SECT. VI.
Affectation of Superiority.
LXXV. The different behaviour of some people at their first entrance into a room, and after their coming to engage in conversation with the company they find there, is very remarkable. At their first coming in, if the people they meet happen not to be such as they are pretty intimate with, they seem over and above complaisant, make most respectful congées, are very hyperbolical in their professions of attachment and esteem to every one they accost, and are very profuse of their offers to oblige and serve them; but after a little while, they begin to draw themselves up, to assume an air of gravity and consequence, and in all their words and actions, to behave as if they were vested with a senatorial, or legislative authority. Such a man begins to array himself with a habit of importance, and to appear on the theatre with an air of pomp and arrogance. He lays by the easy sock, and assumes the buskin. His sol fa which commenced in a low tone in e faut, is raised in a very little time, to the highest note in g solre. His political stature grows to a gigantic size, and he begins to look down on all around him, and to treat all they say with that scorn and disdain, which is generated by, and lineally descended from rustic pride.
LXXVI. Treating on this subject, brings to my mind a story which Moreri tells of Brunon, bishop of Langres, who in the beginning of one of his pastoral letters stiles himself humilis præsul, and afterwards in the body of it, assumes a majestic tone, and says, nostram odiens majestatem. Those who behave in this manner, must certainly lie under the delusion, that urbanity and modesty, were only calculated for exordiums, prologues, and salutations at peoples first meeting.