1992. Be Humble
Avoid Pride. If you are handsome, God made you so; if you are learned, some one instructed you; if you are rich, God gave you what you own. It is for others to perceive your goodness; but you should be blind to your own merits. There can be no comfort in deeming yourself better than you really are: that is self-deception. The best men throughout all history have been the most humble.
1993. Affectation is a Form of Pride
It is, in fact, pride made ridiculous and contemptible. Some one writing upon affectation has remarked as follows:
"If anything will sicken and disgust a man, it is the affected, mincing way in which some people choose to talk. It is perfectly nauseous. If these young jackanapes, who screw their words into all manner of diabolical shapes, could only feel how perfectly disgusting they were, it might induce them to drop it. With many, it soon becomes such a confirmed habit that they cannot again be taught to talk in a plain, straightforward, manly way. In the lower order of ladies' boarding-schools, and indeed, too much everywhere, the same sickening, mincing tone is too often found. Do, pray, good people, do talk in your natural tone, if you don't wish to be utterly ridiculous and contemptible."
1994. Vulgarity
We have adopted the foregoing Paragraph because we approve of some of its sentiments, but chiefly because it shows that persons who object to affectation may go to the other extreme—vulgarity. It is vulgar, we think, to call even the most affected people "jackanapes, who screw their words into all manner of diabolical shapes." Avoid vulgarity in manner, in speech, and in correspondence. To conduct yourself vulgarly is to offer offence to those who are around you; to bring upon yourself the condemnation of persons of good taste; and to incur the penalty of exclusion from good society. Thus, cast among the vulgar, you become the victim of your own error.