Part 39

HUGH BLACK.

Bearing Criticism

JUNE 4

"When people detect in us what are actually imperfections and faults, it is clear that they do us no wrong, since it is not they who cause them; and it is clear, too, that they do us a service, inasmuch as they help us to free ourselves from an evil, namely, the ignorance of these defects. We should not be angry because they know them and despise us, for it is right that they should know us for what we are, and that they should despise us if we are despicable.

"Such are the feelings which would rise in a heart filled with equity and justice. What then should we say of our own heart when we see in it a quite contrary frame of mind? For is it not a fact that we hate the truth and those who tell it us, that we love those who deceive themselves in our favour, and that we wish to be esteemed by them as other than we really are?"

PASCAL.

"A man should never be ashamed to say he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser to-day than he was yesterday."

POPE.

Faults

JUNE 5

"Too many take the ready course to deceive themselves; for they look with both eyes on the failings and defects of others, and scarcely give their good qualities half an eye: on the contrary, in themselves they study to the full their own advantages, while their weaknesses and defects (as one says) they skip over, as children do the hard words in their lessons that are troublesome to read; and making this uneven parallel, what wonder if the result be a gross mistake of themselves."

Archbishop LEIGHTON.

"To hide a fault with a lie is to replace a blot by a hole."

"It is a great folly not to part with your own faults, which is possible, but to try instead to escape from other people's faults, which is impossible."

MARCUS AURELIUS.

"The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none."

CARLYLE.

Obstinacy

JUNE 6

"Obstinacy is will asserting itself without being able to justify itself. It is persistence without a plausible motive. It is the tenacity of self-love substituted for the tenacity of reason or conscience."

Amiel's Journal.

"If any man is able to convince me and show me that I do not think or act right, I will gladly change; for I seek the truth by which no man was ever injured. But he is injured who abides in his error and ignorance."

MARCUS AURELIUS.

"It is never too late to give up our prejudices."

THOREAU.

"When one's character is naturally firm, it is well to be able to yield upon reflection."

VAUVENARGUES.

Calumny