Page:The Practice of Diplomacy - Callières - Whyte - 1919.djvu/67

 with the degree of warmth of its different climates. Now from all this it follows that a man who by nature is strange, inconstant, and ruled by his own humours and passions, should not enter the profession of diplomacy, but should go to the wars. For as war destroys a great number of those who engage in it, she is not so delicate in the choice of her subjects; she resembles those good stomachs which can digest and assimilate with equal ease every kind of nourishment that is given them—not indeed that a man must not have high and excellent qualities before he can become a good general, but because there are so many degrees of capacity in the army that he who has not sufficient intelligence to arrive at the highest remains half-way and may become a good subaltern or other officer whose service is useful in his own sphere. But it is not the same with a negotiator—if he is not adapted to his function he will often ruin everything that is put under his charge and stain the good name of his master with irreparable prejudice.

Not only must the negotiator be free from wayward humours and fantasies, but he must know how to suffer fools gladly, how to accommodate himself to the changing humours of others. He must indeed be like Proteus of the fable, always ready to. take a different figure and posture according to occasion and need. Let him be gay and agreeable