de Villeroi, relying always on luck, insisted on joining battle at Ramillies. Excessive praise, by blinding us to our faults, causes us to remain in the path of mediocrity, when nature has given us faculties calculated to raise us above the vulgar; by tempting us to close our ears to the harsh counsels of truth, it leads us to mistake self-esteem for genius, vanity for merit, facility for talent. How many artists, even when they seek advice, refuse to receive anything but compliments! But they have been persuaded that all their works are masterpieces, that no defect can be found in them! And people who have attained that end no longer take the pains to study; everything that comes from their hands must necessarily be perfect. But civility demands that we must not always say what we think. Suppose a poet reads us some of his verses: if they are bad, you must not tell him so unless you are his friend; for you do not desire to be looked upon in society as an Alcestis, forever growling about the vagaries and absurdities of everyone else; that rôle would raise up too many enemies to be endured, except on the stage. In society, we choose to overlook one another's failings rather than to set ourselves up as censors; mutual intercourse is pleasanter thus, and we find more pleasure in living for ourselves than in wasting our time trying to correct other people. But although courtesy may compel us to conceal what we think, it does not compel us to say what we do not think; when I listen to the reading of execrable poetry, I will hold my peace, but I won't say that it is charming; nay, more, I will try to summon courage to make some suggestions to the author. I can never make up my mind to say that a portrait resembles its subject, when I think it a wretched failure; I cannot tell a person that he sings true, when he has just been torturing my ears. With nascent talents, above all, we should be sparing of praise, even while we encourage them; flattery is responsible for very many such coming to naught, because it arrests the flight of a genius, which, deeming itself perfect already, no longer cares to take the trouble to acquire what it lacks. Doubtless a father is excusable for considering his son a prodigy of beauty, wit, and talent; paternal love naturally misleads us; but let us at least keep our conviction to ourselves; let us not force strangers to go into ecstasies over the story of a mischievous trick, to listen in religious silence to a fable often directly at variance with common sense, and to gaze in admiration at a flat nose, turned-up chin, and inflamed eyes, which can never delight any glance but a father's. If there were fewer flatterers, how many men, who are simply unendurable now because they have been spoiled, would be ornaments of society! Let us reserve our enthusiasm for those poets and artists whose talents exalt them above all praise. Doubtless the contemporaries of Molière and Voltaire