The chief praise to which a trader aspires is that
of punctuality, or an exact and rigorous observance
of commercial engagements; nor is there any vice of
which he so much dreads the imputation, as of
negligence and instability. This is a quality which the
interest of mankind requires to be diffused through
all the ranks of life, but which many seem to consider
as a vulgar and ignoble virtue, below the
ambition of greatness or attention of wit, scarcely
requisite among men of gaiety and spirit, and sold
at its highest rate when it is sacrificed to a frolick or
a jest.
Every man has daily occasion to remark what
vexations arise from this privilege of deceiving one
another. The active and vivacious have so long
disdained the restraints of truth, that promises and
appointments have lost their cogency, and both parties
neglect their stipulations, because each concludes
that they will be broken by the other.
Negligence is first admitted in small affairs, and
strengthened by petty indulgences. He that is not
yet hardened by custom, ventures not on the violation
of important engagements, but thinks himself
bound by his word in cases of property or danger,
though he allows himself to forget at what time he
is to meet ladies in the park, or at what tavern his
friends are expecting him.
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