"I have long wished to be able to put in practice that valuable worldly
qualification of being insincere. One of my chief reasons is that I hate
to be particular, and I think if a man cannot conform to the customs of
the world, he is not fit to be encouraged or to live in it. I know that,
if one would be agreeable to men of dignity one must study to imitate
them, and I know which way they get money and places. I cannot indeed
wonder that the talents requisite for a great statesman are so scarce in
the world, since so many of those who possess them are every month cut
off in the prime of their life at the Old Bailey.

"Another observation I have made upon courtiers is that if you have any
friendship with any particular one, you must be entirely governed by his
friendship and resentments, not your own; you are not only to flatter
him but those that he flatters, and, if he chances to take a fancy to
any man whom you know that he knows to have the talents of a statesman,
you are immediately to think both of them men of the most exact honour.
In short, you must think nothing dishonest or dishonourable that is
required of you, because, if you know the world, you must know that no
statesman has or ever will require anything of you that is dishonest or
dishonourable.

"Then you must suppose that all statesmen, and your friend in particular
(for statesmen's friends have always seemed to think so) have been, are,
and always will be guided by strict justice, and are quite void of
partiality and resentment. You are to believe that he never did or can
propose any wrong thing, for whoever has it in his power to dissent from
a statesman, in any one particular, is not capable of his friendship.
This last word, friendship, I have been forced to make use of several
times, though I know that I speak improperly, for it has never been
allowed a Court term. This is some part of a Court creed, though it is