We lavish our compassion upon physical sufferings, and hardly suspect those sufferings of the soul, which have a right to a more generous sympathy.

The virtue which goes directly on to its end, disperses vain shadows; attaches itself to persons; penetrates reality; examines wants, and determines results. The sensibility, which it nourishes, dwells in the soul; it, therefore, knows all its secrets; is interested in it, and brings it assistance. To the virtuous, sentiment is not recreation, but the voice of humanity itself; and in their opinion the value of affection lies in the manner in which it exercises itself; and they are only satisfied by the proofs it can give of sincerity.

An illusion arises from the influence which every thing that is surrounded with splendor, exerts over the imagination. We then confound the liveliness of impression received from such pictures, with the emotions that belong to those benevolent affections, which the sentiment of esteem so profitably cherishes. This factitious sensibility sympathizes with the joys and sorrows of those who occupy the first rank: it is excited by success, and moved in the cause of favor and powers; carrying its affections as a tribute to the idols of fame; disdaining the humble and obscure. Flatterers are more honest than we suppose; they have a real affection for power. Nothing is more reasonable than to enjoy the honors with which a friend is invested, especially if he has deserved them; we enjoy them, because we cherish his person, and are happy at his prosperity. But, if we sound the depths of our hearts, shall we not sometimes discover, that we love a friend more, when he is favored by fortune and glory? It is the decoration, which enhances his value, and seems to make us discover in him new qualities. We require illustrious misfortunes, no less in the world, than in tragedy, to move us. Yet what talisman can those employ, whom the chances of life, and the cruel injustice of opinion have affected, and who have the most sacred rights over our hearts, if our attention is so absorbed by outward splendour? What will become of the domestic affections, whose exercise must be constant and unnoticed? Theatrical decorations have disappeared; there are no more historical personages; we have come down to vulgar realities.

Is nothing brilliant or attractive, unless it is out of the If exaltation of mind can only be procommon course? duced by what is extraordinary, it is natural that it should be

slight in common situations, and entirely pass away by continued experience. Now, it is when there is no excitement, that virtue appears in all its power. It gently lifts the veil of obscurity and modesty; it teaches us to love our fellow beings for their own sakes, and to cherish them most when they have most need of us; when they are humble and discontented, and when our love can indemnify them for the inattention of others.

SIMPLICITY OF CHARACTER.

THE same assistance, which simplicity lends to genius in the arts, it lends to virtue in the moral education of man. It adorns a great and beautiful character, by preserving to the heart its virginity, to the powers their soundness, to motives their purity. In character, it is truth of sentiment and faithful action; and in mind, truth of thought and adequate expression. It is to virtue what good sense is to reason.

Simplicity of manners and language is approved by the worldly as the natural accompaniment of what is noble and distinguished; yet simplicity of character, of which this is the image, is rarely appreciated. This is because it is difficult for the worldly to understand it. How can the man who only seeks the end prescribed by duty, be understood, by those, who, while they act, are thinking of the opinion of others? While the worldly live for spectators, the simple man lives for reality; he passes along unperceived, and rejoices in this obscurity, because by it he remains more free. But when he executes great things, naturally, and with easehaving lived unremarked, and perhaps disdained—what surprise he excites! Being compelled to admire him, men ask whence he derived such miraculous powers? And they find it was from that very simplicity, which made him overlooked, but which allowed him silently to collect all the energies of his nature. While the worldly have wasted the gifts of nature, he has preserved them entire; while they have wandered by chance, he has gone towards the goal assigned to him; while they have grown old, he has preserved the freshness of youth; while they have sunk under the chains they have imposed upon themselves, he has remained obedient to primitive inspirations. They had classed him with the vulgar; but now they are the vulgar in comparison with him.

If we are doubtful of our own intentions, if we are deceived about our own views, it is because we admit a plurality of motives: ambiguity arises from complication. Simpli city is a habit of candor and honesty; which the soul forms' in its dealings with itself. We may have mental reservation

in self-intercourse as well as in our intercourse with others: simplicity banishes both. There is nothing in it, which may not be confessed and seen. From this inward sincerity springs a naïve and frank integrity of manner. Simplicity does not secretly take back a portion of what it gives; it does not secretly retract what it says; it neither has reservation nor concealment; it is not lost in interpretation, and commentaries, and subtle distinctions; it says yes or no. A few words are sufficient for it; its glance alone is language; it has expressions exclusively its own, which stamp as with an inimitable seal, carrying certain conviction. Its negligences are charmingly graceful, because they evidence disinterested self-forgetfulness; they are like those waving draperies, which the hand of art suffers to flow like a light veil over the most beautiful forms. How easy and sure simplicity renders every thing! What liberty of motion! What rapidity of progress! What perseverance of purpose! What cordiality in affection! What self-forgetfulness in friendship! What exchanges of confidence! What peaceful relations with others!

Simplicity of character, by freeing us from a thousand shackles, protects self-government, as it protects the love of excellence, because we escape, by it, all unnatural situations of the heart. It is always strong, because it uses its powers with economy; reserving them for the decisive moment, and bringing them forth in view of a clearly perceived end. It is not fatigued by the efforts, which the necessity of taking a part requires, and by the affectation and over refinement, which are its consequences; it does not waste itself in a vain labor, which would have for its object merely the art of appearing. It acts with the freshness of the morning, and enjoys all the vigor of youth.

Simplicity procures a healthful repose for the mind and heart. It prevents us from being tormented, in a thousand ways, by vain and trifling solicitudes. It guards us from the excess of an inquietude, which wants to foresee, and to be, every thing. It accustoms us to see and to take things as they are. And why, after all, should we be disturbed! What do we seek, and what shall we gain, by so much toil? What

is this fruitless torture, which we impose upon ourselves? Why do we not allow ourselves to breathe? The good that we pursue, is nearer to our soul than we think; it would come to it, if we only consented to be more calm. Let us not be deceived: if we are so much interested in finding outward supports, it is because we feel our own weakness; we run to meet the yoke, in order to dispense with having a will of our own, and consequently, with making an effort. Let us be simple, and we shall dare more; we shall rely less on foreign aid; we shall have fewer difficulties to conquer; we shall judge of our strength better, and exert it more calmly.

The world imagines, that in simplicity there is a want of sagacity; and laughs at what it supposes its ignorance. Yes, it is ignorant, but it is a happy ignorance of useless things. Besides, it is full of true knowledge, such as springs from the power of knowing one's self. If there is a multitude of details, which it does not understand, yet what a rapid and sure understanding it has of all that is noble, generous and great!

GOOD HABITS.

We repeat incessantly, that we ought to form good habits. Nothing is more true, but this is not saying enough; these habits should be founded on a good principle; that is to say, upon an enlightened conviction, upon a reflective sentiment, without which they would only constitute a kind of external regularity, and would not contribute to moral improvement. But this is not enough: even when the best habits have been contracted, it is also necessary to refer frequently to the principle, which has presided over their formation; and, as knowledge once acquired by memory, would become barren and dead, if it were not frequently restored to its primitive vigor by generating theorems, so also laudable qualities would grow dim by degrees, if they were not frequently reanimated by the vital warmth of moral sentiment.

In short, it would be renouncing the principal benefit to be expected from habits, to repose upon them and dispense with that internal activity, which should aspire incessantly to new acquisitions. The cultivation of intellect is checked, if we turn perpetually in the same circle of ideas: ideas obtained, ought to be unceasingly subjected to new developments which call forth from them new relations. This con

tinued internal labor adds to the clearness of the notions we possess, by rendering them fruitful, in proportion as it multiplies their number, it makes them more easily understood, establishing a more perfect consistency between them: as we know more, we know better. Moral cultivation is checked, also, if we neglect to offer to the love of excellence new aliment, and to self-government matter for new triumphs.

When we repose upon the consciousness of good habits, we allow the inward powers, by which the soul acts and displays itself, to languish and become extinct. We keep up the appearance of action in the external world, but the internal life ceases; thus, this pretended fatal repose, is, in reality, going backward. On the contrary, when the love of excellence, and self-government, the active faculties of the soul, maintain their footing by successive conquests, all acquired qualities receive from them new force and purity. For all rules, all motives of excellence, preserve strict analogy to each other, and are derived from a common source; and the farther we advance, the more completely we seize the intimate relations which unite them.

Thus when we recommend exercise as the principal means of progress, it must be understood, that we are not only to exercise ourselves in acting, but in feeling and seeing also; that we are not only to repeat mechanically the same things, but to preserve the motives also, and to grow in strength and free will. In a word, it is the soul itself, which must be exercised in its most inward faculties.

Let us beware then of breaking up the natural harmony, which should exist between good habits and the impulse of progressive activity. Let us beware of wishing to subsist all our lives upon the acquisitions of a few years, and, after having begun as men, to live on as automata. He who would neglect to accept the assistance of habit, would fill incessantly the cask of the Danaïd: he would be, with regard to the practice of virtue, what a man without memory would be in regard to knowledge. Losing constantly what he acquires, having no past, binding nothing together by the spirit of connection, he would be the sport of continued change; always beginning and never finishing. Shut up in his habits, as in a sort of fortress, and condemning himself to unfold nothing more of all that is hidden within, he would cease to relish, or even understand excellence. He would no longer live, in the true sense of the word; he would be a sort of moral