e obscure cause, yet not wholly to be omitted, is afforded
by the undoubted fact that the exertion of the reasoning faculties
tends to extinguish or bedim those mysterious instincts of skill,
which, tho for the most part latent, we nevertheless possess in common
with other animals.

Or the proverb may be used invidiously; and folly in the vocabulary of
envy or baseness may signify courage and magnanimity. Hardihood and
foolhardiness are indeed as different as green and yellow, yet will
appear the same to the jaundiced eye. Courage multiplies the chances
of success by sometimes making opportunities, and always availing
itself of them: and in this sense Fortune may be said to favor fools
by those who, however prudent in their own opinion, are deficient in
valor and enterprise. Again, an eminently good and wise man, for whom
the praises of the judicious have procured a high reputation even with
the world at large, proposes to himself certain objects, and adapting
the right means to the right end attains them; but his objects not
being what the world calls Fortune, neither money nor artificial rank,
his admitted inferiors in moral and intellectual worth, but more
prosperous in their worldly concerns, are said to have been favored by
Fortune and be slighted; altho the fools did the same in their line as
the wise man in his; they adapted the appropriate means to the desired
end, and so succeeded. In this sense the proverb is current by a
misuse, or a catachresis at least of both the words, Fortune and
Fools.

How seldom, friend, a good great man inherits
Honor or wealth with all his worth and pains!
It sounds like stories from the land of spirits,
If any man obtain that which he merits,
Or any merit that which he obtains.

REPLY

For shame! dear friend, renounce this canting strain!
What would'st thou have a good great man obtain?
Place? titles? salary? a gilded chain?
Or throne of corses which his sword hath slain?
Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends!
Hath he not always treasures, always friends,
The good great man? Three treasures, love, and light,
And calm thoughts regular as infants' breath:
And three firm friends, more sure than day and night,
Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death?

But, lastly, there is, doubtless, a true meaning attached to Fortune,
distinct both from prudence and from courage; and distinct too from
that absence of depre