(40.) Menippus[151] is a bird decked in various feathers which are not his. He neither says nor feels anything, but repeats the feelings and sayings of others; it is so natural for him to make use of other peopleʼs minds that he is the first deceived by it, and often believes he speaks his own mind or expresses his own thoughts when he is but the echo of some man he just parted with. He is bearable[152] for a quarter of an hour, but a moment after he flags, degenerates, loses the little polish his shallow memory gives him, and shows he has nothing more left.[153] He alone ignores how very far he is from the sublime and the heroic; and having no idea of the extent of his intelligence, ingenuously believes that he possesses as much as it is possible for any man to have, and accordingly assumes the air and manners of one who has nothing more to wish for nor to envy any one. He often soliloquises, and so little conceals it, that the passers-by see him and think he is always making up his mind, or is finally deciding some matter or other. If you bow to him at a certain time, you perplex him as to whether he has to return the bow or not; and, whilst he is deliberating, you are already out of his sight. His vanity, which has made him a gentleman, has raised him above himself, and made him what naturally he is not. When you behold him, you can judge he has nothing to do but to survey himself, so that he may perceive everything he wears suits him, and that his dress is not incongruous; he fancies all menʼs eyes are upon him, and that people come to look on him one after another. (41.) A man who has a palace of his own, with apartments for the summer and the winter season, and yet sleeps in an _entresol_ in the Louvre,[154] does not act thus through modesty; another, who, to preserve his elegant shape, abstains from wine and eats but one meal a day, is neither sober nor temperate; whilst it may be said of a third, who, importuned by some poor friend, finally renders him some assistance, that he buys his tranquillity, but by no means that he is liberal. It is the motive alone that gives merit to human actions, and disinterestedness perfects them.