TYPES OE CHARACTER. 303 



Only I must insist upon their not pretending to be cherry- 

 trees, and that they will not disguise themselves as goose- 

 berry-bushes. 



If the potato were to disguise itself, we might attempt to 

 eat its fruit, or to bite its raw roots, but we should soon 

 throw it away in disgust. 



Every one has a right to be what he isj every one is best 

 so; every one bears within himself af&nities looked for in 

 life by analogous affinities; facets prepared for other cor- 

 responding facets, projected, which fall into corresponding 

 hollows. I would willingly love all real personages, I cannot 

 love a mask. 



It is the same with animals and insects. The spider pre- 

 tends no passion for roses; the grub has no particular par- 

 tiality for flies. 



Everything in nature is frankly that which it is; man 

 alone, from vanity, arrives by a singularly circuitous route at 

 the most astonishing degree of humility. 



Every one, if he examines himself thoroughly, believes 

 himself to be superior to aU others, and does his best to 

 cause this opinion which he entertains of himself to be ac- 

 cepted by the greatest number possible. 



He never dreams of what he is seeking to acquire; simply, 

 an incontestable right to the hatred of all he may persuade 

 to agree with him, and the ridicule of those whom he does 

 not persuade. 



Every one believes himself superior to others, and yet no 

 one appears as he really is. How is this contradiction to be 

 explained' 



That woman believes herself to be the most charming of 

 women ; she speaks of others with the utmost disdain, and 

 yet she never moves a step without being completely dis- 

 guised, without displaying a figure differing widely from her 

 own, without studying a carriage which is not natural to her. 



Of what then is she so proud? Qf her beauty? She cannot 

 have faith in that, because she takes such pains to alter it. 

 What vanity and what humility ! 



Ask that man, into the skin of which of his contemporaries 

 he would most wish to enter; — but I mean his real skin, not 

 in a skin of riches, dignities, &c. ; — ask him if be should like 



