Symonds, John Addington, 1840-1893 / 2008-11-19 00:00:00
Collections were
made of his apophthegms by friends, and some are recorded by his
anonymous biographer.[5] Their finer perfume, as almost always happens
with good sayings which do not certain the full pith of a proverb, but
owe their force, in part at least, to the personality of their author,
and to the happy moment of their production, has evanesced. Here,
however, is one which seems still to bear the impress of Alberti's
genius: 'Gold is the soul of labour, and labour the slave of
pleasure.' Of women he used to say that their inconstancy was an
antidote to their falseness; for if a woman could but persevere in
what she undertook, all the fair works of men would be ruined. One of
his strongest moral sentences is aimed at envy, from which he suffered
much in his own life, and against which he guarded with a curious
amount of caution. His own family grudged the distinction which his
talents gained for him, and a dark story is told of a secret attempt
made by them to assassinate him through his servants.
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