We can understand ourselves by our own
words if we will take the trouble to consider them dispassionately, and
analyze the thoughts and affections whence they spring.
So little honesty is believed to exist in ordinary Conversation, that
the saying of a witty courtier, that "language is the instrument whereby
man conceals his thoughts," has almost passed into a proverb. The
question, in which direction is the man walking who wraps duplicity
about himself as his constant garment, needs no answer; for all must
know that the Divine Being, whose form is truth, hateth a lie.
The first element in Conversation should be sincerity. Not the blunt
and harsh sincerity sometimes met with, which is made the cloak of
self-esteem and bitterness; for that is an evil of the same nature as
the malice and hatred that show themselves in active, outward injury
towards the neighbor. When excited by pride or anger, the tongue needs a
bridle no less than the hand; and when the heart can utter itself truly
only in the forms of such passions, silence is its only safeguard. In
speaking of the follies or vices of others, sincerity should be tempered
by a Christian charity, which, while it does not gloss over vice, does
not dwell upon it needlessly, nor take a malicious pleasure in spreading
it abroad, nor indulge self-complacency by dilating upon it, to give the
idea that one is superior to such things.
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