Things which have most hold on us, as the concealment of our few
possessions, are often a mere nothing. It is a nothing which our
imagination magnifies into a mountain. Another turn of the imagination
would make us discover this without difficulty.


86

[My fancy makes me hate a croaker, and one who pants when eating. Fancy
has great weight. Shall we profit by it? Shall we yield to this weight
because it is natural? No, but by resisting it ...]


87

_Næ iste magno conatu magnas nugas dixerit.[54]

Quasi quidquam infelicius sit homini cui sua figmenta dominantur._[55]
(Plin.)


88

Children who are frightened at the face they have blackened are but
children. But how shall one who is so weak in his childhood become
really strong when he grows older? We only change our fancies. All that
is made perfect by progress perishes also by progress. All that has been
weak can never become absolutely strong. We say in vain, "He has grown,
he has changed"; he is also the same.