Often, when in appearance pleading for others, the suitor is urging his own cause; and the most graceful flattery may be only the veil of disguised exactions.
But caution and attention become at last wearisome to natures naturally expansive and candid, and a tiresome frivolity, surprising enough before the secret of its reckless indifference has been divined, mingles with the most spiritual refinement, the most poetic sentiments, the most real causes for intense suffering, as if to mock and jeer at all reality.

It is difficult to analyze or appreciate justly this frivolity, as it is sometimes real, sometimes only assumed.

It makes use of confusing replies and strange resources to conceal the truth.

It is sometimes justly, sometimes wrongfully regarded as a kind of veil of motley, whose fantastic tissue needs only to be slightly torn to reveal more than one hidden or sleeping quality under the variegated folds of gossamer.

It often follows from such causes, that eloquence becomes only a sort of grave badinage, sparkling with spangles like the play of fireworks, though the heart of the discourse may contain nothing earnest; while the lightest raillery, thrown out apparently at random, may perhaps be most sadly serious.