LXXXVIII. Good-nature is often combined with ill temper. Our own uncomfortable feelings teach us to sympathise with others, and to seek relief from our own uneasiness in the satisfactions we can afford them. Ill-nature combined with good temper is an unnatural and odious character. Our delight in mischief and suffering, when we have no provocation to it from being ill at ease ourselves, is wholly unpardonable. Yet I have known one or two instances of this sort of callous levity, and gay, laughing malignity. Such people ‘poison in jest.’
LXXXIX. It is wonderful how soon men acquire talents for offices of trust and importance. The higher the situation, the higher the opinion it gives us of ourselves; and as is our confidence, so is our capacity. We assume an equality with circumstances.
XC. The difficulty is for a man to rise to high station, not to fill it; as it is easier to stand on an eminence than to climb up to it. Yet he alone is truly great who is so without the aid of circumstances and in spite of fortune, who is as little lifted up by the tide of opinion, as he is depressed by neglect or obscurity, and who borrows dignity only from himself. It is a fine compliment which Pope has paid to Lord Oxford—
‘A soul supreme, in each hard instance tried,
Above all pain, all passion, and all pride;
The rage of power, the blast of public breath,
The lust of lucre, and the dread of death!’
XCI. The most silent people are generally those who think most highly of themselves. They fancy themselves superior to every one else; and not being sure of making good their secret pretensions, decline entering the lists altogether. They thus ‘lay the flattering unction to their souls,’ that they could have said better things than others, or that the conversation was beneath them.
XCII. There are writers who never do their best; lest if they should fail, they should be left without excuse in their own opinion. While they trifle with a subject, they feel superior to it. They will not take pains, for this would be a test of what they are actually able to do, and set a limit to their pretensions, while their vanity is unbounded. The more you find fault with them, the more careless they grow, their affected indifference keeping pace with and acting as a shield against the disapprobation or contempt of others. They fancy whatever they condescend to write must be good enough for the public.
XCIII. Authors who acquire a high celebrity and conceal themselves, seem superior to fame. Producing great works incognito is like doing good by stealth. There is an air of magnanimity in it, which people wonder at. Junius, and the author of Waverley are striking examples. Junius, however, is really unknown; while the author of Waverley enjoys all the credit of his writings without acknowledging them. Let any one else come forward and claim them; and we should then see whether Sir Walter Scott would stand idle by. It is a curious argument that he cannot be the author, because the real author could not help making himself known; when, if he is not so, the real author has never even been hinted at, and lets another run away with all the praise.