243.

Whatever pretext we may assign for our afflictions, it is often only interest or vanity which causes them.

In

244.

There are divers sorts of hypocrisy in grief. one, under pretext of lamenting the loss of a person who is dear to us, we lament ourselves, we lament the diminution of our advantages,

244. The reader may like to compare Young's lines on the same subject. Night Thoughts, Night 5:—

"Our funeral tears from various causes rise,

of various kinds they flow. From tender hearts
By soft contagion call'd some burst at once,
And stream obsequious to the leading eye.
Some ask more time by curious art distill'd.
Some hearts in secret hard, unapt to melt,

Struck by the public eye gush out amain.
Some weep to share the fame of the deceased,

So high in merit, and to them so dear;

They dwell on praises which they think they share.

Some mourn in proof that something they could love,

They weep not to relieve their grief, but show.
Some weep in perfect justice to the dead,

As conscious all their love is in arrear.

Some mischievously weep not unappris'd.
Tears sometimes help the conquest of an eye,

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of our pleasure, of our consideration. We regret the good opinion that was entertained of us. Thus the dead get the credit of tears which are only shed for the living. I call this a species of hypocrisy, because in this sort of grief we deceive ourselves. There is another hypocrisy which is not so innocent, inasmuch as it imposes on all the world. It is the afflic tion of certain persons who aspire to the distinction of a striking and perpetual grief. After time, which consumes all things, has put a stop to the sorrow they really feel, they obstinately continue their tears, their complaints, and their sighs. They assume a doleful demeanor, and labor to persuade others by all their actions that their sorrow will only terminate with their lives. This miserable and fatiguing vanity is generally met with in ambitious women. As their sex bars them from all the paths of glory, they strive to render themselves celebrated by the display of inconsolable grief. There is yet another species of tears which have very petty sources, which flow easily, and as easily are

As seen through crystal how their roses glow,
While liquid pearl runs trickling down their cheek!
By kind construction some are deem'd to weep
Because a decent veil conceals their joy."

dried: we weep to acquire the reputation of a tender heart; we weep to be pitied; we weep to be wept over; in fine, we weep to avoid the shame of not weeping.

245.

In the adversity of our best friends we often find something which does not displease

us.

245. "As Rochefoucauld his maxims drew

From Nature, I believe them true.

They argue no corrupted mind

In him-the fault is in mankind.

"This maxim more than all the rest
Is thought too base for human breast.

In all distresses of our friends

We first consult our private ends,

While Nature kindly bent to ease us

Points out some circumstance to please us.

To all my foes dear Fortune send

Thy gifts, but never to my friend;

I tamely can endure the first,

But this with envy makes me burst."

SWIFT, Verses on his own Death.

246.

We easily console ourselves for the disgrace of our friends when it serves to signalize our affection for them.

247.

It may seem that self-love is the dupe of

This well-known maxim is, as Swift has remarked, that which has excited the greatest amount of ire and clamor against La Rochefoucauld, who was on this account, perhaps, induced to suppress it in the last edition he published. Byron has despondingly alluded to it (Childe Harold, canto 3):

"I would believe

That some o'er others' griefs sincerely grieve."

After all, the sentiment is not much more than is expressed in the well-known lines of Lucretius.

"Suave mari magno turbantibus æquora ventis
E terra alterius magnum spectare laborem;
Non, quia vexari quemquam est jucunda voluptas,
Sed, quibus ipse malis careas, quia cernere suave est."
Book ii. v. 1.

Burke (Sublime and Beautiful, part i. section 14, 15) says, "I am convinced that we have a degree of delight and that no small one in the real misfortunes and pains of others." But he differs from Lucretius in thinking that our own immunity from suffering is the condition and not the cause of our pleasure. (sect. 15.)

good-nature, and that it forgets itself whenever we are laboring for the advantage of others. Nevertheless, it is taking the surest road to reach our objects; it is lending on usury under pretence of giving; it is in fact gaining over every one by a subtle and delicate method.

248.

No man deserves to be praised for his goodness unless he has strength of character to be wicked. All other goodness is generally nothing but indolence or impotence of will.

249.

It is not so dangerous to do evil to the generality of men as to do them too much good.

250.

Nothing flatters our pride so much as the confidence of the great, because we regard it as the result of our merit, without considering that it most frequently arises merely from vanity or from inability to keep a secret.

251.

We may say of agreeableness, as distinct from beauty, that it consists in a symmetry of which we know not the rules, and a secret con

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