A writer who cannot lie with inspiration--and that is a great art, which few may accomplish--loves to make an exhibition of honesty and frankness. Nothing else is left him to do. 24 _The source of originality_.--A man who has lost all hope of rooting out of himself a certain radical defect of character, or even of hiding the flaw from others, turns round and tries to find in his defect a pertain merit. If he succeeds in convincing his acquaintances, he achieves a double gain: first, he quiets his conscience, and then he acquires a reputation for being original. 25 Men begin to strive towards great ends when they feel they cannot cope with the little tasks of life. They often have their measure of success. 26 A belch interrupts the loftiest meditation. You may draw a conclusion if you like: if you don't like, you needn't. 27 _A woman of conviction_.--We forgive a man his "convictions," however unwillingly. It goes without saying that we balk at any individual who believes in his own infallibility, but one must reconcile oneself with necessity. It is ugly and preposterous to have corns on one's hands, but still, they can't be avoided in this unparadisal earth of sweat and labour. But why see an ideal in callosities? In practical life, particularly in the social political life to which we are doomed, convictions are a necessity. Unity is strength, and unity is possible only among people who think alike. Again, a deep conviction is in itself a strong force, far more powerful than the most logical argumentation. Sometimes one has only to pronounce in a full, round, vibrating chest voice, such as is peculiar to people of conviction, some trifling sentence, and an audience hitherto unconvinced is carried away. Truth is often dumb, particularly a new truth, which is most shy of people, and which has a feeble, hoarse voice. But in certain situations that which will influence the crowd is more important than that which is genuine truth. Convictions are necessary to a public man; but he who is too clever to believe in himself entirely, and is not enough of an actor to look as if he believed, he had best give up public work altogether. At the same time he will realise that lack of convictions is not profitable, and will look with more indulgence on such as are bound to keep themselves well supplied. Yet all the more will he dislike those men who without any necessity disfigure themselves with the coarse tattoo marks. And particularly he will object to such women. What can be more intolerable than a woman of conviction. She lives in a family, without having to grind for her daily bread--why disfigure herself? Why wilfully rub her hands into corns, when she might keep them clean and pretty! Women, moreover, usually pick up their convictions ready-made from the man who interests them most at the moment. And never do they do this so vigorously as when the man himself seems incapable of paving the way to his ideas!