Nothing sifts and winnows our preferences and partialities better than an imitation of the same by others. For a genius there are no sharper polishing-machines and grinding-disks at hand than his apes. If, further, every one of us could see running along beside him a duplicate of himself, a complete Archimimus[63] and repeater in complimenting, taking off the hat, dancing, speaking, scolding, bragging, &c.; by Heaven! such an exact repeating-work of our discords would make quite other people out of me and other people than we are at present. The first and least step which we should take toward reflection and virtue would be this, that we should find our bodily methodology, e. g. our walk, dress, dialect, our oaths, looks, favorite dishes, &c., no better than those of all others, but just the same. Princes have the good fortune that all courtiers around them station themselves as faithful supernumerary copyists and pier-mirrors of _their_ selves, and propose to improve them by this Helot-mimicry. But they seldom attain their good end, because the Prince,--and that were also to be feared of me and the reader,--like the principle of _non-distinguendum_, does not believe in any real twins, but imagines that in morals, as in catoptrics, every mirror and mock rainbow shows everything _inverted_. _THIRD._ It is easier and handier for men to flatter than to praise. _FOURTH._ In the centuries before us humanity appears to us to be growing up; in those which come after us, to be fading away; in our own, to burst forth in glorious bloom: thus do the clouds, only when in our zenith, seem to move straight forward, those in front of us come up from the horizon, the others behind us sail downward with fore-shortened forms. _FIFTH._ What makes old age so sad is, not that our joys, but that our hopes then cease.[64] _SIXTH._ The old age of women is sadder and more solitary than that of men; spare, therefore, in them their years, their sorrows, and their sex! In fact, life often resembles the trap-tree with its spines directed upward, on which the bear easily clambers up to the honey-bait, but from which he can slide down again only under severe stings. _SEVENTH._ Have compassion on Poverty, but a hundred times more on Impoverishment! Only the former, not the latter, makes nations and individuals better. _EIGHTH._ Love lessens woman's delicacy and increases man's. _NINTH._ When two persons, in suddenly turning a corner, knock their heads together, each begins anxiously to apologize, and thinks only the other feels the pain and that he himself has all the blame. (Only I excuse myself without any embarrassment, for the very reason that I know, by my persecutions, how the other party thinks.) Would to God we did not invert this in the case of moral offences! _LAST PERSECUTION OF THE READER._