(2.) If you are intrinsically vicious, O Theagenes[449] I pity you; if you have become so out of weakness for those men who have an interest in your being debauched, who have conspired to corrupt you, and boast already of their success, you will excuse me if I despise you. But if you are wise, temperate, modest, polite, generous, grateful, industrious, and besides of a birth and rank which ought to set examples rather than copy those others give, and to make rules rather than to receive them, agree with such a class of men, and be complaisant enough to imitate their disorders, vices, and follies, after the respect they owe you has obliged them to imitate your virtues. This is a bitter but useful ironical remark, very suitable for securing your morals, for ruining all their projects, and for compelling them to remain as they are, and leave you as you are. (3.) In one thing great men have an immense advantage over others; they may enjoy their sumptuous banquets, their costly furniture, their dogs, horses, monkeys, dwarfs, fools, and flatterers; but I envy them the happiness of having in their service their equals, and sometimes even their superiors, in feelings and intelligence. (4.) Great lords delight in opening glades in forests, in raising terraces on long and solid foundations, in gilding their ceilings, in bringing a good deal of water where there was none before, in growing oranges in hothouses; but they are not anxious to restore peace to the distracted, to make joyful the afflicted, and to forestall urgent necessities, or to relieve them. (5.) The question arises, whether, in comparing the different conditions of men, their troubles and advantages, we cannot observe such a mixture or balance of good and evil as seems to place them on an equality, or at least as makes one scarcely more desirable than another. Those men who are powerful, rich, and who want nothing may put the question, but the decision must be left to the indigent. There is, however, a kind of charm belonging to each of those different conditions, and which lasts till misery removes it. The great please themselves in excess, their inferiors in moderation: these delight in lording and commanding; those are pleased, and even proud, to serve and to obey: the great are surrounded, complimented, and respected; the little surround, compliment, and cringe; and both are satisfied. (6.) Good words cost the great so little, and their rank gives them such a dispensation for not keeping what they have most solemnly promised, that they really are moderate in being so sparing of those promises. (7.) “Such a person,” says some great man, “has grown old and feeble, and has worn himself out in my service. What can I do for him?” A younger competitor steps in, and obtains the post which had been refused to this unfortunate man for no other reason but that he too well deserved it.