are always to be seen through these veils.

[The 1st edition, 1665, preserves the image perhaps
better--"however we may conceal our passions under the
veil, etc., there is always some place where they peep out."]

13.--Our self love endures more impatiently the
condemnation of our tastes than of our opinions.

14.--Men are not only prone to forget benefits and
injuries; they even hate those who have obliged them,
and cease to hate those who have injured them. The
necessity of revenging an injury or of recompensing
a benefit seems a slavery to which they are unwilling
to submit.

15.--The clemency of Princes is often but policy
to win the affections of the people.

["So many are the advantages which monarchs gain by
clemency, so greatly does it raise their fame and endear
them to their subjects, that it is generally happy for them
to have an opportunity of displaying it."--Montesquieu,
ESPRIT DES LOIS, LIB. VI., C. 21.]

16.--This clemency of which they make a merit,
arises oftentimes from vanity, sometimes from idle-
ness, oftentimes from fear, and almost always from all
three combined.