Page:The reflections of Lichtenberg.djvu/39

 How happily some people would live if they troubled themselves as little about other people’s business as about their own. As long as memory lasts there work side by side a number of individuals united as onethe man of twenty, the man of thirty, etc. But as soon as it fails, we come to stand more and more alone, and the whole generation of “I’s” withdraws, tittering at the helpless old fellow left behind. In every man there is a little of all men. This is a truth of which I have long been convinced ; though, to be sure, complete proof of it could only be afforded if several people were to give a sincere description of themselves. Carefully to separate off this portion of other people which we possess in ourselves is an art in which the greatest authors have usually been experts. Nor does one need to have a great deal of every man. There are clever people who do their chemical experiments in miniature, and attain better results than others who are in a position to spend a great deal of money on them. Those who suffer from any bodily infirmities try to show that they are not incommoded by them. The deaf would have it that they hear quite well ; the club-footed man, that he can walk the roughest roads ; the weak man tries to show off his strength, and so forth. The same is the case in many other respects. To authors this circumstance is an inexhaustible source of truths which touch others and