Characteristics in the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims PDF

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In the silence and overshadowing of that night, whose fitful meteoric fires only herald the descent of a superficial fame into lasting oblivion, the imbecile and unavailing resistance which is made against the doom, must often excite our pity for the pampered child of market-gilded popularity.

It is not with such feelings that we behold the dark thraldom and long-suffering of true intellectual strength.

Its brief, though frequent soundings beneath the earthy pressure, will be heard even amidst the din of flaunting crowds, or the solemn conclaves of common-place minds; its obscured head will often shed forth ascending beams that can only be lost in eternity; and its mighty strules to upheave its own weight, and that of the superincumbent mass of prejudice, envy, ignorance, folly, or uncongenial force, must ever ensure the deepest sympathy of all those who can appreciate the spirit of its qualities.

The full results of fortitude are a protracted triumph, but with genuine power they are at least as certain as the protraction; and those who can afford to wait, both possess and bequeath an all-sufficing consolation.