ir picturesque
phrasing, could really enter into that world system of naive
psychology. And yet even this figure is still too high. Of those
forty, most are after all epigrams, generalizations of some chance
cases, exaggerations of a bit of truth, or expressions of a mood of
anger, of love, of class spirit, or of male haughtiness. The analysis
of woman's mind is typical. "Inclination to lies, falsehood,
foolishness, greediness, hastiness, uncleanliness, and cruelty are
inborn faults of the woman"; or "Water never remains in an unbaked
vessel, flour in a sieve, nor news in the mind of women"; or "The mind
of a woman is less stable than the ear of an elephant or the flash of
lightning." On the other hand we read: "True women have twice as much
love, four times as much endurance, and eight times as much modesty as
men"; or "The appetite of women is twice as large, their understanding
four times as large, their spirit of enterprise six times as large,
and their longing for love eight times as large as that of men." Again
we read: "The character of women is as changeable as a wave of the
sea; their affection, like the rosy tint of a cloud in the evening
sky, lasts just for a moment"; or "When women have a man's money, they
let him go, as he is no longer of any use to them."

The same one-sidedness and epigrammatic exaggeration can always be
felt where whole groups of men are to be characterized. "The faults of
the dwarf are sixty, of the red-haired man eighty, of the humpback a
hundred, and of the one-eyed man innumerable."

But let us rather turn to sayings in which the subtlety of
psychological observation deserves admiration: "The drunkard, the
careless, the insane, the fatigued, the angry, the hungry, the greedy,
the timid, the hasty, and the lover know no law"; "If a man commits a
crime, his voice and the colour of his face become changed, his look
becomes furtive, and the fire is gone from his eye"; "The best remedy
for a pain is no longer to think of it; if you think of it, the pain
will increase"; "A greedy man can be won by money, an angry man by
folding the hands, a fool by doing his will, and an educated man by
speaking the truth"; "The wise man can recognize the inner thoughts of
another from the colour of his face, from his look, from the sound of
his words, from his walk, from the reflections in his eyes, and from
the form of his mouth"; "The good and bad thoughts, however much they
are hidden, can be discove