No. 11. The passions often beget their contraries. Avarice sometimes produces prodigality, and prodigality avarice: we are often firm from weakness, and daring from timidity. No. 13. Our self-love bears more impatiently the condemnation of our tastes than of our opinions. How much just detraction from all mere natural human greatness is contained in the following penetrative maxim!-- No. 18. Moderation is a fear of falling into the envy and contempt which those deserve who are intoxicated with their good fortune; it is a vain parade of the strength of our mind; and, in short, the moderation of men in their highest elevation is a desire to appear greater than their fortune. What effectively quiet satire in these few words!-- No. 19. We have strength enough to bear the ills of others. This man had seen the end of all perfection in the apparently great of this world. He could not bear that such should flaunt a false plume before their fellows:-- No. 20. The steadfastness of sages is only the art of locking up their uneasiness in their hearts. Of course, had it lain in the author's chosen line to do so, he might, with as much apparent truth, have pointed out, that to lock up uneasiness in the heart requires steadfastness no less--nay, more--than not to feel uneasiness. The inflation of "philosophy" vaunting itself is thus softly eased of its painful distention:-- No. 22. Philosophy triumphs easily over troubles passed and troubles to come, but present troubles triumph over it. When Jesus once rebuked the fellow-disciples of James and John for blaming those brethren as self-seekers, he acted on the same profound principle with that disclosed in the following maxim:-- No. 34. If we had no pride, we should not complain of that of others. How impossible it is for that Proteus, self-love, to elude the presence of mind, the inexorable eye, the fast hand, of this incredulous Frenchman:-- No. 39. Interest [self-love] speaks all sorts of languages, and plays all sorts of parts, even that of disinterestedness. No. 49. We are never so happy, or so unhappy, as we imagine. No. 78. The love of justice is, in most men, only the fear of suffering injustice. What a subtly unsoldering distrust the following maxim introduces into the sentiment of mutual friendship!-- No. 83. What men have called friendship, is only a partnership, a mutual accommodation of interests, and an exchange of good offices: it is, in short, only a traffic, in which self-love always proposes to gain something. No. 89. Every one complains of his memory, and no one complains of his judgment. How striking, from its artful suppression of strikingness, is the first following, and what a wide, easy sweep of well-bred satire it contains!--