Part 15 (1/2)

377.--The greatest mistake of penetration is not to have fallen short, but to have gone too far.

378.--We may bestow advice, but we cannot inspire the conduct.

379.--As our merit declines so also does our taste.

380.--Fortune makes visible our virtues or our vices, as light does objects.

381.--The struggle we undergo to remain faithful to one we love is little better than infidelity.

382.--Our actions are like the rhymed ends of blank verses (Bouts-Rimes) where to each one puts what construction he pleases.

[The Bouts-Rimes was a literary game popular in the 17th and 18th centuries--the rhymed words at the end of a line being given for others to fill up. Thus Horace Walpole being given, ”brook, why, crook, I,”

returned the burlesque verse-- ”I sits with my toes in a Brook, And if any one axes me Why? I gies 'em a rap with my Crook, 'Tis constancy makes me, ses I.”]

383.--The desire of talking about ourselves, and of putting our faults in the light we wish them to be seen, forms a great part of our sincerity.

384.--We should only be astonished at still being able to be astonished.

385.--It is equally as difficult to be contented when one has too much or too little love.

386.--No people are more often wrong than those who will not allow themselves to be wrong.

387.--A fool has not stuff in him to be good.

388.--If vanity does not overthrow all virtues, at least she makes them totter.

389.--What makes the vanity of others unsupportable is that it wounds our own.

390.--We give up more easily our interest than our taste.

391.--Fortune appears so blind to none as to those to whom she has done no good.

392.--We should manage fortune like our health, enjoy it when it is good, be patient when it is bad, and never resort to strong remedies but in an extremity.