often than the means.

244.--Sovereign ability consists in knowing the value of things.

245.--There is great ability in knowing how to conceal one's ability.

["You have accomplished a great stroke in diplomacy when you have made
others think that you have only very average abilities."--La Bruyere.]

246.--What seems generosity is often disguised ambition, that despises
small to run after greater interest.

247.--The fidelity of most men is merely an invention of self-love
to win confidence; a method to place us above others and to render us
depositaries of the most important matters.

248.--Magnanimity despises all, to win all.

249.--There is no less eloquence in the voice, in the eyes and in the
air of a speaker than in his choice of words.

250.--True eloquence consists in saying all that should be, not all that
could be said.

251.--There are people whose faults become them, others whose very
virtues disgrace them.

["There are faults which do him honour, and virtues that disgrace
him."--Junius, Letter Of 28th May, 1770.]

252.--It is as common to change one's tastes, as it is uncommon to
change one's inclinations.

253.--Interest sets at work all sorts of virtues and vices.

254.--Humility is often a feigned submission which we employ to supplant
others. It is one of the devices of Pride to lower us to raise us; and
truly pride transforms itself in a thousand ways, and is never so well
disguised and more able to deceive than when it hides itself under the
form of humility.

["Grave and plausible enough to be thought fit for business."--Junius,
Letter To The Duke Of Grafton.

"He saw a cottage with a double coach-house, A cottage of gentility,
And the devil was pleased, for his darling sin Is the pride that apes
humility." Southey, Devil's Walk.]

{There are numerous corrections necessary for this quotation; I will
keep the original above so you can compare the correct passages:

"He passed a cottage with a double coach-house, A cottage of gentility,
And he owned with a grin, That his favourite sin Is pride that apes
humility." --Southey, Devil's Walk, Stanza 8.

"And the devil did grin, for his darling sin Is pride that apes
humility." --Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Devil's Thoughts}

255.--All feelings have their peculiar tone of voice, gestures and
looks, and this harmony, as it is good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant,
makes people agreeable or disagreeable.

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