[Footnote 1: that]
[Footnote 2: is]
[Footnotes 3: that]
* * * * *
No. 103. Thursday, June 28, 1711. Steele.
'... Sibi quivis
Speret idem frusta sudet frustraque laboret
Ausus idem ...'
Hor.
My Friend the Divine having been used with Words of Complaisance (which
he thinks could be properly applied to no one living, and I think could
be only spoken of him, and that in his Absence) was so extreamly
offended with the excessive way of speaking Civilities among us, that he
made a Discourse against it at the Club; which he concluded with this
Remark, That he had not heard one Compliment made in our Society since
its Commencement. Every one was pleased with his Conclusion; and as each
knew his good Will to the rest, he was convinced that the many
Professions of Kindness and Service, which we ordinarily meet with, are
not natural where the Heart is well inclined; but are a Prostitution of
Speech, seldom intended to mean Any Part of what they express, never to
mean All they express. Our Reverend Friend, upon this Topick, pointed to
us two or three Paragraphs on this Subject in the first Sermon of the
first Volume of the late Arch-Bishop's Posthumous Works. [1] I do not
know that I ever read any thing that pleased me more, and as it is the
Praise of _Longinus_, that he Speaks of the Sublime in a Style suitable
to it, so one may say of this Author upon Sincerity, that he abhors any
Pomp of Rhetorick on this Occasion, and treats it with a more than
ordinary Simplicity, at once to be a Preacher and an Example. With what
Command of himself does he lay before us, in the Language and Temper of
his Profession, a Fault, which by the least Liberty and Warmth of
Expression would be the most lively Wit and Satyr? But his Heart was
better disposed, and the good Man chastised the great Wit in such a
manner, that he was able to speak as follows.
'... Amongst too many other Instances of the great Corruption and
Degeneracy of the Age wherein we live, the great and general Want of
Sincerity in Conversation is none of the least. The World is grown so
full of Dissimulation and Compliment, that Mens Words are hardly any
Signification of their Thoughts; and if any Man measure his Words by
his Heart, and speak as he thinks, and do not express more Kindness to
every Man, than Men usually have for any Man, he can hardly escape the
Censure of want of Breeding. The old _English_ Plainness and
Sincerity, that generous Integrity of Nature, and Honesty of
Disposition, which always argues true Greatness of Mind and is usually
accompanied with undaunted Courage and Resolution, is in a great
measure lost amongst us: There hath been a long Endeavour to transform
us into Foreign Manners and Fashions, and to bring us to a servile
Imitation of none of the best of our Neighbours in some of the worst
of their Qualities. The Dialect of Conversation is now-a-days so
swelled with Vanity and Compliment, and so surfeited (as I may say) of
Expressions of Kindness and Respect, that if a Man that lived an Age
or two ago should return into the World again he would really want a
Dictionary to help him to understand his own Language, and to know the
true intrinsick Value of the Phrase in Fashion, and would hardly at
first believe at what a low Rate the highest Strains and Expressions
of Kindness imaginable do commonly pass in current Payment; and when
he should come to understand it, it would be a great while before he
could bring himself with a good Countenance and a good Conscience to
converse with Men upon equal Terms, and in their own way.
And in truth it is hard to say, whether it should more provoke our
Contempt or our Pity, to hear what solemn Expressions of Respect and
Kindness will pass between Men, almost upon no Occasion; how great
Honour and Esteem they will declare for one whom perhaps they never
saw before, and how entirely they are all on the sudden devoted to his
Service and Interest, for no Reason; how infinitely and eternally
obliged to him, for no Benefit; and how extreamly they will be
concerned for him, yea and afflicted too, for no Cause. I know it is
said, in Justification of this hollow kind of Conversation, that there
is no Harm, no real Deceit in Compliment, but the Matter is well
enough, so long as we understand one another; _et Verba valent ut
Nummi: Words are like Money_; and when the current Value of them is
generally understood, no Man is cheated by them. This is something, if
such Words were any thing; but being brought into the Account, they
are meer Cyphers. However, it is still a just Matter of Complaint,
that Sincerity and Plainness are out of Fashion, and that our Language
is running into a Lie; that Men have almost quite perverted the use of
Speech, and made Words to signifie nothing, that the greatest part of
the Conversation of Mankind is little else but driving a Trade of
Dissimulation; insomuch that it would make a Man heartily sick and
weary of the World, to see the little Sincerity that is in Use and
Practice among Men.
When the Vice is placed in this contemptible Light, he argues
unanswerably against it, in Words and Thoughts so natural, that any
Man who reads them would imagine he himself could have been the Author
of them.
If the Show of any thing be good for any thing, I am sure Sincerity is
better: for why does any Man dissemble, or seem to be that which he is
not, but because he thinks it good to have such a Quality as he
pretends to? For to counterfeit and dissemble, is to put on the
Appearance of some real Excellency. Now the best way in the World to
seem to be any thing, is really to be what he would seem to be.
Besides, that it is many times as troublesome to make good the
Pretence of a good Quality, as to have it; and if a Man have it not,
it is ten to one but he is discovered to want it; and then all his
Pains and Labour to seem to have it, is lost.
In another Part of the same Discourse he goes on to shew, that all
Artifice must naturally tend to the Disappointment of him that practises
it.
'Whatsoever Convenience may be thought to be in Falshood and
Dissimulation, it is soon over; but the Inconvenience of it is
perpetual, because it brings a Man under an everlasting Jealousie and
Suspicion, so that he is not believed when he speaks Truth, nor
trusted when perhaps he means honestly. When a Man hath once forfeited
the Reputation of his Integrity, he is set fast, and nothing will then
serve his Turn, neither Truth nor Falshood.'