it self.  Thus it is ordinary to see a great Man attend one listning, bow to one at a distance, and call to a third at the same instant.  A Girl in new Ribbands is not more taken with her self, nor does she betray more apparent Coquetries, than even a wise Man in such a Circumstance of Courtship.  I do not know any thing that I ever thought so very distasteful as the Affectation which is recorded of Caesar, to wit, that he would dictate to three several Writers at the same time.  This was an Ambition below the Greatness and Candour of his Mind.  He indeed (if any Man had Pretensions to greater Faculties than any other Mortal) was the Person; but such a Way of acting is Childish, and inconsistent with the Manner of our Being.  And it appears from the very Nature of Things, that there cannot be any thing effectually dispatched in the Distraction of a Publick Levee:  but the whole seems to be a Conspiracy of a Set of Servile Slaves, to give up their own Liberty to take away their Patron’s Understanding.

T.

[Footnote 1:  Rope]

[Footnote 2:  a skilful servant]

[Footnote 3:  I have]

[Footnote 4:  Beauteous, and in first reprint.]

[Footnote 5:  are]

[Footnote 6:  Juvenal, viii, 73.]

* * * * *

No. 194.  Friday, October 12, 1711.  Steele.

      ‘...  Difficili Bile Tumet Jecur.’

      Hor.

The present Paper shall consist of two Letters, which observe upon Faults that are easily cured both in Love and Friendship.  In the latter, as far as it meerly regards Conversation, the Person who neglects visiting an agreeable Friend is punished in the very Transgression; for a good Companion is not found in every Room we go into.  But the Case of Love is of a more delicate Nature, and the Anxiety is inexpressible if every little Instance of Kindness is not reciprocal.  There are Things in this Sort of Commerce which there are not Words to express, and a Man may not possibly know how to represent, what yet may tear his Heart into ten thousand Tortures.  To be grave to a Man’s Mirth, unattentive to his Discourse, or to interrupt either with something that argues a Disinclination to be entertained by him, has in it something so disagreeable, that the utmost Steps which may be made in further Enmity cannot give greater Torment.  The gay Corinna, who sets up for an Indifference and becoming Heedlessness, gives her Husband all the Torment imaginable out of meer Insolence, with this peculiar Vanity, that she is to look as gay as a Maid in the Character of a Wife.  It is no Matter what is the Reason of a Man’s Grief, if it be heavy as it is.  Her unhappy Man is convinced that she means him no Dishonour, but pines to Death because she will not have so much Deference to him as to avoid the Appearances of it.  The Author of the following Letter is perplexed with an Injury that is in a Degree yet less criminal, and yet the Source of the utmost Unhappiness.