the first believe they know something, know nothing and understand
everything, lend all to those who need nothing and offer nothing to
those who are in need; the latter study secretly others' thoughts and
place out their money, like their follies, at big interest. The one
class have no more faithful impressions, because their soul, like a
mirror, worn from use, no longer reflects any image; the others
economize their senses and life, even while they seem, like the first,
to be flinging them away broadcast. The first, on the faith of a hope,
devote themselves without conviction to a system which has wind and
tide against it, but they leap upon another political craft when the
first goes adrift; the second take the measure of the future, sound
it, and see in political fidelity what the English see in commercial
integrity, an element of success. Where the young man of possessions
makes a pun or an epigram upon the restoration of the throne, he who
has nothing makes a public calculation or a secret reservation, and
obtains everything by giving a handshake to his friends. The one deny
every faculty to others, look upon all their ideas as new, as though
the world had been made yesterday, they have unlimited confidence in
themselves, and no crueler enemy than those same selves. But the
others are armed with an incessant distrust of men, whom they estimate
at their value, and are sufficiently profound to have one thought
beyond their friends, whom they exploit; then of evenings, when they
lay their heads on their pillows, they weigh men as a miser weighs his
gold pieces. The one are vexed at an aimless impertinence, and allow
themselves to be ridiculed by the diplomatic, who make them dance for
them by pulling what is the main string of these puppets--their
vanity. Thus, a day comes when those who had nothing have something,
and those who had something have nothing. The latter look at their
comrades who have achieved positions as cunning fellows; their hearts
may be bad, but their heads are strong. "He is very strong!" is the