Part 24

198.

Vexation of the Proud Man.—The proud man is vexed even with those who help him forward: he looks angrily at his carriage-horses!

199.

Liberality.—Liberality is often only a form of timidity in the rich.

200.

Laughing.—To laugh means to love mischief, but with a good conscience.

201.

In Applause.—In applause there is always some kind of noise: even in self-applause.

202.

A Spendthrift.—He has not yet the poverty of the rich man who has counted all his treasure,—he squanders his spirit with the irrationalness of the spendthrift Nature.

203.

Hic niger est.—Usually he has no thoughts,—but in exceptional cases bad thoughts come to him.

204.

Beggars and Courtesy.—"One is not discourteous when one knocks at a door with a stone when the bell-pull is awanting"—so think all beggars and necessitous persons, but no one thinks they are in the right.

205.

Need.—Need is supposed to be the cause of things; but in truth it is often only the effect of the things themselves.

206.

During the Rain.—It rains, and I think of the poor people who now crowd together with their many cares, which they are unaccustomed to conceal; all of them, therefore, ready and anxious to give pain to one another, and thus provide themselves with a pitiable kind of comfort, even in bad weather. This, this only, is the poverty of the poor!

207.

The Envious Man.—That is an envious man—it is not desirable that he should have children; he would be envious of them, because he can no longer be a child.

208.

A Great Man!—Because a person is "a great man," we are not authorised to infer that he is a man. Perhaps he is only a boy, or a chameleon of all ages, or a bewitched girl.

209.

A Mode of Asking for Reasons.—There is a mode of asking for our reasons which not only makes us forget our best reasons, but also arouses in us a spite and repugnance against reason generally:—a very stupefying mode of questioning, and properly an artifice of tyrannical men!

210.

Moderation in Diligence.—One must not be anxious to surpass the diligence of one's father—that would make one ill.

211.

Secret Enemies.—To be able to keep a secret enemy—that is a luxury which the morality even of the highest-minded persons can rarely afford.