Contrarily,
if a man desires to be absolutely uncommon, in other words, great, he
should never allow his consciousness to be taken possession of
and dominated by the movement of his will, however much he may be
solicited thereto. For example, he must be able to observe that other
people are badly disposed towards him, without feeling any hatred
towards them himself; nay, there is no surer sign of a great mind than
that it refuses to notice annoying and insulting expressions, but
straightway ascribes them, as it ascribes countless other mistakes, to
the defective knowledge of the speaker, and so merely observes without
feeling them. This is the meaning of that remark of Gracian, that
nothing is more unworthy of a man than to let it be seen that he is
one--_el mayor desdoro de un hombre es dar muestras de que es hombre_.
And even in the drama, which is the peculiar province of the passions
and emotions, it is easy for them to appear common and vulgar. And
this is specially observable in the works of the French tragic
writers, who set no other aim before themselves but the delineation
of the passions; and by indulging at one moment in a vaporous kind
of pathos which makes them ridiculous, at another in epigrammatic
witticisms, endeavor to conceal the vulgarity of their subject.
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