| [No. 448] | Monday, August 4, 1712 | Steele |
Fœdius hoc aliquid quandoque audebis.
Juv.
The first Steps towards Ill are very carefully to be avoided, for Men insensibly go on when they are once entered, and do not keep up a lively Abhorrence of the least Unworthiness. There is a certain frivolous Falshood that People indulge themselves in, which ought to be had in greater Detestation than it commonly meets with: What I mean is a Neglect of Promises made on small and indifferent Occasions, such as Parties of Pleasure, Entertainments, and sometimes Meetings out of Curiosity in Men of like Faculties to be in each other's Company. There are many Causes to which one may assign this light Infidelity.
Jack Sippet
never keeps the Hour he has appointed to come to a Friend's to Dinner; but he is an insignificant Fellow who does it out of Vanity. He could never, he knows, make any Figure in Company, but by giving a little Disturbance at his Entry, and therefore takes Care to drop in when he thinks you are just seated. He takes his Place after having discomposed every Body, and de
Sir
es there may be no Ceremony; then does he begin to call himself the saddest Fellow, in disappointing so many Places as he was invited to elsewhere. It is the Fop's Vanity to name Houses of better Chear, and to acquaint you that he chose yours out of ten Dinners which he was obliged to be at that Day. The last Time I had the Fortune to eat with him, he was imagining how very fat he should have been had he eaten all he had ever been invited to. But it is impertinent to dwell upon the Manners of such a Wretch as obliges all whom he disappoints, though his Circumstances constrain them to be civil to him. But there are those that every one would be glad to see, who fall into the same detestable Habit. It is a merciless thing that any one can be at Ease, and suppose a Set of People who have a Kindness for him, at that Moment waiting out of Respect to him, and refusing to taste their Food or Conversation with the utmost Impatience. One of these Promisers sometimes shall make his Excuses for not coming at all, so late that half the Company have only to lament, that they have neglected Matters of Moment to meet him whom they find a Trifler. They immediately repent of the Value they had for him; and such Treatment repeated, makes Company never depend upon his Promise any more; so that he often comes at the Middle of a Meal, where he is secretly slighted by the Persons with whom he eats, and cursed by the Servants, whose Dinner is delayed by his prolonging their Master's Entertainment. It is wonderful, that Men guilty this Way, could never have observed, that the whiling Time, the gathering together, and waiting a little before Dinner, is the most awkwardly passed away of any Part in the four and twenty Hours. If they did think at all, they would reflect upon their Guilt, in lengthning such a Suspension of agreeable Life. The constant offending this Way, has, in a Degree, an Effect upon the Honesty of his Mind who is guilty of it, as common Swearing is a kind of habitual Perjury: It makes the Soul unattentive to what an Oath is, even while it utters it at the Lips.
Phocion
beholding a wordy Orator while he was making a magnificent Speech to the People full of vain Promises,
Methinks