...
M. Joubert was, in his day, the most delicate and the most original type
of that class of honest people which the old society alone
produced,--spectators, listeners who had neither ambition nor envy, who
were curious, at leisure, attentive, and disinterested, who took an
interest in everything, the true amateurs of beautiful things. "To
converse and to know--it was in this, above all things, that consisted,
according to Plato, the happiness of private life." This class of
connoisseurs and of amateurs, so fitted to enlighten and to restrain
talent, has almost disappeared in France since every one there has
followed a profession. "We should always," said M. Joubert, "have a
corner of the head open and free, that we may have a place for the
opinions of our friends, where we may lodge them provisionally. It is
really insupportable to converse with men who have, in their brains,
only compartments which are wholly occupied, and into which nothing
external can enter. Let us have _hospitable hearts and minds_."
* * * * *
Life is a duty; we must make a pleasure of it, so far as we can, as of
all other duties. If the care of cherishing it is the only one with
which it pleases Heaven to charge us, we must acquit ourselves gaily and
with the best possible grace, and poke that sacred fire, while warming
ourselves by it all we can, till the word comes to us: That will do.
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