Page:Aphorisms — an address delivered before the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution, November 11, 1887.djvu/49

 ,—The Art of Prudence, or a Companion for a Man of Sense. I do not myself find Gracian much of a companion, though some of his aphorisms give a neat turn to a commonplace. Thus:—

"The pillow is a dumb sibyl. To sleep upon a thing that is to be done, is better than to be wakened up by one already done."

"To equal a predecessor one must have twice his worth."

"What is easy ought to be entered upon as though it were difficult, and what is difficult as though it were easy."

"Those things are generally best remembered which ought most to be forgot. Not seldom the surest remedy of the evil consists in forgetting it"

It is France that excels in the form no less than in the matter of aphorism, and for the good reason that in France the arts of polished society were relatively at an early date the objects of a serious and deliberate cultivation, which was and perhaps is unknown in the rest of Europe. Conversation became a fine art. "I hate war," said one; "it spoils conversation." The leisured