19. The rules therefore that I shall propose concerning secrecy, and
from which I think it not safe to deviate, without long and exact
deliberation, are--never to solicit the knowledge of a secret. Not
willingly nor without any limitations, to accept such confidence when it
is offered. When a secret is once admitted, to consider the trust as of
a very high nature, important to society, and sacred as truth, and
therefore not to be violated for any incidental convenience, or slight
appearance of contrary fitness.




_Of Cheerfulness._


1. I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I consider
as an act, the former as a habit of the mind. Mirth is short and
transient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent. Those are often raised into
the greatest transports of mirth, who are subject to the greatest
depressions of melancholy; on the contrary, cheerfulness, though it does
not give the mind such an exquisite gladness, prevents us from falling
into any depths of sorrow. Mirth is like a flash of lightning that
breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment;
cheerfulness keeps up a kind of day-light in the mind, and fills it with
a steady and perpetual serenity.

2. Men of austere principles look upon mirth as too wanton and dissolute
for a state of probation, and as filled with a certain triumph and
insolence of heart that is inconsistent with a life Which is every