Here is a happy instance of La Bruyere's successful pains in redeeming a commonplace sentiment by means of a striking form of expression; the writer is disapproving the use of oaths in support of one's testimony: An honest man who says Yes, or No, deserves to be believed; his character swears for him. Highly satiric in his quiet way, La Bruyere knew how to be. Witness the following thrust at a contemporary author, not named by the satirist, but, no doubt, recognized by the public of the time: He maintains that the ancients, however unequal and negligent they may be, have fine traits; he points these out; and they are so fine that they make his criticism readable. How painstakingly, how self-consciously, La Bruyere did his literary work is evidenced by the following: A good author, and one who writes with care, often has the experience of finding that the expression which he was a long time in search of without reaching it, and which at length he has found, is that which was the most simple, the most natural, and that which, as it would seem, should have presented itself at first, and without effort. We feel that the quality of La Bruyere is such as to fit him for the admiration and enjoyment of but a comparatively small class of readers. He was somewhat over-exquisite. His art at times became artifice--infinite labor of style to make commonplace thought seem valuable by dint of perfect expression. We dismiss La Bruyere with a single additional extract--his celebrated parallel between Corneille and Racine: Corneille subjects us to his characters and to his ideas; Racine accommodates himself to ours. The one paints men as they ought to be; the other paints them as they are. There is more in the former of what one admires, and of what one ought even to imitate; there is more in the latter of what one observes in others, or of what one experiences in one's self. The one inspires, astonishes, masters, instructs; the other pleases, moves, touches, penetrates. Whatever there is most beautiful, most noble, most imperial, in the reason is made use of by the former; by the latter whatever is most seductive and most delicate in passion. You find in the former maxims, rules, and precepts; in the latter, taste and sentiment. You are more absorbed in the plays of Corneille; you are more shaken and more softened in those of Racine. Corneille is more moral; Racine, more natural. The one appears to make Sophocles his model; the other owes more to Euripides.