The Good Book (112 page)

17. That men were but men then as well as now; that modes and customs vary often, but that human nature is always the same.

18. And I can no more suppose that men were better, braver or wiser, fifteen hundred or three thousand years ago,

19. Than I can suppose that the animals or vegetables were better then than they are now.

20. Use and assert your own reason; reflect, examine and analyse everything, in order to form a sound and mature judgement;

21. Let no authority impose upon your understanding, mislead your actions or dictate your conversation.

22. Be early what, if you are not, you will when too late wish you had been.

23. Consult your reason betimes: I do not say that it will always prove an unerring guide; for human reason is not infallible; but it will prove the least erring guide that you can follow.

24. Books and conversation may assist it; but adopt neither blindly and implicitly; try both by that best guide, reason.

25. Of all the troubles, do not avoid, as many people do, the trouble of thinking: it is the best and most useful trouble in the world.

26. The herd of mankind can hardly be said to think; their notions are almost all adoptive; and, in general, I believe it is better that it should be so,

27. As such common prejudices contribute more to order and quiet than their own separate reasonings would do, uncultivated and unimproved as they are.

Epistle 5

  1. The day, if well employed, is long enough for everything.

  2. One half of it, bestowed upon your studies and your exercises, will finish your mind and your body;

  3. The remaining part of it, spent in good company, will form your manners and complete your character.

  4. What would I not give to have you read Demosthenes critically in the morning, and understand him better than anybody;

  5. At noon, behave yourself better than any person at court;

  6. And in the evening, trifle more agreeably than anybody in mixed companies?

  7. All this you may do if you please; you have the means, you have the opportunities.

  8. Employ them while you may, and make yourself that all-accomplished man that I wish to have you.

Epistle 6

  1. In order to judge of the inside of others, study your own; for men in general are very much alike;

  2. And though one has one prevailing passion, and another has another, yet their operations are much the same;

  3. And whatever engages or disgusts, pleases or offends you, in others will engage, disgust, please or offend others, in you.

  4. Observe with the utmost attention all the operations of your own mind, the nature of your passions, and the various motives that determine your will;

  5. And you may, in a great degree, know all mankind.

  6. For instance, do you find yourself hurt and mortified when another makes you feel his superiority, and your own inferiority, in knowledge, parts, rank or fortune?

  7. You will certainly take great care not to make a person whose goodwill, good word, interest, esteem or friendship you would gain, feel that superiority in you, if you have it.

  8. If disagreeable insinuations, sneers or repeated contradictions tease and irritate you, would you use them where you wish to engage and please?

  9. Surely not, and I hope you wish to engage and please, almost universally.

10. The temptation of saying a smart and witty thing, and the malicious applause with which it is commonly received, has made more enemies for people who can say them,

11. And, still oftener, people who think they can, but cannot, and yet try;

12. Not only does this make enemies, but it makes implacable ones, and is the surest way to enmity than anything else I know of.

13. If such things shall happen to be said at your expense, reflect seriously upon the sentiments of anger and resentment which they excite in you;

14. And consider whether it can be prudent, by the same means, to excite the same sentiments in others against you.

15. It is a decided folly to lose a friend for a jest; but, in my mind, it is not much less folly to make an enemy of an indifferent and neutral person for the sake of a facetious remark.

16. When things of this kind are said of you, the most prudent way is to seem not to suppose that they are meant of you,

17. But to dissemble and conceal whatever degree of anger you may feel inwardly;

18. But, should they be so plain that you cannot be supposed ignorant of their meaning,

19. Join in the laugh of the company against yourself; acknowledge the hit to be a fair one, and the jest good, and play it off in seeming good humour;

20. But by no means reply in the same way; which only shows that you are hurt, and publishes the victory which you might have concealed.

21. Should the thing said indeed injure your honour or moral character, there is but one proper reply, which I hope you never will have occasion to make.

Epistle 7

  1. Consider, therefore, how precious every moment of time is to you now.

  2. The more you apply to your business, the more you will taste your pleasures.

  3. The exercise of the mind in the morning whets the appetite for the pleasures of the evening,

  4. As much as the exercise of the body whets the appetite for dinner.

  5. Business and pleasure, rightly understood, mutually assist each other, instead of being enemies, as silly or dull people often think them.

  6. No man tastes pleasures truly, who does not earn them by previous business,

  7. And few people do business well, who do nothing else.

  8. Thus work and pleasure are friends and helpers to each other, and relieve and sweeten each other.

  9. Remember that when I speak of pleasures, I always mean the pleasures of a rational being, and not the brutal ones of a swine.

10. I mean good food, not gluttony; good wine, far short of drunkenness;

11. Pleasant play, without the least gaming; and gallantry, without debauchery.

12. There is a line in all these things which men of sense, for greater security, take care to keep a good deal on the right side of;

13. For sickness, pain, contempt and infamy lie immediately on the other side of that line.

14. Men of sense and merit, in all other respects, may have had some of these failings;

15. But those few examples, instead of inviting us to imitation, should only put us the more upon our guard against weaknesses.

Epistle 8

  1. To reflect upon people, their nature, their characters, their manners, will help you to form yourself, as well to know others.

  2. It seems as if it were nobody’s business to communicate such knowledge to the young.

  3. Their masters teach them the languages or the sciences, but are generally incapable of teaching them the world:

  4. Their parents likewise seem incapable, or at least neglect doing it,

  5. Either from indifference, or from being too busy, or from an opinion that merely throwing them into the world is the best way of teaching it to them.

  6. This last notion is in a great degree true; that is, the world can doubtless never be well known by theory: practice is absolutely necessary;

  7. But surely it is of great use to the young, before they set out for that country full of mazes, windings and turnings,

  8. To have at least a general map of it, made by some experienced traveller.

Epistle 9

  1. A certain dignity of manners is absolutely necessary, to make even the most valuable character either respected or respectable.

  2. Horse-play, romping, frequent and loud fits of laughter, jokes, waggery and indiscriminate familiarity will sink both merit and knowledge into a degree of contempt.

  3. They compose at most a merry fellow; and a merry fellow was never yet a respectable man.

  4. Indiscriminate familiarity either offends your superiors, or else makes you their dependant and follower.

  5. It gives your inferiors just, but troublesome and improper, claims of equality.

  6. A joker is near akin to a buffoon; and neither of them is the least related to wit.

  7. Whoever is admitted or sought for in company upon any other account than that of merit and manners, is never respected there,

  8. But only made use of: ‘We will have such a one,’ people say, ‘for he sings prettily; we will invite such a one to a ball, for he dances well;

  9. ‘We will have such a one at supper, for he is always joking and laughing; we will ask another, because he drinks a great deal.’

10. These are all vilifying distinctions, mortifying preferences, and exclude all ideas of esteem and regard.

11. Whoever is invited into company for the sake of any one thing singly, is singly that thing and will never be considered in any other light;

12. Consequently he is never respected for himself, let his merits be what they will.

13. This dignity of manners, which I recommend so strongly to you, is not pride: far from it.

14. It is not only as different from pride as true courage is from blustering,

15. Or true wit from joking; but is absolutely inconsistent with it; for nothing vilifies and degrades more than pride.

16. The pretensions of the proud man are more often met with contempt than with indignation;

17. As we offer ridiculously too little to a tradesman who asks ridiculously too much for his goods;

18. But we do not haggle with one who only asks a just and reasonable price.

19. Abject flattery and indiscriminate agreement degrade as much as indiscriminate contradiction and contrariness disgust.

20. But a modest assertion of one’s own opinion, and a complaisant acquiescence to other people’s, preserve dignity.

21. Vulgar expressions and awkward movements attract dislike, as they imply a low turn of mind, a low education and low company.

22. Frivolous curiosity about trifles, and a laborious attention to little objects which neither require nor deserve a moment’s thought, lower a man; who from thence is thought incapable of greater matters.

23. One man very sagaciously marked out another for a little mind, from the moment that the latter told him he had used the same pen three years, and that it was still good.

Epistle 10

  1. My son, a certain degree of exterior seriousness in looks and motions gives dignity,

  2. Without excluding wit and decent cheerfulness, which are always serious themselves.

  3. A constant smirk upon the face, and restlessness of the body, are strong indications of futility.

  4. Whoever is in a hurry, shows that the thing he is about is too big for him. Haste and hurry are very different things.

  5. I have only mentioned some of those things which may, and do, in the opinion of the world, lower and sink characters, in other respects valuable enough;

  6. But I have taken no notice of those that affect and sink the moral characters. These latter are sufficiently obvious.

  7. A man who has patiently been kicked may as well pretend to courage, as a man blasted by vices and crimes may pretend to dignity of any kind.

  8. But an exterior decency and dignity of manners will keep even such a man longer from sinking, than otherwise he would be.

  9. Pray read frequently, and with the utmost attention, even learn by heart, that incomparable chapter in Cicero’s
Offices
, upon decorum. It contains whatever is necessary for the dignity of manners.

10. A vulgar, ordinary way of thinking, acting or speaking implies a low education, and a habit of low company.

11. Young people contract it at school, or on the street, if they are too often used to converse there;

12. But if they are to frequent good company, they need attention and observation very much, if they are to lay bad habits aside;

13. And, indeed, if they do not, good company will be very apt to lay them aside.

14. The various kinds of vulgarisms are infinite; some samples may help one guess at the rest.

15. A vulgar man is captious and jealous, eager and impetuous about trifles.

16. He suspects himself to be slighted, thinks everything that is said is meant at him:

17. If the company happens to laugh, he is persuaded they laugh at him;

18. He grows angry and testy, says something very impertinent, and draws himself into a scrape,

19. By showing what he likes to call a strong character, and asserting himself.

20. A sensible man, by contrast, does not suppose himself to be either the sole or principal object of the thoughts, looks or words of the company;