A Commonplace Book of Thoughts, Memories, and Fancies Part 12

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99.

The Empress Elizabeth of Russia during the war with Sweden commanded the old Hetman of the Cossacks to come to court on his way to Finland. "If the Emperor, your father," said the Hetman, "had taken my advice, your Majesty would not now have been annoyed by the Swedes." "What was your advice?" asked the Empress. "To put all the n.o.bility to death, and transplant the people into Russia." "But that," said the Empress, "would have been cruel!" "I do not see that," he replied quietly; "they are all dead now, and they would only have been dead if my advice had been taken."

Something strangely comprehensive and unanswerable in this barbarian logic!

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100.

IT was the Abbe Boileau who said of the Jesuits, that they had lengthened the Creed and shortened the Decalogue. The same witty ecclesiastic being asked why he always wrote in Latin, took a pinch of snuff, and answered gravely, "Why, for fear the bishops should read me!"

101.

When Talleyrand once visited a certain reprobate friend of his, who was ill of cholera, the patient exclaimed in his agony, "Je sens les tourmens de l'enfer!"

"Deja?" said Talleyrand.

Much in a word! I remember seeing a pretty French vaudeville wherein a lady is by some accident or contrivance shut up perforce with a lover she has rejected. She frets at the _contretemps_. He makes use of the occasion to plead his cause. The cruel fair one will not relent. Still he pleads-still she turns away. At length they are interrupted.

"Deja!" exclaims the lady, in an accent we may suppose to be very different from that of Talleyrand; and on the intonation of this one word, p.r.o.nounced as only an accomplished French actress could p.r.o.nounce it, depends the _denouement_ of the piece.

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102.

Louis XVI. sent a distinguished physician over to England to inquire into the management of our hospitals. He praised them much, but added, "Il y manque deux choses; nos cures et nos hospitalieres;" that is, he felt the want of the religious element in the official and medical treatment of the sick. A want which, I think, is felt at present and will be supplied.

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103.

Those who have the largest horizon of thought, the most extended vision in regard to the relation of things, are not remarkable for self-reliance and ready judgment. A man who sees limitedly and clearly, is more sure of himself, and more direct in his dealings with circ.u.mstances and with others, than a man whose many-sided capacity embraces an immense extent of objects and _objections_,-just as, they say, a horse with blinkers more surely chooses his path, and is less likely to shy.

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104.

What we truly and earnestly aspire _to be_, that in some sense we _are_.

The mere aspiration, by changing the frame of the mind, for the moment realises itself.

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105.

There are no such self-deceivers as those who think they reason when they only feel.

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106.

There are moments when the liberty of the inner life, opposed to the trammels of the outer, becomes too oppressive: moments when we wish that our mental horizon were less extended, thought less free; when we long to put the discursive soul into a narrow path like a railway, and force it to run on in a straight line to some determined goal.

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107.

If the deepest and best affections which G.o.d has given us sometimes brood over the heart like doves of peace,-they sometimes suck out our life-blood like vampires.

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108.

To a Frenchman the words that express things seem often to suffice for the things themselves, and he p.r.o.nounces the words _amour_, _grace_, _sensibilite_, as if with a relish in his mouth-as if he tasted them-as if he possessed them.

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109.

There are many good qualities, and valuable ones too, which hardly deserve the name of virtues. The word Virtue was synonymous in the old time with valour, and seems to imply contest; not merely pa.s.sive goodness, but active resistance to evil. I wonder sometimes why it is that we so continually hear the phrase, "a virtuous woman," and scarcely ever that of a "virtuous man," except in poetry or from the pulpit.

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110.

A Lie, though it be killed and dead, can sting sometimes,-like a dead wasp.

111.

"On me dit toute la journee dans le monde, telle opinion, telle idee, sont _recues_. On ne sait donc pas qu'en fait d'opinion, et d'idees j'aime beaucoup mieux les choses qui sont rejettees que celles qui sont recues?"

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112.