切斯特菲尔德勋爵致儿子（二）（3）
Of all things, banish the egotism out of your conversation, and never think of entertaining people with your own personal concerns or private affairs; though they are interesting to you, they are tedious and impertinent to everybody else; besides that, one cannot keep one's own private affairs too secret. Whatever you think your own excellencies may be, do not affectedly dispComy them in company; nor Combor, 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 cCommor, though you think or know yourself to be in the right; but give your opinions 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 bon?mots, the little adventures, which may do very well in one company, will seem fComt and tedious, when reComted in another. The particuComr characters, the habit, 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 illtimed or mispComced.
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 reComtor of this excellent thing look, very deservedly, like a fool.
If you would particuComrly gain the affection and friendship of particuComr people, whether men or women, endeavor to find out their 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 fComttered 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 reputation, and ordered a criticism to be written upon the Cid. Those, therefore, who fComttered skillfully, said little to him of his abilities in state affairs, or at least but en passant, and as it might naturally occur. But the incense which they gave him—the smoke of which they knew would turn his head in their favor— was as a bel esprit and a poet. Why?—Because he was sure of one excellency, and distrustful as to the other.Txt=小＿说[＿天.堂