told that they are miserable earth-gnomes, the slaves of a black
destiny, but he still placed them a good deal lower than the angels. For
instance: 'We are too inattentive or too much occupied with ourselves,
to get to the bottom of one another's characters; _whoever has watched
masks at a ball dancing together in a friendly manner, and joining hands
without knowing who the others are, and then parting the moment
afterwards never to meet again nor ever to regret, or be regretted, can
form some idea of the world_.'[48] But then, as he said elsewhere: 'We
can be perfectly aware of our imperfection, without being humiliated by
the sight. _One of the noblest qualities of our nature is that we are
able so easily to dispense with greater perfection._'[49] In all this we
mark the large and rational humaneness of the new time, a tolerant and
kindly and elevating estimate of men.

The faith in the natural and simple operation of virtue, without the aid
of all sorts of valetudinarian restrictions, comes out on every
occasion. The Trappist theory of the conditions of virtue found no
quarter with him. Mirabeau for instance complained of the atmosphere of
the Court, as fatal to the practice of virtue. Vauvenargues replied that
the people there were doubtless no better than they should be, and that
vice was dominant. 'So much the worse for those who have vices. But when
you are fortunate enough to possess virtue, it is, to my thinking, a
very noble ambition to lift up this same virtue in the bosom of
corruption, to make it succeed, to place it above all, to indulge and
control the passions without reproach, to overthrow the obstacles to
them, and to surrender yourself to the inclinations of an upright and
magnanimous heart, instead of combating or concealing them in retreat,
without either satisfying or vanquishing them. I know nothing so weak
and so vain as to flee before vices, or to hate them without measure;
for people only hate them by way of reprisal because they are afraid of