_Affectation of Superiority._
LXXV. The different behaviour of some people at their first entrance
into a room, and after their coming to engage in conversation with
the company they find there, is very remarkable. At their first
coming in, if the people they meet happen not to be such as they are
pretty intimate with, they seem over and above complaisant, make most
respectful congées, are very hyperbolical in their professions of
attachment and esteem to every one they accost, and are very profuse
of their offers to oblige and serve them; but after a little while,
they begin to draw themselves up, to assume an air of gravity and
consequence, and in all their words and actions, to behave as if they
were vested with a senatorial, or legislative authority. Such a man
begins to array himself with a habit of importance, and to appear on
the theatre with an air of pomp and arrogance. He lays by the easy
sock, and assumes the buskin. His _sol fa_ which commenced in a low
tone in _e faut_, is raised in a very little time, to the highest note
in _g solre_. His political stature grows to a gigantic size, and he
begins to look down on all around him, and to treat all they say with
that scorn and disdain, which is generated by, and lineally descended
from rustic pride.
LXXVI. Treating on this subject, brings to my mind a story which Moreri
tells of Brunon, bishop of Langres, who in the beginning of one of
his pastoral letters stiles himself _humilis præsul_, and afterwards
in the body of it, assumes a majestic tone, and says, _nostram odiens
majestatem_. Those who behave in this manner, must certainly lie under
the delusion, that urbanity and modesty, were only calculated for
exordiums, prologues, and salutations at peoples first meeting.