526
Unwilling to be a symbolum—I pity princes: they are not at liberty even temporarily to strip off their high rank, and so they come to know people in a very uncomfortable position of dissimulation ; the continued compulsion to signify something, actually ends by turning them into solemn ciphers. Thus fare all those who make it a point to be symboli.
527
The obscure ones.—Have you never met those people who check and restrain even their enraptured hearts and prefer to grow mute rather than lose the modesty of moderation? And have you also never met those uneasy souls, yet often so good natured, who do not wish to be known, and again and again efface their traces in the sand? Nay, who deceive others as well as themselves, in order to abide in their obscurity ?
528
Rare discretion.—In many instances it is a sure token of humanity, to refuse to criticise and to think about any other.
529
Whereby men and nations gain lustre—How many genuine, individual actions are omitted, only because, before doing them, we conceive or suspect that they
