Colour is when men make a
way for themselves to have a construction made of their faults or
wants, as proceeding from a better cause or intended for some other
purpose. For of the one it is well said,
"Saepe latet vitium proximitate boni,"
and therefore whatsoever want a man hath, he must see that he
pretend the virtue that shadoweth it; as if he be dull, he must
affect gravity; if a coward, mildness; and so the rest. For the
second, a man must frame some probable cause why he should not do
his best, and why he should dissemble his abilities; and for that
purpose must use to dissemble those abilities which are notorious in
him, to give colour that his true wants are but industries and
dissimulations. For confidence, it is the last but the surest
remedy--namely, to depress and seem to despise whatsoever a man
cannot attain; observing the good principle of the merchants, who
endeavour to raise the price of their own commodities, and to beat
down the price of others. But there is a confidence that passeth
this other, which is to face out a man's own defects, in seeming to
conceive that he is best in those things wherein he is failing; and,
to help that again, to seem on the other side that he hath least
opinion of himself in those things wherein he is best: like as we
shall see it commonly in poets, that if they show their verses, and
you except to any, they will say, "That that line cost them more
labour than any of the rest;" and presently will seem to disable and
suspect rather some other line, which they know well enough to be
the best in the number.
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