far out.

Go on, be not a guest ever in the same house. The welcome becomes
wearisome if he sits too long at another's table.

This means that we must not impose on our friends; but there is a further
caution on the subject of eating at a friend's house. You must not go to
your friend's house hungry, when you can help it.

A man should take his meal betimes, before he goes to his
neighbour--or he will sit and seem hungered like one starving, and
have no power to talk.

That is the main point to remember in dining at another's house, that you
are not there only for your own pleasure, but for that of other people.
You are expected to talk; and you can not talk if you are very hungry. At
this very day a gentleman makes it the rule to do the same thing.
Accordingly we see that these rough men of the North must have had a good
deal of social refinement--refinement not of dress or of speech, but of
feeling. Still, says the poet, one's own home is the best, though it be
but a cottage. "A man is a man in his own house."

Now we come to some sentences teaching caution, which are noteworthy in a
certain way:

Tell one man thy secret, but not two. What three men know, all the
world knows.

Never let a bad man know thy mishaps; for from a bad man thou
shalt never get reward for thy sincerity.

I shall presently give you some modern examples in regard to the advice
concerning bad men. Another thing to be cautious about is praise. If you
have to be careful about blame, you must be very cautious also about
praise.

Praise the day at even-tide; a woman at her burying; a sword when
it has been tried; a maid when she is married; ice when
you have crossed over it; ale when it is drunk.

If there is anything noteworthy in English character to-day it is the
exemplification of this very kind of teaching. This is essentially
Northern. The last people from whom praise can be expected, even for what
is worthy of all praise, are the English. A new friendship, a new ideal, a
reform, a noble action, a wonderful poet, an exquisite painting--any of
these things will be admired and praised by every other people in Europe
long before you can get Englishmen to praise. The Englishman all this time
is studying, considering, trying to find fault. Why should he try to find
fault? So that he will not make any mistakes at a later day. He has
inherited the terrible caution of his ancestors in regard