the very thing which brought about
the breach; nay, he does it the more boldly, because he is secretly
conscious that you cannot get on without him. This is also applicable
to servants whom you have dismissed, and then taken into your service
again.

For the same reason, you should just as little expect people to
continue to act in a similar way under altered circumstances. The
truth is that men alter their demeanor and sentiments just as fast as
their interest changes; and their resign in this respect is a bill
drawn for short payment that the man must be still more short-sighted
who accepts the bill without protesting it. Accordingly, suppose you
want to know how a man will behave in an office into which you think
of putting him; you should not build upon expectations, on his
promises or assurances. For, even allowing that he is quite sincere,
he is speaking about a matter of which he has no knowledge. The only
way to calculate how he will behave, is to consider the circumstances
in which he will be placed, and the extent to which they will conflict
with his character.

If you wish to get a clear and profound insight--and it is very
needful--into the true but melancholy elements of which most men are
made, you will find in a very instructive thing to take the way they
behave in the pages of literature as a commentary to their doings in
practical life, and _vice versa._ The experience thus gained will be
very useful in avoiding wrong ideas, whether about yourself or about
others. But if you come across any special trait of meanness or
stupidity--in life or in literature,--you must be careful not to let
it annoy or distress you, but to look upon it merely as an addition to
your knowledge--a new fact to be considered in studying the character
of humanity. Your attitude towards it will be that of the mineralogist
who stumbles upon a very characteristic specimen of a mineral.

Of course there are some facts which are very exceptional, and it is
difficult to understand how they arise, and how it is that there come
to be such enormous differences between man and man; but, in general,
what was said long ago is quite true, and the world is in a very bad
way. In savage countries they eat one another, in civilized they
deceive one another; and that is what people call the way of the
world! What are States and all the elaborate systems of political
machinery, and the rule of force, whether in home or in foreign
affairs,--what