always joking and
laughing; we will ask another, because he plays deep at all games, or
because he can drink a great deal. These are all vilifying distinctions,
mortifying preferences, and exclude all ideas of esteem and regard.
Whoever is HAD (as it is called) in company for the sake of any one thing
singly, is singly that thing and will never be considered in any other
light; consequently never respected, let his merits be what they will.

This dignity of manners, which I recommend so much to you, is not only as
different from pride, as true courage is from blustering, or true wit
from joking; but is absolutely inconsistent with it; for nothing vilifies
and degrades more than pride. The pretensions of the proud man are
oftener treated with sneer and contempt, than with indignation; as we
offer ridiculously too little to a tradesman, who asks ridiculously too
much for his goods; but we do not haggle with one who only asks a just
and reasonable price.

Abject flattery and indiscriminate assentation degrade as much as
indiscriminate contradiction and noisy debate disgust. But a modest
assertion of one's own opinion, and a complaisant acquiescence to other
people's, preserve dignity.

Vulgar, low expressions, awkward motions and address, vilify, as they
imply either a very low turn of mind, or low education and low company.

Frivolous curiosity about trifles, and a laborious attention to little
objects which neither require nor deserve a moment's thought, lower a
man; who from thence is thought (and not unjustly) incapable of greater
matters. Cardinal de Retz, very sagaciously, marked out Cardinal Chigi
for a little mind, from the moment that he told him he had wrote three
years with the same pen, and that it was an excellent good one still.

A certain degree of exterior seriousness in looks and motions gives
dignity, without excluding wit and decent cheerfulness, which are always
serious themselves. A constant smirk upon the face, and a whifing
activity of the body, are strong indications of futility. Whoever is in a
hurry, shows that the thing he is about is too big for him. Haste and
hurry are very different things.

I have only mentioned some of those things which may, and do, in the
opinion of the world, lower and sink characters, in other respects
valuable enough,--but I have taken no notice of those that affect and
sink the moral characters. They are sufficiently obvious. A man who has
patiently been kicked