[No. 213. [Steele.]
From Thursday, Aug. 17, to Saturday, Aug. 19, 1710.
Sheer Lane, Aug. 16.
There has of late crept in among the downright English a mighty spirit of dissimulation. But before we discourse of this vice, it will be necessary to observe, that the learned make a difference between simulation and dissimulation.[52] Simulation is a pretence of what is not, and dissimulation a concealment of what is. The latter is our present affair. When you look round you in public places in this island, you see the generality of mankind carry in their countenance an air of challenge or defiance: and there is no such man to be found among us who naturally strives to do greater honours and civilities than he receives. This innate sullenness or stubbornness of complexion is hardly to be conquered by any of our islanders. For which reason, however they may pretend to choose one another, they make but very awkward rogues; and their dislike to each other is seldom so well dissembled, but it is suspected. When once it is so, it had as good be professed. A man who dissembles well must have none of what we call stomach, otherwise he will be cold in his professions of good-will where he hates; an imperfection of the last ill consequence in business. This fierceness in our natures is apparent from the conduct of our young fellows, who are not got into the schemes and arts of life which the children of this world walk by. One would think that, of course, when a man of any consequence for his figure, his mien, or his gravity, passes by a youth, he should certainly have the first advances of salutation; but he is, you may observe, treated in a quite different manner, it being the very characteristic of an English temper to defy. As I am an Englishman, I find it a very hard matter to bring myself to pull off the hat first; but it is the only way to be upon any good terms with those we meet with: therefore the first advance is of high moment. Men judge of others by themselves; and he that will command with us must condescend. It moves one's spleen very agreeably to see fellows pretend to be dissemblers without this lesson. They are so reservedly complaisant till they have learned to resign their natural passions, that all the steps they make towards gaining those whom they would be well with, are but so many marks of what they really are, and not of what they would appear.
The rough Britons, when they pretend to be artful towards one another, are ridiculous enough; but when they set up for vices they have not, and dissemble their good with an affectation of ill, they are insupportable. I know two men in this town who make as good figures as any in it, that manage their credit so well as to be thought atheists, and yet say their prayers morning and evening. Tom Springly the other day pretended to go to an assignation with a married woman at Rosamond's Pond,[53] and was seen soon after reading the responses with great gravity at six-of-clock prayers.
Sheer Lane, Aug. 17.
Though the following epistle bears a just accusation of myself, yet in regard it is a more advantageous piece of justice to another, I insert it at large:
Garraway's Coffee-house,
Aug. 10.
"Mr. Bickerstaff,
"I have lately read your paper[54] wherein you represent a conversation between a young lady, your three nephews, and yourself; and am not a little offended at the figure you give your young merchant in the presence of a beauty. The topic of love is a subject on which a man is more beholden to nature for his eloquence, than to the instruction of the schools, or my lady's woman. From the two latter, your scholar and page must have reaped all their advantage above him. I know by this time you have pronounced me a trader. I acknowledge it, but cannot bear the exclusion from any pretence of speaking agreeably to a fine woman, or from any degree of generosity that way. You have among us citizens many well-wishers, but it is for the justice of your representations, which we, perhaps, are better judges of than you (by the account you give of your nephew) seem to allow.