about one thing. This universality is the best. If we can have both,
still better; but if we must choose, we ought to choose the former.
And the world feels this and does so; for the world is often a good
judge.

    38. A poet and not an honest man.

    39. If lightning fell on low places, etc., poets, and those who
can only reason about things of that kind, would lack proofs.

    40. If we wished to prove the examples which we take to prove
other things, we should have to take those other things to be
examples; for, as we always believe the difficulty is in what we
wish to prove, we find the examples clearer and a help to
demonstration.

    Thus, when we wish to demonstrate a general theorem, we must
give the rule as applied to a particular case; but if we wish to
demonstrate a particular case, we must begin with the general rule.
For we always find the thing obscure which we wish to prove and that
clear which we use for the proof; for, when a thing is put forward
to be proved, we first fill ourselves with the imagination that it is,
therefore, obscure and, on the contrary, that what is to prove it is
clear, and so we understand it easily.

    41. Epigrams of Martial.- Man loves malice, but not against
one-eyed men nor the unfortunate, but against the fortunate and proud.
People are mistaken in thinking otherwise.

    For lust is the source of all our actions, and humanity, etc. We
must please those who have humane and tender feelings. That epigram
about two one-eyed people is worthless, for it does not console them
and only gives a point to the author's glory. All that is only for the
sake of the author is worthless. Ambitiosa recident ornamenta.*

    * Horace, Epistle to the pisos, 447. "They curtailed pretentious
ornaments."

    42. To call a king "Prince" is pleasing, because it diminishes his
rank.

    43. Certain authors, speaking of their works, say: "My book,"
"My commentary," "My history," etc. They resemble middle-class
people who have a house of their own and always have "My house" on
their tongue. They would do better to say: "Our book," "Our
commentary," "Our history," etc., because there is in them usually
more of other people's than their own.

    44. Do you wish people to believe good of you? Don't speak.

    45. Languages are ciphers, wherein letters are not changed into
letters, but words into words, so that an unknown language is
decipherable.

    46. A maker of witticisms, a bad character.

    47. There are some who speak well and write badly. For the place
and the audience warm them, and draw from their minds more than they
think of without that warmth.

    48. When we find words repeated in a discourse and, in trying to
correct them, discover that they are so appropriate that we would
spoil the discourse, we must leave them alone. This is the test; and
our attempt is the work of envy, which is blind, and does not see that
repetition is not in this place a fault; for there is no general rule.

    49. To mask nature and disguise her. No more king, pope, bishop-
but august monarch, etc.; not Paris- the capital of the kingdom. There
are places in which we ought to call Paris, "Paris," others in which
we ought to call it the capital of the kingdom.

    50. The same meaning changes with the words which express it.
Meanings receive their dignity from words instead of giving it to
them. Examples should be sought....

    51. Sceptic, for obstinate.

    52. No one calls another a Cartesian but he who is one himself,
a pedant but a pedant, a provincial but a provincial; and I would
wager it was the printer who put it on the title of Letters to a
Provincial.

    53. A carriage upset or overturned, according to the meaning. To
spread abroad or upset, according to the meaning. (The argument by
force of M. le Maitre over the friar.)

    54. Miscellaneous.- A form of speech, "I should have liked to
apply myself to that."

    55. The aperitive virtue of a key, the attractive virtue of a
hook.

    56. To guess: "The part that I take in your trouble." The Cardinal
did not want to be guessed.

    "My mind is disquieted." I am disquieted is better.

    57. I always feel uncomfortable under such compliments as these:
"I have given you a great deal of trouble," "I am afraid I am boring
you," "I fear this is too long." We either carry our audience with us,