When you travel in a stage-coach, make all the passengers, both inside
and outside, fully acquainted with your name, business, and objects in
travelling, before five minutes have elapsed. Among the rest, be sure
you give them to think you are a man of property, and the personal
friend of at least half-a-dozen nobles or members of parliament. If in
trade, inform them you have something very handsome in the three per
cents., and live on terms of perfect familiarity with the great Jew.
Honesty is the best and most profitable policy in the long run, but
there are a thousand exceptions to this rule in private practice.
Do no charity by stealth; it is never repaid in this world to any
advantage; do it openly, and there are chances of its returning cent per
cent.
You may keep a running horse, or two, though you are a magistrate sworn
to put down gambling: you need not bet upon the race-course yourself.
You may subscribe to Fishmongers' Hall, and go there without throwing
the dice. You may share the profits of a _roulette_ table, without
venturing your luck. It is strange that vulgar understandings cannot
discriminate in these matters!
When you have made up your mind finally to do any thing, ask the advice
of your friend about it. The act of consultation will please him, and
you will be none the worse.
Human happiness is more or less complete in a ratio with successful
pecuniary accumulation.
If you enter a drawing-room before dinner a little time too early, and
find yourself _vis-à-vis_ with an unlucky visiter as forlorn as
yourself, do not utter a word. The chances are, nine out of ten, he will
not speak first, that is, if he be a true Briton. Stare at him as hard
as you can.
If you meet a lady in society, old or young, married or single, who
equals you in argument, or rises superior to the thousand and one
automatons disgorged monthly from fashionable boarding-schools, report
her a _bas bleu_ to your male acquaintances, and warn her own sex
to shun her.
When you meet an inferior in a public street, it is your duty to cut
him, if any one who knows you is in sight. If you cannot escape a
recognition, do it with as little parade as possible--a movement of the
lips is sufficient--and walk on at a quick rate. Who knows but the Lord
Mayor, or Mr. Alderman Blowbladder, may observe you?
A grain of impudence will fetch more in the market than twelve bushels
of modesty.
In the scale of dignities two Cheapside chaises make one Stanhope; two
Stanhopes a cab; two cabs a landaulet and pair; and so on up to the
state-coach; and as their numerical relation, so is the degree of
respect they may justly exact.
If you visit foreign parts, and meet a countryman who may be useful to
you, do not hesitate to avail yourself of his services; but be sure
never to acknowledge him should you meet in your native land, unless he
receive some other introduction to you, and you have it on creditable
evidence that he is a man of good property.
Never allow reason weight in any thing you have resolved to be right
that is opposed to it. Reason may be useful in mathematics, to men of
genius, and to scholars; but it has little to do with every-day
existence, with the Three per Cents, the national revenue, the Stock
Exchange, or the India House.
Never get acquainted with your next-door neighbour, unless you find he
is in good pecuniary circumstances. If you meet on the highway, or touch
elbows at your respective fore-doors, look at each other like two
strange tom-cats, and pursue your way.
Commiserate the fate of a Thurtell, a Probert, or a Corder, sent
(ripened for heaven in a forty-eight hours' probation by a Newgate
chaplain) out of the world their hellish acts have so sullied; but
sympathise not with a Riego or a Canaris. Heroic vice was always
spiriting; heroic virtue is phlegmatic. John Bull's constitution is only
acted upon by strong excitement.
When you dine with the Lord Mayor, or any of the Aldermen of Brobdignag,
and they attempt to exhibit their skill at repartee, be sure decide the
wealthiest to be the wittiest. It will insure you a good dinner another
time, perhaps something more.
In choosing a wife, prefer even Bristol ugliness to beauty, especially
if there be a fortune. Beauty will change, intellect may be too much for
you, but ugliness will be true to you as to itself; besides its
advantage of preserving you from the effects of conjugal frailty.
A judge's wig is a Delphic mystery, whether brains be in it or not. It
is a of sublunary wisdom--an umbrella over an oracle.
When you dine at a public dinner, always take your seat opposite a
favourite dish. Carve it yourself, and select the choicest bits, then
leave it to your right-hand neighbour to help the rest of the company.
Always stick your napkin in your button-hole at the dinner table, if you
admit such French superfluities at all. Eat with the sharp edge of your
knife towards your mouth; forks won't take up gravy. Never wipe your
lips when you take wine with a lady, and fill both her glass and your
own until daylight is not visible through the crystal.
When Mrs. Bull is obstreperous, go to the coffee-house and call for your
glass. It is an excellent cure for her complaint, and you will get the
latest news retailed in the most engaging manner, with the pleasure of
knowing she is biting her lips at home in vexation.
Never hold any intercourse with people of whom the world speaks ill.
'Tis true they may be, and generally are, among the very best of
mankind, but as they are not reputed to be so, what is that to you?
Some persons cant about the wickedness of the times: believe them not;
this is the most saintly of ages, the most pure of generations,
considering its temptations.
Vice at the east and west end of town, is different only in form; in
substance it comes to the same thing, and in quality is equal to a
grain.
Never leave a dispute to be settled by arbitration; if you are rich,
always appeal to law, especially if your opponent be poor. The lawyers
will manage for you long before the case gets up to the Lords, and
perhaps secure your rival _in banco regis_ for expenses. In an
arbitration, the case may be decided against you in a twinkling. It is a
capital thing that justice and a long purse are sworn brothers; besides,
moneyed men should have some advantage in society.
So little is the value of an oath understood by any but the Bull family,
that none but the postboys and the vulgar use oaths in foreign nations,
America excepted; but that country being a chip of the old block,
already rivals honest John; outdo him she must not.
Lard your butter, wet your tobacco, pipe-clay your flour, sand your
sugar, sloe-leaf your tea, coal-ash your pepper, deteriorate your drugs,
water your liquors, alloy your gold and silver, plunder your lodgers,
and, while none know it, who is the worse! Then to church, and thank God
you are not as other men.
Live and talk as if you were to live for ever. If you have accumulated
tens of thousands, try and make them hundreds of thousands. Why should
you retire and make way for the industry of others, while you are able
to treasure up more.
Give credit, take credit, live upon credit; if you are wealthy, your own
money will be gathering interest at the same time. If you are poor, you
have no other means to live by.
In matters of business, let there be no favour. If you are dealing with
your own father, give nothing to him. Screw the uttermost farthing, and,
if need, sell him.
Give only to receive.
Men of genius are fools; the truly great men know how to make money, and
money is power--the power of making more money. Your men of genius are
at best but harlequins with empty pockets.--_New Monthly Magazine._
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