The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [326]
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