It is true, Philothea, that if we consent to laugh, play, or dance with the world in order to be agreeable, the world will be scandalized at us. If we do not, it will accuse us of hypocrisy or melancholy. If we dress well, the world will attribute it to some design; if we neglect our dress, it will impute it to meanness of heart. Our good humour will be termed a dissoluteness and our mortification sullenness. The world thus looks upon us with an evil eye, and we can never be agreeable to it. It exaggerates our imperfections and proclaims that they are sins, turns our venial sins into mortal and our sins of weakness into sins of malice.
--St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life
