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reticence let us say, a talent for it which acted as other 

 impulses do, without any conscious motive, and, like all 

 people to whom concealment is easy, he would now and 

 then conceal something which had as little the nature 

 of a secret as the fact that he had seen a flight of crows.' 

 Some natures are born so secretive and shy that it is a 

 real difficulty to them to speak out or ask advice, so that 

 they cannot learn in any way except from that exceedingly 

 bitter source personal experience. I would advise the 

 young to fight as much as they can against concealment. 

 There is of course one subject which by its very nature 

 can only live in privacy. We all go through the stage 

 sooner or later of understanding what love means, and 

 we all think at the time there is only one thing in the 

 world of importance that our hearts should not be 

 unveiled. But with genuine and open natures this 

 passes, and they end very often by open confession later 

 on of that which torture would not have drawn from 

 them at the time. Why reticence, to my mind, is so bad 

 is that it so quickly grows into deception, and the smallest 

 events develop into something quite different from what 

 they really were. 



Yet no one can recognise more than I do the necessity 

 of some kinds of hypocrisy ; it is ' the respect that Vice 

 pays to Virtue,' and a form both of truth and strength. 

 ' The Englishman kisses and does not tell, the Frenchman 

 kisses and tells, and the Italian tells and does not kiss ! ' 

 so went the old saying. Admitting the facts, the con- 

 cealment of the Englishman is the best. When one is 

 young, one thinks just the contrary, and people are very 

 apt to say : ' If I have a passion, why should I hide it 

 under a bushel ? So long as there is no concealment there 

 is no harm.' This kind of argument may take people 

 into very deep water. A parent of reserved nature rather 

 encourages concealment in the children, and indeed thinks 



