Page:Essays and Addresses.djvu/505

 talk, was indeed rich in the wisdom of life; he had gone through much and known all sorts of people; he had, in Rousseau's phrase, "that rarest kind of philosophy which consists in observing what we see every day"; moreover, his nature was keenly sensitive and profoundly kind; a quality which is a better ally for common sense than is always supposed. It has been said, not without justice, that he sometimes abuses the moralist's privilege of being commonplace; still—imbedded, it may sometimes be, in commonplace—the searcher will find many an acute remark, so pithily or forcibly worded as to be well worthy of remembrance. This is ground on which his writings and his talk come into a single view; both alike exemplify this practical wisdom, and both must be laid under contribution, if we would appreciate its scope.

Many of his shrewdest sayings concern social intercourse. Thus he observes that there are excellent people who have never done any wrong to their neighbours, and who cannot understand why they are not more popular; the reason being, as he puts it, that "they neglect all those arts by which men are endeared to one another." "They wrap themselves up in their innocence, and enjoy the congratulations of their own hearts, without knowing or suspecting that they are every day deservedly incurring resentments by withholding from those with whom they converse that regard, or appearance of regard, to which every one is entitled by the customs of the world." Observe his phrase;