which well accords with the rank and character of the man La Rochefoucauld. He was of one of the noblest families in France. His instincts were all aristocratic. His manners and his morals were those of his class. Brave, spirited, a touch of chivalry in him, honorable and amiable as the world reckons of its own, La Rochefoucauld ran a career consistent throughout with his own master-principle, self-love. He had a wife whose conjugal fidelity her husband seems to have thought a sufficient supply in that virtue for both himself and her. He behaved himself accordingly. His illicit relations with other women were notorious. But they unhappily did not make La Rochefoucauld in that respect at all peculiar among the distinguished men of his time. His brilliant female friends collaborated with him in working out his "Maxims." These were the labor of years. They were published in successive editions, during the lifetime of the author; and some final maxims were added from his manuscripts after his death.
Using, for the purpose, a very recent translation, that of A. S. Bolton (which, in one or two places, we venture to conform more exactly to the sense of the original), we give almost at hazard a few specimens of these celebrated apothegms. We adopt the numbering given in the best Paris edition of the "Maxims:"—
No. 11. The passions often beget their contraries. Avarice sometimes produces prodigality, and prodigality avarice: we are often firm from weakness, and daring from timidity.
No. 13. Our self-love bears more impatiently the condemnation of our tastes than of our opinions.
How much just detraction from all mere natural human greatness is contained in the following penetrative maxim!—
No. 18. Moderation is a fear of falling into the envy and contempt which those deserve who are intoxicated with their good fortune; it is a vain parade of the strength of our mind; and, in short, the moderation of men in their highest elevation is a desire to appear greater than their fortune.
What effectively quiet satire in these few words!—
No. 19. We have strength enough to bear the ills of others.
This man had seen the end of all perfection in the apparently great of this world. He could not bear that such should flaunt a false plume before their fellows:—
No. 20. The steadfastness of sages is only the art of locking up their uneasiness in their hearts.
Of course, had it lain in the author's chosen line to do so, he might, with as much apparent truth, have pointed out, that to lock up uneasiness in the heart requires steadfastness no less—nay, more—than not to feel uneasiness.
The inflation of "philosophy" vaunting itself is thus softly eased of its painful distention:—
No. 22. Philosophy triumphs easily over troubles passed and troubles to come, but present troubles triumph over it.
When Jesus once rebuked the fellow-disciples of James and John for blaming those brethren as self-seekers, he acted on the same profound principle with that disclosed in the following maxim:—
No. 34. If we had no pride, we should not complain of that of others.
How impossible it is for that Proteus, self-love, to elude the presence of mind, the inexorable eye, the fast hand, of this incredulous Frenchman:—
No. 39. Interest [self-love] speaks all sorts of languages, and plays all sorts of parts, even that of disinterestedness.
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