fifteen maxims

I’ll be out of blogging range for a few days and haven’t had the time to get any daily holiday reading features in place. So here’s something that applies more generally, from Henry Fielding again: The fifteen maxims of Jonathan Wild.

 Never do more mischief to another more than necessary to effect your purpose; for that mischief is too precious a thing to be thrown away

To know no distinction of men from affection; but to sacrifice all with equal readiness to interest

Never to communicate more of an affair than is necessary to the person who is to execute it

Not to trust him who has deceived you, or who knows he has been deceived by you

To forgive no enemy, but to be cautious and often dilatory in revenge

To shun poverty and distress and ally as close as possible with power and wealth

To maintain a constant gravity of countenance and behaviour, and to affect wisdom on all occasions

To foment eternal jealousies in his associates, one of another

Never to reward anyone to his merit, but always to insinuate that the reward was above it

That all men are knaves or fools, and much the greater number a combination of both

That a good name, like money, must be risked or parted with if it is to bring the owner any advantage

That virtues, like jewels, can be counterfeited; that the counterfeits in both cases adorned the wearer equally, and that very few have knowledge or discernment enough to distinguish the counterfeit from the real

That many men were undone by not going deep enough into roguery; as in gaming any man may be a loser who does not play the whole game

That men proclaim their virtues as shopkeepers expose their goods, in order to profit by them

That the heart is the proper seat of hatred; and the countenance that of affection and friendship

I think that basically meta-blogs anything that might happen while I’m away. See you in a bit.

Comments

[Chris Williams]

You think that's bad, you ought to see what Wild thought of Fielding.

Actually, it was probably pretty similar.