That seems to me an example of the human touch that Rochefoucauld never
allows for, the natural goodness, pity, kindness, which can assert itself
in contempt of the love of self, and the love of revenge. This is that
true clemency which is a real virtue, and not "the child of Vanity, Fear,
Indolence, or of all three together." Nor is it so true that "we have
all fortitude enough to endure the misfortunes of others." Everybody has
witnessed another's grief that came as near him as his own.

How much more true, and how greatly poetical is that famous maxim: "Death
and the Sun are two things not to be looked on with a steady eye." This
version is from the earliest English translation of 1698. The _Maximes_
were first published in Paris in 1665. {8} "Our tardy apish nation" took
thirty-three years in finding them out and appropriating them. This,
too, is good: "If we were faultless, we would observe with less pleasure
the faults of others." Indeed, to observe these with pleasure is not the
least of our faults. Again, "We are never so happy, nor so wretched, as
we suppose." It is our vanity, perhaps, that makes us think ourselves
_miserrimi_.

Do you remember--no, you don't--that meeting in "Candide" of the
unfortunate Cunegonde and the still more unfortunate old lady who was the
daughter of a Pope? "You lament your fate," said the old lady; "alas,
you have known no such sorrows as mine!" "What! my good woman!" says
Cunegonde. "Unless you have been maltreated by _two_ Bulgarians,
received _two_ stabs from a knife, had _two_ of your castles burned over
your head, seen _two_ fathers and _two_ mothers murdered before your
eyes, and _two_ of your lovers flogged at two autos-da-fe, I don't fancy
that you can have the advantage of me. Besides, I was born a baroness of
seventy-two quarterings, and I have been a cook." But the daughter of a
Pope had, indeed, been still more unlucky, as she proved, than Cunegonde;