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"I am afraid I will break down, however, in the hypocrisy. I failed
cursedly with the old peer, and am not likely to be more successful with
her."
"Indeed, I question whether hypocrisy would sit well upon one who has
been so undisguised an offender. The very assumption of it requires some
training. I think a work to be called 'Preparations for Hypocrisy' would
be a great book to the general mass of mankind. You cannot bound at one
step from the licentious to the hypocritical, unless, indeed, upon the
convenient principle of instantaneous conversion. The thing must be done
decently, and by judicious gradations, nor is the transition attended
with much difficulty, in consequence of the natural tendency which
hypocrisy and profligacy always have to meet. Still, I think you ought
to attempt the thing. Get by heart, as her father advises, half-a-dozen
serious texts of Scripture, and drop one in now and then, such as, 'All
flesh is grass.' 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.' 'He that
marrieth not doth well, but he that marrieth doth better.


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