volumes of short fragmentary pieces on politics, religion, literature,
and art. They are intelligent and elevated, but contain hardly
anything to our point to-night, unless it be this,--that what is
called Stupidity springs not at all from mere want of understanding,
but from the fact that the free use of a man's understanding is
hindered by some definite vice: Frivolity, Envy, Dissipation,
Covetousness, all these darling vices of fallen man,--these are at the
bottom of what we name Stupidity. This is true enough, but it is not
so much to the point as the saying of a highly judicious aphorist of
my own acquaintance, that "Excessive anger against human stupidity is
itself one of the most provoking of all forms of stupidity."

Another author of aphorisms of the Goethe period was Klinger, a
playwriter, who led a curious and varied life in camps and cities, who
began with a vehement enthusiasm for the sentimentalism of Rousseau,
and ended, as such men often end, with a hard and stubborn cynicism.
He wrote _Thoughts on different Subjects of the World and Literature_,
which are intelligent and masculine, if they are not particularly
pungent in expression. One of them runs--"He who will write
interestingly must be able to keep heart and reason in close and
friendliest connection. The heart must warm the reason, and reason
must in turn blow on the embers if they are to burst into flame." This
illustrates what an aphorism should not be. Contrast its clumsiness
with the brevity of the famous and admirable saying of Vauvenargues,
that "great thoughts come from the heart."

Schopenhauer gave to one of his minor works the name of _Aphorismen zu
Lebens-Weisheit_, "Aphorisms for the Wisdom of Life," and he put to
it, by way of motto, Chamfort's saying, "Happiness is no easy matter;
'tis very hard to find it within ourselves, and impossible to find it