For the second, which is Dissimulation:  it followeth many times upon secrecy by a necessity; so that he that will be secret must be a dissembler in some degree.  For men are too cunning to suffer a man to keep an indifferent carriage between both, and to be secret, without swaying the balance on either side.  They will so beset a man with questions, and draw him on, and pick it out of him, that without an absurd silence, he must show an inclination one way; or if he do not, they will gather as much by his silence as by his speech.  As for equivocations, or oraculous speeches, they cannot hold out long.  So that no man can be secret, except he give himself a little scope of dissimulation; which is, as it were, but the skirts or train of secrecy.

But for the third degree, which is Simulation and false profession:  that I hold more culpable and less politic, except it be in great and rare matters.  And therefore a general custom of simulation (which is this last degree) is a vice rising either of a natural falseness or fearfulness, or of a mind that hath some main faults; which because a man must needs disguise, it maketh him practice simulation in other things, lest his hand should be out of use.

The great advantages of simulation and dissimulation are three.  First, to lay asleep opposition, and to surprise; for where a man’s intentions are published, it is an alarum to call up all that are against them.  The second is, to reserve to a man’s self a fair retreat; for if a man engage himself by a manifest declaration, he must go through or take a fall.  The third is, the better to discover the mind of another; for to him that opens himself men will hardly show themselves adverse, but will fair let him go on, and turn their freedom of speech to freedom of thought.  And therefore it is a good shrewd proverb of the Spaniard, “Tell a lie and find a troth;” as if there were no way of discovery but by simulation.  There be also three disadvantages to set it even.  The first, that simulation and dissimulation commonly carry with them a show of fearfulness; which in any business doth spoil the feathers of round flying up to the mark.  The second, that it puzzleth and perplexeth the conceits of many that perhaps would otherwise co-operate with him, and makes a man walk almost alone to his own ends.  The third and greatest is, that it depriveth a man of one of the most principal instruments for action; which is trust and belief.  The best composition and temperature is, to have openness in fame and opinion; secrecy in habit; dissimulation in seasonable use; and a power to feign if there be no remedy.

OF TRAVEL

From the ‘Essays’