us momentary relief. It is just the same thing if we are expecting
some important letter carrying a definite decision, and it fails to
arrive.

In such cases there are really two different motives at work in us;
the stronger but more distant of the two being the desire to stand
the test and to have the decision given in our favor; and the weaker,
which touches us more nearly, the wish to be left for the present in
peace and quiet, and accordingly in further enjoyment of the advantage
which at any rate attaches to a state of hopeful uncertainty, compared
with the possibility that the issue may be unfavorable.

* * * * *

In my head there is a permanent opposition-party; and whenever I take
any step or come to any decision--though I may have given the matter
mature consideration--it afterwards attacks what I have done, without,
however, being each time necessarily in the right. This is, I suppose,
only a form of rectification on the part of the spirit of scrutiny;
but it often reproaches me when I do not deserve it. The same thing,
no doubt, happens to many others as well; for where is the man who
can help thinking that, after all, it were better not to have done
something that he did with great deliberation:

_Quid tam dextro pede concipis ut te
Conatus non poeniteat votique peracti_?

* * * * *

Why is it that _common_ is an expression of contempt? and that