Chapter XXXVI

If you should have lately suffered any great reduction of income from causes over which you had no control, it is better that you should bear your misfortunes quietly than that you should be very extensively communicative to your acquaintance on the subject of your grievances. If, for instance, you tell them in confidence that you now have only 600_l._ a-year to live upon, such of them as have but 500_l._ will perhaps think that you still have at least 100_l._ more than you ought to have.