of enthusiasm; we are not so well satisfied
with Buffon, when he ostentatiously displays the epistles of a prince
and an empress.[94]

Perhaps, by pointing out at proper opportunities the difference in our
feelings with respect to vulgar and refined vanity, we might make a
useful impression upon those who have yet their habits to form. The
conversion of vanity into pride, is not so difficult a process as
those, who have not analyzed both, might, from the striking difference
of their appearance, imagine. By the opposite tendencies of education,
opposite characters from the same original dispositions are produced.
Cicero, had he been early taught to despise the applause of the
multitude, would have turned away like the proud philosopher, who
asked his friends what absurdity he had uttered, when he heard the
populace loud in acclamations of his speech; and the cynic, whose
vanity was seen through the holes in his cloak, might, perhaps, by a
slight difference in his education, have been rendered ambitious of
the Macedonian purple.

In attempting to convert vanity into pride, we must begin by
exercising the vain patient in forbearance of present pleasure; it is
not enough to convince his understanding, that the advantages of proud
humility are great; he may be perfectly sensible of this, and may yet
have so little command over himself, that his loquacious vanity may
get the better, from hour to hour, of his better judgment. Habits are
not to be instantaneously conquered by reason; if we do not keep this
fact in our remembrance, we shall be frequently disappointed in
education; and we shall, perhaps, end by thinking that reason can do
nothing, if we begin by thinking that she can do every thing. We must
not expect that a vain child should suddenly break and forget all his
past associations; but we may, by a little early attention, prevent
much of the trouble of curing, or converting, the disease of vanity.

When children first begin to learn accomplishments, or to apply
themselves to literature, those who instruct, are apt to encourage
them with too large a portion of praise; _the smallest quantity of
stimulus that can produce the exertion we desire, should be used_; if
we use more, we waste our power, and injure our pupil. As soon as
habit has made any exertion familiar, and consequently easy, we may
withdraw the original excitation, and the exertion will still
continue. In learning, for instance, a new language, at first