TO attempt to borrow money on the plea of extreme poverty.--To lose
money at play, and then fly into a passion about it.--To ask the
publisher of a new periodical how many copies he sells per week.--To ask
a wine merchant how old his wine is.--To make yourself generally
disagreeable, and wonder that nobody will visit you, unless they gain
some palpable advantage by it.--To get drunk, and complain the next
morning of a headache.--To spend your earnings on liquor, and wonder
that you are ragged.--To sit shivering in the cold because you won't
have a fire till November.--To suppose that reviewers generally read
more than the title-page of the works they praise or condemn.--To judge
of people's piety by their attendance at church.--To keep your clerks on
miserable salaries, and wonder at their robbing you.--Not to go to bed
when you are tired and sleepy, because "it is not bed time."--To make
your servants tell lies for you, and afterwards be angry because they
tell lies for themselves.--To tell your own secrets, and believe other
people will keep them.--To render a man a service voluntarily, and
expect him to be grateful for it.--To expect to make people honest by
hardening them in a jail, and afterwards sending them adrift without the
means of getting work.--To fancy a thing is cheap because a low price is
asked for it.--To say that a man is charitable because he subscribes to
an hospital.--To keep a dog or a cat on short allowance, and complain of
its being a thief.--To degrade human nature in the hope of improving
it.--To praise the beauty of a woman's hair before you know whether it
did not once belong to somebody else.--To expect that your tradespeople
will give you long credit if they generally see you in shabby
clothes.--To arrive at the age of fifty, and be surprised at any vice,
folly, or absurdity your fellow creatures may be guilty of.