Page:Letters, sentences and maxims.djvu/58

 intervene. "When you read Horace pay attention to the accuracy of his thoughts, to the elegance of his diction, and to the beauty of his poetry, and do not think of the ‘De Homine et Cive’ of Puffendorf; and when you read Puffendorf do not think of Madame de St. Germain; nor of Puffendorf when you speak of Madame de St. Germain." But this strong and easy subjugation of the order of thought to the will only belongs to great or very good intellects. M. Royer-Collard used to say that "what was most wanting in our day was respect in the moral disposition, and attention in the intellectual." Lord Chesterfield, in a less grave manner, might have said the same thing. He was not long in finding out what was wanting in this child whom he wished to bring up; whose bringing up was, indeed, the end and aim of his life. "On sounding your character to its very depths," he said to him, "I have not, thank God, discovered any vice of heart or weakness of head so far; but I have discovered idleness, inattention, and indifference, defects which are only pardonable in the aged, who, in the decline of life, when health and spirits give way, have a sort of right to that kind of tranquillity. But a young man ought to be ambitious to shine and excel." And it is precisely this sacred fire, this lightning, that makes the Achilles, the Alexanders, and