desire; but then people tyrannise over those who yield through modesty,
and should not crush them when they give way.
Again some say, “People should be quiet in their dress;” intelligent
men do not wish for anything else; but the world requires ornaments,
and we comply with its demands; it runs eagerly after superfluities,
and we display them. Some people value others only for the fine linen
or the rich silks they wear, and we do not always refuse to purchase
esteem, even on those terms. There are some places where every person
shows himself, and where you will be admitted or refused admittance
according as your gold lace is broader or narrower.
(72.) Vanity, and the high value we set upon ourselves, makes us
imagine that others treat us very haughtily, which is sometimes true
and often false; a modest man is not so susceptible.
(73.) We ought not to be so vain and imagine that others are anxious to
have a look at us, and to esteem us, and that our talents and merits
are the topics of their conversations, but we should have so much
confidence in ourselves as not to fancy when people whisper that they
speak ill of us, or laugh only to make fun of us.
(74.) What is the reason that to-day Alcippus bows to me, smiles and
almost throws himself out of his coach to take notice of me. I am not
rich, and on foot; therefore, according to the present fashion, he
ought not to have seen me. Is it not because a person of the highest
rank is with him in his carriage?
(75.) Men are so full of themselves, that everything they do is
connected with self; they like to be seen, to be shown about, even by
those who do not know them, and who, if they omit this, are said to be
proud, for they should guess who and what those men are.
(76.) We never look for happiness within ourselves, but in the opinions
of men we know to be flatterers, insincere, unjust, envious, whimsical
and prejudiced. How eccentric!
(77.) We might think that people laugh only at something really
ridiculous; yet there are certain people who laugh just as much at what
is not so as at what is. If you are foolish and thoughtless, and some
unbecoming expression escapes you, they laugh at you; if you are wise,
and say nothing but what is sensible, and as it should be said, they
laugh at you all the same.
(78.) Those who, by violence or injustice, steal our property, or
rob us of our honour by slander, show effectually that they hate us;
but this is not an undoubted proof that they no longer esteem us;
therefore, it is not impossible that we may forgive them, and, one day
or other, again become their friends. Ridicule, on the contrary, is of
all wrongs the least to be excused, for it is the language of contempt,
and one of the ways in which it is most plainly expressed; it attacks
a man in his last intrenchment, namely, the good opinion he has of
himself; it aims at making him ridiculous in his own eyes; and thus
convinces him that the person who ridicules him is very badly disposed
towards him, so that he resolves never to be reconciled to him.
It is monstrous to consider how easy it is for us to ridicule, censure,
and despise others, and how we enjoy it; and yet how enraged we are
when others ridicule, censure, and despise us.
(79.) Health and wealth prevent men from experiencing misfortunes, and
thus make them callous to their suffering fellow-creatures; whilst they
who already are burdened by their own miseries feel most tenderly those
of others.
(80.) In well-constituted minds,[557] festivals, spectacles, and music
bring more vividly before us, and make us feel the more the misfortunes
of our relatives or friends.
(81.) A great mind is above insults, injustice, grief, and raillery,
and would be invulnerable were it not open to compassion.
(82.) We feel somewhat ashamed of being happy at the sight of certain
miseries.
(83.) Men have a very quick perception of their smallest advantages and
are as backward in discovering their faults. They never ignore they
have fine eyebrows and well-shaped nails, but scarcely know they have
lost an eye, and not at all when they are wanting in understanding.
Argyra pulls off her glove to show her fine hand, and does not forget
to let us have a peep of her little shoe, which makes us think she has
a small foot; she laughs at serious as well as at funny observations to
show her fine teeth; if she does not hide her ears it is because they
are well shaped; and if she does not dance, it is because she is not
too well satisfied with her waist, which is not very slender. She knows
perfectly well what she is about, with the exception of one thing: she
is always talking, and has not one grain of sense.
(84.) Men do not value very highly the affections of the heart, but
idolise the gifts of body and mind. A person who, in speaking of
himself, would coolly say that he is good, constant, faithful, sincere,
just, and grateful, does not imagine he offends against modesty; but
he would not venture to say that he is sprightly, or that he has fine
teeth or a soft skin; that would be rather too much of a good thing.
It cannot be denied that men admire two virtues, courage and
liberality, because they highly value two things which these virtues
cause us to neglect, namely, life and money; yet no one boasts that he
is courageous or liberal.
No one in speaking of himself will say, especially without any
foundation, that he is handsome, generous, eminent, for men value those
qualities too highly, and so they are satisfied with thinking they
possess them.
(85.) Whatever similarity is apparent between jealousy and emulation,
they differ as much as vice and virtue.
Jealousy and emulation have the same object, which is the prosperity
or merit of another, but with this difference, that the latter is a
voluntary sentiment, as courageous as sincere, which fertilises the
mind and induces it to take advantage of great examples, so that it
not seldom excels what it admires; whilst the first, on the contrary,
is violent in its action, and, as it were, a forced acknowledgment
of a merit it does not possess; it goes so far as even to deny merit
whenever it exists; or, if it is compelled to admit its existence,
refuses to commend it, and envies the reward it receives. Jealousy is
a barren passion, which leaves a man in the same state it finds him,
fills him with high ideas of himself and of his reputation; causes him
to become callous and insensible to the actions and labours of others;
and inspires him with astonishment on perceiving in this world other
talents than his own, or other men with the same talents on which he
prides himself; this disgraceful vice, which by its very excess always
turns to vanity and presumption, does not so much persuade the person
infected with it that he has more intelligence and merit than others,
as that he alone is intelligent and praiseworthy.
Emulation and jealousy are always found in persons practising the same
art, possessing the same talents, and filling the same positions. The
meanest artisans are most subject to jealousy; those persons who follow
the liberal arts or literature, as artists, musicians, orators, poets,
and all who pretend to write, ought not to be capable of anything but
emulation.
Jealousy is never free from some sort of envy; and these two passions
are often taken for one another. But this is wrong: envy may sometimes
exist without jealousy, as, for example, when a position very superior
to our own, a large fortune, royal favour, or a secretaryship of state
have caused it.
Envy and hatred are always united, and fortify each other in one and
the same person; they can only be distinguished from one another
in this, that the latter aims at the individual, the former at his
position and condition in life.
An intelligent man is not jealous of a cutler who has made a first-rate
sword, nor of a sculptor who has just finished a fine piece of
statuary; he knows there are rules and methods in those arts beyond his
ken; that tools have to be handled with which he is unacquainted, and
of whose very names and shapes he is ignorant; it is sufficient for him
to be aware that he has never served an apprenticeship to such a trade,
and he consoles himself, therefore, that he has not mastered them. But
he may, on the contrary, envy, and even be jealous of a minister of
state, and of those who govern; as if reason and common sense, of which
he has a share as well as they have, are the only things required for
ruling a nation and for the administration of public affairs, and as if
they could take the place of regulations, directions, and experience.
(86.) We meet with few utterly dull and stupid men, but with fewer
sublime and transcendental ones. The generality of mankind hovers
between these two extremes; the gap is filled by a great number of
men of ordinary talents, but who are very useful and serviceable to
the State, and efficient as well as agreeable; as, for example, in
commerce, finances, during war, in navigation, arts, trades, in the
possession of a good memory, in gambling,[558] in society, and in
conversation.
(87.) All the intelligence of the world is useless to a man who has
none, for having no ideas himself, he cannot be improved by those of
others.
(88.) To feel the want of reasoning faculties is the next thing to
possessing them; a madman cannot have this sensation. Thus the next
best thing to intelligence is the consciousness that we have none,
for then we might do what is considered impossible, and, without
intelligence, neither be a fool nor a fop nor impertinent.
(89.) A man who has not a large amount of intelligence is grave and all
of a piece; he does not laugh, he never jokes nor trifles; and is as
incapable of rising to great things as of suiting himself, by way of
change, to small ones; he hardly knows how to play with his children.
(90.) Everybody says of a coxcomb that he is a coxcomb, but no one
dares to tell him so; he dies without knowing it and without anybody
being avenged on him.
(91.) What a dissonance is there between the mind and the heart! Some
philosophers lead bad lives though they have large stores of “wise
saws;” and some politicians, full of schemes and ideas, cannot govern
themselves.
(92.) The mind wears out like other things; sciences are its aliment;
they nourish it and wear it out.
(93.) Men of inferior rank are sometimes burdened with a thousand
useless virtues, but they have no opportunities of making use of them.
(94.) We meet with some men who bear with ease the weight of the royal
favour and of power, who get accustomed to their grandeur, and remain
steady though they occupy the highest posts. On the contrary, those men
whom fortune, without any choice or discrimination, has almost blindly
overwhelmed with its blessings, behave insolently and extravagantly;
their looks, their carriage, their tone of voice, and their manner
of receiving people, show for some time the admiration they have for
themselves, as well as for beholding themselves on such an eminence;
they become at last so restless that their downfall alone can tame them.
(95.) A stout and robust fellow, who has a wide chest and a broad pair
of shoulders, carries heavy burdens quickly and gracefully, and has
still one hand at liberty, while a dwarf would be crushed by half his
load. Thus eminent stations make great men yet more great, and little
ones less.
(96.) Some men gain by being eccentric; they scud along in full sail in
a sea where others are lost and dashed to pieces; they are successful
by the very means which would seem to prevent all success; they reap
from their irregularity and folly all the advantages of consummate
wisdom; they are men who devote themselves to other men, to high-born
nobles, for whom they have sacrificed everything, and in whom they
have placed their last hope; they do not serve, but amuse them.
Obsequious men of merit are useful to the great; they are necessary
to them, and grow old whilst retailing their witticisms, for which
they expect to be rewarded as if they had done some noble deeds; by
dint of being funny they obtain posts of great importance, and rise
to the highest dignities by continually buffooning, until finally and
unexpectedly they find themselves in a position they neither dreaded
nor anticipated. Nothing remains of them in this world but an example
of their success, which it would be dangerous to imitate.[559]
(97.) People might expect that certain persons who once performed
some noble and heroic actions known to the entire world, would not be
exhausted by so arduous an effort, and should at least be as rational
and judicious in their behaviour as men commonly are; that they
should be above any meanness unworthy of the great reputation they
have acquired; and that by mixing less with the people they should
not give them an opportunity of viewing them too closely, so that
curiosity and admiration might not change to indifference, and perhaps
to contempt.[560]
(98.) It is easier for some men to enrich themselves with a thousand
virtues than to correct a single vice; it is unfortunate for them that
this vice is often the least suitable to their condition in life,
and renders them highly ridiculous; it weakens their splendid and
grand qualities, and prevents them from becoming perfect and keeping
their reputation stainless. We do not require these men to be more
enlightened and incorruptible, more fond of order and discipline, more
assiduous in doing their duties, more zealous for the public good, or
more solemn in their deportment; we could only desire them to be less
amorous.[561]
(99.) Some men in the course of their lives alter so much in feeling
and intelligence, that we are sure to make a mistake if we judge
merely of them by what they appeared in their early youth. Some were
pious, wise, and learned, who have been spoiled by the favours fortune
bestowed on them, and are so no longer;[562] others began their lives
amidst pleasures, and devoted all their intelligence in their pursuit,
but, being no longer in favour, they now are religious, wise, and
temperate.[563] These latter commonly become great men, who may be
relied upon; their honesty has been tried by patience and adversity;
they, moreover, show great politeness, which they owe to the society
of ladies, and display in every circumstance, as well as a spirit of
order, thoughtfulness, and sometimes lofty capacities, acquired by
study and the leisure of a shattered fortune.
All menʼs misfortunes proceed from their aversion to being alone; hence
gambling, extravagance, dissipation, wine, women, ignorance, slander,
envy, and forgetfulness of what we owe to God and ourselves.
(100.) Men are sometimes unbearable to themselves; darkness and
solitude unsettle them, and throw them into a state of imaginary dread
and groundless terror; at such a time the least harm that can befall
them is a lassitude of everything.
(101.) Idleness is the mother of listlessness, and chiefly induces men
to hunt after diversions, gambling, and company. He who loves work
requires nothing else.
(102.) Most men employ the first years of their life in making the last
miserable.
(103.) There are some works which begin with the first letter of the
alphabet and end with the last; good, bad, and indifferent things are
all inserted; nothing of a certain nature is forgotten; and these,
though made up of far-fetched jokes and affectations, are called
“sports of wit.”[564] The same kind of sport also rules our conduct;
a certain matter once commenced must be finished, and we have to go
on till the end. It would have been much better to alter our plan or
entirely to drop it; but it is far more odd and difficult to proceed
with it, and therefore we go on, and are stimulated by contradiction;
vanity encourages us, and takes the place of reason, which abandons and
leaves us. Such eccentricity is even carried on in the most virtuous
actions, and often in some of a religious nature.
(104.) To do our duty is an effort to us, because when we do it we
only perform our obligations, and seldom receive those eulogies which
are the greatest incentive to commendable actions, and support us in
our enterprises. N ... loves to make a display of his charity, so he
is appointed a superintendent of a charity-board, and a steward to its
revenues, whilst his house becomes a public office for the distribution
of them;[565] his doors are open to all clergymen or to Sisters of
Charity;[566] and every one sees and talks about his liberality in
relieving the poor. Who would dare to imagine N ... was not an honest
man, unless it were his creditors?
(105.) Géronte dies of mere decrepitude, and without having made the
will he intended to make for those last thirty years; as he died
intestate, about half a score of relatives share his estate among them.
For a long time he was only kept alive through the care taken of him by
his wife, Asteria, who, though young, always attended on him, never let
him go out of her sight, nursed him in his old age, and at last closed
his eyes. He has not left her money enough to rid her of the necessity
of taking another old man for a husband.
(106.) When people are loth to sell or give up their posts and offices,
even when in extreme old age, it is a token they are possessed of the
notion that they are immortal; or if they think they may die, it is a
sign they love nobody but themselves.[567]
(107.) Faustus is a rake, a prodigal, a freethinker, as well as
ungrateful and passionate; yet his uncle Aurelius neither hates him nor
disinherits him.
Frontin, his other nephew, after twenty years of acknowledged honesty
and of blind complacency for the old man, never gained his favour; and
the only legacy left to him is a small pension, which Faustus, the sole
heir, has to pay him.
(108.) Hatred is so lasting and stubborn, that reconciliation on a
sick-bed certainly forebodes death.
(109.) We insinuate ourselves into the favour of others, either by
flattering those passions which animate them, or by pitying the
infirmities which afflict their bodies; and this is the only way by
which we can show our regard for them; hence the healthy and those who
do not desire anything, are less easy to be swayed.
(110.) Want of vigour and voluptuousness are innate in man and cease
with him, and fortunate or unfortunate circumstances never make him
abandon them; they are the fruits of prosperity or become a solace in
adversity.
(111.) The most unnatural sight in the world is an old man in love.
(112.) Few men remember that they have been young, and how hard it was
then to live chaste and temperate.
The first thing men do when they have renounced pleasure, through
decency, lassitude, or for the sake of health, is to condemn it in
others. Such conduct denotes a kind of latent affection for the very
things they left off; they would like no one to enjoy a pleasure they
can no longer indulge in; and thus they show their feelings of jealousy.
(113.) It is not the dread of one day wanting money which renders old
men avaricious, for some of them have such a large quantity of it
that this cannot make them uneasy; besides, how can the fear disturb
them of being in want of the common necessities of life when they are
old, since by their own free will they deprive themselves of these to
satisfy their avarice. Neither do they wish to leave great riches to
their children, for they naturally love nobody better than themselves;
moreover, there are many misers who have no heirs. Avarice seems
rather an effect of age and of the disposition of old men, who as
naturally give themselves up to it as they did to pleasure in their
youth, or to ambition in their manhood. Neither vigour, youth, nor
health are needed to become a miser; nor is there any necessity for
people hurrying themselves, nor for those who hoard being in the
slightest degree active; a man has nothing to do but let the money lie
in his coffers, and deny himself everything; this is not very difficult
for old people, who must have some passion or other because they are
men.[568]
(114.) There are some people who dwell in wretched houses, have hardly
any beds, are badly clad and worse fed; who are exposed to all the
severity of the seasons, deprive themselves of the society of their
fellow-creatures, and live in continual solitude; who grieve for the
present, the past, and the future; whose lives are a perpetual penance,
and who have thus discovered the secret of going to perdition by the
most troublesome way: I mean misers.
(115.) The remembrance of their youth remains green in the heart of old
men; they love the places where they lived; and the persons with whom
they then began an acquaintance are dear to them; they still affect
certain words in use when they first began to speak; they prefer the
ancient style of singing and dancing; and boast of the old fashions
in dress, furnishing, and carriages; they cannot bring themselves to
disapprove of those things which served their passions, and are always
recalling them. Can any one imagine these old men would prefer new
customs and the latest fashions, which they do not adopt, and from
which they have nothing to expect, which young men have invented, and
which give them, in their turn, such a great advantage over their
elders?
(116.) An old man who is careless in his dress, or else overdressed,
increases his wrinkles, and looks as senile as he really is.
(117.) An old man is proud, disdainful, and unsociable if he is not
very intelligent.
(118.) A courtier of a ripe old age, who is a sensible man and has a
good memory, is an inestimable treasure; he is full of anecdotes and
maxims; he knows a good many curious circumstances of the history of
the age, which are never met with in books; and from him we may learn
such rules for our conduct and manners which can be depended upon,
because they are based on experience.[569]
(119.) Young men can bear solitude better than old people, because
their passions occupy their thoughts.
(120.) Though Philip[570] is rather old, he is over-natty and
effeminate, and only cares for little dainties; he has studied the art
of eating, drinking, sleeping, and taking exercise, and scrupulously
observes the smallest rules he has prescribed for himself, which all
tend to his comfort; even a mistress, if his system allowed him to
keep one, could not tempt him to break them; he is overburdened with
superfluities, to which he is so accustomed that he cannot do without
them. He thus increases and strengthens the ties which bind him to
life, and employs the remainder of it in making its loss more grievous.
Was he not already sufficiently afraid of dying?