CCXC. We have more faith in a well-written romance, while we are reading it, than in common history. The vividness of the representations in the one case, more than counterbalances the mere knowledge of the truth of the facts in the other.
CCXCI. It is remarkable how virtuous and generously disposed every one is at a play. We uniformly applaud what is right and condemn what is wrong, when it costs us nothing but the sentiment.
CCXCII. Great natural advantages are seldom combined with great acquired ones, because they render the labour required to attain the last superfluous and irksome. It is only necessary to be admired; and if we are admired for the graces of our persons, we shall not be at much pains to adorn our minds. If Pope had been a beautiful youth, he would not have written The Rape of the Lock.[[22]] A beautiful woman, who has only to shew herself to be admired, and is famous by nature, will be in no danger of becoming a bluestocking, to attract notice by her learning, or to hide her defects.
CCXCIII. Those people who are always improving, never become great. Greatness is an eminence, the ascent to which is steep and lofty, and which a man must seize on at once by natural boldness and vigour, and not by patient, wary steps.
CCXCIV. The late Mr Opie remarked, that an artist often put his best thoughts into his first works. His earliest efforts were the result of the study of all his former life, whereas his later and more mature performances (though perhaps more skilful and finished) contained only the gleanings of his after-observation and experience.
CCXCV. The effort necessary to overcome difficulty urges the student on to excellence. When he can once do well with ease, he grows comparatively careless and indifferent, and makes no farther advances to perfection.
CCXCVI. When a man can do better than every one else in the same walk, he does not make any very painful exertions to outdo himself. The progress of improvement ceases nearly at the point where competition ends.
CCXCVII. We are rarely taught by our own experience; and much less do we put faith in that of others.
CCXCVIII. We do not attend to the advice of the sage and experienced, because we think they are old, forgetting that they once were young, and placed in the same situations as ourselves.
CCXCIX. We are egotists in morals as well as in other things. Every man is determined to judge for himself as to his conduct in life, and finds out what he ought to have done, when it is too late to do it. For this reason, the world has to begin again with each successive generation.