e
said little; and what he said does not make us hopeful. He saw the
darker side. "If everybody knew what one says of the other, there
would not be four friends left in the world." "Would you have men
think well of you, then do not speak well of yourself." And so forth.
If you wish to know Pascal's theory you may find it set out in
brilliant verse in the opening lines of the second book of Pope's
_Essay on Man_. "What a chimera is Man!" said Pascal. "What a confused
chaos! What a subject of contradiction! A professed judge of all
things, and yet a feeble worm of the earth; the great depository and
guardian of truth, and yet a mere huddle of uncertainty; the glory and
the scandal of the universe." Shakespeare was wiser and deeper when,
under this quintessence of dust, he discerned what a piece of work is
man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving
how express and admirable. That serene and radiant faith is the
secret, added to matchless gifts of imagination and music, why
Shakespeare is the greatest of men.

There is a smart, spurious wisdom of the world which has the
bitterness not of the salutary tonic but of mortal poison; and of this
kind the master is Chamfort, who died during the French Revolution
(and for that matter died of it), and whose little volume of thoughts
is often extremely witty, always pointed, but not seldom cynical and
false. "If you live among men," he said, "the heart must either break
or turn to brass." "The public, the public," he cried; "how many fools
does it take to make a public!" "What is celebrity? The advantage of
being known to people who don't know you."

All literatures might be ransacked in vain for a more repulsive saying
than this, that "A man must swallow a toad every morning if he wishes
to be quite sure of finding nothing still more disgusting before the
day is over." We cannot be surprised to hear of the lady who said that
a conversation with Chamfort in the morning made her melancholy until
bedtime. Yet Chamfort is the author of the not unwholesome saying that
"The most wasted of all days is that on which one has not laughed."
One of his maxims lets us into the secret of his misanthropy.
"Whoever," he said, "is not a misanthropist at forty can never have
loved mankind." It is easy to know what this means. Of course if a man
is so superfine that he will not love mankind any longer than he can
believe them to be demigods and angels, it is true that at f