Page:The art of controversy and other posthumous papers (IA artofcontroversy00schouoft).pdf/85

 it, together with any personal weight it may give them, since all are blind to the qualities on which it is based, but have their eyes open to anything that is vulgar and common to themselves. They soon discover the truth of the Arabian proverb: Joke with a slave, and he'll show you his heels.

It also follows that a man of high gifts, in his intercourse with others, must always reflect that the best part of him is out of sight in the clouds; so that if he desires to know accurately how much he can be to any one else, he has only to consider how much the man in question is to him. This, as a rule, is precious little; and therefore he is as uncongenial to the other, as the other to him.

Goethe says somewhere that man is not without a vein of veneration. To satisfy this impulse to venerate, even in those who have no sense for what is really worthy, substitutes are provided in the shape of princes and princely families, nobles, titles, orders, and money-bags.

Vague longing and boredom are close akin.

When a man is dead, we envy him no more; and we only half envy him when he is old.

Misanthropy and love of solitude are convertible ideas.

In chess, the object of the game, namely, to checkmate one's opponent, is of arbitrary adoption; of the