y; nor labor, as many
people do, to give that turn to the conversation, which may supply you
with an opportunity of exhibiting them. If they are real, they will
infallibly be discovered, without your pointing them out yourself, and
with much more advantage. Never maintain an argument with heat and
clamor, though you think or know yourself to be in the right: but give
your opinion modestly and coolly, which is the only way to convince; and,
if that does not do, try to change the conversation, by saying, with good
humor, "We shall hardly convince one another, nor is it necessary that we
should, so let us talk of something else."

Remember that there is a local propriety to be observed in all companies;
and that what is extremely proper in one company, may be, and often is,
highly improper in another.

The jokes, the 'bonmots,' the little adventures, which may do very well
in one company, will seem flat and tedious, when related in another. The
particular characters, the habits, the cant of one company, may give
merit to a word, or a gesture, which would have none at all if divested
of those accidental circumstances. Here people very commonly err; and
fond of something that has entertained them in one company, and in
certain circumstances, repeat it with emphasis in another, where it is
either insipid, or, it may be, offensive, by being ill-timed or
misplaced. Nay, they often do it with this silly preamble; "I will tell
you an excellent thing"; or, "I will tell you the best thing in the
world." This raises expectations, which, when absolutely disappointed,
make the relater of this excellent thing look, very deservedly, like a
fool.

If you would particularly gain the affection and friendship of particular
people, whether men or women, endeavor to find out the predominant
excellency, if they have one, and their prevailing weakness, which
everybody has; and do justice to the one, and something more than justice
to the other. Men have various objects in which they may excel, or at
least would be thought to excel; and, though they love to hear justice
done to them, where they know that they excel, yet they are most and best
flattered upon those points where they wish to excel, and yet are
doubtful whether they do or not. As, for example, Cardinal Richelieu, who
was undoubtedly the ablest statesman of his time, or perhaps of any
other, had the idle vanity of being thought the best poet too; he envied
the great Corneille his