herradura que chacolotea clavo le
falta_--a clattering hoof means a nail gone. To be sure, as I said at
first, no man ought to let the reins go quite loose, and show himself
just as he is; for there are many evil and bestial sides to our nature
which require to be hidden away out of sight; and this justifies the
negative attitude of dissimulation, but it does not justify a
positive feigning of qualities which are not there. It should also be
remembered that affectation is recognized at once, even before it is
clear what it is that is being affected. And, finally, affectation
cannot last very long, and one day the mask will fall off. _Nemo
potest personam diu ferre fictam_, says Seneca;[1] _ficta cito in
naturam suam recidunt_--no one can persevere long in a fictitious
character; for nature will soon reassert itself.

[Footnote 1: _De Clementia, I_. 1.]

SECTION 31. A man bears the weight of his own body without knowing it,
but he soon feels the weight of any other, if he tries to move it; in
the same way, a man can see other people's shortcoming's and vices,
but he is blind to his own. This arrangement has one advantage: it
turns other people into a kind of mirror, in which a man can see
clearly everything that is vicious, faulty, ill-bred and loathsome in
his own nature; only, it is generally the old story of the dog barking
at is own image; it is himself that he sees and not another dog, as he
fancies.

He who criticises others, works at the reformation of himself. Those
who form the secret habit of scrutinizing other people's general
behavior, and passing severe judgment upon what they do and leave
undone, thereby improve themselves, and work out their own perfection:
for they will have sufficient sense of justice, or at any rate enough
pride and vanity, to avoid in their own case that which they condemn
so harshly elsewhere. But tolerant people are just the opposite,
and claim for themselves the same indulgence that they extend to
others--_hanc veniam damus petimusque vicissim_. It is all very well
for the Bible to talk about the mote in another's eye and the beam in
one's own. The nature of the eye is to look not at itself but at other
things; and therefore to observe and blame faults in another is a
very suitable way of becoming conscious of one's own. We require a
looking-glass for the due dressing of our morals.

The same rule applies in the case of style and fine writing. If,
instead of condemning, you app