some who speak well and write badly. For the place and the
audience warm them, and draw from their minds more than they think of
without that warmth.
48. When we find words repeated in a discourse and, in trying to correct
them, discover that they are so appropriate that we would spoil the
discourse, we must leave them alone. This is the test; and our attempt is
the work of envy, which is blind, and does not see that repetition is not in
this place a fault; for there is no general rule.
49. To mask nature and disguise her. No more king, pope, bishop--but august
monarch, etc.; not Paris--the capital of the kingdom. There are places in
which we ought to call Paris, "Paris," others in which we ought to call it
the capital of the kingdom.
50. The same meaning changes with the words which express it. Meanings
receive their dignity from words instead of giving it to them. Examples
should be sought....
51. Sceptic, for obstinate.
52. No one calls another a Cartesian but he who is one himself, a pedant but
a pedant, a provincial but a provincial; and I would wager it was the
printer who put it on the title of Letters to a Provincial.
53. A carriage upset or overturned, according to the meaning. To spread
abroad or upset, according to the meaning. (The argument by force of M. le
Maitre over the friar.)
54. Miscellaneous.--A form of speech, "I should have liked to apply myself
to that."
55. The aperitive virtue of a key, the attractive virtue of