DIGNITY OF MANNERS.--There is a certain dignity of manners absolutely necessary, to make even the most valuable character either respected or respectable. Horse-play, romping, frequent and loud fits of laughter, jokes, waggery, and indiscriminate familiarity, will sink both merit and knowledge into a degree of contempt. They compose at most a merry fellow; and a merry fellow was never yet a respectable man. Indiscriminate familiarity either offends your superiors, or else dubs you their dependent, and led captain. It gives your inferiors just but troublesome and improper claims of equality. A joker is near akin to a buffoon; and neither of them is the least related to wit. Whoever is admitted or sought for in company upon any account than that of his merit and manners, is never respected there, but only made use of. We will have such-a-one, for he sings prettily; we will invite such-a-one to a ball, for he dances well; we will have such-a-one at supper, for he is always joking and laughing; we will ask another, because he plays deep at all games, or because he can drink a great deal. These are vilifying distinctions, mortifying preferences, and exclude all ideas of esteem and regard. Whoever _is had_ (as it is called) in company, for the sake of any one thing singly, is singly that thing, and will never be considered in any other light, consequently never respected, let his merits be what they will. [_Aug. 10, 1749._] FOOLS AND THEIR FLATTERY.--Abject flattery and indiscriminate assentation degrade, as much as indiscriminate contradiction and noisy debate disgust. But a modest assertion of one’s own opinion, and a complaisant acquiescence in other people’s, preserve dignity. Vulgar, low expressions, awkward motions and address, vilify, as they imply either a very low turn of mind, or low education, and low company. [_Same date._] A TRIFLER.--Cardinal de Retz, very sagaciously marked out Cardinal Chigi for a little mind, from the moment that he told him he had wrote (_sic_) three years with the same pen, and that it was an excellent good one still. A certain degree of exterior seriousness, in looks and motions, gives dignity, without excluding wit and decent cheerfulness, which are always serious themselves. A constant smirk upon the face, and a whiffling activity of the body, are strong indications of futility. Whoever is in a hurry shows that the thing he is about is too big for him. Haste and hurry are very different things. [_Same date._]