The case is overstated, no doubt; but the strength of La Rochefoucauld's position can only be appreciated when one has felt for oneself the keen arrows of his wit. As one turns over his pages, the sentences strike into one with a deadly force of personal application; sometimes one almost blushes; one realizes that these things are cruel, that they are humiliating, and that they are true. 'Nous avons tous assez de force pour supporter les maux d'autrui.'--'Quelque bien qu'on nous dise de nous, on ne nous apprend rien de nouveau.'--'On croit quelquefois haïr la flatterie, mais on ne hait que le manière de flatter.'--'Le refus de la louange est un désir d'être loué deux fois.'--'Les passions les plus violentes nous laissent quelquefois du relâche, mais la vanité nous agite toujours.' No more powerful dissolvent for the self-complacency of humanity was ever composed. Unlike the majority of the writers of his age, La Rochefoucauld was an aristocrat; and this fact gives a peculiar tone to his work. In spite of the great labour which he spent upon perfecting it, he has managed, in some subtle way, to preserve all through it an air of slight disdain. 'Yes, these sentences are all perfect,' he seems to be saying; 'but then, what else would you have? Unless one writes perfect sentences, why should one trouble to write?' In his opinion, 'le vrai honnête homme est celui qui ne se pique de rien'; and it is clear that he followed his own dictum. His attitude was eminently detached. Though what he says reveals so intensely personal a vision, he himself somehow remains impersonal. Beneath the flawless surface of his workmanship, the clever Duke eludes us. We can only see, as we peer into the recesses, an infinite ingenuity and a very bitter love of truth.