“So, my lord Unico, you do not think that a laborious part and a great burden are imposed on me this evening, having to show in what way, manner and time the Courtier ought to employ his good accomplishments and practise those things that have been said to befit him?”
“It seems to me no great matter,” replied the Unico; “and I think it is quite enough to say that the Courtier should have good judgment, as the Count last evening rightly said he must; and this being so, I think that without other precepts he ought to be able to use what he knows seasonably and in a well bred way. To try to reduce this to more exact rules would be too difficult and perhaps superfluous. For I know no man so stupid as to wish to fence when others are intent on dancing; or to go through the street dancing a morris-dance, however admirably he might know how; or in trying to comfort a mother whose child has died, to begin with pleasantries and witticism. Surely methinks no gentleman would do this, who was not altogether a fool.”
Then messer Federico said:
“It seems to me, my lord Unico, that you run too much to extremes. For one may sometimes be silly in a way that is not so easily seen, and faults are not always of the same degree: and it may be that a man will refrain from public and too patent folly,—such as that would be of which you tell, to dance a morris-dance about the piazza,—and yet cannot refrain from praising himself out of season, from displaying a tiresome conceit, from occasionally saying something to cause laughter, which falls cold and wholly flat from being said inopportunely. And these faults are often covered by a kind of veil that does not suffer them to be seen by him who commits them, unless he searches for them with care; and although our eyes see little for many reasons, they most of all are clouded by conceit, since everyone likes to make a show in that wherein he believes himself proficient, whether his belief be true or false.
“Therefore it seems to me that the right course in this regard lies in a certain prudent and judicious choice, and in discerning the more or less which all things gain or lose by being done opportunely or out of season. And although the Courtier may possess good enough judgment to perceive these distinctions, yet I think it would surely be easier for him to attain what he is seeking, if we were to broaden his mind by a few precepts, and show him the way and as it were the foundations upon which he must build,—than if he were to follow generalities only.
7.—“Last evening the Count spoke about Courtiership so fully and so beautifully, that he has aroused in me no little fear and doubt whether I shall be able to satisfy this noble company so well in what I have to say, as he did in what it fell to him to say. Yet to make myself a sharer in his fame as far as I can, and to be sure of avoiding this one mistake at least, I shall contradict him in nothing.
“Accepting his opinions then, and among others his opinion as to the Courtier’s noble birth, capacities, bodily form and grace of feature,—I say that to win praise justly and good opinion from everyone and favour from the princes whom he serves, I deem it necessary for the Courtier to know how to dispose his whole life, and to make the most of his good qualities in intercourse with all men everywhere, without exciting envy thereby. And how difficult this in itself is, we may infer from the fewness of those who are seen to reach the goal; for by nature we all are more ready to censure mistakes than to praise things well done, and many men, from a kind of innate malignity and although they clearly see the good, seem to strive with every effort and pains to find either some hidden fault in us or at least some semblance of fault.
“Thus it is needful for our Courtier to be cautious in his every action, and always to mingle good sense with what he says or does. And let him not only take care that his separate parts and qualities are excellent, but let him order the tenour of his life in such fashion, that the whole may be in keeping with these parts and be seen to be always and in everything accordant with his own self and form one single body of all these good qualities; so that his every act may be the result and compound of all his faculties, as the Stoics say is the duty of him who is wise.
“Still, although in every action one faculty is always chief, yet all are so enlinked together, that they make for one end and may all further and serve every purpose. Hence he must know how to make the most of them, and by means of contrast and as it were foil to the one, he must make the other more clearly seen;—like good painters, who display and show forth the lights of projecting objects by the use of shadow, and likewise deepen the shadows of flat objects by means of light, and so assemble their divers colours that both the one and the other are better displayed by reason of that diversity, and the placing of figures in opposition one to another aids them to perform that office which is the painter’s aim.
“Thus gentleness is very admirable in a man of noble birth who is valiant and strong. And as his boldness seems greater when accompanied by modesty, so his modesty is enhanced and set off by his boldness.[[153]] Hence to speak little, to do much, and not to boast of praiseworthy deeds but to conceal them tactfully,—enhances both these attributes in the case of one who knows how to employ this method with discretion; and so it is with all other good qualities.