The Good Book

by A. C. Grayling

  6. For instance, do you find yourself hurt and mortified when another makes you feel his superiority, and your own inferiority, in knowledge, parts, rank or fortune?

  7. You will certainly take great care not to make a person whose goodwill, good word, interest, esteem or friendship you would gain, feel that superiority in you, if you have it.

  8. If disagreeable insinuations, sneers or repeated contradictions tease and irritate you, would you use them where you wish to engage and please?

  9. Surely not, and I hope you wish to engage and please, almost universally.

  10. The temptation of saying a smart and witty thing, and the malicious applause with which it is commonly received, has made more enemies for people who can say them,

  11. And, still oftener, people who think they can, but cannot, and yet try;

  12. Not only does this make enemies, but it makes implacable ones, and is the surest way to enmity than anything else I know of.

  13. If such things shall happen to be said at your expense, reflect seriously upon the sentiments of anger and resentment which they excite in you;

  14. And consider whether it can be prudent, by the same means, to excite the same sentiments in others against you.

  15. It is a decided folly to lose a friend for a jest; but, in my mind, it is not much less folly to make an enemy of an indifferent and neutral person for the sake of a facetious remark.

  16. When things of this kind are said of you, the most prudent way is to seem not to suppose that they are meant of you,

  17. But to dissemble and conceal whatever degree of anger you may feel inwardly;

  18. But, should they be so plain that you cannot be supposed ignorant of their meaning,

  19. Join in the laugh of the company against yourself; acknowledge the hit to be a fair one, and the jest good, and play it off in seeming good humour;

  20. But by no means reply in the same way; which only shows that you are hurt, and publishes the victory which you might have concealed.

  21. Should the thing said indeed injure your honour or moral character, there is but one proper reply, which I hope you never will have occasion to make.

  Epistle 7

  1. Consider, therefore, how precious every moment of time is to you now.

  2. The more you apply to your business, the more you will taste your pleasures.

  3. The exercise of the mind in the morning whets the appetite for the pleasures of the evening,

  4. As much as the exercise of the body whets the appetite for dinner.

  5. Business and pleasure, rightly understood, mutually assist each other, instead of being enemies, as silly or dull people often think them.

  6. No man tastes pleasures truly, who does not earn them by previous business,

  7. And few people do business well, who do nothing else.

  8. Thus work and pleasure are friends and helpers to each other, and relieve and sweeten each other.

  9. Remember that when I speak of pleasures, I always mean the pleasures of a rational being, and not the brutal ones of a swine.

  10. I mean good food, not gluttony; good wine, far short of drunkenness;

  11. Pleasant play, without the least gaming; and gallantry, without debauchery.

  12. There is a line in all these things which men of sense, for greater security, take care to keep a good deal on the right side of;

  13. For sickness, pain, contempt and infamy lie immediately on the other side of that line.

  14. Men of sense and merit, in all other respects, may have had some of these failings;

  15. But those few examples, instead of inviting us to imitation, should only put us the more upon our guard against weaknesses.

  Epistle 8

  1. To reflect upon people, their nature, their characters, their manners, will help you to form yourself, as well to know others.

  2. It seems as if it were nobody’s business to communicate such knowledge to the young.

  3. Their masters teach them the languages or the sciences, but are generally incapable of teaching them the world:

  4. Their parents likewise seem incapable, or at least neglect doing it,

  5. Either from indifference, or from being too busy, or from an opinion that merely throwing them into the world is the best way of teaching it to them.

  6. This last notion is in a great degree true; that is, the world can doubtless never be well known by theory: practice is absolutely necessary;

  7. But surely it is of great use to the young, before they set out for that country full of mazes, windings and turnings,

  8. To have at least a general map of it, made by some experienced traveller.

  Epistle 9

  1. A certain dignity of manners is absolutely necessary, to make even the most valuable character either respected or respectable.

  2. Horse-play, romping, frequent and loud fits of laughter, jokes, waggery and indiscriminate familiarity will sink both merit and knowledge into a degree of contempt.

  3. They compose at most a merry fellow; and a merry fellow was never yet a respectable man.

  4. Indiscriminate familiarity either offends your superiors, or else makes you their dependant and follower.

  5. It gives your inferiors just, but troublesome and improper, claims of equality.

  6. A joker is near akin to a buffoon; and neither of them is the least related to wit.

  7. Whoever is admitted or sought for in company upon any other account than that of merit and manners, is never respected there,

  8. But only made use of: ‘We will have such a one,’ people say, ‘for he sings prettily; we will invite such a one to a ball, for he dances well;

  9. ‘We will have such a one at supper, for he is always joking and laughing; we will ask another, because he drinks a great deal.’

  10. These are all vilifying distinctions, mortifying preferences, and exclude all ideas of esteem and regard.

  11. Whoever is invited into company for the sake of any one thing singly, is singly that thing and will never be considered in any other light;

  12. Consequently he is never respected for himself, let his merits be what they will.

  13. This dignity of manners, which I recommend so strongly to you, is not pride: far from it.

  14. It is not only as different from pride as true courage is from blustering,

  15. Or true wit from joking; but is absolutely inconsistent with it; for nothing vilifies and degrades more than pride.

  16. The pretensions of the proud man are more often met with contempt than with indignation;

  17. As we offer ridiculously too little to a tradesman who asks ridiculously too much for his goods;

  18. But we do not haggle with one who only asks a just and reasonable price.

  19. Abject flattery and indiscriminate agreement degrade as much as indiscriminate contradiction and contrariness disgust.

  20. But a modest assertion of one’s own opinion, and a complaisant acquiescence to other people’s, preserve dignity.

  21. Vulgar expressions and awkward movements attract dislike, as they imply a low turn of mind, a low education and low company.

  22. 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 incapable of greater matters.

  23. One man very sagaciously marked out another for a little mind, from the moment that the latter told him he had used the same pen three years, and that it was still good.

  Epistle 10

  1. My son, a certain degree of exterior seriousness in looks and motions gives dignity,

  2. Without excluding wit and decent cheerfulness, which are always serious themselves.

  3. A constant smirk upon the face, and restlessness of the body, are strong indications of futility.

  4. Whoever is in a hurry, shows that the thing he is about is too big for him. Haste and hurry are very different things.

  5. I have onl
y mentioned some of those things which may, and do, in the opinion of the world, lower and sink characters, in other respects valuable enough;

  6. But I have taken no notice of those that affect and sink the moral characters. These latter are sufficiently obvious.

  7. A man who has patiently been kicked may as well pretend to courage, as a man blasted by vices and crimes may pretend to dignity of any kind.

  8. But an exterior decency and dignity of manners will keep even such a man longer from sinking, than otherwise he would be.

  9. Pray read frequently, and with the utmost attention, even learn by heart, that incomparable chapter in Cicero’s Offices, upon decorum. It contains whatever is necessary for the dignity of manners.

  10. A vulgar, ordinary way of thinking, acting or speaking implies a low education, and a habit of low company.

  11. Young people contract it at school, or on the street, if they are too often used to converse there;

  12. But if they are to frequent good company, they need attention and observation very much, if they are to lay bad habits aside;

  13. And, indeed, if they do not, good company will be very apt to lay them aside.

  14. The various kinds of vulgarisms are infinite; some samples may help one guess at the rest.

  15. A vulgar man is captious and jealous, eager and impetuous about trifles.

  16. He suspects himself to be slighted, thinks everything that is said is meant at him:

  17. If the company happens to laugh, he is persuaded they laugh at him;

  18. He grows angry and testy, says something very impertinent, and draws himself into a scrape,

  19. By showing what he likes to call a strong character, and asserting himself.

  20. A sensible man, by contrast, does not suppose himself to be either the sole or principal object of the thoughts, looks or words of the company;

  21. And never suspects that he is either slighted or laughed at, unless he is conscious that he deserves it.

  22. And if, which very seldom happens, the company is absurd or ill-bred enough to do either, he does not care,

  23. Unless the insult be so gross and plain as to require satisfaction of another kind.

  24. As he is above trifles, he is never vehement and eager about them; and, wherever they are concerned, rather acquiesces than wrangles.

  25. A vulgar man’s conversation always savours strongly of the lowness of his education and company.

  26. It turns chiefly upon his domestic affairs, daily work, the excellent order he keeps in his own family and the little anecdotes of the neighbourhood;

  27. All which he relates with emphasis, as interesting matters. He is a man of gossip.

  28. Vulgarism in language is the next and distinguishing characteristic of bad company and a bad education.

  29. A reflective man avoids nothing with more care than platitude.

  30. Proverbial expressions and trite sayings are the rhetorical flowers of the vulgar man.

  31. Would he say that men differ in their tastes, he both supports and adorns that opinion by a good old saying, as he respectfully calls it, that ‘one man’s meat is another man’s poison’.

  32. If anybody attempts to ‘get smart’ with him, as he calls it, he gives them ‘tit for tat’ – aye, that he does.

  33. He has always some favourite word for the time being; which, for the sake of using often, he commonly abuses,

  34. Such as ‘vastly’ angry, ‘vastly’ kind, ‘vastly’ handsome and ‘vastly’ ugly.

  35. He sometimes affects hard words, by way of ornament, which he always mangles.

  36. An educated man never has recourse to proverbs and vulgar aphorisms; he uses neither favourite words nor hard words;

  37. But takes care to use the instrument of language well.

  38. Graces of manner and speech are as necessary to adorn and introduce a person’s intrinsic merit, as the polish is to the diamond;

  39. Which, without that polish, would never be worn, whatever it might weigh.

  Epistle 11

  1. I have often asserted, my son, that the profoundest learning and the politest manners were by no means incompatible, though seldom united in the same person.

  2. Every rational being, I take it for granted, proposes to himself some object more important than mere respiration and obscure animal existence.

  3. He desires to distinguish himself among his fellow-creatures. Pliny leaves mankind only this alternative:

  4. Either of doing what deserves to be written about, or of writing what deserves to be read.

  5. You have, I am convinced, one or both of these objects in view; but you must know and use the necessary means, or your pursuit will be vain.

  6. In either case, knowledge is the principle and basis, but it is by no means all.

  7. That knowledge must be adorned, it must have lustre as well as weight, or it will be oftener taken for lead than for gold.

  8. Knowledge you have, and will have: I am easy upon that point. But my business, as your friend, is not to compliment you upon what you have, but to tell you what you lack;

  9. And I must tell you plainly that I fear you lack everything other than knowledge.

  10. And by this, my dear son, I mean that what you must next acquire is manners.

  11. It has been well said that one would be virtuous for one’s own sake, though nobody were to know it; as one would be clean for one’s own sake, though nobody else were by.

  12. I have therefore, since you have had the use of your reason, never written to you upon the subject of vice:

  13. It speaks best for itself; and I should now just as soon think of warning you gravely not to fall into the dirt or the fire, as into dishonour.

  14. But the requisite next to good morals is good manners, and they are as necessary as they are desirable.

  15. Good manners are, to particular societies, what good morals are to society in general: their cement and their security.

  16. And, as laws are enacted to enforce good morals, or at least to prevent the ill effects of bad ones,

  17. So there are certain rules of civility, universally implied and received, to enforce good manners and punish bad ones.

  18. And, indeed, there seems to me less difference between morals and manners, and both the crimes and the punishments involving either, than at first one would imagine.

  19. The immoral man, who invades another man’s property, is justly punished for it; and the ill-bred man, who, by his ill manners, invades and disturbs the quiet and comforts of private life, is by common consent as justly punished by banishment from society.

  20. Mutual complaisances, attentions and sacrifices of little conveniences are as natural an implied compact between civilised people, as protection and obedience are between a state and its citizens;

  21. Whoever, in either case, violates that compact, justly forfeits the advantages arising from it.

  22. For my own part, I really think that next to the consciousness of doing a good action, that of doing a civil one is the most pleasing;

  23. And the description which I should covet the most, next to that of being honest and true, is that of being well-bred.

  24. Accordingly one might note these axioms: that the deepest learning, without good breeding, is unwelcome and tiresome pedantry,

  25. And as that is of use nowhere but in a man’s own study, it is consequently of little or no use at all;

  26. That a man who is not well-bred is unfit for good company and unwelcome in it;

  27. He will consequently dislike it soon, and afterwards renounce it, or be renounced by it,

  28. And be thus reduced to solitude, or, what is worse, to low and bad company.

  29. And finally, that a man who is not well-bred is as unfit for business as for company.

  30. Make good breeding, then, an object of study. You will negotiate with very little success, if you do not previously, by your manners, conciliate and engage the affections of those with
whom you negotiate.

  31. Can you ever get into good relations with others, if you have not those pleasing manners, which alone can establish them?

  32. I do not say too much, when I say that good manners and gentle address are essential for the good life.

  33. For your knowledge will have very little influence upon others’ minds, if your manners prejudice their hearts against you;

  34. But, on the other hand, how easily will you engage the understanding, where you have first engaged the heart?

  Epistle 12

  1. My dear son, those who suppose that men in general act rationally, because they are called rational creatures, know very little of the world,

  2. And if they act themselves upon that supposition, will nine times in ten find themselves grossly mistaken.

  3. Thus the speculative, cloistered pedant, in his solitary cell, forms systems of things as they should be, not as they are;

  4. And writes as decisively and absurdly upon war, politics, manners and characters, as that pedant talked, who was so kind as to instruct Hannibal in the art of war.

  5. Such closet politicians never fail to assign the deepest motives for the most trifling actions,

  6. Instead of often ascribing the greatest actions to the most trifling causes, in which they would be much seldomer mistaken.

  7. They read and write of kings, heroes and statesmen, as never doing anything but upon the deepest principles of sound policy.

  8. But those who see and observe kings, heroes and statesmen discover that they have headaches, indigestions, humours and passions, just like other people;

  9. Every one of which, in their turn, determine their wills, in defiance of their reason.

  10. Had we only read in the Life of Alexander that he burned Persepolis, it would doubtless have been accounted for from deep policy:

  11. We should have been told that his new conquest could not have been secured without the destruction of that capital,

  12. Which would have been the constant seat of cabals, conspiracies and revolts.

  13. But, luckily, we are informed at the same time that this hero, this paragon, happened to get extremely drunk with a courtesan;

  14. And, by way of frolic, destroyed one of the finest cities in the world.