- nesses and infirmities, for the sake either of diverting
the company, or of showing your own superiority. You may get the laugh on your side by it, for the present; but you will make enemies by it for ever; and even those who laugh with you then, will, upon reflection, fear, and consequently hate you; besides that, it is ill-natured; and a good heart desires rather to conceal, than expose, other people's weaknesses or misfortunes. If you have wit, use it to please, and not to hurt; you may shine, like the sun in the temperate zones, without scorching. Here it is wished for; under the line it is dreaded. [Same date.]
Caligula.—Another very just observation of the
Cardinal's[1] is, that the things which happen in our
own times, and which we see ourselves, do not surprise
us near so much as the things which we read
of in times past, though not in the least more extraordinary;
and adds that he is persuaded that,
when Caligula made his horse a consul, the people
of Rome at that time were not greatly surprised at
it, having necessarily been in some degree prepared
for it, by an insensible gradation of extravagancies
from the same quarter. [Sept. 13, 1748.]
Antiquity is Strange.—We read every day,
- ↑ De Retz, from whose "Mémoires" Lord Chesterfield quoted a sentence in the commencement of the letter.
