The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [333]
9. But then he has sense enough to maintain an outward air of modesty to all he does.
10. This engages and prevails, while the very same things shock and fail, from the overbearing or impudent manner only of doing them.
11. For there are some people who have great qualities whom one cannot, even when praising them, love.
12. How often have I, in the course of my life, found myself in this situation, with regard to many of my acquaintance,
13. Whom I have honoured and respected, without being able to like them.
14. I did not then know why, because, when one is young, one does not take the trouble,
15. Nor allow one’s self the time, to analyse one’s sentiments and to trace them up to their source.
16. But subsequent observation and reflection have taught me why.
17. There is a man whose moral character, deep learning and superior parts I acknowledge, admire and respect;
18. But whom it is so impossible for me to like that I am almost in a fever whenever I am in his company.
19. His figure, without being deformed, seems made to disgrace or ridicule the common structure of the human body.
20. His legs and arms are never in the position which, according to the situation of his body, they ought to be in,
21. But constantly employed in committing acts of hostility upon the graces.
22. He throws anywhere but down his throat whatever he means to drink, and only mangles what he means to carve.
23. Inattentive to all the regards of social life, he mistimes or misplaces everything.
24. He disputes with heat, and indiscriminately, mindless of the rank, character and situation of those with whom he disputes;
25. Absolutely ignorant of the several gradations of familiarity or respect, he is exactly the same to his superiors, his equals and his inferiors;
26. And therefore, by a necessary consequence, absurd to two of the three.
27. Is it possible to like such a man? No. The utmost I can do for him is to consider him as a respectable savage.
Epistle 19
1. I mentioned to you some time ago a sentence which I would most earnestly wish you always to retain in your thoughts, and observe in your conduct.
2. It is suaviter in modo, fortiter in re; ‘gentleness of manner, with firmness of mind’.
3. I do not know any one rule so unexceptionably useful and necessary in every part of life.
4. I shall therefore take it for my text today, and as old men love preaching, and I have some right to lecture to you, I here present you with my discourse upon these words.
5. To proceed, then, regularly, I will first show you the necessary connection of the two parts of my text.
6. Next, I shall set forth the advantages and utility resulting from a strict observance of the precept contained in my text;
7. And conclude with an application of the whole. The ‘gentleness of manner’ alone would degenerate into a mean, timid complaisance and passivity,
8. If not supported and dignified by the ‘firmness of mind’, which in its turn would run into impetuosity and brutality, if not tempered and softened by the ‘gentleness of manner’:
9. Yet in the world these two qualities are seldom united.
10. The warm, choleric man, with strong animal appetites, despises the ‘gentleness of manner’,
11. And thinks to carry all before him by the ‘firmness of mind’. He may, possibly, now and then succeed, when he has only weak and timid people to deal with;
12. But his general fate will be to shock, offend, be disliked and fail.
13. On the other hand, the cunning, crafty man thinks to gain all his ends by the ‘gentleness of manner’ only;
14. He becomes all things to all men; he seems to have no opinion of his own, and servilely adopts the present opinion of the present person;
15. He insinuates himself only into the esteem of fools, but is soon detected, and surely despised by everybody else.
16. The wise man, who differs as much from the cunning as from the choleric man, alone joins the ‘gentleness of manner’ to the ‘firmness of mind’.
17. Now to the advantages arising from the strict observance