upon your own subject, neither envy, indignation, nor
ridicule, will obstruct or allay the applause which you may really
deserve; but if you publish your own panegyric upon any occasion, or in
any shape whatsoever, and however artfully dressed or disguised, they
will all conspire against you, and you will be disappointed of the very
end you aim at.

Take care never to seem dark and mysterious; which is not only a very
unamiable character, but a very suspicious one too; if you seem
mysterious with others, they will be really so with you, and you will
know nothing. The height of abilities is to have 'volto sciolto' and
'pensieri stretti'; that is, a frank, open, and ingenuous exterior, with
a prudent interior; to be upon your own guard, and yet, by a seeming
natural openness, to put people off theirs. Depend upon it nine in ten of
every company you are in will avail themselves of every indiscreet and
unguarded expression of yours, if they can turn it to their own
advantage. A prudent reserve is therefore as necessary as a seeming
openness is prudent. Always look people in the face when you speak to
them: the not doing it is thought to imply conscious guilt; besides that
you lose the advantage of serving by their countenances what impression
your discourse makes upon them. In order to know people's real
sentiments, I trust much more to my eyes than to my ears: for they can
say whatever they have a mind I should hear; but they can seldom help
looking, what they have no intention that I should know.

Neither retail nor receive scandal willingly; defamation of others may
for the present gratify the malignity of the pride of our hearts; cool
reflection will draw very disadvantageous conclusions from such a
disposition; and in the case of scandal, as in that of robbery, the
receiver is always thought, as bad as the thief.

Mimicry, which is the common and favorite amusement of little low minds,
is in the utmost contempt with great ones. It is the lowest and most
illiberal of all buffoonery. Pray, neither practice it yourself, nor
applaud it in others. Besides that the person mimicked is insulted; and,
as I have often observed to you before, an insult is never forgiven.

I need not (I believe) advise you to adapt your conversation to the
people you are conversing with: for I suppose you would not, without this
caution, have talked upon the same subject, and in the same manner, to a
minister of state, a bishop, a philosopher,