ON THE MANNER OF
control over himself to resist the longing to speak before he has really thought what he shall say. He should not endeavour to gain the reputation of being able to reply immediately and without premeditation to every proposition which is made, and he should take a special care not to fall into the error of one famous foreign ambassador of our time who so loved an argument that each time he warmed up in controversy he revealed important secrets in order to support his opinion.
The Air of Mystery.But indeed there is another fault of which the negotiator must beware: he must not fall into the error of supposing that an air of mystery, in which secrets are made out of nothing and in which the merest bagatelle is exalted into a great matter of state, is anything but a mark of smallness of mind and betokens an incapacity to take the true measure either of men or of things. Indeed, the more the negotiator clothes himself in mystery, the less he will have means of discovering what is happening and of acquiring the confidence of those with whom he deals. A continual reserve is like the lock on a door which is never turned and becomes so rusty that in the end no man can open it. The able negotiator will of course not permit his secret to be drawn from him except at his own time, and he should be able to disguise from his competitor the fact that he has any secret to reveal;20
