know when to tell truth, and to
do it. Therefore it is the weaker sort of politics, that are the great
dissemblers.
Tacitus saith, Livia sorted well with the arts of her husband, and
dissimulation of her son; attributing arts or policy to Augustus,
and dissimulation to Tiberius. And again, when Mucianus encourageth
Vespasian, to take arms against Vitellius, he saith, We rise not against
the piercing judgment of Augustus, nor the extreme caution or closeness
of Tiberius. These properties, of arts or policy, and dissimulation
or closeness, are indeed habits and faculties several, and to be
distinguished. For if a man have that penetration of judgment, as he can
discern what things are to be laid open, and what to be secreted, and
what to be showed at half lights, and to whom and when (which indeed are
arts of state, and arts of life, as Tacitus well calleth them), to him,
a habit of dissimulation is a hinderance and a poorness. But if a man
cannot obtain to that judgment, then it is left to him generally, to
be close, and a dissembler. For where a man cannot choose, or vary in
particulars, there it is good to take the safest, and wariest way, in
general; like the going softly, by one that cannot well see. Certainly
the ablest men that ever were, have had all an openness, and frankness,
of dealing; and a name of certainty and veracity; but then they were
like horses well managed; for they could tell passing well, when to stop
or turn; and at such times, when they thought the case indeed required
dissimulation, if then they used it, it came to pass that the former
opinion, spread abroad, of their good faith and clearness of dealing,
made them almost invisible.
There be three degrees of this hiding and veiling of a man's self. The
first, closeness, reservation, and secrecy; when a man leaveth himself
without observation, or without hold to be taken, what he is. The
second, dissimulation, in the negative; when a man lets fall signs and
arguments, that he is not, that he is. And the third, simulation, in the
affirmative; when a man industriously and expressly feigns and pretends
to be, that he is not.
For the first of these, secrecy; it is indeed the virtue of a confessor.
And assuredly, the secret man heareth many confessions. For who will
open himself, to a blab or a babbler? But if a man be thought secret, it
inviteth discovery; as the more close air sucketh in the more open; and
as in confession, the revealing is not
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