Let thy recreations be ingenious, and bear proportion with thine age. If thou sayest with Paul," When I was a child I did as a child," say also with him, "But when I was a man I put away childish things." Wear also the child's coat, if thou usest his sports.

Refresh that part of thyself which is most wearied. If thy life be sedentary, exercise thy body; if stirring and active, recreate thy mind. But take heed of cozening thy mind, in setting it to do a double task under pretence of giving it a play-day, as in the labyrinth of chess, and other tedious and studious games.

Choke not thy soul with immoderate pouring in the cordial of pleasures. The creation lasted but six days of the first week: profane they whose recreation lasts seven days every week.

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

"" 66

(A. D. 1613-1680.)

"ROCHEFOUCAULD, says Mr. Andrew Lang, in his "Letters on Literature, was so clever that he was often duped, first by the general honest dulness of mankind, and then by his own acuteness. He thought he saw more than he did see, and he said even more than he thought he saw. If the true motive of all our actions is self-love, or vanity, no man is a better proof of the truth than the great maxim-maker. His self-love took the shape of a brilliancy that is sometimes false. He is tricked out in paste for diamonds, now and then, like a vain, provincial beauty at a ball. 'A clever man would frequently be much at a loss,' he says, in stupid company.' One has seen this embarrassment of a wit in a company of dullards. It is Rochefoucauld's own position in this world of men and women. We are all, in the mass, dullards compared with his cleverness, and so he fails to understand us, is much at a loss among us. 'People only praise others in hopes of being praised in turn,' he says. Mankind is not such a company of log-rollers' as he avers. The Duke is his own best critic after all, when he says: The greatest fault of a penetrating wit is going beyond the mark.' Beyond the mark he frequently goes. He might have said with equal truth that the greatest fault of a critical looker-on at life, is falling short of the mark; and in that, too, he would have touched his own weaknesses. He watched the world too shrewdly, too narrowly, not with a large enough vision, for real truth-seeking. His place is not among the men of wisdom, but where Mr. Lang has put him, among the men of cleverness and wit.

He was of the old French nobility - Duke de la Rochefoucauld and Prince of Marcillac; born at Paris in 1613, and dying in 1680. His "Maxims" were first published in 1665; the earliest English translation of them in 1698.

Besides these apothegms, he published "Mémoires sur la Regence d'Anne d'Austriche."

SELECTIONS FROM A TRANSLATION OF THE "SENTENCES ET MAXIMES MORALES" OF THE DUKE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

The passions have an injustice and an interest of their own, which renders it dangerous to obey them, and we ought to mistrust them even when they appear most reasonable.

It requires greater virtues to support good than bad fortune.

We often make a parade of passions, even of the most criminal; but envy is a timid and shameful passion which we never dare to avow.

Jealousy is in some sort just and reasonable, since it only has for its object the preservation of a good which belongs, or which we fancy belongs, to ourselves, while envy, on the contrary, is a madness which cannot endure the good of others.

We have more power than will; and it is often by way of excuse to ourselves that we fancy things are impossible.

Those who bestow too much application on trifling things, become generally incapable of great ones.

Happiness lies in the taste, and not in things; and it is from having what we desire that we are happy - not from having what others think desirable.

We are never so happy, or so unhappy, as we imagine. Nothing ought so much to diminish the good opinion we have of ourselves as to see that we disapprove at one time what we approve at another.

Sincerity is an opening of the heart: we find it in very

few people; and that which we generally see is nothing but a subtle dissimulation to attract the confidence of others.

The pleasure of love is in loving. We are happier in the passion we feel than in that we excite.

It is more disgraceful to distrust one's friends than to be deceived by them.

Politeness of mind consists in the conception of honorable and delicate thoughts.

If we did not flatter ourselves, the flattery of others would be very harmless.

Avarice is more opposed to economy than liberality is. Hope, deceitful as she is, serves at least to conduct us through life by an agreeable path.

It is better to employ our minds in supporting the misfortunes which actually happen, than in anticipating those which may happen to us.

He who thinks he can find in himself the means of doing without others is much mistaken; but he who thinks that others cannot do without him is still more mistaken.

A truly virtuous man is he who prides himself upon nothing.

Hypocrisy is the homage which vice renders to virtue. Nothing is so contagious as example; and we never do any great good or evil which does not produce its like. Flattery is a false coin, which only derives its currency from our vanity.

Magnanimity is well enough defined by its name; nevertheless, we may say that it is the good sense of pride, and the most noble way of earning praise.

In jealousy there is more self love than love.
Envy is more irreconcilable than hatred.

Little minds are too much hurt by little things. Great minds perceive them all, and are not touched by them.

Humility is the true proof of Christian virtues; without it we retain all our faults, and they are only hidden by pride, which conceals them from others, and often from ourselves.

We should often be ashamed of our best actions if the world could see all the motives which produced them.

We have few faults which are not more excusable than the means we take to conceal them.

The truest mark of being born with great qualities is being born without envy.

We should not judge of a man's merit by his good qualities, but by the use he can make of them.

Quarrels would not last long, if the fault was only on one side.

When we cannot find contentment in ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.