as all praise of ourselves must be. I doubt if any man or woman can
flatter so discreetly as not to make us uncomfortable. Besides, if our
own performances be lauded, we are uneasy as to whether the honour is
deserved. An artist has usually his own doubts about his own doings, or
rather he has his own certainties. About our friends' work we need have
no such misgivings. And our self-love is more delicately caressed by the
success of our friends than by our own. It is still self-love, but it is
filtered, so to speak, through our affection for another.

What are human motives, according to Rochefoucauld? Temperament, vanity,
fear, indolence, self-love, and a grain of natural perversity, which
somehow delights in evil for itself. He neglects that other element, a
grain of natural worth, which somehow delights in good for itself. This
taste, I think, is quite as innate, and as active in us, as that other
taste for evil which causes there to be something not wholly displeasing
in the misfortunes of our friends.

There is a story which always appears to me a touching proof of this
grain of goodness, as involuntary, as fatal as its opposite. I do not
remember in what book of travels I found this trait of native excellence.
The black fellows of Australia are very fond of sugar, and no wonder, if
it be true that it has on them an intoxicating effect. Well, a certain
black fellow had a small parcel of brown sugar which was pilfered from
his lair in the camp. He detected the thief, who was condemned to be
punished according to tribal law; that is to say, the injured man was
allowed to have a whack at his enemy's head with a waddy, a short club of
heavy hard wood. The whack was duly given, and then the black who had
suffered the loss threw down his club, burst into tears, embraced the
thief and displayed every sign of a lively regret for his revenge.