528
Parentheses—At any manifestation of human action we are at liberty to ask, What is it to conceal? From what purpose is it to divert the eye? What prejudice does it wish to arouse? And, in addition, How far goes the subtlety of this simulation? And wherein is the doer mistaken?
524
Jealousy of the lonely hearts.—There is this difference between social and solitary natures (provided they are in both cases endowed with intellect): the former are contented, or almost contented with anything whatever, from the very moment that their intellects have found an impartible, favourable version of it—this will reconcile them to the devil in person. But the lonely souls have their silent rapture, their speechless agony about a thing; they loathe the ingenious, brilliant display of their innermost problems as sincerely as they loathe seeing the woman they love too gaudily dressed: they watch her with mournful eyes, as though with a dawning suspicion that she was desirous of pleasing others. Such is the jealousy which all lonely thinkers and passionate dreamers display with regard to the “esprit.”
525
Effect of praise—Great praise makes some modest, others insolent.
