Part 20

(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?

(121.) Gnathon[571] lives for no one but himself, and the rest of the world are to him as if they did not exist. He is not satisfied with occupying the best seat at table, but he must take the seats of two other guests, and forgets that the dinner was not provided for him alone, but for the company as well; he lays hold of every dish, and looks on each course as his own; he never sticks to one single dish until he has tried them all, and would like to enjoy them all at one and the same time. At table his hands serve for a knife and fork; he paws the meat over and over again, and tears it to pieces, so that if the other guests wish to dine, it must be on his leavings. He does not spare them any of those filthy and disgusting habits which are enough to spoil the appetite of the most hungry; the gravy and sauce run over his chin and beard; if he takes part of a stew out of a dish, he spills it by the way over another dish and on the cloth, so you may distinguish him by his track. He eats with a great deal of smacking and noise, rolls his eyes, and uses the table as a manger, picks his teeth and continues eating; he makes every place his home, and will have as much elbow-room in church and in a theatre as if he were in his own room. When he rides in a coach, it must always be forward, for he says that any other seat will make him fall in a swoon, if we can believe him. When he travels he is always in advance of his companions, so as to get first to the inn, and choose the best room and the best bed for himself; he makes use of everybody, and his own and other peopleʼs servants run about and do his errands; everything is his he lays his hands on, even clothes and luggage; he disturbs every one, but does not inconvenience himself for anybody; he pities no one, and knows no other indispositions but his own, his over-feeding and biliousness; he laments no personʼs death, fears no oneʼs but his own, and to redeem his own life, would willingly consent to see the entire human race become extinct.