“Do not counsel me to be insincere and deceitful.  I consider it dishonourable and contemptible.”

“Why will you persist in using words that have been out of style as long as huge hoop-skirts, coal-scuttle bonnets, and long-tailed frock-coats?  Once, I know, ugly things and naughty ways were called outright by their proper, exact names; but you should not forget that the world is improving, and nous avons change tout cela!

’We have that sort of courtesy about us,
We would not flatly call a fool a fool.’

I daresay some benighted denizens of the remote rural districts might be found, who still say ‘tadpole,’ whereas we know only that embryonic batrachians exist:  and it is just possible that in the extreme western wilds a poor girl might rashly state that being sleepy she intended ‘going to bed,’ which you must admit could be an everlasting stigma and disgrace here, where all refined people merely ‘retire;’ leaving the curious world to conjecture whither,—­into the cabinet of a diplomatist, the confession box of a cathedral, the cell of an anchorite, or to that very essential and comfortable piece of household furniture which at this instant I fully appreciate, and which the Romans kept in their cubiculum.  Even in my childhood, when I was soaped and rubbed and rinsed by my nurse, the place where the daily ablution was performed was frankly called a bath-rub in a bathroom; but now creme de la creme know only ‘lavatory.’  Just so, in the march of culture and reform, such vulgarly nude phrases as ‘deceitful’ have been taken forcibly to a popular tailor, and when they are let loose on society again you never dream that you meet anything but becomingly dressed ‘policy;’ and fashionable ‘diplomacy’ has hunted ’insincerity’—­that other horrid remnant of old-fogyism—­as far away from civilization as are the lava beds of the Modocs.  If ghosts have risible faculties, how Machiavelli must laugh, watching us from the Elysian Fields!  Sometimes silence is power; try it.”

“But is seems to me the line of conduct you advise is cowardly, and that, I think, I could never be.”

“It is purely from ignorance that you fail to appreciate the valuable social organon I want to teach you.  Of course you have heard your guardian quote Emerson?  He is a favourite author with some who frequent the classic halls of the ‘Century;’ but perhaps you do not know that he has investigated ‘Courage,’ and thrown new light upon that ancient and rare attribute of noble souls?  Now, my dear, in dealing with Erle Palma, if you desire to trim the lion’s claws, and crimp his mane, adopt the courage of silence.”

“Have you found it successful?”

“Unfortunately I did not study Emerson early in life, else I night have been saved many conflicts, and much useless bloodshed.  Now I begin to comprehend Tennyson’s admonition, ’Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers,’ and I generously offer to economize your school fees, and give you the benefit of my dearly bought experience.”