Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 03
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Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 03
Literature -- Collections
Tacitus saith, "Livia sorted well with the arts of her husband and
dissimulation of her son;" attributing arts of policy to Augustus, and
dissimulation to Tiberius. And again, when Mucianus encourageth
Vespasian to take arms against Vitellius, he saith, "We rise not against
the piercing judgment of Augustus, nor the extreme caution or closeness
of Tiberius." These properties of arts or policy, and dissimulation or
closeness, are indeed habits and faculties several, and to be
distinguished. For if a man have that penetration of judgment as he can
discern what things are to be laid open, and what to be secreted, and
what to be showed at half-lights, and to whom and when, (which indeed
are arts of state and arts of life, as Tacitus well calleth them,) to
him a habit of dissimulation is a hindrance and a poorness. But if a man
cannot obtain to that judgment, then it is left to him generally to be
close, and a dissembler. For where a man cannot choose or vary in
particulars, there it is good to take the safest and wariest way in
general; like the going softly, by one that cannot well see. Certainly
the ablest men that ever were, have had all an openness and frankness of
dealing, and a name of certainty and veracity: but then they were like
horses well managed, for they could tell passing well when to stop or
turn; and at such times when they thought the case indeed required
dissimulation, if then they used it, it came to pass that the former
opinion spread abroad of their good faith and clearness of dealing made
them almost invisible.
There be three degrees of this hiding and veiling of a man's self. The
first, Closeness, Reservation, and Secrecy; when a man leaveth himself
without observation, or without hold to be taken, what he is. The
second, Dissimulation, in the negative; when a man lets fall signs and
arguments, that he is not that he is. And the third, Simulation, in the
affirmative; when a man industriously and expressly feigns and pretends
to be that he is not.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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