By speaking of our misfortunes we often relieve them. [Fr. , A raconter ses maux souvent on les soulage. ]
En ge ne ral, plus un peuple est civilise , poli, moins ses moeurs sont poe tiques; tout s'affaiblit en s'adoucissant. Ingeneral, themore civilized and refinedthepeople, the less poetic are its morals; everything weakens as it mellows.
Un homme qui lit, ou qui pense, ou qui calcule, appartient a' l'espe' ce et non au sexe; dans ses meilleurs moments, il e chappe me" me a' l'humain. A person who reads or thinks or calculates, belongs to a kind and not to a gender; in his or her best moments, he or she escapes being human.