or of letting others see them. They look upon
them as something for which they have duly paid; and instead of
fancying that these weaknesses are a disgrace to them, they consider
they are doing them an honor. This is especially the case when
the errors are of the kind that hang together with their
qualities--_conditiones sine quibus non_--or, as George Sand said,
_les defauts de ses vertus_.

Contrarily, there are people of good character and irreproachable
intellectual capacity, who, far from admitting the few little
weaknesses they have, conceal them with care, and show themselves very
sensitive to any suggestion of their existence; and this, just because
their whole merit consists in being free from error and infirmity. If
these people are found to have done anything wrong, their reputation
immediately suffers.

* * * * *

With people of only moderate ability, modesty is mere honesty; but
with those who possess great talent, it is hypocrisy. Hence, it is
just as becoming in the latter to make no secret of the respect they
bear themselves and no disguise of the fact that they are conscious of
unusual power, as it is in the former to be modest. Valerius
Maximus gives some very neat examples of this in his chapter on
self-confidence, _de fiducia sui_.

* * * * *

Not to go to the theatre is like making one's toilet without a mirror.
But it is still worse to take a decision without consulting a friend.
For a man may have the most excellent judgment in all other matters,
and yet go wrong in those which concern himself; because here the will
comes in and deranges the intellect at once. Therefore let a man take
counsel of a friend. A doctor can cure everyone but himself; if he
falls ill, he sends for a colleague.

* * * * *

In all that we do, we wish, more or less, to come to the end; we are
impatient to finish and glad to be done. But the last scene of all,
the general end, is something that, as a rule, we wish as far off as
may be.

* * * * *

Every parting gives a foretaste of death; every coming together again
a foretaste of the resurrection. This is why even people who were
indifferent to each other, rejoice so much if they come together again
after twenty or thirty years' separation.

* * * * *

Intellects differ from one another in a very real and f