Nations have great men only in spite of themselves--like families.
They make every effort not to have them. Therefore, the great man must,
in order to exist, possess an offensive force greater than the power of
resistance developed by millions of individuals.
Apropos of sleep, that sinister adventure of all our nights, we
might say that men go to bed daily with an audacity that would be
incomprehensible if we did not know that it is the result of ignorance
of the danger.
X
There are tortoise-shell hides against which scorn is no longer a
vengeance.
Many friends, many gloves.[1] Those who have admired me were despised,
I might even say were despicable, if I sought to flatter honest men.
Girardin talk Latin! _Pecudesque locutae_.
He belongs to an infidel Society to send Robert Houdin to the Arabs to
convert them from the miracles.
[Footnote 1: 'for fear of the itch' is added elsewhere.]