THE SECOND BOOK OF THE COURTIER
Italians than the French have; because that grave reserve peculiar to the Spaniards befits us far more than the quick vivacity which among the French we see in almost every movement, and which is not unseemly in them, nay is charming, for it is so natural and proper to them as not to seem at all affected. There are very many Italians who earnestly strive to copy this manner; and they can only shake their heads in speaking and make clumsy crosswise bows, and walk so fast that their lackeys cannot keep up with them when they pass through the city. And with these ways they seem to themselves to be good Frenchmen and to have the same freedom of manner, which in truth rarely happens save with those who have been bred in France and have acquired the manner in their youth.
"The same is true of knowing many languages; which I approve highly in the Courtier, especially Spanish and French, because the intercourse of both these nations with Italy is very frequent, and they have more in common with us than any of the others have; and their two princes,179 being very powerful in war and very glorious in peace, always have their courts full of noble cavaliers, who spread throughout the world; and it is necessary for us also to converse with them.
38.— "I do not care at present to go more into detail in speaking of things that are too well known, such as that our Courtier ought not to avow himself a great eater or drinker, or given to excess in any evil habit, or vile and ungoverned in his life, with certain peasant ways that recall the hoe and plough a thousand miles away; because a man of this kind not only may not hope to become a good Courtier, but can be set to no more fitting business than feeding sheep.
"And finally I say it were well for the Courtier to know perfectly that which we have said befits him, so that every possible thing may be easy to him, and everyone may marvel at him,— he at no one. But be it understood that there ought not to be in him that lofty and ungenial indifference which some men have who show they are not surprised at what others do because they imagine they can do it better, and who disparage it by silence as not worth speaking of; and they almost seem to imply that no one is their equal or even able to fathom the profundity
