ich commonly raises us more above them, than birth, rank, or even
merit itself.

400.--There may be talent without position, but there is no position
without some kind of talent.

401.--Rank is to merit what dress is to a pretty woman.

402.--What we find the least of in flirtation is love.

403.--Fortune sometimes uses our faults to exalt us, and there are
tiresome people whose deserts would be ill rewarded if we did not desire
to purchase their absence.

404.--It appears that nature has hid at the bottom of our hearts talents
and abilities unknown to us. It is only the passions that have the power
of bringing them to light, and sometimes give us views more true and
more perfect than art could possibly do.

405.--We reach quite inexperienced the different stages of life, and
often, in spite of the number of our years, we lack experience.

["To most men experience is like the stern lights of a ship which
illumine only the track it has passed."-- Coleridge.]

406.--Flirts make it a point of honour to be jealous of their lovers, to
conceal their envy of other women.

407.--It may well be that those who have trapped us by their tricks do
not seem to us so foolish as we seem to ourselves when trapped by the
tricks of others.

408.--The most dangerous folly of old persons who have been loveable is
to forget that they are no longer so.

["Every woman who is not absolutely ugly thinks herself handsome. The
suspicion of age no woman, let her be ever so old, forgives."--Lord
Chesterfield, Letter 129.]

409.--We should often be ashamed of our very best actions if the world
only saw the motives which caused them.

410.--The greatest effort of friendship is not to show our faults to a
friend, but to show him his own.

4ll.--We have few faults which are not far more excusable than the means
we adopt to hide them.

412.--Whatever disgrace we may have deserved, it is almost always in our
power to re-establish our character.

["This is hardly a period at which the most irregular character may not
be redeemed. The mistakes of one sin find a retreat in patriotism, those
of the other in devotion." --Junius, Letter To The King.]

413.--A man cannot please long who has only one kind of wit.

[According to Segrais this maxim was a hit at Racine and Boileau, who,
despising ordinary conversation, talked incessantly of literature; but
there is some doubt as to Segrais' statement.--Aime Martin.]