Chapter VIII: Part 8

When we speak well of a man at court, we invariably do so for two reasons: firstly, in order that he may hear that we spoke well of him; secondly, in order that he may speak well of us in his turn.

To be successful and to secure high offices there are two ways: the high-road, on which most people pass; and the cross-road, which is the shorter.

The youth of a prince is the origin of many fortunes.

Court is where joys are evident, but artificial; where sorrows are concealed, but real.

A slave has one master; an ambitious man has as many as there are persons who may be useful to him in his career.

With five or six art terms, people give themselves out as experts in music, painting, and architecture.

The high opinions people have of the great and mighty is so blind, and their interest in their gestures, features, and manners so general, that if the mighty were only good, the devotion of the people to them would amount to worship.

Lucile prefers to waste his life as the protégé of a few aristocrats than to live on familiar terms with his peers.

It is advisable to say nothing of the mighty. If you speak well of them, it is flattery. It is dangerous to speak ill of them during their lifetime, and it is cowardly to do so after they are dead.

Life is short and annoying. We spend life wishing.

When life is wretched, it is hard to bear; when it is happy, it is dreadful to lose it. The one alternative is as bad as the other.

Death occurs only once, but makes itself felt at every moment of our life. It is more painful to fear it than to suffer it.

There are but three events for man: birth, life, and death. He does not realise his birth, he suffers when he dies, and he forgets to live.

We seek our happiness outside ourselves. We seek it in the opinions of men whom we know are flatterers, and who lack sincerity. What folly! Most men spend half their lives making the other half miserable.

It is easier for many men to acquire one thousand virtues than to get rid of one defect.

It is as difficult to find a conceited man who believes himself really happy as to discover a modest man who thinks himself too unhappy.

The birch is necessary to children. Grown-up men need a crown, a sceptre, velvet caps and fur-lined robes. Reason and justice devoid of ornaments would not be imposing or convincing. Man, who is a mind, is led by his eyes and his ears!

_IV.--On Customs and Religion_

Fashion in matters of food, health, taste and conscience is utterly foolish. Game is at present out of fashion, and condemned as a food. It is to-day a sin against fashion to be cured of the ague by blood-letting.

The conceited man thinks every day of the way in which he will be able to attract attention on the following day. The philosopher leaves the matter of his clothes to his tailor. It is just as childish to avoid fashion as to follow its decrees too closely.

Fashion exists in the domain of religion.

There have been young ladies who were virtuous, healthy and pious, who wished to enter a convent, but who were not rich enough to take in a wealthy abbey the vows of poverty.

How many men one sees who are strong and righteous, who would never listen to the entreaties of their friends, but who are easily influenced and corrupted by women.

I would like to hear a sober, moderate, chaste, righteous man declare that there is no God. At least he would be speaking in a disinterested manner. But there is no such man to be found.

The fact that I am unable to prove that God does not exist establishes for me the fact that God does exist.

Atheism does not exist. If there were real atheists, it would merely prove that there are monsters in this world.

Forty years ago I didn't exist, and it was not within my power to be born. It does not depend upon me who now exist to be no more. Consequently, I began being and am going on being, thanks to something which is beyond me, which will last after me, which is mightier than I am. If that something is not God, pray tell me what it is.

Everything is great and worthy of admiration in Nature.

O you vain and conceited man, make one of these worms which you despise! You loathe toads; make a toad if you can!

Kings, monarchs, potentates, sacred majesties, have I given you all your supreme names? We, mere men, require some rain for our crops or even some dew; make some dew, send to the earth a drop of water!

A certain inequality in the destinies of men, which maintains order and obedience, is the work of God. It suggests a divine law.

If the reader does not care for these "characters," it will surprise me; if he does care for them, it will also surprise me.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Imaginary Conversations

Walter Savage Landor, writer, scholar, poet, and, it might
almost be said, quarreller, said of his own fame, "I shall dine
late, but the dining-room will be well lighted, the guests few
and select." A powerful, turbulent spirit, he attracted great
men. Emerson, Browning, Dickens, and Swinburne travelled to sit
at his feet, and he knew Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth, Lamb, and
Southey. Born at Warwick, on January 30, 1775, he was dismissed
from Rugby School at the age of fifteen, and from Oxford at the
age of nineteen; was estranged from his father; several times
left the wife whom he had married for her golden hair, and spent
the last years of his life, lonely but lionised, at Florence. To
the last--which came on September 17, 1864--he wrote both prose
and verse. Landor appears, to the average appreciator of English
literature, an interesting personality rather than a great
writer, though his epic, "Gebir" (1798), and his tragedy, "Count
Julian" (1812), like some of his minor verse, contain passages
of great beauty. But it was in the "Imaginary Conversations,"
written between 1821 and 1829, and first sampled by the public
in review form in 1823, that he endowed the English language
with his most permanent achievement. Nearly 150 of these
"Conversations" were written in all, and we epitomise here five
of the best-known.

_I.--Peter the Great and Alexis_

PETER: And so, after flying from thy father's house, thou hast returned again from Vienna. After this affront in the face of Europe, thou darest to appear before me?

ALEXIS: My emperor and father! I am brought before your majesty not at my own desire.

PETER: I believe it well. What hope hast thou, rebel, in thy flight to Vienna?

ALEXIS: The hope of peace and privacy; the hope of security, and, above all things, of never more offending you.

PETER: Didst thou take money?

ALEXIS: A few gold pieces. Hitherto your liberality, my father, hath supplied my wants of every kind.

PETER: Not of wisdom, not of duty, not of spirit, not of courage, not of ambition. I have educated thee among my guards and horses, among my drums and trumpets, among my flags and masts. I have rolled cannon balls before thee over iron plates; I have shown thee bright new arms, bayonets, and sabres. I have myself led thee forth to the window when fellows were hanged and shot; and I have made thee, in spite of thee, look steadfastly upon them, incorrigible coward! Thy intention, I know, is to subvert the institutions it has been the labour of my lifetime to establish. Thou hast never rejoiced at my victories.

ALEXIS: I have rejoiced at your happiness and your safety.

PETER: Liar! Coward! Traitor! When the Polanders and the Swedes fell before me, didst thou congratulate me? Didst thou praise the Lord of Hosts? Wert thou not silent and civil and low-spirited?

ALEXIS: I lamented the irretrievable loss of human life, I lamented that the bravest and noblest were swept away the first, that order was succeeded by confusion, and that your majesty was destroying the glorious plans you alone were capable of devising.

PETER: Of what plans art thou speaking?

ALEXIS: Of civilising the Muscovites. The Polanders in parts were civilised; the Swedes more than any other nation.

PETER: Civilised, forsooth? Why the robes of the metropolitan, him at Upsal, are not worth three ducats. But I am wasting my words. Thine are tenets that strike at the root of politeness and sound government.

ALEXIS: When I hear the God of Mercy invoked to massacres, and thanked for furthering what He reprobates and condemns--I look back in vain on any barbarous people for worse barbarism.

PETER: Malignant atheist! Am I Czar of Muscovy, and hear discourse on reason and religion--from my own son, too? No, by the Holy Trinity! thou art no son of mine. Unnatural brute, I have no more to do with thee. Ho there! Chancellor! What! Come at last! Wert napping, or counting thy ducats?

CHANCELLOR: Your majesty's will, and pleasure!

PETER: Is the senate assembled?

CHANCELLOR: Every member, sire.

PETER: Conduct this youth with thee, and let them judge him; thou understandest?

CHANCELLOR: Your majesty's commands are the breath of our nostrils.

PETER: If these rascals are amiss, I will try my new cargo of Livonian hemp upon 'em.

CHANCELLOR (_returning_): Sire! Sire!

PETER: Speak, fellow! Surely they have not condemned him to death without giving themselves time to read the accusation, that thou comest back so quickly.

CHANCELLOR: No, sire! Nor has either been done.

PETER: Then thy head quits thy shoulders.

CHANCELLOR: O sire! he fell.

PETER: Tie him up to thy chair, then. Cowardly beast! What made him fall?

CHANCELLOR: The hand of death.

PETER: Prythee speak plainlier.

CHANCELLOR: He said calmly, but not without sighing twice or thrice, "Lead me to the scaffold; I am weary of life. My father says, too truly, I am not courageous, but the death that leads me to my God shall never terrify me." When he heard your majesty's name accusing him of treason and attempts at parricide, he fell speechless. We raised him up: he was dead!

PETER: Inconsiderate and barbarous varlet as thou art, dost thou recite this ill accident to a father--and to one who has not dined? Bring me a glass of brandy. Away and bring it: scamper! Hark ye! bring the bottle with it: and--hark ye! a rasher of bacon on thy life! and some pickled sturgeon, and some krout and caviar.

_II.--Joseph Scaliger and Montaigne_

MONTAIGNE: What could have brought you, M. de l'Escale, other than a good heart? You rise early, I see; you must have risen with the sun, to be here at this hour. I have capital white wine, and the best cheese in Auvergne. Pierre, thou hast done well; set it upon the table, and tell Master Matthew to split a couple of chickens and broil them.

SCALIGER: This, I perceive, is the ante-chamber to your library; here are your every-day books.

MONTAIGNE: Faith! I have no other. These are plenty, methinks.

SCALIGER: You have great resources within yourself, and therefore can do with fewer.

MONTAIGNE: Why, how many now do you think here may be?

SCALIGER: I did not believe at first that there could be above fourscore.

MONTAIGNE: Well! are fourscore few? Are we talking of peas and beans?

SCALIGER: I and my father (put together) have written well-nigh as many.

MONTAIGNE: Ah! to write them is quite another thing. How do you like my wine? If you prefer your own country wine, only say it. I have several bottles in my cellar. I do not know, M. de l'Escale, whether you are particular in these matters?

SCALIGER: I know three things--wine, poetry, and the world.

MONTAIGNE: You know one too many, then. I hardly know whether I know anything about poetry; for I like Clem Marot better than Ronsard.

SCALIGER: It pleases me greatly that you like Marot. His version of the Psalms is lately set to music, and added to the New Testament of Geneva.

MONTAIGNE: It is putting a slice of honeycomb into a barrel of vinegar, which will never grow the sweeter for it.

SCALIGER: Surely, you do not think in this fashion of the New Testament?

MONTAIGNE: Who supposes it? Whatever is mild and kindly is there. But Jack Calvin has thrown bird-lime and vitriol upon it, and whoever but touches the cover dirties his fingers or burns them.

SCALIGER: Calvin is a very great man.

MONTAIGNE: I do not like your great men who beckon me to them, call me their begotten, their dear child, and their entrails; and, if I happen to say on any occasion, "I beg leave, sir, to dissent a little from you," stamp and cry, "The devil you do!" and whistle to the executioner.

SCALIGER: John Calvin is a grave man, orderly, and reasonable.

MONTAIGNE: In my opinion he has not the order nor the reason of my cook. Mat never twitched God by the sleeve and swore He should not have his own way.

SCALIGER: M. de Montaigne, have you ever studied the doctrine of predestination?

MONTAIGNE: I should not understand it if I had; and I would not break through an old fence merely to get into a cavern. Would it make me honester or happier, or, in other things, wiser?

SCALIGER: I do not know whether it would materially.

MONTAIGNE: I should be an egregious fool, then, to care about it. Come, walk about with me; after a ride you can do nothing better to take off fatigue. I can show you nothing but my house and my dairy.

SCALIGER: Permit me to look a little at those banners. They remind me of my own family, we being descended from the great Cane della Scala, Prince of Verona, and from the House of Hapsburg, as you must have heard from my father.

MONTAIGNE: What signifies it to the world whether the great Cane was tied to his grandmother or not? As for the House of Hapsburg, if you could put together as many such houses as would make up a city larger than Cairo, they would not be worth his study, or a sheet of paper on the table of it.

_III.--Bossuet and the Duchesse de Fontanges_

BOSSUET: Mademoiselle, it is the king's desire that I compliment you on the elevation you have attained.

FONTANGES: O monseigneur, I know very well what you mean. His majesty is kind and polite to everybody. The last thing he said to me was, "Angélique! do not forget to compliment monseigneur the bishop on the dignity I have conferred upon him, of almoner to the dauphiness. I desired the appointment for him only that he might be of rank sufficient to confess you, now you are duchess." You are so agreeable a man, monseigneur, I will confess to you, directly.

BOSSUET: Have you brought yourself to a proper frame of mind, young lady?

FONTANGES: What is that?

BOSSUET: Do you hate sin?

FONTANGES: Very much.

BOSSUET: Do you hate the world?

FONTANGES: A good deal of it; all Picardy, for example, and all Sologne; nothing is uglier--and, oh my life! what frightful men and women!

BOSSUET: I would say in plain language, do you hate the flesh and the devil?

FONTANGES: Who does not hate the devil? If you will hold my hand the while, I will tell him so--"I hate you, beast!" There now. As for flesh, I never could bear a fat man. Such people can neither dance nor hunt, nor do anything that I know of.

BOSSUET: Mademoiselle Marie Angélique de Scoraille de Rousille, Duchesse de Fontanges! Do you hate titles, and dignities, and yourself?

FONTANGES: Myself! Does anyone hate me? Why should I be the first? Hatred is the worst thing in the world; it makes one so very ugly.

BOSSUET: We must detest our bodies if we would save our souls.

FONTANGES: That is hard. How can I do it? I see nothing so detestable in mine. Do you? As God hath not hated me, why should I? As for titles and dignities, I am glad to be a duchess. Would not you rather be a duchess than a waiting-maid if the king gave you your choice?

BOSSUET: Pardon me, mademoiselle. I am confounded at the levity of your question. If you really have anything to confess, and desire that I should have the honour of absolving you, it would be better to proceed.

FONTANGES: You must first direct me, monseigneur. I have nothing particular. What was it that dropped on the floor as you were speaking?

BOSSUET: Leave it there!

FONTANGES: Your ring fell from your hand, my lord bishop! How quick you are! Could not you have trusted me to pick it up?

BOSSUET: Madame is too condescending. My hand is shrivelled; the ring has ceased to fit it. A pebble has moved you more than my words.

FONTANGES: It pleases me vastly. I admire rubies. I will ask the king for one exactly like it. This is the time he usually comes from the chase. I am sorry you cannot be present to hear how prettily I shall ask him. I am sure he will order the ring for me, and I will confess to you with it upon my finger. But, first, I must be cautious and particular to know of him how much it is his royal will that I should say.

_IV.--The Empress Catharine and Princess Dashkof_

CATHARINE: Into his heart! Into his heart! If he escapes, we perish! Do you think, Dashkof, they can hear me through the double door? Yes, hark! they heard me. They have done it! What bubbling and gurgling! He groaned but once. Listen! His blood is busier now than it ever was before. I should not have thought it could have splashed so loud upon the floor. Put you ear against the lock.

DASHKOF: I hear nothing.

CATHARINE: My ears are quicker than yours, and know these notes better. Let me come. There! There again! The drops are now like lead. How now? Which of these fools has brought his dog with him? What trampling and lapping! The creature will carry the marks all about the palace with his feet! You turn pale, and tremble. You should have supported me, in case I had required it.

DASHKOF: I thought only of the tyrant. Neither in life nor in death could any one of these miscreants make me tremble. But the husband slain by his wife! What will Russia--what will Europe say?

CATHARINE: Russia has no more voice than a whale. She may toss about in her turbulence, but my artillery (for now, indeed, I can safely call it mine) shall stun and quiet her.

DASHKOF: I fear for your renown.

CATHARINE: Europe shall be informed of my reasons, if she should ever find out that I countenanced the conspiracy. She shall be persuaded that her repose made the step necessary; that my own life was in danger; that I fell upon my knees to soften the conspirators; that only when I had fainted, the horrible deed was done.

DASHKOF: Europe may be more easily subjugated than duped.

CATHARINE: She shall be both, God willing! Is the rouge off my face?

DASHKOF: It is rather in streaks and mottles, excepting just under the eyes, where it sits as it should do.

CATHARINE: I am heated and thirsty. I cannot imagine how. I think we have not yet taken our coffee. I could eat only a slice of melon at breakfast--my duty urged me _then_--and dinner is yet to come. Remember, I am to faint at the midst of it, when the intelligence comes in, or, rather, when, in despite of every effort to conceal it from me, the awful truth has flashed upon my mind. Remember, too, you are to catch me, and to cry for help, and to tear those fine flaxen hairs which we laid up together on the toilet; and we are both to be as inconsolable as we can be for the life of us.

Come, sing. I know not how to fill up the interval. Two long hours yet! How stupid and tiresome! I wish all things of the sort could be done and be over in a day. They are mightily disagreeable when by nature one is not cruel. People little know my character. I have the tenderest heart upon earth. Ivan must follow next; he is heir to the throne. But not now. Another time. Two such scenes together, and without some interlude, would perplex people.

I thought we spoke of singing. Do not make me wait. Cannot you sing as usual, without smoothing your dove's throat with your handkerchief, and taking off your necklace? Sing, sing! I am quite impatient!

_V.--Bacon and Richard Hooker_

BACON: Hearing much of your worthiness and wisdom, Master Richard Hooker, I have besought your comfort and consolation in this my too heavy affliction, for we often do stand in need of hearing what we know full well, and our own balsams must be poured into our breasts by another's hand. Withdrawn, as you live, from court and courtly men, and having ears occupied by better reports than such as are flying about me, yet haply so hard a case as mine, befalling a man heretofore not averse from the studies in which you take delight, may have touched you with some concern.

HOOKER: I do think, my lord of Verulam, that the day which in his wisdom he appointed for your trial was the very day on which the king's majesty gave unto your ward and custody the great seal of his English realm. And--let me utter it without offence--your features and stature were from that day forward no longer what they were before. Such an effect do rank and power and office produce even on prudent and religious men. You, my lord, as befits you, are smitten and contrite; but I know that there is always a balm which lies uppermost in these afflictions.

BACON: Master Richard, it is surely no small matter to lose the respect of those who looked up to us for countenance; and the favour of a right learned king, and, O Master Hooker, such a power of money! But money is mere dross. I should always hold it so, if it possessed not two qualities--that of making men treat us reverently, and that of enabling us to help the needy.

HOOKER: The respect, I think, of those who respect us for what a fool can give and a rogue can take away, may easily be dispensed with; but it is indeed a high prerogative to help the needy, and when it pleases the Almighty to deprive us of it, he hath removed a most fearful responsibility.

BACON: Methinks it beginneth to rain, Master Richard. What if we comfort our bodies with a small cup of wine, against the ill-temper of the air. Pledge me; hither comes our wine.(_To the servant_) Dolt! Is not this the beverage I reserve for myself?

Bear with me, good Master Hooker, but verily I have little of this wine, and I keep it as a medicine for my many and growing infirmities. You are healthy at present: God, in His infinite mercy, long maintain you so! Weaker drink is more wholesome for you. But this Malmsey, this Malmsey, flies from centre to circumference, and makes youthful blood boil.

HOOKER: Of a truth, my knowledge in such matters is but sparse. My lord of Canterbury once ordered part of a goblet, containing some strong Spanish wine, to be taken to me from his table when I dined by sufferance with his chaplains, and, although a most discreet, prudent man, as befitteth his high station, was not so chary of my health as your lordship. Wine is little to be trifled with; physic less. The Cretans, the brewers of this Malmsey, have many aromatic and powerful herbs among them. On their mountains, and notably on Ida, grows that dittany which works such marvels, and which perhaps may give activity to this hot medicinal drink of theirs. I would not touch it knowingly; an unregarded leaf dropped into it above the ordinary might add such puissance to the concoction as almost to break the buckles in my shoes.

BACON: When I read of such things I doubt them: but if I could procure a plant of dittany I would persuade my apothecary and my gamekeeper to make experiments.

HOOKER: I dare not distrust what grave writers have declared in matters beyond my knowledge.

BACON: Good Master Hooker, I have read many of your reasonings, and they are admirably well sustained. Yet forgive me, in God's name my worthy master, if you descried in me some expression of wonder at your simplicity. You would define to a hair's breadth the qualities, states, and dependencies of principalities, dominations, and powers; you would be unerring about the apostles and the churches, and 'tis marvellous how you wander about a pot-herb!

HOOKER: I know my poor, weak intellects, most noble lord, and how scantily they have profited by my hard painstaking. Wisdom consisteth not in knowing many things, nor even in knowing them thoroughly, but in choosing and in following what conduces the most certainly to our lasting happiness and true glory.

BACON: I have observed among the well-informed and the ill-informed nearly the same quantity of infirmities and follies; those who are rather the wiser keep them separate, and those who are wisest of all keep them better out of sight. I have persuaded men, and shall persuade them for ages, that I possess a wide range of thought unexplored by others, and first thrown open by me, with many fair enclosures of choice and abstruse knowledge. One subject, however, hath almost escaped me, and surely one worth the trouble.

HOOKER: Pray, my lord, if I am guilty of no indiscretion, what may it be?

BACON: Francis Bacon.

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Reflections and Moral Maxims

Rochefoucauld's "Reflections, or Sentences and Moral Maxims,"
were published in 1665. In them his philosophy of life is
expressed with a perfection of form which still remains
unrivalled and unequalled. The original work contains only 314
short sentences; the last edition he published contains 541; but
when one examines the exquisite workmanship of his style, one
does not wonder that it represents the labour of twenty years. La
Rochefoucauld (see Vol. X, p. 203) is one of the greatest masters
of French prose, as well as one of the great masters of cynicism.
He has exerted a deep influence both on English and French
literature, and Swift and Byron were among his disciples.

_I.--Of Love and of Women_

To judge love by most of its effects, it seems more like hatred than kindness.

In love we often doubt of what we most believe.

As long as we love, we forgive.

Love is like fire, it cannot be without continual motion; as soon as it ceases to hope or fear it ceases to exist.

Many persons would never have been in love had they never heard talk of it.

Agreeable and pleasant as love is, it pleases more by the manners in which it shows itself than by itself alone.

We pass on from love to ambition; we seldom return from ambition to love.

Those who have had a great love affair find themselves all their life happy and unhappy at being cured of it.

In love the one who is first cured is best cured.

The reason why lovers are never weary of talking of each other is that they are always talking of themselves.

Constancy in love is a perpetual inconstancy which makes our heart attach itself in succession to all the qualities of our beloved, and prefer, now this trait and now that; so that this constancy is only a kind of inconstancy fixed and enclosed in a single object.

If there is a love pure and exempt from all mixture with our other passions, it is that which is hidden in the depth of our heart and unknown to ourselves.

The pleasure of love consists in loving, and our own passion gives us more happiness than the feelings which our beloved has for us.

The grace of novelty is to love like the fine bloom on fruit; it gives it a lustre which is easily effaced and never recovered.

We are nearer loving those who hate us than those who love us more than we desire.

Women often fancy themselves to be in love when they are not. Their natural passion for being beloved, their unwillingness to give a denial, the excitement of mind produced by an affair of gallantry, all these make them imagine they are in love when they are in fact only coquetting.

All women are flirts. Some are restrained by timidity and some by reason.

The greatest miracle of love is the reformation of a coquette.

A coquette pretends to be jealous of her lover, in order to conceal her envy of other women.

Most women yield more from weakness than from passion, hence an enterprising man usually succeeds with them better than an amiable man.

It is harder for women to overcome their coquetry than their love. No woman knows how much of a coquette she is.

Women who are in love more readily forgive great indiscretions than small infidelities.

Some people are so full of themselves that even when they become lovers they find a way of being occupied with their passion without being interested in the person whom they love.

It is useless to be young without being beautiful, or beautiful without being young.

In their first love affairs women love their lover; in all others they love love.

In the old age of love, as in the old age of life, we continue to live to pain long after we have ceased to live to pleasure.

There is no passion in which self-love reigns so powerfully as in love; we are always more ready to sacrifice the repose of a person we love than to lose our own.

There is a certain kind of love which, as it grows excessive, leaves no room for jealousy.

Jealousy is born with love, but it does not always die with it.

Jealousy is the greatest of all afflictions, and that which least excites pity in the persons that cause it.

In love and in friendship we are often happier by reason of the things that we do not know than by those that we do.

There are few women whose merit lasts longer than their beauty.

The reason why most women are little touched by friendship is that friendship is insipid to those who have felt what love is.

_II.--Friendship_

In the misfortunes of our best friends we always find something that does not displease us.

Rare as true love is, it is less rare than true friendship.

What makes us so changing in our friendships is that it is difficult to discern the qualities of the soul, and easy to recognize the qualities of the mind.

It is equally difficult to have a friendship for those whom we do not esteem as for those we esteem more than ourselves.

We love those who admire us, not those whom we admire.

Most of the friendships of the world ill deserve the name of friendship; still, a man may make occasional use of them, as in a business where the profits are uncertain and it is usual to be cheated.

It is more dishonourable to mistrust a friend than to be deceived by him.

We are fond of exaggerating the love our friends bear us, but it is less from a feeling of gratitude than from a desire to advertise our own merits.

What usually hinders us from revealing the depths of our hearts to our friends is not so much the distrust which we have of them as the distrust that we have of ourselves.

We confess our little defects merely to persuade our friends that we have no great failings.

The greatest effort of friendship is not to show our defects to a friend, but to make him see his own.

Sincerity is an opening of the heart. It is found in exceedingly few people, and what passes for it is only a subtle dissimulation used to attract confidence.

We can love nothing except in relation to ourselves, and we merely follow our own bent and pleasure when we prefer our friends to ourselves; yet it is only by this preference that friendship can be made true and perfect.

It seems as if self-love is the dupe of kindness and that it is forgotten while we are working for the benefit of other men. In this case, however, our self-love is merely taking the safest road to arrive at its ends; it is lending at usury under the pretext of giving, it is aiming at winning all the world by subtle and delicate means.

The first impulses of joy excited in us by the good fortune of our friends proceed neither from our good nature nor from the friendship we have for them; it is an effect of self-love that flatters us with the hope either of being fortunate in our turn or of drawing some advantage from their prosperity.

What makes us so eager to form new acquaintances is not the mere pleasure of change or a weariness of old friendships, so much as a disgust at not being enough admired by those who know us too well, and a hope of winning more admiration from persons who do not know much about us.

_III.--Things of the Mind_

The mind is always the dupe of the heart. Those who are acquainted with their own mind are not acquainted with their own heart.

The mind is more indolent than the body.

It is the mark of fine intellects to explain many things in a few words; little minds have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing.

We speak but little when vanity does not make us speak.

A spirit of confidence helps on conversation more than brilliance of mind does.

True eloquence consists of saying all that is necessary, and nothing more.

A man may be witty and still be a fool; judgment is the source of wisdom.

A man does not please for very long when he has but one kind of wit.

It is a mistake to imagine that wit and judgment are two distinct things; judgment is only the perfection of wit, which pierces into the recesses of things and there perceives what from the outside seems to be imperceptible.

A man of intelligence would often be at a loss were it not for the company of fools.

It is not so much fertility of mind that leads us to discover many expedients in regard to a single matter, as a defect of intelligence, that makes us stop at everything presented to our imagination, and hinders us from discerning at once which is the best course.

Some old men like to give good advice to console themselves for being no longer in a state to give a bad example.

No man of sound good sense strikes us as such unless he is of our way of thinking.

Stiffness of opinion comes from pettiness of mind; we do not easily believe in anything that is beyond our range of vision.

Good taste is based on judgment rather than on intelligence.

It is more often through pride than through any want of enlightenment that men set themselves stubbornly to oppose the most current opinions; finding all the best places taken on the popular side, they do not want those in the rear.

In order to understand things well one must know the detail of them; and as this is almost infinite, our knowledge is always superficial and imperfect.

It is never so difficult to talk well as when we are ashamed of our silence.

The excessive pleasure we feel in talking about ourselves ought to make us apprehensive that we afford little to our listeners.

Truth has not done so much good in the world as the false appearances of it have done harm.

Man's chief wisdom consists in being sensible of his follies.

_IV.--Human Life and Human Nature_

Youth is a continual intoxication; it is the fever of reason.

The passions of youth are scarcely more opposed to salvation than the lukewarmness of old persons.

There is not enough material in a fool to make a good man out of him.

We have more strength than will, and it is often to excuse ourselves to ourselves that we imagine things are impossible.

There are few things impossible in themselves; it is the application to achieve them that we lack more than the means.

It is a mistake to imagine that only the more violent passions, such as ambition and love, can triumph over the rest. Idleness often masters them all. It indeed influences all our designs and actions, and insensibly destroys both our vices and our virtues.

Idleness is of all our passions that which is most unknown to ourselves. It is the most ardent and the most malign of all, though we do not feel its working, and the harm which it does is hidden. If we consider its power attentively, we shall see that in every struggle it triumphs over our feelings, our interests, and our pleasures. To give a true idea of this passion it is necessary to add that idleness is like a beatitude of the soul which consoles it for all its losses and serves in place of all its wealth.

The gratitude of most men is only a secret desire to receive greater favours.

We like better to see those on whom we confer benefits than those from whom we receive them.

It is less dangerous to do harm to most men than to do them too much good.

If we had no defects ourselves we should not take so much pleasure in observing the failings of others.

One man may be more cunning than another man, but he cannot be more cunning than all the world.

Mankind has made a virtue of moderation in order to limit the ambition of great men and to console mediocre people for their scanty fortune and their scanty merit.

We should often be ashamed of our finest actions if the world saw all the motives that produced them.

Our desire to speak of ourselves, and to reveal our defects in the best light in which we can show them, constitutes a great part of our sincerity.

The shame that arises from undeserved praise often leads us to do things which we should not otherwise have attempted.

The labours of the body free us from the pains of the mind. It is this that constitutes the happiness of the poor.

It is more necessary to study men than to study books.

The truly honest man is he who sets no value on himself.

Censorious as the world is, it is oftener favourable to false merit than unjust to true.

It is not enough to possess great qualities; we must know how to use them.

He who lives without folly is not so wise as he fancies.

Good manners are the least of all laws and the most strictly observed.

Everybody complains of a lack of memory, nobody of a lack of judgment.

The love of justice is nothing more than a fear of injustice.

Passion often makes a fool of a man of sense, and sometimes it makes a fool a man of sense.

Nature seems to have hidden in the depth of our minds a skill and a talent of which we are ignorant; only our passions are able to bring them out and to give us sometimes surer and more complete views than we could arrive at by thought and study.

Our passions are the only orators with an unfailing power of persuasion. They are an art of nature with infallible rules, and the simplest man who is possessed by passion is far more persuasive than the most eloquent speaker who is not moved by feeling.

As we grow old we grow foolish as well as wise.

Few people know how to grow old.

Death and the sun are things one cannot look at steadily.

_V.--Virtues and Vices_

Hypocrisy is a homage that vice pays to virtue.

Our vices are commonly disguised virtues.

Virtue would not go far if vanity did not go with her.

Prosperity is a stronger test of virtue than misfortune is.

Men blame vice and praise virtue only through self-interest.

Great souls are not those which have less passions and more virtues than common souls, but those which have larger ambitions.

Of all our virtues one might say what an Italian poet has said of the honesty of women, "that it is often nothing but an art of pretending to be honest."

Virtues are lost in self-interest, as rivers are in the sea.

To the honour of virtue it must be acknowledged that the greatest misfortunes befall men from their vices.

When our vices leave us, we flatter ourselves that we have left them.

Feebleness is more opposed to vice than virtue is.

What makes the pangs of shame and jealousy so sharp is that our vanity cannot help us to support them.

What makes the vanity of other persons so intolerable is that it hurts our own.

We have not the courage to say in general that we have no defects, and that our enemies have no good qualities; but in matters of detail we are not very far from believing it.

If we never flattered ourselves the flattery of others Would not injure us.

We sometimes think we dislike flattery; we only dislike the way in which we are flattered.

Flattery is a kind of bad money to which our vanity gives currency.

Self-love, as it happens to be well or ill-conducted, constitutes virtue and vice.

We are so prepossessed in our own favour that we often mistake for virtues those vices that bear some resemblance to them, and are artfully disguised by self-love.

Nothing is so capable of lessening our self-love as the observation that we disapprove at one time what we approve at another.

Self-love is the love of self, and of everything for the sake of self. When fortune gives the means, self-love makes men idolise themselves and tyrannise over others. It never rests or fixes itself anywhere outside its home. If it settle on external things, it is only as the bee does on flowers, to extract what may be serviceable. Nothing is so impetuous as its desires, nothing so secret as its designs, nothing so adroit as its conduct. We can neither fathom the depth, nor penetrate the obscurity of its abyss. There, concealed from the most piercing eye, it makes numberless turnings and windings; there is it often invisible even to itself; there it conceives, breeds, and cherishes, without being aware of it, an infinity of likings and hatreds; some of which are so monstrous that, having given birth to them, self-love either does not recognize them, or cannot bear to own them. From the darkness which covers self-love spring the ridiculous notions which it entertains of itself; thence its errors, ignorance, and silly mistakes; thence it imagines that its feelings are dead when they are but asleep; and thinks that it has lost all appetite when it is for the moment sated.

But the thick mist which hides it from itself does not hinder it from seeing perfectly whatever is without; and thus it resembles the eye, that sees all things except itself. In great concerns and important affairs, where the violence of its desire excites its whole attention, it sees, perceives, understands, invents, suspects, penetrates, and divines all things; so that one is tempted to believe that each of its passions has its peculiar magic.

Its desires are inflamed by itself rather than by the beauty and merit of the objects; its own taste heightens and embellishes them; itself is the game it pursues, and its own inclination is what is followed rather than the things which seem to be the objects of its inclination. Composed of contrarieties, it is imperious and obedient, sincere and hypocritical, merciful and cruel, timid and bold. Its desires tend, according to the diverse moods that direct it, sometimes to glory, sometimes to wealth, sometimes to pleasure. These are changed as age and experience alter; and whether it has many inclinations or only one is a matter of indifference, because it can split itself into many or collect itself into one just as is convenient or agreeable.

It is inconstant; and numberless are the changes, besides those which happen from external causes, which proceed from its own nature. Inconstant through levity, through love, through novelty, through satiety, through disgust, through inconstancy itself. Capricious; and sometimes labouring with eagerness and incredible pains to obtain things that are in no way advantageous, nay, even hurtful, but which are pursued merely as a passion. Whimsical, and often exerting intense application in the most trifling employments; taking delight in the most insipid things, and preserving all its haughtiness in the most contemptible pursuits. Attendant on all ages and conditions; living everywhere; living on everything; living on nothing. Easy in either the enjoyment, or privation of things. Going over to those who are at variance with it; even entering into their schemes; and, wonderful! joining with them, it hates itself; conspires its own destruction; labours to be undone; desires only to exist; and, that granted, consents to be its own enemy.

We are not therefore to be surprised if sometimes, uniting with the most rigid austerity, it enters boldly into a combination against itself; because what is lost in one respect is regained in another. When we think it relinquishes pleasures, it only suspends or changes them; and even when discomforted, and we seem to be rid of it, we find it triumphant in its own defeat. Such is self-love!--of which man's whole life is only a strong, a continued agitation. The sea is a striking image of it, and in the flux and reflux of the waves, self-love may find a lively expression of the turbulent succession of its thoughts, and of its eternal agitation.

LEONARDO DA VINCI

Treatise on Painting

Leonardo Da Vinci was born in 1452 at Anchiano, near Vinci,
in Tuscany, the son of a Florentine notary. Trained in the
workshop of Andrea Verrocchio, he became one of the greatest
and most versatile artists of the Renaissance. Indeed, he must
be considered one of the master-minds of all times, for there
was scarcely a sphere of human knowledge in which he did not
excel and surpass his contemporaries. He was not only preeminent
as painter, sculptor, and architect, but was an accomplished
musician, poet, and improvisatore, an engineer--able to construct
canals, roads, fortifications, ships, and war-engines of every
description--an inventor of rare musical instruments, and a great
organiser of fêtes and pageants. Few of his artistic creations
have come down to us; but his profound knowledge of art and
science, and the wide range of his intellect are fully revealed
in the scattered leaves of his notebooks, which are now preserved
in the British Museum, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the
Ambrosiani in Milan, and other collections. The first edition of
the "Treatise on Painting" was a compilation from these original
notes, published at Paris in 1651. Leonardo died at Cloux on May
2, 1519.

_From Da Vinci's Notebooks_

The eye, which is called the window of the soul, is the principal means whereby our intelligence may most fully and splendidly comprehend the infinite works of nature; and the ear comes next, by gaining importance through hearing the things that have been perceived by the eye. If you historians or poets, or mathematicians, had not seen things with your eyes, badly would you describe them in your writings. If you, O poet, call painting dumb poetry, the painter might say of the poet's writing blind painting. Now consider, which taunt is more mordant--to be called blind or dumb?

If the poet is as free in invention as the painter, yet his fiction is not as satisfying to mankind as is painting, for whereas poetry endeavours with words to represent forms, actions, and scenes, the painter's business is to imitate forms with the images of these very forms. Take the case of a poet, describing the beauties of a woman to her lover, and that of a painter depicting her; you will soon see whither nature will attract the enamoured judge. And should not the proof of things be the verdict of experience?

If you say that poetry is more enduring, I may reply that the works of a coppersmith are more enduring still, since time has preserved them longer than your works or ours; yet they are less imaginative, and painting, if done with enamels on copper, can be made far more enduring. We, in our art, may be said to be grandsons unto God. If you despise painting, which is the sole imitator of all the visible works of nature, then you certainly despise a subtle invention which, with philosophical and ingenious reflection, considers all the properties of forms, airs, and scenes, trees, animals, grasses and flowers, which are surrounded by light and shade.

And this is a science and the true-born daughter of nature, since painting is born of this self-same nature. But, in order to speak more correctly, let us call it the grandchild of nature, because all visible things are produced by nature, and from these same things is born painting. Wherefore we may rightly call it the grandchild of nature, related to God Himself.

_How Sculpture is Less Intellectual_

Being sculptor no less than painter, and practising both arts in the same degree, it seems to me that I may without arrogance pronounce how one of them is more intellectual, difficult, and perfect than the other.

Firstly, sculpture is subject to a certain light--namely, from above--and painting carries everywhere with it light and shade. Light and shade are, therefore, the essentials in sculpture. In this respect the sculptor is aided by the nature of the relief, which produces these of its own accord; the painter introduces them by his art where nature would reasonably place them. The sculptor cannot reproduce the varying nature of the colours of objects; painting lacks nothing in this respect. The sculptor's perspectives never seem true, but the painter's lead the eye hundreds of miles into the work. Aerial perspective is alien to their work. They can neither represent transparent nor luminous bodies, neither reflected rays nor shiny surfaces like mirrors and similar glittering bodies; no mist, no dull sky, nor countless other things, which I refrain from mentioning to avoid getting wearisome. It has the advantage that it offers greater resistance to time, although enamels on copper fused in fire have equal power of resistance. Thus painting surpasses sculpture even in durability.

Were you to speak only of painting on panels, I should be content to give the verdict against sculpture by saying: Whilst painting is more beautiful, more imaginative, and more resourceful, sculpture is more durable; and this is all that can be said for it. It reveals with little effort what it is. Painting seems a miraculous thing, making things intangible appear tangible, presenting flat objects in relief, and distant near at hand. Indeed, painting is adorned with endless possibilities that are not used by sculpture.

Painters fight and compete with nature.

_Of the Ten Offices of the Eye_

Painting extends over all the ten offices of the eye--namely, darkness, light, body and colour, figure and scenery, distance and nearness, movement and repose--all of which offices will be woven through this little work of mine. For I will remind the painter by what rule and in what manner he shall use his art to imitate all these things, the work of nature and the ornament of the world.

_Rule for Beginners in Painting_

We know clearly that sight is one of the swiftest actions in existence, perceiving in one moment countless forms. Nevertheless, it cannot comprehend more than one thing at a time. Suppose, for instance, you, reader, were to cast a single glance upon this entire written page and were to decide at once that it is full of different letters; but you will not be able to recognize in this space of time either what letters they are or what they purport to say. Therefore, you must take word by word, verse by verse, in order to gain knowledge from these letters. Again, if you want to reach the summit of a building, you must submit to climbing step by step, else it would be impossible for you to reach the top. And so I say to you, whom nature inclines to this art, if you would have a true knowledge of the form of things, begin with their details, and don't pass on to the second before the first is well fixed in your memory, else you will waste your time.

Perspective is the rein and rudder of painting.