The Manner of the House
Manner, before method.
Methods change with the markets. The manner of the house does not.
❧
I.
Discretion
The firm's affairs are its own. What is worth saying is said privately, or not at all.
II.
Patience
Nothing compels the firm to act. The absence of a decision is a decision, and often the better one.
III.
Refusal
Most opportunities are declined. The firm regards this as its principal activity.
IV.
Proportion
No undertaking is permitted to embarrass the whole. The firm endures first, and prospers second.
V.
Word
What the firm agrees to, it performs — as written, and where it can, better than written.
So the house was set, and so it is kept.