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._]