over
your head, seen _two_ fathers and _two_ mothers murdered before your
eyes, and _two_ of your lovers flogged at two autos-da-fe, I don't fancy
that you can have the advantage of me. Besides, I was born a baroness of
seventy-two quarterings, and I have been a cook." But the daughter of a
Pope had, indeed, been still more unlucky, as she proved, than Cunegonde;
and the old lady was not a little proud of it.

But can you call _this_ true: "There is nobody but is ashamed of having
loved when once he loves no longer"? If it be true at all, I don't think
the love was much worth having or giving. If one really loves once, one
can never be ashamed of it; for we never cease to love. However, this is
the very high water of sentiment, you will say; but I blush no more for
it than M. le Duc de Rochefoucauld for his own opinion. Perhaps I am
thinking of that kind of love about which he says: "True love is like
ghosts; which everybody talks about and few have seen." "Many be the
thyrsus-bearers, few the Mystics," as the Greek proverb runs. "Many are
called, few are chosen."

As to friendship being "a reciprocity of interests," the saying is but
one of those which Rochefoucauld's vanity imposed on his wit. Very witty
it is not, and it is emphatically untrue. "Old men console themselves by
giving good advice for being no longer able to set bad examples."
Capital; but the poor old men are often good examples of the results of
not taking their own good advice. "Many an ingrate is less to blame than
his benefactor." One might add, at least I will, "Every man who looks
for gratitude deserves to get none of it." "To say that one never
flirts--is flirting." I rather like the old translator's version of "Il
y a de bons mariages; mais il n'y en a point de delicieux"--"Marriage is
sometimes convenient, but never delightful."

How true is this of authors with a brief popularity: "_Il y a des gens
qui ressemblent aux vaudevilles, qu'on ne chante qu'un certain temps_."
Again, "to be in haste to repay a kindness is a sort of ingratitude," and
a rather insulting sort too. "Almost everybody likes to repay small
favours; many people can be grateful for favours not too weighty, but for
favours truly great there is scarce anything but ingratitude." They must
have been small favours that Wordsworth had conferred when "the gratitude
of men had oftener left him mourning." Indeed, the very pettiness of the
aid we can generally render