Volume Ii Part 17 (1/2)

195.

FROM a.s.sOCIATION WITH AUTHORS.-It is as bad a habit to go about with an author grasping him by the nose as grasping him by the horn (and every author has his horn).

196.

A TEAM OF TWO.-Vagueness of thought and outbursts of sentimentality are as often wedded to the reckless desire to have one's own way by hook or by crook, to make oneself alone of any consequence, as a genuinely helpful, gracious, and kindly spirit is wedded to the impulse towards clearness and purity of thought and towards emotional moderation and self-restraint.

197.

BINDING AND SEPARATING FORCES.-Surely it is in the heads of men that there arises the force that binds them-an understanding of their common interest or the reverse; and in their hearts the force that separates them-a blind choosing and groping in love and hate, a devotion to one at the expense of all, and a consequent contempt for the common utility.

198.

MARKSMEN AND THINKERS.-There are curious marksmen who miss their mark, but leave the shooting-gallery with secret pride in the fact that their bullet at any rate flew very far (beyond the mark, it is true), or that it did not hit the mark but hit something else. There are thinkers of the same stamp.

199.

ATTACK FROM TWO SIDES.-We act as enemies towards an intellectual tendency or movement when we are superior to it and disapprove of its aim, or when its aim is too high and unrecognisable to our eye-in other words, when it is superior to us. So the same party may be attacked from two sides, from above and from below. Not infrequently the a.s.sailants, from common hatred, form an alliance which is more repulsive than all that they hate.

200.

ORIGINAL.-Original minds are distinguished not by being the first to see a new thing, but by seeing the old, well-known thing, which is seen and overlooked by every one, as something new. The first discoverer is usually that quite ordinary and unintellectual visionary-chance.

201.