tells us that this is the point of greatest tact in human intercourse.
"Struck by the slightest word of this kind, many fall away from the
closest intimacy with superiors or inferiors, which intimacy could not be
in the slightest shaken by a whole conspiracy of popular insinuation or
private malevolence." In other words, you can more quickly destroy a man's
friendship by one word of sarcasm than by any amount of intrigue. Does not
this read very much like sheer wickedness? Certainly it does; but the
author would have told you that you must fight the wicked with their own
weapons. In the "Havamal" you will not find anything quite so openly
wicked as that; but we must suppose that the Norsemen knew the secret,
though they might not have put it into words. As for the social teaching,
you will find it very subtly expressed even in the modern English novels
of George Meredith, who, by the way, has written a poem in praise of
sarcasm and ridicule. But let us now see what the Spanish author has to
tell us about friendship and unselfishness.

The shrewd man knows that others when they seek him do not seek "him," but
"their advantage in him and by him." That is to say, a shrewd man does not
believe in disinterested friendship. This is much worse than anything in
the "Havamal." And it is diabolically elaborated. What are we to say about
such teaching as the following: "A wise man would rather see men needing
him than thanking him. To keep them on the threshold of hope is
diplomatic; to trust to their gratitude is boorish; hope has a good
memory, gratitude a bad one"? There is much more of this kind; but after
the assurance that only a boorish person (that is to say, an ignorant and
vulgar man) can believe in gratitude, the author's opinion of human nature
needs no further elucidation. The old Norseman would have been shocked at
such a statement. But he might have approved the following: "When you hear
anything favourable, keep a tight rein upon your credulity; if
unfavourable, give it the spur." That is to say, when you hear anything
good about another man, do not be ready to believe it; but if you hear
anything bad about him, believe as much of it as you can.

I notice also many other points of resemblance between the Northern and
the Spanish teaching in regard to caution. The "Havamal" says that you
must not pick a quarrel with a worse man than yourself; "because the
better man often falls by the worse man's sword." The Spanish