Chapter 4

423.--Few know how to be old.

424.--We often credit ourselves with vices the reverse of what we have, thus when weak we boast of our obstinacy.

425.--Penetration has a spice of divination in it which tickles our vanity more than any other quality of the mind.

426.--The charm of novelty and old custom, however opposite to each other, equally blind us to the faults of our friends.

["Two things the most opposite blind us equally, custom and novelty."-La Bruyere, Des Judgements.]

427.--Most friends sicken us of friendship, most devotees of devotion.

428.--We easily forgive in our friends those faults we do not perceive.

429.--Women who love, pardon more readily great indiscretions than little infidelities.

430.--In the old age of love as in life we still survive for the evils, though no longer for the pleasures.

["The youth of friendship is better than its old age." --Hazlitt's Characteristics, 229.]

431.--Nothing prevents our being unaffected so much as our desire to seem so.

432.--To praise good actions heartily is in some measure to take part in them.

433.--The most certain sign of being born with great qualities is to be born without envy.

["Nemo alienae virtuti invidet qui satis confidet suae." --Cicero In Marc Ant.]

434.--When our friends have deceived us we owe them but indifference to the tokens of their friendship, yet for their misfortunes we always owe them pity.

435.--Luck and temper rule the world.

436.--It is far easier to know men than to know man.

437.--We should not judge of a man's merit by his great abilities, but by the use he makes of them.

438.--There is a certain lively gratitude which not only releases us from benefits received, but which also, by making a return to our friends as payment, renders them indebted to us.

["And understood not that a grateful mind, By owing owes not, but is at once Indebted and discharged." Milton. Paradise Lost.]

439.--We should earnestly desire but few things if we clearly knew what we desired.

440.--The cause why the majority of women are so little given to friendship is, that it is insipid after having felt love.

["Those who have experienced a great passion neglect friendship, and those who have united themselves to friendship have nought to do with love."--La Bruyere. Du Coeur.]

441.--As in friendship so in love, we are often happier from ignorance than from knowledge.

442.--We try to make a virtue of vices we are loth to correct.

443.--The most violent passions give some respite, but vanity always disturbs us.

444.--Old fools are more foolish than young fools.

["Malvolio. Infirmity{,} that decays the wise{,} doth eve{r} make the better fool. Clown. God send you, sir, a speedy infirmity{,} for the better increasing of your folly."--Shakespeare. Twelfth Night{, Act I,