Latest / The Philosophy Insights Collection / 02 - Introduction - The Art of Worldly Wisdom - Baltasar Gracian
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- Introduction one of Baltazar Gracian and his works. We may certainly say of Gracian what Hyine, by an amiable fiction, said of himself. He was one of the first men of his century. For he was born on the eighth of January sixteen o one n s at Belmont, a suburb of Calataioude in the Kingdom of Aragon. Calataioude properly calat ayoub Job's town is nearly on the site of the ancient Bilbilis martial's birthplace. As its name indicates, it was one of the Moorish settlements and nearly one of the most northern. By Grathien's time, it had again been Christian and Spanish for many generations, and Carathian himself was of noble birth. For a Spaniard of noble birth, only two careers were open arms and the Church. In the seventeenth century, arms had yielded to the Cassock and Balthazar and his three brothers all took orders. Philippi, his eldest, joined the Order of Saint Francis, the next brother, Pedro, became a Trinitarian during his short life, and the third, Raimundo, became a Calmelit. Barthaza himself tells us Agudeza chapter twenty five that he was brought up in the house of his uncle, the Licentiate Antonio Grathian, at Toledo, from which we may gather that both his father and his mother, ir Morales, died in his early youth. He joined the Company of Jesus in sixteen nineteen, when in its most flourishing state, after the organizing genius of Aquaviva had given solid form to the bold counter stroke of Loyola to the Protestant Revolution, the Razzio Stuayorum was just coming into full force, and Carthian was one of the earliest men in Europe to be educated on the system which has dominated the secondary education of Europe almost down to our own days. This point is of some importance we shall see considering Gracian's chief work. Once enrolled among the ranks of the Jesuits, the individual disappears. The Jesuit alone remains. There is scarcely anything to record of Grathian's life, except that he was a Jesuit and engaged in teaching what passes with the Order for philosophy and sacred literature, and became ultimately rector of the Jesuit College at Tarragona. His great friend was Don Vincentio Juan de Lastanoza, a de lettante of the period who lived at Tuesca and collected coins, medals, and other archeological bric a brac Gracian appears to have shared his tastes for Loastanoza mentions him in his description of his own cabinet. A long correspondence with him was once extant and seen by Latassa, who gives the dates and places where the letters were written. From these, it would seem that Grathian moved about considerably from Madrid to Saragossa and thence to Tarragona. From another source we learned that Philip the Third often had him to dinner to provide attic salt to the royal table. He preached, and his sermons were popular. In short, a life of prudent prosperity came to an end when Baltha Zagrathian, rector of the Jesuit College at Tarragona, died there on the sixth of December sixteen fifty eight, at the age of nearly fifty eight. Years of Grathian's works there is perhaps more to say, even while leaving for separate consideration that one which is here presented to the English reader and forms his chief claim to attention. Spanish literature was passing into its period of sweger, a period that came to all literatures of modern Europe after the training in classics had given a fresh descense of style. The characteristic of this period in the literature is suitably enough the appearance of conceits, or elaborate and far fetched figures of speech. The process began with Antonio Guevara, author of a Libro aureo, from which, according to some, the English form of the disease known as euphuism was derived, but it received a further impetus from the success of the Stilo culto of Gongora. In poetry, Gongorism drove conceit to its farthest point. Artificiality of diction could go no farther in verse. It was only left for Grathian to apply to prose. He did this for the first time in sixteen thirty in his first work and Ere. This was published, like most of his other works, by his lifelong friend Lastanoza, and under the name of Lorenzo Grathian, a suppositious brother of Grathian's, who, so far as can be ascertained, never existed. The whole of Elree exists in shortened form in the Oraculu Manuel. The form, however, is so shortened that it would be difficult to recognize the us original primores as they are called of Eliroe. Yet it is precisely in the curtainness of the sentences that the peculiarity of the steel or culto consists. Generally. Elaborate metaphor and far fetched allusions go with long and involved sentences of the periodic type, But with Carthian the aim is as much towards shortness as towards elaboration. The embroidery is rich, but the jacket is short. As he himself might have said. As for the subject matter, the extracts in the Oracolo will suffice to give some notion of the lofty ideal or character presented in Elliroe, the ideal indeed associated in the popular mind with the term Hidalgo. A later book, El Discreto, first published in sixteen forty seven, gives the counterpoise to Eliroe by drawing an ideal of the prudent courtier as contrasted with the proud and spotless idalgo. This too is fully represented in the book before us, but a curtilement is still more marked than in the case of Elleree. There is evidence that Grathian wrote a similar pair of contrasts termed, respectively, El Galante and El varon Artento, which were not published, but were incorporated in the Oraculo Manual by Lastanoza. The consequences of this utilization of contrasts will concern us later, reverting to Grathian's works somewhat more in their order. His eloge of Ferdinand, the Magus of Columbus's epoch, need not much detain us. It is stilted and conventional, and does not betray much historical insight. Grathian's Agudeza Ialte di Ingenio is of more importance and interest as the formal exposition of the critical principles of cultismo. It is concerned more with verse than prose, and represents the poetics of congoism. A curious collection of flowers of rhetoric in Spanish verse could be made from it. Of still more restricted interest is the Commulgadur or Sacred Meditations for Holy Communion. I do not profess to be a judge of this class of literature, if literature it can be called, But the fact that the book was deemed worthy of an English translation as lately as sixteen seventy six seems to show that it still answers the devotional needs of the Catholics. It has a personal interest for Grathian, as it was the only book office that appeared under his own name. There remains only to be considered besides the Oracuolo manoal Grathian's El Criticon, a work of considerable value and at least historic interest, which appeared in the three parts dealing with youth, maturity, and old age, respectively, during the years sixteen fifty to fifty three. This is a kind of philosophic romance or allegory depicting the education of the human soul. A Spaniard named Critilo is wrecked on Sint Helena and there finds a sort of man Friday, whom he calls Andreno Andregno. After learning to communicate with Critillo, gives him a highly elaborate autobiography of his soul. From the age of three days or so. They then travel to Spain, where they meet truth valor Falsehood, and other allegorical females and males who are labeled by Critillo for Andrino's benefit in the approved and frigid style of the allegorical teacher. Incidentally, however, the ideals and aspirations of the Spaniard of the seventeenth century are brought out, and from this point of view the book derives the parallel with the Pilgrim's Progress which Tickner had made for it. It is certainly one of the most characteristic products of Spanish literature, both for style and subject matter. Nearly all these works of Grathian were translated into most of the cultured languages of un English not accepted. Part of this ecumenical fame was doubtless due to the fact that Carthian was a Jesuit and brethren of his order, translated to works of one of whom the order was justly proud. But this explanation can not altogether account for the wide spread of Carthian's works, and there remains a deposit of genuine ability and literary skill involved in most of the works. I have briefly referred to ability and skill of an entirely obsolete kind nowadays, but holding a rank of their own in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when didacticism was all the rage. It is noteworthy that the testimonia I have collected, for the most part pass over the Oraculo, the only work at which a modern would care to cast a second glance and go into raptures over Elcriticon and its fellows, or the reverse of raptures on Carathian's style, which after all, was the most striking thing about his works. That style reaches its greatest perfection in the Oraculo Manual, to which we might at once turn but for a preliminary inquiry, which it seems worthwhile to make. It is a book of maxims, as distinguished from a book of aphorisms, and it is worthwhile for several reasons inquiring into maxims in general and maxim literature in particular, before dealing with what is probably the most remarkable specimen of its class. Before, however, doing this, we may close this section of our introductory remarks by putting in, as the lawyers say, the Latin inscription given by Latassa from the foot of the portrait of Grathian, which one stood in the Jesuit college at Calatayute, a portrait of which alas no trace can now be found. The lines sum up in sufficiently forcible Latin all that need be known of Baltada Grathian and his works pay Baltazar Gracian utiam ortu eminat in bellomontenatus est prope bilbilim confinus martialis patria proximus inguineo would profounderet artuc christianas argutias bilbilis kuaipoini exhaustan videbatur in ethnicis ergo augenst natale ingenium in nato acumine scripts it artem ingeni at artefacid scibile called scibilees phakid artes scripts it item artem prudentie at asse ipso artem dedicit scripsid oraculum at vocus suez protulids scripsid desartum would se ipsum describreate at utscribret eroem eroica patravit heck et alia as scripta mokenates reguez aburund judicus admirazionem lectoram mundum tipographum eternitatem filippus tres sepe ilius argutias interprandium versabad ne diifi gran sales reghis dapibus, said cuiplausus exitavarat calamo diditus misionibus exitavid planctus verbo exitaturus desiderium in morte coarraptus fuit sexe de cambris arnaut mile sexaginta quincuaginta octo, said aliquando extintus eternum loocipit two of maxims. Many men have sought to give their views about men and about life in a pithy way. A few have tried to advise men in short sentences what to do in the various emergencies of life. The former have written aphorisms the latter maxims. Where the aphorism states a fact of human nature. A maxim advises a certain cause of action. The aphorism is written in the indicative, the maxim in an imperative mood. Life is interesting if not happy is an aphorism of Professor Sili's. I believe as sent a step to choose a friend, these sent a step to choose a wife is a maxim of Rabbimir one of the doctors of the Talmud. Now it is indeed curious how few maxims have ever been written. Wisdom has been extold on the housetops, but her practical advice seems to have been kept secret. Taking our own literature, there are extremely few books of practical maxims, and not the single one of any great merit. Sir Walter Raleigh's Cabinet Council, Penn's Maxims, and Chesterfield's Letters almost exhaust the list, and the last generally contains much more than mere maxims. Nor are they scattered with any profusion. Through books teeming with knowledge of life, the galaxy of English novels during recent years, Extracts of their beauty have been published in some profusion. Wit and Wisdom of Beacon's Field, Wise, witty and tender sayings of George Elliot, extracts from Thackeray and the rest. But the crop of practical maxims to be found among them is extremely scanty. Aphorisms there are in plenty, especially in George Elliot, but he that is doubtful what course to pursue in any weighty crisis, would woefully waste his time if he sought for advice from the novelists, Nor are the moralists more instructive In disregard. Bacon's essays leave with one the impression of fullness of practical wisdom, Yet closely examined, there is very little residue of practical advice left in his pregnant sayings. Even the source of most of this kind of writing, the Biblical Book of Proverbs, fails to answer the particular kind of test I am at present applying, however shrewd. Some of them are startling us with the consciousness how little human nature has changed. It is knowledge of human nature that they may supply. When we ask for instruction how to apply that knowledge, we only get variations of the theme fear the Lord. Two thousand years of experience have indeed shown that the fear or love of the Lord forms a very good foundation for practical wisdom. But it has to be supplemented by some such corollary as keep your powder dry, before it becomes of direct service in the conduct of life. It is, indeed, because of the unpractical nature of practical maxims that they have been so much neglected. You must act in the concrete. You can only maximize in general terms. Then again, maxims can only appeal to the mind. To the intellect, the motive force of action is the will the temperament. As Disraeli put it, the conduct of men depends on the temperament, not upon a bunch of musty maxims Henrietta Temple. It is only very distantly that a maxim con stirred a vague desire that spurs an imitative will. True, at times we read of man whose whole life has been colored by a single saying, but these have generally been more appealed to the imagination, like Newman's Securus judicat orbisterraum, or the heu fuge kurude las terras fugelitus avarum, which had so decisive an effort on Savonarola's life. It is rare, indeed, that a man's whole life is tinged by a single practical maxim, like Sir Daniel Gooch, who was influenced by his father's advice stick to one thing. Perhaps one of the reasons that have led literary persons to neglect the maxim as a literary form has been their own ignorance of action, and still more, their exaggerated notions of its difficulties. And complexities. Affairs are not conducted by aphorisms. War is waged by a different kind of maxims from those we are considering. Yet, after all, there must be some general principles on which actions should be conducted, and one would think they could be determined. Probably the successful men of action are not sufficiently self observant to know exactly on what their success depends, and if they did, they would in most cases try to keep it in the family, like their wealth or their trade secrets. And perhaps, after all they are right who declare that action has little to do with intellect and much with character. To say the truth, one is not impressed with the intellectual powers of the millionaires one meets. The shadiest of journalists could often explain their own doings with more point than they. Yet there are surely intellectual qualifications required for affairs. The Zuzz Canal must have required as grade an amount of research, emendation, sense of order and organization, as say to Corpus inscriptionum latinarum. But there is no such punishment for slovenly scholarship in action as there is in letters. The Suez Canal be dug only once Lucretius or Latin inscriptions can be edited over and over again. Altogether, we need not be surprised if the men of action cannot put the principles of action into pointed sentences or maxims. And if men of action cannot, it is not surprising that men of letters do not, for they cannot have the interest in action and its rewards which is required for worldly success, or else they would not be able to concentrate their thoughts on things which they consider of higher import. To a man of letters, the world is the devil, or ought to be. If he is to have the touch of idealism, which gives color and weight to his words, how then is he to devote his attention to worldly wisdom and the maxims that are to teach it. It is characteristic in this connection that the weightiest writer of maxims in our language is Bacon, who attempted to combine a career of affairs and of thought, and spoiled both by so doing. It is perhaps due to the subtle and all embracing influence of Christianity on modern civilization that this divorce between idealism and the world has come about. The strenuous opposition to the world among earnest Christians has led to their practical withdrawal from it. Just as the celibacy of the clergy meant that the next generation was to be deprived of the hereditary influence of some of the purest spirits of the time, so the opposition of Christianity to the world has brought it about that the world has been un Christian. Only one serious attempt has been made to bridge the chasm. The de meyer of Jesuitism was to make the world Christian by Christians becoming worldly. It was doubtless due to the reaction against the over spiritualization of Christianity pressed by the Protestant Reformation, but its practical result has been to make the Jesuit a worldly Christian. The control of the higher educationation of Europe by the Jesuits had tended, on the other hand, to make society more Christian. If, then, we were to look for an adequate presentation of worldly wisdom, touched with sufficient idealism to make it worthy of a man of letters, we should look for it from a Jesuit, or from one trained among the Jesuits. After all this elaborate explanation, why so few maxims have been composed. It may seem contradictory to give as a further and final reason, because so many exist under another form. For what are the majority of proverbs but maxims under another name, or other maxims without the name of their author. We say of proverbs indeed that they arise among the people. But it is one definite individual among the people that gives them the piquant form that makes them proverbial. It was, we may be sure, a definite English gepher who first said pennywise, pan and foolish. If we knew his name, we should call it a maxim. As his name is unknown, it ranks as a proverb. In this connection. The Talmudic proverbs and maxims are of great interest, owing to the worthy Rabbinic principle say a thing in the name of the man who said it. We can in almost all cases trace Talmudic proverbs to their authors, or in other words, Talmudic proverbs remain maxims. There is only one analogous case in English. A few of Benjamin Franklin's maxims e g. Three removes are as good as a fire have become proverbs. The abundance of proverbs is extraordinary. There is a whole bibliography devoted to the literature of proverbs duple C bibliography Paraimologic Paris, eighteen forty seven. And this needs nowadays a supplement as large again as the original, partly supplied by the bibliographical appendix of Hella al Spanish Spritschwerte, eighteen eighty three. Indeed, in the multitude of proverbs consists the greatest proof of their uselessness as guides of action, for by this means we get proverbs at cross purposes. Thus, take the one I have just referred to, penny wise, pound foolish, which has a variant in the proverb do not spoil the ship for a haporth of tar. A man who was hesitating as to the amount or expense he would incur in any undertaking, would be prompted by these sayings to be lavish. But then how about the proverb take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves. Between the two proverbs he would come to the ground. And if he has the news to decide between them, he does not need the proverbs at all. Hence, it is perhaps that the nation that is richest in proverbs is the one that has proved itself among European peoples. The leastwise in action to the Spaniards has been well applied to witties about Charles the Second. They never said a foolish thing and never did a wise one. Certainly, if proverbs be a proof of wisdom, the Spaniards have given proofs in abundance. Don Quixote is full of them, and the Spanish collections are extraordinarily rich. Now, the nation that can produce good proverbs should be able to produce good maxims. Hence we should expect the best book of Maxims to emanate from a Spaniard. One characteristic of both these forms of practical wisdom is their artificiality. One has to think twice before the point of a proverb or a maxim is perfectly clear. The early bird catches the worm seems at first sight as meaningless a proposition as there are milestones on the dover road. Hence, it is when the literature is passing through its artificial stage that maxims would naturally appear, so that it was clearly preordained that when the Book of Maxims should appear, it would be by a jesuit, so as to be worldly yet not too worldly by a Spaniard, so that they should have the proverbial ring, and during the prevalence of curtismo, so that they should have the quaintness to attract attention three of the Oraculo Manol. Having thus proved al priori that the ideal book of Maxims was destined to be the Oraculo Manol of Balthazar Gracian, let us proceed to prove our proof, as schoolboys do with their sums. That it is the best book of Maxims is a foregone conclusion, because there is none other. Schopenhauer, who translated the book observes that there is nothing like it in German, and there is certainly none approaching it in English. And if France or Italy can produce its superior it is strange that its fame has remained so confined to its native country. Not that there are not books teaching the art of self advancement in almost all languages. The success of doctor Smiles's volume on self Help is a sufficient instance of this. Curiously enough, doctor Smiles's book has had its greatest success in Italy, where it has given rise to quite a literatua sel fel pista as the Italians themselves call it, or rather not curiously. For if you wish to find the most unromantic set of ideals nowadays, you must go search among the Romance nations. Carathian does not, however, compete with doctor Smiles. He does not deal with Broadwyside. He assumes that the vulgar question of bread and butter has been settled in favor of his reader. He may be worldly, but he is thinking of the great world. He writes for man with a position and how to make the most of it. Nor is the amy puts before such persons an entirely selfish one. The sole advantage of power is that you can do more good. Is the only rational defense of ambition, and Carathian employs it Maxim two hundred and eighty six. Indeed, the tone of the book is exceptionally high. It is impossible to accuse a man of any meanness who is the author of such maxims, as one cannot praise a man too much who speaks well of them who speak ill of him one hundred and sixty two. Friends are a second existence one hundred eleven. When to change the conversation when they talk scandal two hundred and fifty. In great crisis, there is no better companion than a bold heart one hundred and sixty seven. The secret of long life, Lead a good life ninety be able to boast that if gallantry, generosity, and fidelity were lost in the world, man would be able to find them again in your own breast one hundred and sixty five. A man of honor should never forget what he is, because he sees what others are two hundred and eighty. And there are whole sections dealing with such topics as rectitude twenty nine, sympathy with great minds forty four, a genial disposition seventy nine, and the like. Not that he is without the more subtle devices of the worldly wise, one could not wish to have anything more cynical or stinging than the following Find out each man's thumb screw twenty six. A shrewd man knows that others, when they seek him, do not seek him but their advantage in him and by him two hundred and fifty two. The truth, but not the whole truth one hundred and eighty one. Keep to yourself the final touches of your art two hundred and twelve. Do not take payment in politeness one hundred and ninety one. Have a touch of the trader two hundred and thirty two, Think with the few and speak with the many forty three. Never have a companion who casts you in the shade one hundred and fifty two. Never become paradoxical in order to avoid detroit one hundred and forty three. Do not show your wounded finger one hundred and forty five. The characteristic of the book is this combination, or rather contrast, of high tone and shrewdness. Carathian is both wisely worldly and worldly wise. After all, there does not seem to be any inherent impossibility in the combination. There does not seem any radical necessity why a good man should be a fool. One always has a certain grudge against Theckeray for making his Colonel newcome so silly at times, to perhaps the irony the pathos, the tragedy of the book required it. As a matter of fact, the holiest of men have been some of the shrewdest for their friends at least, if not for themselves. The explanation of the combination in Gratian is simple enough. He was a Jesuit, and the Jesuits have just that combination of high tone and worldly wisdom as the resin veetre, and in the case of the Oraculo, the mixture was easily affected by Grathian or his friend Lastanoza. For Grathian had written at least two series of works in which this contrast was represented by separate books. Two of these, describing the qualities of the hero and the prudent man, El le Roi and El Discreto, were published and are represented in The Oraculo. Two others, dealing with the gallant and the cautious men, El Galante and El Varona Tento, are referred to by Lastanoza in the preface of El Discreto, and are also doubtless represented in the book before us. One may guess that the section on high mindedness one hundred and twenty eight or on nobility of feeling one hundred than thirty one comes from El Galante, while better mad with the rest of the world than wise alone one hundred and thirty three smacks of al Varon Natento. At times we get the two tones curiously intermingled. Choose an heroic ideal. Seventy five seems at first sight a noble sentiment, but Carathian goes on to qualify it by adding but rather to emulate than to imitate. The moderness of the tone is the thing that would strike most readers. Apart from these contrasts, here and there one may be struck by an archaic note never compete, would scarcely be the advice of a worldly teacher nowadays. But on the whole there is a tone of modern good society about the maxims, which one would scarcely find in contemporary English works like Pitchems, or even in contemporary French authors like Charon. The reason is that modern society is permeated by influences which Gian himself represented. The higher education of Europe for the last two and a half centuries has been in the hands of Jesuits or in schools formed on the Razzio studiorum, and society in the stricter sense traces from the Hotel Rombouille, where one have to influence, was Spanish. Gratian thus directly represents the tone of the two societies which have set the tone of our society of today. And it is no wonder therefore, if he is modern. Even in his style, there is something of a modern epigrammatic ring. At times there is the euphuistic quaintness I gi. One must pass through the circumference of time before arriving at the center of opportunity. But as a rule, the terseness and point of the maxim approximate to the modern epigram l escuzarce, anteste ocassion s culparce might be both the source and the model of quies excuse sacuse. The tersnus is indeed excessive and carried to tacity in extremes. Apoco sabert carmeno real, ultima filithidad, El philosophard arto presto sibien Caracian jerks out four or five words where a popular preacher would preach his sermon. Yet I cannot agree with the writers who call him obscure. He is one of the writers that make you think before you grasp his meaning. But the meaning is there and put plainly enough, only tersely and very often indirectly, after the manner of proverbs. There is indeed no doubt that he and his predecessors were influenced by the form of the Spanish proverb. In drawing up aphorisms and maxims. I say predecessors for aphorismic literature. At any rate was no novelty in Spain. Among the long list of books on aphorisms possessed by the late Sir William Sterling Maxwell and still at Kir, there are fully a dozen Spanish ones who present sid Grathian, Ernando Diaz, Lopees de Correllas and Melchio de Santa Cruz are the most important, though the latter is more full of anecdotage. Among them is a book of aphorismos by Antonio Peris, whose Relationiones has been the chief means of blackening Philip the second's character. The former are undoubtedly of the same style as Grathian, and probably influenced him Joe. As they are aphorisms and not maxims, I have not been able to quote parallels in the notes. Thus Una obra vallemiliars de Grathias peerras Aporismos one one hundred and ninety eight has the same proverbial ring. It is curious to see litons the pen is mightier than the sort anticipated by Pereses la plum corta masquieres padres aphiliadas ibi them one hundred and ninety nine or Voltaire's speech was given us to conceal our thoughts in Pereses las Palabras Vestido de los Conceptos two one hundred and thirty. This last example has all Grathian's terseness, while Pereses Amigos desti siglo rostro somanos Corathones de Fierras two seventy one has both terstness and cynicism. Certainly, the only other work in Spanish or any other literature preceding Rathian on anything like the same lines is this book of Aphorismos by Antonio Peris. It is somewhat of a question to my mind how far Grathian was the author of the final form of the maxims as we have them in the Oraculo. Those taken from El Eroe and El Discreto differ from their originals with great advantage. They are tersa more to the point and less euphuistic. Now the address to the reader has all these qualities, and we may assume was written by its signatory, Don Vincentio de Lastanosa. It is just possible that we owe to him the extreme terseness and point of the majority of the maxims of the Oracula. Manoir. It must, not, however, be assumed that they are all as pointed and epigrammatic as those I have quoted. Gracian seems advisedly to have embedded his jewels in a duller setting. At times he vies with the leaders of the great sect of the Platitudinarians, and he can be as banal as he is brilliant, even as it is his very brilliancy wearies, and after fifty maxims or so, one longs for a more fruity wisdom, a more digressive discussion of life, like those learned, wise and witty essays of mister Stevenson, which may some day take higher rank as literature than even his novels. Perhaps, after all, the weariness to which I refer may be due to the cautious tone of the book. To succeed one must be prudent, That is the great moral of the book. And if so, does it seem worth while to succeed? If life is to be denuded of the eliatory element, is it worth living? Well? Carathian meets you when in that temper too. It is indeed remarkable how frequently he refers to luck, how you are to trust your luck? Weigh your luck, follow your luck, know your unlucky days, and so forth. Is all this a confession that, after all, life is too complex again for any rules to be of much use. Granted, but there is one thing certain about life, and that is put by gerthe in the lines which I, following Schopenhauer, have placed at the head of my translation. One must be either hammer or envil in this world, and too great an excess of idealism only means that the unideal people should rule the world. To guard against both extremes. We have the paradoxical advice I have heard attributed to mister Ruskin, fit yourself for the best society and then never enter it. Whether any ideal person will learn to rule the world by studying Gratian's or any one else's maxims is somewhat more doubtful, for reasons I have given above in discussing proverbs. The man who can act on maxims can act without them, and so does not need them. And there is the same amount of contradiction in maxims as in proverbs. Thus, to quote an example from the book before us, from Maxim one hundred and thirty two, it would seem best to keep back. An intended gift long expected is highest priced. Whereas from Maxim two hundred and thirty six we learn that the promptness of the gift obliges the more strongly which maxim are we to act upon. That depends on circumstances, and the judgment that can decide on the circumstances can do without the maxims. I cannot therefore promise success in the world to whomsoever may read this book. Otherwise I should perhaps not have published it. But whether Grathian's maxims are true or useful scarcely affects their value to the student of literature. As such, the flimsiest sentiment or the merest paradox aptly put is worth the sublimest truth ill expressed, And there can be little doubt that Grathian puts his points well and vigorously. I cannot hope to have reproduced adequately all the vigor and force of his style, the subtlety of his distinctions, or the shrewdness of his mother wit. But enough, I hope has emerged during the process of translation to convince the reader that Grathian's oraculou manoir has much wisdom in small compass and well put. End of section two,