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YOU must also provide with the same care that if by chance some word
has slipped out of your mouth which you want to be a secret, no injunction
to secrecy may trouble the hearer. For it will be more likely to be
unheeded if it is let pass carelessly and simply, because the brother,
whoever he is, will not be tormented with such a temptation to divulge it,
as he will take it as something trivial dropped in casual conversation, and
as what is for this very reason of less account, because it was not
committed to the hearer's mind with a strict injunction to silence. For
even if you bind his faith by exacting an oath from him, you need not doubt
that it will very soon be divulged; for a fiercer assault of the devil's
power will be made upon him, both to annoy land betray you, and to make him
break his oath as quickly as possible.
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