passed and her heart grew sad, for she saw the discontent of her companion, but she said to herself, "when the winter comes i will shelter him from the blasts," but he said complainingly, "i would i were like the other trees; i would like my garments to be as those i see around me. i would my limbs were as those of my companions all through the forest." and she heard, and said to herself, "i will make his garments of brilliant green." so she sent from her own roots and branches the sap--her life blood--to enrich the roots and beautify the dress of her companion. when the cold blast of winter swept through the forest she sheltered him with her long limbs, when the snow fell she covered his head with her branches and caught the weight of snow in her own arms; so all through the long winter she sheltered him from the blasts and the weight of snow bore heavily on her branches and at times they grew weary almost to breaking but her great heart never faltered. so the spring came and day by day she sent from her own store of life-blood to enrich that of her companion and soon his garments assumed the most brilliant hues of all the trees in the forest; the leaves glinted and glistened in the sunlight, and from the branches there was ever a low murmur of song; the birds came to build their nests and rear their young in his arms; and over all there floated a delicate perfume born of the love which she had breathed over him all the long winter. so in all the forest there was none so beautiful and stately as he. his companion said, "now will he be happy," but her own great heart began to beat more slowly, the life-blood of which she had given him could not be replaced, and her garments gradually assumed a sombre hue and her arms were empty, for the birds no longer nested there. one morning she awakened and found her companion gone. he had joined the other trees in the forest; and now the limbs that had borne the weight of snow began to wither, her leaves began to fall, and when the winter came again there was no raiment to cover her. and the woodman said, "we will cut this tree down, it is dead." [illustration] the wind [illustration] "hark to the voice of the wind!" we say, as the windows rattle and house shakes; the winds as they shout in angry voices, clamoring louder in their fury, are telling of storms at sea, of the battles with the ships and the brave hearts that have gone to their death. "it has been on the desolate ocean when the lightening struck the mast; it has heard the cry of the drowning, who sank as they hurried past. the words of despair and anguish that were heard by no living ear; the gun that no signal answered- it brings them all to us here. hark to the voice of the wind!" it shakes angrily the trees whose limbs are swaying in protest against the onslaught; it carries the leaves rustling to the ground, and in its fury uproots the giant oaks, which groan in agony as they are hurled to the ground, lying like soldiers on the field of battle. "hark to the voice of the wind!" its fury is abated, and softly, like a benediction it enters the room where the weary mother is watching by the bedside of her sick child; it gently fans the fevered head; it touches with a caress the parched lips of the babe, and with murmur of song it lulls the child to rest. "hark to the voice of the wind." it enters the counting room of the tired man of business, bringing a perfume of flowers: he lays down his pen, while his thoughts go back to the home of his boyhood, to the meadows, to the hillside covered with flowers, the new-mown hay, and the tired brain is refreshed, he knows not how, and the unseen messenger is gone- "hark to the voice of the wind!" it visits the silent city of the dead and gently scatters the leaves over the new-made grave of a young child, sighing softly the while, the voice now rising, now falling, sobbing and moaning, and at last dies away in a melancholy sound, like the strings of an aeolian harp touched by unseen hands. "hark to the music of the wind!" human nature approaches the divine in moments of great sacrifice, forgiveness and self-forgetfulness. passing thoughts "it seems the fate of woman to wait in silence while men act," 'men must work and woman must weep.' * * * * * how delightful it must be to understand one's own nature thoroughly, to know that no whirlwind will ever sweep us off the beaten track, no stormy passions stir the calm placidity of our life. but is that life? no, give me the glories of expectation, the wildest exhaltation; the heart beating, the brain throbbing, the stormiest passions with force enough to carry everything before them, even if they bring deep grief--that is life. * * * * * people who deal in dry, hard facts are not interesting. they may make themselves names in the financial world, may become railway magnates and coal kings, may control the money market; but they are not interesting. they are the prose of life. they who see the clouds forming into fantastic shapes, the glories of a sunset, the shadows in pools, the colour on a bird's wing, the rose tint on the cheek of a child,--they and such as they are the poetry of life. man's inhumanity to man is proverbial, woman's inhumanity to woman is diabolical. * * * * * "society, as it exists at present moment in colonial towns and cities, possesses neither birth, brains or breeding." * * * * * "we hear men speak so frequently of womanly women, ending their praises with, 'she is essentially womanly.' i knew one of these womanly women, whose voice was like liquid music, whose ways were gentle, whose eyes filled with tears at the recital of some tale of woe, and always about her was an air of gentle, womanly sweetness and dainty femininity. she had a friend who loved her, one whose voice was not so soft, whose manner was brusque, who was considered, "not quite good form, you know." my womanly woman allowed this friend to take upon herself the burden of a sin which she herself had committed, allowed her to bear the brunt of scorn and contumely of her world, allowed her to die without righting the great wrong. a lonely grave and a plain marble slab mark the spot where she who was "not quite good form," lies: while she, to whom she had given more than life, gathers the rose leaves with dainty grace, for she is so essentially 'womanly.'" life: a little joy, great sorrow, some tragedy, and the curtain falls. * * * * * nothing can hurt so cruelly as the hand of love. the hand of hate is velvet in comparison. * * * * * there are women who consider the world well lost for the man whom they love and idealize; while upon close acquaintance they would discover that he was not worth even the loss of a dinner. * * * * * twelve "good men and true", will, after mature deliberation, consign a man to the gallows. twelve women, good and true, will, without any deliberation, send a woman to death by their venomous tongues. * * * * * there are a few people who would change their individuality for that of another. we might be willing to exchange positions, to exchange all that is apparent to the eyes of the world, but our inner consciousness, our memories, our thoughts, feelings and desires; all that is part and parcel of ourselves, we hold sacred. some minds are so small that a favour weighs heavily upon them. * * * * * at times one is inclined to believe that even the gods are guilty of favouritism. * * * * * some people's lives are like a flower, the more they are crushed, the sweeter the perfume they exhale. * * * * * there are some people who look so rigidly virtuous and repellant that it is a satisfaction to feel one's self just a little bit wicked. * * * * * we look to the higher classes and to the lower for good breeding. middle class people are proverbially ill-bred. what can equal the airs and assumptions of the retired grocer's wife, who has neither the breeding of a lady, nor the unaffected manner of the working-woman. * * * * * what a pity there is such an incessant babbling of human tongues, when the daisies by the wayside, the trees of the forest, the birds in their nests, could tell us such wondrous things if our ears were attuned to hear, but the senses are deadened by the discordant din of dismal sounds. love is the one power which transfigures the common things of life. * * * * * one-half of our lives is spent in making blunders, the other half in trying to rectify them. * * * * * how useless to tell many people to think, for they have nothing to think. a man reasons, a woman divines. * * * * * there are so many inconsistencies in life that at times one is appalled. take marriage, for instance:--a young woman marries a man who is tottering on the brink of the grave; old, blaze, a worn-out roue; but with money enough to gild and gloss the antiquated ruin. she goes before a clergyman and promises to love, honour and obey. yes; she loves the luxury with which she will be surrounded, the glitter of diamonds, the equipages, the great house, all the paraphanalia of wealth, but she _hates_ the trembling, tottering, blear-eyed object who bought her. the clergyman gives his blessing, society receives them with open arms, and legalized prostitution is upheld by the majesty of the law and encircled by the sanctified robes of the church. the ruling passion of the age: worship of self and worship of pelf. * * * * * the age of good breeding has passed; insolence has taken its place. * * * * * a woman ceases to think of self when she looks in the face of her new-born child. * * * * * there are people who go through life as if they were going to their own funeral--and did not enjoy it. * * * * * i would rather have for a friend the most thorough-paced scamp, with a generous heart, than the most respectable, canting, whining, pharisee. * * * * * to stand in a rarefied atmosphere on a mountain height and view the struggles of ordinary mortals below may be poetic, but it is very lonely. * * * * * a woman may defy the world for a man she loves, and imagine that he will love her for the sacrifice, but no greater mistake can be made. men are not so constituted. when he sees her standing alone, dishonored, a mark for the finger of scorn, her charm for him is forever lost. * * * * * realism is the grave of love. * * * * * a woman's smile is two edged. * * * * * life is too short to prepare a soul for eternity * * * * * a great love is only inspired by a great nature. * * * * * it is as wise to cultivate forgetfulness as memory. * * * * * society, a haven for fools; literature and art for brains. * * * * * many people have courage to face anything but themselves. * * * * * a woman is always in love, either with herself or with love. * * * * * two things in life man regards with esteem: himself and his pipe. * * * * * truth and sincerity are only found in the face of a child and the eyes of a dog. * * * * * a young face and an old heart are sorry companions, but an old face and a young heart are sorrier still. * * * * * what people will 'say' is the bugbear of small minds. * * * * * love would cease to exist were it not for the gift of idealizing. * * * * * a fly is but a small thing, yet it can disturb the greatest philosopher. * * * * * is a new soul created at every birth, or are we merely corpses warmed over? * * * * * kind words and a sympathetic handclasp have done more to reclaim lost souls than all the tracts ever published. * * * * * a minute is a short duration of time, yet in that interval one may experience the whole gamut of human emotions. * * * * * if the world valued us as we value ourselves the heavens would not be sufficiently large whereon to inscribe our greatness. * * * * * what becomes of the characters who play an important part in fiction; the strong, brave, true fiction-people, whom we love as we read? is there no place for them in the world peopled by shadows? * * * * * there are men who will accept any and every sacrifice from a woman and after making her a wreck, socially and morally, will say to her, "i fear that i am injuring you, so i will sacrifice myself and deny myself the pleasure of your society." such men would sneak into heaven by a side entrance. * * * * * fate, in a sportive mood, performs some wonderful acrobatic feats with human nature; gives love of oriental luxury to the woman with nothing a year; appreciation of all that is beautiful and artistic, to the ploughman; an epicurian taste to the starving mechanic; while to the woman rolling in wealth is given the manners and tastes of the fish-wife; to the multi-millionaire the habits of the canaille, and fate laughs with glee over the fantastic, incongruous muddle of the thing called life. book the second by thad. w.h. leavitt odds and-ends man's greatest enemy is himself. * * * * * never chide fate while will sleeps. * * * * * the prophet must know the past. * * * * * foul words kill the sweetest flowers. * * * * * repentant tears are the soul's pearls. * * * * * common customs are not nature's laws. * * * * * no man blesses the calm until after the storm. * * * * * much study makes a full head and an empty stomach. * * * * * you cannot fan the ashes of a dead love into a flame. * * * * * innocence, like a beautiful dying day, goes out with a purple blush. * * * * * to steer the true course, one must not only see the star but have a pilot. * * * * * it is easier to remove a mountain than to wash out a spot on a woman's reputation. * * * * * the marble heart has valves of flint. * * * * * women covet satin, as men covet gold. * * * * * the garments of virtue are of spun gold. * * * * * when law is blind examine your own heart. * * * * * valour in defence of wrong becomes a crime. * * * * * man ceases to be a man when his passions die. * * * * * trembling patience is better than proud evil. * * * * * malice and ignorance constantly itch for trouble. * * * * * life is not a funeral dole but a living present. * * * * * he honours the state who refuses to commit a wrong. * * * * * opportunities, like pretty maids, should be embraced. * * * * * man's injustice to man shall not be an eternal stain. * * * * * defeat may be more glorious than victory. * * * * * venom is the juice of a toad tainting the sweet air. * * * * * you have but to sow the seeds of malice to reap a crop of grief. * * * * * men who would face a cannon, tremble before a golden calf. * * * * * there is no music for man so sweet as that set upon a woman's tongue. * * * * * i never could understand why doleful songs should herald a joyous hereafter. * * * * * if you keep your eyes fixed upon the stars you will fall into the first mill pond. * * * * * you are told, "that if you violate a sacrament of the church you will howl in hell for it." you know that if you violate nature's laws you will howl here. * * * * * while poverty spins threads of gold with which to weave a garment to cover her nakedness, the plutocrat melts the threads into sovereigns for his own use. * * * * * every yellow stream is not the tiber. * * * * * the wise man dreads, not noise, but eternal silence. * * * * * loud complaints may be only vents for little ills. * * * * * it is not enough to conceive a truth, we must act. * * * * * when one is bereft of hope the last sorrow has arrived. * * * * * the woman who loves not flattery has yet to be born. * * * * * this must be a golden age--everybody is running after it. * * * * * beauty is the recompense given to women for her weakness. * * * * * some sins squeak like a snared rabbit--others roar like a lion. * * * * * an immaculate reputation may hide a multitude of black lies. * * * * * angels walk on threads of gold from heaven to earth. these threads are only spun in the loom of the human heart. * * * * * abject spirits creep--men walk. * * * * * a small hole is a cavern to a mole. * * * * * a kiss hangs not long on a pretty lip. * * * * * you cannot rear a new babe on old milk. * * * * * a man may woo a dove and marry a screech owl. * * * * * satire is a javelin which pierces the thickest skin. * * * * * a mist may hide the sun but it does not blot it out. * * * * * some women prefer a great infamy to a little honour. * * * * * regard not the manner of your death but your daily life. * * * * * a churlish silence is harder to endure than a sharp tongue. * * * * * the man who gives away his freedom is everlastingly bankrupt. * * * * * the rubbish from men's tongues is hoarded while nature speaks unheard. * * * * * human misery is not a volunteer. * * * * * mirth's best nursery is contentment. * * * * * men fly, women melt into a passion. * * * * * prejudice is the marrow of superstition. * * * * * better a crust of bread than a funeral elegy. * * * * * woman's first fault is no excuse for man's last. * * * * * kind words are honey drops to the tired soul. * * * * * a bad tongue is not the clapper of a good heart. * * * * * crossed love is forgotten--crossed opinions, never. * * * * * distrust but do not refuse an untried remedy. * * * * * hope is the only flavour for a diet of adversity. * * * * * he is near to happiness who makes another smile. * * * * * greed is swifter than a greyhound. * * * * * results give the lie to many boasts. * * * * * nothing beslimes like a fawning tongue. * * * * * the smallest pirates fly the blackest flags. * * * * * the coming tempest is no less a great wind. * * * * * better a bleeding wound than pent up agony. * * * * * gigantic robberies are nevertheless robberies. * * * * * every furrow in the brow represents a drag-tooth of care. * * * * * a tempestuous petticoat is more bewitching than a satin gown. * * * * * for the light of beauty men go down into the darkest pits. * * * * * the smart of the lash soon dies--the memory of it never. * * * * * the meaner a man is, the meaner he not only feels but looks. * * * * * the greenest turf covers the blackest soil. * * * * * only an earthquake can shake a selfish soul. * * * * * one woman-wolf is more to be dreaded than a den of lions. * * * * * there are women whose smile is poison, whose touch is death. * * * * * bequeath your good deeds to memory, your bad deeds to oblivion. * * * * * pity, as soft as feathered flakes of snow, whitens all it falls upon. * * * * * if we peep behind a curtain we may see the ghost of our own hopes grinning at us. * * * * * the albatross, like a great soul, remains aloft without the flutter of a feather. * * * * * my sovereign hope is the inate desire of the human heart that justice be done. * * * * * love is as much higher, than justice as is the tallest mountain above an ant hill. * * * * * the people have so often been beguiled that now they refuse to believe the truth. * * * * * why is it that down hill is always greased? * * * * * a stain upon a woman's honour is indelible. * * * * * insolence is brutal--arrogance, intolerable. * * * * * the seeds of ill grow best in the most sterile soil. * * * * * a heart pickled in gall cannot be called a sweetmeat. * * * * * the promise of eternal sleep is not sweet to a live man. * * * * * the most worthless woman is bought at the highest price. * * * * * a man can put away his wife but he cannot divorce a memory. * * * * * many of our good intentions are so feeble, that like snow flakes, they melt as they come. * * * * * the earth is a fertile womb bringing forth fruits for all. a few men claim they are god's first sons and take the crop. * * * * * there are women who breath forth intoxicating perfumes. the man who inhales them is in danger of great good or of great evil. * * * * * nature, unheard, performs her greatest deeds. * * * * * ingratitude is a tree whose fruit poisons the very air. * * * * * many could make lye out of the cold ashes of their hopes. * * * * * gather the blossoms daily--the frost may come at night. * * * * * plant no flowers on the graves of those we have neglected in life. * * * * * some men are not content so long as an unfinished crime remains. * * * * * some men prefer the drudgery of the devil to the sleep of innocence. * * * * * women are tempted to taste a little evil, just to know what it is like. * * * * * every life leads up to a precipice, over which a few jump, the others tumble in and are lost. * * * * * we know that death is ever marching behind us but we never name the day when he will catch up. to hunt for mischief is to catch disaster. * * * * * even a sigh trembles through the universe. * * * * * nature must love woman to fashion her so beautiful. * * * * * the chain of some men's fate must be made of adamant. * * * * * revere the dust--it was the men and women of long ago. * * * * * the keenest blade in south africa is made from ralph iron. * * * * * he believed her an angel--married and found her only a woman. * * * * * a curled knot of snakes is not as deadly as the signature to a mortgage. * * * * * in london they no longer say, "lend me your purse--but your name." * * * * * a painter's description of matrimony- introduction: the background. courtship: the middle ground. engagement: the foreground. marriage: the nude subject. * * * * * kruger is the epitome of obsolete ideas and living force. * * * * * a bleating lamb in a great city is in greater danger than in the darkest wood. * * * * * there be three birds. one lives only in the highest altitudes. this bird is truth. one lives on the plain. this bird is expediency. one lives in the mire. this bird is subserviency. he who writes with a feather plucked from the wing of the first bird will not be listened to for ages to come. he who writes with a feather plucked from the wing of the second bird will receive the plaudits of the people. he who writes with a feather plucked from the wing of the third bird will be worshipped by the mob. * * * * * not gold, not broad acres, not vast power, not blazoned titles, not eloquence, but truth is the lever which moves the world. * * * * * when europe completes the process of christianizing china that nation will have disappeared from the map. the truth-seeker never digs in the columns of the political newspaper. * * * * * a money shaver with a conscience would soon be poorer than his clients. * * * * * i have read of the dog-like affection of woman--i have seen their cat-like characteristics. * * * * * bread snatched from the poor becomes a stone in the rich man's belly. he has only to eat his fill to sink. * * * * * what a gas lamp is to a moth, the same is a rose diamond to a woman--neither see the danger till they are dead. * * * * * in olden times sodom and gomorrah swallowed up the wicked. in modern times chicago swallows up the good. * * * * * chinaman's soliloquy. "first come missionary, big prayers, little book. singee 'peace on earth and good willee to all men.' russian bear swallow manchuria, french eagle strippe off yellow jacket, bille emperor stealee peacock feather, english lion grabbe pig tail. damme, hungry lion want everything." * * * * * slander is more subtile than any microbe. * * * * * you cannot squander ten thousand a year and then balance the account by thrusting a stale bun, dipped in charity soup, into a beggar's hand. * * * * * lolling on a velvet cushion in a fashionable church will not be a valid answer when you meet the poor girl 'beyond' whom you ground down to make trousers for twenty cents a pair. you didn't do it? you wore the trousers, it's all the same. * * * * * a cynic's description of the honeymoon- kisses allopathic. kisses homeopathic. the cold douche. hot mustard plasters. * * * * * a lawyer's description of matrimony in the united states- court--appeal. the suit filed. rival--an interpleader. marriage. judgement given. household expenses. costs. family jars. proceedings for alimony. final hearing. divorce absolute. quit claim. deed to another man. * * * * * the sea-side resorts attract many queer fish. * * * * * the politician is what the people make him. * * * * * the child which cries for bread is a menace to the state. * * * * * infamy may rise to such a height as to become famous. * * * * * more women have been killed by innuendo than by hard work. * * * * * to the small boy a circus is more alluring than the psalms of solomon. * * * * * eternity is an endless chain whose links are youth, old age and decay. * * * * * the shark turns on his back to devour his prey--the hypocrite prays that he may devour. * * * * * the money lender should provide himself with an asbestos overcoat when he leaves this world. * * * * * every girl in store or office means a man without employment. every man without employment is a man incapable of supporting a wife. do you see the inevitable result? * * * * * laughter is the doctor's deadliest enemy. * * * * * praise is the cheapest coin but more potent than gold. * * * * * if all men were brothers nations would cease to exist. * * * * * years are required to make a brutal man--hours, a woman. * * * * * we praise god for our victories. what does the other fellow do? * * * * * patriotism is but another name for, 'love yourself and hate your neighbors.' * * * * * if churches were made as attractive as gin palaces, the former, not the latter, would be open six days in the week. * * * * * when you get there, you will find that eternal justice is not built on the departmental store system. some pale-faced girl will offer the evidence. * * * * * once pity and charity perched on every cloistered gate and cried, 'welcome.' now they only venture forth on public occasions, when they will be seen of all men. * * * * * the cat's serenade gives tone to the back yard. * * * * * mental problem. suicide or side-tracked. which? * * * * * the laugh of a child is sweeter to god than a forty minute prayer. * * * * * the klondike is as alluring as a pretty woman and equally as freakish. * * * * * the greatness of the yukon is only surpassed by the greatness of its liars. * * * * * innocence is a rose bud with a worm outside waiting to gnaw a hole in it. * * * * * a blood-sucker on a boy's toe looks bigger to him than a sea-serpent to a man. * * * * * an easter bonnet is more satisfying to a woman than the most eloquent sermon. * * * * * the witch doctor taboos a banana tree, the parson the joyous dance. both are bigots. * * * * * the nigger who has learned to drink rum does not regard civilization as an unmixed blessing. * * * * * the beautiful is eternal. * * * * * an epitaph. "he went north and found his grave." * * * * * the cold marble becomes a living flame under the hands of the sculptor. * * * * * we cannot turn water into wine but some men come very near turning wine into water. * * * * * the coral shell stores up the glorious tints of the sun's rays--the thoughtful man the words of the wise. * * * * * a returned klondiker with gold very much resembles charity--frequently read of, seldom seen. * * * * * whence comes eternal truths? they are written in the rocks, they are breathed out of the soft, south wind; they are painted in the sunset, they speak in the flowers and the tiny blade of grass, they twinkle in distant stars. ages go by and yet man grasps but one, here and there. they are messengers to every man, gifted or untaught. he who seizes but one and embalms it has done a greater service to mankind than the mightiest king. * * * * * prohibition is a frozen dream, real life a red-hot time. * * * * * inquisitiveness is but another name for the auditor general. * * * * * capital account is a cavern wherein politicians hide their sins. * * * * * the summer girl, in the biggest wind, is never blown away from a man. * * * * * the editor writes most charmingly of country life in his easiest chair. * * * * * church choirs are always at sixes and sevens. one day of harmony and six of discord. * * * * * a young widow's sorrow for her husband is a phantom minnow--looks genuine but hides the hook. * * * * * while the bankrupt tradesman rides in his carriage, his honest competitor is in the back yard sawing wood. * * * * * the uglier a woman's face, the nearer to her chin is the hem of her bathing skirt, no doubt to hide her blushes. * * * * * the french are steadfast of purpose. what purpose? changing the ministry! * * * * * english poet in the soudan,--"we are carrying 'sweetness and light' into darkest africa!" tommy,--"yes, we let the light in with the lee-metford and the egyptian tax-collector will sweeten these coves later on." * * * * * mayor of new york,--"we must return the 'torch of liberty' by the first french steamer." "what for?" "to dispel the dreyfus gloom." * * * * * irate mother-in-law (to son-in-law about to marry second wife),--"is this the way you treat my daughter, lying in the dark grave?" "only striking a match to see into it." * * * * * out of the loins of pride and avarice comes the innocent child. why is this? it cannot be chance. it means something. when we discover what that something is we shall remain innocent. * * * * * greed grasps while poverty gasps. * * * * * the agony of despair breeds the monster, 'human hate.' * * * * * the man who refuses to lend to the lord distrusts the security. * * * * * the blood of the pauper shall smear the couch of the indolent. * * * * * the sweat of the poor, frozen into gold, gilds the rich man's purse. * * * * * the time must come when the dragon's teeth, sown by the rich, will bring forth a harvest of cold steel. * * * * * mother in the kitchen at the wash tub. daughter in the parlor at the piano. quite proper; its a case of rub-a-dub-dub. * * * * * why came we here? by blind chance or design? the books are full of guesses, half-truths and lies. we only know that we are here. from whence we came and whither we go is the problem. being here, our highest endeavors should be to do some little good. then close our eyes and wait for the answer. we can find it in no other way. * * * * * man and misery are not twins but father and son. * * * * * the woman to whom temptation never came cannot be said to be virtuous. * * * * * the blast of the golden bugle shall not always drown the wail of the poor. * * * * * when faults lie thick and die, the crop of good deeds to follow will be the greater. * * * * * a priest at ten thousand a year is a monument erected over the grave of christianity. * * * * * the cry of the child for bread reaches further into the universe than peans sung to kings. * * * * * when eve was created nature must have cried 'no,' for ever since woman has continued to repeat the word. * * * * * the rich go about the world on stilts, lest the poor should touch the hems of their garments. they are so so high in the air that they gather no perfume from the wild flowers blooming by the wayside. * * * * * the hand of justice has lost its thumb and forefinger. * * * * * vulgar speech is a drop of filth from a rotten heart. * * * * * a fly never sees the window pane until his bruised nose bleeds. * * * * * the greatest kindness is that which we are not compelled to remember. * * * * * my aspirations are cut out with a broad sword. my results with a pen knife. * * * * * the mathemetician can measure a world, yet he cannot weigh the secret thing which stirs a poet's heart. * * * * * man has waited for ages for heaven to help him. heaven has waited equally long for man to help himself. * * * * * slaves are bound with fetters of steel--poor men with fetters of law. one corrodes with age, the other is perpetually renewed. * * * * * the devil fish of the sea claws his victim, then sinks to the bottom. the devil fish of the land claws his, then rises to the top. * * * * * want issues from the womb of greed. * * * * * justice will be done when greed dies. * * * * * sympathy is the sheet-anchor of the ship of life. * * * * * one tear is more potent for good than a thousand laws. * * * * * charity, though white of plumage, is born of black parents. * * * * * the avenger strikes down one evil and creates a thousand. * * * * * universal love is, but another name for universal happiness. * * * * * life without hope is death without a grave wherein to find rest. * * * * * a man is not only responsible for his acts, but for their influence. * * * * * to know, and not to do is vile--to do and not to know, an accident. * * * * * the white flowers of sympathy shall yet bloom over graves in which the rich rot. * * * * * luxury lulls--poverty dulls. * * * * * a fat priest and a poor flock. * * * * * the hooked fish has an open mouth. * * * * * the money lender loves a close shave. * * * * * preachers and brokers, alike, deal in future options. * * * * * humility is sweet but its path is strewn with bitter herbs. * * * * * the change for which every woman prays--a change of name. * * * * * passengers inside the coach 'prosperity,' never see the galled steeds. * * * * * the knout pinches the slave's back. the combine, the free man's belly. * * * * * the ball dress is diplomatic, in that it reveals what it pretends to conceal. * * * * * there is colour in the statement that one nigger in a missionary report throws a shadow greater than ten white men. * * * * * vile thoughts only bloom on the dung-hills of depravity. * * * * * coarseness is as akin to vice as the flame to the candle. * * * * * indolence lolls in luxury while energy goes hungry to bed. * * * * * toil with recompense is sweeter than recompense without toil. * * * * * is the african heathen more precious than a sick child in a london garret? * * * * * the ashes of a bad woman cannot be cleansed with the waters of an ocean. * * * * * she who walks the street by night is an outcast. she who seduces a prince may die a queen. * * * * * princes on sale for gold, women for titles, virtue for bread, statesmen for place, and priests for salary. * * * * * monopoly. a whip in the hands of plutocrats, which bites the backs of men and saddens the hearts of women. * * * * * no soul can remain stagnant. * * * * * a gossip scatters more ills than a pestilence. * * * * * 'tis useless to kill the serpent after she has laid her eggs. * * * * * the poison on the fang cannot injure till the snake strikes. * * * * * when the unctious priest wants to borrow he cries, 'lend to the lord.' * * * * * we should not blot out the sun because its rays will hatch the eggs of a serpent. * * * * * the lion of the jungle seizes his prey by night. the lion of the city by day; one is stripped to the bone, the other to the shirt. * * * * * birds are charmed by snakes, women by beasts in human form. the glitter of the eye subdues the one, the glitter of gold, the other. * * * * * over the grave of each child which dies in the slums should stand a tablet inscribed, "died for want of sunlight and pure air." "who stole the land?" * * * * * one tyrant dies that two may be born. * * * * * a wise man prefers virgin soil to a cultivated widow. * * * * * the bone of contention is never covered with sweet meat. * * * * * the woman is most lost who forgets her babe for the ball. * * * * * self-righteousness can walk so straight that it leans backwards. * * * * * more women are drowned 'in the swim' than in mill ponds. * * * * * when death knocks at the door the servant answers, 'not at home.' * * * * * a winged cupid without a feather can soar higher than the pinioned eagle. * * * * * he who seeks for spiritual rest in dogma will find only a bottomless pit. * * * * * a wish from the heart travels beyond the blare of the loudest trumpet. * * * * * it is better to lavish your affections upon a faithful dog than upon an unfaithful friend. * * * * * the poor man craves for bread--not logic. * * * * * a woman without love is a tree without sap. * * * * * the plutocrats, like the catholics, thrive on curses. * * * * * good advice is an atom; good deeds the universe. * * * * * the beautiful seraph makes the most dangerous fiend. * * * * * the ghost of poverty is more dreadful than poverty itself. * * * * * a religion of details is a fruit tree which produces only blossoms. * * * * * each grain in the universe is a unit, remove but one and chaos will follow. * * * * * hills sunlit with promise are easier to traverse than the level road upon which hope died. * * * * * it is as easy for the poor man to pluck money from the rich as for the missionary to pick the pocket's of a naked savage. * * * * * a tainted heart soils the sweetest lip. * * * * * exchange the virus of hate for the antidote, love. * * * * * a woman prefers a fervent lover to a cold husband. * * * * * a fickle woman may conquer the most constant soldier. * * * * * the begrimed soul cannot be hidden with a white-wash brush. * * * * * our efforts should be to harmonize, not simply to change. * * * * * the most precious gem is found in the most worthless sand. * * * * * the senate joined to the commons is an impotent man wedded to a vigorous maid. * * * * * the bombastic egotist floats on the crest of prosperity while the philosopher starves in his tub. * * * * * the priest counsels men in the sterile present to feed upon a pregnant future. tomorrows dinner never yet fed a hungry man. * * * * * all the good in a human heart can never die. * * * * * you cannot denude a woman of her masked thoughts. * * * * * diplomacy is cultivated in men and bred in women. * * * * * he who would pluck contentment must abandon force. * * * * * to console a widow is more agreeable than to court a maid. * * * * * the man who stains the purity of a woman tarnishes his own soul. * * * * * it is difficult to distinguish the fleshy lie from the ghostly truth. * * * * * the private ownership of land is crystalized in the question "is the unborn child an heir or a bastard?" * * * * * love of the artistic does not account for the crookedness of men, though the curve is the only true line of beauty. * * * * * sly women walk where blunt men fall. * * * * * the stench of corruption is fragrant to the lobbyist. * * * * * a shrivelled soul may hide in a bishop's paunch. * * * * * a slippery friend is more dangerous than thin ice. * * * * * the kangaroo and the miser carry all they love in a pouch. * * * * * you cannot staunch a bleeding wound with a memory or a promise. * * * * * marriage is a covenant which few women refuse and many revoke. * * * * * emotion in woman is the locomotive--wisdom, the cow-catcher. * * * * * a misfit policy is as dangerous to a statesman as a misfit dress to a woman. * * * * * the sting of a bee is not the less to be dreaded because the bee makes honey. * * * * * creed is as akin to righteousness as a 'bucket shop' to the kingdom of heaven. * * * * * an act cannot die. * * * * * to exist is not to live. * * * * * degeneracy is born of many parents. * * * * * the rich man gives advice, the poor man bread. * * * * * happiness is now a theory, i would make it a fact. * * * * * the statute of limitation runs not against evil deeds. * * * * * the quickest cure for a passionate longing is a cold woman. * * * * * through lapse of time the few claim the inheritance of the many. * * * * * the cause of truth will not triumph so long as it is intrusted to fools. * * * * * if the weakness of the present industrial system were realized it would cease to be dangerous. * * * * * snakes eggs are hatched by the sun. misers eggs--gold--by labor. young snakes hiss at their mother, misers at men. * * * * * the charitable heart hath an empty pocket. * * * * * the cry of the poor is an eternal remonstrance. * * * * * the ocean of hope springs from a single drop of sympathy. * * * * * the old-time robber was the father of the new time financier. * * * * * injustice sleeps in a bed of roses which rests on a bed of thorns. * * * * * the lamb 'love' and the wolf 'hate' tarry not long in the same pen. * * * * * a feather from the wing of truth is of more weight than a mountain of lies. * * * * * only the key sympathy can unlock the sacred chamber hidden in every heart. * * * * * the bloodless wreath of love is stronger than a tyrant's chain. the one shall yet bind the world, the other be broken by a simple wish. * * * * * maxims and hints on angling, chess, shooting, and other matters; also, miseries of fishing. with wood-cuts. by richard penn, esq., f.r.s. _a new edition, enlarged._ london: john murray, albemarle street. mdcccxlii. london: printed by william clowes and sons, stamford street. contents maxims and hints for an angler 1 miseries of fishing 25 maxims and hints for a chess player 55 maxims and hints on shooting and other matters 81 the following extracts from the common-place-book of the houghton fishing club are respectfully dedicated to his brother anglers by a member of the club. london, _march, 1833._ maxims and hints for an angler. "you see the ways the fisherman doth take "to catch the fish; what engines doth he make? "behold! how he engageth all his wits, "also his snares, lines, angles, hooks, and nets: "yet fish there be, that neither hook nor line, "nor snare, nor net, nor engine can make thine; "they must be groped for, and be tickled too, "or they will not be catch'd, whate'er you do." john bunyan maxims and hints for an angler: by a bungler. [loosely thrown out, in order to provoke contradiction, and elicit truth from the expert.] i. are there any fish in the river to which you are going? ii. having settled the above question in the affirmative, get some person who knows the water to show you whereabout the fish usually lie; and when he shows them to you, do not show yourself to them. iii. comparatively coarse fishing will succeed better when you are not seen by the fish, than the finest when they see you. iv. do not imagine that, because a fish does not instantly dart off on first seeing you, he is the less aware of your presence; he almost always on such occasions ceases to feed, and pays you the compliment of devoting his whole attention to you, whilst he is preparing for a start whenever the apprehended danger becomes sufficiently imminent. v. by wading when the sun does not shine, you may walk in the river within eighteen or twenty yards below a fish, which would be immediately driven away by your walking on the bank on either side, though at a greater distance from him. vi. when you are fishing with the natural may-fly, it is as well to wait for a passing cloud, as to drive away the fish by putting your fly to him in the glare of the sunshine, when he will not take it. vii. if you pass your fly neatly and well three times over a trout, and he refuses it, do not wait any longer for him: you may be sure that he has seen the line of invitation which you have sent over the water to him, and does not intend to come. viii. if your line be nearly _taut_, as it ought to be, with little or no gut in the water, a good fish will always hook himself, on your gently raising the top of the rod when he has taken the fly. [illustration: "whence he is to be instantly whipt out by an expert assistant, furnished," &c. to face page 6.] ix. if you are above a fish in the stream when you hook him, get below him as soon as you can; and remember that if you pull him, but for an instant, against the stream, he will, if a heavy fish, break his hold; or if he should be firmly hooked, you will probably find that the united strength of the stream and fish is too much for your skill and tackle. x. i do not think that a fish has much power of stopping himself if, immediately on being hooked, he is moved slowly with the current, under the attractive influence of your rod and line. he will soon find that a forced march of this sort is very fatiguing, and he may then be brought, by a well-regulated exercise of gentle violence, to the bank, from whence he is to be instantly whipt out by an expert assistant, furnished with a landing-net, the ring of which ought not to be of a less diameter than eighteen inches, the handle of it being seven feet long. xi. if, after hooking a trout, you allow him to remain stationary but for a moment, he will have time to put his helm hard a-port or a-starboard, and to offer some resistance. strong tackle now becomes useful. xii. bear always in mind that no tackle is strong enough, unless well handled. a good fisherman will easily kill a trout of three pounds with a rod and a line which are not strong enough to lift a dead weight of one pound from the floor, and place it on the table. xiii. remember that, in whipping with the artificial fly, it must have time, when you have drawn it out of the water, to make the whole circuit, and to be at one time straight behind you, before it can be driven out straight before you. if you give it the forward impulse too soon, you will hear a crack. take this as a hint that your fly is gone to grass. xiv. never throw with a long line when a short one will answer your purpose. the most difficult fish to hook is one which is rising at three-fourths of the utmost distance to which you can throw. even when you are at the extent of your distance, you have a better chance; because in this case, when you do reach him, your line will be straight, and, when you do not, the intermediate failures will not alarm him. xv. it appears to me that, in whipping with an artificial fly, there are only two cases in which a fish taking the fly will infallibly hook himself without your assistance, viz. 1. when your fly first touches the water at the end of a straight line. 2. when you are drawing out your fly for a new throw. in all other cases it is necessary that, in order to hook him when he has taken the fly, you should do something with your wrist which it is not easy to describe. xvi. if your line should fall loose and wavy into the water, it will either frighten away the fish, or he will take the fly into his mouth without fastening himself; and when he finds that it does not answer his purpose, he will spit it out again, before it has answered yours. xvii. although the question of fishing up or down the stream is usually settled by the direction of the wind, you may sometimes have the option; and it is, therefore, as well to say a word or two on both sides. 1. if, when you are fishing down-stream, you take a step or two with each successive throw, your fly is always travelling over new water, which cannot have been disturbed by the passing of your line. 2. when you are fishing up-stream, you may lose the advantage of raising so many fish; but, on the other hand, you will have a better chance of hooking those which rise at your fly, because the darting forward of a fish seizing it has a tendency to tighten your line, and produce the desired effect. 3. if you are in the habit of sometimes catching a fish, there is another great advantage in fishing up-stream, viz. whilst you are playing and leading (necessarily down-stream) the fish which you have hooked, you do not alarm the others which are above you, waiting till their turn comes. xviii. the learned are much divided in opinion as to the propriety of whipping with two flies or with one. i am humbly of opinion that your chance of hooking fish is much increased by your using two flies; but i think that, by using only one, you increase your chance of landing the fish. xix. when you are using two flies, you can easily find the bob-fly on the top of the water, and thus be sure that the end-fly is not far off. when you are using only one fly, you cannot so easily see where the fly is; but i think that you can make a better guess as to where the fish is likely to be after you have hooked him. xx. also, when you are using two flies, you may sometimes catch a fish with one of them, and a weed growing in the river with the other. when such a _liaison_ is once formed, you will find it difficult, with all your attractions, to overcome the strong attachment of the fish to your worthless rival the weed. xxi. if the weed will not give way in the awkward juncture above alluded to, you must proceed to extremities. "then comes the tug of war;" and your line is quite as likely to break between you and the fish, as between the fish and the weed. xxii. when, during the season of the may-fly, your friends, the gentlemen from london, say that they "have scarcely seen a fish rise all day," do not too hastily conclude that the fish have not been feeding on the fly. [illustration: "you will find it difficult, with all your attractions, to overcome the strong attachment," &c. to face page 12.] xxiii. the only "rising" which is seen by the unlearned is the splash which is made by a fish when he darts from a considerable depth in the water to catch an occasional fly on the surface. there is, however, another sort of "rising," which is better worth the skilful angler's attention, viz. xxiv. when a fish is seriously feeding on the fly, he stations himself at no greater depth than his own length, and, making his tail the hinge of his motions, he gently raises his mouth to the top of the water, and quietly sucks in the fly attempting to pass over him. a rising of this sort is not easily seen, but it is worth looking for; because, although a fish feeding in this manner will rarely go many inches on either side for a fly, he will as rarely refuse to take one which comes (without any gut in the water) directly to him. xxv. if your fly (gut unfortunately included) should swim over a fish without his taking it, look out well for a darting line of undulation, which betokens his immediate departure; and remember, that it is of no use to continue fishing for him after he is gone. xxvi. the stations chosen by fish for feeding are those which are likely to afford them good sport in catching flies, viz. 1. the mouths of ditches running into the river. 2. the confluence of two branches of a stream, which has been divided by a patch of weeds. 3. that part of a stream which has been narrowed by two such patches. 4. fish are also to be found under the bank opposite to the wind, where they are waiting for the flies which are blown against that bank, and fall into the river. xxvii. if, during your walks by the river-side, you have marked any good fish, it is fair to presume that other persons have marked them also. suppose the case of two well-known fish, one of them (which i will call a.) lying above a certain bridge, the other (which i will call b.) lying below the bridge. suppose further that you have just caught b., and that some curious and cunning friend should say to you in a careless way, "where did you take that fine fish?" a finished fisherman would advise you to tell your inquiring friend that you had taken your fish just _above_ the bridge, describing, as the scene of action, the spot which, in truth, you know to be still occupied by the other fish, a. your friend would then fish no more for a., supposing that to be the fish which you have caught; and whilst he innocently resumes his operations below the bridge, where he falsely imagines b. still to be, a. is left quietly for you, if you can catch him. xxviii. when you see a large fish rising so greedily in the middle of a sharp stream, that you feel almost sure of his instantly taking your may-fly, i would advise you to make an accurate survey of all obstructions in the immediate neighbourhood of your feet--of any ditch which may be close behind you--or of any narrow plank, amidst high rushes, which you may shortly have to walk over in a hurry. if you should hook the fish, a knowledge of these interesting localities will be very useful to you. xxix. when your water-proof boots are wet through, make a hole or two near the bottom of them, in order that the water, which runs in whilst you are walking in the river, may run freely out again whilst you are walking on the bank. you will thus avoid an accompaniment of pumping-music, which is not agreeable. xxx. never mind what they of the old school say about "playing him till he is tired." much valuable time and many a good fish may be lost by this antiquated proceeding. put him into your basket _as soon as you can_. everything depends on the manner in which you commence your acquaintance with him. if you can at first prevail upon him to go a little way down the stream with you, you will have no difficulty afterwards in persuading him to let you have the pleasure of seeing him at dinner. xxxi. do not be afraid of filling your pockets too full when you go out; you are more likely to leave something behind you than to take too much. a man who seldom catches a fish at any other time, usually gets hold of one (and loses him of course) whilst his attendant is gone back for something which had been forgotten. xxxii. if your attendant is a handy fellow at landing a fish, let him do it in his own way: if he is not, try to find a better man, or go home. although so much depends upon his skill, you will rarely derive much comfort from asking him for his opinion. if you have had bad sport, and say to him, "which way shall we go now?" he will most probably say, "where you please, sir." if you ask him what he thinks of the weather, he is very likely to say that last week (_when you were in london_) it was "famous weather for fishing;" or he will perhaps say, that he expects that next week (_when you are to be at home again_) it will be very good. i never knew one of these men who was satisfied with the present hour. xxxiii. do not leave off fishing early in the evening because your friends are tired. after a bright day, the largest fish are to be caught by whipping between sunset and dark. even, however, in these precious moments, you will not have good sport if you continue throwing after you have whipped your fly off. pay attention to this; and if you have any doubt after dusk, you may easily ascertain the point, by drawing the end of the line quickly through your hand,--particularly if you do not wear gloves. xxxiv. no attempt is here made to give directions as to the best seasons for cutting the woods which are fittest for the making of rods, or as to the mode of preparing them; because the worst rod which is kept for sale at the present day is probably as good as the best of the first few dozen which any amateur is likely to make for himself. xxxv. lastly--when you have got hold of a good fish, which is not very tractable, if you are married, gentle reader, think of your wife, who, like the fish, is united to you by very tender ties, which can only end with her death, or her going into weeds. if you are single, the loss of the fish, when you thought the prize your own, may remind you of some more serious disappointment. r. p. _rod cottage, river side, 31st may, 1829._ [illustration] postscript. i forgot to say, that, if a friend should invite you to his house, saying that he will give you "an excellent day's fishing," you ought not to doubt his kind intention, but you certainly ought not to feel very sure that you will have good sport. provide yourself for such a visit with everything which you may want, as if you were going into an uninhabited country. above all things, take a landing-net with you. your friend's (if he has one) is probably torn and without a handle, being a sort of reticulated shovel for taking fish out of the well of a punt. take warning from the following story:-mr. jackson and mr. thompson went last week to the house of mr. jenkins, for a few days' fishing. they were received with the utmost kindness and hospitality by mr. and mrs. jenkins, and on the following morning after breakfast, the gardener (who was on that day called the fisherman) was desired to attend them to the river. thompson, who had a landing-net of his own, begged to have a boy to carry it. jack was immediately sent for, and he appeared in _top_ boots, with a livery hat and waistcoat. arrived at the water-side, thompson gave his gnat-basket to the boy, and told him to go on the other side of the river, and look on the grass for a few may-flies. jack said that he did not exactly know what may-flies were, and that the river could not be crossed without going over a bridge a mile off. thompson is a patient man, so he began to fish with his landing-net for a few may-flies, and after he had necessarily frightened away many fish, he succeeded in catching six or seven may-flies. [illustration: the boy exclaiming, "damn 'un, i miss'd 'un," instantly threw a second brick-bat. to face page 23.] working one of them with the blowing-line much to his own satisfaction, and thinking to extract a compliment from his attendant, he said, "they do not often fish here in this way--do they?" "no," said the boy, "they drags wi' a net; they did zo the day afore yesterday." our angler, after much patient fishing, hooked a fine trout; and having brought him carefully to the bank, he said, "now, my lad, don't be in a hurry, but get him out as soon as you can." jack ran to the water's edge, threw down the net, and seizing the line with both hands, of course broke it immediately. nothing daunted, thompson now mended his tackle and went on fishing; and when he thought, "good easy man," that the very moment for hooking another trout was arrived, there was a great splash just above his fly;--and the boy exclaiming, "damn un, i miss'd un," instantly threw a second brick-bat at a rat which was crossing the river. mine host, in order to accommodate his friends, dined early; and when they went after dinner to enjoy the evening fishing, they found that the miller had turned off the water, and that the river was nearly dry,--so they went back to tea. r. p. [illustration: _f. r. lee, esq., r.a._] miseries of fishing. "_quã¦que ipse miserrima vidi._" miseries of fishing. i. making a great improvement in a receipt which a friend had given you for staining gut--and finding that you have produced exactly the colour which you wanted, but that the dye has made all your bottoms quite rotten. ii. suddenly putting up your hand to save your hat in a high wind, and grasping a number of artificial flies, which you had pinned round it, without any intention of taking hold of more than one at a time. iii. leading a large fish down-stream and arriving at a ditch, the width of which is evident, although the depth of it may be a matter of some doubt. having thus to decide very quickly whether you will lose the fish and half your tackle, or run the risk of going up to your neck in mud. perhaps both. iv. feeling rather unsteady whilst you are walking on a windy day over an old foot-bridge, and having occasion to regret the decayed state of the hand-rail, which once protected the passing fisherman. v. fishing for the first time with flies of your own making--and finding that they are quite as good as any which you can buy, except that the hooks are not so firmly tied to the gut. vi. taking out with you as your aide-de-camp an unsophisticated lad from the neighbouring village, who laughs at you when you miss hooking a fish rising at a fly, and says with a grin. "you can't vasten 'em as my vather does." [illustration: "and having occasion to regret the decayed state of the hand-rail," &c. to face page 28.] vii. making the very throw which you feel sure will at last enable you to reach a fish that is rising at some distance--and seeing the upper half of your rod go into the middle of the river. when you have towed it ashore, finding that it has broken off close to the ferule, which is immoveably fixed in the lower half of your rod. viii. feeling the first cold drop giving notice to your great toe that in less than two minutes your boot will be full of water. ix. going out on a morning so fine that no man would think of taking his water-proof cloak with him--and then, before catching any fish, being thoroughly wet through by an unexpected shower. x. when you cannot catch any fish--being told by your attendant of the excellent sport which your predecessor had on the same spot, only a few days before. xi. having brought with you from town a large assortment of expensive artificial flies--and being told on showing them to an experienced native, that "they are certainly very beautiful, but that none of them are of any use here." xii. after trying in vain to reach a trout which is rising on the opposite side of the river--at last walking on; and before you have gone 100 yards, looking back, and seeing a more skilful friend catch him at the first throw.--weight 3 lbs. 2 oz. [illustration: "looking back, and seeing a more skilful friend catch him at the first throw." to face page 30.] xiii. having stupidly trodden on the top of your rod--and then finding that the spare top, which you have brought out with you in the butt, belongs to the rod which you have left at home, and will not fit that which you are using. xiv. having steered safely through some very dangerous weeds a fish which you consider to weigh at least 3 lbs., and having brought him safely to the very edge of the bank,--then seeing him, when he is all but in the landing-net, make a plunge, which in a moment renders all your previous skill of no avail, and puts it out of your power to verify the accuracy of your calculations as to his weight. xv. fishing with the blowing-line when the wind is so light that your fly is seldom more than two yards from you, or when the wind is so strong that it always carries your fly up into the air, before it comes to the spot which you wish it to swim over. xvi. wishing to show off before a young friend whom you have been learnedly instructing in the mysteries of the art, and finding that you cannot catch any fish yourself, whilst he (an inexperienced hand) hooks and lands (by mere accident of course) a very large one. xvii. attempting to walk across the river in a new place without knowing exactly whereabouts certain holes, which you have heard of, are. probing the bottom in front of you with the handle of your landing-net,--and finding it very soft. [illustration: "probing the bottom in front of you with the handle of your landing-net." to face page 32.] xviii. going some distance for three days' fishing, on the two first of which there is bright sunshine and no wind, and then finding that the third, which opens with "a southerly wind and a cloudy sky," is the day which a neighbouring farmer has fixed upon for washing two hundred sheep on the shallow where you expected to have the best sport. xix. being allowed to have one day's fishing in a stream, the windings of which are so many, that it would require half a dozen different winds to enable you to fish the greater part of it, from the only side to which your leave extends. xx. finding, on taking your book out of your pocket, that the fly at the end of your line is not the only one by many dozen which you have had in the water, whilst you have been wading rather too deep. xxi. wading half an inch deeper than the tops of your boots, and finding afterwards that you must carry about with you four or five quarts in each, or must sit down on the wet grass whilst your attendant pulls them off, in order that you may empty them, and try to pull them on again. xxii. jumping out of bed very early every morning, during the season of the may-fly, to look at a weathercock opposite to your window, and always finding the wind either in the north or east. [illustration: "you must sit down on the wet grass whilst your attendant pulls them off, in order," &c. to face page 34.] xxiii. having just hooked a heavy fish, when you are using the blowing-line, and seeing the silk break about two feet above your hand; then watching the broken end as it travels quickly through each successive ring, till it finally leaves the top of your rod, and follows the fish to the bottom of the river. xxiv. receiving a very elegant new rod from london, and being told by one of the most skilful of your brother anglers, that it is so stiff,--and by another, that it is so pliant, that it is not possible for any man to throw a fly properly with it. xxv. being obliged to listen to a long story about the difficulties which one of your friends had to encounter in landing a very fine trout which has just been placed on the table for dinner, when you have no story of the same sort to tell in return. xxvi. hooking a large trout, and then turning the handle of your reel the wrong way; thus producing an effect diametrically opposite to that of shortening your line, and making the fish more unmanageable than before. xxvii. arriving just before sunset at a shallow, where the fish are rising beautifully, and finding that they are all about to be immediately driven away by five-and-twenty cows, which are preparing to walk very leisurely across the river in open files. xxviii. coming to an ugly ditch in your way across a water-meadow late in the day, when you are too tired to jump, and being obliged to walk half a mile in search of a place where you think you can step over it. [illustration: "finding that they are all about to be immediately driven away by five-and-twenty cows." to face page 36.] xxix. flattering yourself that you had brought home the largest fish of the day, and then finding that two of your party have each of them caught a trout more than half a pound heavier than yours. xxx. finding yourself reduced to the necessity of talking about the beautiful form and colour of some trout, which you have caught, being well aware that in the important particular of _weight_, they are much inferior to several of those taken on the same day by one of your companions. xxxi. telling a long story after dinner, tending to show (with full particulars of time and place) how that, under very difficult circumstances, and notwithstanding very great skill on your part, your tackle had been that morning broken and carried away by a very large fish; and then having the identical fly, lost by you on that occasion, returned to you by one of your party, who found it in the mouth of a trout, caught by him, about an hour after your disaster, on the very spot so accurately described by you--the said very large fish being, after all, a very small one. xxxii. arriving at a friend's house in the country, one very cold evening in march, and being told by his keeper that there are a great many large pike in the water, and that you are sure of having good sport on the following day; and then looking out of your bed-room window the next morning, and seeing two unhappy swans dancing an awkward sort of minuet on the ice, the surface of the lake having been completely frozen during the night. r. p. london, _march, 1833._ [illustration] [illustration: _f. r. lee, esq., r.a._] more miseries. (continuation of story from page 24.) on a subsequent occasion our honest anglers repeated their visit to mr. jenkins, who, with the view of making himself more agreeable to his guests, had, in the meantime, agreed to pay an annual rent to the miller, for the exclusive right of fishing in some water belonging to the mill, which was said to contain the largest fish in the river. now, this miller had a son, who, whilst he followed his father's daily occupation of preparing matter for the _loaves_, sometimes thought of the _fishes_ too; and he was better known in the neighbourhood for his great skill in fishing, than for any unusual acquaintance with the mysteries of grinding. he had frequently used much argument and entreaty to dissuade his father from letting the fishery; but the prudent old miller thought that â£15 per annum, to be paid by mr. jenkins, would be more profitable to him, than any pleasure which his son might derive from catching many fine brace of trout during the season. [illustration: "he now sallied forth, not 'equal to both,' but 'armed for either field.'" to face page 43.] such was the state of affairs in this part of the world, when mr. jackson and mr. thompson arrived early one morning, by special invitation, to make a first trial of their skill in the new water. the usual conversation about the state of the weather was quickly despatched at breakfast. the wind was, for once, pronounced to be in the right quarter. it was unanimously agreed that there could not well be a more favourable day for fishing, and that, therefore, the gentlemen ought to lose no time in going down to the river. our old friend, thompson, who, as we have already seen, was not always very successful with a fly, had lately, in order that he might have two strings to his bow[a], been learning another branch of the gentle art, called "spinning a minnow;" and he now sallied forth, not "equal to both," but "armed for either field," and walked with a confident step to a celebrated spot below the mill. this new acquirement had been kept a profound secret from jackson, who went out, as usual, fly-fishing, and proceeded to a part of the stream above the mill. it was not to be expected that the young miller would work cheerfully at the mill that morning. he felt that, although he had been cruelly deprived of the fishery by his father, he surely had a right to _look_ at the gentlemen if he pleased; he therefore put on his dusty hat and walked, in a surly mood, to the river side,--taking with him, as the companion of his sorrows, a ragged little boy, who had often witnessed his exploits with envy and admiration, and occasionally imitated his great example in a very humble manner by fishing for gudgeons in the canal. the youth and the boy found thompson so busily engaged in arranging his new spinning-tackle, that he did not perceive that they had established themselves within a few yards of him. there he stood upon the bank, deeply impressed with the value of some excellent instructions which he had lately received for his guidance, and fully sensible of the vast superiority over jackson which he now possessed. having at last settled every preliminary to his entire satisfaction, he was just about to cast in his minnow for the first time, when the miller attracted thompson's notice by that peculiar sort of short cough which is a relief to suppressed insolence, and acts as a safety-valve to prevent explosion. poor thompson! he did not feel quite qualified for a performance of the kind before a critic so well able to judge, and so little disposed to admire; but he considered that it would be _infra dig._ to appear disconcerted by the young miller's presence,--so he assumed a look of defiance, and manfully commenced operations. after one or two bad throws, and sundry awkward attempts at improvement, a fine trout (_mirabile dictu!_) darted from under the bank and seized his minnow. "who cares for the miller now?" thought thompson; but, alas! the happy thought passed through his mind- "too like the lightning, which doth cease to be ere one can say--it lightens." he unfortunately (vide maxim ix.) held the fish a little too hard against the stream, and pulled him so very triumphantly, that the thrilling sensation of tugging pressure on the rod suddenly ceased, and the hookless end of the broken line flew into the air!! at this awful crisis the young miller's cough became very troublesome, and the boy coolly called out to him-"_i say, jack!--i'll lay a penny that wouldn't ha' happened if you had had hold on 'im!!!_" * * * * * long before thompson had recovered from the effects of this sad disaster, jenkins came up to him to announce that luncheon was ready. overwhelming our poor sufferer with a torrent of well-meant condolence, he said-"well, thompson! "what! no sport? "that _is_ unlucky! "i am very anxious that _you_ should catch a good fish. _jackson_ has just caught a brace of very fine ones! "this is exactly the spot where i expected that you would have the best sport! [illustration: "i'll lay a penny that wouldn't ha' happened if _you_ had hold on 'im!!" to face page 46.] "the miller tells me that the largest fish lie there[b], near that broken post under the opposite bank. pray cast your minnow close to that, and you will be sure to run a fish almost immediately." jenkins little knew what he was asking. the aforesaid post was at a formidable distance,--it could only be reached by a most skilful hand. thompson felt by no means disposed to attempt it, because, although jenkins appeared to think that it would be an easy task for so finished an angler as thompson, he himself had no doubt that the odious miller, who was still looking on, was of a very different opinion. he therefore thought that it would be wise to leave the question undetermined, and not to give a _casting_ vote on the occasion. and now thompson, turning his back on the river, walked home arm-in-arm with his friend mr. jenkins, grieving much about the fish which he had lost, and perhaps a little about those which jackson had caught. the brace of very fine trout, said to have been caught by mr. jackson, were exhibited by him in due form to mr. thompson and the ladies, just before luncheon. whilst he was pointing out the beautiful condition of the fish, without at all underrating their weight, miss smith, who was staying on a visit with her sister, mrs. jenkins, pleasantly remarked that mr. jackson was very _lucky_ to have caught two such fine fish whilst mr. thompson had not caught any. this led to an interesting conversation about the caprice of the fickle goddess, so often alluded to in the lamentations of an unsuccessful angler. thompson took no part in the discussion, and he did not refer them to the miller or the little boy for any other explanation[c] of the cause of his failure; but he begged that they would allow him to eat his luncheon, without waiting for the rest of the party, as he was anxious to return as soon as possible to the river, where he expected to have great sport in the evening. [illustration: _geo. jones, esq. r.a._ "he begged that they would allow him to eat his luncheon without waiting for the rest of the party." to face page 49.] after luncheon, our unfortunate hero did not catch any fish, and he found that he could not throw his minnow within several yards of the far-famed post, even when he was not annoyed by spectators. he contrived, however, to get fast hold of another, at a much less distance from him; in consequence of which, he was obliged to abandon a second set of his best minnow tackle (price 2_s._ 6_d._) to its fate in the middle of the river. [illustration: "his ears were assailed by a loud repetition of the cruel cough." to face page 51.] at the end of _his day's sport_, thompson omitted to use the wise precaution of taking his rod to pieces[d], before leaving the river side. on his way homewards, in the evening, he met the little boy, who slily asked him if he had had good sport _since_. this brought to his recollection the fact of his having to pass through the mill, in order to cross the river; and the prospect of his being asked a similar question by the miller was not agreeable. when he arrived at the mill, all was quiet; and he, therefore, flattered himself that the miller was comfortably enjoying his pipe at the ale-house.--thompson was now so elated at the idea of passing through unobserved, that he quite forgot the exalted state of his rod, until he was reminded of it by a sudden jerk which broke off the top, leaving his third and last set of tackle, with a brilliant artificial minnow, sticking fast in a projecting rafter[e] above his reach. hastily shoving the broken joint (thompson never swears) into the butt of his rod, he hoped that he should be able to conceal all knowledge of this last misfortune. he, however, felt very unwilling that the shining little minnow should remain in its present position, as a glaring proof of his awkwardness; and it immediately occurred to him, that a small ladder, which was close at hand, was a thing exactly suited to the occasion; but at the very moment when he became convinced, by actual experiment, that it was too short for his purpose, his ears were assailed by a loud repetition of the cruel cough, and his eyes were met by a killing glance from those of the miller's son. on the following day, thompson returned, much out of spirits, to london. on that day, too, the young miller resumed his duties at the mill, less out of humour than before. very shortly after this the old miller died, and the son then took the fishery into his own hands; and, however closely he may now resemble his late grandfather (who formerly lived on the river dee), in caring for nobody, he never, whilst thompson lives, will be able to say "nobody cares for me." * * * * * "so ends my tale:" for i fear that the reader must think that, like thompson, he has now had quite enough of "the miseries of fishing." i feel, however, assured that he will forgive me for relating this story, because, although his attention may be fatigued by the perusal of it, his eye will be gratified by the beauty of several new illustrations, which i owe to the kindness of my friends, the distinguished artists, whose names are printed under their welcome contributions to my little book. r. p. _whitehall, march, 1839._ [illustration: _sir francis chantrey, r.a._] footnotes: [a] it was a long one, when he talked about fishing. [b] there the fish did not _lie_, but the miller did. he well knew that, since the letting of the fishery, his son had taken good care that the best of them should be gradually removed to billingsgate by a more summary process than that of rod and line. [c] neither did mr. jackson think it necessary to explain to the ladies, or even to his friend thompson, that the very fine fish, about which he had received so many compliments, had been taken by fixing his landing-net at the mouth of one of the narrow water-courses, up which they had worked their way in search of minnows;--a secret method of ensuring good sport, well known to some few very cunning anglers, whose motto is "unde habeas quã¦rit nemo, sed oportet habere."--juv. [d] i understand that thompson has written a long letter, complaining of my not having given any maxim or hint on this important point. i beg leave here to apologise for the omission; and i have no hesitation in advising him, if he should ever put his rod together again, not to omit taking it to pieces as soon as he has done fishing. [e] piscium et summã¢ genus hã¦sit ulmo.--hor. maxims and hints for a chess player. "_lorsque je veux, sans y faire semblant, me livrer aux mã©ditations d'une douce philosophie, je vais ã  la pãªche. ma longue expã©rience me tient en garde contre les inconveniens d'une mauvaise pratique; et je jouis de mon succã¨s, qu'aucun jaloux ne vient troubler. ma pãªche finie, eh bien! je rentre dans le mouvement de la vie, je fais ma partie d'ã©checs; je triomphe, mon sang circule; je suis battu, mais je me releve._"--tactique des recreations. maxims and hints for a chess player. [illustration] i. win as often as you can, but never make any display of insulting joy on the occasion. when you cannot win--lose (though you may not like it) with good temper. ii. if your adversary, after you have won a game, wishes to prove that you have done so in consequence of some fault of his rather than by your own good play, you need not enter into much argument on the subject, whilst he is explaining to the by-standers the mode by which he might have won the game, _but did not_. iii. nor need you make yourself uneasy if your adversary should console himself by pointing out a mode by which you might have won the game in a shorter and more masterly manner. listen patiently to his explanation--it cannot prove that your way was not good enough. _tous les chemins sont bons qui mã©nent ã  la victoire._ iv. when you are playing with an opponent whom you feel sure that you can master, do not insult him by saying that you consider him a stronger player than yourself,--but that perhaps particular circumstances may prevent him from playing with his usual force to-day, &c. &c. men usually play as well as they can: they are glad when they win, and sorry when they lose. v. sometimes--when, alas! you have lost the game--an unmerciful conqueror will insist on "murdering pizarro all over again," and glories in explaining how that your game was irretrievable after you had given a certain injudicious check with the queen,[f] (the consequence of which _he says_ that he immediately foresaw,) and that then, by a succession of very good moves on his part, he won easily. you must bear all this as well as you can, although it is certainly not fair to "preach'ee and flog'ee too." vi. a good player seldom complains that another is slow. he is glad to have the opportunity thus afforded to him of attentively considering the state of the game. do not, therefore, be impatient when it is your adversary's turn to move. take as much time as you require (_and no more_) when it is your own turn. vii. if, whilst you are playing, your adversary will talk about the state of the game, it is very provoking, but you cannot help it, and the pieces will give you ample revenge, if you can avail yourself of their power. viii. if the by-standers talk, it is still more annoying: they always claim the merit of having foreseen every good move which is made, and they sometimes express great surprise at your not making a particular move; which, if you had made it, would probably have led to your speedily losing the game--before which time they would have walked away to another table. ix. almost every moderate player thinks himself fully qualified to criticise the move by which a game has been lost.--although, if he had himself been in the loser's place, he would, very probably, have been check-mated twenty moves sooner than the opportunity occurred for committing the particular mistake, which he thinks he should have avoided. x. amongst good players, it is considered to be as much an indispensable condition of the game, that a piece once touched must be moved, as that the queen is not allowed to have the knight's, or a rook the bishop's move. xi. some persons, when they are playing with a stranger who entreats to be allowed to take back a move, let him do so the first time: then, almost immediately afterwards, they put their own queen _en prise_; and when the mistake is politely pointed out to them, they say that _they_ never take back a move, but that they are ready to begin another game. xii. do not be alarmed about the state of your adversary's health, when, after losing two or three games, he complains of having a bad head-ache, or of feeling very unwell. if he should win the next game, you will probably hear no more of this. xiii. never (if you can avoid it) lose a game to a person who rarely wins when he plays with you. if you do so, you may afterwards find that this one game has been talked of to all his friends, although he may have forgotten to mention ninety-nine others which had a different result. chess players have a very retentive memory with regard to the games which they win. xiv. if, therefore, any one should tell you that on a certain day last week he won a game from one of your friends, it may be as well to ask how many other games were played on the same day. xv. there is no better way of deciding on the comparative skill of two players than by the result of a number of games. be satisfied with that result, and do not attempt to reason upon it. xvi. remember the italian proverb, "never make a good move without first looking out for a better." even if your adversary should leave his queen _en prise_, do not snap hastily at it. the queen is a good thing to win, but the game is a better. xvii. between even, and tolerably good, players a mere trifle frequently decides the event of a game; but when you have gained a small advantage, you must be satisfied with it for the time. do not, by attempting too much, lose that which you have gained. your object should be to win the game, and the dullest way of winning is better for you than the most brilliant of losing. xviii. if your knowledge of "the books" enables you to see that a person, with whom you are playing for the first time, opens his game badly, do not suppose, as a matter of course, that you are going to check-mate him in ten or twelve moves. many moves called _very bad_ are only such if well opposed; and you can derive but little advantage from them unless you are well acquainted with the system of crowding your adversary,--one of the most difficult parts of the game. xix. some players have by study acquired mechanically the art of opening their game in a style much above their real force; but when they have exhausted their store of _book-knowledge_, they soon fall all to pieces, and become an easy prey to those who have genuine talent for the game. others do not know how to open their game on scientific principles, and yet, if they can stagger through the beginning without decided loss, fight most nobly when there are but few pieces and pawns left on the board. all these varieties of play must be carefully studied by those who wish to win. it is only talent for the game, combined with much study and great practice, which can make a truly good player. xx. although no degree of instruction derived from "books" will make a good player, without much practice with all sorts of opponents, yet, on the other hand, when you hear a person, who has had great practice, boast of never having looked into a chess-book, you may be sure either that he is a bad player, or that he is not nearly so good a player as he might become by attentively studying the laborious works which have been published on almost every conceivable opening, by such players as ercole del rio, ponziani, philidor, sarratt, and lewis. xxi. between fine players, small odds (viz. pawn, with one, or with two moves) are of great consequence. between inferior players they are of none. the value of these odds consists chiefly in position; and in every long game between weak players, such an advantage is gained and lost several times, without either party being aware of it. xxii. almost all good players (_and some others_) have a much higher opinion of their own strength than it really deserves. one person feels sure that he is a better player than some particular opponent, although he cannot but confess that, for some unaccountable reason, or other, he does not always win a majority of games from him. another attributes his failure solely to want of attention to details which he considers hardly to involve any real genius for the game; and he is obliged to content himself with boasting of having certainly, at one time, had much the best of a game, which he afterwards lost, _only by a mistake_. a third thinks that he must be a good player, because he has discovered almost all the many difficult check-mates which have been published as problems. he may be able to do this, and yet be unable to play a whole game well, it being much more easy to find out, at your leisure, the way to do that which you are told beforehand is practicable, than to decide, in actual play, whether, or not, it is prudent to make the attempt. xxiii. a theoretical amateur, with much real genius for the game, is often beaten by a fourth-rate player at a chess club, who has become from constant practice thoroughly acquainted with all the technicalities of it, and quietly builds up a wall for the other to run his head against. the loser in this case may _perhaps_ eventually become the better player of the two; but he is not so at present. xxiv. a person sometimes tells you that he played the other day, for the first time, with mr. such-a-one, (a very celebrated player,) who won the game, with great difficulty, after a very hard fight. your friend probably deceives himself greatly in supposing this to be the case. a player who has a reputation to lose, always plays very cautiously against a person whose strength he does not yet know: he runs no risks, and does not attempt to do more than win the game, which is all that he undertook to do. xxv. when you receive the odds of a piece from a better player than yourself, remember he sees everything which you see, and probably much more. be very careful how you attack him. you must act in the early part of the game entirely on the defensive, or probably you will not live long enough to enjoy the advantage which has been given you. even though you may still have the advantage of a piece more, when the game is far advanced, you must not feel too sure of victory. take all his pawns quietly, _if you can_, and see your way clearly before you attempt to check-mate him. you will thus perhaps be longer about it, but winning is very agreeable work. xxvi. many persons advise you, when you receive the odds of a rook, _always_ to make exchanges as often as you can, in order to maintain the numerical superiority with which you began. this is very cunning; but you will probably find that "_master is yorkshire too_," and that he will not allow you to make exchanges early in the game, except under circumstances which lead you into a ruinous inferiority of position. xxvii. you will never improve by playing only with players of your own strength. in order to play well, you must toil through the humiliating task of being frequently beaten by those who can give you odds. these odds, when you have fairly mastered them, may be gradually diminished as your strength increases. do not, however, deceive yourself by imagining, that if you cannot win from one of the _great players_ when he gives you the odds of a rook, you would stand a better chance with the odds of a knight. this is a very common error. it is true that, when a knight is given, the attack made upon you is not so sudden and so violent, as it usually is when you receive a rook--but your ultimate defeat is much more certain. if, in the one case, you are quickly killed, in the other you will die in lingering torments. xxviii. when you hear of a man from the country, who has beaten every body whom he has ever played with, do not suppose, as a matter of course, that he is a truly good player. he may be only a "triton of the minnows." all his fame depends upon the skill of the parties with whom he has hitherto contended; and provincial philidors seldom prove to be very good players, when their strength is fairly measured at the london chess club, particularly such of them as come there with the reputation of having never been beaten. xxix. an elderly gentleman, lately returned from india, is apt to suppose that his skill has been much impaired by the change of climate, or some other cause, when he finds, to his great surprise, that his style of play does not produce such an alarming effect in the chess clubs of london or paris, as it used to do at rumbarabad. xxx. when you can decidedly win, at the odds of a rook given by a first-rate player, you will rank among the chosen few. it would be very difficult to name twenty-five persons in london to whom mr. lewis could not fairly give these odds, although there are many hundreds who would be much offended at its being supposed to be possible that any one could give them a knight. xxxi. a first-rate player, who is to give large odds to a stranger, derives great advantage from seeing him first play a game, or two, with other persons. his style of play is thus shown, and the class of risks which may be ventured on is nicely calculated. that which, before, might have been difficult, thus becomes comparatively easy. xxxii. there is as much difference between playing a game well, by correspondence, and playing one well over the board, as there is between writing a good essay, and making a good speech. xxxiii. no advantages of person and voice will enable a man to become a good orator if he does not understand the grammatical construction of the language in which he speaks: nor will the highest degree of ingenuity make any man a good chess player, unless his preparations for the exercise of that ingenuity are made upon the soundest principles of the game. xxxiv. every game perfectly played throughout on both sides would be by its nature drawn. since, then, in matches between the most celebrated players and clubs of the day some of the games have been won and lost, it seems to follow that there _might_ be better players than have been hitherto known to exist. xxxv. most of the persons who occasionally "play at chess" know little more than the moves and a few of the general rules of the game. of those who have had more practice, some have acquired a partial insight into the endless variety of the combinations which may be formed, and their beautiful intricacy:--a few play moderately well; but, however small the number of good players may be, it would be difficult to find any one who, after having played a few hundred games, would not think it an imputation on his good sense to be considered a very bad player;--and this is the universal feeling, although it is well known that men of the highest attainments have studied chess without great success; and that the most celebrated players have not always been men of distinguished talents. xxxvi. he who after much practice with fine players remains for a long time without taking his station amongst them, will find at last that there is a point which he cannot pass. he is obliged to confess his incurable inferiority to players of the higher order, and he must be content with easy victories over a large majority of those whom he meets with in society. [illustration] conclusion. chess holds forth to the philosopher relaxation from his severer studies,--to the disappointed man, relief from unavailing regret,--and to the rich and idle, an inexhaustible source of amusement and occupation. it has, however, been frequently urged as an objection to the study of the game, that no man can pursue it, with a fair prospect of becoming a good player, without devoting to it much time and attention which might be more beneficially employed. although it may perhaps be true in the abstract, that even a high degree of skill is not _per se_ worth the time and trouble which it must have cost, it should be remembered that on this "mimic stage" of life much besides chess may be seen and studied with advantage. the real character of a man's mind may, almost always, be known by his behaviour under the varying circumstances of this most interesting game. the triumph of the winner, and the vexation of the loser, are often coarsely displayed amongst inferior players; and, although good players very rarely give way to this degrading weakness, still, the good breeding of some of them, towards the end of a difficult match, is not always quite perfect. the temper of the student cannot fail to derive very material benefit from the severe discipline to which it will be subjected. when he begins to play well he will find that he has learnt to submit patiently to contradiction; and that he has become convinced of the necessity of abandoning his most favourite schemes, whenever he sees that from a change of circumstances they can be no longer pursued with safety.--he will have felt the full value of using caution and circumspection, when called upon to exercise his judgment in cases of complicated difficulty, and he will have acquired the faculty of fixing his undivided attention on the business in which he is engaged. if such qualities of the mind are called forth and strengthened in the pursuit of a harmless and delightful recreation, the time cannot have been wholly wasted, although the professed object of study may have been only the art of giving check-mate. r. p. _whitehall, march, 1839._ [illustration] footnote: [f] _infandum regina jubes renovare dolorem._ maxims and hints on shooting and other matters. [illustration: drawn by the late sir francis chantrey, r.a.] maxims and hints on shooting, _&c. &c._ i. let the person to whose care a young dog is intrusted for education be furnished with an instrument like a short trumpet, which produces a few harsh and discordant notes; and whenever it may be necessary to correct the dog, in order to enforce obedience, let such correction be accompanied by the noise of this instrument rather than by "the thundering voice and threatening mien" usually employed on such occasions. when the dog's education has been properly completed under this system, although you may be comparatively a stranger to him on first taking him into the field, you will find that by carrying with you a duplicate of the _un_musical instrument you will have his master's voice in your pocket, and you will be able at once to make a very commanding impression upon him, by sounding a few of the harsh and discordant tones which he has been taught to fear and obey. ii. you must not insist upon its being admitted without dispute, that the man who made _your_ gun is the best maker in london. this town is a very large place, and it contains a great many gunmakers. you must also remember that it "stands within the prospect of belief" that there may be other persons who think themselves as competent to select a good gun, and to shoot well with it afterwards as you are. iii. in like manner, although you may prefer using one kind of wadding to another, or may perhaps like to wear shoes and gaiters rather than trousers and laced boots, you must not suppose that every man who takes the liberty of forming a different opinion from yours on these subjects is a mere bungler. iv. however steady your pointer may be, remember that he is but a dog. if you encourage him to run after one hare because it has been wounded by yourself, you must not be angry with him for chasing another which may be shot at by your friend. canine flesh and blood cannot bear this. v. although you may be a very agreeable gentleman, generally speaking, you will choose an unlucky moment for making yourself particularly so, if you should on some fine morning after breakfast volunteer to accompany two of your friends who are preparing to leave the house for a day's partridge-shooting without any expectation of being joined by a third person. vi. when you are obliged to walk on the left-hand side of a man who carries the muzzle of his gun too low, do not be so very polite as to take no notice of this dangerous habit. he will, perhaps, appear quite offended when you venture to question your perfect safety. but be that as it may, your position was so awfully unpleasant whilst you were constantly stared at by the eyes of a double-barrelled gun that your friend's looking rather cross at you is a matter of much less consequence. vii. when a long search amongst high turnips has been made, at your particular request, for a bird which you erroneously suppose that you have brought down, and which (naturally enough under such circumstances) cannot be found, you must not say that your friend's retriever has a very bad nose, or fancy that "poor old trigger, if he had been still alive, could have easily found the bird." viii. should a farmer's boy come running to you with a partridge which he has lately picked up after seeing it fall in the next field, your companion in arms will perhaps assure you that this bird can be no other than that which _he_ shot at, as you may remember, immediately after you had both of you passed through the last hedge, and which he afterwards saw flying very low, and very badly wounded, exactly in the direction which the boy has come from. an _enfant trouvã©_ like this seldom waits long for a father to adopt it. ix. sometimes towards the end of a fatiguing day, when you feel like an overloaded gun-brig, labouring against a heavy sea of turnips, you may perchance espy a large covey of partridges in the act of settling near a hedge a long way before you. supposing in such case that your brother sportsman should be a much younger man than yourself, and yet should not have also seen these birds, it is not always quite prudent that you should announce the fact to him immediately. if you wish to have a shot at them, you would, perhaps, do well to say nothing about them till your weary limbs have borne you unhurried a little nearer to the hedge in question. the good old rule of _seniores priores_ is sometimes reversed in a large turnip-field. x. in the case of a double shot a gamekeeper never hesitates an instant in deciding whether the bird was killed by his master's gun or by another person's, fired at the same moment. xi. when you are making your way through a thick wood with too large a party, it is better that you should be scolded by some of your friends because you trouble them with very frequent notice of your individual locality, than that you should be shot by any of them because you do not. xii. on the day of a great battue, if one of the party (not you) should shoot much better than the others, and if this should by chance be talked of after dinner (as such matters sometimes are), do not say much about the very large number of hares and pheasants killed by you--on some other occasion. xiii. when you are shooting in a wood, if some hungry fox, in pursuit of his prey, should chance to cross your path, it depends entirely upon the "custom of the country" whether you ought to kill him or not. bob short says, in his rules for whist, "when in doubt, win the trick." xiv. never ask beforehand whether or not you are to shoot hares in the cover into which you are going, but never shoot one after you have been told not to do so. xv. a singular species of optical delusion often takes place in the case of a man shooting at a woodcock in a thick cover. according to the impression said to be made upon the shooter's eye, the bird appears to fall dead more frequently than he can afterwards be found--so that the truth of this appearance must never be relied on when the evidence of the bird himself cannot be brought forward to support it. xvi. on a grand occasion you need not always trouble yourself to keep an account of the number of head killed by you, particularly if you do not dine with the party on that day; because, in your absence, the total number brought home may perhaps be accounted for after dinner, without any reference being made to the amount of your[g] performances. xvii. when you sit down (_horresco referens_) in a dentist's chair,[h] in order to have your teeth cleaned, and point out to him, with fear and trembling, one of them which you think must be drawn;--if he should tell you that the tooth can be easily stopped, and may still be of much service to you, do not immediately thereupon feel quite bold and very comfortable. after a moment's further inspection he may, perhaps, add very quietly, in a kind of whispering soliloquy, "here are two others which must be removed." xviii. if you should stop, with a tired horse, at the door of the "king's head" anywhere, and should say to the bowing landlord thereof, that, unless you can find some other means of pursuing your journey, you shall be obliged to have a chaise immediately, you must not expect to be told by him that a very good coach, which is going your way, will change horses at the "red lion," nearly opposite, in less than ten minutes. should this be the real state of the case, he will feel that he has no time to lose; and therefore, instantly seizing the handle of the hostler's bell, and ringing a louder peal than usual, he will at once show you into a back parlour, for fear that you should see the coach before a chaise can be got ready for you. xix. should it have been your fate to travel often, _more majorum_, on the box of a stage-coach, more than one coachman has probably told you a story, two miles long, about some mare so vicious and unmanageable that she had been rejected by every other coachman on the road, and that nobody but himself had ever been able to drive her, saying at the same time, "she is now, as you see, sir, as quiet as a lamb." you must not believe all this, although it may perhaps be very true that the mare kicks sometimes, and that the man is not a bad coachman. xx. although our friend the coachman is supposed to have been so very communicative to you on the last occasion, he may not perhaps be equally so on all others: for instance, if, when the roads are very bad, and the coach is heavily laden, he should, near the end of a difficult stage, pull up at some turnpike, and enter into a long talk apparently about a bad shilling or a lost parcel, he is very likely not to explain to you and the other passengers that his real reason for thus stopping is because his horses are so much distressed that they would otherwise be scarcely able to reach the end of their ground. the conference at the gate is held in order to facilitate the ratification of the treaty for fresh horses to be exchanged in the next town. xxi. on arriving at the place where "the coach dines," walk to the nearest baker's shop, and there satisfy your hunger in a wholesome manner. at the dinner which is prepared for the passengers it frequently happens that if there should have been any cock-fighting in the town lately,[i] the winner and the loser of the last battle appear at the top of the table as a couple of boiled fowls; and whenever there is a roast goose at the bottom, it is probably some old gander, who, after having lived for many years in the parish, is at last become so poor that he is obliged to be "taken into the house." xxii. if you have children, who are clever, do not question them too closely in company. supposing, for example, that at the close of a social meal in the country, you should be sitting at table with your guests, on the eve of their departure from your hospitable roof: if, under these circumstances, some nice little fellow, who has lately rushed into the room, and is now busily employed with a bunch of grapes, should be called upon by you to join in the general expression of regret that your friends are to leave you to-morrow, he may perhaps say, "yes, papa, we shall have no grapes after dinner to-morrow." xxiii. if you are thought to excel in any particular game or sport, do not too often lead to it as a subject of conversation: your superiority, if real, will be duly felt by all your acquaintance, and acknowledged by some of them; and you may be sure that "a word" in your favour from another person will add more to your reputation than "a whole history" from yourself. xxiv. on seeing a new invention for the first time, do not instantly suggest a material alteration of it, as if you felt quite sure that this sudden thought of yours must be a very clever one. it may be reasonably supposed that the inventor did not hastily build up his work in its present form; and it would, therefore, be very unkind that you should bring the whole broadside of your intellectual guns to bear upon it in a moment. besides, after all, it is just possible that the thing may be better as it is--without your improvement. xxv. the great merit of an important discovery frequently consists in the first application of some well-known principle of action to a class of objects to which it had not before been applied. when such discovery has been brought before the public in one instance, the application of the same principle to other nearly similar objects requires a much lower degree of inventive talent. a sub-inventor of this sort often views the result of his labour with all the pride of a mother, when he is only entitled to the praise due to an accoucheur. xxvi. when your friends congratulate you on your recovery from the effects of a serious accident, it is very proper that you should thank them sincerely for their kindness in so doing: but it is by no means necessary that you should give a very detailed description of all your sufferings, and of every symptom attending the gradual progress of your recovery; nor need you explain exactly what was at first said by mr. drugger, the apothecary, and what was afterwards the opinion of sir astley cooper. you had better not do this; although some persons think that what the nurse occasionally said ought not, in a case like theirs, to be omitted. xxvii. on the same principle, if you should have lately been robbed, and should feel disposed to communicate the particulars of this sad affair, you really must not begin your account of it by telling us every thing which you were dreaming about just before you first heard the noise of thieves in your house on the eventful night of the robbery, adding always in conclusion, by way of appendix to your copious narrative, a correct list of the articles stolen. if you do this too often, you must not be surprised if some of your hearers should at last be almost tempted to regret that when you were robbed you were not murdered also. xxviii. if it should be mentioned in conversation that a celebrated mare, belonging to mr. swindle, of newmarket, has lately trotted sixteen miles within the hour, in harness, do not think it necessary to recount the wonderful performances of a famous gig-horse which you once had. xxix. after having lost several games at billiards, when you are playing at a gentleman's house, it is not polite that you should attribute your failure to the inaccuracies of the table. these sundry defects of level are less likely to be complained of by the winner than by you; and he, therefore, stands less in need of this caution than you do. xxx. when the lord of the manor is showing the beauties of his house and grounds to you, and points out a very fine row of trees for your particular admiration, make no allusion to the magnificence of the avenue at wimpole; and if he should afterwards show to you one of his pictures, which he values highly as the work of some celebrated master, remember that, although you may have been told privately, by a good authority, that the picture is not really what your friend supposes it to be, you are not called upon to display your borrowed knowledge as your own, and to make yourself odious by endeavouring to convince him that he has been deceived in the purchase. xxxi. do not bestow extravagant praise upon every article lately bought by you, as if you considered that it had acquired increased value from having fallen into the hands of so distinguished a purchaser. other persons will estimate the worth of it rather by its own merits than by yours. xxxii. it is quite unnecessary that you should always, in order to show the extent of your reading, claim a previous acquaintance with every expression which may be referred to in conversation as having been used by some celebrated author in one of his works. it is much easier for another person to quote lines which never were written than it would be for you to find them.[j] xxxiii. do not consider it to be at all times your bounden duty to correct every mistake which may be made in your presence as to a name or an unimportant date. some persons are so extremely sensitive on these points that they never allow the offender to escape a summary conviction. however interesting the conversation may be, they always feel justified in interrupting it if they can show that the anecdote which they have cut short related to the late general a., and not to his brother the admiral. xxxiv. if one of your party should be prevailed upon to sing a comic song for the amusement of the company, he will of course do it as well as he can, and it would not be flattering to him that you should immediately afterwards talk about the great pleasure which you formerly derived from hearing the same song sung by mathews, or bannister. xxxv. beware of the amiable weakness of repeatedly telling long stories about your late father or uncle. they may have been excellent persons, and their memory may be deservedly respected by you; but it does not therefore necessarily follow that a full account of everything which was said or done by either of these worthy men on some trivial occasion should be very interesting to other people, not even to such of your friends as may be lucky enough not to have heard it before. xxxvi. if you should have lately suffered any great reduction of income from causes over which you had no control, it is better that you should bear your misfortunes quietly than that you should be very extensively communicative to your acquaintance on the subject of your grievances. if, for instance, you tell them in confidence that you now have only 600_l._ a-year to live upon, such of them as have but 500_l._ will perhaps think that you still have at least 100_l._ more than you ought to have. xxxvii. do not think yourself an accomplished traveller merely because you have visited places where you _might_ have acquired much information. many a man has passed some time in a foreign town without learning more about the beauties of its cathedral or the manners and customs of its inhabitants than was previously known to others through the instructive medium of a book and pair of spectacles at home; and therefore although you may have really been at rome, and may have actually seen with your own eyes both the apollo belvidere and raphael's transfiguration, you must not, on that account only, consider yourself qualified to take a leading part in every conversation on subjects connected with the fine arts. xxxviii. many persons who are possessed of much information have a tedious and unconnected way of imparting it. such men are like dictionaries, very instructive if opened in the right place, but rather fatiguing to read throughout. xxxix. the foundation of good breeding is the absence of selfishness. by acting always on this principle--by showing forbearance and moderation in argument when you feel sure that you are right, and a becoming diffidence when you are in doubt, you will avoid many of the errors which other men are apt to fall into. xl. artists, medical men, and engineers are much to be feared by those persons who are apt to talk a little sometimes on matters which they do not very well understand. if, reader, you are, like me, subject to this infirmity, mind what you are about when any professional men are present. r. p. _whitehall, february, 1842._ london: printed by william clowes and sons, stamford street footnotes: [g] acting on this principle, i was once supposed to have killed a brace less than nothing, viz., i went out partridge shooting with two other persons. at the end of the day one of these said that he had killed twelve brace, and the other claimed eleven brace. when the birds were afterwards counted, the number of them was forty-four. i therefore conclude that the brace which was wanting must have been considered as my share of the day's sport. [h] "whose iron scourge and torturing hour the bad _extract, and clean_ the best." [i] "thus fell two heroes, one the pride of thrace, and one the leader of the epeian race; death's sable shade at once o'ercast their eyes: _in dish_, the vanquish'd and the victor lies." _pope says_, "in dust." [j] _e. g._ vide quotation, p. 56. * * * * * transcriber's notes: the original text does not have a table of contents. one was created for this version. obvious punctuation errors repaired. page 6, illustration caption, "asssitant" changed to "assistant" (an expert assistant) page 37, "your's" changed to "yours" (heavier than yours) [illustration: cover art] [transcriber's note: the various sections of this book had varying page headers. those headers have been collected at the start of each section as introductory paragraphs.] the wisdom of the east the instruction of ptah-hotep and the instruction of ke'gemni: the oldest books in the world. translated from the egyptian with an introduction and appendix by battiscombe g. gunn london john murray, albemarle street 1906 to my mother vii.nov.mcmiv contents page introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 the instruction of ptah-hotep . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 the instruction of ke'gemni . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 appendix note to appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 the instruction of amenemhê'et . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 explanation of names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 {10} editorial note the object of the editors of this series is a very definite one. they desire above all things that, in their humble way, these books shall be the ambassadors of good-will and understanding between east and west, the old world of thought, and the new of action. in this endeavour, and in their own sphere, they are but followers of the highest example in the land. they are confident that a deeper knowledge of the great ideals and lofty philosophy of oriental thought may help to a revival of that true spirit of charity which neither despises nor fears the nations of another creed and colour. finally, in thanking press and public for the very cordial reception given to the "wisdom of the east" series, they wish to state that no pains have been spared to secure the best specialists for the treatment of the various subjects at hand. l. cranmer-byng. s. a. kapadia. 4, harcourt buildings, inner temple, london. {11} the instruction of ptah-hotep introduction memorials of the past--the land of darkness--the time of ptah-hotep--concerning the book--the treatise of ke'gemni--date of the manuscript--an egyptian chesterfield--who was ptah-hotep?--his teaching--views on women--the gods of egypt--previous translations--the oldest book known is there anything whereof it may be said, see, this is new! it hath been already of old time, which was before us. there is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after. in these days, when all things and memories of the past are at length become not only subservient to, but submerged by, the matters and needs of the immediate present, those paths of knowledge that lead into regions seemingly remote from such needs are somewhat discredited; and the aims of those that follow them whither they lead are regarded as quite out of touch with the real interests of life. very greatly is this so with archaeology, and the study of ancient and curious tongues, and searchings into old thoughts on high and ever-insistent questions; a public which has hardly time to {12} read more than its daily newspaper and its weekly novel has denounced--almost dismissed--them, with many other noble and wonderful things, as 'unpractical,' whatever that vague and hollow word may mean. as to those matters which lie very far back, concerning the lands of several thousand years ago, it is very generally held that they are the proper and peculiar province of specialists, dry-as-dusts, and persons with an irreducible minimum of human nature. it is thought that knowledge concerning them, not the blank ignorance regarding them that almost everywhere obtains, is a thing of which to be rather ashamed, a detrimental possession; in a word, that the subject is not only unprofitable (a grave offence), but also uninteresting, and therefore contemptible. this is a true estimate of general opinion, although there are those who will, for their own sakes, gainsay it. when, therefore, i state that one of the writings herein translated has an age of nearly six thousand years, and that another is but five hundred years younger, it is likely that many will find this sufficient reason against further perusal, deeming it impossible that such things can possess attraction for one not an enthusiast for them. yet so few are the voices across so great a span of years that those among them having anything to tell us should be welcome exceedingly; whereas, for the most part, they have cried in the {13} wilderness of neglect hitherto, or fallen on ears filled with the clamour of more instant things. i could show, if this were a fitting place, that archaeology is not at all divorced from life, nor even devoid of emotion as subtle and strange, as swift and moving, as that experienced by those who love and follow art. she, archaeology, is, for those who know her, full of such emotion; garbed in an imperishable glamour, she is raised far above the turmoil of the present on the wings of imagination. her eyes are sombre with the memory of the wisdom driven from her scattered sanctuaries; and at her lips wonderful things strive for utterance. in her are gathered together the longings and the laughter, the fears and failures, the sins and splendours and achievements of innumerable generations of men; and by her we are shown all the elemental and terrible passions of the unchanging soul of man, to which all cultures and philosophies are but garments to hide its nakedness; and thus in her, as in art, some of us may realise ourselves. withal she is heavy-hearted, making continual lamentation for a glory that has withered and old hopes without fulfilment; and all her habitations are laid waste. as for the true lover of all old and forgotten things, it may justly be said of him, as of the poet, _nascitur, non fit_. for the dreams and the wonder are with him from the beginning; and in early childhood, knowing as yet hardly {14} the names of ancient peoples, he is conscious of, and yearns instinctively toward, an immense and ever-receding past. with the one, as with the other, the unaccountable passion is so knitted into his soul that it will never, among a thousand distractions and adverse influences, entirely forsake him; nor can such an one by willing cause it to come or to depart. he will live much in imagination, therein treading fair places now enwrapped in their inevitable shroud of wind-blown sand; building anew temples whose stones hardly remain one upon the other, consecrate to gods dead as their multitudes of worshippers; holding converse with the sages who, with all their lore, could not escape the ultimate oblivion: a spectator of splendid pageants, a ministrant at strange rites, a witness to vast tragedies, he also has admittance to the magical kingdom, to which is added the freedom of the city of remembrance. his care will be to construct, patiently and with much labour, a picture (which is often less than an outline) of the conditions of the humanity that has been; and he neither rejects nor despises any relic, however trivial or unlovely, that will help him, in its degree, to understand better that humanity or to bridge the wide chasms of his ignorance. moreover, great age hallows all things, even the most mean, investing them with a certain sanctity; and the little sandal of a nameless {15} child, or the rude amulet placed long ago with weeping on the still bosom of a friend, will move his heart as strongly by its appeal as the proud and enduring monument of a great conqueror insatiable of praise. at times, moving among the tokens of a period that the ravenous years dare not wholly efface in passing, he hears, calling faintly as from afar, innumerable voices--the voices of those who, stretching forth in sheol eager hands toward life, greatly desire that some memorial of them, be it but a name, may survive in the world of men.... ancient egypt fares perhaps better than other countries of antiquity at the hands of the 'general reader,' and sometimes obtains a hearing when they do not, by reason of its intimate contact at certain periods with the nation that has brought us the _old testament_. because of this the report of it has been with us constantly, and it has nearly become a symbol in religion. the stories of moses and the magicians, and of the dealings of abraham and joseph with pharaoh, together with the rude woodcuts of egyptian taskmasters and cupbearers in family bibles, have invested the venerable land with a dreamy mystery; while every one has heard of 'rameses, the pharaoh of the oppression,' and 'meneptah, the pharaoh of the exodus.' and it is possible that for the sake of such {16} association, if not for his own sake, ptah-hotep will be considered worthy of notice. but in spite of the fact that the ancient egyptians enjoy rather more popularity than their contemporaries, it is evident that the books which they wrote are closed books to those who have not the glamour of vanished peoples, and the fascination of mighty cities now made desolate, strong upon them. yet in the heterogeneous and pitiful flotsam that reluctant seas have washed to us piecemeal from a remote past, there are, as will be shown later, many things which, although proceeding from a culture and modes of thought as far removed from our own as they may well be,[1] are worth the reading, which do not require any special knowledge for their understanding; and of these are the translations in this book. the following pages, which, although addressed to the 'general reader,' may yet be of some assistance to those especially interested in egypt, give, among other matters, the place of the instructions of ptah-hotep and ke'gemni in the 'literature' of egypt; their place--their {17} unique place--in the literature of the world; their value historically; a description of the document in which they were found; what is known of their authors; a discussion of their contents. the land of which the father of history declared that no other country held so many wonders, has bequeathed us, by various channels, the rumour and remnant of a strange knowledge. she has devised us enigmas insoluble, and rendered up to us signs and messages whose meaning is dark for all time. and she has left a religion, 'veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbol,' as fascinating as impenetrable for those who approach it. for into our hands the keys of these things have not been delivered; wherefore much study of them is a weariness to the flesh, and of the hazarding of interpretations there is no end. but apart from the mazes of mythology, the broken ways of history and the empty letter of a dead faith, there are, as is known to some, and as this little book professes to show, many documents which are antique, but not antiquated, possessing interest above the purely archaeological--the interest called human. of these are the tales which recall, in incident as in style, those of the immortal collection, full of the whole glamour of the east, the _thousand nights and a night_. {18} such are the love-songs, full of the burning utterance of desire; the pathetic and even bitter dirges, whose singers have seen all the works that are done under the sun, and found all to be vanity and vexation of spirit. and such also are the didactic poems for the instruction of youth, which--in poetic phrase and in great detail--inculcate, among other things, the practice of right conduct as the price of happiness; a courtesy hardly less considerate than our own; and a charity which, when certain inevitable shortcomings are allowed for, bears comparison with almost any later system. out of these there are many that may properly claim a place in a series bearing the seal of the wisdom of the east, though they belong only to the more objective and 'practical' side of that wisdom. but, as touching the books here translated--the instructions of ptah-hotep and of ke'gemni--they possess, apart from the curious nature of their contents, a feature of the greatest interest, and an adequate claim on the notice of all persons interested in literature and its history. for if the datings and ascriptions in them be accepted as trustworthy (there is no reason why they should not be so accepted), they were composed about four thousand years before christ, and three thousand five hundred and fifty years before christ, respectively. and the significance of those remote dates is, that they are the oldest {19} books in the world, the earliest extant specimens of the literary art. they stand on the extreme horizon of all that ocean of paper and ink that has become to us as an atmosphere, a fifth element, an essential of life. books of many kinds had of course been written for centuries before ptah-hotep of memphis summarised, for the benefit of future generations, the leading principles of morality current in his day; even before the vizier, five hundred years earlier, gave to his children the scroll which they prized above all things on earth;[2] but those have perished and these remain. there are lists of titles which have a large sound, and prayers to the gods for all good things, on the tombs and monuments of kings and magnates long before the time of ke'gemni; but those are not books in any sense of that word. even the long, strange chants and spells engraven in the royal pyramids over against memphis are later than the time of ptah-hotep, and cannot be called books in their present form, although some of them apparently originated before the first dynasty.[3] nor do the oldest books of any other country approach these two in antiquity. to draw {20} comparisons between them let us, in imagination, place ourselves at the period at which ptah-hotep lived, that is, about b.c. 3550, 'under king isôsi, living for ever,' and take a glance at futurity. the babylonians are doubtless exercising their literary talents; but they will leave nothing worthy the name of book to the far posterity of fifty-four centuries hence. thirteen centuries shall pass before hammurabi, king of babylon, drafts the code of laws that will be found at that time. only after two thousand years shall moses write on the origin of things, and the vedas be arranged in their present form. it will be two-and-a-half thousand years before the great king of jerusalem will set in order many proverbs and write books so much resembling, in form and style, that of ptah-hotep;[4] before the source and summit of european literature will write his world epics. for the space of years between solomon and ourselves, great though it seem, is not so great as that between solomon and ptah-hotep. the number of extant texts of the class to which the subjoined immediately belong is not large in proportion to the rest of egyptian mss., {21} but they seem to be representative of the class, being diverse in date and subject, but similar in form. there is great uniformity in the arrangement of most of them, in the following respects. they have as title the word 'instruction' (_seb'ôyet_), and are written by a father for the advantage of his son; they are very poetic in their arrangement of words and phrases, and are usually divided into short sections or paragraphs by the use of red ink for the first sentence of each. such is the instruction of ptah-hotep on morality (the finest of its class); the instruction of king amenemhê'et on the hollowness of friendship and other matters; the instruction of deu'of, the son of kherti, on the excellence of the literary life; and others. in many respects and in many details they greatly resemble the didactic works of the _old testament_ and _apocrypha_. these 'instructions' were held in high esteem as text-books and writing exercises in schools--a circumstance to which we owe the preservation of many of them. for a considerable number of important and interesting poems, letters, and narratives are only known to us from school exercise-books. the pupil at the 'chamber of instruction' wrote out about three pages of these each day, as a means of improving his writing, as a model of style in composition, and for purposes of edification. these exercises {22} abound in errors of spelling and grammar, having sometimes the master's corrections elegantly written above in red. as may be imagined, a schoolboy's scrawl over three thousand years old is no easy thing to translate; but _faute de mieux_ the egyptologist welcomes any version, even the most barbarous. fortunately, the ms. from which these translations come is not of this kind; a detailed description of it may interest some of my readers. the prisse papyrus, which is well known by name and a few extracts to all persons conversant with egyptian matters, was acquired in egypt by m. prisse d'avennes, a french archaeologist of distinction, and published by him in 1847.[5] the exact place of its discovery is unknown. m. prisse is said to have bought it of one of the _fellahîn_ whom he employed to make excavations at the burial-ground of thebes. this man pretended that he had no knowledge of its finding, as he was trying to sell it for a friend. it is believed that it was actually taken by the arab from the tomb of one of the kings 'entef;[6] but this is not certain. if it were, it would perhaps enable us to fix a _terminus ad que,_ for the writing of this copy, although tombs often contain objects of later date. the papyrus was presented in about 1847, by m. prisse, to the {23} bibliotheque nationale (in those days the bibliotheque royale) at paris, where it still is, divided and glazed in the usual manner. spread out flat, it measures about 23 ft. 7 in., with an average height of 5 7/8 in., which is about the usual height of papyri of the eleventh and twelfth dynasties. it contains at present eighteen pages of heavy and bold black and red writing, in the so-called hieratic character. at first sight it appears to be in perfect preservation, being entirely free from the cracks and decay which mar many fine manuscripts of far later date; but an examination of the contents shows that an unknown quantity has been torn off from the commencement. originally the roll contained at least two books, of which we have the latter part of one and the whole of the other. between these there is a blank space of some 53 in. the characters are clearly and carefully made, but are not always correct, as though the copyist had a badly written or very cursive copy before him, and was not always sure of his spelling. the first of these books, of which only the last two pages remain to us, is a treatise on deportment, and is here called the _instruction of ke'gemni_. it has always been attributed to this person since its discovery, but examination of as much of the book as exists will show that it is not said to have been written by him. because {24} his is the only name mentioned, egyptologists have concluded that he is the author. the unnamed vizier, who called his children to him, can hardly be ke'gemni, who was not raised to the rank of vizier and governor of a city until afterwards. ke'gemni may well have been a son of the author. this is not of material importance, however, as the date of writing is given as the end of the reign of heuni, the last king of the third dynasty, who died about 3998 b.c. this book, then, which argues a society of some refinement, is, so far as it goes, the oldest in the world. after a long stretch of blank papyrus, from which a third book has perhaps been erased, we come upon the _instruction of ptah-hotep_ in its entirety, divided into sections by red writing, as aforesaid.[7] in this, also, we get a definite date, for we learn in the opening lines that its author (or compiler) lived in the reign of king isôsi. now isôsi was the last ruler but one of the fifth dynasty, and ruled forty-four years, from about 3580 to 3536 b.c. thus we may take about 3550 as the period of ptah-hotep. of these two kings there is hardly anything to say. heuni is only known to us by mention of his name; we have no record of any act of his. {25} of isôsi the only exploit that remains is this: that he sent his treasurer, be'wêrded, to somaliland[8] to obtain for him a certain kind of dwarf; this the treasurer brought back, and received much reward therefor. that is all that is left of the reigns of two kings, who ruled long, who perhaps ruled greatly and wisely, having just cause to hope that their fame and the report of their good deeds might never pass away. such is the fate of kings. the copy of these instructions that we have, the only complete copy,[9] is far later than the later of these dates. an examination of the writing shows that it is not earlier than the eleventh dynasty, and is probably of the twelfth.[10] more than this cannot be said; where it was written, by whom, and when, are not stated, as they are in many cases. the writing lacks the fine regularity of that of the professional scribes of the twelfth dynasty, and has many points of divergence therefrom; but the papyrus is assigned by the best judges to this period. this gives it an antiquity of about four thousand five hundred years; and it looks good to last as long again, if only it be not examined over-much nor brought out into the light too often. {26} it is as fresh and readable as in the year after it was written. will the books of our time last one-tenth so long? it is not without a feeling of awe, even of sadness, that one with any sense of the wonder of things gazes for the first time on the old book, and thinks of all it has survived. so many empires have arisen and gone down since those words were penned, so many great and terrible things have been. and we are fortunate indeed in having such a book as this of ptah-hotep for the most ancient complete literary work extant. for not by any magical texts, or hymns and prayers, should we be so well shown the conditions of that early time; but our moralist, by advancing counsels of perfection for every contingency, has left us a faithful record of his age. the veil of five-and-a-half thousand years is rent, and we are met with a vivid and a fascinating picture of the domestic and social life of the 'old kingdom.' we read of the wife, who must be treated kindly at all costs; the genial generosity of the rich man, and the scowling boor, a thorn in the side of his friends and relations, the laughing-stock of all men; the unquenchable talkers of every station in life, who argue high, who argue low, who also argue round about them, as common as now in the east, and the trusted councillor, weighing every word; the obstinate _ignoramus_ who sees {27} everything inverted, listening open-mouthed to the disjointed gossip of those near him, and the scholar, conversing freely with learned and unlearned alike, recognising that, measured against the infinite possibilities of knowledge and skill, we are all much of the same stature; the master of the estate or province, treated with infinite respect by his subordinates in rank and wealth, and the paid servants that are never satisfied, who leave after presents have been made them; the hard-working clerk who casts accounts all day, and the tradesmen who will perhaps give you credit when money is dear, if you have previously made friends of them; the well-bred diner-out, lightly passing on his favourite dish, contenting himself with plain fare, and the _gourmand_ who visits his friends at meal-times, departing only when the larder is entirely exhausted. not only do we find such characters as these in ptah-hotep's hand-book, but interesting scenes are brought near to us by the writing-reed of that primaeval chesterfield. we find ourselves taking supper at the table of a great man. his subordinates sit round, scarcely daring to raise their eyes from their food, not speaking to their host until spoken to. he serves the food that is before him according to his liking for each guest; and the less favoured find solace in the reflection that even the distribution of food is {28} according to providence. we pass on. now we are in the hall of council with the other overseers and officials of the province, and our overlord presiding. we notice with astonishment the extreme solemnity and strict observance of custom and precedence in this archaic period. many of those who have met report on the matters under their charge, and others debate on them. the one now speaking is discussing a trade about which he knows nothing, and an expert rises and makes very short work of his opponent's arguments. now we are among some people dividing up property. one of them has tried, of course, to bully his friends into giving him more than his due share, and, having failed, leaves the house in a rage. he will regret it later. and so on. nothing definite is known concerning these two nobles beyond what is said of them in their works. a fine tomb of a certain ke'gemni exists at memphis; his titles, so far as can be ascertained,[11] are: _judge of the high court: governor of the land unto its limit, south and north: director of every command_. he has sometimes been supposed to be identical with our ke'gemni; {29} but i am assured by those most competent to judge that this tomb cannot be earlier than the fifth dynasty (a good three hundred years from the date assigned to the moralist), so that the theory that they are one person may be dismissed as highly improbable. no other person of the name is known. the position is much the same with ptah-hotep. there are near memphis the tombs of several nobles of this name, of whom two lived in the reign of isôsi; and in this case, again, it has been assumed that one[12] of these two must be the writer of the instruction. but in neither instance do the titles coincide with or include those assigned to him. the highest title which he bears, _eldest son of the king_, does not anywhere appear in these tombs. it is true that one of these contemporaries was _hereditary chief_; but we know that ptah-hotep was a common name at this time, and in the absence of more certain proof it will be well to abstain from the identification of like names upon insufficient grounds. thus it is only by the chance discovery of this {30} scroll that these two princes of old time, whose bodies are blown about the desert dust these many centuries, are secured from utter oblivion; men '_such as did bear rule in their kingdoms, men renowned for their power, giving counsel by their understanding, and declaring prophecies: leaders of the people by their counsels, and by their knowledge of learning meet for the people, wise and eloquent in their instructions_.' and against such as these, that from remote years '_have left a name behind them, that their praises might be reported,_' how many are there '_which have no memorial; who are perished, as though they had never been; and are become as though they had never been born; and their children after them_.'[13] i had intended to make a detailed analysis of the moral sense of ptah-hotep and ke'gemni, but it appears unnecessary; since they give their advice so clearly and simply, they may safely be left to speak for themselves. but as especially noteworthy i would point to the gracious tolerance of ignorance enjoined in § 1 (ptah-hotep), and the fine reason given for that injunction, in contrast with the scorn expressed for the obstinate fool (ph. 40); the care due to a wife (ph. 21), which is in signal contrast to the custom of other eastern nations in this {31} respect;[14] the great stress laid on filial duties (ph. 38, 39, 41, 42, 43); the enthusiasm for obedience, expressed in a jargon of puns (ph. 38), which, once the high-watermark of style among egyptian _literati_, has long since lost its savour; the interesting matter on manners at table (kg. 2, 3, ph. 7, 9), in society (kg. 4, ph. 14, 18, 20, 34), and in official positions (ph. 5, 8, 13, 15, 16, 17, 24, 28). a rough classification including many sections is here given: duties toward superiors (ph. 2, 7, 8, 10, 16, 27, 31). duties toward equals (3, 6, 14, 18, 20, 26, 29, 33, 35, 37). duties toward inferiors (1, 4, 5, 16, 17, 22). the whole teaching resolves into the maxim, "be good, and you will be happy;" not at all in the sense that virtue is its own reward--i do not think that that would have seemed an adequate return to ptah-hotep--but in the sense of material welfare rewarding, as a matter of course, an honourable life. following his reasoning, if a man be obedient as a son, punctilious as a servant, generous and gentle as a master, and courteous as a friend, then all good things shall fall to him, he shall reach a green old age honoured by the king, and his memory shall be long in the land. this theory, which is not {32} found satisfactory in our day, is insisted on by most of the ancient moralists, who appear to regard it, not as a substitute for conscience, but rather as a _raison d'être_ or justification thereof. yet, centuries before a king of israel had seen all things that are, and found them vanity, a king of egypt had left it on record that he had done all good things for his subjects, and that 'there was no satisfaction therein.' it has been said with some truth of codes of morals and laws that what is omitted is almost as important as what is included. but we must not carry this too far; we should be foolish indeed did we assert that those things omitted from such a code as ptah-hotep's were not practised or not held to be important in his day. for example, he 'knows nothing'--as a higher critic would say--of kindness to animals; but we know from many things that the egyptians treated animals kindly and made much of them as pets. in the very tomb of that ptah-hotep mentioned above,[15] who may be our author, is depicted the bringing of three dogs and a tame monkey to him while he is dressing; possibly so that he may feed them himself. and this kindly feeling obtained throughout egyptian history. they treated animals more as 'dumb friends' in those days than might have been {33} _a priori_ expected, and more, perhaps, than any other nation of antiquity. again, he 'knows nothing' of duties to the mother, although he is so insistent on duties to the father; but the high position of women and their matriarchal privileges oppose any deduction that egyptian manners were somewhat to seek in this direction. ke'gemni says of the unsociable man that he is a grief to his mother, and another moralist of uncertain date (perhaps twelfth dynasty, about b.c. 2700), named 'eney, is explicit on this matter. he says to his son, '_i gave thee thy mother, she that bore thee with much suffering.... she placed thee at the chamber of instruction for the sake of thine instruction in books; she was constant to thee daily, having loaves and beer in her house. when thou art grown, and hast taken to thee a wife, being master in thy house, cast thine eyes on the one that gave thee birth and provided thee with all good things, as did thy mother. let her not reproach thee, lest she lift up her hands to the god, and he hear her prayer._' and, most remarkable of all omissions, there is nothing said as to duties to the gods. in egypt, whose gods are beyond counting, where almost everybody was a priest, ptah-hotep--himself a 'holy father' and 'beloved of the god'--has no word to say on religious obligations, devoting his work entirely to the principles of charity and duty to one's neighbour. it is {34} seemingly sufficient to him that one do the right in this world, without thinking overmuch about the other. this is the more curious in that other writers of the same class have many injunctions regarding worship and sacrifice; and so complete is his reserve touching this matter, so important in the eyes of other egyptians, that it is easy to believe that it was intentional. we may even discern in him a protagonist of the modern 'ethical school,' whose adherents may be interested to find their views implicitly held so long ago. notwithstanding this singularity, he is by no means unmindful of deity. we notice that he has occasion to speak several times of 'the god'[16] in his relation to humanity and human affairs. if we collect these references to the god, we shall find that the following qualities are attributed to him. he rewards diligence (9, 10) and punishes sin (6, 10; also kg. 5); he is the giver of good things (ph. 22, 30, 43), dispenses fate and preordains events (6, 7, 9, 26), loves his creation (26), observes men's actions (10), desires them to be fruitful and multiply (12). all this is in complete accord with the belief of other religions--including christianity--regarding the godhead. and here we touch another pleasing characteristic of this most ancient of books--its catholic spirit and disregard of those {35} mythological and esoteric riddles that most egyptian works propound to us continually. it will be noticed that 'the god' is not anywhere mentioned by name. osiris (5) and horus (41) are alluded to, but only historically, in respect of their rule upon earth, not as present powers. the reason is this, that at that time the gods, even the great gods, were only local, that is to say, their worship was confined to certain towns or districts ('nomes'), and beyond the boundaries of these their names lost that power and influence which they exerted in their peculiar provinces. a book, therefore, which spoke of one god only--by name--would have been found much limited as to popularity and use. hence the old moralists and didactic writers, whatever god they might themselves worship, forebore to mention him, since by many readers he would not be recognised as paramount; they wrote instead, 'the god,' that is, 'the god of your allegiance, whoever he may be.' thus, were the reader a native of heliopolis, his god would be atômu, the setting sun; of memphis, ptah, the revealer; of hermopolis, thoth, master of divine words and chief of the eight. it was for this reason that the unknown author of what is called the 'negative confession'[17] makes the deceased say, '_i have not scorned the {36} god of my town_.' and, indeed, so simply and purely does ptah-hotep speak of the god that the modern reader can, without the least degradation of his ideals, consider the author as referring to the deity of monotheism, and if he be of christendom, read god; if of islam, read allah; if of jewry, jehovah.[18] no doubt the gulf fixed between teaching and practice was as great then as now. we have the teaching, we know that the teaching was current all over egypt in various forms, but of the practice we know very little. human nature being much the same at all times and places, we must beware of measuring the one by the other, the unknown by the known, and must be content to take such counsels as showing the egyptian- not what he was, but what he should have been. it is established that they were a kindly, peace-loving people, genial and courtly; but whether law-abiding is another matter. we know nothing about their laws, but we know {37} that the law-courts were busy, and that legal officials were numerous; and we know, further, that their duplicity and lack of straightforwardness were proverbial among the greeks and romans, and persists to this day. i have noted above the resemblance of the egyptian instructions to the jewish didactic books (_proverbs and ecclesiastes_ in the _old testament_, _wisdom of solomon_ and _ecclesiasticus_ in the _apocrypha_); this will be obvious to all readers. compare, e.g., the opening of ptah-hotep (§b) with the opening of proverbs. it is not necessary to point out all the parallels in detail. i come, lastly, to speak of other translations.[19] the first into any language was that of the rev. d. i. heath, vicar of brading, isle of wight. this version, which first appeared in 1856, was ruined by the translator's theory that the prisse papyrus contained references to the exodus, and was written by the 'shepherd-king,' aphobis. how he obtained that name from ptah-hotep, how he read the exodus into his book, or how he got three-fourths of his translation, it is not possible to say. written in a style which is in itself a matter for decipherment, it is full of absurdities and gratuitous mistakes, and {38} is entirely worthless. it is one more instance of the lamentable results that arise when a person with a preconceived biblical theory comes into contact with egyptian records. in the following year m. chabas did part of the papyrus into french, and, as might be expected of an egyptologist of such attainments, his version was infinitely more accurate than the foregoing. in 1869 herr lauth made a translation--also partial--into latin, and in 1884; m. philippe virey published a careful study and complete translation of both books. his rendering[20] was subsequently translated into english and published (with some alterations) in _records of the past_, 1890, and has remained the only complete translation in english. it has been taken bodily (even the footnotes) into myer's _oldest books in the world_, and has been put into charming verse by canon rawnsley in his _notes for the nile_. thus it appears to be, in a sense, the standard version. nevertheless, it leaves very much to be desired in point of accuracy, although the general sense of each section is usually caught. of later years mr. griffith has done important work on this text, and i am indebted to his translations for several readings. as regards the version here offered, i will only say that it has been done with considerable care, {39} without prejudice, and, it is thought, in accordance with scientific methods of translation; and that it has been compared with all previous renderings, and will be found to be, on the whole, the most accurate that has yet appeared. and now i will leave ptah-hotep to speak for himself. it may be thought that he has been introduced at too great length; but i would point out that his book has been strangely overlooked by the educated public hitherto, although it would be difficult to over-estimate its importance, to literature as the oldest complete book known, to ethics and theology as the earliest expression of the mystery we name conscience, and to lovers of antiquity as one of the most instructive and touching relics of a people and a power that once were great and are now brought to nothing. by a happy chance the words of our sage have been justified, in that he said, '_no word that hath here been set down shall cease out of the land for ever_.' would indeed that we had more of such books as this, whereby we may a little lighten the darkness that lies behind the risings of a million suns; and learn how little the human heart, and the elements of human intercourse, alter throughout the ages. and what of the other writers of that time, whose works and whose very names are entirely swept away? to this there is no better answer made than in the lamentation made by the harper close upon five {40} thousand years ago, which was written up in the tomb of king 'entef: _those that built them tombs_, he sang, _have now no resting-place. lo! what of their deeds? i have heard the words of yemhotep and of hardedef, whose sayings men repeat continually. behold! where are their abodes? their walls are over-thrown, and their places are not, even as though they had not been._' the burden of egypt. battiscombe g. gunn. 3, park hill road, croydon. [1] much ingenuity has been expended to show that egyptian manners and customs, books, and other things, were "much the same" as our own, as though the supposed similarity reflected any credit either on them or on us. except in customs which are common to all times and places, as drinking beer, writing love-letters, making wills, going to school, and other things antecedently probable, the egyptian life can show very few parallels to the life of to-day. [2] the monuments leave no doubt of this. pen and ink were used in the first dynasty, and speech had been reduced to visible signs before that. [3] about b.c. 1770. in all egyptian dates given in this book i follow professor petrie's chronology. [4] these are round figures, of course, and in the case of solomon and moses traditional dates. modern criticism places _genesis_ and _proverbs_ much later than 1500 and 1000 b.c. [5] see appendix for the literature of this papyrus. [6] these were kings of the eleventh dynasty, about 2986 b.c. [7] in the translation these divisions are indicated, for purposes of reference, by numbers and letters, which are not, of course, in the original. so also in the instruction of amenemhê'et (appendix). [8] pwenet: the identification is not certain. [9] fragments of another are in the british museum. [10] it has been thought to be as late as the seventeenth (about 1600 b.c.), but the balance of opinion favours the above-mentioned period. [11] the inscriptions and sculptures from this tomb have not yet been published, but a work dealing with it will shortly appear. the above titles, excepting the first, are from lepsius, _denkmäler aus ägypten und äthiopien_, abth. ii. 48, berlin, 1849-68. [12] called ptah-hotep i. by egyptologists. for a description of his tomb, see mariette, a., _les mastabas de l'ancien empire_, paris, 1889, d. 62. for the other ptah-hotep under isôsi, see quibell, j. e., and griffith, f. l., _egyptian research account; the ramesseum and the tomb of ptah-hotep_, london, 1898. also davies, n. de g., and griffith, f. l., _egypt exploration fund; the mastaba of ptahhetep and akhethetep at saqqara_, 2 vols., london, 1900, 1901. the little figure on the cover of this book is from this tomb. [13] _the wisdom of the son of sirach_, chap. xliv. [14] the egyptians were monogamists at this time, and the wife enjoyed social equality with her husband. [15] page 29, footnote. [16] _nôter_. [17] this is an arbitrary name not existing in the original. it would be better named 'the declaration of innocence.' [18] it has been thought by many egyptologists that 'the god' mentioned in this and other texts is a nameless monotheistic abstraction transcending all named gods. although this theory has the support of many great names, i venture to say that the evidence for such an important doctrine is in the highest degree unsatisfactory. [19] the books mentioned here are set forth in detail in the bibliography. [20] only of ptah-hotep. {41} the instruction of ptah-hotep the ethics of argument--manners for guests--from father to son--a just judge--the treatment of servants--duties of the great--the test of friendship--the beauty of obedience--one generation to another--whom the king honoureth the instruction of the governor of his city, the vizier, ptah-hotep, in the reign of the king of upper and lower egypt, isôsi, living for ever, to the end of time. a. the governor of his city, the vizier, ptah-hotep, he said: 'o prince, my lord, the end of life is at hand; old age descendeth [upon me]; feebleness cometh, and childishness is renewed. he [that is old] lieth down in misery every day. the eyes are small; the ears are deaf. energy is diminished, the heart hath no rest. the mouth is silent, and he speaketh no word; the heart stoppeth, and he remembereth not yesterday. the bones are painful throughout the body; good turneth unto evil. all taste departeth. these things doeth old age for mankind, being evil in all things. the nose is stopped, and he breatheth not for weakness (?), whether standing or sitting. 'command me, thy servant, therefore, to make over my princely authority [to my son]. let me speak unto him the words of them that hearken to the counsel of the men of old time; those that {42} hearkened unto the gods. i pray thee, let this thing be done, that sin may be banished from among persons of understanding, that thou may enlighten the lands.' said the majesty of this god:[1] 'instruct him, then, in the words of old time; may he be a wonder unto the children of princes, that they may enter and hearken with him. make straight all their hearts; and discourse with him, without causing weariness.' b. here begin the proverbs of fair speech, spoken by the hereditary chief, the holy father,[2] beloved of the god, the eldest son of the king, of his body, the governor of his city, the vezier, ptah-hotep, when instructing the ignorant in the knowledge of exactness in fair-speaking; the glory of him that obeyeth, the shame of him that transgresseth them. he said unto his son: 1. be not proud because thou art learned; but discourse with the ignorant man, as with the sage. for no limit can be set to skill, neither is there any craftsman that possesseth full advantages. fair speech is more rare than the emerald that is found by slave-maidens on the pebbles. 2. if thou find an arguer talking, one that is well disposed and wiser than thou, let thine arms {43} fall, bend thy back,[3] be not angry with him if he agree (?) not with thee. refrain from speaking evilly; oppose him not at any time when he speaketh. if he address thee as one ignorant of the matter, thine humbleness shall bear away his contentions. 3. if thou find an arguer talking, thy fellow, one that is within thy reach, keep not silence when he saith aught that is evil; so shalt thou be wiser than he. great will be the applause on the part of the listeners, and thy name shall be good in the knowledge of princes. 4. if thou find an arguer talking, a poor man, that is to say not thine equal, be not scornful toward him because he is lowly. let him alone; then shall he confound himself. question him not to please thine heart, neither pour out thy wrath upon him that is before thee; it is shameful to confuse a mean mind. if thou be about to do that which is in thine heart, overcome it as a thing rejected of princes. 5. if thou be a leader, as one directing the conduct of the multitude, endeavour always to be gracious, that thine own conduct be without defect. great is truth, appointing a straight path; never hath it been overthrown since the {44} reign of osiris.[4] one that oversteppeth the laws shall be punished. overstepping is by the covetous man; but degradations (?) bear off his riches, for the season of his evil-doing ceaseth not. for he saith, 'i will obtain by myself for myself,' and saith not, 'i will obtain because i am allowed.' but the limits of justice are steadfast; it is that which a man repeateth from his father. 6. cause not fear among men; for [this] the god punisheth likewise. for there is a man that saith, 'therein is life'; and he is bereft of the bread of his mouth. there is a man that saith, 'power [is therein]'; and he saith, 'i seize for myself that which i perceive.' thus a man speaketh, and he is smitten down. it is another that attaineth by giving unto him that hath not; not he that causeth men dread. for it happeneth that what the god hath commanded, even that thing cometh to pass. live, therefore, in the house of kindliness, and men shall come and give gifts of themselves. 7. if thou be among the guests of a man that is greater than thou, accept that which he giveth thee, putting it to thy lips. if thou look at him that is before thee (thine host), pierce him not {45} with many glances. it is abhorred of the soul[5] to stare at him. speak not till he address thee; one knoweth not what may be evil in his opinion. speak when he questioneth thee; so shall thy speech be good in his opinion. the noble who sitteth before food divideth it as his soul moveth him; he giveth unto him that he would favour--it is the custom of the evening meal. it is his soul that guideth his hand. it is the noble that bestoweth, not the underling that attaineth. thus the eating of bread is under the providence of the god; he is an ignorant man that disputeth it. 8. if thou be an emissary sent from one noble to another, be exact after the manner of him that sent thee, give his message even as he hath said it. beware of making enmity by thy words, setting one noble against the other by perverting truth. overstep it not, neither repeat that which any man, be he prince or peasant, saith in opening the heart; it is abhorrent to the soul. 9. if thou have ploughed, gather thine harvest in the field, and the god shall make it great under thine hand. fill not thy mouth at thy neighbours' table....[6] if a crafty man be the {46} possessor of wealth, he stealeth like a crocodile from the priests. let not a man be envious that hath no children; let him be neither downcast nor quarrelsome on account of it. for a father, though great, may be grieved; as to the mother of children, she hath less peace than another. verily, each man is created [to his destiny] by the god, who is the chief of a tribe, trustful in following him. 10. if thou be lowly, serve a wise man, that all thine actions may be good before the god. if thou have known a man of none account that hath been advanced in rank, be not haughty toward him on account of that which thou knowest concerning him; but honour him that hath been advanced, according to that which he hath become. behold, riches come not of themselves; it is their rule for him that desireth them. if he bestir him and collect them himself, the god shall make him prosperous; but he shall punish him, if he be slothful. 11. follow thine heart during thy lifetime; do not more than is commanded thee. diminish not the time of following the heart; it is abhorred of the soul, that its time [of ease] be taken away. shorten not the daytime more than is needful to {47} maintain thine house. when riches are gained, follow the heart; for riches are of no avail if one be weary. 12. if thou wouldest be a wise man, beget a son for the pleasing of the god. if he make straight his course after thine example, if he arrange thine affairs in due order, do unto him all that is good, for thy son is he, begotten of thine own soul. sunder not thine heart from him, or thine own begotten shall curse [thee]. if he be heedless and trespass thy rules of conduct, and is violent; if every speech that cometh from his mouth be a vile word; then beat thou him, that his talk may be fitting. keep him from those that make light of that which is commanded, for it is they that make him rebellious.[7] and they that are guided go not astray, but they that lose their bearings cannot find a straight course. 13. if thou be in the chamber of council, act always according to the steps enjoined on thee at the beginning of the day. be not absent, or thou shall be expelled; but be ready in entering and making report. wide[8] is the seat of one that hath made address. the council-chamber acteth by strict rule; and all its plans are in accordance with method. it is the god that {48} advanceth one to a seat therein; the like is not done for elbowers. 14. if thou be among people, make for thyself love, the beginning and end of the heart. one that knoweth not his course shall say in himself (seeing thee), 'he that ordereth himself duly becometh the owner of wealth; i shall copy his conduct.' thy name shall be good, though thou speak not; thy body shall be fed; thy face shall be [seen] among thy neighbours; thou shalt be provided with what thou lackest. as to the man whose heart obeyeth his belly, he causeth disgust in place of love. his heart is wretched (?), his body is gross (?), he is insolent toward those endowed of the god. he that obeyeth his belly hath an enemy.[9] 15. report thine actions without concealment; discover thy conduct when in council with thine overlord. it is not evil for the envoy that his report be not answered, 'yea, i know it,' by the prince; for that which he knoweth includeth not [this]. if he (the prince) think that he will oppose him on account of it, [he thinketh] 'he will be silent because i have spoken.'[10] 16. if thou be a leader, cause that the rules {49} that thou hast enjoined be carried out; and do all things as one that remembereth the days coming after, when speech availeth not. be not lavish of favours; it leadeth to servility (?), producing slackness. 17. if thou be a leader, be gracious when thou hearkenest unto the speech of a suppliant. let him not hesitate to deliver himself of that which he hath thought to tell thee; but be desirous of removing his injury. let him speak freely, that the thing for which he hath come to thee may be done. if he hesitate to open his heart, it is said, 'is it because he (the judge) doeth the wrong that no entreaties are made to him concerning it by those to whom it happeneth?' but a well-taught heart hearkeneth readily. 18. if thou desire to continue friendship in any abode wherein thou enterest, be it as master, as brother, or as friend; wheresoever thou goest, beware of consorting with women. no place prospereth wherein that is done. nor is it prudent to take part in it; a thousand men have been ruined for the pleasure of a little time short as a dream. even death is reached thereby; it is a wretched thing. as for the evil liver, one leaveth him for what he doeth, he is avoided. if his desires be not gratified, he regardeth (?) no laws. {50} 19. if thou desire that thine actions may be good, save thyself from all malice, and beware of the quality of covetousness, which is a grievous inner (?) malady. let it not chance that thou fall thereinto. it setteth at variance fathers-in-law and the kinsmen of the daughter-in-law; it sundereth the wife and the husband. it gathereth unto itself all evils; it is the girdle of all wickedness.[11] but the man that is just flourisheth; truth goeth in his footsteps, and he maketh habitations therein, not in the dwelling of covetousness. 20. be not covetous as touching shares, in seizing that which is not thine own property. be not covetous toward thy neighbours; for with a gentle man praise availeth more than might. he [that is covetous] cometh empty from among his neighbours, being void of the persuasion of speech. one hath remorse for even a little covetousness when his belly cooleth. 21. if thou wouldest be wise, provide for thine house, and love thy wife that is in thine arms. fill her stomach, clothe her back; oil is the remedy of her limbs. gladden her heart during thy lifetime, for she is an estate profitable unto its lord. be not harsh, for gentleness mastereth her more than strength. give (?) to her that for which she sigheth and that toward which her {51} eye looketh; so shalt thou keep her in thine house.... 22. satisfy thine hired servants out of such things as thou hast; it is the duty of one that hath been favoured of the god. in sooth, it is hard to satisfy hired servants. for one[12] saith, 'he is a lavish person; one knoweth not that which may come [from him].' but on the morrow he thinketh, 'he is a person of exactitude (parsimony), content therein.' and when favours have been shown unto servants, they say, 'we go.' peace dwelleth not in that town wherein dwell servants that are wretched. 23. repeat not extravagant speech, neither listen thereto; for it is the utterance of a body heated by wrath. when such speech is repeated to thee, hearken not thereto, look to the ground. speak not regarding it, that he that is before thee may know wisdom. if thou be commanded to do a theft, bring it to pass that the command be taken off thee, for it is a thing hateful according to law. that which destroyeth a vision is the veil over it. 24. if thou wouldest be a wise man, and one sitting in council with his overlord, apply thine heart unto perfection. silence is more profitable unto thee than abundance of speech. consider {52} how thou may be opposed by an expert that speaketh in council. it is a foolish thing to speak on every kind of work, for he that disputeth thy words shall put them unto proof. 25. if thou be powerful, make thyself to be honoured for knowledge and for gentleness. speak with authority, that is, not as if following injunctions, for he that is humble (when highly placed) falleth into errors. exalt not thine heart, that it be not brought low.[13] be not silent, but beware of interruption and of answering words with heat. put it far from thee; control thyself. the wrathful heart speaketh fiery words; it darteth out at the man of peace that approacheth, stopping his path. one that reckoneth accounts all the day passeth not an happy moment. one that gladdeneth his heart all the day provideth not for his house. the bowman hitteth the mark, as the steersman reacheth land, by diversity of aim. he that obeyeth his heart shall command.[14] 26. let not a prince be hindered when he is occupied; neither oppress the heart of him that is already laden. for he shall be hostile toward one that delayeth him, but shall bare his soul {53} unto one that loveth him. the disposal of souls is with the god, and that which he loveth is his creation. set out, therefore, after a violent quarrel; be at peace with him that is hostile unto [thee] his opponent. it is such souls that make love to grow. 27. instruct a noble in such things as be profitable unto him; cause that he be received among men. let his satisfaction fall on his master, for thy provision dependeth upon his will. by reason of it thy belly shall be satisfied; thy back will be clothed thereby. let him receive thine heart, that thine house may flourish and thine honour--if thou wish it to flourish--thereby. he shall extend thee a kindly hand. further, he shall implant the love of thee in the bodies of thy friends. forsooth, it is a soul loving to hearken.[15] 28. if thou be the son of a man of the priesthood, and an envoy to conciliate the multitude,....[16] speak thou without favouring one side. let it not be said, 'his conduct is that of the nobles, favouring one side in his speech.' turn thine aim toward exact judgments. {54} 29. if thou have been gracious at a former time, having forgiven a man to guide him aright, shun him, remind him not after the first day that he hath been silent to thee [concerning it]. 30. if thou be great, after being of none account, and hast gotten riches after squalor, being foremost in these in the city, and hast knowledge concerning useful matters, so that promotion is come unto thee; then swathe not thine heart in thine hoard, for thou art become the steward of the endowments of the god. thou art not the last; another shall be thine equal, and to him shall come the like [fortune and station]. 31. bend thy back unto thy chief, thine overseer in the king's palace, for thine house dependeth upon his wealth, and thy wages in their season. how foolish is one that quarrelleth with his chief, for one liveth only while he is gracious.... plunder not the houses of tenants; neither steal the things of a friend, lest he accuse thee in thine hearing, which thrusteth back the heart.[17] if he know of it, he will do thee an injury. quarrelling in place of friendship is a foolish thing. {55} 32. [concerning continence]. 33. if thou wouldest seek out the nature of a friend, ask it not of any companion of his; but pass a time with him alone, that thou injure not his affairs. debate with him after a season; test his heart in an occasion of speech. when he hath told thee his past life, he hath made an opportunity that thou may either be ashamed for him or be familiar with him. be not reserved with him when he openeth speech, neither answer him after a scornful manner. withdraw not thyself from him, neither interrupt (?) him whose matter is not yet ended, whom it is possible to benefit. 34. let thy face be bright what time thou livest. that which goeth into the storehouse must come out therefrom; and bread is to be shared. he that is grasping in entertainment shall himself have an empty belly; he that causeth strife cometh himself to sorrow. take not such an one for thy companion. it is a man's kindly acts that are remembered of him in the years after his life.[18] 35. know well thy merchants; for when thine affairs are in evil case, thy good repute among thy friends is a channel (?) which is filled. it is more important than the dignities of a man; and {56} the wealth of one passeth to another. the good repute of a man's son is a glory unto him; and a good character is for remembrance. 36. correct chiefly; instruct conformably [therewith]. vice must be drawn out, that virtue may remain. nor is this a matter of misfortune, for one that is a gainsayer becometh a strife-maker. 37. if thou make a woman to be ashamed, wanton of heart, one known by her townsfolk to be falsely placed, be kind unto her for a space, send her not away, give her to eat. the wantonness of her heart shall esteem thy guidance. c. if thou obey these things that i have said unto thee, all thy demeanour shall be of the best; for, verily, the quality of truth is among their excellences. set the memory of them in the mouths of the people; for their proverbs are good. nor shall any word that hath here been set down cease out of this land for ever, but shall be made a pattern whereby princes shall speak well. they (my words) shall instruct a man; how he shall speak, after he hath heard them; yea, he shall become as one skilful in obeying, excellent in speaking, after he hath heard them. good fortune shall befall him, for he shall be of the highest rank. he shall be gracious to the end of his life; he shall be {57} contented always. his knowledge shall be his guide (?) into a place of security, wherein he shall prosper while on earth. the scholar[19] shall be content in his knowledge. as to the prince, in his turn, forsooth, his heart shall be happy, his tongue made straight. and [in these proverbs] his lips shall speak, his eyes shall see, and his ears shall hear, that which is profitable for his son, so that he deal justly, void of deceit. 38. a splendid thing is the obedience of an obedient son; he cometh in and listeneth obediently. excellent in hearing, excellent in speaking, is every man that obeyeth what is noble; and the obedience of an obeyer is a noble thing. obedience is better than all things that are; it maketh good-will. how good it is that a son should take that from his father by which he hath reached old age (obedience). that which is desired by the god is obedience; disobedience is abhorred of the god. verily, it is the heart that maketh its master to obey or to disobey; for the safe and sound life of a man are his heart. it is the obedient man that obeyeth what is said; he that loveth to obey, the same shall carry out commands. {58} he that obeyeth becometh one obeyed. it is good indeed when a son obeyeth his father; and he (his father) that hath spoken hath great joy of it. such a son shall be mild as a master, and he that heareth him shall obey him that hath spoken. he shall be comely in body and honoured by his father. his memory shall be in the mouths of the living, those upon earth, as long as they exist.[20] 39. let a son receive the word of his father, not being heedless of any rule of his. instruct thy son [thus]; for the obedient man is one that is perfect in the opinion of princes. if he direct his mouth by what hath been enjoined him, watchful and obedient, thy son shall be wise, and his goings seemly. heedlessness leadeth unto disobedience on the morrow; but understanding shall stablish him. as for the fool, he shall be crushed. 40. as for the fool, devoid of obedience, he doeth nothing. knowledge he regardeth as ignorance, profitable things as hurtful things. he doeth all kind of errors, so that he is rebuked therefor every day. he liveth in death {59} therewith; it is his food. at chattering speech he marvelleth, as at the wisdom of princes, living in death every day. he is shunned because of his misfortunes, by reason of the multitude of afflictions that cometh upon him every day. 41. a son that hearkeneth is as a follower of horus.[21] he is good after he hearkeneth; he groweth old, he reacheth honour and reverence. he repeateth in like manner to his sons and daughters, so renewing the instruction of his father. each man instructeth as did his begetter, repeating it unto his children. let them [in turn] speak with their sons and daughters, that they may be famous in their deeds. let that which thou speakest implant true things and just in the life of thy children. then the highest authority shall arrive, and sins depart [from them]. and such men as see these things shall say, 'surely that man hath spoken to good purpose,' and they shall do likewise; or, 'but surely that man was experienced.' and all people shall declare, 'it is they that shall direct the multitude; dignities are not complete without them.' take not any word away, neither add one; {60} set not one in the place of another. beware of opening...[22] in thyself. be wary of speech when a learned man hearkeneth unto thee; desire to be stablished for good in the mouth of those that hear thee speaking. if thou have entered as an expert, speak with exact (?) lips, that thy conduct may be seemly. 42. be thine heart overflowing; but refrain thy mouth. let thy conduct be exact while amongst nobles, and seemly before thy lord, doing that which he hath commanded. such a son shall speak unto them that hearken to him; moreover, his begetter shall be favoured. apply thine heart, what time thou speakest, to saying things such that the nobles who listen declare, 'how excellent is that which cometh out of his mouth!' 43. carry out the behest of thy lord to thee. how good is the teaching of a man's father, for he hath come from him, who hath spoken of his son while he was yet unborn; and that which is done for him (the son) is more than that which is commanded him. forsooth, a good son is of the gift of the god; he doeth more than is {61} enjoined on him, he doeth right, and putteth his heart into all his goings. d. if now thou attain my position, thy body shall flourish, the king shall be content in all that thou doest, and thou shalt gather years of life not fewer than i have passed upon earth. i have gathered even fivescore and ten years of life, for the king hath bestowed upon me favours more than upon my forefathers; this because i wrought truth and justice for the king unto mine old age. it is finished from its beginning to its end even as found in writing. [1] the king. [2] title of an order of the priesthood. [3] the customary attitude of a submissive inferior at that time. [4] the god osiris was believed to have reigned on earth many thousand years before mênês, the first historical king. [5] soul = _ka'_, and throughout this work. _ka'_ is translated _person_ in § 22, _will_ in § 27. [6] an obscure or corrupt phrase here follows, which does not admit of satisfactory translation. [7] translation doubtful. [8] _i.e._ comfortable. [9] his belly, presumably. [10] the above translation is not satisfactory; the text may be corrupt. no intelligible translation of it has yet been made. [11] _i.e._ all wickedness is contained therein. [12] a servant. [13] compare prov. xvii. 18. [14] so also in life, by diversity of aim, alternating work and play, happiness is secured. tacking is evidently meant in the case of the steersman. [15] this section refers to the relations between the son of a nobleman and his tutor, dwelling on the benefits from former pupils in high places, if their schooldays have been pleasant. the last sentence of this section, as of sections 23 and 25, is somewhat _à propos des bottes_. [16] an obscure phrase is here. [17] literally, "it is that which preventeth the heart from advancing (?)" a curious phrase. [18] literally, after his stick or sceptre. [19] who knows them. [20] the greater part of this section is a play upon the root _'sôdem_, which in its meaning includes our _hear_ (_listen_) and _obey_. this tiresome torture of words is frequent in egyptian, especially in old religious texts. [21] the "followers of horus" are a legendary dynasty of demigods, believed by the egyptians to have ruled for about 13,400 years after the reign of horus, and before that of mênês. there is also an order of spirits of this name. [22] a word of unknown meaning; apparently some kind of plant. such a word seems out of place here, and may be idiomatic, like our "flowery language." but the preceding line obviously refers to this book. {62} the instruction of ke'gemni on avoiding offence 1.[1] the cautious man flourisheth, the exact one is praised; the innermost chamber openeth unto the man of silence. wide[2] is the seat of the man gentle of speech; but knives are prepared against one that forceth a path, that he advance not, save in due season. 2. if thou sit with a company of people, desire not the bread that thou likest: short is the time of restraining the heart, and gluttony is an abomination; therein is the quality of a beast. a cup of water quencheth the thirst, and a mouthful of melon supporteth the heart. a good thing standeth for goodness, but some small thing standeth for plenty.[3] a base man is he that is governed by his belly; he departeth only when he is no longer able to fill full his belly in men's houses. {63} 3. if thou sit with a glutton, eat with him, then depart (?). if thou drink with a drunkard, accept [drink], and his heart shall be satisfied. refuse not meat when with a greedy man. take that which he giveth thee; set it not on one side, thinking that it will be a courteous thing. 4. if a man be lacking in good fellowship, no speech hath any influence over him. he is sour of face toward the glad-hearted that are kindly to him; he is a grief unto his mother and his friends; and all men [cry], 'let thy name be known; thou art silent in thy mouth when thou art addressed!' 5. be not haughty because of thy might in the midst of thy young soldiers. beware of making strife, for one knoweth not the things that the god will do when he punisheth. the vizier caused his sons and daughters to be summoned, when he had finished the rules of the conduct of men. and they marvelled when they came to him. then he said unto them, 'hearken unto everything that is in writing in this book, even as i have said it in adding unto profitable sayings.' and they cast themselves on their bellies, and they read it, even as it was in writing. and it was better in their opinion than any thing in this land unto its limits. now they were living when his majesty, the king of upper and lower egypt, heuni, {64} departed, and his majesty, the king of upper and lower egypt, senfôru, was enthroned as a gracious king over the whole of this land. then was ke'gemni made governor of his city and vizier. it is finished. [1] the original is not divided into sections. [2] _i.e._ comfortable [3] this is a rather dark saying, but apparently the author means that although the duly instructed guest will only partake moderately of the abundance before him, what he eats is as good as the rest. his portion will be equal to the whole as regards quality, though inferior as regards quantity. {65} appendix the instruction of amenemhê'et i. is here given as a contrast to the foregoing. it is a testament, however, rather than an instruction, and contains more historical matter than didactic. it is written in a terse and pointed style, combined with the parallelism and antithesis which was the prevailing vehicle of poetic thought in egyptian. the rank of its author and the exceeding bitterness of his mood make it a document of great interest. there is no reason to doubt its authenticity. this king was the founder of the glorious twelfth dynasty, a period which has been called the golden age of egypt. he ruled from about 2778-2748 b.c., and, although he describes himself as over-lenient, was really one of the most vigorous and powerful of all the sons of the sun who for five thousand years wore the double crown of the two egypts. the circumstances in which the new dynasty arose are not known; nor have we any other record of the attempt on his life, here recounted. {66} in the twentieth year of his reign he associated his son, senwesert i., with him in a co-regency which lasted ten years. from §8 we gather that the attempted assassination took place just before the dual rule; while the instruction was evidently penned shortly before the writer's death. the 'house' referred to is presumably his pyramid-tomb, called ke'-nôfer-amenemhê'et. _amenemhê'et is exalted and good_. the site of this building is not known. this instruction was popular as a school exercise in the 'new kingdom,' and we possess several copies or parts of copies. there is no good text for the latter part (§§ 12 _ff_), which is corrupt in such mss. as contain it. i have used the critical text of mr. griffith, published in the _zeitschrift für ägyptische sprache_, 1896. it is hoped that the bibliography will be useful to students of the books of ptah-hotep and ke'gemni. b. g. g. {67} the instruction of amenemhe'et a palace conspiracy--hail and farewell beginneth here the instruction made by the majesty of the king of upper and lower egypt sehotep-'eb-rê', son of the sun amenemhê'et, the justified.[1] he speaketh thus in discovering words of truth unto his son, the lord of the world: 1. shine forth, he saith, even as the god. hearken to that which i say unto thee: that thou may reign over the land, that thou may govern the world, that thou may excel in goodness. 2. let one withdraw himself from his subordinates entirely. it befalleth that mankind give their hearts unto one that causeth them fear. mix not among them alone; fill not thine heart with a brother; know not a trusted friend; make for thyself no familiar dependents; in these things is no satisfaction. 3. when thou liest down have care for thy very life,[2] since friends exist not for a man in the {68} day of misfortunes. i gave to the beggar, and caused the orphan to live; i made him that had not to attain, even as he that had. 4. but it was the eater of my food that made insurrection against me; to whom i gave mine hands, he created disturbance thereby; they that arrayed them in my fine linen regarded me a shadow; and it was they that anointed themselves with my spices that entered my harem. 5. my images are among the living; and my achievements are among men. but i have made an heroic story that hath not been heard; a great feat of arms that hath not been seen. surely one fighteth for a lassoed ox that forgetteth yesterday;[3] and good fortune is of no avail unto one that cannot perceive it. 6. it was after the evening meal, and night was come. i took for myself an hour of ease. i lay down upon my bed, for i was weary. my heart began to wander (?). i slept. and lo! weapons were brandished, and there was conference concerning me. i acted as the serpent of the desert.[4] 7. i awoke to fight; i was alone. i found one struck down, it was the captain of the guard. had i received quickly the arms from his hand, {69} i had driven back the dastards by smiting around. but he was not a brave man on that night, nor could i fight alone; an occasion of prowess cometh not to one surprised. thus was i. 8. behold, then, vile things came to pass, for i was without thee; the courtiers knew not that i had passed on to thee [my power], i sat not with thee on the throne.[5] let me, then, make thy plans. because i awed them not i was not unmindful of them; but mine heart bringeth not to remembrance the slackness of servants. 9. is it the custom of women to gather together assailants? are assassins reared within my palace? was the opening done by cutting through the ground? the underlings were deceived as to what they did.[6] but misfortunes have not come in my train since my birth; nor hath there existed the equal of me as a doer of valiance. 10. i forced my way up to elephantinê, i went down unto the coast-lakes;[7] i have stood upon the boundaries of the land, and i have seen its centre. i have set the limits of might by my might in my deeds. 11. i raised corn, i loved nôpi[8]; the nile begged of me every valley. in my reign none {70} hungered; none thirsted therein. they were contented in that which i did, saying concerning me, 'every commandment is meet.' 12. i overcame lions; i carried off crocodiles. i cast the nubians under my feet; i carried off the southern nubians; i caused the asiatics to flee, even as hounds. 13. i have made me an house, adorned with gold, its ceiling with _lapis lazuli_, its walls having deep foundations. its doors are of copper, their bolts are of bronze. it is made for ever-lasting; eternity is in awe of it. i know every dimension thereof, o lord of the world! 14. there are divers devices in buildings. i know the pronouncements of men when inquiring into its beauties; but they know not that it was without thee, o my son, senwesert; life, safe and sound, be to thee--by thy feet do i walk; thou art after mine own heart; by thine eyes do i see; born in an hour of delight, with spirits[9] that rendered thee praise. 15. behold, that which i have done at the beginning, let me set it in order for thee at the end; let me be the landing-place of that which is in thine heart. all men together set the white crown on the offspring of the god, fixing it unto its due place. i shall begin thy praises when in the boat of ra. thy kingdom hath been from primeval time; not by my doing, {71} who have done valiant things. raise up monuments, make beautiful thy tomb. i have fought against him whom thou knowest; for i desire not that he should be beside thy majesty. life, safe and sound, be to thee." it is finished. [1] a ceremonial title applied to deceased persons, analogous to our "the late." "justified" is not an exact rendering, but it is usual, and will serve. [2] literally, _heart_. [3] an allusion to the people of egypt, whom he had freed from the foreign oppressors. [4] _i.e._ he remained quiet but watchful. [5] referring to the co-regency with his son. [6] referring to the attempted assassination. [7] the limits, south and north, of his kingdom. [8] the god of corn. [9] or, unborn souls (_hmmw_). {72} an explanation of names occurring in this book. amenemhê'et . . . . _the god amôn is to the fore_. heuni . . . . . . . _i have smitten_. isôsi . . . . . . . of unknown meaning. ke'gemni . . . . . . _i have found a soul_; or, _a soul is found for me_. ptah-hotep . . . . . _the god ptah is satisfied_, alluding either to the belief that to beget a child was pleasing to the god, or to the dedication of the child to the god. sehôtep-'eb-rê' . . _contenting the heart of the god ra_. senfôru . . . . . . _the beautifier_. senwesert . . . . . of doubtful meaning; connected with _the goddess wesert_. other spellings of these names are: _amenemhat; huna; assa, 'esse'; ptahhetep; sehetepabra, rasehetepab; seneferu; usertesen_. {73} bibliography brugsch, h. _hieroglyphisches-demotisches wörterbuch_ ... vols. v.-vii. leipzig, 1880 _ff._ contains explanations of many difficult passages. budge, e. a. w. _an egyptian reading book_. london, 1888. second edition, with transliteration into italics and vocabulary, london, 1896. contains the most convenient transcript of the p.p. follows throughout that of virey (see below). for some amendments see griffith in proc. s.b.a. (below). the first edition is more accurate (for this text) than the second. the vocabulary needs revision. chabas, f. _le plus ancien livre du monde; étude sur le papyrus prisse_. revue archéologique, première série, xv. anno. paris, 1857. contains a discussion of the text, etc., and partial translation. chabas, f. _le papyrus prisse_. zeitschrift für ëgyptische sprache. berlin, 1870. discusses the meaning of various words. chabas, f. _le plus ancien livre du monde; étude sur le papyrus prisse_. bibliothèque orientale, vol. ii. paris, 1872. the work of 1857 recast. dumichen, j. _les sentences de kakemni_. les bibles et les initiateurs religieux de l'humanité, vol. ii. part i. paris, 1884. contains a translation of kg. griffith, f. l. _notes on egyptian texts of the middle kingdom_, iii. proceedings of the society of biblical archaeology, vol. xiii. london, 1890. discusses the text, correcting some previous errors in transcription. translation of kg. and §§ a, b of ph. griffith, f. l. _egyptian literature_. a library of the {74} world's best literature. new york, 1898-9. contains translation of many sections. heath, d. i. _on a ms. of the phoenician king assa, ruling in egypt before abraham: a record of the patriarchal age; or the proverbs of aphobis_, b.c. 1900; _now first fully translated_. _monthly review_. london, july, 1866. the first 'translation' of kg. and ph. afterwards issued as a pamphlet, london, 1858. lauth, f. j. _der autor kadjimna vor 5400 jahren_. sitzungsberichte der kgl. bayer. _akademie der wissenschaften_. munchen, 1869, ii. contains an analysis of kg. lauth, f. j. _der prim ptah-hotep über das alter: ptah-hoteps ethik_. sitzungsberichte der kgl. bayer. akademie der wissenschaften. münchen, 1870, ii, heft i, beilage. contains analysis and translation into latin and german of the greater part of ph. mahaffy, j. p. _prolegomena to ancient history_, part ii. london, 1871. contains translations from lauth's rendering. myer, t. _the oldest books in the world_. new york, 1900. contains virey's translation and notes. petrie, w. m. f. _religion and conscience in ancient egypt_. london, 1898. contains translations of many sections by f. l. griffith. prisse d'avennes, e. _facsimile d'un papyrus égyptien, trouvé à thebes, donné à la bibliothèque royale de paris, et publié par e. p. d'a_. paris, 1847. rawnsley, h. d. _notes for the nile, together with a metrical rendering of the hymns of ancient egypt, and of the precepts of ptah-hotep_ (the oldest book in the world). london, 1892. revillout, e. _les deux préfaces du papyrus prisse_. revue égyptologique, tome vii. paris, 1896. contains translation of kg. and § a of ph. revillout, e. _les maximes de ptah-hotep_. revue égyptologique, tome x. paris, 1902. contains translation and text of ph. virey, p. _études sur le papyrus prisse, le livre de kagimna et les leçons de ptah-hotep_. bibliothèque de {75} l'école des hautes-études, fasc. 70. paris, 1887. contains complete translation and elaborate discussion of the text; also glossary. virey, p. _the precepts of ptah-hotep_ (_the oldest book in the world_). records of the past, new series, vol. iii. london, 1890. contains a translation of ph. _printed by hazell, watson & viney, ld., london and aylesbury_. the wisdom of the east series edited by l. cranmer-byng and dr. s. a. kapadia the object of the editors of this series is a very definite one. they desire above all things that, in their humble way, these books shall be the ambassadors of good-will and understanding between east and west, the old world of thought and the new of action. in this endeavour, and in their own sphere, they are but followers of the highest example in the land. they are confident that a deeper knowledge of the great ideals and lofty philosophy of oriental thought may help to a revival of that true spirit of charity which neither despises nor fears the nations of another creed and colour. finally, in thanking press and public for the very cordial reception given to the "wisdom of the east" series, they wish to state that no pains have been spared to secure the best specialists for the treatment of the various subjects at hand. london john murray, albemarle street, w. wisdom of the east series in pott l6mo, price 1/each net in cloth limp (excepting the first two volumes) the teachings of zoroaster and the philosophy of the parsi religion translated with introduction by dr. s. a. kapadia, lecturer university college, london, 2/net. the awakening of the soul from the arabic of ibn tufail. translated with introduction by paul bronnle, ph.d. 1/6 net. the duties of the heart by rabbi bachye. translated from the hebrew with introduction by edwin collins, hollier hebrew scholar, u.c.l. the classics of confucius i. the book of history (shu-king) by w. gorn old ii. the book of odes (shi-king) by l. cranmer-byng. iii. the book of changes (i-king) [_in preparation._ the sayings of lao tzu from the chinese. translated with introduction by lionel giles, of the british museum. the religion of the koran with introduction by arthur n. wollaston, c.i.e. women and wisdom of japan with introduction by s. takaishi. the rose garden of sa'di selected and rendered from the persian with introduction by l. cranmer-byng. the wisdom of israel: being extracts from the babylonian talmud and midrash rabboth translated from the aramaic with an introduction by edwin collins. the instructions of ptah-hotep from the egyptian. translated with introduction by battiscombe g. gunn. _others in preparation, and will be duly announced_ _all literary communications to be addressed to the editors at_ 4, harcourt buildings, inner temple, london _n.b.--the editors will be pleased to receive suggestions and communications from all persons interested in oriental literature_. [transcriber's note: linenotes and footnotes moved as close as possible to their applicable entry to facilitate readability.] royal irish academy todd lecture series volume xiii. kuno meyer, ph.d. the triads of ireland [illustration] dublin hodges, figgis, & co., ltd. london: williams & norgate 1906 _printed by_ ponsonby & gibbs, _dublin university press_ contents page preface, v-xv text and translation, 1-35 glosses and notes, 36-43 index locorum, 45-46 index nominum, 46 glossary, 47-54 preface the collection of irish triads, which is here edited and translated for the first time, has come down to us in the following nine manuscripts, dating from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century:- =l=, _i.e._ the yellow book of lecan, a vellum of the end of the fourteenth century, pp. 414_b_--418_a_, a complete copy. =b=, _i.e._ the book of ballymote, a vellum of the end of the fourteenth century, pp. 65_b_-66_b_ (ends imperfectly). =m=, _i.e._ the book of húi maine, a vellum of the fourteenth century, fo. 190_a_[1]-fo. 191_a_[2]. a complete copy beginning: 'ceand erenn ardmacha,' and ending: 'tri hurgairt bidh a caitheam díescaidheadh (_sic_) a chaitheam iarna coir a caitheam gan altughudh.' then follow proverbial sayings from the 'colloquy of cormac and cairpre,' such as: 'dedhe ara ndligh gach maith domelar ithe [et] altugud. anas deach gacha fleidhe a cainaltughudh [et] a mochdingbail. caidhe deach samtha. ni _hansa_. gal gan forran. deasgaidh codulta frislige,' &c., ending: 'deasgaidh aineolais imreasain. ni d'agallaim cormaic [et] cairpre coruici sin.' =lec=, _i.e._ the book of lecan, a vellum of the fifteenth century. the leaves on which the triads are found are now bound up with the codex h. 2. 17 belonging to trinity college. it is a complete copy beginning on p. 183_b_: 'ceand _erenn_ ardmacha,' and ending on p. 184_b_: 'ceitheora aipgitri baisi baig connailbi gell imreasain.'[1] =n=, _i.e._ 23. n. 10, a paper ms. written in the year 1575,[2] pp. 98-101. a complete copy, the gap between pp. 100 and 106 being made up by pp. 7_a_-10_b_ of the vellum portion of the manuscript. [1] by an oversight i have referred to this ms. sometimes by lec and sometimes by h. in some cases both lec and h will be found quoted in the variants. the same ms. is always meant. [2] as appears from the following colophon on p. 101: 'oraoit uaim ar do lebor a hoedh in c_éd_luan iar n-aurtach johannes. baile tibhaird ar bla maige mo mendad scribne hi farrad se(a)ain hi maoilconari. mese (dubthach) do scrib in ball soin da derpiris [et] rlæ. anno domini 1575. guroiuh maith ag_a_t. =h=[prime], _i.e._ h. 1. 15, pp. 946-957. this is a paper manuscript written by tadhg tiorthach o neachtain in 1745. it is a complete copy, with copious glosses in modern irish, the more important of which are printed below on pp. 36-43. at the end o neachtain has added the following:--'trí subhailce diadha: creidhemh, dothchus agus grádh. trí a n-aon: athair, mac, spiorad naomh, da raibh gloir, mola[dh] [et] umhlacht tre bith sior tug ré don bhochtan bocht so. aniu an 15 do bhealltuine 1745. tadhg o nechtuin mac seain a n-aois ceithre bliadhna déag et trí fithchit roscriob na trithibh [.s]uas.' these manuscripts have, on the whole, an identical text, though they all occasionally omit a triad or two; and the order of the single triads varies in all of them. they have all been used in constructing a critical text, the most important variants being given in the foot-notes. the order followed is in the main that of the yellow book of lecan. there are at least three other manuscripts containing copies of the triads. one of them i discovered in the stowe collection after the text had been printed off. it is a paper quarto now marked 23. n. 27, containing on fo. 1_a_-7_b_ a copy of the triads, followed on fo. 7_b_-19_a_ by a glossed copy of the _tecosca cormaic_. it was written in 1714 by domnall (or daniel) o duind mac eimuinn. its readings agree closely with those of n. in § 237, it alone, of all manuscripts, gives an intelligible reading of a corrupt passage. for _cia fochertar im-muir, cia berthair hi tech fo glass dodeime a tiprait oca mbí_, it reads: _cia focearta im-muir, cia beirthear hi tech fo glass no do theine, dogeibther occan tiprait_, 'though it be thrown into the sea, though it be put into a house under lock, or into fire, it will be found at the well.' in § 121 for _cerdai_ it reads _cerd_; in § 139 it has _rotioc_ and _rotocht_; in § 143 for _grúss_ its reading is _grís_; in §153 it has _aibeuloit_ for _eplet_; in § 217 _tar a n-éisi_ for _dia n-éisi_; in § 218 _lomradh_(twice) for _lobra_ and _indlighidh_ for _i n-indligud_; in § 219 it has the correct reading _éiric_, and for _dithechte_ it reads _ditheacht_; in § 220 it reads _fri aroile_ for _fria céile_; in § 223 after _ile_ it adds _imchiana_; in § 224 it reads _grís brond .i. galar_; in § 229 for _meraichne_ it has _mearaigheacht_; in § 235 it has _mhamus_ for _mám_; in § 236 _maig hi_ for _maig lii_; and for _co ndeirgenai in dam de_ it reads _co nderna in dam fria_. another copy, written in 1836 by peter o'longan, formerly in the possession of the earls of crawford, now belongs to the rylands library, manchester, where it was found by professor strachan, who kindly copied a page or two for me. it is evidently a very corrupt copy which i have not thought worth the trouble of collating. lastly, there is in the advocates' library a copy in a vellum manuscript marked kilbride iii. it begins on fo. 9_b_^2 as follows:--'treching breath annso. ceann eirind ardmacha.' i hope to collate it before long, and give some account of it in the next number of this series. in all these manuscripts the triads either follow upon, or precede, or are incorporated in the collections of maxims and proverbial sayings known as _tecosca cormaic_, _auraicept morainn_, and _senbríathra fíthil_, the whole forming a body of early irish gnomic literature which deserves editing in its entirety. it is clear, however, that the triads do not originally belong to any of these texts. they had a separate origin, and form a collection by themselves. this is also shown by the fact that the book of leinster, the oldest manuscript containing the _tecosca cormaic_ (pp. 343_a_-345_b_), the _senbríathra fíthail_ (pp. 345_b_-346_a_), and the _bríathra moraind_ (pp. 346_a_-_b_), does not include them. it is but a small portion of the large number of triads scattered throughout early irish literature that has been brought together in our collection under the title of _trecheng breth féne_, i.e., literally 'a triadic arrangement of the sayings of irishmen.' i first drew attention to the existence of irish triads in a note on irish proverbs in my addition of the _battle of ventry_, p. 85, where a few will be found quoted. a complete collection of them would fill a small volume, especially if it were to include those still current among the people of ireland, both among gaelic and english speakers. i must content myself here with giving a few specimens taken at random from my own collections:- three kinds of martyrdom that are counted as a cross to man, _i.e._ white martyrdom, green martyrdom, and red martyrdom.--the cambray homily (_thesaurus palæohibernicus_, ii., p. 246). three enemies of the soul: the world, the devil, and an impious teacher.--colman maccu beognae's alphabet of piety (_zeitschrift für celtische philologie_, iii., p. 452). three things whereby the devil shows himself in man: by his face, by his gait, by his speech.--_ib._, p. 453. three profitable labours in the day: praying, working, reading.--regula choluimb cille (_zeitschr._, iii., p. 29). three laymen of ireland who became monks: beccan son of cula, mochu son of lonan, and enda of arann.--notes on the félire of oengus (henry bradshaw society, vol. xxix., p. 112). three chief artisans of ireland: tassach with patrick, conlaed with brigit, and daig with ciaran.--_ib._, p. 186. three poets of the world: homer of the greeks, vergil of the latins, ruman of the gaels.--book of leinster, p. 354_b_. the three worst counsels that have been acted on in ireland through the advice of saints: the cutting short of ciaran's life, the banishment of colum cille, the expulsion of mochuta from rathen.--notes on the félire of oengus, p. 204, and tripartite life, p. 557.[3] [3] where for 'wrong stories' read 'wrong counsels' (_sanasa sáeba_). this triad is thus versified in the brussels ms. 5100:- teora saoba sanasa leithe cuind roc[h]aras-[s]a: mochuda cona clamhra[i]d d'ionnarba a rathain roghlain, cur coluim cille tar sal, timdibhe saeghail ciaráin. three things there are for which the son of living god is not grateful: haughty piety, harsh reproof, reviling a person if it is not certain.[4] [4] lb., p. 225 marg. inf., and brussels ms. 5100, fo. 86_a_: fuil trí ní (a trí br.) doná (danach br.) buidech mac dé bí: crábud úallach, coisced (coiccsed br.) serb, écnach duine mad inderb. three things there are for which the king of the sun is grateful: union of brethren, upright conversation, serving at the altar of god.[5] [5] edinburgh ms. xl, p. 28, and brussels ms. 5100, fo. 86_a_: fuil tréide dianab buidech rí gréine: óenta bráthar, comrád (fodail ed.) cert, altóir dé do thimthirecht. woe to the three folk in horrid hell of great blasts: folk who practise poetry, folk who violate their orders, mercenaries.[6] [6] lb., p. 236, marg. inf.: mairg na trí lucht a n-iffirn úathmar anside: óes dogní dán, óes choilles grád, óes amsaine. three things there are which do not behove the poor of living god: ingratitude for his life whatever it be, grumbling, and flattery.[7] [7] lb., p. 238, marg. inf.: fuil trí ní ná dlegair do bocht dé bí: dimmda da bethaid cipé, cesacht ocus aibéle. the following modern triads i owe to a communication from dr. p.w. joyce, who heard them in his youth among the people of limerick:- three things to be distrusted: a cow's horn, a dog's tooth, and a horse's hoof. three disagreeable things at home: a scolding wife, a squalling child, and a smoky chimney. the three finest sights in the world: a field of ripe wheat, a ship in full sail, and the wife of a mac donnell with child.[8] [8] this triad comes from the glynns of antrim, the mac donnells' district. in our collection an arrangement of the triads in certain groups, according to their contents, is discernible. thus, the first sixty-one--of which, however, the opening thirty-one are no triads at all--are all topographical; and among the rest, those dealing with legal matters stand out clearly (§§ 149-172). when the collection was made we have no means of ascertaining, except from internal evidence, such as the age of the language, and a few allusions to events, the date of which we can approximately fix. the language of the triads may be described as late old-irish. their verbal system indeed is on the whole that of the continental glosses,[9] and would forbid us to put them later than the year 900. on the other hand, the following peculiarities in declension, in which all the manuscripts agree, make it impossible for us to put them much earlier than the second half of the ninth century. [9] i may mention particularly the relative forms _téite_ 167, _bíte_ 127, _ata_ 75, 76, 224, &c., _berta_ (o. ir. _berte_) 109, 110, _fíchte_ (145), _coillte_ (166), _téite_ (167), _aragellat_ (sic leg. with n) 171; the deponent _neimthigedar_ 116, &c.; _ató_, 'i am' (104), and the use of the perfective _ad-_ in _conaittig_ 77, 78. the genitive singular of _i-_ and _u-_stems no longer shows the ending _-o_, which has been replaced throughout by _-a_.[10] now, in the annals of ulster, which are a sure guide in these matters and allow us to follow the development of the language from century to century, this genitive in _-o_ is found for the last time in a.d. 816 (_rátho, ailello_). thence onward the ending _-a_ is always found. [10] _rátha_ 56, _foglada_ 92, _flatha_ 151, 248, 253; _dara_ 4, 34; _ela_ 31, 35, 44 (cf. _lainne ela_, au. 816); _átha_ 50, _betha_ 82, 83, 249. the place-name _lusca_, 'lusk,' is originally an _n-_stem making its genitive _luscan_. this is the regular form in the annals of ulster till the year 880, from which date onward it is always _lusca_ (a.d. 916, 928, &c.). in our text (§ 46) all the manuscripts read _lusca_. in slender _io-_stems the dative singular in old-irish ends in _-iu_. i find this form in the annals of ulster for the last time in a.d. 816 (_gertidiu_). thence onward it is always _-i_, as in our text (_hi cúailgni_ 43, _d'uisci_ 64). the nasal stem _léimm_ makes its nom. plur. _léimmen_ in old-irish. in § 32 we find instead (_tair-_)_leme_. so also _foimrimm_ makes its nom. plural _foimrimme_ in § 163. the word _dorus_ is neuter in old-irish, making its nom. acc. plural either _dorus_ or _doirsea_. in our text (§§ 173, 174) the word is masculine, and makes its nom. plural _doruis_. _druimm_ is an _i-_stem in old-irish, but in the later language passes into an _n-_stem. in § 51 we find the nom. pl. _drommanna_. the neuter _grád_ in § 166 makes its nom. plur. _grúda_ for o. ir. _grád_.[11] [11] the infinitive _bith_ for o. ir. _buith_ (91), the dative _cinn_ for o. ir. _ciunn_ (98, 135), the nom. pl. _sligthi_ for o. ir. _sligid_ (which i have restored in § 49), the confusion between _do_ and _di_ (e.g. 83), and other details are probably due to the middle-and modern-irish transcribers. on linguistic grounds, then, i should say that our collection was made some time during the second half of the ninth century. that it cannot be dated earlier is also apparent from another consideration. professor zimmer has taught us to search in every ancient irish text for indications of its having been composed either before or after the viking period. i find no words from the norse language in the triads, or, if there are any, they have escaped me; but there are two distinct references to the viking age. in § 232, a viking in his hauberk (_gall ina lúirig_) is mentioned as one of three that are hardest to talk to; and, in § 44, bangor in co. down is called unlucky or unfortunate, no doubt, as the gloss says, because of the repeated plunderings and destruction of its monastery by the norse during the early part of the ninth century (a.d. 823, 824). in endeavouring to trace the origin of the triad as a form of literary composition among the irish, one must remember that it is but one of several similar enumerative sayings common in irish literature. thus the collection here printed contains three duads (124. 133. 134), seven tetrads (223. 230. 234. 244. 248. 251. 252), and one heptad (235). a whole irish law-book is composed in the form of heptads;[12] while triads, tetrads, &c., occur in every part of the laws.[13] such schematic arrangements were of course a great aid to memory. [12] see _ancient laws of ireland_, vol, v., pp. 118-373. [13] thus in the first volume of the laws we find duads on p. 228, 15; 294, 27; triads on p. 50, 9. 27; 230, 4; 264, 20; 288, 28; tetrads 40, 21; 54, 7; 64, 1; 240, 24; 256, 4, &c.; 272, 25; 274, 3, &c.; pentads 30, 21; 50, 32; 90, 29; 102, 6; hexads 68, 11; 248, 7: a heptad 134, 9; an ennead 16, 20. if the triad stood alone, the idea that it owes its origin to the effect of the doctrine of the trinity upon the celtic imagination might reasonably be entertained. the fact that this doctrine has led to many peculiar phenomena in irish folklore, literature, and art has frequently been pointed out. nor would i deny that the sacred character of the number three, together with the greater facility of composition, may have contributed to the popularity of the triad, which is certainly the most common among the various numerical sayings as well as the only one that has survived to the present day. however that may be, i believe that the model upon which the irish triads, tetrads, pentads, &c., were formed is to be sought in those enumerative sayings--_zahlensprüche_, as the german technical term is--of hebrew poetry to be found in several books of the old testament. i am indebted to my friend the rev. carl grüneisen for the following list of such sayings, which i quote in the vulgate version. duads and triads. ecclus. 23: 21, duo genera abundant in peccatis, et tertium adducit iram et perditionem, &c. _ib._ 26: 25, in duobus contristatum est cor meum, et in tertio iracundia mihi advenit: 26 vir bellator deficiens per inopiam, et vir sensatus contemptus, 27 et qui transgreditur a iustitia ad peccatum, deus paravit eum ad romphaeam. _ib._ 26: 28, duae species difficiles et periculosae mihi apparuerunt: difficile exuitur negotians a neglegentia, et non iustificabitur caupo a peccatis labiorum. triads and tetrads. proverb. 30: 15, tria sunt insaturabilia, et quartum quod nunquam dicit: sufficit. 16 inferuns, et os vulvae, et terra quae non satiatur aqua; ignis vero nunquam dicit: sufficit. _ib._ 30: 18, tria sunt difficilia mihi, et quartum penitus ignoro: 19 viam aquilae in caelo, viam colubri super petram, viam navis in medio mari, et viam viri in adolescentia. _ib._ 30: 21, per tria movetur terra, et quartum non potest sustinere: 22 per servum cum regnaverit: per stultum cum saturatus fuerit cibo, 23 per odiosam mulierem cum in matrimonio fuerit assumpta, et per ancillam cum fuerit heres dominae suae. _ib._ 30: 29, tria sunt quae bene gradiuntur, et quartum quod incedit feliciter: 30 leo fortissimus bestiarum, ad nullius pavebit occursum, 31 gallus succinctus lumbos, et aries, nec est rex qui resistat ei. ecclus. 26: 5, a tribus timuit cor meum, et in quarto facies mea metuit: 6 delaturam civitatis, et collectionem populi, 7 calumniam mendacem, super montem, omnia gravia, 8 dolor cordis et luctus mulier zelotypa. a tetrad. proverb. 30, 24: quattuor sunt minima terrae, et ipsa sunt sapientiora sapientibus: 25 formicae, populus infirmus qui praeparat in messe cibum sibi, 26 lepusculus, plebs invalida qui collocat in petra cubile suum. a hexad and heptad. proverb. 6. 16 sex sunt quae odit dominus, et septimum detestatur anima eius: 17 oculos sublimes, linguam mendacem, manus effundentes innoxium sanguinem, 18 cor machinans cogitationes pessimas, pedes veloces ad currendum in malum, 19 proferentem mendacia testem fallacem, et eum qui seminat intra fratres discordias. an ennead. ecclus. 25, 9: novem insuspicabilia cordis magnificavi, et decimum dicam in lingua hominibus, &c. the question arises whether these biblical sayings were the direct source from which the irish imitations are derived, or whether the irish became acquainted with the numerical proverb through the medium of greek and latin literature. as the irish clerics ever since the days of st. patrick were diligent students of the bible, there would be nothing strange in the former assumption. but there exists at least one early document which renders the latter equally possible. under the title of _proverbia grecorum_ we possess a collection of sayings translated by some irish scholar in ireland from the greek into latin before the seventh century.[14] among them we find three triads,[15] two pentads,[16] three heptads,[17] and two octads.[18] [14] this is the opinion of s. hellmann, their latest editor. see his _sedulius scottus_, p. 135, in traube's _quellen und untersuchungen zur lateinischen philologie des mittelalters_, vol. i.: münchen, 1906. [15] a. 39, 41. b. 5. [16] a. 52. [17] a. 54. b. 3, 7. [18] b. 1, 2. as examples i select the following two triads:- tres bacheriosi(?) sunt: terribilis bellator armatus promptusque ad praelium, leo de spelunca quando praedam devorat, aper ferus de silva quando furore in aliquem irruit. tres sunt imperfecti qui numquam ad perfectionem vitae disciplinae pervenire possunt; tunc enim a vitiis recedunt, quando mala facere non possunt. antiquus nauta qui multis annis seductis onmibus emere et vendere poterat; senex auriga qui in curribus et in equis deo derelicto vana cura atque conversatione meditatur atque utitur; vetula ancilla quae dominae suae subdole in omnibus rebus quae cottidiano ministerio perficiuntur male retribuit. triads occur sporadically in the literature of most other nations, and have occasionally been collected. but i am not aware that this kind of composition has ever attained the same popularity elsewhere as in wales and ireland, where the manufacture of triads seems at times almost to have become a sport. the wittiest triads are undoubtedly those in which the third item contains an anticlimax. two perfect examples of this kind were composed by heine when he tells the foreigner visiting germany that he need but know three words of the language: _brot_, _kuss_, _ehre_; and in his often quoted witticism: _der franzose liebt die freiheit wie seine braut, der engländer wie seine frau, der deutsche wie seine alte grossmutter._ k.m. the triads of ireland trecheng breth féni inso sís[1] 1. cenn hérenn ardmacha. [note 1: _om._ bmhnlec] 2. ordan hérenn clúain maic nóis. 3. ana hérenn clúain iraird. 4. cride hérenn cell dara. 5. sruithe hérenn bendchor. 6. cóemna hérenn lusca. 7. áinius hérenn cenannus. 8. dí [.s]úil hérenn tamlachta [et] findglais. [note 8: dá súil l finnglaisi n findglais lec] 9. tech commairce hérenn tech cairnig for sligid assail. [note 9: _om._ l] 10. idna hérenn inis cathaig. 11. reclés hérenn glenn dá locha. 12. féinechas hérenn clúain húama. 13. tech foichle hérenn fernæ. 14. litánacht hérenn less mór. 15. senchas hérenn imblech ibair. 16. bérla féine hérenn corcach. 17. légend hérenn ross ailithre. [note 17: ailaicre b elichre m] 18. téite hérenn tír dá glas. [note 18: téde n teide bm] 19. anmchairde hérenn clúain ferta brénainn. [note 19: ancairde blec brenainde n] 20. escaine hérenn lothra. [note 20: hescoemna l] 21. brethemnas hérenn sláine. 22. dúire chrábaid hérenn fobur féichín. [note 22: dire bm féichín _om._ bm fabair feithin n] 23. áibne hérenn ard mbreccáin. 24. diúite hérenn ross commáin. [note 24: diuidus bm diuitecht l] 25. fáilte hérenn ráith mboth nó druimm lethan. 26. de[.s]erc hérenn dún dá lethglas. [note 26: desearc l deeirc b deirc m] the triads of ireland 1. the head of ireland--armagh. 2. the dignity of ireland--clonmacnois. 3. the wealth of ireland--clonard. 4. the heart of ireland--kildare. 5. the seniority of ireland--bangor. 6. the comfort[19] of ireland--lusk. [19] or, perhaps, 'good cheer.' 7. the sport of ireland--kells. 8. the two eyes of ireland--tallaght and finglas. 9. the sanctuary of ireland--the house of cairnech upon the road of asal.[20] [20] a road running from tara westward into westmeath. 10. the purity of ireland--scattery island. 11. the abbey-church of ireland--glendalough. 12. the jurisprudence of ireland--cloyne. 13. the house of wages[21] of ireland--ferns. [21] or 'hire.' 14. the singing the litany of ireland--lismore. 15. the lore of ireland--emly. 16. the legal speech of ireland--cork. 17. the learning of ireland--roscarbery. 18. the wantonness of ireland--terryglas. 19. the spiritual guidance of ireland--clonfert. 20. the curse of ireland--lorrha. 21. the judgment of ireland--slane. 22. the severity of piety of ireland--fore. 23. the delight of ireland--ardbrackan. 24. the simplicity[22] of ireland--roscommon. [22] or 'uprightness.' 25. the welcome of ireland--raphoe or drumlane. 26. the charity of ireland--downpatrick. 27. trichtach hérenn dairchaill. [note 27: _om._ bm techtach e durcaill n darachill l] 28. fossugud hérenn mag mbile. [note 28: mag mile l] 29. martra hérenn tulen. [note 29: _om._ l] 30. ailbéimm hérenn cell rúaid. [note 30: aulbeimnech l ruadh n ruadain l] 31. genas hérenn lann ela. 32. trí tairleme érenn: daire calgaig [et] tech munna [et] cell maignenn. [note 32: _om._ hbm] 33. tri aithechpuirt hérenn: clúain iraird, glenn dá locha, lugbad. [note 33: aithich lec heathachbuirg m lugmag nbm] 34. trí clochraid hérenn: ard macha, clúain maic nóis, cell dara. [note 34: clothraige bm clot_hr_ai n clochraid l clochraidi lec] 35. trí háenaig hérenn: áenach tailten, áenach crúachan, áenach colmáin ela. [note 35: haenaigi l colman mss] 36. trí dúine hérenn: dún sobairche, dún cermna, cathair chonrúi. [note 36: duin nbm] 37. trí slébe hérenn: slíab cúa, slíab mis, slíab cúalann. [note 37: sleibte bm] 38. trí haird hérenn: crúachán aigli, ae chúalann, benn mboirchi. [note 38: hard n cích cualann l benna ln] 39. trí locha hérenn: loch nechach, loch rí, loch nerni. [note 39: rib bm rig n] 40. trí srotha hérenn: sinann, bóand, banda. 41. trí machaire hérenn: mag midi, mag line, mag lifi. [note 41: maige hbm] 42. trí dorcha hérenn: úam chnogba, úam slángæ, dercc ferna. [note 42: doirchi l uaim chruachan nl uaim condba b uaim cnodba hm slaingai bm slaine n slaine [et] uaim chruachan nó dearc fearna _add._ h] 43. trí díthruib hérenn: fid mór hi cúailgni, fid déicsen hi tuirtri, fid moithre hi connachtaib. [note 43: dithreba bm fid dexin n] 44. trí dotcaid hérenn: abbdaine bendchuir, [a] abbdaine lainne ela, ríge mugdorn maigen. [note 44: dotchaid lhlec [a] .i. ar imad argain air l abdaine sláne nó colmain ela bm laind ela bm] 27. the ... of ireland--dairchaill. 28. the stability of ireland--moville. 29. the martyrdom of ireland--dulane. 30. the reproach of ireland--cell ruaid (ruad's church).[23] [23] 'ruadan's church,' l. 31. the chastity of ireland--lynally. 32. the three places of ireland to alight at: derry, taghmon, kilmainham. 33. the three rent-paying places of ireland: clonard, glendalough, louth. 34. the three stone-buildings of ireland: armagh, clonmacnois, kildare. 35. the three fairs of ireland: the fair of teltown, the fair of croghan, the fair of colman elo. 36. the three forts of ireland: dunseverick, dun cermna,[24] cathir conree. [24] on the old head of kinsale. 37. the three mountains of ireland: slieve gua,[25] slieve mis, slieve cualann.[26] [25] _i.e._ the knockmealdown mountains. [26] the wicklow mountains. 38. the three heights of ireland: croagh patrick, ae chualann,[27] benn boirche.[28] [27] 'the liver ('pap,' l.) of cualu,' either the great sugarloaf or lugnaquilla. [28] _i.e._ slieve donard. 39. the three lakes of ireland: lough neagh, lough ree, lough erne. 40. the three rivers of ireland: the shannon, the boyne, the bann. 41. the three plains of ireland: the plain of meath, moylinny, moy-liffey.[29] [29] _i.e._ the plain of kildare. 42. the three dark places of ireland: the cave of knowth, the cave of slaney, the cave of ferns. 43. the three desert places of ireland: fid mór (great wood) in coolney, fid déicsen (spy-wood) in tuirtri,[30] the wood of moher in connaught. [30] the húi tuirtri were settled in the four baronies of upper and lower antrim, and upper and lower toome in county antrim. 44. the three unlucky places of ireland: the abbotship of bangor, the abbotship of lynally, the kingship of mugdorn maigen.[31] [31] now cremorne barony, county monaghan. 45. trí huilc hérenn: crecraigi, glasraigi, benntraigi. [note 45: grecraigi hbm] 46. trí cáemnai hérenn: abbdaine lusca, ríge trí cualann, secnabbóite arda macha. [note 46: ríge fer cúalann nl sechnap l segnab-i nardmachai n] 47. trí trága hérenn: tráig ruis airgit, tráig ruis téiti, tráig baili. [note 47: trachtai l] 48. trí hátha hérenn: áth clíath, áth lúain, áth caille. 49. trí sligid hérenn: slige dála, slige asail, slige midlúachra. [note 49: sligthi mss] 50. trí belaige hérenn: belach conglais, belach luimnig, belach duiblinne .i. átha clíath. [note 50: belaig l conglaisi n luimne n .i. átha clíath _om_. n] 51. trí drommanna hérenn: druimm fingin, druimm ndrobeoil, druimm leithe. [note 52: _om._ hbm] 52. trí maige hérenn: mag mbreg, mag crúachan, mac liphi. 53. trí clúana hérenn: clúain maic nóis, clúain eois, clúain iraird. 54. trí tellaige hérenn: tellach temrach, tellach caisil, tellach crúachan. [note 54: temair crúachu caisel hbm] 55. trí hessa hérenn: ess rúaid, ess danainne, ess maige. 56. trí fothirbi hérenn: tír rátha laidcniáin, slíab commáin, slíab mancháin. [note 56: _om._ hbm fothairbe n] 57. trí tiprata hérenn: tipra na ndési, tipra húarbeoil, tipra úaráin garaid. [note 57: tiubrai n tipra cuirp n ndési hbm tipra uarainn garaid hbm t. uaran ngarad n breifene n tipra braithcleasan brigdi h braichleasan brigde bm] 58. trí haimréide hérenn: breifne, bairenn, bérre[a]. [note 58: haimreid l boirind m [a] beandtraigi h] 59. trí hinbera hérenn: inber na mbárc, inber féile, inber túaige. 60. trí hairderca hérenn: léimm conculaind, dún cáin, srub brain. [note 60: hirrdraici h oirrdirc m] 45. the three evil ones of ireland: the crecraige,[32] the glasraige, the benntraige.[33] [32] a tribe settled in the barony of coolavin, county sligo, and in the adjacent part of county roscommon. [33] either bantry in county cork, or bantry in county wexford. 46. the three comfortable places of ireland: the abbotship of lusk, the kingship of the three cualu,[34] the vice-abbotship of armagh. [34] 'of the men of cualu,' nl. 47. the three strands of ireland: the strand of ross airgit,[35] the strand of ross teiti, the strand of baile.[36] [35] a territory in the barony of upper ormond, county tipperary. [36] now dundalk. 48. the three fords of ireland: ath cliath (hurdle-ford), athlone (the ford of luan), ath caille (wood-ford).[37] [37] perhaps áth caille rúaide on the shannon. 49. the three highroads of ireland: slige dala,[38] slige asail, slige luachra.[39] [38] the great south-western road from tara into ossory. [39] a road running northward from tara. 50. the three mountain-passes of ireland: baltinglass, the pass of limerick, the pass of dublin. 51. the three ridges of ireland: druim fingin, druim ndrobeoil, druim leithe.[40] [40] in breffny. 52. the three plains of ireland: moy bray, moy croghan, moy liffey. 53. the three meadows of ireland: clonmacnois, clones, clonard. 54. the three households of ireland: the household of tara, the household of cashel, the household of croghan. 55. the three waterfalls of ireland: assaroe, eas danainne,[41] eas maige. [41] on the shannon opposite dunass, co. clare. 56. the three fields (?) of ireland: the land of rathlynan, slieve comman, slieve manchain. 57. the three wells of ireland: the well of the desi, the well of uarbel,[42] the well of uaran garaid. [42] probably near _sescenn uarbéoil_ in leinster (mountseskenn?). 58. the three uneven places of ireland: breffny, the burren, beare. 59. the three estuaries of ireland: inver na mbarc,[43] inver feile,[44] inver tuaige.[45] [43] _dún na mbárc_ is in bantry bay. [44] the estuary of the feale. [45] 'the axe-shaped estuary,' _i.e._ the mouth of the bann. 60. the three conspicuous places of ireland: cuchulinn's leap,[46] dunquinn, sruve brain.[47] [46] _i.e._ loop head. [47] in the west of kerry (i n-iarthar hérenn, ybl. 123^b31). 61. trí gnátha hérenn: tráig lí, lúachair dedad, slíab fúait. [note 61: gnath n gnáith hm líí n] 62. trí hamrai la táin bó cúailnge: .i. in cuilmen dara héisi i nérinn; in marb dia haisnéis don bíu .i. fergus mac róig dia hinnisin do ninníne éicius i n-aimsir corbmaic maic fáeláin; intí dia n-aisnéth_er_, coimge bliadna dó. [note 62: _om._ hbmlec coimde n] 63. trí meinistri fer féne: .i. cích, grúad, glún. 64. trí dotcaid duine: deog therc d'uisci, ítu i cormthig, suide cumang for achad. [note 64: dotchaid l dodcaid bm luige dige bm luige re dig h] 65. trí dotcaid threbtha: gort salach, iarmur cléithe, tech drithlennach. [note 65: dotchaid l dodcaid b iarmor b] 66. trí hairgarta ecalse: caillech fri clocc, athláech i n-apdaine, banna for altóir. [note 66: hairgairt l hairgair h hurgoirt b ina habdaine b bainne nm bæ[=n] for a haltoir b] 67. trí fáilti co n-íarduibi: fer tochmairc, fer gaite, fer aisnéise. [note 67: fochmairc nhbmlec aisneidsi n] 68. trí bróin ata ferr fáilti: brón treóit oc ithe messa, brón guirt apaig, brón feda fo mess. [note 68: is ferr h ita ferr l at ferr n broin mb ac aipgiudud bm ig messrugud h] 69. trí fáilti ata messu brón: fáilti fir íar ndiupairt, fáilti fir íar luga eithig, fáilti fir íar fingail. [note 69: measum b iar ndiubairt n iar mbreith diubarta bm iar mbreith a dibirta h failte fir luga eithig b fir _om._ bm failte fir iar marbad a bráthar a[c] cosnom a [.f]eraind fris bm] 70. trí fiada co n-an[.f]iad: gréss i n-óentig fri muintir, uisce rothé dar cosa, bíad goirt cen dig. [note 70: fiad l anbfiad n tri fiaidaichi ad mesa h greasa bm for cosaib hm dar cosaib nb biad goirt doib b] 71. trí dotcaid maic athaig: clemnas fri hócthigern, gabáil for tascor ríg, commaid fri meirlechu. [note 71: dotchaid l dodca d b hoigthigearna mn tarscur bm tascor (nó tarcor) n tairrseach (!) l] 72. trí dotcaid threbairi: tarcud do drochmnái, fognam do droch[.f]laith, cóemchlód fri droch[.f]erann. [note 72: dodchaidh b targad bm drochlaith m drochlaech h claechlud h caemclodh m drochírind b] 73. trí búada trebairi: tarcud do degmnái, fognam do deg[.f]laith, cóemchlód fri dag[.f]erann. [note 73: trebtha n targad b deadlaech h claechmod h deigferand hm degthigern (!) b] 61. the three familiar places[48] of ireland: tralee, logher, the fews. [48] or, perhaps, 'places of common resort.' 62. three wonders concerning the táin bó cúailnge; that the _cuilmen_ came to ireland in its stead; the dead relating it to the living, viz. fergus mac róig reciting it to ninníne the poet in the time of cormac mac fáeláin; one year's protection to him to whom it is recited. 63. the three halidoms of the men of ireland: breast, cheek, knee. 64. three unfortunate things for a man: a scant drink of water, thirst in an ale-house, a narrow seat upon a field. 65. three unfortunate things of husbandry: a dirty field, leavings of the hurdle, a house full of sparks. 66. three forbidden things of a church: a nun as bellringer, a veteran in the abbotship, a drop upon the altar. 67. three rejoicings followed by sorrow: a wooer's, a thief's, a tale-bearer's. 68. three sorrows that are better than joy: the heaviness of a herd feeding on mast, the heaviness of a ripe field,[49] the heaviness of a wood under mast. [49] 'of a ripening field,' bm. 69. three rejoicings that are worse than sorrow: the joy of a man who has defrauded another, the joy of a man who has perjured himself, the joy of a man who has committed parricide.[50] [50] 'of a man who has slain his brother in contesting his land,' bm. 70. the three worst welcomes: a handicraft in the same house with the inmates, scalding water upon the feet, salt food without a drink. 71. three unfortunate things for the son of a peasant: marrying into the family of a franklin, attaching himself to the retinue of a king, consorting with thieves. 72. three unfortunate things for a householder: proposing to a bad woman, serving a bad chief, exchanging for bad land. 73. three excellent things for a householder: proposing to a good woman, serving a good chief, exchanging for good land. 74. trí hóenaig eserte: célide hi tig gobann, célide hi tig [.s]áir, dul do chennuch cen áirche. [note 74: hænaigi nasearta b neiseirti h haonaige neserte n esertai lec airrdhe n] 75. trí cóil ata ferr folongat in mbith: cóil srithide hi folldeirb, cóil foichne for tuinn, cóil snáithe dar dorn dagmná. [note 75: foloingead imbith b is ferr isin mbith n sreibe llec srithide b srithide foildeirb n] 76. trí duirn ata dech for bith: dorn deg[.s]áir, dorn degmná, dorn deggobann. [note 76: for doman bm dorn sair dorn gabonn dorn daim n degdaim bm] 77. tréde conaittig fírinne: mess, tomus, cubus. [note 77: tri conaitig b] 78. tréde conaittig brethemnas: gáis, féige, fiss. [note 78: a tri conaitig b] 79. trí túarascbála étraid: osnad, cluiche, céilide. [note 79: osnaid n miad lbm] 80. tréde ara carthar escara: máin, cruth, innraccus. [note 80: a tri bm treidi h gnás alaig erlabra hm airdearcus b] 81. tréde ara miscnigther cara: fogal, dognas, dímainche. [note 81: treidi h a tri m tri l fogail h dimainecht hm] 82. trí buirb in betha: óc contibi sen, slán contibi galarach, gáeth contibi báeth. [note 82: contib bm contibe n gallrach bm gallrai n bæth contib gæth bm] 83. trí buidir in betha: robud do throich, airchisecht fri faigdech, cosc mná báithe do drúis. [note 83: urchuidme ria foidhech n ærcuidmed fri foigeaeh b mná druithi b] 84. trí cáin docelat éitchi: sobés la anricht, áne la dóer, ecna la dodelb. [note 84: doceilead eitig b handracht b dodealb b dodeilb n] 85. trí héitich docelat cáin: bó binnech cen as, ech án amlúath, sodelb cen tothucht. [note 85: doceiled bm beinnech n] 86. trí óible adannat seirc: gnúis, alaig, erlabra. [note 86: haibne adannaid searc b adanta serce n alaid n] 87. trí haithne co fomailt: aithne mná, aithne eich, aithne [.s]alainn. [note 87: haithneada lec tomailt b salainn l] 88. trí búada téiti: ben cháem, ech maith, cú lúath. [note 88: teite n buadnasa tétnai hbmlec] 89. trí ségainni hérenn: fáthrann, adbann a cruit, berrad aigthe. [note 89: segaind m tri comartha segainn n segraind b hérenn _om._ mb fatraind b fadbann n fadhbond mb aigthe _om._ bm a cruit _om._ mn] 74. three holidays[51] of a landless man[52]: visiting in the house of a blacksmith, visiting in the house of a carpenter, buying without bonds. [51] or, perhaps, 'fairs, foregatherings.' [52] or 'vagrant.' 75. three slender things that best support the world: the slender stream of milk from the cow's dug into the pail, the slender blade of green corn upon the ground, the slender thread over the hand of a skilled woman. 76. three hands that are best in the world: the hand of a good carpenter, the hand of a skilled woman, the hand of a good smith. 77. three things which justice demands: judgment, measure, conscience. 78. three things which judgment demands: wisdom, penetration, knowledge. 79. three characteristics of concupiscence: sighing, playfulness,[53] visiting. [53] or 'dalliance.' 80. three things for which an enemy is loved: wealth, beauty, worth.[54] [54] 'distinction,' b. 'familiarity, fame (leg. allad), speech,' h. 81. three things for which a friend is hated: trespassing,[55] keeping aloof,[56] fecklessness. [55] or 'encroaching.' [56] literally, 'unfamiliarity.' 82. three rude ones of the world: a youngster mocking an old man, a healthy person mocking an invalid, a wise man mocking a fool. 83. three deaf ones of the world: warning to a doomed man, mocking[57] a beggar, keeping a loose woman from lust. [57] 'pitying,' l. 84. three fair things that hide ugliness: good manners in the ill-favoured, skill in a serf, wisdom in the misshapen. 85. three ugly things that hide fairness: a sweet-lowing cow without milk, a fine horse without speed, a fine person without substance. 86. three sparks that kindle love: a face, demeanour, speech. 87. three deposits with usufruct: depositing a woman, a horse, salt. 88. three glories of a gathering: a beautiful wife, a good horse, a swift hound. 89. three accomplishments of ireland: a witty stave, a tune on the harp,[58] shaving a face. [58] literally, 'out of a harp.' 90. trí comartha clúanaigi: búaidriud scél, cluiche tenn, abucht co n-imdergad. [note 90: tri comartha cluanaide n clu ænaigh m cluænaige b teinn l tind bm abocht hlec abhacht m co n-imnead nó imdergad hlec co n-uaithiss l co n-aitis n] 91. trí gena ata messu brón: gen snechta oc legad, gen do mná frit íar mbith [.f]ir aili lé, gen chon [.f]oilmnich. [note 91: ad meassam hmb mesom l drochmna ln frit _om._ l iar fes le fer n-aili h iar mbeith fri araile bm foleimnighe n foilmig dot letrad h foleimnigh (foilmnig b) agud rochtain dott ithe mb] 92. trí báis ata ferr bethaid: bás iach, bás muicce méithe, bás foglada. [note 92: ad hbm beatha h iaich l bás iaich bás muici meithi bás fodhladlu l fogladai n fodalada b bás bithbenaig b luifenaich lec] 93. trí húathaid ata ferr sochaidi: úathad dagbríathar, úathad bó hi feór, úathad carat im chuirm. [note 93: uath ada n ad m is h deagbriathar h degflaith mb] 94. trí brónaig choirmthige: fer dogní fleid, fer dia ndéntar, fer ibes menip sáithech [note 94: fleid _om._ b fer nostairbir h fer teid dia tairtiud minab saitheach m] 95. trí cuitbidi in domain: fer lonn, fer étaid, fer díbech. [note 95: cuidmidi h] 96. trí cuil túaithe: flaith brécach, breithem gúach, sacart colach. [note 96: flaitheamh bm sacart tuisledach n sagart diultach b diultadhach m] 97. trí fuiric thige degduni: cuirm, fothrucud, tene mór. [note 97: fuiric .i. fleadh nó féasta b daghduine n] 98. trí fuiric thige drochduni: debuid ar do chinn, athchosan frit, a chú dot gabáil. [note 98: achmusan nbm a cu dod ledrad n do congabail m drochscel lat immach l] 99. trí gretha tige degláich: grith fodla, grith suide, grith coméirge. [note 99: tri grith l tri gartha m fogla l suigidhe bm] 100. trí dorchæ ná dlegat mná do imthecht: dorcha cíach, dorcha aidche, dorcha feda. [note 100: nach dleguid n narfacad do mnai imteact b d'imtecht nm] 101. trí sailge boccachta: imgellad, immarbág, imreson. [note 101: soilge bm imgellad bag l imarbaid imreasain bm imarbaigh imressain n imreason nó imraichni l] 102. trí airisena boccachta: sírchéilide, sírdécsain, síriarfaige. [note 102: hærsenna bm hairisin n sirfiarfaighe m sirfiarfaigid n] 90. three ungentlemanly things: interrupting stories, a mischievous game, jesting so as to raise a blush. 91. three smiles that are worse than sorrow: the smile of the snow as it melts, the smile of your wife[59] on you after another man has been with her,[60] the grin of a hound ready to leap at you.[61] [59] 'of a bad woman,' ln. [60] 'after sleeping with another man,' h. [61] 'to tear you to pieces,' h. 'coming up to devour you,' mb. 92. three deaths that are better than life: the death of a salmon, the death of a fat pig, the death of a robber.[62] [62] 'of a criminal,' b. 93. three fewnesses that are better than plenty: a fewness of fine words, a fewness of cows in grass, a fewness of friends around ale.[63] [63] 'good ale,' mb. 94. three sorrowful ones of an alehouse: the man who gives the feast, the man to whom it is given, the man who drinks without being satiated.[64] [64] 'who goes to it unsatiated,' m. _i.e._ who drinks on an empty stomach. 95. three laughing-stocks of the world: an angry man, a jealous man, a niggard. 96. three ruins of a tribe: a lying chief, a false judge, a lustful[65] priest. [65] 'stumbling, offending,' n. 'fond of refusing,' b. 97. three preparations of a good man's house: ale, a bath, a large fire. 98. three preparations of a bad man's house: strife before you, complaining to you, his hound taking hold of you.[66] [66] 'tearing you,' n. 'a bad story to speed you on your way,' l. 99. three shouts of a good warrior's house: the shout of distribution, the shout of sitting down, the shout of rising up. 100. three darknesses into which women should not go: the darkness of mist, the darkness of night, the darkness of a wood. 101. three props of obstinacy[67]: pledging oneself, contending, wrangling. 102. three characteristics of obstinacy[67]: long visits, staring, constant questioning. [67] literally, 'buckishness.' 103. trí comartha meraigi: slicht a chíre ina [.f]olt, slicht a [.f]íacal ina chuit, slicht a luirge ina diaid. [note 103: comarthadha m meraigthe n 'na cend bm 'na cuit bm inandiaig b na diaidh m] 104. trí máidme clúanaigi: ató ar do scáth, rosaltrus fort, rotflinch_us_ com étach. [note 104: cluainige bm ato bm atu l rodsaltar m rosaltrur ort l rosflinch_us_ com edach n rofliuchus com ediuch bm comh edach l] 105. trí bí focherdat marbdili: oss foceird a congna, fid foceird a duille, cethra focerdat a mbrén[.f]inda. [note 105: _om._ bmhlec] 106. trí scenb hérenn: tulach na nepscop, ached déo, duma mbúirig. [note 106: _om._ bmhlec achad n] 107. trí hingnad hérenn: lige inn abaic, lige neothuili, allabair i foccus. [note 107: _om._ bmhlec hinganta n allubuir a fogus n] 108. trí daurthige hérenn: daurthech birra, daurthech clúana eidnech, daurthech leithglinde. [note 108: _om._ bmhlec] 109. trí hingena berta miscais do míthocod: labra, lesca, anidna. [note 109: do mitocuid n do togud bm lesce n anidna n nemidna bm .i. esinrucas _add._ h] 110. trí hingena berta seirc do cháintocud: túa, éscuss, idnæ. [note 110: beres l berta seircce de caintogud bm serc n caintocaid n tri hadbair serci lec tóa esces idna n esca bmlec] 111. trí túa ata ferr labra: túa fri forcital, túa fri hairfitiud, túa fri procept. [note 111: labrai n sproicept b sproicepht m fri aithfrend n] 112. trí labra ata ferr túa: ochán rig do chath, sreth immais, molad iar lúag. [note 112: uchan n ocon_n_ bm hairfidiud _nó_ fís bm luadh b] 113. trí hailgesa étúalaing .i. éirg cen co dechais, tuc cenitbé, déna ceni derna. [note 113: haisgeadha edualaing b erg gen cotis h tuc gen gud beirg (?) gen go gaemais dena gen go heda b tuca gen cobe n gen gudbe m gen [go] dernais n gen go feta hm] 114. trí hamaite bít[e] i ndrochthig óiged .i. sentrichem senchaillige, roschaullach ingine móile, sirite gillai. [note 114: hamaide drochtoighe bm sentriche caillige bm sentrichim n rosc cailleach ingine siridhe gillai bm siride n sirithe l] 115. trí hairig na ndúalche: sant, cráes, étrad. 103. three signs of a fop: the track of his comb in his hair, the track of his teeth in his food, the track of his stick[68] behind him. [68] or 'cudgel.' 104. three ungentlemanly boasts: i am on your track, i have trampled on you, i have wet you with my dress. 105. three live ones that put away dead things: a deer shedding its horn, a wood shedding its leaves, cattle shedding their coat.[69] [69] literally, 'stinking hair.' 106. three places of ireland to make you start: tulach na n-escop,[70] achad deo,[71] duma mbuirig. [70] a hill near kildare. see thesaurus palæo-hibernicus ii.. p. 335. [71] at tara. see todd's _irish nennius_, p. 200. 107. three wonders of ireland: the grave of the dwarf,[72] the grave of trawohelly,[73] an echo near.[74] [72] somewhere in the west (i n-iarthar erenn, fél., p. clvii). [73] see todd's _irish nennius_, p. 199, and zeitschrift für celt. phil, v., p. 23. [74] nothing is known to me about this wonder. 108. three oratories of ireland: the oratory of birr, the oratory of clonenagh, the oratory of leighlin. 109. three maidens that bring hatred upon misfortune: talking, laziness, insincerity. 110. three maidens that bring love to good fortune: silence, diligence, sincerity. 111. three silences that are better than speech: silence during instruction, silence during music, silence during preaching. 112. three speeches that are better than silence: inciting a king to battle, spreading knowledge (?),[75] praise after reward.[76] [75] _sreth immais_, which i have tentatively translated by 'spreading knowledge,' is used as a technical term in poetry for connecting all the words of a verse-line by alliteration, as e.g. _slatt_, _sacc_, _socc_, _simend_, _saland_. see ir. texte iii., p. 30. [76] _cf._ ll. 344_a_: carpre asks cormac what are the sweetest things he has heard, and cormac answers: 'a shout of triumph after victory, praise after reward, the invitation of a fair woman to her pillow.' 113. three impossible demands: go! though you cannot go, bring what you have not got, do what you cannot do. 114. three idiots that are in a bad guest-house: the chronic cough of an old hag, a brainless tartar of a girl, a hobgoblin of a gillie. 115. the three chief sins: avarice, gluttony, lust. 116. tréde neimthigedar crossán: rige óile, rige théighe, rige bronn. 117. tréde neimthigedar círmaire: coimrith fri coin hi[c] cosnum chnáma, adarc reithi do dírgud dia anáil cen tenid, dichetal for ochtraig co rathochra a mbí ina íchtur for a úachtar do cho[.n]gna [et] cnámaib [et] adarcaib. [note 117: _om._ bmhlec dirge n otrach n corotochra n a mbid na hichtar n huachtar n congnaim n] 118. tréde nemthigedar sáer: dlúthud cen fomus, cen fescred, lúd lúadrinna, béimm fo chommus. [note 118: _om._ bmhlec tri ara neimit_er_ n dluthugud n feiscre n ludh luaithreand n] 119. tréde neimthigedar liaig: dígallræ, díainme, comchissi ce_n_ ainchiss. [note 119: _om._ bmhlec ara neimit_er_ liagh n coimcisin gin ainces n] 120. tréde neimthigedar gobainn: bir neithin, fulacht na morrígna, inneóin in dagda. [note 120: _om._ bmhlec ara neimit_er_ gobaind n bir ndechin n] 121. tréde neimthigedar cerdai: fige ronn, cær comraic, plett for fæbur. [note 121: _om._ bmhlec cerd n flet n] 122. tréde neimthigedar cruitire: golltraige, gentraige, súantraige. [note 122-123: _om._ bmhlec] 123. tréde neimthigedar filid: immas forosna, teinm læda, dichetal di chennaib. 124. dá mígairm míthocaid: commáidem do chétguine, do ben la fer n-aile. [note 124: atte dá ní igairm (!) do neoch .i. maidem a c_hét_guine [et] a bean do beith fri fer n-aill bm mitocaid n a cedgona n a ben la fer n-aile n] 125. teora airi[se]na iarnduba: comar, cocless, clemnas. [note 125: tri hairnadmand bmn iardubha m coicless lm coicle m] 126. trí bainne cétmuintire: bainne fola, bainne dér, bainne aillse. [note 126: banda nbm] 127. trí coiri bíte in cach dúini: coire érma, coire goriath, coire áiged. [note 127: core b duini l duine b goiriat n aitiu n notead b notheadh m] 116. three things that constitute a buffoon: blowing out his cheek, blowing out his satchel, blowing out his belly. 117. three things that constitute a comb-maker: racing a hound in contending for a bone; straightening a ram's horn by his breath, without fire; chanting upon a dunghill so that all antlers and bones and horns that are below come to the top. 118. three things that constitute a carpenter: joining together without calculating (?), without warping (?); agility with the compass; a well-measured stroke. 119. three things that constitute a physician: a complete cure, leaving no blemish behind, a painless examination. 120. three things that constitute a blacksmith: nethin's spit, the cooking-hearth of the morrigan, the dagda's anvil.[77] [77] for a description and pictures of these appliances, see ybl., p. 419_a_, and egerton, 1782, fo. 46_a_. 121. three things that constitute an artificer: weaving chains, a mosaic ball,[78] an edge upon a blade. [78] o'curry, manners and customs, ii., p. 253, thought that a _caer comraic_ was 'a ball of convergent ribs or lines,' perhaps such a bead or ball of mosaic glass as is depicted in joyce's _social history of ancient ireland_, vol. ii., p. 32, fig. 171. _a cáer comraic_ of eight different colours is mentioned in lb. 108_b_ 20. 122. three things that constitute a harper: a tune to make you cry, a tune to make you laugh, a tune to put you to sleep.[79] [79] _cf._ h. 3. 18, p. 87: tréide nemtighther cruit; goltraiges, gentraiges, suantraiges. 123. three things that constitute a poet: 'knowledge that illumines,' '_teinm laeda_,'[80] improvisation. [80] the names of various kinds of incantations. see cormac's glossary and ancient laws, s.v. 124. two ominous cries of ill-luck: boasting of your first slaughter, and of your wife being with another man. 125. three things betokening trouble: holding a plough-land in common, performing feats together, alliance in marriage. 126. three drops of a wedded woman: a drop of blood, a tear-drop, a drop of sweat. 127. three caldrons that are in every fort: the caldron of running, the caldron _goriath_,[81] the caldron of guests. [81] quite obscure to me. there is a heavily glossed poem in h. 3. 18, beginning _coire goriath_. in h. 2. 15, p. 117^b, after the colophon to dúil laithne (goid.,^2 p. 79), there are some further glosses, among which i find: goiriath .i. gardhamh in gach iath, erma .i. uasal-iompú no iar-iompa. but _érma_ seems the genitive of _érim_, 'a course.' 128. trí comartha láthraig bendachtan: clocc, salm, senad. [note 128: lathrach bennachtan h bendacht l senad nbmh ocsenad l] 129. trí comartha láthraig mallachtan: tromm, tradna, nenaid. [note 129: mallachtan hm neanad b neanntoch m tradnai bm tradna h] 130. teora muimmecha táide: caill, coim, adaig. [note 130: tri muime bm tri buime gaiti h coill hm] 131. teora ranna sluinte fri cáintocad: trumma, toicthiu, talchaire. [note 131: sloindti caintocaid n toicte n] 132. teora ranna sluinte dotcaid: tlás, áes, airbire. [note 132: dotcaid n tlass ois oirbire n] 133. dí derb[.s]iair: tlás [et] trúaige. [note 133: siair l tlas [et] trousca n truaighe bmh] 134. dá derbráthair: tocad [et] brugaide. [note 134: brathair m toice [et] blailaige n togud b tacad h] 135. trí fuidb dotcadaig: ráthaiges, etargaire, fiadnaise. dotoing dia fiadnaisi, íccaid dia ráthaiges, doberar béimm n-etaigaire ina chinn. [note 135: foidb dothcadaigh m toindid a fiadnaisi bm iccaid a rathaigecht beiridh builleadha etargaire ina cind bm.] 136. trí sethraeha góa: béss, dóig, toimtiu. [note 136: toimdi l] 137. trí bráthair uamain: sta! sit! coiste! [note 137: braitri n omain bm ist sta [et] coisde bm sta sit coist n] 138. trí mairb fortgellat for bíu: med, airmed, forrach. [note 138: forgellait h for fiu bm meid armeid bm forach h] 139. trí brothcáin rátha: rothicc, rosiacht, rotochtaig. [note 139: brothcain ratha n raithi l rodícc rosiacht roto_n_cai n] 140. trí dubthrebtha: tuga co fúatchai, imme co for[.n]gaire, tírad co n-aurgorad. [note 140: doidbtrebtai tugai co fodaib imed co forrngaire n tuighe go foidibh m co foitib lec tiriudh m] 141. trí hiarnduba: fer tochmairc, fer gaite meirle, fer hic aisnéis. [note 141: fear fochairc lec fer aisneisi n] 142. trí maic beres drús do lonnus: tuilféth, fidchell, dulsaine. [note 142: lundus n tulfeith n dullsaine l] 143. trí maic beres féile do ainmnit: grúss, rúss, rucca. [note 143: ainmned n grús rús rucad n] 144. trí maic beres neóit do deinmnait: crith, dochell, grith. [note 144: deinmnet n grith crith doicell n] 145. trí húar fíchte: tipra, muir, núæ corma. [note 145: huara n] 146. trí fúammann móaigthe: fúam bó mblecht, fúam cerdchæ, fúam aratbair. [note 146: fuamandu moaigti n moigthi l fuaim bo mblicht n] 128. three tokens of a blessed site: a bell, psalm-singing, a synod (of elders). 129. three tokens of a cursed site: elder, a corncrake, nettles.[82] [82] see my edition of _cáin adamnáin_, p. 13, note 3, and p. 38. 130. three nurses of theft: a wood, a cloak, night. 131. three qualities[83] that bespeak good fortune: self-importance, ..., self-will. [83] literally, 'parts.' 132. three qualities[84] that bespeak misfortune: weariness, (premature) old age, reproachfulness. [84] literally, 'heaviness, weight.' 133. two sisters: weariness and wretchedness. 134. two brothers: prosperity and husbandry. 135. three unlucky...:[85] guaranteeing, mediating, witnessing. the witness has to swear to his evidence, the guarantor has to pay for his security, the mediator gets a blow on his head.[86] [85] the usual meanings of _fodb_, 'accoutrement, equipment, arms,' do not seem to suit here. [86] literally, 'the blow of mediation is dealt on his head.' 136. three false sisters: 'perhaps,' 'may be,' 'i dare say.' 137. three timid brothers: 'hush!' 'stop!' 'listen!' 138. three dead things that give evidence on live things: a pair of scales, a bushel, a measuring-rod. 139. three pottages of guaranteeing....[87] [87] obscure and probably corrupt. cf. § 219. 140. three black husbandries: thatching with stolen things,[88] putting up a fence with a proclamation of trespass, kiln-drying with scorching. [88] 'with sods,' nml, perperam. 141. three after-sorrows: a wooer's, a thief's, a tale-bearer's. 142. three sons whom folly bears to anger: frowning, ... ,[89] mockery (?). [89] _fidchell_, the well-known game, gives no sense here. 143. three sons whom generosity bears to patience: ... , blushing, shame. 144. three sons whom churlishness bears to impatience: trembling, niggardliness, vociferation. 145. three cold things that seethe: a well, the sea, new ale. 146. three sounds of increase: the lowing of a cow in milk, the din of a smithy, the swish of a plough. 147. trí hana antreinn: tipra i sléib, tene a liic, ana la fer calad. [note 147: luc mss. anai la fear calaid n] 148. trí aithgine in domuin: brú mná, uth bó, ness gobann. [note 148: haitgine n aithgeinit l corathgen b coratgen m bru birite bm meas(!) bmlec] 149. trí diubarta forsná íada dílse: tinnscra mná, imthomailt lánamna, iarraid maicc. [note 149: hiad n imtomailt n iarr_aid_ menicc(!) l] 150. trí cuir tintaiter do réir britheman: cor mná [et] micc [et] bothaich. [note 150: tinntaigter n] 151. trí nata[t] túalaing sainchuir: mac beo-athar, ben aurnadma, dóer flatha. [note 151: nad n] 152. trí maic nad rannat orbai: mac muini [et] aurlai [et] ingine fo thrilis. [note 152: erlai n] 153. trí ái nad eplet faill: ái dochuind, [et] dochraite, [et] anfis. [note 153: dochainn n docraite n] 154. trí fuile ná dlegat frecor: fuil catha, [et] eóit, [et] etargaire. [note 154: nad n etargaire n] 155. trí fuchachta nad increnat slabrai: a gabáil ar écin, a sleith tri mescai, a turtugud do ríg. [note 155: fúíchechta n slaibri n] 156. trí ná dlegat turbaidi: athchor maic, aicdi cherdai, gíallaigecht. [note 156: nad dlegait turbaid n aige cerda n] 157. trí aithne ná dlegat taisec: aithne n-écuind, [et] ardneimid [et] aithne fuirmeda. [note 157: haitne nad dlegait taisec n ecoind n fuirmidai l] 158. trí mairb direnaiter beoaib: aball, coll, fidnemed. [note 158: dorenatar beo n] 159. trí[ar] ná ditoing ná fortongar: ben, angar, amlabar. [note 159: dotoing na fortoing_er_ l amlobar n] 160. trí ná dlegat athchommus: mac [et] a athair, ben [et] a céile, dóer [et] a thigerna. [note 160: na dlegait n] 161. trí nát fuigletar cia beith ar a ngáes: fer adgair [et] adgairther [et] focrenar fri breith. [note 161: nat fuigletar cia beit n fer adgair [et] adgair (sic) [et] adgairter [et] rocrenar n] 162. trí fors ná tuit aititiu 'na ré: bás, anfis, anfaitches. [note 162: anfuichc_h_es l anbaitces n] 147. three wealths in barren places: a well in a mountain, fire out of a stone, wealth in the possession of a hard man. 148. three renovators of the world: the womb of woman, a cow's udder, a smith's moulding-block. 149. three concealments upon which forfeiture does not close: a wife's dowry, the food of a married couple, a boy's foster-fee. 150. three contracts that are reversed by the decision of a judge: the contracts of a woman, of a son, of a cottar. 151. three that are incapable of special contracts[90]: a son whose father is alive, a betrothed woman, the serf of a chief. [90] or, 'of contracts on their own behalf.' 152. three sons that do not share inheritance: a son begotten in a brake,[91] the son of a slave, the son of a girl still wearing tresses. [91] cf. the expression _meirdrech muine_, 'a bush-strumpet,' laws v. 176, 4. 153. three causes that do not die with neglect: the causes of an imbecile, and of oppression, and of ignorance. 154. three bloodsheds that need not be impugned: the bloodshed of battle, of jealousy, of mediating. 155. three cohabitations[92] that do not pay a marriage-portion: taking her by force, outraging her without her knowledge through drunkenness, her being violated by a king. [92] _fuchacht_, or _fuichecht_, usually means 'cuckoldry,' a meaning which does not seem to suit here. 156. three that are not entitled to exemption: restoring a son, the tools of an artificer, hostageship. 157. three deposits that need not be returned: the deposits of an imbecile,[93] and of a high dignitary, and a fixed deposit.[94] [93] _i.e._ a deposit made by an imbecile. _cf._ plato, republic: "but surely you would never give back to a mad friend a sword which he had lent you?" [94] but in the heptads (laws v. 196, 3) _aithne fuirmida_, there rendered by 'a deposited charge,' is enumerated as one of those to be restored even if there are no bonds to that effect. 158. three dead ones that are paid for with living things: an apple-tree, a hazle-bush, a sacred grove.[95] [95] there is nothing in the laws to explain this. 159. three that neither swear nor are sworn: a woman, a son who does not support his father, a dumb person. 160. three that are not entitled to renunciation of authority: a son and his father, a wife and her husband, a serf and his lord. 161. three who do not adjudicate though they are possessed of wisdom: a man who sues, a man who is being sued, a man who is bribed to give judgment. 162. three on whom acknowledgment does not fall in its time: death, ignorance, carelessness. 163. trí foimrimme ná dlegad díre: homan, robud, toxal. [note 163: foimrime n foimrenn l na dlegaid n robad n] 164. trí duilgine conrannat gníaid: duilgine coiri, duilgine muilinn, duilgine tige. [note 164: duilcinne n conrenad gnia n] 165. trí nóill doná dlegar frithnóill: nóill mná fri húaitni, nóill fir mairb, nóill díthir. [note 165: naill nad dlegad fritnáill luige mna n luide n luige ditire n] 166. trí gráda coillte túath ina ngói: gói ríg, gói [.s]enchada, gói bretheman. [note 166-220: _om._ hbmlec inango n go n] 167. trí sóir dogníat dóeru díb féin: tigerna renas a déiss, rígan téite co haithech, mac filed léces a cheird. [note 167: daoir dib fein n des n deissi l teid n treiges a cerd n] 168. trí ruip conberat duinechinaid: cú áraig, reithe lonn, ech daintech. [note 168: araid n reithid n daindtech n] 169. trí ruip ara tíagat cinta: cú foilm[n]ech, sleg caille, slissén chomneibi. 170. trí imuserenat: saill, imm, iarn, fechemnas toisc leimmid eicsi. [note 170: imus crenait saill n sall l iaronn n feitemnus toisc leine im eiccsi n] 171. trí comartha aragella i tig britheman: ecna, aisnéis, intlecht. [note 171: comardda l aragellat a tig bretheman n taig l aisnesen intliuchtach l] 172. trí dlegat aurfocrai: aél coire, fidba cen [.s]eim, ord cen dimosc. [note 172: dlegait urfogræ n fidbaigh can tseim ord gan dimosc n dinsem l] 173. trí doruis gúa: tacra fergach, fotha n-utmall n-eolais, aisnéis cen chuimni. [note 173: fothad utmall n eolus aisena oca_n_ coimni n] 174. trí doruis a n-aichnither fír: frecra n-ainmnetach, ái fossad, sóud fri fíadnu. [note 174: an aithnit_er_ fiorinne n freaccra n-ainmnedach n ainmeta l ai fosaid sodad n] 175. trí búada airechta: brithem cen fúasnad, etirchert cen écnach, coma cen diupairt. [note 175: fuasna l] 176. trí tonna cen gáissi: tacra calad, breth cen eolas, airecht labar. [note 176: ton_n_a gaisi n donnadgaissi l tonna gan gaoise h. 1. 11 brethem n] 177. trí búada insci: fosta, gáis, gairde. [note 177: buadad innsce n gois n] 178. trí cumtaig gáisse: immed n-eolais, lín fássach, dagaigni do airbirt. [note 178: lion fasaid n] 163. three usucaptions that are not entitled to a fine: fear, warning, asportation. 164. three wages that labourers share: the wages of a caldron,[96] the wages of a mill, the wages of a house. [96] _i.e._ of making a caldron, &c. 165. three oaths that do not require fulfilment[97]: the oath of a woman in birth-pangs, the oath of a dead man, the oath of a landless man. [97] literally, 'a counter-oath, a second oath.' 166. three ranks that ruin tribes in their falsehood: the falsehood of a king, of a historian, of a judge. 167. three free ones that make slaves of themselves: a lord who sells his land, a queen who goes to a boor, a poet's son who abandons his (father's) craft. 168. three brutes whose trespasses count as human crimes: a chained hound, a ferocious ram, a biting horse. 169. three brutish things that atone for crimes: a leashed hound, a spike in a wood, a lath....[98] [98] _comneibi_ is a [greek: hapax legomenon] to me. 170. three things that ... salt-meat, butter, iron....[99] 171. three signs that ... [99] in a judge's house: wisdom, information, intellect. 172. three things that should be proclaimed: the flesh-fork of a caldron, a bill-hook without a rivet, a sledge-hammer without....[99] [99] obscure and probably corrupt. 173. three doors of falsehood: an angry pleading, a shifting foundation of knowledge, giving information without memory. 174. three doors through which truth is recognised: a patient answer, a firm pleading, appealing to witnesses. 175. three glories of a gathering: a judge without perturbation, a decision without reviling, terms (agreed upon) without fraud. 176. three waves without wisdom: hard pleading, judgment without knowledge, a talkative gathering. 177. three glories of speech: steadiness, wisdom, brevity. 178. three ornaments of wisdom: abundance of knowledge, a number of precedents, to employ a good counsel. 179. trí miscena indsci: rigne, dlúithe, dulbaire. [note 179: miscne indsce n raighni l] 180. trí fostai dagbanais: fosta thengad [et] gensa [et] airnb_ern_tais. [note 180: fosta n fostadh tengad n airb_er_tais n] 181. trí fóindil drochbanais: fóindil scél [et] ataid [et] airberntais. [note 181: _om._ n] 182. trí búada étaig: maisse, clithcha, suthaine. [note 182: buadhad n cliche n] 183. trí ná dlegat othras: fer aslúi flaith [et] fini [et] fili. [note 183: nad d_leg_ait dire fer doslaig flaith [et] file [et] fine n feili l] 184. trí tharsuinn archuillet othras: echmuir, mil, saillti. [note 184: tharsunn l tarsuind aircaillti othiais n] 185. trí mná ná dlegat díri: ben lasma cuma cipé las fái, ben gatach, ben aupthach. [note 185: nat d_leg_ait n cia las f(a)oi n optach n] 186. trí dofortat cach flaith: góu, forsnaidm, fingal. [note 186: dofortad gach fl_ath_a n] 187. trí túarascbait cach ngenmnaide: fosta, féile, sobraide. [note 187: tuarascb_ál_a genmnaid fostad n] 188. trí ara n-aichnider cach fergach: ír, crith, imbánad. [note 188: tri aichnider l aranaithnent_ur_ n hir l] 189. trí thúarascbait cach n-ainmnetach: sámtha, túa, imderead. [note 189: tuarascbalai gach nainmnedaigh samtad n tuai l] 19o. trí thúarascbait cach n-úallach: mórthu, maisse, máine. [note 190: tuaruscbalai cach ndubalcai mortha n] 191. trí forindet cach n-umal: bochtatu, dínnime, humallóit. [note 191: forinded n bochtai n] 192. trí airdi gáisse: ainmne, faiscsiu, fáthaige. [note 192: hairdhe n faicsi fathaidhi n] 193. trí airdi drúisse: bág, imresain, condailbe. [note 193: _om._ n] 194. tréde immifoilnge gáis do báeth: ecna, fosta, sochoisce. [note 194: imfuilnge n] 195. tréde immifoilnge báis do gáeth: fúasnad, ferg, mesca. [note 195: imfailnge baoth n] 196. tréde faillsiges cach ndag[.f]eras: dán, gaisced, crésine. [note 196: cach degfer_us_ n cresenai n] 197. tréde faillsigedar cach ndroch[.f]eras: serba, miscais, midlachas. [note 197: faillsigh_us_ cach drochferus n] 198. trí foglúaiset fóenledchu: ingreim, dolud, dommatu. [note 198: fainnelca n dolai n] 179. three hateful things in speech: stiffness,[100] obscurity, a bad delivery. [100] in mod. ir. _righneas labhartha_ means 'an impediment in speech.' see dinneen's dictionary, s.v. 180. three steadinesses of good womanhood: keeping a steady tongue, a steady chastity, and a steady housewifery. 181. three strayings of bad womanhood: letting her tongue,[101] and ... and her housewifery go astray. [101] literally, 'stories.' 182. three excellences of dress: elegance, comfort, lastingness. 183. three that are not entitled to sick-maintenance: a man who absconds from his chief, from his family, from a poet. 184. three sauces that spoil a sick-bed: ...,[102] honey, salt food. [102] i believe _echmuir_ to be the name of a plant: but i cannot find the reference. 185. three women that are not entitled to a fine: a woman who does not care with whom she sleeps, a thievish woman, a sorceress. 186. three things that ruin every chief: falsehood, overreaching, parricide.[103] [103] or rather 'murder of relations.' 187. three things that characterise every chaste person: steadiness, modesty, sobriety. 188. three things by which every angry person is known: an outburst of passion, trembling, growing pale. 189. three things that characterise every patient person: repose, silence, blushing. 190. three things that characterise every haughty person: pompousness, elegance, (display of) wealth. 191. three things that tell every humble person: poverty, homeliness, servility. 192. three signs of wisdom: patience, closeness, the gift of prophecy. 193. three signs of folly: contention, wrangling, attachment (to everybody). 194. three things that make a fool wise: learning, steadiness, docility.[104] [104] _cf._ dán ecna dogni ríg do bocht, dogni gáeth do báeth, &c., ll. 346^a35. 195. three things that make a wise man foolish: quarrelling, anger, drunkenness. 196. three things that show every good man: a special gift,[105] valour, piety. [105] such as art, poetry, &c. 197. three things that show a bad man: bitterness, hatred, cowardice. 198. three things that set waifs a-wandering: persecution, loss, poverty. 199. trí slabrada hi cumregar clóine: cotach, ríagail, rechtge. [note 199: racht n] 200. trí all frisa timargar béscna: mainister, flaith, fine. [note 200: tri frisa n mineistir n flatha n] 201. trí caindle forosnat cach ndorcha: fír, aicned, ecna. 202. tréde neimthigedar ríg: fonaidm ruirech, feis temrach, roimse inna [.f]laith. [note 202: tri aran_em_it_er_ rí n] 203. trí glais foríadat rúine: náire, túa, dochta. [note 203: ruini l] 204. trí heochracha aroslicet imráitiu: mescca, tairisiu, serc. [note 204: oslaice imraite n] 205. trí orbai rannaiter fiad chomarbaib: orba drúith [et] orba dásachtaig [et] orba sin. [note 205: rannait fia comarbaoibh (_sic_) n] 206. trí seithir óited: tol, áilde, féile. [note 206: aide toil n] 207. trí seithir sentad: cnet, genas, éitche. 208. trí seithir sognáise: feidle, soithnges, cuinnmíne. [note 208: feili soingtes connamno n soithgnes l] 209. trí seithir dognáise: luinne, cétludche, tairismige. [note 209: cetluithche n] 210. trí seithir sotcaid: sognas, sochell, súarcus. [note 210: sottch n sothchaidh l sognais l] 211. trí seithir sochlatad: léire, trebaire, rathmaire. 212. trí seithir dochlatad: laxa, díbe, prapchaillte. [note 212: doclata n] 213. trí seithir ferge: écnach, augra, doithnges. [note 213: doingteas n] 214. trí seithir deirmiten: tromdatu, espatu, utmaille. 215. trí seithir airmiten: torbatu, airétrumma, fosta. 216. trí banlæ: lúan, mairt, cétáin. mná co firu innib, bid mó a serc la firu indá serc a fer leo-som [et] beit a mná tar éis na fer sin. [note 216: bandla n at mna beit tara n-eiseiu n] 217. trí ferlæ: .i. dardáin, áine, domnach. mná co firu intib, beitit na mná sin fo dígrad [et] beitit a fir dia n-éisi. satharn im_morro_ is laithe coitchenn. is comlíth dóib. lúan sáer do dul fri cach les. [note 217: aoine satharn _nó_ domnach n innib n beidis n] 218. trí gníma rátha: fosta, féile, lobra. fosta i n-árus, féile, arná ebra góe, lobra hícce .i. lécud a lomartha i n-indligud dar a [.f]echimain. [note 218: om. ratha l lubrai n anarus n heibre gói n lubrai ice .i. leacadh lomartha anindli_ged_ dar cenn feichi_man_ n] 199. three chains by which evil propensity is bound: a covenant, a (monastic) rule, law. 200. three rocks to which lawful behaviour is tied: a monastery,[106] a chieftain, the family. [106] 'the credence-table,' n., perperam. 201. three candles that illumine every darkness: truth, nature, knowledge. 202. three things that constitute a king: a contract with (other) kings, the feast of tara, abundance during his reign. 203. three locks that lock up secrets: shame, silence, closeness. 204. three keys that unlock thoughts: drunkenness, trustfulness, love. 205. three inheritances that are divided in the presence of heirs: the inheritance of a jester, of a madman, and of an old man. 206. three youthful sisters: desire, beauty, generosity. 207. three aged sisters: groaning, chastity, ugliness. 208. three well-bred sisters: constancy, well-spokenness, kindliness. 209. three ill-bred sisters: fierceness, lustfulness, obduracy. 210. three sisters of good fortune: good breeding, liberality, mirth. 211. three sisters of good repute: diligence, prudence, bountifulness. 212. three sisters of ill repute: inertness, grudging, closefistedness. 213. three angry sisters: blasphemy, strife, foulmouthedness. 214. three irreverent sisters: importunity, frivolity, flightiness. 215. three reverent sisters: usefulness, an easy bearing, firmness. 216. three woman-days: monday, tuesday, wednesday. if women go to men on those days, the men will love them better than they the men, and the women will survive the men. 217. three man-days: thursday, friday, sunday. if women go to men on those days, they will not be loved, and their husbands will survive them. saturday, however, is a common day. it is equally lucky to them. monday is a free day to undertake any business. 218. three duties of guarantorship: staying (at home), honesty, suffering (?); staying in one's residence, honesty lest he utter falsehood, suffering (?) payment, viz. letting oneself be stripped for an illegal action instead of the debtor. 219. trí brothcháin rátha: éir[i]c nó thogním fecheman no díthechte. [note 219: brocain n _no_ no thognim l ditechta n dithechdi l] 220. trí húais rátha [et] aitiri [et] nadma .i. dul fri dénam dúine ríg [et] daurthaige [et] choiri. ar is úais do fir fine do thabairt fria céili. [note 220: eit_er_i n nadmadh fri n] 221. trí as anergnaid do neoch: slaide a eich ríana thigerna co salaig a étach, dul ina chocar cen gairm, a sírdéicsiu ina agaid oc caithem neich. [note 221: is ainergna n tri saineargnaidh m slaige bn rena bmn sirdeicsin n sirdegsain bm caithium bm aeaitniem a coda n] 222. trí bassa téchtai: bass etir a assa [et] a ochrai, bass etir a ó [et] a berrad, bass etir chorthair a léined [et] a glún. [note 222: corrthair m] 223. cia mesam hi trebod? maic mná méile, fleda menci, clemna ile, immat meda scéo fína: notchrínat, ní thormaiget. [note 223: cidh is messa do treb_ad_ ni _hansa_ n mic b imad fianna nodcrinaid [et] nítoirmuigid bm imchiana (!) n nitormaigett n] 224. trí galair ata ferr sláinti: seola mná for mac, gríss bronn-galair glanas broinn, gríss timgaire olc dia maith. [note 224: seol n sceola(!) for fermac bm galar timargur olc do maith n timgaire b di maith b do maith m] 225. trí fáilti coirmthige: immed [et] dúthracht [et] elathó. [note 225: ealathaoi n ealado do neoch carthar bm] 226. trí fognama ata messam dogní duine: fognam do drochmnái [et] do drochthigerna [et] do drochgobainn. [note 226: mesa n drochflaith b drochf_er_ann n] 227. trí ata ferr i tig: daim, fir, béla. [note 227: dam n] 228. trí ata messum i tig: m_ai_c, mná, méile. [note 228: measum bite a taig mic bm] 229. trí comartha tirdachta .i. immargal [et] immarbág [et] meraichne. [note 229: im_ur_cal im_ur_baid imraithne n imabad lbm] 230. cenéle amus: salanaig buale [et] buicc brodnai [et] eóin erchoille [et] seiche corad. [note 230: cenela bm buale _om._ bm earcaille m córadh m] 231. cenéle dáileman: mórmenmnach meda, bolcsrónach brocóiti, itfa eserni, cúacroessach, donndabach, bolcra paitte, abartach escrai, geir grainne, cranndretel cuirn. [note 231: cenela bm metha h bolgsronach bm itfa eserne bm cuachroeasach bm cuachrochesach h baite bm haiti h abarthach easgraidh m gearr grandai b grenn graindi h crand rebartach h treiteal cuirnd m cuirnn l] 219. the pottages of guarantorship: wer-geld or a debtor's ... or non-possession (?)[107] [107] obscure and probably corrupt. cp. § 139. 220. three things hard to guarantee and to become a hostage and to make a contract for: to go security for constructing the fort of a king, an oratory, and a caldron. for it is hard for a man of a family to be given with (?) his fellow.[108] [108] i cannot make out the meaning of _doberim fri_. 221. three things that are undignified for everyone: driving one's horse before one's lord so as to soil his dress, going to speak to him without being summoned, staring in his face as he is eating his food. 222. three lawful handbreadths: a handbreadth between shoes and hose, a handbreadth between ear and hair, a handbreadth between the fringe of the tunic and the knee. 223. what is worst in a household? sons of a bawd, frequent feasts, numerous alliances in marriages, abundance of mead and wine. they waste you and do not profit. 224. three illnesses that are better than health: the lying-in of a woman with a male child, the fever of an abdominal disease that clears the bowels, a feverish passion to check evil by its good (?). 225. three welcomes of an ale-house: plenty and kindliness and art. 226. three services the worst that a man can serve: serving a bad woman, a bad lord, and a bad smith.[109] [109] 'bad land,' n. 227. three things that are best in a house: oxen,[110] men, axes. [110] 'an ox,' n. 228. three that are worst in a house: boys, women, lewdness.[111] [111] 'or, perhaps, as in § 223, 'sons of a lewd woman,' only in that case we have no triad. 229. three signs of boorishness: strife, and contention, and mistaking a person for another (?)[112] [112] or, perhaps, 'slight or superficial knowledge.' 230. various kinds of mercenaries: ....[113] 231. various kinds of dispensers: ....[113] [113] as i could only offer unsatisfactory guess-work as a translation of these passages, i omit them altogether. 232. trí as anso bís do accallaim .i. rí imma gabáil [et] gall ina lúirig [et] athech do muin commairchi. [note 232: annsom (andso h) do agallaim bís bhm rig m cumairce n a chumairci h] 233. trí as mó menma bís .i. scolóc íar légad a [.s]alm [et] gilla íar lécud a erraid úad [et] ingen íar ndénam mná dí. [note 233: trede bmhn scol_aigi_ n scolaidi h íar lecun a eri uada h íar leccad a arad uad n] 234. cetharda forná bí cosc nó ríagail .i. gilla sacairt [et] cú muilleórach [et] mac bantrebthaige [et] gamain gamnaige. [note 234: fornach bi bm ná bm gamnaidhe m] 235. tri húais dóib: dul ar ríg nó úasal nemid, ar is lethiu enech ríg aidbriud; dul fri cath, ar ní túalaing nech glinni fri cath acht ríg lasmbíat secht túatha foa mám; dul fri cimmidecht acht nech lasa mbí mug dóer. secht n-aurgarta dóib: dul ar deoraid, ar drúth [et] ar dásachtach, ar díaraig, ar angar, ar éconn, ar essconn. imnedach da_no_ cach ráth, ar is écen dí díanapud im cach ngell dob_eir_, aill riam, aill íarum. [note 235: n_em_i n it lethai l lethe n aidbriu n tulaing n glinde n acht nech laisimbiad n fo mam_m_i n cimbidheacht acht nech lasambiad mogh daor dil_es_ n dasachtaig n imnedach do_no_ cech raith n imni da_no_ l dianapad n dobeir n] 236. trí hamra glinne dalláin i tír eogain: torcc dromma leithe, is ass rochin [et] is dó-side for[.f]éimid finn ní, co torchair im maig lii la aithech búi hic tírad, ut dixit finn: ní mad biadsam ar cono. ní mad ríadsam ar n-echa tan is aithechán átha. romarb torcc dromma letha. míl leittreach dalláin, cenn duine fair, dénam builc gobann olchena .i. ech usci robói isind loch i tóeb na cille, is hé dochúaid ar ingín in t[.s]acairt co ndergene in míl frie. dam dili in tres ingnad. asind loch cétna táinic a athair co ndechaid for boin do búaib in brugad robói i fail na cille, co ndeirgenai in dam de. [note 236: as as rocin n forfeimdi n muig hi n muig hith h. 1.15 ma biasam n ma riadsim ar n-eacha n ricsam andechi l l_et_hæ n leithi l ase docoid n fria n isin n co nderrna an dam fria n] 232. three that are most difficult to talk to: a king about his booty, a viking in his hauberk, a boor who is under patronage. 233. three whose spirits are highest: a young scholar after having read his psalms, a youngster who has put on man's attire,[114] a maiden who has been made a woman. [114] literally, 'who has doffed his (boy's) clothes.' 234. four on whom there is neither restraint nor rule: the servant of a priest, a miller's hound, a widow's son, and a stripper's calf. 235. three hard things[115]: to go security on behalf of a king or highly privileged person, for a king's honour is wider than any claim; to go security for battle, for no one is capable of any security for a battle save a king under whose yoke are seven tribes; to go security for captivity, except one who owns a serf. seven prohibitions: to go security for an outlaw, for a jester and for a madman, for a person without bonds, for an unfilial person, for an imbecile, for one excommunicated. troublesome moreover is every security, for it is necessary for it to give sudden notice as regards every pledge which he gives, now beforehand, now afterwards. [115] i do not understand the force of _dóib_, 'to them,' either here or below after _secht n-aurgarta_. 236. three wonders of glenn dallan[116] in tirowen: the boar of druim leithe. it was born there, and finn was unable to do aught against it, until it fell in mag li[117] by a peasant who was kiln-drying. whence finn said: [116] now glencar, six miles to the north of the town of sligo. [117] the territory of the tir lí, west of the river bann. "not well have we fed our hounds, not well have we driven our horses, since a little boor from a kiln has killed the boar of druim leithe." the beast of lettir dallan. it has a human head and otherwise the shape of a smith's bellows. the water-horse which lived in the lake by the side of the church cohabited with the daughter of the priest and begot the beast upon her. the ox of dil[118] is the third wonder. its father came out of the same lake, and went upon one of the cows of the landholder who lived near the church, and begot the ox upon her. [118] the oxen of dil, daughter of míl or legmannair, are mentioned in the dindsenchas, no. 44 and 111 (rev. celt. xv.). 237. trí hamra connacht: lige néothaili 'na thrácht. comard hé frisin trácht. intan atraig in muir, comard hé fria lán. dirna (.i. cloch) in dagdai, cia fochertar im-muir, cia berthair hi tech fo glass, dodeime a tiprait oca mbí. in dá chorr i n-inis cathaig, nocha légat corra aili leo inna n-insi [et] téit in banchorr isin fairrgi síar do duth, co tóet cona heisínib essi [et] nocon fagbat curaig eolus cia airm in doithi. [note 237: comaird i frisin lan n focerda a muir no cia bert_ar_ n _no_ do deime _no_ dogeibt_er_ a tibr_aid_ oca mbid n do _nó_ todeime l corr n chuirr l ceitig n leigitt n do doich n heisenaib eisib [et] nochan fagbuid n eolus _om._ l hairm in doich n] 238. trí luchra ata mesa: luchra tuinde, luchra mná bóithe, luchra con foléimnige. [note 238: _om._ lhbm luchra duine h^1 foleimnigh n] 239. cisne trí ana soitcedach? ní handsa són. immarchor erlam, cuirm cen árus, cummairce for sét. [note 239: a tri n] 240. trí maic beres genas do gáis: gal, gart, gaire. 241. trí airfite dála: drúth, fuirsire, oirce. [note 241: druith h^1] 242. trí ata ferr do [.f]laith: fír, síth, slóg. [note 242: adda h^1] 243. trí ata mesa do [.f]laith: lén, brath, míairle. [note 243: adda h^1 ada n] 244. ceithre báis breithe: a breith i ngó, a breith cen dilse, a breith cen ailig, a breith cen forus. [note 244: disle h^1 disliu n] 245. trí adcoillet gáis: anfis, doas, díchuimne. [note 245: a tri n ainbh[.f]es h^1 duas h^1] 246. trí muime ordain: delb cháin, cuimne maith, creisine. [note 246: ordan h^1 chaoin h^1] 247. trí muime menman: sotla, suirge, mesce. [note 247: socla .i. sochlú h^1] 248. cetheora miscne flatha: .i. fer báeth utmall, fer dóer dímáin. fer gúach esindraic, fer labor dísceoil; ar ní tabair labrai acht do chethrur: .i. fer cerda fri háir [et] molad, fer coimgni cuimnech fri haisnéis [et] scélugud, brethem fri bretha, sencha fri senchas. 249. trí dorcha in betha: aithne, ráthaiges, altrom. 237. three wonders of connaught: the grave of eothaile[119] on its strand. it is as high as the strand. when the sea rises, it is as high as the tide. the stone of the dagda. though it be thrown into the sea, though it be put into a house under lock, ... out of the well at which it is. the two herons in scattery island. they let no other herons to them into the island, and the she-heron goes on the ocean westwards to hatch and returns thence with her young ones. and coracles have not discovered the place of hatching. [119] _cf._ § 197. 238. three worst smiles: the smile of a wave, the smile of a lewd woman, the grin of a dog ready to leap.[120] [120] _cf._ § 91. 239. what are the three wealths of fortunate people? not hard to tell. a ready conveyance(?), ale without a habitation(?), a safeguard upon the road. 240. three sons whom chastity bears to wisdom: valour, generosity, laughter (filial piety?). 241. three entertainers of a gathering: a jester, a juggler, a lap-dog. 242. three things that are best for a chief: justice, peace, an army. 243. three things that are worst for a chief: sloth, treachery, evil counsel. 244. the four deaths of judgment: to give it in falsehood, to give it without forfeiture, to give it without precedent, to give it without knowledge. 245. three things that ruin wisdom: ignorance, inaccurate knowledge, forgetfulness. 246. three nurses of dignity: a fine figure, a good memory, piety. 247. three nurses of high spirits: pride, wooing, drunkenness. 248. four hatreds of a chief: a silly flighty man, a slavish useless man, a lying dishonourable man, a talkative man who has no story to tell.[121] for a chief does not grant speech save to four: a poet for satire and praise, a chronicler of good memory for narration and story-telling, a judge for giving judgments, an historian for ancient lore.[122] [121] _i.e._, who has nothing worth hearing to say. [122] see a similar passage in ancient laws i., p. 18, and in the tale called, 'the conversion of loegaire to the faith' (rev. celt. iv., p. 165). 249. three dark[123] things of the world: giving a thing into keeping, guaranteeing, fostering. [123] _i.e._, uncertain what will come of them. 250. trí urgarta bíd: a chaithem cen altugud, a chaithem d'éis óiged, a chaithem réna thrath cóir. [note 250: haurgartho n^1 hurgairt hm hurghairrthe h^2 d'aithli aidead h cóir om. nh^2 iarna coir m] 251. cetheora aipgitre gáise: ainmne, sonmathe, sobraid[e], sothnges; ar is gáeth cach ainmnetach [et] sái cach somnath, fairsing cach sobraid, sochoisc cach sothengtha. [note 251: somna sobraicch h^2 sobés n soingthes h^2 somnoigh h^2 farsigh [_leg._ farsing] .i. sgaoiltech h^2] 252. cetheora aipgitre báise: báithe, condailbe, imresan, doingthe. 253. teora sírechta flatha: cuirmthech cen aisnéis, buiden cen erdonail, dírim cen chona. [note 253: airdanail n erdanail n^1] 254. trí indchoisc ordain do duine: .i. sodelb, sáire, sulbaire. [note 254: a tri ina coisceadh ordan m suirbire h] 255. trí gúala doná fess fudomain: gúala flatha, gúala ecalse, gúala nemid filed. [note 255: dana h fodhomain m] 256. trí féich nach dlegar faill: féich thíre, duilgine achaid, argius aiste. [note 256: nat eple faill m aichid m argui_us_ h] 250. three prohibitions of food: to eat it without giving thanks, to eat it before its proper time, to eat it after a guest. 251. four elements[124] of wisdom: patience, docility, sobriety, well-spokenness; for every patient person is wise, and every docile person is a sage, every sober person is generous, every well-spoken person is tractable. 252. four elements[124] of folly: silliness, bias, wrangling, foulmouthedness. [124] literally, 'alphabets.' 253. three tabus of a chief: an ale-house without story-telling, a troop without a herald, a great company without wolfhounds.[125] [125] this triad has been wrongly read (fais_cre_ instead of fais_n_e_is_) and rendered by o'grady in his catalogue of ir. mss. in the british museum, p. 91. 254. three indications of dignity in a person: a fine figure, a free bearing, eloquence. 255. three coffers whose depth is not known: the coffer of a chieftain, of the church,[126] of a privileged poet. [126] "die kirche hat einen guten magen," goethe, faust. 256. three debts which must not be neglected:[127] debts of land, payment of a field, instruction (?) of poetry. [127] 'which do not die by neglect,' m. glosses and notes 1. gloss in h. 1. 15: oir gurab innte do bhí suidhe príomhaigh éirenn. 2. .i. ordaighecht nó ord uaisle nó airechas .i. arduaislighecht tre adhluicedh na ríogh inte [et] na naoimh. 4. .i. serc éirenn ó annsacht cháich uirre tre muire na ngaodhal .i. brighid. 5. .i. naomthacht tre naomaibh, nó foghluim sruth .i. saoi-raith. 7. .i. feronn buird riogh éirenn. 11. .i. tre cáich innte nó tre n-iomad taisi innte. 13. .i. eircille ar grádhuibh dar ndóigh fa tuarasdul giolla foic[h]le, nó tuarastail. 14. .i. liodáin do gnáth. 15. .i. ealadhna mór ann [et] senchaoi [.f]esa na sen. 16. .i. a n-iomat breithemhuin, nó cúirt, nó sgol féinechuis ann. 17. .i. ó iomad scol innte. 18. .i. aoibnes nó conách nó er tír fo sliocht éireann. 19. .i. ag guidhe ar gach duine. 20. .i. tre leigen temhrach. this refers to the curse pronounced by ruadan, the founder of lorrha, against king diarmait and tara. 22. .i. cairedh inte. st. feichin, the founder of fore, was famous for the austerity of his devotion. 'he used to set his wretched rib against the hard cell without raiment,' says cuimmine in his poem on the saints of ireland (_zeitschr._, i., p. 63). 24. .i. diamharracht nó aon ar anacht nó gloine. 25. .i. luathghaire a mbreifne. 26. .i. grádh dé. 28. .i. áit comhnuidhe. 30. .i. cill as mesa do cheallaibh nó béim aithesach nó ceall dáir. 31. .i. genmnacht. 32. .i. léime tara do tugsat. 33. .i. bailte bodaich. 34. trí clothra .i. coimhthineoil cluacha nó uirdherca. 36. dún sobairchi and dún cermna are, according to tradition, the oldest stone forts in ireland, having been built by sobairche and cermna, who divided ireland between them, about 1500 b.c., the former placing his dún in the extreme north, the latter in the extreme south on the old head of kinsale. 37. slíab cua (or, by eclipse after the neuter _slíab_, gúa), 'the hollow mountain,' or 'mountain of hollows' (_cúa_ = lat. _cavus_), the native name for the knockmealdown mountains on the borders of tipperary and waterford. 42. dercc ferna was demolished by the norse in 930. hennessy, in a note on the entry in the au., says that it is supposed to be the cave of dunmore, not far from the city of kilkenny, but adds "apparently on insufficient evidence." 44. i. ionadha dona no nemhchonáig. here we get the only gloss in l. bangor is said to be unlucky, "because of its having been destroyed so often." it was frequently plundered by the norse during the ninth century. as to the kingship of mugdorn maigen (now cremorne barony, co. monaghan), it certainly was an ill-fated dynasty. of the sixteen kings of this tribe who are mentioned in the annals of ulster, ten were put to death, of whom one (suibne) was slain by his own brothers, while two brothers, gilla ciaráin and máelmúaid, were slain within the same year (1020), the latter after having been king for but one day. 45. beyond the fact that the three tribes here mentioned belonged to the _aithech-thuatha_ or rent-paying tribes, i know nothing to throw light on the triad. 51. in harl. 5280, p. 75a, marg. inf., druimm ndrobeoil is said to derive its name from a horse called drobel. (ech dedad. i. drobel a ainm diatá druim ndrob_eoil_.) 56. here h. has the absurd etymological gloss futhairbhe .i. fothirbhe .i. tír mhaith na mbeo, nó ferann maith. 60. léim congcoluinn i gcondae in chláir. 64. .i. miodhchonách duine. suighe cumhang .i. deireoil. 65. iarmar cléithe .i. salchar na cléithe d'fágbhail a bferann. drithlennach .i. ferthain anuas nó linn thríd. 66. the first two items occur also in the list of proverbial sayings addressed by the wizard doctor to mac conglinne (_aisl. maic c._, p. 73), with the significant variation that 'a veteran in the abbotship' has become 'a veteran in the bishop's chair,' showing that the 'vision of mac conglinne' was composed at a time when the diocese had superseded the old monastic constitution. as to the 'drop upon the altar,' though o'neachtain's gloss explains it as 'rain' (bainne .i. fer[th]uinn anuas), the rev. mr. o'sullivan has furnished me with a much more likely explanation. he thinks it refers to the spilling of the consecrated wine from the chalice, which is considered a most unfortunate accident. no one but a priest is allowed to touch or remove it. 71. .i. tri donais mhic bodaigh. re óigthigerna .i. re duine uasal. for thascar rígh .i. céimionnadh móra do ghlacadh air (!) .i. do thabhairt uaidhe do striopach (!) .i. do thocaidhibh nó ar son gatuigechtadh. 72. targha .i. tineol no cruinnugadh .i. malairt [.f]erainn mhaith ar dhrochferonn. 74. haonaighe nesairte .i. eisert .i. bochtain lag. gan airdhe .i. gan comhartha nó arra aige le gcennocha ní. 75. caol srithide a foilleirb .i. an sreab bainne da chrú .i. soidech. .i. fochan an gheamhair. for tuinn .i. faoi an cennar chroichin .i. ag denamh druithnechuis. 76. dorn daimh .i. cos ag treabhath. 77. mes .i. ó laimh. tomharas .i. ó [.s]úil. cubhus .i. óna coimhesa .i. coimhfiosa. 79. eadruidh .i. adhaltraigh. cluithe .i. clesuighes. céilighe .i. cuairt. 80. maoin .i. tabhartus d'faghail uaide. 81. dognas .i. nemhghnas. diomaoinche .i. díth maoine .i. do chuid do bhuain dhiod. 83. troich .i. do gerr[.s]aoghul. cp. _aisl. maic conglinne_, p. 71, 20. 84. áine la daor .i. saidhbrios ag daor neimhnidh .i. aithioch nó fer gan senchus. doidheilbh .i. duine grán[n]amh. 85. bó bennach gan eas .i. sreibh nó bainne. tothacht .i. gan tábhacht faoithe .i. tochus. 86. áibhle .i. splangca lasta grádha. aladh .i. hésa maith. 87. .i. trí ní curthar a ttaisge ara ccurtar caithemh. mná .i. taisge. 88. teidhe (_sic_) .i. aonaigh. 89. seghaine .i. caomha nó séimhe. fáthrann .i. rann fáthach. adhbhann tri ciuil do [.s]einimh duine eile. berradh .i. eolus berr[th]a nó do bherrath go des. these three accomplishments were united in the person of mac díchóeme, the barber of king eochaid with horse's ears (_otia merseiana_, iii., p. 47), and in donnbó (_three fragments_, p. 34, and rev. celt. 24, p. 44). 90. cluiche tenn .i. súgradh ten[n]. abhacht go n-aithis .i. súgradh le masla do thabairt. 91. .i. iar n-ealó óna fer féin. foileimnighe .i. chum do gerrtha .i. iar leigion sealga uaithe. 92. foghladha .i. gadaighe. 93. .i. trí haonarain is ferr ioná iomad. .i. begán do chaint mhaith. .i. ag ól fleadha nó sec[h]na imresain. 94 bróna .i. hamghaire. .i. deglaoch nach sáiseocha cách. .i. ga nderna ina ainim munath sásaigh[th]e é. 95. .i. faoi ndéntar magaid. lonn .i. fergach. éataigh .i. eudmhar. díbhach .i. doichleach. 99. gretha .i. garrtha. .i. gáir ag fodhail a mbídh. grith suidhe .i. chuman[n] bhídh. .i. ag éirghe ón mbiadh. 101. .i. postaidhe fir boigechta .i. boiggniomh. imgellad .i. síor-c[h]ur geallta. iomarbhaigh .i. comórtas. imresain .i. conspóidedha. 103. luirge .i. a bhata nó a mhná (lorg .i. ben, abhall, laoch, leo, arg). 104. da maoidhemh air féin gan nech da chur cuige. 105. os focherd a congan .i. fiadh chuires de a benna. 106. sceinbh .i. ionadha baoghlacha dochum sceinm do chur i neach nó ionada sccunamhla. 107. allabair .i. mac-alla nó iollabhar is gnáth a bhfod ó neach. 109. labra .i. iomad cainte. aimhiodhna .i. nemhgloine. 110. toa .i. bailbhe .i. éistecht. eiscis .i. escuidhecht. iodhna .i. glaine. 112. moladh iar luag .i. cennach tabhairt ar moladh. 113. .i. imthecht gion nach bh[.f]édann tú imthecht. .i. ní do thabhairt uaid na mbia agat. .i. gen go bfédann tú a dhénamh. 114. .i. senchaillioch triudhach casachtach ar aondhacht ann. .i. amhail cullach le buille ar choin, ar chat, ar mhada. .i. gach gránna siobharrtha 'na ghiolla. 116. .i. a n-onoruighther nó uaislighther. .i. pluice ag síneadh a beoil. righe a bhronn .i. a bhuilg. 117. círmaire .i. 'fer dénta na gcíor. dichetal for otrach .i. adhbhal-cantainn le rosg nó orrtha. go rothochra .i. go docuiredh. 118. dlughughadh .i. cnesughadh. freiscre .i. frisearadh gan sergadh. lúth tar luaitbrenn .i. for a tighibh nó templuibh .i. rennaigheacht do cuiredh sa luaith. béim fo chumas .i. buille a coimhmheiseamnuighe féin. 119. dighalra .i. leighios iomlán na ngalar. diainmhe .i. gan ainiomh d' fágail iar genedhuibh. .i. coimh[.f]écsin nó fíoradharc. 120. .i. bior dobheir sásadh as gach ní rachad fair. 121. caer comraic .i. raed cruinn go ccomhtharrachtain d'iomat dath ann. fleath for faobhar .i. faobhar for faobhar. 122. cruitire .i. cláirseoir. 125. comar .i. docum treabtha nó coimhghélsine. 131. truime .i. tromdhacht. toice .i. saidhbhres. talchaire .i. toil charthanach ag gach duine do. 132. .i. tri neithe aisnéisi an doconáigh. 133. tlás [.i.] doní an trosgadh an duine tláit[h]. 135. .i. cnapáin mísénamhla nó nemhconáigh. 139. trí brothc[h]áin rátha .i. trí neithe breithemhnuighther nó caoinbherthar ar antí théid a ráithiges nó a n-urrughas. roitioc .i. íocaidh na fiacha. rosiacht .i. éigion do nech do leanamhuin. rotho_cht_ .i. [et] mionnughadh 'sa gcúis. 140. tugha go bh[.f]óidibh .i. fóide os toighe ar tech. imme go bfoighnagare (sic) .i. fál [et] fíoriongaire maille ris. .i. go ngoradh gér cloch a ndiaigh gortath na hátha. 141. trí fáilte go n-iarnduibhe. fer gaide .i. an tan bhíos da chrochadh. .i. doní faisnéis. 142. tulfeaith (_sic_) .i. drúis .i. toil féithe. dulsaine .i. cáinedh no cáinseoireacht. 143. grís .i. imdhergadh. rus .i. roifios. ruccaidh .i. ancroidhe. 145. nua corma .i. braitlis. 146. moaighthe .i. médaighthe sochair do neoch. 147. teine a lucc (!) .i. [a] tteallach. næ la fer calaigh (!) .i. naomhóg, coite, bád, long, do dhuine le purt. 148. aithgionta .i. neithe dobheir aithghin tarais no aithgini uatha. nes gabhann .i. mála cré. 149. .i. neithe ann a ttabhair neach iomarcaith naith [et] nach iadhann dísle orrtha ó nech dar ben iad. iarraid mic .i. luach oileamhna. 151. aurnadhma .i. pósta. 153. .i. trí cúisi nach básaighenn d'faill do dhénamh umpa iad eibiulait .i. básaighenn. dochraidhe .i. duine díochairdigh. 155. slabhra .i. imdhergtha .i. pecughadh le mnái neich gan coibhche do dhíol ionnta, nach gcennuighther le airnéis nó éiric do díol ionnta. .i. coimhéigniughadh do rígh. 156. turbhadh .i. cairde d'iarraigh da ccur amach .i. da ttabhairt amach. .i. da athair tar éis altroma. .i. tar éis anbhaill do dhénamh a thabhairt da sealbhaightheoir. .i. braighe do tabhairt as láimh le comhall síotha. 157. .i. taisce do fúigfidhe ag égciallaidh. .i. do fuigfidhe ag duine mór. aithne formeda .i. do fuigfidhe gan aithne do thabhairt go cinnte i ccumhdach acht go héccinte air. 158. dorenathar bí .i. nech eirnighther no híocthar le beo do thabhairt da gcenn. fidnemed .i. coill ar a bhfuil neimh[.s]enchus nó atá da gcumhdach la huasal. 159. trí ná dotoing ná fortongar. angar .i. mac ionghar nach bhfoghann da senoir do réir a dhualgais. 160. athchumas .i. do ghlacadh orra na athchomhasan (no do thabhairt daibh) (.i. ar a ceile). 161. .i. nach teighther faoi a bhfuigheall .i. a mbreitheamnuis. .i. cia do bheithdaois glic. fer adgair (.i. cu rios fios ort) agas adghairther (.i. an fer ar a gcuirther fios) agas ro crenair ria breith (.i. agas cennuighther mar breithemh le bríb le haghaidh breithe). 162. aitide .i. aonta. ainbhfaitches. 163. trí fo imrime ná dleagaid (.i. imthechta amhuil ar marcuigheght) dire (.i. dire enecluise). toxal .i. tóccbhail agus ag dénamh athghabála. 164. duilchinn. 165. trí naoill .i. luighe nó mionna nach cóir mhionnughadh 'na n-aghaidh. fir mairb .i. do bheith le bás go cinnte. ditire .i. do thréig a thír .i. do chur cúram an t[.s]aoighil de. 166. .i. céimionna mhilleas an tuaith le bréig. 167. renus a dheis .i. a dhúthaigh nó a feronn .i. bodach é [et] ní bh[.f]uil ced sencuis air. 168. for _comberat_ h^1 has _conrannat_. dainntech .i. gremannach nó buailtech. 170. feichemhnas .i. lucht tagartha nó oificc na bh[.f]eithemhan. toisc. leimim. eicsi .i. muna foghluma. 171. aradgeallad. breithemhuin .i. fuasglais neach. 172. urfogradh .i. air ar coir miothaithnemh. ael coire .i. ag tógbhail feola coiri. fiodhbhaigh gan tseinm .i. meileg gan semann no thairn[g]e da chengal. ord ghabhan[n] gan dinesc gan tairn[g]e annsa bpoll .i. díon ina eis. 173. fotha utmhall gan eolus .i. bunadhas gan forus acht haimhnech, utmhall .i. roluath. 174. soadh fri fiadnaib .i. iompodh a n-aghaidh na bhfiadhan do haondaighe. 175. breithemh gan [.f]uasna .i. techt 'na aghaidh. eidirchert gan éaccnach .i. breithemhnas gan idhiomradh 'na dhiaigh. comha gan diubhairt .i. gan bhreith do bhreith le caomhmha nó gan leatrom aonroinn. 176. trí tonna gan gaoise .i. do chuires anfa ar ghaois .i. gliocas. 177. fostadh .i. foisdinecht. gairde .i. athchumairecht. 179. .i. cúisi far cóir mioscuis don urlabhra. dlúithe .i. ar muin a chéile. 180. fostadh .i. na tengan 'na sost. airnbertais .i. ag dénamh [et] ag ordughadh gach neithe mar as dú. 182. maise .i. bregha. clithighe .i. bheith clithar. 183. trí ná dleaghaidh dire .i. truaighe nó comairce. .i. ealaighes ó flaith. agas file .i. ó eglais (!). 184. .i. trí hanlain[n] chrosta don othar. each .i. feoil eich. muir .i. míl mhoir .i. cointinn ar coinntinn. 186. instead of _forsnaidm_, h. 1. 15 has forran .i. fírbrised. 187. sobhraidhe .i. brígh maith nó láidir. 188. ír .i. fer[g]. 189. sam (_sic_) .i. anmhuin go socair. tua .i. socht nó éistecht. imdhergadh .i. gríosadh nó náire. 190. mórt[h]a .i. mórthacht. maise .i. maisech lais féin. maoine .i. a mhes gurab maoineach é. 191. forindet .i. doní faisnéis ar in umhal. dinmhe .i. dith inmbe. 192. faicse (sic) .i. meabair maith. fáthaidhe .i. bheith foghluma fáith-chialluigh. 195. fuasnadh .i. imresan. 196. cach ndagferas .i. guch feidhm nó gníomh iomlán nó feramhuil. 197. serbha .i. goid. 198. .i. docuires chum siubhail iad fainealca. ingreim .i. do [.s]lad nó da gcrechadh. dola .i. da ngremughadh. domata .i. boichtecht. 200. fine .i. iomad fine nó móirmhes an fine. 202. fornaidm ruirioch .i. ríogha eile congbhail faoi. roimhse .i. roimhes nó torad mór ina [.f]laith. 203. tua .i. bailbhe. dochta .i. éistecht (!). 204. tairisamh .i. coimhniughadh alfaire neich. 205. .i. i bh[.f]iadhnuise na gcomharcadh. .i. daoine gan chéill .i. daoine ag imthecht le gaoith. 207. éitche .i. gráinche. 208. soingthes .i. urlabhradh mhaith. connamhna .i. coma degmhana nó de[g]mianadh. 209. luinne .i. fergaighe. cétludche .i. cédluath ghaire. tairismidhe .i. iomarcraidh griaidh da chur a gcéill .i. tairismidhe. 210. sognas .i. goma maith le a ghnáthugadh. soicheall .i. goma soichellach nó luathghairech. 211. .i. trí 'ga mbíonn clú maith. trebaire .i. gliocas. rathmaire .i. rath mór do techt air nó bhfás fair. 212. dochlatad .i. miochluid. laxa .i. faillidhe. prapcaillte .i. a bheith cruaidh [et] luath .i. bheith caillte anna chuid go luath. 213. ecnach .i. ithiomradh. doingthes .i. droichtengadh. 214. deirmiten .i. athairmhidin. easpata .i. diomhaoines. 216. .i. trí laithe as sona do mhnáibh pósta. mná go fiora .i. mná do thabhairt chum pósta. .i. biadh na mná beo 'na ndiaidh. 217. fri gach leas .i. gach neithe bhus leas dó. 218. rátha .i. urradha. fostadh .i. comhnuidhe. féile .i. náire. lomradh .i. ag lomairt ag díol fiachadh. fostodha a n-arus .i. comhnuidhe a bpriosún lomradh íce .i. da lomairt féin ag díol fiachadh nó fulang é féin do lomradh do réir dlighe .i. leigen lomartha an dlighe dar cenn feichemhan. 219. eiric no toghniomh feichemhan (.i. an t-íoc do dhénamh darcenn a bhiodhbha) no dithecht. 220. .i. trí neithe as anfæ (leg. ansa) nó as doiligh dhaibh. .i. dol a n-urrudhas dún righ do dhénamh, decair sin. coire .i. coire longan. .i. do thabhairt an urrudhas re cechtar doibh sin aroile do dhénamh. 221. trí as ainer[g]na (.i. neimhealadhanta) do neach. .i. no go salaighenn a eudach do scarduibh. 222. ochradh .i. alt. berradh .i. mullach a chinn. 223. mic .i. iomad mac. mná .i. iomad ban. méile .i. amadan. cleamhna ile imchiana .i. iomad clemhnas a gcéin. notcrionad (.i. dibrid) agus ní thormaighid (.i. ní mhédaighid a tighes). 224. seol mná for mac .i. luighe seola. gris bronn .i. tesuighecht. galar tiomargar olc .i. togbhus an t-olc [et] [.f]ágbhus an mhaith 'na háit féin. 225. .i. gar cóir fáilte rompa, no dobheir an [.f]áilte a ttigh fleadha im duthracht [et] ealatha .i. ealadha do thaisbeana[dh]. 227. daimh. bealai .i. tuadh, biail. 229. tiordhachta .i. tuathamhlacht no bodamhlacht. iomargal .i. ime ro mheraighe focal. iomarbhaidh .i. comartus gníomh. meraigecht .i. mire. 230-231. omitted in h. 2. 15. 232. rí ima gabhail .i. im geall nó chreich. aithech do mhuin coimeirce .i. bodach ar a mbeith dhó ar coimeirce, nó tenn ar chúl aige. 233. .i. scolaire iar gcriochnughadh a leighen .i. iar leagha nó egluisech iar ndénamh ornaidhe. iar leaccad a araidhechta uadh .i. iar ccriochnughadh a term a nó aimsire. 235. trí huais doibh .i. gar doilge doibh. .i. a n-urrdhas ar righ, ar esbog do bhrigh a leithe eneaclann an righ, nó inté atá na cronughadh ann. dul fri cath .i. dul a n-urrughas le cur catha. fri cimidh .i. dul a n-urrughas le brughaidh nó le siothcain. .i. secht neithe crosta donté rachadh a n-urrughas orra. dol ar dheoruighe .i. dol a n-urrughas. ar dhiaraigh .i. gan árus no coimhnaidhe aige. ar druith .i. duine gan céill, ar dhiaraigh .i. nach feidir árach air. ar angar .i. mac iongar. ar esccong (!) .i. senoir iar ndul a chéille uaidh. imnedhach dona gacha ráth (im[.s]níomhach go fírinnech gach urrughas díobh sin), .i. fulang dianbhás no dianollmhughadh no urfogra fa gach gealla dobheir aill ria n-aill iaromh .i. mionna a n-aghaidh mionn an [.f]ir oile .i. nach decha sé a n-urrudhas no le díola. 236. ag tioradh .i. ag goradh arbha. 238. luchra .i. gaire nó genamh. 239. .i. cia hiat na trí sonais dogheibh an duine sonadh? ní handsa son .i. ní hainbh[.f]esach misi ar sin. iomarchor .i. iomchar. cuirm gan ára .i. deoch gan tech aige. .i. ar an tslighe go teghmaisech. 240. gaire .i. gaire maith. 241. .i. do ní oirfide nó comhluadar i gcomhdáil. druith .i. amatán. foirsire abhlóir nó ursoire. oircc (_sic_) .i. mesan nó cú beg. 243. léan .i. amhgar. brath .i. ar comarsan. 244. a breith a ngó .i. gúbreith brégach. gan disle .i. faoi omhan gan árach. gan ailic .i. gan hailche 'na timchioll .i. rosg [et] fasach. 246. duas .i. droich[.f]ios. 247. socla (_sic_) .i. sochlú. suirge .i. le mnáibh. 248. .i. ceitheora da ttugann flaith mioscais nó nemhdhúil. baoth .i. leamh. uttmhall .i. roluath. fer labhar disceoil .i. labharrach cainntech gan sceol aige. fer coimhghne cuimhnech .i. go caoimhegna [et] cuimhne senchusa. 251. somna .i. so-omhnach .i. so-eglach (!). sobraicch .i. sobríoghach. 252. condailbhe .i. bághach nó leathtaobhach. doingthe .i. doitenguighe. 253. trí sirrechta flatha .i. suthainghesa nó neithe bhíos toirmisc ar uasal. .i. fleadha gan ealadha da [.f]aisnéis. .i. cuitechta gan donail píobaire 'na tosach. index locorum ached déo, 106. ae chúalann, 38. ardmacha _armagh_, 1, 34, 46. ard mbreccáin _ardbrackan_, 23. ath caille, 48. ath clíath duiblinne, 48, 50. ath lúain _athlone_, 48. bairenn _the burren_, 58. banna _the bann_, 40. belach conglais _baltinglass_, 50. belach duiblinne, 50. belach luimnig, 50. bennchor _bangor_, 5, 44. benn mboirchi _slieve donard_, 38. benntraige _bantry_, 45. bérre _beare_, 58. birra _birr_, 108. bóand _the boyne_, 40. braichlesan brigde, 57. breifne, 58. caisel _cashel_, 54. cathair chonrúi, 36. cell dara _kildare_, 4, 34. cell maignenn _kilmainham_, 32. cell rúaid, 30. cenannus _kells_, 7. clúain eidnech _clonenagh_, 108. clúain eois _clones_, 53. clúain ferta brénainn _clonfert_, 19. clúain iraird _clonard_, 3, 33, 53. clúain maic nóis _clonmacnois_, 2, 34, 53. clúain úama _cloyne_, 12. connacht, 43, 237. corcach _cork_, 16. crecraige, 43.[tn 45] crúachán aigli _croagh patrick_, 38. crúachu _croghan_, 35, 54. cúailgne _coolney_, 43, 62. cúalu, 46. dairchaill, 27. daire calgaig _derry_, 32. derc ferna, 42. druimm fingin, 51. in munster, famous for its fertility. see ll. 15^a 11. druimm lethan _drumlane_, 25. druimm ndrobeóil, 51. druimm leithe, 51, 236. dublinn _dublin_, 50. duma mbúrig, 106. dún cáin _dunquin_, 60. dún cermna, 36. dún dá lethglas _downpatrick_, 26. dún sobairche _dunseverick_, 36. ess danainne, 55. ess maige, 55. ess rúaid _assaroe_, 55. fid déicsen i tuirtri, 43. fid moithre i connachtaib, 43. fid mór i cúailgni, 43. findglais _finglas_, 8. fobur féichín _fore_, 22. glasraige, 45. glenn dá locha _glendalough_, 11, 33. glenn dalláin _glencar_, 236. imblech ibair _emly_, 15. inber féile, 59. inber na mbárc, 59. inber túaige, 59. inis cathaig _scattery island_, 10, 237. lann ela _lynally_, 31, 44. léimm conculainn _loop head_, 60. leithglend _leighlin_, 108. less mór _lismore_, 14. lettir dalláin, 236. loch nechach _lough neagh_, 39. loch nerni _lough erne_, 39. loch rí _lough ree_, 39. lothra _lorrha_, 20. lúachair dedad _logher_, 61. lugbad _louth_, 33. luimnech _limerick_, 50. lusca _lusk_, 6, 46. mag crúachan, 52. mag mbile _moville_, 28. mag mbreg, 52. mag lí, 236. mag lifi, 41, 52. mag line, 41. mag midi, 41. mugdorn maigen _cremorne barony_, 44. ráith mboth _raphoe_, 25. ráith laidcniáin _rathlynan_, 56. ross ailithre _roscarbery_, 17. ross commáin _roscommon_, 24. sinann _the shannon_, 40. sláine _slane_, 21. slíab commáin, 56. slíab cúa, 37. slíab cúalann, 37. slíab fúait _the fews_, 61. slíab mancháin, 56. slíab mis, 37. slige assail, 9, 49. slige dála, 49. slige midlúachra, 49. srub brain, 60. tailtiu _teltown_, 35. tamlachta _tallaght_, 8. tech cairnig, 9. tech munna _taghmon_, 32. temair _tara_; gen. temrach 54, 202. tipra cuirp, 57. see tog. br. dá derga § 154, ybl. tipra na ndési, 57. tipra uaráin garaid, 57. tipra uarbeóil, 57. tír dá glas _terryglas_, 18. tír eogain _tirowen_, 236. tráig baili, 47. tráig lí _tralee_, 61. tráig ruis airgit, 47. tráig ruis téiti, 47. tuirtri, 43. tulach na nepscop, 106. tulen _dulane_, 29. uam chnogba _knowth_, 42. uam slángæ _slaney_, 42. index nominum colmán ela, 35. corbmac mac fáeláin, 62. in dagda 120, 237. dil, 236. eothaile, 107, 237. fergus mac róich, 62. finn, 236. morrígan, 120. neithin, 120. ninníne éces, 62. glossary abartach, from abairt, _practice_, _feat_, a. escrai 231. abucht (abocht, abacht) _a joke_, _jest_ 90. adbann _a strain of music_ 89. with prothetic f., fadbann, ib. n. ad-coillim _i destroy_, _ruin_ 245. ái _a cause_, n. pl. ái 153, 174. áibne f. _delightfulness_ 23. aigne m. _a pleader_, _counsel_, dag-a. 178. ailbéimm n. _a reproach_ 30. áilde f. _beauty_ 206. aill .. aill _once_ ... _again_, _now_ ... _now_ 235. ainchess _bodily pain_, acc. cen ainchiss 119 (ainces n). ainmne f. _patience_ 192, 251, dat. ainmnit 143 (ainmnet n). ainmnetach _patient_ 174, 189. airberntas (airnbertas) m. (?) 180, 181. airbert _a using_, _employing_ 178. air-gorad _a scorching_ 140. airisiu _a narration_, _tale_, cétna airisiu, cóir amn. 80. n. pl. airisena 102, 125. airmed _a certain dry measure_ 138. corm. tr. 68. eirmed, .i. tomus, 4, 3, 18, 70^a. dorat do patraic in n-airmid mini, trip. 186, 9. aithech-borg m., aithech-port m. _a rent-paying town_ 33. aithne n. (later f.) _a deposit_ 87, 157, 249; aithne [.s]alainn 87 l. alaig _behaviour_, _demeanour_ 86. all n. _a rock_, n. pl. trí all 200. allabair _an echo_ 107; o'dav. 144. ana _wealth_ 147, 239. áne f. _agility_, _deftness_, _skill_ 84. an-ergnaid _undignified_ 221. an-faitches m. _carelessness_ 162. an-fiad _a bad welcome_ 70. an-gar _unfilial_, _impious_ 159, 235. an-idna f. _impurity_ 109. an-richt m. _a misshapen person_ 84. antrenn _rough ground_, gen. antreinn 147. apaig _ripe_ 68. ar-cuillim _i destroy_, _ruin_ 184; verb-noun, gen. aircaillti, ib. (n). ard-nemed m. _a high dignitary_ 157. árech (árach) (1) _a tie_, _fetter_, gen. cú áraig 168; (2) _a bond_, _surety_, acc. pl. cen áirche 74; cin gealladh, cin airge, laws ii. 78, 4. argius _instruction_ (?), a. aiste 256. cf. felmac fri ré na argaisi, laws v. 364, 17. aroslicim _i open_, aroslicet 204. árus _residence_, _habitation_ 218, 239. ata _which are_ 68, 69, 75, 76, &c. ataid (?) 181. ath-chommus m. _renunciation of control or authority_ 160. athchosan, better athchomsan (later achmusan) _a complaining_ 98; tossach augrai athchosan, ll. 345^b18. augra _strife_ 213. aupthach _veneficus_ 185. aurla (1) _a long lock of hair_, .i. ciab, corm. tr. 166; (2) _a person wearing_ aurla, _a serf_ (?); mac aurlai (erlai) 152. báithe _foolishness_ 252. banas m. _womanhood_, gen. dag-banais 180; droch-banais 181. ban-chorr f. _a she-heron_ 237. ban-lá _a lucky day for women_ 216. belach n. _a mountain-pass_, n. pl. belaige 50. beó-athair m. _a live father_ 151. compare the following extract from h. 3, 18, p. 19_b_: _cest._ cid diatá "ní nais ná torbais"? ar atáit nadmanna naisce ni na torbongat, ar ni rochat a nadmann naisce .i. mac beoathar for a athair, céile for a flaith, manach for a airchindech, hulach for inn ail_e_, ar ní tobongat díb ar comrac, acht atá folaith gaibthi friu. béss _perhaps_ 136. binnech _melodious_, bó b. 85. birit, f. _a sow_, gen. birite, 148 bm. bithbenach m. _a criminal_ 92 b. bocc m. _a buck_, _he-goat_, n. pl. buicc 230. boccacht f. _buckishness_, _obstinacy_ 101, 102. bolcra (?) 231. cf. bolcaire m. _a hector_, o'gr. cat. 584, 4. bolc-srónach _having distended nostrils_ 231. bothach m. _a hut-dweller_, _cottar_ 150. brén-[.f]inn _stinking or rotten hair_, acc. pl. -a 105. brodna (?) gen. brodnai 230. bronn-galar m. _a disease of the abdomen_ 224. brugaide f. _keeping a hostel_, _hospitality_ 134. búadnas _a triumph_, _excellence_, n. pl. -a 88 h. cáer comraic 121 note. cáin-thocad m. _fair fortune_, dat. cáin-thocud 110. calad _hard_ 176; fer c. 147. cetludche f. _lustfulness_ 209. círmaire m. _a comb-maker_ 117. cisne _what are?_ 239. clithcha f. _comfort_ (of dress) 182. clochrad (clochrach?) _a stone building_(?) (from clochur?), n. pl. trí clochraid 34. clúanaige m. _a rogue_ 90, 104. co-cless _performing feats together_ 125. cóemna _comfort_, _good cheer_ 6, 46. coim (coimm) _a cloak_ 130. coimgne (com-ecne) _synchronistic knowledge_; fer coimgni 248 = fer cumocni, rev. celt. vi. 165, 11. coire _a caldron_ 220. c. érma, c. goriath, c. áiged 127. com-ar (w. cyf-ar) _holding ploughland in common_ 125. com-chissiu _an examination_ 119. com-líth _equally lucky_ 217. comneibe (?) 169. com-rith (fri) _a racing together_ 117. con-beraim _i bear liabilities_ 168. condailbe f. _attachment_, _bias_ 193, 252. congna (collective) _horns_ 105, 117. con-rannaim _i share_ 164. con-tibim _i mock_ 82. córad-gein _a champion birth_ 148 bm. crann-dretel (?) 231. crésine f. _piety_ 196. crossán m. _a buffoon_ 116. cúacróessach (?) 231. cuilmen _a volume_, _tome_ 62. cuinnmíne f. _kindliness_ 208. daintech _biting_ 168; gl. dentatus sg. 159^{b}2. debuid f. _strife_ 98. déicsiu _a seeing_, _spying_, gen. déicsen 43. deinmne _impatience_, dat. deinmnait 144. deirmitiu _irreverence_, gen. deirmiten 214. derc _a hole_, _cave_ 42; dat. i nderc a oxaille, lu. 70^{a}45; resiu dorattar isin deirc, lism. fo. 43^{b}1. déss f. _land_, acc. déiss 167 (dés n); acc. pl. déissi, ib. l. see cáin adamnáin, p. 46. dí-ainme f. _an unblemished state_ 119. dían-apud _a sudden notice_ 235. dí-araig _a person without bonds_ (árach) 235. díbe _a refusing_, _denying_ 212, ll 117^{a}43, 121^{b}9, 188^{a}2, 188^{b}33. díbech _refusing_, _denying_ 95; .i. diultadach, c. 1, 2. dí-chuimne f. _lack of memory_ 245; ar dermat nó díchumni, ll. 74^{a}30. dí-galrae f. _sicklessness_ 119. dí-grad n. _hatred_ 217. dímainche f. _uselessness_ 81. dímainecht f. _uselessness_ 81 h. dímosc (?) 172. dínnime f. _meanness_, _lowliness_ 191; ferr trumma dínnimi, ll. 345^{c}30. cf. dín[n]imus, alex. 996. dirna _a stone_ 237. dí-sceóil _taleless_ 248. díthechte f. _non-possession_ 219. díthir _a landless person_, gen. díthir (díthire n) 165. díthrub m. _a desert_, _uninhabited place_, n. pl. díthruib 43. in the later language it is inflected like _treb_ (n.p. díthreba 43 bm). diúite f. _simplicity_ 24; ll. 294^{a}38. d. cridi, lism. lives 4543: diúide ingen slánchridi, rawl. b. 512, 112^{2}b2. diultadach (diultach) _fond of refusing_ 96 mb. dlúithe f. _compactness_, _obscurity_ (?) (of speech) 179. doas m. _ignorance_ 245. do-celaim _i hide_ 84, 85. dochell _niggardliness_ 144; dochall [et] díbe [et] do[th]chernas, rawl. b. 512, 112^{b}1. dochlatu m. _ill repute_. gen. dochlatad 212. do-chond m. _an imbecile_, gen. dochuind 153. dochraite f. _oppression_ 153. alex. 367, atchota daidbre d., ll. 345^{c}3. dodeime (?) 237 (todeime l). dochta f. _closeness_ 203. do-delb _a misshapen person_, acc. la dodelb (dodeilb b) 84. dofortaim _i pour out_, _spill_, _spoil_, _ruin_, dofortat 186; dofortatar .i. dotodsat, mi. 124^{d}12. do-gnás f. _ill-breeding_ 81; gen. dognáise 209. doingthe f. _foulmouthedness_ 252; for do-thengthe. doingthes m. _id._ 213. dolud _loss_, _damage_ 198; gen. mét tar ndolaid, ll. 172^{b}33; in cach níth ba dáel dolaid, 157^{b}14. dommatu m. _poverty_ 198, alex. 847. dorenaim _i pay a fine_ (díre) 158. dotcad m. _misfortune_, n. pl. dotcaid 44, 64, 65, 71. dotcadach _unfortunate_ 135. doth _a hatching_, cach d. toirthech, ll. 293^{b}48; gen. in doithe 237; dat. do duth, ib.; gen. pl. cerce trí ndoth, o'dav. 1375. do-tongim _i swear_, ná dítoing 159. drithlennach _full of sparks_ 65. drús f. _folly_; gen. drúise 193. duine-chin m. _human crime_ 168. dul in the phrases, dul ar _to go security on behalf of_ 235; dul fri _to go security for_ 235. see glossary to laws s.v. dul. dulbaire f. _lack of eloquence_, _bad delivery_ 179. dulsaine f. _mockery_ 142; in cerd mac húi dulsine, corm. 37. cf. dulaige, o'dav. 622. dúthracht f. _good will_, _kindliness_ 225. ech usci _a water-horse_ 236. echmuir(?) 184. eisíne _a young bird_ 237. eó m. _a salmon_: gen. iach 92; n. pl., iaich, ll. 297^{a}34. eochair _a key_ n. pl. eochracha 204. erchoille (?) 230. erdonal f. _a trumpeter_, _piper_; eardanal .i. stucaire no píobaire, bb. 65 m.s. acc. cen erdonail 253. érim n. _a course_, _running_, gen. érma 127. later fem., ar tressa na hérma, ll. 110^{a}13. erlam _ready_ 239. errad n. _dress_, _attire_: gen. erraid 233. escaine _a curse_ 20. esconn _excommunicated_ 235. escra _a cup for drawing wine_ 231. éscus (é-scíss) m. _unweariedness_ 110 (esces n). daurnaisce .i. aurlattu nó greschae nó escas, h. 3, 18, 80^a. eserni (?) 231. eserte f. _landlessness_, _vagrancy_ 74. espatu m. _frivolity_ 214. étach (verb-n. of in-tugur, o'mulc. 462) n. _a dress_; gen. étaig 182. étaid _jealous_ 95. etargaire _a separating_, _interposing_, _mediating_, 135, 154; ll. 31^{b}15; dligid ugra e. 345^{d}10. etir-chert _a decision_ 175. faigdech (foigdech.) m. _a beggar_ 83, aisl. m. 71, 21. faiscsiu _closeness_ (?) 192 (faicsi n). fássach _a precedent_ 178; brithemnacht ar roscadaib [et] fasaigib, lu. 118^b. fáthaige f. _the gift of prophecy_ 192. fáth-rann m. _a witty quatrain_ 89; do fáthrannaib espa [et] airchetail, otia mers. iii., p. 47, § 2. fechemnas m. _debtorship_ 170. féige f. _sharpness_, _sagacity_ 78. feras m. _manhood_, _man's estate_, gen. dag-ferais 196; droch-ferais 197. cf. feras léiginn _lectorship_ au. fer-lá n. _a lucky day for men_ 217. fescred (feiscre n.) 118 = feascradh '_shrivelling_, _decaying_,' o'r. cf. feasgor .i. dealugud, lec. voc. 403: dligid cach forcradach féscred, ll. 294^{a}9. fiad _a welcome_. n. pl. fiada (fiad l) 70. fidchell (?) 142. fid-nemed n. _a sacred grove_, _sanctuary_;[tn 158] '_lucus_,' bb. 469^{a}46, o'mulc. 830, n. pl. fidnemeda fírdorchra [et] cráeb-chaill comdígainn, c. cath. flett see plett. fliuchaim _i wet_, rotfliuchus, 104. fodb m. _accoutrement_, n. pl. fuidb 135. fo-crenaim (verb-n. fochraic) _i bribe_ 261.[tn yes, printed as 261] foglaid m. _a robber_, gen. foglada 92. fo-glúaisim _i move_ (trans.) 198. foichell f. _hire_, _wages_, gen. foichle 13. foichne _a blade of green corn_ 75: ith-[.f]oichne .i. foichne in etha, o'dav. 1080. 1. foilmnech _roped_, _leashed_, cú f. 169. 2. foilmnech (fo-lémnech) _ready to leap_ 91, 238. foimrimm _a using_, _usucaption_, gen. foille foimrimme, ll. 344^{c}55; n. pl. -e 163, laws. fóindledach m. _a waif_ 198. foll-derb f. _a milk-pail_, dat. hi foll-deirb 75, laws. fóindel m. _a straying_, n. pl. fóindil 181. fomailt (verb-n. of fo-melim) f. _usufruct_ 87. fomus (verb-n. of fo-midiur) m. _calculation_ (?) 118; béim co fomus, lu. 73^{a}1. béim co fommus, ll. 74^{a}26. roláosa, ol sé, fomus forsaní sin, lu. 58 24. fo-naidm n. _a contract_ 202. for-íadaim _i close upon_ 203. for-ind-fedaim _i relate_. forindet 191: o'dav. 511. forngaire _a proclaiming_ 140. forrach _a measuring-rod_ 138, o'don. suppl. for-[.s]naidm (= for-naidm, with epenthetic _s_) n. _an overreaching_ (?) 186: co fornadmaim níad náir, lu. 73^{a}7. fortgellaim _i give evidence_, _bear witness_ 138. for-tongim _i swear_, fortoinger (fortongar) 158. fossad _steady_, _firm_ 174 (fossaid n). fossugud _stability_ 28. fosta f. _staidness_, _steadiness_ 180, 187, 194, 215, 218. fotha n. _foundation_, f. n-utmall 173. cf. ní cóir in fotha utmall, sg. 4^b. fothirbe _a field_ (?) 56, trip. 82, 2; 168, 26. freccor (verb-n. of fris-curim) _opposition_, _objection_ 154, ml 131^{a}8. frecra (verb-n. of fris-garim) n. _an answer_ 174. frith-nóill _a counter-oath_ 165. fúaimm n. _a din_, _noise_ 146, f. nglan, ll. 150^{b}4; f. in churaig risin tracht, ybl 89^b; n. pl. fúammann 146. fúatche f. _a snatching_, _carrying off_ 140. fuchacht (fuichecht) f. _copulation_, _cohabitation_ 155. fuigliur _i pronounce judgment_, fuigletar 161. fuirec (verb-n. of foricim) m. _preparation_, n. pl. fuiric 97, 98. fuirmed _a sitting_, _placing_, gen. aithne fuirmeda, 157. fuirsire m. _a juggler_ 241. gáir _a cry_, _shout_, n. pl. gártha 99 m. gáis f. _wisdom_ 177, gen. gáisse 178, 192, 251. gáisse f. _wisdom_, acc. cen gáissi 176. gait (verb-noun of gataim) f. _a taking away_, _carrying off_, gen. fer gaite meirle 141. gamnach f. _a stripper_, gen. gamnaige 234. gart _generosity_ 240. gatach _thievish_ 185. geir (?) 231. gen f. _a smile_ 91, n. pl. gena, _ib._ genmnaide _chaste_ 187, genmnaide ben aenfir, h. 3, 18, 79^b. glass m. _a lock_, n. pl. glais 203. goirt _salted_, bíad g. 70. goriath (?) 127. grainne (?) 231. gréss _handicraft_ 70, ferr g. soos, ll. 345^{c}51. gríss _heat_, _fever_, _ardour_, _fervour_ 224; colum co crábud, co ngrís, ll. 35^{a}48. grith _a cry_, _shout_ 99, n. pl. gretha, _ib._ grúss (?) 143. gúala _a large vessel_, _vat_ 255; n. pl. gúala, _ib._ cf. iern-gúala. íach (a late nom. formed from the oblique cases of eó) m. _a salmon_, gen. iaich 92, l. íarduibe f. _after-grief_ 67. cf. íarnduba. íarmur f. _remnant_, _leavings_ 65. íarnduba f. _after-grief_ 125, 141. íarraid _foster-fee_ 149. im-bánad _a growing pale_ 188. im-gellad _a pledging oneself_ 101. immarchor _a conveying about or across_ 239. immed n. _plenty_ 178, 225. imreson, o. ir. imbressan (verb-n. of im-fresnaim) f. _a wrangling_ 101, 252, acc. pro nom. imresain 193. imraichne _a mistake_ 101, imraithne 229 n. im-thomailt f. _food_ 149. im-crenaim _pay or buy mutually_, imuscrenat 170. ind-chosc m. _an indication_, n. pl. ind-choisc 254. in-crenaim _i pay_, _buy_ 155. enclitic: ní écriae. ériu 1., p. 199, §21. ír f. _wrath_ 188. o'dav. 1103. itfa (?) 231. cf. itfaide toile, ll. 344^{c}36. labor _talkative_ 248; bat l. fri labra, bat tó fri tó, ll. 346^{a}12. lán _the full-tide_ 237. laxa f. _inertness_ 212. lén _sloth_ 243; tossach lubra lén, ll. 345^{b}33. lethiu _broader_, _wider_ 235. lia m. _a stone_, dat. liic 147. litánacht f. _singing the litany_, 14. lobra = lomrad _a stripping_ 218; gen. lomartha, _ib._ luaithrind _a pair of compasses_, gen. lúd -e 118; fo chosmailius luaithrinde, corm. 13, s.v. coire brecáin. luchra _a smile_ 238. lúd = lúth _agility_, _quick motion_ 118. wi. nimtha lúd hi cois nó il-láim, lu. 16^{a}5. mad _well_, ní mad bíadsam, ní mad ríadsam 236. máil _blunt_; _simple-minded_, _witless_, ingen m. 114. méile f. _lewdness_ 228; ben méile 223. marb-dil _dead chattel_, laws. acc. pl. marbdili 105. med _a balance_, _scales_ 138. meirle f. _theft_ 141. mer-aichne _a mistake_ 229. meraige m. _a fool_, _fop_ 103. mí-airle _evil counsel_ 243; tossach míarli malartcha, ll. 345^{b}37. midlachas m. _cowardice_ 197. mí-gairm n. _an evil cry_, nom. du. dá m. 124. miscne, miscena (n. pl.) _hatreds_ 179, 248. mí-thocad m. _misfortune_, _ill-luck_, gen. míthocaid 124; dat. míthocod 109. mblecht (mblicht) _in milk_ 146. móaigim _i increase_, verb-n. gen. móaigthe 146. muilleóir m. _a miller_, gen. muilleórach 234. muimme f. _a nurse_, n. pl. muime 246, 247, muimmecha 130. muin _neck_, _back_, in the phrase do m. 232 = de mhuin _because of_, _in consequence of_, dinneen. nemed, m. _a privileged person_, gen. nemid filed 255. nem-idna f. _impurity_ 109 bm. nemthigur _i constitute_, neimthigedar 116-123, 202: corm. s.v. níth: rofogluim sium in tréide nemthigius filid, megn. finn 19. neóit _churlishness_, _niggardliness_ 144. ness (1) .i. aurnise criad _a clay furnace_, h. 3, 18, 73b; gen. fri derc a neis, corm. 33, 2; (2) _the wooden mould or block in which the furnace of moist, soft clay, was formed_;[128] bói crann ina láim .i. neas a ainm [et] is uime dogníther an urnise criad, corm. 32 s. v. nescoit; (3) .i. mála cré _a bag of (moulding) clay_ h. 1, 15. [128] i owe this explanation to dr. p.w. joyce. nóill _an oath_ 165 (náill n); n. pl. nóill, ib. ochán _an urging_, _egging on_ 112. cf. achain, boroma 122. ochtrach (later otrach) f. _a dunghill_, ml 129^{c}2; dat. for ochtraig 117 (otrach n). óc-thigern m. _a franklin_ 71. óil f. _a cheek_, gen. óile 116. oirce _a lap-dog_ 241. ordan _dignity_, gen. ordain 246, 254. with triad 246, compare the following extract from h. 3, 18, p. 9_b_: secht rann fichet (xx .i. ms) triasa (friasa ms) toet feab [et] ordan (ordain ms) do duine: tria gaireui, tria ainmnit, tria [.f]ostai, tria thói, tria f_or_sadi, tria fogluim, tri domestai, tri étsecht fírindi, tri chocad fri clóine, tri indarb_a_ anfis, tri thochur[i]ud fis, tri trebairei, tri coitsecht fri forrsaidi, tri frecmorc fíren, tri filidhecht téchtai, tri ailge auscuichthi, tri airmitin sen, tri denam sinsire, tri ermitin flatha, tri airmidin ecnai, tri honoi[r] fithidre, tri timorgain cuibsi _nó_ gnúisi, tri idhnai lámai, tri congain cuibsi, tri imrád bá[i]s, tria imrád _nó_ décsin i ndia na ndúla. paitt f. _a leather bottle_, p. meda, ll. 117^{a}50; lu. 54^{b}22; gen. paitte 231; na paitte, ll. 117^{b}2; du. n. dá phait [.f]ína, lb. 129^{a}. plett (flett) f. _an edge_ 121; plet .i. nomen rinda dogníat cerda, h. 3, 18, p. 73: flét, o'r. prap-chaillte (literally 'sudden hardness') f. _closefistedness_ 212. ráth f. _security_, _surety_ 235; gen. rátha 139. ráthaiges m. _guarantorship_ 135, 248. rathmaire f. _bountifulness_ 211. reclés _an abbey-church_ 11. reithe m. _a ram_ 117, 168. rige _a stretching_, _extending_ 116. rigne (raigne) f. _stiffness_ 179: ll. 212^{b}15; rigne labartha, 345^{d}10. roimse _abundance_ 202. ronn _a chain_ 121. rop m. _a brute_, n. pl. ruip, 168, 169. with triad 168 compare the following extract from h. 3, 18, p. 8^{b}: rofesar rupu tria fóindel caich laithiu dosliat fiachui dóine do cethrai .i. each cen cuibrich cech tráthai, cú cen cuibrech _nó_ cen lomain laithe, muiccai cen mucalaig ndorcha. ros-chullach m. _a stallion_ 114. ro-thé very hot, _scalding_ 70; aisl. m. rucca f. _shame_ 143. ruire m. _a king_, gen. pl. ruirech 202. rúss _a blushing_ 143; o'dav. 1336, 1343, rús .i. grúaid, ut dicitur: co nach romna rús richt. rús dono imdergad [et] gach nderg, h. 3, 18, 73^c. sail _a beam_, _prop_, n. pl. sailge 101. saill f. _fat_, _bacon_ 170; gen. cia tiget na saille, lb. 260^{b}20; n pl. saillti 184. sain-chor m. _a special contract_, gen. -chuir 151. salánach _dirty_, _filthy_, n. pl. salanaig 230. saltraim _i trample_, rosaltrus 104. sámtha _repose_ 189. sant f. _avarice_ 115. scenb _a startling_ (?) n. pl. scenb 106. scéo _and_ 223. scolóc _a young student_ 233. secnabbóite f. _vice-abbotship_ 46. seche _a hide_, _skin_ 230. ségainn _accomplished_; _an accomplished person_, n. pl. ségainni, 89 (ségaind m ségainn n); ní rabha i neirinn uile budh griabhdha nó bud segaine inás, three fragm. 34. seim _a rivet_ 172. seol (seola) _child-bed_ 224. sírecht f. _a tabu_, .i. geis, o'dav. 1482, who quotes triad 253. sirite m. _a wild man_, _sprite_ 114. sit _hush_! 137; sit sit! hib. min. 78, 23. sleith f. _cohabiting with a woman without her knowledge_ 155; aisl. m. o'dav. 97. slissén _a chip_, _lath_ 169. snáth f. _a thread_, gen. snáithe 75. so-bés m. _good manners_ 84. sobraid _sober_ 251; sobraig, ll. 343^{d}3; sobraig cách co haltram, ll. 345^{d}45. sobraide f. _sobriety_ 187, 251. sochell _liberality_ 210; ll. 345^{b}39. sochlatu m. _good repute_, gen. sochlatad 211. sochoisc _docile_ 251; n. pl. -e, cz. iii. 451, 28. sochoisce f. _docility_ 194; tossach suthi s., ll. 345^{b}23. so-delb f. _a fine figure_ 85. so-gnás f. _good breeding_ 210; gen. sognáise 208. soithnges m. _wellspokenness_ 208, 251. soitcedach _fortunate_ 239. somnath (^{x}so-múnad) _easily taught_, _docile_ 251. cf. o'dav. 1481. somnathe f. _docility_ 251. són _that_ 239. sotcad m. _good fortune_, gen. sotcaid 210. sotla f. _pride_ 247. so-thengtha _well-spoken_ 251. sproicept _a preaching_ 111 b. sproicepht m. sreb f. 'the stream of milk drawn from a cow's teats at each tug,' dinneen; gen. sreibe, 75 l. sreb immais 112 note. srithid f. '_the passage of milk from the breast_.' o'r.: gen. srithide 75. sruithe f. _seniority_ 5. sta _hush!_ 137; bodl. corm. stata, hib. min. 78, 1. súarcus m. _mirth_ 210. suirge f. _a courting_, _wooing_, 247. suthaine f. _lastingness_, 182. tacra _a pleading_, t. fergach 173 = ll. 345^{d}23. tairisiu m. _trustfulness_ 204. tairismige f. _obduracy_ 209. tair-leimm n. _an alighting_, _a place of alighting_; geis dí tochim cen tairlim, ll. 201^{a}11: n. pl. tairleme, 32. taisec _restitution_, _restoration_ 157. laws, aisl. m. tal-chaire f. _self-will_, _obstinacy_ 131. tarcud _a proposing_ 72, 73; t. do drochmnái, aisl. m. 73, 26. tarsunn m. _a sauce_; tarsand, o'mulc. 612: n. pl. tarsuinn 184 (tarsunn l): torsnu, aisl. m. 99, 7. tascor _a retinue_, t. ríg 71, t. ríg nó espuic, o'dav. 1501. 1. téite f. _wantonness_ 18. 2. téite _a fair_, _gathering_ 88. tenn (teinn, tinn) _sore_, _hurting_, cluiche t. 90. cf. mían leisan laoch lúaiter linn | cluiche ó nách biad duine tinn _a game by which no one is hurt_, bruss. ms. 2569, fo. 65^a. tirdacht f. _boorishness_ 229. tlás f. _weariness_ 132, 133. togním. m. (?) 219. toicthiu (?) 131. toimtiu f. _opinion_ 136. cf. mac toimten '_son of conjecture_,' o'dav. 1596. tothucht _substance_ 85. bb. 19^{b}14. tradna _a corncrake_ 129. trecheng _a triad_. for o.-ir. trethenc, wb. 29^{c}5 (thes. i. 691). trichem _a fit of coughing_; sen-t. 114. mod. tritheamh. trichtach _example_, _pattern_ (?) 27. is é did_iu_ in fer sin ropo trichtach do chorinntib ara techtatis an indmus am_al_ ná techtatis, lb. 146^{a}32; ropo trichtach tra don eclais dílgedaig fo chosmailius ingen n-óg ná tabrat olc ar olc, acbt logud, _ib_. tromdatu m. _importunity_ 214. tromm m. _the elder-tree_ 129; gen. connud truimm, rc. vii., 298, 3. trú _a doomed person_, dat. robud do throich 83 = aisl. m. 71, 20. trumma f. _weightiness_, _self-importance_ 131. trusca f. _leprosy_ 133 n.; clam-trusca au. 950. tuilféth _a frown_ 142. tuisledach _stumbling_, _offending_ 96 n. turtugud _a compelling_, _forcing_, _violating_ 155: is tar turtugud ndé [et] patraic cach gell [et] cach aitire, cáin domn.; lu. 74^{a}19, 123^{a}17; turtugud breth, ll. 344^{b}; turrtugad .i. timpud, h. 3, 18, 539^{b}; a turtad .i. per uim, o'dav. 1151; turtad .i. coméicniugud, o'mulc. h. 3, 18, 74^{b}, 866. uais _hard_, _difficult_ 220, 235; coruice uais nó angbocht, .i. is é iu t-uais ní ná raibe aice féin, o'dav. 112. reflections; or sentences and moral maxims by francois duc de la rochefoucauld, prince de marsillac translated from the editions of 1678 and 1827 with introduction, notes, and some account of the author and his times. by j. w. willis bund, m.a. ll.b and j. hain friswell simpson low, son, and marston, 188, fleet street. 1871. {transcribers notes: spelling variants are preserved (e.g. labour instead of labor, criticise instead of criticize, etc.); the translators' comments are in square brackets [...] as they are in the text; footnotes are indicated by * and appear immediately following the passage containing the note (in the text they appear at the bottom of the page); and, finally, corrections and addenda are in curly brackets {...}.} rochefoucauld "as rochefoucauld his maxims drew from nature--i believe them true. they argue no corrupted mind in him; the fault is in mankind."--swift. "les maximes de la rochefoucauld sont des proverbs des gens d'esprit."--montesquieu. "maxims are the condensed good sense of nations."--sir j. mackintosh. "translators should not work alone; for good et propria verba do not always occur to one mind."--luther's table talk, iii. contents preface (translator's) introduction (translator's) reflections and moral maxims first supplement second supplement third supplement reflections on various subjects index preface. {translators'} some apology must be made for an attempt "to translate the untranslatable." notwithstanding there are no less than eight english translations of la rochefoucauld, hardly any are readable, none are free from faults, and all fail more or less to convey the author's meaning. though so often translated, there is not a complete english edition of the maxims and reflections. all the translations are confined exclusively to the maxims, none include the reflections. this may be accounted for, from the fact that most of the translations are taken from the old editions of the maxims, in which the reflections do not appear. until m. suard devoted his attention to the text of rochefoucauld, the various editions were but reprints of the preceding ones, without any regard to the alterations made by the author in the later editions published during his life-time. so much was this the case, that maxims which had been rejected by rochefoucauld in his last edition, were still retained in the body of the work. to give but one example, the celebrated maxim as to the misfortunes of our friends, was omitted in the last edition of the book, published in rochefoucauld's life-time, yet in every english edition this maxim appears in the body of the work. m. aimé martin in 1827 published an edition of the maxims and reflections which has ever since been the standard text of rochefoucauld in france. the maxims are printed from the edition of 1678, the last published during the author's life, and the last which received his corrections. to this edition were added two supplements; the first containing the maxims which had appeared in the editions of 1665, 1666, and 1675, and which were afterwards omitted; the second, some additional maxims found among various of the author's manuscripts in the royal library at paris. and a series of reflections which had been previously published in a work called "receuil de pièces d'histoire et de littérature." paris, 1731. they were first published with the maxims in an edition by gabriel brotier. in an edition of rochefoucauld entitled "reflexions, ou sentences et maximes morales, augmentées de plus deux cent nouvelles maximes et maximes et pensées diverses suivant les copies imprimées à paris, chez claude barbin, et matre cramoisy 1692,"* some fifty maxims were added, ascribed by the editor to rochefoucauld, and as his family allowed them to be published under his name, it seems probable they were genuine. these fifty form the third supplement to this book. *in all the french editions this book is spoken of as published in 1693. the only copy i have seen is in the cambridge university library, 47, 16, 81, and is called "reflexions morales." the apology for the present edition of rochefoucauld must therefore be twofold: firstly, that it is an attempt to give the public a complete english edition of rochefoucauld's works as a moralist. the body of the work comprises the maxims as the author finally left them, the first supplement, those published in former editions, and rejected by the author in the later; the second, the unpublished maxims taken from the author's correspondence and manuscripts, and the third, the maxims first published in 1692. while the reflections, in which the thoughts in the maxims are extended and elaborated, now appear in english for the first time. and secondly, that it is an attempt (to quote the preface of the edition of 1749) "to do the duc de la rochefoucauld the justice to make him speak english." introduction {translators'} the description of the "ancien regime" in france, "a despotism tempered by epigrams," like most epigrammatic sentences, contains some truth, with much fiction. the society of the last half of the seventeenth, and the whole of the eighteenth centuries, was doubtless greatly influenced by the precise and terse mode in which the popular writers of that date expressed their thoughts. to a people naturally inclined to think that every possible view, every conceivable argument, upon a question is included in a short aphorism, a shrug, and the word "voilà," truths expressed in condensed sentences must always have a peculiar charm. it is, perhaps, from this love of epigram, that we find so many eminent french writers of maxims. pascal, de retz, la rochefoucauld, la bruyère, montesquieu, and vauvenargues, each contributed to the rich stock of french epigrams. no other country can show such a list of brilliant writers--in england certainly we cannot. our most celebrated, lord bacon, has, by his other works, so surpassed his maxims, that their fame is, to a great measure, obscured. the only englishman who could have rivalled la rochefoucauld or la bruyère was the earl of chesterfield, and he only could have done so from his very intimate connexion with france; but unfortunately his brilliant genius was spent in the impossible task of trying to refine a boorish young briton, in "cutting blocks with a razor." of all the french epigrammatic writers la rochefoucauld is at once the most widely known, and the most distinguished. voltaire, whose opinion on the century of louis xiv. is entitled to the greatest weight, says, "one of the works that most largely contributed to form the taste of the nation, and to diffuse a spirit of justice and precision, is the collection of maxims, by francois duc de la rochefoucauld." this francois, the second duc de la rochefoucauld, prince de marsillac, the author of the maxims, was one of the most illustrious members of the most illustrious families among the french noblesse. descended from the ancient dukes of guienne, the founder of the family fulk or foucauld, a younger branch of the house of lusignan, was at the commencement of the eleventh century the seigneur of a small town, la roche, in the angounois. our chief knowledge of this feudal lord is drawn from the monkish chronicles. as the benefactor of the various abbeys and monasteries in his province, he is naturally spoken of by them in terms of eulogy, and in the charter of one of the abbeys of angouleme he is called, "vir nobilissimus fulcaldus." his territorial power enabled him to adopt what was then, as is still in scotland, a common custom, to prefix the name of his estate to his surname, and thus to create and transmit to his descendants the illustrious surname of la rochefoucauld. from that time until that great crisis in the history of the french aristocracy, the revolution of 1789, the family of la rochefoucauld have been, "if not first, in the very first line" of that most illustrious body. one seigneur served under philip augustus against richard coeur de lion, and was made prisoner at the battle of gisors. the eighth seigneur guy performed a great tilt at bordeaux, attended (according to froissart) to the lists by some two hundred of his kindred and relations. the sixteenth seigneur francais was chamberlain to charles viii. and louis xii., and stood at the font as sponsor, giving his name to that last light of french chivalry, francis i. in 1515 he was created a baron, and was afterwards advanced to a count, on account of his great service to francis and his predecessors. the second count pushed the family fortune still further by obtaining a patent as the prince de marsillac. his widow, anne de polignac, entertained charles v. at the family chateau at verteuil, in so princely a manner that on leaving charles observed, "he had never entered a house so redolent of high virtue, uprightness, and lordliness as that mansion." the third count, after serving with distinction under the duke of guise against the spaniards, was made prisoner at st. quintin, and only regained his liberty to fall a victim to the "bloody infamy" of st. bartholomew. his son, the fourth count, saved with difficulty from that massacre, after serving with distinction in the religious wars, was taken prisoner in a skirmish at st. yriex la perche, and murdered by the leaguers in cold blood. the fifth count, one of the ministers of louis xiii., after fighting against the english and buckingham at the ile de ré, was created a duke. his son francis, the second duke, by his writings has made the family name a household word. the third duke fought in many of the earlier campaigns of louis xiv. at torcy, lille, cambray, and was dangerously wounded at the passage of the rhine. from his bravery he rose to high favour at court, and was appointed master of the horse (grand veneur) and lord chamberlain. his son, the fourth duke, commanded the regiment of navarre, and took part in storming the village of neerwinden on the day when william iii. was defeated at landen. he was afterwards created duc de la rochequyon and marquis de liancourt. the fifth duke, banished from court by louis xv., became the friend of the philosopher voltaire. the sixth duke, the friend of condorcet, was the last of the long line of noble lords who bore that distinguished name. in those terrible days of september, 1792, when the french people were proclaiming universal humanity, the duke was seized as an aristocrat by the mob at gisors and put to death behind his own carriage, in which sat his mother and his wife, at the very place where, some six centuries previously, his ancestor had been taken prisoner in a fair fight. a modern writer has spoken of this murder "as an admirable reprisal upon the grandson for the writings and conduct of the grandfather." but m. sainte beuve observes as to this, he can see nothing admirable in the death of the duke, and if it proves anything, it is only that the grandfather was not so wrong in his judgment of men as is usually supposed. francis, the author, was born on the 15th december 1615. m. sainte beuve divides his life into four periods, first, from his birth till he was thirty-five, when he became mixed up in the war of the fronde; the second period, during the progress of that war; the third, the twelve years that followed, while he recovered from his wounds, and wrote his maxims during his retirement from society; and the last from that time till his death. in the same way that herodotus calls each book of his history by the name of one of the muses, so each of these four periods of la rochefoucauld's life may be associated with the name of a woman who was for the time his ruling passion. these four ladies are the duchesse de chevreuse, the duchesse de longueville, madame de sablé, and madame de la fayette. la rochefoucauld's early education was neglected; his father, occupied in the affairs of state, either had not, or did not devote any time to his education. his natural talents and his habits of observation soon, however, supplied all deficiencies. by birth and station placed in the best society of the french court, he soon became a most finished courtier. knowing how precarious court favour then was, his father, when young rochefoucauld was only nine years old, sent him into the army. he was subsequently attached to the regiment of auvergne. though but sixteen he was present, and took part in the military operations at the siege of cassel. the court of louis xiii. was then ruled imperiously by richelieu. the duke de la rochefoucauld was strongly opposed to the cardinal's party. by joining in the plots of gaston of orleans, he gave richelieu an opportunity of ridding paris of his opposition. when those plots were discovered, the duke was sent into a sort of banishment to blois. his son, who was then at court with him, was, upon the pretext of a liaison with mdlle. d'hautefort, one of the ladies in waiting on the queen (anne of austria), but in reality to prevent the duke learning what was passing at paris, sent with his father. the result of the exile was rochefoucauld's marriage. with the exception that his wife's name was mdlle. vivonne, and that she was the mother of five sons and three daughters, nothing is known of her. while rochefoucauld and his father were at blois, the duchesse de chevreuse, one of the beauties of the court, and the mistress of louis, was banished to tours. she and rochefoucauld met, and soon became intimate, and for a time she was destined to be the one motive of his actions. the duchesse was engaged in a correspondence with the court of spain and the queen. into this plot rochefoucauld threw himself with all his energy; his connexion with the queen brought him back to his old love mdlle. d'hautefort, and led him to her party, which he afterwards followed. the course he took shut him off from all chance of court favour. the king regarded him with coldness, the cardinal with irritation. although the bastile and the scaffold, the fate of chalais and montmorency, were before his eyes, they failed to deter him from plotting. he was about twenty-three; returning to paris, he warmly sided with the queen. he says in his memoirs that the only persons she could then trust were himself and mdlle. d'hautefort, and it was proposed he should take both of them from paris to brussels. into this plan he entered with all his youthful indiscretion, it being for several reasons the very one he would wish to adopt, as it would strengthen his influence with anne of austria, place richelieu and his master in an uncomfortable position, and save mdlle. d'hautefort from the attentions the king was showing her. but richelieu of course discovered this plot, and rochefoucauld was, of course, sent to the bastile. he was liberated after a week's imprisonment, but banished to his chateau at verteuil. the reason for this clemency was that the cardinal desired to win rochefoucauld from the queen's party. a command in the army was offered to him, but by the queen's orders refused. for some three years rochefoucauld remained at verteuil, waiting the time for his reckoning with richelieu; speculating on the king's death, and the favours he would then receive from the queen. during this period he was more or less engaged in plotting against his enemy the cardinal, and hatching treason with cinq mars and de thou. m. sainte beuve says, that unless we study this first part of rochefoucauld's life, we shall never understand his maxims. the bitter disappointment of the passionate love, the high hopes then formed, the deceit and treachery then witnessed, furnished the real key to their meaning. the cutting cynicism of the morality was built on the ruins of that chivalrous ambition and romantic affection. he saw his friend cinq mars sent to the scaffold, himself betrayed by men whom he had trusted, and the only reason he could assign for these actions was intense selfishness. meanwhile, richelieu died. rochefoucauld returned to court, and found anne of austria regent, and mazarin minister. the queen's former friends flocked there in numbers, expecting that now their time of prosperity had come. they were bitterly disappointed. mazarin relied on hope instead of gratitude, to keep the queen's adherents on his side. the most that any received were promises that were never performed. in after years, doubtless, rochefoucauld's recollection of his disappointment led him to write the maxim: "we promise according to our hopes, we perform according to our fears." but he was not even to receive promises; he asked for the governorship of havre, which was then vacant. he was flatly refused. disappointment gave rise to anger, and uniting with his old flame, the duchesse de chevreuse, who had received the same treatment, and with the duke of beaufort, they formed a conspiracy against the government. the plot was, of course, discovered and crushed. beaufort was arrested, the duchesse banished. irritated and disgusted, rochefoucauld went with the duc d'enghein, who was then joining the army, on a campaign, and here he found the one love of his life, the duke's sister, mdme. de longueville. this lady, young, beautiful, and accomplished, obtained a great ascendancy over rochefoucauld, and was the cause of his taking the side of condé in the subsequent civil war. rochefoucauld did not stay long with the army. he was badly wounded at the siege of mardik, and returned from thence to paris. on recovering from his wounds, the war of the fronde broke out. this war is said to have been most ridiculous, as being carried on without a definite object, a plan, or a leader. but this description is hardly correct; it was the struggle of the french nobility against the rule of the court; an attempt, the final attempt, to recover their lost influence over the state, and to save themselves from sinking under the rule of cardinals and priests. with the general history of that war we have nothing to do; it is far too complicated and too confused to be stated here. the memoirs of rochefoucauld and de retz will give the details to those who desire to trace the contests of the factions--the course of the intrigues. we may confine ourselves to its progress so far as it relates to the duc de la rochefoucauld. on the cardinal causing the princes de condé and conti, and the duc de longueville, to be arrested, rochefoucauld and the duchess fled into normandy. leaving her at dieppe, he went into poitou, of which province he had some years previously bought the post of governor. he was there joined by the duc de bouillon, and he and the duke marched to, and occupied bordeaux. cardinal mazarin and marechal de la meilleraie advanced in force on bordeaux, and attacked the town. a bloody battle followed. rochefoucauld defended the town with the greatest bravery, and repulsed the cardinal. notwithstanding the repulse, the burghers of bordeaux were anxious to make peace, and save the city from destruction. the parliament of bordeaux compelled rochefoucauld to surrender. he did so, and returned nominally to poitou, but in reality in secret to paris. there he found the queen engaged in trying to maintain her position by playing off the rival parties of the prince condé and the cardinal de retz against each other. rochefoucauld eagerly espoused his old party--that of condé. in august, 1651, the contending parties met in the hall of the parliament of paris, and it was with great difficulty they were prevented from coming to blows even there. it is even said that rochefoucauld had ordered his followers to murder de retz. rochefoucauld was soon to undergo a bitter disappointment. while occupied with party strife and faction in paris, madame de chevreuse left him, and formed an alliance with the duc de nemours. rochefoucauld still loved her. it was, probably, thinking of this that he afterwards wrote, "jealousy is born with love, but does not die with it." he endeavoured to get madame de chatillon, the old mistress of the duc de nemours, reinstated in favour, but in this he did not succeed. the duc de nemours was soon after killed in a duel. the war went on, and after several indecisive skirmishes, the decisive battle was fought at paris, in the faubourg st. antoine, where the parisians first learnt the use or the abuse of their favourite defence, the barricade. in this battle, rochefoucauld behaved with great bravery. he was wounded in the head, a wound which for a time deprived him of his sight. before he recovered, the war was over, louis xiv. had attained his majority, the gold of mazarin, the arms of turenne, had been successful, the french nobility were vanquished, the court supremacy established. this completed rochefoucauld's active life. when he recovered his health, he devoted himself to society. madame de sablé assumed a hold over him. he lived a quiet life, and occupied himself in composing an account of his early life, called his "memoirs," and his immortal "maxims." from the time he ceased to take part in public life, rochefoucauld's real glory began. having acted the various parts of soldier, politician, and lover with but small success, he now commenced the part of moralist, by which he is known to the world. living in the most brilliant society that france possessed, famous from his writings, distinguished from the part he had taken in public affairs, he formed the centre of one of those remarkable french literary societies, a society which numbered among its members la fontaine, racine, boileau. among his most attached friends was madame de la fayette (the authoress of the "princess of cleeves"), and this friendship continued until his death. he was not, however, destined to pass away in that gay society without some troubles. at the passage of the rhine in 1672 two of his sons were engaged; the one was killed, the other severely wounded. rochefoucauld was much affected by this, but perhaps still more by the death of the young duc de longueville, who perished on the same occasion. sainte beuve says that the cynical book and that young life were the only fruits of the war of the fronde. madame de sévigné, who was with him when he heard the news of the death of so much that was dear to him, says, "i saw his heart laid bare on that cruel occasion, and his courage, his merit, his tenderness, and good sense surpassed all i ever met with. i hold his wit and accomplishments as nothing in comparison." the combined effect of his wounds and the gout caused the last years of rochefoucauld's life to be spent in great pain. madame de sévigné, who was {with} him continually during his last illness, speaks of the fortitude with which he bore his sufferings as something to be admired. writing to her daughter, she says, "believe me, it is not for nothing he has moralised all his life; he has thought so often on his last moments that they are nothing new or unfamiliar to him." in his last illness, the great moralist was attended by the great divine, bossuet. whether that matchless eloquence or his own philosophic calm had, in spite of his writings, brought him into the state madame de sévigné describes, we know not; but one, or both, contributed to his passing away in a manner that did not disgrace a french noble or a french philosopher. on the 11th march, 1680, he ended his stormy life in peace after so much strife, a loyal subject after so much treason. one of his friends, madame deshoulières, shortly before he died sent him an ode on death, which aptly describes his state-"oui, soyez alors plus ferme, que ces vulgaires humains qui, près de leur dernier terme, de vaines terreurs sont pleins. en sage que rien n'offense, livrez-vous sans resistance a d'inévitables traits; et, d'une demarche égale, passez cette onde fatal qu'on ne repasse jamais." rochefoucauld left behind him only two works, the one, memoirs of his own time, the other the maxims. the first described the scenes in which his youth had been spent, and though written in a lively style, and giving faithful pictures of the intrigues and the scandals of the court during louis xiv.'s minority, yet, except to the historian, has ceased at the present day to be of much interest. it forms, perhaps, the true key to understand the special as opposed to general application of the maxims. notwithstanding the assertion of bayle, that "there are few people so bigoted to antiquity as not to prefer the memoirs of la rochefoucauld to the commentaries of caesar," or the statement of voltaire, "that the memoirs are universally read and the maxims are learnt by heart," few persons at the present day ever heard of the memoirs, and the knowledge of most as to the maxims is confined to that most celebrated of all, though omitted from his last edition, "there is something in the misfortunes of our best friends which does not wholly displease us." yet it is difficult to assign a cause for this; no book is perhaps oftener unwittingly quoted, none certainly oftener unblushingly pillaged; upon none have so many contradictory opinions been given. "few books," says mr. hallam, "have been more highly extolled, or more severely blamed, than the maxims of the duke of rochefoucauld, and that not only here, but also in france." rousseau speaks of it as, "a sad and melancholy book," though he goes on to say "it is usually so in youth when we do not like seeing man as he is." voltaire says of it, in the words above quoted, "one of the works which most contributed to form the taste of the (french) nation, and to give it a spirit of justness and precision, was the collection of the maxims of francois duc de la rochefoucauld, though there is scarcely more than one truth running through the book--that 'self-love is the motive of everything'--yet this thought is presented under so many varied aspects that it is nearly always striking. it is not so much a book as it is materials for ornamenting a book. this little collection was read with avidity, it taught people to think, and to comprise their thoughts in a lively, precise, and delicate turn of expression. this was a merit which, before him, no one in europe had attained since the revival of letters." dr. johnson speaks of it as "the only book written by a man of fashion, of which professed authors need be jealous." lord chesterfield, in his letters to his son, says, "till you come to know mankind by your experience, i know no thing nor no man that can in the meantime bring you so well acquainted with them as le duc de la rochefoucauld. his little book of maxims, which i would advise you to look into for some moments at least every day of your life, is, i fear, too like and too exact a picture of human nature. i own it seems to degrade it, but yet my experience does not convince me that it degrades it unjustly." bishop butler, on the other hand, blames the book in no measured terms. "there is a strange affectation," says the bishop, "in some people of explaining away all particular affection, and representing the whole life as nothing but one continued exercise of self-love. hence arise that surprising confusion and perplexity in the epicureans of old, hobbes, the author of 'reflexions morales,' and the whole set of writers, of calling actions interested which are done of the most manifest known interest, merely for the gratification of a present passion." the judgment the reader will be most inclined to adopt will perhaps be either that of mr. hallam, "concise and energetic in expression, reduced to those short aphorisms which leave much to the reader's acuteness and yet save his labour, not often obscure, and never wearisome, an evident generalisation of long experience, without pedantry, without method, without deductive reasonings, yet wearing an appearance at least of profundity; they delight the intelligent though indolent man of the world, and must be read with some admiration by the philosopher . . . . yet they bear witness to the contracted observation and the precipitate inferences which an intercourse with a single class of society scarcely fails to generate." or that of addison, who speaks of rochefoucauld "as the great philosopher for administering consolation to the idle, the curious, and the worthless part of mankind." we are fortunately in possession of materials such as rarely exist to enable us to form a judgment of rochefoucauld's character. we have, with a vanity that could only exist in a frenchman, a description or portrait of himself, of his own painting, and one of those inimitable living sketches in which his great enemy, cardinal de retz, makes all the chief actors in the court of the regency of anne of austria pass across the stage before us. we will first look on the portrait rochefoucauld has left us of himself: "i am," says he, "of a medium height, active, and well-proportioned. my complexion dark, but uniform, a high forehead; and of moderate height, black eyes, small, deep set, eyebrows black and thick but well placed. i am rather embarrassed in talking of my nose, for it is neither flat nor aquiline, nor large; nor pointed: but i believe, as far as i can say, it is too large than too small, and comes down just a trifle too low. i have a large mouth, lips generally red enough, neither shaped well nor badly. i have white teeth, and fairly even. i have been told i have a little too much chin. i have just looked at myself in the glass to ascertain the fact, and i do not know how to decide. as to the shape of my face, it is either square or oval, but which i should find it very difficult to say. i have black hair, which curls by nature, and thick and long enough to entitle me to lay claim to a fine head. i have in my countenance somewhat of grief and pride, which gives many people an idea i despise them, although i am not at all given to do so. my gestures are very free, rather inclined to be too much so, for in speaking they make me use too much action. such, candidly, i believe i am in outward appearance, and i believe it will be found that what i have said above of myself is not far from the real case. i shall use the same truthfulness in the remainder of my picture, for i have studied myself sufficiently to know myself well; and i will lack neither boldness to speak as freely as i can of my good qualities, nor sincerity to freely avow that i have faults. "in the first place, to speak of my temper. i am melancholy, and i have hardly been seen for the last three or four years to laugh above three or four times. it seems to me that my melancholy would be even endurable and pleasant if i had none but what belonged to me constitutionally; but it arises from so many other causes, fills my imagination in such a way, and possesses my mind so strongly that for the greater part of my time i remain without speaking a word, or give no meaning to what i say. i am extremely reserved to those i do not know, and i am not very open with the greater part of those i do. it is a fault i know well, and i should neglect no means to correct myself of it; but as a certain gloomy air i have tends to make me seem more reserved than i am in fact, and as it is not in our power to rid ourselves of a bad expression that arises from a natural conformation of features, i think that even when i have cured myself internally, externally some bad expression will always remain. "i have ability. i have no hesitation in saying it, as for what purpose should i pretend otherwise. so great circumvention, and so great depreciation, in speaking of the gifts one has, seems to me to hide a little vanity under an apparent modesty, and craftily to try to make others believe in greater virtues than are imputed to us. on my part i am content not to be considered better-looking than i am, nor of a better temper than i describe, nor more witty and clever than i am. once more, i have ability, but a mind spoilt by melancholy, for though i know my own language tolerably well, and have a good memory, a mode of thought not particularly confused, i yet have so great a mixture of discontent that i often say what i have to say very badly. "the conversation of gentlemen is one of the pleasures that most amuses me. i like it to be serious and morality to form the substance of it. yet i also know how to enjoy it when trifling; and if i do not make many witty speeches, it is not because i do not appreciate the value of trifles well said, and that i do not find great amusement in that manner of raillery in which certain prompt and ready-witted persons excel so well. i write well in prose; i do well in verse; and if i was envious of the glory that springs from that quarter, i think with a little labour i could acquire some reputation. i like reading, in general; but that in which one finds something to polish the wit and strengthen the soul is what i like best. but, above all, i have the greatest pleasure in reading with an intelligent person, for then we reflect constantly upon what we read, and the observations we make form the most pleasant and useful form of conversation there is. "i am a fair critic of the works in verse and prose that are shown me; but perhaps i speak my opinion with almost too great freedom. another fault in me is that i have sometimes a spirit of delicacy far too scrupulous, and a spirit of criticism far too severe. i do not dislike an argument, and i often of my own free will engage in one; but i generally back my opinion with too much warmth, and sometimes, when the wrong side is advocated against me, from the strength of my zeal for reason, i become a little unreasonable myself. "i have virtuous sentiments, good inclinations, and so strong a desire to be a wholly good man that my friend cannot afford me a greater pleasure than candidly to show me my faults. those who know me most intimately, and those who have the goodness sometimes to give me the above advice, know that i always receive it with all the joy that could be expected, and with all reverence of mind that could be desired. "i have all the passions pretty mildly, and pretty well under control. i am hardly ever seen in a rage, and i never hated any one. i am not, however, incapable of avenging myself if i have been offended, or if my honour demanded i should resent an insult put upon me; on the contrary, i feel clear that duty would so well discharge the office of hatred in me that i should follow my revenge with even greater keenness than other people. "ambition does not weary me. i fear but few things, and i do not fear death in the least. i am but little given to pity, and i could wish i was not so at all. though there is nothing i would not do to comfort an afflicted person, and i really believe that one should do all one can to show great sympathy to him for his misfortune, for miserable people are so foolish that this does them the greatest good in the world; yet i also hold that we should be content with expressing sympathy, and carefully avoid having any. it is a passion that is wholly worthless in a well-regulated mind, which only serves to weaken the heart, and which should be left to ordinary persons, who, as they never do anything from reason, have need of passions to stimulate their actions. "i love my friends; and i love them to such an extent that i would not for a moment weigh my interest against theirs. i condescend to them, i patiently endure their bad temper. but, also, i do not make much of their caresses, and i do not feel great uneasiness in their absence. "naturally, i have but little curiosity about the majority of things that stir up curiosity in other men. i am very secret, and i have less difficulty than most men in holding my tongue as to what is told me in confidence. i am most particular as to my word, and i would never fail, whatever might be the consequence, to do what i had promised; and i have made this an inflexible law during the whole of my life. "i keep the most punctilious civility to women. i do not believe i have ever said anything before them which could cause them annoyance. when their intellect is cultivated, i prefer their society to that of men: one there finds a mildness one does not meet with among ourselves, and it seems to me beyond this that they express themselves with more neatness, and give a more agreeable turn to the things they talk about. as for flirtation, i formerly indulged in a little, now i shall do so no more, though i am still young. i have renounced all flirtation, and i am simply astonished that there are still so many sensible people who can occupy their time with it. "i wholly approve of real loves; they indicate greatness of soul, and although, in the uneasiness they give rise to, there is a something contrary to strict wisdom, they fit in so well with the most severe virtue, that i believe they cannot be censured with justice. to me who have known all that is fine and grand in the lofty aspirations of love, if i ever fall in love, it will assuredly be in love of that nature. but in accordance with the present turn of my mind, i do not believe that the knowledge i have of it will ever change from my mind to my heart." such is his own description of himself. let us now turn to the other picture, delineated by the man who was his bitterest enemy, and whom (we say it with regret) rochefoucauld tried to murder. cardinal de retz thus paints him:-"in m. de la rochefoucauld there was ever an indescribable something. from his infancy he always wanted to be mixed up with plots, at a time when he could not understand even the smallest interests (which has indeed never been his weak point,) or comprehend greater ones, which in another sense has never been his strong point. he was never fitted for any matter, and i really cannot tell the reason. his glance was not sufficiently wide, and he could not take in at once all that lay in his sight, but his good sense, perfect in theories, combined with his gentleness, his winning ways, his pleasing manners, which are perfect, should more than compensate for his lack of penetration. he always had a natural irresoluteness, but i cannot say to what this irresolution is to be attributed. it could not arise in him from the wealth of his imagination, for that was anything but lively. i cannot put it down to the barrenness of his judgment, for, although he was not prompt in action, he had a good store of reason. we see the effects of this irresolution, although we cannot assign a cause for it. he was never a general, though a great soldier; never, naturally, a good courtier, although he had always a good idea of being so. he was never a good partizan, although all his life engaged in intrigues. that air of pride and timidity which your see in his private life, is turned in business into an apologetic manner. he always believed he had need of it; and this, combined with his 'maxims,' which show little faith in virtue, and his habitual custom, to give up matters with the same haste he undertook them, leads me to the conclusion that he would have done far better to have known his own mind, and have passed himself off, as he could have done, for the most polished courtier, the most agreeable man in private life that had appeared in his century." it is but justice to the cardinal to say, that the duc is not painted in such dark colours as we should have expected, judging from what we know of the character of de retz. with his marvellous power of depicting character, a power unrivalled, except by st. simon and perhaps by lord clarendon, we should have expected the malignity of the priest would have stamped the features of his great enemy with the impress of infamy, and not have simply made him appear a courtier, weak, insincere, and nothing more. though rather beyond our subject, the character of cardinal de retz, as delineated by mdme. sévigné, in one of her letters, will help us to form a true conclusion on the different characters of the duc and the cardinal. she says:-"paul de gondi cardinal de retz possesses great elevation of character, a certain extent of intellect, and more of the ostentation than of the true greatness of courage. he has an extraordinary memory, more energy than polish in his words, an easy humour, docility of character, and weakness in submitting to the complaints and reproaches of his friends, a little piety, some appearances of religion. he appears ambitious without being really so. vanity and those who have guided him, have made him undertake great things, almost all opposed to his profession. he excited the greatest troubles in the state without any design of turning them to account, and far from declaring himself the enemy of cardinal mazarin with any view of occupying his place, he thought of nothing but making himself an object of dread to him, and flattering himself with the false vanity of being his rival. he was clever enough, however, to take advantage of the public calamities to get himself made cardinal. he endured his imprisonment with firmness, and owed his liberty solely to his own daring. in the obscurity of a life of wandering and concealment, his indolence for many years supported him with reputation. he preserved the archbishopric of paris against the power of cardinal mazarin, but after the death of that minister, he resigned it without knowing what he was doing, and without making use of the opportunity to promote the interests of himself and his friends. he has taken part in several conclaves, and his conduct has always increased his reputation. "his natural bent is to indolence, nevertheless he labours with activity in pressing business, and reposes with indifference when it is concluded. he has great presence of mind, and knows so well how to turn it to his own advantage on all occasions presented him by fortune, that it would seem as if he had foreseen and desired them. he loves to narrate, and seeks to dazzle all his listeners indifferently by his extraordinary adventures, and his imagination often supplies him with more than his memory. the generality of his qualities are false, and what has most contributed to his reputation is his power of throwing a good light on his faults. he is insensible alike to hatred and to friendship, whatever pains he may be at to appear taken up with the one or the other. he is incapable of envy or avarice, whether from virtue or from carelessness. he has borrowed more from his friends than a private person could ever hope to be able to repay; he has felt the vanity of acquiring so much on credit, and of undertaking to discharge it. he has neither taste nor refinement; he is amused by everything and pleased by nothing. he avoids difficult matters with considerable address, not allowing people to penetrate the slight acquaintance he has with everything. the retreat he has just made from the world is the most brilliant and the most unreal action of his life; it is a sacrifice he has made to his pride under the pretence of devotion; he quits the court to which he cannot attach himself, and retires from a world which is retiring from him." the maxims were first published in 1665, with a preface by segrais. this preface was omitted in the subsequent editions. the first edition contained 316 maxims, counting the last upon death, which was not numbered. the second in 1666 contained only 102; the third in 1671, and the fourth in 1675, 413. in this last edition we first meet with the introductory maxim, "our virtues are generally but disguised vices." the edition of 1678, the fifth, increased the number to 504. this was the last edition revised by the author, and published in his lifetime. the text of that edition has been used for the present translation. the next edition, the sixth, was published in 1693, about thirteen years after the author's death. this edition included fifty new maxims, attributed by the editor to rochefoucauld. most likely they were his writing, as the fact was never denied by his family, through whose permission they were published. they form the third supplement to the translation. this sixth edition was published by claude barbin, and the french editions since that time have been too numerous to be enumerated. the great popularity of the maxims is perhaps best shown from the numerous translations that have been made of them. no less than eight english translations, or so-called translations, have appeared; one american, a swedish, and a spanish translation, an italian imitation, with parallel passages, and an english imitation by hazlitt. the titles of the english editions are as follows:-i. seneca unmasked. by mrs. aphara behn. london, 1689. she calls the author the duke of rushfucave. ii. moral maxims and reflections, in four parts. by the duke de la rochefoucauld. now made english. london, 1694. 12 mo. iii. moral maxims and reflections of the duke de la rochefoucauld. newly made english. london, 1706. 12 mo. iv. moral maxims of the duke de la rochefoucauld. translated from the french. with notes. london, 1749. 12 mo. v. maxims and moral reflections of the duke de la rochefoucauld. revised and improved. london, 1775. 8 vo. vi. maxims and moral reflections of the duke de la rochefoucauld. a new edition, revised and improved, by l. d. london, 1781. 8 vo. vii. the gentleman's library. la rochefoucauld's maxims and moral reflections. london, 1813. 12 mo. viii. moral reflections, sentences, and maxims of the duke de la rochefoucauld, newly translated from the french; with an introduction and notes. london, 1850. 16 mo. ix. maxims and moral reflections of the duke de la rochefoucauld: with a memoir by the chevalier de chatelain. london, 1868. 12 mo. the perusal of the maxims will suggest to every reader to a greater or less degree, in accordance with the extent of his reading, parallel passages, and similar ideas. of ancient writers rochefoucauld most strongly reminds us of tacitus; of modern writers, junius most strongly reminds us of rochefoucauld. some examples from both are given in the notes to this translation. it is curious to see how the expressions of the bitterest writer of english political satire to a great extent express the same ideas as the great french satirist of private life. had space permitted the parallel could have been drawn very closely, and much of the invective of junius traced to its source in rochefoucauld. one of the persons whom rochefoucauld patronised and protected, was the great french fabulist, la fontaine. this patronage was repaid by la fontaine giving, in one of his fables, "l'homme et son image," an elaborate defence of his patron. after there depicting a man who fancied himself one of the most lovely in the world, and who complained he always found all mirrors untrustworthy, at last discovered his real image reflected in the water. he thus applies his fable:-"je parle à tous: et cette erreur extrême, est un mal que chacun se plait d'entretenir, notre âme, c'est cet homme amoureux de lui même, tant de miroirs, ce sont les sottises d'autrui. miroirs, de nos défauts les peintres légitimes, et quant au canal, c'est celui qui chacun sait, le livre des maximes." it is just this: the book is a mirror in which we all see ourselves. this has made it so unpopular. it is too true. we dislike to be told of our faults, while we only like to be told of our neighbour's. notwithstanding rousseau's assertion, it is young men, who, before they know their own faults and only know their neighbours', that read and thoroughly appreciate rochefoucauld. after so many varied opinions he then pleases us more and seems far truer than he is in reality, it is impossible to give any general conclusion of such distinguished writers on the subject. each reader will form his own opinion of the merits of the author and his book. to some, both will seem deserving of the highest praise; to others both will seem deserving of the highest censure. the truest judgment as to the author will be found in the remarks of a countryman of his own, as to the book in the remarks of a countryman of ours. as to the author, m. sainte beuve says:--"c'était un misanthrope poli, insinuant, souriant, qui précédait de bien peu et préparait avec charme l'autre misanthrope." as to the book, mr. hallam says:--"among the books in ancient and modern times which record the conclusions of observing men on the moral qualities of their fellows, a high place should be reserved for the maxims of rochefoucauld". reflections; or, sentences and moral maxims our virtues are most frequently but vices disguised. [this epigraph which is the key to the system of la rochefoucauld, is found in another form as no. 179 of the maxims of the first edition, 1665, it is omitted from the 2nd and 3rd, and reappears for the first time in the 4th edition, in 1675, as at present, at the head of the reflections.--aimé martin. its best answer is arrived at by reversing the predicate and the subject, and you at once form a contradictory maxim equally true, our vices are most frequently but virtues disguised.] 1.--what we term virtue is often but a mass of various actions and divers interests, which fortune, or our own industry, manage to arrange; and it is not always from valour or from chastity that men are brave, and women chaste. "who combats bravely is not therefore brave, he dreads a death-bed like the meanest slave; who reasons wisely is not therefore wise, his pride in reasoning, not in acting, lies." pope, moral essays, ep. i. line 115. 2.--self-love is the greatest of flatterers. 3.--whatever discoveries have been made in the region of self-love, there remain many unexplored territories there. [this is the first hint of the system the author tries to develope. he wishes to find in vice a motive for all our actions, but this does not suffice him; he is obliged to call other passions to the help of his system and to confound pride, vanity, interest and egotism with self love. this confusion destroys the unity of his principle.--aimé martin.] 4.--self love is more cunning than the most cunning man in the world. 5.--the duration of our passions is no more dependant upon us than the duration of our life. [then what becomes of free will?--aimé; martin] 6.--passion often renders the most clever man a fool, and even sometimes renders the most foolish man clever. 7.--great and striking actions which dazzle the eyes are represented by politicians as the effect of great designs, instead of which they are commonly caused by the temper and the passions. thus the war between augustus and anthony, which is set down to the ambition they entertained of making themselves masters of the world, was probably but an effect of jealousy. 8.--the passions are the only advocates which always persuade. they are a natural art, the rules of which are infallible; and the simplest man with passion will be more persuasive than the most eloquent without. [see maxim 249 which is an illustration of this.] 9.--the passions possess a certain injustice and self interest which makes it dangerous to follow them, and in reality we should distrust them even when they appear most trustworthy. 10.--in the human heart there is a perpetual generation of passions; so that the ruin of one is almost always the foundation of another. 11.--passions often produce their contraries: avarice sometimes leads to prodigality, and prodigality to avarice; we are often obstinate through weakness and daring though timidity. 12.--whatever care we take to conceal our passions under the appearances of piety and honour, they are always to be seen through these veils. [the 1st edition, 1665, preserves the image perhaps better--"however we may conceal our passions under the veil, etc., there is always some place where they peep out."] 13.--our self love endures more impatiently the condemnation of our tastes than of our opinions. 14.--men are not only prone to forget benefits and injuries; they even hate those who have obliged them, and cease to hate those who have injured them. the necessity of revenging an injury or of recompensing a benefit seems a slavery to which they are unwilling to submit. 15.--the clemency of princes is often but policy to win the affections of the people. ["so many are the advantages which monarchs gain by clemency, so greatly does it raise their fame and endear them to their subjects, that it is generally happy for them to have an opportunity of displaying it."--montesquieu, esprit des lois, lib. vi., c. 21.] 16.--this clemency of which they make a merit, arises oftentimes from vanity, sometimes from idleness, oftentimes from fear, and almost always from all three combined. [la rochefoucauld is content to paint the age in which he lived. here the clemency spoken of is nothing more than an expression of the policy of anne of austria. rochefoucauld had sacrificed all to her; even the favour of cardinal richelieu, but when she became regent she bestowed her favours upon those she hated; her friends were forgotten.--aimé martin. the reader will hereby see that the age in which the writer lived best interprets his maxims.] 17.--the moderation of those who are happy arises from the calm which good fortune bestows upon their temper. 18.--moderation is caused by the fear of exciting the envy and contempt which those merit who are intoxicated with their good fortune; it is a vain display of our strength of mind, and in short the moderation of men at their greatest height is only a desire to appear greater than their fortune. 19.--we have all sufficient strength to support the misfortunes of others. [the strongest example of this is the passage in lucretius, lib. ii., line i:-"suave mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis e terra magnum alterius spectare laborem."] 20.--the constancy of the wise is only the talent of concealing the agitation of their hearts. [thus wisdom is only hypocrisy, says a commentator. this definition of constancy is a result of maxim 18.] 21.--those who are condemned to death affect sometimes a constancy and contempt for death which is only the fear of facing it; so that one may say that this constancy and contempt are to their mind what the bandage is to their eyes. [see this thought elaborated in maxim 504.] 22.--philosophy triumphs easily over past evils and future evils; but present evils triumph over it. 23.--few people know death, we only endure it, usually from determination, and even from stupidity and custom; and most men only die because they know not how to prevent dying. 24.--when great men permit themselves to be cast down by the continuance of misfortune, they show us that they were only sustained by ambition, and not by their mind; so that plus a great vanity, heroes are made like other men. [both these maxims have been rewritten and made conciser by the author; the variations are not worth quoting.] 25.--we need greater virtues to sustain good than evil fortune. ["prosperity do{th} best discover vice, but adversity do{th} best discover virtue."--lord bacon, essays{, (1625), "of adversity"}.] {the quotation wrongly had "does" for "doth".} 26.--neither the sun nor death can be looked at without winking. 27.--people are often vain of their passions, even of the worst, but envy is a passion so timid and shame-faced that no one ever dare avow her. 28.--jealousy is in a manner just and reasonable, as it tends to preserve a good which belongs, or which we believe belongs to us, on the other hand envy is a fury which cannot endure the happiness of others. 29.--the evil that we do does not attract to us so much persecution and hatred as our good qualities. 30.--we have more strength than will; and it is often merely for an excuse we say things are impossible. 31.--if we had no faults we should not take so much pleasure in noting those of others. 32.--jealousy lives upon doubt; and comes to an end or becomes a fury as soon as it passes from doubt to certainty. 33.--pride indemnifies itself and loses nothing even when it casts away vanity. [see maxim 450, where the author states, what we take from our other faults we add to our pride.] 34.--if we had no pride we should not complain of that of others. ["the proud are ever most provoked by pride."--cowper, conversation 160.] 35.--pride is much the same in all men, the only difference is the method and manner of showing it. ["pride bestowed on all a common friend."--pope, essay on man, ep. ii., line 273.] 36.--it would seem that nature, which has so wisely ordered the organs of our body for our happiness, has also given us pride to spare us the mortification of knowing our imperfections. 37.--pride has a larger part than goodness in our remonstrances with those who commit faults, and we reprove them not so much to correct as to persuade them that we ourselves are free from faults. 38.--we promise according to our hopes; we perform according to our fears. ["the reason why the cardinal (mazarin) deferred so long to grant the favours he had promised, was because he was persuaded that hope was much more capable of keeping men to their duty than gratitude."--fragments historiques. racine.] 39.--interest speaks all sorts of tongues and plays all sorts of characters; even that of disinterestedness. 40.--interest blinds some and makes some see. 41.--those who apply themselves too closely to little things often become incapable of great things. 42.--we have not enough strength to follow all our reason. 43.--a man often believes himself leader when he is led; as his mind endeavours to reach one goal, his heart insensibly drags him towards another. 44.--strength and weakness of mind are mis-named; they are really only the good or happy arrangement of our bodily organs. 45.--the caprice of our temper is even more whimsical than that of fortune. 46.--the attachment or indifference which philosophers have shown to life is only the style of their self love, about which we can no more dispute than of that of the palate or of the choice of colours. 47.--our temper sets a price upon every gift that we receive from fortune. 48.--happiness is in the taste, and not in the things themselves; we are happy from possessing what we like, not from possessing what others like. 49.--we are never so happy or so unhappy as we suppose. 50.--those who think they have merit persuade themselves that they are honoured by being unhappy, in order to persuade others and themselves that they are worthy to be the butt of fortune. ["ambition has been so strong as to make very miserable men take comfort that they were supreme in misery; and certain it is{, that where} we cannot distinguish ourselves by something excellent, we begin to take a complacency in some singular infirmities, follies, or defects of one kind or other." --burke, {on the sublime and beautiful, (1756), part i, sect. xvii}.] {the translators' incorrectly cite speech on conciliation with america. also, burke does not actually write "ambition has been...", he writes "it has been..." when speaking of ambition.} 51.--nothing should so much diminish the satisfaction which we feel with ourselves as seeing that we disapprove at one time of that which we approve of at another. 52.--whatever difference there appears in our fortunes, there is nevertheless a certain compensation of good and evil which renders them equal. 53.--whatever great advantages nature may give, it is not she alone, but fortune also that makes the hero. 54.--the contempt of riches in philosophers was only a hidden desire to avenge their merit upon the injustice of fortune, by despising the very goods of which fortune had deprived them; it was a secret to guard themselves against the degradation of poverty, it was a back way by which to arrive at that distinction which they could not gain by riches. ["it is always easy as well as agreeable for the inferior ranks of mankind to claim merit from the contempt of that pomp and pleasure which fortune has placed beyond their reach. the virtue of the primitive christians, like that of the first romans, was very frequently guarded by poverty and ignorance."--gibbon, decline and fall, chap. 15.] 55.--the hate of favourites is only a love of favour. the envy of not possessing it, consoles and softens its regrets by the contempt it evinces for those who possess it, and we refuse them our homage, not being able to detract from them what attracts that of the rest of the world. 56.--to establish ourselves in the world we do everything to appear as if we were established. 57.--although men flatter themselves with their great actions, they are not so often the result of a great design as of chance. 58.--it would seem that our actions have lucky or unlucky stars to which they owe a great part of the blame or praise which is given them. 59.--there are no accidents so unfortunate from which skilful men will not draw some advantage, nor so fortunate that foolish men will not turn them to their hurt. 60.--fortune turns all things to the advantage of those on whom she smiles. 61.--the happiness or unhappiness of men depends no less upon their dispositions than their fortunes. ["still to ourselves in every place consigned our own felicity we make or find." goldsmith, traveller, 431.] 62.--sincerity is an openness of heart; we find it in very few people; what we usually see is only an artful dissimulation to win the confidence of others. 63.--the aversion to lying is often a hidden ambition to render our words credible and weighty, and to attach a religious aspect to our conversation. 64.--truth does not do as much good in the world, as its counterfeits do evil. 65.--there is no praise we have not lavished upon prudence; and yet she cannot assure to us the most trifling event. [the author corrected this maxim several times, in 1665 it is no. 75; 1666, no. 66; 1671-5, no. 65; in the last edition it stands as at present. in the first he quotes juvenal, sat. x., line 315. " nullum numen habes si sit prudentia, nos te; nos facimus, fortuna, deam, coeloque locamus." applying to prudence what juvenal does to fortune, and with much greater force.] 66.--a clever man ought to so regulate his interests that each will fall in due order. our greediness so often troubles us, making us run after so many things at the same time, that while we too eagerly look after the least we miss the greatest. 67.--what grace is to the body good sense is to the mind. 68.--it is difficult to define love; all we can say is, that in the soul it is a desire to rule, in the mind it is a sympathy, and in the body it is a hidden and delicate wish to possess what we love--plus many mysteries. ["love is the love of one {singularly,} with desire to be singularly beloved."--hobbes{leviathan, (1651), part i, chapter vi}.] {two notes about this quotation: (1) the translators' mistakenly have "singularity" for the first "singularly" and (2) hobbes does not actually write "love is the..."--he writes "love of one..." under the heading "the passion of love."} 69.--if there is a pure love, exempt from the mixture of our other passions, it is that which is concealed at the bottom of the heart and of which even ourselves are ignorant. 70.--there is no disguise which can long hide love where it exists, nor feign it where it does not. 71.--there are few people who would not be ashamed of being beloved when they love no longer. 72.--if we judge of love by the majority of its results it rather resembles hatred than friendship. 73.--we may find women who have never indulged in an intrigue, but it is rare to find those who have intrigued but once. ["yet there are some, they say, who have had none}; but those who have, ne'er end with only one}." {--lord byron, }don juan, {canto} iii., stanza 4.] 74.--there is only one sort of love, but there are a thousand different copies. 75.--neither love nor fire can subsist without perpetual motion; both cease to live so soon as they cease to hope, or to fear. [so lord byron{stanzas, (1819), stanza 3} says of love-"like chiefs of faction, his life is action."] 76.--there is real love just as there are real ghosts; every person speaks of it, few persons have seen it. ["oh love! no habitant of earth thou art-an unseen seraph, we believe in thee-a faith whose martyrs are the broken heart,-but never yet hath seen, nor e'er shall see the naked eye, thy form as it should be." {--lord byron, }childe harold, {canto} iv., stanza 121.] 77.--love lends its name to an infinite number of engagements (commerces) which are attributed to it, but with which it has no more concern than the doge has with all that is done in venice. 78.--the love of justice is simply in the majority of men the fear of suffering injustice. 79.--silence is the best resolve for him who distrusts himself. 80.--what renders us so changeable in our friendship is, that it is difficult to know the qualities of the soul, but easy to know those of the mind. 81.--we can love nothing but what agrees with us, and we can only follow our taste or our pleasure when we prefer our friends to ourselves; nevertheless it is only by that preference that friendship can be true and perfect. 82.--reconciliation with our enemies is but a desire to better our condition, a weariness of war, the fear of some unlucky accident. ["thus terminated that famous war of the fronde. the duke de la rochefoucauld desired peace because of his dangerous wounds and ruined castles, which had made him dread even worse events. on the other side the queen, who had shown herself so ungrateful to her too ambitious friends, did not cease to feel the bitterness of their resentment. 'i wish,' said she, 'it were always night, because daylight shows me so many who have betrayed me.'"--memoires de madame de motteville, tom. iv., p. 60. another proof that although these maxims are in some cases of universal application, they were based entirely on the experience of the age in which the author lived.] 83.--what men term friendship is merely a partnership with a collection of reciprocal interests, and an exchange of favours--in fact it is but a trade in which self love always expects to gain something. 84.--it is more disgraceful to distrust than to be deceived by our friends. 85.--we often persuade ourselves to love people who are more powerful than we are, yet interest alone produces our friendship; we do not give our hearts away for the good we wish to do, but for that we expect to receive. 86.--our distrust of another justifies his deceit. 87.--men would not live long in society were they not the dupes of each other. [a maxim, adds aimé martin, "which may enter into the code of a vulgar rogue, but one is astonished to find it in a moral treatise." yet we have scriptural authority for it: "deceiving and being deceived."--2 tim. iii. 13.] 88.--self love increases or diminishes for us the good qualities of our friends, in proportion to the satisfaction we feel with them, and we judge of their merit by the manner in which they act towards us. 89.--everyone blames his memory, no one blames his judgment. 90.--in the intercourse of life, we please more by our faults than by our good qualities. 91.--the largest ambition has the least appearance of ambition when it meets with an absolute impossibility in compassing its object. 92.--to awaken a man who is deceived as to his own merit is to do him as bad a turn as that done to the athenian madman who was happy in believing that all the ships touching at the port belonged to him. [that is, they cured him. the madman was thrasyllus, son of pythodorus. his brother crito cured him, when he infinitely regretted the time of his more pleasant madness.--see aelian, var. hist. iv. 25. so horace-------------"pol, me occidistis, amici, non servastis," ait, "cui sic extorta voluptas et demptus per vim mentis gratissimus error." hor. ep. ii--2, 138, of the madman who was cured of a pleasant lunacy.] 93.--old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer set bad examples. 94.--great names degrade instead of elevating those who know not how to sustain them. 95.--the test of extraordinary merit is to see those who envy it the most yet obliged to praise it. 96.--a man is perhaps ungrateful, but often less chargeable with ingratitude than his benefactor is. 97.--we are deceived if we think that mind and judgment are two different matters: judgment is but the extent of the light of the mind. this light penetrates to the bottom of matters; it remarks all that can be remarked, and perceives what appears imperceptible. therefore we must agree that it is the extent of the light in the mind that produces all the effects which we attribute to judgment. 98.--everyone praises his heart, none dare praise their understanding. 99.--politeness of mind consists in thinking chaste and refined thoughts. 100.--gallantry of mind is saying the most empty things in an agreeable manner. 101.--ideas often flash across our minds more complete than we could make them after much labour. 102.--the head is ever the dupe of the heart. [a feeble imitation of that great thought "all folly comes from the heart."--aimé martin. but bonhome, in his l'art de penser, says "plusieurs diraient en période quarré que quelques reflexions que fasse l'esprit et quelques resolutions qu'il prenne pour corriger ses travers le premier sentiment du coeur renverse tous ses projets. mais il n'appartient qu'a m. de la rochefoucauld de dire tout en un mot que l'esprit est toujours la dupe du coeur."] 103.--those who know their minds do not necessarily know their hearts. 104.--men and things have each their proper perspective; to judge rightly of some it is necessary to see them near, of others we can never judge rightly but at a distance. 105.--a man for whom accident discovers sense, is not a rational being. a man only is so who understands, who distinguishes, who tests it. 106.--to understand matters rightly we should understand their details, and as that knowledge is almost infinite, our knowledge is always superficial and imperfect. 107.--one kind of flirtation is to boast we never flirt. 108.--the head cannot long play the part of the heart. 109.--youth changes its tastes by the warmth of its blood, age retains its tastes by habit. 110.--nothing is given so profusely as advice. 111.--the more we love a woman the more prone we are to hate her. 112.--the blemishes of the mind, like those of the face, increase by age. 113.--there may be good but there are no pleasant marriages. 114.--we are inconsolable at being deceived by our enemies and betrayed by our friends, yet still we are often content to be thus served by ourselves. 115.--it is as easy unwittingly to deceive oneself as to deceive others. 116.--nothing is less sincere than the way of asking and giving advice. the person asking seems to pay deference to the opinion of his friend, while thinking in reality of making his friend approve his opinion and be responsible for his conduct. the person giving the advice returns the confidence placed in him by eager and disinterested zeal, in doing which he is usually guided only by his own interest or reputation. ["i have often thought how ill-natured a maxim it was which on many occasions i have heard from people of good understanding, 'that as to what related to private conduct no one was ever the better for advice.' but upon further examination i have resolved with myself that the maxim might be admitted without any violent prejudice to mankind. for in the manner advice was generally given there was no reason i thought to wonder it should be so ill received, something there was which strangely inverted the case, and made the giver to be the only gainer. for by what i could observe in many occurrences of our lives, that which we called giving advice was properly taking an occasion to show our own wisdom at another's expense. on the other side to be instructed or to receive advice on the terms usually prescribed to us was little better than tamely to afford another the occasion of raising himself a character from our defects."--lord shaftesbury, characteristics, i., 153.] 117.--the most subtle of our acts is to simulate blindness for snares that we know are set for us. we are never so easily deceived as when trying to deceive. 118.--the intention of never deceiving often exposes us to deception. 119.--we become so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that at last we are disguised to ourselves. ["those who quit their proper character{,} to assume what does not belong to them, are{,} for the greater part{,} ignorant both of the character they leave{,} and of the character they assume."--burke, {reflections on the revolution in france, (1790), paragraph 19}.] {the translators' incorrectly cite thoughts on the cause of the present discontents.} 120.--we often act treacherously more from weakness than from a fixed motive. 121.--we frequently do good to enable us with impunity to do evil. 122.--if we conquer our passions it is more from their weakness than from our strength. 123.--if we never flattered ourselves we should have but scant pleasure. 124.--the most deceitful persons spend their lives in blaming deceit, so as to use it on some great occasion to promote some great interest. 125.--the daily employment of cunning marks a little mind, it generally happens that those who resort to it in one respect to protect themselves lay themselves open to attack in another. ["with that low cunning which in fools supplies, and amply, too, the place of being wise." churchill, rosciad, 117.] 126.--cunning and treachery are the offspring of incapacity. 127.--the true way to be deceived is to think oneself more knowing than others. 128.--too great cleverness is but deceptive delicacy, true delicacy is the most substantial cleverness. 129.--it is sometimes necessary to play the fool to avoid being deceived by cunning men. 130.--weakness is the only fault which cannot be cured. 131.--the smallest fault of women who give themselves up to love is to love. [------"faciunt graviora coactae imperio sexus minimumque libidine peccant." juvenal, sat. vi., 134.] 132.--it is far easier to be wise for others than to be so for oneself. [hence the proverb, "a man who is his own lawyer has a fool for his client."] 133.--the only good examples are those, that make us see the absurdity of bad originals. 134.--we are never so ridiculous from the habits we have as from those that we affect to have. 135.--we sometimes differ more widely from ourselves than we do from others. 136.--there are some who never would have loved if they never had heard it spoken of. 137.--when not prompted by vanity we say little. 138.--a man would rather say evil of himself than say nothing. ["montaigne's vanity led him to talk perpetually of himself, and as often happens to vain men, he would rather talk of his own failings than of any foreign subject."-hallam, literature of europe.] 139.--one of the reasons that we find so few persons rational and agreeable in conversation is there is hardly a person who does not think more of what he wants to say than of his answer to what is said. the most clever and polite are content with only seeming attentive while we perceive in their mind and eyes that at the very time they are wandering from what is said and desire to return to what they want to say. instead of considering that the worst way to persuade or please others is to try thus strongly to please ourselves, and that to listen well and to answer well are some of the greatest charms we can have in conversation. ["an absent man can make but few observations, he can pursue nothing steadily because his absences make him lose his way. they are very disagreeable and hardly to be tolerated in old age, but in youth they cannot be forgiven." --lord chesterfield, letter 195.] 140.--if it was not for the company of fools, a witty man would often be greatly at a loss. 141.--we often boast that we are never bored, but yet we are so conceited that we do not perceive how often we bore others. 142.--as it is the mark of great minds to say many things in a few words, so it is that of little minds to use many words to say nothing. ["so much they talked, so very little said." churchill, rosciad, 550. "men who are unequal to the labour of discussing an argument or wish to avoid it, are willing enough to suppose that much has been proved because much has been said."-junius, jan. 1769.] 143.--it is oftener by the estimation of our own feelings that we exaggerate the good qualities of others than by their merit, and when we praise them we wish to attract their praise. 144.--we do not like to praise, and we never praise without a motive. praise is flattery, artful, hidden, delicate, which gratifies differently him who praises and him who is praised. the one takes it as the reward of merit, the other bestows it to show his impartiality and knowledge. 145.--we often select envenomed praise which, by a reaction upon those we praise, shows faults we could not have shown by other means. 146.--usually we only praise to be praised. 147.--few are sufficiently wise to prefer censure which is useful to praise which is treacherous. 148.--some reproaches praise; some praises reproach. ["damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, and, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer." pope {essay on man, (1733), epistle to dr. arbuthnot.}] 149.--the refusal of praise is only the wish to be praised twice. [the modesty which pretends to refuse praise is but in truth a desire to be praised more highly. edition 1665.] 150.--the desire which urges us to deserve praise strengthens our good qualities, and praise given to wit, valour, and beauty, tends to increase them. 151.--it is easier to govern others than to prevent being governed. 152.--if we never flattered ourselves the flattery of others would not hurt us. ["adulatione servilia fingebant securi de fragilitate credentis." tacit. ann. xvi.] 153.--nature makes merit but fortune sets it to work. 154.--fortune cures us of many faults that reason could not. 155.--there are some persons who only disgust with their abilities, there are persons who please even with their faults. 156.--there are persons whose only merit consists in saying and doing stupid things at the right time, and who ruin all if they change their manners. 157.--the fame of great men ought always to be estimated by the means used to acquire it. 158.--flattery is base coin to which only our vanity gives currency. 159.--it is not enough to have great qualities, we should also have the management of them. 160.--however brilliant an action it should not be esteemed great unless the result of a great motive. 161.--a certain harmony should be kept between actions and ideas if we desire to estimate the effects that they produce. 162.--the art of using moderate abilities to advantage wins praise, and often acquires more reputation than real brilliancy. 163.--numberless arts appear foolish whose secre{t} motives are most wise and weighty. 164.--it is much easier to seem fitted for posts we do not fill than for those we do. 165.--ability wins us the esteem of the true men, luck that of the people. 166.--the world oftener rewards the appearance of merit than merit itself. 167.--avarice is more opposed to economy than to liberality. 168.--however deceitful hope may be, yet she carries us on pleasantly to the end of life. ["hope travels through, nor quits us when we die." pope: essay on man, ep. ii.] 169.--idleness and fear keeps us in the path of duty, but our virtue often gets the praise. ["quod segnitia erat sapientia vocaretur." tacitus hist. i.] 170.--if one acts rightly and honestly, it is difficult to decide whether it is the effect of integrity or skill. 171.--as rivers are lost in the sea so are virtues in self. 172.--if we thoroughly consider the varied effects of indifference we find we miscarry more in our duties than in our interests. 173.--there are different kinds of curiosity: one springs from interest, which makes us desire to know everything that may be profitable to us; another from pride, which springs from a desire of knowing what others are ignorant of. 174.--it is far better to accustom our mind to bear the ills we have than to speculate on those which may befall us. ["rather bear th{ose} ills we have than fly to others that we know not of." {--shakespeare, hamlet, act iii, scene i, hamlet.}] 175.--constancy in love is a perpetual inconstancy which causes our heart to attach itself to all the qualities of the person we love in succession, sometimes giving the preference to one, sometimes to another. this constancy is merely inconstancy fixed, and limited to the same person. 176.--there are two kinds of constancy in love, one arising from incessantly finding in the loved one fresh objects to love, the other from regarding it as a point of honour to be constant. 177.--perseverance is not deserving of blame or praise, as it is merely the continuance of tastes and feelings which we can neither create or destroy. 178.--what makes us like new studies is not so much the weariness we have of the old or the wish for change as the desire to be admired by those who know more than ourselves, and the hope of advantage over those who know less. 179.--we sometimes complain of the levity of our friends to justify our own by anticipation. 180.--our repentance is not so much sorrow for the ill we have done as fear of the ill that may happen to us. 181.--one sort of inconstancy springs from levity or weakness of mind, and makes us accept everyone's opinion, and another more excusable comes from a surfeit of matter. 182.--vices enter into the composition of virtues as poison into that of medicines. prudence collects and blends the two and renders them useful against the ills of life. 183.--for the credit of virtue we must admit that the greatest misfortunes of men are those into which they fall through their crimes. 184.--we admit our faults to repair by our sincerity the evil we have done in the opinion of others. [in the edition of 1665 this maxim stands as no. 200. we never admit our faults except through vanity.] 185.--there are both heroes of evil and heroes of good. [ut alios industria ita hunc ignavia protulerat ad famam, habebaturque non ganeo et profligator sed erudito luxu. --tacit. ann. xvi.] 186.--we do not despise all who have vices, but we do despise all who have not virtues. ["if individuals have no virtues their vices may be of use to us."--junius, 5th oct. 1771.] 187.--the name of virtue is as useful to our interest as that of vice. 188.--the health of the mind is not less uncertain than that of the body, and when passions seem furthest removed we are no less in danger of infection than of falling ill when we are well. 189.--it seems that nature has at man's birth fixed the bounds of his virtues and vices. 190.--great men should not have great faults. 191.--we may say vices wait on us in the course of our life as the landlords with whom we successively lodge, and if we travelled the road twice over i doubt if our experience would make us avoid them. 192.--when our vices leave us we flatter ourselves with the idea we have left them. 193.--there are relapses in the diseases of the mind as in those of the body; what we call a cure is often no more than an intermission or change of disease. 194.--the defects of the mind are like the wounds of the body. whatever care we take to heal them the scars ever remain, and there is always danger of their reopening. 195.--the reason which often prevents us abandoning a single vice is having so many. 196.--we easily forget those faults which are known only to ourselves. [seneca says "innocentem quisque se dicit respiciens testem non conscientiam."] 197.--there are men of whom we can never believe evil without having seen it. yet there are very few in whom we should be surprised to see it. 198.--we exaggerate the glory of some men to detract from that of others, and we should praise prince condé and marshal turenne much less if we did not want to blame them both. [the allusion to condé and turenne gives the date at which these maxims were published in 1665. condé and turenne were after their campaign with the imperialists at the height of their fame. it proves the truth of the remark of tacitus, "populus neminem sine aemulo sinit."-tac. ann. xiv.] 199.--the desire to appear clever often prevents our being so. 200.--virtue would not go far did not vanity escort her. 201.--he who thinks he has the power to content the world greatly deceives himself, but he who thinks that the world cannot be content with him deceives himself yet more. 202.--falsely honest men are those who disguise their faults both to themselves and others; truly honest men are those who know them perfectly and confess them. 203.--he is really wise who is nettled at nothing. 204.--the coldness of women is a balance and burden they add to their beauty. 205.--virtue in woman is often the love of reputation and repose. 206.--he is a truly good man who desires always to bear the inspection of good men. 207.--folly follows us at all stages of life. if one appears wise 'tis but because his folly is proportioned to his age and fortune. 208.--there are foolish people who know and who skilfully use their folly. 209.--who lives without folly is not so wise as he thinks. 210.--in growing old we become more foolish--and more wise. 211.--there are people who are like farces, which are praised but for a time (however foolish and distasteful they may be). [the last clause is added from edition of 1665.] 212.--most people judge men only by success or by fortune. 213.--love of glory, fear of shame, greed of fortune, the desire to make life agreeable and comfortable, and the wish to depreciate others are often causes of that bravery so vaunted among men. [junius said of the marquis of granby, "he was as brave as a total absence of all feeling and reflection could make him."--21st jan. 1769.] 214.--valour in common soldiers is a perilous method of earning their living. ["men venture necks to gain a fortune, the soldier does it ev{'}ry day, (eight to the week) for sixpence pay." {--samuel butler,} hudibras, part ii., canto i., line 512.] 215.--perfect bravery and sheer cowardice are two extremes rarely found. the space between them is vast, and embraces all other sorts of courage. the difference between them is not less than between faces and tempers. men will freely expose themselves at the beginning of an action, and relax and be easily discouraged if it should last. some are content to satisfy worldly honour, and beyond that will do little else. some are not always equally masters of their timidity. others allow themselves to be overcome by panic; others charge because they dare not remain at their posts. some may be found whose courage is strengthened by small perils, which prepare them to face greater dangers. some will dare a sword cut and flinch from a bullet; others dread bullets little and fear to fight with swords. these varied kinds of courage agree in this, that night, by increasing fear and concealing gallant or cowardly actions, allows men to spare themselves. there is even a more general discretion to be observed, for we meet with no man who does all he would have done if he were assured of getting off scot-free; so that it is certain that the fear of death does somewhat subtract from valour. [see also "table talk of napoleon," who agrees with this, so far as to say that few, but himself, had a two o'clock of the morning valour.] 216.--perfect valour is to do without witnesses what one would do before all the world. ["it is said of untrue valours that some men's valours are in the eyes of them that look on."--bacon, advancement of learning{, (1605), book i, section ii, paragraph 5}.] 217.--intrepidity is an extraordinary strength of soul which raises it above the troubles, disorders, and emotions which the sight of great perils can arouse in it: by this strength heroes maintain a calm aspect and preserve their reason and liberty in the most surprising and terrible accidents. 218.--hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue. [so massillon, in one of his sermons, "vice pays homage to virtue in doing honour to her appearance." so junius, writing to the duke of grafton, says, "you have done as much mischief to the community as machiavel, if machiavel had not known that an appearance of morals and religion are useful in society."--28 sept. 1771.] 219.--most men expose themselves in battle enough to save their honor, few wish to do so more than sufficiently, or than is necessary to make the design for which they expose themselves succeed. 220.--vanity, shame, and above all disposition, often make men brave and women chaste. ["vanity bids all her sons be brave and all her daughters chaste and courteous. but why do we need her instruction?"--sterne, sermons.] 221.--we do not wish to lose life; we do wish to gain glory, and this makes brave men show more tact and address in avoiding death, than rogues show in preserving their fortunes. 222.--few persons on the first approach of age do not show wherein their body, or their mind, is beginning to fail. 223.--gratitude is as the good faith of merchants: it holds commerce together; and we do not pay because it is just to pay debts, but because we shall thereby more easily find people who will lend. 224.--all those who pay the debts of gratitude cannot thereby flatter themselves that they are grateful. 225.--what makes false reckoning, as regards gratitude, is that the pride of the giver and the receiver cannot agree as to the value of the benefit. ["the first foundation of friendship is not the power of conferring benefits, but the equality with which they are received, and may be returned."--junius's letter to the king.] 226.--too great a hurry to discharge of an obligation is a kind of ingratitude. 227.--lucky people are bad hands at correcting their faults; they always believe that they are right when fortune backs up their vice or folly. ["the power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable, for the happy impute all their success to prudence and merit."--swift, thoughts on various subjects] 228.--pride will not owe, self-love will not pay. 229.--the good we have received from a man should make us excuse the wrong he does us. 230.--nothing is so infectious as example, and we never do great good or evil without producing the like. we imitate good actions by emulation, and bad ones by the evil of our nature, which shame imprisons until example liberates. 231.--it is great folly to wish only to be wise. 232.--whatever pretext we give to our afflictions it is always interest or vanity that causes them. 233.--in afflictions there are various kinds of hypocrisy. in one, under the pretext of weeping for one dear to us we bemoan ourselves; we regret her good opinion of us, we deplore the loss of our comfort, our pleasure, our consideration. thus the dead have the credit of tears shed for the living. i affirm 'tis a kind of hypocrisy which in these afflictions deceives itself. there is another kind not so innocent because it imposes on all the world, that is the grief of those who aspire to the glory of a noble and immortal sorrow. after time, which absorbs all, has obliterated what sorrow they had, they still obstinately obtrude their tears, their sighs their groans, they wear a solemn face, and try to persuade others by all their acts, that their grief will end only with their life. this sad and distressing vanity is commonly found in ambitious women. as their sex closes to them all paths to glory, they strive to render themselves celebrated by showing an inconsolable affliction. there is yet another kind of tears arising from but small sources, which flow easily and cease as easily. one weeps to achieve a reputation for tenderness, weeps to be pitied, weeps to be bewept, in fact one weeps to avoid the disgrace of not weeping! ["in grief the {pleasure} is still uppermost{;} and the affliction we suffer has no resemblance to absolute pain which is always odious, and which we endeavour to shake off as soon as possible."--burke, sublime and beautiful{, (1756), part i, sect. v}.] 234.--it is more often from pride than from ignorance that we are so obstinately opposed to current opinions; we find the first places taken, and we do not want to be the last. 235.--we are easily consoled at the misfortunes of our friends when they enable us to prove our tenderness for them. 236.--it would seem that even self-love may be the dupe of goodness and forget itself when we work for others. and yet it is but taking the shortest way to arrive at its aim, taking usury under the pretext of giving, in fact winning everybody in a subtle and delicate manner. 237.--no one should be praised for his goodness if he has not strength enough to be wicked. all other goodness is but too often an idleness or powerlessness of will. 238.--it is not so dangerous to do wrong to most men, as to do them too much good. 239.--nothing flatters our pride so much as the confidence of the great, because we regard it as the result of our worth, without remembering that generally 'tis but vanity, or the inability to keep a secret. 240.--we may say of conformity as distinguished from beauty, that it is a symmetry which knows no rules, and a secret harmony of features both one with each other and with the colour and appearance of the person. 241.--flirtation is at the bottom of woman's nature, although all do not practise it, some being restrained by fear, others by sense. ["by nature woman is a flirt, but her flirting changes both in the mode and object according to her opinions."-rousseau, emile.] 242.--we often bore others when we think we cannot possibly bore them. 243.--few things are impossible in themselves; application to make them succeed fails us more often than the means. 244.--sovereign ability consists in knowing the value of things. 245.--there is great ability in knowing how to conceal one's ability. ["you have accomplished a great stroke in diplomacy when you have made others think that you have only very average abilities."--la bruyère.] 246.--what seems generosity is often disguised ambition, that despises small to run after greater interest. 247.--the fidelity of most men is merely an invention of self-love to win confidence; a method to place us above others and to render us depositaries of the most important matters. 248.--magnanimity despises all, to win all. 249.--there is no less eloquence in the voice, in the eyes and in the air of a speaker than in his choice of words. 250.--true eloquence consists in saying all that should be, not all that could be said. 251.--there are people whose faults become them, others whose very virtues disgrace them. ["there are faults which do him honour, and virtues that disgrace him."--junius, letter of 28th may, 1770.] 252.--it is as common to change one's tastes, as it is uncommon to change one's inclinations. 253.--interest sets at work all sorts of virtues and vices. 254.--humility is often a feigned submission which we employ to supplant others. it is one of the devices of pride to lower us to raise us; and truly pride transforms itself in a thousand ways, and is never so well disguised and more able to deceive than when it hides itself under the form of humility. ["grave and plausible enough to be thought fit for business."--junius, letter to the duke of grafton. "he saw a cottage with a double coach-house, a cottage of gentility, and the devil was pleased, for his darling sin is the pride that apes humility." southey, devil's walk.] {there are numerous corrections necessary for this quotation; i will keep the original above so you can compare the correct passages: "he passed a cottage with a double coach-house, a cottage of gentility, and he owned with a grin, that his favourite sin is pride that apes humility." --southey, devil's walk, stanza 8. "and the devil did grin, for his darling sin is pride that apes humility." --samuel taylor coleridge, the devil's thoughts} 255.--all feelings have their peculiar tone of voice, gestures and looks, and this harmony, as it is good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, makes people agreeable or disagreeable. 256.--in all professions we affect a part and an appearance to seem what we wish to be. thus the world is merely composed of actors. ["all the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players."--shakespeare, as you like it{, act ii, scene vii, jaques}. "life is no more than a dramatic scene, in which the hero should preserve his consistency to the last."--junius.] 257.--gravity is a mysterious carriage of the body invented to conceal the want of mind. ["gravity is the very essence of imposture."--shaftesbury, characteristics, p. 11, vol. i. "the very essence of gravity is design, and consequently deceit; a taught trick to gain credit with the world for more sense and knowledge than a man was worth, and that with all its pretensions it was no better, but often worse, than what a french wit had long ago defined it--a mysterious carriage of the body to cover the defects of the mind."--sterne, tristram shandy, vol. i., chap. ii.] 258.--good taste arises more from judgment than wit. 259.--the pleasure of love is in loving, we are happier in the passion we feel than in that we inspire. 260.--civility is but a desire to receive civility, and to be esteemed polite. 261.--the usual education of young people is to inspire them with a second self-love. 262.--there is no passion wherein self-love reigns so powerfully as in love, and one is always more ready to sacrifice the peace of the loved one than his own. 263.--what we call liberality is often but the vanity of giving, which we like more than that we give away. 264.--pity is often a reflection of our own evils in the ills of others. it is a delicate foresight of the troubles into which we may fall. we help others that on like occasions we may be helped ourselves, and these services which we render, are in reality benefits we confer on ourselves by anticipation. ["grief for the calamity of another is pity, and ariseth from the imagination that a like calamity may befal himself{;} and therefore is called compassion."--hobbes' leviathan{, (1651), part i, chapter vi}.] 265.--a narrow mind begets obstinacy, and we do not easily believe what we cannot see. ["stiff in opinion, always in the wrong." dryden, absalom and achitophel{, line 547}.] 266.--we deceive ourselves if we believe that there are violent passions like ambition and love that can triumph over others. idleness, languishing as she is, does not often fail in being mistress; she usurps authority over all the plans and actions of life; imperceptibly consuming and destroying both passions and virtues. 267.--a quickness in believing evil without having sufficiently examined it, is the effect of pride and laziness. we wish to find the guilty, and we do not wish to trouble ourselves in examining the crime. 268.--we credit judges with the meanest motives, and yet we desire our reputation and fame should depend upon the judgment of men, who are all, either from their jealousy or pre-occupation or want of intelligence, opposed to us--and yet 'tis only to make these men decide in our favour that we peril in so many ways both our peace and our life. 269.--no man is clever enough to know all the evil he does. 270.--one honour won is a surety for more. 271.--youth is a continual intoxication; it is the fever of reason. ["the best of life is but intoxication."--{lord byron, } don juan{, canto ii, stanza 179}. in the 1st edition, 1665, the maxim finishes with--"it is the fever of health, the folly of reason."] 272.--nothing should so humiliate men who have deserved great praise, as the care they have taken to acquire it by the smallest means. 273.--there are persons of whom the world approves who have no merit beyond the vices they use in the affairs of life. 274.--the beauty of novelty is to love as the flower to the fruit; it lends a lustre which is easily lost, but which never returns. 275.--natural goodness, which boasts of being so apparent, is often smothered by the least interest. 276.--absence extinguishes small passions and increases great ones, as the wind will blow out a candle, and blow in a fire. 277.--women often think they love when they do not love. the business of a love affair, the emotion of mind that sentiment induces, the natural bias towards the pleasure of being loved, the difficulty of refusing, persuades them that they have real passion when they have but flirtation. ["and if in fact she takes a {"}grande passion{"}, it is a very serious thing indeed: nine times in ten 'tis but caprice or fashion, coquetry, or a wish to take the lead, the pride of a mere child with a new sash on. or wish to make a rival's bosom bleed: but the {tenth} instance will be a tornado, for there's no saying what they will or may do." {--lord byron, }don juan, canto xii. stanza 77.] 278.--what makes us so often discontented with those who transact business for us is that they almost always abandon the interest of their friends for the interest of the business, because they wish to have the honour of succeeding in that which they have undertaken. 279.--when we exaggerate the tenderness of our friends towards us, it is often less from gratitude than from a desire to exhibit our own merit. 280.--the praise we give to new comers into the world arises from the envy we bear to those who are established. 281.--pride, which inspires, often serves to moderate envy. 282.--some disguised lies so resemble truth, that we should judge badly were we not deceived. 283.--sometimes there is not less ability in knowing how to use than in giving good advice. 284.--there are wicked people who would be much less dangerous if they were wholly without goodness. 285.--magnanimity is sufficiently defined by its name, nevertheless one can say it is the good sense of pride, the most noble way of receiving praise. 286.--it is impossible to love a second time those whom we have really ceased to love. 287.--fertility of mind does not furnish us with so many resources on the same matter, as the lack of intelligence makes us hesitate at each thing our imagination presents, and hinders us from at first discerning which is the best. 288.--there are matters and maladies which at certain times remedies only serve to make worse; true skill consists in knowing when it is dangerous to use them. 289.--affected simplicity is refined imposture. [domitianus simplicitatis ac modestiae imagine studium litterarum et amorem carminum simulabat quo velaret animum et fratris aemulationi subduceretur.--tacitus, ann. iv.] 290.--there are as many errors of temper as of mind. 291.--man's merit, like the crops, has its season. 292.--one may say of temper as of many buildings; it has divers aspects, some agreeable, others disagreeable. 293.--moderation cannot claim the merit of opposing and overcoming ambition: they are never found together. moderation is the languor and sloth of the soul, ambition its activity and heat. 294.--we always like those who admire us, we do not always like those whom we admire. 295.--it is well that we know not all our wishes. 296.--it is difficult to love those we do not esteem, but it is no less so to love those whom we esteem much more than ourselves. 297.--bodily temperaments have a common course and rule which imperceptibly affect our will. they advance in combination, and successively exercise a secret empire over us, so that, without our perceiving it, they become a great part of all our actions. 298.--the gratitude of most men is but a secret desire of receiving greater benefits. [hence the common proverb "gratitude is merely a lively sense of favors to come."] 299.--almost all the world takes pleasure in paying small debts; many people show gratitude for trifling, but there is hardly one who does not show ingratitude for great favours. 300.--there are follies as catching as infections. 301.--many people despise, but few know how to bestow wealth. 302.--only in things of small value we usually are bold enough not to trust to appearances. 303.--whatever good quality may be imputed to us, we ourselves find nothing new in it. 304.--we may forgive those who bore us, we cannot forgive those whom we bore. 305.--interest which is accused of all our misdeeds often should be praised for our good deeds. 306.--we find very few ungrateful people when we are able to confer favours. 307.--it is as proper to be boastful alone as it is ridiculous to be so in company. 308.--moderation is made a virtue to limit the ambition of the great; to console ordinary people for their small fortune and equally small ability. 309.--there are persons fated to be fools, who commit follies not only by choice, but who are forced by fortune to do so. 310.--sometimes there are accidents in our life the skilful extrication from which demands a little folly. 311.--if there be men whose folly has never appeared, it is because it has never been closely looked for. 312.--lovers are never tired of each other,--they always speak of themselves. 313.--how is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we have told it to the same person? ["old men who yet retain the memory of things past, and forget how often they have told them, are most tedious companions."--montaigne, {essays, book i, chapter ix}.] 314.--the extreme delight we take in talking of ourselves should warn us that it is not shared by those who listen. 315.--what commonly hinders us from showing the recesses of our heart to our friends, is not the distrust we have of them, but that we have of ourselves. 316.--weak persons cannot be sincere. 317.--'tis a small misfortune to oblige an ungrateful man; but it is unbearable to be obliged by a scoundrel. 318.--we may find means to cure a fool of his folly, but there are none to set straight a cross-grained spirit. 319.--if we take the liberty to dwell on their faults we cannot long preserve the feelings we should hold towards our friends and benefactors. 320.--to praise princes for virtues they do not possess is but to reproach them with impunity. ["praise undeserved is satire in disguise," quoted by pope from a poem which has not survived, "the garland," by mr. broadhurst. "in some cases exaggerated or inappropriate praise becomes the most severe satire."-scott, woodstock.] 321.--we are nearer loving those who hate us, than those who love us more than we desire. 322.--those only are despicable who fear to be despised. 323.--our wisdom is no less at the mercy of fortune than our goods. 324.--there is more self-love than love in jealousy. 325.--we often comfort ourselves by the weakness of evils, for which reason has not the strength to console us. 326.--ridicule dishonours more than dishonour itself. ["no," says a commentator, "ridicule may do harm, but it cannot dishonour; it is vice which confers dishonour."] 327.--we own to small faults to persuade others that we have not great ones. 328.--envy is more irreconcilable than hatred. 329.--we believe, sometimes, that we hate flattery --we only dislike the method. ["{but} when i tell him he hates flatter{ers}, he says he does, being then most flattered." shakespeare, julius caesar {,act ii, scene i, decius}.] 330.--we pardon in the degree that we love. 331.--it is more difficult to be faithful to a mistress when one is happy, than when we are ill-treated by her. [si qua volet regnare diu contemnat amantem.--ovid, amores, ii. 19.] 332.--women do not know all their powers of flirtation. 333.--women cannot be completely severe unless they hate. 334.--women can less easily resign flirtations than love. 335.--in love deceit almost always goes further than mistrust. 336.--there is a kind of love, the excess of which forbids jealousy. 337.--there are certain good qualities as there are senses, and those who want them can neither perceive nor understand them. 338.--when our hatred is too bitter it places us below those whom we hate. 339.--we only appreciate our good or evil in proportion to our self-love. 340.--the wit of most women rather strengthens their folly than their reason. ["women have an entertaining tattle, and sometimes wit, but for solid reasoning and good sense i never knew one in my life that had it, and who reasoned and acted consequentially for four and twenty hours together."--lord chesterfield, letter 129.] 341.--the heat of youth is not more opposed to safety than the coldness of age. 342.--the accent of our native country dwells in the heart and mind as well as on the tongue. 343.--to be a great man one should know how to profit by every phase of fortune. 344.--most men, like plants, possess hidden qualities which chance discovers. 345.--opportunity makes us known to others, but more to ourselves. 346.--if a woman's temper is beyond control there can be no control of the mind or heart. 347.--we hardly find any persons of good sense, save those who agree with us. ["that was excellently observed, say i, when i read an author when his opinion agrees with mine."--swift, thoughts on various subjects.] 348.--when one loves one doubts even what one most believes. 349.--the greatest miracle of love is to eradicate flirtation. 350.--why we hate with so much bitterness those who deceive us is because they think themselves more clever than we are. ["i could pardon all his (louis xi.'s) deceit, but i cannot forgive his supposing me capable of the gross folly of being duped by his professions."--sir walter scott, quentin durward.] 351.--we have much trouble to break with one, when we no longer are in love. 352.--we almost always are bored with persons with whom we should not be bored. 353.--a gentleman may love like a lunatic, but not like a beast. 354.--there are certain defects which well mounted glitter like virtue itself. 355.--sometimes we lose friends for whose loss our regret is greater than our grief, and others for whom our grief is greater than our regret. 356.--usually we only praise heartily those who admire us. 357.--little minds are too much wounded by little things; great minds see all and are not even hurt. 358.--humility is the true proof of christian virtues; without it we retain all our faults, and they are only covered by pride to hide them from others, and often from ourselves. 359.--infidelities should extinguish love, and we ought not to be jealous when we have cause to be so. no persons escape causing jealousy who are worthy of exciting it. 360.--we are more humiliated by the least infidelity towards us, than by our greatest towards others. 361.--jealousy is always born with love, but does not always die with it. 362.--most women do not grieve so much for the death of their lovers for love's-sake, as to show they were worthy of being beloved. 363.--the evils we do to others give us less pain than those we do to ourselves. 364.--we well know that it is bad taste to talk of our wives; but we do not so well know that it is the same to speak of ourselves. 365.--there are virtues which degenerate into vices when they arise from nature, and others which when acquired are never perfect. for example, reason must teach us to manage our estate and our confidence, while nature should have given us goodness and valour. 366.--however we distrust the sincerity of those whom we talk with, we always believe them more sincere with us than with others. 367.--there are few virtuous women who are not tired of their part. ["every woman is at heart a rake."--pope. moral essays, ii.] 368.--the greater number of good women are like concealed treasures, safe as no one has searched for them. 369.--the violences we put upon ourselves to escape love are often more cruel than the cruelty of those we love. 370.--there are not many cowards who know the whole of their fear. 371.--it is generally the fault of the loved one not to perceive when love ceases. 372.--most young people think they are natural when they are only boorish and rude. 373.--some tears after having deceived others deceive ourselves. 374.--if we think we love a woman for love of herself we are greatly deceived. 375.--ordinary men commonly condemn what is beyond them. 376.--envy is destroyed by true friendship, flirtation by true love. 377.--the greatest mistake of penetration is not to have fallen short, but to have gone too far. 378.--we may bestow advice, but we cannot inspire the conduct. 379.--as our merit declines so also does our taste. 380.--fortune makes visible our virtues or our vices, as light does objects. 381.--the struggle we undergo to remain faithful to one we love is little better than infidelity. 382.--our actions are like the rhymed ends of blank verses (bouts-rimés) where to each one puts what construction he pleases. [the bouts-rimés was a literary game popular in the 17th and 18th centuries--the rhymed words at the end of a line being given for others to fill up. thus horace walpole being given, "brook, why, crook, i," returned the burlesque verse-"i sits with my toes in a brook, and if any one axes me why? i gies 'em a rap with my crook, 'tis constancy makes me, ses i."] 383.--the desire of talking about ourselves, and of putting our faults in the light we wish them to be seen, forms a great part of our sincerity. 384.--we should only be astonished at still being able to be astonished. 385.--it is equally as difficult to be contented when one has too much or too little love. 386.--no people are more often wrong than those who will not allow themselves to be wrong. 387.--a fool has not stuff in him to be good. 388.--if vanity does not overthrow all virtues, at least she makes them totter. 389.--what makes the vanity of others unsupportable is that it wounds our own. 390.--we give up more easily our interest than our taste. 391.--fortune appears so blind to none as to those to whom she has done no good. 392.--we should manage fortune like our health, enjoy it when it is good, be patient when it is bad, and never resort to strong remedies but in an extremity. 393.--awkwardness sometimes disappears in the camp, never in the court. 394.--a man is often more clever than one other, but not than all others. ["singuli decipere ac decipi possunt, nemo omnes, omnes neminem fefellerunt."--pliny{ the younger, panegyricus, lxii}.] 395.--we are often less unhappy at being deceived by one we loved, than on being deceived. 396.--we keep our first lover for a long time--if we do not get a second. 397.--we have not the courage to say generally that we have no faults, and that our enemies have no good qualities; but in fact we are not far from believing so. 398.--of all our faults that which we most readily admit is idleness: we believe that it makes all virtues ineffectual, and that without utterly destroying, it at least suspends their operation. 399.--there is a kind of greatness which does not depend upon fortune: it is a certain manner what distinguishes us, and which seems to destine us for great things; it is the value we insensibly set upon ourselves; it is by this quality that we gain the deference of other men, and it is this which commonly raises us more above them, than birth, rank, or even merit itself. 400.--there may be talent without position, but there is no position without some kind of talent. 401.--rank is to merit what dress is to a pretty woman. 402.--what we find the least of in flirtation is love. 403.--fortune sometimes uses our faults to exalt us, and there are tiresome people whose deserts would be ill rewarded if we did not desire to purchase their absence. 404.--it appears that nature has hid at the bottom of our hearts talents and abilities unknown to us. it is only the passions that have the power of bringing them to light, and sometimes give us views more true and more perfect than art could possibly do. 405.--we reach quite inexperienced the different stages of life, and often, in spite of the number of our years, we lack experience. ["to most men experience is like the stern lights of a ship which illumine only the track it has passed."-coleridge.] 406.--flirts make it a point of honour to be jealous of their lovers, to conceal their envy of other women. 407.--it may well be that those who have trapped us by their tricks do not seem to us so foolish as we seem to ourselves when trapped by the tricks of others. 408.--the most dangerous folly of old persons who have been loveable is to forget that they are no longer so. ["every woman who is not absolutely ugly thinks herself handsome. the suspicion of age no woman, let her be ever so old, forgives."--lord chesterfield, letter 129.] 409.--we should often be ashamed of our very best actions if the world only saw the motives which caused them. 410.--the greatest effort of friendship is not to show our faults to a friend, but to show him his own. 4ll.--we have few faults which are not far more excusable than the means we adopt to hide them. 412.--whatever disgrace we may have deserved, it is almost always in our power to re-establish our character. ["this is hardly a period at which the most irregular character may not be redeemed. the mistakes of one sin find a retreat in patriotism, those of the other in devotion." --junius, letter to the king.] 413.--a man cannot please long who has only one kind of wit. [according to segrais this maxim was a hit at racine and boileau, who, despising ordinary conversation, talked incessantly of literature; but there is some doubt as to segrais' statement.--aimé martin.] 414.--idiots and lunatics see only their own wit. 415.--wit sometimes enables us to act rudely with impunity. 416.--the vivacity which increases in old age is not far removed from folly. ["how ill {white} hairs become {a} fool and jester."-shakespeare, king henry iv, part ii, act. v, scene v, king}. "can age itself forget that you are now in the last act of life? can grey hairs make folly venerable, and is there no period to be reserved for meditation or retirement."-junius, to the duke of bedford, 19th sept. 1769.] 417.--in love the quickest is always the best cure. 418.--young women who do not want to appear flirts, and old men who do not want to appear ridiculous, should not talk of love as a matter wherein they can have any interest. 419.--we may seem great in a post beneath our capacity, but we oftener seem little in a post above it. 420.--we often believe we have constancy in misfortune when we have nothing but debasement, and we suffer misfortunes without regarding them as cowards who let themselves be killed from fear of defending themselves. 421.--conceit causes more conversation than wit. 422.--all passions make us commit some faults, love alone makes us ridiculous. ["in love we all are fools alike."--gay{, the beggar's opera, (1728), act iii, scene i, lucy}.] 423.--few know how to be old. 424.--we often credit ourselves with vices the reverse of what we have, thus when weak we boast of our obstinacy. 425.--penetration has a spice of divination in it which tickles our vanity more than any other quality of the mind. 426.--the charm of novelty and old custom, however opposite to each other, equally blind us to the faults of our friends. ["two things the most opposite blind us equally, custom and novelty."-la bruyère, des judgements.] 427.--most friends sicken us of friendship, most devotees of devotion. 428.--we easily forgive in our friends those faults we do not perceive. 429.--women who love, pardon more readily great indiscretions than little infidelities. 430.--in the old age of love as in life we still survive for the evils, though no longer for the pleasures. ["the youth of friendship is better than its old age." --hazlitt's characteristics, 229.] 431.--nothing prevents our being unaffected so much as our desire to seem so. 432.--to praise good actions heartily is in some measure to take part in them. 433.--the most certain sign of being born with great qualities is to be born without envy. ["nemo alienae virtuti invidet qui satis confidet suae." --cicero in marc ant.] 434.--when our friends have deceived us we owe them but indifference to the tokens of their friendship, yet for their misfortunes we always owe them pity. 435.--luck and temper rule the world. 436.--it is far easier to know men than to know man. 437.--we should not judge of a man's merit by his great abilities, but by the use he makes of them. 438.--there is a certain lively gratitude which not only releases us from benefits received, but which also, by making a return to our friends as payment, renders them indebted to us. ["and understood not that a grateful mind, by owing owes not, but is at once indebted and discharged." milton. paradise lost.] 439.--we should earnestly desire but few things if we clearly knew what we desired. 440.--the cause why the majority of women are so little given to friendship is, that it is insipid after having felt love. ["those who have experienced a great passion neglect friendship, and those who have united themselves to friendship have nought to do with love."--la bruyère. du coeur.] 441.--as in friendship so in love, we are often happier from ignorance than from knowledge. 442.--we try to make a virtue of vices we are loth to correct. 443.--the most violent passions give some respite, but vanity always disturbs us. 444.--old fools are more foolish than young fools. ["malvolio. infirmity{,} that decays the wise{,} doth eve{r} make the better fool. clown. god send you, sir, a speedy infirmity{,} for the better increasing of your folly."--shakespeare. twelfth night{, act i, scene v}.] 445.--weakness is more hostile to virtue than vice. 446.--what makes the grief of shame and jealousy so acute is that vanity cannot aid us in enduring them. 447.--propriety is the least of all laws, but the most obeyed. [honour has its supreme laws, to which education is bound to conform....those things which honour forbids are more rigorously forbidden when the laws do not concur in the prohibition, and those it commands are more strongly insisted upon when they happen not to be commanded by law.--montesquieu, {the spirit of laws, }b. 4, c. ii.] 448.--a well-trained mind has less difficulty in submitting to than in guiding an ill-trained mind. 449.--when fortune surprises us by giving us some great office without having gradually led us to expect it, or without having raised our hopes, it is well nigh impossible to occupy it well, and to appear worthy to fill it. 450.--our pride is often increased by what we retrench from our other faults. ["the loss of sensual pleasures was supplied and compensated by spiritual pride."--gibbon. decline and fall, chap. xv.] 451.--no fools so wearisome as those who have some wit. 452.--no one believes that in every respect he is behind the man he considers the ablest in the world. 453.--in great matters we should not try so much to create opportunities as to utilise those that offer themselves. [yet lord bacon says "a wise man will make more opportunities than he finds."--essays, {(1625), "of ceremonies and respects"}] 454.--there are few occasions when we should make a bad bargain by giving up the good on condition that no ill was said of us. 455.--however disposed the world may be to judge wrongly, it far oftener favours false merit than does justice to true. 456.--sometimes we meet a fool with wit, never one with discretion. 457.--we should gain more by letting the world see what we are than by trying to seem what we are not. 458.--our enemies come nearer the truth in the opinions they form of us than we do in our opinion of ourselves. 459.--there are many remedies to cure love, yet none are infallible. 460.--it would be well for us if we knew all our passions make us do. 461.--age is a tyrant who forbids at the penalty of life all the pleasures of youth. 462.--the same pride which makes us blame faults from which we believe ourselves free causes us to despise the good qualities we have not. 463.--there is often more pride than goodness in our grief for our enemies' miseries; it is to show how superior we are to them, that we bestow on them the sign of our compassion. 464.--there exists an excess of good and evil which surpasses our comprehension. 465.--innocence is most fortunate if it finds the same protection as crime. 466.--of all the violent passions the one that becomes a woman best is love. 467.--vanity makes us sin more against our taste than reason. 468.--some bad qualities form great talents. 469.--we never desire earnestly what we desire in reason. 470.--all our qualities are uncertain and doubtful, both the good as well as the bad, and nearly all are creatures of opportunities. 471.--in their first passion women love their lovers, in all the others they love love. ["in her first passion woman loves her lover, in all her others what she loves is love." {--lord byron, }don juan, canto iii., stanza 3. "we truly love once, the first time; the subsequent passions are more or less involuntary." la bruyère: du coeur.] 472.--pride as the other passions has its follies. we are ashamed to own we are jealous, and yet we plume ourselves in having been and being able to be so. 473.--however rare true love is, true friendship is rarer. ["it is more common to see perfect love than real friendship."--la bruyère. du coeur.] 474.--there are few women whose charm survives their beauty. 475.--the desire to be pitied or to be admired often forms the greater part of our confidence. 476.--our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy. 477.--the same firmness that enables us to resist love enables us to make our resistance durable and lasting. so weak persons who are always excited by passions are seldom really possessed of any. 478.--fancy does not enable us to invent so many different contradictions as there are by nature in every heart. 479.--it is only people who possess firmness who can possess true gentleness. in those who appear gentle it is generally only weakness, which is readily converted into harshness. 480.--timidity is a fault which is dangerous to blame in those we desire to cure of it. 481.--nothing is rarer than true good nature, those who think they have it are generally only pliant or weak. 482.--the mind attaches itself by idleness and habit to whatever is easy or pleasant. this habit always places bounds to our knowledge, and no one has ever yet taken the pains to enlarge and expand his mind to the full extent of its capacities. 483.--usually we are more satirical from vanity than malice. 484.--when the heart is still disturbed by the relics of a passion it is proner to take up a new one than when wholly cured. 485.--those who have had great passions often find all their lives made miserable in being cured of them. 486.--more persons exist without self-love than without envy. ["i do not believe that there is a human creature in his senses arrived at maturity, that at some time or other has not been carried away by this passion (envy) in good earnest, and yet i never met with any who dared own he was guilty of it, but in jest."--mandeville: fable of the bees; remark n.] 487.--we have more idleness in the mind than in the body. 488.--the calm or disturbance of our mind does not depend so much on what we regard as the more important things of life, as in a judicious or injudicious arrangement of the little things of daily occurrence. 489.--however wicked men may be, they do not dare openly to appear the enemies of virtue, and when they desire to persecute her they either pretend to believe her false or attribute crimes to her. 490.--we often go from love to ambition, but we never return from ambition to love. ["men commence by love, finish by ambition, and do not find a quieter seat while they remain there."--la bruyère: du coeur.] 491.--extreme avarice is nearly always mistaken, there is no passion which is oftener further away from its mark, nor upon which the present has so much power to the prejudice of the future. 492.--avarice often produces opposite results: there are an infinite number of persons who sacrifice their property to doubtful and distant expectations, others mistake great future advantages for small present interests. [aimé martin says, "the author here confuses greediness, the desire and avarice--passions which probably have a common origin, but produce different results. the greedy man is nearly always desirous to possess, and often foregoes great future advantages for small present interests. the avaricious man, on the other hand, mistakes present advantages for the great expectations of the future. both desire to possess and enjoy. but the miser possesses and enjoys nothing but the pleasure of possessing; he risks nothing, gives nothing, hopes nothing, his life is centred in his strong box, beyond that he has no want."] 493.--it appears that men do not find they have enough faults, as they increase the number by certain peculiar qualities that they affect to assume, and which they cultivate with so great assiduity that at length they become natural faults, which they can no longer correct. 494.--what makes us see that men know their faults better than we imagine, is that they are never wrong when they speak of their conduct; the same self-love that usually blinds them enlightens them, and gives them such true views as to make them suppress or disguise the smallest thing that might be censured. 495.--young men entering life should be either shy or bold; a solemn and sedate manner usually degenerates into impertinence. 496.--quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side. 497.--it is valueless to a woman to be young unless pretty, or to be pretty unless young. 498.--some persons are so frivolous and fickle that they are as far removed from real defects as from substantial qualities. 499.--we do not usually reckon a woman's first flirtation until she has had a second. 500.--some people are so self-occupied that when in love they find a mode by which to be engrossed with the passion without being so with the person they love. 501.--love, though so very agreeable, pleases more by its ways than by itself. 502.--a little wit with good sense bores less in the long run than much wit with ill nature. 503.--jealousy is the worst of all evils, yet the one that is least pitied by those who cause it. 504.--thus having treated of the hollowness of so many apparent virtues, it is but just to say something on the hollowness of the contempt for death. i allude to that contempt of death which the heathen boasted they derived from their unaided understanding, without the hope of a future state. there is a difference between meeting death with courage and despising it. the first is common enough, the last i think always feigned. yet everything that could be has been written to persuade us that death is no evil, and the weakest of men, equally with the bravest, have given many noble examples on which to found such an opinion, still i do not think that any man of good sense has ever yet believed in it. and the pains we take to persuade others as well as ourselves amply show that the task is far from easy. for many reasons we may be disgusted with life, but for none may we despise it. not even those who commit suicide regard it as a light matter, and are as much alarmed and startled as the rest of the world if death meets them in a different way than the one they have selected. the difference we observe in the courage of so great a number of brave men, is from meeting death in a way different from what they imagined, when it shows itself nearer at one time than at another. thus it ultimately happens that having despised death when they were ignorant of it, they dread it when they become acquainted with it. if we could avoid seeing it with all its surroundings, we might perhaps believe that it was not the greatest of evils. the wisest and bravest are those who take the best means to avoid reflecting on it, as every man who sees it in its real light regards it as dreadful. the necessity of dying created all the constancy of philosophers. they thought it but right to go with a good grace when they could not avoid going, and being unable to prolong their lives indefinitely, nothing remained but to build an immortal reputation, and to save from the general wreck all that could be saved. to put a good face upon it, let it suffice, not to say all that we think to ourselves, but rely more on our nature than on our fallible reason, which might make us think we could approach death with indifference. the glory of dying with courage, the hope of being regretted, the desire to leave behind us a good reputation, the assurance of being enfranchised from the miseries of life and being no longer dependent on the wiles of fortune, are resources which should not be passed over. but we must not regard them as infallible. they should affect us in the same proportion as a single shelter affects those who in war storm a fortress. at a distance they think it may afford cover, but when near they find it only a feeble protection. it is only deceiving ourselves to imagine that death, when near, will seem the same as at a distance, or that our feelings, which are merely weaknesses, are naturally so strong that they will not suffer in an attack of the rudest of trials. it is equally as absurd to try the effect of self-esteem and to think it will enable us to count as naught what will of necessity destroy it. and the mind in which we trust to find so many resources will be far too weak in the struggle to persuade us in the way we wish. for it is this which betrays us so frequently, and which, instead of filling us with contempt of death, serves but to show us all that is frightful and fearful. the most it can do for us is to persuade us to avert our gaze and fix it on other objects. cato and brutus each selected noble ones. a lackey sometime ago contented himself by dancing on the scaffold when he was about to be broken on the wheel. so however diverse the motives they but realize the same result. for the rest it is a fact that whatever difference there may be between the peer and the peasant, we have constantly seen both the one and the other meet death with the same composure. still there is always this difference, that the contempt the peer shows for death is but the love of fame which hides death from his sight; in the peasant it is but the result of his limited vision that hides from him the extent of the evil, end leaves him free to reflect on other things. the first supplement [the following reflections are extracted from the first two editions of la rochefoucauld, having been suppressed by the author in succeeding issues.] i.--self-love is the love of self, and of all things for self. it makes men self-worshippers, and if fortune permits them, causes them to tyrannize over others; it is never quiet when out of itself, and only rests upon other subjects as a bee upon flowers, to extract from them its proper food. nothing is so headstrong as its desires, nothing so well concealed as its designs, nothing so skilful as its management; its suppleness is beyond description; its changes surpass those of the metamorphoses, its refinements those of chemistry. we can neither plumb the depths nor pierce the shades of its recesses. therein it is hidden from the most far-seeing eyes, therein it takes a thousand imperceptible folds. there it is often to itself invisible; it there conceives, there nourishes and rears, without being aware of it, numberless loves and hatreds, some so monstrous that when they are brought to light it disowns them, and cannot resolve to avow them. in the night which covers it are born the ridiculous persuasions it has of itself, thence come its errors, its ignorance, its silly mistakes; thence it is led to believe that its passions which sleep are dead, and to think that it has lost all appetite for that of which it is sated. but this thick darkness which conceals it from itself does not hinder it from seeing that perfectly which is out of itself; and in this it resembles our eyes which behold all, and yet cannot set their own forms. in fact, in great concerns and important matters when the violence of its desires summons all its attention, it sees, feels, hears, imagines, suspects, penetrates, divines all: so that we might think that each of its passions had a magic power proper to it. nothing is so close and strong as its attachments, which, in sight of the extreme misfortunes which threaten it, it vainly attempts to break. yet sometimes it effects that without trouble and quickly, which it failed to do with its whole power and in the course of years, whence we may fairly conclude that it is by itself that its desires are inflamed, rather than by the beauty and merit of its objects, that its own taste embellishes and heightens them; that it is itself the game it pursues, and that it follows eagerly when it runs after that upon which itself is eager. it is made up of contraries. it is imperious and obedient, sincere and false, piteous and cruel, timid and bold. it has different desires according to the diversity of temperaments, which turn and fix it sometimes upon riches, sometimes on pleasures. it changes according to our age, our fortunes, and our hopes; it is quite indifferent whether it has many or one, because it can split itself into many portions, and unite in one as it pleases. it is inconstant, and besides the changes which arise from strange causes it has an infinity born of itself, and of its own substance. it is inconstant through inconstancy, of lightness, love, novelty, lassitude and distaste. it is capricious, and one sees it sometimes work with intense eagerness and with incredible labour to obtain things of little use to it which are even hurtful, but which it pursues because it wishes for them. it is silly, and often throws its whole application on the utmost frivolities. it finds all its pleasure in the dullest matters, and places its pride in the most contemptible. it is seen in all states of life, and in all conditions; it lives everywhere and upon everything; it subsists on nothing; it accommodates itself either to things or to the want of them; it goes over to those who are at war with it, enters into their designs, and, this is wonderful, it, with them, hates even itself; it conspires for its own loss, it works towards its own ruin--in fact, caring only to exist, and providing that it may be, it will be its own enemy! we must therefore not be surprised if it is sometimes united to the rudest austerity, and if it enters so boldly into partnership to destroy her, because when it is rooted out in one place it re-establishes itself in another. when it fancies that it abandons its pleasure it merely changes or suspends its enjoyment. when even it is conquered in its full flight, we find that it triumphs in its own defeat. here then is the picture of self-love whereof the whole of our life is but one long agitation. the sea is its living image; and in the flux and reflux of its continuous waves there is a faithful expression of the stormy succession of its thoughts and of its eternal motion. (edition of 1665, no. 1.) ii.--passions are only the different degrees of the heat or coldness of the blood. (1665, no. 13.) iii.--moderation in good fortune is but apprehension of the shame which follows upon haughtiness, or a fear of losing what we have. (1665, no. 18.) iv.--moderation is like temperance in eating; we could eat more but we fear to make ourselves ill. (1665, no. 21.) v.--everybody finds that to abuse in another which he finds worthy of abuse in himself. (1665, no. 33.) vi.--pride, as if tired of its artifices and its different metamorphoses, after having solely filled the divers parts of the comedy of life, exhibits itself with its natural face, and is discovered by haughtiness; so much so that we may truly say that haughtiness is but the flash and open declaration of pride. (1665, no. 37.) vii.--one kind of happiness is to know exactly at what point to be miserable. (1665, no. 53.) viii.--when we do not find peace of mind (repos) in ourselves it is useless to seek it elsewhere. (1665, no. 53.) ix.--one should be able to answer for one's fortune, so as to be able to answer for what we shall do. (1665, no. 70.) x.--love is to the soul of him who loves, what the soul is to the body which it animates. (1665, no. 77.) xi.--as one is never at liberty to love or to cease from loving, the lover cannot with justice complain of the inconstancy of his mistress, nor she of the fickleness of her lover. (1665, no. 81.) xii.--justice in those judges who are moderate is but a love of their place. (1665, no. 89.) xiii.--when we are tired of loving we are quite content if our mistress should become faithless, to loose us from our fidelity. (1665, no. 85.) xiv.--the first impulse of joy which we feel at the happiness of our friends arises neither from our natural goodness nor from friendship; it is the result of self-love, which flatters us with being lucky in our own turn, or in reaping something from the good fortune of our friends. (1665, no. 97.) xv.--in the adversity of our best friends we always find something which is not wholly displeasing to us. (1665, no. 99.) [this gave occasion to swift's celebrated "verses on his own death." the four first are quoted opposite the title, then follow these lines:-"this maxim more than all the rest, is thought too base for human breast; in all distresses of our friends, we first consult our private ends; while nature kindly bent to ease us, points out some circumstance to please us." see also chesterfield's defence of this in his 129th letter; "they who know the deception and wickedness of the human heart will not be either romantic or blind enough to deny what rochefoucauld and swift have affirmed as a general truth."] xvi.--how shall we hope that another person will keep our secret if we do not keep it ourselves. (1665, no. 100.) xvii.--as if it was not sufficient that self-love should have the power to change itself, it has added that of changing other objects, and this it does in a very astonishing manner; for not only does it so well disguise them that it is itself deceived, but it even changes the state and nature of things. thus, when a female is adverse to us, and she turns her hate and persecution against us, self-love pronounces on her actions with all the severity of justice; it exaggerates the faults till they are enormous, and looks at her good qualities in so disadvantageous a light that they become more displeasing than her faults. if however the same female becomes favourable to us, or certain of our interests reconcile her to us, our sole self interest gives her back the lustre which our hatred deprived her of. the bad qualities become effaced, the good ones appear with a redoubled advantage; we even summon all our indulgence to justify the war she has made upon us. now although all passions prove this truth, that of love exhibits it most clearly; for we may see a lover moved with rage by the neglect or the infidelity of her whom he loves, and meditating the utmost vengeance that his passion can inspire. nevertheless as soon as the sight of his beloved has calmed the fury of his movements, his passion holds that beauty innocent; he only accuses himself, he condemns his condemnations, and by the miraculous power of selflove, he whitens the blackest actions of his mistress, and takes from her all crime to lay it on himself. {no date or number is given for this maxim} xviii.--there are none who press so heavily on others as the lazy ones, when they have satisfied their idleness, and wish to appear industrious. (1666, no. 91.) xix.--the blindness of men is the most dangerous effect of their pride; it seems to nourish and augment it, it deprives us of knowledge of remedies which can solace our miseries and can cure our faults. (1665, no. 102.) xx.--one has never less reason than when one despairs of finding it in others. (1665, no. 103.) xxi.--philosophers, and seneca above all, have not diminished crimes by their precepts; they have only used them in the building up of pride. (1665, no. 105.) xxii.--it is a proof of little friendship not to perceive the growing coolness of that of our friends. (1666, no. 97.) xxiii.--the most wise may be so in indifferent and ordinary matters, but they are seldom so in their most serious affairs. (1665, no. 132.) xxiv.--the most subtle folly grows out of the most subtle wisdom. (1665, no. 134.) xxv.--sobriety is the love of health, or an incapacity to eat much. (1665, no. 135.) xxvi.--we never forget things so well as when we are tired of talking of them. (1665, no. 144.) xxvii.--the praise bestowed upon us is at least useful in rooting us in the practice of virtue. (1665, no. 155.) xxviii.--self-love takes care to prevent him whom we flatter from being him who most flatters us. (1665, no. 157.) xxix.--men only blame vice and praise virtue from interest. (1665, no. 151.) xxx.--we make no difference in the kinds of anger, although there is that which is light and almost innocent, which arises from warmth of complexion, temperament, and another very criminal, which is, to speak properly, the fury of pride. (1665, no. 159.) xxxi.--great souls are not those who have fewer passions and more virtues than the common, but those only who have greater designs. (1665, no. 161.) xxxii.--kings do with men as with pieces of money; they make them bear what value they will, and one is forced to receive them according to their currency value, and not at their true worth. (1665, no. 165.) [see burns{, for a' that an a' that}-"the rank is but the guinea's stamp, {the} man's {the gowd} for a' that." also farquhar and other parallel passages pointed out in familiar words.] xxxiii.--natural ferocity makes fewer people cruel than self-love. (1665, no. 174.) xxxiv.--one may say of all our virtues as an italian poet says of the propriety of women, that it is often merely the art of appearing chaste. (1665, no. 176.) xxxv.--there are crimes which become innocent and even glorious by their brilliancy,* their number, or their excess; thus it happens that public robbery is called financial skill, and the unjust capture of provinces is called a conquest. (1665, no. 192.) *some crimes may be excused by their brilliancy, such as those of jael, of deborah, of brutus, and of charlotte corday--further than this the maxim is satire. xxxvi.--one never finds in man good or evil in excess. (1665, no. 201.) xxxvii.--those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not easily suspect others. (1665, no. {2}08.) {the text incorrectly numbers this maxim as 508. it is 208.} xxxviii.--the pomp of funerals concerns rather the vanity of the living, than the honour of the dead. (1665, no. 213.) xxxix.--whatever variety and change appears in the world, we may remark a secret chain, and a regulated order of all time by providence, which makes everything follow in due rank and fall into its destined course. (1665, no. 225.) xl.--intrepidity should sustain the heart in conspiracies in place of valour which alone furnishes all the firmness which is necessary for the perils of war. (1665, no. 231.) xli.--those who wish to define victory by her birth will be tempted to imitate the poets, and to call her the daughter of heaven, since they cannot find her origin on earth. truly she is produced from an infinity of actions, which instead of wishing to beget her, only look to the particular interests of their masters, since all those who compose an army, in aiming at their own rise and glory, produce a good so great and general. (1665, no. 232.) xlii.--that man who has never been in danger cannot answer for his courage. (1665, no. 236.) xliii.--we more often place bounds on our gratitude than on our desires and our hopes. (1665, no. 241.) xliv.--imitation is always unhappy, for all which is counterfeit displeases by the very things which charm us when they are original (naturelles). (1665, no. 245.) xlv.--we do not regret the loss of our friends according to their merits, but according to our wants, and the opinion with which we believed we had impressed them of our worth. (1665, no. 248.) xlvi.--it is very hard to separate the general goodness spread all over the world from great cleverness. (1665, no. 252.) xlvii.--for us to be always good, others should believe that they cannot behave wickedly to us with impunity. (1665, no. 254.) xlviii.--a confidence in being able to please is often an infallible means of being displeasing. (1665, no. 256.) xlix.--the confidence we have in ourselves arises in a great measure from that that we have in others. (1665, no. 258.) l.--there is a general revolution which changes the tastes of the mind as well as the fortunes of the world. (1665, no. 250.) li.--truth is foundation and the reason of the perfection of beauty, for of whatever stature a thing may be, it cannot be beautiful and perfect unless it be truly that she should be, and possess truly all that she should have (1665, no. 260.) [beauty is truth, truth beauty.{--john keats, "ode on a a grecian urn," (1820), stanza 5}] lii.--there are fine things which are more brilliant when unfinished than when finished too much. (1665, no. 262.) liii.--magnanimity is a noble effort of pride which makes a man master of himself, to make him master of all things. (1665, no. 271.) liv.--luxury and too refined a policy in states are a sure presage of their fall, because all parties looking after their own interest turn away from the public good. (1665, no. 282.) lv.--of all passions that which is least known to us is idleness; she is the most ardent and evil of all, although her violence may be insensible, and the evils she causes concealed; if we consider her power attentively we shall find that in all encounters she makes herself mistress of our sentiments, our interests, and our pleasures; like the (fabled) remora, she can stop the greatest vessels, she is a hidden rock, more dangerous in the most important matters than sudden squalls and the most violent tempests. the repose of idleness is a magic charm which suddenly suspends the most ardent pursuits and the most obstinate resolutions. in fact to give a true notion of this passion we must add that idleness, like a beatitude of the soul, consoles us for all losses and fills the vacancy of all our wants. (1665, no. 290.) lvi.--we are very fond of reading others' characters, but we do not like to be read ourselves. (1665, no. 296.) lvii.--what a tiresome malady is that which forces one to preserve your health by a severe regimen. (ibid, no. 298.) lviii.--it is much easier to take love when one is free, than to get rid of it after having taken it. (1665, no. 300.) lix.--women for the most part surrender themselves more from weakness than from passion. whence it is that bold and pushing men succeed better than others, although they are not so loveable. (1665, no. 301.) lx.--not to love is in love, an infallible means of being beloved. (1665, no. 302.) lxi.--the sincerity which lovers and mistresses ask that both should know when they cease to love each other, arises much less from a wish to be warned of the cessation of love, than from a desire to be assured that they are beloved although no one denies it. (1665, no. 303.) lxii.--the most just comparison of love is that of a fever, and we have no power over either, as to its violence or its duration. (1665, no. 305.) lxiii.--the greatest skill of the least skilful is to know how to submit to the direction of another. (1665, no. 309.) lxiv.--we always fear to see those whom we love when we have been flirting with others. (16{74}, no. 372.) lxv.--we ought to console ourselves for our faults when we have strength enough to own them. (16{74}, no. 375.) {the date of the previous two maxims is incorrectly cited as 1665 in the text. i found this date immediately suspect because the translators' introduction states that the 1665 edition only had 316 maxims. in fact, the two maxims only appeared in the fourth of the first five editions (1674).} second supplement. reflections, extracted from ms. letters in the royal library.* *a la bibliotheque du roi, it is difficult at present (june 1871) to assign a name to the magnificent collection of books in paris, the property of the nation. lxvi.--interest is the soul of self-love, in as much as when the body deprived of its soul is without sight, feeling or knowledge, without thought or movement, so self-love, riven so to speak from its interest, neither sees, nor hears, nor smells, nor moves; thus it is that the same man who will run over land and sea for his own interest becomes suddenly paralyzed when engaged for that of others; from this arises that sudden dulness and, as it were, death, with which we afflict those to whom we speak of our own matters; from this also their sudden resurrection when in our narrative we relate something concerning them; from this we find in our conversations and business that a man becomes dull or bright just as his own interest is near to him or distant from him. (letter to madame de sablé, ms., fol. 211.) lxvii.--why we cry out so much against maxims which lay bare the heart of man, is because we fear that our own heart shall be laid bare. (maxim 103, ms., fol. 310.*) *the reader will recognise in these extracts portions of the maxims previously given, sometimes the author has carefully polished them; at other times the words are identical. our numbers will indicate where they are to be found in the foregoing collection. lxviii.--hope and fear are inseparable. (to madame de sablé, ms., fol. 222, max. 168.) lxix.--it is a common thing to hazard life to escape dishonour; but, when this is done, the actor takes very little pain to make the enterprise succeed in which he is engaged, and certain it is that they who hazard their lives to take a city or to conquer a province are better officers, have more merit, and wider and more useful, views than they who merely expose themselves to vindicate their honour; it is very common to find people of the latter class, very rare to find those of the former. (letter to m. esprit, ms., fol. 173, max. 219.) lxx.--the taste changes, but the will remains the same. (to madame de sablé, fol. 223, max. 252.) lxxi.--the power which women whom we love have over us is greater than that which we have over ourselves. (to the same, ms., fol. 211, max. 259) lxxii.--that which makes us believe so easily that others have defects is that we all so easily believe what we wish. (to the same, ms., fol. 223, max. 397.) lxxiii.--i am perfectly aware that good sense and fine wit are tedious to every age, but tastes are not always the same, and what is good at one time will not seem so at another. this makes me think that few persons know how to be old. (to the same, fol. 202, max. 423.) lxxiv.--god has permitted, to punish man for his original sin, that he should be so fond of his self-love, that he should be tormented by it in all the actions of his life. (ms., fol. 310, max. 494.) lxxv.--and so far it seems to me the philosophy of a lacquey can go; i believe that all gaity in that state of life is very doubtful indeed. (to madame de sablé, fol. 161, max. 504.) [in the maxim cited the author relates how a footman about to be broken on the wheel danced on the scaffold. he seems to think that in his day the life of such servants was so miserable that their merriment was very doubtful.] third supplement [the fifty following maxims are taken from the sixth edition of the pensées de la rochefoucauld, published by claude barbin, in 1693, more than twelve years after the death of the author (17th may, 1680). the reader will find some repetitions, but also some very valuable maxims.] lxxvi.--many persons wish to be devout; but no one wishes to be humble. lxxvii.--the labour of the body frees us from the pains of the mind, and thus makes the poor happy. lxxviii.--true penitential sorrows (mortifications) are those which are not known, vanity renders the others easy enough. lxxix.--humility is the altar upon which god wishes that we should offer him his sacrifices. lxxx.--few things are needed to make a wise man happy; nothing can make a fool content; that is why most men are miserable. lxxxi.--we trouble ourselves less to become happy, than to make others believe we are so. lxxxii.--it is more easy to extinguish the first desire than to satisfy those which follow. lxxxiii.--wisdom is to the soul what health is to the body. lxxxiv.--the great ones of the earth can neither command health of body nor repose of mind, and they buy always at too dear a price the good they can acquire. lxxxv.--before strongly desiring anything we should examine what happiness he has who possesses it. lxxxvi.--a true friend is the greatest of all goods, and that of which we think least of acquiring. lxxxvii.--lovers do not wish to see the faults of their mistresses until their enchantment is at an end. lxxxviii.--prudence and love are not made for each other; in the ratio that love increases, prudence diminishes. lxxxix.--it is sometimes pleasing to a husband to have a jealous wife; he hears her always speaking of the beloved object. xc.--how much is a woman to be pitied who is at the same time possessed of virtue and love! xci.--the wise man finds it better not to enter the encounter than to conquer. [somewhat similar to goldsmith's sage-"who quits {a} world where strong temptations try, and since 'tis hard to co{mbat}, learns to fly."] xcii.--it is more necessary to study men than books. ["the proper study of mankind is man."--pope {essay on man, (1733), epistle ii, line 2}.] xciii.--good and evil ordinarily come to those who have most of one or the other. xciv.--the accent and character of one's native country dwells in the mind and heart as on the tongue. (repitition of maxim 342.) xcv.--the greater part of men have qualities which, like those of plants, are discovered by chance. (repitition of maxim 344.) xcvi.--a good woman is a hidden treasure; he who discovers her will do well not to boast about it. (see maxim 368.) xcvii.--most women do not weep for the loss of a lover to show that they have been loved so much as to show that they are worth being loved. (see maxim 362.) xcviii.--there are many virtuous women who are weary of the part they have played. (see maxim 367.) xcix.--if we think we love for love's sake we are much mistaken. (see maxim 374.) c.--the restraint we lay upon ourselves to be constant, is not much better than an inconstancy. (see maxim 369, 381.) ci.--there are those who avoid our jealousy, of whom we ought to be jealous. (see maxim 359.) cii.--jealousy is always born with love, but does not always die with it. (see maxim 361.) ciii.--when we love too much it is difficult to discover when we have ceased to be beloved. civ.--we know very well that we should not talk about our wives, but we do not remember that it is not so well to speak of ourselves. (see maxim 364.) cv.--chance makes us known to others and to ourselves. (see maxim 345.) cvi.--we find very few people of good sense, except those who are of our own opinion. (see maxim 347.) cvii.--we commonly praise the good hearts of those who admire us. (see maxim 356.) cviii.--man only blames himself in order that he may be praised. cix.--little minds are wounded by the smallest things. (see maxim 357.) cx.--there are certain faults which placed in a good light please more than perfection itself. (see maxim 354.) cxi.--that which makes us so bitter against those who do us a shrewd turn, is because they think themselves more clever than we are. (see maxim 350.) cxii.--we are always bored by those whom we bore. (see maxim 352.) cxiii.--the harm that others do us is often less than that we do ourselves. (see maxim 363.) cxiv.--it is never more difficult to speak well than when we are ashamed of being silent. cxv.--those faults are always pardonable that we have the courage to avow. cxvi.--the greatest fault of penetration is not that it goes to the bottom of a matter--but beyond it. (see maxim 377.) cxvii.--we give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it. (see maxim 378.) cxviii.--when our merit declines, our taste declines also. (see maxim 379.) cxix.--fortune discovers our vices and our virtues, as the light makes objects plain to the sight. (see maxim 380.) cxx.--our actions are like rhymed verse-ends (bouts-rimés) which everyone turns as he pleases. (see maxim 382.) cxxi.--there is nothing more natural, nor more deceptive, than to believe that we are beloved. cxxii.--we would rather see those to whom we have done a benefit, than those who have done us one. cxxiii.--it is more difficult to hide the opinions we have than to feign those which we have not. cxxiv.--renewed friendships require more care than those that have never been broken. cxxv.--a man to whom no one is pleasing is much more unhappy than one who pleases nobody. reflections on various subjects, by the duke de la rochefoucauld i. on confidence. though sincerity and confidence have many points of resemblance, they have yet many points of difference. sincerity is an openness of heart, which shows us what we are, a love of truth, a dislike to deception, a wish to compensate our faults and to lessen them by the merit of confessing them. confidence leaves us less liberty, its rules are stricter, it requires more prudence and reticence, and we are not always free to give it. it relates not only to ourselves, since our interests are often mixed up with those of others; it requires great delicacy not to expose our friends in exposing ourselves, not to draw upon their goodness to enhance the value of what we give. confidence always pleases those who receive it. it is a tribute we pay to their merit, a deposit we commit to their trust, a pledge which gives them a claim upon us, a kind of dependence to which we voluntarily submit. i do not wish from what i have said to depreciate confidence, so necessary to man. it is in society the link between acquaintance and friendship. i only wish to state its limits to make it true and real. i would that it was always sincere, always discreet, and that it had neither weakness nor interest. i know it is hard to place proper limits on being taken into all our friends' confidence, and taking them into all ours. most frequently we make confidants from vanity, a love of talking, a wish to win the confidence of others, and make an exchange of secrets. some may have a motive for confiding in us, towards whom we have no motive for confiding. with them we discharge the obligation in keeping their secrets and trusting them with small confidences. others whose fidelity we know trust nothing to us, but we confide in them by choice and inclination. we should hide from them nothing that concerns us, we should always show them with equal truth, our virtues and our vices, without exaggerating the one or diminishing the other. we should make it a rule never to have half confidences. they always embarrass those who give them, and dissatisfy those who receive them. they shed an uncertain light on what we want hidden, increase curiosity, entitling the recipients to know more, giving them leave to consider themselves free to talk of what they have guessed. it is far safer and more honest to tell nothing than to be silent when we have begun to tell. there are other rules to be observed in matters confided to us, all are important, to all prudence and trust are essential. everyone agrees that a secret should be kept intact, but everyone does not agree as to the nature and importance of secresy. too often we consult ourselves as to what we should say, what we should leave unsaid. there are few permanent secrets, and the scruple against revealing them will not last for ever. with those friends whose truth we know we have the closest intimacy. they have always spoken unreservedly to us, we should always do the same to them. they know our habits and connexions, and see too clearly not to perceive the slightest change. they may have elsewhere learnt what we have promised not to tell. it is not in our power to tell them what has been entrusted to us, though it might tend to their interest to know it. we feel as confident of them as of ourselves, and we are reduced to the hard fate of losing their friendship, which is dear to us, or of being faithless as regards a secret. this is doubtless the hardest test of fidelity, but it should not move an honest man; it is then that he can sacrifice himself to others. his first duty is to rigidly keep his trust in its entirety. he should not only control and guard his and his voice, but even his lighter talk, so that nothing be seen in his conversation or manner that could direct the curiosity of others towards that which he wishes to conceal. we have often need of strength and prudence wherewith to oppose the exigencies of most of our friends who make a claim on our confidence, and seek to know all about us. we should never allow them to acquire this unexceptionable right. there are accidents and circumstances which do not fall in their cognizance; if they complain, we should endure their complaints and excuse ourselves with gentleness, but if they are still unreasonable, we should sacrifice their friendship to our duty, and choose between two inevitable evils, the one reparable, the other irreparable. ii. on difference of character. although all the qualities of mind may be united in a great genius, yet there are some which are special and peculiar to him; his views are unlimited; he always acts uniformly and with the same activity; he sees distant objects as if present; he comprehends and grasps the greatest, sees and notices the smallest matters; his thoughts are elevated, broad, just and intelligible. nothing escapes his observation, and he often finds truth in spite of the obscurity that hides her from others. a lofty mind always thinks nobly, it easily creates vivid, agreeable, and natural fancies, places them in their best light, clothes them with all appropriate adornments, studies others' tastes, and clears away from its own thoughts all that is useless and disagreeable. a clever, pliant, winning mind knows how to avoid and overcome difficulties. bending easily to what it wants, it understands the inclination and temper it is dealing with, and by managing their interests it advances and establishes its own. a well regulated mind sees all things as they should be seen, appraises them at their proper value, turns them to its own advantage, and adheres firmly to its own opinions as it knows all their force and weight. a difference exists between a working mind and a business-like mind. we can undertake business without turning it to our own interest. some are clever only in what does not concern them, and the reverse in all that does. there are others again whose cleverness is limited to their own business, and who know how to turn everything to their own advantage. it is possible to have a serious turn of mind, and yet to talk pleasantly and cheerfully. this class of mind is suited to all persons in all times of life. young persons have usually a cheerful and satirical turn, untempered by seriousness, thus often making themselves disagreeable. no part is easier to play than that of being always pleasant; and the applause we sometimes receive in censuring others is not worth being exposed to the chance of offending them when they are out of temper. satire is at once the most agreeable and most dangerous of mental qualities. it always pleases when it is refined, but we always fear those who use it too much, yet satire should be allowed when unmixed with spite, and when the person satirised can join in the satire. it is unfortunate to have a satirical turn without affecting to be pleased or without loving to jest. it requires much adroitness to continue satirical without falling into one of these extremes. raillery is a kind of mirth which takes possession of the imagination, and shows every object in an absurd light; wit combines more or less softness or harshness. there is a kind of refined and flattering raillery that only hits the faults that persons admit, which understands how to hide the praise it gives under the appearance of blame, and shows the good while feigning a wish to hide it. an acute mind and a cunning mind are very dissimilar. the first always pleases; it is unfettered, it perceives the most delicate and sees the most imperceptible matters. a cunning spirit never goes straight, it endeavours to secure its object by byeways and short cuts. this conduct is soon found out, it always gives rise to distrust and never reaches greatness. there is a difference between an ardent and a brilliant mind, a fiery spirit travels further and faster, while a brilliant mind is sparkling, attractive, accurate. gentleness of mind is an easy and accommodating manner which always pleases when not insipid. a mind full of details devotes itself to the management and regulation of the smallest particulars it meets with. this distinction is usually limited to little matters, yet it is not absolutely incompatible with greatness, and when these two qualities are united in the same mind they raise it infinitely above others. the expression "bel esprit" is much perverted, for all that one can say of the different kinds of mind meet together in the "bel esprit." yet as the epithet is bestowed on an infinite number of bad poets and tedious authors, it is more often used to ridicule than to praise. there are yet many other epithets for the mind which mean the same thing, the difference lies in the tone and manner of saying them, but as tones and manner cannot appear in writing i shall not go into distinctions i cannot explain. custom explains this in saying that a man has wit, has much wit, that he is a great wit; there are tones and manners which make all the difference between phrases which seem all alike on paper, and yet express a different order of mind. so we say that a man has only one kind of wit, that he has several, that he has every variety of wit. one can be a fool with much wit, and one need not be a fool even with very little wit. to have much mind is a doubtful expression. it may mean every class of mind that can be mentioned, it may mean none in particular. it may mean that he talks sensibly while he acts foolishly. we may have a mind, but a narrow one. a mind may be fitted for some things, not for others. we may have a large measure of mind fitted for nothing, and one is often inconvenienced with much mind; still of this kind of mind we may say that it is sometimes pleasing in society. though the gifts of the mind are infinite, they can, it seems to me, be thus classified. there are some so beautiful that everyone can see and feel their beauty. there are some lovely, it is true, but which are wearisome. there are some which are lovely, which all the world admire, but without knowing why. there are some so refined and delicate that few are capable even of remarking all their beauties. there are others which, though imperfect, yet are produced with such skill, and sustained and managed with such sense and grace, that they even deserve to be admired. iii. on taste. some persons have more wit than taste, others have more taste than wit. there is greater vanity and caprice in taste than in wit. the word taste has different meanings, which it is easy to mistake. there is a difference between the taste which in certain objects has an attraction for us, and the taste that makes us understand and distinguish the qualities we judge by. we may like a comedy without having a sufficiently fine and delicate taste to criticise it accurately. some tastes lead us imperceptibly to objects, from which others carry us away by their force or intensity. some persons have bad taste in everything, others have bad taste only in some things, but a correct and good taste in matters within their capacity. some have peculiar taste, which they know to be bad, but which they still follow. some have a doubtful taste, and let chance decide, their indecision makes them change, and they are affected with pleasure or weariness on their friends' judgment. others are always prejudiced, they are the slaves of their tastes, which they adhere to in everything. some know what is good, and are horrified at what is not; their opinions are clear and true, and they find the reason for their taste in their mind and understanding. some have a species of instinct (the source of which they are ignorant of), and decide all questions that come before them by its aid, and always decide rightly. these follow their taste more than their intelligence, because they do not permit their temper and self-love to prevail over their natural discernment. all they do is in harmony, all is in the same spirit. this harmony makes them decide correctly on matters, and form a correct estimate of their value. but speaking generally there are few who have a taste fixed and independent of that of their friends, they follow example and fashion which generally form the standard of taste. in all the diversities of taste that we discern, it is very rare and almost impossible to meet with that sort of good taste that knows how to set a price on the particular, and yet understands the right value that should be placed on all. our knowledge is too limited, and that correct discernment of good qualities which goes to form a correct judgment is too seldom to be met with except in regard to matters that do not concern us. as regards ourselves our taste has not this all-important discernment. preoccupation, trouble, all that concern us, present it to us in another aspect. we do not see with the same eyes what does and what does not relate to us. our taste is guided by the bent of our self-love and temper, which supplies us with new views which we adapt to an infinite number of changes and uncertainties. our taste is no longer our own, we cease to control it, without our consent it changes, and the same objects appear to us in such divers aspects that ultimately we fail to perceive what we have seen and heard. iv. on society. in speaking of society my plan is not to speak of friendship, for, though they have some connection, they are yet very different. the former has more in it of greatness and humility, and the greatest merit of the latter is to resemble the former. for the present i shall speak of that particular kind of intercourse that gentlemen should have with each other. it would be idle to show how far society is essential to men: all seek for it, and all find it, but few adopt the method of making it pleasant and lasting. everyone seeks to find his pleasure and his advantage at the expense of others. we prefer ourselves always to those with whom we intend to live, and they almost always perceive the preference. it is this which disturbs and destroys society. we should discover a means to hide this love of selection since it is too ingrained in us to be in our power to destroy. we should make our pleasure that of other persons, to humour, never to wound their self-love. the mind has a great part to do in so great a work, but it is not merely sufficient for us to guide it in the different courses it should hold. the agreement we meet between minds would not keep society together for long if she was not governed and sustained by good sense, temper, and by the consideration which ought to exist between persons who have to live together. it sometimes happens that persons opposite in temper and mind become united. they doubtless hold together for different reasons, which cannot last for long. society may subsist between those who are our inferiors by birth or by personal qualities, but those who have these advantages should not abuse them. they should seldom let it be perceived that they serve to instruct others. they should let their conduct show that they, too, have need to be guided and led by reason, and accommodate themselves as far as possible to the feeling and the interests of the others. to make society pleasant, it is essential that each should retain his freedom of action. a man should not see himself, or he should see himself without dependence, and at the same time amuse himself. he should have the power of separating himself without that separation bringing any change on the society. he should have the power to pass by one and the other, if he does not wish to expose himself to occasional embarrassments; and he should remember that he is often bored when he believes he has not the power even to bore. he should share in what he believes to be the amusement of persons with whom he wishes to live, but he should not always be liable to the trouble of providing them. complaisance is essential in society, but it should have its limits, it becomes a slavery when it is extreme. we should so render a free consent, that in following the opinion of our friends they should believe that they follow ours. we should readily excuse our friends when their faults are born with them, and they are less than their good qualities. we should often avoid to show what they have said, and what they have left unsaid. we should try to make them perceive their faults, so as to give them the merit of correcting them. there is a kind of politeness which is necessary in the intercourse among gentlemen, it makes them comprehend badinage, and it keeps them from using and employing certain figures of speech, too rude and unrefined, which are often used thoughtlessly when we hold to our opinion with too much warmth. the intercourse of gentlemen cannot subsist without a certain kind of confidence; this should be equal on both sides. each should have an appearance of sincerity and of discretion which never causes the fear of anything imprudent being said. there should be some variety in wit. those who have only one kind of wit cannot please for long unless they can take different roads, and not both use the same talents, thus adding to the pleasure of society, and keeping the same harmony that different voices and different instruments should observe in music; and as it is detrimental to the quiet of society, that many persons should have the same interests, it is yet as necessary for it that their interests should not be different. we should anticipate what can please our friends, find out how to be useful to them so as to exempt them from annoyance, and when we cannot avert evils, seem to participate in them, insensibly obliterate without attempting to destroy them at a blow, and place agreeable objects in their place, or at least such as will interest them. we should talk of subjects that concern them, but only so far as they like, and we should take great care where we draw the line. there is a species of politeness, and we may say a similar species of humanity, which does not enter too quickly into the recesses of the heart. it often takes pains to allow us to see all that our friends know, while they have still the advantage of not knowing to the full when we have penetrated the depth of the heart. thus the intercourse between gentlemen at once gives them familiarity and furnishes them with an infinite number of subjects on which to talk freely. few persons have sufficient tact and good sense fairly to appreciate many matters that are essential to maintain society. we desire to turn away at a certain point, but we do not want to be mixed up in everything, and we fear to know all kinds of truth. as we should stand at a certain distance to view objects, so we should also stand at a distance to observe society; each has its proper point of view from which it should be regarded. it is quite right that it should not be looked at too closely, for there is hardly a man who in all matters allows himself to be seen as he really is. v. on conversation. the reason why so few persons are agreeable in conversation is that each thinks more of what he desires to say, than of what the others say, and that we make bad listeners when we want to speak. yet it is necessary to listen to those who talk, we should give them the time they want, and let them say even senseless things; never contradict or interrupt them; on the contrary, we should enter into their mind and taste, illustrate their meaning, praise anything they say that deserves praise, and let them see we praise more from our choice than from agreement with them. to please others we should talk on subjects they like and that interest them, avoid disputes upon indifferent matters, seldom ask questions, and never let them see that we pretend to be better informed than they are. we should talk in a more or less serious manner, and upon more or less abstruse subjects, according to the temper and understanding of the persons we talk with, and readily give them the advantage of deciding without obliging them to answer when they are not anxious to talk. after having in this way fulfilled the duties of politeness, we can speak our opinions to our listeners when we find an opportunity without a sign of presumption or opinionatedness. above all things we should avoid often talking of ourselves and giving ourselves as an example; nothing is more tiresome than a man who quotes himself for everything. we cannot give too great study to find out the manner and the capacity of those with whom we talk, so as to join in the conversation of those who have more than ourselves without hurting by this preference the wishes or interests of others. then we should modestly use all the modes abovementioned to show our thoughts to them, and make them, if possible, believe that we take our ideas from them. we should never say anything with an air of authority, nor show any superiority of mind. we should avoid far-fetched expressions, expressions hard or forced, and never let the words be grander than the matter. it is not wrong to retain our opinions if they are reasonable, but we should yield to reason, wherever she appears and from whatever side she comes, she alone should govern our opinions, we should follow her without opposing the opinions of others, and without seeming to ignore what they say. it is dangerous to seek to be always the leader of the conversation, and to push a good argument too hard, when we have found one. civility often hides half its understanding, and when it meets with an opinionated man who defends the bad side, spares him the disgrace of giving way. we are sure to displease when we speak too long and too often of one subject, and when we try to turn the conversation upon subjects that we think more instructive than others, we should enter indifferently upon every subject that is agreeable to others, stopping where they wish, and avoiding all they do not agree with. every kind of conversation, however witty it may be, is not equally fitted for all clever persons; we should select what is to their taste and suitable to their condition, their sex, their talents, and also choose the time to say it. we should observe the place, the occasion, the temper in which we find the person who listens to us, for if there is much art in speaking to the purpose, there is no less in knowing when to be silent. there is an eloquent silence which serves to approve or to condemn, there is a silence of discretion and of respect. in a word, there is a tone, an air, a manner, which renders everything in conversation agreeable or disagreeable, refined or vulgar. but it is given to few persons to keep this secret well. those who lay down rules too often break them, and the safest we are able to give is to listen much, to speak little, and to say nothing that will ever give ground for regret. vi. falsehood. we are false in different ways. there are some men who are false from wishing always to appear what they are not. there are some who have better faith, who are born false, who deceive themselves, and who never see themselves as they really are; to some is given a true understanding and a false taste, others have a false understanding and some correctness in taste; there are some who have not any falsity either in taste or mind. these last are very rare, for to speak generally, there is no one who has not some falseness in some corner of his mind or his taste. what makes this falseness so universal, is that as our qualities are uncertain and confused, so too, are our tastes; we do not see things exactly as they are, we value them more or less than they are worth, and do not bring them into unison with ourselves in a manner which suits them or suits our condition or qualities. this mistake gives rise to an infinite number of falsities in the taste and in the mind. our self-love is flattered by all that presents itself to us under the guise of good. but as there are many kinds of good which affect our vanity and our temper, so they are often followed from custom or advantage. we follow because the others follow, without considering that the same feeling ought not to be equally embarrassing to all kinds of persons, and that it should attach itself more or less firmly, according as persons agree more or less with those who follow them. we dread still more to show falseness in taste than in mind. gentleness should approve without prejudice what deserves to be approved, follow what deserves to be followed, and take offence at nothing. but there should be great distinction and great accuracy. we should distinguish between what is good in the abstract and what is good for ourselves, and always follow in reason the natural inclination which carries us towards matters that please us. if men only wished to excel by the help of their own talents, and in following their duty, there would be nothing false in their taste or in their conduct. they would show what they were, they would judge matters by their lights, and they would attract by their reason. there would be a discernment in their views, in their sentiments, their taste would be true, it would come to them direct, and not from others, they would follow from choice and not from habit or chance. if we are false in admiring what should not be admired, it is oftener from envy that we affix a value to qualities which are good in themselves, but which do not become us. a magistrate is false when he flatters himself he is brave, and that he will be able to be bold in certain cases. he should be as firm and stedfast in a plot which ought to be stifled without fear of being false, as he would be false and absurd in fighting a duel about it. a woman may like science, but all sciences are not suitable for her, and the doctrines of certain sciences never become her, and when applied by her are always false. we should allow reason and good sense to fix the value of things, they should determine our taste and give things the merit they deserve, and the importance it is fitting we should give them. but nearly all men are deceived in the price and in the value, and in these mistakes there is always a kind of falseness. vii. on air and manner. there is an air which belongs to the figure and talents of each individual; we always lose it when we abandon it to assume another. we should try to find out what air is natural to us and never abandon it, but make it as perfect as we can. this is the reason that the majority of children please. it is because they are wrapt up in the air and manner nature has given them, and are ignorant of any other. they are changed and corrupted when they quit infancy, they think they should imitate what they see, and they are not altogether able to imitate it. in this imitation there is always something of falsity and uncertainty. they have nothing settled in their manner and opinions. instead of being in reality what they want to appear, they seek to appear what they are not. all men want to be different, and to be greater than they are; they seek for an air other than their own, and a mind different from what they possess; they take their style and manner at chance. they make experiments upon themselves without considering that what suits one person will not suit everyone, that there is no universal rule for taste or manners, and that there are no good copies. few men, nevertheless, can have unison in many matters without being a copy of each other, if each follow his natural turn of mind. but in general a person will not wholly follow it. he loves to imitate. we often imitate the same person without perceiving it, and we neglect our own good qualities for the good qualities of others, which generally do not suit us. i do not pretend, from what i say, that each should so wrap himself up in himself as not to be able to follow example, or to add to his own, useful and serviceable habits, which nature has not given him. arts and sciences may be proper for the greater part of those who are capable for them. good manners and politeness are proper for all the world. but, yet acquired qualities should always have a certain agreement and a certain union with our own natural qualities, which they imperceptibly extend and increase. we are elevated to a rank and dignity above ourselves. we are often engaged in a new profession for which nature has not adapted us. all these conditions have each an air which belong to them, but which does not always agree with our natural manner. this change of our fortune often changes our air and our manners, and augments the air of dignity, which is always false when it is too marked, and when it is not united and amalgamated with that which nature has given us. we should unite and blend them together, and thus render them such that they can never be separated. we should not speak of all subjects in one tone and in the same manner. we do not march at the head of a regiment as we walk on a promenade; and we should use the same style in which we should naturally speak of different things in the same way, with the same difference as we should walk, but always naturally, and as is suitable, either at the head of a regiment or on a promenade. there are some who are not content to abandon the air and manner natural to them to assume those of the rank and dignities to which they have arrived. there are some who assume prematurely the air of the dignities and rank to which they aspire. how many lieutenant-generals assume to be marshals of france, how many barristers vainly repeat the style of the chancellor and how many female citizens give themselves the airs of duchesses. but what we are most often vexed at is that no one knows how to conform his air and manners with his appearance, nor his style and words with his thoughts and sentiments, that every one forgets himself and how far he is insensibly removed from the truth. nearly every one falls into this fault in some way. no one has an ear sufficiently fine to mark perfectly this kind of cadence. thousands of people with good qualities are displeasing; thousands pleasing with far less abilities, and why? because the first wish to appear to be what they are not, the second are what they appear. some of the advantages or disadvantages that we have received from nature please in proportion as we know the air, the style, the manner, the sentiments that coincide with our condition and our appearance, and displease in the proportion they are removed from that point. index the letter r preceding a reference refers to the reflections, the roman numerals refer to the supplements. ability, 162, 165, 199, 245, 283, 288. see cleverness ------, sovereign, 244. absence, 276. accent, country, 342, xciv. accidents, 59, 310. acquaintances, 426. see friends. acknowledgements, 225. actions, 1, 7, 57, 58, 160, 161, 382, 409, cxx. actors, 256. admiration, 178, 294, 474. adroitness of mind, r.ii. adversity, 25. -------of friends, xv. advice, 110, 116, 283, 378, cxvii. affairs, 453, r ii. affectation, 134, 493. affections, 232. afflictions, 233, 355, 362, 493, xcvii, xv. age, 222, 405, lxxiii. see old age. agreeableness, 255, r.v. agreement, 240. air, 399, 495, r.7. -of a citizen, 393. ambition, 24, 91, 246, 293, 490. anger, xxx. application, 41, 243. appearances, 64, 166, 199, 256, 302, 431, 457, r.vii. ----------, conformity of manners with, r.7. applause, 272. approbation, 51, 280. artifices, 117, 124, 125, 126, r.ii. astonishment, 384. avarice, 167, 491, 492. ballads, 211. beauty, 240, 474, 497, li. -----of the mind, r.ii. bel esprit defined, r.ii. benefits, 14, 298, 299, 301, cxxii. benefactors, 96, 317, cxxii. blame, cviii. blindness, xix. boasting, 141, 307. boredom, 141, 304, 352. see ennui. bouts rimés, 382, cxx. bravery, 1, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 219, 220, 221, 365, 504. see courage and valour. brilliancy of mind, r.ii. brilliant things, lii. capacity, 375. caprice, 45. chance, 57, 344, xcv. see fortune. character, lvi, r.ii. chastity, 1. see virtue of women. cheating, 114, 127. circumstances, 59, 470. civility, 260. clemency, 15, 16. cleverness, 162, 269, 245, 399. coarseness, 372. comedy, 211, r.iii. compassion, 463. see pity. complaisance, 481, r.iv. conduct, 163, 227, 378, cxvii. confidants, whom we make, r.i. confidence, 239, 365, 475, xlix, r.1, r.iv. confidence, difference from sincerity ----------, defined, r.i. consolation, 325. constancy, 19, 20, 21, 175, 176, 420. contempt, 322. -------of death, 504. contentment, lxxx. contradictions, 478. conversation, 139, 140, 142, 312, 313, 314, 364, 391, 421, civ, r.v. copies, 133. coquetry, 241. see flirtation. country manner, 393. -----accent, 342. courage, 1, 214, 215, 216, 219, 221, xlii. see bravery. covetousness, opposed to reason, 469 cowardice, 215, 480. cowards, 370. crimes, 183, 465, xxxv, xxxvii. cunning, 126, 129, 394, 407. curiosity, 173. danger, xlii. death, 21, 23, 26. ----, contempt of, 504. deceit, 86, 117, 118, 124, 127, 129, 395, 434. see also self-deceit. deception, cxxi. decency, 447. defects, 31, 90, 493, lxxii. see faults. delicacy, 128, r.ii. dependency, result of confidence, r.i. designs, 160, 161. desires, 439, 469, lxxxii, lxxxv. despicable persons, 322. detail, mind given to, r.ii. details, 41, 106. devotion, 427. devotees, 427. devout, lxxvi. differences, 135. dignities, r.vii. discretion, r.v. disguise, 119, 246, 282. disgrace, 235, 412. dishonour, 326, lxix. distrust, 84, 86, 335. divination, 425. doubt, 348. docility, r.iv. dupes, 87, 102. education, 261. elevation, 399, 400, 403. eloquence, 8, 249, 250. employments, 164, 419, 449. enemies, 114, 397, 458, 463. ennui, 122, 141, 304, 312, 352, cxii, r.ii. envy, 27, 28, 280, 281, 328, 376, 433, 476, 486. epithets assigned to the mind, r.ii. esteem, 296. establish, 56, 280. evils, 121, 197, 269, 454, 464, xciii. example, 230. exchange of secrets, r.i. experience, 405. expedients, 287. expression, refined, r.v. faculties of the mind, 174. failings, 397, 403. falseness, r.vi. --------, disguised, 282. --------, kinds of, r.vi. familiarity, r.iv. fame, 157. farces, men compared to, 211. faults, 37, 112, 155, 184, 190, 194, 196, 251, 354, 365, 372, 397, 403, 411, 428, 493, 494, v, lxv, cx, cxv. favourites, 55. fear, 370, lxviii. feeling, 255. ferocity, xxxiii. fickleness, 179, 181, 498. fidelity, 247. --------, hardest test of, r.i. -------in love, 331, 381, c. figure and air, r.vii. firmness, 19, 479. flattery, 123, 144, 152, 198, 320, 329. flirts, 406, 418. flirtation, 107, 241, 277, 332, 334, 349, 376, lxiv. follies, 156, 300, 408, 416. folly, 207, 208, 209, 210, 231, 300, 310, 311, 318, xxiv. fools, 140, 210, 309, 318, 357, 414, 451, 456, ----, old, 444. ----, witty, 451, 456. force of mind, 30, 42, 237. forgetfulness, xxvi. forgiveness, 330. fortitude, 19. see bravery. fortune, 1, 17, 45, 52, 53, 58, 60, 61, 154, 212, 227, 323, 343, 380, 391, 392, 399, 403, 435, 449, ix., cxix. friends, 84, 114, 179, 235, 279, 315, 319, 428. ------, adversity of, xv. ------, disgrace of, 235. ------, faults of, 428. ------, true ones, lxxxvi. friendship, 80, 81, 83, 376, 410, 427, 440, 441, 473, xxii, cxxiv. ----------, defined, 83. ----------, women do not care for, 440. ----------, rarer than love, 473. funerals, xxxviii. gallantry, 100. see flirtation. -------of mind, 100. generosity, 246. genius, r.ii. gentleness, r.vi. ghosts, 76. gifts of the mind, r.ii. glory, 157, 198, 221, 268. good, 121, 185, 229, 238, 303, xciii. ----, how to be, xlvii. goodness, 237, 275, 284, xlvi. good grace, 67, r.vii. good man, who is a, 206. god nature, 481. good qualities, 29, 90, 337, 365, 397, 462. good sense, 67, 347, cvi. good taste, 258. ----------, rarity of, r.iii. ----, women, 368, xcvi. government of others, 151. grace, 67. gracefulness, 240. gratitude, 223, 224, 225, 279, 298, 438, xliii. gravity, 257. great men, what they cannot acquire, lxxxiv. great minds, 142. great names, 94. greediness, 66. habit, 426. happy, who are, 49. happiness, 48, 61, vii, lxxx, lxxxi. hatred, 338. head, 102, 108. health, 188, lvii. heart, 98, 102, 103, 108, 478, 484. heroes, 24, 53, 185. honesty, 202, 206. honour, 270. hope, 168, lxviii. humility, 254, 358, lxxvi, lxxix humiliation, 272. humour, 47. see temper. hypocrisy, 218. -------of afflictions, 233. idleness, 169, 266, 267, 398, 482, 487, xviii., lv. ills, 174. see evils. illusions, 123. imagination, 478. imitation, 230, xliv, r.v. impertinence, 502. impossibilities, 30. incapacity, 126. inclination, 253, 390. inconsistency, 135. inconstancy, 181. inconvenience, 242. indifference, 172, xxiii. indiscretion, 429. indolence. see idleness, and laziness. infidelity, 359, 360, 381, 429. ingratitude, 96, 226, 306, 317. injuries, 14. injustice, 78. innocence, 465. instinct, 123. integrity, 170. interest, 39, 40, 66, 85, 172, 187, 232, 253, 305, 390. interests, 66. intrepidity, 217, xl. intrigue, 73. invention, 287. jealousy, 28, 32, 324, 336, 359, 361, 446, 503, cii. joy, xiv. judges, 268. judgment, 89, 97, 248. -------of the world, 212, 455. justice, 78, 458, xii. kindness, 14, 85. knowledge, 106. labour of body, effect of, lxxvii. laments, 355. laziness, 367. see idleness. leader, 43. levity, 179, 181. liberality, 167, 263. liberty in society, r.iv. limits to confidence, r.i. little minds, 142. love, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 136, 259, 262, 274, 286, 296, 321, 335, 336, 348, 349, 351, 353, 361, 371, 374, 385, 395, 396, 402, 417, 418, 422, 430, 440, 441, 459, 466, 471, 473, 499, 500, 501, x, xi, xiii, lviii, lx, lxii, lxxxviii, xcix, ciii, cxxi. ---defined, 68. ----, coldness in, lx. ----, effect of absence on, 276. ---akin to hate, 111. ---of women, 466, 471, 499. ----, novelty in, 274. ----, infidelity in, lxiv. ----, old age of, 430. ----, cure for, 417, 459. loss of friends, xlv. lovers, 312, 362, lxxxvii, xcvii. lunatic, 353. luxury, liv. lying, 63. madmen, 353, 414. malady, lvii. magistrates, r.vi. magnanimity, 248, liii. ---------defined, 285. malice, 483. manners, r.vii. mankind, 436, xxxvi. marriages, 113. maxims, lxvii. mediocrity, 375. memory, 89, 313. men easier to know than man, 436. merit, 50, 92, 95, 153, 156, 165, 166, 273, 291, 379, 401, 437, 455, cxviii. mind, 101, 103, 265, 357, 448, 482, cix. mind, capacities of, r.ii. miserable, 49. misfortunes, 19, 24, 174, 325. ---------of friends. xv. ---------of enemies, 463. mistaken people, 386. mistrust, 86. mockery, r.ii. moderation, 17, 18, 293, 308, iii, iv. money, man compared to, xxxii. motives, 409. names, great, 94. natural goodness, 275. natural, to be, 431. ------, always pleasing, r.vii. nature, 53, 153, 189, 365, 404. negotiations, 278. novelty in study, 178. -----in love, 274. -----in friendship, 426. obligations, 299, 317, 438. see benefits and gratitude. obstinacy, 234, 424. -------its cause, 265. occasions. see opportunities. old age, 109, 210, 418, 423, 430, 461. old men, 93. openness of heart, r.1. opinions, 13, 234, cxxiii, r.v. opinionatedness, r.v. opportunities, 345, 453, cv. passions, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 122, 188, 266, 276, 404, 422, 443, 460, 471, 477, 484, 485, 486, 500, ii. peace of mind, viii. penetration, 377, 425, cxvi. perfection, r.ii. perseverance, 177. perspective, 104. persuasion, 8. philosophers, 46, 54, 504, xxi. philosophy, 22. ---------of a footman, 504, lxxv. pity, 264. pleasing, 413, cxxv. --------, mode of, xlviii, r.v. --------, mind a, r.ii. point of view, r.iv. politeness, 372, r.v. politeness of mind, 99. praise, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 272, 356, 432, xxvii, cvii. preoccupation, 92, r.iii. pride, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 228, 234, 239, 254, 267, 281, 450, 462, 463, 472, vi, xix. princes, 15, 320. proceedings, 170. productions of the mind, r.ii. professions, 256. promises, 38. proportion, r.vi. propriety, 447. -------in women, xxxiv. prosperity, 25. providence, xxxix. prudence, 65, lxxxviii, r.i. qualities, 29, 162, 397, 470, 498, r.vi, r.vii. --------, bad, 468. --------, good, 88, 337, 462. --------, great, 159, 433. --------, of mind, classified, r.ii. quarrels, 496, quoting oneself, r.v. raillery, r.ii, r.iv. rank, 401. reason, 42, 105, 325, 365, 467, 469, xx, r.vi. recollection in memory{, 313}. reconciliation, 82. refinement, r.ii. regret, 355. relapses, 193. remedies, 288. -------for love 459. remonstrances, 37. repentance, 180. repose, 268. reproaches, 148. reputation, 268, 412. resolution, l. revenge, 14. riches, 54. ridicule, 133, 134, 326, 418, 422. rules for conversation, r.v. rusticity, 393. satire, 483, r.ii, r.iv. sciences, r.vi. secrets, xvi, r.i. ------, how they should be kept, r.i. self-deceit, 115, 452. self-love, 2, 3, 4, 228, 236, 247, 261, 262, 339, 494, 500, i, xvii, xxviii, xxxiii, lxvi, lxxiv. -------in love, 262. self-satisfaction, 51. sensibility, 275. sensible people, 347, cvi. sentiment, 255, r.vi. severity of women, 204, 333. shame, 213, 220. silence, 79, 137, 138, cxiv. silliness. see folly. simplicity, 289. sincerity, 62, 316, 366, 383, 457. --------, difference between it and confidence, r.i. --------, defined, r.i. -------of lovers, lxi. skill, lxiv. sobriety, xxv. society, 87, 201, r.iv. ------, distinction between it and friendship, r.iv. soul, 80, 188, 194. souls, great, xxxi. sorrows, lxxviii. stages of life, 405. strength of mind, 19, 20, 21, 504. studies, why new ones are pleasing, 178. ------, what to study, xcii. subtilty, 128. sun, 26. talents, 468. ------, latent, 344, xcv. talkativeness, 314. taste, 13, 109, 252, 390, 467, cxx, r.iii, r.vi. ----, good, 258, r.iii. ----, cause of diversities in, r.iii. ----, false, r.iii. tears, 233, 373. temper, 47, 290, 292. temperament, 220, 222, 297, 346. times for speaking, r.v. timidity, 169, 480. titles, xxxii. tranquillity, 488. treachery, 120, 126. treason, 120. trickery, 86, 350, xci. see deceit. trifles, 41. truth, 64, li. tyranny, r.i. understanding, 89. untruth, 63. see lying. unhappy, cxxv. valour, 1, 213, 214, 215, 216. see bravery and courage. vanity, 137, 158, 200, 232, 388, 389, 443, 467, 483. variety of mind, r.iv. vice, 182, 186, 187, 189, 191, 192, 195, 218, 253, 273, 380, 442, 445, xxix. violence, 363, 369, 466, cxiii. victory, xii. virtue, 1, 25, 169, 171, 182, 186, 187, 189, 200, 218, 253, 380, 388, 442, 445, 489, xxix. virtue of women, 1, 220, 367, xcviii. vivacity, 416. weakness, 130, 445. wealth, contempt of, 301. weariness. see ennui. wicked people, 284. wife jealous sometimes desirable, lxxxix. will, 30. wisdom, 132, 210, 231, 323, 444, lxxxiii. wise man, who is a, 203, xci. wishes, 295. wit, 199, 340, 413, 415, 421, 502. wives, 364, civ. woman, 131, 204, 205, 220, 241, 277, 332, 333, 334, 340, 346, 362, 367, 368, 418, 429, 440, 466, 471, 474, lxx, xc. women, severity of, 333. ----, virtue of, 205, 220, xc. ----, power of, lxxi. wonder, 384. world, 201. ----, judgment of, 268. ----, approbation of, 201. ----, establishment in, 56. ----, praise and censure of, 454. young men, 378, 495. youth, 271, 341. the essays of arthur schopenhauer translated by t. bailey saunders, m.a. the wisdom of life. contents. chapter introduction i. division of the subject ii. personality, or what a man is iii. property, or what a man has iv. position, or a man's place in the estimation of others- sect. 1. reputation " 2. pride " 3. rank " 4. honor " 5. fame introduction. in these pages i shall speak of _the wisdom of life_ in the common meaning of the term, as the art, namely, of ordering our lives so as to obtain the greatest possible amount of pleasure and success; an art the theory of which may be called _eudaemonology_, for it teaches us how to lead a happy existence. such an existence might perhaps be defined as one which, looked at from a purely objective point of view, or, rather, after cool and mature reflection--for the question necessarily involves subjective considerations,--would be decidedly preferable to non-existence; implying that we should cling to it for its own sake, and not merely from the fear of death; and further, that we should never like it to come to an end. now whether human life corresponds, or could possibly correspond, to this conception of existence, is a question to which, as is well-known, my philosophical system returns a negative answer. on the eudaemonistic hypothesis, however, the question must be answered in the affirmative; and i have shown, in the second volume of my chief work (ch. 49), that this hypothesis is based upon a fundamental mistake. accordingly, in elaborating the scheme of a happy existence, i have had to make a complete surrender of the higher metaphysical and ethical standpoint to which my own theories lead; and everything i shall say here will to some extent rest upon a compromise; in so far, that is, as i take the common standpoint of every day, and embrace the error which is at the bottom of it. my remarks, therefore, will possess only a qualified value, for the very word _eudaemonology_ is a euphemism. further, i make no claims to completeness; partly because the subject is inexhaustible, and partly because i should otherwise have to say over again what has been already said by others. the only book composed, as far as i remember, with a like purpose to that which animates this collection of aphorisms, is cardan's _de utilitate ex adversis capienda_, which is well worth reading, and may be used to supplement the present work. aristotle, it is true, has a few words on eudaemonology in the fifth chapter of the first book of his _rhetoric_; but what he says does not come to very much. as compilation is not my business, i have made no use of these predecessors; more especially because in the process of compiling, individuality of view is lost, and individuality of view is the kernel of works of this kind. in general, indeed, the wise in all ages have always said the same thing, and the fools, who at all times form the immense majority, have in their way too acted alike, and done just the opposite; and so it will continue. for, as voltaire says, _we shall leave this world as foolish and as wicked as we found it on our arrival_. the wisdom of life. chapter i. division of the subject. aristotle[1] divides the blessings of life into three classes--those which come to us from without, those of the soul, and those of the body. keeping nothing of this division but the number, i observe that the fundamental differences in human lot may be reduced to three distinct classes: [footnote 1: _eth. nichom_., i. 8.] (1) what a man is: that is to say, personality, in the widest sense of the word; under which are included health, strength, beauty, temperament, moral character, intelligence, and education. (2) what a man has: that is, property and possessions of every kind. (3) how a man stands in the estimation of others: by which is to be understood, as everybody knows, what a man is in the eyes of his fellowmen, or, more strictly, the light in which they regard him. this is shown by their opinion of him; and their opinion is in its turn manifested by the honor in which he is held, and by his rank and reputation. the differences which come under the first head are those which nature herself has set between man and man; and from this fact alone we may at once infer that they influence the happiness or unhappiness of mankind in a much more vital and radical way than those contained under the two following heads, which are merely the effect of human arrangements. compared with _genuine personal advantages_, such as a great mind or a great heart, all the privileges of rank or birth, even of royal birth, are but as kings on the stage, to kings in real life. the same thing was said long ago by metrodorus, the earliest disciple of epicurus, who wrote as the title of one of his chapters, _the happiness we receive from ourselves is greater than that which we obtain from our surroundings_[1] and it is an obvious fact, which cannot be called in question, that the principal element in a man's well-being,--indeed, in the whole tenor of his existence,--is what he is made of, his inner constitution. for this is the immediate source of that inward satisfaction or dissatisfaction resulting from the sum total of his sensations, desires and thoughts; whilst his surroundings, on the other hand, exert only a mediate or indirect influence upon him. this is why the same external events or circumstances affect no two people alike; even with perfectly similar surroundings every one lives in a world of his own. for a man has immediate apprehension only of his own ideas, feelings and volitions; the outer world can influence him only in so far as it brings these to life. the world in which a man lives shapes itself chiefly by the way in which he looks at it, and so it proves different to different men; to one it is barren, dull, and superficial; to another rich, interesting, and full of meaning. on hearing of the interesting events which have happened in the course of a man's experience, many people will wish that similar things had happened in their lives too, completely forgetting that they should be envious rather of the mental aptitude which lent those events the significance they possess when he describes them; to a man of genius they were interesting adventures; but to the dull perceptions of an ordinary individual they would have been stale, everyday occurrences. this is in the highest degree the case with many of goethe's and byron's poems, which are obviously founded upon actual facts; where it is open to a foolish reader to envy the poet because so many delightful things happened to him, instead of envying that mighty power of phantasy which was capable of turning a fairly common experience into something so great and beautiful. [footnote 1: cf. clemens alex. strom. ii., 21.] in the same way, a person of melancholy temperament will make a scene in a tragedy out of what appears to the sanguine man only in the light of an interesting conflict, and to a phlegmatic soul as something without any meaning;--all of which rests upon the fact that every event, in order to be realized and appreciated, requires the co-operation of two factors, namely, a subject and an object, although these are as closely and necessarily connected as oxygen and hydrogen in water. when therefore the objective or external factor in an experience is actually the same, but the subjective or personal appreciation of it varies, the event is just as much a different one in the eyes of different persons as if the objective factors had not been alike; for to a blunt intelligence the fairest and best object in the world presents only a poor reality, and is therefore only poorly appreciated,--like a fine landscape in dull weather, or in the reflection of a bad _camera obscura_. in plain language, every man is pent up within the limits of his own consciousness, and cannot directly get beyond those limits any more than he can get beyond his own skin; so external aid is not of much use to him. on the stage, one man is a prince, another a minister, a third a servant or a soldier or a general, and so on,--mere external differences: the inner reality, the kernel of all these appearances is the same--a poor player, with all the anxieties of his lot. in life it is just the same. differences of rank and wealth give every man his part to play, but this by no means implies a difference of inward happiness and pleasure; here, too, there is the same being in all--a poor mortal, with his hardships and troubles. though these may, indeed, in every case proceed from dissimilar causes, they are in their essential nature much the same in all their forms, with degrees of intensity which vary, no doubt, but in no wise correspond to the part a man has to play, to the presence or absence of position and wealth. since everything which exists or happens for a man exists only in his consciousness and happens for it alone, the most essential thing for a man is the constitution of this consciousness, which is in most cases far more important than the circumstances which go to form its contents. all the pride and pleasure of the world, mirrored in the dull consciousness of a fool, are poor indeed compared with the imagination of cervantes writing his _don quixote_ in a miserable prison. the objective half of life and reality is in the hand of fate, and accordingly takes various forms in different cases: the subjective half is ourself, and in essentials is always remains the same. hence the life of every man is stamped with the same character throughout, however much his external circumstances may alter; it is like a series of variations on a single theme. no one can get beyond his own individuality. an animal, under whatever circumstances it is placed, remains within the narrow limits to which nature has irrevocably consigned it; so that our endeavors to make a pet happy must always keep within the compass of its nature, and be restricted to what it can feel. so it is with man; the measure of the happiness he can attain is determined beforehand by his individuality. more especially is this the case with the mental powers, which fix once for all his capacity for the higher kinds of pleasure. if these powers are small, no efforts from without, nothing that his fellowmen or that fortune can do for him, will suffice to raise him above the ordinary degree of human happiness and pleasure, half animal though it be; his only resources are his sensual appetite,--a cozy and cheerful family life at the most,--low company and vulgar pastime; even education, on the whole, can avail little, if anything, for the enlargement of his horizon. for the highest, most varied and lasting pleasures are those of the mind, however much our youth may deceive us on this point; and the pleasures of the mind turn chiefly on the powers of the mind. it is clear, then, that our happiness depends in a great degree upon what we _are_, upon our individuality, whilst lot or destiny is generally taken to mean only what we _have_, or our _reputation_. our lot, in this sense, may improve; but we do not ask much of it if we are inwardly rich: on the other hand, a fool remains a fool, a dull blockhead, to his last hour, even though he were surrounded by houris in paradise. this is why goethe, in the _west-östliclien divan_, says that every man, whether he occupies a low position in life, or emerges as its victor, testifies to personality as the greatest factor in happiness:- _volk und knecht und uberwinder sie gestehen, zu jeder zeit, höchtes glück der erdenkinder sei nur die persönlichkeit_. everything confirms the fact that the subjective element in life is incomparably more important for our happiness and pleasure than the objective, from such sayings as _hunger is the best sauce_, and _youth and age cannot live together_, up to the life of the genius and the saint. health outweighs all other blessings so much that one may really say that a healthy beggar is happier than an ailing king. a quiet and cheerful temperament, happy in the enjoyment of a perfectly sound physique, an intellect clear, lively, penetrating and seeing things as they are, a moderate and gentle will, and therefore a good conscience--these are privileges which no rank or wealth can make up for or replace. for what a man is in himself, what accompanies him when he is alone, what no one can give or take away, is obviously more essential to him than everything he has in the way of possessions, or even what he may be in the eyes of the world. an intellectual man in complete solitude has excellent entertainment in his own thoughts and fancies, while no amount of diversity or social pleasure, theatres, excursions and amusements, can ward off boredom from a dullard. a good, temperate, gentle character can be happy in needy circumstances, whilst a covetous, envious and malicious man, even if he be the richest in the world, goes miserable. nay more; to one who has the constant delight of a special individuality, with a high degree of intellect, most of the pleasures which are run after by mankind are simply superfluous; they are even a trouble and a burden. and so horace says of himself, that, however many are deprived of the fancy-goods of life, there is one at least who can live without them:- _gemmas, marmor, ebur, tyrrhena sigilla, tabellas, argentum, vestes, gaetulo murice tinctas sunt qui non habeant, est qui non curat habere_; and when socrates saw various articles of luxury spread out for sale, he exclaimed: _how much there is in the world i do not want_. so the first and most essential element in our life's happiness is what we are,--our personality, if for no other reason than that it is a constant factor coming into play under all circumstances: besides, unlike the blessings which are described under the other two heads, it is not the sport of destiny and cannot be wrested from us;--and, so far, it is endowed with an absolute value in contrast to the merely relative worth of the other two. the consequence of this is that it is much more difficult than people commonly suppose to get a hold on a man from without. but here the all-powerful agent, time, comes in and claims its rights, and before its influence physical and mental advantages gradually waste away. moral character alone remains inaccessible to it. in view of the destructive effect of time, it seems, indeed, as if the blessings named under the other two heads, of which time cannot directly rob us, were superior to those of the first. another advantage might be claimed for them, namely, that being in their very nature objective and external, they are attainable, and every one is presented with the possibility, at least, of coming into possession of them; whilst what is subjective is not open to us to acquire, but making its entry by a kind of _divine right_, it remains for life, immutable, inalienable, an inexorable doom. let me quote those lines in which goethe describes how an unalterable destiny is assigned to every man at the hour of his birth, so that he can develop only in the lines laid down for him, as it were, by the conjunctions of the stars: and how the sybil and the prophets declare that _himself_ a man can never escape, nor any power of time avail to change the path on which his life is cast:- _wie an dem tag, der dich der welt verliehen, dïe sonne stand zum grusse der planeten, bist alsobald und fort und fort gediehen, nach dem gesetz, wonach du angetreten. so musst du sein, dir kannst du nicht entfliehen, so tagten schon sybillen und propheten; und keine zeit, und keine macht zerstückelt geprägte form, die lebend sich entwickelt_. the only thing that stands in our power to achieve, is to make the most advantageous use possible of the personal qualities we possess, and accordingly to follow such pursuits only as will call them into play, to strive after the kind of perfection of which they admit and to avoid every other; consequently, to choose the position, occupation and manner of life which are most suitable for their development. imagine a man endowed with herculean strength who is compelled by circumstances to follow a sedentary occupation, some minute exquisite work of the hands, for example, or to engage in study and mental labor demanding quite other powers, and just those which he has not got,--compelled, that is, to leave unused the powers in which he is pre-eminently strong; a man placed like this will never feel happy all his life through. even more miserable will be the lot of the man with intellectual powers of a very high order, who has to leave them undeveloped and unemployed, in the pursuit of a calling which does not require them, some bodily labor, perhaps, for which his strength is insufficient. still, in a case of this kind, it should be our care, especially in youth, to avoid the precipice of presumption, and not ascribe to ourselves a superfluity of power which is not there. since the blessings described under the first head decidedly outweigh those contained under the other two, it is manifestly a wiser course to aim at the maintenance of our health and the cultivation of our faculties, than at the amassing of wealth; but this must not be mistaken as meaning that we should neglect to acquire an adequate supply of the necessaries of life. wealth, in the strict sense of the word, that is, great superfluity, can do little for our happiness; and many rich people feel unhappy just because they are without any true mental culture or knowledge, and consequently have no objective interests which would qualify them for intellectual occupations. for beyond the satisfaction of some real and natural necessities, all that the possession of wealth can achieve has a very small influence upon our happiness, in the proper sense of the word; indeed, wealth rather disturbs it, because the preservation of property entails a great many unavoidable anxieties. and still men are a thousand times more intent on becoming rich than on acquiring culture, though it is quite certain that what a man _is_ contributes much more to his happiness than what he _has_. so you may see many a man, as industrious as an ant, ceaselessly occupied from morning to night in the endeavor to increase his heap of gold. beyond the narrow horizon of means to this end, he knows nothing; his mind is a blank, and consequently unsusceptible to any other influence. the highest pleasures, those of the intellect, are to him inaccessible, and he tries in vain to replace them by the fleeting pleasures of sense in which he indulges, lasting but a brief hour and at tremendous cost. and if he is lucky, his struggles result in his having a really great pile of gold, which he leaves to his heir, either to make it still larger, or to squander it in extravagance. a life like this, though pursued with a sense of earnestness and an air of importance, is just as silly as many another which has a fool's cap for its symbol. _what a man has in himself_ is, then, the chief element in his happiness. because this is, as a rule, so very little, most of those who are placed beyond the struggle with penury feel at bottom quite as unhappy as those who are still engaged in it. their minds are vacant, their imagination dull, their spirits poor, and so they are driven to the company of those like them--for _similis simili gaudet_--where they make common pursuit of pastime and entertainment, consisting for the most part in sensual pleasure, amusement of every kind, and finally, in excess and libertinism. a young man of rich family enters upon life with a large patrimony, and often runs through it in an incredibly short space of time, in vicious extravagance; and why? simply because, here too, the mind is empty and void, and so the man is bored with existence. he was sent forth into the world outwardly rich but inwardly poor, and his vain endeavor was to make his external wealth compensate for his inner poverty, by trying to obtain everything _from without_, like an old man who seeks to strengthen himself as king david or maréchal de rex tried to do. and so in the end one who is inwardly poor comes to be also poor outwardly. i need not insist upon the importance of the other two kinds of blessings which make up the happiness of human life; now-a-days the value of possessing them is too well known to require advertisement. the third class, it is true, may seem, compared with the second, of a very ethereal character, as it consists only of other people's opinions. still every one has to strive for reputation, that is to say, a good name. rank, on the other hand, should be aspired to only by those who serve the state, and fame by very few indeed. in any case, reputation is looked upon as a priceless treasure, and fame as the most precious of all the blessings a man can attain,--the golden fleece, as it were, of the elect: whilst only fools will prefer rank to property. the second and third classes, moreover, are reciprocally cause and effect; so far, that is, as petronius' maxim, _habes habeberis_, is true; and conversely, the favor of others, in all its forms, often puts us in the way of getting what we want. chapter ii. personality, or what a man is. we have already seen, in general, that what a man _is_ contributes much more to his happiness than what he _has_, or how he is regarded by others. what a man is, and so what he has in his own person, is always the chief thing to consider; for his individuality accompanies him always and everywhere, and gives its color to all his experiences. in every kind of enjoyment, for instance, the pleasure depends principally upon the man himself. every one admits this in regard to physical, and how much truer it is of intellectual, pleasure. when we use that english expression, "to enjoy one's self," we are employing a very striking and appropriate phrase; for observe--one says, not "he enjoys paris," but "he enjoys himself in paris." to a man possessed of an ill-conditioned individuality, all pleasure is like delicate wine in a mouth made bitter with gall. therefore, in the blessings as well as in the ills of life, less depends upon what befalls us than upon the way in which it is met, that is, upon the kind and degree of our general susceptibility. what a man is and has in himself,--in a word personality, with all it entails, is the only immediate and direct factor in his happiness and welfare. all else is mediate and indirect, and its influence can be neutralized and frustrated; but the influence of personality never. this is why the envy which personal qualities excite is the most implacable of all,--as it is also the most carefully dissembled. further, the constitution of our consciousness is the ever present and lasting element in all we do or suffer; our individuality is persistently at work, more or less, at every moment of our life: all other influences are temporal, incidental, fleeting, and subject to every kind of chance and change. this is why aristotle says: _it is not wealth but character that lasts_.[1] [greek: --hae gar phusis bebion ou ta chraemata] [footnote 1: eth. eud., vii. 2. 37:] and just for the same reason we can more easily bear a misfortune which comes to us entirely from without, than one which we have drawn upon ourselves; for fortune may always change, but not character. therefore, subjective blessings,--a noble nature, a capable head, a joyful temperament, bright spirits, a well-constituted, perfectly sound physique, in a word, _mens sana in corpore sano_, are the first and most important elements in happiness; so that we should be more intent on promoting and preserving such qualities than on the possession of external wealth and external honor. and of all these, the one which makes us the most directly happy is a genial flow of good spirits; for this excellent quality is its own immediate reward. the man who is cheerful and merry has always a good reason for being so,--the fact, namely, that he is so. there is nothing which, like this quality, can so completely replace the loss of every other blessing. if you know anyone who is young, handsome, rich and esteemed, and you want to know, further, if he is happy, ask, is he cheerful and genial?--and if he is, what does it matter whether he is young or old, straight or humpbacked, poor or rich?--he is happy. in my early days i once opened an old book and found these words: _if you laugh a great deal, you are happy; if you cry a great deal, you are unhappy_;--a very simple remark, no doubt; but just because it is so simple i have never been able to forget it, even though it is in the last degree a truism. so if cheerfulness knocks at our door, we should throw it wide open, for it never comes inopportunely; instead of that, we often make scruples about letting it in. we want to be quite sure that we have every reason to be contented; then we are afraid that cheerfulness of spirits may interfere with serious reflections or weighty cares. cheerfulness is a direct and immediate gain,--the very coin, as it were, of happiness, and not, like all else, merely a cheque upon the bank; for it alone makes us immediately happy in the present moment, and that is the highest blessing for beings like us, whose existence is but an infinitesimal moment between two eternities. to secure and promote this feeling of cheerfulness should be the supreme aim of all our endeavors after happiness. now it is certain that nothing contributes so little to cheerfulness as riches, or so much, as health. is it not in the lower classes, the so-called working classes, more especially those of them who live in the country, that we see cheerful and contented faces? and is it not amongst the rich, the upper classes, that we find faces full of ill-humor and vexation? consequently we should try as much as possible to maintain a high degree of health; for cheerfulness is the very flower of it. i need hardly say what one must do to be healthy--avoid every kind of excess, all violent and unpleasant emotion, all mental overstrain, take daily exercise in the open air, cold baths and such like hygienic measures. for without a proper amount of daily exercise no one can remain healthy; all the processes of life demand exercise for the due performance of their functions, exercise not only of the parts more immediately concerned, but also of the whole body. for, as aristotle rightly says, _life is movement_; it is its very essence. ceaseless and rapid motion goes on in every part of the organism. the heart, with its complicated double systole and diastole, beats strongly and untiringly; with twenty-eight beats it has to drive the whole of the blood through arteries, veins and capillaries; the lungs pump like a steam-engine, without intermission; the intestines are always in peristaltic action; the glands are all constantly absorbing and secreting; even the brain has a double motion of its own, with every beat of the pulse and every breath we draw. when people can get no exercise at all, as is the case with the countless numbers who are condemned to a sedentary life, there is a glaring and fatal disproportion between outward inactivity and inner tumult. for this ceaseless internal motion requires some external counterpart, and the want of it produces effects like those of emotion which we are obliged to suppress. even trees must be shaken by the wind, if they are to thrive. the rule which finds its application here may be most briefly expressed in latin: _omnis motus, quo celerior, eo magis motus_. how much our happiness depends upon our spirits, and these again upon our state of health, may be seen by comparing the influence which the same external circumstances or events have upon us when we are well and strong with the effects which they have when we are depressed and troubled with ill-health. it is not what things are objectively and in themselves, but what they are for us, in our way of looking at them, that makes us happy or the reverse. as epictetus says, _men are not influenced by things, but by their thoughts about things_. and, in general, nine-tenths of our happiness depends upon health alone. with health, everything is a source of pleasure; without it, nothing else, whatever it may be, is enjoyable; even the other personal blessings,--a great mind, a happy temperament--are degraded and dwarfed for want of it. so it is really with good reason that, when two people meet, the first thing they do is to inquire after each other's health, and to express the hope that it is good; for good health is by far the most important element in human happiness. it follows from all this that the greatest of follies is to sacrifice health for any other kind of happiness, whatever it may be, for gain, advancement, learning or fame, let alone, then, for fleeting sensual pleasures. everything else should rather be postponed to it. but however much health may contribute to that flow of good spirits which is so essential to our happiness, good spirits do not entirely depend upon health; for a man may be perfectly sound in his physique and still possess a melancholy temperament and be generally given up to sad thoughts. the ultimate cause of this is undoubtedly to be found in innate, and therefore unalterable, physical constitution, especially in the more or less normal relation of a man's sensitiveness to his muscular and vital energy. abnormal sensitiveness produces inequality of spirits, a predominating melancholy, with periodical fits of unrestrained liveliness. a genius is one whose nervous power or sensitiveness is largely in excess; as aristotle[1] has very correctly observed, _men distinguished in philosophy, politics, poetry or art appear to be all of a melancholy temperament_. this is doubtless the passage which cicero has in his mind when he says, as he often does, _aristoteles ait omnes ingeniosos melancholicos esse_.[2] shakespeare has very neatly expressed this radical and innate diversity of temperament in those lines in _the merchant of venice_: [footnote 1: probl. xxx., ep. 1] [footnote 2: tusc. i., 33.] _nature has framed strange fellows in her time; some that will evermore peep through their eyes, and laugh, like parrots at a bag-piper; and others of such vinegar aspect, that they'll not show their teeth in way of smile, though nestor swear the jest be laughable_. this is the difference which plato draws between [greek: eukolos] and [greek: dyskolos]--the man of _easy_, and the man of _difficult_ disposition--in proof of which he refers to the varying degrees of susceptibility which different people show to pleasurable and painful impressions; so that one man will laugh at what makes another despair. as a rule, the stronger the susceptibility to unpleasant impressions, the weaker is the susceptibility to pleasant ones, and _vice versa_. if it is equally possible for an event to turn out well or ill, the [greek: dyskolos] will be annoyed or grieved if the issue is unfavorable, and will not rejoice, should it be happy. on the other hand, the [greek: eukolos] will neither worry nor fret over an unfavorable issue, but rejoice if it turns out well. if the one is successful in nine out of ten undertakings, he will not be pleased, but rather annoyed that one has miscarried; whilst the other, if only a single one succeeds, will manage to find consolation in the fact and remain cheerful. but here is another instance of the truth, that hardly any evil is entirely without its compensation; for the misfortunes and sufferings which the [greek: auskoloi], that is, people of gloomy and anxious character, have to overcome, are, on the whole, more imaginary and therefore less real than those which befall the gay and careless; for a man who paints everything black, who constantly fears the worst and takes measures accordingly, will not be disappointed so often in this world, as one who always looks upon the bright side of things. and when a morbid affection of the nerves, or a derangement of the digestive organs, plays into the hands of an innate tendency to gloom, this tendency may reach such a height that permanent discomfort produces a weariness of life. so arises an inclination to suicide, which even the most trivial unpleasantness may actually bring about; nay, when the tendency attains its worst form, it may be occasioned by nothing in particular, but a man may resolve to put an end to his existence, simply because he is permanently unhappy, and then coolly and firmly carry out his determination; as may be seen by the way in which the sufferer, when placed under supervision, as he usually is, eagerly waits to seize the first unguarded moment, when, without a shudder, without a struggle or recoil, he may use the now natural and welcome means of effecting his release.[1] even the healthiest, perhaps even the most cheerful man, may resolve upon death under certain circumstances; when, for instance, his sufferings, or his fears of some inevitable misfortune, reach such a pitch as to outweigh the terrors of death. the only difference lies in the degree of suffering necessary to bring about the fatal act, a degree which will be high in the case of a cheerful, and low in that of a gloomy man. the greater the melancholy, the lower need the degree be; in the end, it may even sink to zero. but if a man is cheerful, and his spirits are supported by good health, it requires a high degree of suffering to make him lay hands upon himself. there are countless steps in the scale between the two extremes of suicide, the suicide which springs merely from a morbid intensification of innate gloom, and the suicide of the healthy and cheerful man, who has entirely objective grounds for putting an end to his existence. [footnote 1: for a detailed description of this condition of mind _cf_ esquirol, _des maladies mentales_.] beauty is partly an affair of health. it may be reckoned as a personal advantage; though it does not, properly speaking, contribute directly to our happiness. it does so indirectly, by impressing other people; and it is no unimportant advantage, even in man. beauty is an open letter of recommendation, predisposing the heart to favor the person who presents it. as is well said in these lines of homer, the gift of beauty is not lightly to be thrown away, that glorious gift which none can bestow save the gods alone- [greek: outoi hapoblaet erti theon erikuoea dora, ossa ken autoi dosin, ekon douk an tis eloito].[1] [footnote 1: _iliad_ 3, 65.] the most general survey shows us that the two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom. we may go further, and say that in the degree in which we are fortunate enough to get away from the one, we approach the other. life presents, in fact, a more or less violent oscillation between the two. the reason of this is that each of these two poles stands in a double antagonism to the other, external or objective, and inner or subjective. needy surroundings and poverty produce pain; while, if a man is more than well off, he is bored. accordingly, while the lower classes are engaged in a ceaseless struggle with need, in other words, with pain, the upper carry on a constant and often desperate battle with boredom.[1] the inner or subjective antagonism arises from the fact that, in the individual, susceptibility to pain varies inversely with susceptibility to boredom, because susceptibility is directly proportionate to mental power. let me explain. a dull mind is, as a rule, associated with dull sensibilities, nerves which no stimulus can affect, a temperament, in short, which does not feel pain or anxiety very much, however great or terrible it may be. now, intellectual dullness is at the bottom of that _vacuity of soul_ which is stamped on so many faces, a state of mind which betrays itself by a constant and lively attention to all the trivial circumstances in the external world. this is the true source of boredom--a continual panting after excitement, in order to have a pretext for giving the mind and spirits something to occupy them. the kind of things people choose for this purpose shows that they are not very particular, as witness the miserable pastimes they have recourse to, and their ideas of social pleasure and conversation: or again, the number of people who gossip on the doorstep or gape out of the window. it is mainly because of this inner vacuity of soul that people go in quest of society, diversion, amusement, luxury of every sort, which lead many to extravagance and misery. nothing is so good a protection against such misery as inward wealth, the wealth of the mind, because the greater it grows, the less room it leaves for boredom. the inexhaustible activity of thought! finding ever new material to work upon in the multifarious phenomena of self and nature, and able and ready to form new combinations of them,--there you have something that invigorates the mind, and apart from moments of relaxation, sets it far above the reach of boredom. [footnote 1: and the extremes meet; for the lowest state of civilization, a nomad or wandering life, finds its counterpart in the highest, where everyone is at times a tourist. the earlier stage was a case of necessity; the latter is a remedy for boredom.] but, on the other hand, this high degree of intelligence is rooted in a high degree of susceptibility, greater strength of will, greater passionateness; and from the union of these qualities comes an increased capacity for emotion, an enhanced sensibility to all mental and even bodily pain, greater impatience of obstacles, greater resentment of interruption;--all of which tendencies are augmented by the power of the imagination, the vivid character of the whole range of thought, including what is disagreeable. this applies, in various degrees, to every step in the long scale of mental power, from the veriest dunce to the greatest genius that ever lived. therefore the nearer anyone is, either from a subjective or from an objective point of view, to one of those sources of suffering in human life, the farther he is from the other. and so a man's natural bent will lead him to make his objective world conform to his subjective as much as possible; that is to say, he will take the greatest measures against that form of suffering to which he is most liable. the wise man will, above all, strive after freedom from pain and annoyance, quiet and leisure, consequently a tranquil, modest life, with as few encounters as may be; and so, after a little experience of his so-called fellowmen, he will elect to live in retirement, or even, if he is a man of great intellect, in solitude. for the more a man has in himself, the less he will want from other people,--the less, indeed, other people can be to him. this is why a high degree of intellect tends to make a man unsocial. true, if _quality_ of intellect could be made up for by quantity, it might be worth while to live even in the great world; but unfortunately, a hundred fools together will not make one wise man. but the individual who stands at the other end of the scale is no sooner free from the pangs of need than he endeavors to get pastime and society at any cost, taking up with the first person he meets, and avoiding nothing so much as himself. for in solitude, where every one is thrown upon his own resources, what a man has in himself comes to light; the fool in fine raiment groans under the burden of his miserable personality, a burden which he can never throw off, whilst the man of talent peoples the waste places with his animating thoughts. seneca declares that folly is its own burden,--_omnis stultitia laborat fastidio sui_,--a very true saying, with which may be compared the words of jesus, the son of sirach, _the life of a fool is worse than death_[1]. and, as a rule, it will be found that a man is sociable just in the degree in which he is intellectually poor and generally vulgar. for one's choice in this world does not go much beyond solitude on one side and vulgarity on the other. it is said that the most sociable of all people are the negroes; and they are at the bottom of the scale in intellect. i remember reading once in a french paper[2] that the blacks in north america, whether free or enslaved, are fond of shutting themselves up in large numbers in the smallest space, because they cannot have too much of one another's snub-nosed company. [footnote 1: ecclesiasticus, xxii. 11.] [footnote 2: _le commerce_, oct. 19th, 1837.] the brain may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism, a pensioner, as it were, who dwells with the body: and leisure, that is, the time one has for the free enjoyment of one's consciousness or individuality, is the fruit or produce of the rest of existence, which is in general only labor and effort. but what does most people's leisure yield?--boredom and dullness; except, of course, when it is occupied with sensual pleasure or folly. how little such leisure is worth may be seen in the way in which it is spent: and, as ariosto observes, how miserable are the idle hours of ignorant men!--_ozio lungo d'uomini ignoranti_. ordinary people think merely how they shall _spend_ their time; a man of any talent tries to _use_ it. the reason why people of limited intellect are apt to be bored is that their intellect is absolutely nothing more than the means by which the motive power of the will is put into force: and whenever there is nothing particular to set the will in motion, it rests, and their intellect takes a holiday, because, equally with the will, it requires something external to bring it into play. the result is an awful stagnation of whatever power a man has--in a word, boredom. to counteract this miserable feeling, men run to trivialities which please for the moment they are taken up, hoping thus to engage the will in order to rouse it to action, and so set the intellect in motion; for it is the latter which has to give effect to these motives of the will. compared with real and natural motives, these are but as paper money to coin; for their value is only arbitrary--card games and the like, which have been invented for this very purpose. and if there is nothing else to be done, a man will twirl his thumbs or beat the devil's tattoo; or a cigar may be a welcome substitute for exercising his brains. hence, in all countries the chief occupation of society is card-playing,[1] and it is the gauge of its value, and an outward sign that it is bankrupt in thought. because people have no thoughts to deal in, they deal cards, and try and win one another's money. idiots! but i do not wish to be unjust; so let me remark that it may certainly be said in defence of card-playing that it is a preparation for the world and for business life, because one learns thereby how to make a clever use of fortuitous but unalterable circumstances (cards, in this case), and to get as much out of them as one can: and to do this a man must learn a little dissimulation, and how to put a good face upon a bad business. but, on the other hand, it is exactly for this reason that card-playing is so demoralizing, since the whole object of it is to employ every kind of trick and machination in order to win what belongs to another. and a habit of this sort, learnt at the card-table, strikes root and pushes its way into practical life; and in the affairs of every day a man gradually comes to regard _meum_ and _tuum_ in much the same light as cards, and to consider that he may use to the utmost whatever advantages he possesses, so long as he does not come within the arm of the law. examples of what i mean are of daily occurrence in mercantile life. since, then, leisure is the flower, or rather the fruit, of existence, as it puts a man into possession of himself, those are happy indeed who possess something real in themselves. but what do you get from most people's leisure?--only a good-for-nothing fellow, who is terribly bored and a burden to himself. let us, therefore, rejoice, dear brethren, for _we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free_. [footnote 1: _translator's note_.--card-playing to this extent is now, no doubt, a thing of the past, at any rate amongst the nations of northern europe. the present fashion is rather in favor of a dilettante interest in art or literature.] further, as no land is so well off as that which requires few imports, or none at all, so the happiest man is one who has enough in his own inner wealth, and requires little or nothing from outside for his maintenance, for imports are expensive things, reveal dependence, entail danger, occasion trouble, and when all is said and done, are a poor substitute for home produce. no man ought to expect much from others, or, in general, from the external world. what one human being can be to another is not a very great deal: in the end every one stands alone, and the important thing is _who_ it is that stands alone. here, then, is another application of the general truth which goethe recognizes in _dichtung und wahrheit_ (bk. iii.), that in everything a man has ultimately to appeal to himself; or, as goldsmith puts it in _the traveller_: _still to ourselves in every place consign'd our own felicity we make or find_. himself is the source of the best and most a man can be or achieve. the more this is so--the more a man finds his sources of pleasure in himself--the happier he will be. therefore, it is with great truth that aristotle[1] says, _to be happy means to be self-sufficient_. for all other sources of happiness are in their nature most uncertain, precarious, fleeting, the sport of chance; and so even under the most favorable circumstances they can easily be exhausted; nay, this is unavoidable, because they are not always within reach. and in old age these sources of happiness must necessarily dry up:--love leaves us then, and wit, desire to travel, delight in horses, aptitude for social intercourse; friends and relations, too, are taken from us by death. then more than ever, it depends upon what a man has in himself; for this will stick to him longest; and at any period of life it is the only genuine and lasting source of happiness. there is not much to be got anywhere in the world. it is filled with misery and pain; and if a man escapes these, boredom lies in wait for him at every corner. nay more; it is evil which generally has the upper hand, and folly makes the most noise. fate is cruel, and mankind is pitiable. in such a world as this, a man who is rich in himself is like a bright, warm, happy room at christmastide, while without are the frost and snow of a december night. therefore, without doubt, the happiest destiny on earth is to have the rare gift of a rich individuality, and, more especially to be possessed of a good endowment of intellect; this is the happiest destiny, though it may not be, after all, a very brilliant one. [footnote 1: eth. eud, vii 2] there was a great wisdom in that remark which queen christina of sweden made, in her nineteenth year, about descartes, who had then lived for twenty years in the deepest solitude in holland, and, apart from report, was known to her only by a single essay: _m. descartes_, she said, _is the happiest of men, and his condition seems to me much to be envied.[1]_ of course, as was the case with descartes, external circumstances must be favorable enough to allow a man to be master of his life and happiness; or, as we read in _ecclesiastes_[2]--_wisdom is good together with an inheritance, and profitable unto them that see the sun_. the man to whom nature and fate have granted the blessing of wisdom, will be most anxious and careful to keep open the fountains of happiness which he has in himself; and for this, independence and leisure are necessary. to obtain them, he will be willing to moderate his desires and harbor his resources, all the more because he is not, like others, restricted to the external world for his pleasures. so he will not be misled by expectations of office, or money, or the favor and applause of his fellowmen, into surrendering himself in order to conform to low desires and vulgar tastes; nay, in such a case he will follow the advice that horace gives in his epistle to maecenas.[3] [footnote 1: _vie de descartes_, par baillet. liv. vii., ch. 10.] [footnote 2: vii. 12.] [footnote 3: lib. 1., ep. 7.] _nec somnum plebis laudo, satur altilium, nec otia divitiis arabum liberrima muto_. it is a great piece of folly to sacrifice the inner for the outer man, to give the whole or the greater part of one's quiet, leisure and independence for splendor, rank, pomp, titles and honor. this is what goethe did. my good luck drew me quite in the other direction. the truth which i am insisting upon here, the truth, namely, that the chief source of human happiness is internal, is confirmed by that most accurate observation of aristotle in the _nichomachean ethics_[1] that every pleasure presupposes some sort of activity, the application of some sort of power, without which it cannot exist. the doctrine of aristotle's, that a man's happiness consists in the free exercise of his highest faculties, is also enunciated by stobaeus in his exposition of the peripatetic philosophy[2]: _happiness_, he says, _means vigorous and successful activity in all your undertakings_; and he explains that by _vigor [greek: aretae]_ he means _mastery_ in any thing, whatever it be. now, the original purpose of those forces with which nature has endowed man is to enable him to struggle against the difficulties which beset him on all sides. but if this struggle comes to an end, his unemployed forces become a burden to him; and he has to set to work and play with them,--to use them, i mean, for no purpose at all, beyond avoiding the other source of human suffering, boredom, to which he is at once exposed. it is the upper classes, people of wealth, who are the greatest victims of boredom. lucretius long ago described their miserable state, and the truth of his description may be still recognized to-day, in the life of every great capital--where the rich man is seldom in his own halls, because it bores him to be there, and still he returns thither, because he is no better off outside;--or else he is away in post-haste to his house in the country, as if it were on fire; and he is no sooner arrived there, than he is bored again, and seeks to forget everything in sleep, or else hurries back to town once more. [footnote 1: i. 7 and vii. 13, 14.] [footnote 2: ecl. eth. ii., ch 7.] _exit saepe foras magnis ex aedibus ille, esse domi quem pertaesum est, subitoque reventat, quippe foris nihilo melius qui sentiat esse. currit, agens mannos, ad villam precipitanter, auxilium tectis quasi ferre ardentibus instans: oscitat extemplo, tetigit quum limina villae; aut abit in somnum gravis, atque oblivia quaerit; aut etiam properans urbem petit atque revisit_.[1] [footnote 1: iii 1073.] in their youth, such people must have had a superfluity of muscular and vital energy,--powers which, unlike those of the mind, cannot maintain their full degree of vigor very long; and in later years they either have no mental powers at all, or cannot develop any for want of employment which would bring them into play; so that they are in a wretched plight. _will_, however, they still possess, for this is the only power that is inexhaustible; and they try to stimulate their will by passionate excitement, such as games of chance for high stakes--undoubtedly a most degrading form of vice. and one may say generally that if a man finds himself with nothing to do, he is sure to choose some amusement suited to the kind of power in which he excels,--bowls, it may be, or chess; hunting or painting; horse-racing or music; cards, or poetry, heraldry, philosophy, or some other dilettante interest. we might classify these interests methodically, by reducing them to expressions of the three fundamental powers, the factors, that is to say, which go to make up the physiological constitution of man; and further, by considering these powers by themselves, and apart from any of the definite aims which they may subserve, and simply as affording three sources of possible pleasure, out of which every man will choose what suits him, according as he excels in one direction or another. first of all come the pleasures of _vital energy_, of food, drink, digestion, rest and sleep; and there are parts of the world where it can be said that these are characteristic and national pleasures. secondly, there are the pleasures of _muscular energy_, such as walking, running, wrestling, dancing, fencing, riding and similar athletic pursuits, which sometimes take the form of sport, and sometimes of a military life and real warfare. thirdly, there are the pleasures of sensibility, such as observation, thought, feeling, or a taste for poetry or culture, music, learning, reading, meditation, invention, philosophy and the like. as regards the value, relative worth and duration of each of these kinds of pleasure, a great deal might be said, which, however, i leave the reader to supply. but every one will see that the nobler the power which is brought into play, the greater will be the pleasure which it gives; for pleasure always involves the use of one's own powers, and happiness consists in a frequent repetition of pleasure. no one will deny that in this respect the pleasures of sensibility occupy a higher place than either of the other two fundamental kinds; which exist in an equal, nay, in a greater degree in brutes; it is this preponderating amount of sensibility which distinguishes man from other animals. now, our mental powers are forms of sensibility, and therefore a preponderating amount of it makes us capable of that kind of pleasure which has to do with mind, so-called intellectual pleasure; and the more sensibility predominates, the greater the pleasure will be.[1] [footnote 1: nature exhibits a continual progress, starting from the mechanical and chemical activity of the inorganic world, proceeding to the vegetable, with its dull enjoyment of self, from that to the animal world, where intelligence and consciousness begin, at first very weak, and only after many intermediate stages attaining its last great development in man, whose intellect is nature's crowning point, the goal of all her efforts, the most perfect and difficult of all her works. and even within the range of the human intellect, there are a great many observable differences of degree, and it is very seldom that intellect reaches its highest point, intelligence properly so-called, which in this narrow and strict sense of the word, is nature's most consummate product, and so the rarest and most precious thing of which the world can boast. the highest product of nature is the clearest degree of consciousness, in which the world mirrors itself more plainly and completely than anywhere else. a man endowed with this form of intelligence is in possession of what is noblest and best on earth; and accordingly, he has a source of pleasure in comparison with which all others are small. from his surroundings he asks nothing but leisure for the free enjoyment of what he has got, time, as it were, to polish his diamond. all other pleasures that are not of the intellect are of a lower kind; for they are, one and all, movements of will--desires, hopes, fears and ambitions, no matter to what directed: they are always satisfied at the cost of pain, and in the case of ambition, generally with more or less of illusion. with intellectual pleasure, on the other hand, truth becomes clearer and clearer. in the realm of intelligence pain has no power. knowledge is all in all. further, intellectual pleasures are accessible entirely and only through the medium of the intelligence, and are limited by its capacity. _for all the wit there is in the world is useless to him who has none_. still this advantage is accompanied by a substantial disadvantage; for the whole of nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.] the normal, ordinary man takes a vivid interest in anything only in so far as it excites his will, that is to say, is a matter of personal interest to him. but constant excitement of the will is never an unmixed good, to say the least; in other words, it involves pain. card-playing, that universal occupation of "good society" everywhere, is a device for providing this kind of excitement, and that, too, by means of interests so small as to produce slight and momentary, instead of real and permanent, pain. card-playing is, in fact, a mere tickling of the will.[1] [footnote 1: _vulgarity_ is, at bottom, the kind of consciousness in which the will completely predominates over the intellect, where the latter does nothing more than perform the service of its master, the will. therefore, when the will makes no demands, supplies no motives, strong or weak, the intellect entirely loses its power, and the result is complete vacancy of mind. now _will without intellect_ is the most vulgar and common thing in the world, possessed by every blockhead, who, in the gratification of his passions, shows the stuff of which he is made. this is the condition of mind called _vulgarity_, in which the only active elements are the organs of sense, and that small amount of intellect which is necessary for apprehending the data of sense. accordingly, the vulgar man is constantly open to all sorts of impressions, and immediately perceives all the little trifling things that go on in his environment: the lightest whisper, the most trivial circumstance, is sufficient to rouse his attention; he is just like an animal. such a man's mental condition reveals itself in his face, in his whole exterior; and hence that vulgar, repulsive appearance, which is all the more offensive, if, as is usually the case, his will--the only factor in his consciousness--is a base, selfish and altogether bad one.] on the other hand, a man of powerful intellect is capable of taking a vivid interest in things in the way of mere _knowledge_, with no admixture of _will_; nay, such an interest is a necessity to him. it places him in a sphere where pain is an alien,--a diviner air, where the gods live serene. _[greek: phusis bebion ou ta chraematatheoi reia xoontes][1]_ [footnote 1: odyssey iv., 805.] look on these two pictures--the life of the masses, one long, dull record of struggle and effort entirely devoted to the petty interests of personal welfare, to misery in all its forms, a life beset by intolerable boredom as soon as ever those aims are satisfied and the man is thrown back upon himself, whence he can be roused again to some sort of movement only by the wild fire of passion. on the other side you have a man endowed with a high degree of mental power, leading an existence rich in thought and full of life and meaning, occupied by worthy and interesting objects as soon as ever he is free to give himself to them, bearing in himself a source of the noblest pleasure. what external promptings he wants come from the works of nature, and from the contemplation of human affairs and the achievements of the great of all ages and countries, which are thoroughly appreciated by a man of this type alone, as being the only one who can quite understand and feel with them. and so it is for him alone that those great ones have really lived; it is to him that they make their appeal; the rest are but casual hearers who only half understand either them or their followers. of course, this characteristic of the intellectual man implies that he has one more need than the others, the need of reading, observing, studying, meditating, practising, the need, in short, of undisturbed leisure. for, as voltaire has very rightly said, _there are no real pleasures without real needs_; and the need of them is why to such a man pleasures are accessible which are denied to others,--the varied beauties of nature and art and literature. to heap these pleasures round people who do not want them and cannot appreciate them, is like expecting gray hairs to fall in love. a man who is privileged in this respect leads two lives, a personal and an intellectual life; and the latter gradually comes to be looked upon as the true one, and the former as merely a means to it. other people make this shallow, empty and troubled existence an end in itself. to the life of the intellect such a man will give the preference over all his other occupations: by the constant growth of insight and knowledge, this intellectual life, like a slowly-forming work of art, will acquire a consistency, a permanent intensity, a unity which becomes ever more and more complete; compared with which, a life devoted to the attainment of personal comfort, a life that may broaden indeed, but can never be deepened, makes but a poor show: and yet, as i have said, people make this baser sort of existence an end in itself. the ordinary life of every day, so far as it is not moved by passion, is tedious and insipid; and if it is so moved, it soon becomes painful. those alone are happy whom nature has favored with some superfluity of intellect, something beyond what is just necessary to carry out the behests of their will; for it enables them to lead an intellectual life as well, a life unattended by pain and full of vivid interests. mere leisure, that is to say, intellect unoccupied in the service of the will, is not of itself sufficient: there must be a real superfluity of power, set free from the service of the will and devoted to that of the intellect; for, as seneca says, _otium sine litteris mors est et vivi hominis sepultura_--illiterate leisure is a form of death, a living tomb. varying with the amount of the superfluity, there will be countless developments in this second life, the life of the mind; it may be the mere collection and labelling of insects, birds, minerals, coins, or the highest achievements of poetry and philosophy. the life of the mind is not only a protection against boredom; it also wards off the pernicious effects of boredom; it keeps us from bad company, from the many dangers, misfortunes, losses and extravagances which the man who places his happiness entirely in the objective world is sure to encounter, my philosophy, for instance, has never brought me in a six-pence; but it has spared me many an expense. the ordinary man places his life's happiness in things external to him, in property, rank, wife and children, friends, society, and the like, so that when he loses them or finds them disappointing, the foundation of his happiness is destroyed. in other words, his centre of gravity is not in himself; it is constantly changing its place, with every wish and whim. if he is a man of means, one day it will be his house in the country, another buying horses, or entertaining friends, or traveling,--a life, in short, of general luxury, the reason being that he seeks his pleasure in things outside him. like one whose health and strength are gone, he tries to regain by the use of jellies and drugs, instead of by developing his own vital power, the true source of what he has lost. before proceeding to the opposite, let us compare with this common type the man who comes midway between the two, endowed, it may be, not exactly with distinguished powers of mind, but with somewhat more than the ordinary amount of intellect. he will take a dilettante interest in art, or devote his attention to some branch of science--botany, for example, or physics, astronomy, history, and find a great deal of pleasure in such studies, and amuse himself with them when external forces of happiness are exhausted or fail to satisfy him any more. of a man like this it may be said that his centre of gravity is partly in himself. but a dilettante interest in art is a very different thing from creative activity; and an amateur pursuit of science is apt to be superficial and not to penetrate to the heart of the matter. a man cannot entirely identify himself with such pursuits, or have his whole existence so completely filled and permeated with them that he loses all interest in everything else. it is only the highest intellectual power, what we call _genius_, that attains to this degree of intensity, making all time and existence its theme, and striving to express its peculiar conception of the world, whether it contemplates life as the subject of poetry or of philosophy. hence, undisturbed occupation with himself, his own thoughts and works, is a matter of urgent necessity to such a man; solitude is welcome, leisure is the highest good, and everything else is unnecessary, nay, even burdensome. this is the only type of man of whom it can be said that his centre of gravity is entirely in himself; which explains why it is that people of this sort--and they are very rare--no matter how excellent their character may be, do not show that warm and unlimited interest in friends, family, and the community in general, of which others are so often capable; for if they have only themselves they are not inconsolable for the loss of everything else. this gives an isolation to their character, which is all the more effective since other people never really quite satisfy them, as being, on the whole, of a different nature: nay more, since this difference is constantly forcing itself upon their notice they get accustomed to move about amongst mankind as alien beings, and in thinking of humanity in general, to say _they_ instead of _we_. so the conclusion we come to is that the man whom nature has endowed with intellectual wealth is the happiest; so true it is that the subjective concerns us more than the objective; for whatever the latter may be, it can work only indirectly, secondly, and through the medium of the former--a truth finely expressed by lucian:- [greek: _aeloutos ho taes psychaes ploutus monos estin alaethaes talla dechei ataen pleiona ton kteanon_--][1] [footnote 1: epigrammata, 12.] the wealth of the soul is the only true wealth, for with all other riches comes a bane even greater than they. the man of inner wealth wants nothing from outside but the negative gift of undisturbed leisure, to develop and mature his intellectual faculties, that is, to enjoy his wealth; in short, he wants permission to be himself, his whole life long, every day and every hour. if he is destined to impress the character of his mind upon a whole race, he has only one measure of happiness or unhappiness--to succeed or fail in perfecting his powers and completing his work. all else is of small consequence. accordingly, the greatest minds of all ages have set the highest value upon undisturbed leisure, as worth exactly as much as the man himself. _happiness appears to consist in leisure_, says aristotle;[1] and diogenes laertius reports that _socrates praised leisure as the fairest of all possessions_. so, in the _nichomachean ethics_, aristotle concludes that a life devoted to philosophy is the happiest; or, as he says in the _politics,[2] the free exercise of any power, whatever it may be, is happiness_. this again, tallies with what goethe says in _wilhelm meister: the man who is born with a talent which he is meant to use, finds his greatest happiness in using it_. [footnote 1: eth. nichom. x. 7.] [footnote 2: iv. 11.] but to be in possession of undisturbed leisure, is far from being the common lot; nay, it is something alien to human nature, for the ordinary man's destiny is to spend life in procuring what is necessary for the subsistence of himself and his family; he is a son of struggle and need, not a free intelligence. so people as a rule soon get tired of undisturbed leisure, and it becomes burdensome if there are no fictitious and forced aims to occupy it, play, pastime and hobbies of every kind. for this very reason it is full of possible danger, and _difficilis in otio quies_ is a true saying,--it is difficult to keep quiet if you have nothing to do. on the other hand, a measure of intellect far surpassing the ordinary, is as unnatural as it is abnormal. but if it exists, and the man endowed with it is to be happy, he will want precisely that undisturbed leisure which the others find burdensome or pernicious; for without it he is a pegasus in harness, and consequently unhappy. if these two unnatural circumstances, external, and internal, undisturbed leisure and great intellect, happen to coincide in the same person, it is a great piece of fortune; and if the fate is so far favorable, a man can lead the higher life, the life protected from the two opposite sources of human suffering, pain and boredom, from the painful struggle for existence, and the incapacity for enduring leisure (which is free existence itself)--evils which may be escaped only by being mutually neutralized. but there is something to be said in opposition to this view. great intellectual gifts mean an activity pre-eminently nervous in its character, and consequently a very high degree of susceptibility to pain in every form. further, such gifts imply an intense temperament, larger and more vivid ideas, which, as the inseparable accompaniment of great intellectual power, entail on its possessor a corresponding intensity of the emotions, making them incomparably more violent than those to which the ordinary man is a prey. now, there are more things in the world productive of pain than of pleasure. again, a large endowment of intellect tends to estrange the man who has it from other people and their doings; for the more a man has in himself, the less he will be able to find in them; and the hundred things in which they take delight, he will think shallow and insipid. here, then, perhaps, is another instance of that law of compensation which makes itself felt everywhere. how often one hears it said, and said, too, with some plausibility, that the narrow-minded man is at bottom the happiest, even though his fortune is unenviable. i shall make no attempt to forestall the reader's own judgment on this point; more especially as sophocles himself has given utterance to two diametrically opposite opinions:- [greek: pollo to phronein eudaimonias proton uparchei.][1] he says in one place--wisdom is the greatest part of happiness; and again, in another passage, he declares that the life of the thoughtless is the most pleasant of all- [greek: en ta phronein gar maeden aedistos bios.][2] the philosophers of the _old testament_ find themselves in a like contradiction. _the life of a fool is worse than death_[3] and-_in much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow_.[4] [footnote 1: antigone, 1347-8.] [footnote 2: ajax, 554.] [footnote 3: ecclesiasticus, xxii. 11.] [footnote 4: ecclesiastes, i. 18.] i may remark, however, that a man who has no mental needs, because his intellect is of the narrow and normal amount, is, in the strict sense of the word, what is called a _philistine_--an expression at first peculiar to the german language, a kind of slang term at the universities, afterwards used, by analogy, in a higher sense, though still in its original meaning, as denoting one who is not _a son of the muses_. a philistine is and remains [greek: amousos anaer]. i should prefer to take a higher point of view, and apply the term _philistine_ to people who are always seriously occupied with realities which are no realities; but as such a definition would be a transcendental one, and therefore not generally intelligible, it would hardly be in place in the present treatise, which aims at being popular. the other definition can be more easily elucidated, indicating, as it does, satisfactorily enough, the essential nature of all those qualities which distinguish the philistine. he is defined to be _a man without mental needs_. from this is follows, firstly, _in relation to himself_, that he has _no intellectual pleasures_; for, as was remarked before, there are no real pleasures without real needs. the philistine's life is animated by no desire to gain knowledge and insight for their own sake, or to experience that true aeesthetic pleasure which is so nearly akin to them. if pleasures of this kind are fashionable, and the philistine finds himself compelled to pay attention to them, he will force himself to do so, but he will take as little interest in them as possible. his only real pleasures are of a sensual kind, and he thinks that these indemnify him for the loss of the others. to him oysters and champagne are the height of existence; the aim of his life is to procure what will contribute to his bodily welfare, and he is indeed in a happy way if this causes him some trouble. if the luxuries of life are heaped upon him, he will inevitably be bored, and against boredom he has a great many fancied remedies, balls, theatres, parties, cards, gambling, horses, women, drinking, traveling and so on; all of which can not protect a man from being bored, for where there are no intellectual needs, no intellectual pleasures are possible. the peculiar characteristic of the philistine is a dull, dry kind of gravity, akin to that of animals. nothing really pleases, or excites, or interests him, for sensual pleasure is quickly exhausted, and the society of philistines soon becomes burdensome, and one may even get tired of playing cards. true, the pleasures of vanity are left, pleasures which he enjoys in his own way, either by feeling himself superior in point of wealth, or rank, or influence and power to other people, who thereupon pay him honor; or, at any rate, by going about with those who have a superfluity of these blessings, sunning himself in the reflection of their splendor--what the english call a _snob_. from the essential nature of the philistine it follows, secondly, _in regard to others_, that, as he possesses no intellectual, but only physical need, he will seek the society of those who can satisfy the latter, but not the former. the last thing he will expect from his friends is the possession of any sort of intellectual capacity; nay, if he chances to meet with it, it will rouse his antipathy and even hatred; simply because in addition to an unpleasant sense of inferiority, he experiences, in his heart, a dull kind of envy, which has to be carefully concealed even from himself. nevertheless, it sometimes grows into a secret feeling of rancor. but for all that, it will never occur to him to make his own ideas of worth or value conform to the standard of such qualities; he will continue to give the preference to rank and riches, power and influence, which in his eyes seem to be the only genuine advantages in the world; and his wish will be to excel in them himself. all this is the consequence of his being a man _without intellectual needs_. the great affliction of all philistines is that they have no interest in _ideas_, and that, to escape being bored, they are in constant need of _realities_. but realities are either unsatisfactory or dangerous; when they lose their interest, they become fatiguing. but the ideal world is illimitable and calm, _something afar from the sphere of our sorrow_. note.--in these remarks on the personal qualities which go to make happiness, i have been mainly concerned with the physical and intellectual nature of man. for an account of the direct and immediate influence of _morality_ upon happiness, let me refer to my prize essay on _the foundation of morals_ (sec. 22.) chapter iii. property, or what a man has. epicurus divides the needs of mankind into three classes, and the division made by this great professor of happiness is a true and a fine one. first come natural and necessary needs, such as, when not satisfied, produce pain,--food and clothing, _victus et amictus_, needs which can easily be satisfied. secondly, there are those needs which, though natural, are not necessary, such as the gratification of certain of the senses. i may add, however, that in the report given by diogenes laertius, epicurus does not mention which of the senses he means; so that on this point my account of his doctrine is somewhat more definite and exact than the original. these are needs rather more difficult to satisfy. the third class consists of needs which are neither natural nor necessary, the need of luxury and prodigality, show and splendor, which never come to an end, and are very hard to satisfy.[1] [footnote 1: cf. diogenes laertius, bk. x., ch. xxvii., pp. 127 and 149; also cicero _de finibus_, i., 13.] it is difficult, if not impossible, to define the limits which reason should impose on the desire for wealth; for there is no absolute or definite amount of wealth which will satisfy a man. the amount is always relative, that is to say, just so much as will maintain the proportion between what he wants and what he gets; for to measure a man's happiness only by what he gets, and not also by what he expects to get, is as futile as to try and express a fraction which shall have a numerator but no denominator. a man never feels the loss of things which it never occurs to him to ask for; he is just as happy without them; whilst another, who may have a hundred times as much, feels miserable because he has not got the one thing he wants. in fact, here too, every man has an horizon of his own, and he will expect as much as he thinks it is possible for him to get. if an object within his horizon looks as though he could confidently reckon on getting it, he is happy; but if difficulties come in the way, he is miserable. what lies beyond his horizon has no effect at all upon him. so it is that the vast possessions of the rich do not agitate the poor, and conversely, that a wealthy man is not consoled by all his wealth for the failure of his hopes. riches, one may say, are like sea-water; the more you drink the thirstier you become; and the same is true of fame. the loss of wealth and prosperity leaves a man, as soon as the first pangs of grief are over, in very much the same habitual temper as before; and the reason of this is, that as soon as fate diminishes the amount of his possessions, he himself immediately reduces the amount of his claims. but when misfortune comes upon us, to reduce the amount of our claims is just what is most painful; once that we have done so, the pain becomes less and less, and is felt no more; like an old wound which has healed. conversely, when a piece of good fortune befalls us, our claims mount higher and higher, as there is nothing to regulate them; it is in this feeling of expansion that the delight of it lies. but it lasts no longer than the process itself, and when the expansion is complete, the delight ceases; we have become accustomed to the increase in our claims, and consequently indifferent to the amount of wealth which satisfies them. there is a passage in the _odyssey_[1] illustrating this truth, of which i may quote the last two lines: [greek: toios gar noos estin epichthonion anthropon oion eth aemar agei pataer andron te theou te] --the thoughts of man that dwells on the earth are as the day granted him by the father of gods and men. discontent springs from a constant endeavor to increase the amount of our claims, when we are powerless to increase the amount which will satisfy them. [footnote 1: xviii., 130-7.] when we consider how full of needs the human race is, how its whole existence is based upon them, it is not a matter for surprise that _wealth_ is held in more sincere esteem, nay, in greater honor, than anything else in the world; nor ought we to wonder that gain is made the only good of life, and everything that does not lead to it pushed aside or thrown overboard--philosophy, for instance, by those who profess it. people are often reproached for wishing for money above all things, and for loving it more than anything else; but it is natural and even inevitable for people to love that which, like an unwearied proteus, is always ready to turn itself into whatever object their wandering wishes or manifold desires may for the moment fix upon. everything else can satisfy only _one_ wish, _one_ need: food is good only if you are hungry; wine, if you are able to enjoy it; drugs, if you are sick; fur for the winter; love for youth, and so on. these are all only relatively good, [greek: agatha pros ti]. money alone is absolutely good, because it is not only a concrete satisfaction of one need in particular; it is an abstract satisfaction of all. if a man has an independent fortune, he should regard it as a bulwark against the many evils and misfortunes which he may encounter; he should not look upon it as giving him leave to get what pleasure he can out of the world, or as rendering it incumbent upon him to spend it in this way. people who are not born with a fortune, but end by making a large one through the exercise of whatever talents they possess, almost always come to think that their talents are their capital, and that the money they have gained is merely the interest upon it; they do not lay by a part of their earnings to form a permanent capital, but spend their money much as they have earned it. accordingly, they often fall into poverty; their earnings decreased, or come to an end altogether, either because their talent is exhausted by becoming antiquated,--as, for instance, very often happens in the case of fine art; or else it was valid only under a special conjunction of circumstances which has now passed away. there is nothing to prevent those who live on the common labor of their hands from treating their earnings in that way if they like; because their kind of skill is not likely to disappear, or, if it does, it can be replaced by that of their fellow-workmen; morever, the kind of work they do is always in demand; so that what the proverb says is quite true, _a useful trade is a mine of gold_. but with artists and professionals of every kind the case is quite different, and that is the reason why they are well paid. they ought to build up a capital out of their earnings; but they recklessly look upon them as merely interest, and end in ruin. on the other hand, people who inherit money know, at least, how to distinguish between capital and interest, and most of them try to make their capital secure and not encroach upon it; nay, if they can, they put by at least an eighth of their interests in order to meet future contingencies. so most of them maintain their position. these few remarks about capital and interest are not applicable to commercial life, for merchants look upon money only as a means of further gain, just as a workman regards his tools; so even if their capital has been entirely the result of their own efforts, they try to preserve and increase it by using it. accordingly, wealth is nowhere so much at home as in the merchant class. it will generally be found that those who know what it is to have been in need and destitution are very much less afraid of it, and consequently more inclined to extravagance, than those who know poverty only by hearsay. people who have been born and bred in good circumstances are as a rule much more careful about the future, more economical, in fact, than those who, by a piece of good luck, have suddenly passed from poverty to wealth. this looks as if poverty were not really such a very wretched thing as it appears from a distance. the true reason, however, is rather the fact that the man who has been born into a position of wealth comes to look upon it as something without which he could no more live than he could live without air; he guards it as he does his very life; and so he is generally a lover of order, prudent and economical. but the man who has been born into a poor position looks upon it as the natural one, and if by any chance he comes in for a fortune, he regards it as a superfluity, something to be enjoyed or wasted, because, if it comes to an end, he can get on just as well as before, with one anxiety the less; or, as shakespeare says in henry vi.,[1] .... _the adage must be verified that beggars mounted run their horse to death_. [footnote 1: part iii., act 1., sc. 4.] but it should be said that people of this kind have a firm and excessive trust, partly in fate, partly in the peculiar means which have already raised them out of need and poverty,--a trust not only of the head, but of the heart also; and so they do not, like the man born rich, look upon the shallows of poverty as bottomless, but console themselves with the thought that once they have touched ground again, they can take another upward flight. it is this trait in human character which explains the fact that women who were poor before their marriage often make greater claims, and are more extravagant, than those who have brought their husbands a rich dowry; because, as a rule, rich girls bring with them, not only a fortune, but also more eagerness, nay, more of the inherited instinct, to preserve it, than poor girls do. if anyone doubts the truth of this, and thinks that it is just the opposite, he will find authority for his view in ariosto's first satire; but, on the other hand, dr. johnson agrees with my opinion. _a woman of fortune_, he says, _being used to the handling of money, spends it judiciously; but a woman who gets the command of money for the first time upon her marriage, has such a gusto in spending it, that she throws it away with great profusion_.[1] and in any case let me advise anyone who marries a poor girl not to leave her the capital but only the interest, and to take especial care that she has not the management of the children's fortune. [footnote 1: boswell's life of johnson: ann: 1776, aetat: 67.] i do not by any means think that i am touching upon a subject which is not worth my while to mention when i recommend people to be careful to preserve what they have earned or inherited. for to start life with just as much as will make one independent, that is, allow one to live comfortably without having to work--even if one has only just enough for oneself, not to speak of a family--is an advantage which cannot be over-estimated; for it means exemption and immunity from that chronic disease of penury, which fastens on the life of man like a plague; it is emancipation from that forced labor which is the natural lot of every mortal. only under a favorable fate like this can a man be said to be born free, to be, in the proper sense of the word, _sui juris_, master of his own time and powers, and able to say every morning, _this day is my own_. and just for the same reason the difference between the man who has a hundred a year and the man who has a thousand, is infinitely smaller than the difference between the former and a man who has nothing at all. but inherited wealth reaches its utmost value when it falls to the individual endowed with mental powers of a high order, who is resolved to pursue a line of life not compatible with the making of money; for he is then doubly endowed by fate and can live for his genius; and he will pay his debt to mankind a hundred times, by achieving what no other could achieve, by producing some work which contributes to the general good, and redounds to the honor of humanity at large. another, again, may use his wealth to further philanthropic schemes, and make himself well-deserving of his fellowmen. but a man who does none of these things, who does not even try to do them, who never attempts to learn the rudiments of any branch of knowledge so that he may at least do what he can towards promoting it--such a one, born as he is into riches, is a mere idler and thief of time, a contemptible fellow. he will not even be happy, because, in his case, exemption from need delivers him up to the other extreme of human suffering, boredom, which is such martyrdom to him, that he would have been better off if poverty had given him something to do. and as he is bored he is apt to be extravagant, and so lose the advantage of which he showed himself unworthy. countless numbers of people find themselves in want, simply because, when they had money, they spent it only to get momentary relief from the feeling of boredom which oppressed them. it is quite another matter if one's object is success in political life, where favor, friends and connections are all-important, in order to mount by their aid step by step on the ladder of promotion, and perhaps gain the topmost rung. in this kind of life, it is much better to be cast upon the world without a penny; and if the aspirant is not of noble family, but is a man of some talent, it will redound to his advantage to be an absolute pauper. for what every one most aims at in ordinary contact with his fellows is to prove them inferior to himself; and how much more is this the case in politics. now, it is only an absolute pauper who has such a thorough conviction of his own complete, profound and positive inferiority from every point of view, of his own utter insignificance and worthlessness, that he can take his place quietly in the political machine.[1] he is the only one who can keep on bowing low enough, and even go right down upon his face if necessary; he alone can submit to everything and laugh at it; he alone knows the entire worthlessness of merit; he alone uses his loudest voice and his boldest type whenever he has to speak or write of those who are placed over his head, or occupy any position of influence; and if they do a little scribbling, he is ready to applaud it as a masterwork. he alone understands how to beg, and so betimes, when he is hardly out of his boyhood, he becomes a high priest of that hidden mystery which goethe brings to light. _uber's niederträchtige niemand sich beklage: denn es ist das machtige was man dir auch sage_: --it is no use to complain of low aims; for, whatever people may say, they rule the world. [footnote 1: _translator's note_.--schopenhauer is probably here making one of his most virulent attacks upon hegel; in this case on account of what he thought to be the philosopher's abject servility to the government of his day. though the hegelian system has been the fruitful mother of many liberal ideas, there can be no doubt that hegel's influence, in his own lifetime, was an effective support of prussian bureaucracy.] on the other hand, the man who is born with enough to live upon is generally of a somewhat independent turn of mind; he is accustomed to keep his head up; he has not learned all the arts of the beggar; perhaps he even presumes a little upon the possession of talents which, as he ought to know, can never compete with cringing mediocrity; in the long run he comes to recognize the inferiority of those who are placed over his head, and when they try to put insults upon him, he becomes refractory and shy. this is not the way to get on in the world. nay, such a man may at least incline to the opinion freely expressed by voltaire: _we have only two days to live; it is not worth our while to spend them_ in cringing to contemptible rascals. but alas! let me observe by the way, that _contemptible rascal_ is an attribute which may be predicated of an abominable number of people. what juvenal says--it is difficult to rise if your poverty is greater than your talent- _haud facile emergunt quorum virtutibus obstat res angusta domi_-is more applicable to a career of art and literature than to a political and social ambition. wife and children i have not reckoned amongst a man's possessions: he is rather in their possession. it would be easier to include friends under that head; but a man's friends belong to him not a whit more than he belongs to them. chapter iv. position, or a man's place in the estimation of others. _section 1.--reputation_. by a peculiar weakness of human nature, people generally think too much about the opinion which others form of them; although the slightest reflection will show that this opinion, whatever it may be, is not in itself essential to happiness. therefore it is hard to understand why everybody feels so very pleased when he sees that other people have a good opinion of him, or say anything flattering to his vanity. if you stroke a cat, it will purr; and, as inevitably, if you praise a man, a sweet expression of delight will appear on his face; and even though the praise is a palpable lie, it will be welcome, if the matter is one on which he prides himself. if only other people will applaud him, a man may console himself for downright misfortune or for the pittance he gets from the two sources of human happiness already discussed: and conversely, it is astonishing how infallibly a man will be annoyed, and in some cases deeply pained, by any wrong done to his feeling of self-importance, whatever be the nature, degree, or circumstances of the injury, or by any depreciation, slight, or disregard. if the feeling of honor rests upon this peculiarity of human nature, it may have a very salutary effect upon the welfare of a great many people, as a substitute for morality; but upon their happiness, more especially upon that peace of mind and independence which are so essential to happiness, its effect will be disturbing and prejudicial rather than salutary. therefore it is advisable, from our point of view, to set limits to this weakness, and duly to consider and rightly to estimate the relative value of advantages, and thus temper, as far as possible, this great susceptibility to other people's opinion, whether the opinion be one flattering to our vanity, or whether it causes us pain; for in either case it is the same feeling which is touched. otherwise, a man is the slave of what other people are pleased to think,--and how little it requires to disconcert or soothe the mind that is greedy of praise: _sic leve, sic parvum est, animum quod laudis avarum subruit ac reficit_.[1] [footnote 1: horace, epist: ii., 1, 180.] therefore it will very much conduce to our happiness if we duly compare the value of what a man is in and for himself with what he is in the eyes of others. under the former conies everything that fills up the span of our existence and makes it what it is, in short, all the advantages already considered and summed up under the heads of personality and property; and the sphere in which all this takes place is the man's own consciousness. on the other hand, the sphere of what we are for other people is their consciousness, not ours; it is the kind of figure we make in their eyes, together with the thoughts which this arouses.[1] but this is something which has no direct and immediate existence for us, but can affect us only mediately and indirectly, so far, that is, as other people's behavior towards us is directed by it; and even then it ought to affect us only in so far as it can move us to modify _what we are in and for ourselves_. apart from this, what goes on in other people's consciousness is, as such, a matter of indifference to us; and in time we get really indifferent to it, when we come to see how superficial and futile are most people's thoughts, how narrow their ideas, how mean their sentiments, how perverse their opinions, and how much of error there is in most of them; when we learn by experience with what depreciation a man will speak of his fellow, when he is not obliged to fear him, or thinks that what he says will not come to his ears. and if ever we have had an opportunity of seeing how the greatest of men will meet with nothing but slight from half-a-dozen blockheads, we shall understand that to lay great value upon what other people say is to pay them too much honor. [footnote 1: let me remark that people in the highest positions in life, with all their brilliance, pomp, display, magnificence and general show, may well say:--our happiness lies entirely outside us; for it exists only in the heads of others.] at all events, a man is in a very bad way, who finds no source of happiness in the first two classes of blessings already treated of, but has to seek it in the third, in other words, not in what he is in himself, but in what he is in the opinion of others. for, after all, the foundation of our whole nature, and, therefore, of our happiness, is our physique, and the most essential factor in happiness is health, and, next in importance after health, the ability to maintain ourselves in independence and freedom from care. there can be no competition or compensation between these essential factors on the one side, and honor, pomp, rank and reputation on the other, however much value we may set upon the latter. no one would hesitate to sacrifice the latter for the former, if it were necessary. we should add very much to our happiness by a timely recognition of the simple truth that every man's chief and real existence is in his own skin, and not in other people's opinions; and, consequently, that the actual conditions of our personal life,--health, temperament, capacity, income, wife, children, friends, home, are a hundred times more important for our happiness than what other people are pleased to think of us: otherwise we shall be miserable. and if people insist that honor is dearer than life itself, what they really mean is that existence and well-being are as nothing compared with other people's opinions. of course, this may be only an exaggerated way of stating the prosaic truth that reputation, that is, the opinion others have of us, is indispensable if we are to make any progress in the world; but i shall come back to that presently. when we see that almost everything men devote their lives to attain, sparing no effort and encountering a thousand toils and dangers in the process, has, in the end, no further object than to raise themselves in the estimation of others; when we see that not only offices, titles, decorations, but also wealth, nay, even knowledge[1] and art, are striven for only to obtain, as the ultimate goal of all effort, greater respect from one's fellowmen,--is not this a lamentable proof of the extent to which human folly can go? to set much too high a value on other people's opinion is a common error everywhere; an error, it may be, rooted in human nature itself, or the result of civilization, and social arrangements generally; but, whatever its source, it exercises a very immoderate influence on all we do, and is very prejudicial to our happiness. we can trace it from a timorous and slavish regard for what other people will say, up to the feeling which made virginius plunge the dagger into his daughter's heart, or induces many a man to sacrifice quiet, riches, health and even life itself, for posthumous glory. undoubtedly this feeling is a very convenient instrument in the hands of those who have the control or direction of their fellowmen; and accordingly we find that in every scheme for training up humanity in the way it should go, the maintenance and strengthening of the feeling of honor occupies an important place. but it is quite a different matter in its effect on human happiness, of which it is here our object to treat; and we should rather be careful to dissuade people from setting too much store by what others think of them. daily experience shows us, however, that this is just the mistake people persist in making; most men set the utmost value precisely on what other people think, and are more concerned about it than about what goes on in their own consciousness, which is the thing most immediately and directly present to them. they reverse the natural order,--regarding the opinions of others as real existence and their own consciousness as something shadowy; making the derivative and secondary into the principal, and considering the picture they present to the world of more importance than their own selves. by thus trying to get a direct and immediate result out of what has no really direct or immediate existence, they fall into the kind of folly which is called _vanity_--the appropriate term for that which has no solid or instrinsic value. like a miser, such people forget the end in their eagerness to obtain the means. [footnote 1: _scire tuum nihil est nisi te scire hoc sciat alter_, (persins i, 27)--knowledge is no use unless others know that you have it.] the truth is that the value we set upon the opinion of others, and our constant endeavor in respect of it, are each quite out of proportion to any result we may reasonably hope to attain; so that this attention to other people's attitude may be regarded as a kind of universal mania which every one inherits. in all we do, almost the first thing we think about is, what will people say; and nearly half the troubles and bothers of life may be traced to our anxiety on this score; it is the anxiety which is at the bottom of all that feeling of self-importance, which is so often mortified because it is so very morbidly sensitive. it is solicitude about what others will say that underlies all our vanity and pretension, yes, and all our show and swagger too. without it, there would not be a tenth part of the luxury which exists. pride in every form, _point d'honneur_ and _punctilio_, however varied their kind or sphere, are at bottom nothing but this--anxiety about what others will say--and what sacrifices it costs! one can see it even in a child; and though it exists at every period of life, it is strongest in age; because, when the capacity for sensual pleasure fails, vanity and pride have only avarice to share their dominion. frenchmen, perhaps, afford the best example of this feeling, and amongst them it is a regular epidemic, appearing sometimes in the most absurd ambition, or in a ridiculous kind of national vanity and the most shameless boasting. however, they frustrate their own gains, for other people make fun of them and call them _la grande nation_. by way of specially illustrating this perverse and exuberant respect for other people's opinion, let me take passage from the _times_ of march 31st, 1846, giving a detailed account of the execution of one thomas wix, an apprentice who, from motives of vengeance, had murdered his master. here we have very unusual circumstances and an extraordinary character, though one very suitable for our purpose; and these combine to give a striking picture of this folly, which is so deeply rooted in human nature, and allow us to form an accurate notion of the extent to which it will go. on the morning of the execution, says the report, _the rev. ordinary was early in attendance upon him, but wix, beyond a quiet demeanor, betrayed no interest in his ministrations, appearing to feel anxious only to acquit himself "bravely" before the spectators of his ignomininous end.... in the procession wix fell into his proper place with alacrity, and, as he entered the chapel-yard, remarked, sufficiently loud to be heard by several persons near him, "now, then, as dr. dodd said, i shall soon know the grand secret." on reaching the scaffold, the miserable wretch mounted the drop without the slightest assistance, and when he got to the centre, he bowed to the spectators twice, a proceeding which called forth a tremendous cheer from the degraded crowd beneath_. this is an admirable example of the way in which a man, with death in the most dreadful form before his very eyes, and eternity beyond it, will care for nothing but the impression he makes upon a crowd of gapers, and the opinion he leaves behind him in their heads. there was much the same kind of thing in the case of lecompte, who was executed at frankfurt, also in 1846, for an attempt on the king's life. at the trial he was very much annoyed that he was not allowed to appear, in decent attire, before the upper house; and on the day of the execution it was a special grief to him that he was not permitted to shave. it is not only in recent times that this kind of thing has been known to happen. mateo aleman tells us, in the introduction to his celebrated romance, _juzman de alfarache_, that many infatuated criminals, instead of devoting their last hours to the welfare of their souls, as they ought to have done, neglect this duty for the purpose of preparing and committing to memory a speech to be made from the scaffold. i take these extreme cases as being the best illustrations to what i mean; for they give us a magnified reflection of our own nature. the anxieties of all of us, our worries, vexations, bothers, troubles, uneasy apprehensions and strenuous efforts are due, in perhaps the large majority of instances, to what other people will say; and we are just as foolish in this respect as those miserable criminals. envy and hatred are very often traceable to a similar source. now, it is obvious that happiness, which consists for the most part in peace of mind and contentment, would be served by nothing so much as by reducing this impulse of human nature within reasonable limits,--which would perhaps make it one fiftieth part of what it is now. by doing so, we should get rid of a thorn in the flesh which is always causing us pain. but it is a very difficult task, because the impulse in question is a natural and innate perversity of human nature. tacitus says, _the lust of fame is the last that a wise man shakes off_[1] the only way of putting an end to this universal folly is to see clearly that it is a folly; and this may be done by recognizing the fact that most of the opinions in men's heads are apt to be false, perverse, erroneous and absurd, and so in themselves unworthy of attention; further, that other people's opinions can have very little real and positive influence upon us in most of the circumstances and affairs of life. again, this opinion is generally of such an unfavorable character that it would worry a man to death to hear everything that was said of him, or the tone in which he was spoken of. and finally, among other things, we should be clear about the fact that honor itself has no really direct, but only an indirect, value. if people were generally converted from this universal folly, the result would be such an addition to our piece of mind and cheerfulness as at present seems inconceivable; people would present a firmer and more confident front to the world, and generally behave with less embarrassment and restraint. it is observable that a retired mode of life has an exceedingly beneficial influence on our peace of mind, and this is mainly because we thus escape having to live constantly in the sight of others, and pay everlasting regard to their casual opinions; in a word, we are able to return upon ourselves. at the same time a good deal of positive misfortune might be avoided, which we are now drawn into by striving after shadows, or, to speak more correctly, by indulging a mischievous piece of folly; and we should consequently have more attention to give to solid realities and enjoy them with less interruption that at present. but [greek: chalepa ga kala]--what is worth doing is hard to do. [footnote 1: hist., iv., 6.] _section 2.--pride_. the folly of our nature which we are discussing puts forth three shoots, ambition, vanity and pride. the difference between the last two is this: _pride_ is an established conviction of one's own paramount worth in some particular respect; while _vanity_ is the desire of rousing such a conviction in others, and it is generally accompanied by the secret hope of ultimately coming to the same conviction oneself. pride works _from within_; it is the direct appreciation of oneself. vanity is the desire to arrive at this appreciation indirectly, _from without_. so we find that vain people are talkative, proud, and taciturn. but the vain person ought to be aware that the good opinion of others, which he strives for, may be obtained much more easily and certainly by persistent silence than by speech, even though he has very good things to say. anyone who wishes to affect pride is not therefore a proud man; but he will soon have to drop this, as every other, assumed character. it is only a firm, unshakeable conviction of pre-eminent worth and special value which makes a man proud in the true sense of the word,--a conviction which may, no doubt, be a mistaken one or rest on advantages which are of an adventitious and conventional character: still pride is not the less pride for all that, so long as it be present in real earnest. and since pride is thus rooted in conviction, it resembles every other form of knowledge in not being within our own arbitrament. pride's worst foe,--i mean its greatest obstacle,--is vanity, which courts the applause of the world in order to gain the necessary foundation for a high opinion of one's own worth, whilst pride is based upon a pre-existing conviction of it. it is quite true that pride is something which is generally found fault with, and cried down; but usually, i imagine, by those who have nothing upon which they can pride themselves. in view of the impudence and foolhardiness of most people, anyone who possesses any kind of superiority or merit will do well to keep his eyes fixed on it, if he does not want it to be entirely forgotten; for if a man is good-natured enough to ignore his own privileges, and hob-nob with the generality of other people, as if he were quite on their level, they will be sure to treat him, frankly and candidly, as one of themselves. this is a piece of advice i would specially offer to those whose superiority is of the highest kind--real superiority, i mean, of a purely personal nature--which cannot, like orders and titles, appeal to the eye or ear at every moment; as, otherwise, they will find that familiarity breeds contempt, or, as the romans used to say, _sus minervam. joke with a slave, and he'll soon show his heels_, is an excellent arabian proverb; nor ought we to despise what horace says, _sume superbiam quaesitam meritis_. --usurp the fame you have deserved. no doubt, when modesty was made a virtue, it was a very advantageous thing for the fools; for everybody is expected to speak of himself as if he were one. this is leveling down indeed; for it comes to look as if there were nothing but fools in the world. the cheapest sort of pride is national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud; otherwise he would not have recourse to those which he shares with so many millions of his fellowmen. the man who is endowed with important personal qualities will be only too ready to see clearly in what respects his own nation falls short, since their failings will be constantly before his eyes. but every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud adopts, as a last resource, pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and glad to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority. for example, if you speak of the stupid and degrading bigotry of the english nation with the contempt it deserves, you will hardly find one englishman in fifty to agree with you; but if there should be one, he will generally happen to be an intelligent man. the germans have no national pride, which shows how honest they are, as everybody knows! and how dishonest are those who, by a piece of ridiculous affectation, pretend that they are proud of their country--the _deutsche bruder_ and the demagogues who flatter the mob in order to mislead it. i have heard it said that gunpowder was invented by a german. i doubt it. lichtenberg asks, _why is it that a man who is not a german does not care about pretending that he is one; and that if he makes any pretence at all, it is to be a frenchman or an englishman_?[1] [footnote 1: _translator's note_.--it should be remembered that these remarks were written in the earlier part of the present century, and that a german philosopher now-a-days, even though he were as apt to say bitter things as schopenhauer, could hardly write in a similar strain.] however that may be, individuality is a far more important thing than nationality, and in any given man deserves a thousand-fold more consideration. and since you cannot speak of national character without referring to large masses of people, it is impossible to be loud in your praises and at the same time honest. national character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity and baseness of mankind take in every country. if we become disgusted with one, we praise another, until we get disgusted with this too. every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right. the contents of this chapter, which treats, as i have said, of what we represent in the world, or what we are in the eyes of others, may be further distributed under three heads: honor rank and fame. _section 3.--rank_. let us take rank first, as it may be dismissed in a few words, although it plays an important part in the eyes of the masses and of the philistines, and is a most useful wheel in the machinery of the state. it has a purely conventional value. strictly speaking, it is a sham; its method is to exact an artificial respect, and, as a matter of fact, the whole thing is a mere farce. orders, it may be said, are bills of exchange drawn on public opinion, and the measure of their value is the credit of the drawer. of course, as a substitute for pensions, they save the state a good deal of money; and, besides, they serve a very useful purpose, if they are distributed with discrimination and judgment. for people in general have eyes and ears, it is true; but not much else, very little judgment indeed, or even memory. there are many services of the state quite beyond the range of their understanding; others, again, are appreciated and made much of for a time, and then soon forgotten. it seems to me, therefore, very proper, that a cross or a star should proclaim to the mass of people always and everywhere, _this man is not like you; he has done something_. but orders lose their value when they are distributed unjustly, or without due selection, or in too great numbers: a prince should be as careful in conferring them as a man of business is in signing a bill. it is a pleonasm to inscribe on any order _for distinguished service_; for every order ought to be for distinguished service. that stands to reason. _section 4.--honor_. honor is a much larger question than rank, and more difficult to discuss. let us begin by trying to define it. if i were to say _honor is external conscience, and conscience is inward honor_, no doubt a good many people would assent; but there would be more show than reality about such a definition, and it would hardly go to the root of the matter. i prefer to say, _honor is, on its objective side, other people's opinion of what we are worth; on its subjective side, it is the respect we pay to this opinion_. from the latter point of view, to be _a man of honor_ is to exercise what is often a very wholesome, but by no means a purely moral, influence. the feelings of honor and shame exist in every man who is not utterly depraved, and honor is everywhere recognized as something particularly valuable. the reason of this is as follows. by and in himself a man can accomplish very little; he is like robinson crusoe on a desert island. it is only in society that a man's powers can be called into full activity. he very soon finds this out when his consciousness begins to develop, and there arises in him the desire to be looked upon as a useful member of society, as one, that is, who is capable of playing his part as a man--_pro parte virili_--thereby acquiring a right to the benefits of social life. now, to be a useful member of society, one must do two things: firstly, what everyone is expected to do everywhere; and, secondly, what one's own particular position in the world demands and requires. but a man soon discovers that everything depends upon his being useful, not in his own opinion, but in the opinion of others; and so he tries his best to make that favorable impression upon the world, to which he attaches such a high value. hence, this primitive and innate characteristic of human nature, which is called the feeling of honor, or, under another aspect, the feeling of shame--_verecundia_. it is this which brings a blush to his cheeks at the thought of having suddenly to fall in the estimation of others, even when he knows that he is innocent, nay, even if his remissness extends to no absolute obligation, but only to one which he has taken upon himself of his own free will. conversely, nothing in life gives a man so much courage as the attainment or renewal of the conviction that other people regard him with favor; because it means that everyone joins to give him help and protection, which is an infinitely stronger bulwark against the ills of life than anything he can do himself. the variety of relations in which a man can stand to other people so as to obtain their confidence, that is, their good opinion, gives rise to a distinction between several kinds of honor, resting chiefly on the different bearings that _meum_ may take to _tuum_; or, again, on the performance of various pledges; or finally, on the relation of the sexes. hence, there are three main kinds of honor, each of which takes various forms--civic honor, official honor, and sexual honor. _civic honor_ has the widest sphere of all. it consists in the assumption that we shall pay unconditional respect to the rights of others, and, therefore, never use any unjust or unlawful means of getting what we want. it is the condition of all peaceable intercourse between man and man; and it is destroyed by anything that openly and manifestly militates against this peaceable intercourse, anything, accordingly, which entails punishment at the hands of the law, always supposing that the punishment is a just one. the ultimate foundation of honor is the conviction that moral character is unalterable: a single bad action implies that future actions of the same kind will, under similar circumstances, also be bad. this is well expressed by the english use of the word _character_ as meaning credit, reputation, honor. hence honor, once lost, can never be recovered; unless the loss rested on some mistake, such as may occur if a man is slandered or his actions viewed in a false light. so the law provides remedies against slander, libel, and even insult; for insult though it amounts to no more than mere abuse, is a kind of summary slander with a suppression of the reasons. what i mean may be well put in the greek phrase--not quoted from any author--[greek: estin hae loidoria diabolae]. it is true that if a man abuses another, he is simply showing that he has no real or true causes of complaint against him; as, otherwise, he would bring these forward as the premises, and rely upon his hearers to draw the conclusion themselves: instead of which, he gives the conclusion and leaves out the premises, trusting that people will suppose that he has done so only for the sake of being brief. civic honor draws its existence and name from the middle classes; but it applies equally to all, not excepting the highest. no man can disregard it, and it is a very serious thing, of which every one should be careful not to make light. the man who breaks confidence has for ever forfeited confidence, whatever he may do, and whoever he may be; and the bitter consequences of the loss of confidence can never be averted. there is a sense in which honor may be said to have a _negative_ character in opposition to the _positive_ character of fame. for honor is not the opinion people have of particular qualities which a man may happen to possess exclusively: it is rather the opinion they have of the qualities which a man may be expected to exhibit, and to which he should not prove false. honor, therefore, means that a man is not exceptional; fame, that he is. fame is something which must be won; honor, only something which must not be lost. the absence of fame is obscurity, which is only a negative; but loss of honor is shame, which is a positive quality. this negative character of honor must not be confused with anything _passive_; for honor is above all things active in its working. it is the only quality which proceeds _directly_ from the man who exhibits it; it is concerned entirely with what he does and leaves undone, and has nothing to do with the actions of others or the obstacles they place in his way. it is something entirely in our own power--[greek: ton ephaemon]. this distinction, as we shall see presently, marks off true honor from the sham honor of chivalry. slander is the only weapon by which honor can be attacked from without; and the only way to repel the attack is to confute the slander with the proper amount of publicity, and a due unmasking of him who utters it. the reason why respect is paid to age is that old people have necessarily shown in the course of their lives whether or not they have been able to maintain their honor unblemished; while that of young people has not been put to the proof, though they are credited with the possession of it. for neither length of years,--equalled, as it is, and even excelled, in the case of the lower animals,--nor, again, experience, which is only a closer knowledge of the world's ways, can be any sufficient reason for the respect which the young are everywhere required to show towards the old: for if it were merely a matter of years, the weakness which attends on age would call rather for consideration than for respect. it is, however, a remarkable fact that white hair always commands reverence--a reverence really innate and instinctive. wrinkles--a much surer sign of old age--command no reverence at all; you never hear any one speak of _venerable wrinkles_; but _venerable white hair_ is a common expression. honor has only an indirect value. for, as i explained at the beginning of this chapter, what other people think of us, if it affects us at all, can affect us only in so far as it governs their behavior towards us, and only just so long as we live with, or have to do with, them. but it is to society alone that we owe that safety which we and our possessions enjoy in a state of civilization; in all we do we need the help of others, and they, in their turn, must have confidence in us before they can have anything to do with us. accordingly, their opinion of us is, indirectly, a matter of great importance; though i cannot see how it can have a direct or immediate value. this is an opinion also held by cicero. i _quite agree_, he writes, _with what chrysippus and diogenes used to say, that a good reputation is not worth raising a finger to obtain, if it were not that it is so useful_.[1] this truth has been insisted upon at great length by helvetius in his chief work _de l'esprit_,[2] the conclusion of which is that _we love esteem not for its own sake, but solely for the advantages which it brings_. and as the means can never be more than the end, that saying, of which so much is made, _honor is dearer than life itself_, is, as i have remarked, a very exaggerated statement. so much then, for civic honor. [footnote 1: _de finilus_ iii., 17.] [footnote 2: _disc_: iii. 17.] _official honor_ is the general opinion of other people that a man who fills any office really has the necessary qualities for the proper discharge of all the duties which appertain to it. the greater and more important the duties a man has to discharge in the state, and the higher and more influential the office which he fills, the stronger must be the opinion which people have of the moral and intellectual qualities which render him fit for his post. therefore, the higher his position, the greater must be the degree of honor paid to him, expressed, as it is, in titles, orders and the generally subservient behavior of others towards him. as a rule, a man's official rank implies the particular degree of honor which ought to be paid to him, however much this degree may be modified by the capacity of the masses to form any notion of its importance. still, as a matter of fact, greater honor is paid to a man who fulfills special duties than to the common citizen, whose honor mainly consists in keeping clear of dishonor. official honor demands, further, that the man who occupies an office must maintain respect for it, for the sake both of his colleagues and of those who will come after him. this respect an official can maintain by a proper observance of his duties, and by repelling any attack that may be made upon the office itself or upon its occupant: he must not, for instance, pass over unheeded any statement to the effect that the duties of the office are not properly discharged, or that the office itself does not conduce to the public welfare. he must prove the unwarrantable nature of such attacks by enforcing the legal penalty for them. subordinate to the honor of official personages comes that of those who serve the state in any other capacity, as doctors, lawyers, teachers, anyone, in short, who, by graduating in any subject, or by any other public declaration that he is qualified to exercise some special skill, claims to practice it; in a word, the honor of all those who take any public pledges whatever. under this head comes military honor, in the true sense of the word, the opinion that people who have bound themselves to defend their country really possess the requisite qualities which will enable them to do so, especially courage, personal bravery and strength, and that they are perfectly ready to defend their country to the death, and never and under any circumstances desert the flag to which they have once sworn allegiance. i have here taken official honor in a wider sense than that in which it is generally used, namely, the respect due by citizens to an office itself. in treating of _sexual honor_ and the principles on which it rests, a little more attention and analysis are necessary; and what i shall say will support my contention that all honor really rests upon a utilitarian basis. there are two natural divisions of the subject--the honor of women and the honor of men, in either side issuing in a well-understood _esprit de corps_. the former is by far the more important of the two, because the most essential feature in woman's life is her relation to man. female honor is the general opinion in regard to a girl that she is pure, and in regard to a wife that she is faithful. the importance of this opinion rests upon the following considerations. women depend upon men in all the relations of life; men upon women, it might be said, in one only. so an arrangement is made for mutual interdependence--man undertaking responsibility for all woman's needs and also for the children that spring from their union--an arrangement on which is based the welfare of the whole female race. to carry out this plan, women have to band together with a show of _esprit de corps_, and present one undivided front to their common enemy, man,--who possesses all the good things of the earth, in virtue of his superior physical and intellectual power,--in order to lay siege to and conquer him, and so get possession of him and a share of those good things. to this end the honor of all women depends upon the enforcement of the rule that no woman should give herself to a man except in marriage, in order that every man may be forced, as it were, to surrender and ally himself with a woman; by this arrangement provision is made for the whole of the female race. this is a result, however, which can be obtained only by a strict observance of the rule; and, accordingly, women everywhere show true _esprit de corps_ in carefully insisting upon its maintenance. any girl who commits a breach of the rule betrays the whole female race, because its welfare would be destroyed if every woman were to do likewise; so she is cast out with shame as one who has lost her honor. no woman will have anything more to do with her; she is avoided like the plague. the same doom is awarded to a woman who breaks the marriage tie; for in so doing she is false to the terms upon which the man capitulated; and as her conduct is such as to frighten other men from making a similar surrender, it imperils the welfare of all her sisters. nay, more; this deception and coarse breach of troth is a crime punishable by the loss, not only of personal, but also of civic honor. this is why we minimize the shame of a girl, but not of a wife; because, in the former case, marriage can restore honor, while in the latter, no atonement can be made for the breach of contract. once this _esprit de corps_ is acknowledged to be the foundation of female honor, and is seen to be a wholesome, nay, a necessary arrangement, as at bottom a matter of prudence and interest, its extreme importance for the welfare of women will be recognized. but it does not possess anything more than a relative value. it is no absolute end, lying beyond all other aims of existence and valued above life itself. in this view, there will be nothing to applaud in the forced and extravagant conduct of a lucretia or a virginius--conduct which can easily degenerate into tragic farce, and produce a terrible feeling of revulsion. the conclusion of _emilia galotti_, for instance, makes one leave the theatre completely ill at ease; and, on the other hand, all the rules of female honor cannot prevent a certain sympathy with clara in _egmont_. to carry this principle of female honor too far is to forget the end in thinking of the means--and this is just what people often do; for such exaggeration suggests that the value of sexual honor is absolute; while the truth is that it is more relative than any other kind. one might go so far as to say that its value is purely conventional, when one sees from thomasius how in all ages and countries, up to the time of the reformation, irregularities were permitted and recognized by law, with no derogation to female honor,--not to speak of the temple of mylitta at babylon.[1] [footnote 1: heroditus, i. 199.] there are also of course certain circumstances in civil life which make external forms of marriage impossible, especially in catholic countries, where there is no such thing as divorce. ruling princes everywhere, would, in my opinion, do much better, from a moral point of view, to dispense with forms altogether rather than contract a morganatic marriage, the descendants of which might raise claims to the throne if the legitimate stock happened to die out; so that there is a possibility, though, perhaps, a remote one, that a morganatic marriage might produce a civil war. and, besides, such a marriage, concluded in defiance of all outward ceremony, is a concession made to women and priests--two classes of persons to whom one should be most careful to give as little tether as possible. it is further to be remarked that every man in a country can marry the woman of his choice, except one poor individual, namely, the prince. his hand belongs to his country, and can be given in marriage only for reasons of state, that is, for the good of the country. still, for all that, he is a man; and, as a man, he likes to follow whither his heart leads. it is an unjust, ungrateful and priggish thing to forbid, or to desire to forbid, a prince from following his inclinations in this matter; of course, as long as the lady has no influence upon the government of the country. from her point of view she occupies an exceptional position, and does not come under the ordinary rules of sexual honor; for she has merely given herself to a man who loves her, and whom she loves but cannot marry. and in general, the fact that the principle of female honor has no origin in nature, is shown by the many bloody sacrifices which have been offered to it,--the murder of children and the mother's suicide. no doubt a girl who contravenes the code commits a breach of faith against her whole sex; but this faith is one which is only secretly taken for granted, and not sworn to. and since, in most cases, her own prospects suffer most immediately, her folly is infinitely greater than her crime. the corresponding virtue in men is a product of the one i have been discussing. it is their _esprit de corps_, which demands that, once a man has made that surrender of himself in marriage which is so advantageous to his conqueror, he shall take care that the terms of the treaty are maintained; both in order that the agreement itself may lose none of its force by the permission of any laxity in its observance, and that men, having given up everything, may, at least, be assured of their bargain, namely, exclusive possession. accordingly, it is part of a man's honor to resent a breach of the marriage tie on the part of his wife, and to punish it, at the very least by separating from her. if he condones the offence, his fellowmen cry shame upon him; but the shame in this case is not nearly so foul as that of the woman who has lost her honor; the stain is by no means of so deep a dye--_levioris notae macula_;--because a man's relation to woman is subordinate to many other and more important affairs in his life. the two great dramatic poets of modern times have each taken man's honor as the theme of two plays; shakespeare in _othello_ and _the winter's tale_, and calderon in _el medico de su honra_, (the physician of his honor), and _a secreto agravio secreta venganza_, (for secret insult secret vengeance). it should be said, however, that honor demands the punishment of the wife only; to punish her paramour too, is a work of supererogation. this confirms the view i have taken, that a man's honor originates in _esprit de corps_. the kind of honor which i have been discussing hitherto has always existed in its various forms and principles amongst all nations and at all times; although the history of female honor shows that its principles have undergone certain local modifications at different periods. but there is another species of honor which differs from this entirely, a species of honor of which the greeks and romans had no conception, and up to this day it is perfectly unknown amongst chinese, hindoos or mohammedans. it is a kind of honor which arose only in the middle age, and is indigenous only to christian europe, nay, only to an extremely small portion of the population, that is to say, the higher classes of society and those who ape them. it is _knightly honor_, or _point d'honneur_. its principles are quite different from those which underlie the kind of honor i have been treating until now, and in some respects are even opposed to them. the sort i am referring to produces the _cavalier_; while the other kind creates the _man of honor_. as this is so, i shall proceed to give an explanation of its principles, as a kind of code or mirror of knightly courtesy. (1.) to begin with, honor of this sort consists, not in other people's opinion of what we are worth, but wholly and entirely in whether they express it or not, no matter whether they really have any opinion at all, let alone whether they know of reasons for having one. other people may entertain the worst opinion of us in consequence of what we do, and may despise us as much as they like; so long as no one dares to give expression to his opinion, our honor remains untarnished. so if our actions and qualities compel the highest respect from other people, and they have no option but to give this respect,--as soon as anyone, no matter how wicked or foolish he may be, utters something depreciatory of us, our honor is offended, nay, gone for ever, unless we can manage to restore it. a superfluous proof of what i say, namely, that knightly honor depends, not upon what people think, but upon what they say, is furnished by the fact that insults can be withdrawn, or, if necessary, form the subject of an apology, which makes them as though they had never been uttered. whether the opinion which underlays the expression has also been rectified, and why the expression should ever have been used, are questions which are perfectly unimportant: so long as the statement is withdrawn, all is well. the truth is that conduct of this kind aims, not at earning respect, but at extorting it. (2.) in the second place, this sort of honor rests, not on what a man does, but on what he suffers, the obstacles he encounters; differing from the honor which prevails in all else, in consisting, not in what he says or does himself, but in what another man says or does. his honor is thus at the mercy of every man who can talk it away on the tip of his tongue; and if he attacks it, in a moment it is gone for ever,--unless the man who is attacked manages to wrest it back again by a process which i shall mention presently, a process which involves danger to his life, health, freedom, property and peace of mind. a man's whole conduct may be in accordance with the most righteous and noble principles, his spirit may be the purest that ever breathed, his intellect of the very highest order; and yet his honor may disappear the moment that anyone is pleased to insult him, anyone at all who has not offended against this code of honor himself, let him be the most worthless rascal or the most stupid beast, an idler, gambler, debtor, a man, in short, of no account at all. it is usually this sort of fellow who likes to insult people; for, as seneca[1] rightly remarks, _ut quisque contemtissimus et ludibrio est, ita solutissimae est_, the more contemptible and ridiculous a man is,--the readier he is with his tongue. his insults are most likely to be directed against the very kind of man i have described, because people of different tastes can never be friends, and the sight of pre-eminent merit is apt to raise the secret ire of a ne'er-do-well. what goethe says in the _westöstlicher divan_ is quite true, that it is useless to complain against your enemies; for they can never become your friends, if your whole being is a standing reproach to them:- _was klagst du über feinde? sollten solche je warden freunde denen das wesen, wie du bist, im stillen ein ewiger vorwurf ist_? [footnote 1: _de constantia_, 11.] it is obvious that people of this worthless description have good cause to be thankful to the principle of honor, because it puts them on a level with people who in every other respect stand far above them. if a fellow likes to insult any one, attribute to him, for example, some bad quality, this is taken _prima facie_ as a well-founded opinion, true in fact; a decree, as it were, with all the force of law; nay, if it is not at once wiped out in blood, it is a judgment which holds good and valid to all time. in other words, the man who is insulted remains--in the eyes of all _honorable people_--what the man who uttered the insult--even though he were the greatest wretch on earth--was pleased to call him; for he has _put up with_ the insult--the technical term, i believe. accordingly, all _honorable people_ will have nothing more to do with him, and treat him like a leper, and, it may be, refuse to go into any company where he may be found, and so on. this wise proceeding may, i think, be traced back to the fact that in the middle age, up to the fifteenth century, it was not the accuser in any criminal process who had to prove the guilt of the accused, but the accused who had to prove his innocence.[1] this he could do by swearing he was not guilty; and his backers--_consacramentales_--had to come and swear that in their opinion he was incapable of perjury. if he could find no one to help him in this way, or the accuser took objection to his backers, recourse was had to trial by _the judgment of god_, which generally meant a duel. for the accused was now _in disgrace_,[2] and had to clear himself. here, then, is the origin of the notion of disgrace, and of that whole system which prevails now-a-days amongst _honorable people_--only that the oath is omitted. this is also the explanation of that deep feeling of indignation which _honorable people_ are called upon to show if they are given the lie; it is a reproach which they say must be wiped out in blood. it seldom comes to this pass, however, though lies are of common occurrence; but in england, more than elsewhere, it is a superstition which has taken very deep root. as a matter of order, a man who threatens to kill another for telling a lie should never have told one himself. the fact is, that the criminal trial of the middle age also admitted of a shorter form. in reply to the charge, the accused answered: _that is a lie_; whereupon it was left to be decided by _the judgment of god_. hence, the code of knightly honor prescribes that, when the lie is given, an appeal to arms follows as a matter of course. so much, then, for the theory of insult. [footnote 1: see c.g. von waehter's _beiträge zur deutschen geschichte_, especially the chapter on criminal law.] [footnote 2: _translator's note_.--it is true that this expression has another special meaning in the technical terminology of chivalry, but it is the nearest english equivalent which i can find for the german--_ein bescholtener_] but there is something even worse than insult, something so dreadful that i must beg pardon of all _honorable people_ for so much as mentioning it in this code of knightly honor; for i know they will shiver, and their hair will stand on end, at the very thought of it--the _summum malum_, the greatest evil on earth, worse than death and damnation. a man may give another--_horrible dictu_!--a slap or a blow. this is such an awful thing, and so utterly fatal to all honor, that, while any other species of insult may be healed by blood-letting, this can be cured only by the _coup-de-grace_. (3.) in the third place, this kind of honor has absolutely nothing to do with what a man may be in and for himself; or, again, with the question whether his moral character can ever become better or worse, and all such pedantic inquiries. if your honor happens to be attacked, or to all appearances gone, it can very soon be restored in its entirety if you are only quick enough in having recourse to the one universal remedy--_a duel_. but if the aggressor does not belong to the classes which recognize the code of knightly honor, or has himself once offended against it, there is a safer way of meeting any attack upon your honor, whether it consists in blows, or merely in words. if you are armed, you can strike down your opponent on the spot, or perhaps an hour later. this will restore your honor. but if you wish to avoid such an extreme step, from fear of any unpleasant consequences arising therefrom, or from uncertainty as to whether the aggressor is subject to the laws of knightly honor or not, there is another means of making your position good, namely, the _avantage_. this consists in returning rudeness with still greater rudeness; and if insults are no use, you can try a blow, which forms a sort of climax in the redemption of your honor; for instance, a box on the ear may be cured by a blow with a stick, and a blow with a stick by a thrashing with a horsewhip; and, as the approved remedy for this last, some people recommend you to spit at your opponent.[1] if all these means are of no avail, you must not shrink from drawing blood. and the reason for these methods of wiping out insult is, in this code, as follows: [footnote 1: _translator's note_. it must be remembered that schopenhauer is here describing, or perhaps caricaturing the manners and customs of the german aristocracy of half a century ago. now, of course, _nous avons change tout cela_!] (4.) to receive an insult is disgraceful; to give one, honorable. let me take an example. my opponent has truth, right and reason on his side. very well. i insult him. thereupon right and honor leave him and come to me, and, for the time being, he has lost them--until he gets them back, not by the exercise of right or reason, but by shooting and sticking me. accordingly, rudeness is a quality which, in point of honor, is a substitute for any other and outweighs them all. the rudest is always right. what more do you want? however stupid, bad or wicked a man may have been, if he is only rude into the bargain, he condones and legitimizes all his faults. if in any discussion or conversation, another man shows more knowledge, greater love of truth, a sounder judgment, better understanding than we, or generally exhibits intellectual qualities which cast ours into the shade, we can at once annul his superiority and our own shallowness, and in our turn be superior to him, by being insulting and offensive. for rudeness is better than any argument; it totally eclipses intellect. if our opponent does not care for our mode of attack, and will not answer still more rudely, so as to plunge us into the ignoble rivalry of the _avantage_, we are the victors and honor is on our side. truth, knowledge, understanding, intellect, wit, must beat a retreat and leave the field to this almighty insolence. _honorable people_ immediately make a show of mounting their war-horse, if anyone utters an opinion adverse to theirs, or shows more intelligence than they can muster; and if in any controversy they are at a loss for a reply, they look about for some weapon of rudeness, which will serve as well and come readier to hand; so they retire masters of the position. it must now be obvious that people are quite right in applauding this principle of honor as having ennobled the tone of society. this principle springs from another, which forms the heart and soul of the entire code. (5.) fifthly, the code implies that the highest court to which a man can appeal in any differences he may have with another on a point of honor is the court of physical force, that is, of brutality. every piece of rudeness is, strictly speaking, an appeal to brutality; for it is a declaration that intellectual strength and moral insight are incompetent to decide, and that the battle must be fought out by physical force--a struggle which, in the case of man, whom franklin defines as _a tool-making animal_, is decided by the weapons peculiar to the species; and the decision is irrevocable. this is the well-known principle of _right of might_--irony, of course, like _the wit of a fool_, a parallel phrase. the honor of a knight may be called the glory of might. (6.) lastly, if, as we saw above, civic honor is very scrupulous in the matter of _meum_ and _tuum_, paying great respect to obligations and a promise once made, the code we are here discussing displays, on the other hand, the noblest liberality. there is only one word which may not be broken, _the word of honor_--upon my _honor_, as people say--the presumption being, of course, that every other form of promise may be broken. nay, if the worst comes to the worst, it is easy to break even one's word of honor, and still remain honorable--again by adopting that universal remedy, the duel, and fighting with those who maintain that we pledged our word. further, there is one debt, and one alone, that under no circumstances must be left unpaid--a gambling debt, which has accordingly been called _a debt of honor_. in all other kinds of debt you may cheat jews and christians as much as you like; and your knightly honor remains without a stain. the unprejudiced reader will see at once that such a strange, savage and ridiculous code of honor as this has no foundation in human nature, nor any warrant in a healthy view of human affairs. the extremely narrow sphere of its operation serves only to intensify the feeling, which is exclusively confined to europe since the middle age, and then only to the upper classes, officers and soldiers, and people who imitate them. neither greeks nor romans knew anything of this code of honor or of its principles; nor the highly civilized nations of asia, ancient or modern. amongst them no other kind of honor is recognized but that which i discussed first, in virtue of which a man is what he shows himself to be by his actions, not what any wagging tongue is pleased to say of him. they thought that what a man said or did might perhaps affect his own honor, but not any other man's. to them, a blow was but a blow--and any horse or donkey could give a harder one--a blow which under certain circumstances might make a man angry and demand immediate vengeance; but it had nothing to do with honor. no one kept account of blows or insulting words, or of the _satisfaction_ which was demanded or omitted to be demanded. yet in personal bravery and contempt of death, the ancients were certainly not inferior to the nations of christian europe. the greeks and romans were thorough heroes, if you like; but they knew nothing about _point d'honneur_. if _they_ had any idea of a duel, it was totally unconnected with the life of the nobles; it was merely the exhibition of mercenary gladiators, slaves devoted to slaughter, condemned criminals, who, alternately with wild beasts, were set to butcher one another to make a roman holiday. when christianity was introduced, gladiatorial shows were done away with, and their place taken, in christian times, by the duel, which was a way of settling difficulties by _the judgment of god_. if the gladiatorial fight was a cruel sacrifice to the prevailing desire for great spectacles, dueling is a cruel sacrifice to existing prejudices--a sacrifice, not of criminals, slaves and prisoners, but of the noble and the free.[1] [footnote 1: _translator's note_. these and other remarks on dueling will no doubt wear a belated look to english readers; but they are hardly yet antiquated for most parts of the continent.] there are a great many traits in the character of the ancients which show that they were entirely free from these prejudices. when, for instance, marius was summoned to a duel by a teutonic chief, he returned answer to the effect that, if the chief were tired of his life, he might go and hang himself; at the same time he offered him a veteran gladiator for a round or two. plutarch relates in his life of themistocles that eurybiades, who was in command of the fleet, once raised his stick to strike him; whereupon themistocles, instead of drawing his sword, simply said: _strike, but hear me_. how sorry the reader must be, if he is an _honorable_ man, to find that we have no information that the athenian officers refused in a body to serve any longer under themistocles, if he acted like that! there is a modern french writer who declares that if anyone considers demosthenes a man of honor, his ignorance will excite a smile of pity; and that cicero was not a man of honor either![1] in a certain passage in plato's _laws_[2] the philosopher speaks at length of [greek: aikia] or _assault_, showing us clearly enough that the ancients had no notion of any feeling of honor in connection with such matters. socrates' frequent discussions were often followed by his being severely handled, and he bore it all mildly. once, for instance, when somebody kicked him, the patience with which he took the insult surprised one of his friends. _do you think_, said socrates, _that if an ass happened to kick me, i should resent it_?[3] on another occasion, when he was asked, _has not that fellow abused and insulted you? no_, was his answer, _what he says is not addressed to me_[4] stobaeus has preserved a long passage from musonius, from which we can see how the ancients treated insults. they knew no other form of satisfaction than that which the law provided, and wise people despised even this. if a greek received a box on the ear, he could get satisfaction by the aid of the law; as is evident from plato's _gorgias_, where socrates' opinion may be found. the same thing may be seen in the account given by gellius of one lucius veratius, who had the audacity to give some roman citizens whom he met on the road a box on the ear, without any provocation whatever; but to avoid any ulterior consequences, he told a slave to bring a bag of small money, and on the spot paid the trivial legal penalty to the men whom he had astonished by his conduct. [footnote 1:_litteraires_: par c. durand. rouen, 1828.] [footnote 2: bk. ix.]. [footnote 3: diogenes laertius, ii., 21.] [footnote 4: _ibid_ 36.] crates, the celebrated cynic philosopher, got such a box on the ear from nicodromus, the musician, that his face swelled up and became black and blue; whereupon he put a label on his forehead, with the inscription, _nicodromus fecit_, which brought much disgrace to the fluteplayer who had committed such a piece of brutality upon the man whom all athens honored as a household god.[1] and in a letter to melesippus, diogenes of sinope tells us that he got a beating from the drunken sons of the athenians; but he adds that it was a matter of no importance.[2] and seneca devotes the last few chapters of his _de constantia_ to a lengthy discussion on insult--_contumelia_; in order to show that a wise man will take no notice of it. in chapter xiv, he says, _what shall a wise man do, if he is given a blow? what cato did, when some one struck him on the mouth;--not fire up or avenge the insult, or even return the blow, but simply ignore it_. [footnote 1: diogenes laertius, vi. 87, and apul: flor: p. 126.] [footnote 2: cf. casaubon's note, diog. laert., vi. 33.] _yes_, you say, _but these men were philosophers_.--and you are fools, eh? precisely. it is clear that the whole code of knightly honor was utterly unknown to the ancients; for the simple reason that they always took a natural and unprejudiced view of human affairs, and did not allow themselves to be influenced by any such vicious and abominable folly. a blow in the face was to them a blow and nothing more, a trivial physical injury; whereas the moderns make a catastrophe out of it, a theme for a tragedy; as, for instance, in the _cid_ of corneille, or in a recent german comedy of middle-class life, called _the power of circumstance_, which should have been entitled _the power of prejudice_. if a member of the national assembly at paris got a blow on the ear, it would resound from one end of europe to the other. the examples which i have given of the way in which such an occurrence would have been treated in classic times may not suit the ideas of _honorable people_; so let me recommend to their notice, as a kind of antidote, the story of monsieur desglands in diderot's masterpiece, _jacques le fataliste_. it is an excellent specimen of modern knightly honor, which, no doubt, they will find enjoyable and edifying.[1] [footnote: 1: _translator's note_. the story to which schopenhauer here refers is briefly as follows: two gentlemen, one of whom was named desglands, were paying court to the same lady. as they sat at table side by side, with the lady opposite, desglands did his best to charm her with his conversation; but she pretended not to hear him, and kept looking at his rival. in the agony of jealousy, desglands, as he was holding a fresh egg in his hand, involuntarily crushed it; the shell broke, and its contents bespattered his rival's face. seeing him raise his hand, desglands seized it and whispered: _sir, i take it as given_. the next day desglands appeared with a large piece of black sticking-plaster upon his right cheek. in the duel which followed, desglands severely wounded his rival; upon which he reduced the size of the plaster. when his rival recovered, they had another duel; desglands drew blood again, and again made his plaster a little smaller; and so on for five or six times. after every duel desglands' plaster grew less and less, until at last his rival.] from what i have said it must be quite evident that the principle of knightly honor has no essential and spontaneous origin in human nature. it is an artificial product, and its source is not hard to find. its existence obviously dates from the time when people used their fists more than their heads, when priestcraft had enchained the human intellect, the much bepraised middle age, with its system of chivalry. that was the time when people let the almighty not only care for them but judge for them too; when difficult cases were decided by an ordeal, a _judgment of god_; which, with few exceptions, meant a duel, not only where nobles were concerned, but in the case of ordinary citizens as well. there is a neat illustration of this in shakespeare's henry vi.[1] every judicial sentence was subject to an appeal to arms--a court, as it were, of higher instance, namely, _the judgment of god_: and this really meant that physical strength and activity, that is, our animal nature, usurped the place of reason on the judgment seat, deciding in matters of right and wrong, not by what a man had done, but by the force with which he was opposed, the same system, in fact, as prevails to-day under the principles of knightly honor. if any one doubts that such is really the origin of our modern duel, let him read an excellent work by j.b. millingen, _the history of dueling_.[2] nay, you may still find amongst the supporters of the system,--who, by the way are not usually the most educated or thoughtful of men,--some who look upon the result of a duel as really constituting a divine judgment in the matter in dispute; no doubt in consequence of the traditional feeling on the subject. but leaving aside the question of origin, it must now be clear to us that the main tendency of the principle is to use physical menace for the purpose of extorting an appearance of respect which is deemed too difficult or superfluous to acquire in reality; a proceeding which comes to much the same thing as if you were to prove the warmth of your room by holding your hand on the thermometer and so make it rise. in fact, the kernel of the matter is this: whereas civic honor aims at peaceable intercourse, and consists in the opinion of other people that _we deserve full confidence_, because we pay unconditional respect to their rights; knightly honor, on the other hand, lays down that _we are to be feared_, as being determined at all costs to maintain our own. as not much reliance can be placed upon human integrity, the principle that it is more essential to arouse fear than to invite confidence would not, perhaps, be a false one, if we were living in a state of nature, where every man would have to protect himself and directly maintain his own rights. but in civilized life, where the state undertakes the protection of our person and property, the principle is no longer applicable: it stands, like the castles and watch-towers of the age when might was right, a useless and forlorn object, amidst well-tilled fields and frequented roads, or even railways. accordingly, the application of knightly honor, which still recognizes this principle, is confined to those small cases of personal assault which meet with but slight punishment at the hands of the law, or even none at all, for _de minimis non_,--mere trivial wrongs, committed sometimes only in jest. the consequence of this limited application of the principle is that it has forced itself into an exaggerated respect for the value of the person,--a respect utterly alien to the nature, constitution or destiny of man--which it has elated into a species of sanctity: and as it considers that the state has imposed a very insufficient penalty on the commission of such trivial injuries, it takes upon itself to punish them by attacking the aggressor in life or limb. the whole thing manifestly rests upon an excessive degree of arrogant pride, which, completely forgetting what man really is, claims that he shall be absolutely free from all attack or even censure. those who determine to carry out this principle by main force, and announce, as their rule of action, _whoever insults or strikes me shall die_! ought for their pains to be banished the country.[1] [footnote 1: knightly honor is the child of pride and folly, and it is _needy_ not pride, which is the heritage of the human race. it is a very remarkable fact that this extreme form of pride should be found exclusively amongst the adherents of the religion which teaches the deepest humility. still, this pride must not be put down to religion, but, rather, to the feudal system, which made every nobleman a petty sovereign who recognized no human judge, and learned to regard his person as sacred and inviolable, and any attack upon it, or any blow or insulting word, as an offence punishable with death. the principle of knightly honor and of the duel were at first confined to the nobles, and, later on, also to officers in the army, who, enjoying a kind of off-and-on relationship with the upper classes, though they were never incorporated with them, were anxious not to be behind them. it is true that duels were the product of the old ordeals; but the latter are not the foundation, but rather the consequence and application of the principle of honor: the man who recognized no human judge appealed to the divine. ordeals, however, are not peculiar to christendom: they may be found in great force among the hindoos, especially of ancient times; and there are traces of them even now.] as a palliative to this rash arrogance, people are in the habit of giving way on everything. if two intrepid persons meet, and neither will give way, the slightest difference may cause a shower of abuse, then fisticuffs, and, finally, a fatal blow: so that it would really be a more decorous proceeding to omit the intermediate steps and appeal to arms at once. an appeal to arms has its own special formalities; and these have developed into a rigid and precise system of laws and regulations, together forming the most solemn farce there is--a regular temple of honor dedicated to folly! for if two intrepid persons dispute over some trivial matter, (more important affairs are dealt with by law), one of them, the cleverer of the two, will of course yield; and they will agree to differ. that this is so is proved by the fact that common people,--or, rather, the numerous classes of the community who do not acknowledge the principle of knightly honor, let any dispute run its natural course. amongst these classes homicide is a hundredfold rarer than amongst those--and they amount, perhaps, in all, to hardly one in a thousand,--who pay homage to the principle: and even blows are of no very frequent occurrence. then it has been said that the manners and tone of good society are ultimately based upon this principle of honor, which, with its system of duels, is made out to be a bulwark against the assaults of savagery and rudeness. but athens, corinth and rome could assuredly boast of good, nay, excellent society, and manners and tone of a high order, without any support from the bogey of knightly honor. it is true that women did not occupy that prominent place in ancient society which they hold now, when conversation has taken on a frivolous and trifling character, to the exclusion of that weighty discourse which distinguished the ancients. this change has certainly contributed a great deal to bring about the tendency, which is observable in good society now-a-days, to prefer personal courage to the possession of any other quality. the fact is that personal courage is really a very subordinate virtue,--merely the distinguishing mark of a subaltern,--a virtue, indeed, in which we are surpassed by the lower animals; or else you would not hear people say, _as brave as a lion_. far from being the pillar of society, knightly honor affords a sure asylum, in general for dishonesty and wickedness, and also for small incivilities, want of consideration and unmannerliness. rude behavior is often passed over in silence because no one cares to risk his neck in correcting it. after what i have said, it will not appear strange that the dueling system is carried to the highest pitch of sanguinary zeal precisely in that nation whose political and financial records show that they are not too honorable. what that nation is like in its private and domestic life, is a question which may be best put to those who are experienced in the matter. their urbanity and social culture have long been conspicuous by their absence. there is no truth, then, in such pretexts. it can be urged with more justice that as, when you snarl at a dog, he snarls in return, and when you pet him, he fawns; so it lies in the nature of men to return hostility by hostility, and to be embittered and irritated at any signs of depreciatory treatment or hatred: and, as cicero says, _there is something so penetrating in the shaft of envy that even men of wisdom and worth find its wound a painful one_; and nowhere in the world, except, perhaps, in a few religious sects, is an insult or a blow taken with equanimity. and yet a natural view of either would in no case demand anything more than a requital proportionate to the offence, and would never go to the length of assigning _death_ as the proper penalty for anyone who accuses another of lying or stupidity or cowardice. the old german theory of _blood for a blow_ is a revolting superstition of the age of chivalry. and in any case the return or requital of an insult is dictated by anger, and not by any such obligation of honor and duty as the advocates of chivalry seek to attach to it. the fact is that, the greater the truth, the greater the slander; and it is clear that the slightest hint of some real delinquency will give much greater offence than a most terrible accusation which is perfectly baseless: so that a man who is quite sure that he has done nothing to deserve a reproach may treat it with contempt, and will be safe in doing so. the theory of honor demands that he shall show a susceptibility which he does not possess, and take bloody vengeance for insults which he cannot feel. a man must himself have but a poor opinion of his own worth who hastens to prevent the utterance of an unfavorable opinion by giving his enemy a black eye. true appreciation of his own value will make a man really indifferent to insult; but if he cannot help resenting it, a little shrewdness and culture will enable him to save appearances and dissemble his anger. if he could only get rid of this superstition about honor--the idea, i mean, that it disappears when you are insulted, and can be restored by returning the insult; if we could only stop people from thinking that wrong, brutality and insolence can be legalized by expressing readiness to give satisfaction, that is, to fight in defence of it, we should all soon come to the general opinion that insult and depreciation are like a battle in which the loser wins; and that, as vincenzo monti says, abuse resembles a church-procession, because it always returns to the point from which it set out. if we could only get people to look upon insult in this light, we should no longer have to say something rude in order to prove that we are in the right. now, unfortunately, if we want to take a serious view of any question, we have first of all to consider whether it will not give offence in some way or other to the dullard, who generally shows alarm and resentment at the merest sign of intelligence; and it may easily happen that the head which contains the intelligent view has to be pitted against the noodle which is empty of everything but narrowness and stupidity. if all this were done away with, intellectual superiority could take the leading place in society which is its due--a place now occupied, though people do not like to confess it, by excellence of physique, mere fighting pluck, in fact; and the natural effect of such a change would be that the best kind of people would have one reason the less for withdrawing from society. this would pave the way for the introduction of real courtesy and genuinely good society, such as undoubtedly existed in athens, corinth and rome. if anyone wants to see a good example of what i mean, i should like him to read xenophon's _banquet_. the last argument in defence of knightly honor no doubt is, that, but for its existence, the world--awful thought!--would be a regular bear-garden. to which i may briefly reply that nine hundred and ninety-nine people out of a thousand who do not recognize the code, have often given and received a blow without any fatal consequences: whereas amongst the adherents of the code a blow usually means death to one of the parties. but let me examine this argument more closely. i have often tried to find some tenable, or at any rate, plausible basis--other than a merely conventional one--some positive reasons, that is to say, for the rooted conviction which a portion of mankind entertains, that a blow is a very dreadful thing; but i have looked for it in vain, either in the animal or in the rational side of human nature. a blow is, and always will be, a trivial physical injury which one man can do to another; proving, thereby, nothing more than his superiority in strength or skill, or that his enemy was off his guard. analysis will carry us no further. the same knight who regards a blow from the human hand as the greatest of evils, if he gets a ten times harder blow from his horse, will give you the assurance, as he limps away in suppressed pain, that it is a matter of no consequence whatever. so i have come to think that it is the human hand which is at the bottom of the mischief. and yet in a battle the knight may get cuts and thrusts from the same hand, and still assure you that his wounds are not worth mentioning. now, i hear that a blow from the flat of a sword is not by any means so bad as a blow from a stick; and that, a short time ago, cadets were liable to be punished by the one but not the other, and that the very greatest honor of all is the _accolade_. this is all the psychological or moral basis that i can find; and so there is nothing left me but to pronounce the whole thing an antiquated superstition that has taken deep root, and one more of the many examples which show the force of tradition. my view is confirmed by the well-known fact that in china a beating with a bamboo is a very frequent punishment for the common people, and even for officials of every class; which shows that human nature, even in a highly civilized state, does not run in the same groove here and in china. on the contrary, an unprejudiced view of human nature shows that it is just as natural for a man to beat as it is for savage animals to bite and rend in pieces, or for horned beasts to butt or push. man may be said to be the animal that beats. hence it is revolting to our sense of the fitness of things to hear, as we sometimes do, that one man bitten another; on the other hand, it is a natural and everyday occurrence for him to get blows or give them. it is intelligible enough that, as we become educated, we are glad to dispense with blows by a system of mutual restraint. but it is a cruel thing to compel a nation or a single class to regard a blow as an awful misfortune which must have death and murder for its consequences. there are too many genuine evils in the world to allow of our increasing them by imaginary misfortunes, which brings real ones in their train: and yet this is the precise effect of the superstition, which thus proves itself at once stupid and malign. it does not seem to me wise of governments and legislative bodies to promote any such folly by attempting to do away with flogging as a punishment in civil or military life. their idea is that they are acting in the interests of humanity; but, in point of fact, they are doing just the opposite; for the abolition of flogging will serve only to strengthen this inhuman and abominable superstition, to which so many sacrifices have already been made. for all offences, except the worst, a beating is the obvious, and therefore the natural penalty; and a man who will not listen to reason will yield to blows. it seems to me right and proper to administer corporal punishment to the man who possesses nothing and therefore cannot be fined, or cannot be put in prison because his master's interests would suffer by the loss of his service. there are really no arguments against it: only mere talk about _the dignity of man_--talk which proceeds, not from any clear notions on the subject, but from the pernicious superstition i have been describing. that it is a superstition which lies at the bottom of the whole business is proved by an almost laughable example. not long ago, in the military discipline of many countries, the cat was replaced by the stick. in either case the object was to produce physical pain; but the latter method involved no disgrace, and was not derogatory to honor. by promoting this superstition, the state is playing into the hands of the principle of knightly honor, and therefore of the duel; while at the same time it is trying, or at any rate it pretends it is trying, to abolish the duel by legislative enactment. as a natural consequence we find that this fragment of the theory that _might is right_, which has come down to us from the most savage days of the middle age, has still in this nineteenth century a good deal of life left in it--more shame to us! it is high time for the principle to be driven out bag and baggage. now-a-days no one is allowed to set dogs or cocks to fight each other,--at any rate, in england it is a penal offence,--but men are plunged into deadly strife, against their will, by the operation of this ridiculous, superstitious and absurd principle, which imposes upon us the obligation, as its narrow-minded supporters and advocates declare, of fighting with one another like gladiators, for any little trifle. let me recommend our purists to adopt the expression _baiting_[1] instead of _duel_, which probably comes to us, not from the latin _duellum_, but from the spanish _duelo_,--meaning suffering, nuisance, annoyance. [footnote 1: _ritterhetze_] in any case, we may well laugh at the pedantic excess to which this foolish system has been carried. it is really revolting that this principle, with its absurd code, can form a power within the state--_imperium in imperio_--a power too easily put in motion, which, recognizing no right but might, tyrannizes over the classes which come within its range, by keeping up a sort of inquisition, before which any one may be haled on the most flimsy pretext, and there and then be tried on an issue of life and death between himself and his opponent. this is the lurking place from which every rascal, if he only belongs to the classes in question, may menace and even exterminate the noblest and best of men, who, as such, must of course be an object of hatred to him. our system of justice and police-protection has made it impossible in these days for any scoundrel in the street to attack us with--_your money or your life_! an end should be put to the burden which weighs upon the higher classes--the burden, i mean, of having to be ready every moment to expose life and limb to the mercy of anyone who takes it into his rascally head to be coarse, rude, foolish or malicious. it is perfectly atrocious that a pair of silly, passionate boys should be wounded, maimed or even killed, simply because they have had a few words. the strength of this tyrannical power within the state, and the force of the superstition, may be measured by the fact that people who are prevented from restoring their knightly honor by the superior or inferior rank of their aggressor, or anything else that puts the persons on a different level, often come to a tragic-comic end by committing suicide in sheer despair. you may generally know a thing to be false and ridiculous by finding that, if it is carried to its logical conclusion, it results in a contradiction; and here, too, we have a very glaring absurdity. for an officer is forbidden to take part in a duel; but if he is challenged and declines to come out, he is punished by being dismissed the service. as i am on the matter, let me be more frank still. the important distinction, which is often insisted upon, between killing your enemy in a fair fight with equal weapons, and lying in ambush for him, is entirely a corollary of the fact that the power within the state, of which i have spoken, recognizes no other right than might, that is, the right of the stronger, and appeals to a _judgment of god_ as the basis of the whole code. for to kill a man in a fair fight, is to prove that you are superior to him in strength or skill; and to justify the deed, _you must assume that the right of the stronger is really a right_. but the truth is that, if my opponent is unable to defend himself, it gives me the possibility, but not by any means the right, of killing him. the _right_, the _moral justification_, must depend entirely upon the _motives_ which i have for taking his life. even supposing that i have sufficient motive for taking a man's life, there is no reason why i should make his death depend upon whether i can shoot or fence better than he. in such a case, it is immaterial in what way i kill him, whether i attack him from the front or the rear. from a moral point of view, the right of the stronger is no more convincing than the right of the more skillful; and it is skill which is employed if you murder a a man treacherously. might and skill are in this case equally right; in a duel, for instance, both the one and the other come into play; for a feint is only another name for treachery. if i consider myself morally justified in taking a man's life, it is stupid of me to try first of all whether he can shoot or fence better than i; as, if he can, he will not only have wronged me, but have taken my life into the bargain. it is rousseau's opinion that the proper way to avenge an insult is, not to fight a duel with your aggressor, but to assassinate him,--an opinion, however, which he is cautious enough only to barely indicate in a mysterious note to one of the books of his _emile_. this shows the philosopher so completely under the influence of the mediaeval superstition of knightly honor that he considers it justifiable to murder a man who accuses you of lying: whilst he must have known that every man, and himself especially, has deserved to have the lie given him times without number. the prejudice which justifies the killing of your adversary, so long as it is done in an open contest and with equal weapons, obviously looks upon might as really right, and a duel as the interference of god. the italian who, in a fit of rage, falls upon his aggressor wherever he finds him, and despatches him without any ceremony, acts, at any rate, consistently and naturally: he may be cleverer, but he is not worse, than the duelist. if you say, i am justified in killing my adversary in a duel, because he is at the moment doing his best to kill me; i can reply that it is your challenge which has placed him under the necessity of defending himself; and that by mutually putting it on the ground of self-defence, the combatants are seeking a plausible pretext for committing murder. i should rather justify the deed by the legal maxim _volenti non fit injuria_; because the parties mutually agree to set their life upon the issue. this argument may, however, be rebutted by showing that the injured party is not injured _volens_; because it is this tyrannical principle of knightly honor, with its absurd code, which forcibly drags one at least of the combatants before a bloody inquisition. i have been rather prolix on the subject of knightly honor, but i had good reason for being so, because the augean stable of moral and intellectual enormity in this world can be cleaned out only with the besom of philosophy. there are two things which more than all else serve to make the social arrangements of modern life compare unfavorably with those of antiquity, by giving our age a gloomy, dark and sinister aspect, from which antiquity, fresh, natural and, as it were, in the morning of life, is completely free; i mean modern honor and modern disease,--_par nobile fratrum_!--which have combined to poison all the relations of life, whether public or private. the second of this noble pair extends its influence much farther than at first appears to be the case, as being not merely a physical, but also a moral disease. from the time that poisoned arrows have been found in cupid's quiver, an estranging, hostile, nay, devilish element has entered into the relations of men and women, like a sinister thread of fear and mistrust in the warp and woof of their intercourse; indirectly shaking the foundations of human fellowship, and so more or less affecting the whole tenor of existence. but it would be beside my present purpose to pursue the subject further. an influence analogous to this, though working on other lines, is exerted by the principle of knightly honor,--that solemn farce, unknown to the ancient world, which makes modern society stiff, gloomy and timid, forcing us to keep the strictest watch on every word that falls. nor is this all. the principle is a universal minotaur; and the goodly company of the sons of noble houses which it demands in yearly tribute, comes, not from one country alone, as of old, but from every land in europe. it is high time to make a regular attack upon this foolish system; and this is what i am trying to do now. would that these two monsters of the modern world might disappear before the end of the century! let us hope that medicine may be able to find some means of preventing the one, and that, by clearing our ideals, philosophy may put an end to the other: for it is only by clearing our ideas that the evil can be eradicated. governments have tried to do so by legislation, and failed. still, if they are really concerned to stop the dueling system; and if the small success that has attended their efforts is really due only to their inability to cope with the evil, i do not mind proposing a law the success of which i am prepared to guarantee. it will involve no sanguinary measures, and can be put into operation without recourse either to the scaffold or the gallows, or to imprisonment for life. it is a small homeopathic pilule, with no serious after effects. if any man send or accept a challenge, let the corporal take him before the guard house, and there give him, in broad daylight, twelve strokes with a stick _a la chinoise_; a non-commissioned officer or a private to receive six. if a duel has actually taken place, the usual criminal proceedings should be instituted. a person with knightly notions might, perhaps, object that, if such a punishment were carried out, a man of honor would possibly shoot himself; to which i should answer that it is better for a fool like that to shoot himself rather than other people. however, i know very well that governments are not really in earnest about putting down dueling. civil officials, and much more so, officers in the army, (except those in the highest positions), are paid most inadequately for the services they perform; and the deficiency is made up by honor, which is represented by titles and orders, and, in general, by the system of rank and distinction. the duel is, so to speak, a very serviceable extra-horse for people of rank: so they are trained in the knowledge of it at the universities. the accidents which happen to those who use it make up in blood for the deficiency of the pay. just to complete the discussion, let me here mention the subject of _national honor_. it is the honor of a nation as a unit in the aggregate of nations. and as there is no court to appeal to but the court of force; and as every nation must be prepared to defend its own interests, the honor of a nation consists in establishing the opinion, not only that it may be trusted (its credit), but also that it is to be feared. an attack upon its rights must never be allowed to pass unheeded. it is a combination of civic and knightly honor. _section 5.--fame_. under the heading of place in the estimation of the world we have put _fame_; and this we must now proceed to consider. fame and honor are twins; and twins, too, like castor and pollux, of whom the one was mortal and the other was not. fame is the undying brother of ephemeral honor. i speak, of course, of the highest kind of fame, that is, of fame in the true and genuine sense of the word; for, to be sure, there are many sorts of fame, some of which last but a day. honor is concerned merely with such qualities as everyone may be expected to show under similar circumstances; fame only of those which cannot be required of any man. honor is of qualities which everyone has a right to attribute to himself; fame only of those which should be left to others to attribute. whilst our honor extends as far as people have knowledge of us; fame runs in advance, and makes us known wherever it finds its way. everyone can make a claim to honor; very few to fame, as being attainable only in virtue of extraordinary achievements. these achievements may be of two kinds, either _actions_ or _works_; and so to fame there are two paths open. on the path of actions, a great heart is the chief recommendation; on that of works, a great head. each of the two paths has its own peculiar advantages and detriments; and the chief difference between them is that actions are fleeting, while works remain. the influence of an action, be it never so noble, can last but a short time; but a work of genius is a living influence, beneficial and ennobling throughout the ages. all that can remain of actions is a memory, and that becomes weak and disfigured by time--a matter of indifference to us, until at last it is extinguished altogether; unless, indeed, history takes it up, and presents it, fossilized, to posterity. works are immortal in themselves, and once committed to writing, may live for ever. of alexander the great we have but the name and the record; but plato and aristotle, homer and horace are alive, and as directly at work to-day as they were in their own lifetime. the _vedas_, and their _upanishads_, are still with us: but of all contemporaneous actions not a trace has come down to us.[1] [footnote 1: accordingly it is a poor compliment, though sometimes a fashionable one, to try to pay honor to a work by calling it an action. for a work is something essentially higher in its nature. an action is always something based on motive, and, therefore, fragmentary and fleeting--a part, in fact, of that will which is the universal and original element in the constitution of the world. but a great and beautiful work has a permanent character, as being of universal significance, and sprung from the intellect, which rises, like a perfume, above the faults and follies of the world of will. the fame of a great action has this advantage, that it generally starts with a loud explosion; so loud, indeed, as to be heard all over europe: whereas the fame of a great work is slow and gradual in its beginnings; the noise it makes is at first slight, but it goes on growing greater, until at last, after a hundred years perhaps, it attains its full force; but then it remains, because the works remain, for thousands of years. but in the other case, when the first explosion is over, the noise it makes grows less and less, and is heard by fewer and fewer persons; until it ends by the action having only a shadowy existence in the pages of history.] another disadvantage under which actions labor is that they depend upon chance for the possibility of coming into existence; and hence, the fame they win does not flow entirely from their intrinsic value, but also from the circumstances which happened to lend them importance and lustre. again, the fame of actions, if, as in war, they are purely personal, depends upon the testimony of fewer witnesses; and these are not always present, and even if present, are not always just or unbiased observers. this disadvantage, however, is counterbalanced by the fact that actions have the advantage of being of a practical character, and, therefore, within the range of general human intelligence; so that once the facts have been correctly reported, justice is immediately done; unless, indeed, the motive underlying the action is not at first properly understood or appreciated. no action can be really understood apart from the motive which prompted it. it is just the contrary with works. their inception does not depend upon chance, but wholly and entirely upon their author; and whoever they are in and for themselves, that they remain as long as they live. further, there is a difficulty in properly judging them, which becomes all the harder, the higher their character; often there are no persons competent to understand the work, and often no unbiased or honest critics. their fame, however, does not depend upon one judge only; they can enter an appeal to another. in the case of actions, as i have said, it is only their memory which comes down to posterity, and then only in the traditional form; but works are handed down themselves, and, except when parts of them have been lost, in the form in which they first appeared. in this case there is no room for any disfigurement of the facts; and any circumstance which may have prejudiced them in their origin, fall away with the lapse of time. nay, it is often only after the lapse of time that the persons really competent to judge them appear--exceptional critics sitting in judgment on exceptional works, and giving their weighty verdicts in succession. these collectively form a perfectly just appreciation; and though there are cases where it has taken some hundreds of years to form it, no further lapse of time is able to reverse the verdict;--so secure and inevitable is the fame of a great work. whether authors ever live to see the dawn of their fame depends upon the chance of circumstance; and the higher and more important their works are, the less likelihood there is of their doing so. that was an incomparable fine saying of seneca's, that fame follows merit as surely as the body casts a shadow; sometimes falling in front, and sometimes behind. and he goes on to remark that _though the envy of contemporaries be shown by universal silence, there will come those who will judge without enmity or favor_. from this remark it is manifest that even in seneca's age there were rascals who understood the art of suppressing merit by maliciously ignoring its existence, and of concealing good work from the public in order to favor the bad: it is an art well understood in our day, too, manifesting itself, both then and now, in _an envious conspiracy of silence_. as a general rule, the longer a man's fame is likely to last, the later it will be in coming; for all excellent products require time for their development. the fame which lasts to posterity is like an oak, of very slow growth; and that which endures but a little while, like plants which spring up in a year and then die; whilst false fame is like a fungus, shooting up in a night and perishing as soon. and why? for this reason; the more a man belongs to posterity, in other words, to humanity in general, the more of an alien he is to his contemporaries; since his work is not meant for them as such, but only for them in so far as they form part of mankind at large; there is none of that familiar local color about his productions which would appeal to them; and so what he does, fails of recognition because it is strange. people are more likely to appreciate the man who serves the circumstances of his own brief hour, or the temper of the moment,--belonging to it, living and dying with it. the general history of art and literature shows that the highest achievements of the human mind are, as a rule, not favorably received at first; but remain in obscurity until they win notice from intelligence of a high order, by whose influence they are brought into a position which they then maintain, in virtue of the authority thus given them. if the reason of this should be asked, it will be found that ultimately, a man can really understand and appreciate those things only which are of like nature with himself. the dull person will like what is dull, and the common person what is common; a man whose ideas are mixed will be attracted by confusion of thought; and folly will appeal to him who has no brains at all; but best of all, a man will like his own works, as being of a character thoroughly at one with himself. this is a truth as old as epicharmus of fabulous memory- [greek: thaumaston ouden esti me tauth outo legein kal andanein autoisin autous kal dokein kalos pethukenai kal gar ho kuon kuni kalloton eimen phainetai koi bous boi onos dono kalliston [estin], us dut.] the sense of this passage--for it should not be lost--is that we should not be surprised if people are pleased with themselves, and fancy that they are in good case; for to a dog the best thing in the world is a dog; to an ox, an ox; to an ass, an ass; and to a sow, a sow. the strongest arm is unavailing to give impetus to a featherweight; for, instead of speeding on its way and hitting its mark with effect, it will soon fall to the ground, having expended what little energy was given to it, and possessing no mass of its own to be the vehicle of momentum. so it is with great and noble thoughts, nay, with the very masterpieces of genius, when there are none but little, weak, and perverse minds to appreciate them,--a fact which has been deplored by a chorus of the wise in all ages. jesus, the son of sirach, for instance, declares that _he that telleth a tale to a fool speaketh to one in slumber: when he hath told his tale, he will say, what is the matter_?[1] and hamlet says, _a knavish speech sleeps in a fool's ear_.[2] and goethe is of the same opinion, that a dull ear mocks at the wisest word, _das glücktichste wort es wird verhöhnt, wenn der hörer ein schiefohr ist_: and again, that we should not be discouraged if people are stupid, for you can make no rings if you throw your stone into a marsh. _du iwirkest nicht, alles bleibt so stumpf: sei guter dinge! der stein in sumpf macht keine ringe_. [footnote 1: ecclesiasticus, xxii., 8.] [footnote 2: act iv., sc. 2.] lichtenberg asks: _when a head and a book come into collision, and one sounds hollow, is it always the book_? and in another place: _works like this are as a mirror; if an ass looks in, you cannot expect an apostle to look out_. we should do well to remember old gellert's fine and touching lament, that the best gifts of all find the fewest admirers, and that most men mistake the bad for the good,--a daily evil that nothing can prevent, like a plague which no remedy can cure. there is but one thing to be done, though how difficult!--the foolish must become wise,--and that they can never be. the value of life they never know; they see with the outer eye but never with the mind, and praise the trivial because the good is strange to them:- _nie kennen sie den werth der dinge, ihr auge schliesst, nicht ihr verstand; sie loben ewig das geringe weil sie das gute nie gekannt_. to the intellectual incapacity which, as goethe says, fails to recognize and appreciate the good which exists, must be added something which comes into play everywhere, the moral baseness of mankind, here taking the form of envy. the new fame that a man wins raises him afresh over the heads of his fellows, who are thus degraded in proportion. all conspicuous merit is obtained at the cost of those who possess none; or, as goethe has it in the _westöstlicher divan_, another's praise is one's own depreciation- _wenn wir andern ehre geben müssen wir uns selbst entadeln_. we see, then, how it is that, whatever be the form which excellence takes, mediocrity, the common lot of by far the greatest number, is leagued against it in a conspiracy to resist, and if possible, to suppress it. the pass-word of this league is _à bas le mérite_. nay more; those who have done something themselves, and enjoy a certain amount of fame, do not care about the appearance of a new reputation, because its success is apt to throw theirs into the shade. hence, goethe declares that if we had to depend for our life upon the favor of others, we should never have lived at all; from their desire to appear important themselves, people gladly ignore our very existence:- _hätte ich gezaudert zu werden, bis man mir's leben geögnut, ich wäre noch nicht auf erden, wie ihr begreifen könnt, wenn ihr seht, wie sie sich geberden, die, um etwas zu scheinen, mich gerne mochten verneinen_. honor, on the contrary, generally meets with fair appreciation, and is not exposed to the onslaught of envy; nay, every man is credited with the possession of it until the contrary is proved. but fame has to be won in despite of envy, and the tribunal which awards the laurel is composed of judges biased against the applicant from the very first. honor is something which we are able and ready to share with everyone; fame suffers encroachment and is rendered more unattainable in proportion as more people come by it. further, the difficulty of winning fame by any given work stands in reverse ratio to the number of people who are likely to read it; and hence it is so much harder to become famous as the author of a learned work than as a writer who aspires only to amuse. it is hardest of all in the case of philosophical works, because the result at which they aim is rather vague, and, at the same time, useless from a material point of view; they appeal chiefly to readers who are working on the same lines themselves. it is clear, then, from what i have said as to the difficulty of winning fame, that those who labor, not out of love for their subject, nor from pleasure in pursuing it, but under the stimulus of ambition, rarely or never leave mankind a legacy of immortal works. the man who seeks to do what is good and genuine, must avoid what is bad, and be ready to defy the opinions of the mob, nay, even to despise it and its misleaders. hence the truth of the remark, (especially insisted upon by osorius _de gloria_), that fame shuns those who seek it, and seeks those who shun it; for the one adapt themselves to the taste of their contemporaries, and the others work in defiance of it. but, difficult though it be to acquire fame, it is an easy thing to keep when once acquired. here, again, fame is in direct opposition to honor, with which everyone is presumably to be accredited. honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost. but there lies the difficulty! for by a single unworthy action, it is gone irretrievably. but fame, in the proper sense of the word, can never disappear; for the action or work by which it was acquired can never be undone; and fame attaches to its author, even though he does nothing to deserve it anew. the fame which vanishes, or is outlived, proves itself thereby to be spurious, in other words, unmerited, and due to a momentary overestimate of a man's work; not to speak of the kind of fame which hegel enjoyed, and which lichtenberg describes as _trumpeted forth by a clique of admiring undergraduates_--_the resounding echo of empty heads_;--_such a fame as will make posterity smile when it lights upon a grotesque architecture of words, a fine nest with the birds long ago flown; it will knock at the door of this decayed structure of conventionalities and find it utterly empty_!--_not even a trace of thought there to invite the passer-by_. the truth is that fame means nothing but what a man is in comparison with others. it is essentially relative in character, and therefore only indirectly valuable; for it vanishes the moment other people become what the famous man is. absolute value can be predicated only of what a man possesses under any and all circumstances,--here, what a man is directly and in himself. it is the possession of a great heart or a great head, and not the mere fame of it, which is worth having, and conducive to happiness. not fame, but that which deserves to be famous, is what a man should hold in esteem. this is, as it were, the true underlying substance, and fame is only an accident, affecting its subject chiefly as a kind of external symptom, which serves to confirm his own opinion of himself. light is not visible unless it meets with something to reflect it; and talent is sure of itself only when its fame is noised abroad. but fame is not a certain symptom of merit; because you can have the one without the other; or, as lessing nicely puts it, _some people obtain fame, and others deserve it_. it would be a miserable existence which should make its value or want of value depend upon what other people think; but such would be the life of a hero or a genius if its worth consisted in fame, that is, in the applause of the world. every man lives and exists on his own account, and, therefore, mainly in and for himself; and what he is and the whole manner of his being concern himself more than anyone else; so if he is not worth much in this respect, he cannot be worth much otherwise. the idea which other people form of his existence is something secondary, derivative, exposed to all the chances of fate, and in the end affecting him but very indirectly. besides, other people's heads are a wretched place to be the home of a man's true happiness--a fanciful happiness perhaps, but not a real one. and what a mixed company inhabits the temple of universal fame!--generals, ministers, charlatans, jugglers, dancers, singers, millionaires and jews! it is a temple in which more sincere recognition, more genuine esteem, is given to the several excellencies of such folk, than to superiority of mind, even of a high order, which obtains from the great majority only a verbal acknowledgment. from the point of view of human happiness, fame is, surely, nothing but a very rare and delicate morsel for the appetite that feeds on pride and vanity--an appetite which, however carefully concealed, exists to an immoderate degree in every man, and is, perhaps strongest of all in those who set their hearts on becoming famous at any cost. such people generally have to wait some time in uncertainty as to their own value, before the opportunity comes which will put it to the proof and let other people see what they are made of; but until then, they feel as if they were suffering secret injustice.[1] [footnote 1: our greatest pleasure consists in being admired; but those who admire us, even if they have every reason to do so, are slow to express their sentiments. hence he is the happiest man who, no matter how, manages sincerely to admire himself--so long as other people leave him alone.] but, as i explained at the beginning of this chapter, an unreasonable value is set upon other people's opinion, and one quite disproportionate to its real worth. hobbes has some strong remarks on this subject; and no doubt he is quite right. _mental pleasure_, he writes, _and ecstacy of any kind, arise when, on comparing ourselves with others, we come to the conclusion that we may think well of ourselves_. so we can easily understand the great value which is always attached to fame, as worth any sacrifices if there is the slightest hope of attaining it. _fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise_ _(that hath infirmity of noble mind)_ _to scorn delights and live laborious days_[1] and again: _how hard it is to climb the heights where fame's proud temple shines afar_! [footnote 1: milton. _lycidas_.] we can thus understand how it is that the vainest people in the world are always talking about _la gloire_, with the most implicit faith in it as a stimulus to great actions and great works. but there can he no doubt that fame is something secondary in its character, a mere echo or reflection--as it were, a shadow or symptom--of merit: and, in any case, what excites admiration must be of more value than the admiration itself. the truth is that a man is made happy, not by fame, but by that which brings him fame, by his merits, or to speak more correctly, by the disposition and capacity from which his merits proceed, whether they be moral or intellectual. the best side of a man's nature must of necessity be more important for him than for anyone else: the reflection of it, the opinion which exists in the heads of others, is a matter that can affect him only in a very subordinate degree. he who deserves fame without getting it possesses by far the more important element of happiness, which should console him for the loss of the other. it is not that a man is thought to be great by masses of incompetent and often infatuated people, but that he really is great, which should move us to envy his position; and his happiness lies, not in the fact that posterity will hear of him, but that he is the creator of thoughts worthy to be treasured up and studied for hundreds of years. besides, if a man has done this, he possesses something which cannot be wrested from him; and, unlike fame, it is a possession dependent entirely upon himself. if admiration were his chief aim, there would be nothing in him to admire. this is just what happens in the case of false, that is, unmerited, fame; for its recipient lives upon it without actually possessing the solid substratum of which fame is the outward and visible sign. false fame must often put its possessor out of conceit with himself; for the time may come when, in spite of the illusions borne of self-love, he will feel giddy on the heights which he was never meant to climb, or look upon himself as spurious coin; and in the anguish of threatened discovery and well-merited degradation, he will read the sentence of posterity on the foreheads of the wise--like a man who owes his property to a forged will. the truest fame, the fame that comes after death, is never heard of by its recipient; and yet he is called a happy man. his happiness lay both in the possession of those great qualities which won him fame, and in the opportunity that was granted him of developing them--the leisure he had to act as he pleased, to dedicate himself to his favorite pursuits. it is only work done from the heart that ever gains the laurel. greatness of soul, or wealth of intellect, is what makes a man happy--intellect, such as, when stamped on its productions, will receive the admiration of centuries to come,--thoughts which make him happy at the time, and will in their turn be a source of study and delight to the noblest minds of the most remote posterity. the value of posthumous fame lies in deserving it; and this is its own reward. whether works destined to fame attain it in the lifetime of their author is a chance affair, of no very great importance. for the average man has no critical power of his own, and is absolutely incapable of appreciating the difficulty of a great work. people are always swayed by authority; and where fame is widespread, it means that ninety-nine out of a hundred take it on faith alone. if a man is famed far and wide in his own lifetime, he will, if he is wise, not set too much value upon it, because it is no more than the echo of a few voices, which the chance of a day has touched in his favor. would a musician feel flattered by the loud applause of an audience if he knew that they were nearly all deaf, and that, to conceal their infirmity, they set to work to clap vigorously as soon as ever they saw one or two persons applauding? and what would he say if he got to know that those one or two persons had often taken bribes to secure the loudest applause for the poorest player! it is easy to see why contemporary praise so seldom develops into posthumous fame. d'alembert, in an extremely fine description of the temple of literary fame, remarks that the sanctuary of the temple is inhabited by the great dead, who during their life had no place there, and by a very few living persons, who are nearly all ejected on their death. let me remark, in passing, that to erect a monument to a man in his lifetime is as much as declaring that posterity is not to be trusted in its judgment of him. if a man does happen to see his own true fame, it can very rarely be before he is old, though there have been artists and musicians who have been exceptions to this rule, but very few philosophers. this is confirmed by the portraits of people celebrated by their works; for most of them are taken only after their subjects have attained celebrity, generally depicting them as old and grey; more especially if philosophy has been the work of their lives. from the eudaemonistic standpoint, this is a very proper arrangement; as fame and youth are too much for a mortal at one and the same time. life is such a poor business that the strictest economy must be exercised in its good things. youth has enough and to spare in itself, and must rest content with what it has. but when the delights and joys of life fall away in old age, as the leaves from a tree in autumn, fame buds forth opportunely, like a plant that is green in winter. fame is, as it were, the fruit that must grow all the summer before it can be enjoyed at yule. there is no greater consolation in age than the feeling of having put the whole force of one's youth into works which still remain young. finally, let us examine a little more closely the kinds of fame which attach to various intellectual pursuits; for it is with fame of this sort that my remarks are more immediately concerned. i think it may be said broadly that the intellectual superiority it denotes consists in forming theories, that is, new combinations of certain facts. these facts may be of very different kinds; but the better they are known, and the more they come within everyday experience, the greater and wider will be the fame which is to be won by theorizing about them. for instance, if the facts in question are numbers or lines or special branches of science, such as physics, zoology, botany, anatomy, or corrupt passages in ancient authors, or undecipherable inscriptions, written, it may be, in some unknown alphabet, or obscure points in history; the kind of fame that may be obtained by correctly manipulating such facts will not extend much beyond those who make a study of them--a small number of persons, most of whom live retired lives and are envious of others who become famous in their special branch of knowledge. but if the facts be such as are known to everyone, for example, the fundamental characteristics of the human mind or the human heart, which are shared by all alike; or the great physical agencies which are constantly in operation before our eyes, or the general course of natural laws; the kind of fame which is to be won by spreading the light of a new and manifestly true theory in regard to them, is such as in time will extend almost all over the civilized world: for if the facts be such as everyone can grasp, the theory also will be generally intelligible. but the extent of the fame will depend upon the difficulties overcome; and the more generally known the facts are, the harder it will be to form a theory that shall be both new and true: because a great many heads will have been occupied with them, and there will be little or no possibility of saying anything that has not been said before. on the other hand, facts which are not accessible to everybody, and can be got at only after much difficulty and labor, nearly always admit of new combinations and theories; so that, if sound understanding and judgment are brought to bear upon them--qualities which do not involve very high intellectual power--a man may easily be so fortunate as to light upon some new theory in regard to them which shall be also true. but fame won on such paths does not extend much beyond those who possess a knowledge of the facts in question. to solve problems of this sort requires, no doubt, a great ideal of study and labor, if only to get at the facts; whilst on the path where the greatest and most widespread fame is to be won, the facts may be grasped without any labor at all. but just in proportion as less labor is necessary, more talent or genius is required; and between such qualities and the drudgery of research no comparison is possible, in respect either of their intrinsic value, or of the estimation in which they are held. and so people who feel that they possess solid intellectual capacity and a sound judgment, and yet cannot claim the highest mental powers, should not be afraid of laborious study; for by its aid they may work themselves above the great mob of humanity who have the facts constantly before their eyes, and reach those secluded spots which are accessible to learned toil. for this is a sphere where there are infinitely fewer rivals, and a man of only moderate capacity may soon find an opportunity of proclaiming a theory which shall be both new and true; nay, the merit of his discovery will partly rest upon the difficulty of coming at the facts. but applause from one's fellow-students, who are the only persons with a knowledge of the subject, sounds very faint to the far-off multitude. and if we follow up this sort of fame far enough, we shall at last come to a point where facts very difficult to get at are in themselves sufficient to lay a foundation of fame, without any necessity for forming a theory;--travels, for instance, in remote and little-known countries, which make a man famous by what he has seen, not by what he has thought. the great advantage of this kind of fame is that to relate what one has seen, is much easier than to impart one's thoughts, and people are apt to understand descriptions better than ideas, reading the one more readily than the other: for, as asmus says, _when one goes forth a-voyaging he has a tale to tell_. and yet for all that, a personal acquaintance with celebrated travelers often remind us of a line from horace--new scenes do not always mean new ideas- _caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt_.[1] [footnote 1: epist. i. ii.] but if a man finds himself in possession of great mental faculties, such as alone should venture on the solution of the hardest of all problems--those which concern nature as a whole and humanity in its widest range, he will do well to extend his view equally in all directions, without ever straying too far amid the intricacies of various by-paths, or invading regions little known; in other words, without occupying himself with special branches of knowledge, to say nothing of their petty details. there is no necessity for him to seek out subjects difficult of access, in order to escape a crowd of rivals; the common objects of life will give him material for new theories at once serious and true; and the service he renders will be appreciated by all those--and they form a great part of mankind--who know the facts of which he treats. what a vast distinction there is between students of physics, chemistry, anatomy, mineralogy, zoology, philology, history, and the men who deal with the great facts of human life, the poet and the philosopher! the essays of arthur schopenhauer translated by t. bailey saunders, m.a. counsels and maxims. _le bonheur n'est pas chose aisée: il est très difficile de le trouver en nous, et impossible de le trouver ailleurs_. chamfort. contents. chapter introduction i. general rules ii. our relation to ourselves iii. our relation to others iv. worldly fortune v. the ages of life introduction. if my object in these pages were to present a complete scheme of counsels and maxims for the guidance of life, i should have to repeat the numerous rules--some of them excellent--which have been drawn up by thinkers of all ages, from theognis and solomon[1] down to la rochefoucauld; and, in so doing, i should inevitably entail upon the reader a vast amount of well-worn commonplace. but the fact is that in this work i make still less claim to exhaust my subject than in any other of my writings. [footnote 1: i refer to the proverbs and maxims ascribed, in the old testament, to the king of that name.] an author who makes no claims to completeness must also, in a great measure, abandon any attempt at systematic arrangement. for his double loss in this respect, the reader may console himself by reflecting that a complete and systematic treatment of such a subject as the guidance of life could hardly fail to be a very wearisome business. i have simply put down those of my thoughts which appear to be worth communicating--thoughts which, as far as i know, have not been uttered, or, at any rate, not just in the same form, by any one else; so that my remarks may be taken as a supplement to what has been already achieved in the immense field. however, by way of introducing some sort of order into the great variety of matters upon which advice will be given in the following pages, i shall distribute what i have to say under the following heads: (1) general rules; (2) our relation to ourselves; (3) our relation to others; and finally, (4) rules which concern our manner of life and our worldly circumstances. i shall conclude with some remarks on the changes which the various periods of life produce in us. chapter i. general rules.--section 1. the first and foremost rule for the wise conduct of life seems to me to be contained in a view to which aristotle parenthetically refers in the _nichomachean ethics_:[1] [greek: o phronimoz to alupon dioke e ou to aedu] or, as it may be rendered, _not pleasure, but freedom from pain, is what the wise man will aim at_. [footnote 1: vii. (12) 12.] the truth of this remark turns upon the negative character of happiness,--the fact that pleasure is only the negation of pain, and that pain is the positive element in life. though i have given a detailed proof of this proposition in my chief work,[1] i may supply one more illustration of it here, drawn from a circumstance of daily occurrence. suppose that, with the exception of some sore or painful spot, we are physically in a sound and healthy condition: the sore of this one spot, will completely absorb our attention, causing us to lose the sense of general well-being, and destroying all our comfort in life. in the same way, when all our affairs but one turn out as we wish, the single instance in which our aims are frustrated is a constant trouble to us, even though it be something quite trivial. we think a great deal about it, and very little about those other and more important matters in which we have been successful. in both these cases what has met with resistance is _the will_; in the one case, as it is objectified in the organism, in the other, as it presents itself in the struggle of life; and in both, it is plain that the satisfaction of the will consists in nothing else than that it meets with no resistance. it is, therefore, a satisfaction which is not directly felt; at most, we can become conscious of it only when we reflect upon our condition. but that which checks or arrests the will is something positive; it proclaims its own presence. all pleasure consists in merely removing this check--in other words, in freeing us from its action; and hence pleasure is a state which can never last very long. [footnote 1: _welt als wille und vorstellung_. vol. i., p. 58.] this is the true basis of the above excellent rule quoted from aristotle, which bids us direct our aim, not toward securing what is pleasurable and agreeable in life, but toward avoiding, as far as possible, its innumerable evils. if this were not the right course to take, that saying of voltaire's, _happiness is but a dream and sorrow is real_, would be as false as it is, in fact, true. a man who desires to make up the book of his life and determine where the balance of happiness lies, must put down in his accounts, not the pleasures which he has enjoyed, but the evils which he has escaped. that is the true method of eudaemonology; for all eudaemonology must begin by recognizing that its very name is a euphemism, and that _to live happily_ only means _to live less unhappily_--to live a tolerable life. there is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome--to be got over. there are numerous expressions illustrating this--such as _degere vitam, vita defungi_; or in italian, _si scampa cosi_; or in german, _man muss suchen durchzukommen; er wird schon durch die welt kommen_, and so on. in old age it is indeed a consolation to think that the work of life is over and done with. the happiest lot is not to have experienced the keenest delights or the greatest pleasures, but to have brought life to a close without any very great pain, bodily or mental. to measure the happiness of a life by its delights or pleasures, is to apply a false standard. for pleasures are and remain something negative; that they produce happiness is a delusion, cherished by envy to its own punishment. pain is felt to be something positive, and hence its absence is the true standard of happiness. and if, over and above freedom from pain, there is also an absence of boredom, the essential conditions of earthly happiness are attained; for all else is chimerical. it follows from this that a man should never try to purchase pleasure at the cost of pain, or even at the risk of incurring it; to do so is to pay what is positive and real, for what is negative and illusory; while there is a net profit in sacrificing pleasure for the sake of avoiding pain. in either case it is a matter of indifference whether the pain follows the pleasure or precedes it. while it is a complete inversion of the natural order to try and turn this scene of misery into a garden of pleasure, to aim at joy and pleasure rather than at the greatest possible freedom from pain--and yet how many do it!--there is some wisdom in taking a gloomy view, in looking upon the world as a kind of hell, and in confining one's efforts to securing a little room that shall not be exposed to the fire. the fool rushes after the pleasures of life and finds himself their dupe; the wise man avoids its evils; and even if, notwithstanding his precautions, he falls into misfortunes, that is the fault of fate, not of his own folly. as far as he is successful in his endeavors, he cannot be said to have lived a life of illusion; for the evils which he shuns are very real. even if he goes too far out of his way to avoid evils, and makes an unnecessary sacrifice of pleasure, he is, in reality, not the worse off for that; for all pleasures are chimerical, and to mourn for having lost any of them is a frivolous, and even ridiculous proceeding. the failure to recognize this truth--a failure promoted by optimistic ideas--is the source of much unhappiness. in moments free from pain, our restless wishes present, as it were in a mirror, the image of a happiness that has no counterpart in reality, seducing us to follow it; in doing so we bring pain upon ourselves, and that is something undeniably real. afterwards, we come to look with regret upon that lost state of painlessness; it is a paradise which we have gambled away; it is no longer with us, and we long in vain to undo what has been done. one might well fancy that these visions of wishes fulfilled were the work of some evil spirit, conjured up in order to entice us away from that painless state which forms our highest happiness. a careless youth may think that the world is meant to be enjoyed, as though it were the abode of some real or positive happiness, which only those fail to attain who are not clever enough to overcome the difficulties that lie in the way. this false notion takes a stronger hold on him when he comes to read poetry and romance, and to be deceived by outward show--the hypocrisy that characterizes the world from beginning to end; on which i shall have something to say presently. the result is that his life is the more or less deliberate pursuit of positive happiness; and happiness he takes to be equivalent to a series of definite pleasures. in seeking for these pleasures he encounters danger--a fact which should not be forgotten. he hunts for game that does not exist; and so he ends by suffering some very real and positive misfortune--pain, distress, sickness, loss, care, poverty, shame, and all the thousand ills of life. too late he discovers the trick that has been played upon him. but if the rule i have mentioned is observed, and a plan of life is adopted which proceeds by avoiding pain--in other words, by taking measures of precaution against want, sickness, and distress in all its forms, the aim is a real one, and something may be achieved which will be great in proportion as the plan is not disturbed by striving after the chimera of positive happiness. this agrees with the opinion expressed by goethe in the _elective affinities_, and there put into the mouth of mittler--the man who is always trying to make other people happy: _to desire to get rid of an evil is a definite object, but to desire a better fortune than one has is blind folly_. the same truth is contained in that fine french proverb: _le mieux est l'ennemi du bien_--leave well alone. and, as i have remarked in my chief work,[1] this is the leading thought underlying the philosophical system of the cynics. for what was it led the cynics to repudiate pleasure in every form, if it was not the fact that pain is, in a greater or less degree, always bound up with pleasure? to go out of the way of pain seemed to them so much easier than to secure pleasure. deeply impressed as they were by the negative nature of pleasure and the positive nature of pain, they consistently devoted all their efforts to the avoidance of pain. the first step to that end was, in their opinion, a complete and deliberate repudiation of pleasure, as something which served only to entrap the victim in order that he might be delivered over to pain. [footnote 1: _welt als wille und vorstellung_, vol. ii., ch. 16.] we are all born, as schiller says, in arcadia. in other words, we come into the world full of claims to happiness and pleasure, and we cherish the fond hope of making them good. but, as a rule, fate soon teaches us, in a rough and ready way that we really possess nothing at all, but that everything in the world is at its command, in virtue of an unassailable right, not only to all we have or acquire, to wife or child, but even to our very limbs, our arms, legs, _eyes_ and ears, nay, even to the nose in the middle of our face. and in any case, after some little time, we learn by experience that happiness and pleasure are a _fata morgana_, which, visible from afar, vanish as we approach; that, on the other hand, suffering and pain are a reality, which makes its presence felt without any intermediary, and for its effect, stands in no need of illusion or the play of false hope. if the teaching of experience bears fruit in us, we soon give up the pursuit of pleasure and happiness, and think much more about making ourselves secure against the attacks of pain and suffering. we see that the best the world has to offer is an existence free from pain--a quiet, tolerable life; and we confine our claims to this, as to something we can more surely hope to achieve. for the safest way of not being very miserable is not to expect to be very happy. merck, the friend of goethe's youth, was conscious of this truth when he wrote: _it is the wretched way people have of setting up a claim to happiness_--_and, that to, in a measure corresponding with their desires_--_that ruins everything in this world. a man will make progress if he can get rid of this claim,[1] and desire nothing but what he sees before him_. accordingly it is advisable to put very moderate limits upon our expectations of pleasure, possessions, rank, honor and so on; because it is just this striving and struggling to be happy, to dazzle the world, to lead a life full of pleasure, which entail great misfortune. it is prudent and wise, i say, to reduce one's claims, if only for the reason that it is extremely easy to be very unhappy; while to be very happy is not indeed difficult, but quite impossible. with justice sings the poet of life's wisdom: _auream quisquis mediocritatem diligit, tutus caret obsoleti sordibus tecti, caret invidenda sobrius aula. savius ventis agitatur ingens pinus: et celsae graviori casu decidunt turres; feriuntque summos fulgura monies.[2]_ --the golden mean is best--to live free from the squalor of a mean abode, and yet not be a mark for envy. it is the tall pine which is cruelly shaken by the wind, the highest summits that are struck in the storm, and the lofty towers that fall so heavily. [footnote 1: letters to and from merck.] [footnote 2: horace. odes ii. x.] he who has taken to heart the teaching of my philosophy--who knows, therefore, that our whole existence is something which had better not have been, and that to disown and disclaim it is the highest wisdom--he will have no great expectations from anything or any condition in life: he will spend passion upon nothing in the world, nor lament over-much if he fails in any of his undertakings. he will feel the deep truth of what plato[1] says: [greek: oute ti ton anthropinon haxion on megalaes spondaes]--nothing in human affairs is worth any great anxiety; or, as the persian poet has it, _though from thy grasp all worldly things should flee, grieve not for them, for they are nothing worth: and though a world in thy possession be, joy not, for worthless are the things of earth. since to that better world 'tis given to thee to pass, speed on, for this is nothing worth._[2] [footnote 1: _republic_, x. 604.] [footnote 2: _translator's note_. from the anvár-i suhailí--_the lights of canopus_--being the persian version of the _table of bidpai_. translated by e.b. eastwick, ch. iii. story vi., p. 289.] the chief obstacle to our arriving at these salutary views is that hypocrisy of the world to which i have already alluded--an hypocrisy which should be early revealed to the young. most of the glories of the world are mere outward show, like the scenes on a stage: there is nothing real about them. ships festooned and hung with pennants, firing of cannon, illuminations, beating of drums and blowing of trumpets, shouting and applauding--these are all the outward sign, the pretence and suggestion,--as it were the hieroglyphic,--of _joy_: but just there, joy is, as a rule, not to be found; it is the only guest who has declined to be present at the festival. where this guest may really be found, he comes generally without invitation; he is not formerly announced, but slips in quietly by himself _sans facon_; often making his appearance under the most unimportant and trivial circumstances, and in the commonest company--anywhere, in short, but where the society is brilliant and distinguished. joy is like the gold in the australian mines--found only now and then, as it were, by the caprice of chance, and according to no rule or law; oftenest in very little grains, and very seldom in heaps. all that outward show which i have described, is only an attempt to make people believe that it is really joy which has come to the festival; and to produce this impression upon the spectators is, in fact, the whole object of it. with _mourning_ it is just the same. that long funeral procession, moving up so slowly; how melancholy it looks! what an endless row of carriages! but look into them--they are all empty; the coachmen of the whole town are the sole escort the dead man has to his grave. eloquent picture of the friendship and esteem of the world! this is the falsehood, the hollowness, the hypocrisy of human affairs! take another example--a roomful of guests in full dress, being received with great ceremony. you could almost believe that this is a noble and distinguished company; but, as a matter of fact, it is compulsion, pain and boredom who are the real guests. for where many are invited, it is a rabble--even if they all wear stars. really good society is everywhere of necessity very small. in brilliant festivals and noisy entertainments, there is always, at bottom, a sense of emptiness prevalent. a false tone is there: such gatherings are in strange contrast with the misery and barrenness of our existence. the contrast brings the true condition into greater relief. still, these gatherings are effective from the outside; and that is just their purpose. chamfort[1] makes the excellent remark that _society_--_les cercles, les salons, ce qu'on appelle le monde_--is like a miserable play, or a bad opera, without any interest in itself, but supported for a time by mechanical aid, costumes and scenery. [footnote 1: _translator's note_. nicholas "chamfort" (1741-94), a french miscellaneous writer, whose brilliant conversation, power of sarcasm, and epigrammic force, coupled with an extraordinary career, render him one of the most interesting and remarkable men of his time. schopenhauer undoubtedly owed much to this writer, to whom he constantly refers.] and so, too, with academies and chairs of philosophy. you have a kind of sign-board hung out to show the apparent abode of _wisdom_: but wisdom is another guest who declines the invitation; she is to be found elsewhere. the chiming of bells, ecclesiastical millinery, attitudes of devotion, insane antics--these are the pretence, the false show of _piety_. and so on. everything in the world is like a hollow nut; there is little kernel anywhere, and when it does exist, it is still more rare to find it in the shell. you may look for it elsewhere, and find it, as a rule, only by chance. section 2. to estimate a man's condition in regard to happiness, it is necessary to ask, not what things please him, but what things trouble him; and the more trivial these things are in themselves, the happier the man will be. to be irritated by trifles, a man must be well off; for in misfortunes trifles are unfelt. section 3. care should be taken not to build the happiness of life upon a _broad foundation_--not to require a great many things in order to be happy. for happiness on such a foundation is the most easily undermined; it offers many more opportunities for accidents; and accidents are always happening. the architecture of happiness follows a plan in this respect just the opposite of that adopted in every other case, where the broadest foundation offers the greatest security. accordingly, to reduce your claims to the lowest possible degree, in comparison with your means,--of whatever kind these may be--is the surest way of avoiding extreme misfortune. to make extensive preparations for life--no matter what form they may take--is one of the greatest and commonest of follies. such preparations presuppose, in the first place, a long life, the full and complete term of years appointed to man--and how few reach it! and even if it be reached, it is still too short for all the plans that have been made; for to carry them out requites more time than was thought necessary at the beginning. and then how many mischances and obstacles stand in the way! how seldom the goal is ever reached in human affairs! and lastly, even though the goal should be reached, the changes which time works in us have been left out of the reckoning: we forget that the capacity whether for achievement or for enjoyment does not last a whole lifetime. so we often toil for things which are no longer suited to us when we attain them; and again, the years we spend in preparing for some work, unconsciously rob us of the power for carrying it out. how often it happens that a man is unable to enjoy the wealth which he acquired at so much trouble and risk, and that the fruits of his labor are reserved for others; or that he is incapable of filling the position which he has won after so many years of toil and struggle. fortune has come too late for him; or, contrarily, he has come too late for fortune,--when, for instance, he wants to achieve great things, say, in art or literature: the popular taste has changed, it may be; a new generation has grown up, which takes no interest in his work; others have gone a shorter way and got the start of him. these are the facts of life which horace must have had in view, when he lamented the uselessness of all advice:- _quid eternis minorem consiliis animum fatigas?_[1] [footnote 1: odes ii. xi.] the cause of this commonest of all follies is that optical illusion of the mind from which everyone suffers, making life, at its beginning, seem of long duration; and at its end, when one looks back over the course of it, how short a time it seems! there is some advantage in the illusion; but for it, no great work would ever be done. our life is like a journey on which, as we advance, the landscape takes a different view from that which it presented at first, and changes again, as we come nearer. this is just what happens--especially with our wishes. we often find something else, nay, something better than what we are looking for; and what we look for, we often find on a very different path from that on which we began a vain search. instead of finding, as we expected, pleasure, happiness, joy, we get experience, insight, knowledge--a real and permanent blessing, instead of a fleeting and illusory one. this is the thought that runs through _wilkelm meister_, like the bass in a piece of music. in this work of goethe's, we have a novel of the _intellectual_ kind, and, therefore, superior to all others, even to sir walter scott's, which are, one and all, _ethical_; in other words, they treat of human nature only from the side of the will. so, too, in the _zauberflöte_--that grotesque, but still significant, and even hieroglyphic--the same thought is symbolized, but in great, coarse lines, much in the way in which scenery is painted. here the symbol would be complete if tamino were in the end to be cured of his desire to possess tainina, and received, in her stead, initiation into the mysteries of the temple of wisdom. it is quite right for papageno, his necessary contrast, to succeed in getting his papagena. men of any worth or value soon come to see that they are in the hands of fate, and gratefully submit to be moulded by its teachings. they recognize that the fruit of life is experience, and not happiness; they become accustomed and content to exchange hope for insight; and, in the end, they can say, with petrarch, that all they care for is to learn:- _altro diletto che 'mparar, non provo_. it may even be that they to some extent still follow their old wishes and aims, trifling with them, as it were, for the sake of appearances; all the while really and seriously looking for nothing but instruction; a process which lends them an air of genius, a trait of something contemplative and sublime. in their search for gold, the alchemists discovered other things--gunpowder, china, medicines, the laws of nature. there is a sense in which we are all alchemists. chapter ii. our relation to ourselves.--section 4. the mason employed on the building of a house may be quite ignorant of its general design; or at any rate, he may not keep it constantly in mind. so it is with man: in working through the days and hours of his life, he takes little thought of its character as a whole. if there is any merit or importance attaching to a man's career, if he lays himself out carefully for some special work, it is all the more necessary and advisable for him to turn his attention now and then to its _plan_, that is to say, the miniature sketch of its general outlines. of course, to do that, he must have applied the maxim [greek: gnothi seauton]; he must have made some little progress in the art of understanding himself. he must know what is his real, chief, and foremost object in life,--what it is that he most wants in order to be happy; and then, after that, what occupies the second and third place in his thoughts; he must find out what, on the whole, his vocation really is--the part he has to play, his general relation to the world. if he maps out important work for himself on great lines, a glance at this miniature plan of his life will, more than anything else stimulate, rouse and ennoble him, urge him on to action and keep him from false paths. again, just as the traveler, on reaching a height, gets a connected view over the road he has taken, with its many turns and windings; so it is only when we have completed a period in our life, or approach the end of it altogether, that we recognize the true connection between all our actions,--what it is we have achieved, what work we have done. it is only then that we see the precise chain of cause and effect, and the exact value of all our efforts. for as long as we are actually engaged in the work of life, we always act in accordance with the nature of our character, under the influence of motive, and within the limits of our capacity,--in a word, from beginning to end, under a law of _necessity_; at every moment we do just what appears to us right and proper. it is only afterwards, when we come to look back at the whole course of our life and its general result, that we see the why and wherefore of it all. when we are actually doing some great deed, or creating some immortal work, we are not conscious of it as such; we think only of satisfying present aims, of fulfilling the intentions we happen to have at the time, of doing the right thing at the moment. it is only when we come to view our life as a connected whole that our character and capacities show themselves in their true light; that we see how, in particular instances, some happy inspiration, as it were, led us to choose the only true path out of a thousand which might have brought us to ruin. it was our genius that guided us, a force felt in the affairs of the intellectual as in those of the world; and working by its defect just in the same way in regard to evil and disaster. section 5. another important element in the wise conduct of life is to preserve a proper proportion between our thought for the present and our thought for the future; in order not to spoil the one by paying over-great attention to the other. many live too long in the present--frivolous people, i mean; others, too much in the future, ever anxious and full of care. it is seldom that a man holds the right balance between the two extremes. those who strive and hope and live only in the future, always looking ahead and impatiently anticipating what is coming, as something which will make them happy when they get it, are, in spite of their very clever airs, exactly like those donkeys one sees in italy, whose pace may be hurried by fixing a stick on their heads with a wisp of hay at the end of it; this is always just in front of them, and they keep on trying to get it. such people are in a constant state of illusion as to their whole existence; they go on living _ad interim_, until at last they die. instead, therefore, of always thinking about our plans and anxiously looking to the future, or of giving ourselves up to regret for the past, we should never forget that the present is the only reality, the only certainty; that the future almost always turns out contrary to our expectations; that the past, too, was very different from what we suppose it to have been. but the past and the future are, on the whole, of less consequence than we think. distance, which makes objects look small to the outward eye, makes them look big to the eye of thought. the present alone is true and actual; it is the only time which possesses full reality, and our existence lies in it exclusively. therefore we should always be glad of it, and give it the welcome it deserves, and enjoy every hour that is bearable by its freedom from pain and annoyance with a full consciousness of its value. we shall hardly be able to do this if we make a wry face over the failure of our hopes in the past or over our anxiety for the future. it is the height of folly to refuse the present hour of happiness, or wantonly to spoil it by vexation at by-gones or uneasiness about what is to come. there is a time, of course, for forethought, nay, even for repentance; but when it is over let us think of what is past as of something to which we have said farewell, of necessity subduing our hearts- [greek: alla ta men protuchthai easomen achnumenoi per tumhon eni staethessi philon damasntes hanankae],[1] and of the future as of that which lies beyond our power, in the lap of the gods-[greek: all aetoi men tauta theon en gounasi keitai.][2] [footnote 1: _iliad_, xix, 65.] [footnote 2: _ibid_, xvii, 514] but in regard to the present let us remember seneca's advice, and live each day as if it were our whole life,--_singulas dies singulas vitas puta_: let us make it as agreeable as possible, it is the only real time we have. only those evils which are sure to come at a definite date have any right to disturb us; and how few there are which fulfill this description. for evils are of two kinds; either they are possible only, at most probable; or they are inevitable. even in the case of evils which are sure to happen, the time at which they will happen is uncertain. a man who is always preparing for either class of evil will not have a moment of peace left him. so, if we are not to lose all comfort in life through the fear of evils, some of which are uncertain in themselves, and others, in the time at which they will occur, we should look upon the one kind as never likely to happen, and the other as not likely to happen very soon. now, the less our peace of mind is disturbed by fear, the more likely it is to be agitated by desire and expectation. this is the true meaning of that song of goethe's which is such a favorite with everyone: _ich hab' mein' sach' auf nichts gestellt_. it is only after a man has got rid of all pretension, and taken refuge in mere unembellished existence, that he is able to attain that peace of mind which is the foundation of human happiness. peace of mind! that is something essential to any enjoyment of the present moment; and unless its separate moments are enjoyed, there is an end of life's happiness as a whole. we should always collect that _to-day_ comes only once, and never returns. we fancy that it will come again to-morrow; but _to-morrow_ is another day, which, in its turn, comes once only. we are apt to forget that every day is an integral, and therefore irreplaceable portion of life, and to look upon life as though it were a collective idea or name which does not suffer if one of the individuals it covers is destroyed. we should be more likely to appreciate and enjoy the present, if, in those good days when we are well and strong, we did not fail to reflect how, in sickness and sorrow, every past hour that was free from pain and privation seemed in our memory so infinitely to be envied--as it were, a lost paradise, or some one who was only then seen to have acted as a friend. but we live through our days of happiness without noticing them; it is only when evil comes upon us that we wish them back. a thousand gay and pleasant hours are wasted in ill-humor; we let them slip by unenjoyed, and sigh for them in vain when the sky is overcast. those present moments that are bearable, be they never so trite and common,--passed by in indifference, or, it may be, impatiently pushed away,--those are the moments we should honor; never failing to remember that the ebbing tide is even how hurrying them into the past, where memory will store them transfigured and shining with an imperishable light,--in some after-time, and above all, when our days are evil, to raise the veil and present them as the object of our fondest regret. section 6. _limitations always make for happiness_. we are happy in proportion as our range of vision, our sphere of work, our points of contact with the world, are restricted and circumscribed. we are more likely to feel worried and anxious if these limits are wide; for it means that our cares, desires and terrors are increased and intensified. that is why the blind are not so unhappy as we might be inclined to suppose; otherwise there would not be that gentle and almost serene expression of peace in their faces. another reason why limitation makes for happiness is that the second half of life proves even more dreary that the first. as the years wear on, the horizon of our aims and our points of contact with the world become more extended. in childhood our horizon is limited to the narrowest sphere about us; in youth there is already a very considerable widening of our view; in manhood it comprises the whole range of our activity, often stretching out over a very distant sphere,--the care, for instance, of a state or a nation; in old age it embraces posterity. but even in the affairs of the intellect, limitation is necessary if we are to be happy. for the less the will is excited, the less we suffer. we have seen that suffering is something positive, and that happiness is only a negative condition. to limit the sphere of outward activity is to relieve the will of external stimulus: to limit the sphere of our intellectual efforts is to relieve the will of internal sources of excitement. this latter kind of limitation is attended by the disadvantage that it opens the door to boredom, which is a direct source of countless sufferings; for to banish boredom, a man will have recourse to any means that may be handy--dissipation, society, extravagance, gaming, and drinking, and the like, which in their turn bring mischief, ruin and misery in their train. _difficiles in otio quies_--it is difficult to keep quiet if you have nothing to do. that limitation in the sphere of outward activity is conducive, nay, even necessary to human happiness, such as it is, may be seen in the fact that the only kind of poetry which depicts men in a happy state of life--idyllic poetry, i mean,--always aims, as an intrinsic part of its treatment, at representing them in very simple and restricted circumstances. it is this feeling, too, which is at the bottom of the pleasure we take in what are called _genre_ pictures. _simplicity_, therefore, as far as it can be attained, and even _monotony_, in our manner of life, if it does not mean that we are bored, will contribute to happiness; just because, under such circumstances, life, and consequently the burden which is the essential concomitant of life, will be least felt. our existence will glide on peacefully like a stream which no waves or whirlpools disturb. section 7. whether we are in a pleasant or a painful state depends, ultimately, upon the kind of matter that pervades and engrosses our consciousness. in this respect, purely intellectual occupation, for the mind that is capable of it, will, as a rule, do much more in the way of happiness than any form of practical life, with its constant alternations of success and failure, and all the shocks and torments it produces. but it must be confessed that for such occupation a pre-eminent amount of intellectual capacity is necessary. and in this connection it may be noted that, just as a life devoted to outward activity will distract and divert a man from study, and also deprive him of that quiet concentration of mind which is necessary for such work; so, on the other hand, a long course of thought will make him more or less unfit for the noisy pursuits of real life. it is advisable, therefore, to suspend mental work for a while, if circumstances happen which demand any degree of energy in affairs of a practical nature. section 8. to live a life that shall be entirely prudent and discreet, and to draw from experience all the instruction it contains, it is requisite to be constantly thinking back,--to make a kind of recapitulation of what we have done, of our impressions and sensations, to compare our former with our present judgments--what we set before us and struggle to achieve, with the actual result and satisfaction we have obtained. to do this is to get a repetition of the private lessons of experience,--lessons which are given to every one. experience of the world may be looked upon as a kind of text, to which reflection and knowledge form the commentary. where there is great deal of reflection and intellectual knowledge, and very little experience, the result is like those books which have on each page two lines of text to forty lines of commentary. a great deal of experience with little reflection and scant knowledge, gives us books like those of the _editio bipontina_[1] where there are no notes and much that is unintelligible. [footnote 1: _translator's note_. a series of greek, latin and french classics published at zweibräcken in the palatinate, from and after the year 1779. cf. butter, _ueber die bipontiner und die editiones bipontinae_.] the advice here given is on a par with a rule recommended by pythagoras,--to review, every night before going to sleep, what we have done during the day. to live at random, in the hurly-burly of business or pleasure, without ever reflecting upon the past,--to go on, as it were, pulling cotton off the reel of life,--is to have no clear idea of what we are about; and a man who lives in this state will have chaos in his emotions and certain confusion in his thoughts; as is soon manifest by the abrupt and fragmentary character of his conversation, which becomes a kind of mincemeat. a man will be all the more exposed to this fate in proportion as he lives a restless life in the world, amid a crowd of various impressions and with a correspondingly small amount of activity on the part of his own mind. and in this connection it will be in place to observe that, when events and circumstances which have influenced us pass away in the course of time, we are unable to bring back and renew the particular mood or state of feeling which they aroused in us: but we can remember what we were led to say and do in regard to them; and thus form, as it were, the result, expression and measure of those events. we should, therefore, be careful to preserve the memory of our thoughts at important points in our life; and herein lies the great advantage of keeping a journal. section 9. to be self-sufficient, to be all in all to oneself, to want for nothing, to be able to say _omnia mea mecum porto_--that is assuredly the chief qualification for happiness. hence aristotle's remark, [greek: hae eudaimonia ton autarchon esti][1]--to be happy means to be self-sufficient--cannot be too often repeated. it is, at bottom, the same thought as is present in the very well-turned sentence from chamfort: _le bonheur n'est pas chose aisée: il est très difficile de le trouver en nous, et impossible de le trouver ailleurs_. [footnote 1: _eudem. eth_. vii. ii. 37.] for while a man cannot reckon with certainty upon anyone but himself, the burdens and disadvantages, the dangers and annoyances, which arise from having to do with others, are not only countless but unavoidable. there is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness, revelry, _high life_: for the whole object of it is to transform our miserable existence into a succession of joys, delights and pleasures,--a process which cannot fail to result in disappointment and delusion; on a par, in this respect, with its _obligato_ accompaniment, the interchange of lies.[1] [footnote 1: as our body is concealed by the clothes we wear, so our mind is veiled in lies. the veil is always there, and it is only through it that we can sometimes guess at what a man really thinks; just as from his clothes we arrive at the general shape of his body.] all society necessarily involves, as the first condition of its existence, mutual accommodation and restraint upon the part of its members. this means that the larger it is, the more insipid will be its tone. a man can be _himself_ only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free. constraint is always present in society, like a companion of whom there is no riddance; and in proportion to the greatness of a man's individuality, it will be hard for him to bear the sacrifices which all intercourse with others demands, solitude will be welcomed or endured or avoided, according as a man's personal value is large or small,--the wretch feeling, when he is alone, the whole burden of his misery; the great intellect delighting in its greatness; and everyone, in short, being just what he is. further, if a man stands high in nature's lists, it is natural and inevitable that he should feel solitary. it will be an advantage to him if his surroundings do not interfere with this feeling; for if he has to see a great deal of other people who are not of like character with himself, they will exercise a disturbing influence upon him, adverse to his peace of mind; they will rob him, in fact, of himself, and give him nothing to compensate for the loss. but while nature sets very wide differences between man and man in respect both of morality and of intellect, society disregards and effaces them; or, rather, it sets up artificial differences in their stead,--gradations of rank and position, which are very often diametrically opposed to those which nature establishes. the result of this arrangement is to elevate those whom nature has placed low, and to depress the few who stand high. these latter, then, usually withdraw from society, where, as soon as it is at all numerous, vulgarity reigns supreme. what offends a great intellect in society is the equality of rights, leading to equality of pretensions, which everyone enjoys; while at the same time, inequality of capacity means a corresponding disparity of social power. so-called _good society_ recognizes every kind of claim but that of intellect, which is a contraband article; and people are expected to exhibit an unlimited amount of patience towards every form of folly and stupidity, perversity and dullness; whilst personal merit has to beg pardon, as it were, for being present, or else conceal itself altogether. intellectual superiority offends by its very existence, without any desire to do so. the worst of what is called good society is not only that it offers us the companionship of people who are unable to win either our praise or our affection, but that it does not allow of our being that which we naturally are; it compels us, for the sake of harmony, to shrivel up, or even alter our shape altogether. intellectual conversation, whether grave or humorous, is only fit for intellectual society; it is downright abhorrent to ordinary people, to please whom it is absolutely necessary to be commonplace and dull. this demands an act of severe self-denial; we have to forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to become like other people. no doubt their company may be set down against our loss in this respect; but the more a man is worth, the more he will find that what he gains does not cover what he loses, and that the balance is on the debit side of the account; for the people with whom he deals are generally bankrupt,--that is to say, there is nothing to be got from their society which can compensate either for its boredom, annoyance and disagreeableness, or for the self-denial which it renders necessary. accordingly, most society is so constituted as to offer a good profit to anyone who will exchange it for solitude. nor is this all. by way of providing a substitute for real--i mean intellectual--superiority, which is seldom to be met with, and intolerable when it is found, society has capriciously adopted a false kind of superiority, conventional in its character, and resting upon arbitrary principles,--a tradition, as it were, handed down in the higher circles, and, like a password, subject to alteration; i refer to _bon-ton_ fashion. whenever this kind of superiority comes into collision with the real kind, its weakness is manifest. moreover, the presence of _good tone_ means the absence of _good sense_. no man can be in _perfect accord_ with any one but himself--not even with a friend or the partner of his life; differences of individuality and temperament are always bringing in some degree of discord, though it may be a very slight one. that genuine, profound peace of mind, that perfect tranquillity of soul, which, next to health, is the highest blessing the earth can give, is to be attained only in solitude, and, as a permanent mood, only in complete retirement; and then, if there is anything great and rich in the man's own self, his way of life is the happiest that may be found in this wretched world. let me speak plainly. however close the bond of friendship, love, marriage--a man, ultimately, looks to himself, to his own welfare alone; at most, to his child's too. the less necessity there is for you to come into contact with mankind in general, in the relations whether of business or of personal intimacy, the better off you are. loneliness and solitude have their evils, it is true; but if you cannot feel them all at once, you can at least see where they lie; on the other hand, society is _insidious_ in this respect; as in offering you what appears to be the pastime of pleasing social intercourse, it works great and often irreparable mischief. the young should early be trained to bear being left alone; for it is a source of happiness and peace of mind. it follows from this that a man is best off if he be thrown upon his own resources and can be all in all to himself; and cicero goes so far as to say that a man who is in this condition cannot fail to be very happy--_nemo potest non beatissimus esse qui est totus aptus ex sese, quique in se uno ponit omnia._[1] the more a man has in himself, the less others can be to him. the feeling of self-sufficiency! it is that which restrains those whose personal value is in itself great riches, from such considerable sacrifices as are demanded by intercourse with the world, let alone, then, from actually practicing self-denial by going out of their way to seek it. ordinary people are sociable and complaisant just from the very opposite feeling;--to bear others' company is easier for them than to bear their own. moreover, respect is not paid in this world to that which has real merit; it is reserved for that which has none. so retirement is at once a proof and a result of being distinguished by the possession of meritorious qualities. it will therefore show real wisdom on the part of any one who is worth anything in himself, to limit his requirements as may be necessary, in order to preserve or extend his freedom, and,--since a man must come into some relations with his fellow-men--to admit them to his intimacy as little as possible. [footnote 1: _paradoxa stoidorum_: ii.] i have said that people are rendered sociable by their ability to endure solitude, that is to say, their own society. they become sick of themselves. it is this vacuity of soul which drives them to intercourse with others,--to travels in foreign countries. their mind is wanting in elasticity; it has no movement of its own, and so they try to give it some,--by drink, for instance. how much drunkenness is due to this cause alone! they are always looking for some form of excitement, of the strongest kind they can bear--the excitement of being with people of like nature with themselves; and if they fail in this, their mind sinks by its own weight, and they fall into a grievous lethargy.[1] such people, it may be said, possess only a small fraction of humanity in themselves; and it requires a great many of them put together to make up a fair amount of it,--to attain any degree of consciousness as men. a man, in the full sense of the word,--a man _par excellence_--does not represent a fraction, but a whole number: he is complete in himself. [footnote 1: it is a well-known fact, that we can more easily bear up under evils which fall upon a great many people besides ourselves. as boredom seems to be an evil of this kind, people band together to offer it a common resistance. the love of life is at bottom only the fear of death; and, in the same way, the social impulse does not rest directly upon the love of society, but upon the fear of solitude; it is not alone the charm of being in others' company that people seek, it is the dreary oppression of being alone--the monotony of their own consciousness--that they would avoid. they will do anything to escape it,--even tolerate bad companions, and put up with the feeling of constraint which all society involves, in this case a very burdensome one. but if aversion to such society conquers the aversion to being alone, they become accustomed to solitude and hardened to its immediate effects. they no longer find solitude to be such a very bad thing, and settle down comfortably to it without any hankering after society;--and this, partly because it is only indirectly that they need others' company, and partly because they have become accustomed to the benefits of being alone.] ordinary society is, in this respect, very like the kind of music to be obtained from an orchestra composed of russian horns. each horn has only one note; and the music is produced by each note coming in just at the right moment. in the monotonous sound of a single horn, you have a precise illustration of the effect of most people's minds. how often there seems to be only one thought there! and no room for any other. it is easy to see why people are so bored; and also why they are sociable, why they like to go about in crowds--why mankind is so _gregarious_. it is the monotony of his own nature that makes a man find solitude intolerable. _omnis stultitia laborat fastidio sui_: folly is truly its own burden. put a great many men together, and you may get some result--some music from your horns! a man of intellect is like an artist who gives a concert without any help from anyone else, playing on a single instrument--a piano, say, which is a little orchestra in itself. such a man is a little world in himself; and the effect produced by various instruments together, he produces single-handed, in the unity of his own consciousness. like the piano, he has no place in a symphony: he is a soloist and performs by himself,--in solitude, it may be; or, if in company with other instruments, only as principal; or for setting the tone, as in singing. however, those who are fond of society from time to time may profit by this simile, and lay it down as a general rule that deficiency of quality in those we meet may be to some extent compensated by an increase in quantity. one man's company may be quite enough, if he is clever; but where you have only ordinary people to deal with, it is advisable to have a great many of them, so that some advantage may accrue by letting them all work together,--on the analogy of the horns; and may heaven grant you patience for your task! that mental vacuity and barrenness of soul to which i have alluded, is responsible for another misfortune. when men of the better class form a society for promoting some noble or ideal aim, the result almost always is that the innumerable mob of humanity comes crowding in too, as it always does everywhere, like vermin--their object being to try and get rid of boredom, or some other defect of their nature; and anything that will effect that, they seize upon at once, without the slightest discrimination. some of them will slip into that society, or push themselves in, and then either soon destroy it altogether, or alter it so much that in the end it comes to have a purpose the exact opposite of that which it had at first. this is not the only point of view from which the social impulse may be regarded. on cold days people manage to get some warmth by crowding together; and you can warm your mind in the same way--by bringing it into contact with others. but a man who has a great deal of intellectual warmth in himself will stand in no need of such resources. i have written a little fable illustrating this: it may be found elsewhere.[1] as a general rule, it may be said that a man's sociability stands very nearly in inverse ratio to his intellectual value: to say that "so and so" is very unsociable, is almost tantamount to saying that he is a man of great capacity. [footnote 1: _translator's note_. the passage to which schopenhauer refers is _parerga_: vol. ii. § 413 (4th edition). the fable is of certain porcupines, who huddled together for warmth on a cold day; but as they began to prick one another with their quills, they were obliged to disperse. however the cold drove them together again, when just the same thing happened. at last, after many turns of huddling and dispersing, they discovered that they would be best off by remaining at a little distance from one another. in the same way, the need of society drives the human porcupines together--only to be mutually repelled by the many prickly and disagreeable qualities of their nature. the moderate distance which they at last discover to be the only tolerable condition of intercourse, is the code of politeness and fine manners; and those who transgress it are roughly told--in the english phrase--_to keep their distance_. by this arrangement the mutual need of warmth is only very moderately satisfied,--but then people do not get pricked. a man who has some heat in himself prefers to remain outside, where he will neither prick other people nor get pricked himself.] solitude is doubly advantageous to such a man. firstly, it allows him to be with himself, and, secondly, it prevents him being with others--an advantage of great moment; for how much constraint, annoyance, and even danger there is in all intercourse with the world. _tout notre mal_, says la bruyère, _vient de ne pouvoir être seul_. it is really a very risky, nay, a fatal thing, to be sociable; because it means contact with natures, the great majority of which are bad morally, and dull or perverse, intellectually. to be unsociable is not to care about such people; and to have enough in oneself to dispense with the necessity of their company is a great piece of good fortune; because almost all our sufferings spring from having to do with other people; and that destroys the peace of mind, which, as i have said, comes next after health in the elements of happiness. peace of mind is impossible without a considerable amount of solitude. the cynics renounced all private property in order to attain the bliss of having nothing to trouble them; and to renounce society with the same object is the wisest thing a man can do. bernardin de saint pierre has the very excellent and pertinent remark that to be sparing in regard to food is a means of health; in regard to society, a means of tranquillity--_la diète des ailmens nous rend la santé du corps, et celle des hommes la tranquillité de l'âme._ to be soon on friendly, or even affectionate, terms with solitude is like winning a gold mine; but this is not something which everybody can do. the prime reason for social intercourse is mutual need; and as soon as that is satisfied, boredom drives people together once more. if it were not for these two reasons, a man would probably elect to remain alone; if only because solitude is the sole condition of life which gives full play to that feeling of exclusive importance which every man has in his own eyes,--as if he were the only person in the world! a feeling which, in the throng and press of real life, soon shrivels up to nothing, getting, at every step, a painful _démenti_. from this point of view it may be said that solitude is the original and natural state of man, where, like another adam, he is as happy as his nature will allow. but still, had adam no father or mother? there is another sense in which solitude is not the natural state; for, at his entrance into the world, a man finds himself with parents, brothers, sisters, that is to say, in society, and not alone. accordingly it cannot be said that the love of solitude is an original characteristic of human nature; it is rather the result of experience and reflection, and these in their turn depend upon the development of intellectual power, and increase with the years. speaking generally, sociability stands in inverse ratio with age. a little child raises a piteous cry of fright if it is left alone for only a few minutes; and later on, to be shut up by itself is a great punishment. young people soon get on very friendly terms with one another; it is only the few among them of any nobility of mind who are glad now and then to be alone;--but to spend the whole day thus would be disagreeable. a grown-up man can easily do it; it is little trouble to him to be much alone, and it becomes less and less trouble as he advances in years. an old man who has outlived all his friends, and is either indifferent or dead to the pleasures of life, is in his proper element in solitude; and in individual cases the special tendency to retirement and seclusion will always be in direct proportion to intellectual capacity. for this tendency is not, as i have said, a purely natural one; it does not come into existence as a direct need of human nature; it is rather the effect of the experience we go through, the product of reflection upon what our needs really are; proceeding, more especially, from the insight we attain into the wretched stuff of which most people are made, whether you look at their morals or their intellects. the worst of it all is that, in the individual, moral and intellectual shortcomings are closely connected and play into each other's hands, so that all manner of disagreeable results are obtained, which make intercourse with most people not only unpleasant but intolerable. hence, though the world contains many things which are thoroughly bad, the worst thing in it is society. even voltaire, that sociable frenchman, was obliged to admit that there are everywhere crowds of people not worth talking to: _la terre est couverte de gens qui ne méritent pas qu'on leur parle_. and petrarch gives a similar reason for wishing to be alone--that tender spirit! so strong and constant in his love of seclusion. the streams, the plains and woods know well, he says, how he has tried to escape the perverse and stupid people who have missed the way to heaven:- _cercato ho sempre solitaria vita (le rive il sanno, e le campagne e i boschi) per fuggir quest' ingegni storti e loschi che la strada del ciel' hanno smarrita_. he pursues the same strain in that delightful book of his, _devita solitaria_, which seems to have given zimmerman the idea of his celebrated work on _solitude_. it is the secondary and indirect character of the love of seclusion to which chamfort alludes in the following passage, couched in his sarcastic vein: _on dit quelquefois d'un homme qui vit seul, il n'aime pas la société. c'est souvent comme si on disait d'un homme qu'il n'aime pas la promenade, sous le pretexte qu'il ne se promène pas volontiers le soir dans le forêt de bondy_. you will find a similar sentiment expressed by the persian poet sadi, in his _garden of roses. since that time_, he says, _we have taken leave of society, preferring the path of seclusion; for there is safety in solitude_. angelus silesius,[1] a very gentle and christian writer, confesses to the same feeling, in his own mythical language. herod, he says, is the common enemy; and when, as with joseph, god warns us of danger, we fly from the world to solitude, from bethlehem to egypt; or else suffering and death await us!- _herodes ist ein feind; der joseph der verstand, dem machte gott die gefahr im traum (in geist) bekannt; die welt ist bethlehem, aegypten einsamkeit, fleuch, meine seele! fleuch, sonst stirbest du vor leid_. [footnote 1: _translator's note_. angelus silesius, pseudonym for johannes scheffler, a physician and mystic poet of the seventeenth century (1624-77).] giordano bruno also declares himself a friend of seclusion. _tanti uomini_, he says, _che in terra hanno voluto gustare vita celeste, dissero con una voce, "ecce elongavi fugiens et mansi in solitudine_"--those who in this world have desired a foretaste of the divine life, have always proclaimed with one voice: _lo! then would i wander far off; i would lodge in the wilderness._[1] [footnote 1: psalms, lv. 7.] and in the work from which i have already quoted, sadi says of himself: _in disgust with my friends at damascus, i withdrew into the desert about jerusalem, to seek the society of the beasts of the field_. in short, the same thing has been said by all whom prometheus has formed out of better clay. what pleasure could they find in the company of people with whom their only common ground is just what is lowest and least noble in their own nature--the part of them that is commonplace, trivial and vulgar? what do they want with people who cannot rise to a higher level, and for whom nothing remains but to drag others down to theirs? for this is what they aim at. it is an aristocratic feeling that is at the bottom of this propensity to seclusion and solitude. rascals are always sociable--more's the pity! and the chief sign that a man has any nobility in his character is the little pleasure he takes in others' company. he prefers solitude more and more, and, in course of time, comes to see that, with few exceptions, the world offers no choice beyond solitude on one side and vulgarity on the other. this may sound a hard thing to say; but even angelus silesius, with all his christian feelings of gentleness and love, was obliged to admit the truth of it. however painful solitude may be, he says, be careful not to be vulgar; for then you may find a desert everywhere:- _die einsamkeit ist noth: doch sei nur nicht gemein, so kannst du überall in einer wüste sein_. it is natural for great minds--the true teachers of humanity--to care little about the constant company of others; just as little as the schoolmaster cares for joining in the gambols of the noisy crowd of boys which surround him. the mission of these great minds is to guide mankind over the sea of error to the haven of truth--to draw it forth from the dark abysses of a barbarous vulgarity up into the light of culture and refinement. men of great intellect live in the world without really belonging to it; and so, from their earliest years, they feel that there is a perceptible difference between them and other people. but it is only gradually, with the lapse of years, that they come to a clear understanding of their position. their intellectual isolation is then reinforced by actual seclusion in their manner of life; they let no one approach who is not in some degree emancipated from the prevailing vulgarity. from what has been said it is obvious that the love of solitude is not a direct, original impulse in human nature, but rather something secondary and of gradual growth. it is the more distinguishing feature of nobler minds, developed not without some conquest of natural desires, and now and then in actual opposition to the promptings of mephistopheles--bidding you exchange a morose and soul-destroying solitude for life amongst men, for society; even the worst, he says, will give a sense of human fellowship:- _hör' auf mit deinem gram zu spielen, der, wie ein geier, dir am leben frisst: die schlechteste gesellschaft lässt dich fühlen dass du ein mensch mit menschen bist.[1]_ [footnote 1: goethe's _faust_, part i., 1281-5.] to be alone is the fate of all great minds--a fate deplored at times, but still always chosen as the less grievous of two evils. as the years increase, it always becomes easier to say, dare to be wise--_sapere aude_. and after sixty, the inclination to be alone grows into a kind of real, natural instinct; for at that age everything combines in favor of it. the strongest impulse--the love of woman's society--has little or no effect; it is the sexless condition of old age which lays the foundation of a certain self-sufficiency, and that gradually absorbs all desire for others' company. a thousand illusions and follies are overcome; the active years of life are in most cases gone; a man has no more expectations or plans or intentions. the generation to which he belonged has passed away, and a new race has sprung up which looks upon him as essentially outside its sphere of activity. and then the years pass more quickly as we become older, and we want to devote our remaining time to the intellectual rather than to the practical side of life. for, provided that the mind retains its faculties, the amount of knowledge and experience we have acquired, together with the facility we have gained in the use of our powers, makes it then more than ever easy and interesting to us to pursue the study of any subject. a thousand things become clear which were formerly enveloped in obscurity, and results are obtained which give a feeling of difficulties overcome. from long experience of men, we cease to expect much from them; we find that, on the whole, people do not gain by a nearer acquaintance; and that--apart from a few rare and fortunate exceptions--we have come across none but defective specimens of human nature which it is advisable to leave in peace. we are no more subject to the ordinary illusions of life; and as, in individual instances, we soon see what a man is made of, we seldom feel any inclination to come into closer relations with him. finally, isolation--our own society--has become a habit, as it were a second nature to us, more especially if we have been on friendly terms with it from our youth up. the love of solitude which was formerly indulged only at the expense of our desire for society, has now come to be the simple quality of our natural disposition--the element proper to our life, as water to a fish. this is why anyone who possesses a unique individuality--unlike others and therefore necessarily isolated--feels that, as he becomes older, his position is no longer so burdensome as when he was young. for, as a matter of fact, this very genuine privilege of old age is one which can be enjoyed only if a man is possessed of a certain amount of intellect; it will be appreciated most of all where there is real mental power; but in some degree by every one. it is only people of very barren and vulgar nature who will be just as sociable in their old age as they were in their youth. but then they become troublesome to a society to which they are no longer suited, and, at most, manage to be tolerated; whereas, they were formerly in great request. there is another aspect of this inverse proportion between age and sociability--the way in which it conduces to education. the younger that people are, the more in every respect they have to learn; and it is just in youth that nature provides a system of mutual education, so that mere intercourse with others, at that time of life, carries instruction with it. human society, from this point of view, resembles a huge academy of learning, on the bell and lancaster system, opposed to the system of education by means of books and schools, as something artificial and contrary to the institutions of nature. it is therefore a very suitable arrangement that, in his young days, a man should be a very diligent student at the place of learning provided by nature herself. but there is nothing in life which has not some drawback--_nihil est ab omni parte beatum_, as horace says; or, in the words of an indian proverb, _no lotus without a stalk_. seclusion, which has so many advantages, has also its little annoyances and drawbacks, which are small, however, in comparison with those of society; hence anyone who is worth much in himself will get on better without other people than with them. but amongst the disadvantages of seclusion there is one which is not so easy to see as the rest. it is this: when people remain indoors all day, they become physically very sensitive to atmospheric changes, so that every little draught is enough to make them ill; so with our temper; a long course of seclusion makes it so sensitive that the most trivial incidents, words, or even looks, are sufficient to disturb or to vex and offend us--little things which are unnoticed by those who live in the turmoil of life. when you find human society disagreeable and feel yourself justified in flying to solitude, you can be so constituted as to be unable to bear the depression of it for any length of time, which will probably be the case if you are young. let me advise you, then, to form the habit of taking some of your solitude with you into society, to learn to be to some extent alone even though you are in company; not to say at once what you think, and, on the other hand, not to attach too precise a meaning to what others say; rather, not to expect much of them, either morally or intellectually, and to strengthen yourself in the feeling of indifference to their opinion, which is the surest way of always practicing a praiseworthy toleration. if you do that, you will not live so much with other people, though you may appear to move amongst them: your relation to them will be of a purely objective character. this precaution will keep you from too close contact with society, and therefore secure you against being contaminated or even outraged by it.[1] society is in this respect like a fire--the wise man warming himself at a proper distance from it; not coming too close, like the fool, who, on getting scorched, runs away and shivers in solitude, loud in his complaint that the fire burns. [footnote 1: this restricted, or, as it were, entrenched kind of sociability has been dramatically illustrated in a play--well worth reading--of moratin's, entitled _el café o sea la comedia nuova_ (the cafe or the new comedy), chiefly by one of the characters, don pedro and especially in the second and third scenes of the first act.] section 10. _envy_ is natural to man; and still, it is at once a vice and a source of misery.[1] we should treat it as the enemy of our happiness, and stifle it like an evil thought. this is the advice given by seneca; as he well puts it, we shall be pleased with what we have, if we avoid the self-torture of comparing our own lot with some other and happier one--_nostra nos sine comparatione delectent; nunquam erit felix quem torquebit felicior.[2]_ and again, _quum adspexeris quot te antecedent, cogita quot sequantur_[3]--if a great many people appear to be better off than yourself, think how many there are in a worse position. it is a fact that if real calamity comes upon us, the most effective consolation--though it springs from the same source as envy--is just the thought of greater misfortunes than ours; and the next best is the society of those who are in the same luck as we--the partners of our sorrows. [footnote 1: envy shows how unhappy people are; and their constant attention to what others do and leave undone, how much they are bored.] [footnote 2: _de ira_: iii., 30.] [footnote 3: epist. xv.] so much for the envy which we may feel towards others. as regards the envy which we may excite in them, it should always be remembered that no form of hatred is so implacable as the hatred that comes from envy; and therefore we should always carefully refrain from doing anything to rouse it; nay, as with many another form of vice, it is better altogether to renounce any pleasure there may be in it, because of the serious nature of its consequences. aristocracies are of three kinds: (1) of birth and rank; (2) of wealth; and (3) of intellect. the last is really the most distinguished of the three, and its claim to occupy the first position comes to be recognized, if it is only allowed time to work. so eminent a king as frederick the great admitted it--_les âmes privilegiées rangent à l'égal des souverains_, as he said to his chamberlain, when the latter expressed his surprise that voltaire should have a seat at the table reserved for kings and princes, whilst ministers and generals were relegated to the chamberlain's. every one of these aristocracies is surrounded by a host of envious persons. if you belong to one of them, they will be secretly embittered against you; and unless they are restrained by fear, they will always be anxious to let you understand that _you are no better than they_. it is by their anxiety to let you know this, that they betray how greatly they are conscious that the opposite is the truth. the line of conduct to be pursued if you are exposed to envy, is to keep the envious persons at a distance, and, as far as possible, avoid all contact with them, so that there may be a wide gulf fixed between you and them; if this cannot be done, to bear their attacks with the greatest composure. in the latter case, the very thing that provokes the attack will also neutralize it. this is what appears to be generally done. the members of one of these aristocracies usually get on very well with those of another, and there is no call for envy between them, because their several privileges effect an equipoise. section 11. give mature and repeated consideration to any plan before you proceed to carry it out; and even after you have thoroughly turned it over in your mind, make some concession to the incompetency of human judgment; for it may always happen that circumstances which cannot be investigated or foreseen, will come in and upset the whole of your calculation. this is a reflection that will always influence the negative side of the balance--a kind of warning to refrain from unnecessary action in matters of importance--_quieta non movere._ but having once made up your mind and begun your work, you must let it run its course and abide the result--not worry yourself by fresh reflections on what is already accomplished, or by a renewal of your scruples on the score of possible danger: free your mind from the subject altogether, and refuse to go into it again, secure in the thought that you gave it mature attention at the proper time. this is the same advice as is given by an italian proverb--_legala bene e poi lascia la andare_--which goethe has translated thus: see well to your girths, and then ride on boldly.[1] [footnote 1: it may be observed, in passing, that a great many of the maxims which goethe puts under the head of _proverbial_, are translations from the italian.] and if, notwithstanding that, you fail, it is because human affairs are the sport of chance and error. socrates, the wisest of men, needed the warning voice of his good genius, or [greek: daimonion], to enable him to do what was right in regard to his own personal affairs, or at any rate, to avoid mistakes; which argues that the human intellect is incompetent for the purpose. there is a saying--which is reported to have originated with one of the popes--that when misfortune happens to us, the blame of it, at least in some degree, attaches to ourselves. if this is not true absolutely and in every instance, it is certainly true in the great majority of cases. it even looks as if this truth had a great deal to do with the effort people make as far as possible to conceal their misfortunes, and to put the best face they can upon them, for fear lest their misfortunes may show how much they are to blame. section 12. in the case of a misfortune which has already happened and therefore cannot be altered, you should not allow yourself to think that it might have been otherwise; still less, that it might have been avoided by such and such means; for reflections of this kind will only add to your distress and make it intolerable, so that you will become a tormentor to yourself--[greek: heautontimoroumeaeos]. it is better to follow the example of king david; who, as long as his son lay on the bed of sickness, assailed jehovah with unceasing supplications and entreaties for his recovery; but when he was dead, snapped his fingers and thought no more of it. if you are not light-hearted enough for that, you can take refuge in fatalism, and have the great truth revealed to you that everything which happens is the result of necessity, and therefore inevitable. however good this advice may be, it is one-sided and partial. in relieving and quieting us for the moment, it is no doubt effective enough; but when our misfortunes have resulted--as is usually the case--from our own carelessness or folly, or, at any rate, partly by our own fault, it is a good thing to consider how they might have been avoided, and to consider it often in spite of its being a tender subject--a salutary form of self-discipline, which will make us wiser and better men for the future. if we have made obvious mistakes, we should not try, as we generally do, to gloss them over, or to find something to excuse or extenuate them; we should admit to ourselves that we have committed faults, and open our eyes wide to all their enormity, in order that we may firmly resolve to avoid them in time to come. to be sure, that means a great deal of self-inflicted pain, in the shape of discontent, but it should be remembered that to spare the rod is to spoil the child--[greek: ho mae dareis anthropos ou paideuetai].[1] [footnote 1: menander. monost: 422.] section 13. in all matters affecting our weal or woe, we should be careful not to let our imagination run away with us, and build no castles in the air. in the first place, they are expensive to build, because we have to pull them down again immediately, and that is a source of grief. we should be still more on our guard against distressing our hearts by depicting possible misfortunes. if these were misfortunes of a purely imaginary kind, or very remote and unlikely, we should at once see, on awaking from our dream, that the whole thing was mere illusion; we should rejoice all the more in a reality better than our dreams, or at most, be warned against misfortunes which, though very remote, were still possible. these, however, are not the sort of playthings in which imagination delights; it is only in idle hours that we build castles in the air, and they are always of a pleasing description. the matter which goes to form gloomy dreams are mischances which to some extent really threaten us, though it be from some distance; imagination makes us look larger and nearer and more terrible than they are in reality. this is a kind of dream which cannot be so readily shaken off on awaking as a pleasant one; for a pleasant dream is soon dispelled by reality, leaving, at most, a feeble hope lying in the lap of possibility. once we have abandoned ourselves to a fit of the blues, visions are conjured up which do not so easily vanish again; for it is always just possible that the visions may be realized. but we are not always able to estimate the exact degree of possibility: possibility may easily pass into probability; and thus we deliver ourselves up to torture. therefore we should be careful not to be over-anxious on any matter affecting our weal or our woe, not to carry our anxiety to unreasonable or injudicious limits; but coolly and dispassionately to deliberate upon the matter, as though it were an abstract question which did not touch us in particular. we should give no play to imagination here; for imagination is not judgment--it only conjures up visions, inducing an unprofitable and often very painful mood. the rule on which i am here insisting should be most carefully observed towards evening. for as darkness makes us timid and apt to see terrifying shapes everywhere, there is something similar in the effect of indistinct thought; and uncertainty always brings with it a sense of danger. hence, towards evening, when our powers of thought and judgment are relaxed,--at the hour, as it were, of subjective darkness,--the intellect becomes tired, easily confused, and unable to get at the bottom of things; and if, in that state, we meditate on matters of personal interest to ourselves, they soon assume a dangerous and terrifying aspect. this is mostly the case at night, when we are in bed; for then the mind is fully relaxed, and the power of judgment quite unequal to its duties; but imagination is still awake. night gives a black look to everything, whatever it may be. this is why our thoughts, just before we go to sleep, or as we lie awake through the hours of the night, are usually such confusions and perversions of facts as dreams themselves; and when our thoughts at that time are concentrated upon our own concerns, they are generally as black and monstrous as possible. in the morning all such nightmares vanish like dreams: as the spanish proverb has it, _noche tinta, bianco el dia_--the night is colored, the day is white. but even towards nightfall, as soon as the candles are lit, the mind, like the eye, no longer sees things so clearly as by day: it is a time unsuited to serious meditation, especially on unpleasant subjects. the morning is the proper time for that--as indeed for all efforts without exception, whether mental or bodily. for the morning is the youth of the day, when everything is bright, fresh, and easy of attainment; we feel strong then, and all our faculties are completely at our disposal. do not shorten the morning by getting up late, or waste it in unworthy occupations or in talk; look upon it as the quintessence of life, as to a certain extent sacred. evening is like old age: we are languid, talkative, silly. each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death. but condition of health, sleep, nourishment, temperature, weather, surroundings, and much else that is purely external, have, in general, an important influence upon our mood and therefore upon our thoughts. hence both our view of any matter and our capacity for any work are very much subject to time and place. so it is best to profit by a good mood--for how seldom it comes!- _nehmt die gute stimmung wahr, denn sie kommt so selten_.[1] [footnote 1: goethe.] we are not always able to form new ideas about; our surroundings, or to command original thoughts: they come if they will, and when they will. and so, too, we cannot always succeed in completely considering some personal matter at the precise time at which we have determined beforehand to consider it, and just when we set ourselves to do so. for the peculiar train of thought which is favorable to it may suddenly become active without any special call being made upon it, and we may then follow it up with keen interest. in this way reflection, too, chooses its own time. this reining-in of the imagination which i am recommending, will also forbid us to summon up the memory of the past misfortune, to paint a dark picture of the injustice or harm that has been done us, the losses we have sustained, the insults, slights and annoyances to which we have been exposed: for to do that is to rouse into fresh life all those hateful passions long laid asleep--the anger and resentment which disturb and pollute our nature. in an excellent parable, proclus, the neoplatonist, points out how in every town the mob dwells side by side with those who are rich and distinguished: so, too, in every man, be he never so noble and dignified, there is, in the depth of his nature, a mob of low and vulgar desires which constitute him an animal. it will not do to let this mob revolt or even so much as peep forth from its hiding-place; it is hideous of mien, and its rebel leaders are those flights of imagination which i have been describing. the smallest annoyance, whether it comes from our fellow-men or from the things around us, may swell up into a monster of dreadful aspect, putting us at our wits' end--and all because we go on brooding over our troubles and painting them in the most glaring colors and on the largest scale. it is much better to take a very calm and prosaic view of what is disagreeable; for that is the easiest way of bearing it. if you hold small objects close to your eyes, you limit your field of vision and shut out the world. and, in the same way, the people or the things which stand nearest, even though they are of the very smallest consequence, are apt to claim an amount of attention much beyond their due, occupying us disagreeably, and leaving no room for serious thoughts and affairs of importance. we ought to work against this tendency. section 14. the sight of things which do not belong to us is very apt to raise the thought: _ah, if that were only mine_! making us sensible of our privation. instead of that we should do better by more frequently putting to ourselves the opposite case: _ah, if that were not mine_. what i mean is that we should sometimes try to look upon our possessions in the light in which they would appear if we had lost them; whatever they may be, property, health, friends, a wife or child or someone else we love, our horse or our dog--it is usually only when we have lost them that we begin to find out their value. but if we come to look at things in the way i recommend, we shall be doubly the gainers; we shall at once get more pleasure out of them than we did before, and we shall do everything in our power to prevent the loss of them; for instance, by not risking our property, or angering our friends, or exposing our wives to temptation, or being careless about our children's health, and so on. we often try to banish the gloom and despondency of the present by speculating upon our chances of success in the future; a process which leads us to invent a great many chimerical hopes. every one of them contains the germ of illusion, and disappointment is inevitable when our hopes are shattered by the hard facts of life. it is less hurtful to take the chances of misfortune as a theme for speculation; because, in doing so, we provide ourselves at once with measures of precaution against it, and a pleasant surprise when it fails to make its appearance. is it not a fact that we always feel a marked improvement in our spirits when we begin to get over a period of anxiety? i may go further and say that there is some use in occasionally looking upon terrible misfortunes--such as might happen to us--as though they had actually happened, for then the trivial reverses which subsequently come in reality, are much easier to bear. it is a source of consolation to look back upon those great misfortunes which never happened. but in following out this rule, care must be taken not to neglect what i have said in the preceding section. section 15. the things which engage our attention--whether they are matters of business or ordinary events--are of such diverse kinds, that, if taken quite separately and in no fixed order or relation, they present a medley of the most glaring contrasts, with nothing in common, except that they one and all affect us in particular. there must be a corresponding abruptness in the thoughts and anxieties which these various matters arouse in us, if our thoughts are to be in keeping with their various subjects. therefore, in setting about anything, the first step is to withdraw our attention from everything else: this will enable us to attend to each matter at its own time, and to enjoy or put up with it, quite apart from any thought of our remaining interests. our thoughts must be arranged, as it were, in little drawers, so that we may open one without disturbing any of the others. in this way we can keep the heavy burden of anxiety from weighing upon us so much as to spoil the little pleasures of the present, or from robbing us of our rest; otherwise the consideration of one matter will interfere with every other, and attention to some important business may lead us to neglect many affairs which happen to be of less moment. it is most important for everyone who is capable of higher and nobler thoughts to keep their mind from being so completely engrossed with private affairs and vulgar troubles as to let them take up all his attention and crowd out worthier matter; for that is, in a very real sense, to lose sight of the true end of life--_propter vitam vivendi perdere causas_. of course for this--as for so much else--self-control is necessary; without it, we cannot manage ourselves in the way i have described. and self-control may not appear so very difficult, if we consider that every man has to submit to a great deal of very severe control on the part of his surroundings, and that without it no form of existence is possible. further, a little self-control at the right moment may prevent much subsequent compulsion at the hands of others; just as a very small section of a circle close to the centre may correspond to a part near the circumference a hundred times as large. nothing will protect us from external compulsion so much as the control of ourselves; and, as seneca says, to submit yourself to reason is the way to make everything else submit to you--_si tibi vis omnia subjicere, te subjice rationi_. self-control, too, is something which we have in our own power; and if the worst comes to the worst, and it touches us in a very sensitive part, we can always relax its severity. but other people will pay no regard to our feelings, if they have to use compulsion, and we shall be treated without pity or mercy. therefore it will be prudent to anticipate compulsion by self-control. section 16. we must set limits to our wishes, curb our desires, moderate our anger, always remembering that an individual can attain only an infinitesimal share in anything that is worth having; and that, on the other hand, everyone must incur many of the ills of life; in a word, we must bear and forbear--_abstinere et sustinere_; and if we fail to observe this rule, no position of wealth or power will prevent us from feeling wretched. this is what horace means when he recommends us to study carefully and inquire diligently what will best promote a tranquil life--not to be always agitated by fruitless desires and fears and hopes for things, which, after all, are not worth very much:- _inter cuncta leges et percontabere doctos qua ratione queas traducere leniter aevum; ne te semper inops agitet vexetque cupido, ne pavor, et rerum mediocriter utilium spes.[1]_ [footnote 1: epist. i. xviii. 97.] section 17. life consists in movement, says aristotle; and he is obviously right. we exist, physically, because our organism is the seat of constant motion; and if we are to exist intellectually, it can only be by means of continual occupation--no matter with what so long as it is some form of practical or mental activity. you may see that this is so by the way in which people who have no work or nothing to think about, immediately begin to beat the devil's tattoo with their knuckles or a stick or anything that comes handy. the truth is, that our nature is essentially _restless_ in its character: we very soon get tired of having nothing to do; it is intolerable boredom. this impulse to activity should be regulated, and some sort of method introduced into it, which of itself will enhance the satisfaction we obtain. activity!--doing something, if possible creating something, at any rate learning something--how fortunate it is that men cannot exist without that! a man wants to use his strength, to see, if he can, what effect it will produce; and he will get the most complete satisfaction of this desire if he can make or construct something--be it a book or a basket. there is a direct pleasure in seeing work grow under one's hands day by day, until at last it is finished. this is the pleasure attaching to a work of art or a manuscript, or even mere manual labor; and, of course, the higher the work, the greater pleasure it will give. from this point of view, those are happiest of all who are conscious of the power to produce great works animated by some significant purpose: it gives a higher kind of interest--a sort of rare flavor--to the whole of their life, which, by its absence from the life of the ordinary man, makes it, in comparison, something very insipid. for richly endowed natures, life and the world have a special interest beyond the mere everyday personal interest which so many others share; and something higher than that--a formal interest. it is from life and the world that they get the material for their works; and as soon as they are freed from the pressure of personal needs, it is to the diligent collection of material that they devote their whole existence. so with their intellect: it is to some extent of a two-fold character, and devoted partly to the ordinary affairs of every day--those matters of will which are common to them and the rest of mankind, and partly to their peculiar work--the pure and objective contemplation of existence. and while, on the stage of the world, most men play their little part and then pass away, the genius lives a double life, at once an actor and a spectator. let everyone, then, do something, according to the measure of his capacities. to have no regular work, no set sphere of activity--what a miserable thing it is! how often long travels undertaken for pleasure make a man downright unhappy; because the absence of anything that can be called occupation forces him, as it were, out of his right element. effort, struggles with difficulties! that is as natural to a man as grubbing in the ground is to a mole. to have all his wants satisfied is something intolerable--the feeling of stagnation which comes from pleasures that last too long. to overcome difficulties is to experience the full delight of existence, no matter where the obstacles are encountered; whether in the affairs of life, in commerce or business; or in mental effort--the spirit of inquiry that tries to master its subject. there is always something pleasurable in the struggle and the victory. and if a man has no opportunity to excite himself, he will do what he can to create one, and according to his individual bent, he will hunt or play cup and ball: or led on by this unsuspected element in his nature, he will pick a quarrel with some one, or hatch a plot or intrigue, or take to swindling and rascally courses generally--all to put an end to a state of repose which is intolerable. as i have remarked, _difficilis in otio quies_--it is difficult to keep quiet if you have nothing to do. section 18. a man should avoid being led on by the phantoms of his imagination. this is not the same thing as to submit to the guidance of ideas clearly thought out: and yet these are rules of life which most people pervert. if you examine closely into the circumstances which, in any deliberation, ultimately turn the scale in favor of some particular course, you will generally find that the decision is influenced, not by any clear arrangement of ideas leading to a formal judgment, but by some fanciful picture which seems to stand for one of the alternatives in question. in one of voltaire's or diderot's romances,--i forget the precise reference,--the hero, standing like a young hercules at the parting of ways, can see no other representation of virtue than his old tutor holding a snuff-box in his left hand, from which he takes a pinch and moralizes; whilst vice appears in the shape of his mother's chambermaid. it is in youth, more especially, that the goal of our efforts comes to be a fanciful picture of happiness, which continues to hover before our eyes sometimes for half and even for the whole of our life--a sort of mocking spirit; for when we think our dream is to be realized, the picture fades away, leaving us the knowledge that nothing of what it promised is actually accomplished. how often this is so with the visions of domesticity--the detailed picture of what our home will be like; or, of life among our fellow-citizens or in society; or, again, of living in the country--the kind of house we shall have, its surroundings, the marks of honor and respect that will be paid to us, and so on,--whatever our hobby may be; _chaque fou a sa marotte_. it is often the same, too, with our dreams about one we love. and this is all quite natural; for the visions we conjure up affect us directly, as though they were real objects; and so they exercise a more immediate influence upon our will than an abstract idea, which gives merely a vague, general outline, devoid of details; and the details are just the real part of it. we can be only indirectly affected by an abstract idea, and yet it is the abstract idea alone which will do as much as it promises; and it is the function of education to teach us to put our trust in it. of course the abstract idea must be occasionally explained--paraphrased, as it were--by the aid of pictures; but discreetly, _cum grano salis_. section 19. the preceding rule may be taken as a special case of the more general maxim, that a man should never let himself be mastered by the impressions of the moment, or indeed by outward appearances at all, which are incomparably more powerful in their effects than the mere play of thought or a train of ideas; not because these momentary impressions are rich in virtue of the data they supply,--it is often just the contrary,--but because they are something palpable to the senses and direct in their working; they forcibly invade our mind, disturbing our repose and shattering our resolutions. it is easy to understand that the thing which lies before our very eyes will produce the whole of its effect at once, but that time and leisure are necessary for the working of thought and the appreciation of argument, as it is impossible to think of everything at one and the same moment. this is why we are so allured by pleasure, in spite of all our determination to resist it; or so much annoyed by a criticism, even though we know that its author it totally incompetent to judge; or so irritated by an insult, though it comes from some very contemptible quarter. in the same way, to mention no other instances, ten reasons for thinking that there is no danger may be outweighed by one mistaken notion that it is actually at hand. all this shows the radical unreason of human nature. women frequently succumb altogether to this predominating influence of present impressions, and there are few men so overweighted with reason as to escape suffering from a similar cause. if it is impossible to resist the effects of some external influence by the mere play of thought, the best thing to do is to neutralize it by some contrary influence; for example, the effect of an insult may be overcome by seeking the society of those who have a good opinion of us; and the unpleasant sensation of imminent danger may be avoided by fixing our attention on the means of warding it off. leibnitz[1] tells of an italian who managed to bear up under the tortures of the rack by never for a moment ceasing to think of the gallows which would have awaited him, had he revealed his secret; he kept on crying out: _i see it! i see it_!--afterwards explaining that this was part of his plan. [footnote 1: _nouveaux essais_. liv. i. ch. 2. sec. 11.] it is from some such reason as this, that we find it so difficult to stand alone in a matter of opinion,--not to be made irresolute by the fact that everyone else disagrees with us and acts accordingly, even though we are quite sure that they are in the wrong. take the case of a fugitive king who is trying to avoid capture; how much consolation he must find in the ceremonious and submissive attitude of a faithful follower, exhibited secretly so as not to betray his master's strict _incognito_; it must be almost necessary to prevent him doubting his own existence. section 20. in the first part of this work i have insisted upon the great value of _health_ as the chief and most important element in happiness. let me emphasize and confirm what i have there said by giving a few general rules as to its preservation. the way to harden the body is to impose a great deal of labor and effort upon it in the days of good health,--to exercise it, both as a whole and in its several parts, and to habituate it to withstand all kinds of noxious influences. but on the appearance of an illness or disorder, either in the body as a whole or in many of its parts, a contrary course should be taken, and every means used to nurse the body, or the part of it which is affected, and to spare it any effort; for what is ailing and debilitated cannot be hardened. the muscles may be strengthened by a vigorous use of them; but not so the nerves; they are weakened by it. therefore, while exercising the muscles in every way that is suitable, care should be taken to spare the nerves as much as possible. the eyes, for instance, should be protected from too strong a light,--especially when it is reflected light,--from any straining of them in the dark, or from the long-continued examination of minute objects; and the ears from too loud sounds. above all, the brain should never be forced, or used too much, or at the wrong time; let it have a rest during digestion; for then the same vital energy which forms thoughts in the brain has a great deal of work to do elsewhere,--i mean in the digestive organs, where it prepares chyme and chyle. for similar reasons, the brain should never be used during, or immediately after, violent muscular exercise. for the motor nerves are in this respect on a par with the sensory nerves; the pain felt when a limb is wounded has its seat in the brain; and, in the same way, it is not really our legs and arms which work and move,--it is the brain, or, more strictly, that part of it which, through the medium of the spine, excites the nerves in the limbs and sets them in motion. accordingly, when our arms and legs feel tired, the true seat of this feeling is in the brain. this is why it is only in connection with those muscles which are set in motion consciously and voluntarily,--in other words, depend for their action upon the brain,--that any feeling of fatigue can arise; this is not the case with those muscles which work involuntarily, like the heart. it is obvious, then, that injury is done to the brain if violent muscular exercise and intellectual exertion are forced upon it at the same moment, or at very short intervals. what i say stands in no contradiction with the fact that at the beginning of a walk, or at any period of a short stroll, there often comes a feeling of enhanced intellectual vigor. the parts of the brain that come into play have had no time to become tired; and besides, slight muscular exercise conduces to activity of the respiratory organs, and causes a purer and more oxydated supply of arterial blood to mount to the brain. it is most important to allow the brain the full measure of sleep which is required to restore it; for sleep is to a man's whole nature what winding up is to a clock.[1] this measure will vary directly with the development and activity of the brain; to overstep the measure is mere waste of time, because if that is done, sleep gains only so much in length as it loses in depth.[2] [footnote 1: _of. welt als wille und vorstellung_, 4th edition. bk. ii. pp. 236-40.] [footnote: 2: _cf. loc: cit_: p. 275. sleep is a morsel of death borrowed to keep up and renew the part of life which is exhausted by the day--_le sommeil est un emprunt fait à la mort_. or it might be said that sleep is the interest we have to pay on the capital which is called in at death; and the higher the rate of interest and the more regularly it is paid, the further the date of redemption is postponed.] it should be clearly understood that thought is nothing but the organic function of the brain; and it has to obey the same laws in regard to exertion and repose as any other organic function. the brain can be ruined by overstrain, just like the eyes. as the function of the stomach is to digest, so it is that of the brain to think. the notion of a _soul_,--as something elementary and immaterial, merely lodging in the brain and needing nothing at all for the performance of its essential function, which consists in always and unweariedly _thinking_--has undoubtedly driven many people to foolish practices, leading to a deadening of the intellectual powers; frederick the great, even, once tried to form the habit of doing without sleep altogether. it would be well if professors of philosophy refrained from giving currency to a notion which is attended by practical results of a pernicious character; but then this is just what professorial philosophy does, in its old-womanish endeavor to keep on good terms with the catechism. a man should accustom himself to view his intellectual capacities in no other light than that of physiological functions, and to manage them accordingly--nursing or exercising them as the case may be; remembering that every kind of physical suffering, malady or disorder, in whatever part of the body it occurs, has its effect upon the mind. the best advice that i know on this subject is given by cabanis in his _rapports du physique et du moral de l'homme_.[1] [footnote 1: _translator's note_. the work to which schopenhauer here refers is a series of essays by cabanis, a french philosopher (1757-1808), treating of mental and moral phenomena on a physiological basis. in his later days, cabanis completely abandoned his materialistic standpoint.] through neglect of this rule, many men of genius and great scholars have become weak-minded and childish, or even gone quite mad, as they grew old. to take no other instances, there can be no doubt that the celebrated english poets of the early part of this century, scott, wordsworth, southey, became intellectually dull and incapable towards the end of their days, nay, soon after passing their sixtieth year; and that their imbecility can be traced to the fact that, at that period of life, they were all led on? by the promise of high pay, to treat literature as a trade and to write for money. this seduced them into an unnatural abuse of their intellectual powers; and a man who puts his pegasus into harness, and urges on his muse with the whip, will have to pay a penalty similar to that which is exacted by the abuse of other kinds of power. and even in the case of kant, i suspect that the second childhood of his last four years was due to overwork in later life, and after he had succeeded in becoming a famous man. every month of the year has its own peculiar and direct influence upon health and bodily condition generally; nay, even upon the state of the mind. it is an influence dependent upon the weather. chapter iii. our relation to others.--section 21. in making his way through life, a man will find it useful to be ready and able to do two things: to look ahead and to overlook: the one will protect him from loss and injury, the other from disputes and squabbles. no one who has to live amongst men should absolutely discard any person who has his due place in the order of nature, even though he is very wicked or contemptible or ridiculous. he must accept him as an unalterable fact--unalterable, because the necessary outcome of an eternal, fundamental principle; and in bad cases he should remember the words of mephistopheles: _es muss auch solche käuze geben[1]_--there must be fools and rogues in the world. if he acts otherwise, he will be committing an injustice, and giving a challenge of life and death to the man he discards. no one can alter his own peculiar individuality, his moral character, his intellectual capacity, his temperament or physique; and if we go so far as to condemn a man from every point of view, there will be nothing left him but to engage us in deadly conflict; for we are practically allowing him the right to exist only on condition that he becomes another man--which is impossible; his nature forbids it. [footnote 1: goethe's _faust_, part i.] so if you have to live amongst men, you must allow everyone the right to exist in accordance with the character he has, whatever it turns out to be: and all you should strive to do is to make use of this character in such a way as its kind and nature permit, rather than to hope for any alteration in it, or to condemn it off-hand for what it is. this is the true sense of the maxim--live and let live. that, however, is a task which is difficult in proportion as it is right; and he is a happy man who can once for all avoid having to do with a great many of his fellow creatures. the art of putting up with people may be learned by practicing patience on inanimate objects, which, in virtue of some mechanical or general physical necessity, oppose a stubborn resistance to our freedom of action--a form of patience which is required every day. the patience thus gained may be applied to our dealings with men, by accustoming ourselves to regard their opposition, wherever we encounter it, as the inevitable outcome of their nature, which sets itself up against us in virtue of the same rigid law of necessity as governs the resistance of inanimate objects. to become indignant at their conduct is as foolish as to be angry with a stone because it rolls into your path. and with many people the wisest thing you can do, is to resolve to make use of those whom you cannot alter. section 22. it is astonishing how easily and how quickly similarity, or difference of mind and disposition, makes itself felt between one man and another as soon as they begin to talk: every little trifle shows it. when two people of totally different natures are conversing, almost everything said by the one will, in a greater or less degree, displease the other, and in many cases produce positive annoyance; even though the conversation turn upon the most out-of-the-way subject, or one in which neither of the parties has any real interest. people of similar nature, on the other hand, immediately come to feel a kind of general agreement; and if they are cast very much in the same mould, complete harmony or even unison will flow from their intercourse. this explain two circumstances. first of all, it shows why it is that common, ordinary people are so sociable and find good company wherever they go. ah! those good, dear, brave people. it is just the contrary with those who are not of the common run; and the less they are so, the more unsociable they become; so that if, in their isolation, they chance to come across some one in whose nature they can find even a single sympathetic chord, be it never so minute, they show extraordinary pleasure in his society. for one man can be to another only so much as the other is to him. great minds are like eagles, and build their nest in some lofty solitude. secondly, we are enabled to understand how it is that people of like disposition so quickly get on with one another, as though they were drawn together by magnetic force--kindred souls greeting each other from afar. of course the most frequent opportunity of observing this is afforded by people of vulgar tastes and inferior intellect, but only because their name is legion; while those who are better off in this respect and of a rarer nature, are not often to be met with: they are called rare because you can seldom find them. take the case of a large number of people who have formed themselves into a league for the purpose of carrying out some practical object; if there be two rascals among them, they will recognize each other as readily as if they bore a similar badge, and will at once conspire for some misfeasance or treachery. in the same way, if you can imagine--_per impossible_--a large company of very intelligent and clever people, amongst whom there are only two blockheads, these two will be sure to be drawn together by a feeling of sympathy, and each of them will very soon secretly rejoice at having found at least one intelligent person in the whole company. it is really quite curious to see how two such men, especially if they are morally and intellectually of an inferior type, will recognize each other at first sight; with what zeal they will strive to become intimate; how affably and cheerily they will run to greet each other, just as though they were old friends;--it is all so striking that one is tempted to embrace the buddhist doctrine of metempsychosis and presume that they were on familiar terms in some former state of existence. still, in spite of all this general agreement, men are kept apart who might come together; or, in some cases, a passing discord springs up between them. this is due to diversity of mood. you will hardly ever see two people exactly in the same frame of mind; for that is something which varies with their condition of life, occupation, surroundings, health, the train of thought they are in at the moment, and so on. these differences give rise to discord between persons of the most harmonious disposition. to correct the balance properly, so as to remove the disturbance--to introduce, as it were, a uniform temperature,--is a work demanding a very high degree of culture. the extent to which uniformity of mood is productive of good-fellowship may be measured by its effects upon a large company. when, for instance, a great many people are gathered together and presented with some objective interest which works upon all alike and influences them in a similar way, no matter what it be--a common danger or hope, some great news, a spectacle, a play, a piece of music, or anything of that kind--you will find them roused to a mutual expression of thought, and a display of sincere interest. there will be a general feeling of pleasure amongst them; for that which attracts their attention produces a unity of mood by overpowering all private and personal interests. and in default of some objective interest of the kind i have mentioned, recourse is usually had to something subjective. a bottle of wine is not an uncommon means of introducing a mutual feeling of fellowship; and even tea and coffee are used for a like end. the discord which so easily finds its way into all society as an effect of the different moods in which people happen to be for the moment, also in part explains why it is that memory always idealizes, and sometimes almost transfigures, the attitude we have taken up at any period of the past--a change due to our inability to remember all the fleeting influences which disturbed us on any given occasion. memory is in this respect like the lens of a _camera obscura_: it contracts everything within its range, and so produces a much finer picture than the actual landscape affords. and, in the case of a man, absence always goes some way towards securing this advantageous light; for though the idealizing tendency of the memory requires times to complete its work, it begins it at once. hence it is a prudent thing to see your friends and acquaintances only at considerable intervals of time; and on meeting them again, you will observe that memory has been at work. section 23. no man can see _over his own height._ let me explain what i mean. you cannot see in another man any more than you have in yourself; and your own intelligence strictly determines the extent to which he comes within its grasp. if your intelligence is of a very low order, mental qualities in another, even though they be of the highest kind, will have no effect at all upon you; you will see nothing in their possessor except the meanest side of his individuality--in other words, just those parts of his character and disposition which are weak and defective. your whole estimate of the man will be confined to his defects, and his higher mental qualities will no more exist for you than colors exist for those who cannot see. intellect is invisible to the man who has none. in any attempt to criticise another's work, the range of knowledge possessed by the critic is as essential a part of his verdict as the claims of the work itself. hence intercourse with others involves a process of leveling down. the qualities which are present in one man, and absent in another, cannot come into play when they meet; and the self-sacrifice which this entails upon one of the parties, calls forth no recognition from the other. consider how sordid, how stupid, in a word, how _vulgar_ most men are, and you will see that it is impossible to talk to them without becoming vulgar yourself for the time being. vulgarity is in this respect like electricity; it is easily distributed. you will then fully appreciate the truth and propriety of the expression, _to make yourself cheap_; and you will be glad to avoid the society of people whose only possible point of contact with you is just that part of your nature of which you have least reason to be proud. so you will see that, in dealing with fools and blockheads, there is only one way of showing your intelligence--by having nothing to do with them. that means, of course, that when you go into society, you may now and then feel like a good dancer who gets an invitation to a ball, and on arriving, finds that everyone is lame:--with whom is he to dance? section 24. i feel respect for the man--and he is one in a hundred--who, when he is waiting or sitting unoccupied, refrains from rattling or beating time with anything that happens to be handy,--his stick, or knife and fork, or whatever else it may be. the probability is that he is thinking of something. with a large number of people, it is quite evident that their power of sight completely dominates over their power of thought; they seem to be conscious of existence only when they are making a noise; unless indeed they happen to be smoking, for this serves a similar end. it is for the same reason that they never fail to be all eyes and ears for what is going on around them. section 25. la rochefoucauld makes the striking remark that it is difficult to feel deep veneration and great affection for one and the same person. if this is so, we shall have to choose whether it is veneration or love that we want from our fellow-men. their love is always selfish, though in very different ways; and the means used to gain it are not always of a kind to make us proud. a man is loved by others mainly in the degree in which he moderates his claim on their good feeling and intelligence: but he must act genuinely in the matter and without dissimulation--not merely out of forbearance, which is at bottom a kind of contempt. this calls to mind a very true observation of helvetius[1]: _the amount of intellect necessary to please us, is a most accurate measure of the amount of intellect we have ourselves_. with these remarks as premises, it is easy to draw the conclusion. [footnote 1: _translator's note_. helvetius, claude-adrien (1715-71), a french philosophical writer much esteemed by schopenhauer. his chief work, _de l'esprit_, excited great interest and opposition at the time of its publication, on account of the author's pronounced materialism.] now with veneration the case is just the opposite; it is wrung from men reluctantly, and for that very reason mostly concealed. hence, as compared with love, veneration gives more real satisfaction; for it is connected with personal value, and the same is not directly true of love, which is subjective in its nature, whilst veneration is objective. to be sure, it is more useful to be loved than to be venerated. section 26. most men are so thoroughly subjective that nothing really interests them but themselves. they always think of their own case as soon as ever any remark is made, and their whole attention is engrossed and absorbed by the merest chance reference to anything which affects them personally, be it never so remote: with the result that they have no power left for forming an objective view of things, should the conversation take that turn; neither can they admit any validity in arguments which tell against their interest or their vanity. hence their attention is easily distracted. they are so readily offended, insulted or annoyed, that in discussing any impersonal matter with them, no care is too great to avoid letting your remarks bear the slightest possible reference to the very worthy and sensitive individuals whom you have before you; for anything you may say will perhaps hurt their feelings. people really care about nothing that does not affect them personally. true and striking observations, fine, subtle and witty things are lost upon them: they cannot understand or feel them. but anything that disturbs their petty vanity in the most remote and indirect way, or reflects prejudicially upon their exceedingly precious selves--to that, they are most tenderly sensitive. in this respect they are like the little dog whose toes you are so apt to tread upon inadvertently--you know it by the shrill bark it sets up: or, again, they resemble a sick man covered with sores and boils, with whom the greatest care must be taken to avoid unnecessary handling. and in some people this feeling reaches such a pass that, if they are talking with anyone, and he exhibits, or does not sufficiently conceal, his intelligence and discernment, they look upon it as a downright insult; although for the moment they hide their ill will, and the unsuspecting author of it afterwards ruminates in vain upon their conduct, and racks his brain to discover what he could possibly have done to excite their malice and hatred. but it is just as easy to flatter and win them over; and this is why their judgment is usually corrupt, and why their opinions are swayed, not by what is really true and right, but by the favor of the party or class to which they belong. and the ultimate reason of it all is, that in such people force of will greatly predominates over knowledge; and hence their meagre intellect is wholly given up to the service of the will, and can never free itself from that service for a moment. astrology furnishes a magnificent proof of this miserable subjective tendency in men, which leads them to see everything only as bearing upon themselves, and to think of nothing that is not straightway made into a personal matter. the aim of astrology is to bring the motions of the celestial bodies into relation with the wretched _ego_ and to establish a connection between a comet in the sky and squabbles and rascalities on earth.[1] [footnote 1: see, for instance, stobasus, _eclog. i_. xxii. 9.] section 27. when any wrong statement is made, whether in public or in society, or in books, and well received--or, at any rate, not refuted--that that is no reason why you should despair or think there the matter will rest. you should comfort yourself with the reflection that the question will be afterwards gradually subjected to examination; light will be thrown upon it; it will be thought over, considered, discussed, and generally in the end the correct view will be reached; so that, after a time--the length of which will depend upon the difficulty of the subject--everyone will come to understand that which a clear head saw at once. in the meantime, of course, you must have patience. he who can see truly in the midst of general infatuation is like a man whose watch keeps good time, when all clocks in the town in which he lives are wrong. he alone knows the right time; but what use is that to him? for everyone goes by the clocks which speak false, not even excepting those who know that his watch is the only one that is right. section 28. men are like children, in that, if you spoil them, they become naughty. therefore it is well not to be too indulgent or charitable with anyone. you may take it as a general rule that you will not lose a friend by refusing him a loan, but that you are very likely to do so by granting it; and, for similar reasons, you will not readily alienate people by being somewhat proud and careless in your behaviour; but if you are very kind and complaisant towards them, you will often make them arrogant and intolerable, and so a breach will ensue. there is one thing that, more than any other, throws people absolutely off their balance--the thought that you are dependent upon them. this is sure to produce an insolent and domineering manner towards you. there are some people, indeed, who become rude if you enter into any kind of relation with them; for instance, if you have occasion to converse with them frequently upon confidential matters, they soon come to fancy that they can take liberties with you, and so they try and transgress the laws of politeness. this is why there are so few with whom you care to become more intimate, and why you should avoid familiarity with vulgar people. if a man comes to think that i am more dependent upon him than he is upon me, he at once feels as though i had stolen something from him; and his endeavor will be to have his vengeance and get it back. the only way to attain superiority in dealing with men, is to let it be seen that you are independent of them. and in this view it is advisable to let everyone of your acquaintance--whether man or woman--feel now and then that you could very well dispense with their company. this will consolidate friendship. nay, with most people there will be no harm in occasionally mixing a grain of disdain with your treatment of them; that will make them value your friendship all the more. _chi non istima vien stimato_, as a subtle italian proverb has it--to disregard is to win regard. but if we really think very highly of a person, we should conceal it from him like a crime. this is not a very gratifying thing to do, but it is right. why, a dog will not bear being treated too kindly, let alone a man! section 29. it is often the case that people of noble character and great mental gifts betray a strange lack of worldly wisdom and a deficiency in the knowledge of men, more especially when they are young; with the result that it is easy to deceive or mislead them; and that, on the other hand, natures of the commoner sort are more ready and successful in making their way in the world. the reason of this is that, when a man has little or no experience, he must judge by his own antecedent notions; and in matters demanding judgment, an antecedent notion is never on the same level as experience. for, with the commoner sort of people, an antecedent notion means just their own selfish point of view. this is not the case with those whose mind and character are above the ordinary; for it is precisely in this respect--their unselfishness--that they differ from the rest of mankind; and as they judge other people's thoughts and actions by their own high standard, the result does not always tally with their calculation. but if, in the end, a man of noble character comes to see, as the effect of his own experience, or by the lessons he learns from others, what it is that may be expected of men in general,--namely, that five-sixths of them are morally and intellectually so constituted that, if circumstances do not place you in relation with them, you had better get out of their way and keep as far as possible from having anything to do with them,--still, he will scarcely ever attain an adequate notion of their wretchedly mean and shabby nature: all his life long he will have to be extending and adding to the inferior estimate he forms of them; and in the meantime he will commit a great many mistakes and do himself harm. then, again, after he has really taken to heart the lessons that have been taught him, it will occasionally happen that, when he is in the society of people whom he does not know, he will be surprised to find how thoroughly reasonable they all appear to be, both in their conversation and in their demeanor--in fact, quite honest, sincere, virtuous and trustworthy people, and at the same time shrewd and clever. but that ought not to perplex him. nature is not like those bad poets, who, in setting a fool or a knave before us, do their work so clumsily, and with such evident design, that you might almost fancy you saw the poet standing behind each of his characters, and continually disavowing their sentiments, and telling you in a tone of warning: _this is a knave; that is a fool; do not mind what he says_. but nature goes to work like shakespeare and goethe, poets who make every one of their characters--even if it is the devil himself!--appear to be quite in the right for the moment that they come before us in their several parts; the characters are described so objectively that they excite our interest and compel us to sympathize with their point of view; for, like the works of nature, every one of these characters is evolved as the result of some hidden law or principle, which makes all they say and do appear natural and therefore necessary. and you will always be the prey or the plaything of the devils and fools in this world, if you expect to see them going about with horns or jangling their bells. and it should be borne in mind that, in their intercourse with others, people are like the moon, or like hunchbacks; they show you only one of their sides. every man has an innate talent for mimicry,--for making a mask out of his physiognomy, so that he can always look as if he really were what he pretends to be; and since he makes his calculations always within the lines of his individual nature, the appearance he puts on suits him to a nicety, and its effect is extremely deceptive. he dons his mask whenever his object is to flatter himself into some one's good opinion; and you may pay just as much attention to it as if it were made of wax or cardboard, never forgetting that excellent italian proverb: _non é si tristo cane che non meni la coda_,--there is no dog so bad but that he will wag his tail. in any case it is well to take care not to form a highly favorable opinion of a person whose acquaintance you have only recently made, for otherwise you are very likely to be disappointed; and then you will be ashamed of yourself and perhaps even suffer some injury. and while i am on the subject, there is another fact that deserves mention. it is this. a man shows his character just in the way in which he deals with trifles,--for then he is off his guard. this will often afford a good opportunity of observing the boundless egoism of man's nature, and his total lack of consideration for others; and if these defects show themselves in small things, or merely in his general demeanor, you will find that they also underlie his action in matters of importance, although he may disguise the fact. this is an opportunity which should not be missed. if in the little affairs of every day,--the trifles of life, those matters to which the rule _de minimis non_ applies,--a man is inconsiderate and seeks only what is advantageous or convenient to himself, to the prejudice of others' rights; if he appropriates to himself that which belongs to all alike, you may be sure there is no justice in his heart, and that he would be a scoundrel on a wholesale scale, only that law and compulsion bind his hands. do not trust him beyond your door. he who is not afraid to break the laws of his own private circle, will break those of the state when he can do so with impunity. if the average man were so constituted that the good in him outweighed the bad, it would be more advisable to rely upon his sense of justice, fairness, gratitude, fidelity, love or compassion, than to work upon his fears; but as the contrary is the case, and it is the bad that outweighs the good, the opposite course is the more prudent one. if any person with whom we are associated or have to do, exhibits unpleasant or annoying qualities, we have only to ask ourselves whether or not this person is of so much value to us that we can put up with frequent and repeated exhibitions of the same qualities in a somewhat aggravated form.[1] in case of an affirmative answer to this question, there will not be much to be said, because talking is very little use. we must let the matter pass, with or without some notice; but we should nevertheless remember that we are thereby exposing ourselves to a repetition of the offence. if the answer is in the negative, we must break with our worthy friend at once and forever; or in the case of a servant, dismiss him. for he will inevitably repeat the offence, or do something tantamount to it, should the occasion return, even though for the moment he is deep and sincere in his assurances of the contrary. there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that a man cannot forget,--but not _himself, his own character_. for character is incorrigible; because all a man's actions emanate from an inward principle, in virtue of which he must always do the same thing under like circumstances; and he cannot do otherwise. let me refer to my prize essay on the so-called _freedom of the will_, the perusal of which will dissipate any delusions the reader may have on this subject. [footnote 1: to _forgive and forget_ means to throw away dearly bought experience.] to become reconciled to a friend with whom you have broken, is a form of weakness; and you pay the penalty of it when he takes the first opportunity of doing precisely the very thing which brought about the breach; nay, he does it the more boldly, because he is secretly conscious that you cannot get on without him. this is also applicable to servants whom you have dismissed, and then taken into your service again. for the same reason, you should just as little expect people to continue to act in a similar way under altered circumstances. the truth is that men alter their demeanor and sentiments just as fast as their interest changes; and their resign in this respect is a bill drawn for short payment that the man must be still more short-sighted who accepts the bill without protesting it. accordingly, suppose you want to know how a man will behave in an office into which you think of putting him; you should not build upon expectations, on his promises or assurances. for, even allowing that he is quite sincere, he is speaking about a matter of which he has no knowledge. the only way to calculate how he will behave, is to consider the circumstances in which he will be placed, and the extent to which they will conflict with his character. if you wish to get a clear and profound insight--and it is very needful--into the true but melancholy elements of which most men are made, you will find in a very instructive thing to take the way they behave in the pages of literature as a commentary to their doings in practical life, and _vice versa._ the experience thus gained will be very useful in avoiding wrong ideas, whether about yourself or about others. but if you come across any special trait of meanness or stupidity--in life or in literature,--you must be careful not to let it annoy or distress you, but to look upon it merely as an addition to your knowledge--a new fact to be considered in studying the character of humanity. your attitude towards it will be that of the mineralogist who stumbles upon a very characteristic specimen of a mineral. of course there are some facts which are very exceptional, and it is difficult to understand how they arise, and how it is that there come to be such enormous differences between man and man; but, in general, what was said long ago is quite true, and the world is in a very bad way. in savage countries they eat one another, in civilized they deceive one another; and that is what people call the way of the world! what are states and all the elaborate systems of political machinery, and the rule of force, whether in home or in foreign affairs,--what are they but barriers against the boundless iniquity of mankind? does not all history show that whenever a king is firmly planted on a throne, and his people reach some degree of prosperity, he uses it to lead his army, like a band of robbers, against adjoining countries? are not almost all wars ultimately undertaken for purposes of plunder? in the most remote antiquity, and to some extent also in the middle ages, the conquered became slaves,--in other words, they had to work for those who conquered them; and where is the difference between that and paying war-taxes, which represent the product of our previous work? all war, says voltaire, is a matter of robbery; and the germans should take that as a warning. section 30. no man is so formed that he can be left entirely to himself, to go his own ways; everyone needs to be guided by a preconceived plan, and to follow certain general rules. but if this is carried too far, and a man tries to take on a character which is not natural or innate in him, but it artificially acquired and evolved merely by a process of reasoning, he will very soon discover that nature cannot be forced, and that if you drive it out, it will return despite your efforts:-_naturam expelles furca, tamen usque recurret_. to understand a rule governing conduct towards others, even to discover it for oneself and to express it neatly, is easy enough; and still, very soon afterwards, the rule may be broken in practice. but that is no reason for despair; and you need not fancy that as it is impossible to regulate your life in accordance with abstract ideas and maxims, it is better to live just as you please. here, as in all theoretical instruction that aims at a practical result, the first thing to do is to understand the rule; the second thing is to learn the practice of it. the theory may be understand at once by an effort of reason, and yet the practice of it acquired only in course of time. a pupil may lean the various notes on an instrument of music, or the different position in fencing; and when he makes a mistake, as he is sure to do, however hard he tries, he is apt to think it will be impossible to observe the rules, when he is set to read music at sight or challenged to a furious duel. but for all that, gradual practice makes him perfect, through a long series of slips, blunders and fresh efforts. it is just the same in other things; in learning to write and speak latin, a man will forget the grammatical rules; it is only by long practice that a blockhead turns into a courtier, that a passionate man becomes shrewd and worldly-wise, or a frank person reserved, or a noble person ironical. but though self-discipline of this kind is the result of long habit, it always works by a sort of external compulsion, which nature never ceases to resist and sometimes unexpectedly overcomes. the difference between action in accordance with abstract principles, and action as the result of original, innate tendency, is the same as that between a work of art, say a watch--where form and movement are impressed upon shapeless and inert matter--and a living organism, where form and matter are one, and each is inseparable from the other. there is a maxim attributed to the emperor napoleon, which expresses this relation between acquired and innate character, and confirms what i have said: _everything that is unnatural is imperfect_;--a rule of universal application, whether in the physical or in the moral sphere. the only exception i can think of to this rule is aventurine,[1] a substance known to mineralogists, which in its natural state cannot compare with the artificial preparation of it. [footnote 1: _translator's note_. aventurine is a rare kind of quartz; and the same name is given to a brownish-colored glass much resembling it, which is manufactured at murano. it is so called from the fact that the glass was discovered by chance _(arventura)_.] and in this connection let me utter a word of protest against any and every form of _affectation_. it always arouses contempt; in the first place, because it argues deception, and the deception is cowardly, for it is based on fear; and, secondly, it argues self-condemnation, because it means that a man is trying to appear what he is not, and therefore something which he things better than he actually is. to affect a quality, and to plume yourself upon it, is just to confess that you have not got it. whether it is courage, or learning, or intellect, or wit, or success with women, or riches, or social position, or whatever else it may be that a man boasts of, you may conclude by his boasting about it that that is precisely the direction in which he is rather weak; for if a man really possesses any faculty to the full, it will not occur to him to make a great show of affecting it; he is quite content to know that he has it. that is the application of the spanish proverb: _herradura que chacolotea clavo le falta_--a clattering hoof means a nail gone. to be sure, as i said at first, no man ought to let the reins go quite loose, and show himself just as he is; for there are many evil and bestial sides to our nature which require to be hidden away out of sight; and this justifies the negative attitude of dissimulation, but it does not justify a positive feigning of qualities which are not there. it should also be remembered that affectation is recognized at once, even before it is clear what it is that is being affected. and, finally, affectation cannot last very long, and one day the mask will fall off. _nemo potest personam diu ferre fictam_, says seneca;[1] _ficta cito in naturam suam recidunt_--no one can persevere long in a fictitious character; for nature will soon reassert itself. [footnote 1: _de clementia, i_. 1.] section 31. a man bears the weight of his own body without knowing it, but he soon feels the weight of any other, if he tries to move it; in the same way, a man can see other people's shortcoming's and vices, but he is blind to his own. this arrangement has one advantage: it turns other people into a kind of mirror, in which a man can see clearly everything that is vicious, faulty, ill-bred and loathsome in his own nature; only, it is generally the old story of the dog barking at is own image; it is himself that he sees and not another dog, as he fancies. he who criticises others, works at the reformation of himself. those who form the secret habit of scrutinizing other people's general behavior, and passing severe judgment upon what they do and leave undone, thereby improve themselves, and work out their own perfection: for they will have sufficient sense of justice, or at any rate enough pride and vanity, to avoid in their own case that which they condemn so harshly elsewhere. but tolerant people are just the opposite, and claim for themselves the same indulgence that they extend to others--_hanc veniam damus petimusque vicissim_. it is all very well for the bible to talk about the mote in another's eye and the beam in one's own. the nature of the eye is to look not at itself but at other things; and therefore to observe and blame faults in another is a very suitable way of becoming conscious of one's own. we require a looking-glass for the due dressing of our morals. the same rule applies in the case of style and fine writing. if, instead of condemning, you applaud some new folly in these matters, you will imitate it. that is just why literary follies have such vogue in germany. the germans are a very tolerant people--everybody can see that! their maxim is--_hanc veniam damns petimusque vicissim._ section 32. when he is young, a man of noble character fancies that the relations prevailing amongst mankind, and the alliances to which these relations lead, are at bottom and essentially, _ideal_ in their nature; that is to say, that they rest upon similarity of disposition or sentiment, or taste, or intellectual power, and so on. but, later on, he finds out that it is a _real_ foundation which underlies these alliances; that they are based upon some _material_ interest. this is the true foundation of almost all alliances: nay, most men have no notion of an alliance resting upon any other basis. accordingly we find that a man is always measured by the office he holds, or by his occupation, nationality, or family relations--in a word, by the position and character which have been assigned him in the conventional arrangements of life, where he is ticketed and treated as so much goods. reference to what he is in himself, as a man--to the measure of his own personal qualities--is never made unless for convenience' sake: and so that view of a man is something exceptional, to be set aside and ignored, the moment that anyone finds it disagreeable; and this is what usually happens. but the more of personal worth a man has, the less pleasure he will take in these conventional arrangements; and he will try to withdraw from the sphere in which they apply. the reason why these arrangements exist at all, is simply that in this world of ours misery and need are the chief features: therefore it is everywhere the essential and paramount business of life to devise the means of alleviating them. section 33. as paper-money circulates in the world instead of real coin, so, is the place of true esteem and genuine friendship, you have the outward appearance of it--a mimic show made to look as much like the real thing as possible. on the other hand, it may be asked whether there are any people who really deserve the true coin. for my own part, i should certainly pay more respect to an honest dog wagging his tail than to a hundred such demonstrations of human regard. true and genuine friendship presupposes a strong sympathy with the weal and woe of another--purely objective in its character and quite disinterested; and this in its turn means an absolute identification of self with the object of friendship. the egoism of human nature is so strongly antagonistic to any such sympathy, that true friendship belongs to that class of things--the sea-serpent, for instance,--with regard to which no one knows whether they are fabulous or really exist somewhere or other. still, in many cases, there is a grain of true and genuine friendship in the relation of man to man, though generally, of course, some secret personal interest is at the bottom of them--some one among the many forms that selfishness can take. but in a world where all is imperfect, this grain of true feeling is such an ennobling influence that it gives some warrant for calling those relations by the name of friendship, for they stand far above the ordinary friendships that prevail amongst mankind. the latter are so constituted that, were you to hear how your dear friends speak of you behind your back, you would never say another word to them. apart from the case where it would be a real help to you if your friend were to make some great sacrifice to serve you, there is no better means of testing the genuineness of his feelings than the way in which he receives the news of a misfortune that has just happened to you. at that moment the expression of his features will either show that his one thought is that of true and sincere sympathy for you; or else the absolute composure of his countenance, or the passing trace of something other than sympathy, will confirm the well-known maxim of la rochefoucauld: _dans l'adversite de nos meilleurs amis, nous trouvons toujours quelque chose qui ne nous deplait pas_. indeed, at such a moment, the ordinary so-called friend will find it hard to suppress the signs of a slight smile of pleasure. there are few ways by which you can make more certain of putting people into a good humor than by telling them of some trouble that has recently befallen you, or by unreservedly disclosing some personal weakness of yours. how characteristic this is of humanity! distance and long absence are always prejudicial to friendship, however disinclined a man may be to admit. our regard for people whom we do not see--even though they be our dearest friends--gradually dries up in the course of years, and they become abstract notions; so that our interest in them grows to be more and more intellectual,--nay, it is kept up only as a kind of tradition; whilst we retain a lively and deep interest in those who are constantly before our eyes, even if they be only pet animals. this shows how much men are limited by their senses, and how true is the remark that goethe makes in _tasso_ about the dominant influence of the present moment:- _die gegenwart ist eine mächtige göttin_[1] [footnote 1: act iv., se. 4.] _friends of the house_ are very rightly so called; because they are friends of the house rather than of its master; in other words, they are more like cats than dogs. your friends will tell you that they are sincere; your enemies are really so. let your enemies' censure be like a bitter medicine, to be used as a means of self-knowledge. a friend in need, as the saying goes, is rare. nay, it is just the contrary; no sooner have you made a friend than he is in need, and asks for a loan. section 34. a man must be still a greenhorn in the ways of the world, if he imagines that he can make himself popular in society by exhibiting intelligence and discernment. with the immense majority of people, such qualities excite hatred and resentment, which are rendered all the harder to bear by the fact that people are obliged to suppress--even from themselves--the real reason of their anger. what actually takes place is this. a man feels and perceives that the person with whom he is conversing is intellectually very much his superior.[1] [footnote 1: cf. _welt als wills und vorstellung_, bk. ii. p. 256 (4th edit.), where i quote from dr. johnson, and from merck, the friend of goethe's youth. the former says: _there is nothing by which a man exasperates most people more, than by displaying a superior ability of brilliancy in conversation. they seem pleased at the time, but their envy makes them curse him at their hearts._ (boswells _life of johnson_ aetat: 74).] he thereupon secretly and half unconsciously concludes that his interlocutor must form a proportionately low and limited estimate of his abilities. that is a method of reasoning--an enthymeme--which rouses the bitterest feelings of sullen and rancorous hatred. and so gracian is quite right in saying that the only way to win affection from people is to show the most animal-like simplicity of demeanor--_para ser bien quisto, el unico medio vestirse la piel del mas simple de los brutos_.[1] [footnote 1: _translator's note_.--balthazar graeian, _oraculo manual, y arte de prudencia_, 240. gracian (1584-1658) was a spanish prose writer and jesuit, whose works deal chiefly with the observation of character in the various phenomena of life. schopenhauer, among others, had a great admiration for his worldly philosophy, and translated his _oraculo manual_--a system of rules for the conduct of life--into german. the same book was translated into english towards the close of the seventeenth century.] to show your intelligence and discernment is only an indirect way of reproaching other people for being dull and incapable. and besides, it is natural for a vulgar man to be violently agitated by the sight of opposition in any form; and in this case envy comes in as the secret cause of his hostility. for it is a matter of daily observation that people take the greatest pleasure in that which satisfies their vanity; and vanity cannot be satisfied without comparison with others. now, there is nothing of which a man is prouder than of intellectual ability, for it is this that gives him his commanding place in the animal world. it is an exceedingly rash thing to let any one see that you are decidedly superior to him in this respect, and to let other people see it too; because he will then thirst for vengeance, and generally look about for an opportunity of taking it by means of insult, because this is to pass from the sphere of _intellect_ to that of _will_--and there, all are on an equal footing as regards the feeling of hostility. hence, while rank and riches may always reckon upon deferential treatment in society, that is something which intellectual ability can never expect; to be ignored is the greatest favor shown to it; and if people notice it at all, it is because they regard it as a piece of impertinence, or else as something to which its possessor has no legitimate right, and upon which he dares to pride himself; and in retaliation and revenge for his conduct, people secretly try and humiliate him in some other way; and if they wait to do this, it is only for a fitting opportunity. a man may be as humble as possible in his demeanor, and yet hardly ever get people to overlook his crime in standing intellectually above them. in the _garden of roses_, sadi makes the remark:--_you should know that foolish people are a hundredfold more averse to meeting the wise than the wise are indisposed for the company of the foolish_. on the other hand, it is a real recommendation to be stupid. for just as warmth is agreeable to the body, so it does the mind good to feel its superiority; and a man will seek company likely to give him this feeling, as instinctively as he will approach the fireplace or walk in the sun if he wants to get warm. but this means that he will be disliked on account of his superiority; and if a man is to be liked, he must really be inferior in point of intellect; and the same thing holds good of a woman in point of beauty. to give proof of real and unfeigned inferiority to some of the people you meet--that is a very difficult business indeed! consider how kindly and heartily a girl who is passably pretty will welcome one who is downright ugly. physical advantages are not thought so much of in the case of man, though i suppose you would rather a little man sat next to you than one who was bigger than yourself. this is why, amongst men, it is the dull and ignorant, and amongst women, the ugly, who are always popular and in request.[1] it is likely to be said of such people that they are extremely good-natured, because every one wants to find a pretext for caring about them--a pretext which will blind both himself and other people to the real reason why he likes them. this is also why mental superiority of any sort always tends to isolate its possessor; people run away from him out of pure hatred, and say all manner of bad things about him by way of justifying their action. beauty, in the case of women, has a similar effect: very pretty girls have no friends of their own sex, and they even find it hard to get another girl to keep them company. a handsome woman should always avoid applying for a position as companion, because the moment she enters the room, her prospective mistress will scowl at her beauty, as a piece of folly with which, both for her own and for her daughter's sake, she can very well dispense. but if the girl has advantages of rank, the case is very different; because rank, unlike personal qualities which work by the force of mere contrast, produces its effect by a process of reflection; much in the same way as the particular hue of a person's complexion depends upon the prevailing tone of his immediate surroundings. [footnote 1: if you desire to get on in the world, friends and acquaintances are by far the best passport to fortune. the possession of a great deal of ability makes a man proud, and therefore not apt to flatter those who have very little, and from whom, on that account, the possession of great ability should be carefully concealed. the consciousness of small intellectual power has just the opposite effect, and is very compatible with a humble, affable and companionable nature, and with respect for what is mean and wretched. this is why an inferior sort of man has so many friends to befriend and encourage him. these remarks are applicable not only to advancement in political life, but to all competition for places of honor and dignity, nay, even for reputation in the world of science, literature and art. in learned societies, for example, mediocrity--that very acceptable quality--is always to the fore, whilst merit meets with tardy recognition, or with none at all. so it is in everything.] section 35. our trust in other people often consists in great measure of pure laziness, selfishness and vanity on our own part: i say _laziness_, because, instead of making inquiries ourselves, and exercising an active care, we prefer to trust others; _selfishness_, because we are led to confide in people by the pressure of our own affairs; and _vanity_, when we ask confidence for a matter on which we rather pride ourselves. and yet, for all that, we expect people to be true to the trust we repose in them. but we ought not to become angry if people put no trust in us: because that really means that they pay honesty the sincere compliment of regarding it as a very rare thing,--so rare, indeed, as to leave us in doubt whether its existence is not merely fabulous. section 36. _politeness_,--which the chinese hold to be a cardinal virtue,--is based upon two considerations of policy. i have explained one of these considerations in my _ethics_; the other is as follows:--politeness is a tacit agreement that people's miserable defects, whether moral or intellectual, shall on either side be ignored and not made the subject of reproach; and since these defects are thus rendered somewhat less obtrusive, the result is mutually advantageous.[1] [footnote 1: _translator's note_.--in the passage referred to _(grundlage der moral_, collected works, vol. iv., pp. 187 and 198), schopenhauer explains politeness as a conventional and systematic attempt to mask the egoism of human nature in the small affairs of life,--an egoism so repulsive that some such device is necessary for the purpose of concealing its ugliness. the relation which politeness bears to the true love of one's neighbor is analogous to that existing between justice as an affair of legality, and justice as the real integrity of the heart.] it is a wise thing to be polite; consequently, it is a stupid thing to be rude. to make enemies by unnecessary and willful incivility, is just as insane a proceeding as to set your house on fire. for politeness is like a counter--an avowedly false coin, with which it is foolish to be stingy. a sensible man will be generous in the use of it. it is customary in every country to end a letter with the words:--_your most obedient servant_--_votre très-humble serviteur_--_suo devotissimo servo_. (the germans are the only people who suppress the word _servant_--_diener_--because, of course, it is not true!) however, to carry politeness to such an extent as to damage your prospects, is like giving money where only counters are expected. wax, a substance naturally hard and brittle, can be made soft by the application of a little warmth, so that it will take any shape you please. in the same way, by being polite and friendly, you can make people pliable and obliging, even though they are apt to be crabbed and malevolent. hence politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax. of course, it is no easy matter to be polite; in so far, i mean, as it requires us to show great respect for everybody, whereas most people deserve none at all; and again in so far as it demands that we should feign the most lively interest in people, when we must be very glad that we have nothing to do with them. to combine politeness with pride is a masterpiece of wisdom. we should be much less ready to lose our temper over an insult,--which, in the strict sense of the word, means that we have not been treated with respect,--if, on the one hand, we have not such an exaggerated estimate of our value and dignity--that is to say, if we were not so immensely proud of ourselves; and, on the other hand, if we had arrived at any clear notion of the judgment which, in his heart, one man generally passes upon another. if most people resent the slightest hint that any blame attaches to them, you may imagine their feelings if they were to overhear what their acquaintance say about them. you should never lose sight of the fact that ordinary politeness is only a grinning mask: if it shifts its place a little, or is removed for a moment, there is no use raising a hue and cry. when a man is downright rude, it is as though he had taken off all his clothes, and stood before you in _puris naturalibus_. like most men in this condition, he does not present a very attractive appearance. section 37. you ought never to take any man as a model for what you should do or leave undone; because position and circumstances are in no two cases alike, and difference of character gives a peculiar, individual tone to what a man does. hence _duo cum faciunt idem, non est idem_--two persons may do the same thing with a different result. a man should act in accordance with his own character, as soon as he has carefully deliberated on what he is about to do. the outcome of this is that _originality_ cannot be dispensed with in practical matters: otherwise, what a man does will not accord with what he is. section 38. never combat any man's opinion; for though you reached the age of methuselah, you would never have done setting him right upon all the absurd things that he believes. it is also well to avoid correcting people's mistakes in conversation, however good your intentions may be; for it is easy to offend people, and difficult, if not impossible, to mend them. if you feel irritated by the absurd remarks of two people whose conversation you happen to overhear, you should imagine that you are listening to a dialogue of two fools in a comedy. _probatum est._ the man who comes into the world with the notion that he is really going to instruct in matters of the highest importance, may thank his stars if he escapes with a whole skin. section 39. if you want your judgment to be accepted, express it coolly and without passion. all violence has its seat in the _will_; and so, if your judgment is expressed with vehemence, people will consider it an effort of will, and not the outcome of knowledge, which is in its nature cold and unimpassioned. since the will is the primary and radical element in human nature, and _intellect_ merely supervenes as something secondary, people are more likely to believe that the opinion you express with so much vehemence is due to the excited state of your will, rather than that the excitement of the will comes only from the ardent nature of your opinion. section 40. even when you are fully justified in praising yourself, you should never be seduced into doing so. for vanity is so very common, and merit so very uncommon, that even if a man appears to be praising himself, though very indirectly, people will be ready to lay a hundred to one that he is talking out of pure vanity, and that he has not sense enough to see what a fool he is making of himself. still, for all that, there may be some truth in bacon's remark that, as in the case of calumny, if you throw enough dirt, some of it will stick, so it it also in regard to self-praise; with the conclusion that self-praise, in small doses, is to be recommended.[1] [footnote 1: _translator's note_.--schopenhauer alludes to the following passage in bacon's _de augmentis scientiarum_, bk. viii., ch. 2: _sicut enim dici solet de calumnia_, audacter calumniare, semper aliquid haeret; _sic dici potest de jactantia, (nisi plane deformis fuerit et ridicula_), audacter te vendita, semper aliquid haeret. _haerebit certe apud populum, licet prudentiores subrideant. itaque existimatio parta apud plurimos paucorum fastidium abunde compensabit._] section 41. if you have reason to suspect that a person is telling you a lie, look as though you believed every word he said. this will give him courage to go on; he will become more vehement in his assertions, and in the end betray himself. again, if you perceive that a person is trying to conceal something from you, but with only partial success, look as though you did not believe him, this opposition on your part will provoke him into leading out his reserve of truth and bringing the whole force of it to bear upon your incredulity. section 42. you should regard all your private affairs as secrets, and, in respect of them, treat your acquaintances, even though you are on good terms with them, as perfect strangers, letting them know nothing more than they can see for themselves. for in course of time, and under altered circumstances, you may find it a disadvantage that they know even the most harmless things about you. and, as a general rule, it is more advisable to show your intelligence by saying nothing than by speaking out; for silence is a matter of prudence, whilst speech has something in it of vanity. the opportunities for displaying the one or the other quality occur equally often; but the fleeting satisfaction afforded by speech is often preferred to the permanent advantage secured by silence. the feeling of relief which lively people experience in speaking aloud when no one is listening, should not be indulged, lest it grow into a habit; for in this way thought establishes such very friendly terms with speech, that conversation is apt to become a process of thinking aloud. prudence exacts that a wide gulf should be fixed between what we think and what we say. at times we fancy that people are utterly unable to believe in the truth of some statement affecting us personally, whereas it never occurs to them to doubt it; but if we give them the slightest opportunity of doubting it, they find it absolutely impossible to believe it any more. we often betray ourselves into revealing something, simply because we suppose that people cannot help noticing it,--just as a man will throw himself down from a great height because he loses his head, in other words, because he fancies that he cannot retain a firm footing any longer; the torment of his position is so great, that he thinks it better to put an end to it at once. this is the kind of insanity which is called _acrophobia_. but it should not be forgotten how clever people are in regard to affairs which do not concern them, even though they show no particularly sign of acuteness in other matters. this is a kind of algebra in which people are very proficient: give them a single fact to go upon, and they will solve the most complicated problems. so, if you wish to relate some event that happened long ago, without mentioning any names, or otherwise indicating the persons to whom you refer, you should be very careful not to introduce into your narrative anything that might point, however distantly, to some definite fact, whether it is a particular locality, or a date, or the name of some one who was only to a small extent implicated, or anything else that was even remotely connected with the event; for that at once gives people something positive to go upon, and by the aid of their talent for this sort of algebra, they will discover all the rest. their curiosity in these matters becomes a kind of enthusiasm: their will spurs on their intellect, and drives it forward to the attainment of the most remote results. for however unsusceptible and different people may be to general and universal truths, they are very ardent in the matter of particular details. in keeping with what i have said, it will be found that all those who profess to give instructions in the wisdom of life are specially urgent in commending the practice of silence, and assign manifold reasons why it should be observed; so it is not necessary for me to enlarge upon the subject any further. however, i may just add one or two little known arabian proverbs, which occur to me as peculiarly appropriate:-_do not tell a friend anything that you would conceal from an enemy_. _a secret is in my custody, if i keep it; but should it escape me, it is i who am the prisoner_. _the tree of silence bears the fruit of peace_. section 43. money is never spent to so much advantage as when you have been cheated out of it; for at one stroke you have purchased prudence. section 44. if possible, no animosity should be felt for anyone. but carefully observe and remember the manner in which a man conducts himself, so that you may take the measure of his value,--at any rate in regard to yourself,--and regulate your bearing towards him accordingly; never losing sight of the fact that character is unalterable, and that to forget the bad features in a man's disposition is like throwing away hard-won money. thus you will protect yourself against the results of unwise intimacy and foolish friendship. _give way neither to love nor to hate_, is one-half of worldly wisdom: _say nothing and believe nothing_, the other half. truly, a world where there is need of such rules as this and the following, is one upon which a man may well turn his back. section 45. to speak angrily to a person, to show your hatred by what you say or by the way you look, is an unnecessary proceeding--dangerous, foolish, ridiculous, and vulgar. anger and hatred should never be shown otherwise than in what you do; and feelings will be all the more effective in action, in so far as you avoid the exhibition of them in any other way. it is only cold-blooded animals whose bite is poisonous. section 46. to speak without emphasizing your words--_parler sans accent_--is an old rule with those who are wise in the world's ways. it means that you should leave other people to discover what it is that you have said; and as their minds are slow, you can make your escape in time. on the other hand, to emphasize your meaning--_parler avec accent_--is to address their feelings; and the result is always the opposite of what you expect. if you are polite enough in your manner and courteous in your tone there are many people whom you may abuse outright, and yet run no immediate risk of offending them. chapter iv, worldly fortune.--section 47. however varied the forms that human destiny may take, the same elements are always present; and so life is everywhere much of a piece, whether it passed in the cottage or in the palace, in the barrack or in the cloister. alter the circumstance as much as you please! point to strange adventures, successes, failures! life is like a sweet-shop, where there is a great variety of things, odd in shape and diverse in color--one and all made from the same paste. and when men speak of some one's success, the lot of the man who has failed is not so very different as it seems. the inequalities in the world are like the combinations in a kaleidoscope; at every turn a fresh picture strikes the eye; and yet, in reality, you see only the same bits of glass as you saw before. section 48. an ancient writer says, very truly, that there are three great powers in the world; _sagacity, strength_, and _luck_,--[greek: sunetos, kratos, tuchu.] i think the last is the most efficacious. a man's life is like the voyage of a ship, where luck--_secunda aut adversa fortuna_--acts the part of the wind, and speeds the vessel on its way or drives it far out of its course. all that the man can do for himself is of little avail; like the rudder, which, if worked hard and continuously, may help in the navigation of the ship; and yet all may be lost again by a sudden squall. but if the wind is only in the right quarter, the ship will sail on so as not to need any steering. the power of luck is nowhere better expressed than in a certain spanish proverb: _da ventura a tu hijo, y echa lo en el mar_--give your son luck and throw him into the sea. still, chance, it may be said, is a malignant power, and as little as possible should be left to its agency. and yet where is there any giver who, in dispensing gifts, tells us quite clearly that we have no right to them, and that we owe them not to any merit on our part, but wholly to the goodness and grace of the giver--at the same time allowing us to cherish the joyful hope of receiving, in all humility, further undeserved gifts from the same hands--where is there any giver like that, unless it be _chance_? who understands the kingly art of showing the recipient that all merit is powerless and unavailing against the royal grace and favor. on looking back over the course of his life,--that _labyrinthine way of error_,--a man must see many points where luck failed him and misfortune came; and then it is easy to carry self-reproach to an unjust excess. for the course of a man's life is in no wise entirely of his own making; it is the product of two factors--the series of things that happened, and his own resolves in regard to them, and these two are constantly interacting upon and modifying each other. and besides these, another influence is at work in the very limited extent of a man's horizon, whether it is that he cannot see very far ahead in respect of the plans he will adopt, or that he is still less able to predict the course of future events: his knowledge is strictly confined to present plans and present events. hence, as long as a man's goal is far off, he cannot steer straight for it; he must be content to make a course that is approximately right; and in following the direction in which he thinks he ought to go, he will often have occasion to tack. all that a man can do is to form such resolves as from time to time accord with the circumstances in which he is placed, in the hope of thus managing to advance a step nearer towards the final goal. it is usually the case that the position in which we stand, and the object at which we aim, resemble two tendencies working with dissimilar strength in different directions; and the course of our life is represented by their diagonal, or resultant force. terence makes the remark that life is like a game at dice, where if the number that turns up is not precisely the one you want, you can still contrive to use it equally:--_in vita est hominum quasi cum ludas tesseris; si illud quod maxime opus est jactu non cadit, illud quod cecidit forte, id arte ut corrigas_.[1] or, to put the matter more shortly, life is a game of cards, when the cards are shuffled and dealt by fate. but for my present purpose, the most suitable simile would be that of a game of chess, where the plan we determined to follow is conditioned by the play of our rival,--in life, by the caprice of fate. we are compelled to modify our tactics, often to such an extent that, as we carry them out, hardly a single feature of the original plan can be recognized. [footnote 1: he seems to have been referring to a game something like backgammon.] but above and beyond all this, there is another influence that makes itself felt in our lives. it is a trite saying--only too frequently true--that we are often more foolish than we think. on the other hand, we are often wiser than we fancy ourselves to be. this, however, is a discovery which only those can make, of whom it is really true; and it takes them a long time to make it. our brains are not the wisest part of us. in the great moments of life, when a man decides upon an important step, his action is directed not so much by any clear knowledge of the right thing to do, as by an inner impulse--you may almost call it an instinct--proceeding from the deepest foundations of his being. if, later on, he attempts to criticise his action by the light of hard and fast ideas of what is right in the abstract--those unprofitable ideas which are learnt by rote, or, it may be, borrowed from other people; if he begins to apply general rules, the principles which have guided others, to his own case, without sufficiently weighing the maxim that one man's meat is another's poison, then he will run great risk of doing himself an injustice. the result will show where the right course lay. it is only when a man has reached the happy age of wisdom that he is capable of just judgment in regard either to his own actions or to those of others. it may be that this impulse or instinct is the unconscious effect of a kind of prophetic dream which is forgotten when we awake--lending our life a uniformity of tone, a dramatic unity, such as could never result from the unstable moments of consciousness, when we are so easily led into error, so liable to strike a false note. it is in virtue of some such prophetic dream that a man feels himself called to great achievements in a special sphere, and works in that direction from his youth up out of an inner and secret feeling that that is his true path, just as by a similar instinct the bee is led to build up its cells in the comb. this is the impulse which balthazar gracian calls _la gran sindéresis_[1]--the great power of moral discernment: it is something that a man instinctively feels to be his salvation without which he were lost. [footnote 1: _translator's note_.--this obscure word appears to be derived from the greek _sugtaereo_ (n.t. and polyb.) meaning "to observe strictly." it occurs in _the doctor and student_, a series of dialogues between a doctor of divinity and a student on the laws of england, first published in 1518; and is there (dialog. i. ch. 13) explained as "a natural power of the soule, set in the highest part thereof, moving and stirring it to good, and abhoring evil." this passage is copied into milton's commonplace book, edit. _horwood_, § 79. the word is also found in the dictionary of the spanish academy (vol. vi. of the year 1739) in the sense of an innate discernment of moral principles, where a quotation is given from madre maria de jesus, abbess of the convent of the conception at agreda, a mystical writer of the seventeenth century, frequently consulted by philip iv.,--and again in the bolognese dictionary of 1824, with a similar meaning, illustrated from the writings of salvini (1653-1729). for these references i am indebted to the kindness of mr. norman maccoll.] to act in accordance with abstract principles is a difficult matter, and a great deal of practice will be required before you can be even occasionally successful; it of tens happens that the principles do not fit in with your particular case. but every man has certain innate _concrete principles_--a part, as it were, of the very blood that flows in his veins, the sum or result, in fact, of all his thoughts, feelings and volitions. usually he has no knowledge of them in any abstract form; it is only when he looks back upon the course his life has taken, that he becomes aware of having been always led on by them--as though they formed an invisible clue which he had followed unawares. section 49. that time works great changes, and that all things are in their nature fleeting--these are truths that should never be forgotten. hence, in whatever case you may be, it is well to picture to yourself the opposite: in prosperity, to be mindful of misfortune; in friendship, of enmity; in good weather, of days when the sky is overcast; in love, of hatred; in moments of trust, to imagine the betrayal that will make you regret your confidence; and so, too, when you are in evil plight, to have a lively sense of happier times--what a lasting source of true worldly wisdom were there! we should then always reflect, and not be so very easily deceived; because, in general, we should anticipate the very changes that the years will bring. perhaps in no form of knowledge is personal experience so indispensable as in learning to see that all things are unstable and transitory in this world. there is nothing that, in its own place and for the time it lasts, is not a product of necessity, and therefore capable of being fully justified; and it is this fact that makes circumstances of every year, every month, even of every day, seem as though they might maintain their right to last to all eternity. but we know that this can never be the case, and that in a world where all is fleeting, change alone endures. he is a prudent man who is not only undeceived by apparent stability, but is able to forecast the lines upon which movement will take place.[1] [footnote 1: _chance_ plays so great a part in all human affairs that when a man tries to ward off a remote danger by present sacrifice, the danger often vanishes under some new and unforeseen development of events; and then the sacrifice, in addition to being a complete loss, brings about such an altered state of things as to be in itself a source of positive danger in the face of this new development. in taking measures of precaution, then, it is well not to look too far ahead, but to reckon with chance; and often to oppose a courageous front to a danger, in the hope that, like many a dark thunder-cloud, it may pass away without breaking.] but people generally think that present circumstances will last, and that matters will go on in the future as they have clone in the past. their mistakes arises from the fact that they do not understand the cause of the things they see--causes which, unlike the effects they produce, contain in themselves the germ of future change. the effects are all that people know, and they hold fast to them on the supposition that those unknown causes, which were sufficient to bring them about, will also be able to maintain them as they are. this is a very common error; and the fact that it is common is not without its advantage, for it means that people always err in unison; and hence the calamity which results from the error affects all alike, and is therefore easy to bear; whereas, if a philosopher makes a mistake, he is alone in his error, and so at a double disadvantage.[1] [footnote 1: i may remark, parenthetically, that all this is a confirmation of the principle laid down in _die welt als wille und vorstellung_ (bk. i. p. 94: 4th edit.), that error always consists in making _a wrong inference_, that is, in ascribing a given effect to something that did not cause it.] but in saying that we should anticipate the effects of time, i mean that we should mentally forecast what they are likely to be; i do not mean that we should practically forestall them, by demanding the immediate performance of promises which time alone can fulfill. the man who makes his demand will find out that there is no worse or more exacting usurer than time; and that, if you compel time to give money in advance, you will have to pay a rate of interest more ruinous than any jew would require. it is possible, for instance, to make a tree burst forth into leaf, blossom, or even bear fruit within a few days, by the application of unslaked lime and artificial heat; but after that the tree will wither away. so a young man may abuse his strength--it may be only for a few weeks--by trying to do at nineteen what he could easily manage at thirty, and time may give him the loan for which he asks; but the interest he will have to pay comes out of the strength of his later years; nay, it is part of his very life itself. there are some kinds of illness in which entire restoration to health is possible only by letting the complaint run its natural course; after which it disappears without leaving any trace of its existence. but if the sufferer is very impatient, and, while he is still affected, insists that he is completely well, in this case, too, time will grant the loan, and the complaint may be shaken off; but life-long weakness and chronic mischief will be the interest paid upon it. again, in time of war or general disturbance, a man may require ready money at once, and have to sell out his investments in land or consols for a third or even a still smaller fraction of the sum he would have received from them, if he could have waited for the market to right itself, which would have happened in due course; but he compels time to grant him a loan, and his loss is the interest he has to pay. or perhaps he wants to go on a long journey and requires the money: in one or two years he could lay by a sufficient sum out of his income, but he cannot afford to wait; and so he either borrows it or deducts it from his capital; in other words, he gets time to lend him the money in advance. the interest he pays is a disordered state of his accounts, and permanent and increasing deficits, which he can never make good. such is time's usury; and all who cannot wait are its victims. there is no more thriftless proceeding than to try and mend the measured pace of time. be careful, then, not to become its debtor. section 50. in the daily affairs of life, you will have very many opportunities of recognizing a characteristic difference between ordinary people of prudence and discretion. in estimating the possibility of danger in connection with any undertaking, an ordinary man will confine his inquiries to the kind of risk that has already attended such undertakings in the past; whereas a prudent person will look ahead, and consider everything that might possibly happen in the future, having regard to a certain spanish maxim: _lo que no acaece en un ano, acaece en un rato_--a thing may not happen in a year, and yet may happen within two minutes. the difference in question is, of course, quite natural; for it requires some amount of discernment to calculate possibilities; but a man need only have his senses about him to see what has already happened. do not omit to sacrifice to evil spirits. what i mean is, that a man should not hesitate about spending time, trouble, and money, or giving up his comfort, or restricting his aims and denying himself, if he can thereby shut the door on the possibility of misfortune. the most terrible misfortunes are also the most improbable and remote--the least likely to occur. the rule i am giving is best exemplified in the practice of insurance,--a public sacrifice made on the altar of anxiety. therefore take out your policy of insurance! section 51. whatever fate befalls you, do not give way to great rejoicings or great lamentations; partly because all things are full of change, and your fortune may turn at any moment; partly because men are so apt to be deceived in their judgment as to what is good or bad for them. almost every one in his turn has lamented over something which afterwards turned out to be the very best thing for him that could have happened--or rejoiced at an event which became the source of his greatest sufferings. the right state of mind has been finely portrayed by shakespeare: _i have felt so many quirks of joy and grief that the first face of neither, on the start, can woman me unto't_.[1] [footnote 1: _all's well that ends well, act. ii. sc. 2_.] and, in general, it may be said that, if a man takes misfortunes quietly, it is because he knows that very many dreadful things may happen in the course of life; and so he looks upon the trouble of the moment as only a very small part of that which might come. this is the stoic temper--never to be unmindful of the sad fate of humanity--_condicionis humanoe oblitus_; but always to remember that our existence is full of woe and misery: and that the ills to which we are exposed are innumerable. wherever he be, a man need only cast a look around, to revive the sense of human misery: there before his eyes he can see mankind struggling and floundering in torment,--all for the sake of a wretched existence, barren and unprofitable! if he remembers this, a man will not expect very much from life, but learn to accommodate himself to a world where all is relative and no perfect state exists;--always looking misfortune in the face, and if he cannot avoid it, meeting it with courage. it should never be forgotten that misfortune, be it great or small, is the element in which we live. but that is no reason why a man should indulge in fretful complaints, and, like beresford,[1] pull a long face over the _miseries of human life_,--and not a single hour is free from them; or still less, call upon the deity at every flea-bite--_in pulicis morsu deum invocare_. our aim should be to look well about us, to ward off misfortune by going to meet it, to attain such perfection and refinement in averting the disagreeable things of life,--whether they come from our fellow-men or from the physical world,--that, like a clever fox, we may slip out of the way of every mishap, great or small; remembering that a mishap is generally only our own awkwardness in disguise. [footnote 1: _translator's note_.--rev. james beresford (1764-1840), miscellaneous writer. the full title of this, his chief work, is "the miseries of human life; or the last groans of timothy testy and samuel sensitive, with a few supplementary sighs from mrs. testy."] the main reason why misfortune falls less heavily upon us, if we have looked upon its occurrence as not impossible, and, as the saying is, prepared ourselves for it, may be this: if, before this misfortune comes, we have quietly thought over it as something which may or may not happen, the whole of its extent and range is known to us, and we can, at least, determine how far it will affect us; so that, if it really arrives, it does not depress us unduly--its weight is not felt to be greater than it actually is. but if no preparation has been made to meet it, and it comes unexpectedly, the mind is in a state of terror for the moment and unable to measure the full extent of the calamity; it seems so far-reaching in its effects that the victim might well think there was no limit to them; in any case, its range is exaggerated. in the same way, darkness and uncertainty always increase the sense of danger. and, of course, if we have thought over the possibility of misfortune, we have also at the same time considered the sources to which we shall look for help and consolation; or, at any rate, we have accustomed ourselves to the idea of it. there is nothing that better fits us to endure the misfortunes of life with composure, than to know for certain that _everything that happens--from the smallest up to the greatest facts of existence--happens of necessity._[1] a man soon accommodates himself to the inevitable--to something that must be; and if he knows that nothing can happen except of necessity, he will see that things cannot be other that they are, and that even the strangest chances in the world are just as much a product of necessity as phenomena which obey well-known rules and turn out exactly in accordance with expectation. let me here refer to what i have said elsewhere on the soothing effect of the knowledge that all things are inevitable and a product of necessity.[2] [footnote 1: this is a truth which i have firmly established in my prize-essay on the _freedom of the will_, where the reader will find a detailed explanation of the grounds on which it rests. cf. especially p. 60. [schopenhauer's works, 4th edit., vol. iv.--_tr_.]] [footnote 2: cf. _welt als wille und vorstellung_, bk. i. p. 361 (4th edit.).] if a man is steeped in the knowledge of this truth, he will, first of all, do what he can, and then readily endure what he must. we may regard the petty vexations of life that are constantly happening, as designed to keep us in practice for bearing great misfortunes, so that we may not become completely enervated by a career of prosperity. a man should be as siegfried, armed _cap-à-pie_, towards the small troubles of every day--those little differences we have with our fellow-men, insignificant disputes, unbecoming conduct in other people, petty gossip, and many other similar annoyances of life; he should not feel them at all, much less take them to heart and brood over them, but hold them at arm's length and push them out of his way, like stones that lie in the road, and upon no account think about them and give them a place in his reflections. section 52. what people commonly call _fate_ is, as a general rule, nothing but their own stupid and foolish conduct. there is a fine passage in homer,[1] illustrating the truth of this remark, where the poet praises [greek: maetis]--shrewd council; and his advice is worthy of all attention. for if wickedness is atoned for only in another world, stupidity gets its reward here--although, now and then, mercy may be shown to the offender. [footnote 1: _iliad_, xxiii. 313, sqq.] it is not ferocity but cunning that strikes fear into the heart and forebodes danger; so true it is that the human brain is a more terrible weapon than the lion's paw. the most finished man of the world would be one who was never irresolute and never in a hurry. section 53. _courage_ comes next to prudence as a quality of mind very essential to happiness. it is quite true that no one can endow himself with either, since a man inherits prudence from his mother and courage from his father; still, if he has these qualities, he can do much to develop them by means of resolute exercise. in this world, _where the game is played with loaded dice_, a man must have a temper of iron, with armor proof to the blows of fate, and weapons to make his way against men. life is one long battle; we have to fight at every step; and voltaire very rightly says that if we succeed, it is at the point of the sword, and that we die with the weapon in our hand--on _ne réussit dans ce monde qua la pointe de l'épee, et on meurt les armes à la main_. it is a cowardly soul that shrinks or grows faint and despondent as soon as the storm begins to gather, or even when the first cloud appears on the horizon. our motto should be _no surrender_; and far from yielding to the ills of life, let us take fresh courage from misfortune:-_tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito_.[1] [footnote 1: virgil, _aeneid_, vi. 95.] as long as the issue of any matter fraught with peril is still in doubt, and there is yet some possibility left that all may come right, no one should ever tremble or think of anything but resistance,--just as a man should not despair of the weather if he can see a bit of blue sky anywhere. let our attitude be such that we should not quake even if the world fell in ruins about us:- _si fractus illabatur orbis impavidum ferient ruinae_.[1] [footnote 1: horace, odes iii. 3.] our whole life itself--let alone its blessings--would not be worth such a cowardly trembling and shrinking of the heart. therefore, let us face life courageously and show a firm front to every ill:-_quocirca vivite fortes fortiaque adversis opponite pectora rebus_. still, it is possible for courage to be carried to an excess and to degenerate into rashness. it may even be said that some amount of fear is necessary, if we are to exist at all in the world, and cowardice is only the exaggerated form of it. this truth has been very well expressed by bacon, in his account of _terror panicus_; and the etymological account which he gives of its meaning, is very superior to the ancient explanation preserved for us by plutarch.[1] he connects the expression with _pan_ the personification of nature;[2] and observes that fear is innate in every living thing, and, in fact, tends to its preservation, but that it is apt to come into play without due cause, and that man is especially exposed to it. the chief feature of this _panie terror_ is that there is no clear notion of any definite danger bound up with it; that it presumes rather than knows that danger exists; and that, in case of need, it pleads fright itself as the reason for being afraid. [footnote 1: _de iside et osiride_ ch. 14.] [footnote 2: _de sapientia veterum_, c. 6. _natura enim rerum omnibus viventibus indidit mentum ac formidinem, vitae atque essentiae suae conservatricem, ac mala ingruentia vitantem et depellentem. verumtamen eaden natura modum tenere nescia est: sed timoribus salutaribus semper vanos et innanes admiscet; adeo ut omnia (si intus conspici darentur) panicis terroribus plenissima sint praesertim humana_.] chapter v. the ages of life. there is a very fine saying of voltaire's to the effect that every age of life has its own peculiar mental character, and that a man will feel completely unhappy if his mind is not in accordance with his years:- _qui n'a pas l'esprit de son âge, de son âge atout le malheur_. it will, therefore, be a fitting close to our speculations upon the nature of happiness, if we glance at the chances which the various periods of life produce in us. our whole life long it is _the present_, and the present alone, that we actually possess: the only difference is that at the beginning of life we look forward to a long future, and that towards the end we look back upon a long past; also that our temperament, but not our character, undergoes certain well-known changes, which make _the present_ wear a different color at each period of life. i have elsewhere stated that in childhood we are more given to using our _intellect_ than our _will_; and i have explained why this is so.[1] it is just for this reason that the first quarter of life is so happy: as we look back upon it in after years, it seems a sort of lost paradise. in childhood our relations with others are limited, our wants are few,--in a word, there is little stimulus for the will; and so our chief concern is the extension of our knowledge. the intellect--like the brain, which attains its full size in the seventh year,[2] is developed early, though it takes time to mature; and it explores the whole world of its surroundings in its constant search for nutriment: it is then that existence is in itself an ever fresh delight, and all things sparkle with the charm of novelty. [footnote 1: _translator's note_.--schopenhauer refers to _die welt als wille und vorstellung_, bk. ii. c, 31, p. 451 (4th edit.), where he explains that this is due to the fact that at that period of life the brain and nervous system are much more developed than any other part of the organism.] [footnote 2: _translator's note_.--this statement is not quite correct. the weight of the brain increases rapidly up to the seventh year, more slowly between the sixteenth and the twentieth year, still more slowly till between thirty and forty years of age, when it attains its maximum. at each decennial period after this, it is supposed to decrease in weight on the average, an ounce for every ten years.] this is why the years of childhood are like a long poem. for the function of poetry, as of all art, is to grasp the _idea_--in the platonic sense; in other words, to apprehend a particular object in such a way as to perceive its essential nature, the characteristics it has in common with all other objects of the same kind; so that a single object appears as the representative of a class, and the results of one experience hold good for a thousand. it may be thought that my remarks are opposed to fact, and that the child is never occupied with anything beyond the individual objects or events which are presented to it from time to time, and then only in so far as they interest and excite its will for the moment; but this is not really the case. in those early years, life--in the full meaning of the word, is something so new and fresh, and its sensations are so keen and unblunted by repetition, that, in the midst of all its pursuits and without any clear consciousness of what it is doing, the child is always silently occupied in grasping the nature of life itself,--in arriving at its fundamental character and general outline by means of separate scenes and experiences; or, to use spinoza's phraseology, the child is learning to see the things and persons about it _sub specie aeternitatis_,--as particular manifestations of universal law. the younger we are, then, the more does every individual object represent for us the whole class to which it belongs; but as the years increase, this becomes less and less the case. that is the reason why youthful impressions are so different from those of old age. and that it also why the slight knowledge and experience gained in childhood and youth afterwards come to stand as the permanent rubric, or heading, for all the knowledge acquired in later life,--those early forms of knowledge passing into categories, as it were, under which the results of subsequent experience are classified; though a clear consciousness of what is being done, does not always attend upon the process. in this way the earliest years of a man's life lay the foundation of his view of the world, whether it be shallow or deep; and although this view may be extended and perfected later on, it is not materially altered. it is an effect of this purely objective and therefore poetical view of the world,--essential to the period of childhood and promoted by the as yet undeveloped state of the volitional energy--that, as children, we are concerned much more with the acquisition of pure knowledge than with exercising the power of will. hence that grave, fixed look observable in so many children, of which raphael makes such a happy use in his depiction of cherubs, especially in the picture of the _sistine madonna_. the years of childhood are thus rendered so full of bliss that the memory of them is always coupled with longing and regret. while we thus eagerly apply ourselves to learning the outward aspect of things, as the primitive method of understanding the objects about us, education aims at instilling into us _ideas_. but ideas furnish no information as to the real and essential nature of objects, which, as the foundation and true content of all knowledge, can be reached only by the process called _intuition_. this is a kind of knowledge which can in no wise be instilled into us from without; we must arrive at it by and for ourselves. hence a man's intellectual as well as his moral qualities proceed from the depths of his own nature, and are not the result of external influences; and no educational scheme--of pestalozzi, or of any one else--can turn a born simpleton into a man of sense. the thing is impossible! he was born a simpleton, and a simpleton he will die. it is the depth and intensity of this early intuitive knowledge of the external world that explain why the experiences of childhood take such a firm hold on the memory. when we were young, we were completely absorbed in our immediate surroundings; there was nothing to distract our attention from them; we looked upon the objects about us as though they were the only ones of their kind, as though, indeed, nothing else existed at all. later on, when we come to find out how many things there are in the world, this primitive state of mind vanishes, and with it our patience. i have said elsewhere[1] that the world, considered as _object_,--in other words, as it is _presented_ to us objectively,--wears in general a pleasing aspect; but that in the world, considered as _subject_,--that is, in regard to its inner nature, which is _will_,--pain and trouble predominate. i may be allowed to express the matter, briefly, thus: _the world is glorious to look at, but dreadful in reality_. [footnote 1: _die welt als wille und vorstellung_, bk. ii. c. 31, p. 426-7 (4th edit.), to which the reader is referred for a detailed explanation of my meaning.] accordingly, we find that, in the years of childhood, the world is much better known to us on its outer or objective side, namely, as the presentation of will, than on the side of its inner nature, namely, as the will itself. since the objective side wears a pleasing aspect, and the inner or subjective side, with its tale of horror, remains as yet unknown, the youth, as his intelligence develops, takes all the forms of beauty that he sees, in nature and in art, for so many objects of blissful existence; they are so beautiful to the outward eye that, on their inner side, they must, he thinks, be much more beautiful still. so the world lies before him like another eden; and this is the arcadia in which we are all born. a little later, this state of mind gives birth to a thirst for real life--the impulse to do and suffer--which drives a man forth into the hurly-burly of the world. there he learns the other side of existence--the inner side, the will, which is thwarted at every step. then comes the great period of disillusion, a period of very gradual growth; but once it has fairly begun, a man will tell you that he has got over all his false notions--_l'âge des illusions est passé_; and yet the process is only beginning, and it goes on extending its sway and applying more and more to the whole of life. so it may be said that in childhood, life looks like the scenery in a theatre, as you view it from a distance; and that in old age it is like the same scenery when you come up quite close to it. and, lastly, there is another circumstance that contributes to the happiness of childhood. as spring commences, the young leaves on the trees are similar in color and much the same in shape; and in the first years of life we all resemble one another and harmonize very well. but with puberty divergence begins; and, like the radii of a circle, we go further and further apart. the period of youth, which forms the remainder of this earlier half of our existence--and how many advantages it has over the later half!--is troubled and made miserable by the pursuit of happiness, as though there were no doubt that it can be met with somewhere in life,--a hope that always ends in failure and leads to discontent. an illusory image of some vague future bliss--born of a dream and shaped by fancy--floats before our eyes; and we search for the reality in vain. so it is that the young man is generally dissatisfied with the position in which he finds himself, whatever it may be; he ascribes his disappointment solely to the state of things that meets him on his first introduction to life, when he had expected something very different; whereas it is only the vanity and wretchedness of human life everywhere that he is now for the first time experiencing. it would be a great advantage to a young man if his early training could eradicate the idea that the world has a great deal to offer him. but the usual result of education is to strengthen this delusion; and our first ideas of life are generally taken from fiction rather than from fact. in the bright dawn of our youthful days, the poetry of life spreads out a gorgeous vision before us, and we torture ourselves by longing to see it realized. we might as well wish to grasp the rainbow! the youth expects his career to be like an interesting romance; and there lies the germ of that disappointment which i have been describing.[1] what lends a charm to all these visions is just the fact that they are visionary and not real, and that in contemplating them we are in the sphere of pure knowledge, which is sufficient in itself and free from the noise and struggle of life. to try and realize those visions is to make them an object of _will_--a process which always involves pain.[2] [footnote 1: cf. loc. cit., p. 428.] [footnote 2: let me refer the reader, if he is interested in the subject, to the volume already cited, chapter 37.] if the chief feature of the earlier half of life is a never-satisfied longing after happiness, the later half is characterized by the dread of misfortune. for, as we advance in years, it becomes in a greater or less degree clear that all happiness is chimerical in its nature, and that pain alone is real. accordingly, in later years, we, or, at least, the more prudent amongst us, are more intent upon eliminating what is painful from our lives and making our position secure, than on the pursuit of positive pleasure. i may observe, by the way, that in old age, we are better able to prevent misfortunes from coming, and in youth better able to bear them when they come. in my young days, i was always pleased to hear a ring at my door: ah! thought i, now for something pleasant. but in later life my feelings on such occasions were rather akin to dismay than to pleasure: heaven help me! thought i, what am i to do? a similar revulsion of feeling in regard to the world of men takes place in all persons of any talent or distinction. for that very reason they cannot be said properly to belong to the world; in a greater or less degree, according to the extent of their superiority, they stand alone. in their youth they have a sense of being abandoned by the world; but later on, they feel as though they had escaped it. the earlier feeling is an unpleasant one, and rests upon ignorance; the second is pleasurable--for in the meantime they have come to know what the world is. the consequence of this is that, as compared with the earlier, the later half of life, like the second part of a musical period, has less of passionate longing and more restfulness about it. and why is this the case simply because, in youth, a man fancies that there is a prodigious amount of happiness and pleasure to be had in the world, only that it is difficult to come by it; whereas, when he becomes old, he knows that there is nothing of the kind; he makes his mind completely at ease on the matter, enjoys the present hour as well as he can, and even takes a pleasure in trifles. the chief result gained by experience of life is _clearness of view_. this is what distinguishes the man of mature age, and makes the world wear such a different aspect from that which it presented in his youth or boyhood. it is only then that he sees things quite plain, and takes them for that which they really are: while in earlier years he saw a phantom-world, put together out of the whims and crotchets of his own mind, inherited prejudice and strange delusion: the real world was hidden from him, or the vision of it distorted. the first thing that experience finds to do is to free us from the phantoms of the brain--those false notions that have been put into us in youth. to prevent their entrance at all would, of course, be the best form of education, even though it were only negative in aim: but it would be a task full of difficulty. at first the child's horizon would have to be limited as much as possible, and yet within that limited sphere none but clear and correct notions would have to be given; only after the child had properly appreciated everything within it, might the sphere be gradually enlarged; care being always taken that nothing was left obscure, or half or wrongly understood. the consequence of this training would be that the child's notions of men and things would always be limited and simple in their character; but, on the other hand, they would be clear and correct, and only need to be extended, not to be rectified. the same line might be pursued on into the period of youth. this method of education would lay special stress upon the prohibition of novel reading; and the place of novels would be taken by suitable biographical literature--the life of franklin, for instance, or moritz' _anton reiser_.[1] [footnote 1: _translator's note_.--moritz was a miscellaneous writer of the last century (1757-93). his _anton reiser_, composed in the form of a novel, is practically an autobiography.] in our early days we fancy that the leading events in our life, and the persons who are going to play an important part in it, will make their entrance to the sound of drums and trumpets; but when, in old age, we look back, we find that they all came in quite quietly, slipped in, as it were, by the side-door, almost unnoticed. from the point of view we have been taking up until now, life may be compared to a piece of embroidery, of which, during the first half of his time, a man gets a sight of the right side, and during the second half, of the wrong. the wrong side is not so pretty as the right, but it is more instructive; it shows the way in which the threads have been worked together. intellectual superiority, even if it is of the highest kind, will not secure for a man a preponderating place in conversation until after he is forty years of age. for age and experience, though they can never be a substitute for intellectual talent, may far outweigh it; and even in a person of the meanest capacity, they give a certain counterpoise to the power of an extremely intellectual man, so long as the latter is young. of course i allude here to personal superiority, not to the place a man may gain by his works. and on passing his fortieth year, any man of the slightest power of mind--any man, that is, who has more than the sorry share of intellect with which nature has endowed five-sixths of mankind--will hardly fail to show some trace of misanthropy. for, as is natural, he has by that time inferred other people's character from an examination of his own; with the result that he has been gradually disappointed to find that in the qualities of the head or in those of the heart--and usually in both--he reaches a level to which they do not attain; so he gladly avoids having anything more to do with them. for it may be said, in general, that every man will love or hate solitude--in other words, his own society--just in proportion as he is worth anything in himself. kant has some remarks upon this kind of misanthropy in his _critique of the faculty of judgment_.[1] [footnote 1: _kritik der urtheilskraft_, part i, §29, note ad fin.] in a young man, it is a bad sign, as well from an intellectual as from a moral point of view, if he is precocious in understanding the ways of the world, and in adapting himself to its pursuits; if he at once knows how to deal with men, and enters upon life, as it were, fully prepared. it argues a vulgar nature. on the other hand, to be surprised and astonished at the way people act, and to be clumsy and cross-grained in having to do with them, indicates a character of the nobler sort. the cheerfulness and vivacity of youth are partly due to the fact that, when we are ascending the hill of life, death is not visible: it lies down at the bottom of the other side. but once we have crossed the top of the hill, death comes in view--death--which, until then, was known to us only by hearsay. this makes our spirits droop, for at the same time we begin to feel that our vital powers are on the ebb. a grave seriousness now takes the place of that early extravagance of spirit; and the change is noticeable even in the expression of a man's face. as long as we are young, people may tell us what they please! we look upon life as endless and use our time recklessly; but the older we become, the more we practice economy. for towards the close of life, every day we live gives us the same kind of sensation as the criminal experiences at every step on his way to be tried. from the standpoint of youth, life seems to stretch away into an endless future; from the standpoint of old age, to go back but a little way into the past; so that, at the beginning, life presents us with a picture in which the objects appear a great way off, as though we had reversed our telescope; while in the end everything seems so close. to see how short life is, a man must have grown old, that is to say, he must have lived long. on the other hand, as the years increase, things look smaller, one and all; and life, which had so firm and stable a base in the days of our youth, now seems nothing but a rapid flight of moments, every one of them illusory: we have come to see that the whole world is vanity! time itself seems to go at a much slower pace when we are young; so that not only is the first quarter of life the happiest, it is also the longest of all; it leaves more memories behind it. if a man were put to it, he could tell you more out of the first quarter of his life than out of two of the remaining periods. nay, in the spring of life, as in the spring of the year, the days reach a length that is positively tiresome; but in the autumn, whether of the year or of life, though they are short, they are more genial and uniform. but why is it that to an old man his past life appears so short? for this reason: his memory is short; and so he fancies that his life has been short too. he no longer remembers the insignificant parts of it, and much that was unpleasant is now forgotten; how little, then, there is left! for, in general, a man's memory is as imperfect as his intellect; and he must make a practice of reflecting upon the lessons he has learned and the events he has experienced, if he does not want them both to sink gradually into the gulf of oblivion. now, we are unaccustomed to reflect upon matters of no importance, or, as a rule, upon things that we have found disagreeable, and yet that is necessary if the memory of them is to be preserved. but the class of things that may be called insignificant is continually receiving fresh additions: much that wears an air of importance at first, gradually becomes of no consequence at all from the fact of its frequent repetition; so that in the end we actually lose count of the number of times it happens. hence we are better able to remember the events of our early than of our later years. the longer we live, the fewer are the things that we can call important or significant enough to deserve further consideration, and by this alone can they be fixed in the memory; in other words, they are forgotten as soon as they are past. thus it is that time runs on, leaving always fewer traces of its passage. further, if disagreeable things have happened to us, we do not care to ruminate upon them, least of all when they touch our vanity, as is usually the case; for few misfortunes fall upon us for which we can be held entirely blameless. so people are very ready to forget many things that are disagreeable, as well as many that are unimportant. it is from this double cause that our memory is so short; and a man's recollection of what has happened always becomes proportionately shorter, the more things that have occupied him in life. the things we did in years gone by, the events that happened long ago, are like those objects on the coast which, to the seafarer on his outward voyage, become smaller every minute, more unrecognizable and harder to distinguish. again, it sometimes happens that memory and imagination will call up some long past scene as vividly as if it had occurred only yesterday; so that the event in question seems to stand very near to the present time. the reason of this is that it is impossible to call up all the intervening period in the same vivid way, as there is no one figure pervading it which can be taken in at a glance; and besides, most of the things that happened in that period are forgotten, and all that remains of it is the general knowledge that we have lived through it--a mere notion of abstract existence, not a direct vision of some particular experience. it is this that causes some single event of long ago to appear as though it took place but yesterday: the intervening time vanishes, and the whole of life looks incredibly short. nay, there are occasional moments in old age when we can scarcely believe that we are so advanced in years, or that the long past lying behind us has had any real existence--a feeling which is mainly due to the circumstance that the present always seems fixed and immovable as we look at it. these and similar mental phenomena are ultimately to be traced to the fact that it is not our nature in itself, but only the outward presentation of it, that lies in time, and that the present is the point of contact between the world as subject and the world as object.[1] [footnote 1: _translator's note_.--by this remark schopenhauer means that _will_, which, as he argues, forms the inner reality underlying all the phenomena of life and nature, is not in itself affected by time; but that, on the other hand, time is necessary for the objectification of the will, for the will as presented in the passing phenomena of the world. time is thus definable as the condition of change, and the present time as the only point of contact between reality and appearance.] again, why is it that in youth we can see no end to the years that seem to lie before us? because we are obliged to find room for all the things we hope to attain in life. we cram the years so full of projects that if we were to try and carry them all out, death would come prematurely though we reached the age of methuselah. another reason why life looks so long when we are young, is that we are apt to measure its length by the few years we have already lived. in those early years things are new to us, and so they appear important; we dwell upon them after they have happened and often call them to mind; and thus in youth life seems replete with incident, and therefore of long duration. sometimes we credit ourselves with a longing to be in some distant spot, whereas, in truth, we are only longing to have the time back again which we spent there--days when we were younger and fresher than we are now. in those moments time mocks us by wearing the mask of space; and if we travel to the spot, we can see how much we have been deceived. there are two ways of reaching a great age, both of which presuppose a sound constitution as a _conditio sine quâ non_. they may be illustrated by two lamps, one of which burns a long time with very little oil, because it has a very thin wick; and the other just as long, though it has a very thick one, because there is plenty of oil to feed it. here, the oil is the vital energy, and the difference in the wick is the manifold way in which the vital energy is used. up to our thirty-sixth year, we may be compared, in respect of the way in which we use our vital energy, to people who live on the interest of their money: what they spend to-day, they have again to-morrow. but from the age of thirty-six onwards, our position is like that of the investor who begins to entrench upon his capital. at first he hardly notices any difference at all, as the greater part of his expenses is covered by the interest of his securities; and if the deficit is but slight, he pays no attention to it. but the deficit goes on increasing, until he awakes to the fact that it is becoming more serious every day: his position becomes less and less secure, and he feels himself growing poorer and poorer, while he has no expectation of this drain upon his resources coming to an end. his fall from wealth to poverty becomes faster every moment--like the fall of a solid body in space, until at last he has absolutely nothing left. a man is truly in a woeful plight if both the terms of this comparison--his vital energy and his wealth--really begin to melt away at one and the same time. it is the dread of this calamity that makes love of possession increase with age. on the other hand, at the beginning of life, in the years before we attain majority, and for some little time afterwards--the state of our vital energy puts us on a level with those who each year lay by a part of their interest and add it to their capital: in other words, not only does their interest come in regularly, but the capital is constantly receiving additions. this happy condition of affairs is sometimes brought about--with health as with money--under the watchful care of some honest guardian. o happy youth, and sad old age! nevertheless, a man should economize his strength even when he is young. aristotle[1] observes that amongst those who were victors at olympia only two or three gained a prize at two different periods, once in boyhood and then again when they came to be men; and the reason of this was that the premature efforts which the training involved, so completely exhausted their powers that they failed to last on into manhood. as this is true of muscular, so it is still more true of nervous energy, of which all intellectual achievements are the manifestation. hence, those infant prodigies--_ingenia praecoda_--the fruit of a hot-house education, who surprise us by their cleverness as children, afterwards turn out very ordinary folk. nay, the manner in which boys are forced into an early acquaintance with the ancient tongues may, perhaps, be to blame for the dullness and lack of judgment which distinguish so many learned persons. [footnote 1: _politics_.] i have said that almost every man's character seems to be specially suited to some one period of life, so that on reaching it the man is at his best. some people are charming so long as they are young, and afterwards there is nothing attractive about them; others are vigorous and active in manhood, and then lose all the value they possess as they advance in years; many appear to best advantage in old age, when their character assumes a gentler tone, as becomes men who have seen the world and take life easily. this is often the case with the french. this peculiarity must be due to the fact that the man's character has something in it akin to the qualities of youth or manhood or old age--something which accords with one or another of these periods of life, or perhaps acts as a corrective to its special failings. the mariner observes the progress he makes only by the way in which objects on the coast fade away into the distance and apparently decrease in size. in the same way a man becomes conscious that he is advancing in years when he finds that people older than himself begin to seem young to him. it has already been remarked that the older a man becomes, the fewer are the traces left in his mind by all that he sees, does or experiences, and the cause of this has been explained. there is thus a sense in which it may be said that it is only in youth that a man lives with a full degree of consciousness, and that he is only half alive when he is old. as the years advance, his consciousness of what goes on about him dwindles, and the things of life hurry by without making any impression upon him, just as none is made by a work of art seen for the thousandth time. a man does what his hand finds to do, and afterwards he does not know whether he has done it or not. as life becomes more and more unconscious, the nearer it approaches the point at which all consciousness ceases, the course of time itself seems to increase in rapidity. in childhood all the things and circumstances of life are novel; and that is sufficient to awake us to the full consciousness of existence: hence, at that age, the day seems of such immense length. the same thing happens when we are traveling: one month seems longer then than four spent at home. still, though time seems to last longer when we are young or on a journey, the sense of novelty does not prevent it from now and then in reality hanging heavily upon our hands under both these circumstances, at any rate more than is the case when we are old or staying at home. but the intellect gradually becomes so rubbed down and blunted by long habituation to such impressions that things have a constant tendency to produce less and less impression upon us as they pass by; and this makes time seem increasingly less important, and therefore shorter in duration: the hours of the boy are longer than the days of the old man. accordingly, time goes faster and faster the longer we live, like a ball rolling down a hill. or, to take another example: as in a revolving disc, the further a point lies from the centre, the more rapid is its rate of progression, so it is in the wheel of life; the further you stand from the beginning, the faster time moves for you. hence it may be said that as far as concerns the immediate sensation that time makes upon our minds, the length of any given year is in direct proportion to the number of times it will divide our whole life: for instance, at the age of fifty the year appears to us only one-tenth as long as it did at the age of five. this variation in the rate at which time appears to move, exercises a most decided influence upon the whole nature of our existence at every period of it. first of all, it causes childhood--even though it embrace only a span of fifteen years--to seem the longest period of life, and therefore the richest in reminiscences. next, it brings it about that a man is apt to be bored just in proportion as he is young. consider, for instance, that constant need of occupation--whether it is work or play--that is shown by children: if they come to an end of both work and play, a terrible feeling of boredom ensues. even in youth people are by no means free from this tendency, and dread the hours when they have nothing to do. as manhood approaches, boredom disappears; and old men find the time too short when their days fly past them like arrows from a bow. of course, i must be understood to speak of _men_, not of decrepit _brutes_. with this increased rapidity of time, boredom mostly passes away as we advance in life; and as the passions with all their attendant pain are then laid asleep, the burden of life is, on the whole, appreciably lighter in later years than in youth, provided, of course, that health remains. so it is that the period immediately preceding the weakness and troubles of old age, receives the name of a man's _best years_. that may be a true appellation, in view of the comfortable feeling which those years bring; but for all that the years of youth, when our consciousness is lively and open to every sort of impression, have this privilege--that then the seeds are sown and the buds come forth; it is the springtime of the mind. deep truths may be perceived, but can never be excogitated--that is to say, the first knowledge of them is immediate, called forth by some momentary impression. this knowledge is of such a kind as to be attainable only when the impressions are strong, lively and deep; and if we are to be acquainted with deep truths, everything depends upon a proper use of our early years. in later life, we may be better able to work upon other people,--upon the world, because our natures are then finished and rounded off, and no more a prey to fresh views; but then the world is less able to work upon us. these are the years of action and achievement; while youth is the time for forming fundamental conceptions, and laying down the ground-work of thought. in youth it is the outward aspect of things that most engages us; while in age, thought or reflection is the predominating quality of the mind. hence, youth is the time for poetry, and age is more inclined to philosophy. in practical affairs it is the same: a man shapes his resolutions in youth more by the impression that the outward world makes upon him; whereas, when he is old, it is thought that determines his actions. this is partly to be explained by the fact that it is only when a man is old that the results of outward observation are present in sufficient numbers to allow of their being classified according to the ideas they represent,--a process which in its turn causes those ideas to be more fully understood in all their bearings, and the exact value and amount of trust to be placed in them, fixed and determined; while at the same time he has grown accustomed to the impressions produced by the various phenomena of life, and their effects on him are no longer what they were. contrarily, in youth, the impressions that things make, that is to say, the outward aspects of life, are so overpoweringly strong, especially in the case of people of lively and imaginative disposition, that they view the world like a picture; and their chief concern is the figure they cut in it, the appearance they present; nay, they are unaware of the extent to which this is the case. it is a quality of mind that shows itself--if in no other way--in that personal vanity, and that love of fine clothes, which distinguish young people. there can be no doubt that the intellectual powers are most capable of enduring great and sustained efforts in youth, up to the age of thirty-five at latest; from which period their strength begins to decline, though very gradually. still, the later years of life, and even old age itself, are not without their intellectual compensation. it is only then that a man can be said to be really rich in experience or in learning; he has then had time and opportunity enough to enable him to see and think over life from all its sides; he has been able to compare one thing with another, and to discover points of contact and connecting links, so that only then are the true relations of things rightly understood. further, in old age there comes an increased depth in the knowledge that was acquired in youth; a man has now many more illustrations of any ideas he may have attained; things which he thought he knew when he was young, he now knows in reality. and besides, his range of knowledge is wider; and in whatever direction it extends, it is thorough, and therefore formed into a consistent and connected whole; whereas in youth knowledge is always defective and fragmentary. a complete and adequate notion of life can never be attained by any one who does not reach old age; for it is only the old man who sees life whole and knows its natural course; it is only he who is acquainted--and this is most important--not only with its entrance, like the rest of mankind, but with its exit too; so that he alone has a full sense of its utter vanity; whilst the others never cease to labor under the false notion that everything will come right in the end. on the other hand, there is more conceptive power in youth, and at that time of life a man can make more out of the little that he knows. in age, judgment, penetration and thoroughness predominate. youth is the time for amassing the material for a knowledge of the world that shall be distinctive and peculiar,--for an original view of life, in other words, the legacy that a man of genius leaves to his fellow-men; it is, however, only in later years that he becomes master of his material. accordingly it will be found that, as a rule, a great writer gives his best work to the world when he is about fifty years of age. but though the tree of knowledge must reach its full height before it can bear fruit, the roots of it lie in youth. every generation, no matter how paltry its character, thinks itself much wiser than the one immediately preceding it, let alone those that are more remote. it is just the same with the different periods in a man's life; and yet often, in the one case no less than in the other, it is a mistaken opinion. in the years of physical growth, when our powers of mind and our stores of knowledge are receiving daily additions, it becomes a habit for to-day to look down with contempt upon yesterday. the habit strikes root, and remains even after the intellectual powers have begun to decline,--when to-day should rather look up with respect to yesterday. so it is that we often unduly depreciate the achievements as well as the judgments of our youth. this seems the place for making the general observation, that, although in its main qualities a man's _intellect_ or _head_, as well as his _character_ or _heart_, is innate, yet the former is by no means so unalterable in its nature as the latter. the fact is that the intellect is subject to very many transformations, which, as a rule, do not fail to make their actual appearance; and this is so, partly because the intellect has a deep foundation in the physique, and partly because the material with which it deals is given in experience. and so, from a physical point of view, we find that if a man has any peculiar power, it first gradually increases in strength until it reaches its acme, after which it enters upon a path of slow decadence, until it ends in imbecility. but, on the other hand, we must not lose sight of the fact that the material which gives employment to a man's powers and keeps them in activity,--the subject-matter of thought and knowledge, experience, intellectual attainments, the practice of seeing to the bottom of things, and so a perfect mental vision, form in themselves a mass which continues to increase in size, until the time comes when weakness shows itself, and the man's powers suddenly fail. the way in which these two distinguishable elements combine in the same nature,--the one absolutely unalterable, and the other subject to change in two directions opposed to each other--explains the variety of mental attitude and the dissimilarity of value which attach to a man at different periods of life. the same truth may be more broadly expressed by saying that the first forty years of life furnish the text, while the remaining thirty supply the commentary; and that without the commentary we are unable to understand aright the true sense and coherence of the text, together with the moral it contains and all the subtle application of which it admits. towards the close of life, much the same thing happens as at the end of a _bal masqué_--the masks are taken off. then you can see who the people really are, with whom you have come into contact in your passage through the world. for by the end of life characters have come out in their true light, actions have borne fruit, achievements have been rightly appreciated, and all shams have fallen to pieces. for this, time was in every case requisite. but the most curious fact is that it is also only towards the close of life than a man really recognizes and understands his own true self,--the aims and objects he has followed in life, more especially the kind of relation in which he has stood to other people and to the world. it will often happen that as a result of this knowledge, a man will have to assign himself a lower place than he formerly thought was his due. but there are exceptions to this rule; and it will occasionally be the case that he will take a higher position than he had before. this will be owing to the fact that he had no adequate notion of the _baseness_ of the world, and that he set up a higher aim for himself than was followed by the rest of mankind. the progress of life shows a man the stuff of which he is made. it is customary to call youth the happy, and age the sad part of life. this would be true if it were the passions that made a man happy. youth is swayed to and fro by them; and they give a great deal of pain and little pleasure. in age the passions cool and leave a man at rest, and then forthwith his mind takes a contemplative tone; the intellect is set free and attains the upper hand. and since, in itself, intellect is beyond the range of pain, and man feels happy just in so far as his intellect is the predominating part of him. it need only be remembered that all pleasure is negative, and that pain is positive in its nature, in order to see that the passions can never be a source of happiness, and that age is not the less to be envied on the ground that many pleasures are denied it. for every sort of pleasure is never anything more than the quietive of some need or longing; and that pleasure should come to an end as soon as the need ceases, is no more a subject of complaint than that a man cannot go on eating after he has had his dinner, or fall asleep again after a good night's rest. so far from youth being the happiest period of life, there is much more truth in the remark made by plato, at the beginning of the _republic_, that the prize should rather be given to old age, because then at last a man is freed from the animal passion which has hitherto never ceased to disquiet him. nay, it may even be said that the countless and manifold humors which have their source in this passion, and the emotions that spring from it, produce a mild state of madness; and this lasts as long as the man is subject to the spell of the impulse--this evil spirit, as it were, of which there is no riddance--so that he never really becomes a reasonable being until the passion is extinguished. there is no doubt that, in general, and apart from individual circumstances and particular dispositions, youth is marked by a certain melancholy and sadness, while genial sentiments attach to old age; and the reason for this is nothing but the fact that the young man is still under the service, nay, the forced labor, imposed by that evil spirit, which scarcely ever leaves him a moment to himself. to this source may be traced, directly or indirectly, almost all and every ill that befalls or menaces mankind. the old man is genial and cheerful because, after long lying in the bonds of passion, he can now move about in freedom. still, it should not be forgotten that, when this passion is extinguished, the true kernel of life is gone, and nothing remains but the hollow shell; or, from another point of view, life then becomes like a comedy, which, begun by real actors, is continued and brought to an end by automata dressed in their clothes. however that may be, youth is the period of unrest, and age of repose; and from that very circumstance, the relative degree of pleasure belonging to each may be inferred. the child stretches out its little hands in the eager desire to seize all the pretty things that meet its sight, charmed by the world because all its senses are still so young and fresh. much the same thing happens with the youth, and he displays greater energy in his quest. he, too, is charmed by all the pretty things and the many pleasing shapes that surround him; and forthwith his imagination conjures up pleasures which the world can never realize. so he is filled with an ardent desire for he knows not what delights--robbing him of all rest and making happiness impossible. but when old age is reached, all this is over and done with, partly because the blood runs cooler and the senses are no longer so easily allured; partly because experience has shown the true value of things and the futility of pleasure, whereby illusion has been gradually dispelled, and the strange fancies and prejudices which previously concealed or distorted a free and true view of the world, have been dissipated and put to flight; with the result that a man can now get a juster and clearer view, and see things as they are, and also in a measure attain more or less insight into the nullity of all things on this earth. it is this that gives almost every old man, no matter how ordinary his faculties may be, a certain tincture of wisdom, which distinguishes him from the young. but the chief result of all this change is the peace of mind that ensues--a great element in happiness, and, in fact, the condition and essence of it. while the young man fancies that there is a vast amount of good things in the world, if he could only come at them, the old man is steeped in the truth of the preacher's words, that _all things are vanity_--knowing that, however gilded the shell, the nut is hollow. in these later years, and not before, a man comes to a true appreciation of horace's maxim: _nil admirari._ he is directly and sincerely convinced of the vanity of everything and that all the glories of the world are as nothing: his illusions are gone. he is no more beset with the idea that there is any particular amount of happiness anywhere, in the palace or in the cottage, any more than he himself enjoys when he is free from bodily or mental pain. the worldly distinctions of great and small, high and low, exist for him no longer; and in this blissful state of mind the old man may look down with a smile upon all false notions. he is completely undeceived, and knows that whatever may be done to adorn human life and deck it out in finery, its paltry character will soon show through the glitter of its surroundings; and that, paint and be jewel it as one may, it remains everywhere much the same,--an existence which has no true value except in freedom from pain, and is never to be estimated by the presence of pleasure, let alone, then, of display.[1] [footnote 1: cf. horace, _epist_. i. 12, i-4.] disillusion is the chief characteristic of old age; for by that time the fictions are gone which gave life its charm and spurred on the mind to activity; the splendors of the world have been proved null and vain; its pomp, grandeur and magnificence are faded. a man has then found out that behind most of the things he wants, and most of the pleasures he longs for, there is very little after all; and so he comes by degrees to see that our existence is all empty and void. it is only when he is seventy years old that he quite understands the first words of the preacher; and this again explains why it is that old men are sometimes fretful and morose. it is often said that the common lot of old age is disease and weariness of life. disease is by no means essential to old age; especially where a really long span of years is to be attained; for as life goes on, the conditions of health and disorder tend to increase--_crescente vita, crescit sanitas et morbus_. and as far as weariness or boredom is concerned, i have stated above why old age is even less exposed to that form of evil than youth. nor is boredom by any means to be taken as a necessary accompaniment of that solitude, which, for reasons that do not require to be explained, old age certainly cannot escape; it is rather the fate that awaits those who have never known any other pleasures but the gratification of the senses and the delights of society--who have left their minds unenlightened and their faculties unused. it is quite true that the intellectual faculties decline with the approach of old age; but where they were originally strong, there will always be enough left to combat the onslaught of boredom. and then again, as i have said, experience, knowledge, reflection, and skill in dealing with men, combine to give an old man an increasingly accurate insight into the ways of the world; his judgment becomes keen and he attains a coherent view of life: his mental vision embraces a wider range. constantly finding new uses for his stores of knowledge and adding to them at every opportunity, he maintains uninterrupted that inward process of self-education, which gives employment and satisfaction to the mind, and thus forms the due reward of all its efforts. all this serves in some measure as a compensation for decreased intellectual power. and besides, time, as i have remarked, seems to go much more quickly when we are advanced in years; and this is in itself a preventive of boredom. there is no great harm in the fact that a man's bodily strength decreases in old age, unless, indeed, he requires it to make a living. to be poor when one is old, is a great misfortune. if a man is secure from that, and retains his health, old age may be a very passable time of life. its chief necessity is to be comfortable and well off; and, in consequence, money is then prized more than ever, because it is a substitute for failing strength. deserted by venus, the old man likes to turn to bacchus to make him merry. in the place of wanting to see things, to travel and learn, comes the desire to speak and teach. it is a piece of good fortune if the old man retains some of his love of study or of music or of the theatre,--if, in general, he is still somewhat susceptible to the things about him; as is, indeed, the case with some people to a very late age. at that time of life, _what a man has in himself_ is of greater advantage to him that ever it was before. there can be no doubt that most people who have never been anything but dull and stupid, become more and more of automata as they grow old. they have always thought, said and done the same things as their neighbors; and nothing that happens now can change their disposition, or make them act otherwise. to talk to old people of this kind is like writing on the sand; if you produce any impression at all, it is gone almost immediately; old age is here nothing but the _caput mortuum_ of life--all that is essential to manhood is gone. there are cases in which nature supplies a third set of teeth in old age, thereby apparently demonstrating the fact that that period of life is a second childhood. it is certainly a very melancholy thing that all a man's faculties tend to waste away as he grows old, and at a rate that increases in rapidity: but still, this is a necessary, nay, a beneficial arrangement, as otherwise death, for which it is a preparation, would be too hard to bear. so the greatest boon that follows the attainment of extreme old age is _euthanasia_,--an easy death, not ushered in by disease, and free from all pain and struggle.[1] for let a man live as long as he may, he is never conscious of any moment but the present, one and indivisible; and in those late years the mind loses more every day by sheer forgetfulness than ever it gains anew. [footnote 1: see _die welt als wille und vorstellung_, bk. ii. ch. 41, for a further description of this happy end to life.] the main difference between youth and age will always be that youth looks forward to life, and old age to death; and that while the one has a short past and a long future before it, the case is just the opposite with the other. it is quite true that when a man is old, to die is the only thing that awaits him; while if he is young, he may expect to live; and the question arises which of the two fates is the more hazardous, and if life is not a matter which, on the whole, it is better to have behind one than before? does not the preacher say: _the day of death [is better] than the day of one's birth_.[1] it is certainly a rash thing to wish for long life;[2] for as the spanish proverb has it, it means to see much evil,--_quien larga vida vive mucho mal vide_. [footnote 1: ecclesiastes vii. 1.] [footnote 2: the life of man cannot, strictly speaking, be called either _long_ or _short_, since it is the ultimate standard by which duration of time in regard to all other things is measured. in one of the vedic _upanishads (oupnekhat_, ii.) _the natural length_ of human life is put down at one hundred years. and i believe this to be right. i have observed, as a matter of fact, that it is only people who exceed the age of ninety who attain _euthanasia_,--who die, that is to say, of no disease, apoplexy or convulsion, and pass away without agony of any sort; nay, who sometimes even show no pallor, but expire generally in a sitting attitude, and often after a meal,--or, i may say, simply cease to live rather than die. to come to one's end before the age of ninety, means to die of disease, in other words, prematurely. now the old testament (psalms xc. 10) puts the limit of human life at seventy, and if it is very long, at eighty years; and what is more noticeable still, herodotus (i. 32 and iii. 22) says the same thing. but this is wrong; and the error is due simply to a rough and superficial estimate of the results of daily experience. for if the natural length of life were from seventy to eighty years, people would die, about that time, of mere old age. now this is certainly not the case. if they die then, they die, like younger people, _of disease_; and disease is something abnormal. therefore it is not natural to die at that age. it is only when they are between ninety and a hundred that people die of old age; die, i mean, without suffering from any disease, or showing any special signs of their condition, such as a struggle, death-rattle, convulsion, pallor,--the absence of all which constitutes _euthanasia_. the natural length of human life is a hundred years; and in assigning that limit the upanishads are right once more.] a man's individual career is not, as astrology wishes to make out, to be predicted from observation of the planets; but the course of human life in general, as far as the various periods of it are concerned, may be likened to the succession of the planets: so that we may be said to pass under the influence of each one of them in turn. at ten, _mercury_ is in the ascendant; and at that age, a youth, like this planet, is characterized by extreme mobility within a narrow sphere, where trifles have a great effect upon him; but under the guidance of so crafty and eloquent a god, he easily makes great progress. _venus_ begins her sway during his twentieth year, and then a man is wholly given up to the love of women. at thirty, _mars_ comes to the front, and he is now all energy and strength,--daring, pugnacious and arrogant. when a man reaches the age of forty, he is under the rule of the four _asteroids_; that is to say, his life has gained something in extension. he is frugal; in other words, by the help of _ceres_, he favors what is useful; he has his own hearth, by the influence of _vesta_; _pallas_ has taught him that which is necessary for him to know; and his wife--his _juno_--rules as the mistress of his house. but at the age of fifty, _jupiter_ is the dominant influence. at that period a man has outlived most of his contemporaries, and he can feel himself superior to the generation about him. he is still in the full enjoyment of his strength, and rich in experience and knowledge; and if he has any power and position of his own, he is endowed with authority over all who stand in his immediate surroundings. he is no more inclined to receive orders from others; he wants to take command himself. the work most suitable to him now is to guide and rule within his own sphere. this is the point where jupiter culminates, and where the man of fifty years is at his best. then comes _saturn_, at about the age of sixty, a weight as of _lead_, dull and slow:- _but old folks, many feign as they were dead; unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead_. last of all, _uranus_; or, as the saying is, a man goes to heaven. i cannot find a place for _neptune_, as this planet has been very thoughtlessly named; because i may not call it as it should be called--_eros_. otherwise i should point out how beginning and end meet together, and how closely and intimately eros is connected with death: how orcus, or amenthes, as the egyptians called him, is not only the receiver but the giver of all things--[greek: lambanon kai didous]. death is the great reservoir of life. everything comes from orcus; everything that is alive now was once there. could we but understand the great trick by which that is done, all would be clear! +---------------------------------+ |transcriber's note: in this etext| | | |~ represents bold and | |_ represents italic. | +---------------------------------+ pearls of thought. by maturin m. ballou, author of the "treasury of thought," "history of cuba," "biography of hosea ballou," etc., etc. _infinite riches in a little room._--marlowe. boston: houghton, mifflin and company. the riverside press, cambridge. 1881. copyright, 1880, by maturin m. ballou. _all rights reserved._ _the riverside press, cambridge:_ electrotyped and printed by h. o. houghton & co. * * * * * to my wife, the patient and cheerful associate of my studies, after more than forty years of happy companionship, this volume is affectionately dedicated by the compiler. writers of an abler sort, whose wit well managed, and whose classic style, give truth a lustre, and make wisdom smile. cowper. general observations drawn from particulars are the jewels of knowledge, comprehending great store in a little room. locke. out of monuments, names, wordes, proverbs, traditions, private recordes, and evidences, fragments of stories, passages of bookes, and the like, we doe save and recover somewhat from the deluge of time. bacon. i would fain coin wisdom,--mould it, i mean, into maxims, proverbs, sentences, that can easily be retained and transmitted. joubert. preface. a verse may find him whom a sermon flies. george herbert. the volume herewith presented is the natural result of the compiler's habit of transferring and classifying significant passages from known authors. no special course of reading has been pursued, the thoughts being culled from foreign and native tongues--from the moss-grown tomes of ancient literature and the verdant fields of to-day. the terse periods of others, appropriately quoted, become in a degree our own; and a just estimation is very nearly allied to originality, or, as the author of _vanity fair_ tells us, "next to excellence is the appreciation of it." without indorsing the idea of a modern authority that the multiplicity of facts and writings is becoming so great that every available book must soon be composed of extracts only, still it is believed that such a volume as "pearls of thought" will serve the interest of general literature, and especially stimulate the mind of the thoughtful reader to further research. the pleasant duty of the compiler has been to follow the expressive idea of colton, and he has made the same use of books as a bee does of flowers,--she steals the sweets from them, but does not injure them. to the observant reader many familiar quotations will naturally occur, the absence of which may seem a singular omission in such a connection and classification, but doubtless such excerpts will be found in the "treasury of thought," a much more extended work by the same author, to which this volume is properly a supplement. of course care has been taken not to repeat any portion of the previous collection. m. m. b. pearls of thought. a. ~ability.~--natural abilities can almost compensate for the want of every kind of cultivation, but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural abilities.--_schopenhaufer._ words must be fitted to a man's mouth,--'twas well said of the fellow that was to make a speech for my lord mayor, when he desired to take measure of his lordship's mouth.--_selden._ ~absence.~--absence in love is like water upon fire; a little quickens, but much extinguishes it.--_hannah more._ absence from those we love is self from self! a deadly banishment.--_shakespeare._ short retirement urges sweet return.--_milton._ whatever is genuine in social relations endures despite of time, error, absence, and destiny; and that which has no inherent vitality had better die at once. a great poet has truly declared that constancy is no virtue, but a fact.--_tuckerman._ frozen by distance.--_wordsworth._ short absence quickens love, long absence kills it.--_mirabeau._ we often wish most for our friends when they are absent. even in married life love is not diminished by distance. a man, like a burning-glass, should be placed at a certain distance from the object he wishes to dissolve, in order that the proper focus may be obtained.--_richter._ ~abstinence.~--refrain to-night, and that shall lend a hand of easiness to the next abstinence; the next more easy; for use almost can change the stamp of nature, and either curb the devil, or throw him out with wondrous potency.--_shakespeare._ ~abuse.~--abuse is not so dangerous when there is no vehicle of wit or delicacy, no subtle conveyance. the difference between coarse and refined abuse is as the difference between being bruised by a club and wounded by a poisoned arrow.--_johnson._ ~accident.~--what reason, like the careful ant, draws laboriously together, the wind of accident collects in one brief moment.--_schiller._ what men call accident is god's own part.--_p. j. bailey._ ~acquirements.~--every noble acquisition is attended with its risks: he who fears to encounter the one must not expect to obtain the other.--_metastasio._ ~action.~--action can have no effect upon reasonable minds. it may augment noise, but it never can enforce argument. if you speak to a dog, you use action; you hold up your hand thus, because he is a brute; and in proportion as men are removed from brutes, action will have the less influence upon them.--_johnson._ heaven ne'er helps the man who will not act.--_sophocles._ when demosthenes was asked what was the first part of an orator, what the second, and what the third? he answered, "action." the same may i say. if any should ask me what is the first, the second, the third part of a christian, i must answer, "action."--_t. brooks._ our best conjectures, as to the true spring of actions, are very uncertain; the actions themselves are all we must pretend to know from history. that cæsar was murdered by twenty-four conspirators, i doubt not; but i very much doubt whether their love of liberty was the sole cause.--_chesterfield._ action is generally defective, and proves an abortion without previous contemplation. contemplation generates, action propagates.--_owen feltham._ remember you have not a sinew whose law of strength is not action; you have not a faculty of body, mind, or soul, whose law of improvement is not energy.--_e. b. hall._ our actions must clothe us with an immortality loathsome or glorious.--_colton._ outward actions can never give a just estimate of us, since there are many perfections of a man which are not capable of appearing in actions.--_addison._ mark this well, ye proud men of action! ye are, after all, nothing but unconscious instruments of the men of thought.--_heinrich heine._ ~actors.~--players, sir! i look upon them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint stools to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing dogs. but, sir, you will allow that some players are better than others? yes, sir; as some dogs dance better than others.--_johnson._ each under his borrowed guise the actor belongs to himself. he has put on a mask, beneath it his real face still exists; he has thrown himself into a foreign individuality, which in some sense forms a shelter to the integrity of his own character; he may indeed wear festive attire, but his mourning is beneath it; he may smile, divert, act, his soul is still his own; his inner life is undisturbed; no indiscreet question will lift the veil, no coarse hand will burst open the gates of the sanctuary.--_countess de gasparin._ oh, there be players that i have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of christians, nor the gait of christian, pagan, or man, have so strutted and bellowed, that i have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably!--_shakespeare._ an actor should take lessons from a painter and a sculptor. for an actor to represent a greek hero it is imperative he should have thoroughly studied those antique statues which have lasted to our day, and mastered the particular grace they exhibited in their postures, whether sitting, standing, or walking. nor should he make attitude his only study. he should highly develop his mind by an assiduous study of the best writers, ancient and modern, which will enable him not only to understand his parts, but to communicate a nobler coloring to his manners and mien.--_goethe._ ~admiration.~--admiration and love are like being intoxicated with champagne; judgment and friendship like being enlivened.--_johnson._ season your admiration for awhile.--_shakespeare._ i wonder whether the subtle measuring of forces will ever come to measuring the force there would be in one beautiful woman whose mind was as noble as her face was beautiful--who made a man's passion for her rush in one current with all the great aims of his life.--_george eliot._ admiration is the base of ignorance.--_balthasar gracian._ it is better in some respects to be admired by those with whom you live, than to be loved by them. and this not on account of any gratification of vanity, but because admiration is so much more tolerant than love.--_arthur helps._ admiration is a forced tribute, and to extort it from mankind (envious and ignorant as they are) they must be taken unawares.--_james northcote._ ~adversity.~--if adversity hath killed his thousands, prosperity hath killed his ten thousands; therefore adversity is to be preferred. the one deceives, the other instructs; the one miserably happy, the other happily miserable; and therefore many philosophers have voluntarily sought adversity and so much commend it in their precepts.--_burton._ adversity borrows its sharpest sting from our impatience.--_bishop horne._ adversity is like the period of the former and of the latter rain,--cold, comfortless, unfriendly to man and to animal; yet from that season have their birth the flower and the fruit, the date, the rose, and the pomegranate.--_walter scott._ two powerful destroyers: time and adversity.--_a. de musset._ our dependence upon god ought to be so entire and absolute that we should never think it necessary, in any kind of distress, to have recourse to human consolation.--_thomas à kempis._ adversity, like winter weather, is of use to kill those vermin which the summer of prosperity is apt to produce and nourish.--_arrowsmith._ adversity, how blunt are all the arrows of thy quiver in comparison with those of guilt!--_blair._ ~advice.~--people are sooner reclaimed by the side wind of a surprise than by downright admonition.--_l'estrange._ agreeable advice is seldom useful advice.--_massillon._ ~affectation.~--all affectation proceeds from the supposition of possessing something better than the rest of the world possesses. nobody is vain of possessing two legs and two arms, because that is the precise quantity of either sort of limb which everybody possesses.--_sydney smith._ affectation is certain deformity.--_blair._ ~affection.~--none of the affections have been noted to fascinate and bewitch, but love and envy.--_bacon._ none are so desolate but something dear, dearer than self, possesses or possess'd.--_byron._ those childlike caresses which are the bent of every sweet woman, who has begun by showering kisses on the hard pate of her bald doll, creating a happy soul within that woodenness from the wealth of her own love.--_george eliot._ god give us leisure for these rights of love.--_shakespeare._ ~afflictions.~--before an affliction is digested, consolation comes too soon; and after it is digested, it comes too late; but there is a mark between these two, as fine, almost, as a hair, for a comforter to take aim at.--_sterne._ stars shine brightest in the darkest night; torches are better for beating; grapes come not to the proof till they come to the press; spices smell best when bruised; young trees root the faster for shaking; gold looks brighter for scouring; juniper smells sweetest in the fire; the palm-tree proves the better for pressing; chamomile, the more you tread it, the more you spread it. such is the condition of all god's children: they are then most triumphant when most tempted; most glorious when most afflicted.--_bogatzky._ that which thou dost not understand when thou readest, thou shalt understand in the day of thy visitation. for many secrets of religion are not perceived till they be felt, and are not felt but in the day of a great calamity.--_jeremy taylor._ nothing so much increases one's reverence for others as a great sorrow to one's self. it teaches one the depths of human nature. in happiness we are shallow, and deem others so.--_charles buxton._ affliction, like the iron-smith, shapes as it smites.--_bovée._ afflictions sent by providence melt the constancy of the noble-minded but confirm the obduracy of the vile. the same furnace that hardens clay liquefies gold; and in the strong manifestations of divine power pharoah found his punishment, but david his pardon.--_colton._ though all afflictions are evils in themselves, yet they are good for us, because they discover to us our disease and tend to our cure.--_tillotson._ to love all mankind, from the greatest to the lowest (or meanest), a cheerful state of being is required; but in order to see into mankind, into life, and, still more, into ourselves, suffering is requisite.--_richter._ count up man's calamities and who would seem happy? but in truth, calamity leaves fully half of your life untouched.--_charles buxton._ ~age.~--wrinkles are the tomb of love.--_sarros in._ it cuts one sadly to see the grief of old people; they've no way o' working it off; and the new spring brings no new shoots out on the withered tree.--_george eliot._ autumnal green.--_dryden._ ye old men, brief is the space of life allotted to you; pass it as pleasantly as ye can, not grieving from morning till eve. since time knows not how to preserve our hopes, but, attentive to its own concerns, flies away.--_euripides._ the grecian ladies counted their age from their marriage, not their birth.--_homer._ the vices of old age have the stiffness of it too; and as it is the unfittest time to learn in, so the unfitness of it to unlearn will be found much greater.--_south._ old men's eyes are like old men's memories; they are strongest for things a long way off.--_george eliot._ serene, and safe from passion's stormy rage, how calm they glide into the port of age!--_shenstone._ providence gives us notice by sensible declensions, that we may disengage from the world by degrees.--_jeremy collier._ age oppresses by the same degrees that it instructs us, and permits not that our mortal members, which are frozen with our years, should retain the vigor of our youth.--_dryden._ old age adds to the respect due to virtue, but it takes nothing from the contempt inspired by vice, for age whitens only the hair.--_j. petit senn._ up to forty a woman has only forty springs in her heart. after that age she has only forty winters.--_arsène houssaye._ i love everything that's old. old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine.--_goldsmith._ let us respect gray hairs, especially our own.--_j. petit senn._ there are two things which grow stronger in the breast of man, in proportion as he advances in years: the love of country and religion. let them be never so much forgotten in youth, they sooner or later present themselves to us arrayed in all their charms, and excite in the recesses of our hearts an attachment justly due to their beauty.--_chateaubriand._ ~agitation.~--agitation is the marshaling of the conscience of a nation to mould its laws.--_sir r. peel._ agitation is the method that plants the school by the side of the ballot-box.--_wendell phillips._ agitation prevents rebellion, keeps the peace, and secures progress. every step she gains is gained forever. muskets are the weapons of animals. agitation is the atmosphere of the brains.--_wendell phillips._ ~agriculture.~--agriculture is the foundation of manufactures, since the productions of nature are the materials of art.--_gibbon._ agriculture not only gives riches to a nation but the only riches she can call her own.--_johnson._ let the farmer for evermore be honored in his calling, for they who labor in the earth are the chosen people of god.--_thomas jefferson._ ~allegory.~--allegories and spiritual significations, when applied to faith, and that seldom, are laudable; but when they are drawn from the life and conversation, they are dangerous, and, when men make too many of them, pervert the doctrine of faith. allegories are fine ornaments, but not of proof.--_luther._ the allegory of a sophist is always screwed; it crouches and bows like a snake, which is never straight, whether she go, creep, or lie still; only when she is dead, she is straight enough.--_luther._ ~ambition.~--it was not till after the terrible passage of the bridge of lodi that the idea entered my mind that i might become a decisive actor in the political arena. then arose for the first time the spark of great ambition.--_napoleon._ well is it known that ambition can creep as well as soar. the pride of no person in a flourishing condition is more justly to be dreaded than that of him who is mean and cringing under a doubtful and unprosperous fortune.--_burke._ if there is ever a time to be ambitious, it is not when ambition is easy, but when it is hard. fight in darkness; fight when you are down; die hard, and you won't die at all.--_beecher._ by that sin angels fell.--_shakespeare._ where ambition can be so happy as to cover its enterprises, even to the person himself, under the appearance of principle, it is the most incurable and inflexible of all human passions.--_hume._ an ardent thirst of honor; a soul unsatisfied with all it has done, and an unextinguished desire of doing more.--_dryden._ ambition is but the evil shadow of aspiration.--_george macdonald._ think not ambition wise, because 'tis brave.--_sir w. davenant._ soar not too high to fall, but stoop to rise.--_massinger._ ~america.~--child of the earth's old age.--_l. e. langdon._ the name--american, must always exalt the pride of patriotism.--_washington._ in america we see a country of which it has been truly said that in no other are there so few men of great learning and so few men of great ignorance.--_buckle._ america is as yet in the youth and gristle of her strength.--_burke._ if all europe were to become a prison, america would still present a loop-hole of escape; and, god be praised! that loop-hole is larger than the dungeon itself.--_heinrich heine._ ere long, thine every stream shall find a tongue, land of the many waters.--_hoffman._ america is rising with a giant's strength. its bones are yet but cartilages.--_fisher ames._ ~amusement.~--amusement is the waking sleep of labor. when it absorbs thought, patience, and strength that might have been seriously employed, it loses its distinctive character, and becomes the task-master of idleness.--_willmott._ ~analogy.~--analogy, although it is not infallible, is yet that telescope of the mind by which it is marvelously assisted in the discovery of both physical and moral truth.--_colton._ ~anarchy.~--the choking, sweltering, deadly, and killing rule of no rule; the consecration of cupidity and braying of folly, and dim stupidity and baseness, in most of the affairs of men. slop-shirts attainable three-half-pence cheaper by the ruin of living bodies and immortal souls.--_carlyle._ ~ancestry.~--we take rank by descent. such of us as have the longest pedigree, and are therefore the furthest removed from the first who made the fortune and founded the family, we are the noblest. the nearer to the fountain the fouler the stream: and that first ancestor who has soiled his fingers by labor is no better than a parvenu.--_froude._ breed is stronger than pasture.--_george eliot._ the glory of ancestors sheds a light around posterity; it allows neither their good nor bad qualities to remain in obscurity.--_sallust._ nobility of birth does not always insure a corresponding nobility of mind; if it did, it would always act as a stimulus to noble actions; but it sometimes acts as a clog rather than a spur.--_colton._ honorable descent is in all nations greatly esteemed; besides, it is to be expected that the children of men of worth will be like their fathers, for nobility is the virtue of a family.--_aristotle._ a long series of ancestors shows the native lustre with advantage; but if he any way degenerate from his line, the least spot is visible on ermine.--_dryden._ the happiest lot for a man, as far as birth is concerned, is that it should be such as to give him but little occasion to think much about it.--_whately._ ~ancients.~--in tragedy and satire i maintain, against some critics, that this age and the last have excelled the ancients; and i would instance in shakespeare of the former, in dorset of the latter.--_dryden._ though the knowledge they have left us be worth our study, yet they exhausted not all its treasures; they left a great deal for the industry and sagacity of after-ages.--_locke._ ~angels.~--in old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. we see no white-winged angels now. but yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put in theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's.--_george eliot._ millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.--_milton._ ~anger.~--if a man meets with injustice, it is not required that he shall not be roused to meet it; but if he is angry after he has had time to think upon it, that is sinful. the flame is not wrong, but the coals are.--_beecher._ temperate anger well becomes the wise.--_philemon._ when anger rushes, unrestrained, to action, like a hot steed, it stumbles in its way.--_savage._ bad temper is its own scourge. few things are bitterer than to feel bitter. a man's venom poisons himself more than his victim.--_charles buxton._ above all, gentlemen, no heat.--_talleyrand._ anger ventilated often hurries towards forgiveness; anger concealed often hardens into revenge.--_bulwer-lytton._ keep cool and you command everybody.--_st. just._ i never work better than when i am inspired by anger; when i am angry i can write, pray, and preach well; for then my whole temperament is quickened, my understanding sharpened, and all mundane vexations and temptations depart.--_luther._ when one is in a good sound rage, it is astonishing how calm one can be.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~angling.~--i give up fly-fishing; it is a light, volatile, dissipated pursuit. but ground-bait with a good steady float that never bobs without a bite is an occupation for a bishop, and in no way interferes with sermon-making.--_sydney smith._ he that reads plutarch shall find that angling was not contemptible in the days of mark antony and cleopatra.--_izaak walton._ idle time not idly spent.--_sir henry wotton._ to see the fish cut with her golden oars the silver stream and greedily devour the treacherous bait.--_shakespeare._ ~anticipation.~--it has been well said that no man ever sank under the burden of the day. it is when to-morrow's burden is added to the burden of to-day that the weight is more than a man can bear.--_george macdonald._ the craving for a delicate fruit is pleasanter than the fruit itself.--_herder._ the hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowned with fruition. in the first instance, we cook the dish to our own appetite; in the latter, nature cooks it for us.--_goldsmith._ we are apt to rely upon future prospects, and become really expensive while we are only rich in possibility. we live up to our expectations, not to our possessions, and make a figure proportionable to what we may be, not what we are. we outrun our present income, as not doubting to disburse ourselves out of the profits of some future place, project, or reversion that we have in view.--_addison._ nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.--_george eliot._ ~antiquarian.~--a thorough-paced antiquarian not only remembers what all other people have thought proper to forget, but he also forgets what all other people think it proper to remember.--_colton._ the earliest and the longest has still the mastery over us.--_george eliot._ ~antithesis.~--young people are dazzled by the brilliancy of antithesis, and employ it.--_bruyère._ antithesis may be the blossom of wit, but it will never arrive at maturity unless sound sense be the trunk, and truth the root.--_colton._ ~apology.~--an apology in the original sense was a pleading off from some charge or imputation, by explaining or defending principles or conduct. it therefore amounted to a vindication.--_crabbe._ brother, brother, we are both in the wrong.--_gay._ ~apothegms.~--nor do apothegms only serve for ornament and delight, but also for action and civil use, as being the edge tools of speech, which cut and penetrate the knots of business and affairs.--_bacon._ exclusively of the abstract sciences, the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms, and the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism.--_coleridge._ proverbs are potted wisdom.--_charles buxton._ ~appeal.~--seeing all men are not [oe]dipuses to read the riddle of another man's inside, and most men judge by appearances, it behooves a man to barter for a good esteem, even from his clothes and outside. we guess the goodness of the pasture by the mantle we see it wears.--_feltham._ ~appearances.~--it is the appearances that fill the scene; and we pause not to ask of what realities they are the proxies. when the actor of athens moved all hearts as he clasped the burial urn, and burst into broken sobs, how few then knew that it held the ashes of his son!--_bulwer-lytton._ what waste, what misery, what bankruptcy, come from all this ambition to dazzle others with the glare of apparent worldly success, we need not describe. the mischievous results show themselves in a thousand ways--in the rank frauds committed by men who dare to be dishonest, but do not dare to seem poor; and in the desperate dashes at fortune, in which the pity is not so much for those who fail, as for the hundreds of innocent families who are so often involved in their ruin.--_samuel smiles._ foolish men mistake transitory semblances for eternal fact, and go astray more and more.--_carlyle._ what is a good appearance? it is not being pompous and starchy; for proud looks lose hearts, and gentle words win them. it is not wearing fine clothes; for such dressing tells the world that the outside is the better part of the man. you cannot judge a horse by his harness; but a modest, gentlemanly appearance, in which the dress is such as no one could comment upon, is the right and most desirable thing.--_spurgeon._ he was a man who stole the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in.--_pollok._ i more and more see this, that we judge men's abilities less from what they say or do, than from what they look. 't is the man's face that gives him weight. his doings help, but not more than his brow.--_charles buxton._ ~appetite.~--some people have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat. for my part, i mind very studiously; for i look upon it, that he who does not mind this, will hardly mind anything else.--_johnson._ here's neither want of appetite nor mouths; pray heaven we be not scant of meat or mirth.--_shakespeare._ this dish of meat is too good for any but anglers, or very honest men.--_izaak walton._ and do as adversaries do in law,--strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.--_shakespeare._ the table is the only place where we do not get weary during the first hour.--_brillat savarin._ ~appreciation.~--contemporaries appreciate the man rather than the merit; but posterity will regard the merit rather than the man.--_colton._ it so falls out that what we have we prize not to the worth while we enjoy it; but being lacked and lost, why, then we rack the value.--_shakespeare._ a man is known to his dog by the smell--to the tailor by the coat--to his friend by the smile; each of these know him, but how little or how much depends on the dignity of the intelligence. that which is truly and indeed characteristic of man is known only to god.--_ruskin._ he who seems not to himself more than he is, is more than he seems.--_goethe._ light is above us, and color surrounds us; but if we have not light and color in our eyes, we shall not perceive them outside us.--_goethe._ when a nation gives birth to a man who is able to produce a great thought, another is born who is able to understand and admire it.--_joubert._ no story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters.--_george eliot._ next to invention is the power of interpreting invention; next to beauty the power of appreciating beauty.--_margaret fuller._ you will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some with you.--_joubert._ ~architecture.~--architecture is the art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by man, for whatsoever uses, that the sight of them may contribute to his mental health, power, and pleasure.--_ruskin._ ~argument.~--there is no arguing with johnson; for if his pistol misses fire he knocks you down with the butt end of it.--_goldsmith._ weak arguments are often thrust before my path; but although they are most unsubstantial, it is not easy to destroy them. there is not a more difficult feat known than to cut through a cushion with a sword.--_bishop whately._ treating your adversary with respect is giving him an advantage to which he is not entitled. the greatest part of men cannot judge of reasoning, and are impressed by character; so that if you allow your adversary a respectable character, they will think that, though you differ from him, you may be in the wrong. treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in a battle.--_johnson._ the soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation; as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum.--_colton._ an ill argument introduced with deference will procure more credit than the profoundest science with a rough, insolent, and noisy management.--_locke._ one may say, generally, that no deeply rooted tendency was ever extirpated by adverse argument. not having originally been founded on argument, it cannot be destroyed by logic.--_g. h. lewes._ a reason is often good, not because it is conclusive, but because it is dramatic,--because it has the stamp of him who urges it, and is drawn from his own resources. for there are arguments _ex homine_ as well as _ad hominem_.--_joubert._ if i were to deliver up my whole self to the arbitrament of special pleaders, to-day i might be argued into an atheist, and to-morrow into a pickpocket.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~aristocracy.~--and lords, whose parents were the lord knows who.--_de foe._ what can they see in the longest kingly line in europe, save that it runs back to a successful soldier?--_walter scott._ if in an aristocracy the people be virtuous, they will enjoy very nearly the same happiness as in a popular government, and the state will become powerful.--_montesquieu._ an aristocracy is the true, the only support of a monarchy. without it the state is a vessel without a rudder--a balloon in the air. a true aristocracy, however, must be ancient. therein consists its real force,--its talismanic charm.--_napoleon._ i never could believe that providence had sent a few men into the world, ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden.--_richard rumbold._ ~armor.~--the best armor is to keep out of gunshot.--_lord bacon._ our armor all is strong, our cause the best; then reason wills our hearts should be as good.--_shakespeare._ ~art.~--rules may teach us not to raise the arms above the head; but if passion carries them, it will be well done: passion knows more than art.--_baron._ it is a great mortification to the vanity of man that his utmost art and industry can never equal the meanest of nature's productions, either for beauty or value. art is only the underworkman, and is employed to give a few strokes of embellishment to those pieces which come from the hand of the master.--_hume._ the mission of art is to represent nature; not to imitate her.--_w. m. hunt._ true art is not the caprice of this or that individual, it is a solemn page either of history or prophecy; and when, as always in dante and occasionally in byron, it combines and harmonizes this double mission, it reaches the highest summit of power.--_mazzini._ art is the right hand of nature. the latter has only given us being, the former has made us men.--_schiller._ art does not imitate nature, but it founds itself on the study of nature--takes from nature the selections which best accord with its own intention, and then bestows on them that which nature does not possess, namely, the mind and the soul of man.--_bulwer-lytton._ the mother of useful arts is necessity; that of the fine arts is luxury.--_schopenhaufer._ he who seeks popularity in art closes the door on his own genius, as he must needs paint for other minds and not for his own.--_washington allston._ in art, form is everything; matter, nothing.--_heinrich heine._ strange thing art, especially music. out of an art a man may be so trivial you would mistake him for an imbecile, at best a grown infant. put him into his art, and how high he soars above you! how quietly he enters into a heaven of which he has become a denizen, and, unlocking the gates with his golden key, admits you to follow, an humble, reverent visitor.--_bulwer-lytton._ art does not imitate, but interpret.--_mazzini._ the artist is the child in the popular fable, every one of whose tears was a pearl. ah! the world, that cruel step-mother, beats the poor child the harder to make him shed more pearls.--_heinrich heine._ in art there is a point of perfection, as of goodness or maturity in nature; he who is able to perceive it, and who loves it, has perfect taste; he who does not feel it, or loves on this side or that, has an imperfect taste.--_bruyère._ never judge a work of art by its defects.--_washington allston._ ~asceticism.~--i recommend no sour ascetic life. i believe not only in the thorns on the rosebush, but in the roses which the thorns defend. asceticism is the child of sensuality and superstition. she is the secret mother of many a secret sin. god, when he made man's body, did not give us a fibre too much, nor a passion too many. i would steal no violet from the young maiden's bosom; rather would i fill her arms with more fragrant roses. but a life merely of pleasure, or chiefly of pleasure, is always a poor and worthless life, not worth the living; always unsatisfactory in its course, always miserable in its end.--_theodore parker._ in hope to merit heaven by making earth a hell.--_byron._ three forms of asceticism have existed in this weak world. religious asceticism, being the refusal of pleasure and knowledge for the sake--as supposed--of religion; seen chiefly in the middle ages. military asceticism, being the refusal of pleasure and knowledge for the sake of power; seen chiefly in the early days of sparta and rome. and monetary asceticism, consisting in the refusal of pleasure and knowledge for the sake of money; seen in the present days of london and manchester.--_ruskin._ ~aspiration.~--the negro king desired to be portrayed as white. but do not laugh at the poor african; for every man is but another negro king, and would like to appear in a color different from that with which fate has bedaubed him.--_heinrich heine._ there is no sorrow i have thought more about than that--to love what is great, and try to reach it, and yet to fail.--_george eliot._ the heart is a small thing, but desireth great matters. it is not sufficient for a kite's dinner, yet the whole world is not sufficient for it.--_quarles._ there must be something beyond man in this world. even on attaining to his highest possibilities, he is like a bird beating against his cage. there is something beyond, o deathless soul, like a sea-shell, moaning for the bosom of the ocean to which you belong!--_chapin._ oh for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention! a kingdom for a stage, princes to act, and monarchs to behold the swelling scene.--_shakespeare._ the heavens are as deep as our aspirations are high.--_thoreau._ it seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. there are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we _must_ hunger after them.--_george eliot._ ~associates.~--costly followers are not to be liked; lest while a man maketh his train longer, he makes his wings shorter.--_bacon._ be very circumspect in the choice of thy company. in the society of thine equals thou shall enjoy more pleasure; in the society of thy superiors thou shalt find more profit. to be the best in the company is the way to grow worse; the best means to grow better is to be the worst there.--_quarles._ a man should live with his superiors as he does with his fire: not too near, lest he burn; nor too far off, lest he freeze.--_diogenes._ as there are some flowers which you should smell but slightly to extract all that is pleasant in them, and which, if you do otherwise, emit what is unpleasant and noxious, so there are some men with whom a slight acquaintance is quite sufficient to draw out all that is agreeable; a more intimate one would be unsatisfactory and unsafe.--_landor._ those who are unacquainted with the world take pleasure in the intimacy of great men; those who are wiser dread the consequences.--_horace._ ~atheism.~--by burning an atheist, you have lent importance to that which was absurd, interest to that which was forbidding, light to that which was the essence of darkness. for atheism is a system which can communicate neither warmth nor illumination except from those fagots which your mistaken zeal has lighted up for its destruction.--_colton._ one of the most daring beings in creation, a contemner of god, who explodes his laws by denying his existence.--_john foster._ ~authority.~--reasons of things are rather to be taken by weight than tale.--_jeremy collier._ the world is ruled by the subordinates, not by their chiefs.--_charles buxton._ ~authors.~--authors may be divided into falling stars, planets, and fixed stars: the first have a momentary effect. the second have a much longer duration. but the third are unchangeable, possess their own light, and work for all time.--_schopenhaufer._ satire lies about men of letters during their lives, and eulogy after their death.--_voltaire._ it is commonly the personal character of a writer which gives him his public significance. it is not imparted by his genius. napoleon said of corneille, "were he living i would make him a king;" but he did not read him. he read racine, yet he said nothing of the kind of racine. it is for the same reason that la fontaine is held in such high esteem among the french. it is not for his worth as a poet, but for the greatness of his character which obtrudes in his writings.--_goethe._ choose an author as you choose a friend.--_roscommon._ herder and schiller both in their youth intended to study as surgeons, but destiny said: "no, there are deeper wounds than those of the body,--heal the deeper!" and they wrote.--_richter._ a woman who writes commits two sins: she increases the number of books, and decreases the number of women.--_alphonse karr._ thanks and honor to the glorious masters of the pen.--_hood._ the society of dead authors has this advantage over that of the living: they never flatter us to our faces, nor slander us behind our backs, nor intrude upon our privacy, nor quit their shelves until we take them down.--_colton._ clear writers, like clear fountains, do not seem so deep as they are, the turbid looks most profound.--_landor._ when we look back upon human records, how the eye settles upon writers as the main landmarks of the past.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~autumn.~--season of mist and mellow fruitfulness.--_keats._ the sabbath of the year.--_logan._ ~avarice.~--though avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously poor, it generally makes him too timorous to be wealthy.--_thomas paine._ avarice is more unlovely than mischievous.--_landor._ the german poet observes that the cow of isis is to some the divine symbol of knowledge, to others but the milch cow, only regarded for the pounds of butter she will yield. o tendency of our age, to look on isis as the milch cow!--_bulwer-lytton._ worse poison to men's souls, doing more murders in this loathsome world than any mortal drug.--_shakespeare._ avarice is generally the last passion of those lives of which the first part has been squandered in pleasure, and the second devoted to ambition. he that sinks under the fatigue of getting wealth, lulls his age with the milder business of saving it.--_johnson._ b. ~babblers.~--who think too little, and who talk too much.--_dryden._ they always talk who never think.--_prior._ talkers are no good doers.--_shakespeare._ ~babe.~--it is curious to see how a self-willed, haughty girl, who sets her father and mother and all at defiance, and can't be managed by anybody, at once finds her master in a baby. her sister's child will strike the rock and set all her affections flowing.--_charles buxton._ ~bargain.~--what is the disposition which makes men rejoice in good bargains? there are few people who will not be benefited by pondering over the morals of shopping.--_beecher._ a dear bargain is always disagreeable, particularly as it is a reflection upon the buyer's judgment.--_pliny._ ~bashfulness.~--bashfulness may sometimes exclude pleasure, but seldom opens any avenue to sorrow or remorse.--_johnson._ bashfulness is a great hindrance to a man, both in uttering his sentiments and in understanding what is proposed to him; 'tis therefore good to press forward with discretion, both in discourse and company of the better sort.--_bacon._ ~beauty.~--the beautiful is always severe.--_ségur._ for converse among men, beautiful persons have less need of the mind's commending qualities. beauty in itself is such a silent orator, that it is ever pleading for respect and liking, and, by the eyes of others is ever sending to their hearts for love. yet even this hath this inconvenience in it--that it makes its possessor neglect the furnishing of the mind with nobleness. nay, it oftentimes is a cause that the mind is ill.--_feltham._ man has still more desire for beauty than knowledge of it; hence the caprices of the world.--_x. doudan._ no better cosmetics than a severe temperance and purity, modesty and humility, a gracious temper and calmness of spirit; no true beauty without the signature of these graces in the very countenance.--_john ray._ an appearance of delicacy, and even of fragility, is almost essential to beauty.--_burke._ i am of opinion that there is nothing so beautiful but that there is something still more beautiful, of which this is the mere image and expression,--a something which can neither be perceived by the eyes, the ears, nor any of the senses; we comprehend it merely in the imagination.--_cicero._ a lovely girl is above all rank.--_charles buxton._ there is more or less of pathos in all true beauty. the delight it awakens has an indefinable, and, as it were, luxurious sadness, which is perhaps one element of its might.--_tuckerman._ beauty is the first present nature gives to women and the first it takes away.--_méré._ in ourselves, rather than in material nature, lie the true source and life of the beautiful. the human soul is the sun which diffuses light on every side, investing creation with its lovely hues, and calling forth the poetic element that lies hidden in every existing thing.--_mazzini._ beauty is god's handwriting, a wayside sacrament.--_milton._ beauty deceives women in making them establish on an ephemeral power the pretensions of a whole life.--_bignicout._ if there is a fruit that can be eaten raw, it is beauty.--_alphonse karr._ those critics who, in modern times, have the most thoughtfully analyzed the laws of æsthetic beauty, concur in maintaining that the real truthfulness of all works of imagination--sculpture, painting, written fiction--is so purely in the imagination, that the artist never seeks to represent the positive truth, but the idealized image of a truth.--_bulwer-lytton._ an outward gift which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.--_gibbon._ it is impossible that beauty should ever distinctly apprehend itself.--_goethe._ ~bed.~--the bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret; we make up our minds every night to leave it early, but we make up our bodies every morning to keep it late.--_colton._ what a delightful thing rest is! the bed has become a place of luxury to me! i would not exchange it for all the thrones in the world.--_napoleon._ ~beggars.~--he is never out of the fashion, or limpeth awkwardly behind it. he is not required to put on court mourning. he weareth all colors, fearing none. his costume hath undergone less change than the quaker's. he is the only man in the universe who is not obliged to study appearances.--_lamb._ aspiring beggary is wretchedness itself.--_goldsmith._ ~benevolence.~--there cannot be a more glorious object in creation than a human being, replete with benevolence, meditating in what manner he might render himself most acceptable to his creator by doing most good to his creatures.--_fielding._ genuine benevolence is not stationary but peripatetic. it _goeth_ about doing good.--_nevins._ it is an argument of a candid, ingenuous mind to delight in the good name and commendations of others; to pass by their defects and take notice of their virtues; and to speak or hear willingly of the latter; for in this indeed you may be little less guilty than the evil speaker, in taking pleasure in evil, though you speak it not.--_leighton._ the root of all benevolent actions is filial piety and fraternal love.--_confucius._ true benevolence is to love all men. recompense injury with justice, and kindness with kindness.--_confucius._ it is in contemplating man at a distance that we become benevolent.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~bible.~--as those wines which flow from the first treading of the grapes are sweeter and better than those forced out by the press, which gives them the roughness of the husk and the stone, so are those doctrines best and sweetest which flow from a gentle crush of the scriptures and are not wrung into controversies and commonplaces.--_bacon._ they who are not induced to believe and live as they ought by those discoveries which god hath made in scripture, would stand out against any evidence whatever; even that of a messenger sent express from the other world.--_atterbury._ but what is meant, after all, by _uneducated_, in a time when books have come into the world--come to be household furniture in every habitation of the civilized world? in the poorest cottage are books--is one book, wherein for several thousands of years the spirit of man has found light and nourishment and an interpreting response to whatever is deepest in him.--_carlyle._ a stream where alike the elephant may swim and the lamb may wade.--_gregory the great._ all human discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose of confirming more strongly the truths come from on high, and contained in the sacred writings.--_herschel._ i am heartily glad to witness your veneration for a book which, to say nothing of its holiness or authority, contains more specimens of genius and taste than any other volume in existence.--_landor._ ~bigotry.~--a proud bigot, who is vain enough to think that he can deceive even god by affected zeal, and throwing the veil of holiness over vices, damns all mankind by the word of his power.--_boileau._ persecuting bigots may be compared to those burning lenses which lenhenhoeck and others composed from ice; by their chilling apathy they freeze the suppliant; by their fiery zeal they burn the sufferer.--_colton._ a man must be excessively stupid, as well as uncharitable, who believes there is no virtue but on his own side.--_addison._ the worst of mad men is a saint run mad.--_pope._ ~biography.~--as in the case of painters, who have undertaken to give us a beautiful and graceful figure, which may have some slight blemishes, we do not wish them to pass over such blemishes altogether, nor yet to mark them too prominently. the one would spoil the beauty, and the other destroy the likeness of the picture.--_plutarch._ biographies of great, but especially of good men, are most instructive and useful as helps, guides, and incentives to others. some of the best are almost equivalent to gospels--teaching high living, high thinking, and energetic action for their own and the world's good.--_samuel smiles._ it is rarely well executed. they only who live with a man can write his life with any genuine exactness and discrimination; and few people, who have lived with a man, know what to remark about him.--_johnson._ history can be formed from permanent monuments and records; but lives can only be written from personal knowledge, which is growing every day less, and in a short time is lost forever.--_johnson._ occasionally a single anecdote opens a character; biography has its comparative anatomy, and a saying or a sentiment enables the skillful hand to construct the skeleton.--_willmott._ to be ignorant of the lives of the most celebrated men of antiquity is to continue in a state of childhood all our days.--_plutarch._ ~birth.~--noble in appearance, but this is mere outside; many noble born are base.--_euripides._ ~blessings.~--the good things of life are not to be had singly, but come to us with a mixture; like a schoolboy's holiday, with a task affixed to the tail of it.--_charles lamb._ blessedness consists in the accomplishment of our desires, and in our having only regular desires.--_st. augustine._ we mistake the gratuitous blessings of heaven for the fruits of our own industry.--_l'estrange._ health, beauty, vigor, riches, and all the other things called goods, operate equally as evils to the vicious and unjust as they do as benefits to the just.--_plato._ how blessings brighten as they take their flight!--_young._ reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many: not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.--_charles dickens._ ~blush.~--the ambiguous livery worn alike by modesty and shame.--_mrs. balfour._ i have mark'd a thousand blushing apparitions to start into her face; a thousand innocent shames, in angel whiteness, bear away those blushes.--_shakespeare._ the glow of the angel in woman.--_mrs. balfour._ such blushes as adorn the ruddy welkin or the purple morn.--_ovid._ luminous escapes of thought.--_moore._ ~blustering.~--because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposing beneath the shadow of the british oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field--that, of course, they are many in number,--or, that, after all, they are other than the little, shriveled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome, insects of the hour.--_burke._ there are braying men in the world as well as braying asses; for what is loud and senseless talking any other than a way of braying.--_l'estrange._ wine and the sun will make vinegar without any shouting to help them.--_george eliot._ ~boasting.~--usually the greatest boasters are the smallest workers. the deep rivers pay a larger tribute to the sea than shallow brooks, and yet empty themselves with less noise.--_w. secker._ with all his tumid boasts, he's like the sword-fish, who only wears his weapon in his mouth.--_madden._ every braggart shall be found an ass.--_shakespeare._ self-laudation abounds among the unpolished, but nothing can stamp a man more sharply as ill-bred.--_charles buxton._ ~boldness.~--who bravely dares must sometimes risk a fall.--_smollett._ women like brave men exceedingly, but audacious men still more.--_lemesles._ ~bondage.~--the iron chain and the silken cord, both equally are bonds.--_schiller._ ~books.~--if a secret history of books could be written, and the author's private thoughts and meanings noted down alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would become interesting, and dull tales excite the reader!--_thackeray._ when a new book comes out i read an old one.--_rogers._ be as careful of the books you read as of the company you keep; for your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as the latter.--_paxton hood._ homeliness is almost as great a merit in a book as in a house, if the reader would abide there. it is next to beauty, and a very high art.--_thoreau._ a book _is_ good company. it is full of conversation without loquacity. it comes to your longing with full instruction, but pursues you never. it is not offended at your absent-mindedness, nor jealous if you turn to other pleasures. it silently serves the soul without recompense, not even for the hire of love. and yet more noble,--it seems to pass from itself, and to enter the memory, and to hover in a silvery transfiguration there, until the outward book is but a body, and its soul and spirit are flown to you, and possess your memory like a spirit.--_beecher._ if the crowns of all the kingdoms of europe were laid down at my feet in exchange for my books and my love of reading, i would spurn them all.--_fénelon._ we ought to regard books as we do sweetmeats, not wholly to aim at the pleasantest, but chiefly to respect the wholesomest; not forbidding either, but approving the latter most.--_plutarch._ to buy books only because they were published by an eminent printer, is much as if a man should buy clothes that did not fit him, only because made by some famous tailor.--_pope._ the medicine of the mind.--_diodorus._ let every man, if possible, gather some good books under his roof.--_channing._ wise books for half the truths they hold are honored tombs.--_george eliot._ ~bores.~--i am constitutionally susceptible of noises. a carpenter's hammer, in a warm summer's noon, will fret me into more than midsummer madness. but those unconnected, unset sounds are nothing to the measured malice of music.--_lamb._ these, wanting wit, affect gravity, and go by the name of solid men.--_dryden._ if we engage into a large acquaintance and various familiarities, we set open our gates to the invaders of most of our time; we expose our life to a quotidian ague of frigid impertinences which would make a wise man tremble to think of.--_cowley._ the symptoms of compassion and benevolence, in some people, are like those minute guns which warn you that you are in deadly peril!--_madame swetchine._ ~borrowing.~--you should only attempt to borrow from those who have but few of this world's goods, as their chests are not of iron, and they are, besides, anxious to appear wealthier than they really are.--_heinrich heine._ according to the security you offer to her, fortune makes her loans easy or ruinous.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~bravery.~--true bravery is shown by performing without witnesses what one might be capable of doing before all the world.--_rochefoucauld._ 'tis late before the brave despair.--_thompson._ the bravest men are subject most to chance.--_dryden._ the truly brave are soft of heart and eyes.--_byron._ people glorify all sorts of bravery except the bravery they might show on behalf of their nearest neighbors.--_george eliot._ ~brevity.~--to make pleasures pleasant shorten them.--_charles buxton._ was there ever anything written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting don quixote, robinson crusoe, and the pilgrim's progress?--_johnson._ a sentence well couched takes both the sense and understanding. i love not those cart-rope speeches that are longer than the memory of man can fathom.--_feltham._ i saw one excellency was within my reach--it was brevity, and i determined to obtain it.--_jay._ be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams--the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.--_southey._ concentration alone conquers.--_charles buxton._ the more an idea is developed, the more concise becomes its expression: the more a tree is pruned, the better is the fruit.--_alfred bougeart._ oratory, like the drama, abhors lengthiness; like the drama, it must be kept doing. it avoids, as frigid, prolonged metaphysical soliloquy. beauties themselves, if they delay or distract the effect which should be produced on the audience, become blemishes.--_bulwer-lytton._ the fewer words the better prayer.--_luther._ ~business.~--not because of any extraordinary talents did he succeed, but because he had a capacity on a level for business and not above it.--_tacitus._ c. ~calumny.~--neglected calumny soon expires; show that you are hurt, and you give it the appearance of truth.--_tacitus._ calumny crosses oceans, scales mountains, and traverses deserts with greater ease than the scythian abaris, and, like him, rides upon a poisoned arrow.--_colton._ ~cant.~--the affectation of some late authors to introduce and multiply cant words is the most ruinous corruption in any language.--_swift._ there is such a thing as a peculiar word or phrase cleaving, as it were, to the memory of the writer or speaker, and presenting itself to his utterance at every turn. when we observe this, we call it a cant word or a cant phrase.--_paley._ ~caution.~--whenever our neighbor's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own. better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security.--_burke._ ~censure.~--censure pardons the ravens, but rebukes the doves.--_juvenal._ 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.--_hazlitt._ censure is like the lightning which strikes the highest mountains.--_balthasar gracian._ ~chance.~--there must be chance in the midst of design; by which we mean that events which are not designed necessarily arise from the pursuit of events which are designed.--_paley._ chance generally favors the prudent.--_joubert._ it is strictly and philosophically true in nature and reason that there is no such thing as chance or accident; it being evident that these words do not signify anything really existing, anything that is truly an agent or the cause of any event; but they signify merely men's ignorance of the real and immediate cause.--_adam clarke._ what can be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth could come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster!--_jeremy taylor._ he who distrusts the security of chance takes more pains to effect the safety which results from labor. to find what you seek in the road of life, the best proverb of all is that which says: "leave no stone unturned."--_bulwer-lytton._ ~change.~--the great world spins forever down the ringing grooves of change.--_tennyson._ a change came o'er the spirit of my dream.--_byron._ in this world of change, naught which comes stays, and naught which goes is lost.--_madame swetchine._ ~character.~--as there is much beast and some devil in man, so is there some angel and some god in him. the beast and the devil may be conquered, but in this life never destroyed.--_coleridge._ character is not cut in marble--it is not something solid and unalterable. it is something living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do.--_george eliot._ grit is the grain of character. it may generally be described as heroism materialized,--spirit and will thrust into heart, brain, and backbone, so as to form part of the physical substance of the man.--_whipple._ depend upon it, you would gain unspeakably if you would learn with me to see some of the poetry and the pathos, the tragedy and the comedy, lying in the experience of a human soul that looks out through dull gray eyes, and that speaks in a voice of quite ordinary tones.--_george eliot._ character is the diamond that scratches every other stone--_bartol._ character is human nature in its best form. it is moral order embodied in the individual. men of character are not only the conscience of society, but in every well-governed state they are its best motive power; for it is moral qualities in the main which rule the world.--_samuel smiles._ he whose life seems fair, if all his errors and follies were articled against him would seem vicious and miserable.--_jeremy taylor._ in common discourse we denominate persons and things according to the major part of their character: he is to be called a wise man who has but few follies.--_watts._ never does a man portray his own character more vividly than in his manner of portraying another.--_richter._ we are not that we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for that we are capable of being.--_thoreau._ ~charity.~--charity is a principle of prevailing love to god and good-will to men, which effectually inclines one endued with it to glorify god, and to do good to others.--_cruden._ the highest exercise of charity is charity towards the uncharitable.--_buckminster._ the charities that soothe, and heat, and bless, lie scattered at the feet of men like flowers.--_wordsworth._ prayer carries us half way to god, fasting brings us to the door of his palace, and alms-giving procures us admission.--_koran._ shall we repine at a little misplaced charity, we who could no way foresee the effect,--when an all-knowing, all-wise being showers down every day his benefits on the unthankful and undeserving?--_atterbury._ as the purse is emptied the heart is filled.--_victor hugo._ what we employ in charitable uses during our lives is given away from ourselves: what we bequeath at our death is given from others only, as our nearest relations.--_atterbury._ goodness answers to the theological virtue of charity, and admits no excess but error; the desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall; but in charity there is no excess: neither can angel or man come into danger by it.--_bacon._ poplicola's doors were opened on the outside, to save the people even the common civility of asking entrance; where misfortune was a powerful recommendation, and where want itself was a powerful mediator.--_dryden._ when thy brother has lost all that he ever had, and lies languishing, and even gasping under the utmost extremities of poverty and distress, dost thou think to lick him whole again only with thy tongue?--_south._ what we frankly give, forever is our own.--_granville._ faith and hope themselves shall die, while deathless charity remains.--_prior._ the place of charity, like that of god, is everywhere.--_professor vinet._ people do not care to give alms without some security for their money; and a wooden leg or a withered arm is a sort of draftment upon heaven for those who choose to have their money placed to account there.--_mackenzie._ ~chastity.~--chastity enables the soul to breathe a pure air in the foulest places; continence makes her strong, no matter in what condition the body may be; her sway over the senses makes her queenly; her light and peace render her beautiful.--_joubert._ ~cheerfulness.~--cheerfulness is also an excellent wearing quality. it has been called the bright weather of the heart.--_samuel smiles._ there is no christian duty that is not to be seasoned and set off with cheerishness,--which in a thousand outward and intermitting crosses may yet be done well, as in this vale of tears.--_milton._ such a man, truly wise, creams of nature, leaving the sour and the dregs for philosophy and reason to lap up.--_swift._ be thou like the bird perched upon some frail thing, although he feels the branch bending beneath him, yet loudly sings, knowing full well that he has wings.--_mme. de gasparin._ ~children.~--with children we must mix gentleness with firmness; they must not always have their own way, but they must not always be thwarted. if we never have headaches through rebuking them, we shall have plenty of heartaches when they grow up. be obeyed at all costs. if you yield up your authority once, you will hardly ever get it again.--_spurgeon._ the smallest children are nearest to god, as the smallest planets are nearest the sun.--_richter._ the death of a child occasions a passion of grief and frantic tears, such as your end, brother reader, will never inspire.--_thackeray._ childhood has no forebodings; but then, it is soothed by no memories of outlived sorrow.--_george eliot._ children are excellent physiognomists and soon discover their real friends. luttrell calls them all lunatics, and so in fact they are. what is childhood but a series of happy delusions?--_sydney smith._ the clew of our destiny, wander where we will, lies at the cradle foot.--_richter._ a house is never perfectly furnished for enjoyment unless there is a child in it rising three years old, and a kitten rising three weeks.--_southey._ children have more need of models than of critics.--_joubert._ the bearing and training of a child is woman's wisdom.--_tennyson._ one of the greatest pleasures of childhood is found in the mysteries which it hides from the skepticism of the elders, and works up into small mythologies of its own.--_holmes._ do not shorten the beautiful veil of mist covering childhood's futurity, by too hastily drawing away; but permit that joy to be of early commencement and of long duration, which lights up life so beautifully. the longer the morning dew remains hanging in the blossoms of flowers, the more beautiful the day.--_richter._ where children are there is the golden age.--_novalis._ in the man whose childhood has known caresses there is always a fibre of memory that can be touched to gentle issues.--_george eliot._ the first duty towards children is to make them happy. if you have not made them happy, you have wronged them; no other good they may get can make up for that.--_charles buxton._ ~christ.~--our religion sets before us, not the example of a stupid stoic who had by obstinate principles hardened himself against all sense of pain beyond the common measures of humanity, but an example of a man like ourselves, that had a tender sense of the least suffering, and yet patiently endured the greatest.--_tillotson._ however consonant to reason his precepts appeared, nothing could have tempted men to acknowledge him as their god and saviour but their being firmly persuaded of the miracles he wrought.--_addison._ imitate jesus christ.--_franklin._ the history of christ is as surely poetry as it is history, and in general, only that history is history which might also be fable.--_novalis._ ~christianity.~--christianity is within a man, even as he is gifted with reason; it is associated with your mother's chair, and with the first remembered tones of her blessed voice.--_coleridge._ there was never law, or sect, or opinion, did so much magnify goodness as the christian religion doth.--_bacon._ no religion ever appeared in the world whose natural tendency was so much directed to promote the peace and happiness of mankind. it makes right reason a law in every possible definition of the word. and therefore, even supposing it to have been purely a human invention, it had been the most amiable and the most useful invention that was ever imposed on mankind for their good.--_lord bolingbroke._ far beyond all other political powers of christianity is the demiurgic power of this religion over the kingdoms of human opinion.--_de quincey._ christianity is the companion of liberty in all its conflicts,--the cradle of its infancy and the divine source of its claims.--_de tocqueville._ nature never gives to a living thing capacities not particularly meant for its benefit and use. if nature gives to us capacities to believe that we have a creator whom we never saw, of whom we have no direct proof, who is kind and good and tender beyond all that we know of kindness and goodness and tenderness on earth, it is because the endowment of capacities to conceive a being must be for our benefit and use; it would not be for our benefit and use if it were a lie.--_bulwer-lytton._ a man can no more be a christian without facing evil and conquering it than he can be a soldier without going to battle, facing the cannon's mouth, and encountering the enemy in the field.--_chapin._ there was never found in any age of the world, either philosophy, or sect or religion, or law or discipline, which did so highly exalt the good of communion, and depress good private and particular, as the holy christian faith: hence it clearly appears that it was one and the same god that gave the christian law to men who gave those laws of nature to the creatures.--_bacon._ christianity is intensely practical. she has no trait more striking than her common sense.--_charles buxton._ christianity ruined emperors, but saved peoples. it opened the palaces of constantinople to the barbarians, but it opened the doors of cottages to the consoling angels of the saviour.--_alfred de musset._ always put the best interpretation on a tenet. why not on christianity, wholesome, sweet, and poetic? it is the record of a pure and holy soul, humble, absolutely disinterested, a truth-speaker, and bent on serving, teaching, and uplifting men. christianity taught the capacity, the element, to love the all-perfect without a stingy bargain for personal happiness. it taught that to love him was happiness,--to love him in others' virtues.--_emerson._ christian faith is a grand cathedral with divinely pictured windows. standing without, you see no glory nor can possibly imagine any; standing within, every ray of light reveals a harmony of unspeakable splendors.--_hawthorne._ christians are like the several flowers in a garden, that have each of them the dew of heaven, which, being shaken with the wind, they let fall at each other's roots, whereby they are jointly nourished, and become nourishers of each other.--_bunyan._ ~church.~--the church is a union of men arising from the fellowship of religious life; a union essentially independent of, and differing from, all other forms of human association.--_rev. dr. neander._ a place where misdevotion frames a thousand prayers to saints.--_donne._ she may still exist in undiminished vigor, when some traveler from new zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of london bridge, to sketch the ruins of st. paul's.--_macaulay._ surely the church is a place where one day's truce ought to be allowed to the dissensions and animosities of mankind.--_burke._ god never had a house of prayer but satan had a chapel there.--_de foe._ the church is a sort of hospital for men's souls, and as full of quackery as the hospital for their bodies. those who are taken into it live like pensioners in their retreat or sailors' snug harbor, where you may see a row of religious cripples sitting outside in sunny weather.--_thoreau._ ~circumstances.~--circumstances are the rulers of the weak; they are but the instruments of the wise.--_samuel lover._ what saves the virtue of many a woman is that protecting god, the impossible.--_balzac._ ~civilization.~--mankind's struggle upwards, in which millions are trampled to death, that thousands may mount on their bodies.--_mrs. balfour._ the old hindoo saw, in his dream, the human race led out to its various fortunes. first men were in chains which went back to an iron hand. then he saw them led by threads from the brain, which went upward to an unseen hand. the first was despotism, iron and ruling by force. the last was civilization, ruling by ideas.--_wendell phillips._ nations, like individuals, live and die; but civilization cannot die.--_mazzini._ ~clergymen.~--the life of a conscientious clergyman is not easy. i have always considered a clergyman as the father of a larger family than he is able to maintain. i would rather have chancery suits upon my hands than the cure of souls. i do not envy a clergyman's life as an easy life, nor do i envy the clergyman who makes it an easy life.--_johnson._ clergymen consider this world only as a diligence in which they can travel to another.--_napoleon._ the clergy are as like as peas.--_emerson._ ~commander.~--the right of commanding is no longer an advantage transmitted by nature like an inheritance; it is the fruit of labors, the price of courage.--_voltaire._ the trident of neptune is the sceptre of the world.--_antoine lemierre._ he who rules must humor full as much as he commands.--_george eliot._ ~commerce.~--she may well be termed the younger sister, for, in all emergencies, she looks to agriculture both for defense and for supply.--_colton._ commerce defies every wind, outrides every tempest, and invades every zone.--_bancroft._ ~common sense.~--if common sense has not the brilliancy of the sun it has the fixity of the stars.--_fernan caballero._ ~communists.~--one who has yearnings for equal division of unequal earnings. idler or bungler, he is willing to fork out his penny and pocket your shilling.--_ebenezer elliott._ your leaders wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear leveling up to themselves. they would all have some people under them; why not then have some people above them.--_johnson._ communism possesses a language which every people can understand. its elements are hunger, envy, death.--_heinrich heine._ ~comparison.~--all comparisons are odious.--_cervantes._ if we rightly estimate what we call good and evil, we shall find it lies much in comparison.--_locke._ ~compassion.~--the dew of compassion is a tear.--_byron._ ~compensation.~--cloud and rainbow appear together. there is wisdom in the saying of feltham, that the whole creation is kept in order by discord, and that vicissitude maintains the world. many evils bring many blessings. manna drops in the wilderness--corn grows in canaan.--_willmott._ it is some compensation for great evils that they enforce great lessons.--_bovée._ ~complaining.~--we do not wisely when we vent complaint and censure. human nature is more sensible of smart in suffering than of pleasure in rejoicing, and the present endurances easily take up our thoughts. we cry out for a little pain, when we do but smile for a great deal of contentment.--_feltham._ our condition never satisfies us; the present is always the worst. though jupiter should grant his request to each, we should continue to importune him.--_fontaine._ ~conceit.~--wind puffs up empty bladders; opinion, fools.--_socrates._ seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him.--_bible._ nature has sometimes made a fool, but a coxcomb is always of a man's own making.--_addison._ everything without tells the individual that he is nothing; everything within persuades him that he is everything.--_x. doudan._ apes look down on men as degenerate specimens of their own race, just as hollanders regard the german language as a corruption of the dutch.--_heinrich heine._ if its colors were but fast colors, self-conceit would be a most comfortable quality. but life is so humbling, mortifying, disappointing to vanity, that a man's great idea of himself gets washed out of him by the time he is forty.--_charles buxton._ one's self-satisfaction is an untaxed kind of property which it is very unpleasant to find depreciated.--_george eliot._ the pious vanity of man makes him adore his own qualities under the pretense of worshiping those of god.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~confidence.~--confidence imparts a wondrous inspiration to its possessor. it bears him on in security, either to meet no danger, or to find matter of glorious trial.--_milton._ society is built upon trust, and trust upon confidence of one another's integrity.--_south._ ~conscience.~--conscience is not law; no, god and reason made the law, and have placed conscience within you to determine.--_sterne._ there are moments when the pale and modest star, kindled by god in simple hearts, which men call conscience, illumines our path with truer light than the flaming comet of genius on its magnificent course.--_mazzini._ no thralls like them that inward bondage have.--_sir p. sidney._ some people have no perspective in their conscience. their moral convictions are the same on all subjects. they are like a reader who speaks every word with equal emphasis.--_beecher._ conscience enables us not merely to learn the right by experiment and induction, but intuitively and in advance of experiment; so, in addition to the experimental way whereby we learn justice from the facts of human history, we have a transcendental way, and learn it from the facts of human nature, and from immediate consciousness.--_theodore parker._ a man's own conscience is his sole tribunal; and he should care no more for that phantom "opinion" than he should fear meeting a ghost if he cross the churchyard at dark.--_lytton._ conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse.--_goldsmith._ to say that we have a clear conscience is to utter a solecism: had we never sinned we should have had no conscience.--_carlyle._ the most miserable pettifogging in the world is that of a man in the court of his own conscience.--_beecher._ conscience serves us especially to judge of the actions of others.--_j. petit senn._ it is astonishing how soon the whole conscience begins to unravel if a single stitch drops; one single sin indulged in makes a hole you could put your head through.--_charles buxton._ a still small voice.--_bible._ ~constancy.~--a good man it is not mine to see; could i see a man possessed of constancy, that would satisfy me.--_confucius._ constancy is the chimera of love.--_vauvenargues._ constancy is the complement of all the other human virtues.--_mazzini._ ~contempt.~--no sacred fane requires us to submit to contempt.--_goethe._ there is not in human nature a more odious disposition than a proneness to contempt, which is a mixture of pride and ill-nature. nor is there any which more certainly denotes a bad mind; for in a good and benign temper there can be no room for this sensation.--_fielding._ ~contentment.~--that happy state of mind, so rarely possessed, in which we can say, "i have enough," is the highest attainment of philosophy. happiness consists, not in possessing much, but in being content with what we possess. he who wants little always has enough.--_zimmermann._ it is both the curse and blessing of our american life that we are never quite content. we all expect to go somewhere before we die, and have a better time when we get there than we can have at home. the bane of our life is discontent. we say we will work so long, and then we will enjoy ourselves. but we find it just as thackeray has expressed it. "when i was a boy," he said, "i wanted some taffy--it was a shilling--i hadn't one. when i was a man, i had a shilling, but i didn't want any taffy."--_robert collyer._ submission is the only reasoning between a creature and its maker; and contentment in his will is the best remedy we can apply to misfortunes.--_sir w. temple._ where god hath put exquisite tinge upon the shell washed in the surf, and planted a paradise of bloom in a child's cheek, let us leave it to the owl to hoot, and the frog to croak, and the fault-finder to complain.--_de witt talmage._ ~contrast.~--the lustre of diamonds is invigorated by the interposition of darker bodies; the lights of a picture are created by the shades. the highest pleasure which nature has indulged to sensitive perception is that of rest after fatigue.--_johnson._ ~controversy.~--he that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. our antagonist is our helper.--_burke._ what tully says of war may be applied to disputing,--it should be always so managed as to remember that the only true end of it is peace: but generally true disputants are like true sportsmen,--their whole delight is in the pursuit; and a disputant no more cares for the truth than the sportsman for the hare.--_pope._ i am yet apt to think that men find their simple ideas agree, though in discourse they confound one another with different names.--_locke._ a man takes contradiction much more easily than people think, only he will not bear it when violently given, even though it be well-founded. hearts are flowers; they remain open to the softly-falling dew, but shut up in the violent down-pour of rain.--_richter._ ~conversation.~--they who have the true taste of conversation enjoy themselves in a communication of each other's excellences, and not in a triumph over their imperfections.--_addison._ it is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.--_montaigne._ your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy.--_shakespeare._ no one will ever shine in conversation who thinks of saying fine things; to please one must say many things indifferent, and many very bad.--_francis lockier._ conversation warms the mind, enlivens the imagination, and is continually starting fresh game that is immediately pursued and taken, and which would never have occurred in the duller intercourse of epistolary correspondence.--_franklin._ ~coquetry.~--the most effective coquetry is innocence.--_lamartine._ god created the coquette as soon as he had made the fool.--_victor hugo._ affecting to seem unaffected.--_congreve._ though 'tis pleasant weaving nets, 'tis wiser to make cages.--_moore._ beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!--_shakespeare._ new vows to plight, and plighted vows to break.--_dryden._ ~courage.~--god holds with the strong.--_mazzini._ courage is generosity of the highest order, for the brave are prodigal of the most precious things.--_colton._ courage that grows from constitution often forsakes the man when he has occasion for it; courage which arises from a sense of duty acts in a uniform manner.--_addison._ courage from hearts, and not from numbers, grows.--_dryden._ as to moral courage, i have very rarely met with _the two o'clock in the morning courage_. i mean unprepared courage, that which is necessary on an unexpected occasion, and which, in spite of the most unforeseen events, leaves full freedom of judgment and decision.--_napoleon._ courage our greatest failings does supply.--_waller._ to bear is to conquer our fate.--_campbell._ moral courage is more worth having than physical; not only because it is a higher virtue, but because the demand for it is more constant. physical courage is a virtue which is almost always put away in the lumber room. moral courage is wanted day by day.--_charles buxton._ it is only in little matters that men are cowards.--_william henry herbert._ any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning; but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he's sure of losing.--_george eliot._ he who would arrive at fairy land must face the phantoms.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~courtier.~--the court is like a palace built of marble; i mean that it is made up of very hard and very polished people.--_la bruyère._ with the people of court the tongue is the artery of their withered life, the spiral-spring and flag-feather of their souls.--_richter._ ~covetousness.~--desire of having is the sin of covetousness.--_shakespeare._ the character of covetousness is what a man generally acquires more through some niggardness or ill grace, in little and inconsiderable things, than in expenses of any consequence.--_pope._ the world itself is too small for the covetous.--_seneca._ ~cowardice.~--at the bottom of a good deal of the bravery that appears in the world there lurks a miserable cowardice. men will face powder and steel because they cannot face public opinion.--_chapin._ ~credulity.~--quick believers need broad shoulders.--_george herbert._ let us believe what we can and hope for the rest.--_de finod._ when credulity comes from the heart it does no harm to the intellect.--_joubert._ what believer sees a disturbing omission or infelicity? the text, whether of prophet or of poet, expands for whatever we can put into it, and even his bad grammar is sublime.--_george eliot._ observe your enemies for they first find out your faults.--_antishenes._ action is generally defective, and proves an abortion without previous contemplation. contemplation generates, action propagates.--_feltham._ ~crime.~--if poverty is the mother of crimes, want of sense is the father of them.--_bruyère._ crimes lead into one another. they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.--_burke._ ~criticism.~--solomon says rightly: "the wounds made by a friend are worth more than the caresses of a flatterer." nevertheless, it is better that the friend wound not at all.--_joseph de maistre._ the rule in carving holds good as to criticism,--never cut with a knife what you can cut with a spoon.--_charles buxton._ the critic eye, that microscope of wit.--_pope._ men have commonly more pleasure in the criticism which hurts, than in that which is innocuous; and are more tolerant of the severity which breaks hearts and ruins fortunes, than of that which falls impotently on the grave.--_ruskin._ certain critics resemble closely those people who when they would laugh show ugly teeth.--_joubert._ every one is eagle-eyed to see another's faults and his deformity.--_dryden._ for i am nothing if not critical.--_shakespeare._ he who stabs you in the dark with a pen would do the same with a penknife, were he equally safe from detection and the law.--_quintilian._ silence is the severest criticism.--_charles buxton._ all the other powers of literature are coy and haughty, they must be long courted, and at last are not always gained; but criticism is a goddess easy of access and forward of advance, she will meet the slow and encourage the timorous. the want of meaning she supplies with words, and the want of spirit she recompenses with malignity.--_johnson._ it is a barren kind of criticism which tells you what a thing is not.--_rufus griswold._ the legitimate aim of criticism is to direct attention to the excellent. the bad will dig its own grave, and the imperfect may be safely left to that final neglect from which no amount of present undeserved popularity can rescue it.--_bovée._ there are some critics who change everything that comes under their hands to gold, but to this privilege of midas they join sometimes his ears!--_j. petit senn._ ~cruelty.~--cruelty, the sign of currish kind.--_spenser._ one of the ill effects of cruelty is that it makes the by-standers cruel. how hard the english people grew in the time of henry viii. and bloody mary.--_charles buxton._ man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.--_burns._ cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside of itself; it only requires opportunity.--_george eliot._ ~cultivation.~--cultivation is the economy of force.--_liebig._ the highest purpose of intellectual cultivation is to give a man a perfect knowledge and mastery of his own inner self; to render our consciousness its own light and its own mirror. hence there is the less reason to be surprised at our inability to enter fully into the feelings and characters of others. no one who has not a complete knowledge of himself will ever have a true understanding of another.--_novalis._ neither the naked hand, nor the understanding, left to itself, can do much; the work is accomplished by instruments and helps of which the need is not less for the understanding than the hand.--_bacon._ ... without art, a nation is a soulless body; without science, a straying wanderer. without warmth and light, nature cannot thrive, nor humanity increase: the light and warmth of humanity is "art and science."--_kozlay._ ~cunning.~--cunning has effect from the credulity of others, rather than from the abilities of those who are cunning. it requires no extraordinary talents to lie and deceive.--_johnson._ cleverness and cunning are incompatible. i never saw them united. the latter is the resource of the weak, and is only natural to them; children and fools are always cunning, but clever people never.--_byron._ discourage cunning in a child; cunning is the ape of wisdom.--_locke._ cunning signifies especially a habit or gift of overreaching, accompanied with enjoyment and a sense of superiority. it is associated with small and dull conceit, and with an absolute want of sympathy or affection. it is the intensest rendering of vulgarity, absolute and utter.--_ruskin._ ~curiosity.~--a person who is too nice an observer of the business of the crowd, like one who is too curious in observing the labor of the bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.--_pope._ the gratification of curiosity rather frees us from uneasiness than confers pleasure; we are more pained by ignorance than delighted by instruction. curiosity is the thirst of the soul.--_johnson._ ~custom.~--the despotism of custom is on the wane; we are not content to know that things are; we ask whether they ought to be.--_john stuart mill._ immemorial custom is transcendent law.--_menu._ in this great society wide lying around us, a critical analysis would find very few spontaneous actions. it is almost all custom and gross sense.--_emerson._ custom doth make dotards of us all.--_carlyle._ ~cynics.~--it will be very generally found that those who sneer habitually at human nature, and affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant samples.--_dickens._ cynicism is old at twenty.--_bulwer-lytton._ d. ~dandy.~--a dandy is a clothes-wearing man,--a man whose trade, office, and existence consist in the wearing of clothes. every faculty of his soul, spirit, person, and purse is heroically consecrated to this one object,--the wearing of clothes wisely and well; so that as others dress to live, he lives to dress.--_carlyle._ a fool may have his coat embroidered with gold, but it is a fool's coat still.--_rivarol._ ~danger.~--it is better to meet danger than to wait for it. he that is on a lee shore, and foresees a hurricane, stands out to sea, and encounters a storm to avoid a shipwreck.--_colton._ ~death.~--it is not death, it is dying, that alarms me.--_montaigne._ what is death? to go out like a light, and in a sweet trance to forget ourselves and all the passing phenomena of the day, as we forget the phantoms of a fleeting dream; to form, as in a dream, new connections with god's world; to enter into a more exalted sphere, and to make a new step up man's graduated ascent of creation.--_zschokke._ heaven gives its favorites early death.--_byron._ our respect for the dead, when they are _just_ dead, is something wonderful, and the way we show it more wonderful still. we show it with black feathers and black horses; we show it with black dresses and black heraldries; we show it with costly obelisks and sculptures of sorrow, which spoil half of our beautiful cathedrals. we show it with frightful gratings and vaults, and lids of dismal stone, in the midst of the quiet grass; and last, and not least, we show it by permitting ourselves to tell any number of falsehoods we think amiable or credible in the epitaph.--_ruskin._ there are remedies for all things but death.--_carlyle._ we understand death for the first time when he puts his hand upon one whom we love.--_mme. de staël._ too early fitted for a better state.--_dryden._ death, the dry pedant, spares neither the rose nor the thistle, nor does he forget the solitary blade of grass in the distant waste. he destroys thoroughly and unceasingly. everywhere we may see how he crushes to dust plants and beasts, men and their works. even the egyptian pyramids, that would seem to defy him, are trophies of his power,--monuments of decay, graves of primeval kings.--_heinrich heine._ there is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, but has one vacant chair!--_longfellow._ and though mine arm should conquer twenty worlds, there's a lean fellow beats all conquerors.--_thomas dekker._ death is a commingling of eternity with time.--_goethe._ to the christian, whose life has been dark with brooding cares that would not lift themselves, and on whom chilling rains of sorrow have fallen at intervals through all his years, death is but the clearing-up shower; and just behind it are the songs of angels, and the serenity and glory of heaven.--_beecher._ that golden key that opes the palace of eternity.--_milton._ when death gives us a long lease of life, it takes as hostages all those whom we have loved.--_madame necker._ man makes a death which nature never made.--_young._ the golden ripple on the wall came back again, and nothing else stirred in the room. the old, old fashion! the fashion that came in with our first garments, and will last unchanged until our race has run its course, and the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll. the old, old fashion--death! oh, thank god, all who see it, for that older fashion yet--of immortality!--_dickens._ god's finger touched him, and he slept.--_tennyson._ then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto god who gave it.--_bible._ nature intends that, at fixed periods, men should succeed each other by the instrumentality of death. we shall never outwit nature; we shall die as usual.--_fontenelle._ after life's fitful fever he sleeps well.--_shakespeare._ flesh is but the glass which holds the dust that measures all our time, which also shall be crumbled into dust.--_george herbert._ death expecteth thee everywhere; be wise, therefore, and expect death everywhere.--_quarles._ the world. oh, the world is so sweet to the dying!--_schiller._ the world is full of resurrections. every night that folds us up in darkness is a death; and those of you that have been out early, and have seen the first of the dawn, will know it,--the day rises out of the night like a being that has burst its tomb and escaped into life.--_george macdonald._ the dissolution of forms is no loss in the mass of matter.--_pliny._ faith builds a bridge across the gulf of death.--_young._ ~debt.~--he that dies pays all debts.--_shakespeare._ poverty is hard, but debt is horrible; a man might as well have a smoky house and a scolding wife, which are said to be the two worst evils of our life.--_spurgeon._ the first step in debt is like the first step in falsehood, almost involving the necessity of proceeding in the same course, debt following debt as lie follows lie. haydon, the painter, dated his decline from the day on which he first borrowed money.--_samuel smiles._ do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience; you will find it a calamity.--_johnson._ that swamp [of debt] which tempts men towards it with such a pretty covering of flowers and verdure. it is wonderful how soon a man gets up to his chin there,--in a condition in which, spite of himself, he is forced to think chiefly of release, though he had a scheme of the universe in his soul.--_george eliot._ youth is in danger until it learns to look upon debts as furies.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~deceit.~--no man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true.--_hawthorne._ idiots only may be cozened twice.--_dryden._ it is a double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.--_fontaine._ there is less misery in being cheated than in that kind of wisdom which perceives, or thinks it perceives, that all mankind are cheats.--_chapin._ like unto golden hooks that from the foolish fish their baits do hide.--_spenser._ libertines are hideous spiders that often catch pretty butterflies.--_diderot._ ~decency.~--as beauty of body, with an agreeable carriage, pleases the eye, and that pleasure consists in that we observe all the parts with a certain elegance are proportioned to each other; so does decency of behavior which appears in our lives obtain the approbation of all with whom we converse, from the order, consistency, and moderation of our words and actions.--_steele._ virtue and decency are so nearly related that it is difficult to separate them from each other but in our imagination.--_tully._ ~declamation.~--fine declamation does not consist in flowery periods, delicate allusions, or musical cadences, but in a plain, open, loose style, where the periods are long and obvious; where the same thought is often exhibited in several points of view.--_goldsmith._ the art of declamation has been sinking in value from the moment that speakers were foolish enough to publish, and hearers wise enough to read.--_colton._ ~deeds.~--a word that has been said may be unsaid: it is but air. but when a deed is done, it cannot be undone, nor can our thoughts reach out to all the mischiefs that may follow.--_longfellow._ how oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes deeds ill done!--_shakespeare._ legal deeds were invented to remind men of their promises, or to convict them of having broken them,--a stigma on the human race.--_bruyère._ good actions ennoble us, and we are the sons of our own deeds.--_cervantes._ we should believe only in works; words are sold for nothing everywhere.--_rojas._ ~delay.~--we do not directly go about the execution of the purpose that thrills us, but shut our doors behind us, and ramble with prepared minds, as if the half were already done. our resolution is taking root or hold on the earth then, as seeds first send a shoot downward, which is fed by their own albumen, ere they send one upwards to the light.--_thoreau._ time drinketh up the essence of every great and noble action, which ought to be performed! and is delayed in the execution.--_veeshnoo sarma._ ~democracy.~--democracy will itself accomplish the salutary universal change from delusive to real, and make a new blessed world of us by and by.--_carlyle._ the love of democracy is that of equality.--_montesquieu._ ~dependence.~--the beautiful must ever rest in the arms of the sublime. the gentle needs the strong to sustain it, as much as the rock-flowers need rocks to grow on, or the ivy the rugged wall which it embraces.--_mrs. stowe._ thou shalt know by experience how salt the savor is of other's bread, and how sad a path it is to climb and descend another's stairs.--_dante._ how beautifully is it ordered, that as many thousands work for one, so must every individual bring his labor to make the whole! the highest is not to despise the lowest, nor the lowest to envy the highest; each must live in all and by all. who will not work, neither shall he eat. so god has ordered that men, being in need of each other, should learn to love each other and bear each other's burdens.--_g. a. sala._ we are never without a pilot. when we know not how to steer, and dare not hoist a sail, we can drift. the current knows the way, though we do not. the ship of heaven guides itself, and will not accept a wooden rudder.--_emerson._ ~desire.~--it is easier to suppress the first desire than to satisfy all that follow it.--_franklin._ lack of desire is the greatest riches.--_seneca._ where necessity ends, curiosity begins; and no sooner are we supplied with everything that nature can demand, than we sit down to contrive artificial appetites.--_johnson._ the thirst of desire is never filled, nor fully satisfied.--_cicero._ the man's desire is for the woman; but the woman's desire is rarely other than for the desire of the man.--_coleridge._ desires are the pulse of the soul.--_manton._ ~despair.~--considering the unforeseen events of this world, we should be taught that no human condition should inspire men with absolute despair.--_fielding._ leaden-eyed despair.--_keats._ in the lottery of life there are more prizes drawn than blanks, and to one misfortune there are fifty advantages. despondency is the most unprofitable feeling a man can indulge in.--_de witt talmage._ he that despairs limits infinite power to finite apprehensions.--_south._ it is impossible for that man to despair who remembers that his helper is omnipotent.--_jeremy taylor._ he that despairs measures providence by his own little contracted model.--_south._ juliet was a fool to kill herself, for in three months she'd have married again, and been glad to be quit of romeo.--_charles buxton._ what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.--_george eliot._ ~despotism.~--it is difficult for power to avoid despotism. the possessors of rude health; the individualities cut out by a few strokes, solid for the very reason that they are all of a piece; the complete characters whose fibres have never been strained by a doubt; the minds that no questions disturb and no aspirations put out of breath,--these, the strong, are also the tyrants.--_countess de gasparin._ there is something among men more capable of shaking despotic power than lightning, whirlwind, or earthquake; that is, the threatened indignation of the whole civilized world.--_daniel webster._ ~destiny.~--the scape-goat which we make responsible for all our crimes and follies; a necessity which we set down for invincible, when we have no wish to strive against it.--_mrs. balfour._ our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.--_george eliot._ ~detention.~--never hold any one by the button or the hand, in order to be heard out; for if people are unwilling to hear you, you had better hold your tongue than them.--_chesterfield._ ~detraction.~--happy are they that hear their detractions, and can put them to mending.--_shakespeare._ in some unlucky dispositions there is such an envious kind of pride that they cannot endure that any but themselves should be set forth for excellent; so that when they hear one justly praised they will either seek to dismount his virtues, or, if they be like a clear light, they will stab him with a _but_ of detraction; as if there were something yet so foul as did obnubilate even his brightest glory. when their tongue cannot justly condemn him, they will leave him suspected by their silence.--_feltham._ ~dew.~--that same dew, which sometimes withers buds, was wont to swell, like round and orient pearls, stood now within the pretty flow'rets' eyes, like tears, that did their own disgrace bewail.--_shakespeare._ earth's liquid jewelry, wrought of air.--_p. j. bailey._ ~diet.~--regimen is better than physic. every one should be his own physician. we ought to assist, and not to force nature: but more especially we should learn to suffer, grow old, and die. some things are salutary, and others hurtful. eat with moderation what you know by experience agrees with your constitution. nothing is good for the body but what we can digest. what medicine can procure digestion? exercise. what will recruit strength? sleep. what will alleviate incurable evils? patience.--_voltaire._ free-livers on a small scale, who are prodigal within the compass of a guinea.--_washington irving._ ~difficulties.~--the greatest difficulties lie where we are not looking for them.--_goethe._ the weak sinews become strong by their conflict with difficulties. hope is born in the long night of watching and tears. faith visits us in defeat and disappointment, amid the consciousness of earthly frailty and the crumbling tombstones of mortality.--_chapin._ how strangely easy difficult things are!--_charles buxton._ ~diffidence.~--nothing sinks a young man into low company, both of women and men, so surely as timidity and diffidence of himself. if he thinks that he shall not, he may depend upon it he will not, please. but with proper endeavors to please, and a degree of persuasion that he shall, it is almost certain that he will.--_chesterfield._ no congress, nor mob, nor guillotine, nor fire, nor all together, can avail, to cut out, burn, or destroy the offense of superiority in persons. the superiority in him is inferiority in me.--_emerson._ ~dignity.~--it is at once the thinnest and most effective of all the coverings under which duncedom sneaks and skulks. most of the men of dignity, who awe or bore their more genial brethren, are simply men who possess the art of passing off their insensibility for wisdom, their dullness for depth, and of concealing imbecility of intellect under haughtiness of manner.--_whipple._ ~dirt.~--"ignorance," says ajax, "is a painless evil;" so, i should think, is dirt, considering the merry faces that go along with it.--_george eliot._ martin, if dirt was trumps, what hands you would hold.--_lamb._ ~disappointment.~--life often seems like a long shipwreck, of which the débris are friendship, glory, and love: the shores of existence are strewn with them.--_mme. de staël._ o world! how many hopes thou dost engulf!--_alfred de musset._ thirsting for the golden fountain of the fable, from how many streams have we turned away, weary and in disgust!--_bulwer-lytton._ we mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, "oh, nothing!" pride helps us; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our own hurts--not to hurt others.--_george eliot._ ah! what seeds for a paradise i bore in my heart, of which birds of prey have robbed me.--_richter._ ~discourtesy.~--discourtesy does not spring merely from one bad quality, but from several,--from foolish vanity, from ignorance of what is due to others, from indolence, from stupidity, from distraction of thought, from contempt of others, from jealousy.--_la bruyère._ ~discovery.~--through every rift of discovery some seeming anomaly drops out of the darkness, and falls as a golden link in the great chain of order.--_chapin._ ~discretion.~--be discreet in all things, and go render it unnecessary to be mysterious about any.--_wellington._ though a man has all other perfections and wants discretion, he will be of no great consequence in the world; but if he has this single talent in perfection, and but a common share of others, he may do what he pleases in his particular station of life.--_addison._ ~dishonesty.~--so grasping is dishonesty that it is no respecter of persons: it will cheat friends as well as foes; and, were it possible, even god himself!--_bancroft._ ~dispatch.~--use dispatch. remember that the world only took six days to create. ask me for whatever you please except _time_: that is the only thing which is beyond my power.--_napoleon._ true dispatch is a rich thing; for time is the measure of business, as money is of wares, and business is bought at a dear hand where there is small dispatch.--_bacon._ ~disposition.~--a tender-hearted and compassionate disposition, which inclines men to pity and feel the misfortunes of others, and which is even for its own sake incapable of involving any man in ruin and misery, is of all tempers of mind the most amiable; and, though it seldom receives much honor, is worthy of the highest.--_fielding._ a good disposition is more valuable than gold; for the latter is the gift of fortune, but the former is the dower of nature.--_addison._ ~distrust.~--as health lies in labor, and there is no royal road to it but through toil, so there is no republican road to safety but in constant distrust.--_wendell phillips._ what loneliness is more lonely than distrust?--_george eliot._ when desperate ills demand a speedy cure, distrust is cowardice, and prudence folly.--_johnson._ ~doubt.~--remember talleyrand's advice, "if you are in doubt whether to write a letter or not--don't!" the advice applies to many doubts in life besides that of letter writing.--_bulwer-lytton._ doubt is hell in the human soul.--_gasparin._ doubt springs from the mind; faith is the daughter of the soul.--_j. petit senn._ modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise.--_shakespeare._ the doubts of an honest man contain more moral truth than the profession of faith of people under a worldly yoke.--_x. doudan._ there lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.--_tennyson._ every body drags its shadow, and every mind its doubt.--_victor hugo._ ~dreams.~--children of night, of indigestion bred.--_churchill._ a world of the dead in the hues of life.--_mrs. hemans._ the fickle pensioners of morpheus' train.--_milton._ dreams always go by contraries, my dear.--_samuel lover._ we are somewhat more than ourselves in our sleeps, and the slumber of the body seems to be but the waking of the soul. it is the litigation of sense, but the liberty of reason; and our waking conceptions do not match the fancies of our sleeps.--_sir t. browne._ the mockery of unquiet slumbers.--_shakespeare._ like a dog, he hunts in dreams.--_tennyson._ ~dress.~--it is well known that a loose and easy dress contributes much to give to both sexes those fine proportions of body that are observable in the grecian statues, and which serve as models to our present artists.--_rousseau._ ~duty.~--stern daughter of the voice of god.--_wordsworth._ duty is a power which rises with us in the morning and goes to rest with us at night. it is coextensive with the action of our intelligence. it is the shadow which cleaves to us, go where we will, and which only leaves us when we leave the light of life.--_gladstone._ let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: fear god and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.--_bible._ the idea of duty, that recognition of something to be lived for beyond the mere satisfaction of self, is to the moral life what the addition of a great central ganglion is to animal life.--_george eliot._ do the duty which lies nearest to thee.--_goethe._ those who do it always would as soon think of being conceited of eating their dinner as of doing their duty. what honest boy would pride himself on not picking a pocket? a thief who was trying to reform would.--_george macdonald._ to what gulfs a single deviation from the track of human duties leads!--_byron._ the duty of man is not a wilderness of turnpike gates, through which he is to pass by tickets from one to the other. it is plain and simple, and consists but of two points: his duty to god, which every man must feel; and, with respect to his neighbor, to do as he would be done by.--_thomas paine._ there is not a moment without some duty.--_cicero._ if doing what ought to be done be made the first business, and success a secondary consideration,--is not this the way to exalt virtue?--_confucius._ the path of duty lies in what is near, and men seek for it in what is remote; the work of duty lies in what is easy, and men seek for it in what is difficult.--_mencius._ duty does not consist in suffering everything, but in suffering everything for duty. sometimes, indeed, it is our duty not to suffer.--_dr. vinet._ he who is false to present duty breaks a thread in the loom, and will find the flaw when he may have forgotten its cause.--_beecher._ the primal duties shine aloft, like stars; the charities that soothe, and heal, and bless, are scattered at the feet of man, like flowers.--_wordsworth._ can man or woman choose duties? no more than they can choose their birthplace, or their father and mother.--_george eliot._ e. ~ear.~--a side intelligencer.--_lamb._ eyes and ears, two traded pilots 'twixt the dangerous shores of will and judgment.--_shakespeare._ the wicket of the soul.--_sir j. davies._ the road to the heart.--_voltaire._ ~early-rising.~--early-rising not only gives us more life in the same number of our years, but adds likewise to their number; and not only enables us to enjoy more of existence in the same measure of time, but increases also the measure.--_colton._ the famous apollonius being very early at vespasian's gate, and finding him stirring, from thence conjectured that he was worthy to govern an empire, and said to his companion, "this man surely will be emperor, he is so early."--_caussin._ when one begins to turn in bed, it is time to get up.--_wellington._ the difference between rising at five and seven o'clock in the morning, for the space of forty years, supposing a man to go to bed at the same hour at night, is nearly equivalent to the addition of ten years to a man's life.--_doddridge._ whoever has tasted the breath of morning knows that the most invigorating and most delightful hours of the day are commonly spent in bed; though it is the evident intention of nature that we should enjoy and profit by them.--_southey._ ~economy.~--economy is half the battle of life; it is not so hard to earn money as to spend it well.--_spurgeon._ ere fancy you consult, consult your purse.--_franklin._ i can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse; borrowing only lingers and lingers it out; but the disease is incurable.--_shakespeare._ the back-door robs the house.--_george herbert._ the world abhors closeness, and all but admires extravagance. yet a slack hand shows weakness, a tight hand, strength.--_charles buxton._ ~education.~--education gives fecundity of thought, copiousness of illustration, quickness, vigor, fancy, words, images, and illustrations; it decorates every common thing, and gives the power of trifling without being undignified and absurd.--_sydney smith._ still i am learning.--_motto of michael angelo._ if we work upon marble, it will perish; if we work upon brass, time will efface it; if we rear temples, they will crumble into dust; but if we work upon immortal minds, if we imbue them with principles, with the just fear of god and love of our fellow-men, we engrave on those tablets something which will brighten to all eternity.--_daniel webster._ the education of life perfects the thinking mind, but depraves the frivolous.--_mme. de staël._ what sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul. the philosopher, the saint, and the hero,--the wise, the good, and the great man, very often lie hid and concealed in a plebeian, which a proper education might have disinterred and brought to light.--_addison._ very few men are wise by their own counsel, or learned by their own teaching; for he that was only taught by himself had a fool to his master.--_ben jonson._ i am always for getting a boy forward in his learning, for that is sure good. i would let him at first read _any_ english book which happens to engage his attention; because you have done a great deal when you have brought him to have entertainment from a book. he'll get better books afterwards.--_johnson._ the essential difference between a good and a bad education is this, that the former draws on the child to learn by making it sweet to him; the latter drives the child to learn, by making it sour to him if he does not.--_charles buxton._ nothing so good as a university education, nor worse than a university without its education.--_bulwer-lytton._ education is all paint: it does not alter the nature of the wood that is under it, it only improves its appearance a little. why i dislike education so much is that it makes all people alike, until you have examined into them; and it is sometimes so long before you get to see under the varnish!--_lady hester stanhope._ ~eloquence.~--the poetry of speech.--_byron._ this is that eloquence the ancients represented as lightning, bearing down every opposer; this the power which has turned whole assemblies into astonishment, admiration, and awe; that is described by the torrent, the flame, and every other instance of irresistible impetuosity.--_goldsmith._ ~eminence.~--i do not hesitate to say that the road to eminence and power from an obscure condition ought not to be made too easy, nor a thing too much of course. if rare merit be the rarest of all things, it ought to pass through some sort of probation. the temple of honor ought to be seated on an eminence. if it be open through virtue, let it be remembered, too, that virtue is never tried but by some difficulty and some struggle.--_burke._ ~emotions.~--all loving emotions, like plants, shoot up most rapidly in the tempestuous atmosphere of life.--_richter._ emotion has no value in the christian system save as it stands connected with right conduct as the cause of it. emotion is the bud, not the flower, and never is it of value until it expands into a flower. every religious sentiment; every act of devotion which does not produce a corresponding elevation of life, is worse than useless; it is absolutely pernicious, because it ministers to self-deception and tends to lower the line of personal morals.--_w. h. h. murray._ there are three orders of emotions: those of pleasure, which refer to the senses; those of harmony, which refer to the mind; and those of happiness, which are the natural result of a union between harmony and pleasure.--_chapone._ emotion, whether of ridicule, anger, or sorrow; whether raised at a puppet-show, a funeral, or a battle, is your grandest of levelers. the man who would be always superior should be always apathetic.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~employment.~--the wise prove, and the foolish confess, by their conduct, that a life of employment is the only life worth leading.--_paley._ life will frequently languish, even in the hands of the busy, if they have not some employment subsidiary to that which forms their main pursuit.--_blair._ ~emulation.~--emulation embalms the dead; envy, the vampire, blasts the living.--_fuseli._ ~enemies.~--it is the enemy whom we do not suspect who is the most dangerous.--_rojas._ ~energy.~--the longer i live, the more deeply am i convinced that that which makes the difference between one man and another--between the weak and powerful, the great and insignificant--is energy, invincible determination; a purpose once formed, and then death or victory. this quality will do anything that is to be done in the world; and no two-legged creature can become a man without it.--_charles buxton._ the truest wisdom is a resolute determination.--_napoleon._ to think we are able is almost to be so; to determine upon attainment is frequently attainment itself. thus earnest resolution has often seemed to have about it almost a savor of omnipotence.--_samuel smiles._ oh! for a forty parson power.--_byron._ daniel webster struck me much like a steam-engine in trousers.--_sydney smith._ this world belongs to the energetic.--_emerson._ ~enjoyment.~--whatever advantage we snatch beyond the certain portion allotted us by nature is like money spent before it is due, which at the time of regular payment will be missed and regretted.--_johnson._ ~ennui.~--i have also seen the world, and after long experience have discovered that ennui is our greatest enemy, and remunerative labor our most lasting friend.--_möser._ i am wrapped in dismal thinking.--_shakespeare._ ~enthusiasm.~--enthusiasts soon understand each other.--_washington irving._ enthusiasm is an evil much less to be dreaded than superstition. superstition is the disease of nations; enthusiasm, that of individuals: the former grows inveterate by time, the latter is cured by it.--_robert hall._ enthusiasm is that temper of mind in which the imagination has got the better of the judgment.--_warburton._ great designs are not accomplished without enthusiasm of some sort. it is the inspiration of everything great. without it, no man is to be feared, and with it none despised.--_bovée._ enthusiasm is supernatural serenity.--_thoreau._ a man conscious of enthusiasm for worthy aims is sustained under petty hostilities by the memory of great workers who had to fight their way not without wounds, and who hover in his mind as patron saints, invisibly helping.--_george eliot._ the insufficient passions of a soul expanding to celestial limits.--_sydney dobell._ ~envy.~--a man who hath no virtue in himself ever envieth virtue in others; for men's minds will either feed upon their own good, or upon others' evil; and who wanteth the one will prey upon the other.--_lord bacon._ pining and sickening at another's joy.--_ovid._ many passions dispose us to depress and vilify the merit of one rising in the esteem of mankind.--_addison._ he who surpasses or subdues mankind must look down on the hate of those below.--_byron._ an envious fever of pale and bloodless emulation.--_shakespeare._ ~equality.~--whether i be the grandest genius on earth in a single thing, and that single thing earthy, or the poor peasant who, behind his plow, whistles for want of thought, i strongly suspect it will be all one when i pass to the competitive examination yonder! on the other side of the grave a raffael's occupation may be gone as well as a plowman's.--_bulwer-lytton._ all the religions known in the world are founded, so far as they relate to man, or the unity of man, as being all of one degree. whether in heaven or in hell, or in whatever state man may be supposed to exist hereafter, the good and the bad are the only distinctions.--_thomas paine._ by the law of god, given by him to humanity, all men are free, are brothers, and are equals.--_mazzini._ the circle of life is cut up into segments. all lines are equal if they are drawn from the centre and touch the circumference.--_bulwer-lytton._ liberty and equality, lovely and sacred words!--_mazzini._ 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.--_hazlitt._ ~equanimity.~--a thing often lost, but seldom found.--_mrs. balfour._ ~error.~--if those alone who "sowed the wind did reap the whirlwind," it would be well. but the mischief is that the blindness of bigotry, the madness of ambition, and the miscalculations of diplomacy seek their victims principally amongst the innocent and the unoffending. the cottage is sure to suffer for every error of the court, the cabinet, or the camp. when error sits in the seat of power and of authority, and is generated in high places, it may be compared to that torrent which originates indeed in the mountain, but commits its devastation in the vale.--_colton._ there is a brotherhood of error as close as the brotherhood of truth.--_argyll._ errors look so very ugly in persons of small means, one feels they are taking quite a liberty in going astray; whereas people of fortune may naturally indulge in a few delinquencies.--_george eliot._ our follies and errors are the soiled steps to the grecian temple of our perfection.--_richter._ but for my part, my lord, i then thought, and am still of the same opinion, that error, and not truth of any kind, is dangerous; that ill conclusions can only flow from false propositions; and that, to know whether any proposition be true or false, it is a preposterous method to examine it by its apparent consequences.--_burke._ error in itself is always invisible; its nature is the absence of light.--_jacobi._ there is no place where weeds do not grow, and there is no heart where errors are not to be found.--_j. s. knowles._ our understandings are always liable to error; nature and certainty is very hard to come at, and infallibility is mere vanity and pretense.--_marcus antoninus._ let error be an infirmity and not a crime.--_castelar._ errors such as are but acorns in our younger brows grow oaks in our older heads, and become inflexible.--_sir thomas browne._ ~erudition.~--'tis of great importance to the honor of learning that men of business should know erudition is not like a lark, which flies high, and delights in nothing but singing; but that 't is rather like a hawk, which soars aloft indeed, but can stoop when she finds it convenient, and seize her prey.--_bacon._ ~estimation.~--a life spent worthily should be measured by a nobler line,--by deeds, not years.--_sheridan._ to judge of the real importance of an individual, one should think of the effect his death would produce.--_léves._ ~eternity.~--upon laying a weight in one of the scales, inscribed eternity, though i threw in that of time, prosperity, affliction, wealth, and poverty, which seemed very ponderous, they were not able to stir the opposite balance.--_addison._ eternity is a negative idea clothed with a positive name. it supposes in that to which it is applied a present existence; and is the negation of a beginning or of an end of that existence.--_paley._ ~etiquette.~--whoever pays a visit that is not desired, or talks longer than the listener is willing to attend, is guilty of an injury that he cannot repair, and takes away that which he cannot give.--_johnson._ the forms required by good breeding, or prescribed by authority, are to be observed in social or official life.--_prescott._ good taste rejects excessive nicety; it treats little things as little things, and is not hurt by them.--_fénelon._ the law of the table is beauty, a respect to the common soul of the guests. everything is unreasonable which is private to two or three, or any portion of the company. tact never violates for a moment this law; never intrudes the orders of the house, the vices of the absent, or a tariff of expenses, or professional privacies; as we say, we never "talk shop" before company. lovers abstain from caresses, and haters from insults, while they sit in one parlor with common friends.--_emerson._ ~events.~--man reconciles himself to almost any event however trying, if it happens in the ordinary course of nature. it is the extraordinary alone that he rebels against. there is a moral idea associated with this feeling; for the extraordinary appears to be something like an injustice of heaven.--_humboldt._ there can be no peace in human life without the contempt of all events. he that troubles his head with drawing consequences from mere contingencies shall never be at rest.--_l'estrange._ ~evil.~--evil is in antagonism with the entire creation.--_zschokke._ even in evil, that dark cloud which hangs over the creation, we discern rays of light and hope; and gradually come to see in suffering and temptation proofs and instruments of the sublimest purposes of wisdom and love.--_channing._ be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.--_bible._ if we will rightly estimate what we call good and evil, we shall find it lies much in comparison.--_locke._ not one false man but does uncountable evil.--_carlyle._ this is the course of every evil deed, that, propagating still, it brings forth evil.--_coleridge._ the truly virtuous do not easily credit evil that is told them of their neighbors; for if others may do amiss, then may these also speak amiss: man is frail, and prone to evil, and therefore may soon fail in words.--_jeremy taylor._ physical evils destroy themselves, or they destroy us.--_rousseau._ "one soweth, and another reapeth," is a verity that applies to evil as well as good.--_george eliot._ if you believe in evil, you have done evil.--_a. de musset._ ~example.~--we are all of us more or less echoes, repeating involuntarily the virtues, the defects, the movements, and the characters of those among whom we live.--_joubert._ how far that little candle throws its beams! so shines a good deed in a naughty world.--_shakespeare._ every great example takes hold of us with the authority of a miracle, and says to us: "if ye had but faith, ye could also be able to do the things which i do."--_jacobi._ ~excellence.~--nothing is such an obstacle to the production of excellence as the power of producing what is good with ease and rapidity.--_aikin._ ~excelsior.~--man's life is in the impulse of elevation to something higher.--_jacobi._ ~excess.~--too much noise deafens us; too much light blinds us; too great a distance or too much of proximity equally prevents us from being able to see; too long and too short a discourse obscures our knowledge of a subject; too much of truth stuns us.--_pascal._ o fleeting joys of paradise, dear bought with lasting woes.--_milton._ excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments.--_plato._ ~excitement.~--there is always something interesting and beautiful about a universal popular excitement of a generous character, let the object of it be what it may. the great desiring heart of man, surging with one strong, sympathetic swell, even though it be to break on the beach of life and fall backwards, leaving the sands as barren as before, has yet a meaning and a power in its restlessness with which i must deeply sympathize.--_mrs. stowe._ violent excitement exhausts the mind, and leaves it withered and sterile.--_fénelon._ the language of excitement is at best but picturesque merely. you must be calm before you can utter oracles.--_thoreau._ this is so engraven on our nature that it may be regarded as an appetite. like all other appetites, it is not sinful, unless indulged unlawfully, or to excess.--_dr. guthrie._ ~excuse.~--of vain things, excuses are the vainest.--_charles buxton._ ~expectation.~--'tis expectation makes a blessing dear; heaven were not heaven, if we knew what it were.--_suckling._ it may be proper for all to remember that they ought not to raise expectations which it is not in their power to satisfy; and that it is more pleasing to see smoke brightening into flame, than flame sinking into smoke.--_johnson._ ~expediency.~--when private virtue is hazarded upon the perilous cast of expediency, the pillars of the republic, however apparent their stability, are infected with decay at the very centre.--_chapin._ men in responsible situations cannot, like those in private life, be governed solely by the dictates of their own inclinations, or by such motives as can only affect themselves.--_washington._ ~experience.~--life consists in the alternate process of learning and unlearning; but it is often wiser to unlearn than to learn.--_bulwer-lytton._ experience, the shroud of illusions.--_de finod._ to have a true idea of man, or of life, one must have stood himself on the brink of suicide, or on the door-sill of insanity, at least once.--_taine._ what we learn with pleasure we never forget.--_alfred mercier._ who would venture upon the journey of life, if compelled to begin it at the end?--_mme. de maintenon._ experience is the extract of suffering.--_arthur helps._ every generous illusion adds a wrinkle in vanishing. experience is the successive disenchantment of the things of life. it is reason enriched by the spoils of the heart.--_j. petit senn._ ~extravagance.~--expenses are not rectilinear, but circular. every inch you add to the diameter adds three to the circumference.--_charles buxton._ ~extremes.~--extremes are dangerous; a middle estate is safest; as a middle temper of the sea, between a still calm and a violent tempest, is most helpful to convey the mariner to his haven.--_swinnock._ superlatives are diminutives, and weaken.--_emerson._ extremes are for us as if they were not, and as if we were not in regard to them; they escape from us, or we from them.--_pascal._ ~eye.~--stabbed with a white wench's black eye.--_shakespeare._ the eyes of a man are of no use without the observing power. telescopes and microscopes are cunning contrivances, but they cannot see of themselves.--_paxton hood._ ladies, whose bright eyes rain influence.--_milton._ where is any author in the world teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?--_shakespeare._ let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent.--_shakespeare._ her eyes are homes of silent prayer.--_tennyson._ the eyes have one language everywhere.--_george herbert._ glances are the first billets-doux of love.--_ninon de l'enclos._ f. ~face.~--a february face, so full of frost, of storms, and cloudiness.--_shakespeare._ demons in act, but gods at least in face.--_byron._ a girl of eighteen imagines the feelings behind the face that has moved her with its sympathetic youth, as easily as primitive people imagined the humors of the gods in fair weather: what is she to believe in, if not in this vision woven from within?--_george eliot._ the worst of faces still is a human face.--_lavater._ ~fact.~--there should always be some foundation of fact for the most airy fabric, and pure invention is but the talent of a deceiver.--_byron._ every day of my life makes me feel more and more how seldom a fact is accurately stated; how almost invariably when a story has passed through the mind of a third person it becomes, so far as regards the impression that it makes in further repetitions, little better than a falsehood; and this, too, though the narrator be the most truth-seeking person in existence.--_hawthorne._ ~faction.~--a feeble government produces more factions than an oppressive one.--_fisher ames._ it is the demon of discord armed with the power to do endless mischief, and intent alone on destroying whatever opposes its progress.--_crabbe._ ~failure.~--but screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we'll not fail!--_shakespeare._ albeit failure in any cause produces a correspondent misery in the soul, yet it is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterward carefully eschew.--_keats._ every failure is a step to success; every detection of what is false directs us toward what is true; every trial exhausts some tempting form of error. not only so, but scarcely any attempt is entirely a failure; scarcely any theory, the result of steady thought, is altogether false; no tempting form of error is without some latent charm derived from truth.--_whewell._ ~faith.~--in affairs of this world men are saved not by faith but by the want of it.--_fielding._ all the scholastic scaffolding falls, as a ruined edifice, before one single word,--_faith_.--_napoleon._ o welcome pure-eyed faith, white-handed hope, thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings!--_milton._ life grows dark as we go on, till only one clear light is left shining on it, and that is faith.--_madame swetchine._ when my reason is afloat, my faith cannot long remain in suspense, and i believe in god as firmly as in any other truth whatever; in short, a thousand motives draw me to the consolatory side, and add the weight of hope to the equilibrium of reason.--_rousseau._ flatter not thyself in thy faith to god, if thou wantest charity for thy neighbor; and think not thou hast charity for thy neighbor, if thou wantest faith to god: where they are not both together, they are both wanting; they are both dead if once divided.--_quarles._ we cannot live on probabilities. the faith in which we can live bravely and die in peace must be a certainty, so far as it professes to be a faith at all, or it is nothing.--_froude._ the great desire of this age is for a doctrine which may serve to condense our knowledge, guide our researches, and shape our lives, so that conduct may really be the consequence of belief.--_g. h. lewes._ ~falsehood.~--falsehood, like a drawing in perspective, will not bear to be examined in every point of view, because it is a good imitation of truth, as a perspective is of the reality.--_colton._ do not let us lie at all. do not think of one falsity as harmless, and another as slight, and another as unintended. cast them all aside: they may be light and accidental, but they are ugly soot from the smoke of the pit, for all that: and it is better that our hearts should be swept clean of them, without one care as to which is largest or blackest.--_ruskin._ it is more from carelessness about the truth, than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world.--_johnson._ falsehood and fraud shoot up in every soil, the product of all climes.--_addison._ round dealing is the honor of man's nature; and a mixture of falsehood is like alloy in gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it.--_lord bacon._ to lapse in fullness is sorer than to lie for need: and falsehood is worse in king than beggar.--_shakespeare._ a liar would be brave toward god, while he is a coward toward men; for a lie faces god, and shrinks from man.--_montaigne._ the dull flat falsehood serves for policy, and in the cunning, truth's itself a lie.--_pope._ no falsehood can endure touch of celestial temper but returns of force to its own likeness.--_milton._ figures themselves, in their symmetrical and inexorable order, have their mistakes like words and speeches. an hour of pleasure and an hour of pain are alike only on the dial in their numerical arrangement. outside the dial they lie sixty times.--_méry._ ~fame.~--fame, as a river, is narrowest where it is bred, and broadest afar off; so exemplary writers depend not upon the gratitude of the world.--_davenant._ grant me honest fame, or grant me none.--_pope._ much of reputation depends on the period in which it rises. the italians proverbially observe that one half of fame depends on that cause. in dark periods, when talents appear they shine like the sun through a small hole in the window-shutter. the strong beam dazzles amid the surrounding gloom. open the shutter, and the general diffusion of light attracts no notice.--_walpole._ fame confers a rank above that of gentleman and of kings. as soon as she issues her patent of nobility, it matters not a straw whether the recipient be the son of a bourbon or of a tallow-chandler.--_bulwer-lytton._ one cæsar lives,--a thousand are forgot!--_young._ few people make much noise after their deaths who did not do so while they were living. posterity could not be supposed to rake into the records of past times for the illustrious obscure, and only ratify or annul the lists of great names handed down to them by the voice of common fame. few people recover from the neglect or obloquy of their contemporaries. the public will hardly be at the pains to try the same cause twice over, or does not like to reverse its own sentence, at least when on the unfavorable side.--_hazlitt._ celebrity sells dearly what we think she gives.--_emile souvestre._ fame has no necessary conjunction with praise; it may exist without the breath of a word: it is a recognition of excellence which must be felt, but need not be spoken. even the envious must feel it; feel it, and hate in silence.--_washington allston._ many have lived on a pedestal who will never have a statue when dead.--_béranger._ i hope the day will never arrive when i shall neither be the object of calumny nor ridicule, for then i shall be neglected and forgotten.--_johnson._ a man who cannot win fame in his own age will have a very small chance of winning it from posterity. true there are some half dozen exceptions to this truth among millions of myriads that attest it; but what man of common sense would invest any large amount of hope in so unpromising a lottery.--_bulwer-lytton._ fame is the thirst of youth.--_byron._ our admiration of a famous man lessens upon our nearer acquaintance with him; and we seldom hear of a celebrated person without a catalogue of some notorious weaknesses and infirmities.--_addison._ even the best things are not equal to their fame.--_thoreau._ ~fanaticism.~--fanaticism, to which men are so much inclined, has always served not only to render them more brutalized but more wicked.--_voltaire._ painful and corporeal punishments should never be applied to fanaticism; for, being founded on pride, it glories in persecution.--_beccaria._ the false fire of an overheated mind.--_cowper._ fanaticism is the child of false zeal and of superstition, the father of intolerance and of persecution.--_j. fletcher._ ~fashion.~--fashion is the great governor of this world. it presides not only in matters of dress and amusement, but in law, physic, politics, religion, and all other things of the gravest kind. indeed, the wisest of men would be puzzled to give any better reason why particular forms in all these have been at certain times universally received, and at other times universally rejected, than that they were in or out of fashion.--_fielding._ fancy and pride seek things at vast expense.--_young._ a beautiful envelope for mortality, presenting a glittering and polished exterior, the appearance of which gives no certain indication of the real value of what is contained therein.--_mrs. balfour._ beauty too often sacrifices to fashion. the spirit of fashion is not the beautiful, but the willful; not the graceful, but the fantastic; not the superior in the abstract, but the superior in the worst of all concretes,--the vulgar.--_leigh hunt._ ~faults.~--to acknowledge our faults when we are blamed is modesty; to discover them to one's friends, in ingenuousness, is confidence; but to preach them to all the world, if one does not take care, is pride.--_confucius._ the first fault is the child of simplicity, but every other the offspring of guilt.--_goldsmith._ ~fear.~--it is no ways congruous that god should be frightening men into truth who were made to be wrought upon by calm evidence and gentle methods of persuasion.--_atterbury._ fear is far more painful to cowardice than death to true courage.--_sir p. sidney._ fear is the tax that conscience pays to guilt.--_george sewell._ fear invites danger; concealed cowards insult known ones.--_chesterfield._ ~felicity.~--the world produces for every pint of honey a gallon of gall; for every dram of pleasure a pound of pain; for every inch of mirth an ell of moan; and as the ivy twines around the oak, so does misery and misfortune encompass the happy man. felicity, pure and unalloyed felicity, is not a plant of earthly growth; her gardens are the skies.--_burton._ ~fickleness.~--everything by starts, and nothing long.--_dryden._ it will be found that they are the weakest-minded and the hardest-hearted men that most love change.--_ruskin._ ~fiction.~--truth severe, by fairy fiction drest.--_gray._ every fiction since homer has taught friendship, patriotism, generosity, contempt of death. these are the highest virtues; and the fictions which taught them were therefore of the highest, though not of unmixed, utility.--_sir j. mackintosh._ i have often maintained that fiction may be much more instructive than real history.--_rev. john foster._ fiction is of the essence of poetry as well as of painting: there is a resemblance in one of human bodies, things, and actions which are not real, and in the other of a true story by fiction.--_dryden._ fiction is no longer a mere amusement; but transcendent genius, accommodating itself to the character of the age, has seized upon this province of literature, and turned fiction from a toy into a mighty engine.--_channing._ the best portraits are those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature; and we are not aware that the best histories are not those in which a little of the exaggeration of fictitious narrative is judiciously employed. something is lost in accuracy; but much is gained in effect. the fainter lines are neglected; but the great characteristic features are imprinted on the mind forever.--_macaulay._ those who delight in the study of human nature may improve in the knowledge of it, and in the profitable application of that knowledge, by the perusal of such fictions as those before us [jane austen's novels].--_archbishop whately._ ~firmness.~--the greatest firmness is the greatest mercy.--_longfellow._ stand firm and immovable as an anvil when it is beaten upon.--_st. ignatius._ ~flattery.~--the art of flatterers is to take advantage of the foibles of the great, to foster their errors, and never to give advice which may annoy.--_molière._ he does me double wrong that wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.--_shakespeare._ flattery is often a traffic of mutual meanness, where, although both parties intend deception, neither are deceived, since words that cost little are exchanged for hopes that cost less.--_colton._ the most dangerous of all flattery is the inferiority of those about us.--_madame swetchine._ though flattery blossoms like friendship, yet there is a great difference in the fruit.--_socrates._ the coin that is most current among mankind is flattery; the only benefit of which is that by hearing what we are not we may be instructed what we ought to be.--_swift._ blinded as they are to their true character by self-love, every man is his own first and chiefest flatterer, prepared, therefore, to welcome the flatterer from the outside, who only comes confirming the verdict of the flatterer within.--_plutarch._ flattery is an ensnaring quality, and leaves a very dangerous impression. it swells a man's imagination, entertains his fancy, and drives him to a doting upon his own person.--_jeremy collier._ because all men are apt to flatter themselves, to entertain the addition of other men's praises is most perilous.--_sir w. raleigh._ out of the pulpit, i trust none can accuse me of too much plainness of speech; but there, madame [queen mary], i am not my own master, but must speak that which i am commanded by the king of kings, and dare not, on my soul, flatter any one on the face of all the earth--_john knox._ ~flowers.~--luther always kept a flower in a glass on his writing-table; and when he was waging his great public controversy with eckius he kept a flower in his hand. lord bacon has a beautiful passage about flowers. as to shakspeare, he is a perfect alpine valley,--he is full of flowers; they spring, and blossom, and wave in every cleft of his mind. even milton, cold, serene, and stately as he is, breaks forth into exquisite gushes of tenderness and fancy when he marshals the flowers.--_mrs. stowe._ flowers, leaves, fruit, are the air-woven children of light.--_moleschott._ ye pretty daughters of the earth and sun.--_sir walter raleigh._ i always think the flowers can see us and know what we are thinking about.--_george eliot._ what a desolate place would be a world without a flower! it would be a face without a smile,--a feast without a welcome! are not flowers the stars of the earth? and are not our stars the flowers of heaven?--_mrs. balfour._ what a pity flowers can utter no sound! a singing rose, a whispering violet, a murmuring honeysuckle,--oh, what a rare and exquisite miracle would these be!--_beecher._ the bright mosaic, that with storied beauty, the floor of nature's temple tessellate.--_horace smith._ ~fools.~--you pity a man who is lame or blind, but you never pity him for being a fool, which is often a much greater misfortune.--_sydney smith._ a learned fool is more foolish than an ignorant fool.--_molière._ of all thieves fools are the worst; they rob you of time and temper.--_goethe._ fortune makes folly her peculiar care.--_churchill._ it would be easier to endow a fool with intellect than to persuade him that he had none.--_babinet._ there are many more fools in the world than there are knaves, otherwise the knaves could not exist.--_bulwer-lytton._ there are more fools than sages, and among sages there is more folly than wisdom.--_chamfort._ ~foppery.~--foppery is never cured; it is the bad stamina of the mind, which, like those of the body, are never rectified; once a coxcomb and always a coxcomb.--_johnson._ foppery is the egotism of clothes.--_victor hugo._ nature has sometimes made a fool; but a coxcomb is always of a man's own making.--_addison._ ~forbearance.~--the little i have seen of the world teaches me to look upon the errors of others in sorrow, not in anger. when i take the history of one poor heart that has sinned and suffered, and represent to myself the struggles and temptations it has passed through, the brief pulsations of joy, the feverish inquietude of hope and fear, the pressure of want, the desertion of friends, i would fain leave the erring soul of my fellow-man with him from whose hand it came.--_longfellow._ ~forethought.~--human foresight often leaves its proudest possessor only a choice of evils.--_colton._ whoever fails to turn aside the ills of life by prudent forethought, must submit to fulfill the course of destiny.--_schiller._ in life, as in chess, forethought wins.--_charles buxton._ if a man take no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand.--_confucius._ those old stories of visions and dreams guiding men have their truth: we are saved by making the future present to ourselves.--_george eliot._ ~forgetfulness.~--there is nothing, no, nothing, innocent or good that dies and is forgotten: let us hold to that faith or none. an infant, a prattling child, dying in the cradle, will live again in the better thoughts of those that loved it, and play its part through them in the redeeming actions of the world, though its body be burnt to ashes, or drowned in the deep sea. forgotten! oh, if the deeds of human creatures could be traced to their source, how beautiful would even death appear! for how much charity, mercy, and purified affection would be seen to have their growth in dusty graves!--_dickens._ ~forgiveness.~--it is more easy to forgive the weak who have injured us, than the powerful whom we have injured. that conduct will be continued by our fears which commenced in our resentment. he that has gone so far as to cut the claws of the lion will not feel himself quite secure until he has also drawn his teeth.--_colton._ they never pardon who commit the wrong.--_dryden._ may i tell you why it seems to me a good thing for us to remember wrong that has been done us? that we may forgive it.--_dickens._ 'tis easier for the generous to forgive than for offense to ask it.--_thomson._ life, that ever needs forgiveness, has, for its first duty, to forgive.--_bulwer-lytton._ it is easy enough to forgive your enemies, if you have not the means to harm them.--_heinrich heine._ more bounteous run rivers when the ice that locked their flow melts into their waters. and when fine natures relent, their kindness is swelled by the thaw.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~fortitude.~--white men should exhibit the same insensibility to moral tortures that red men do to physical torments.--_théophile gautier._ there is a strength of quiet endurance as significant of courage as the most daring feats of prowess.--_tuckerman._ fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.--_locke._ ~fortune.~--fortune loves only the young.--_charles v._ ill fortune never crushed that man whom good fortune deceived not.--_ben jonson._ it is often the easiest move that completes the game. fortune is like the lady whom a lover carried off from all his rivals by putting an additional lace upon his liveries.--_bulwer-lytton._ the use we make of our fortune determines its sufficiency. a little is enough if used wisely, and too much if expended foolishly.--_bovée._ the fortunate circumstances of our lives are generally found at last to be of our own producing.--_goldsmith._ fortune has been considered the guardian divinity of fools; and, on this score, she has been accused of blindness; but it should rather be adduced as a proof of her sagacity, when she helps those who certainly cannot help themselves.--_colton._ fortunes made in no time are like shirts made in no time; it's ten to one if they hang long together.--_douglas jerrold._ there is some help for all the defects of fortune; for if a man cannot attain to the length of his wishes, he may have his remedy by cutting of them shorter.--_cowley._ fortune, to show us her power in all things, and to abate our presumption, seeing she could not make fools wise, she has made them fortunate.--_montaigne._ see'st thou not what various fortunes the divinity makes man to pass through, changing and turning them from day to day?--_euripides._ fortune is but a synonymous word for nature and necessity.--_bentley._ foolish i deem him who, thinking that his state is blest, rejoices in security; for fortune, like a man distempered in his senses, leaps now this way, now that, and no man is always fortunate.--_euripides._ they say fortune is a woman and capricious. but sometimes she is a good woman, and gives to those who merit.--_george eliot._ if fortune has fairly sat on a man, he takes it for granted that life consists in being sat upon. but to be coddled on fortune's knee, and then have his ears boxed, that is aggravating.--_charles buxton._ ~fraud.~--the more gross the fraud the more glibly will it go down, and the more greedily will it be swallowed; since folly will always find faith wherever impostors will find impudence.--_colton._ ~friendship.~--friendship has steps which lead up to the throne of god, though all spirits come to the infinite; only love is satiable, and like truth, admits of no three degrees of comparison; and a simple being fills the heart.--_richter._ very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.--_bible._ fix yourself upon the wealthy. in a word, take this for a golden rule through life: never, never have a friend that is poorer than yourself.--_douglas jerrold._ experience has taught me that the only friends we can call our own, who can have no change, are those over whom the grave has closed; the seal of death is the only seal of friendship.--_byron._ what is commonly called friendship even is only a little more honor among rogues.--_thoreau._ so great a happiness do i esteem it to be loved, that i fancy every blessing both from gods and men ready to descend spontaneously upon him who is loved.--_xenophon._ nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.--_thoreau._ the friendship between great men is rarely intimate or permanent. it is a boswell that most appreciates a johnson. genius has no brother, no co-mate; the love it inspires is that of a pupil or a son.--_bulwer-lytton._ the firmest friendships have been formed in mutual adversity; as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame.--_colton._ never contract a friendship with a man that is not better than thyself.--_confucius._ there are three friendships which are advantageous, and three which are injurious. friendship with the upright, friendship with the sincere, and friendship with the man of much information,--these are advantageous. friendship with the man of specious airs, friendship with the insinuatingly soft, friendship with the glib-tongued,--these are injurious.--_confucius._ friendship survives death better than absence.--_j. petit senn._ this communicating of a man's self to his friend works two contrary effects, for it redoubleth joys and cutteth griefs in half: for there is no man that imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the less.--_bacon._ sweet is the memory of distant friends! like the mellow rays of the declining sun, it falls tenderly, yet sadly, on the heart.--_washington irving._ it may be worth noticing as a curious circumstance, when persons past forty before they were at all acquainted form together a very close intimacy of friendship. for grafts of _old_ wood to _take_, there must be a wonderful congeniality between the trees.--_whately._ an old friend is not always the person whom it is easiest to make a confidant of.--_george eliot._ ~fun.~--there is nothing like fun, is there? i haven't any myself, and i do like it in others. oh, we need it,--we need all the counter-weights we can muster to balance the sad relations of life. god has made sunny spots in the heart; why should we exclude the light from them?--_haliburton._ ~futurity.~--the best preparation for the future is the present well seen to, the last duty done.--_george macdonald._ we always live prospectively, never retrospectively, and there is no abiding moment.--_jacobi._ another life, if it were not better than this, would be less a promise than a threat.--_j. petit senn._ the spirit of man, which god inspired, cannot together perish with this corporeal clod.--_milton._ g. ~gambling.~--gaming is a kind of tacit confession that the company engaged therein do, in general, exceed the bounds of their respective fortunes, and therefore they cast lots to determine upon whom the ruin shall at present fall, that the rest may be saved a little longer.--_blackstone._ a mode of transferring property without producing any intermediate good.--_johnson._ ~gems.~--how very beautiful these gems are! it is strange how deeply colors seem to penetrate one, like scent. i suppose that is the reason why gems are used as spiritual emblems in the revelation of st. john. they look like fragments of heaven.--_george eliot._ ~generosity.~--a friend to everybody is often a friend to nobody, or else in his simplicity he robs his family to help strangers, and becomes brother to a beggar. there is wisdom in generosity as in everything else.--_spurgeon._ generosity is the accompaniment of high birth; pity and gratitude are its attendants.--_corneille._ it is good to be unselfish and generous; but don't carry that too far. it will not do to give yourself to be melted down for the benefit of the tallow-trade; you must know where to find yourself.--_george eliot._ if cruelty has its expiations and its remorses, generosity has its chances and its turns of good fortune; as if providence reserved them for fitting occasions, that noble hearts may not be discouraged.--_lamartine._ ~genius.~--genius is rarely found without some mixture of eccentricity, as the strength of spirit is proved by the bubbles on its surface.--_mrs. balfour._ all great men are in some degree inspired.--_cicero._ this is the highest miracle of genius: that things which are not should be as though they were; that the imaginations of one mind should become the personal recollections of another.--_macaulay._ the path of genius is not less obstructed with disappointment than that of ambition.--_voltaire._ one misfortune of extraordinary geniuses is that their very friends are more apt to admire than love them.--_pope._ genius speaks only to genius.--_stanislaus._ a nation does wisely, if not well, in starving her men of genius. fatten them, and they are done for.--_charles buxton._ genius has no brother.--_bulwer-lytton._ genius never grows old; young to-day, mature yesterday, vigorous to-morrow: always immortal. it is peculiar to no sex or condition, and is the divine gift to woman no less than to man.--_juan lewis._ ~gentleman.~--a gentleman's first characteristic is that fineness of structure in the body which renders it capable of the most delicate sensation; and of structure in the mind which renders it capable of the most delicate sympathies; one may say, simply, "fineness of nature." this is of course compatible with heroic bodily strength and mental firmness; in fact, heroic strength is not conceivable without such delicacy.--_ruskin._ it is a grand old name, that of gentleman, and has been recognized as a rank and power in all stages of society. to possess this character is a dignity of itself, commanding the instinctive homage of every generous mind, and those who will not bow to titular rank will yet do homage to the gentleman. his qualities depend not upon fashion or manners, but upon moral worth; not on personal possessions, but on personal qualities. the psalmist briefly describes him as one "that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart."--_samuel smiles._ there is no man that can teach us to be gentlemen better than joseph addison.--_thackeray._ ~gentleness.~--fearless gentleness is the most beautiful of feminine attractions, born of modesty and love.--_mrs. balfour._ gentleness is far more successful in all its enterprises than violence; indeed, violence generally frustrates its own purpose, while gentleness scarcely ever fails.--_locke._ sweet speaking oft a currish heart reclaims.--_sidney._ the golden beams of truth and the silken cords of love, twisted together, will draw men on with a sweet violence, whether they will or not.--_cudworth._ ~gifts.~--one must be poor to know the luxury of giving!--_george eliot._ riches, understanding, beauty, are fair gifts of god.--_luther._ and with them words of so sweet breath composed as made the things more rich.--_shakespeare._ how can that gift leave a trace which has left no void?--_madame swetchine._ the best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity.--_mrs. balfour._ examples are few of men ruined by giving. men are heroes in spending, very cravens in what they give.--_bovée._ when a friend asks, there is no to-morrow.--_george herbert._ strange designs lurk under a gift. "give the horse to his holiness," said the cardinal. "i cannot serve you!"--_zimmermann._ ~glory.~--to a father who loves his children victory has no charms. when the heart speaks, glory itself is an illusion.--_napoleon._ those who start for human glory, like the mettled hounds of actæon, must pursue the game not only where there is a path, but where there is none. they must be able to simulate and dissimulate, to leap and to creep; to conquer the earth like cæsar, or to fall down and kiss it like brutus; to throw their sword like brennus into the trembling scale; or, like nelson, to snatch the laurels from the doubtful hand of victory, while she is hesitating where to bestow them.--_colton._ obloquy is a necessary ingredient in the composition of all true glory.--_burke._ the best kind of glory is that which is reflected from honesty,--such as was the glory of cato and aristides; but it was harmful to them both, and is seldom beneficial to any man whilst he lives; what it is to him after his death i cannot say, because i love not philosophy merely notional and conjectural, and no man who has made the experiment has been so kind as to come back to inform us.--_cowley._ nothing is so expensive as glory.--_sydney smith._ the love of glory can only create a hero, the contempt of it creates a wise man.--_talleyrand._ ~gluttony.~--whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame.--_bible._ the kitchen is their shrine, the cook their priest, the table their altar, and their belly their god.--_buck._ ~god.~--he that doth the ravens feed, yea, providentially caters for the sparrow, be comfort to my age!--_shakespeare._ to escape from evil, we must be made as far as possible like god; and this resemblance consists in becoming just and holy and wise.--_plato._ whenever i think of god i can only conceive him as a being infinitely great and infinitely good. this last quality of the divine nature inspires me with such confidence and joy that i could have written even a _miserere_ in _tempo allegro_.--_haydn._ all flows out from the deity, and all must be absorbed in him again.--_zoroaster._ it were better to have no opinion of god at all than such an opinion as is unworthy of him; for the one is unbelief, and the other is contumely; and certainly superstition is the reproach of the deity.--_bacon._ i have seen two miracles lately. i looked up, and saw the clouds above me in the noontide; and they looked like the sea that was hanging over me, and i could see no cord on which they were suspended, and yet they never fell. and then when the noontide had gone, and the midnight came, i looked again, and there was the dome of heaven, and it was spangled with stars, and i could see no pillars that held up the skies, and yet they never fell. now he that holds the stars up and moves the clouds in their course can do all things, and i trust him in the sight of these miracles.--_luther._ this avenging god, rancorous torturer who burns his creatures in a slow fire! when they tell me that god made himself a man, i prefer to recognize a man who made himself a god.--_alfred de musset._ this is one of the names which we give to that eternal, infinite, and incomprehensible being, the creator of all things, who preserves and governs everything by his almighty power and wisdom, and is the only object of our worship.--_cruden._ ~gold.~--midas longed for gold. he got gold so that whatever he touched became gold, and he, with his long ears, was little the better for it.--_carlyle._ a mask of gold hides all deformities.--_dekker._ there are two metals, one of which is omnipotent in the cabinet, and the other in the camp,--gold and iron. he that knows how to apply them both may indeed attain the highest station, but he must know something more to keep it.--_colton._ thou true magnetic pole, to which all hearts point duly north, like trembling needles!--_byron._ judges and senates have been bought for gold.--_pope._ gold is, in its last analysis, the sweat of the poor, and the blood of the brave.--_joseph napoleon._ gold all is not that doth golden seem.--_spenser._ there is no place so high that an ass laden with gold cannot reach it.--_rojas._ ~good.~--when what is good comes of age and is likely to live, there is reason for rejoicing.--_george eliot._ how indestructibly the good grows, and propagates itself, even among the weedy entanglements of evil!--_carlyle._ good, the more communicated, more abundant grows.--_milton._ whatever mitigates the woes or increases the happiness of others is a just criterion of goodness; and whatever injures society at large, or any individual in it, is a criterion of iniquity. one should not quarrel with a dog without a reason sufficient to vindicate one through all the courts of morality.--_goldsmith._ the true and good resemble gold. gold seldom appears obvious and solid, but it pervades invisibly the bodies that contain it.--_jacobi._ he is good that does good to others. if he suffers for the good he does, he is better still; and if he suffers from them to whom he did good, he is arrived to that height of goodness that nothing but an increase of his sufferings can add to it; if it proves his death, his virtue is at its summit,--it is heroism complete.--_bruyère._ that is good which doth good.--_venning._ the pythagoreans make good to be certain and finite, and evil infinite and uncertain. there are a thousand ways to miss the white; there is only one to hit it.--_montaigne._ ~good-humor.~--honest good-humor is the oil and wine of a merry meeting, and there is no jovial companionship equal to that where the jokes are rather small and the laughter abundant.--_washington irving._ affability, mildness, tenderness, and a word which i would fain bring back to its original signification of virtue,--i mean good-nature,--are of daily use: they are the bread of mankind and staff of life.--_dryden._ this portable quality of good-humor seasons all the parts and occurrences we meet with, in such a manner that there are no moments lost, but they all pass with so much satisfaction that the heaviest of loads (when it is a load), that of time, is never felt by us.--_steele._ gayety is to good-humor as perfumes to vegetable fragrance: the one overpowers weak spirits, the other recreates and revives them.--_johnson._ that inexhaustible good-nature, which is the most precious gift of heaven, spreading itself like oil over the troubled sea of thought, and keeping the mind smooth and equable in the roughest weather.--_washington irving._ ~goodness.~--nothing rarer than real goodness.--_rochefoucauld._ true goodness is like the glow-worm in this, that it shines most when no eyes except those of heaven are upon it.--_archdeacon hare._ do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.--_pope._ goodness thinks no ill where no ill seems.--_milton._ ~gossip.~--a long-tongued babbling gossip.--_shakespeare._ he sits at home until he has accumulated an insupportable load of ennui, and then he sallies forth to distribute it amongst his acquaintance.--_colton._ as to people saying a few idle words about us, we must not mind that, any more than the old church-steeple minds the rooks cawing about it.--_george eliot._ ~government.~--the proper function of a government is to make it easy for people to do good and difficult for them to do evil.--_gladstone._ society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. it is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. their passions forge their fetters.--_burke._ government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants.--_burke._ government owes its birth to the necessity of preventing and repressing the injuries which the associated individuals had to fear from one another. it is the sentinel who watches, in order that the common laborer be not disturbed.--_abbé raynal._ but i say to you, and to our whole country, and to all the crowned heads and aristocratic powers and feudal systems that exist, that it is to self-government, the great principle of popular representation and administration, the system that lets in all to participate in the counsels that are to assign the good or evil to all, that we may owe what we are and what we hope to be.--_daniel webster._ the culminating point of administration is to know well how much power, great or small, we ought to use in all circumstances.--_montesquieu._ of governments, that of the mob is the most sanguinary, that of soldiers the most expensive, and that of civilians the most vexatious.--_colton._ government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. for were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest, and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least.--_thomas paine._ ~grace.~--as amber attracts a straw, so does beauty admiration, which only lasts while the warmth continues; but virtue, wisdom, goodness, and real worth, like the loadstone, never lose their power. these are the true graces, which, as homer feigns, are linked and tied hand in hand, because it is by their influence that human hearts are so firmly united to each other.--_burton._ the king-becoming graces--devotion, patience, courage, fortitude.--_shakespeare._ know you not, master, to some kind of men their graces serve them but as enemies? no more do yours; your virtues, gentle master, are sanctified and holy traitors to you. oh, what a world is this, when what is comely envenoms him that bears it!--_shakespeare._ how inimitably graceful children are before they learn to dance!--_coleridge._ that word, grace, in an ungracious mouth, is but profane.--_shakespeare._ grace comes as oft clad in the dusky robe of desolation as in white attire.--_sir j. beaumont._ ~gratitude.~--gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.--_johnson._ god is pleased with no music below so much as the thanksgiving songs of relieved widows and supported orphans; of rejoicing, comforted, and thankful persons.--_jeremy taylor._ no metaphysician ever felt the deficiency of language so much as the grateful.--_colton._ thus love is the most easy and agreeable, and gratitude the most humiliating, affection of the mind: we never reflect on the man we love without exulting in our choice, while he who has bound us to him by benefits alone rises to our ideas as a person to whom we have in some measure forfeited our freedom.--_goldsmith._ gratitude is the virtue most deified and most deserted. it is the ornament of rhetoric and the libel of practical life.--_j. w. forney._ ~grave.~--since the silent shore awaits at last even those who longest miss the old archer's arrow, perhaps the early grave which men weep over may be meant to save.--_byron._ the grave is, i suspect, the sole commonwealth which attains that dead flat of social equality that life in its every principle so heartily abhors; and that equality the grave will perpetuate to the end of time.--_bulwer-lytton._ the reconciling grave.--_southern._ the grave where even the great find rest.--_pope._ oh, how small a portion of earth will hold us when we are dead, who ambitiously seek after the whole world while we are living!--_philip, king of macedon._ the cradle of transformation.--_mazzini._ the graves of those we have loved and lost distress and console us.--_arsène houssaye._ ~gravity.~--the very essence of gravity is design, and consequently deceit; a taught trick to gain credit with the world for more sense and knowledge than a man is worth.--_sterne._ gravity is but the rind of wisdom; but it is a preservative rind.--_joubert._ gravity must be natural and simple. there must be urbanity and tenderness in it. a man must not formalize on everything. he who formalizes on everything is a fool, and a grave fool is perhaps more injurious than a light fool.--_cecil._ ~greatness.~--there is but one method, and that is hard labor; and a man who will not pay that price for greatness had better at once dedicate himself to the pursuit of the fox, or sport with the tangles of neæra's hair, or talk of bullocks, and glory in the goad!--_sidney smith._ a really great man is known by three signs,--generosity in the design, humanity in the execution, and moderation in success.--_bismarck._ the great men of the earth are but the marking stones on the road of humanity; they are the priests of its religion.--_mazzini._ a multitude of eyes will narrowly inspect every part of an eminent man, consider him nicely in all views, and not be a little pleased when they have taken him in the worst and most disadvantageous lights.--_addison._ what you can manufacture, or communicate, you can lower the price of, but this mental supremacy is incommunicable; you will never multiply its quantity, nor lower its price; and nearly the best thing that men can generally do is--to set themselves, not to the attainment, but the discovery of this; learning to know gold, when we see it, from iron-glance, and diamond from flint-sand, being for most of us a more profitable employment than trying to make diamonds out of our own charcoal.--_ruskin._ men in great place are thrice servants: servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business; so as they have no freedom, neither in their persons, nor in their actions, nor in their times. it is a strange desire to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man's self.--_bacon._ the difference between one man and another is by no means so great as the superstitious crowd supposes. but the same feelings which in ancient rome produced the apotheosis of a popular emperor, and in modern times the canonization of a devout prelate, lead men to cherish an illusion which furnishes them with something to adore.--_macaulay._ great men never make a bad use of their superiority; they see it, they feel it, and are not less modest. the more they have, the more they know their own deficiencies.--_rousseau._ he who is great when he falls is great in his prostration, and is no more an object of contempt than when men tread on the ruins of sacred buildings, which men of piety venerate no less than if they stood.--_seneca._ greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right using of strength.--_beecher._ greatness seems in her [madame de maintenon] to take its noblest form, that of simplicity.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~grief.~--why destroy present happiness by a distant misery, which may never come at all, or you may never live to see it? for every substantial grief has twenty shadows, and most of them shadows of your own making.--_sydney smith._ some griefs are medicinable; and this is one.--_shakespeare._ while grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. you must wait till grief be _digested_. and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.--_johnson._ grief hallows hearts, even while it ages heads.--_p. j. bailey._ all the joys of earth will not assuage our thirst for happiness, while a single grief suffices to shroud life in a sombre veil, and smite it with nothingness at all points.--_madame swetchine._ grief has been compared to a hydra, for every one that dies two are born.--_calderon._ grief, like night, is salutary. it cools down the soul by putting out its feverish fires; and if it oppresses her, it also compresses her energies. the load once gone, she will go forth with greater buoyancy to new pleasures.--_dr. pulsford._ what's gone, and what's past help, should be past grief.--_shakespeare._ ~guilt.~--all the perfumes of arabia will not sweeten this little hand.--_shakespeare._ think not that guilt requires the burning torches of the furies to agitate and torment it. frauds, crimes, remembrances of the past, terrors of the future,--these are the domestic furies that are ever present to the mind of the impious.--_cicero._ guiltiness will speak though tongues were out of use.--_shakespeare._ despair alone makes guilty men be bold.--_coleridge._ the sin lessens in human estimation only as the guilt increases.--_schiller._ there are no greater prudes than those women who have some secret to hide.--_george sand._ ~gunpowder.~--if we contrast the rapid progress of this mischievous discovery with the slow and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace, a philosopher, according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the folly of mankind.--_gibbon._ a coarse-grained powder, used by cross-grained people, playing at cross-grained purposes.--_marryatt._ gunpowder is the emblem of politic revenge, for it biteth first, and barketh afterwards; the bullet being at the mark before the report is heard, so that it maketh a noise, not by way of warning, but of triumph.--_fuller._ h. ~habits.~--habits are soon assumed; but when we strive to strip them off, 'tis being flayed alive.--_cowper._ vicious habits are so odious and degrading that they transform the individual who practices them into an incarnate demon.--_cicero._ unless the habit leads to happiness, the best habit is to contract none.--_zimmerman._ the law of the harvest is to reap more than you sow. sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.--_george d. boardman._ habit, if wisely and skillfully formed, becomes truly a second nature, as the common saying is; but unskillfully and unmethodically directed, it will be as it were the ape of nature, which imitates nothing to the life, but only clumsily and awkwardly.--_bacon._ that beneficent harness of routine which enables silly men to live respectably and unhappy men to live calmly.--_george eliot._ habits are the daughters of action, but they nurse their mothers, and give birth to daughters after her image, more lovely and prosperous.--_jeremy taylor._ ~hair.~--the hair is the finest ornament women have. of old, virgins used to wear it loose, except when they were in mourning.--_luther._ her head was bare, but for her native ornament of hair, which in a simple knot was tied above; sweet negligence, unheeded bait of love!--_dryden._ the robe which curious nature weaves to hang upon the head.--_dekker._ robed in the long night of her deep hair.--_tennyson._ ~hand.~--other parts of the body assist the speaker, but these speak themselves. by them we ask, we promise, we invoke, we dismiss, we threaten, we entreat, we deprecate; we express fear, joy, grief, our doubts, our assent, our penitence; we show moderation, profusion; we mark number and time.--_quintilian._ the greeks adored their gods by the simple compliment of kissing their hands; and the romans were treated as atheists if they would not perform the same act when they entered a temple. this custom, however, as a religious ceremony, declined with paganism; but was continued as a salutation by inferiors to their superiors, or as a token of esteem among friends. at present it is only practiced as a mark of obedience from the subject to the sovereign, and by lovers, who are solicitous to preserve this ancient usage in its full power.--_disraeli._ ~handsome.~--they are as heaven made them, handsome enough if they be good enough; for handsome is that handsome does.--_goldsmith._ ~happiness.~--the foundation of domestic happiness is faith in the virtue of woman; the foundation of political happiness is confidence in the integrity of man; the foundation of all happiness, temporal and eternal, is reliance on the goodness of god.--_landor._ to remember happiness which cannot be restored is pain, but of a softened kind. our recollections are unfortunately mingled with much that we deplore, and with many actions that we bitterly repent; still, in the most checkered life, i firmly think there are so many little rays of sunshine to look back upon that i do not believe any mortal would deliberately drain a goblet of the waters of lethe if he had it in his power.--_dickens._ that man is never happy for the present is so true that all his relief from unhappiness is only forgetting himself for a little while. life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.--_johnson._ it is a lucky eel that escapes skinning. the best happiness will be to escape the worst misery.--_george eliot._ that all who are happy are equally happy is not true. a peasant and a philosopher may be equally _satisfied_, but not equally _happy_. happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness. a peasant has not capacity for having equal happiness with a philosopher.--_johnson._ happiness doats on her work, and is prodigal to her favorite. as one drop of water hath an attraction for another, so do felicities run into felicities.--_landor._ sensations sweet, felt in the blood, and felt along the heart.--_wordsworth._ great happiness is the fire ordeal of mankind, great misfortune only the trial by water; for the former opens a large extent of futurity, whereas the latter circumscribes or closes it.--_richter._ prospective happiness is perhaps the only real happiness in the world.--_alfred de musset._ nature and individuals are generally best when they are happiest, and deserve heaven most when they have learnt rightly to enjoy it. tears of sorrow are only pearls of inferior value, but tears of joy are pearls or diamonds of the first water.--_richter._ how many people i have seen who would have plucked cannon-balls out of the muzzles of guns with their bare hands, and yet had not courage enough to be happy.--_théophile gautier._ all mankind are happier for having been happy, so that, if you make them happy now, you make them happy twenty years hence by the memory of it.--_sydney smith._ we are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier.--_lamotte._ i have now reigned above fifty years in victory or peace, beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies. riches and honors, power and pleasure, have waited on my call, nor does any earthly blessing appear to have been wanting to my felicity. in this situation, i have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot: they amount to _fourteen_. o man, place not thy confidence in this present world!--_the caliph abdalrahman._ if i may speak of myself (the only person of whom i can speak with certainty), _my_ happy hours have far exceeded, and far exceed, the scanty numbers of the caliph of spain; and i shall not scruple to add that many of them are due to the pleasing labor of the present composition.--_gibbon._ for which we bear to live, or dare to die.--_pope._ we buy wisdom with happiness, and who would purchase it at such a price? to be happy we must forget the past, and think not of the future; and who that has a soul or mind can do this? no one; and this proves that those who have either know no happiness on this earth. memory precludes happiness, whatever rogers may say or write to the contrary, for it borrows from the past to embitter the present, bringing back to us all the grief that has most wounded, or the happiness that has most charmed us.--_byron._ the happiness you wot of is not a hundredth part of what you enjoy.--_charles buxton._ every human soul has the germ of some flowers within; and they would open if they could only find sunshine and free air to expand in. i always told you that not having enough of sunshine was what ailed the world. make people happy, and there will not be half the quarreling, or a tenth part of the wickedness there is.--_mrs. l. m. child._ comparison, more than reality, makes men happy, and can make them wretched.--_feltham._ happiness and misery are the names of two extremes, the utmost bounds whereof we know not.--_locke._ there comes forever something between us and what we deem our happiness.--_byron._ philosophical happiness is to want little; civil or vulgar happiness is to want much, and to enjoy much.--_burke._ how sad a sight is human happiness to those whose thoughts can pierce beyond an hour.--_young._ plenteous joys, wanton in fullness.--_shakespeare._ happiness is always the inaccessible castle which sinks in ruin when we set foot on it.--_arsène houssaye._ for ages happiness has been represented as a huge precious stone, impossible to find, which people seek for hopelessly. it is not so; happiness is a mosaic, composed of a thousand little stones, which separately and of themselves have little value, but which united with art form a graceful design.--_mme. de girardin._ the happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history.--_george eliot._ the way to bliss lies not on beds of down.--_quarles._ the use we make of happiness gives us an eternal sentiment of satisfaction or repentance.--_rousseau._ happiness is where we find it, but rarely where we seek it.--_j. petit senn._ in regard to the affairs of mortals, there is nothing happy throughout.--_euripides._ ~hardship.~--the beginning of hardship is like the first taste of bitter food,--it seems for a moment unbearable; yet, if there is nothing else to satisfy our hunger, we take another bite and find it possible to go on.--_george eliot._ ~haste.~--let your haste commend your duty.--_shakespeare._ the more haste ever the worst speed.--_churchill._ hurry and cunning are the two apprentices of dispatch and skill; but neither of them ever learn their master's trade.--_colton._ all haste implies weakness.--_george macdonald._ ~hatred.~--we hate some persons because we do not know them; and we will not know them because we hate them.--_colton._ were one to ask me in which direction i think man strongest, i should say, his capacity to hate.--_beecher._ love is rarely a hypocrite. but hate! how detect, and how guard against it. it lurks where you least expect it; it is created by causes that you can the least foresee; and civilization multiplies its varieties whilst it favors its disguise; for civilization increases the number of contending interests, and refinement renders more susceptible to the least irritation the cuticle of self-love.--_bulwer-lytton._ hatred is like fire--it makes even light rubbish deadly.--_george eliot._ ~health.~--be it remembered that man subsists upon the air more than upon his meat and drink; but no one can exist for an hour without a copious supply of air. the atmosphere which some breathe is contaminated and adulterated, and with its vital principles so diminished, that it cannot fully decarbonize the blood, nor fully excite the nervous system.--_thackeray._ those hypochondriacs, who, like herodius, give up their whole time and thoughts to the care of their health, sacrifice unto life every noble purpose of living; striving to support a frail and feverish being here, they neglect an hereafter; they continue to patch up and repair their mouldering tenement of clay, regardless of the immortal tenant that must survive it; agitated by greater fears than the apostle, and supported by none of his hopes, they "die daily."--_colton._ refuse to be ill. never tell people you are ill; never own it to yourself. illness is one of those things which a man should resist on principle at the onset.--_bulwer-lytton._ health is so necessary to all the duties, as well as pleasures, of life, that the crime of squandering it is equal to the folly.--_johnson._ there are two things in life that a sage must preserve at every sacrifice, the coats of his stomach and the enamel of his teeth. some evils admit of consolations: there are no comforters for dyspepsia and the toothache.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~heart.~--the heart is like the tree that gives balm for the wounds of man only when the iron has pierced it.--_chauteaubriand._ the heart is an astrologer that always divines the truth.--_calderon._ there are treasures laid up in the heart,--treasures of charity, piety, temperance, and soberness. these treasures a man takes with him beyond death when he leaves this world.--_buddhist scriptures._ in aught that tries the heart, how few withstand the proof!--_byron._ the hearts of pretty women are like bonbons, wrapped up in enigmas.--_j. petit senn._ a loving heart is the truest wisdom.--_dickens._ to judge human character rightly, a man may sometimes have very small experience, provided he has a very large heart.--_bulwer-lytton._ the heart has reasons that reason does not understand.--_bossuet._ there are chords in the human heart, strange, varying strings, which are only struck by accident; which will remain mute and senseless to appeals the most passionate and earnest, and respond at last to the slightest casual touch. in the most insensible or childish minds there is some train of reflection which art can seldom lead, or skill assist, but which will reveal itself, as great truths have done, by chance, and when the discoverer has the plainest and simplest end in view.--_dickens._ a willing heart adds feathers to the heel, and makes the clown a winged mercury.--_joanna baillie._ some people's hearts are shrunk in them like dried nuts. you can hear 'em rattle as they walk.--_douglas_ _jerrold._ ~heaven.~--the love of heaven makes one heavenly.--_shakespeare._ where is heaven? i cannot tell. even to the eye of faith, heaven looks much like a star to the eye of flesh. set there on the brow of night, it shines most bright, most beautiful; but it is separated from us by so great a distance as to be raised almost as high above our investigations as above the storms and clouds of earth.--_rev. dr. guthrie._ when at eve at the bounding of the landscape the heavens appear to recline so slowly on the earth, imagination pictures beyond the horizon an asylum of hope,--a native land of love; and nature seems silently to repeat that man is immortal.--_madame de staël._ few, without the hope of another life, would think it worth their while to live above the allurements of sense.--_atterbury._ heaven is a place of restless activity, the abode of never-tiring thought. david and isaiah will sweep nobler and loftier strains in eternity, and the minds of the saints, unclogged by cumbersome clay, will forever feast on the banquet of rich and glorious thought.--_beecher._ ~heroes.~--a light supper, a good night's sleep, and a fine morning have often made a hero of the same man who, by indigestion, a restless night, and a rainy morning would have proved a coward.--_chesterfield._ in analyzing the character of heroes it is hardly possible to separate altogether the share of fortune from their own.--_hallam._ mankind is not disposed to look narrowly into the conduct of great victors when their victory is on the right side.--_george eliot._ no one is a hero to his valet.--_madame de sévigné._ ~history.~--the grecian history is a poem, latin history a picture, modern history a chronicle.--_chauteaubriand._ if men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us! but passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us!--_coleridge._ history, which is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.--_gibbon._ we must consider how very little history there is; i mean real, authentic history. that certain kings reigned and certain battles were fought we can depend upon as true; but all the coloring, all the philosophy of history, is conjecture.--_johnson._ history needs distance, perspective. facts and events which are too well attested cease, in some sort, to be malleable.--_joubert._ to be entirely just in our estimate of other ages is not only difficult,--it is impossible. even what is passing in our presence we see but through a glass darkly. the mind as well as the eye adds something of its own before an image, even of the clearest object, can be painted upon it; and in historical inquiries the most instructed thinkers have but a limited advantage over the most illiterate. those who know the most approach least to agreement.--_froude._ the impartiality of history is not that of the mirror which merely reflects objects, but of the judge who sees, listens, and decides.--_lamartine._ in every human character and transaction there is a mixture of good and evil: a little exaggeration, a little suppression, a judicious use of epithets, a watchful and searching skepticism with respect to the evidence on one side, a convenient credulity with respect to every report or tradition on the other, may easily make a saint of laud, or a tyrant of henry the fourth.--_macaulay._ history is but a kind of newgate calendar, a register of the crimes and miseries that man has inflicted on his fellow-man.--_washington irving._ history has its foreground and its background, and it is principally in the management of its perspective that one artist differs from another. some events must be represented on a large scale, others diminished; the great majority will be lost in the dimness of the horizon, and a general idea of their joint effect will be given by a few slight touches.--_macaulay._ violent natures make history. the instruments they use almost always kill. religion and philosophy have their vestments covered with innocent blood.--_x. doudan._ each generation gathers together the imperishable children of the past, and increases them by new sons of light, alike radiant with immortality.--_bancroft._ what history is not richer, does not contain far more, than they by whom it is enacted, the present witnesses! what mortal understandeth his way?--_jacobi._ he alone reads history aright, who, observing how powerfully circumstances influence the feelings and opinions of men, how often vices pass into virtues, and paradoxes into axioms, learns to distinguish what is accidental and transitory in human nature from what is essential and immutable.--_macaulay._ ~home.~--home is the grandest of all institutions.--_spurgeon._ the first sure symptom of a mind in health is rest of heart, and pleasure felt at home.--_young._ to most men their early home is no more than a memory of their early years, and i'm not sure but they have the best of it. the image is never marred. there's no disappointment in memory, and one's exaggerations are always on the good side.--_george eliot._ be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.--_payne._ stint yourself, as you think good, in other things; but don't scruple freedom in brightening home. gay furniture and a brilliant garden are a sight day by day, and make life blither.--_charles buxton._ home is the seminary of all other institutions.--_chapin._ ~honesty.~--if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.--_johnson._ persons lightly dipped, not grained, in generous honesty, are but pale in goodness.--_sir t. browne._ refined policy has ever been the parent of confusion, and ever will be so, as long as the world endures. plain good intention, which is as easily discovered at the first view as fraud is surely detected at last, is, let me say, of no mean force in the government of mankind. genuine simplicity of heart is a healing and cementing principle.--_burke._ money dishonestly acquired is never worth its cost, while a good conscience never costs as much as it is worth.--_j. petit senn._ the honest man is a rare variety of the human species.--_chamfort._ ~honor.~--keep unscathed the good name, keep out of peril the honor, without which even your battered old soldier, who is hobbling into his grave on half pay and a wooden leg, would not change with achilles.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~hope.~--hope warps judgment in council, but quickens energy in action.--_bulwer-lytton._ "i have a fine lot of hopes here in my basket," remarked the new year; "they are a sweet-smelling flower--a species of roses."--_hawthorne._ hope is the most beneficial of all the affections, and doth much to the prolongation of life, if it be not too often frustrated; but entertaineth the fancy with an expectation of good.--_bacon._ the mighty hopes that make us men.--_tennyson._ thou captive's freedom, and thou sick man's health.--_cowley._ i have a knack of hoping, which is as good as an estate in reversion, if one can keep from the temptation of turning it into certainty, which may spoil all.--_george eliot._ hope, folding her wings, looked backward and became regret.--_george eliot._ hope is always liberal, and they that trust her promises make little scruple of reveling to-day on the profits of to-morrow.--_johnson._ it is necessary to hope, though hope should be always deluded; for hope itself is happiness and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction.--_johnson._ hope is a delusion; no hand can grasp a wave or a shadow.--_victor hugo._ ~humanity.~--a man's nature runs either to herbs or weeds: therefore let him seasonably water the one and destroy the other.--_bacon._ i own that there is a haughtiness and fierceness in human nature which will cause innumerable broils, place men in what situation you please.--_burke._ human nature is not so much depraved as to hinder us from respecting goodness in others, though we ourselves want it. this is the reason why we are so much charmed with the pretty prattle of children, and even the expressions of pleasure or uneasiness in some parts of the brute creation. they are without artifice or malice; and we love truth too well to resist the charms of sincerity.--_steele._ i do not know what comfort other people find in considering the weakness of great men, but 'tis always a mortification to me to observe that there is no perfection in humanity.--_montagu._ the true proof of the inherent nobleness of our common nature is in the sympathy it betrays with what is noble wherever crowds are collected. never believe the world is base; if it were so, no society could hold together for a day.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~humility.~--it is from out the depths of our humility that the height of our destiny looks grandest. let me truly feel that in myself i am nothing, and at once, through every inlet of my soul, god comes in, and is everything in me.--_mountford._ should any ask me, what is the first thing in religion? i would reply, the first, second, and third thing therein, nay all, is humility.--_st. augustine._ epaminondas, that heathen captain, finding himself lifted up in the day of his public triumph, the next day went drooping and hanging down his head; but being asked what was the reason of his so great dejection, made answer: "yesterday i felt myself transported with vainglory, therefore i chastise myself for it to-day."--_plutarch._ in humility imitate jesus and socrates.--_franklin._ believe me, the much-praised lambs of humility would not bear themselves so meekly if they but possessed tigers' claws.--_heinrich heine._ trees that, like the poplar, lift upwards all their boughs, give no shade and no shelter, whatever their height. trees the most lovingly shelter and shade us when, like the willow, the higher soar their summits, the lowlier droop their bows.--_bulwer-lytton._ if thou wouldst find much favor and peace with god and man, be very low in thine own eyes. forgive thyself little and others much.--_archbishop leighton._ ~humor.~--the genius of the spanish people is exquisitely subtile, without being at all acute: hence there is so much humor and so little wit in their literature. the genius of the italians, on the contrary, is acute, profound, and sensual, but not subtile; hence what they think to be humorous is merely witty.--_coleridge._ the oil and wine of merry meeting.--_washington irving._ these poor gentlemen endeavor to gain themselves the reputation of wits and humorists, by such monstrous conceits as almost qualify them for bedlam; not considering that humor should always lie under the check of reason, and that it requires the direction of the nicest judgment, by so much the more as it indulges itself in the most boundless freedoms.--_addison._ ~hyperbole.~--sprightly natures, full of fire, and whom a boundless imagination carries beyond all rules, and even what is reasonable, cannot rest satisfied with hyperbole.--_bruyère._ let us have done with reproaching; for we may throw out so many reproachful words on one another that a ship of a hundred oars would not be able to carry the load.--_homer._ ~hypocrisy.~--whoever is a hypocrite in his religion mocks god, presenting to him the outside, and reserving the inward for his enemy.--_jeremy taylor._ hypocrisy has become a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtue.--_molière._ hypocrisy is much more eligible than open infidelity and vice: it wears the livery of religion, and is cautious of giving scandal.--_swift._ sin is not so sinful as hypocrisy.--_mme. de maintenon._ as a man loves gold, in that proportion he hates to be imposed upon by counterfeits; and in proportion as a man has regard for that which is above price and better than gold, he abhors that hypocrisy which is but its counterfeit.--_cecil._ hypocrisy, the only evil that walks invisible, except to god alone.--_milton._ hypocrisy, detest her as we may, and no man's hatred ever wronged her yet, may claim this merit still: that she admits the worth of what she mimics with such care.--_cowper._ i hate hypocrites, who put on their virtues with their white gloves.--_alfred de musset._ such a man will omit neither family worship, nor a sneer at his neighbor. he will neither milk his cows on the first day of the week without a sabbath mask on his face, nor remove it while he waters the milk for his customers.--_george mac donald._ the fatal fact in the case of a hypocrite is that he is a hypocrite.--_chapin._ 'tis a cowardly and servile humor to hide and disguise a man's self under a vizor, and not to dare to show himself what he is. by that our followers are train'd up to treachery. being brought up to speak what is not true, they make no conscience of a lie.--_montaigne._ i. ~ideas.~--after all has been said that can be said about the widening influence of ideas, it remains true that they would hardly be such strong agents unless they were taken in a solvent of feeling. the great world-struggle of developing thought is continually foreshadowed in the struggle of the affections, seeking a justification for love and hope.--_george eliot._ our ideas are transformed sensations.--_condillac._ in these days we fight for ideas, and newspapers are our fortresses.--_heinrich heine._ many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprung up. that which was a weed in one intelligence becomes a flower in the other, and a flower again dwindles down to a mere weed by the same change. healthy growths may become poisonous by falling upon the wrong mental soil, and what seemed a night-shade in one mind unfolds as a morning-glory in the other.--_holmes._ a fixed idea is like the iron rod which sculptors put in their statues. it impales and sustains.--_taine._ old ideas are prejudices, and new ones caprices.--_x. doudan._ we live in an age in which superfluous ideas abound and essential ideas are lacking.--_joubert._ ideas are like beards; men do not have them until they grow up.--_voltaire._ our ideas, like orange-plants, spread out in proportion to the size of the box which imprisons the roots.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~idleness.~--if idleness do not produce vice or malevolence, it commonly produces melancholy.--_sydney smith._ idleness is the key of beggary, and the root of all evil.--_spurgeon._ in idleness there is perpetual despair.--_carlyle._ doing nothing with a deal of skill.--_cowper._ from its very inaction, idleness ultimately becomes the most active cause of evil; as a palsy is more to be dreaded than a fever. the turks have a proverb, which says, that the devil tempts all other men, but that idle men tempt the devil.--_colton._ the first external revelations of the dry-rot in men is a tendency to lurk and lounge; to be at street corners without intelligible reason; to be going anywhere when met; to be about many places rather than any; to do nothing tangible but to have an intention of performing a number of tangible duties to-morrow or the day after.--_dickens._ idleness is only the refuge of weak minds, and the holiday of fools.--_chesterfield._ so long as idleness is quite shut out from our lives, all the sins of wantonness, softness, and effeminacy are prevented; and there is but little room for temptation.--_jeremy taylor._ let but the hours of idleness cease, and the bow of cupid will become broken and his torch extinguished.--_ovid._ ~ignorance.~--have the _courage_ to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.--_sydney smith._ there is no calamity like ignorance.--_richter._ 'tis sad work to be at that pass, that the best trial of truth must be the multitude of believers, in a crowd where the number of fools so much exceeds that of the wise. as if anything were so common as ignorance!--_montaigne._ ignorance, which in behavior mitigates a fault, is, in literature, a capital offense.--_joubert._ there is no slight danger from general ignorance; and the only choice which providence has graciously left to a vicious government is either to fall _by_ the people, if they are suffered to become enlightened, or _with_ them, if they are kept enslaved and ignorant.--_coleridge._ to be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of ignorance.--_alcott._ the true instrument of man's degradation is his ignorance.--_lady morgan._ ignorance is not so damnable as humbug, but when it prescribes pills it may happen to do more harm.--_george eliot._ the ignorant hath an eagle's wings and an owl's eyes.--_george herbert._ ignorance is mere privation, by which nothing can be produced; it is a vacuity in which the soul sits motionless and torpid for want of attraction.--_johnson._ ~illusion.~--in youth we feel richer for every new illusion; in maturer years, for every one we lose.--_madame swetchine._ illusion is the first of all pleasures.--_voltaire._ ~imagination.~--we are all of us imaginative in some form or other, for images are the brood of desire.--_george eliot._ a vile imagination, once indulged, gets the key of our minds, and can get in again very easily, whether we will or no, and can so return as to bring seven other spirits with it more wicked than itself; and what may follow no one knows.--_spurgeon._ he who has imagination without learning has wings and no feet.--_joubert._ no man will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannize, and force him to hope or fear beyond the limits of sober probability.--_johnson._ ~imitation.~--imitators are a servile race.--_fontaine._ imitation causes us to leave natural ways to enter into artificial ones; it therefore makes slaves.--_dr. vinet._ "name to me an animal, though never so skillful, that i cannot imitate!" so bragged the ape to the fox. but the fox replied, "and do thou name to me an animal so humble as to think of imitating thee."--_lessing._ ~immortality.~--when i consider the wonderful activity of the mind, so great a memory of what is past, and such a capacity of penetrating into the future; when i behold such a number of arts and sciences, and such a multitude of discoveries thence arising; i believe and am firmly persuaded that a nature which contains so many things within itself cannot be mortal.--_cicero._ whatsoever that be within us that feels, thinks, desires, and animates, is something celestial, divine, and consequently imperishable.--_aristotle._ the spirit of man, which god inspired, cannot together perish with this corporeal clod.--_milton._ all men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.--_socrates._ what springs from earth dissolves to earth again, and heaven-born things fly to their native seat.--_marcus antoninus._ the seed dies into a new life, and so does man.--_george macdonald._ ~impatience.~--impatience turns an ague into a fever, a fever to the plague, fear into despair, anger into rage, loss into madness, and sorrow to amazement.--_jeremy taylor._ ~impossibility.~--one great difference between a wise man and a fool is, the former only wishes for what he may possibly obtain; the latter desires impossibilities.--_democritus._ ~improvement.~--slumber not in the tents of your fathers. the world is advancing. advance with it.--_mazzini._ people seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy after.--_goldsmith._ ~improvidence.~--how full or how empty our lives, depends, we say, on providence. suppose we say, more or less on improvidence.--_bovée._ ~income.~--our incomes are like our shoes; if too small, they gall and pinch us; but if too large, they cause us to stumble and to trip.--_colton._ ~inconsistency.~--men talk as if they believed in god, but they live as if they thought there was none: their vows and promises are no more than words of course.--_l'estrange._ people are so ridiculous with their illusions, carrying their fool's caps unawares, thinking their own lies opaque while everybody else's are transparent, making themselves exceptions to everything, as if when all the world looked yellow under a lamp they alone were rosy.--_george eliot._ ~inconstancy.~--the catching court disease.--_otway._ nothing that is not a real crime makes a man appear so contemptible and little in the eyes of the world as inconstancy.--_addison._ ~indifference.~--nothing for preserving the body like having no heart.--_j. petit senn._ indifference is the invincible giant of the world.--_ouida._ ~indigestion.~--old friendships are destroyed by toasted cheese, and hard salted meat has led to suicide. unpleasant feelings of the body produce correspondent sensations in the mind, and a great scene of wretchedness is sketched out by a morsel of indigestible and misguided food.--_sydney smith._ ~individuality.~--there are men of convictions whose very faces will light up an era, and there are believing women in whose eyes you may almost read the whole plan of salvation.--_t. fields._ individuality is everywhere to be spared and respected as the root of everything good.--_richter._ the epoch of individuality is concluded, and it is the duty of reformers to initiate the epoch of association. collective man is omnipotent upon the earth he treads.--_mazzini._ ~indolence.~--i look upon indolence as a sort of suicide; for the man is effectually destroyed, though the appetite of the brute may survive.--_chesterfield._ lives spent in indolence, and therefore sad.--_cowper._ days of respite are golden days.--_south._ so long as he must fight his way, the man of genius pushes forward, conquering and to conquer. but how often is he at last overcome by a capua! ease and fame bring sloth and slumber.--_charles buxton._ nothing ages like laziness.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~indulgence.~--one wishes to be happy before becoming wise.--_mme. necker._ ~industry.~--mankind are more indebted to industry than ingenuity; the gods set up their favors at a price, and industry is the purchaser.--_addison._ application is the price to be paid for mental acquisition. to have the harvest we must sow the seed.--_bailey._ ~infidelity.~--there is but one thing without honor; smitten with eternal barrenness, inability to do or to be,--insincerity, unbelief. he who believes no _thing_, who believes only the shows of things, is not in relation with nature and fact at all.--_carlyle._ i would rather dwell in the dim fog of superstition than in air rarefied to nothing by the air-pump of unbelief; in which the panting breast expires, vainly and convulsively gasping for breath.--_richter._ if on one side there are fair proofs, and no pretense of proof on the other, and that the difficulties are more pressing on that side which is destitute of proof, i desire to know whether this be not upon the matter as satisfactory to a wise man as a demonstration.--_tillotson._ the nurse of infidelity is sensuality.--_cecil._ men always grow vicious before they become unbelievers; but if you would once convince profligates by topics drawn from the view of their own quiet, reputation, and health, their infidelity would soon drop off.--_swift._ infidelity gives nothing in return for what it takes away. what, then, is it worth? everything valuable has a compensating power. not a blade of grass that withers, or the ugliest weed that is flung away to rot and die, but reproduces something.--_dr. chalmers._ ~infirmities.~--never mind what a man's virtues are; waste no time in learning them. fasten at once on his infirmities.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~influence.~--he who wishes to exert a useful influence must be careful to insult nothing. let him not be troubled by what seems absurd, but let him consecrate his energies to the creation of what is good. he must not demolish, but build. he must raise temples where mankind may come and partake of the purest pleasures.--_goethe._ if i can put one touch of a rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, i shall feel that i have worked with god.--_george macdonald._ the city reveals the moral ends of being, and sets the awful problem of life. the country soothes us, refreshes us, lifts us up with religious suggestion.--_chapin._ it is the age that forms the man, not the man that forms the age. great minds do indeed react on the society which has made them what they are, but they only pay with interest what they have received.--_macaulay._ in families well ordered there is always one firm, sweet temper, which controls without seeming to dictate. the greeks represented persuasion as crowned.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~ingratitude.~--the great bulk of mankind resemble the swine, which in harvest gather and fatten upon the acorns beneath the oak, but show to the tree which bore them no other thanks than rubbing off its bark, and tearing up the sod around it.--_scriver._ one great cause of our insensibility to the goodness of our creator is the very extensiveness of his bounty.--_paley._ ~injustice.~--the injustice of men subserves the justice of god, and often his mercy.--_madame swetchine._ ~ink.~--a drop of ink may make a million think.--_byron._ let there be gall enough in thy ink; though thou write with a goose-pen, no matter.--_shakespeare._ the colored slave that waits upon thought.--_mrs. balfour._ oh, she is fallen into a pit of ink, that the wide sea hath drops too few to wash her clean again!--_shakespeare._ my ways are as broad as the king's high road, and my means lie in an inkstand.--_southey._ ~innocence.~--he's armed without that's innocent within.--_pope._ there is no courage but in innocence.--_southern._ there is no man so good who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the law, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.--_montaigne._ ~innovation.~--the ridiculous rage for innovation, which only increases the weight of the chains it cannot break, shall never fire my blood!--_schiller._ dislike of innovation proceeds sometimes from the disgust excited by false humanity, canting hypocrisy, and silly enthusiasm.--_sydney smith._ ~insanity.~--insanity is not a distinct and separate empire; our ordinary life borders upon it, and we cross the frontier in some part of our nature.--_taine._ ~inspiration.~--do we not all agree to call rapid thought and noble impulse by the name of inspiration? after our subtlest analysis of the mental process, we must still say that our highest thoughts and our best deeds are all given to us.--_george eliot._ contagious enthusiasm.--_mrs. balfour._ ~instinct.~--the instinct of brutes and insects can be the effect of nothing else than the wisdom and skill of a powerful ever-living agent.--_newton._ instinct harmonizes the interior of animals as religion does the interior of men.--_jacobi._ all our first movements are good, generous, heroical; reflection weakens and kills them.--_aimé martin._ an instinct is a propensity prior to experience, and independent of instruction.--_paley._ ~insult.~--it is only the vulgar who are always fancying themselves insulted. if a man treads on another's toe in good society do you think it is taken as an insult?--_lady hester stanhope._ i once met a man who had forgiven an injury. i hope some day to meet the man who has forgiven an insult.--_charles buxton._ ~insurrection.~--insurrection unusually gains little; usually wastes how much! one of its worst kind of wastes, to say nothing of the rest, is that of irritating and exasperating men against each other by violence done; which is always sure to be injustice done, for violence does even justice unjustly.--_carlyle._ ~intellect.~--the commerce of intellect loves distant shores. the small retail dealer trades only with his neighbor; when the great merchant trades, he links the four quarters of the globe.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~intelligence.~--the higher feelings, when acting in harmonious combination, and directed by enlightened intellect, have a boundless scope for gratification; their least indulgence is delightful, and their highest activity is bliss.--_combe._ some men of a secluded and studious life have sent forth from their closet or their cloister, rays of intellectual light that have agitated courts and revolutionized kingdoms; like the moon which, though far removed from the ocean, and shining upon it with a serene and sober light, is the chief cause of all those ebbings and flowings which incessantly disturb that restless world of waters.--_colton._ light has spread, and even bayonets think.--_kossuth._ intelligence is a luxury, sometimes useless, sometimes fatal. it is a torch or a fire-brand according to the use one makes of it.--_fernan caballero._ ~intemperance.~--the body, overcharged with the excess of yesterday, weighs down the mind together with itself, and fixes to the earth that particle of the divine spirit.--_horace._ intemperance is a great decayer of beauty.--_junius._ ~intolerance.~--nothing dies so hard, and rallies so often, as intolerance.--_beecher._ intolerance is the curse of every age and state.--_dr. davies._ ~invective.~--invective may be a sharp weapon, but over-use blunts its edge. even when the denunciation is just and true, it is an error of art to indulge in it too long.--_tyndall._ ~invention.~--invention is a kind of muse, which, being possessed of the other advantages common to her sisters, and being warmed by the fire of apollo, is raised higher than the rest.--_dryden._ invention, strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination of those images which have been previously gathered and deposited in the memory. nothing can be made of nothing: he who has laid up no materials can produce no combinations.--_sir j. reynolds._ ~irony.~--irony is to the high-bred what billingsgate is to the vulgar; and when one gentleman thinks another gentleman an ass, he does not say it point-blank, he implies it in the politest terms he can invent.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~irresolution.~--irresolution is a worse vice than rashness. he that shoots best may sometimes miss the mark; but he that shoots not at all can never hit it. irresolution loosens all the joints of a state; like an ague, it shakes not this nor that limb, but all the body is at once in a fit. the irresolute man is lifted from one place to another; so hatcheth nothing, but addles all his actions.--_feltham._ irresolution on the schemes of life which offer themselves to our choice, and inconstancy in pursuing them, are the greatest causes of all our unhappiness.--_addison._ irresolute people let their soup grow cold between the plate and the mouth.--_cervantes._ ~irritability.~--irritability urges us to take a step as much too soon as sloth does too late.--_cecil._ an irritable man lies like a hedgehog rolled up the wrong way, tormenting himself with his own prickles.--_hood._ ~ivy.~--the stateliest building man can raise is the ivy's food at last.--_dickens._ the ivy, like the spider, takes hold with her hands in king's palaces, as every twig is furnished with innumerable little fingers, by which it draws itself close, as it were, to the very heart of the old rough stone. its clinging and beautiful tenacity has given rise to an abundance of conceits about fidelity, friendship, and woman's love, which have become commonplace simply from their appropriateness. it might also symbolize the higher love, unconquerable and unconquered, which has embraced this ruined world from age to age, silently spreading its green over the rents and fissures of our fallen nature.--_mrs. stowe._ j. ~jealousy.~--what frenzy dictates, jealousy believes.--_gay._ jealousy sees things always with magnifying glasses which make little things large, of dwarfs giants, suspicions truths.--_cervantes._ 'tis a monster begot upon itself, born on itself.--_shakespeare._ women detest a jealous man whom they do not love, but it angers them when a man they do love is not jealous.--_ninon de l'enclos._ a jealous man always finds more than he looks for.--_mlle. de scudéry._ jealousy is the sister of love, as the devil is the brother of angels.--_boufflers._ ~jesting.~--jests--brain fleas that jump about among the slumbering ideas.--_heinrich heine._ the jest loses its point when the wit is the first to laugh.--_schiller._ and generally, men ought to find the difference between saltness and bitterness. certainly, he that hath a satirical vein, as he maketh others afraid of his wit, so he had need be afraid of other's memory.--_bacon._ ~jewelry.~--jewels! it's my belief that when woman was made, jewels were invented only to make her the more mischievous.--_douglas jerrold._ ~jews.~--talk what you will of the jews; that they are cursed: they thrive wherever they come; they are able to oblige the prince of their country by lending him money; none of them beg; they keep together; and as for their being hated, why christians hate one another as much.--_selden._ they are a piece of stubborn antiquity, compared with which stonehenge is in its nonage. they date beyond the pyramids.--_lamb._ ~joy.~--the soul's calm sunshine, and the heartfelt joy.--_pope._ worldly joy is like the songs which peasants sing, full of melodies and sweet airs.--_beecher._ redundant joy, like a poor miser, beggar'd by his store.--_young._ we lose the peace of years when we hunt after the rapture of moments.--_bulwer-lytton._ joy is the best of wine.--_george eliot._ joy in this world is like a rainbow, which in the morning only appears in the west, or towards the evening sky; but in the latter hours of day casts its triumphal arch over the east, or morning sky.--_richter._ ~judgment.~--the more one judges, the less one loves.--_balzac._ i mistrust the judgment of every man in a case in which his own wishes are concerned.--_wellington._ judgment and reason have been grand jurymen since before noah was a sailor.--_shakespeare._ a flippant, frivolous man may ridicule others, may controvert them, scorn them; but he who has any respect for himself seems to have renounced the right of thinking meanly of others.--_goethe._ in judging of others a man laboreth in vain, often erreth, and easily sinneth; but in judging and examining himself, he always laboreth fruitfully.--_thomas à kempis._ i have seen, when after execution judgment hath repented o'er his doom.--_shakespeare._ foolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is delayed, there is no justice, but an accident alone, here below. judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two, some century or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as death!--_carlyle._ human judgment, like luther's drunken peasant, when saved from falling on one side, topples over on the other.--_mazzini._ the contemporary mind may in rare cases be taken by storm; but posterity never. the tribunal of the present is accessible to influence; that of the future is incorrupt.--_gladstone._ upon any given point, contradictory evidence seldom puzzles the man who has mastered the laws of evidence, but he knows little of the laws of evidence who has not studied the unwritten law of the human heart; and without this last knowledge a man of action will not attain to the practical, nor will a poet achieve the ideal.--_bulwer-lytton._ how little do they see what is, who frame their hasty judgment upon that which seems.--_southey._ ~justice.~--it is the pleasure of the gods--that what is in conformity with justice shall also be in conformity to the laws.--_socrates._ justice delayed is justice denied.--_gladstone._ justice advances with such languid steps that crime often escapes from its slowness. its tardy and doubtful course causes too many tears to be shed.--_corneille._ justice is truth in action.--_joubert._ at present we can only reason of the divine justice from what we know of justice in man. when we are in other scenes we may have truer and nobler ideas of it; but while we are in this life we can only speak from the volume that is laid open before us.--_pope._ strike if you will, but hear.--_themistocles._ when infinite wisdom established the rule of right and honesty, he saw to it that justice should be always the highest expediency.--_wendell phillips._ but justice shines in smoky cottages, and honors the pious. leaving with averted eyes the gorgeous glare obtained by polluted hands, she is wont to draw nigh to holiness, not reverencing wealth when falsely stamped with praise, and assigning each deed its righteous doom.--_æschylus._ god's mill grinds slow but sure.--_george herbert._ who shall put his finger on the work of justice, and say, "it is there?" justice is like the kingdom of god--it is not without us as a fact, it is within us as a great yearning.--_george eliot._ justice claims what is due, polity what is seemly; justice weighs and decides, polity surveys and orders; justice refers to the individual, polity to the community.--_goethe._ k. ~kindness.~--yes! you may find people ready enough to do the samaritan without the oil and twopence.--_sydney smith._ paradise is open to all kind hearts.--_béranger._ kind words produce their own image in men's souls; and a beautiful image it is. they soothe and quiet and comfort the hearer. they shame him out of his sour, morose, unkind feelings. we have not yet begun to use kind words in such abundance as they ought to be used.--_pascal._ to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.--_johnson._ to remind a man of a kindness conferred is little less than a reproach.--_demosthenes._ kindness is the only charm permitted to the aged; it is the coquetry of white hair.--_o. feuillet._ sow good services; sweet remembrances will grow from them.--_mme. de staël._ ~kings.~--kings wish to be absolute, and they are sometimes told that their best way to become so is to make themselves beloved by the people. this maxim is doubtless a very admirable one, and in some respects true; but unhappily it is laughed at in court.--_rousseau._ implements of war and subjugation are the last arguments to which kings resort.--_patrick henry._ a king ought not fall from the throne except with the throne itself; under its lofty ruins he alone finds an honored death and an honored tomb.--_alfieri._ one of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings is, that nature disapproves it; otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass in place of a lion.--_thomas paine._ he on whom heaven confers a sceptre knows not the weight till he bears it.--_corneille._ kings' titles commonly begin by force which time wears off, and mellows into right; and power which in one age is tyranny is ripened in the next to true succession.--_dryden._ ~kisses.~--it is as old as the creation, and yet as young and fresh as ever. it preëxisted, still exists, and always will exist. depend upon it, eve learned it in paradise, and was taught its beauties, virtues, and varieties by an angel, there is something so transcendent in it.--_haliburton._ dear as remembered kisses after death.--_tennyson._ or leave a kiss but in the cup, and i'll not look for wine.--_ben jonson._ he kissed her and promised. such beautiful lips! man's usual fate--he was lost upon the coral reefs.--_douglas jerrold._ eden revives in the first kiss of love.--_byron._ you would think that, if our lips were made of horn, and stuck out a foot or two from our faces, kisses at any rate would be done for. not so. no creatures kiss each other so much as birds.--_charles buxton._ that farewell kiss which resembles greeting, that last glance of love which becomes the sharpest pang of sorrow.--_george eliot._ stolen kisses are always sweetest.--_leigh hunt._ sharp is the kiss of the falcon's beak.--_bulwer-lytton._ four sweet lips, two pure souls, and one undying affection,--these are love's pretty ingredients for a kiss.--_bovée._ ~knavery.~--unluckily the credulity of dupes is as inexhaustible as the invention of knaves. they never give people possession; but they always keep them in hope.--_burke._ after long experience in the world i affirm, before god, i never knew a rogue who was not unhappy.--_junius._ by fools knaves fatten; by bigots priests are well clothed; every knave finds a gull.--_zimmerman._ ~knowledge.~--the sure foundations of the state are laid in knowledge, not in ignorance; and every sneer at education, at culture, at book learning, which is the recorded wisdom of the experience of mankind, is the demagogue's sneer at intelligent liberty, inviting national degeneracy and ruin.--_g. w. curtis._ knowledge, like religion, must be "experienced," in order to be known.--_whipple._ the pleasure and delight of knowledge far surpasseth all other in nature. we see in all other pleasures there is satiety; and after they be used, their verdure departeth, which showeth well that they be but deceits of pleasure, and not pleasures; and that it was the novelty which pleased, not the quality; and therefore we see that voluptuous men turn friars, and ambitious princes turn melancholy. but of knowledge there is no satiety, but satisfaction and appetite are perpetually interchangeable.--_bacon._ what novelty is worth the sweet monotony where everything is known, and loved because it is known?--_george eliot._ the truth is, that most men want knowledge, not for itself, but for the superiority which knowledge confers; and the means they employ to secure this superiority are as wrong as the ultimate object, for no man can ever end with being superior who will not begin with being inferior.--_sydney smith._ he who knows much has much to care for.--_lessing._ properly, there is no other knowledge but that which is got by working: the rest is yet all a hypothesis of knowledge; a thing to be argued of in schools; a thing floating in the clouds, in endless logic-vortices, till we try and fix it.--_carlyle._ he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.--_bible._ to know by rote is no knowledge; it is only a retention of what is intrusted to the memory. that which a man truly knows may be disposed of without regard to the author, or reference to the book from whence he had it.--_montaigne._ he who cherishes his old knowledge, so as continually to acquire new, he may be a teacher of others.--_confucius._ a taste of every sort of knowledge is necessary to form the mind, and is the only way to give the understanding its due improvement to the full extent of its capacity.--_locke._ knowledge has, in our time, triumphed, and is triumphing, over prejudice, and over bigotry. the civilized and christian world is fast learning the great lesson, that difference of nation does not imply necessary hostility, and that all contact need not be war. the whole world is becoming a common field for intellect to act in. energy of mind, genius, power, wheresoever it exists, may speak out in any tongue, and the world will hear it.--_daniel webster._ knowledge once gained casts a faint light beyond its own immediate boundaries.--_tyndall._ the shortest and the surest way of arriving at real knowledge is to unlearn the lessons we have been taught, to remount to first principles, and take nobody's word about them.--_bolingbroke._ sorrow is knowledge; they who know the most must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth; the tree of knowledge is not that of life.--_byron._ the seeds of knowledge maybe planted in solitude, but must be cultivated in public.--_johnson._ knowledge dwells in heads replete with thoughts of other men; wisdom, in minds attentive to their own.--_cowper._ it is the glorious prerogative of the empire of knowledge, that what it gains it never loses. on the contrary, it increases by the multiple of its own power; all its ends become means; all its attainments helps to new conquests.--_daniel webster._ the love of knowledge in a young mind is almost a warrant against the infirm excitement of passions and vices.--_beecher._ there is nothing so minute, or inconsiderable, that i would not rather know it than not.--_johnson._ we always know everything when it serves no purpose, and when the seal of the irreparable has been set upon events.--_théophile gautier._ all the knowledge that we mortals can acquire is not knowledge positive, but knowledge comparative, and subject to the errors and passions of humanity.--_bulwer-lytton._ l. ~labor.~--labor is the divine law of our existence; repose is desertion and suicide.--_mazzini._ labor is life: from the inmost heart of the worker rises his god-given force, the sacred celestial life-essence breathed into him by almighty god!--_carlyle._ the fact is nothing comes; at least nothing good. all has to be fetched.--_charles buxton._ genius begins great works, labor alone finishes them.--_joubert._ as steady application to work is the healthiest training for every individual, so is it the best discipline of a state. honorable industry always travels the same road with enjoyment and duty, and progress is altogether impossible without it.--_samuel smiles._ nature is just towards men. it recompenses them for their sufferings; it renders them laborious, because to the greatest toils it attaches the greatest rewards.--_montesquieu._ virtue's guard is labor, ease her sleep.--_tasso._ alexander the great, reflecting on his friends degenerating into sloth and luxury, told them that it was a most slavish thing to luxuriate, and a most royal thing to labor.--_barrow._ many young painters would never have taken their pencils in hand if they could have felt, known, and understood, early enough, what really produced a master like raphael.--_goethe._ he that thinks that diversion may not lie in hard labor forgets the early rising and hard riding of huntsmen.--_locke._ the pain of life but sweetens death; the hardest labor brings the soundest sleep.--_albert smith._ what men want is not talent, it is purpose; not the power to achieve, but the will to labor.--_bulwer-lytton._ the true epic of our times is not "arms and the man," but "tools and the man," an infinitely wider kind of epic.--_carlyle._ labor is the curse of the world, and nobody can meddle with it without becoming proportionably brutified!--_hawthorne._ ~land.~--there is a distinct joy in owning land, unlike that which you have in money, in houses, in books, pictures, or anything else which men have devised. personal property brings you into society with men. but land is a part of god's estate in the globe; and when a parcel of ground is deeded to you, and you walk over it, and call it your own, it seems as if you had come into partnership with the original proprietor of the earth.--_beecher._ ~language.~--the creator has gifted the whole universe with language, but few are the hearts that can interpret it. happy those to whom it is no foreign tongue, acquired imperfectly with care and pain, but rather a native language, learned unconsciously from the lips of the great mother.--_bulwer-lytton._ the key to the sciences.--_bruyère._ a countryman is as warm in fustian as a king in velvet, and a truth is as comfortable in homely language as in fine speech. as to the way of dishing up the meat, hungry men leave that to the cook, only let the meat be sweet and substantial.--_spurgeon._ the machine of the poet.--_macaulay._ poetry, indeed, cannot be translated; and, therefore, it is the poets that preserve the languages; for we would not be at the trouble to learn a language if we could have all that is written in it just as well in a translation. but as the beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which it was originally written, we learn the language.--_johnson._ language most shows a man; speak that i may see thee: it springs out of the most retired and inmost part of us.--_ben jonson._ if the way in which men express their thoughts is slipshod and mean, it will be very difficult for their thoughts themselves to escape being the same. if it is high flown and bombastic, a character for national simplicity and thankfulness cannot long be maintained.--_dean alford._ ~laughter.~--conversation never sits easier than when we now and then discharge ourselves in a symphony of laughter; which may not improperly be called the chorus of conversation.--_steele._ the laughers are a majority.--_pope._ learn from the earliest days to inure your principles against the perils of ridicule: you can no more exercise your reason, if you live in the constant dread of laughter, than you can enjoy your life if you are in the constant terror of death.--_sydney smith._ how much lies in laughter: the cipher key, wherewith we decipher the whole man!--_carlyle._ god made both tears and laughter, and both for kind purposes; for as laughter enables mirth and surprise to breathe freely, so tears enable sorrow to vent itself patiently. tears hinder sorrow from becoming despair and madness.--_leigh hunt._ how inevitably does an immoderate laughter end in a sigh!--_south._ laughing, if loud, ends in a deep sigh; and all pleasures have a sting in the tail, though they carry beauty on the face.--_jeremy taylor._ laughter means sympathy.--_carlyle._ one good, hearty laugh is a bombshell exploding in the right place, while spleen and discontent are a gun that kicks over the man who shoots it off.--_de witt talmage._ i am sure that since i had the use of my reason, no human being has ever heard me laugh.--_chesterfield._ i like the laughter that opens the lips and the heart, that shower at the same time pearls and the soul.--_victor hugo._ laughter is a most healthful exertion; it is one of the greatest helps to digestion with which i am acquainted; and the custom prevalent among our forefathers, of exciting it at table by jesters and buffoons, was founded on true medical principles.--_dr. hufeland._ ~law.~--with us, law is nothing unless close behind it stands a warm, living public opinion. let that die or grow indifferent, and statutes are waste paper, lacking all executive force.--_wendell phillips._ of all the parts of a law, the most effectual is the _vindicatory_; for it is but lost labor to say, "do this, or avoid that," unless we also declare, "this shall be the consequence of your non-compliance." the main strength and force of a law consists in the penalty annexed to it.--_blackstone._ if there be any one principle more widely than another confessed by every utterance, or more sternly than another imprinted on every atom of the visible creation, that principle is not liberty, but law.--_ruskin._ it would be very singular if this great shad-net of the law did not enable men to catch at something, balking for the time the eternal flood-tide of justice.--_chapin._ true law is right reason conformably to nature, universal, unchangeable, eternal, whose commands urge us to duty, and whose prohibitions restrain us from evil.--_cicero._ aristotle himself has said, speaking of the laws of his own country, that jurisprudence, or the knowledge of those laws, is the principal and most perfect branch of ethics.--_blackstone._ in effect, to follow, not to force, the public inclination, to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction, to the general sense of the community, is the true end of legislation.--_burke._ in the habits of legal men every accusation appears insufficient if they do not exaggerate it even to calumny. it is thus that justice itself loses its sanctity and its respect amongst men.--_lamartine._ pity is the virtue of the law, and none but tyrants use it cruelly.--_shakespeare._ it is a very easy thing to devise good laws; the difficulty is to make them effective. the great mistake is that of looking upon men as virtuous, or thinking that they can be made so by laws; and consequently the greatest art of a politician is to render vices serviceable to the cause of virtue.--_bolingbroke._ a mouse-trap; easy to enter but not easy to get out of.--_mrs balfour._ what can idle laws do with morals?--_horace._ the law is a gun, which if it misses a pigeon always kills a crow; if it does not strike the guilty it hits some one else. as every crime creates a law, so in turn every law creates a crime.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~learning.~--it adds a precious seeing to the eye.--_shakespeare._ you are to consider that learning is of great use to society; and though it may not add to the stock, it is a necessary vehicle to transmit it to others. learned men are the cisterns of knowledge, not the fountain-heads.--_james northcote._ learning makes a man fit company for himself.--_young._ learning maketh young men temperate, is the comfort of old age, standing for wealth with poverty, and serving as an ornament to riches.--_cicero._ the chief art of learning, as locke has observed, is to attempt but little at a time. the widest excursions of the mind are made by short flights frequently repeated; the most lofty fabrics of science are formed by the continued accumulation of single propositions.--_johnson._ no man can ever want this mortification of his vanity, that what he knows is but a very little, in comparison of what he still continues ignorant of. consider this, and, instead of boasting thy knowledge of a few things, confess and be out of countenance for the many more which thou dost not understand.--_thomas à kempis._ suppose we put a tax upon learning? learning, it is true, is a useless commodity, but i think we had better lay it on ignorance; for learning being the property but of a very few, and those poor ones too, i am afraid we can get little among them; whereas ignorance will take in most of the great fortunes in the kingdom.--_fielding._ for ignorance of all things is an evil neither terrible nor excessive, nor yet the greatest of all; but great cleverness and much learning, if they be accompanied by a bad training is a much greater misfortune.--_plato._ no power can exterminate the seeds of liberty when it has germinated in the blood of brave men. our religion of to-day is still that of martyrdom; to-morrow it will be the religion of victory.--_mazzini._ ~leisure.~--"never less idle than when idle," was the motto which the admirable vittoria colonna wrought upon her husband's dressing-gown. and may we not justly regard our appreciation of leisure as a test of improved character and growing resources?--_tuckerman._ leisure is gone; gone where the spinning-wheels are gone, and the pack-horses, and the slow wagons, and the peddlers who brought bargains to the door on sunny afternoons.--_george eliot._ ~libels.~--undoubtedly the good fame of every man ought to be under the protection of the laws, as well as his life and liberty and property. good fame is an outwork that defends them all and renders them all valuable. the law forbids you to revenge; when it ties up the hands of some, it ought to restrain the tongues of others.--_burke._ if it was a new thing, it may be i should not be displeased with the suppression of the first libel that should abuse me; but, since there are enough of them to make a small library, i am secretly pleased to see the number increased, and take delight in raising a heap of stones that envy has cast at me without doing me any harm.--_balzac._ ~liberty.~--liberty is the right to do what the laws allow; and if a citizen could do what they forbid, it would be no longer liberty, because others would have the same powers.--_montesquieu._ if the true spark of religious and civil liberty be kindled, it will burn. human agency cannot extinguish it. like the earth's central fire, it may be smothered for a time; the ocean may overwhelm it; mountains may press it down; but its inherent and unconquerable force will heave both the ocean and the land, and at some time or another, in some place or another, the volcano will break out and flame to heaven.--_daniel webster._ interwoven is the love of liberty with every ligament of the heart.--_washington._ ~library.~--a large library is apt to distract rather than to instruct the learner; it is much better to be confined to a few authors than to wander at random over many.--_seneca._ he has his rome, his florence, his whole glowing italy, within the four walls of his library. he has in his books the ruins of an antique world, and the glories of a modern one.--_longfellow._ what a place to be in is an old library! it seems as though all the souls of all the writers that have bequeathed their labors to these bodleians were reposing here, as in some dormitory, or middle state. i do not want to handle, to profane the leaves, their winding-sheets. i could as soon dislodge a shade. i seem to inhale learning, walking amid their foliage; and the odor of their old moth-scented coverings is fragrant as the first bloom of those sciential apples which grew amid the happy orchard.--_lamb._ ~life.~--life is a quaint puzzle. bits the most incongruous join into each other, and the scheme thus gradually becomes symmetrical and clear; when, lo! as the infant clasps his hands, and cries, "see, see! the puzzle is made out," all the pieces are swept back into the box--black box with the gilded nails!--_bulwer-lytton._ we never live, but we ever hope to live.--_pascal._ life is like a beautiful and winding lane, on either side bright flowers, and beautiful butterflies, and tempting fruits, which we scarcely pause to admire and to taste, so eager are we to hasten to an opening which we imagine will be more beautiful still. but by degrees as we advance, the trees grow bleak; the flowers and butterflies fail, the fruits disappear, and we find we have arrived--to reach a desert waste.--_g. a. sala._ how small a portion of our life it is that we really enjoy! in youth we are looking forward to things that are to come; in old age we are looking backwards to things that are gone past; in manhood, although we appear indeed to be more occupied in things that are present, yet even that is too often absorbed in vague determinations to be vastly happy on some future day when we have time.--_colton._ the days of our years are three-score years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be four-score years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.--_bible._ when i reflect upon what i have seen, what i have heard, what i have done, i can hardly persuade myself that all that frivolous hurry and bustle and pleasure of the world had any reality; and i look on what has passed as one of those wild dreams which opium occasions, and i by no means wish to repeat the nauseous dose for the sake of the fugitive illusion.--_chesterfield._ life is like a game of whist. i don't enjoy the game much, but i like to play my cards well, and see what will be the end of it.--_george eliot._ he most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best; and he whose heart beats the quickest lives the longest.--_james martineau._ life is so complicated a game that the devices of skill are liable to be defeated at every turn by air-blown chances, incalculable as the descent of thistledown.--_george eliot._ when we embark in the dangerous ship called life, we must not, like ulysses, be tied to the mast; we must know how to listen to the songs of the sirens and to brave their blandishments.--_arsène houssaye._ life is thick sown with thorns, and i know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. the longer we dwell on our misfortunes the greater is their power to harm us.--_voltaire._ the earnestness of life is the only passport to the satisfaction of life.--_theodore parker._ i am convinced that there is no man that knows life well, and remembers all the incidents of his past existence, who would accept it again; we are certainly here to punish precedent sins.--_campbell._ the childhood of immortality.--_goethe._ so our lives glide on; the river ends we don't know where, and the sea begins, and then there is no more jumping ashore.--_george eliot._ we never think of the main business of life till a vain repentance minds us of it at the wrong end.--_l'estrange._ this tide of man's life after it once turneth and declineth ever runneth with a perpetual ebb and falling stream, but never floweth again.--_sir w. raleigh._ if the first death be the mistress of mortals, and the mistress of the universe, reflect then on the brevity of life. "i have been, and that is all," said saladin the great, who was conqueror of the east. the longest liver had but a handful of days, and life itself is but a circle, always beginning where it ends.--_henry mayhew._ why all this toil for the triumphs of an hour?--_young._ the cradle and the tomb, alas! so nigh.--_prior._ life's short summer--man is but a flower.--_johnson._ man lives only to shiver and perspire.--_sydney smith._ o frail estate of human things!--_dryden._ many think themselves to be truly god-fearing when they call this world a valley of tears. but i believe they would be more so, if they called it a happy valley. god is more pleased with those who think everything right in the world, than with those who think nothing right. with so many thousand joys, is it not black ingratitude to call the world a place of sorrow and torment?--_richter._ life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.--_johnson._ we never live: we are always in the expectation of living.--_voltaire._ life does not count by years. some suffer a lifetime in a day, and so grow old between the rising and the setting of the sun.--_augusta evans._ ~light.~--science and art may invent splendid modes of illuminating the apartments of the opulent; but these are all poor and worthless compared with the light which the sun sends into our windows, which he pours freely, impartially, over hill and valley, which kindles daily the eastern and western sky; and so the common lights of reason and conscience and love are of more worth and dignity than the rare endowments which give celebrity to a few.--_dr. channing._ more light!--_goethe's last words._ light! nature's resplendent robe; without whose vesting beauty all were wrapt in gloom.--_thomson._ hail! holy light, offspring of heaven, first born!--_milton._ we should render thanks to god for having produced this temporal light, which is the smile of heaven and joy of the world, spreading it like a cloth of gold over the face of the air and earth, and lighting it as a torch, by which we might behold his works.--_caussin._ ~likeness.~--like, but oh, how different!--_wordsworth._ ~lips.~--lips like rosebuds peeping out of snow.--_bailey._ he kissed me hard, as though he'd pluck up kisses by the roots that grew upon my lips.--_shakespeare._ the lips of a fool swallow up himself.--_bible._ ~literature.~--literature happens to be the only occupation in which wages are not given in proportion to the goodness of the work done.--_froude._ the literature of a people must spring from the sense of its nationality; and nationality is impossible without self-respect, and self-respect is impossible without liberty.--_mrs. stowe._ cleverness is a sort of genius for instrumentality. it is the brain of the hand. in literature, cleverness is more frequently accompanied by wit, genius, and sense, than by humor.--_coleridge._ when literature is the sole business of life, it becomes a drudgery. when we are able to resort to it only at certain hours, it is a charming relaxation. in my earlier days i was a banker's clerk, obliged to be at the desk everyday from ten till five o'clock; and i shall never forget the delight with which, on returning home, i used to read and write during the evening.--_rogers._ literary history is the great morgue where all seek the dead ones whom they love, or to whom they are related.--_heinrich heine._ whatever the skill of any country be in sciences, it is from excellence in polite learning alone that it must expect a character from posterity.--_goldsmith._ ~logic.~--logic differeth from rhetoric as the fist from the palm; the one close, the other at large.--_bacon._ syllogism is of necessary use, even to the lovers of truth, to show them the fallacies that are often concealed in florid, witty, or involved discourses.--_locke._ logic is the art of convincing us of some truth.--_bruyère._ ~love.~--fie, fie! how wayward is this foolish love, that, like a testy babe, will scratch the nurse, and presently, all humbled, will kiss the rod!--_shakespeare._ love is the cross and passion of the heart; its end, its errand.--_p. l. bailey._ love is frightened at the intervals of insensibility and callousness that encroach by little and little on the dominion of grief, and it makes efforts to recall the keenness of the first anguish.--_george eliot._ love while 't is day; night cometh soon, wherein no man or maiden may.--_joaquin miller._ love has a way of cheating itself consciously, like a child who plays at solitary hide-and-seek; it is pleased with assurances that it all the while disbelieves.--_george eliot._ as soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.--_shakespeare._ loves change sure as man or moon, and wane like warm full days of june.--_joaquin miller._ take of love as a sober man takes wine; do not get drunk.--_alfred de musset._ love is the admiration and cherishing of the amiable qualities of the beloved person, upon the condition of yourself being the object of their action. the qualities of the sexes correspond. the man's courage is loved by the woman, whose fortitude again is coveted by the man. his vigorous intellect is answered by her infallible tact. can it be true, what is so constantly affirmed, that there is no sex in souls? i doubt it--i doubt it exceedingly.--_coleridge._ as love increases prudence diminishes.--_rochefoucauld._ never self-possessed, or prudent, love is all abandonment.--_emerson._ the desire to be beloved is ever restless and unsatisfied; but the love that flows out upon others is a perpetual well-spring from on high.--_l. m. child._ love is love's reward.--_dryden._ the violence of love is as much to be dreaded as that of hate. when it is durable, it is serene and equable. even its famous pains begin only with the ebb of love, for few are indeed lovers, though all would fain be.--_thoreau._ love makes all things possible.--_shakespeare._ economy in love is peace to nature, much like economy in worldly matters; we should be prudent, never love too fast; profusion will not, cannot, always last.--_peter pindar._ (_john w. wolcott._) there is no fear in love, for perfect love casteth out fear.--_bible._ o love! thy essence is thy purity! breathe one unhallowed breath upon thy flame and it is gone for ever, and but leaves a sullied vase,--its pure light lost in shame.--_landor._ the pale complexion of true love.--_shakespeare._ love has no middle term; it either saves or destroys.--_victor hugo._ young love is a flame; very pretty, often very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. the love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals, deep-burning, unquenchable.--_beecher._ in love's war, he who flies is conqueror.--_mrs. osgood._ where there is room in the heart there is always room in the house.--_moore._ love's like the measles, all the worse when it comes late in life.--_douglas jerrold._ only they conquer love who run away.--_carew._ the heart's hushed secret in the soft dark eye.--_l. e. landon._ love, well thou know'st, no partnership allows; cupid averse rejects divided vows.--_prior._ celestial rosy red, love's proper hue.--_milton._ those who yield their souls captive to the brief intoxication of love, if no higher and holier feeling mingle with and consecrate their dream of bliss, will shrink trembling from the pangs that attend their waking.--_schlegel._ the first sigh of love is the last of wisdom.--_antoine bret._ i have enjoyed the happiness of this world, i have lived and have loved.--_richter._ life is a flower of which love is the honey.--_victor hugo._ love is a severe critic. hate can pardon more than love.--_thoreau._ young love-making, that gossamer web! even the points it clings to--the things whence its subtle interlacings are swung--are scarcely perceptible: momentary touches of finger-tips, meetings of rays from blue and dark orbs, unfinished phrases, lightest changes of cheek and lip, faintest tremors. the web itself is made of spontaneous beliefs and indefinable joys, yearnings of one life towards another, visions of completeness, indefinite trust.--_george eliot._ love is the loadstone of love.--_mrs. osgood._ love is never lasting which flames before it burns.--_feltham._ the best part of woman's love is worship; but it is hard to her to be sent away with her precious spikenard rejected, and her long tresses, too, that were let fall ready to soothe the wearied feet.--_george eliot._ love is an oriental despot.--_madame swetchine._ we must love as looking one day to hate.--_george herbert._ love with old men is as the sun upon the snow, it dazzles more than it warms them.--_j. petit senn._ love is lowliness; on the wedding ring sparkles no jewel.--_richter._ love alone is wisdom, love alone is power; and where love seems to fail, it is where self has stepped between and dulled the potency of its rays.--_george macdonald._ to speak of love is to make love.--_balzac._ a man may be a miser of his wealth; he may tie up his talent in a napkin; he may hug himself in his reputation; but he is always generous in his love. love cannot stay at home; a man cannot keep it to himself. like light, it is constantly traveling. a man must spend it, must give it away.--_macleod._ repining love is the stillest; the shady flowers in this spring as in the other, shun sunlight.--_richter._ love is like the moon; when it does not increase it decreases.--_ségur._ love is the most terrible, and also the most generous of the passions: it is the only one that includes in its dreams the happiness of some one else.--_alphonse karr._ a woman whom we truly love is a religion.--_emile de girardin._ childhood is only a wearisome prologue: the first act of the human comedy opens only at the moment when love makes a breach in our hearts.--_arsène houssaye._ the religion of humanity is love.--_mazzini._ he who is intoxicated with wine will be sober again in the course of the night, but he who is intoxicated by the cup-bearer will not recover his senses until the day of judgment.--_saadi._ love reasons without reason.--_shakespeare._ it seems to me that the coming of love is like the coming of spring--the date is not to be reckoned by the calendar. it may be slow and gradual; it may be quick and sudden. but in the morning, when we wake and recognize a change in the world without, verdure on the trees, blossoms on the sward, warmth in the sunshine, music in the air, we say spring has come.--_bulwer-lytton._ love and a cough cannot be hid.--_george herbert._ love is the most dunder-headed of all the passions; it never will listen to reason. the very rudiments of logic are unknown to it. "love has no wherefore," says one of the latin poets.--_bulwer-lytton._ love in marriage should be the accomplishment of a beautiful dream, and not, as it too often is, the end.--_alphonse karr._ one dies twice: to cease to live is nothing, but to cease to love and to be loved is an insupportable death.--_voltaire._ the heart of a woman is never so full of affection that there does not remain a little corner for flattery and love.--_mauvaux._ love is always blind and tears his hands whenever he tries to gather roses.--_arsène houssaye._ love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.--_voltaire._ oh! i was mad to intoxicate myself with the wine of love, and to extend my hand to the crown of poets. pleasure! poetry! you are perfidious friends. pain follows you closely.--_arsène houssaye._ if love gives wit to fools, it undoubtedly takes it from wits.--_alphonse karr._ in love, as in everything else, experience is a physician who never comes until after the disorder is cured.--_mme. de la tour._ one expresses well only the love he does not feel.--_alphonse karr._ in love, as in war, a fortress that parleys is half taken.--_marguerite de valois._ a supreme love, a motive that gives a sublime rhythm to a woman's life, and exalts habit into partnership with the soul's highest needs, is not to be had where and how she wills: to know that high initiation, she must often tread where it is hard to tread, and feel the chill air, and watch through darkness.--_george eliot._ to love one who loves you, to admire one who admires you, in a word, to be the idol of one's idol, is exceeding the limit of human joy; it is stealing fire from heaven and deserves death.--_madame de girardin._ but to enlarge or illustrate this power and effects of love is to set a candle in the sun.--_burton._ there are as many kinds of love as there are races. a great tall german, learned, virtuous, phlegmatic, said one day: "souls are sisters, fallen from heaven, who all at once recognize and run to meet each other." a little dry frenchman, hot-blooded, witty, lively, replied to him: "you are right; you can always find shoes to fit."--_taine._ love supreme defies all sophistry.--_george eliot._ it is strange that men will talk of miracles, revelations, inspiration, and the like, as things past, while love remains.--_thoreau._ the love of man to woman is a thing common, and of course, and at first partakes more of instinct and passion than of choice; but true friendship between man and man is infinite and immortal.--_plato._ we look at the one little woman's face we love, as we look at the face of our mother earth, and see all sorts of answers to our own yearnings.--_george eliot._ take away love, and not physical nature only, but the heart of the moral world would be palsied.--_southey._ among all the many kinds of first love, that which begins in childish companionship is the strongest and most enduring; when passion comes to unite its force to long affection, love is at its spring-tide.--_george eliot._ nothing quickens the perceptions like genuine love. from the humblest professional attachment to the most chivalric devotion, what keenness of observation is born under the influence of that feeling which drives away the obscuring clouds of selfishness, as the sun consumes the vapor of the morning.--_tuckerman._ ~luck.~--hope nothing from luck, and the probability is that you will be so prepared, forewarned, and forearmed, that all shallow observers will call you lucky.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~luxury.~--whenever vanity and gayety, a love of pomp and dress, furniture, equipage, buildings, great company, expensive diversions, and elegant entertainments get the better of the principles and judgments of men and women, there is no knowing where they will stop, nor into what evils, natural, moral, or political, they will lead us.--_john adams._ he repents on thorns that sleeps in beds of roses.--_quarles._ o brethren, it is sickening work to think of your cushioned seats, your chants, your anthems, your choirs, your organs, your gowns, and your bands, and i know not what besides, all made to be instruments of religious luxury, if not of pious dissipation, while ye need far more to be stirred up and incited to holy ardor for the propagation of the truth as it is in jesus.--_spurgeon._ o luxury! thou curst of heaven's decree.--_goldsmith._ superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.--_shakespeare._ ~lying.~--lying's a certain mark of cowardice.--_southern._ there are people who lie simply for the sake of lying.--_pascal._ every brave man shuns more than death the shame of lying.--_corneille._ it is a hard matter for a man to lie all over, nature having provided king's evidence in almost every member. the hand will sometimes act as a vane, to show which way the wind blows, even when every feature is set the other way; the knees smite together and sound the alarm of fear under a fierce countenance; the legs shake with anger, when all above is calm.--_washington allston._ lies exist only to be extinguished.--_carlyle._ a lie that is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies.--_tennyson._ m. ~madness.~--many a man is mad in certain instances, and goes through life without having it perceived. for example, a madness has seized a person of supposing himself obliged literally to pray continually; had the madness turned the opposite way, and the person thought it a crime ever to pray, it might not improbably have continued unobserved.--_johnson._ ~man.~--it is of dangerous consequence to represent to man how near he is to the level of beasts, without showing him at the same time his greatness. it is likewise dangerous to let him see his greatness without his meanness. it is more dangerous yet to leave him ignorant of either; but very beneficial that he should be made sensible of both.--_pascal._ man, i tell you, is a vicious animal.--_molière._ he is of the earth, but his thoughts are with the stars. mean and petty his wants and his desires; yet they serve a soul exalted with grand, glorious aims,--with immortal longings,--with thoughts which sweep the heavens, and wander through eternity. a pigmy standing on the outward crest of this small planet, his far-reaching spirit stretches outward to the infinite, and there alone finds rest.--_carlyle._ alas! what does man here below? a little noise in much obscurity.--_victor hugo._ what a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and movement, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!--_shakespeare._ every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool. it seems as if heaven had sent its insane angels into our world as to an asylum. and here they will break out into their native music, and utter at intervals the words they have heard in heaven; then the mad fit returns, and they mope and wallow like dogs!--_emerson._ in my youth i thought of writing a satire on mankind; but now in my age i think i should write an apology for them.--_walpole._ man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal.--_alexander hamilton._ i considered how little man is, yet, in his own mind, how great! he is lord and master of all things, yet scarce can command anything. he is given a freedom of his will; but wherefore? was it but to torment and perplex him the more? how little avails this freedom, if the objects he is to act upon be not as much disposed to obey as he is to command!--_burke._ men's natures are neither white nor black, but brown.--_charles buxton._ he is compounded of two very different ingredients, spirit and matter; but how such unallied and disproportioned substances should act upon each other, no man's learning yet could tell him.--_jeremy collier._ man is the highest product of his own history. the discoverer finds nothing so grand or tall as himself, nothing so valuable to him. the greatest star is at the small end of the telescope, the star that is looking, not looked after nor looked at.--_theodore parker._ men are but children of a larger growth; our appetites are apt to change as theirs, and full as craving, too, and full as vain.--_dryden._ little things are great to little men.--_goldsmith._ man himself is the crowning wonder of creation; the study of his nature the noblest study the world affords.--_gladstone._ limited in his nature, infinite in his desires.--_lamartine._ ~manners.~--a man ought to carry himself in the world as an orange tree would if it could walk up and down in the garden, swinging perfume from every little censer it holds up to the air.--_beecher._ all manners take a tincture from our own.--_pope._ i have seen manners that make a similar impression with personal beauty, that give the like exhilaration and refine us like that; and in memorable experiences they are suddenly better than beauty, and make that superfluous and ugly. but they must be marked by fine perception, the acquaintance with real beauty. they must always show control; you shall not be facile, apologetic, or leaky, but king over your word; and every gesture and action shall indicate power at rest. they must be inspired by the good heart. there is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior, like the wish to scatter joy, and not pain, around us.--_emerson._ we perhaps never detect how much of our social demeanor is made up of artificial airs, until we see a person who is at once beautiful and simple: without the beauty, we are apt to call simplicity awkwardness.--_george eliot._ we cannot always oblige, but we can always speak obligingly.--_voltaire._ nature is the best posture-master.--_emerson._ good breeding consists in having no particular mark of any profession, but a general elegance of manners.--_johnson._ men are like wine; not good before the lees of clownishness be settled.--_feltham._ the person who screams, or uses the superlative degree, or converses with heat, puts whole drawing-rooms to flight. if you wish to be loved, love measure. you must have genius or a prodigious usefulness if you will hide the want of measure.--_emerson._ we are to carry it from the hand to the heart, to improve a ceremonial nicety into a substantial duty, and the modes of civility into the realities of religion.--_south._ better were it to be unborn than to be ill-bred.--_sir w. raleigh._ simplicity of manner is the last attainment. men are very long afraid of being natural, from the dread of being taken for ordinary.--_jeffrey._ kings themselves cannot force the exquisite politeness of distance to capitulate, hid behind its shield of bronze.--_balzac._ comport thyself in life as at a banquet. if a plate is offered thee, extend thy hand and take it moderately; if it be withdrawn, do not detain it. if it come not to thy side, make not thy desire loudly known, but wait patiently till it be offered thee.--_epictetus._ good manners and good morals are sworn friends and firm allies.--_bartol._ the "over-formal" often impede, and sometimes frustrate, business by a dilatory, tedious, circuitous, and (what in colloquial language is called) fussy way of conducting the simplest transactions. they have been compared to a dog which cannot lie down till he has made three circuits round the spot.--_whately._ ~martyrs.~--even in this world they will have their judgment-day, and their names, which went down in the dust like a gallant banner trodden in the mire, shall rise again all glorious in the sight of nations.--_mrs. stowe._ it is not the death that makes the martyr, but the cause.--_canon dale._ it is admirable to die the victim of one's faith; it is sad to die the dupe of one's ambition.--_lamartine._ god discovers the martyr and confessor without the trial of flames and tortures, and will hereafter entitle many to the reward of actions which they had never the opportunity of performing.--_addison._ ~matrimony.~--when a man and woman are married their romance ceases and their history commences.--_rochebrune._ it resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing any one who comes between them.--_s. smith._ married in haste, we repent at leisure.--_congreve._ i believe marriages would in general be as happy, and often more so, if they were all made by the lord chancellor, upon a due consideration of the characters and circumstances, without the parties having any choice in the matter.--_johnson._ hanging and wiving go by destiny.--_shakespeare._ the married man is like the bee that fixes his hive, augments the world, benefits the republic, and by a daily diligence, without wronging any, profits all; but he who contemns wedlock, like a wasp, wanders an offence to the world, lives upon spoil and rapine, disturbs peace, steals sweets that are none of his own, and, by robbing the hives of others, meets misery as his due reward.--_feltham._ one can, with dignity, be wife and widow but once.--_joubert._ few natures can preserve through years the poetry of the first passionate illusion. that can alone render wedlock the seal that confirms affection, and not the mocking ceremonial that consecrates its grave.--_bulwer-lytton._ it's hard to wive and thrive both in a year.--_tennyson._ maids want nothing but husbands, and when they have them, they want everything.--_shakespeare._ wedlock's like wine, not properly judged of till the second glass.--_douglas jerrold._ a good wife is like the ivy which beautifies the building to which it clings, twining its tendrils more lovingly as time converts the ancient edifice into a ruin.--_johnson._ he that marries is like the doge who was wedded to the adriatic. he knows not what there is in that which he marries: mayhap treasures and pearls, mayhap monsters and tempests, await him.--_heinrich heine._ a husband is a plaster that cures all the ills of girlhood.--_molière._ there is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages.--_thoreau._ the love of some men for their wives is like that of alfieri for his horse. "my attachment for him," said he, "went so far as to destroy my peace every time that he had the least ailment; but my love for him did not prevent me from fretting and chafing him whenever he did not wish to go my way."--_bovée._ no navigator has yet traced lines of latitude and longitude on the conjugal sea.--_balzac._ has any one ever pinched into its pilulous smallness the cobweb of pre-matrimonial acquaintanceship?--_george eliot._ ~mediocrity.~--mediocrity is excellent to the eyes of mediocre people.--_joubert._ mediocrity is now, as formerly, dangerous, commonly fatal, to the poet; but among even the successful writers of prose, those who rise sensibly above it are the very rarest exceptions.--_gladstone._ ~meditation.~--chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy.--_shakespeare._ 'tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours, and ask them what report they bore to heaven, and how they might have borne more welcome news.--_young._ meditation is that exercise of the mind by which it recalls a known truth, as some kind of creatures do their food, to be ruminated upon till all vicious parts be extracted.--_bishop horne._ ~meekness.~--the flower of meekness grows on a stem of grace.--_j. montgomery._ a boy was once asked what meekness was. he thought for a moment and said, "meekness gives smooth answers to rough questions."--_mrs. balfour._ ~melancholy.~--melancholy is a fearful gift; what is it but the telescope of truth?--_byron._ a lazy frost, a numbness of the mind.--_dryden._ demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy.--_milton._ the noontide sun is dark, and music discord, when the heart is low.--_young._ ~memory.~--memory is what makes us young or old.--_alfred de musset._ no canvas absorbs color like memory.--_willmott._ of all the faculties of the mind, memory is the first that flourishes, and the first that dies.--_colton._ joy's recollection is no longer joy; but sorrow's memory is sorrow still.--_byron._ a sealed book, at whose contents we tremble.--_l. e. landon._ and fondly mourn the dear delusions gone.--_prior._ how can such deep-imprinted images sleep in us at times, till a word, a sound, awake them?--_lessing._ in literature and art memory is a synonym for invention; it is the life-blood of imagination, which faints and dies when the veins are empty.--_willmott._ memory is the scribe of the soul.--_aristotle._ the memory has as many moods as the temper, and shifts its scenery like a diorama.--_george eliot._ we must always have old memories and young hopes.--_arsène houssaye._ they teach us to remember; why do not they teach us to forget? there is not a man living who has not, some time in his life, admitted that memory was as much of a curse as a blessing.--_f. a. durivage._ ~mercy.~--mercy more becomes a magistrate than the vindictive wrath which men call justice!--_longfellow._ nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.--_shakespeare._ 'tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes the throned monarch better than his crown.--_shakespeare._ give money, but never lend it. giving it only makes a man ungrateful; lending it makes him an enemy.--_dumas._ mercy among the virtues is like the moon among the stars,--not so sparkling and vivid as many, but dispensing a calm radiance that hallows the whole. it is the bow that rests upon the bosom of the cloud when the storm is past. it is the light that hovers above the judgment-seat.--_chapin._ we hand folks over to god's mercy, and show none ourselves.--_george eliot._ among the attributes of god, although they are all equal, mercy shines with even more brilliancy than justice.--_cervantes._ ~milton.~--his poetry reminds us of the miracles of alpine scenery. nooks and dells, beautiful as fairy land, are embosomed in its most rugged and gigantic elevations. the roses and myrtles bloom unchilled on the verge of the avalanche.--_macaulay._ ~mind.~--it is with diseases of the mind as with diseases of the body, we are half dead before we understand our disorder, and half cured when we do.--_colton._ the end which at present calls forth our efforts will be found when it is once gained to be only one of the means to some remoter end. the natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.--_johnson._ minds filled with vivid, imaginative thoughts, are the most indolent in reproducing. clear, cold, hard minds are productive. they have to retrace a very simple design.--_x. doudan._ the mind is the atmosphere of the soul.--_joubert._ what is this little, agile, precious fire, this fluttering motion which we call the mind?--_prior._ just as a particular soil wants some one element to fertilize it, just as the body in some conditions has a kind of famine for one special food, so the mind has its wants, which do not always call for what is best, but which know themselves and are as peremptory as the salt sick sailor's call for a lemon or raw potato.--_holmes._ the best way to prove the clearness of our mind is by showing its faults; as when a stream discovers the dirt at the bottom, it convinces us of the transparency of the water.--_pope._ a mind once cultivated will not lie fallow for half an hour.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~mischief.~--the opportunity to do mischief is found a hundred times a day, and that of doing good once a year.--_voltaire._ ~miser.~--the miser swimming in gold seems to me like a thirsty fish.--_j. petit senn._ in all meanness there is a deficit of intellect as well as of heart, and even the cleverness of avarice is but the cunning of imbecility.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~misery.~--there are a good many real miseries in life that we cannot help smiling at, but they are the smiles that make wrinkles and not dimples.--_holmes._ misery is so little appertaining to our nature, and happiness so much so, that we in the same degree of illusion only lament over that which has pained us, but leave unnoticed that which has rejoiced us.--_richter._ ~misfortune.~--if all the misfortunes of mankind were cast into a public stock, in order to be equally distributed among the whole species, those who now think themselves the most unhappy would prefer the share they are already possessed of before that which would fall to them by such a division.--_socrates._ depend upon it, that if a man _talks_ of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery, there never is any recourse to the mention of it.--_johnson._ flowers never emit so sweet and strong a fragrance as before a storm. beauteous soul! when a storm approaches thee be as fragrant as a sweet-smelling flower.--_richter._ our bravest lessons are not learned through success, but misadventure.--_alcott._ there is a chill air surrounding those who are down in the world, and people are glad to get away from them, as from a cold room.--_george eliot._ men shut their doors against the setting sun.--_shakespeare._ he that is down needs fear no fall.--_bunyan._ ~moderation.~--till men have been some time free, they know not how to use their freedom. the natives of wine countries are generally sober. in climates where wine is a rarity intemperance abounds. a newly liberated people may be compared to a northern army encamped on the rhine or the xeres. it is said that, when soldiers in such a situation first find themselves able to indulge without restraint in such a rare and expensive luxury, nothing is to be seen but intoxication. soon, however, plenty teaches discretion; and after wine has been for a few months their daily fare, they become more temperate than they had ever been in their own country. in the same manner, the final and permanent fruits of liberty are wisdom, moderation, and mercy.--_macaulay._ the superior man wishes to be slow in his words, and earnest in his conduct.--_confucius._ let a man take time enough for the most trivial deed, though it be but the paring of his nails. the buds swell imperceptibly, without hurry or confusion; as if the short spring days were an eternity.--_thoreau._ it is a little stream which flows softly, but freshens everything along its course.--_madame swetchine._ ~modesty.~--false modesty is the last refinement of vanity. it is a lie.--_bruyère._ the first of all virtues is innocence; the next is modesty. if we banish modesty out of the world, she carries away with her half the virtue that is in it.--_addison._ he of his port was meek as is a maid.--_chaucer._ modesty is the lowest of the virtues, and is a confession of the deficiency it indicates. he who undervalues himself is justly undervalued by others.--_hazlitt._ modesty, who, when she goes, is gone forever.--_landor._ modesty is the conscience of the body.--_balzac._ there are as many kinds of modesty as there are races. to the english woman it is a duty; to the french woman a propriety.--_taine._ virtue which shuns the day.--_addison._ modesty and the dew love the shade. each shine in the open day only to be exhaled to heaven.--_j. petit senn._ modesty is still a provocation.--_poincelot._ modesty is the chastity of merit, the virginity of noble souls.--_e. de girardin._ ~money.~--wisdom, knowledge, power--all combined.--_byron._ oh, what a world of vile ill-favored faults looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!--_shakespeare._ it is my opinion that a man's soul may be buried and perish under a dung-heap, or in a furrow of the field, just as well as under a pile of money.--_hawthorne._ if you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some; for he that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing.--_franklin._ make all you can, save all you can, give all you can.--_wesley._ the avaricious love of gain, which is so feelingly deplored, appears to us a principle which, in able hands, might be guided to the most salutary purposes. the object is to encourage the love of labor, which is best encouraged by the love of money.--_sydney smith._ ready money is aladdin's lamp.--_byron._ money does all things; for it gives and it takes away, it makes honest men and knaves, fools and philosophers; and so forward, _mutatis mutandis_, to the end of the chapter.--_l'estrange._ mammon is the largest slave-holder in the world.--_fred. saunders._ but for money and the need of it, there would not be half the friendship in the world. it is powerful for good if divinely used. give it plenty of air and it is sweet as the hawthorn; shut it up and it cankers and breeds worms.--_george macdonald._ money, the life-blood of the nation.--_swift._ ~moon.~--the silver empress of the night.--_tickell._ how sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank.--_shakespeare._ mysterious veil of brightness made.--_butler._ cynthia, fair regent of the night.--_gay._ the maiden moon in her mantle of blue.--_joaquin miller._ ~morals.~--every age and every nation has certain characteristic vices, which prevail almost universally, which scarcely any person scruples to avow, and which even rigid moralists but faintly censure. succeeding generations change the fashion of their morals with the fashion of their hats and their coaches; take some other kind of wickedness under their patronage, and wonder at the depravity of their ancestors.--_macaulay._ 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.--_hazlitt._ do not be too moral. you may cheat yourself out of much life so. aim above morality. be not simply good; be good for something.--_thoreau._ ~morning.~--vanished night, shot through with orient beams.--_milton._ the dewy morn, with breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom.--_byron._ jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain top.--_shakespeare._ when the glad sun, exulting in his might, comes from the dusky-curtained tents of night.--_emma c. embury._ the cock, that is the trumpet of the morn, doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat awake the god of day.--_shakespeare._ its brightness, mighty divinity! has a fleeting empire over the day, giving gladness to the fields, color to the flowers, the season of the loves, harmonious hour of wakening birds.--_calderon._ temperate as the morn.--_shakespeare._ i was always an early riser. happy the man who is! every morning day comes to him with a virgin's love, full of bloom and freshness. the youth of nature is contagious, like the gladness of a happy child.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~mother.~--children, look in those eyes, listen to that dear voice, notice the feeling of even a single touch that is bestowed upon you by that gentle hand! make much of it while yet you have that most precious of all good gifts, a loving mother. read the unfathomable love of those eyes; the kind anxiety of that tone and look, however slight your pain. in after life you may have friends, fond, dear friends, but never will you have again the inexpressible love and gentleness lavished upon you which none but a mother bestows.--_macaulay._ nature's loving proxy, the watchful mother.--_bulwer-lytton._ i believe i should have been swept away by the flood of french infidelity, if it had not been for one thing, the remembrance of the time when my sainted mother used to make me kneel by her side, taking my little hands folded in hers, and caused me to repeat the lord's prayer.--_thomas randolph._ the mother's yearning, that completest type of the life in another life which is the essence of real human love, feels the presence of the cherished child even in the base, degraded man.--_george eliot._ when eve was brought unto adam, he became filled with the holy spirit, and gave her the most sanctified, the most glorious of appellations. he called her eva, that is to say, the mother of all. he did not style her wife, but simply mother,--mother of all living creatures. in this consists the glory and the most precious ornament of woman.--_luther._ there is in all this cold and hollow world no fount of deep, strong, deathless love, save that within a mother's heart.--_hemans._ ~motive.~--the morality of an action depends upon the motive from which we act. if i fling half-a-crown to a beggar with intention to break his head, and he picks it up and buys victuals with it, the physical effect is good; but with respect to me, the action is very wrong.--_johnson._ whatever touches the nerves of motive, whatever shifts man's moral position, is mightier than steam, or caloric, or lightning.--_chapin._ let the motive be in the deed and not in the event. be not one whose motive for action is the hope of reward.--_kreeshna._ we must not inquire too curiously into motives. they are apt to become feeble in the utterance: the aroma is mixed with the grosser air. we must keep the germinating grain away from the light.--_george eliot._ every activity proposes to itself a passivity, every labor enjoyment.--_jacobi._ ~mourning.~--oh, for the touch of a vanished hand, and the sound of a voice that is still!--_tennyson._ the meek-ey'd morn appears, mother of dews.--_thomson._ ~music.~--sentimentally i am disposed to harmony, but organically i am incapable of a tune.--_lamb._ all musical people seem to be happy; it is the engrossing pursuit; almost the only innocent and unpunished passion.--_sydney smith._ where painting is weakest, namely, in the expression of the highest moral and spiritual ideas, there music is sublimely strong.--_mrs. stowe._ there is something marvelous in music. i might almost say that music is, in itself, a marvel. its position is somewhere between the region of thought and that of phenomena; a glimmering medium between mind and matter, related to both and yet differing from either. spiritual, and yet requiring rhythm; material, and yet independent of space.--_heinrich heine._ the hidden soul of harmony.--_milton._ give me some music! music, moody food of us that trade in love.--_shakespeare._ explain it as we may, a martial strain will urge a man into the front rank of battle sooner than an argument, and a fine anthem excite his devotion more certainly than a logical discourse.--_tuckerman._ such sweet compulsion doth in music lie.--_milton._ music, in the best sense, does not require novelty; nay, the older it is, and the more we are accustomed to it, the greater its effect.--_goethe._ music, which gentler on the spirit lies than tired eyelids upon tired eyes.--_tennyson._ melodies die out like the pipe of pan, with the ears that love them and listen for them.--_george eliot._ music can noble hints impart, engender fury, kindle love, with unsuspected eloquence can move and manage all the man with secret art.--_addison._ music is the harmonious voice of creation; an echo of the invisible world; one note of the divine concord which the entire universe is destined one day to sound.--_mazzini._ n. ~naïveté.~--naïveté is the language of pure genius and of discerning simplicity. it is the most simple picture of a refined and ingenious idea; a masterpiece of art in him in whom it is not natural.--_mendelssohn._ ~name.~--a virtuous name is the precious only good for which queens and peasants' wives must contest together.--_schiller._ a man's name is not like a mantle which merely hangs about him, and which one perchance may safely twitch and pull, but a perfectly fitting garment, which, like the skin, has grown over and over him, at which one cannot rake and scrape without injuring the man himself.--_goethe._ ~napoleon.~--whose game was empires, and whose stakes were thrones.--_byron._ napoleon i. might have been the washington of france; he preferred to be another attila,--a question of taste.--_f. a. durivage._ ~nature.~--nature has no mind; every man who addresses her is compelled to force upon her for a moment the loan of his own mind. and if she answers a question which his own mind puts to her, it is only by such a reply as his own mind teaches to her parrot-like lips. and as every man has a different mind, so every man gets a different answer.--_bulwer-lytton._ nature will be buried a great time, and yet revive upon the occasion or temptation: like as it was with æsop's damsel, turned from a cat to a woman, who sat very demurely at the board's end till a mouse ran before her.--_bacon._ virtue, as understood by the world, is a constant struggle against the laws of nature.--_de finod._ nature,--a thing which science and art never appear to see with the same eyes. if to an artist nature has a soul, why, so has a steam-engine. art gifts with soul all matter that it contemplates; science turns all that is already gifted with soul into matter.--_bulwer-lytton._ nature is too thin a screen; the glory of the one breaks in _everywhere_.--_emerson._ nature is poetic, but not mankind. when one aims at truth it is easier to find the poetic side of nature than of man.--_x. doudan._ all nature is a vast symbolism; every material fact has sheathed within it a spiritual truth.--_chapin._ nature is no sentimentalist,--does not cosset or pamper us. we must see that the world is rough and surly, and will not mind drowning a man or a woman, but swallows your ships like a grain of dust. the cold, inconsiderate of persons, tingles your blood, benumbs your feet, freezes a man like an apple. the diseases, the elements, fortune, gravity, lightning, respect no persons.--_emerson._ nature imitates herself. a grain thrown into good ground brings forth fruit: a principle thrown into a good mind brings forth fruit. everything is created and conducted by the same master,--the root, the branch, the fruits,--the principles, the consequences.--_pascal._ a noble nature can alone attract the noble, and alone knows how to retain them.--_goethe._ nature, the vicar of the almighty lord.--_chaucer._ a poet ought not to pick nature's pocket. let him borrow, and so borrow as to repay by the very act of borrowing. examine nature accurately, but write from recollection, and trust more to the imagination than the memory.--_coleridge._ we, by art, unteach what nature taught.--_dryden._ nature is the armory of genius. cities serve it poorly, books and colleges at second hand; the eye craves the spectacle of the horizon, of mountain, ocean, river and plain, the clouds and stars; actual contact with the elements, sympathy with the seasons as they rise and roll.--_alcott._ nothing is rich but the inexhaustible wealth of nature. she shows us only surfaces, but she is million fathoms deep.--_emerson._ nature is an absolute and jealous divinity. lovely, eloquent, and instructive in all her inequalities and contrasts, she hides her face, and remains mute to those who, by attempting to re-fashion her, profane her.--_mazzini._ ~necessity.~--necessity is a bad recommendation to favors of any kind, which as seldom fall to those who really want them, as to those who really deserve them.--_fielding._ it is observed in the golden verses of pythagoras, that power is never far from necessity. the vigor of the human mind quickly appears when there is no longer any place for doubt and hesitation, when diffidence is absorbed in the sense of danger, or overwhelmed by some resistless passion.--_johnson._ when god would educate a man he compels him to learn bitter lessons. he sends him to school to the necessities rather than to the graces, that, by knowing all suffering, he may know also the eternal consolation.--_celia burleigh._ necessity may render a doubtful act innocent, but it cannot make it praiseworthy.--_joubert._ what was once to me mere matter of the fancy now has grown the vast necessity of heart and life.--_tennyson._ ~neglect.~--he that thinks he can afford to be negligent is not far from being poor.--_johnson._ ~news.~--give to a gracious message an host of tongues; but let ill tidings tell themselves when they be felt.--_shakespeare._ ~newspapers.~--in these times we fight for ideas, and newspapers are our fortresses.--_heinrich heine._ before this century shall run out journalism will be the whole press. mankind will write their book day by day, hour by hour, page by page. thought will spread abroad with the rapidity of light; instantly conceived, instantly written, instantly understood at the extremities of the earth; it will spread from pole to pole, suddenly burning with the fervor of soul which made it burst forth; it will be the reign of the human mind in all its plenitude; it will not have time to ripen, to accumulate in the form of a book; the book will arrive too late; the only book possible from day to day is a newspaper.--_lamartine._ four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.--_napoleon._ they preach to the people daily, weekly; admonishing kings themselves; advising peace or war with an authority which only the first reformers and a long-past class of popes were possessed of; inflicting moral censure; imparting moral encouragement, consolation, edification; in all ways diligently "administering the discipline of the church." it may be said, too, that in private disposition the new preachers somewhat resemble the mendicant friars of old times; outwardly, full of holy zeal; inwardly, not without stratagem, and hunger for terrestrial things.--_carlyle._ these papers of the day have uses more adequate to the purposes of common life than more pompous and durable volumes.--_johnson._ ~night.~--wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars.--_mrs. barbauld._ the day is done, and the darkness falls from the wings of night.--_longfellow._ sable-vested night, eldest of things.--_milton._ o mysterious night! thou art not silent: many tongues hast thou.--_joanna baillie._ night, when deep sleep falleth on men.--_bible._ ~no.~--no is a surly, honest fellow, speaks his mind rough and round at once.--_walter scott._ learn to say no! and it will be of more use to you than to be able to read latin.--_spurgeon._ the woman who really wishes to refuse contents herself with saying no. she who explains wants to be convinced.--_alfred de musset._ ~nobility.~--virtue is the first title of nobility.--_molière._ ~nonsense.~--nonsense is to sense as shade to light--it heightens effect.--_fred. saunders._ ~nothing.~--there is nothing useless to men of sense; clever people turn everything to account.--_fontaine._ variety of mere nothings gives more pleasure than uniformity of something.--_richter._ ~novels.~--novels are sweet. all people with healthy literary appetites love them--almost all women; a vast number of clever, hard-headed men,--judges, bishops, chancellors, mathematicians,--are notorious novel readers, as well as young boys and sweet girls, and their kind, tender mothers.--_thackeray._ we must have books for recreation and entertainment, as well as books for instruction and for business; the former are agreeable, the latter useful, and the human mind requires both. the canon law and the codes of justinian shall have due honor and reign at the universities, but homer and virgil need not therefore be banished. we will cultivate the olive and the vine, but without eradicating the myrtle and the rose.--_balzac._ a little grain of the romance is no ill ingredient to preserve and exalt the dignity of human nature, without which it is apt to degenerate into everything that is sordid, vicious, and low.--_swift._ ~novelty.~--the enormous influence of novelty--the way in which it quickens observation, sharpens sensation, and exalts sentiment--is not half enough taken note of by us, and is to me a very sorrowful matter. and yet, if we try to obtain perpetual change, change itself will become monotonous; and then we are reduced to that old despair, "if water chokes, what will you drink after it?" the two points of practical wisdom in the matter are, first, to be content with as little novelty as possible at a time; and secondly, to preserve, as as much possible, the sources of novelty.--_ruskin._ novelty is the great-parent of pleasure.--_south._ o. ~obedience.~--to obey is better than sacrifice.--_bible._ how will you find good? it is not a thing of choice, it is a river that flows from the foot of the invisible throne, and flows by the path of obedience.--_george eliot._ ~oblivion.~--oblivion is the flower that grows best on graves.--_george sand._ the grave of human misery.--_alfred de musset._ ~observation.~--it is the close observation of little things which is the secret of success in business, in art, in science, and in every pursuit in life. human knowledge is but an accumulation of small facts, made by successive generations of men,--the little bits of knowledge and experience carefully treasured up by them growing at length into a mighty pyramid.--_samuel smiles._ observation made in the cloister, or in the desert, will generally be as obscure as the one, and as barren as the other; but he that would paint with his pencil must study originals, and not be over fearful of a little dust.--_colton._ each one sees what he carries in his heart.--_goethe._ ~occupation.~--the want of occupation is no less the plague of society than of solitude.--_rousseau._ the busy have no time for tears.--_byron._ one of the principal occupations of man is to divine woman.--_lacretelle._ ~ocean.~--wave rolling after wave in torrent rapture.--_milton._ it plays with the clouds, it mocks the skies, or like a cradled creature lies.--_barry cornwall._ the visitation of the winds, who take the ruffian billows by the top, curling their monstrous heads.--_shakespeare._ ~office.~--the gratitude of place-expectants is a lively sense of future favors.--_walpole._ ~opinion.~--the men of the past had convictions, while we moderns have only opinions.--_heinrich heine._ wind puffs up empty bladders; opinion, fools.--_socrates._ our pet opinions are usually those which place us in a minority of a minority amongst our own party: very happily, else those poor opinions, born with no silver spoon in their mouths, how would they get nourished and fed?--_george eliot._ those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love truth.--_joubert._ it has been shrewdly said that when men abuse us, we should suspect ourselves, and when they praise us, them. it is a rare instance of virtue to despise censure which we do not deserve, and still more rare to despise praise, which we do. but that integrity that lives only on opinion would starve without it.--_colton._ there never was in the world two opinions alike, no more than two hairs or two grains. the most universal quality is diversity.--_montaigne._ the history of human opinion is scarcely anything more than the history of human errors.--_voltaire._ if a man should register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning, etc., beginning from his youth, and so go on to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last.--_swift._ one of the mistakes in the conduct of human life is, to suppose that other men's opinions are to make us happy.--_burton._ it is with true opinions which one has the courage to utter as with pawns first advanced on the chess-board; they may be beaten, but they have inaugurated a game which must be won.--_goethe._ the feeble tremble before opinion, the foolish defy it, the wise judge it, the skillful direct it.--_mme. roland._ ~opportunity.~--the cleverest of all devils is opportunity.--_vieland._ chance opportunities make us known to others, and still more to ourselves.--_rochefoucauld._ what is opportunity to the man who can't use it? an unfecundated egg, which the waves of time wash away into nonentity.--_george eliot._ there is no man whom fortune does not visit once in his life; but when she does not find him ready to receive her, she walks in at the door and flies out at the window.--_cardinal imperiali._ the golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.--_george eliot._ every one has a fair turn to be as great as he pleases.--_jeremy collier._ a philosopher being asked what was the first thing necessary to win the love of a woman, answered: "opportunity."--_moore._ opportunity, sooner or later, comes to all who work and wish.--_lord stanley._ you will never "find" time for anything. if you want time you must make it.--_charles buxton._ ~opposition.~--the effects of opposition are wonderful. there are men who rise refreshed on hearing of a threat,--men to whom a crisis which intimidates and paralyzes the majority--demanding, not the faculties of prudence and thrift, but comprehension, immovableness, the readiness of sacrifice--comes graceful and beloved as a bride!--_emerson._ nobody loves heartily unless people take pains to prevent it.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~oratory.~--orators are most vehement when they have the weakest cause, as men get on horseback when they cannot walk.--_cicero._ metaphor is the figure most suitable for the orator, as men find a positive pleasure in catching resemblances for themselves.--_aristotle._ those orators who give us much noise and many words, but little argument and less wit, and who are most loud when they are least lucid, should take a lesson from the great volume of nature; she often gives us the lightning even without the thunder, but never the thunder without the lightning.--_colton._ an orator without judgment is a horse without a bridle.--_theophrastus._ when the roman people had listened to the diffuse and polished discourses of cicero, they departed, saying one to another, "what a splendid speech our orator has made!" but when the athenians heard demosthenes, he so filled them with the subject-matter of his oration, that they quite forgot the orator, and left him at the finish of his harangue, breathing revenge, and exclaiming, "let us go and fight against philip!"--_colton._ let not a day pass without exercising your powers of speech. there is no power like that of oratory. cæsar controlled men by exciting their fears; cicero, by captivating their affections and swaying their passions. the influence of the one perished with its author; that of the other continues to this day.--_henry clay._ it was reckoned the fault of the orators at the decline of the roman empire, when they had been long instructed by rhetoricians, that their periods were so harmonious as that they could be sung as well as spoken. what a ridiculous figure must one of these gentlemen cut, thus measuring syllables and weighing words when he should plead the cause of his client!--_goldsmith._ ~originality.~--originality is nothing but judicious imitation.--_voltaire._ one couldn't carry on life comfortably without a little blindness to the fact that everything has been said better than we can put it ourselves.--_george eliot._ the most original writers borrowed one from another. boiardo has imitated pulci, and ariosto boiardo. the instruction we find in books is like fire. we fetch it from our neighbor's, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.--_voltaire._ all originality is estrangement.--_g. h. lawes._ p. ~pain.~--psychical pain is more easily borne than physical, and if i had my choice between a bad conscience and a bad tooth, i should choose the former.--_heinrich heine._ the same refinement which brings us new pleasures exposes us to new pains.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~pardon.~--pardon is the virtue of victory.--_mazzini._ the heart has always the pardoning power.--_madame swetchine._ the offender never pardons.--_george herbert._ love is on the verge of hate each time it stoops for pardon.--_bulwer-lytton._ these evils i deserve, yet despair not of his final pardon whose ear is ever open, and his eye gracious to readmit the supplicant.--_milton._ having mourned your sin, for outward eden lost, find paradise within.--_dryden._ ~parent.~--the sacred books of the ancient persians say: if you would be holy instruct your children, because all the good acts they perform will be imputed to you.--_montesquieu._ ~partiality.~--partiality in a parent is commonly unlucky; for fondlings are in danger to be made fools, and the children that are least cockered make the best and wisest men.--_l'estrange._ as there is a partiality to opinions, which is apt to mislead the understanding, so there is also a partiality to studies, which is prejudicial to knowledge.--_locke._ partiality is properly the understanding's judging according to the inclination of the will and affections, and not according to the exact truth of things, or the merits of the cause.--_south._ ~parting.~--in every parting there is an image of death.--_george eliot._ ~party.~--he knows very little of mankind who expects, by any facts or reasoning, to convince a determined party-man.--_lavater._ he that aspires to be the head of a party will find it more difficult to please his friends than to perplex his foes.--_colton._ ~passions.~--passions makes us feel but never see clearly.--_montesquieu._ passions are likened best to floods and streams: the shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb.--_sir walter raleigh._ the passions are the voice of the body.--_rousseau._ the advice given by a great moralist to his friend was, that he should compose his passions; and let that be the work of reason which would certainly be the work of time.--_addison._ a vigorous mind is as necessarily accompanied with violent passions as a great fire with great heat.--_burke._ there are moments when our passions speak and decide for us, and we seem to stand by and wonder. they carry in them an inspiration of crime, that in one instant does the work of long premeditation.--_george eliot._ the blossoms of passion, gay and luxuriant flowers, are brighter and fuller of fragrance, but they beguile us and lead us astray, and their odor is deadly.--_longfellow._ "all the passions," says an old writer, "are such near neighbors, that if one of them is on fire the others should send for the buckets." thus love and hate being both passions, the one is never safe from the spark that sets the other ablaze. but contempt is passionless; it does not catch, it quenches fire.--_bulwer-lytton._ all the passions seek after whatever nourishes them. fear loves the idea of danger.--_joubert._ it is the excess and not the nature of our passions which is perishable. like the trees which grow by the tomb of protesilaus, the passions flourish till they reach a certain height, but no sooner is that height attained than they wither away.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~past.~--let the dead past bury its dead.--_longfellow._ oh vanished times! splendors eclipsed for aye! oh suns behind the horizon that have set.--_victor hugo._ it is to live twice, when we can enjoy the recollections of our former life.--_martial._ i desire no future that will break the ties of the past.--_george eliot._ ~patience.~--there is one form of hope which is never unwise, and which certainly does not diminish with the increase of knowledge. in that form it changes its name and we call it patience.--_bulwer-lytton._ it's easy finding reasons why other folks should be patient.--_george eliot._ patience, sovereign o'er transmuted ills.--_johnson._ there's no music in a "rest," that i know of, but there's the making of music in it. and people are always missing that part of the life melody, always talking of perseverance, and courage, and fortitude; but patience is the finest and worthiest part of fortitude, and the rarest, too.--_ruskin._ the two powers which in my opinion constitute a wise man are those of bearing and forbearing.--_epictetus._ enter into the sublime patience of the lord. be charitable in view of it. god can afford to wait; why cannot we, since we have him to fall back upon? let patience have her perfect work, and bring forth her celestial fruits.--_g. macdonald._ 'tis all men's office to speak patience to those that wring under the load of sorrow; but no man's virtue nor sufficiency to be so moral when he shall endure the like himself.--_shakespeare._ he that hath patience hath fat thrushes for a farthing.--_george herbert._ imitate time. it destroys slowly. it undermines, wears, loosens, separates. it does not uproot.--_joubert._ god is with the patient.--_koran._ patience, the second bravery of man, is, perhaps, greater than the first.--_antonio de solis._ patience--the truest fortitude.--_milton._ ~patriotism.~--in peace patriotism really consists only in this--that every one sweeps before his own door, minds his own business, also learns his own lesson, that it may be well with him in his own house.--_goethe._ our country! in her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.--_decatur._ how dear is fatherland to all noble hearts.--_voltaire._ let our object be our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country. and, by the blessing of god, may that country itself become a vast and splendid monument, not of oppression and terror, but of wisdom, of peace, and of liberty, upon which the world may gaze with admiration forever!--_daniel webster._ there can be no affinity nearer than our country.--_plato._ of the whole sum of human life no small part is that which consists of a man's relations to his country, and his feelings concerning it.--_gladstone._ ~peace.~--they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.--_bible._ still in thy right hand carry gentle peace.--_shakespeare._ lovely concord and most sacred peace doth nourish virtue, and fast friendship breed.--_spenser._ peace gives food to the husbandman, even in the midst of rocks; war brings misery to him, even in the most fertile plains.--_menander._ peace, dear nurse of arts, plenties, and joyful birth.--_shakespeare._ a land rejoicing and a people blest.--_pope._ ~pedant.~--as pedantry is an ostentatious obtrusion of knowledge, in which those who hear us cannot sympathize, it is a fault of which soldiers, sailors, sportsmen, gamesters, cultivators, and all men engaged in a particular occupation, are quite as guilty as scholars; but they have the good fortune to have the vice only of pedantry, while scholars have both the vice and the name for it too.--_s. smith._ with loads of learned lumber in his head.--_pope._ it is not a circumscribed situation so much as a narrow vision that creates pedants; not having a pet study or science, but a narrow, vulgar soul, which prevents a man from seeing all sides and hearing all things; in short, the intolerant man is the real pedant.--_richter._ ~perfection.~--it is reasonable to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance towards it, though we know it can never be reached.--_johnson._ perfection does not exist; to understand it is the triumph of human intelligence; to desire to possess it is the most dangerous kind of madness.--_alfred de musset._ that historian who would describe a favorite character as faultless raises another at the expense of himself. zeuxis made five virgins contribute their charms to his single picture of helen; and it is as vain for the moralist to look for perfection in the mind, as for the painter to expect to find it in the body.--_colton._ trifles make perfection, but perfection is no trifle.--_michael angelo._ he who boasts of being perfect is perfect in folly. i never saw a perfect man. every rose has its thorns, and every day its night. even the sun shows spots, and the skies are darkened with clouds. and faults of some kind nestle in every bosom.--_spurgeon._ faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null, dead perfection; no more.--_tennyson._ ~persecution.~--of all persecutions, that of calumny is the most intolerable. any other kind of persecution can affect our outward circumstances only, our properties, our lives; but this may affect our characters forever.--_hazlitt._ ~perseverance.~--great effects come of industry and perseverance; for audacity doth almost bind and mate the weaker sort of minds.--_bacon._ let us only suffer any person to tell us his story, morning and evening, but for one twelve-month, and he will become our master.--_burke._ perpetual pushing and assurance put a difficulty out of countenance, and make a seeming impossibility give way.--_jeremy collier._ much rain wears the marble.--_shakespeare._ i'm proof against that word failure. i've seen behind it. the only failure a man ought to fear is failure in cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.--_george eliot._ every man who observes vigilantly, and resolves steadfastly, grows unconsciously into genius.--_bulwer-lytton._ perseverance is not always an indication of great abilities. an indifferent poet is invulnerable to a repulse, the want of sensibility in him being what a noble self-confidence was in milton. these excluded suitors continue, nevertheless, to hang their garlands at the gate, to anoint the door-post, and even kiss the very threshold of her home, though the muse beckons them not in.--_wordsworth._ ~perverseness.~--the strength of the donkey mind lies in adopting a course inversely as the arguments urged, which, well considered, requires as great a mental force as the direct sequence.--_george eliot._ ~philosophy.~--philosophy is the art of living.--_plutarch._ philosophy consists not in airy schemes, or idle speculations; the rule and conduct of all social life is her great province.--_thomson._ the philosopher knows the universe and knows not himself.--_fontaine._ philosophy is the rational expression of genius.--_lamartine._ it is a maxim received among philosophers themselves from the days of aristotle down to those of sir william hamilton, that philosophy ceases where truth is acknowledged.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~physiognomy.~--it is a point of cunning to wait upon him with whom you speak with your eye, as the jesuits give it in precept; for there be many wise men that have secret hearts and transparent countenances.--_bacon._ as the language of the face is universal, so 'tis very comprehensive; no laconism can reach it; 'tis the short-hand of the mind, and crowds a great deal in a little room.--_jeremy collier._ the distinguishing characters of the face, and the lineaments of the body, grow more plain and visible with time and age; but the peculiar physiognomy of the mind is most discernible in children.--_locke._ what knowledge is there, of which man is capable, that is not founded on the exterior; the relation that exists between visible and invisible, the perceptible and the imperceptible?--_lavater._ ~piety.~--among the many strange servilities mistaken for pieties one of the least lovely is that which hopes to flatter god by despising the world and vilifying human nature.--_g. h. lewes._ piety softens all that courage bears.--_madame swetchine._ piety is a kind of modesty. it makes us turn aside our thoughts, as modesty makes us cast down our eyes in the presence of whatever is forbidden.--_joubert._ piety is not an end, but a means of attaining the highest degree of culture by perfect peace of mind. hence it is to be observed that those who make piety an end and aim in itself for the most part become hypocrites.--_goethe._ ~pity.~--pity is not natural to man. children are always cruel. savages are always cruel. pity is acquired and improved by the cultivation of reason. we may have uneasy sensations from seeing a creature in distress, without pity; for we have not pity unless we wish to relieve them. when i am on my way to dine with a friend, and, finding it late, bid the coachman make haste, if i happen to attend when he whips his horses, i may feel unpleasantly that the animals are put to pain, but i do not wish him to desist; no, sir, i wish him to drive on.--_johnson._ pity is sworn servant unto love, and this be sure, wherever it begin to make the way, it lets the master in.--_daniel._ those many that need pity, and those infinities of people that refuse to pity, are miserable upon a several charge, but yet they almost make up all mankind.--_jeremy taylor._ of all the sisters of love one of the most charming is pity.--_alfred de musset._ ~place.~--in place there is a license to do good and evil, whereof the latter is a curse; for in evil the best condition is not to will; the second, not to can.--_lord bacon._ where you are is of no moment, but only what you are doing there. it is not the place that ennobles you, but you the place; and this only by doing that which is great and noble.--_petrarch._ i take sanctuary in an honest mediocrity.--_bruyère._ a true man never frets about his place in the world, but just slides into it by the gravitation of his nature, and swings there as easily as a star.--_chapin._ ~plagiarism.~--nothing is sillier than this charge of plagiarism. there is no sixth commandment in art. the poet dare help himself wherever he lists--wherever he finds material suited to his work. he may even appropriate entire columns with their carved capitals, if the temple he thus supports be a beautiful one. goethe understood this very well, and so did shakespeare before him.--_heinrich heine._ ~pleasure.~--consider pleasures as they depart, not as they come.--_aristotle._ we have not an hour of life in which our pleasures relish not some pain, our sours some sweetness.--_massinger._ how many there are that take pleasure in toil: that can outrise the sun, outwatch the moon, and outrun the field's wild beasts! merely out of fancy and delectation, they can find out mirth in vociferation, music in the barking of dogs, and be content to be led about the earth, over hedges and through sloughs, by the windings and the shifts of poor affrighted vermin; yet, after all, come off, as messalina, tired, and not satisfied with all that the brutes can do. but were a man enjoined to this that did not like it, how tedious and how punishable to him would it prove! since, in itself, it differs not from riding post.--_feltham._ boys immature in knowledge pawn their experience to their present pleasure.--_shakespeare._ 'tis a wrong way to proportion other men's pleasures to ourselves. 'tis like a child's using a little bird--"oh, poor bird, thou shalt sleep with me"--so lays it in his bosom and stifles it with his hot breath. the bird had rather be in the cold air. and yet, too, 'tis the most pleasing flattery to like what other men like.--_selden._ there is no pleasure but that some pain is nearly allied to it.--_menander._ all fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain or languor; 'tis like spending this year part of the next year's revenue.--_swift._ fly the pleasure that bites to-morrow.--_george herbert._ look upon pleasures not upon that side that is next the sun, or where they look beauteously, that is, as they come towards you to be enjoyed, for then they paint and smile, and dress themselves up in tinsel, and glass gems, and counterfeit imagery.--_jeremy taylor._ pleasure has its time; so, too, has wisdom. make love in thy youth, and in old age attend to thy salvation.--_voltaire._ a man of pleasure is a man of pains.--_young._ pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.--_johnson._ what would we not give to still have in store the first blissful moment we ever enjoyed!--_rochepèdre._ most pleasures embrace us but to strangle.--_montaigne._ ~poetry.~--poetry is the apotheosis of sentiment.--_madame de staël._ poetry is the sister of sorrow. every man that suffers and weeps is a poet; every tear is a verse, and every heart a poem.--_marc andré._ much is the force of heaven-bred poesy.--_shakespeare._ poetry, good sir, in my opinion, is like a tender virgin, very young, and extremely beautiful, whom divers other virgins--namely, all the other sciences--make it their business to enrich, polish, and adorn; and to her it belongs to make use of them all, and on her part to give a lustre to them all.--_cervantes._ poetry is the overflowing of the soul.--_tuckerman._ poetry is enthusiasm with wings of fire, it is the angel of high thoughts, that inspires us with the power of sacrifice.--_mazzini._ poetry is the music of thought, conveyed to us in the music of language.--_chatfield._ the great secret of morals is love, or a going out of our own nature, and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action, or person, not our own. a man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another, and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own. the great instrument of moral good is imagination, and poetry administers to the effect by acting upon the cause.--_shelley._ truth shines the brighter clad in verse.--_pope._ it is a shallow criticism that would define poetry as confined to literary productions in rhyme and metre. the written poem is only poetry _talking_, and the statue, the picture, and the musical composition are poetry _acting_. milton and goethe, at their desks, were not more truly poets than phidias with his chisel, raphael at his easel, or deaf beethoven bending over his piano, inventing and producing strains which he himself could never hope to hear.--_ruskin._ thought in blossom.--_bishop ken._ it is a ruinous misjudgment, too contemptible to be asserted, but not too contemptible to be acted upon, that the end of poetry is publication.--_george macdonald._ wisdom married to immortal verse.--_wordsworth._ by poetry we mean the art of employing words in such a manner as to produce an illusion on the imagination; the art of doing by means of words what the painter does by means of colors.--_macaulay._ thoughts, that voluntary move harmonious numbers.--_milton._ the world is so grand and so inexhaustible that subjects for poems should never be wanted. but all poetry should be the poetry of circumstance; that is, it should be inspired by the real. a particular subject will take a poetic and general character precisely because it is created by a poet. all my poetry is the poetry of circumstance. it wholly owes its birth to the realities of life.--_goethe._ nothing which does not transport is poetry. the lyre is a winged instrument.--_joubert._ perhaps there are no warmer lovers of the muse than those who are only permitted occasionally to gain her favors. the shrine is more reverently approached by the pilgrim from afar than the familiar worshiper. poetry is often more beloved by one whose daily vocation is amid the bustle of the world. we read of a fountain in arabia upon whose basin is inscribed, "drink and away;" but how delicious is that hasty draught, and how long and brightly the thought of its transient refreshment dwells in the memory!--_tuckerman._ old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good.--_izaak walton._ poetry is not made out of the understanding. the question of common sense is always: "what is it good for?" a question which would abolish the rose and be triumphantly answered by the cabbage.--_lowell._ the poetry of earth is never dead.--_keats._ ~poets.~--poets, like race-horses, must be fed, not fattened.--_charles ix._ true poets, like great artists, have scarcely any childhood, and no old age.--_madame swetchine._ modern poets mix much water with their ink.--_goethe._ there is nothing of which nature has been more bountiful than poets. they swarm like the spawn of cod-fish, with a vicious fecundity, that invites and requires destruction. to publish verses is become a sort of evidence that a man wants sense; which is repelled not by writing good verses, but by writing excellent verses.--_sydney smith._ there is a pleasure in poetic pains which only poets know.--_wordsworth._ an artist that works in marble or colors has them all to himself and his tribe, but the man who moulds his thoughts in verse has to employ the materials vulgarized by everybody's use, and glorify them by his handling.--_holmes._ a little shallowness might be useful to many a poet! what is depth, after all? is the pit deeper than the shallow mirror which reflects its lowest recesses?--_heinrich heine._ we praise the dramatic poet who possesses the art of drawing tears--a talent which he has in common with the meanest onion!--_heinrich heine._ i have observed a gardener cut the outward rind of a tree (which is the surtout of it), to make it bear well: and this is a natural account of the usual poverty of poets, and is an argument why wits, of all men living, ought to be ill clad. i have always a sacred veneration for any one i observe to be a little out of repair in his person, as supposing him either a poet or a philosopher; because the richest minerals are ever found under the most ragged and withered surfaces of the earth.--_swift._ words become luminous when the poet's finger has passed over them its phosphorescence.--_joubert._ poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present.--_shelley._ poets are far rarer births than kings.--_ben jonson._ one might discover schools of the poets as distinctly as schools of the painters, by much converse in them, and a thorough taste of their manner of writing.--_pope._ they learn in suffering what they teach in song.--_shelley._ ~policy.~--he has mastered all points who has combined the useful with the agreeable.--_horace._ at court one becomes a sort of human ant-eater, and learns to catch one's prey by one's tongue.--_bulwer-lytton._ measures, not men, have always been my mark.--_goldsmith._ in a troubled state, we must do as in foul weather upon a river, not think to cut directly through, for the boat may be filled with water; but rise and fall as the waves do, and give way as much as we conveniently can.--_seldon._ to manage men one ought to have a sharp mind in a velvet sheath.--_george eliot._ ~politeness.~--politeness is fictitious benevolence. it supplies the place of it among those who see each other only in public, or but little. depend upon it, the want of it never fails to produce something disagreeable to one or other. i have always applied to good breeding what addison, in his "cato," says of honor: "honor's a sacred tie: the law of kings; the noble mind's distinguishing perfection; that aids and strengthens virtue where it meets her, and imitates her actions where she is not."--_johnson._ self-command is the main elegance.--_emerson._ politeness smooths wrinkles.--_joubert._ politeness is as natural to delicate natures as perfume is to flowers.--_de finod._ ~politics.~--it is the misfortune of all miscellaneous political combinations, that with the purest motives of their more generous members are ever mixed the most sordid interests and the fiercest passions of mean confederates.--_bulwer-lytton._ nothing is politically right which is morally wrong.--_daniel o'connell._ those who think must govern those who toil.--_goldsmith._ the man who can make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, grow on the spot where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and render more essential service to the country, than the whole race of politicians put together.--_swift._ jarring interests of themselves create the according music of a well-mixed state.--_pope._ wise men and gods are on the strongest side.--_sir c. sedley._ the thorough-paced politician must laugh at the squeamishness of his conscience, and read it another lecture.--_south._ a thousand years scarce serve to form a state; an hour may lay it in the dust.--_byron._ extended empire, like extended gold, exchanges solid strength for feeble splendor.--_johnson._ ~possessions.~--it so falls out that what we have we prize not to the worth whiles we enjoy it; but being lacked and lost, why then we rack the value; then we find the virtue that possession would not show us whiles it was ours.--_shakespeare._ all comes from and will go to others.--_george herbert._ in life, as in chess, one's own pawns block one's way. a man's very wealth, ease, leisure, children, books, which should help him to win, more often checkmate him.--_charles buxton._ in all worldly things that a man pursues with the greatest eagerness and intention of mind imaginable, he finds not half the pleasure in the actual possession of them as he proposed to himself in the expectation.--_south._ as soon as women become ours we are no longer theirs.--_montaigne._ attainment is followed by neglect, and possession by disgust. the malicious remark of the greek epigrammatist on marriage may apply to every other course of life,--that its two days of happiness are the first and the last.--_johnson._ ~posterity.~--posterity preserves only what will pack into small compass. jewels are handed down from age to age, less portable valuables disappear.--_lord stanley._ the drafts which true genius draws upon posterity, although they may not always be honored so soon as they are due, are sure to be paid with compound interest in the end.--_colton._ ~poverty.~--many good qualities are not sufficient to balance a single want--the want of money.--_zimmerman._ few save the poor feel for the poor.--_l. e. landon._ thou shalt know by experience how salt the savor is of others' bread, and how sad a path it is to climb and descend another's stairs.--_dante._ riches endless is as poor as winter, to him that ever fears he shall be poor.--_shakespeare._ a poor man resembles a fiddler, whose music, though liked, is not much praised, because he lives by it; while a gentleman performer, though the most wretched scraper alive, throws the audience into raptures.--_goldsmith._ he is not poor that little hath, but he that much desires.--_daniel._ the wicked man's tempter, the good man's perdition, the proud man's curse, the melancholy man's halter.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~power.~--the weakest living creature, by concentrating his powers on a single object, can accomplish something. the strongest, by dispensing his over many, may fail to accomplish anything. the drop, by continually falling, bores its passage through the hardest rock. the hasty torrent rushes over it with hideous uproar, and leaves no trace behind.--_carlyle._ oh for a forty parson power.--_byron._ power is so characteristically calm, that calmness in itself has the aspect of power, and forbearance implies strength. the orator who is known to have at his command all the weapons of invective is most formidable when most courteous.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~praise.~--expect not praise without envy until you are dead. honors bestowed on the illustrious dead have in them no admixture of envy; for the living pity the dead; and pity and envy, like oil and vinegar, assimilate not.--_colton._ praise is the best diet for us after all.--_sydney smith._ desert being the essential condition of praise, there can be no reality in the one without the other.--_washington allston._ damn with faint praise.--_pope._ counsel is not so sacred a thing as praise, since the former is only useful among men, but the latter is for the most part reserved for the gods.--_pythagoras._ praise undeserved is satire in disguise.--_broadhurst._ one good deed, dying tongueless, slaughters a thousand waiting upon that. our praises are our wages.--_shakespeare._ ~prayer.~--the lord's prayer contains the sum total of religion and morals.--_wellington._ nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered.--_shakespeare._ 'tis heaven alone that is given away; 'tis only god may be had for the asking.--_lowell._ let our prayers, like the ancient sacrifices, ascend morning and evening. let our days begin and end with god.--_channing._ the few that pray at all pray oft amiss.--_cowper._ such words as heaven alone is fit to hear.--_dryden._ what are men better than sheep or goats, that nourish a blind life within the brain, if, knowing god, they lift not hands of prayer both for themselves and those who call them friends!--_tennyson._ prayer ardent opens heaven.--_young._ solicitude is the audience-chamber of god.--_landor._ the best answer to all objections urged against prayer is the fact that man cannot help praying; for we may be sure that that which is so spontaneous and ineradicable in human nature has its fitting objects and methods in the arrangements of a boundless providence.--_chapin._ he prayeth best who loveth best.--_coleridge._ ~preaching.~--preachers say, do as i say, not as i do. but if a physician had the same disease upon him that i have, and he should bid me do one thing and he do quite another, could i believe him?--~selden.~ ~preface.~--your opening promises some great design.--_horace._ a preface, being the entrance of a book, should invite by its beauty. an elegant porch announces the splendor of the interior.--_disraeli._ a good preface is as essential to put the reader into good humor, as a good prologue is to a play, or a fine symphony is to an opera, containing something analogous to the work itself; so that we may feel its want as a desire not elsewhere to be gratified. the italians call the preface--la salsa del libro--the sauce of the book; and, if well-seasoned, it creates an appetite in the reader to devour the book itself.--_disraeli._ ~prejudice.~--he who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.--_j. stuart mill._ prejudice, which sees what it pleases, cannot see what is plain.--_aubrey de vere._ all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.--_pope._ prejudice is the reason of fools.--_voltaire._ ignorance is less remote from the truth than prejudice.--_diderot._ ~present, the.~--since time is not a person we can overtake when he is gone, let us honor him with mirth and cheerfulness of heart while he is passing.--_goethe._ man, living, feeling man, is the easy sport of the over-mastering present.--_schiller._ 'tis but a short journey across the isthmus of now.--_bovée._ the present hour is always wealthiest when it is poorer than the future ones, as that is the pleasantest site which affords the pleasantest prospect.--_thoreau._ let us enjoy the fugitive hour. man has no harbor, time has no shore, it rushes on and carries us with it.--_lamartine._ ~presentiment.~--we walk in the midst of secrets--we are encompassed with mysteries. we know not what takes place in the atmosphere that surrounds us--we know not what relations it has with our minds. but one thing is sure, that, under certain conditions, our soul, through the exercise of mysterious functions, has a greater power than reason, and that the power is given it to antedate the future,--ay, to see into the future.--_goethe._ we should not neglect a presentiment. every man has within him a spark of divine radiance which is often the torch which illumines the darkness of our future.--_madame de girardin._ ~press.~--the press is not only free, it is powerful. that power is ours. it is the proudest that man can enjoy. it was not granted by monarchs, it was not gained for us by aristocracies; but it sprang from the people, and, with an immortal instinct, it has always worked for the people.--_b. disraeli._ ~presumption.~--presumption is our natural and original disease.--_montaigne._ presumption never stops in its first attempt. if cæsar comes once to pass the rubicon, he will be sure to march further on, even till he enters the very bowels of rome, and breaks open the capitol itself. he that wades so far as to wet and foul himself, cares not how much he trashes further.--_south._ he that presumes steps into the throne of god.--_south._ ~pretence.~--as a general rule, people who flagrantly pretend to anything are the reverse of that which they pretend to. a man who sets up for a saint is sure to be a sinner, and a man who boasts that he is a sinner is sure to have some feeble, maudlin, sniveling bit of saintship about him which is enough to make him a humbug.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~pretension.~--pretences go a great way with men that take fair words and magisterial looks for current payment.--_l'estrange._ ~pride.~--i have been more and more convinced, the more i think of it, that in general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes. all the other passions do occasional good; but whenever pride puts in _its_ word, everything goes wrong; and what it might really be desirable to do, quietly and innocently, it is mortally dangerous to do proudly.--_ruskin._ pride's chickens have bonny feathers, but they are an expensive brood to rear--they eat up everything, and are always lean when brought to market.--_alexander smith._ when pride thaws look for floods.--_bailey._ pride, like laudanum and other poisonous medicines, is beneficial in small, though injurious in large, quantities. no man who is not pleased with himself, even in a personal sense, can please others.--_frederick saunders._ pride is seldom delicate; it will please itself with very mean advantages.--_johnson._ ~principles.~--principle is a passion for truth.--_hazlitt._ principles, like troops of the line, are undisturbed, and stand fast.--_richter._ whatever lies beyond the limits of experience, and claims another origin than that of induction and deduction from established data, is illegitimate.--_g. h. lewes._ the value of a principle is the number of things it will explain; and there is no good theory of disease which does not at once suggest a cure.--_emerson._ what is the essence and the life of character? principle, integrity, independence, or, as one of our great old writers has it, "that inbred loyalty unto virtue which can serve her without a livery."--_bulwer-lytton._ the change we personally experience from time to time we obstinately deny to our principles.--_zimmerman._ ~printing.~--things printed can never be stopped; they are like babies baptized, they have a soul from that moment, and go on forever.--_george meredith._ ~prison.~--young crime's finishing school.--_mrs. balfour._ the worst prison is not of stone. it is of a throbbing heart, outraged by an infamous life.--_beecher._ ~procrastination.~--indulge in procrastination, and in time you will come to this, that because a thing ought to be done, therefore you can't do it.--_charles buxton._ the man who procrastinates struggles with ruin.--_hesiod._ there is, by god's grace, an immeasurable distance between late and too late.--_madame swetchine._ ~prodigality.~--this is a vice too brave and costly to be kept and maintained at any easy rate; it must have large pensions, and be fed with both hands, though the man who feeds it starve for his pains.--_dr. south._ when i see a young profligate squandering his fortune in bagnios, or at the gaming-table, i cannot help looking on him as hastening his own death, and in a manner digging his own grave.--_goldsmith._ the gains of prodigals are like fig-trees growing on a precipice: for these, none are better but kites and crows; for those, only harlots and flatterers.--_socrates._ ~progress.~--all that is human must retrograde if it do not advance.--_gibbon._ what matters it? say some, a little more knowledge for man, a little more liberty, a little more general development. life is so short! he is a being so limited! but it is precisely because his days are few, and he cannot attain to all, that a little more culture is of importance to him. the ignorance in which god leaves man is divine; the ignorance in which man leaves himself is a crime and a shame.--_x. doudan._ revolutions never go backwards.--_emerson._ what pains and tears the slightest steps of man's progress have cost! every hair-breadth forward has been in the agony of some soul, and humanity has reached blessing after blessing of all its vast achievement of good with bleeding feet.--_bartol._ progress is lame.--_st. bueve._ we know what a masquerade all development is, and what effective shapes may be disguised in helpless embryos. in fact, the world is full of hopeful analogies and handsome dubious eggs called possibilities.--_george eliot._ the pathway of progress will still, as of old, bear the traces of martyrdom, but the advance is inevitable.--_g. h. lewes._ nations are educated through suffering, mankind is purified through sorrow. the power of creating obstacles to progress is human and partial. omnipotence is with the ages.--_mazzini._ every age has its problem, by solving which, humanity is helped forward.--_heinrich heine._ men of great genius and large heart sow the seeds of a new degree of progress in the world, but they bear fruit only after many years.--_mazzini._ it is curious to note the old sea-margins of human thought. each subsiding century reveals some new mystery; we build where monsters used to hide themselves.--_longfellow._ the activity of to-day and the assurance of to-morrow.--_emerson._ the moral law of the universe is progress. every generation that passes idly over the earth without adding to that progress by one degree remains uninscribed upon the register of humanity, and the succeeding generation tramples its ashes as dust.--_mazzini._ a fresh mind keeps the body fresh. take in the ideas of the day, drain off those of yesterday. as to the morrow, time enough to consider it when it becomes to-day.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~promise.~--promises hold men faster than benefits: hope is a cable and gratitude a thread.--_j. petit senn._ ~proof.~--in the eyes of a wise judge proofs by reasoning are of more value than witnesses.--_cicero._ give me the ocular proof; make me see't; or at the least, so prove it, that the probation bear no hinge, no loop, to hang a doubt upon.--_shakespeare._ ~prosperity.~--prosperity makes some friends and many enemies.--_vauvenargues._ that fortitude which has encountered no dangers, that prudence which has surmounted no difficulties, that integrity which has been attacked by no temptation, can at best be considered but as gold not yet brought to the test, of which therefore the true value cannot be assigned.--_johnson._ alas for the fate of men! even in the midst of the highest prosperity a shadow may overturn them; but if they be in adverse fortune a moistened sponge can blot out the picture.--_æschylus._ prosperity lets go the bridle.--_george herbert._ ~proverbs.~--proverbs are somewhat analogous to those medical formulas which, being in frequent use, are kept ready made up in the chemists' shops, and which often save the framing of a distinct prescription.--_bishop whately._ the study of proverbs may be more instructive and comprehensive than the most elaborate scheme of philosophy.--_motherwell._ the proverbial wisdom of the populace in the street, on the roads, and in the markets, instructs the ear of him who studies man more fully than a thousand rules ostentatiously displayed.--_lavater._ ~prudence.~--there is no amount of praise which is not heaped on prudence; yet there is not the most insignificant event of which it can make us sure.--_rochefoucauld._ too many, through want of prudence, are golden apprentices, silver journeymen, and copper masters.--_whitfield._ men of sense often learn from their enemies. prudence is the best safeguard. this principle cannot be learned from a friend, but an enemy extorts it immediately. it is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls and ships of war. and this lesson saves their children, their homes, and their properties.--_aristophanes._ ~punctuality.~--the most indispensable qualification of a cook is punctuality. the same must be said of guests.--_brillat savarin._ punctuality is the stern virtue of men of business, and the graceful courtesy of princes.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~punishment.~--one man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.--_juvenal._ it is as expedient that a wicked man be punished as that a sick man be cured by a physician; for all chastisement is a kind of medicine.--_plato._ punishment is lame, but it comes.--_george herbert._ if punishment makes not the will supple it hardens the offender.--_locke._ don't let us rejoice in punishment, even when the hand of god alone inflicts it. the best of us are but poor wretches just saved from shipwreck: can we feel anything but awe and pity when we see a fellow-passenger swallowed by the waves?--_george eliot._ the work of eradicating crimes is not by making punishment familiar, but formidable.--_goldsmith._ the public have more interest in the punishment of an injury than he who receives it.--_cato._ the best of us being unfit to die, what an inexpressible absurdity to put the worst to death!--_hawthorne._ ~puns.~--i have very little to say about puns; they are in very bad repute, and so they _ought_ to be. the wit of language is so miserably inferior to the wit of ideas, that it is very deservedly driven out of good company. sometimes, indeed, a pun makes its appearance which seems for a moment to redeem its species; but we must not be deceived by them: it is a radically bad race of wit.--_sydney smith._ conceits arising from the use of words that agree in sound but differ in sense.--_addison._ ~purposes.~--man proposes, but god disposes.--_thomas à kempis._ a man's heart deviseth his way; but the lord directeth his steps.--_bible._ it is better by a noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half of the evils which we anticipate, than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what may happen.--_herodotus._ purposes, like eggs, unless they be hatched into action, will run into decay.--_smiles._ ~pursuit.~--the rapture of pursuing is the prize the vanquished gain.--_longfellow._ the fruit that can fall without shaking, indeed is too mellow for me.--_lady montagu._ q. ~quacks.~--pettifoggers in law and empirics in medicine have held from time immemorial the fee simple of a vast estate, subject to no alienation, diminution, revolution, nor tax--the folly and ignorance of mankind.--_colton._ nothing more strikingly betrays the credulity of mankind than medicine. quackery is a thing universal, and universally successful. in this case it becomes literally true that no imposition is too great for the credulity of men.--_thoreau._ ~qualities.~--wood burns because it has the proper stuff in it; and a man becomes famous because he has the proper stuff in him.--_goethe._ ~quarrels.~--coarse kindness is, at least, better than coarse anger; and in all private quarrels the duller nature is triumphant by reason of its dullness.--_george eliot._ the quarrels of lovers are like summer storms. everything is more beautiful when they have passed.--_mme. necker._ ~questions.~--there are innumerable questions to which the inquisitive mind can, in this state, receive no answer: why do you and i exist? why was this world created? and, since it was to be created, why was it not created sooner?--_johnson._ ~quotation.~--in quoting of books, quote such authors as are usually read; others you may read for your own satisfaction, but not name them.--_selden._ if these little sparks of holy fire which i have thus heaped up together do not give life to your prepared and already enkindled spirit, yet they will sometimes help to entertain a thought, to actuate a passion, to employ and hallow a fancy.--_jeremy taylor._ if the grain were separated from the chaff which fills the works of our national poets, what is truly valuable would be to what is useless in the proportion of a mole-hill to a mountain.--_burke._ it is the beauty and independent worth of the citations, far more than their appropriateness, which have made johnson's dictionary popular even as a reading-book.--_coleridge._ ruin half an author's graces by plucking bon-mots from their places.--_hannah more._ i take memorandums of the schools.--_swift._ the obscurest sayings of the truly great are often those which contain the germ of the profoundest and most useful truths.--_mazzini._ to select well among old things is almost equal to inventing new ones.--_trublet._ why are not more gems from our great authors scattered over the country? great books are not in everybody's reach; and though it is better to know them thoroughly than to know them only here and there, yet it is a good work to give a little to those who have neither time nor means to get more. let every bookworm, when in any fragrant, scarce old tome he discovers a sentence, a story, an illustration, that does his heart good, hasten to give it.--_coleridge._ a couplet of verse, a period of prose, may cling to the rock of ages as a shell that survives a deluge.--_bulwer-lytton._ selected thoughts depend for their flavor upon the terseness of their expression, for thoughts are grains of sugar, or salt, that must be melted in a drop of water.--_j. petit senn._ as people read nothing in these days that is more than forty-eight hours old, i am daily admonished that allusions, the most obvious, to anything in the rear of our own times need explanation.--_de quincey._ r. ~rain.~--clouds dissolved the thirsty ground supply.--_roscommon._ the kind refresher of the summer heats.--_thomson._ vexed sailors curse the rain for which poor shepherds prayed in vain.--_waller._ the spongy clouds are filled with gathering rain.--_dryden._ ~rainbow.~--that smiling daughter of the storm.--_colton._ born of the shower, and colored by the sun.--_j. c. prince._ god's glowing covenant.--_hosea ballou._ ~rank.~--if it were ever allowable to forget what is due to superiority of rank, it would be when the privileged themselves remember it.--_madame swetchine._ i weigh the man, not his title; 'tis not the king's stamp can make the metal better.--_wycherley._ of the king's creation you may be; but he who makes a count ne'er made a man.--_southerne._ ~rashness.~--rashness and haste make all things insecure.--_denham._ we may outrun by violent swiftness that which we run at, and lose by overrunning.--_shakespeare._ ~reading.~--read, and refine your appetite; learn to live upon instruction; feast your mind and mortify your flesh; read, and take your nourishment in at your eyes, shut up your mouth, and chew the cud of understanding.--_congreve._ deep versed in books, but shallow in himself.--_milton._ the love of reading enables a man to exchange the wearisome hours of life, which come to every one, for hours of delight.--_montesquieu._ there was, it is said, a criminal in italy, who was suffered to make his choice between guicciardini and the galleys. he chose the history. but the war of pisa was too much for him. he changed his mind, and went to the oars.--_macaulay._ exceedingly well read and profited in strange concealments.--_shakespeare._ the reader, who would follow a close reasoner to the summit of the absolute principle of any one important subject, has chosen a chamois-hunter for his guide. he cannot carry us on his shoulders; we must strain our sinews, as he has strained his; and make firm footing on the smooth rock for ourselves, by the blood of toil from our own feet.--_coleridge._ ~reason.~--reason lies between the spur and the bridle.--_george herbert._ many are destined to reason wrongly; others not to reason at all; and others to persecute those who do reason.--_voltaire._ if reasons were as plenty as blackberries i would give no man a reason upon compulsion.--_shakespeare._ we can only reason from what is; we can reason on actualities, but not on possibilities.--_bolingbroke._ i do not call reason that brutal reason which crushes with its weight what is holy and sacred; that malignant reason which delights in the errors it succeeds in discovering; that unfeeling and scornful reason which insults credulity.--_joubert._ i have no other but a woman's reason: i think him so, because i think him so.--_shakespeare._ reason 's progressive; instinct is complete: swift instinct leaps; slow reason feebly climbs.--_young._ faith evermore looks upward and descries objects remote; but reason can discover things only near,--sees nothing that's above her.--_quarles._ how can finite grasp infinity?--_dryden._ let us not dream that reason can ever be popular. passions, emotions, may be made popular, but reason remains ever the property of the few.--_goethe._ reason is, so to speak, the police of the kingdom of art, seeking only to preserve order. in life itself a cold arithmetician who adds up our follies. sometimes, alas! only the accountant in bankruptcy of a broken heart.--_heinrich heine._ sure he that made us with such large discourse, looking before and after, gave us not that capability and godlike reason to rust in us unused.--_shakespeare._ reason may cure illusions but not suffering.--_alfred de musset._ ~reciprocity.~--there is one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life, that word is _reciprocity_. what you do not wish done to yourself, do not do to others.--_confucius._ ~reconciliation.~--it is much safer to reconcile an enemy than to conquer him; victory may deprive him of his poison, but reconciliation of his will.--_owen feltham._ ~rectitude.~--the great high-road of human welfare lies along the highway of steadfast well-doing, and they who are the most persistent, and work in the truest spirit, will invariably be the most successful.--_samuel smiles._ if you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. but do not care to convince him. men will believe what they see. let them see.--_thoreau._ no man can do right unless he is good, wise, and strong. what wonder we fail?--_charles buxton._ ~refinement.~--refinement that carries us away from our fellow-men is not god's refinement.--_beecher._ refinement is the lifting of one's self upwards from the merely sensual, the effort of the soul to etherealize the common wants and uses of life.--_beecher._ ~reflection.~--we are told, "let not the sun go down on your wrath." this, of course, is best; but, as it generally does, i would add, never act or write till it has done so. this rule has saved me from many an act of folly. it is wonderful what a different view we take of the same event four-and-twenty hours after it has happened.--_sydney smith._ ~reform.~--we are reformers in spring and summer; in autumn and winter we stand by the old--reformers in the morning, conservatives at night. reform is affirmative, conservatism is negative; conservatism goes for comfort, reform for truth.--_emerson._ long is the way and hard, that out of hell leads up to light.--_milton._ conscious remorse and anguish must be felt, to curb desire, to break the stubborn will, and work a second nature in the soul.--_rowe._ they say best men are moulded out of faults, and, for the most, become much more the better for being a little bad!--_shakespeare._ ~regret.~--why is it that a blessing only when it is lost cuts as deep into the heart as a sharp diamond? why must we first weep before we can love so deeply that our hearts ache?--_richter._ ~religion.~--natural religion supplies still all the facts which are disguised under the dogma of popular creeds. the progress of religion is steadily to its identity with morals.--_emerson._ i endeavor in vain to give my parishioners more cheerful ideas of religion; to teach them that god is not a jealous, childish, merciless tyrant; that he is best served by a regular tenor of good actions, not by bad singing, ill-composed prayers, and eternal apprehensions. but the luxury of false religion is to be unhappy!--_sydney smith._ nowhere would there be consolation if religion were not.--_jacobi._ monopolies are just as injurious to religion as to trade. with competition religions preserve their strength, but they will never again flourish in their original glory until religious freedom, or, in other words, free trade among the gods, is introduced.--_heinrich heine._ a religion giving dark views of god, and infusing superstitious fear of innocent enjoyment, instead of aiding sober habits, will, by making men abject and sad, impair their moral force, and prepare them for intemperance as a refuge from depression or despair.--_channing._ religion is the hospital of the souls that the world has wounded.--_j. petit senn._ ah! what a divine religion might be found out if charity were really made the principle of it instead of faith.--_shelley._ the ship retains her anchorage yet drifts with a certain range, subject to wind and tide. so we have for an anchorage the cardinal truths of the gospel.--_gladstone._ the best religion is the most tolerant.--_emile de girardin._ ~remembrance.~--the greatest comfort of my old age, and that which gives me the highest satisfaction, is the pleasing remembrance of the many benefits and friendly offices i have done to others.--_cato._ pleasure is the flower that fades; remembrance is the lasting perfume.--_boufflers._ ~remorse.~--remorse is the punishment of crime; repentance its expiation. the former appertains to a tormented conscience; the latter to a soul changed for the better.--_joubert._ remorse sleeps in the atmosphere of prosperity.--_rousseau._ unnatural deeds do breed unnatural troubles. infected minds to their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.--_shakespeare._ truth severe, by fairy fiction drest.--_gray._ ~repartee.~--the impromptu reply is precisely the touchstone of the man of wit.--_molière._ ~repentance.~---repentance clothes in grass and flowers the grave in which the past is laid.--_sterling._ he repents on thorns that sleeps in beds of roses.--_quarles._ beholding heaven, and feeling hell.--_moore._ is it not in accordance with divine order that every mortal is thrown into that situation where his hidden evils can be brought forth to his own view, that he may know them, acknowledge them, struggle against them, and put them away?--_anna cora ritchie._ repentance is second innocence.--_de bonald._ ~repose.~--repose is agreeable to the human mind; and decision is repose. a man has made up his opinions; he does not choose to be disturbed; and he is much more thankful to the man who confirms him in his errors, and leaves him alone, than he is to the man who refutes him, or who instructs him at the expense of his tranquillity.--_sydney smith._ rest is the sweet sauce of labor.--_plutarch._ ~reproach.~--few love to hear the sins they love to act.--_shakespeare._ the silent upbraiding of the eye is the very poetry of reproach; it speaks at once to the imagination.--_mrs. balfour._ ~republic.~--though i admire republican principles in theory, yet i am afraid the practice may be too perfect for human nature. we tried a republic last century and it failed. let our enemies try next. i hate political experiments.--_walpole._ the same fact that boccaccio offers in support of religion, might be adduced in behalf of a republic: "it exists in spite of its ministers."--_heinrich heine._ at twenty, every one is republican.--_lamartine._ ~reputation.~--reputation is one of the prizes for which men contend: it is, as mr. burke calls it, "the cheap defence and ornament of nations, and the nurse of manly exertions;" it produces more labor and more talent then twice the wealth of a country could ever rear up. it is the coin of genius; and it is the imperious duty of every man to bestow it with the most scrupulous justice and the wisest economy.--_sydney smith._ an eminent reputation is as dangerous as a bad one.--_tacitus._ reputation is but the synonym of popularity; dependent on suffrage, to be increased or diminished at the will of the voters.--_washington allston._ my name and memory i leave to men's charitable speeches, to foreign nations, and to the next age.--_bacon._ the blaze of reputation cannot be blown out, but it often dies in the socket.--_johnson._ one may be better than his reputation or his conduct, but never better than his principles.--_laténa._ ~request.~--no music is so charming to my ear as the requests of my friends, and the supplications of those in want of my assistance.--_cæsar._ he who goes round about in his requests wants commonly more than he chooses to appear to want.--_lavater._ ~resignation.~--o lord, i do most cheerfully commit all unto thee.--_fénelon._ let god do with me what he will, anything he will; and, whatever it be, it will be either heaven itself, or some beginning of it.--_mountford._ a man that fortune's buffets and rewards has ta'en with equal thanks.--_shakespeare._ trust in god, as moses did, let the way be ever so dark; and it shall come to pass that your life at last shall surpass even your longing. not, it may be, in the line of that longing, that shall be as it pleaseth god; but the glory is as sure as the grace, and the most ancient heavens are not more sure than that.--_robert collyer._ vulgar minds refuse to crouch beneath their load; the brave bear theirs without repining.--_thomson._ "my will, not thine, be done," turned paradise into a desert. "thy will, not mine, be done," turned the desert into a paradise, and made gethsemane the gate of heaven.--_pressense._ resignation is the courage of christian sorrow.--_dr. vinet._ ~responsibility.~--responsibility educates.--_wendell phillips._ ~restlessness.~--the mind is found most acute and most uneasy in the morning. uneasiness is, indeed, a species of sagacity--a passive sagacity. fools are never uneasy.--_goethe._ always driven towards new shores, or carried hence without hope of return, shall we never, on the ocean of age cast anchor for even a day?--_lamartine._ ~retribution.~--nemesis is lame, but she is of colossal stature, like the gods; and sometimes, while her sword is not yet unsheathed, she stretches out her huge left arm and grasps her victim. the mighty hand is invisible, but the victim totters under the dire clutch.--_george eliot._ "one soweth and another reapeth" is a verity that applies to evil as well as good.--_george eliot._ ~revenge.~--revenge at first, though sweet, bitter ere long back on itself recoils.--_milton._ revenge is a debt, in the paying of which the greatest knave is honest and sincere, and, so far as he is able, punctual.--_colton._ there are some professed christians who would gladly burn their enemies, but yet who forgive them merely because it is heaping coals of fire on their heads.--_f. a. durivage._ ~revery.~--in that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts bring sad thoughts to the mind.--_wordsworth._ ~revolution.~--the working of revolutions, therefore, misleads me no more; it is as necessary to our race as its waves to the stream, that it may not be a stagnant marsh. ever renewed in its forms, the genius of humanity blossoms.--_herder._ great revolutions are the work rather of principles than of bayonets, and are achieved first in the moral, and afterwards in the material sphere.--_mazzini._ all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.--_jefferson._ nothing has ever remained of any revolution hut what was ripe in the conscience of the masses.--_ledru rollin._ revolution is the larva of civilization.--_victor hugo._ we deplore the outrages which accompany revolutions. but the more violent the outrages, the more assured we feel that a revolution was necessary! the violence of these outrages will always lie proportioned to the ferocity and ignorance of the people: and the ferocity and ignorance of the people will be proportioned to the oppression and degradation under which they have been accustomed to live.--_macaulay._ let them call it mischief; when it's past and prospered, 't will be virtue.--_ben jonson._ ~rhetoric.~--in composition, it is the art of putting ideas together in graceful and accurate prose; in speaking, it is the art of delivering ideas with propriety, elegance, and force; or, in other words, it is the science of oratory.--_locke._ rhetoric without logic is like a tree with leaves and blossoms, but no root; yet more are taken with rhetoric than logic, because they are caught with a free expression, when they understand not reason.--_selden._ the florid, elevated, and figurative way is for the passions; for love and hatred, fear and anger, are begotten in the soul by showing their objects out of their true proportion, either greater than the life, or less; but instruction is to be given by showing them what they naturally are. a man is to cheated into passion, but reasoned into truth.--_dryden._ all the art of rhetoric, besides order and clearness, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong ideas, move the passions, and thereby mislead the judgment.--_locke._ rhetoric is very good, or stark naught; there's no medium in rhetoric.--_selden._ ~riches.~--the shortest road to riches lies through contempt of riches.--_seneca._ one cause, which is not always observed, of the insufficiency of riches, is that they very seldom make their owner rich.--_johnson._ of all the riches that we hug, of all the pleasures we enjoy, we can carry no more out of this world than out of a dream.--_bonnell._ if the search for riches were sure to be successful, though i should become a groom with a whip in my hand to get them, i will do so. as the search may not be successful, i will follow after that which i love.--_confucius._ i have a rich neighbor that is always so busy that he has no leisure to laugh; the whole business of his life is to get money, more money, that he may still get more. he is still drudging, saying what solomon says, "the diligent hand maketh rich." and it is true, indeed; but he considers not that it is not in the power of riches to make a man happy; for it was wisely said by a man of great observation that "there be as many miseries beyond riches as on this side of them."--_izaak walton._ riches, though they may reward virtues, yet they cannot cause them; he is much more noble who deserves a benefit, than he who bestows one.--_owen feltham._ in these times gain is not only a matter of greed, but of ambition.--_joubert._ ~ridicule.~--some men are, in regard to ridicule, like tin-roofed buildings in regard to hail: all that hits them bounds rattling off, not a stone goes through.--_beecher._ ~rogues.~--rogues are always found out in some way. whoever is a wolf will act as a wolf; that is the most certain of all things.--_la fontaine._ many a man would have turned rogue if he knew how.--_hazlitt._ ~ruin.~--to be ruined your own way is some comfort. when so many people would ruin us, it is a triumph over the villany of the world to be ruined after one's own pattern.--_douglas jerrold._ s. ~sacrifice.~--you cannot win without sacrifice.--_charles buxton._ what you most repent of is a lasting sacrifice made under an impulse of good-nature. the good-nature goes, the sacrifice sticks.--_charles buxton._ ~sadness.~--take my word for it, the saddest thing under the sky is a soul incapable of sadness.--_countess de gasparin._ our sadness is not sad, but our cheap joys.--_thoreau._ ~salary.~--other rules vary; this is the only one you will find without exception: that in this world the salary or reward is always in the inverse ratio of the duties performed.--_sydney smith._ ~sarcasm.~--a true sarcasm is like a sword-stick--it appears, at first sight, to be much more innocent than it really is, till, all of a sudden, there leaps something out of it--sharp and deadly and incisive--which makes you tremble and recoil.--_sydney smith._ ~satire.~--to lash the vices of a guilty age.--_churchill._ thou shining supplement of public laws!--_young._ by satire kept in awe, shrink from ridicule, though not from law.--_byron._ when dunces are satiric i take it for a panegyric.--_swift._ ~scandal.~--believe that story false that ought not to be true.--_sheridan._ scandal has something so piquant, it is a sort of cayenne to the mind.--_byron._ ~school.~--more is learned in a public than in a private school from emulation: there is the collision of mind with mind, or the radiation of many minds pointing to one centre--_johnson._ let the soldier be abroad if he will; he can do nothing in this age. there is another personage abroad,--a person less imposing,--in the eyes of some, perhaps, insignificant. the schoolmaster is abroad; and i trust to him, armed with his primer, against the soldier in full military array.--_brougham._ the whining school-boy, with his satchel, and shining morning face, creeping like a snail, unwillingly to school.--_shakespeare._ ~science.~--they may say what they like; everything is organized matter. the tree is the first link of the chain, man is the last. men are young, the earth is old. vegetable and animal chemistry are still in their infancy. electricity, galvanism,--what discoveries in a few years!--_napoleon._ human science is uncertain guess.--_prior._ twin-sister of natural and revealed religion, and of heavenly birth, science will never belie her celestial origin, nor cease to sympathize with all that emanates from the same pure home. human ignorance and prejudice may for a time seem to have divorced what god has joined together; but human ignorance and prejudice shall at length pass away, and then science and religion shall be seen blending their parti-colored rays into one beautiful bow of light, linking heaven to earth and earth to heaven.--_prof. hitchcock._ science is a first rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground-floor. but if a man hasn't got plenty of good common sense, the more science he has the worse for his patient.--_holmes._ ~scriptures.~--the majesty of scripture strikes me with admiration, as the purity of the gospel has its influence on my heart. peruse the works of our philosophers; with all their pomp of diction, how mean, how contemptible, are they, compared with the scriptures! is it possible that a book at once so simple and sublime should be merely the work of man? the jewish authors were incapable of the diction, and strangers to the morality contained in the gospel, the marks of whose truths are so striking and inimitable that the inventor would be a more astonishing character than the hero.--_rousseau._ ~secrecy.~--thou hast betrayed thy secret as a bird betrays her nest, by striving to conceal it.--_longfellow._ never confide your secrets to paper: it is like throwing a stone in the air, and if you know who throws the stone, you do not know where it may fall.--_calderon._ people addicted to secrecy are so without knowing why; they are not so for cause, but for secrecy's sake.--_hazlitt._ ~sect.~--the effective strength of sects is not to be ascertained merely by counting heads.--_macaulay._ all sects are different, because they come from men; morality is everywhere the same, because it comes from god.--_voltaire._ fierce sectarianism breeds fierce latitudinarianism.--_de quincey._ ~self-abnegation.~--'tis much the doctrine of the times that men should not please themselves, but deny themselves everything they take delight in; not look upon beauty, wear no good clothes, eat no good meat, etc., which seems the greatest accusation that can be upon the maker of all good things. if they are not to be used why did god make them?--_selden._ self-abnegation, that rare virtue that good men preach and good women practice.--_holmes._ ~self-examination.~--we neither know nor judge ourselves,--others may judge, but cannot know us,--god alone judges, and knows too.--_wilkie collins._ it belongs to every large nature, when it is not under the immediate power of some strong unquestioning emotion, to suspect itself, and doubt the truth of its own impressions, conscious of possibilities beyond its own horizon.--_george eliot._ there are two persons in the world we never see as they are,--one's self and one's other self.--_arsène houssaye._ ~selfishness.~--our infinite obligations to god do not fill our hearts half as much as a petty uneasiness of our own; nor his infinite perfections as much as our smallest wants.--_hannah more._ it is astonishing how well men wear when they think of no one but themselves.--_bulwer-lytton._ our selfishness is so robust and many-clutching that, well encouraged, it easily devours all sustenance away from our poor little scruples.--_george eliot._ there is an ill-breeding to which, whatever our rank and nature, we are almost equally sensitive,--the ill-breeding that comes from want of consideration for others.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~self-love.~--that household god, a man's own self.--_flavel._ the greatest of all flatterers is self-love.--_rochefoucauld._ self-love exaggerates both our faults and our virtues.--_goethe._ whatever discoveries we may have made in the regions of self-love, there still remain many unknown lands.--_rochefoucauld._ selfishness, if but reasonably tempered with wisdom, is not such an evil trait.--_ruffini._ a prudent consideration for number one.--_bulwer-lytton._ oh, the incomparable contrivance of nature who has ordered all things in so even a method that wherever she has been less bountiful in her gifts, there she makes it up with a larger dose of self-love, which supplies the former deficits and makes all even.--_erasmus._ the most inhibited sin in the canon.--_shakespeare._ ofttimes nothing profits more than self-esteem, grounded on just and right.--_milton._ whose thoughts are centered on thyself alone.--_dryden._ ~self-reliance.~--the spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigor and strength. help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates. whatever is done _for_ men or classes, to a certain extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves; and where men are subjected to over-guidance and over-government, the inevitable tendency is to render them comparatively helpless.--_samuel smiles._ doubt whom you will, but never yourself.--_bovée._ a person under the firm persuasion that he can command resources virtually has them.--_livy._ the supreme fall of falls is this, the first doubt of one's self.--_countess de gasparin._ it's right to trust in god; but if you don't stand to your halliards, your craft'll miss stays, and your faith'll be blown out of the bolt-ropes in the turn of a marlinspike.--_george macdonald._ the best lightning-rod for your protection is your own spine.--_emerson._ ~sensibility.~--the wild-flower wreath of feeling, the sunbeam of the heart.--_halleck._ sensibility is the power of woman.--_lavater._ feeling loves a subdued light.--_madame swetchine._ ~sensitiveness.~--solomon's proverbs, i think, have omitted to say, that as a sore palate findeth grit, so an uneasy consciousness heareth innuendoes.--_george eliot._ that chastity of honor which felt a stain like a wound.--_burke._ ~sentiment.~--cure the drunkard, heal the insane, mollify the homicide, civilize the pawnee, but what lessons can be devised for the debaucher of sentiment?--_emerson._ ~separation.~--indifferent souls never part. impassioned souls part, and return to one another, because they can do no better.--_madame swetchine._ ~shakespeare.~--there is only one writer in whom i find something that reminds me of the directness of style which is found in the bible. it is shakespeare.--_heinrich heine._ far from fearing, as an inferior artist would have done, the juxtaposition of the familiar and the divine, the wildest and most fantastic comedy with the loftiest and gravest tragedy, shakespeare not only made such apparently discordant elements mutually heighten and complete the general effect which he contemplated, but in so doing teaches us that, in human life, the sublime and ridiculous are always side by side, and that the source of laughter is placed close by the fountain of tears.--_t. b. shaw._ shakespeare is a great psychologist, and whatever can be known of the heart of man may be found in his plays.--_goethe._ in shakespeare one sentence begets the next naturally; the meaning is all inwoven. he goes on kindling like a meteor through the dark atmosphere.--_coleridge._ no man is too busy to read shakespeare.--_charles buxton._ shakespeare's personages live and move as if they had just come from the hand of god, with a life that, though manifold, is one, and, though complex, is harmonious.--_mazzini._ sweetest shakespeare, fancy's child.--_milton._ and rival all but shakespeare's name below.--_campbell._ shakespeare is one of the best means of culture the world possesses. whoever is at home in his pages is at home everywhere.--_h. n. hudson._ his imperial muse tosses the creation like a bauble from hand to hand to embody any capricious thought that is uppermost in her mind. the remotest spaces of nature are visited, and the farthest sundered things are brought together by a subtle spiritual connection.--_emerson._ i think most readers of shakespeare sometimes find themselves thrown into exalted mental conditions like those produced by music.--_o. w. holmes._ whatever other learning he wanted he was master of two books unknown to many profound readers, though books which the last conflagration can alone destroy. i mean the book of nature and of man.--_young._ if ever shakespeare rants, it is not when his imagination is hurrying him along, but when he is hurrying his imagination along.--_macaulay._ it was said of euripides, that every verse was a precept; and it may be said of shakespeare, that from his works may be collected a system of civil and economical prudence.--_johnson._ the genius of shakespeare was an innate university.--_keats._ shame.--nature's hasty conscience.--_maria edgeworth._ mortifications are often more painful than real calamities.--_goldsmith._ ~ship.~--a prison with the chance of being drowned.--_johnson._ cradle of the rude imperious surge.--_shakespeare._ ~silence.~--the main reason why silence is so efficacious an element of repute is, first, because of that magnification which proverbially belongs to the unknown; and, secondly, because silence provokes no man's envy, and wounds no man's self-love.--_bulwer-lytton._ give thy thoughts no tongue.--_shakespeare._ true gladness doth not always speak; joy bred and born but in the tongue is weak.--_ben jonson._ i hear other men's imperfections, and conceal my own.--_zeno._ silence in times of suffering is the best.--_dryden._ silence! coeval with eternity.--_pope._ silence is the sanctuary of prudence.--_balthasar gracian._ the unspoken word never does harm.--_kossuth._ silence is the understanding of fools and one of the virtues of the wise.--_bonnard._ speech is often barren; but silence also does not necessarily brood over a full nest. your still fowl, blinking at you without remark, may all the while be sitting on one addled nest-egg; and when it takes to cackling, will have nothing to announce but that addled delusion.--_george eliot._ silence gives consent.--_goldsmith._ silence is the safest response for all the contradiction that arises from impertinence, vulgarity, or envy.--_zimmerman._ ~simplicity.~--simplicity is doubtless a fine thing, but it often appeals only to the simple. art is the only passion of true artists. palestrina's music resembles the music of rossini, as the song of the sparrow is like the cavatina of the nightingale. choose.--_madame de girardin._ simplicity is nature's first step, and the last of art.--_p. j. bailey._ the world could not exist if it were not simple. this ground has been tilled a thousand years, yet its powers remain ever the same; a little rain, a little sun, and each spring it grows green again.--_goethe._ the fairest lives, in my opinion, are those which regularly accommodate themselves to the common and human model, without miracle, without extravagance.--_montaigne._ there is a majesty in simplicity which is far above the quaintness of wit.--_pope._ ~sin.~--original sin is in us like the beard: we are shaved to-day, and look clean, and have a smooth chin; to-morrow our beard has grown again, nor does it cease growing while we remain on earth. in like manner original sin cannot be extirpated from us; it springs up in us as long as we exist; nevertheless, we are bound to resist it to our utmost strength, and to cut it down unceasingly.--_luther._ sin, in fancy, mothers many an ugly fact.--_theodore parker._ there is no immunity from the consequences of sin; punishment is swift and sure to one and all.--_hosea ballou._ every man has his devilish minutes.--_lavater._ death from sin no power can separate.--_milton._ our sins, like to our shadows, when our day is in its glory, scarce appeared. towards our evening how great and monstrous they are!--_sir j. suckling._ 'tis the will that makes the action good or ill.--_herrick._ guilt, though it may attain temporal splendor, can never confer real happiness. the evident consequences of our crimes long survive their commission, and, like the ghosts of the murdered, forever haunt the steps of the malefactor.--_sir walter scott._ some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.--_shakespeare._ sin is disease, deformity, and weakness.--_plato._ sin and her shadow death.--_milton._ if ye do well, to your own behoof will ye do it; and if ye do evil, against yourselves will ye do it.--_koran._ it is the sin which we have not committed which seems the most monstrous.--_boileau._ there are sins of omission as well as those of commission.--_madame deluzy._ ~sincerity.~--sincerity is to speak as we think, to do as we pretend and profess, to perform and make good what we promise, and really to be what we would seem and appear to be.--_tillotson._ the whole faculties of man must be exerted in order to call forth noble energies; and he who is not earnestly sincere lives in but half his being, self-mutilated, self-paralyzed.--_coleridge._ ~skepticism.~--skepticism is slow suicide.--_emerson._ ~skill.~--nobody, however able, can gain the very highest success, except in one line. he may rise above others, but he will fall below himself.--_charles buxton._ whatever may be said about luck, it is skill that leads to fortune.--_walter scott._ the winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.--_gibbon._ ~slander.~--done to death by slanderous tongues.--_shakespeare._ slugs crawl and crawl over our cabbages, like the world's slander over a good name. you may kill them, it is true, but there is the slime.--_douglas jerrold._ slander lives upon succession, forever housed where it gets possession.--_shakespeare._ when the absent are spoken of, some will speak gold of them, some silver, some iron, some lead, and some always speak dirt, for they have a natural attraction towards what is evil, and think it shows penetration in them. as a cat watching for mice does not look up though an elephant goes by, so are they so busy mousing for defects, that they let great excellences pass them unnoticed. i will not say it is not christian to make beads of others' faults, and tell them over every day; i say it is infernal. if you want to know how the devil feels, you do know if you are such an one.--_beecher._ if parliament were to consider the sporting with reputation of as much importance as sporting on manors, and pass an act for the preservation of fame as well as game, there are many would thank them for the bill.--_sheridan._ ~sleep.~--when one asked alexander how he could sleep so soundly and securely in the midst of danger, he told them that _parmenio_ watched. oh, how securely may they sleep over whom he watches that never slumbers nor sleeps! "i will," said david, "lay me down and sleep, for thou, lord, makest me to dwell in safety."--_venning._ after life's fitful fever he sleeps well.--_shakespeare._ sleep is no servant of the will; it has caprices of its own; when courted most, it lingers still; when most pursued, 'tis swiftly gone.--_bowring._ yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep.--_bible._ heaven trims our lamps while we sleep.--_alcott._ night's sepulchre.--_byron._ sleep is pain's easiest salve, and doth fulfill all offices of death, except to kill.--_donne._ sleep, to the homeless thou art home; the friendless find in thee a friend.--_ebenezer elliott._ the soul shares not the body's rest.--_maturin._ our foster nurse of nature is repose.--_shakespeare._ ~sloth.~--sloth, if it has prevented many crimes, has also smothered many virtues.--_colton._ ~smile.~--a woman has two smiles that an angel might envy--the smile that accepts a lover afore words are uttered, and the smile that lights on the first-born baby.--_haliburton._ smiles are smiles only when the heart pulls the wire.--_winthrop._ those happiest smiles that played on her ripe lips seemed not to know what guests were in her eyes, which parted thence as pearls from diamonds dropped.--_shakespeare._ the smile that was childlike and bland.--_bret harte._ a soul only needs to see a smile in a white crape bonnet in order to enter the palace of dreams.--_victor hugo._ ~sneer.~--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 neighbors. the severest critics are always those who have either never attempted, or who have failed in original composition.--_hazlitt._ ~society.~--if you wish to appear agreeable in society, you must consent to be taught many things which you know already.--_lavater._ formed of two mighty tribes, the bores and bored.--_byron._ society undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this change is not amelioration. for everything that is given something is taken. society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts. the civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet; he has a fine geneva watch, but cannot tell the hour by the sun.--_emerson._ we take our colors, chameleon-like, from each other.--_chamfort._ society is the union of men, and not men themselves; the citizen may perish, and yet man may remain.--_montesquieu._ there are four varieties in society; the lovers, the ambitious, observers, and fools. the fools are the happiest.--_taine._ society is the offspring of leisure; and to acquire this forms the only rational motive for accumulating wealth, notwithstanding the cant that prevails on the subject of labor.--_tuckerman._ intercourse is the soul of progress.--_charles buxton._ one ought to love society if he wishes to enjoy solitude. it is a social nature that solitude works upon with the most various power. if one is misanthropic, and betakes himself to loneliness that he may get away from hateful things, solitude is a silent emptiness to him.--_zimmermann._ the most lucrative commerce has ever been that of hope, pleasure, and happiness, the merchandise of authors, priests, and kings.--_madame roland._ the more i see of men the better i think of animals.--_tauler._ ~soldier.~--a soldier seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannon's mouth.--_shakespeare._ policy goes beyond strength, and contrivance before action; hence it is that direction is left to the commander, execution to the soldier, who is not to ask why? but to do what he is commanded.--_xenophon._ without a home must the soldier go, a changeful wanderer, and can warm himself at no home-lit hearth.--_schiller._ soldiers looked at as they ought to be: they are to the world as poppies to corn fields.--_douglas jerrold._ ~solitude.~--solitude is dangerous to reason without being favorable to virtue. pleasures of some sort are necessary to the intellectual as to the corporal health, and those who resist gayety will be likely for the most part to fall a sacrifice to appetite, for the solicitations of sense are always at hand, and a dram to a vacant and solitary person is a speedy and seducing relief. remember that the solitary person is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad. the mind stagnates for want of employment, and is extinguished, like a candle in foul air.--_johnson._ to be exempt from the passions with which others are tormented, is the only pleasing solitude.--_addison._ conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius.--_gibbon._ solitude has but one disadvantage; it is apt to give one too high an opinion of one's self. in the world we are sure to be often reminded of every known or supposed defect we may have.--_byron._ through the wide world he only is alone who lives not for another.--_rogers._ solitude is the worst of all companions when we seek comfort and oblivion.--_méry._ ~sophistry.~--the juggle of sophistry consists, for the most part, in using a word in one sense in all the premises, and in another sense in the conclusion.--_coleridge._ there is no error which hath not some appearance of probability resembling truth, which, when men who study to be singular find out, straining reason, they then publish to the world matter of contention and jangling.--_sir w. raleigh._ ~sorrow.~--our sweetest songs are those which tell of saddest thought.--_shelley._ if hearty sorrow be a sufficient ransom for offence, i tender it here; i do as truly suffer as e'er i did commit.--_shakespeare._ and weep the more, because i weep in vain.--_gray._ the man who has learned to triumph over sorrow wears his miseries as though they were sacred fillets upon his brow, and nothing is so entirely admirable as a man bravely wretched.--_seneca._ sorrow more beautiful than beauty's self.--_keats._ the violence of sorrow is not at the first to be striven withal; being, like a mighty beast, sooner tamed with following than overthrown by withstanding.--_sir p. sidney._ never morning wore to evening, but some heart did break.--_tennyson._ sorrow being the natural and direct offspring of sin, that which first brought sin into the world must, by necessary consequence, bring in sorrow too.--_south._ in extent sorrow is boundless. it pours from ten million sources, and floods the world. but its depth is small. it drowns few.--_charles buxton._ it is the veiled angel of sorrow who plucks away one thing and another that bound us here in ease and security, and, in the vanishing of these dear objects, indicates the true home of our affections and our peace.--_chapin._ the mind profits by the wreck of every passion, and we may measure our road to wisdom by the sorrows we have undergone.--_bulwer-lytton._ earth hath no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.--_moore._ sorrow breaks seasons, and reposing hours; makes the night morning, and the noontide night.--_shakespeare._ sorrow is not evil, since it stimulates and purifies.--_mazzini._ sorrows must die with the joys they outnumber.--_schiller._ he that hath so many causes of joy, and so great, is very much in love with sorrow and peevishness, who loses all these pleasures, and chooses to sit down on his little handful of thorns. such a person is fit to bear nero company in his funeral sorrow for the loss of one of poppea's hairs, or help to mourn for lesbia's sparrow; and because he loves it, he deserves to starve in the midst of plenty, and to want comfort while he is encircled with blessings.--_jeremy taylor._ ~soul.~--had i no other proof of the immortality of the soul than the oppression of the just and the triumph of the wicked in this world, this alone would prevent my having the least doubt of it. so shocking a discord amidst a general harmony of things would make me naturally look for a cause; i should say to myself we do not cease to exist with this life; everything reassumes its order after death.--_rousseau._ what is mind? no matter. what is matter? never mind. what is the soul? it is immaterial.--_hood._ the human soul is hospitable, and will entertain conflicting sentiments and contradictory opinions with much impartiality.--_george eliot._ our immortal souls, while righteous, are by god himself beautified with the title of his own image and similitude.--_sir w. raleigh._ ~specialty.~--no one can exist in society without some specialty. eighty years ago it was only necessary to be well dressed and amiable; to-day a man of this kind would be too much like the garçons at the cafés.--_taine._ ~speech.~--sheridan once said of some speech, in his acute, sarcastic way, that "it contained a great deal both of what was new and what was true: but that unfortunately what was new was not true, and what was true was not new."--_hazlitt._ god has given us speech in order that we may say pleasant things to our friends, and tell bitter truths to our enemies.--_heinrich heine._ the common fluency of speech in many men, and most women, is owing to a scarcity of matter and a scarcity of words; for whoever is a master of language and has a mind full of ideas, will be apt in speaking to hesitate upon the choice of both; whereas common speakers have only one set of ideas, and one set of words to clothe them in; and these are always ready at the mouth: so people come faster out of a church when it is almost empty, than when a crowd is at the door.--_dean swift._ speech is like cloth of arras, opened and put abroad, whereby the imagery doth appear in figure; whereas in thoughts they lie but as in packs.--_plutarch._ never is the deep, strong voice of man, or the low, sweet voice of woman, finer than in the earnest but mellow tones of familiar speech, richer than the richest music, which are a delight while they are heard, which linger still upon the ear in softened echoes, and which, when they have ceased, come, long after, back to memory, like the murmurs of a distant hymn.--_henry giles._ half the sorrows of women would be averted if they could repress the speech they know to be useless--nay, the speech they have resolved not to utter.--_george eliot._ ~sport.~--dwell not too long upon sports; for as they refresh a man that is weary, so they weary a man that is refreshed.--_fuller._ ~spring.~--stately spring! whose robe-folds are valleys, whose breast-bouquet is gardens, and whose blush is a vernal evening.--_richter._ fair-handed spring unbosoms every grace.--_thomson._ the spring, the summer, the chiding autumn, angry winter, change their wonted liveries.--_shakespeare._ sweet daughter of a rough and stormy sire, hoar winter's blooming child, delightful spring.--_mrs. barbauld._ ye may trace my step o'er the wakening earth, by the winds which tell of the violet's birth.--_mrs. hemans._ ~stars.~--these preachers of beauty, which light the world with their admonishing smile.--_emerson._ i am as constant as the northern star; of whose true, fixed, and resting quality there is no fellow in the firmament.--_shakespeare._ the stars are so far,--far away!--_l. e. landon._ day hath put on his jacket, and around his burning bosom buttoned it with stars.--_holmes._ the evening star, love's harbinger, appeared.--_milton._ ~statesman.~--the great difference between the real statesman and the pretender is, that the one sees into the future, while the other regards only the present; the one lives by the day, and acts on expediency; the other acts on enduring principles and for immortality.--_burke._ the worth of a state, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it.--_j. stuart mill._ ~storms.~--when splitting winds make flexible the knees of knotted oaks.--_shakespeare._ ~strength.~--oh! it is excellent to have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.--_shakespeare._ ~study.~--histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtile; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.--_bacon._ whatever study tends neither directly nor indirectly to make us better men and citizens is at best but a specious and ingenious sort of idleness, and the knowledge we acquire by it only a creditable kind of ignorance, nothing more.--_bolingbroke._ there is no one study that is not capable of delighting us after a little application to it.--_pope._ they are not the best students who are most dependent on books. what can be got out of them is at best only material: a man must build his house for himself.--_george macdonald._ the man who has acquired the habit of study, though for only one hour every day in the year, and keeps to the one thing studied till it is mastered, will be startled to see the way he has made at the end of a twelvemonth.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~style.~--the style is the man.--_buffon._ as it is a great point of art, when our matter requires it, to enlarge and veer out all sail, so to take it in and contract it is of no less praise when the argument doth ask it.--_ben jonson._ not poetry, but prose run mad.--_pope._ there is a certain majesty in plainness; as the proclamation of a prince never frisks it in tropes or fine conceits, in numerous and well-turned periods, but commands in sober natural expressions.--_south._ in the present day our literary masonry is well done, but our architecture is poor.--_joubert._ perhaps that is nearly the perfection of good writing which is original, but whose truth alone prevents the reader from suspecting that it is so; and which effects that for knowledge which the lense effects for the sunbeam, when it condenses its brightness in order to increase its force.--_colton._ a temperate style is alone classical.--_joubert._ obscurity and affectation are the two great faults of style. obscurity of expression generally springs from confusion of ideas; and the same wish to dazzle, at any cost, which produces affectation in the manner of a writer, is likely to produce sophistry in his reasoning.--_macaulay._ style is the gossamer on which the seeds of truth float through the world.--_bancroft._ the lively phraseology of montesquieu was the result of long meditation. his words, as light as wings, bear on them grave reflections.--_joubert._ ~subordination.~--the usual way that men adopt to appease the wrath of those whom they have offended, when they are at their mercy, is humble submission; whereas a bold front, a firm and resolute bearing,--means the very opposite,--have been at times equally successful.--_montaigne._ reverences stand in awe of yourself.--_sydney smith._ he who reigns within himself, and rules passions, desires, and fears, is more than a king.--_milton._ ~success.~--it is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much oftener succeed through failure.--_samuel smiles._ from mere success nothing can be concluded in favor of any nation upon whom it is bestowed.--_atterbury._ he that would relish success to purpose should keep his passion cool, and his expectation low.--_jeremy collier._ the road to success is not to be run upon by seven-leagued boots. step by step, little by little, bit by bit,--that is the way to wealth, that is the way to wisdom, that is the way to glory. pounds are the sons, not of pounds, but of pence.--_charles buxton._ the talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well; and doing well whatever you do, without a thought of fame.--_longfellow._ nothing can seem foul to those that win.--_shakespeare._ all the proud virtue of this vaunting world fawns on success and power, however acquired.--_thomson._ a successful career has been full of blunders.--_charles buxton._ the man who succeeds above his fellows is the one who, early in life, clearly discerns his object, and towards that object habitually directs his powers. thus, indeed, even genius itself is but fine observation strengthened by fixity of purpose. every man who observes vigilantly and resolves steadfastly grows unconsciously into genius.--_bulwer-lytton._ success soon palls. the joyous time is when the breeze first strikes your sails, and the waters rustle under your bows.--_charles buxton._ success at first doth many times undo men at last.--_venning._ ~suicide.~--suicide itself, that fearful abuse of the dominion of the soul over the body, is a strong proof of the distinction of their destinies. can the power that kills be the same that is killed? must it not necessarily be something superior and surviving? the act of the soul, which in that fatal instant is in one sense so great an act of power, can it at the same time be the act of its own annihilation? the will kills the body, but who kills the will?--_auguste_ _nicolas._ those men who destroy a healthful constitution of body by intemperance as manifestly kill themselves as those who hang, or poison, or drown themselves.--_sherlock._ he who, superior to the checks of nature, dares make his life the victim of his reason, does in some sort that reason deify, and takes a flight at heaven.--_young._ ~summer.~--child of the sun, refulgent summer comes.--_thomson._ beneath the winter's snow lie germs of summer flowers.--_whittier._ ~sun.~--the glorious sun stays in his course, and plays the alchemist, turning with the splendor of his precious eyes the meagre, cloddy earth to glittering gold.--_shakespeare._ the downward sun looks out effulgent from amid the flash of broken clouds.--_thomson._ ~sunday.~--if the sunday had not been observed as a day of rest during the last three centuries, i have not the slightest doubt that we should have been at this moment a poorer people and less civilized.--_macaulay._ oh, what a blessing is sunday, interposed between the waves of worldly business like the divine path of the israelites through jordan! there is nothing in which i would advise you to be more strictly conscientious than in keeping the sabbath-day holy. i can truly declare that to me the sabbath has been invaluable.--_w. wilberforce._ ~superstition.~--a peasant can no more help believing in a traditional superstition than a horse can help trembling when he sees a camel.--_george eliot._ religion worships god, while superstition profanes that worship.--_seneca._ every inordination of religion that is not in defect is properly called superstition.--_jeremy taylor._ the child taught to believe any occurrence a good or evil omen, or any day of the week lucky, hath a wide inroad made upon the soundness of his understanding.--_watts._ superstition is the only religion of which base souls are capable.--_joubert._ it is of such stuff that superstitions are commonly made; an intense feeling about ourselves which makes the evening star shine at us with a threat, and the blessing of a beggar encourage us. and superstitions carry consequences which often verify their hope or their foreboding.--_george eliot._ we are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. you cannot educate a man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were implanted in his imagination, no matter how utterly his reason may reject them.--_holmes._ ~surety.~--he who is surety is never sure. take advice, and never be security for more than you are quite willing to lose. remember the words of the wise man. "he that is surety for a stranger shall smart for it; and he that hateth suretyship is sure."--_spurgeon._ ~surfeit.~--they are sick, that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing.--_shakespeare._ satiety comes of riches, and contumaciousness of satiety.--_solon._ ~suspicion.~--to be suspicious is to invite treachery.--_voltaire._ there is no rule more invariable than that we are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspect.--_thoreau._ suspicion has its dupes, as well as credulity.--_madame swetchine._ don't seem to be on the lookout for crows, else you'll set other people watching.--_george eliot._ ~sympathy.~--surely, surely, the only true knowledge of our fellow-man is that which enables us to feel with him--which gives us a fine ear for the heart-pulses that are beating under the mere clothes of circumstance and opinion.--_george eliot._ next to love, sympathy is the divinest passion of the human heart.--_burke._ outward things don't give, they draw out. you find in them what you bring to them. a cathedral makes only the devotional feel devotional. scenery refines only the fine-minded.--_charles buxton._ of all the virtues necessary to the completion of the perfect man, there is none to be more delicately implied and less ostentatiously vaunted than that of exquisite feeling or universal benevolence.--_bulwer-lytton._ i would go fifty miles on foot to kiss the hand of that man whose generous heart will give up the reins of his imagination into his author's hands; be pleased, he knows not why, and cares not wherefore.--_sterne._ t. ~tact.~--a tact which surpassed the tact of her sex as much as the tact of her sex surpasses the tact of ours.--_macaulay._ ~talent.~--it is adverse to talent to be consorted and trained up with inferior minds or inferior companions, however high they may rank. the foal of the racer neither finds out his speed, nor calls out his powers, if pastured out with the common herd that are destined for the collar and the yoke.--_colton._ whatever you are from nature, keep to it; never desert your own line of talent. be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed; be anything else, and you will be ten thousand times worse than nothing!--_sydney smith._ gross and vulgar minds will always pay a higher respect to wealth than to talent; for wealth, although it be a far less efficient source of power than talent, happens to be far more intelligible.--_colton._ as to great and commanding talents, they are the gift of providence in some way unknown to us. they rise where they are least expected. they fail when everything seems disposed to produce them, or at least to call them forth.--_burke._ talent is the capacity of doing anything that depends on application and industry, and it is a voluntary power, while genius is involuntary.--_hazlitt._ talent, lying in the understanding, is often inherited; genius, being the action of reason or imagination, rarely or never.--_coleridge._ it always seemed to me a sort of clever stupidity only to have one sort of talent,--almost like a carrier-pigeon.--_george eliot._ ~talking.~--i know a lady that loves talking so incessantly, she won't give an echo fair play; she has that everlasting rotation of tongue, that an echo must wait till she dies, before it can catch her last words!--_congreve._ talkers are no good doers.--_shakespeare._ when i think of talking, it is of course with a woman. for talking at its best being an inspiration, it wants a corresponding divine quality of receptiveness, and where will you find this but in woman?--_holmes._ who think too little and who talk too much.--_dryden._ they talk most who have the least to say.--_prior._ ~taste.~--taste is the power of relishing or rejecting whatever is offered for the entertainment of the imagination.--_goldsmith._ there are some readers who have never read an essay on taste; and if they take my advice they never will; for they can no more improve their taste by so doing than they could improve their appetite or digestion by studying a cookery-book.--_southey._ those internal powers, active and strong, and feelingly alive to each fine impulse.--_akenside._ all our tastes are but reminiscences.--_lamartine._ ~teaching.~--count it one of the highest virtues upon earth to educate faithfully the children of others, which so few, and scarcely any, do by their own.--_luther._ the best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~tears.~--the overflow of a softened heart.--_madame swetchine._ weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.--_bible._ in woman's eye the unanswerable tear.--_byron._ blest tears of soul-felt penitence.--_moore._ god washes the eyes by tears until they can behold the invisible land where tears shall come no more. o love! o affliction! ye are the guides that show us the way through the great airy space where our loved ones walked; and, as hounds easily follow the scent before the dew be risen, so god teaches us, while yet our sorrow is wet, to follow on and find our dear ones in heaven.--_beecher._ the kind oblation of a falling tear.--_dryden._ a penitent's tear is an undeniable ambassador, and never returns from the throne of grace unsatisfied.--_spencer._ fate and the dooming gods are deaf to tears.--_dryden._ we praise the dramatic poet who possesses the art of drawing tears, a power which he has in common with the meanest onion.--_heinrich heine._ her tears her only eloquence.--_rogers._ eye-offending brine.--_shakespeare._ the tears which flow, and the honors that are paid, when the founders of the republic die, give hope that the republic itself may be immortal.--_daniel webster._ all my mother came into mine eyes, and gave me up to tears.--_shakespeare._ the tear that is wiped with a little address may be followed, perhaps, by a smile.--_cowper._ virtue is the daughter of religion. her sole treasure is her tears.--_madame swetchine._ nothing dries sooner than a tear.--_george herbert._ my plenteous joys, wanton in fullness, seek to hide themselves in drops of sorrow.--_shakespeare._ bright as young diamonds in their infant dew.--_dryden._ tears are sometimes the happiest smiles of love.--_stendhal._ ~tediousness.~--the sin of excessive length.--_shirley._ life is as tedious as a twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.--_shakespeare._ ~teeth.~--teeth like falling snow for white.--~cowley.~ such a pearly row of teeth that sovereignty would have pawned her jewels for them.--_sterne._ ~temperance.~--temperance puts wood on the fire, meal in the barrel, flour in the tub, money in the purse, credit in the country, contentment in the house, clothes on the back, and vigor in the body.--_franklin._ i consider the temperance cause the foundation of all social and political reform.--_cobden._ if temperance prevails, then education can prevail; if temperance fails, then education must fail.--_horace mann._ temperance to be a virtue must be free and not forced. virtue may be defended, as vice may be withstood, by a statute, but no virtue is or can be created by a law, any more than by a battering ram a temple or obelisk can be reared.--_bartol._ if you wish to keep the mind clear and the body healthy, abstain from all fermented liquors.--_sydney smith._ use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.--_voltaire._ he who would keep himself to himself should imitate the dumb animals, and drink water.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~temptation.~--no man is matriculated to the art of life till he has been well tempted.--~george eliot.~ temptation is a fearful word. it indicates the beginning of a possible series of infinite evils. it is the ringing of an alarm bell, whose melancholy sounds may reverberate through eternity. like the sudden, sharp cry of "fire!" under our windows by night, it should rouse us to instantaneous action, and brace every muscle to its highest tension.--_horace mann._ most confidence has still most cause to doubt.--_dryden._ it is a most fearful fact to think of, that in every heart there is some secret spring that would be weak at the touch of temptation, and that is liable to be assailed. fearful, and yet salutary to think of, for the thought may serve to keep our moral nature braced. it warns us that we can never stand at ease, or lie down in the field of life, without sentinels of watchfulness and camp-fires of prayer.--_chapin._ love cries victory when the tears of a woman become the sole defense of her virtue.--_la fontaine._ when devils will their blackest sins put on, they do suggest at first with heavenly shows.--_shakespeare._ the devil tempts us not: it is we tempt him, beckoning his skill with opportunity.--_george eliot._ better shun the bait than struggle in the snare.--_dryden._ there are times when it would seem as if god fished with a line, and the devil with a net.--_madame swetchine._ ~tenderness.~--when death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.--_george eliot._ ~theatre.~--a man who enters the theatre is immediately struck with the view of so great a multitude, participating of one common amusement; and experiences, from their very aspect, a superior sensibility or disposition of being affected with every sentiment which he shares with his fellow-creatures.--_hume._ the theatre has often been at variance with the pulpit; they ought not to quarrel. how much it is to be wished that the celebration of nature and of god were intrusted to none but men of noble minds!--_goethe._ ~theories.~--most men take least notice of what is plain, as if that were of no use; but puzzle their thoughts, and lose themselves in those vast depths and abysses which no human understanding can fathom.--_sherlock._ metaphysicians can unsettle things, but they can erect nothing. they can pull down a church, but they cannot build a hovel.--_cecil._ ~thought.~--i have asked several men what passes in their minds when they are thinking, and i could never find any man who could think for two minutes together. everybody has seemed to admit that it was a perpetual deviation from a particular path, and a perpetual return to it; which, imperfect as the operation is, is the only method in which we can operate with our minds to carry on any process of thought.--_sydney smith._ a delicate thought is a flower of the mind.--_rollin._ earnest men never think in vain though their thoughts may be errors.--_bulwer-lytton._ though an inheritance of acres may be bequeathed, an inheritance of knowledge and wisdom cannot. the wealthy man may pay others for doing his work for him, but it is impossible to get his thinking done for him by another, or to purchase any kind of self-culture.--_samuel smiles._ thoughts shut up want air, and spoil like bales unopened to the sun.--_young._ good thoughts are blessed guests, and should be heartily welcomed, well fed, and much sought after. like rose leaves, they give out a sweet smell if laid up in the jar of memory.--_spurgeon._ thought is invisible nature--nature is invisible thought.--_heinrich heine._ ingenious philosophers tell you, perhaps, that the great work of the steam-engine is to create leisure for mankind. do not believe them, it only creates a vacuum for eager thought to rush in.--_george eliot._ wherever a great mind utters its thoughts,--there is golgotha.--_heinrich heine._ "give me," said herder to his son, as he lay in the parched weariness of his last illness, "give me a great thought, that i may quicken myself with it."--_richter._ you shall see them on a beautiful quarto page, where a neat rivulet of text shall meander through a meadow of margin.--_sheridan._ fully to understand a grand and beautiful thought requires, perhaps, as much time as to conceive it.--_joubert._ many men's thoughts are not acorns, but merely pebbles.--_charles buxton._ a vivid thought brings the power to paint it; and in proportion to the depth of its source is the force of its projection.--_emerson._ ~threats.~--those that are the loudest in their threats are the weakest in the execution of them.--_colton._ it makes a great difference in the force of a sentence whether a man be behind it or no.--_emerson._ ~time.~--time's abyss, the common grave of all.--_dryden._ come what come may, time and the hour run through the roughest day.--_shakespeare._ time makes more converts than reason.--_thomas paine._ time stoops to no man's lure.--_swinburne._ time is the wisest councillor.--_pericles._ time is a wave which never murmurs, because there is no obstacle to its flow.--_madame swetchine._ time hath often cured the wound which reason failed to heal.--_seneca._ the slow sweet hours that bring us all things good.--_tennyson._ part with it as with money, sparing; pay no moment but in purchase of its worth; and what its worth! ask death-beds, they can tell.--_young._ the crutch of time accomplishes more than the club of hercules.--_balthaser gracian._ time is the shower of danæ; each drop is golden.--_madame swetchine._ ~title.~--how impious is the title of "sacred majesty" applied to a worm, who, in the midst of his splendor, is crumbling into dust!--_thomas paine._ the three highest titles that can be given a man are those of martyr, hero, saint.--_gladstone._ ~toleration.~--the responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision.--_george eliot._ error tolerates, truth condemns.--_fernan caballero._ toleration is the best religion.--_victor hugo._ ~tongue~.--when we advance a little into life, we find that the tongue of man creates nearly all the mischief of the world.--_paxton hood._ ~travel.~--rather see the wonders of the world abroad, than, living dully sluggardized at home wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness.--_shakespeare._ of dead kingdoms i recall the soul, sitting amid their ruins.--_n. p. willis._ the use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and, instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.--_johnson._ to see the world is to judge the judges.--_joubert._ the bee, though it finds every rose has a thorn, comes back loaded with honey from his rambles, and why should not other tourists do the same.--_haliburton._ ~treason.~--treason pleases, but not the traitor.--_cervantes._ the man was noble; but with his last attempt he wiped it out; betrayed his country; and his name remains to the ensuing age abhorred.--_shakespeare._ ~trifles.~--a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles.--_shakespeare._ we are not only pleased but turned by a feather. the history of a man is a calendar of straws. if the nose of cleopatra had been shorter, said pascal, in his brilliant way, antony might have kept the world.--_willmott._ a drop of water is as powerful as a thunderbolt.--_huxley._ riches may enable us to confer favors; but to confer them with propriety and with grace requires a something that riches cannot give: even trifles may be so bestowed as to cease to be trifles. the citizens of megara offered the freedom of their city to alexander; such an offer excited a smile in the countenance of him who had conquered the world; but he received this tribute of their respect with complacency on being informed that they had never offered it to any but to hercules and himself.--_colton._ there is a kind of latent omniscience not only in every man but in every particle.--_emerson._ it is in those acts called trivialities that the seeds of joy are forever wasted, until men and women look round with haggard faces at the devastation their own waste has made, and say, the earth bears no harvest of sweetness--calling their denial knowledge.--_george eliot._ the chains which cramp us most are those which weigh on us least.--_madame swetchine._ little things console us, because little things afflict us.--_pascal._ ~trouble.~--annoyance is man's leaven; the element of movement, without which we would grow mouldy.--_feuchtersleben._ ~truth.~--veracity is a plant of paradise, and the seeds have never flourished beyond the walls.--_george eliot._ nothing so beautiful as truth.--_des cartes._ all high truth is poetry. take the results of science: they glow with beauty, cold and hard as are the methods of reaching them.--_charles buxton._ truth never turns to rebuke falsehood; her own straightforwardness is the severest correction.--_thoreau._ whenever you look at human nature in masses, you find every truth met by a counter truth, and both equally true.--_charles buxton._ truth need not always be embodied; enough if it hovers around like a spiritual essence, which gives one peace, and fills the atmosphere with a solemn sweetness like harmonious music of bells.--_goethe._ dare to be true; nothing can need a lie.--_george herbert._ we must never throw away a bushel of truth because it happens to contain a few grains of chaff; on the contrary, we may sometimes profitably receive a bushel of chaff for the few grains of truth it may contain.--_dean stanley._ the first great work is that yourself may to yourself be true.--_roscommon._ in troubled water you can scarce see your face, or see it very little, till the water be quiet and stand still: so in troubled times you can see little truth; when times are quiet and settled, then truth appears.--_selden._ men are as cold as ice to the truth, hot as fire to falsehood.--_la fontaine._ the way of truth is like a great road. it is not difficult to know it. the evil is only that men will not seek it. do you go home and search for it.--_mencius._ speaking truth is like writing fair, and comes only by practice; it is less a matter of will than of habit; and i doubt if any occasion can be trivial which permits the practice and formation of such a habit.--_ruskin._ forgetting that the only eternal part for man to act is man, and that the only immutable greatness is truth.--_lamartine._ truth takes the stamp of the souls it enters. it is rigorous and rough in arid souls, but tempers and softens itself in loving natures.--_joubert._ truth severe, by fairy fiction drest.--_gray._ the only amaranthine flower on earth is virtue; the only lasting treasure, truth.--_cowper._ blunt truths make more mischief than nice falsehoods do.--_pope._ truth has rough flavors if we bite through.--_george eliot._ truth is a torch, but one of enormous size; so that we slink past it in rather a blinking fashion for fear it should burn us.--_goethe._ all truths are not to be repeated, still it is well to hear them.--_mme. du deffaud._ it is only when one is thoroughly true that there can be purity and freedom. falsehood always avenges itself.--_auerbach._ nothing from man's hands, nor law, nor constitution, can be final. truth alone is final.--_charles sumner._ verity is nudity.--_alfred de musset._ ~twilight.~--parting day dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues with a new color as it gasps away, the last still loveliest, till 'tis gone, and all is gray.--_byron._ softly the evening came. the sun from the western horizon, like a magician, extended his golden wand o'er the landscape.--_longfellow._ twilight gray hath in her sober livery all things clad.--_milton._ the day is done; and slowly from the scene the stooping sun upgathers his spent shafts, and puts them back into his golden quiver!--_longfellow._ the weary sun hath made a golden set, and, by the bright track of his fiery car, gives token of a goodly day to-morrow.--_shakespeare._ u. ~ugliness.~--i do not know that she was virtuous; but she was always ugly, and with a woman, that is half the battle.--_heinrich heine._ ugliness, after virtue, is the best guardian of a young woman.--_mme. de genlis._ ~understanding.~--the eye of the understanding is like the eye of the sense; for as you may see great objects through small crannies or holes, so you may see great axioms of nature through small and contemptible instances.--_bacon._ in its wider acceptation, understanding is the entire power of perceiving and conceiving, exclusive of the sensibility; the power of dealing with the impressions of sense, and composing them into wholes, according to a law of unity: and in its most comprehensive meaning it includes even simple apprehension.--_coleridge._ ~unselfishness.~--the essence of true nobility is neglect of self. let the thought of self pass in, and the beauty of great action is gone, like the bloom from a soiled flower.--_froude._ ~uprightness.~--to redeem a world sunk in dishonesty has not been given thee. solely over one man therein thou hast quite absolute control. him redeem, him make honest.--_thomas carlyle._ ~urbanity.~--poor wine at the table of a rich host is an insult without an apology. urbanity ushers in water that needs no apology, and gives a zest to the worst vintage.--_zimmermann._ ~usefulness.~--nothing in this world is so good as usefulness. it binds your fellow-creatures to you, and you to them; it tends to the improvement of your own character; and it gives you a real importance in society, much beyond what any artificial station can bestow.--_sir b. c. brodie._ on the day of his death, in his eightieth year, elliott, "the apostle of the indians," was found teaching an indian child at his bed-side. "why not rest from your labors now?" asked a friend. "because," replied the venerable man, "i have prayed god to render me useful in my sphere, and he has heard my prayers; for now that i can no longer preach, he leaves me strength enough to teach this poor child the alphabet."--_rev. j. chaplin._ there is but one virtue--the eternal sacrifice of self.--_george sand._ v. ~valentine.~--hail to thy returning festival, old bishop valentine! great is thy name in the rubric. like unto thee, assuredly, there is no other mitred father in the calendar.--_charles lamb._ the fourteenth of february is a day sacred to st. valentine! it was a very odd notion, alluded to by shakespeare, that on this day birds begin to couple; hence, perhaps, arose the custom of sending on this day letters containing professions of love and affection.--_noah webster._ ~valor.~--valor gives awe, and promises protection to those who want heart or strength to defend themselves. this makes the authority of men among women, and that of a master buck in a numerous herd.--_sir w. temple._ how strangely high endeavors may be blessed, where piety and valor jointly go.--_dryden._ those who believe that the praises which arise from valor are superior to those which proceed from any other virtues have not considered.--_dryden._ ~vanity.~--verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity.--_bible._ our vanities differ as our noses do: all conceit is not the same conceit, but varies in correspondence with the minutiæ of mental make in which one of us differs from another.--_george eliot._ one of the few things i have always most wondered at is, that there should be any such thing as human vanity. if i had any, i had enough to mortify it a few days ago; for i lost my mind for a whole day.--_pope._ greater mischiefs happen often from folly, meanness, and vanity than from the greater sins of avarice and ambition.--_burke._ it is vanity which makes the rake at twenty, the worldly man at forty, and the retired man at sixty. we are apt to think that best in general for which we find ourselves best fitted in particular.--_pope._ o frail estate of human things.--_dryden._ the vainest woman is never thoroughly conscious of her beauty till she is loved by the man who sets her own passion vibrating in return.--_george eliot._ vanity is the quicksand of reason.--_george sand._ to be vain is rather a mark of humility than pride. vain men delight in telling what honors have been done them, what great company they have kept, and the like; by which they plainly confess that these honors were more than their due and such as their friends would not believe if they had not been told. whereas a man truly proud thinks the greatest honors below his merits, and consequently scorns to boast. i, therefore, deliver it as a maxim, that whoever desires the character of a proud man ought to conceal his vanity.--_swift._ ~vexations.~--petty vexations may at times be petty, but still they are vexations. the smallest and most inconsiderable annoyances are the most piercing. as small letters weary the eye most, so also the smallest affairs disturb us most.--_montaigne._ ~vice.~--as to the general design of providence, the two extremes of vice may serve (like two opposite biases) to keep up the balance of things. when we speak against one capital vice, we ought to speak against its opposite; the middle betwixt both is the point for virtue.--_pope._ this is the essential evil of vice; it debases a man.--_chapin._ it is only in some corner of the brain which we leave empty that vice can obtain a lodging. when she knocks at your door be able to say: "no room for your ladyship: pass on."--_bulwer-lytton._ i ne'er heard yet that any of these bolder vices wanted less impudence to gainsay what they did, than to perform it first.--_shakespeare._ wise men will apply their remedies to vices, not to names; to the causes of evil which are permanent, not the occasional organs by which they act, and the transitory modes in which they appear.--_burke._ one vice worn out makes us wiser than fifty tutors.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~vicissitudes.~--we do not marvel at the sunrise of a joy, only at its sunset! then, on the other hand, we are amazed at the commencement of a sorrow-storm; but that it should go off in gentle showers we think quite natural.--_richter._ who ordered toil as the condition of life, ordered weariness, ordered sickness, ordered poverty, failure, success,--to this man a foremost place, to the other a nameless struggle with the crowd; to that a shameful fall, or paralyzed limb, or sudden accident; to each some work upon the ground he stands on, until he is laid beneath it.--_thackeray._ ~victory.~--victory or westminster abbey.--_nelson._ victory may be honorable to the arms, but shameful to the counsels, of a nation.--_bolingbroke._ victory belongs to the most persevering.--_napoleon._ it is more difficult to look upon victory than upon battle.--_walter scott._ ~villainy.~--villainy, when detected, never gives up, but boldly adds impudence to imposture.--_goldsmith._ villainy that is vigilant will be an overmatch for virtue, if she slumber at her post.--_colton._ ~violence.~--nothing good comes of violence.--_luther._ violence does even justice unjustly.--_carlyle._ vehemence without feeling is rant.--_h. lewes._ ~virtue.~--i willingly confess that it likes me better when i find virtue in a fair lodging than when i am bound to seek it in an ill-favored creature.--_sir p. sidney._ this is the tax a man must pay to his virtues--they hold up a torch to his vices, and render those frailties notorious in him which would have passed without observation in another.--_colton._ true greatness is sovereign wisdom. we are never deceived by our virtues.--_lamartine._ it would not be easy, even for an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete, than to endeavor so to live that christ would approve our life.--_john stuart mill._ most men admire virtue, who follow not her lore.--_milton._ to be able under all circumstances to practice five things constitutes perfect virtue: these five are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness.--_confucius._ of the two, i prefer those who render vice lovable to those who degrade virtue.--_joubert._ no man can purchase his virtue too dear, for it is the only thing whose value must ever increase with the price it has cost us. our integrity is never worth so much as when we have parted with our all to keep it.--_colton._ virtue can see to do what virtue would by her own radiant light, though sun and moon were in the flat sea sunk.--_milton._ virtue is voluntary, vice involuntary.--_plato._ virtue is a rough way but proves at night a bed of down.--_wotton._ is virtue a thing remote? i wish to be virtuous, and lo! virtue is at hand.--_confucius._ virtues that shun the day and lie concealed in the smooth seasons and the calm of life.--_addison._ that virtue which requires to be ever guarded is scarce worth the sentinel.--_goldsmith._ why expect that extraordinary virtues should be in one person united, when one virtue makes a man extraordinary? alexander is eminent for his courage; ptolemy for his wisdom; scipio for his continence; trajan for his love of truth; constantius for his temperance.--_zimmermann._ virtue dwells at the head of a river, to which we cannot get but by rowing against the stream.--_feltham._ our virtues live upon our income, our vices consume our capital.--_j. petit senn._ wealth is a weak anchor, and glory cannot support a man; this is the law of god, that virtue only is firm, and cannot be shaken by a tempest.--_pythagoras._ all bow to virtue and then walk away.--_de finod._ virtue is an angel; but she is a blind one, and must ask of knowledge to show her the pathway that leads to her goal. mere knowledge, on the other hand, like a swiss mercenary, is ready to combat either in the ranks of sin or under the banners of righteousness,--ready to forge cannon-balls or to print new testaments, to navigate a corsair's vessel or a missionary ship.--_horace mann._ ~vulgarity.~--the vulgarity of inanimate things requires time to get accustomed to; but living, breathing, bustling, plotting, planning, human vulgarity is a species of moral ipecacuanha, enough to destroy any comfort.--_carlyle._ dirty work wants little talent and no conscience.--_george eliot._ w. ~waiting.~--it is the slowest pulsation which is the most vital. the hero will then know how to wait, as well as to make haste. all good abides with him who waiteth wisely.--_thoreau._ ~want.~--nothing makes men sharper than want.--_addison._ hundreds would never have known _want_ if they had not first known _waste_.--_spurgeon._ it is not from nature, but from education and habits, that our wants are chiefly derived.--_fielding._ if any one say that he has seen a just man in want of bread, i answer that it was in some place where there was no other just man.--_st. clement._ ~war.~--take my word for it, if you had seen but one day of war, you would pray to almighty god that you might never see such a thing again.--_wellington._ wherever there is war, there must be injustice on one side or the other, or on both. there have been wars which were little more than trials of strength between friendly nations, and in which the injustice was not to each other, but to the god who gave them life. but in a malignant war there is injustice of ignobler kind at once to god and man, which must be stemmed for both their sakes.--_ruskin._ civil wars leave nothing but tombs.--_lamartine._ the fate of war is to be exalted in the morning, and low enough at night! there is but one step from triumph to ruin.--_napoleon._ woe to the man that first did teach the cursed steel to bite in his own flesh, and make way to the living spirit.--_spenser._ providence for war is the best prevention of it.--_bacon._ the bodies of men, munition, and money, may justly be called the sinews of war.--_sir w. raleigh._ war is the matter which fills all history, and consequently the only or almost the only view in which we can see the external of political society is in a hostile shape; and the only actions to which we have always seen, and still see, all of them intent, are such as tend to the destruction of one another.--_burke._ as long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters.--_gibbon._ the fate of a battle is the result of a moment,--of a thought: the hostile forces advance with various combinations, they attack each other and fight for a certain time; the critical moment arrives, a mental flash decides, and the least reserve accomplishes the object.--_napoleon._ the feast of vultures, and the waste of life.--_byron._ i abhor bloodshed, and every species of terror erected into a system, as remedies equally ferocious, unjust, and inefficacious against evils that can only be cured by the diffusion of liberal ideas.--_mazzini._ ~weakness.~--weakness is thy excuse, and i believe it; weakness to resist philistian gold: what murderer, what traitor, parricide, incestuous, sacrilegious, but may plead it? all wickedness is weakness.--_milton._ the strength of man sinks in the hour of trial; but there doth live a power that to the battle girdeth the weak.--_joanna baillie._ how many weak shoulders have craved heavy burdens?--_joubert._ weakness is born vanquished.--_madame swetchine._ ~wealth.~--an accession of wealth is a dangerous predicament for a man. at first he is stunned, if the accession be sudden; he is very humble and very grateful. then he begins to speak a little louder, people think him more sensible, and soon he thinks himself so.--_cecil._ if wealth come, beware of him, the smooth, false friend! there is treachery in his proffered hand; his tongue is eloquent to tempt; lust of many harms is lurking in his eye; he hath a hollow heart; use him cautiously.--_tupper._ men pursue riches under the idea that their possession will set them at ease, and above the world. but the law of association often makes those who begin by loving gold as a servant, finish by becoming themselves its slaves; and independence without wealth is at least as common as wealth without independence.--_colton._ ~weeping.~--what women would do if they could not cry, nobody knows! what poor, defenseless creatures they would be!--_douglas jerrold._ ~welcome.~--heaven opened wide her ever-during gates, harmonious sound! on golden hinges turning.--_milton._ ~wickedness.~--the happiness of the wicked passes away like a torrent.--_racine._ the hatred of the wicked is only roused the more from the impossibility of finding any just grounds on which it can rest; and the very consciousness of their own injustice is only a grievance the more against him who is the object of it.--_rousseau._ wickedness is a wonderfully diligent architect of misery, of shame, accompanied with terror and commotion, and remorse, and endless perturbation.--_plutarch._ what rein can hold licentious wickedness, when down the hill he holds his fierce career?--_shakespeare._ ~wife.~--thy wife is a constellation of virtues; she's the moon, and thou art the man in the moon.--_congreve._ a light wife doth make a heavy husband.--_shakespeare._ o woman! thou knowest the hour when the goodman of the house will return, when the heat and burden of the day are past; do not let him at such time, when he is weary with toil and jaded with discouragement, find upon his coming to his habitation that the foot which should hasten to meet him is wandering at a distance, that the soft hand which should wipe the sweat from his brow is knocking at the door of other houses.--_washington irving._ her pleasures are in the happiness of her family.--_rousseau._ hanging and wiving goes by destiny.--_shakespeare._ the wife safest and seemliest by her husband stays.--_milton._ ~will.~--in the schools of the wrestling master, when a boy falls he is bidden to get up again, and to go on wrestling day by day till he has acquired strength; and we must do the same, and not be like those poor wretches who, after one failure, suffer themselves to be swept along as by a torrent. you need but _will_, and it is done; but if you relax your efforts, you will be ruined; for ruin and recovery are both from within.--_epictetus._ ~winter.~--after summer ever more succeeds the barren winter with his nipping cold.--_shakespeare._ winter binds our strengthened bodies in a cold embrace constringent.--_thomson._ ~wisdom.~--wisdom for a man's self is, in many branches thereof, a depraved thing: it is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house some time before it fall; it is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out the badger, who digged and made room for him; it is the wisdom of the crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour.--_bacon._ common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.--_coleridge._ human wisdom makes as ill use of her talent when she exercises it in rescinding from the number and sweetness of those pleasures that are naturally our due, as she employs it favorably, and well, in artificially disguising and tricking out the ills of life to alleviate the sense of them.--_montaigne._ it may be said, almost without qualification, that true wisdom consists in the ready and accurate perception of analogies. without the former quality, knowledge of the past is uninstructive; without the latter, it is deceptive.--_whately._ you read of but one wise man, and all that he knew was--that he knew nothing.--_congreve._ to be wiser than other men is to be honester than they; and strength of mind is only courage to see and speak the truth.--_hazlitt._ knowledge comes but wisdom lingers.--_tennyson._ seize wisdom ere 'tis torment to be wise; that is, seize wisdom ere she seizes thee.--_young._ wisdom married to immortal verse.--_wordsworth._ no man can be wise on an empty stomach.--_george eliot._ among mortals second thoughts are wisest.--_euripides._ ~wishes.~--the apparently irreconcilable dissimilarity between our wishes and our means, between our hearts and this world, remains a riddle.--_richter._ ~wit.~--i have no more pleasure in hearing a man attempting wit, and failing, than in seeing a man trying to leap over a ditch, and tumbling into it.--_johnson._ thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most sharp sauce.--_shakespeare._ wit must grow like fingers. if it be taken from others 'tis like plums stuck upon blackthorns; there they are for a while, but they come to nothing.--_selden._ if he who has little wit needs a master to inform his stupidity, he who has much frequently needs ten to keep in check his worldly wisdom, which might otherwise, like a high-mettled charger, toss him to the ground.--_scriver._ to place wit above sense is to place superfluity above utility.--_madame de maintenon._ ~woe.~--no scene of mortal life but teems with mortal woe.--_walter scott._ thus woe succeeds a woe, as wave a wave.--_herrick._ so many miseries have crazed my voice, that my woe-wearied tongue is still.--_shakespeare._ ~woman.~--who does know the bent of woman's fantasy?--_spenser._ pretty women without religion are like flowers without perfume.--_heinrich heine._ the happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history.--_george eliot._ to a gentleman every woman is a lady in right of her sex.--_bulwer-lytton._ they never reason, or, if they do, they either draw correct inferences from wrong premises, or wrong inferences from correct premises; and they always poke the fire from the top.--_bishop whately._ the woman must not belong to herself; she is bound to alien destinies. but she performs her part best who can take freely, of her own choice, the alien to her heart, can bear and foster it with sincerity and love.--_richter._ god has placed the genius of women in their hearts; because the works of this genius are always works of love.--_lamartine._ women for the most part do not love us. they do not choose a man because they love him, but because it pleases them to be loved by him. they love love of all things in the world, but there are very few men whom they love personally.--_alphonse karr._ woman is the sunday of man; not his repose only, but his joy; the salt of his life.--_michelet._ women see through and through each other; and often we most admire her whom they most scorn.--_charles buxton._ it goes far to reconciling me to being a woman when i reflect that i am thus in no danger of ever marrying one.--_lady montague._ men are women's playthings; woman is the devil's.--_victor hugo._ sing of the nature of woman, and the song shall be surely full of variety,--old crotchets and most sweet closes,--it shall be humorous, grave, fantastic, amorous, melancholy, sprightly,--one in all, and all in one!--_beaumont._ her step is music and her voice is song.--_bailey._ woman is a miracle of divine contradictions.--_michelet._ woman, sister! there are some things which you do not execute as well as your brother, man; no, nor ever will. pardon me, if i doubt whether you will ever produce a great poet from your choirs, or a mozart, or a phidias, or a michael angelo, or a great philosopher, or a great scholar. by which last is meant, not one who depends simply on an infinite memory, but also on an infinite and electrical power of combination; bringing together from the four winds, like the angel of the resurrection, what else were dust from dead men's bones, into the unity of breathing life. if you can create yourselves into any of these grand creators, why have you not?--_de quincey._ there are three things a wise man will not trust: the wind, the sunshine of an april day, and woman's plighted faith.--_southey._ woman is mistress of the art of completely embittering the life of the person on whom she depends.--_goethe._ women generally consider consequences in love, seldom in resentment.--_colton._ just corporeal enough to attest humanity, yet sufficiently transparent to let the celestial origin shine through.--_ruffini._ there are female women, and there are male women.--_charles buxton._ to think of the part one little woman can play in the life of a man, so that to renounce her may be a very good imitation of heroism, and to win her may be a discipline!--_george eliot._ men at most differ as heaven and earth; but women, worst and best, as heaven and hell.--_tennyson._ women of forty always fancy they have found the fountain of youth, and that they remain young in the midst of the ruins of their day.--_arsène houssaye._ a woman's hopes are woven of sunbeams; a shadow annihilates them.--_george eliot._ there remains in the faces of women who are naturally serene and peaceful, and of those rendered so by religion, an after-spring, and later, an after-summer, the reflex of their most beautiful bloom.--_richter._ women see without looking; their husbands often look without seeing.--_louis desnoyeas._ she was in the lovely bloom and spring-time of womanhood; at that age when, if ever, angels be for god's good purposes enthroned in mortal forms, they may be, without impiety, supposed to abide in such as hers. cast in so slight and exquisite a mould, so mild and gentle, so pure and beautiful, that earth seemed not her element, nor its rough creatures her fit companions.--_dickens._ there is a woman at the beginning of all great things.--_lamartine._ there is something still more to be dreaded than a jesuit, and that is a jesuitess.--_eugene sue._ the honor of woman is badly guarded when it is guarded by keys and spies. no woman is honest who does not wish to be.--_adrian dupuy._ ~words.~--there are words which sever hearts more than sharp swords; there are words, the point of which sting the heart through the course of a whole life.--_fredrika bremer._ words are often everywhere as the minute-hands of the soul, more important than even the hour-hands of action.--_richter._ "the last word" is the most dangerous of infernal machines; and husband and wife should no more fight to get it than they would struggle for the possession of a lighted bomb-shell.--_douglas jerrold._ words, like glass, darken whatever they do not help us to see.--_joubert._ if we use common words on a great occasion they are the more striking, because they are felt at once to have a particular meaning, like old banners, or every-day clothes, hung up in a sacred place.--_george eliot._ words are but the signs and counters of knowledge, and their currency should be strictly regulated by the capital which they represent.--_colton._ ~world.~--the world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel.--_horace walpole._ creation's heir, the world, the world is mine.--_goldsmith._ contact with the world either breaks or hardens the heart.--_chamfort._ why, then the world's mine oyster, which i with sword will open.--_shakespeare._ ~worship.~--worship as though the deity were present. if my mind is not engaged in my worship, it is as though i worshiped not.--_confucius._ ~writing.~--writing, after all, is a cold and coarse interpreter of thought. how much of the imagination, how much of the intellect, evaporates and is lost while we seek to embody it in words! man made language and god the genius.--_bulwer-lytton._ we must write as homer wrote, not what he wrote.--_théophile vian._ ~wrong.~--there is no sort of wrong deed of which a man can bear the punishment alone; you can't isolate yourself and say that the evil that is in you shall not spread. men's lives are as thoroughly blended with each other as the air they breathe: evil spreads as necessarily as disease.--_george eliot._ my soul is sick with every day's report of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled.--_cowper._ y. ~youth.~--the canker galls the infants of the spring, too oft before their buttons be disclosed; and in the morn and liquid dew of youth contagious blastments are most imminent.--_shakespeare._ reckless youth makes rueful age.--_moore._ in general, a man in his younger years does not easily cast off a certain complacent self-conceit, which principally shows itself in despising what he has himself been a little time before.--_goethe._ too young for woe, though not for tears.--_washington irving._ o youth! thou often tearest thy wings against the thorns of voluptuousness.--_victor hugo._ o youth! ephemeral song, eternal canticle! the world may end, the heavens fall, yet loving voices would still find an echo in the ruins of the universe.--_jules janin._ the youthful freshness of a blameless heart.--_washington irving._ the heart of youth is reached through the senses; the senses of age are reached through the heart.--_rétif de la bretonne._ agreeable surprises are the perquisites of youth.--_bulwer-lytton._ z. ~zeal.~--i like men who are temperate and moderate in everything. an excessive zeal for that which is good, though it may not be offensive to me, at all events raises my wonder, and leaves me in a difficulty how i should call it.--_montaigne._ in the ardor of pursuit men soon forget the goal from which they start.--_schiller._ experience shows that success is due less to ability than to zeal. the winner is he who gives himself to his work, body and soul.--_charles buxton._ tell zeal it lacks devotion.--_sir w. raleigh._ nothing to build and all things to destroy.--_dryden._ nothing can be fairer, or more noble, than the holy fervor of true zeal.--_molière._ people give the name of zeal to their propensity to mischief and violence, though it is not the cause, but their interest, that inflames them.--_montaigne._ the frenzy of nations is the statesmanship of fate.--_bulwer-lytton._ ~zealot.~--when we see an eager assailant of one of these wrongs, a special reformer, we feel like asking him, what right have you, sir, to your one virtue? is virtue piecemeal?--_emerson._ what i object to scotch philosophers in general is, that they reason upon man as they would upon a divinity; they pursue truth without caring if it be useful truth.--_sydney smith._ i have never known a trader in philanthropy who was not wrong in his head or heart somewhere or other.--_coleridge._ they have an idol, to which they consecrate themselves high-priests, and deem it holy work to offer sacrifices of whatever is most precious.--_hawthorne._ * * * * * the end crowns all; and that old common arbitrator, time, will one day end all.--_shakespeare._ 