When any one
complains of the want of what he is known to possess
in an uncommon degree, he certainly waits with
impatience to be contradicted. When the trader
pretends anxiety about the payment of his bills, or the
beauty remarks how frightfully she looks, then is
the lucky moment to talk of riches or of charms, of
the death of lovers, or the honour of a merchant.
Others there are yet more open and artless, who,
instead of suborning a flatterer, are content to supply
his place, and as some animals impregnate themselves,
swell with the praises which they hear from
their own tongues. Recte is dicitur laudare sese, cui
nemo alius contigit laudator. "It is right," says
Erasmus, "that he, whom no one else will commend,
should bestow commendations on himself." Of all
the sons of vanity, these are surely the happiest
and greatest; for what is greatness or happiness but
independence on external influences, exemption
from hope or fear, and the power of supplying every
want from the common stores of nature, which can
neither be exhausted nor prohibited? Such is the
wise man of the stoicks; such is the divinity of the
epicureans; and such is the flatterer of himself.
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