Diplomacy is a matter for orally conducted and for written communications. The first is the common method where one is dealing with a royal court, the second is usual in republics and those states in which assemblies, such as the Diet of the Empire of Switzerland, are the repositories of power. It is always the custom where states are assembled in France to exchange statements of policy in writing. But it is always more advantageous for the practised diplomatist to negotiate face to face, because by that means he can discover the true intentions of those with whom he is dealing. His own skill will then enable him both to act and to speak in an appropriate and apt fashion. Most men in handling public affairs pay more attention to what they themselves say than to what is said to them. Their minds are so full of their own notions that they can think of nothing but of obtaining the ears of others for them, and will hardly be prevailed on to listen to the statements of other people. This fault is peculiar to those lively and impatient nations like ours, who find it difficult to bridle impetuous temperaments. It has often been noticed that in ordinary conversation Frenchmen speak all at one time, and interrupt one another incessantly, without attempting to hear what each has to say. [Sidenote: _The Apt Listener._] One of the most necessary qualities in a good negotiator is to be an apt listener; to find a skilful yet trivial reply to all questions put to him, and to be in no hurry to declare either his own policy, still less his own feelings; and on opening negotiations he should be careful not to reveal the full extent of his design except in so far as it is necessary to explore the ground; and he should govern his own conduct as much by what he observes in the faces of others as by what he hears from their lips. One of the great secrets of diplomacy is to sift the real from the trivial, and so to speak, to distil drop by drop into the minds of your competitors those causes and arguments which you wish them to adopt. By this means your influence will spread gradually through their minds almost unawares. In acting thus the negotiator will bear in mind that the majority of men will never enter upon a vast undertaking, even though advantageous to themselves, without they can see beforehand the whole length of the journey upon which they are asked to embark. Its magnitude will deter them. But if they can be brought to take successfully one step after another they will find themselves at the end of the journey almost unawares. Herein is to be found the importance of not revealing vast designs except to a few chosen spirits whose minds are properly attuned to them. [Sidenote: _Diplomacy a Bowling Green._]