236 BACON 



For a man may absolutely cancel and betray the force of speech 

 by his countenance. And so may actions themselves, as well 

 as words, be destroyed by the look ; according to Cicero, who, 

 recommending affability to his brother towards the provincials, 

 tells him, it did not wholly consist in giving easy access to them, 

 unless he also received them with an obliging carriage. " It is 

 doing nothing," says he, " to admit them with an open door 

 and a locked-up countenance." 



" Nil interest habere ostium apertum, vultum clausum." d 



We learn, also, that Atticus, previous to the first interview be- 

 tween Cicero and Caesar, in which the issue of the war was in- 

 volved, seriously advised his friend, in his letters, to compose 

 his countenance and assume a calm tranquillity. But, if the 

 management of the face alone has so great an effect, how much 

 greater is that of familiar conversation, with all its attendants ? 

 Indeed, the whole of decorum and elegance of manners seem 

 to rest in weighing and maintaining, with an even balance, the 

 dignity betwixt ourselves and others ; which is well expressed 

 by Livy, though upon a different occasion, in that character of a 

 person, where he says, that I may neither seem arrogant nor 

 obnoxious ; that is, neither forget my own nor others' liberty.* 

 On the other side ; a devotion to urbanity and external ele- 

 gance terminates in an awkward and disagreeable affectation. 

 For what is more preposterous than to copy the theatres in 

 real life ? And, though we did not fall into this vicious extreme, 

 yet we should waste time and depress the mind too much by 

 attending to such lighter matters. Therefore, as in universi- 

 ties, the students, too fond of company, are usually told by their 

 tutors, that friends are the thieves of time ; so the assiduous ap- 

 plication to the decorum of conversation steals from the weight- 

 ier considerations. Again, they who stand in the first rank for 

 urbanity, and seem born, as it were, for this alone, seldom take 

 pleasure in anything else, and scarce ever rise to the higher and 

 more solid virtues. On the contrary, the consciousness of a 

 defect in this particular makes us seek a grace from good opin- 

 ion, which renders all things else becoming ; but where this is 

 wanting, men endeavor to supply it by good breeding. And, 

 further, there is scarce any greater or more frequent obstruc- 

 tion to business than an over-curious observance of external 

 decorum, with its attendant too solicitous and scrupulous a 



