Observe, I only wish you to distinguish these things in your own minds;
I would by no means advise you to discontinue the laudable practice of
confounding them perpetually in speaking to others.
When you have nearly exhausted human patience in explaining, justifying,
vindicating; when, in spite of all the pains you have taken, you have
more than half betrayed your own vanity; you have a never-failing
resource, in paying tribute to that of your opponent, as thus:--
“I am sure you must be sensible that I should never take so much pains
to justify myself if I were indifferent to your opinion.--I know that I
ought not to disturb myself with such trifles; but nothing is a trifle
to me which concerns you. I confess I am too anxious to please; I
know it’s a fault, but I cannot cure myself of it now.--Too quick
sensibility, I am conscious, is the defect of my disposition; it would
be happier for me if I could be more indifferent, I know.”
Who could be so brutal as to blame so amiable, so candid a creature? Who
would not submit to be tormented with kindness?
When once your captive condescends to be flattered by such arguments as
these, your power is fixed; your future triumphs can be bounded only by
your own moderation; they are at once secured and justified.
Forbear not, then, happy pupils; but, arrived at the summit of power,
give a full scope to your genius, nor trust to genius alone: to exercise
in all its extent your privileged dominion, you must acquire, or rather
you must pretend to have acquired, infallible skill in the noble art
of physiognomy; immediately the thoughts as well as the words of your
subjects are exposed to your inquisition.
Words may flatter you, but the countenance never can deceive you; the
eyes are the windows of the soul, and through them you are to watch what
passes in the inmost recesses of the heart. There, if you discern the
slightest ideas of doubt, blame, or displeasure; if you discover the
slightest symptoms of revolt, take the alarm instantly. Conquerors must
maintain their conquests; and how easily can they do this, who hold
a secret correspondence with the minds of the vanquished! Be your own
spies then; from the looks, gestures, slightest motions of your enemies,
you are to form an alphabet, a language intelligible only to yourselves,
yet by which you shall condemn them; always remembering that in sound
policy suspicion justifies punishment. In vain, when you accuse your
friends of the high treason of blaming you, in vain let them plead their
innocence, even of the intention. “They did not say a word which could
be tortured into such a meaning.” No, “but they looked daggers, though
they used none.”
And of this you are to be the sole judge, though there were fifty
witnesses to the contrary.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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