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his mien, and that his general air is mercantile, and one of my friends says that he always feels tempted to ask him what is the price of sugar or the current rate of discount. "But when one knows that a man is blind," says Lichtenberg, "we think we can see it from behind."[1] I do not, indeed, find in all the person of Casimir Perier anything suggesting noble birth, but there is in his appearance much of the refined culture of the bourgeoisie as we find it in men who are charged with the most active cares of state, and therefore can occupy themselves but little with chivalric manners and such and similar toilet matters.[2]
Perier can be best judged by his speeches,
- ↑ A shrewd remark well applied, and one capable of vast illustration. As a general rule, the more commonplace and feeble men are, the more they refer every peculiarity of another to some one trait, such as his nationality or family, which may have, in all likelihood, nothing whatever to do with it. "I believe," said a young American lady in a very provincial circle. "that if I had horns growing on my head, you would say, 'That is so like all you Yankees.'"
- ↑ Toilettengeschäfte. Moyens de toilette. An admirable designation, by which our author, without denying to style, manner, or deportment their real value, classes them correctly with mere physical matters of the exterior. A vast number of people, even in good society, need the lesson that because a thing may be very desirable it is not always quite essential, while it again may be essential and yet not the summum bonum or everything in itself.
