d bleed, and die beneath its tawdry flag.

Ay, ay, vanity is truly the motive-power that moves humanity, and it
is flattery that greases the wheels. If you want to win affection and
respect in this world, you must flatter people. Flatter high and low,
and rich and poor, and silly and wise. You will get on famously. Praise
this man's virtues and that man's vices. Compliment everybody upon
everything, and especially upon what they haven't got. Admire guys for
their beauty, fools for their wit, and boors for their breeding. Your
discernment and intelligence will be extolled to the skies.

Every one can be got over by flattery. The belted earl--"belted earl" is
the correct phrase, I believe. I don't know what it means, unless it be
an earl that wears a belt instead of braces. Some men do. I don't like
it myself. You have to keep the thing so tight for it to be of any use,
and that is uncomfortable. Anyhow, whatever particular kind of an earl
a belted earl may be, he is, I assert, get-overable by flattery; just as
every other human being is, from a duchess to a cat's-meat man, from a
plow boy to a poet--and the poet far easier than the plowboy, for butter
sinks better into wheaten bread than into oaten cakes.

As for love, flattery is its very life-blood. Fill a person with love
for themselves, and what runs over will be your share, says a certain
witty and truthful Frenchman whose name I can't for the life of me
remember. (Confound it! I never can remember names when I want to.) Tell
a girl she is an angel, only more angelic than an angel; that she is
a goddess, only more graceful, queenly, and heavenly than the average
goddess; that she is more fairy-like than Titania, more beautiful than
Venus, more enchanting than Parthenope; more adorable, lovely, and
radiant, in short, than any other woman that ever did live, does live,
or could live, and you will make a very favorable impression upon her
trusting little heart. Sweet innocent! she will believe every word you
say. It is so easy to deceive a woman--in this way.

Dear little souls, they hate flattery, so they tell you; and when you
say, "Ah, darling, it isn't flattery in your case, it's plain, sober
truth; you really are, without exaggeration, the most beautiful, the
most good, the most charming, the most divine, the most perfect human
creature that ever trod this earth," they will smile a quiet, approving
smile, and, leaning against your manly shoulder, murmur that you