bold"; and on the second gate yet again, "Be bold, and evermore be
bold"; and on the third it was written, "Be not too bold."

This cautious tone had been brought about by the circumstances of
the time. Government was strict; dissent from current opinions was
dangerous; there was no indifference and hardly any tolerance;
authority was suspicious and it was vindictive. When the splendid
genius of Burke rose like a new sun into the sky, the times were
happier, and nowhere in our literature does a noble prudence wear
statelier robes than in the majestic compositions of Burke.

Those who are curious to follow the literature of aphorism into
Germany, will, with the mighty exceptions of Goethe and Schiller, find
but a parched and scanty harvest. The Germans too often justify the
unfriendly definition of an aphorism as a form of speech, that wraps
up something quite plain in words that turn it into something very
obscure. As old Fuller says, the writers have a hair hanging to the
nib of their pen. Their shortness does not prevent them from being
tiresome. They recall the French wit to whom a friend showed a
distich: "Excellent," he said; "but isn't it rather spun out?"

Lichtenberg, a professor of physics, who was also a considerable hand
at satire a hundred years ago, composed a collection of sayings, not
without some wheat amid much chaff. A later German writer, of whom
I will speak in a moment or two, Schopenhauer, has some excellent
remarks on Self-reflection, and on the difference between those who
think for themselves and those who think for other people; between
genuine Philosophers, who look at things first hand for their own
sake, and Sophists, who look at words and books for the sake of making
an appearance before the world, and seek their happiness in what