theory.
Prosperity argues capacity. Win in the lottery, and behold! you are a clever man.
He who triumphs is venerated.
Be born with a silver spoon in your mouth! everything lies in that.
Be lucky, and you will have all the rest; be happy, and people will think you great.
Outside of five or six immense exceptions, which compose the splendor of a century, contemporary admiration is nothing but short-sightedness. Gilding is gold.
It does no harm to be the first arrival by pure chance, so long as you do arrive.
The common herd is an old Narcissus who adores himself, and who applauds the vulgar herd.
That enormous ability by virtue of which one is Moses, Aeschylus, Dante, Michael Angelo, or Napoleon, the multitude awards on the spot, and by acclamation, to whomsoever attains his object, in whatsoever it may consist. Let a notary transfigure himself into a deputy:
let a false Corneille compose Tiridate; let a eunuch come to possess a harem; let a military Prudhomme accidentally win the decisive battle of an epoch; let an apothecary invent cardboard shoe-soles for the army of the Sambre-and-Meuse, and construct for himself, out of this cardboard, sold as leather, four hundred thousand francs of income; let a pork-packer espouse usury, and cause it to bring forth seven or eight millions, of which he is the father and of which it is the mother; let a preacher become a bishop by force of his nasal drawl; let the steward of a fine family be so rich on retiring from service that he is made minister of finances,--and men call that Genius, just as they call the face of Mousqueton Beauty, and the mien of Claude Majesty.
With the constellations of space they confound the stars of the abyss which are made in the soft mire of the puddle by the feet of ducks.
BOOK FIRST--A JUST MAN
CHAPTER XIII
WHAT HE BELIEVED
We are not obliged to sound the Bishop of D---- on the score of orthodoxy.
In the presence of such a soul we feel ourselves in no mood but respect.
The conscience of the just man should be accepted on his word.
Moreover, certain natures being given, we admit the possible development of all beauties of human virtue in a belief that differs from our own.