and forgiving. Others do not hate until they discover an occasion for revenge: in other respects they refrain from all secret and open wrath, and whenever there is occasion, they overlook it.
363
People favoured by chance.—The constituent parts of every invention are affected by chance, but the majority of people do not meet with their chance.
364
Choice of one's surroundings.—Let us beware of living in a company in whose presence we are unable either to observe a dignified silence or to communicate our loftier thoughts, so that our complaints and wants and the whole tale of our distress remain to be told. We grow dissatisfied both with ourselves and these surroundings; nay, we even add to the distress which gives rise to our complaints, the displeasure of feeling ourselves always the plaintiff's. But where we should be ashamed to speak of ourselves and have no need to speak of ourselves, there it is that we should live. But who thinks of such things, of a selection in such things ? We speak of our "fatality," turn our broad backs and sigh: "Woe to me, ill-starred Atlas!"
365
Vanity.—Vanity is the dread of appearing original ;
