LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALirOKMIA SAN DIEGO VP Witty Wise and Wicked Maxims a preface bp HENRI X PENE DU Bois NEW YORK BRENTANO'S CHICAGO WASHINGTON PARIS 1897 Copyright, i8Q2, by BRENTANO'S 171, 173 Macdougal Street, New York Co SAMUEL P. AVERY I LOVER OF ART, LOVER OF BOOKS LOVER OF NEW YORK PREFACE. JOUBERT, who wrote maxims, had an ele- vated idea of the value of maxims. It may not have mattered to him that he was, but he was, an interested and, according to maxims an incompetent, judge. Balzac called his maxims axioms, but his disinterested maxims of a bachelor about marriage do you think that they are axioms ? Proverbs that are only anonymous maxims, like legal references, defend both sides of every question. How Sancho Panza wielded them ! Maxims are deceptive. They should be deceptive even if it were possible by comparison and elimination to reduce them to indisputable facts, as this maxim of the negroes in ancient colonies of France : " Do not put your foot in an ant- hill and think that you will be able to dis- cover the ant that bit you. ' ' Why ? Because 7 viii Preface. everybody reads a maxim according to his temperament. Because there are those who never understand anything, and those who make commentaries longer than texts. Be- cause there is nothing except the individual- ity of man in anything. Maxims are not valuable. In them one may find everything that one wishes. They are precepts and they contra- dict one another. They are rules of action and everybody interprets them. They pre- tend to tell what one wants, and everybody who knew would be a god. Anybody who could tell, instead of breaking stones on the highway or writing maxims, would kiss the trembling lips and diamond-powdered locks of stars. They are only the opinions, im- pressions, thoughts of mortal men, and they have no more interest than may be attached to the individuality of those who expressed them. Maxims that are anonymous are ab- solutely worthless. There are no anonymous maxims in this compilation of maxims expressly called Preface. ix phrases. They are phrases witty, wicked and wise ; are there any that deserve one of these qualifications and not one or both of the others ? Who shall make the classification agreeable to anybody but himself? Yet there are the names of the authors to aid one ; for some are names of deliberate wits. But it is not enough to know them ; the state of mind of them at the time of their utterances should be divined. There are moments when de- liberate wits have a heart, I think. In a preface which Dumas wrote for a book of thoughts of an anonymous person, one may read praise of anonymity. Dumas thinks that a work is good or bad whatever the name of its author be, and that to know the name may affect one's judgment with particular considerations. He thinks that a book of thoughts should be judged inde- pendently of the personality, the acts and the past life of the authors. But a thought may be beautiful or not, according to the circumstance that evoked it and to the mind in which it flashed. x Preface. The soldier ^Eschylus returning from bat- tle may say things which, coming from a poltroon would be the veriest fanfaronade. Dumas must be mistaken ; for thoughts are not ordinary merchandise. A beautiful gown may come of a dishonest milliner's workshop, but a thinker with vile instincts cannot de- liver sincere thoughts. His thoughts are his mind expressed, and if noble sentiments, en- thusiasm, adoration for the beautiful, be not in his mind, he shall not draw them out of it ; he shall produce ignoble and hypocriti- cal counterfeits. There are, in this book, thoughts of men of genius, and thoughts of simious come- dians. If they were not all signed they could not be easily distinguished. They were not all gathered from printed books; some were in autograph letters, others in albums. The extraordinary sentiment ex- pressed by Augustine Brohan and Rachel's comment, are in a collection of all the illus- trious autographs of the time made by Phi- loxene Boyer. There are unpublished works Preface, xi of Meyerbeer and Felicien David, in that collection made by a poet of genius. There are, in this book, thoughts that are amazing to me. They are thoughts about women, and I never supposed that there might be a particular manner of regarding women, the triumphant lilies, the glory of the abyss of infinite azure, the gracefulness of swans caressed by waves of silver. In June, does the festival of roses, the orgy of gaiety, pleasure, living purple, serve as a theme for any sort of opinion? Need one think, to enjoy the sounds of delicious music, the warmth of wine ; or to admire beings to whom were given the harmonious seduction of rhythm and the splendor of stars ? I have heard from sages as Alphonse Karr and Theodore de Banville, who knew every- thing, that nature had created the sweetbrier and the female, and man had made of them the rose and woman, these two master-pieces of ideal grace. I have read that women were Amazons in Thrace when men were warriors; chiefs of armies as Boadicea; I. It is better to listen to those who shout at us from afar, "Relieve our misery," than to those who whisper in our ears, "Augment your fortune." Marie Lcczinska. ii. re is a chill air surrounding those who are down in the world and people are glad to get away from them as from a cold room. George Eliot. in. In love, to be serious is to be grotesque. Paul Meurice. IV. /^-Hatred is a precious liquor, a poison dearer than that of the Borgias, because it is made of our blood, our health, our sleep and two-thirds of our love. Charles Baudelaire. 15 1 6 Phases and Phrases. v. / God created fools that men of wit might regret life less. Alexandre Dumas. VI. When a man says that he has a wife, it means that a wife has him. ^*JL b&jfcuj . Alexandre Dumas. (w , xx. _^*i prefer the wicked rather than the fool- ish. The wicked sometimes rest. Alexandre Dumas. XXI. Loving hearts are like poor folks; they Phases and Phrases. 19 are contented with whatever is given to them. r V\JU*t^U f 1 XXII. If one could be a little patient one could avoid many troubles. jfarie de Sfrvignc. xxin. The cock of the walk is generally a goose. Victorien Sardou. XXIV. The most disastrous times have produced the greatest minds. The purest metal comes of the most ardent furnace, the most brilliant lightning comes of the darkest clouds. Chateaubriand. xxv. ^ Most men have died without creating; not one has died without destroying. Alexandre Dumas. 20 Phases and Phrases, XXVI. Business is the money of others. Alexandre Dumas. XXVII. Duty is the science of sacrifice. Jules Simon. XXVIII. Duty is something that we exact from others. Alexandre Dumas. XXIX. Three sorts of friends. Friends who like you, friends who do not care about you, friends who hate you. Alexandre Dumas. XXX. Glory makes us live forever in posterity ; love, for an instant in the infinite. Jean Jacques Weiss. XXXI. ^All women desire to be esteemed ; they care much less about being respected. Alexandre Dumas. Phases and Phrases. 21 XXXII. A woman dies twice: the day that she quits life and the day that she ceases to please. Jean Jacques Weiss. XXXIII. The Empire of woman is an Empire of sweetness, skillfulness and attentiveness ; her orders are caresses, her evils are tears. Jean Jacques Rousseau. xxxiv. Give money, never lend any. The giv- ing makes ingrates only, the lending makes enemies. Alexandre Dumas. XXXV, We blame in others only the faults by which we do not profit. Alexandre Dumas. xxxvi. Absence is the greatest of evils and ob- livion is the saddest of remedies. Jean Jacques Weiss. 22 Phases and Phrases. XXXVII. The age at which one shares everything is generally the age when one has nothing. Octave Feuillet. xxxvm. Insults are humiliating to those who utter them, when they are not successful in humil- iating those who receive them. MarmonteL xxxix. /' In all undertakings the man who fails most often is the man of wit, because he risks much. Montesquieu. XL. We may appear great in an employment beneath our merit, but we often appear small in an employment greater than we. La Rochefoucauld. XLI. Not to do honor to old age is to demol- ish in the morning the house wherein we are to sleep at night. Alphonse Karr. Phases and Phrases. 23 XLII. persons have enough strength of character to suffer and to tell the the truth. Vauvenargues. XLIII. It is only the poor that are generous. The rich cannot give; they have so many wants, "so many necessary superfluities, these poor rich, ft *4*jM* lr^A. > S * *& lphonse Karr. XLIV. human mind is twice limited : it may love several times and it may fully enjoy love but once. j^l-tru/*- aUrtWA^ <** Jean Jacques Weiss. XLV. There are minds limpid and pure wherein life is like a ray of light playing in a drop of dew. Joubert. XLVI. Nothing is so sure a cure for love of 24 Phases and Phrases. women as acquaintance with the men that they admire. Jean Jacques Weiss. XLVII. A Men never are consoled for their first love, nor women for their last. Jean Jacques Weiss. XLVIII. Some men are different; all women are alike. Alfred Delvau. XLIX. Never say man, but men; nor women, but woman ; for the world has thousands of men and only one woman. Jean Jacques Weiss. L. Friendship between two women is never anything but a plot against a third woman. Alphonse Karr. I L^t is rightfully that Ithaca is celebrated : one woman was faithful there. ^-M r^A } P. J. Stahl. Phases and Phrases, 25 LII. Of all the animals cats, flies and women take the longest time in dressing. Charles Nodier. LIII. A man in love, if sincere, is good for nothing, despite all that has been pretended, but to make love. P. J. Stahl. LIV. Every book written by a woman bears the mark of affection by which it was inspired. It is of works of women, particularly, that one may say with BurTon : " the style is the man. Delphine de Girardin. LV. woman often fancies that she regrets her lover whereas she regrets in fact nothing but love. Mme. d* Arconville. LVI. The most unfortunate of women was not & 26 Phases and Phrases. the plaintive Ariadne deserted in her island, nor Irene, nor even Rachel lamenting the loss of her children, but it was Eve whom fate compelled to live so long without other women, about whom she might talk evil. Jean Jacques Weiss. LVII. Art is neither a bust, nor a head, nor a body: it is the mind, faith, passion, pain. All art is ideographic. Josephin Peladan. LVIII. What care I for the public? I do not even know that it exists. Mounet-Sully. LIX. L-^Gambling is a pastime of men of wit and a passion of fools. Alexandre Dumas. LX. Uncleg are by nature created treasurers to nephews. &^ 44&4A/4 Chevalier Bayard. Phases and Phrases. 27 LXI. To admire, to love, to regret, is to live* Ambroise Thomas. LXII. Life is good when good use is made of it. Ernest Renan. LXIII. Life is tteautiful when one sees beyond it. Leon Bonnat. LXIV. Man is neither as good as he says, nor as bad as is believed.t/u-4 'WVvA^, * Alexandre Dumas. LXV. To be a painter have a heart and colors. Munkacsy. LXVI. How great is the number of folks who have existed without having lived ! Gounod. 28 Phases and Phrases, LXVII. How great is the number of folks who have lived without having existed ! Ludovic Halevy. LXVIII. Man lives by the mind, woman by the heart. Edouard Hervt. LXIX. ^X*A woman's love is often a misfortune; her friendship is always a boon. Mezieres. LXX. In reality the wise find rest. Everything begins in verse, everything ends in prose. Camille Doucet. LXXI. Sad as a beautiful day for a heart without hope. Francois Coppee. LXXII. \_^-Wrinkles are beds that the gods have dug for our tears. Emile Augier. Phases and Phrases. 29 LXXIII. Perfection is a thing so bothersome that I often regret having cured myself of using tobacco. Emile Zola. LXXIV. Like mythology, charity has its Olym- pus ; the demigods of compassion have their place in it. Maxime du Camp. LXXV. ^Whoever trusts a woman trusts a thief. Hesiod. LXXVI. The venom of the female viper is more poisonous than that of the male viper. Benjamin F. Butler. LXXVII. The Mitylenians honored Sappho although she was a woman. TUu c-ft. k.jfeL&4 ' l lA*wMAt< ? Prevost-Paradol. CVIII. Whoever is happy, or seems to be happy, 36 Phases and Phrases. should be incessantly on his knees begging forgiveness for his good fortune. La Harpe. cix. Women do not live in the future ; their reign is from day to day ; it is the reign of beauty which can only lose by advancing. Women of genius who wished to govern the world never contemplated a distant horizon. Arsene Houssaye. ex. Twin sisters, vanity and ambition, proceed differently ; the first goes on stilts, the sec- ond leans on a crutch, for one covets grand- eur, the appearance of which is sufficient for the other. Charles de Bernard. CXI. A Cato twenty years of age, an Adonis fifty years of age, are equally ridiculous. Comte de Segur. Phases and Phrases. 37 CXH. Niepce is dead, and the machine is called a Daguerreotype. It is true that the world discovered by Christopher Columbus is called America. Alphonse Karr. cxm. There are nations of genius that invent and nations of business that execute ; there are thinkers who discover and skilled ones who exploit the discovery, and often for their own benefit only. Behind a Colum- bus there is almost always a Vespucius. Hippolyte Rigault. cxiv. Popular successes are very dangerous be- cause they are absolute; the crowd lauds without restriction. Edmond About. cxv. I hate all these little passions that are only marks of an abject soul, but I do not hate the great crimes : first, because beauti- 38 Phases and Phrases. ful pictures and great tragedies are made of them ; and then because sublime actions and great crimes have the same energetic charac- ter. If one man was not capable of setting fire to a city, another man would not be capable of throwing himself into an abyss to save it. Therefore I admire Nero and Decius. Diderot. CXVI. Cynism is the ideal overturned, it is the parody of physical and moral beauty, it is the crime of the mind, it is the brutalizing of imagination. Lamartine. CXVII. : superfluous is so necessary ! CXVIII. I have always thought that Paul would have divorced from Virginia if he had seen his love become proverbial and printed in thousands of copies. Paul de Saint- Victor. Phases and Phrases. 39 cxix. I have never understood how Esau could sell his birthright for a mess of pottage; 'but there are moments when the least sen- sual of men would not think it ridiculous to pay dearly for a good slice of roast beef. Xavier Marmier. cxx. It is impossible to amend men without exhibiting them as they are. Beaumarchais. cxxi. The unknown, that is what frightens weak minds. Louis Blanc. CXXII. Misery is dreamy, solitude creative. Charles Nodier. CXXIII. Money has no odor. ^ )> Vespasian. - te 40 Phases and Phrases. cxxiv. ._ Provided society may know the amount of your fortune, nobody shall ask for your papers. ^t^jLj^ W, jf*VU*>~^ yjs _ * Honore de Balzac. cxxv. ^ The absurd man is the one who never changes. Barthelemy. cxxvi. There are circumstantial vices and virtues. Napoleon I. CXXVII. Exile is death. T cxxvm. ^^^^ J* Exile is life. Victor Hugo. cxxix. Pity them, those who have lived without loving. iSX^t* *** < *^WWtA- "^Cv^AA-A Arsene Houssaye. Phases and Phrases. 41 cxxx. Caprices of women are the result of a per- version caused by man. Taxile Delord. cxxxi. Literary property is property. Alphonse Karr. CXXXII. Literary property is not property. Theodore de Banville. CXXXIII. Property is theft. Proudhon. cxxxiv. There is nothing polished in England except steel. f^-'CMx^* / ^OsO l C * Lauraguais. cxxxv. After me the deluge. Louis XV. CXXXVI. Calumniate, calumniate, calumniate, cal- umniate, some of it will always stay. Beaumarchais. 42 Phases and Phrases. cxxxvu. Yes, it is beautiful because it is beautiful. Guy de Maupassant. CXXXVIII. L>Woman often changes; foolish he who trusts her. Francois 1. cxxxix. Fortune sells dearly to us what we think she gives to us. Voiture. CXL. Nothing is rarer than a Frenchman who thinks. Saint- Evremond. CXLI. Nobody is happy except the wretched. Mile, de Lespinasse. CXLII. Poverty is not a vice, it is worse. Dufresny. Phases and Phrases. 43 CXLIII. Only silly things are laughed at. W jJtJt Prince de Ligne. CXLIV. Happy are physicians ! Their successes shine in the sunlight and the earth covers their failures. fy UxU-c U^Li^V I Montaigne. CXLV. am not beautiful, but I am worse. CXLVI. The parrot, image of the critic ! He knows not how to build anything and wants to destroy everything. Jules Janin. CXLVII. Inspiration comes of working every day. Charles Baudelaire. CXLVIII. All sensible persons will prefer dishonor rather than death. Augustine Brohan. 44 Phases and Phrases, CXLIX. I prefer to be Rachel rather than August- ine Brohan. Rachel. CL. The thoughts linked -in a book, those which form the web of a book, are the sheath. But the detached thought is the flying arrow. It is isolated, it has, like the arrow in the air, emptiness under it and emptiness above. But it vibrates, it trav- erses, it is about to strike. Well, let us see ; will these strike ? J. Barbey (F Aurevilly. i. Caesar Borgia was a giver of battles with poison, as Bonaparte was a giver of battles with cannon. It has not been demonstrated enough that poisoning as practised in the time of Machiavelli was the economy of murder. In that epoch they destroyed certain men not to destroy nations by throwing them against one another. Per- sonalities occupied more space ; masses less. Phases and Phrases. 45 Battles took place in the highest grades, between prince and prince. A man was an obstacle. He was treated as such. That was called politics. And for those who love humanity it was after all, more human than war. But the perfidiousness of poison- ing? . . . may be said. But the ambus- cades? Is it not known in war, on both sides, that there shall be ambush? If gam- blers agreed to cheat there would be no more cheating. 2. In reading over the preceding thought on Brogia, wherein I said that poisoning was the economy of murder, I spoke in the name of a modern sentiment which did not exist in the time of Borgia. What I have said is certain ; but it was not then thought of by anybody. Politics was a game played between elevated heads. Only, as it was a war of prince with prince, nations paid less of the expenses. At present the masses must intervene in affairs. With that system frightful destructions happen. 46 Phases and Phrases, 3- To put in the budget, ever overdone, of statesmen : Cardinal Richelieu said that he knew only three great politicians : Oxenstiern, Grand Chancellor of Sweden; Guiscardi, Chancellor of Montferrat, and Aersens, Am- bassador of Holland in France. Duplessis- Mornay had brought him when quite young in France and was surprised by the depth of his designs. Aersens served Messieurs of the States as Resident in France from the year 1598 until the truce of Antwerp. Henry IV. was the favored lover of his wife ; Aersens was glad of it. He held the King by his passions and governed their in- strument. It would seem that the opinion and the admiration of Richelieu should suffice for the making of a man's glory. But who re- members Aersens and Guiscardi ? 4- The last thesis of Cardinal Richelieu, Phases and Phrases. 47 when Bishop of Lucon, had this title: "Qestio Theologica: Quis erit similis mihi ? ' ' These words have become a prophecy after the fact. Glory, like the Power of God, changes the world's rela- tions. It makes of the past the future. Deceptive mirage, which overturns things in order to enlighten them. There are in the world only two sorts of minds : minds that are metaphysical and minds that are not. And what is not meta- physical is fatalistical, more or less. Metaphysical minds that are not only metaphysical and that are superior, are the chief minds of humanity. It is Charle- magne and it is Saint Augustin. Minds that are only metaphysical are Saint Louis and lamentable to tell ! Robespierre. One not metaphysical, but superior, is Napoleon. 48 Phases and Phrases. 6. There is perhaps in history only one Tartuffe eighteen years of age. It is the Cardinal (future) de Retz, playing the ec- clesiastic to seduce Mademoiselle de Retz. When Don Juan plays the devout, it is the devil become old and a hermit. Hypoc- risy is the maturity of vice and even more than its maturity. A novelist who made a Tartuffe eighteen years of age would be hissed by all the critics. Hiss then His- tory and Nature ! the rich, unexpected and exceptional Nature. 7- For so much pride that we take in it what is glory ? The noise of a concert of men blind if they be, moreover, deaf. 8. Legitimists, Monarchists, Bonapartists and men indifferent to any sort of govern- ment, may agree if they believe in the gov- Phases and Phrases. 49 ernment of God on earth. They may be united in what is larger than everything, the two arms of Providence. What a pitiful thing is political greatness ! When La Rochelle, under Louis XIII. , re- sisted so handsomely, Richelieu, who ap- pears to us sublime with perseverance, fright- ened by the English capture of Fort Saint- Martin and by a conspiracy of Buckingham, counselled a treaty. Cardinal de Berulle made him deviate, counting on a certain something, he knew not what, which he called trust in God. Richelieu, the strong-minded man, made fun of him. "The good Monsieur Ber- ulle," he said, "with his pretended revela- tions ! " He asked him insolently when God was to keep the promise with which He had "flattered" him. Berulle replied with magnificent simplicity: "I am with- out enlightenment but not without thoughts and, since you command, I will tell them $o Phases and Phrases. to you. I count on La Rochelle as I counted on the Island of Rhe\ I expect success not from the siege, nor from the as- sault, nor from the blockade, but from some prompt and unexpected effort. " Richelieu, later, took La Rochelle. B6rulle's confi- dence had strengthened him. Who knows of Berulle's ascendancy over Richelieu, dis- couraged, sarcastic, insolent and on the point of crushing this proud, great man? Nobody! Richelieu appears as an eternal marble, an Olympian mind, before those who gad-about and believe in the truth of glory. 10. The greatest men in politics, as in war, are those who are last to capitulate. ii. I am really of those who think that the best way to see the world is to see it through the great poems. The poets surpass travel- ers and reality, and give for the world of railway-car windows the sublime disdain Phases and Phrases. 51 that makes us keep our heads on cushions with Sardanapalesque pleasure. 12. Cowardice is even more in the depths of minds than of temperaments. The trouble and fear that the force of affirmation pro- duces is not known enough. All the evil done by journalism came of knowing how to affirm. 13- They talk of progress ! And modern gov- ernments would certainly not wish to be in the place of their grandsons. 14. Oh ! yes, I know the evil that may be done with the best sentiment. There is suffered neither regret nor remorse for the blows that are given. i5- There is true in life nothing but the chimeras whereof we dream. And so they all finish in suffering. 52 Phases and Phrases. 16. Children console us for all our sorrows . . . pending the fearful ones which they shall not fail to cause us. 17- The greatest thinker would be Death, if it could judge Life. 18. When events daily decrease in height, history becomes a dwarf and passes into biography. It is the last resource. The magnifying glass is applied to every man in order that he may be seen bigger and greater. 19. What strikes one to-day in reading cri- tiques is the praise that comes with the blow : "Your work is bad, bad in talent and mor- ality ; but you are a witty writer, etc. , etc. ' ' This balancing pole of cowardice which does not want to make enemies and wants, however, to retain the privilege of frankness, is worn-out, but still used. Phases and Phrases. 53 20. What a delicious book to write, the silly things expressed by the greatest minds ! 21. The mortal envelope of the Middle Age has disappeared, but the essential remains. Because the temporal disguise has fallen, the dupes of history and of its dates say that the Middle Age is dead. Does one die for changing his shirt ? 22. If there is in the sublime of man three- quarters of insanity, there is in his wisdom three-quarters of disdain. 23- In France everybody is an aristocrat, for everybody aims to be distinguished from everybody. The red cap of the Jacobins is the red heel of the aristocrats at the other extremity, but it is the same distinctive sign. Only, as they hated each other, Jacobinism placed on its head what aristocracy placed under its foot. 54 Phases and Phrases, 24. What Catholicism actually lacks, is a Vol- taire and a Franklin Catholics, the two extremes of the bourgeois mind. 25- Our reputation is the ball-mask with which one goes into society; and often is not known the good and amiable thing hidden under the frightful blackness of the mask others attach to a face. 26. To think of a success in the joy that it gives to a friend, is to drink one's nectar in a golden cup. 27. In the matter of literary form it is the thing poured in the vase which makes the beauty of the vase, otherwise there is nothing more than a vessel. 28. I believe in the rare only : great minds, Phases and Phrases. 55 great characters, great men. What matters the rest ! The greatest praise that may be given to a diamond is to call it a solitaire. 29. Books must be set against books, as poisons against poisons. While nations ascend in civilization, gov- ernments descend in administration. 3 1 - There is a certain ease in awkwardness which is, if I mistake not, more graceful than grace itself. 3 2 - Proof of natural narrow-mindedness : love for narrow-minded people. 33- When superior men are mistaken they are superior in that as in all else. They see more falsely than small or mediocre minds. 56 Phases and Phrases. 34- To know that one is a force is a consola- tion for many things, cruel, bitter, broken, and that are life. Self-consciousness is worth more than glory. It is the purest and best conceit. I know nothing similar to soothe a destiny. 35- " We never live, we await life ! " What a beautiful line and what a sad thing ! 36. Superior men must necessarily appear wicked. Where others do not see their im- placable eye perceives faults, ridicules and vices. 37- In things where the heart is not, the hand is never powerful. 38. You shall see that artists will shed tears over the Orient's slavery as they have shed tears over the liberty of Greece, and for the Phases and Phrases. 57 same reason. The picturesque departs from everywhere. 39- The Laocoon of Virgil ! . . . I know one more terrible. It is the one smothered and devoured by serpents issued from his own heart. 40. When they committed the indignity to arrest in France the Pretender of England, the Captain of the Guards charged with that infamy knelt before the Prince and tried to tie his hands, but with twist of white silk. Thus the materialism of the century thought to veil a shameful moral fact. 41. Letters are dangerous, even for the de- fense of liberty. 42. Omar's saying is too witty not to be his- torical. It is not a man of letters who could have found it. 5 8 Phases and Phrases. 43- The first love is as thirsty for confidences as for declarations. It is when one is black with the thunderstrokes received that one buries his affections under twenty feet of silence or thirty-six of pleasantries. 44- If one could put all his ideas in one word, it would be the masterwork. Who knows but what it would be the masterwork in everything? Words are the prison of thought. To diminish words, to make that wall fall, to enlighten the darkness, this is Art perhaps ? There shall be no talking in Heaven. 45- If Judas were alive he would be State Minister. 46. ercules carried the Pygmies in his lion's I like that, as gentleness of con- tempt. But I do not understand why he carried them. Phases and Phrases. 59 47- Ah ! if this earth were more than an inn where one passed a night, to-morrow one would have to break the window-panes and set fire to the house. 48. Only the facts of our life make us think or the facts of the lives of others. The rest of thought is philosophy a hole made with a corkscrew in a cloud. 49- Language is in the breast of our mothers. We drink it with the milk. Language taken elsewhere than from that sacred source is only an awkwardness, which some persons that are all grace make attractive by talking badly. So- Gambling is a good thing for provincial society. It is a rampart. It is less inter- esting for self than preservatory against others. 60 Phases and Phrases. Imagination does with those that it ani- mates as the bull-fighters do in the Spanish circuses. It wounds with a thousand vari- ous darts ornamented with ribbons of purple and gold. It decks you, but it tears you, and the blood flows under all these ribbons. 52- Man is so profoundly vile that he makes acts which he does not understand villain- ous, because in that way he is ever sure of understanding them. 53- The Orient and Greece recall to my mind the saying, so colored and melancholic, of Richter: "Blue is the color of mourning in the Orient. That is why the sky of Greece is so beautiful." 54- Night is terribly fruitful. Was it not the Ancients who said that Love nude, blind Phases and Phrases. 61 and armed, came out of an egg hatched by night ? How frightful that is, beautiful and true ! 55- Men give their measure by their admira- tion, and it is by their judgments that one may judge them. 56. When one has opinions that are currency, I let them circulate. 57- For Christian metaphysicians, Art is a laughable effort of impotents, an embracing of clouds, nothing more. Oh ! yes, even when the Ixion is Raffael, Sebastian del Piombo, Michael Angelo. Let a man be slightly a Christian with an Ideal, and he shall have a better vision of the beautiful by closing his eyes like Milton than by paint- ing, even by painting with the divine brush of Correggio. And this is no reason for not admiring Correggio. 62 Phases and Phrases. 58. Dedicated to friends who travel : To quit is to lack enough hooked atoms to stay. 59- Great thinkers love one another from afar. 60. The mind has white hairs a long time before the head, and they are not white hairs of wisdom, but of rage. 61. It is the man entire that is eloquent. The look of a man is a part of his voice. At present a braggart with fifty louis in his pocket is superior to Rivarol at the masked ball. 63- ""The most beautiful destiny : to have genius and be obscure. Phases and Phrases. 63 64. Neither those who love truth nor those who love beauty can care for politics which cares not for beauty nor for the truth. 65- Great men unknown. Old theme ! There is better still : celebrated mediocrities and celebrated fools. 66. There is something better than to have portraits and medals, it is to have none. Thus the imaginations of the future shall be made to dream ; one believes this who dreams himself. But they, these devils of painters, disconcert imagination. 67. The wife of Lot turned back and she was changed into a statue of salt for having turned back. Beautiful symbol ! When one turns back in life and looks into his past, one becomes a statue also. One is no longer capable of anything. 64 Phases and Phrases. 68. Journals ! Railways of untruth. 69. It was Vauvenargues, the overpraised Vauvenargues, who uttered this saying of a professor: "It is not enough to have fac- ulties, it is necessary to be economical with them. That pleases the pedants. But economy of faculties is penny-wisdom. When one has torches, one is not saving candles. Vauvenargues economized, for example. Byron, not ! 70. Good subject for an article : literary families. Every man of talent having a son wanting to obtain talent. Aristocracy transposed. 7i- There are folks who are simply vermi- celli, like paste and vapid. They are cooked in epigrams and it is the men of wit who furnish the sauce. Phases and Phrases. 65 72. When the Emperor saw Goethe for the first time, he said to him : " You are a man!" How did he know? Michelet admires the phrase. But political phrases do not count. 73- .....Pride ! the most beautiful sentiment of a solitary man and man is solitary after - ' ^ * twenty-five years of age. C ^' ^ * l$t &*& 74- The lion does not fly he is the great prose-writer ; the poet is the eagle he has wings. But the great poet prose-writer is the Lion of Saint Mark, who is a lion and has wings ! 75- Goethe was made of two pieces of great men of a great poet broken and of a great man of science broken. Nature brought the two pieces together ; but has it done, in uniting them, anything other than to break both pieces a little more? 66 Phases and Phrases. 76. The immense folly of universal suffrage sanctioned to the shame of the nineteenth century (whereat our grandchildren will split their sides with laughter, if they be not absolute idiots) why should not the women vote as well as the men? Are not they part of the universality ? Why this in- equality in fact with this equality in prin- ciple ? Why, if the valet vote, should not the chambermaid vote ? 77- To be above what one knows, a rare occurrence ! Erudition over, a weight ; under, a pedestal. 78. How many who never arrive on time in life ! We are strangled between two doors, one of which is called, "Too early," and the other, "Too late." 79- The novels of other times (of forty-five Phases and Phrases. 67 years ago) elevated life, and those of the present time make it descend and they call this being nearer to the truth. It may be - 9 80. Goethe, I think, said that a party leader was never more than a corporal. But what is a corporal who takes the countersign from sentinels ? 8f. It is only physical force that is respected. Of force of character, of talent, of expres- sion, the least said the better. Ah ! the Faubourg Saint-Germain ! I am sure that Diogenes was naturally a fair-minded man whom the Faubourg Saint-Germain of Athens exasperated. 82. "What is glory?" said somebody who does a great deal for glory. ' ' A furrow in the dust." " If it be no more than this," objected a 68 Phases and Phrases. lady who thought that she was logical, "why do you take so much pains to leave your mark on that dust ? ' ' And I heard this beautiful reply : "It is a way of stamping it under our feet." S3- The only thing feminine and hopeful which remained in our Babelic extrava- gance of corrupted fashions, was the trail with its majestic modesty. But, in its long folds that I loved, it has not brought back to us reserve. 84. Self-love in us should have the most and has the least tact. 85- There is nothing more beautiful than what we see no more. 86. When one says: "between us," it is complicity. Phases and Phrases. 69 87. I know nothing that demonstrates the emptiness of life better than the death of great men and the facility with which the foolish world gets along without them. 88. How many metals make the bronze of Corinth ? Insults on boards or on paper, the spot of ink or charcoal or mud, the dregs of heart, of mind and of body, the dirt of cal- umny, all these, under the sun, dry, harden, turn into bronze solid and brilliant a pure bronze which is called glory ! 89. If politeness were not made of the finest sentiments of life of charity and humility these Christian virtues that Christianity alone could evoke it resembles them, and that is enough to make it adorable ! 90. It is not only Harpagon who puts out one 70 Phases and Phrases. candle in every two. Alceste does likewise. For what there is in society, one always sees too much. 91. In rereading Ranc6, I find in Chateau- briand a merit that I had not credited to him : he makes one love death. When one is quite young, the sadness of Chateaubriand bores, as if one were Stend- hal ; but later the charm, poisoned as all charms, of that sadness of disdain, is felt and understood. Heavens ! to make death lovable is of excellent use in life ! 92. Societies, these passing coquettes, wear gowns with trails and when they have passed and are no longer seen, these trails still drag. . . . Politeness and the Duel are trails like these. 93- Politeness ! Of what use in a reasoning, utilitarian century? It may be relegated Phases and Phrases. 71 with the dance, fencing and horsemanship, these three forms of the beautiful in motion. They must fall in desuetude in an epoch which has replaced them with gymnastics, even for women the jockey method which makes of a man a monkey on horseback and fisticuffs, the rowdy's weapon. ,94- Nowadays there are only good and bad sentiments in opposition, only bad or good dispositions, and it shall not be denied that the bad ones are in the majority. For- merly there were as many bad ones as now, but they were forced to wear the pink satin mask of politeness, even if they suffered a little under it. And it was a boon that they could suffer. But as Politeness was not always deserved, a sister called Impertinence had been given to Politeness a twin sister whose life, like that of certain children, was inseparable from the life of the other sister. Thus, when Politeness was killed, at the 72 Phases and Phrases. same instant Impertinence was killed, and nothing remained to us but Insolence, silly as a parvenu, coarse as a man not yet arrived. Insolence is nature itself ! for one may be insolent in benevolence as in bad will, in love as in hatred. Even esteem, that pon- derous sentiment, may be insolent. " Take back, sir, your insolent esteem ! ' ' said Mirabeau to Beaumarchais. A man says to a woman that he loves her ; and there is no middle ground : if he be not a seducer, he is insolent. What great wit was necessary to overcome this obstacle of politeness and succeed in being impertinent ! But insolent, every- body may be. 95- I believed for a long time that this propo- sition was just : It is well to kill one in order to save three men. I was mistaken. It is false as modern equality, which is equality of numbers. Phases and Phrases. 73 And, in fact, if the man to be killed be Michael Angelo, or Newton, or Saint Vin- cent de Paul, must he be killed to save three fools ? 96. In the time when one was polite, one could be cruel, textual, contemptuous and terrible, as well, and from the point of view of energy in style and picturesqueness in ex- pression, lose nothing. Politeness gave even to contempt half of itself the last polish, which made it the better penetrate. 97- They are neither malevolent, nor self- sufficient, nor wilfully insolent, these little young men, upstarts who would send to Bal- zac, if he lived, their first book with this inscription : ' ' My dear co-laborer. ' ' They are good little young men wanting tact and shades. They lack politeness, that is all. It seems odd but people will become accustomed. 74 Phases and Phrases, 98. I have already said a great deal about politeness, but I shall say furthermore this, by which I shall finish. It is the best distance-stick between a man and fools a stick that saves one even the trouble of striking ! To be polite with a fool is to be isolated from him. What good politics ! 99- Prince de Ligne called conversation the greatest charm of life, and with good reason. It is the only thing for which I would sacri- fice everything. Certainly the Regent for whom I feel the greatest weakness of heart, in spite of his vices that I count on my fingers, and I have for him perhaps an eleventh finger, like Anna Boleyn certainly the Regent was an expert in pleasures, for he had tasted all of them, and he said : " The only thing worthy of the trouble of living, the sensation which remains fresh as Phases and Phrases. 75 the dawn when all is faded of all the dawns that we have tasted, is the conversation of a man who knows how to talk. ' ' 100. I was flattering her. " You tell me this," she said, with eyes suspicious, but so beauti- ful ! "and it is perhaps the thousandth time that you have said it to women. ' ' I replied : " If I brought a certificate from all the women as evidence that I never said it to them, you would believe me then ?' ' She made no answer. Her silence was not enough womanlike. It would have been more womanlike to re- ply : " Yes ! produce the certificates and I will believe you, but not before." 101. They were talking of railways. I ven- tured my point of view: "It is wrong to destroy absence. How will man and woman love each other ? ' ' " Your profound thoughts are ever cruel," said Isaure de G. 76 Phases and Phrases. "Madam," I replied, "when one bores through thought, one always finds coldness at a certain depth ; and coldness for women is cruelty. ' ' 102. Wherever women are on the throne cor- ruption is in manners. 103. Friendships of women are cushions wherein they stick their pins. 104. X -^ Only a woman can cure of wom Only a diamond can cut diamond. 105. Women give their measure by their loves. Not we. We may love below us without derogation ; we may elevate to us the last of women, but women always fall to the level of the man that they have the misfortune to love. 106. j/ J-havp no faith in friendship between Phases and Phrases. 77 men and women. The law that rules hu- manity is Salic; we have no peeresses. The friendship of a woman is virgin love or widow love. It is love before or after love. 107. A woman whose love one wants and who does not yet love one, is only an enemy. 108. One loves only beautiful women; one adores the ugly ones . . . when one loves them. Do not we sculpt our dream in the flesh of all the women that we love ? Do they exist otherwise than by us ? Are not we their Archbishops of Rheims, and is not our genius the dove that brings to us the unction with which we consecrate them as Queens of our hearts? 109. It was well to take green for the color of hope. It is the color of verdigris. There is no sentiment that oxidizes more quickly or poisons hearts better. 78 Phases and Phrases. no. One is in love much more for the faults of the person loved than for her qualities, because they individualize more. Beauty tends to unity, whereas ugliness is multiple. in. One may pay for everything, settle every- thing, with love. One may efface even the misfortune one has caused. The first love has influence on the entire life. One loves after, one loves again, and perhaps one may love more ; but one wears a sign in the heart, a sign cursed or blessed, but which nothing can efface. The finger of the first woman loved is like that of God : the imprint of it is eternal. At every love that ends, at every illusion that fades, at every lock of hair cut from heads of persons dead, one image only passes in the empty heart and it seems ever, that one was unfaithful to one only. Phases and Phrases. 79 "3- Minds out of the common understand one another even when they are tending farther apart. 114. 4 ^hen a young woman accuses her hus- band in confidences to her mother, it is either that she has a mind without nobility or that she has ceased to love him. To suffer when one loves is sweet and good, for it is the happiness of martyrdom ; but to suffer for loving no more is the mis- fortune of life ! A very great evil, for one may die of love, and one does not die of having ceased to love. 116. n giving a name to a child, one must think of the woman who shall have, some day, to pronounce it. -J 117. Woman were made to be victims. They 8o Phases and Phrases. are marked to be thus. Do you know why ? Lack of pride. Who are those that they will not marry, even without money ? We never have wives like the husbands they have. 118. The first love-letter : the first spot from which all ermines must die. 119. Men are judges of women. ; ,Hear them after dinner ! y5nly, wMt errd^! They make the manners of/these innocent or timorous beings with the audacity and the impurity of their minds. Co tMA*~V* 120. ost moralists appear to me to be people that women maltreated or who, at least, have ceased to please women. 121. It is with women as with nations: it is necessary to be happy and pitiless. Phases and Phrases. 81 122. One may see the heart of women through the rents which one may make in their self- love. 123. Supreme seduction is not to express sen- timents, but to make them surmised. 124. When the passion is intense, does one notice that the woman has a mind ? Riva- rol loved silly women. This is the history of intelligence in love. 125, It is so seldom nowadays that a woman has temperament, that when a woman has temperament it is called hysterics. 126. I have often thought of Pascal's question : " What do they love in us ? " You are loved for your handsome face, which you did not make. 8a Phases and Phrases. I am loved for my talent that I have, at least, developed. Dreamers ! You are loved because it is said that you are handsome. And you because you are said to be witty or because you pass for a great artist. 127. All the great women great in their style, as Charlemagne, Alexander, Caesar, Napo- leon in theirs the Ninons, the Duchesses of Valentinois, the Marchionesses of Pes- caire, were old without having been young ; and their contemporaries, dupes of their genius, have told us with an air of the most comical good faith that they were always as beautiful, that they had put the heels of their boots on the fearful monster of old age. What do they not say ? Read them. But no ! do not read them. The laws of human nature are not thus changeable. Nothing is so inexorable as white hair and wrinkles. Only, it is a law also of human Phases and Phrases. 83 nature that the mind, the will, the interior flame, have their magic, and transfigure perishable materialities. 128. It is often a delicate manner of courting women to be in the wrong with regard to them. It creates for them the superiority to forgive. 129. Ask of women nothing but what they can give. They are sublime only when they are mistaken. 130. they knew how, at times, one avoids them because one loves them ! CLI. Paradise is to believe in it. Catulle Mendes. CLII. All this matter is made of thought. Ah ! if this thought were made of love. Eugene Manuel. I*/ ^ OW**M ** Phases and Phrases, 109 *- Jealous : A poor man looking for a clue which he hopes not to find. * * Legend: Untruth often truer than his- tory. * * Livery: Colored coat which masters make their servants wear to avoid mistakes of identity. * * Luxury : Exasperates the workingman, and makes him earn a living. * * ^ Merchant : Man who makes a large for- tune by regularly losing a round sum on every object that he sells. * * Medallion : A gold box wherein one puts the portrait that one gives to a beloved woman. When there are diamonds around the jewel the portrait is more valuable. * * Medicine : Art of correctly curing. If a man were cured of a cruel malady by reme- no Phases and Phrases. dies of old women or charlatans, all the vials of the Faculty's indignation should fall on his head. * * Mien : One with the mien of an honest man may be a rascal, but one with the mien of a rascal is seldom an honest man. * * * No : When a woman smiles in saying "no," it means "yes." * * Obey : Willingly a woman obeys her husband, for she does not allow him to have any other will than her own. * * Operetta : Music of cadence and of deca- dence. * * Orator : A man who talks for his pleasure. * * Parsimony : Avarice of the poor. * * Parvenu : A man smart enough to make Phases and Phrases. in a fortune and not witty enough to make his happiness forgiven. * * Patience : Virtue which makes one bear with resignation the blows of fate and even the blows coming from elsewhere. Q. never admired that virtue, save in the saints of stone that remain for centuries at the door of cathedrals, exposed to all storms, without quitting their beatific smileN * * ..-Politeness: The art of saying in an ex- quisite manner the reverse of what one thinks. * * Polygamy : The height of fatuity. * * Prodigal : My old preceptor always said that the prodigal was a man who lighted his lamp at noon and had no more oil when night came. * * Rhetoric : The art of saying airy noth- ings with a certain elegance. ii2 Phases and Phrases. Riches : Tariff of consideration. * * Senator : Eclectic personage who finds the same thing good and bad according to the official situation of his party. * * Sublime : A beautiful thought simply ex- pressed. * * Tact : The most indescribable of qualities. You have tact, nobody notices it ; you lack tact, it is remarked by everybody. * * Translator : A man who translates seldom well the author's text and always badly his thought. * * Usury : An agreement between necessity and avarice. * * Vengeance : Sometimes a pleasure, always a bad deed. * * : One who has done time in jail. Phases and Phrases. 113 _____ -X : The unknown ; what women love the most. * * Youth: A boon appreciated in old age only. jd^J^CXl 1 t^0v^4Xf U^-ty * * Zeal: An excessive desire to do well which one finds in those that have more good-will than tact. Example : Monsieur enters; Antoine, his valet, hands to him gloves wrapped in a piece of newspaper and says : ' ' Monsieur, here are gloves which I found in your overcoat pocket. As I knew that you did not wear twelve button gloves I took them to Madame, and Madame threw them out of the window, but I picked them up. _ Y U CCXXXI. I do not know what morality in art is. Francisquc Sarcey. ii4 Phases and Phrases. ccxxxn. ON EARTH. Ever on earth the flowers have died, And short is every song-bird's lay; I dream of summers that abide Alway. Ever on earth lips greet and glide Nor let their velvet softness stay ; I dream of kisses that abide Alway. Ever on earth have mortals sighed O'er loves and friendships turned to clay; I dream of unions that abide Alway. Sully-Prudhomme. CCXXXIII. Have genius ! In art, talent is nothing. Theodore de Banville. ccxxxiv. The heart of a man is ageless. Alfred de Musset. Phases and Phrases. 115 ccxxxv. The heart has no wrinkles. Fenelon. ccxxxvi. Love life, but love it not for vulgar pleasures, for miserable ambitions. Love it for what in it is important, grand, divine. Silvio Pellico. CCXXXVII. Recollection makes one pensive ; anxiety, dreamy. Jean-Jacques Rousseau. ccxxxvni. Beware of worrying about little things ; it is the malady of happy people. Mme. Necker. ccxxxix. Our passions and our necessities are our real tyrants. One should always be simple and virtuous, even if only for love of inde- pendence. Mme. Ackermann. n6 Phases and Phrases. CCXL. In fine, there is nothing in life except what we put in it. Mme. Schwetchine. CCXLI. Do not take upon yourself a load of hatred ; it is a heavier load than you think. Mme. de Sevigne. CCXLII. One must deserve and avoid praise. Fenelon. CCXLIII. A little of everything, nothing quite to one's wish the way to be moderate, wise and content. Joubert. CCXLIV. If one must go to an extreme of defect- iveness let the fault be softness. Francois de Sales. Phases and Phrases. 117 CCXLV. In a book the mind talks ; in the face the mind shows itself. V. Duruy. CCXLVI. One is almost always mistaken who sees malice in everything. Voltaire. CCXLVII. One must have a soul to have taste. Vauvenargues. CCXLVIII. The critic is the man who knows and teaches others how to read. Sainte-Beuve. CCXLIX. One must make himself liked, for men are just only with those that they like. Joubert. CCL. There are men who to be faultless lack n8 Phases and Phrases. nothing except not to think that they are perfect. Prince de Ligne. CCLI. It is tempting God to love pain. Alfred de Musset. CCLII. Think of the ills whereof you are free. Joubert. CCLIII. Distrustfulness, too, has its dupes. Mme. Swetchine. CCLIV. Virtue by policy is virtue of vice. Sully- Prudhomme. CCLV. Without dew and light flowers fade. Charity and love are the dew and light of the human heart. Mme. de Gentis. Phases and Phrases. 119 CCLVI. Self-love makes us blind. It is the greatest of flatterers. La Rochefoucauld. CCLVII. Let us be kind, if we wish to be regretted. Pierre Loti. CCLVIII. oung men, do not picture the world to yourselves too handsomely, for fear that you may lack courage when you see it as it is. Ernest Lavissc. CCLIX. Exterior signs of great afflictions are for the living as mausoleums are for the dead ; they often attest more conceit than sorrow or virtue. Chateaubriand. CCLX. A society without prejudices makes a world without scruples. De Bonald. i2o Phases and Phrases. CCLXI. From women who have no faith or who fear to be too faithful, God deliver me. Xavier Marmier. I CCLXII. How corrupted the heart of man is, to be capable of the sublime sacrifices that friend- ship exacts. Alfred de Vigny. CCLXIII. Those who have not suffered together do not know the most powerful heart-ties. Alexandre Dumas. CCLXIV. Oh ! poverty, thou art a severe teacher. But at thy noble school I have received more precious lessons, I have learned more great truths than I shall ever find in the spheres of wealth. Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Phases and Phrases. 121 CCLXV. Liberty is the right to meddle with the affairs of others. Abbe Galiani. CCLXVI. I 'Every time that a fool wants to become wicked he must meet a wicked man who is looking for a fool. Beaumarchais. CCLXVII. Modesty should be in a middle-ground between vanity and humility ; but it is often nearer one than the other. Legouve. CCLXVIII. There is nothing so trifling as to be with- out effect. Montesquieu. CCLXIX. Affability cannot be taught ; it is a nat- ural expression of the heart. Mme. de Caylus. 122 Phases and Phrases. CCLXX. When women cease to be natural they cease to be affable. Legouve. CCLXXI. It is imitating somebody to plant cabbage. Alfred de Musset. CCLXXII. The man who is seldom mistaken about others is often mistaken about himself. Duclos. CCLXXIII. Mediocre minds ordinarily condemn everything that passes their comprehension. La Rochefoucauld. CCLXXIV. One who talks without thinking resembles a hunter who shoots without aiming. Montesquieu. CCLXXV. Virtue glories in persecution as a flag glories in its rags. F. Mistral. Phases and Phrases. 123 CCLXXVI. ask a favor a man says to himself, "What shall I say?" a woman meditates, "What shall I wear?" Metternich. CCLXXVII. Life, which we find too short, is made of many days which we find too long. Octave Feuillet. CCLXXVIII. There is a sort of hatred which is never extinguished : it is the hatred that superi- ority inspires in mediocrity. Paul Bourget. CCLXXIX. To be without enemies is to be unworthy of having friends. Joubert. CCLXXX. Too much wisdom is harmful to mediocre minds ; a little folly suits them better. Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 124 Phases and Phrases. CCLXXXI. When conceit marches in front, shame and damage walk behind. Louis XI. CCLXXXII. / Every man has three temperaments : the one he has, the one he shows and the one he thinks he has. Alphonse Karr. CCLXXXIII. If people of wit could not use fools, what would be the use of their wit ? Ernest Renan. CCLXXXIV. One who runs after wit often catches silliness. Montesquieu. CCLXXXV. Nothing is more unbearable than the man who is never in the wrong, unless it be the man who thinks he is always in the right. Honore de Balzac. Phases and Phrases. 125 CCLXXXVI. Beware of those who talk of their dinners, who boast of their wines : it is the conceit of Diogenes which appears through the rents of his cloak. Alphonse Daudet. CCLXXXVII. In reality history is of no avail. Human- ity is caught every day with traps that have served before. Jules Simon. CCLXXXVIII. Probity is the virtue of the poor ; virtue should be the probity of the rich. Diderot. CCLXXXIX. The art of the philosopher is to direct, of the ambitious to follow, opinion. Camille Desmoulins. ccxc. In the course of life, how many persons 126 Phases and Phrases. stop on their way and fail because, like Atalanta, they let the gold apples seduce them ! Honore de Balzac. ccxci. The one who thinks he is smarter than all others, is almost always the most easily duped. Octave Mirbeau. CCXCI I. The heart of a man without discretion is an open book where everybody may read. Sully- Prudhotiime. CCXCIII. There are very honest people who do not think that they have had a bargain unless they have cheated the merchant. Anatole France. ccxciv. In this world, one must be a little too kind to be kind enough. Marivaux. Phases and Phrases. 127 ccxcv. Fine wit is often false, precisely because it is fine. Paul Bourget. ccxcvi. The world is possessed by money, but it is led by imagination and by the heart. Melchior de Vogue. ccxcvn. The surest way to get rid of a bore is to lend money to him. Paul Louis Courier. CCXCVIII. How many persons would be devout if impiety were made ridiculous ! Joseph de Maistre. ccxcix. The universe is a sort of book only the first page of which has been read by those who have seen no other country but their own. Stendhal. 128 Phases and Phrases. ccc. The man of brains sees difficulties, sur- mounts or avoids them ; the fool knows no difficulties. La Bruyere. ccci. The desire to appear skillful is often a bar to becoming skillful. La Rochefoucauld. CCCII. Even when officious, untruth is repugnant to delicate minds. Ibsen. CCCIII. To appreh contempt is to have de- served it already. Pierre Loti. ccciv. To cull abundantly from the field of va- riety is to reap in the domains of pleasure. Le Sage. Phases and Phrases. 129 cccv. Good maxims are germs of all good ; firmly impressed on the memory they nour- ish the will. Joubert. CCCVI. To love is to find pleasure in the happi- ness of the person loved. Leibnitz. CCCVII. Love is I know not what, which comes from I know not where and which finishes I know not how. Scudery. CCCVIII. Love is the poetry of the senses. Balzac. CCCIX. Love is selfishness in two persons. Boufflers. cccx. Love is to be two and only one ; a man 130 Phases and Phrases. and a woman that are melted into an angel : it is Heaven. Victor Hugo. p. v^^^Marriae i CCCXI. s a science. Honore de Balzac. CCCXII. What speech of a man may act like the silence of a woman ? Jules Michelet. CCCXIII. Beauty without grace is a hook without bait. Ninon de Lenclos. cccxiv. Such is the measure of love that none in it should keep his reason. Marie de France. cccxv. Apollo's children are ever unfortunate. Jean Vatel. Phases and Phrases. 131 cccxvi. Many thorns, Love, accompany thy roses ! Malherbe. cccxvu. There is something of one's soul in one's voice. Henri Lavedan. CCCXVIII. One's country is the earth, the universe. Gustave Flaubert. CCCXIX. The happiest nations are the poor na- tions, because they are the most virtuous^/ Q Cand there is only one way to happiness earth, the way of virtue. Stindhal. cccxx. Everything may be demonstrated by reasoning, except the things which we feel are veritable. Maurice Barres. 132 Phases and Phrases. cccxxi. It is not susceptibility that governs the world. Ferdinand Brunetiere. cccxxn. The on ly true happiness for a woman in a n appy marriage. CCCXXIII. The most reasonable women have hours wherein to be unreasonable. Victor Cherbuliez. cccxxiv. Every abridgment of a good book is a foolish abridgment. Montaigne. cccxxv. Reputation is such a thing that it keeps many men in awe, even amongst civilized nations, and is very much stood upon. Thomas Morton. Phases and Phrases. 133 cccxxvi. I saw the Vanity of Honor, and there- fore, why should I be troubled for the loss of it by the want of enlargements. Thomas Shepard. cccxxvu. The blackamoor's darkness differs not in the dark from the fairest white. Roger Williams. cccxxvm. The finest bread has the least bran ; the purest honey, the least wax ; and the sin- cerest Christian, the least self-love. Anne Bradstreet. cccxxix. There is no certainty of anything in this / world. <\xi-^U^, ieJL&t* >v>Jf***M*~ * Jonathan Mitchell. cccxxx. No man is made only for himself and his own private affairs, but to serve, profit and benefit others. Benjamin Colman. 134 Phases and Phrases. cccxxxi. A word to the wise is enough. * * God help| them that help themselves. Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears; while the used key is always bright. * * But dost thou love life, then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of. * * The sleeping fox catches no poultry. * * There will be sleeping enough in the grave. * * If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality. * * Lost time is never found again; and what we call time enough, always proves little enough. Phases and Phrases. 135 Sloth makes all things difficult, but in- dustry all easy, * * He that riseth late must trot all day and shall scarce overtake his business at night. *P * * Laziness travels so slowly that Poverty soon overtakes him. * * Drive thy business, let not that drive thee. * * Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. * * Employ thy time well if thou meanest to gain leisure ; and since thou art not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour. * * A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. * * Fly pleasures and they will follow you. 136 Phases and Phrases. Three removes are as bad as a fire. * * Keep thy shop and thy shop will keep thee. * * If you would have your business done, go ; if not, send. * * The eye of a master will do more work than both his hands. * * Want of care does us more harm than want of knowledge. * * Not to oversee workmen is to leave them your purse open. * * In the affairs of this world men are saved, not by faith, but by the want of it. * * If you would have a faithful servant, and one that you like, serve yourself. * * A fat kitchen makes a lean will. Phases and Phrases. 137 What maintains one vice would bring up two children. * * If you would know the value of money go and try to borrow some ; for he that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing. * * Pride is as loud a beggar as want, and a great deal more saucy. * * It is easier to suppress the first desire than to satisfy all that follow it. * * Pride breakfasted with Plenty, dined with Poverty and supped with Infamy. * * (____^JBxperience keeps a dear school but fools will learn in no other. * * If you will not hear Reason, she will surely rap your knuckles. * * No power, how great soever, can force men to change their opinions. 138 Phases and Phrases. Don't give too much for the whistle. Benjamin Franklin. CCCXXXII. What we obtain too cheap we esteem too lightly; 'tis dearness only that gives every- thing its value. Thomas Paine. CCCXXXIII. Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself and all it con- tains, rather than do an immoral act. Thomas Jefferson. cccxxxiv. trmnt secluding yourself from the other sex, let it occupy but a small portion of your time. Timothy Pickering. cccxxxv. bout the only person we ever heard of that wasn't spoiled by being lionized, was a Jew named Daniel. George Denison Prentice. Phases and Phrases. 139 cccxxxvi. To go into solitude, a man needs to re- tire as much from his chamber as from society. Ralph Waldo Emerson. CCCXXXVII. The yeoman and the scholar the yeo- man the man of finest moral culture, though not the man of sturdiest sense and integ- rity are two distinct individuals, and can never be melted or wedded into one sub- stance. Nathaniel Hawthorne. CCCXXXVIII. To appreciate thoroughly the work of what we call genius, is to possess all the genius by which the work was produced. Edgar Allan Poe. cccxxxix. Life is a count of losses every year. Albert Pike. 140 Phases and Phrases. CCCXL. Life is a dream, Calderon. CCCXLI. My dear friends, let us tell tales. While we are telling tales, the tale of life ap- proaches its end and we are happy. Denis Diderot. CCCXLII. How happy, how rich, how honored, how talented, how healthy, soever you may be, remember that you must die and abandon all. Philip Neri. CCCXLIII. Speak, if you have something to say which is better than silence. Gregory Nazianzen. CCCXLIV. Do you wish to be absolved ? Love. Peter Chrysologus. Phases and Phrases. 141 CCCXLV. In temptations against purity, the victori- ous are the timorous who take to flight. Philip Neri. CCCXLVI. He who denies self-evident truths cannot be reasoned with. Epictetus. CCCXLVII. Is life worth living? I should say that it depended on the liver. Thomas Gold Appleton. CCCXLVIII . self-made man? Yes and worships his creator. Henry Clapp. CCCXLIX. When men begin their prayers with " O thou omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, all-seeing, ever-living, blessed Potentate, Lord God Jehovah ! " I should think they 142 Phases and Phrases. would take breath. Think of a man in his family, hurried for his breakfast, praying in such a strain ! He has a note coming due, and it is going to be paid to-day, and he feels buoyant; and he goes down on his knees like a cricket on the hearth and piles up these majestically moving phrases about God. Then he goes on to say that he is a sinner : he is proud to say that he is a sin- ner. Then he asks for his daily bread. He has it ; and he can always ask for it when he has it. Then he jumps up and goes over to the city. He comes back at night and goes through a similar wordy form of ' ' even- ing prayers ; " and he is called " a praying man ! " A praying man? I might as well call myself an ornithologist because I eat a chicken once in a while for my dinner. Henry Ward Beecher. CCCL. We are columns left alone, of a temple once complete. Christopher Pearce Cranch. Phases and Phrases. 143 CCCLI. We shall come to an end some day, though we may never live to see it. Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber. CCCLII. Yes, faith is a goodly anchor. James Russell Lowell. CCCLIII. Labor, calling, profession, scholarship and artificial and arbitrary distinctions of all sorts, are incidents and accidents of life, and pass away. It is only manhood that re- mains and it is only by manhood that man is to be measured. Josiah Gilbert Holland. CCCLIV. Consider the lilies. Thomas Wentworth Higginson. CCCLV. There are gains for all our losses, there are balms for all our pain. Richard Henry Stoddard. 144 Phases and Phrases. CCCLVI. The grace of culture is, in its way, a fine thing, but the best that art can do the polish of a gentleman is hardly equal to the best that Nature can do in her higher moods. Mary Noailles Murfrec. CCCLVII. To be really cosmopolitan, a man must be at home even in his own country. Thomas Wentworth Higginson. CCCLVIII. Who, alas ! can love and then be wise ! Byron. CCCLIX. Jupiter himself cannot love and be wise. Seneca. CCCLX. is better to be too bold than not bold enough. Machiavelli. Phases and Phrases. 145 CCCLXI. Learning without politeness makes a dis- agreeable pedant, and politeness without learning makes a superficial, frivolous puppy. Chesterfield. CCCLXII. He gives a double benefit to the needy who gives quickly. Publius Syrus. CCCLXIII. It is said, " The woman who deliberates is lost." The truth is, women are lost because they do not deliberate. Amelia E. Barr. CCCLXIV. Genius creates, taste preserves. Taste is the good sense of genius. Without taste, genius is only a sublime madness. Chateaubriand. CCCLXV. We must dare, and again dare, and for- ever dare. Danton. 146 Phases and Phrases. [CCCLXVI. Satire lies about literary men during their lives and eulogy lies about them after their death. Voltaire. CCCLXVII. Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are. Brillat-Savarin. CCCLXVIII. As long as you shall be fortunate you shall have many friends ; if the times be- come cloudy you shall be alone. Ovid. CCCLXIX. Every man is the architect of his own fortune. Sallust. CCCLXX. No more love, no more joy. La Fontaine. Phases and Phrases. 147 CCCLXXI. Nothing exists but beauty. Guy de Maupassant. CCCLXXII. When kings are building draymen have something to do. Schiller. CCCLXXIII. It is not to be wise, to be wiser than is necessary. Quinault. CCCLXXIV. There is no greater pain than to remem- ber times of felicity when in the midst of misery. Dante. CCCLXXV. Give me ten accomplished men for read- ers and I am content. Landor. CCCLXXVI. As necessity is the lash that falls upon the i4 8 Phases and Phrases. common people, so ennui is the lash of the upper classes. Schopenhauer. CCCLXXVII. Recollections embellish life, oblivion alone makes it possible. Gen. Cialdini. CCCLXXVIII. We shut our eyes to the beginnings of evil because they are small, and in this weakness lies the germ of our misfortune. Amiel. CCCLXXIX. Imbecile ! The facts are given you, like the block of marble or the elements of a landscape, as material for the construction of a work of art. Which would you rather be, a photographer or Michael Angelo ? Julian Hawthorne. CCCLXXX. Like ants and bees we labor at general works of which we do not see the object. Ernest Renan. Phases and Phrases. 149 CCCLXXXI. There are tears in things. Virgil. CCCLXXXII. Keep your heart on high, that is the sum of philosophy. Victor Cousin. CCCLXXXIII. No one is satisfied with his fortune or dis- satisfied with his intellect. Deshoulieres. CCCLXXXIV. Resignation, firm resignation that is the meaning of the law of life, that is the solu- tion of the enigma. Tourgueneff. CCCLXXXV. Learning in one man's hand is a sceptre ; in another's a bauble. Michel de Montaigne. CCCLXXXVI. One Of the misfortunes of life is that we 150 Phases and Phrases. must read thousands of books only to dis- cover that one need not have read them. De Quincey. CCCLXXXVII. >** In nineteen cases out of twenty, for a woman to play her heart in the game of \/ love is to play at cards with a sharper, and gold coin against counterfeit pieces. Paul Bourget. CCCLXXXVIII. If all women's faces were cast in the same mold, that mold would be the grave of love. Bichat. CCCLXXXIX. Man believes by instinct and doubts by reason. Jouffroy. cccxc. Bad maxims are worse than bad acts. Jean-Jacques Rousseau. // Ml; Phases and Phrases. 151 cccxci. Advice of old men is as the sun in Win- ter; it enlightens without warming. Vauvenargues. cccxcn. You complain of ingratitude; were you not repaid by your pleasure in doing good ? Levis. CCCXCIII. Why the word " always," on mortal lips? Francois Coppee. cccxciv. Let us efface capital punishment. I am willing, but let messieurs the assassins begin. Alphonse Karr. cccxcv. The good is nothing but the beautiful in action. Jean-Jacques Rousseau. cccxcvi. ^A man who tells nothing, or who tells all, will equally have nothing told to him. Lord Chesterfield. 152 Phases and Phrases. cccxcvu. During life you were indeed good work- ing camels, but when you are dead your ashes make no better compost than those of poorer animals. Burton. CCCXCVIII. I have three chairs in my house : one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. Thoreau. cccxcix. Charity providing you have a Superin- tendent, a Board of Visitors, a Ticket Sys- tem, a steady moral pleasure constantly brought to bear, a Judicial Investigation and a Board of Administration, and at the same time pay personal visits like a cloak covers a multitude of sins. Barnet Phillips. CD. Perhaps no man shall ever know whether it is better to wear night-caps or not. Samuel Johnson . Phases and Phrases. 153 CDI. If the hair of your Hercules was shaved off there would not remain skull enough to hold his brains. Benvenuto Cellini. CDII. Like diamonds we are cut by our own dust. Webster. CDIII. Ignorant enthusiasm is the most terrible of ferocious beasts. Condorcet. CDIV. The fool though he be associated with a wise man all his life will perceive the truth as little as a spoon tastes the soup. Buddha. CDV. A fool always finds a greater fool to ad- mire him. Boileau. i54 Phases and Phrases. CDVI. No man can be valiant unless he hazards his body, nor rich unless he hazards his soul. Warner. CDVII. Genius is only the infinite capacity of taking trouble. Longfellow. CDVIII. Everyone knows what harm the bad do, but who knows the mischief done by the good? William Makepeace Thackeray. CDIX. The gods are ever wisely ignorant of the defects of a horse or of a woman. Burton. CDX. There is nothing more terrible than ener- getic ignorance. Goethe. Phases and Phrases. 155 CDXI. He administers justice with the same care before and after dinner. Burton. CDXII. Labor makes thought healthy and thought makes labor happy. John Ruskin. CDXIII. -A man declares his love, a woman con- fesses hers. Mme. de Genlis. CDXIV. Love without love-letters is love among chambermaids. Duchesse de Longueville. CDXV. Call no man happy till he is dead. Solon. CDXVI. Call no man unhappy till he is married."* 1 * 0C/^ Socrates. > ' 156 Phases and Phrases. CDXVII. Modesty is the best profligacy. Honore de Balzac. CDXVIII. Women and music should never be dated. Oliver Goldsmith. CDXIX. What is new is not true, what is true is not new. Burton. CDXX. God pays, but he does not pay every Saturday. Alphonse Karr. CDXXI. Never mind whom you praise, but be very careful whom you blame. Edmund Gosse. CDXXII. There are no principles, there are only events ; there are no laws, there are only circumstances. Honore de Balzac. Phases and Phrases. 157 CDXXIII. He who loves is in the right. Schiller. CDXXIV. The same identical thought, I suppose, goes round in a slow whirl from one genera- tion to another as I have seen a withered leaf do in the vortex of a brook. Nathaniel Hawthorne. CDXXV. Most women are vain, some men are not. Disraeli. CDXXVI. There are but two boons to make life worth, living : love of art and art of love. Edmond Haraucourt. CDXXVII. Let us be clement to the poor that have failed. Francois Coppee. 158 Phases and Phrases. CDXXVIII. Genius is the talent of a man who is dead. Edmond de Goncourt. CDXXIX. Hypocrisy is a privileged vice ; it closes everybody's mouth and enjoys in peace sov- ereign impunity. Moliere. CDXXX. Most persons who have reached middle age know absolutely nothing that is worth knowing except what they saw during the one brief, sweet, youthful hour when they were in love. William Winter. CDXXXI. No chain is stronger than its weakest link. Susan Marr Spalding. CDXXXII. Vain all the toils of man. Oscar Fay Adams. Phases and Phrases. 159 CDXXXIII. Now money's the measure of all. Grant Allen. CDXXXIV. Past sounding brass are love's tones sweet. W. H. Jewitt. CDXXXV. Amid the snow the birds are fed. Andrew Lang. CDXXXVI. Ah ! lost are the. loves of long ago. R. Le Gallienne. CDXXXVII. Make out of life what ye may. Hunter McCulloch. CDXXXVIII. No man may have all that he please. X Q^^Jr_t Brander Matthews. CDXXXIX. Time makes thrusts that you cannot parry. *K .4/A.