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118.

It is as easy to deceive oneself without perceiving it, as it is difficult to deceive others without their perceiving it.

119.

Nothing is less sincere than the method of asking and giving advice. The man who asks it appears to have a respectful deference for the opinion of his friend, while he intends to make him approve of his own; and he who gives the advice repays the confidence shown in him by an ardent and disinterested zeal, though, in the advice he gives, he has generally nothing in view but his own interest or fame.

120.

The most subtle of all artifices is the power

120. "Solum insidiarum remedium est si non intelligerentur."-TAC. Ann. 14, 6.

"The surest way of making a dupe is to let your victim suppose that you are his."-BULWER LYTTON.

"Vous le croyez votre dupe; s'il feint de l'être, qui est le plus dupe, de lui ou de vous ?"-LA BRUYERE, De la Société.

A curious illustration of this maxim was lately exhibited

of cleverly feigning to fall into the snares laid for us; and we are never so easily deceived as when we think we are deceiving others.

121.

A determination never to deceive often exposes us to deception.

122.

We are so much accustomed to disguise ourselves to others, that at length we disguise ourselves to ourselves.

in the events which led to the defeat of the King of Sardinia, in Lombardy, in July, 1848. He was beguiled by a pretended plot for delivering the town of Mantua into his hands, and with a view of aiding in its execution, was induced to weaken his military position to such a degree as to enable the Austrian general, Radetzky, to attack him at a disadvantage. The Italian correspondent of the Times Newspaper (Aug. 2d, 1848) remarks upon this: "I perceive that the whole affair was, to use a vulgar but expressive phrase, 'a plant' to induce the King to impoverish the left of our lines, where Radetzky saw, as events have since proved, that he might strike the surest blow. * I have often noticed that cunning men are the most easily deceived, and I fear Charles Albert, who has the reputation of being very rusé, has thus been caught."

* *

123.

Men are more often guilty of treachery from weakness of character than from any settled design to betray.

124.

We often do good, in order that we may do evil with impunity.

125.

If we resist our passions it is more from their weakness than from our strength.

126.

We should have very little pleasure if we did not sometimes flatter ourselves.

123. This is the principle which Shakspeare appears to have in view when he makes Polonius say,

"This above all, to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst

then be false to any man."-Hamlet.

125. Thus Montaigne says of himself: "If I had been born of a more irregular complexion, I am afraid I should have made scurvy work on't, for I never observed any great stability in my soul to resist passions if they were never so little vehement."-Essays, b. ii. ch. 11.

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127.

The cleverest men affect all their lives to censure all artifice, in order that they may make use of it themselves on some grand occasion, and for some great interest.

128.

The ordinary employment of artifice is the mark of a petty mind; and it almost always happens that he who uses it to cover himself in one place, uncovers himself in another.

129.

Treacheries and acts of artifice only originate in the want of ability.

127. "Certainly the cleverest men that ever were have all had an openness and frankness of dealing, and a name of certainty and veracity, but then they were like horses well managed, for they could tell passing well when to stop or turn, and at such times, when they thought the case required dissimulation, if then they used it, it came to pass that the former opinion spread abroad of their good faith and clearness of dealing, rendered them almost invisible."-BACON, Essays, Simulation and Dissimulation.

128. "We take cunning for a sinister or crooked wisdom, and certainly there is a great difference between a cunning man and a wise man, not only in point of honesty, but in point of ability."-BACON, Essays, Cunning.

129. See last note. The same truth seems to be ad

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130.

The true method of being deceived is to think oneself more cunning than others.

131.

Too great refinement is false delicacy, and true delicacy is solid refinement.

132.

Coarseness is sometimes sufficient to protect us from being overreached by an artful man.

133.

Weakness of mind is the only fault incapa

ble of correction.

134.

The least fault in women who have abandoned themselves to love is to love.

mitted in the saying of Lysander (Plutarch in vit.)"When the lion's skin is too short, it should be eked out with the fox's."-See SIR E. B. LYTTON's Richelieu, Act i.

130. "Here, my sagacious friend," said Louis, "take this purse of gold, and with it the advice, never to be so great a fool as to think yourself wiser than another."Quentin Durward.

134.

"Faciunt graviora coactæ

Imperio sexûs, minimumque libidine peccant."
JUVENAL, Sat. vi. 134.

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