Hor. I should have thought that this increase of pride would render children more stubborn and less docile.
Cleo. You judge right; it would so, and must have been a great hinderance to good manners, till experience taught men, that though pride was not to be destroyed by force, it might be governed by stratagem, and that the best way to manage it, is by playing the passion against itself. Hence it is, that in an artful education, we are allowed to place as much pride as we please in our dexterity of concealing it. I do not suppose, that this covering ourselves, notwithstanding the pride we take in it, is performed without a difficulty that is plainly felt, and perhaps very unpleasant at first; but this wears off as we grow up; and when a man has behaved himself with so much prudence as I have described, lived up to the strictest rules of good-breeding for many years, and has gained the esteem of all that know him, when this noble and polite manner is become habitual to him, it is possible he may in time forget the principle he set out with, and become ignorant, or at least insensible of the hidden spring that gives life and motion to all his actions.
Hor. I am convinced of the great use that may be made of pride, if you will call it so; but I am not satisfied yet, how a man of so much sense, knowledge, and penetration, one that understands himself so entirely well, should be ignorant of his own heart, and the motives he acts from. What is it that induces you to believe this, besides the possibility of his forgetfulness?
Cleo. I have two reasons for it, which I desire may be seriously considered. The first is, that in what relates to ourselves, especially our own worth and excellency, pride blinds the understanding in men of sense and great parts as well as in others, and the greater value we may reasonably set upon ourselves, the fitter we are to swallow the grossest flatteries, in spite of all our knowledge and abilities in other matters: witness Alexander the Great, whose vast genius could not hinder him from doubting seriously, whether he was a god or not. My second reason will prove to us, that if the person in question was capable of examining himself, it is yet highly improbable, that he would ever set about it: for, it must be granted, that, in order to search into ourselves, it is required we should be willing as well as able; and we have all the reason in the world to think, that there is nothing which a very proud man of such high qualifications would avoid more carefully than such an inquiry: because, for all other acts of self-denial, he is repaid in his darling passion; but this alone is really mortifying, and the only sacrifice of his quiet for which he can have no equivalent. If the hearts of the best and sincerest men are corrupt and deceitful, what condition must theirs be in, whose whole life is one continued scene of hypocrisy! therefore inquiring within, and boldly searching into ones own bosom, must be the most shocking employment, that a man can give his mind to, whose greatest pleasure consists in secretly admiring himself. It would be ill manners, after this, to appeal to yourself; but the severity of the task——
Hor. Say no more, I yield this point, though I own I cannot conceive what advantage you can expect from it: for, instead of removing, it will rather help to increase the grand difficulty, which is to prove, that this complete person you have described, acts from a vicious motive: and if that be not your design, I cannot see what you drive at.
Cleo. I told you it was.
Hor. You must have a prodigious sagacity in detecting abstruse matters before other men.
Cleo. You wonder, I know, which way I arrogate to myself such a superlative degree of penetration, as to know an artful cunning man better than he does himself, and how I dare pretend to enter and look into a heart, which I have owned to be completely well concealed from all the world; which in strictness is an impossibility, and consequently not to be bragged of but by a coxcomb.
Hor. You may treat yourself as you please, I have said no such thing; but I own that I long to see it proved, that you have this capacity. I remember the character very well: Notwithstanding the precautions you have taken, it is very full: I told you before, that where things have a handsome appearance every way, there can be no just cause to suspect them. I will stick close to that; your gentleman is all of a piece: You shall alter nothing, either by retracting any of the good qualities you have given him, or making additions that are either clashing with, or unsuitable to what you have allowed already.
Cleo. I shall attempt neither: And without that decisive trials may be made, by which it will plainly appear whether a person acts from inward goodness, and a principle of religion, or only from a motive of vain glory; and, in the latter case, there is an infallible way of dragging the lurking fiend from his darkest recesses into a glaring light, where all the world shall know him.