Part 4

Do not consider it to be at all times your bounden duty to correct every mistake which may be made in your presence as to a name or an unimportant date. Some persons are so extremely sensitive on these points that they never allow the offender to escape a summary conviction. However interesting the conversation may be, they always feel justified in interrupting it if they can show that the anecdote which they have cut short related to the late General A., and not to his brother the admiral.

XXXIV.

If one of your party should be prevailed upon to sing a comic song for the amusement of the company, he will of course do it as well as he can, and it would not be flattering to him that you should immediately afterwards talk about the great pleasure which you formerly derived from hearing the same song sung by Mathews, or Bannister.

XXXV.

Beware of the amiable weakness of repeatedly telling long stories about your late father or uncle. They may have been excellent persons, and their memory may be deservedly respected by you; but it does not therefore necessarily follow that a full account of everything which was said or done by either of these worthy men on some trivial occasion should be very interesting to other people, not even to such of your friends as may be lucky enough not to have heard it before.

XXXVI.

If you should have lately suffered any great reduction of income from causes over which you had no control, it is better that you should bear your misfortunes quietly than that you should be very extensively communicative to your acquaintance on the subject of your grievances. If, for instance, you tell them in confidence that you now have only 600_l._ a-year to live upon, such of them as have but 500_l._ will perhaps think that you still have at least 100_l._ more than you ought to have.

XXXVII.

Do not think yourself an accomplished traveller merely because you have visited places where you _might_ have acquired much information. Many a man has passed some time in a foreign town without learning more about the beauties of its cathedral or the manners and customs of its inhabitants than was previously known to others through the instructive medium of a book and pair of spectacles at home; and therefore although you may have really been at Rome, and may have actually seen with your own eyes both the Apollo Belvidere and Raphael's Transfiguration, you must not, on that account only, consider yourself qualified to take a leading part in every conversation on subjects connected with the fine arts.

XXXVIII.

Many persons who are possessed of much information have a tedious and unconnected way of imparting it. Such men are like dictionaries, very instructive if opened in the right place, but rather fatiguing to read throughout.

XXXIX.

The foundation of good breeding is the absence of selfishness. By acting always on this principle--by showing forbearance and moderation in argument when you feel sure that you are right, and a becoming diffidence when you are in doubt, you will avoid many of the errors which other men are apt to fall into.

XL.

Artists, medical men, and engineers are much to be feared by those persons who are apt to talk a little sometimes on matters which they do not very well understand. If, reader, you are, like me, subject to this infirmity, mind what you are about when any professional men are present.

R. P.

_Whitehall, February, 1842._

London: Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES and SONS, Stamford Street

FOOTNOTES:

[G] Acting on this principle, I was once supposed to have killed a brace less than nothing, viz., I went out partridge shooting with two other persons. At the end of the day one of these said that he had killed twelve brace, and the other claimed eleven brace. When the birds were afterwards counted, the number of them was forty-four. I therefore conclude that the brace which was wanting must have been considered as my share of the day's sport.

[H]

"Whose iron scourge and torturing hour The bad _extract, and clean_ the best."

[I]

"Thus fell two heroes, one the pride of Thrace, And one the leader of the Epeian race; Death's sable shade at once o'ercast their eyes: _In dish_, the vanquish'd and the victor lies."

_Pope says_, "In dust."

[J] _e. g._ Vide quotation, p. 56.

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Transcriber's Notes:

The original text does not have a table of contents. One was created for this version.

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

Page 6, illustration caption, "asssitant" changed to "assistant" (an expert assistant)

Page 37, "your's" changed to "yours" (heavier than yours)