Rica to * * *
I HAVE met some people to whom virtue was so natural, that they were
not even conscious of it; they applied themselves to their duty without
any compulsion, and were led to it instinctively; far from making their
own admirable qualities a subject of conversation, it seemed as if they
were quite ignorant of their existence. Such people I love; not those
men who seem to be astonished at their own virtue, and who look upon a
good deed as a marvel the relation of which should excite wonder.
If modesty is a necessary virtue in those
to whom Heaven has given great talents, what is to be said of those insects
who dare to exhibit a pride which would dishonour the greatest men?
On every hand I meet people who talk constantly
about themselves; their conversation is a mirror which reflects only their
own impertinent faces; they will tell you of the merest trifles that happen
to them, and expect the interest they take in them to magnify their importance
in your eyes; they have done everything, seen everything, said everything,
thought everything; they are a pattern of mankind, a subject of inexhaustible
comparisons, a source of precedents which never dries up. Oh! how
insipid is self-praise!
Some days ago a man of this type worried us for
two hours, about himself, his worth, his talents; but, since there is no
such thing as perpetual motion, he had to cease. It was then our
turn to talk and we took it.
A man, who seemed sufficiently splenetic, commenced
to grumble at the tediousness of conversation. “What! are there none
but fools, who describe their own character and bring everything home to
themselves?” “You are right,” replied our tattling friend abruptly.
“Nobody does as I do; I never praise myself; I have means, am well-born,
spend freely, and my friends say that I have some wit; but I never talk
of all that; if I have any good qualities, that which I set most store
by, is my modesty.”
I wondered at this malapert; and while he was talking
very loudly, I whispered, “Happy is he who has enough of vanity never to
boast of his own qualities, who dreads the ridicule of his audience, and
never hurts the pride of others by exalting himself!”
Paris, the 20th of the moon of Rhamazan, 1713.