The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-03-31

Maxims are not like Nine. de Sevinges
cherries; you do not begin by choosing
the hest and end by eaI-
ing the bssketful. An apho-
rism is like a sonnet, though, luckily there
is not nearly so much Of it. Both begin
in a happy thought. and both are worked
Up with what literary skill the thinker
possesses. Both are like puns-the habit
of making them grows upon man. Puns
can be fired off anywhere; sonnets can
only be exploded in the Athenaeum. In
sonnets the original happy thought needs
to be padded oBt-there is seldom enough
of 1t to go around. In aphorisms the
thought needs to be cut like a diamond,
if it is to sparkle. Mankind has forgotten
all but very few apA orisms of known
and individual authorship, whereas Prov
erbs abound by the thousand.
Nobody knows who made proverbs, but,
| in every country, he seems to have made
the same. Proverbs are natural wild
flowers of human reflection everywhere,
but aphorisms demand the labor of indi-
vidual thought. After Rochefoucauld pub
lished his maxins in 1865 mot 1865 as MIR.
AttNell says, making maxims became u
fashionable intellectual amusement, like
pencil games the most fatiguing of en-
tertainments. The cheapest way to make
maxims is to invert truisms (once very
popular) or to alter proverbs. Thus it
seems for a moment. rather amusing to
say, "a IAttle wisdom is dangerous
thing" but the line parodied is "A little
knowledge" not "a little wisdom" "is
dangerous thing"
Though proverbs are made by nobody
knows who, Rope and others of his school
made after AIN, things like proverbs:
Welcome the coming, speed the parting
guest,
Man never is, but always to be blest
This very well expresses the hope and
dsappontments of hospitality. In poli-
tics take:
expressed
Whate'er is best administered is best.
The reader of our clasysics will perceive
that, in the way illustrated by these quo
tations, the poets may I've made 10 say
something much in their manner, bu1
which they never dreamed of saying.
| Thus, great Swedish Queens abdication'
She left name at which the world grew
pale,
To suckle fools and chronicle small ale.
By such expedients even the fee5lest
minds (as one of them remarked) 1uay fire
on aphorsms like a Maxim gun. PascaIs
things are 'pensees," not aphorisns, To
be used as occasion arose, in fact, deeply
serious Happy Thoughts. 1.-The last thlin5
we decide when writing a book is what
we shall put first. So, also, said ThoInas
Innes, who may not have been Remembers
ing Pascal. The aphorism does not a~
ply, probably, to novels. 1--WE are easily
consoled, because we are easily afflicted
But people who are not easily afflicted ara
not easily consoled. Continued eloquencs
is wearisome," thing forgotten by 5.
T. Coleridge. "If ali men knew what eacn
said of the other, there would not be touF
friends in the world
This seems equivalent to saying that
| mankind, as observed by Pascal, had no
sense of humDr. Pascal found that "ths
abstract sciences afforded little opportu,
nifty of social intercourse" How couu
he expect it? 1t is the same with gois
If earnestly pursued. Atheism SHOWS
strength of mind. but only to cer'a'h
degree" 1t rather argues strength OF con-
ceit. ITO commonplace people, all men
are much alike" This is hardly truei
commonplace people always pronounce es-
erybody IAN awfully queer fellow ~
Mr.. Attwells version, Rochefoucauld Is az
most ''gnomic' and unexhiaratins Do
the chorus of a Greek play.
There are few of his maxims so goo"
as Hypocrisy is the homage which Vico
pays to virtue" or TOO great eagernes,
to repay a favor is a kind of ingrautude'
1t is not, perhaps, the most usual V1i'
ty. There are lad people who woua 10
less dangerous IL they had a 'redeeHhs
vice" THE reason why lovers never 80
tired of one anothel's society is because
they always talk about themselves An1
that is the reason why some married peD
pie do get tired of each others so,leu'
Rouchefoucauld is not always pll'st
There is nobility In I'VE, in some ma "a
ure, take part in good actions When '"
praise them sincerely"
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