of Shakespeare, the organ whereby man at the moment wrought.

Still more striking is the expression of this fact in the proverbs of
all nations, which are always the literature of reason, or the
statements of an absolute truth, without qualification. Proverbs, like
the sacred books of each nation, are the sanctuary of the intuitions.
That which the droning world, chained to appearances, will not allow
the realist to say in his own words, it will suffer him to say in
proverbs without contradiction. And this law of laws which the pulpit,
the senate, and the college deny, is hourly preached in all markets
and workshops by flights of proverbs, whose teaching is as true and as
omnipresent as that of birds and flies.

All things are double, one against another.--Tit for tat;[126] an eye
for an eye; a tooth for a tooth; blood for blood; measure for measure;
love for love.--Give and it shall be given you.--- He that watereth
shall be watered himself.--What will you have? quoth God; pay for it
and take it.--Nothing venture, nothing have.--Thou shalt be paid
exactly for what thou hast done, no more, no less.--Who doth not work
shall not eat.--Harm watch, harm catch.--Curses always recoil on the
head of him who imprecates them.--If you put a chain around the neck
of a slave, the other end fastens itself around your own.--Bad counsel
confounds the adviser.--The Devil is an ass.

It is thus written, because it is thus in life. Our action is
overmastered and characterized above our will by the law of nature. We
aim at a petty end quite aside from the public good, but our act
arranges itself by irresistible magnetism in a line with the poles of
the world.

A man cannot speak but he judges himself. With his will, or against
his will, he draws his portrait to the eye of his companions by every
word. Every opinion reacts on him who utters it. It is a thread-ball
thrown at a mark, but the other end remains in the thrower's bag. Or,
rather, it is a harpoon hurled at the whale, unwinding, as it flies, a
coil of cord in the boat, and if the harpoon is not good, or not well
thrown, it will go nigh to cut the steersman in twain, or to sink the
boat.

You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong. "No man had ever a point
of pride that was not injurious to him," said Burke.[127] The
exclusive in fashionable life does not see that he excludes himself
from enjoyment in the attempt to appropriate it. The exclusionist in
religion does not see