How to Handle What Should Stay Secret

You must also take the same care that, if some word you want kept secret happens to slip out of your mouth, you do not trouble the hearer with any charge to keep it secret. For it is more likely to go unnoticed if it is let pass carelessly and simply. The brother, whoever he is, will not be tormented by so strong a temptation to spread it, since he will take it as something trivial dropped in casual conversation, and of less account for the very reason that it was not lodged in his mind with a strict charge of silence. For even if you bind his good faith by making him swear an oath, you need not doubt that it will very soon be spread abroad. The devil’s power will make a fiercer assault on him, both to trouble and betray you and to make him break his oath as quickly as possible.