Their
Vanity is to be importuned, and Compliance with their Multiplicity of
Affairs would effectually dispatch em. The Travelling Ladies, who have
half the Town to see in an Afternoon, may be pardoned for being in
constant Hurry; but it is inexcusable in Men to come where they have no
Business, to profess they absent themselves where they have. It has been
remarked by some nice Observers and Criticks, that there is nothing
discovers the true Temper of a Person so much as his Letters. I have by
me two Epistles, which are written by two People of the different
Humours above-mentioned. It is wonderful that a Man cannot observe upon
himself when he sits down to write, but that he will gravely commit
himself to Paper the same Man that he is in the Freedom of Conversation.
I have hardly seen a Line from any of these Gentlemen, but spoke them as
absent from what they were doing, as they profess they are when they
come into Company. For the Folly is, that they have perswaded themselves
they really are busy. Thus their whole Time is spent in suspense of the
present Moment to the next, and then from the next to the succeeding,
which to the End of Life is to pass away with Pretence to many things,
and Execution of nothing.
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