Page:Blaise Pascal works.djvu/29

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ON MIND AND ON STYLE
21

Paris, Paris, and others in which we ought to call it the capital of the kingdom.


50

The same meaning changes with the words which express it. Meanings receive their dignity from words instead of giving it to them. Examples should be sought.


51

Sceptic, for obstinate.


52

No one calls another a Cartesian but he who is not one himself, a pedant but a pedant, a provincial but a provincial; and I would wager it was the printer who put it on the title of Letters to a Provincial.


53

A carriage upset or overturned, according to the meaning To spread abroad or upset, according to the meaning. (The argument by force of M. le Maître over the friar.)


54

Miscellaneous.—A form of speech, "I should have liked to apply myself to that."


55

The aperitive virtue of a key, the attractive virtue of a hook.


56

To guess: "The part that I take in your trouble." The Cardinal[1] did not want to be guessed.

"My mind is disquieted." I am disquieted is better.


57

I always feel uncomfortable under such compliments as these: "I have given you a great deal of trouble," "I am afraid I am boring you," "I fear this is too long." We either carry our audience with us, or irritate them.


  1. Cardinal Mazarin.