If society is not a school for exercising pedantry, neither is it an arena for the use of those perversely clever people, who think themselves furnished with a patent to insult with grace. Whatever may be the keenness of their sarcasms, the piquancy of their observations, or the smile which they excite in me, I do not the less refuse to allow to those caustic spirits the name of polite persons, or of good ton; for, in politeness there must be good feeling. But those who incessantly study to trouble and wound people, without taking any precaution except to deprive them of the right or means of complaining; who are ready to catch at the least error, to exaggerate it, to clothe it in the most bitter language, to present it in the most ridiculous light; who meanly attack those who cannot answer them, or expose themselves every day for a sarcasm to sport with [p122] their own life and that of another in a duel—such people, what are they?—in truth, I dare not say.
One such picture, which, certainly is not highly colored, would render pleasantries always odious; but to indulge in pleasantry is not to resemble such mischievous persons, thank heaven, it is far otherwise; for mild, kind, and harmless pleasantry should be taken in good part even by those who are the subjects of it; it is a friendly, and sportive contest, in which severity, jealousy, and resentment should never appear; whenever you perceive the least trace of them, the pleasantry is at an end; desist, then, the moment they appear.
As to hoaxing, that caustic of fools; as to that silly gaiety, excited by the candor or politeness of people whom you falsely cause to believe the most foolish things, because they do not make known to you that they see through this pleasure of stupid fellows, I have nothing to say of them, except that I have too good an opinion of my reader to suppose that he does not despise them as I do.
Popular quotations and proverbs, as well as other quotations, require some care; and, except in familiar conversation, are altogether misplaced. If they are frequent, conversation becomes a tedious gossipping; if introduced without a short previous remark, one of two things will take place, they will [p123] either prevent the speaker from being understood, or they will give him the air of Sancho Panza. But the previous remark, however, need be but short; as the proverb says, as the wisdom of nations has it. A proverb well applied, and placed at the end of a phrase, frequently makes a very happy conclusion.
I only speak to censure; I entreat my readers not to suffer themselves to be the manufacturers of puns, and to despise this talent of fools and childish means to excite a passing laugh. Not that we cannot repeat in good company one of those rare political bon mots which are happy in every respect; nor that we ought to deprecate this kind of pleasantry before people who are fond of them, still less to tell them what they hear every day, That is poor; to have taste, does not authorize us to be impolite.
We must be much more severe upon another kind of équivoques; namely, those which offend modesty. Propriety allows you, and it even requires you not to listen to, but even to interrupt an ill-bred person who importunes you with those indecent witticisms which a man of good society ought always to avoid; they are those by aid of which we cover certain pleasantries with a veil so transparent, that they are the more observed. What pleasure can we find in causing ladies to blush, and in meriting the name of a man of bad society?
[p124]
There are those who think that they may allow themselves every kind of pleasantry before certain persons; but a man of good ton ought to observe it wherever he is. We might quote more than one example of persons, who have lost politeness of manners and of language by assuming the habits and conversation of all kinds of society into which chance may have carried them. It requires but a moment to lose those delicate shades of character which constitute a man of the world, and which cost us so much labor to acquire.
It is a great error to suppose that we must always shine in conversation, and that it is better to make ourselves admired by a lively and ready repartee, than to content ourselves sometimes with silence, or with an answer less brilliant than judicious.[15] We [p125] must not imagine that all traits of wit are in the class of politeness; a vain and triumphant air spoils a bon mot; moreover, when you repeat a thing of this kind of which you are the author, beware of saying so to your auditors.
SECTION VII.
Of Eulogiums, Complainings, Improprieties in general, and Prejudices.
One of the most improper things, is to praise to excess and unseasonably. Extravagant and misplaced eulogiums neither honor the one who bestows them, nor the persons who receive them.