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._