Page:Table-Talk (1821).djvu/230

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218
ON LIVING TO ONE’S-SELF.

stuck all over the Louvre and throughout France. Goldsmith (as we all know) when in Holland went out into a balcony with some handsome Englishwomen, and on their being applauded by the spectators, turned round and said peevishly—“There are places where I also am admired.” He could not give the craving appetite of an author’s vanity one day’s respite. I have seen a celebrated talker of our own time turn pale and go out of the room when a showy-looking girl has come into it who for a moment divided the attention of his hearers.—Infinite are the mortifications of the bare attempt to emerge from obscurity; numberless the failures; and greater and more galling still the vicissitudes and tormenting accompaniments of success—

—“Whose top to climb
Is certain falling, or so slippery, that
The fear’s as bad as falling.”

“Would to God,” exclaimed Oliver Cromwell, when he was at any time thwarted by the Parliament, “that I had remained by my woodside to tend a flock of sheep, rather than have been thrust on such a government as this!” When Buonaparte got into his carriage to proceed on his Russian expedition, carelessly twirling his glove, and singing the air—“Malbrook