Dinner went off gayly, and although my guardian seemed to follow rather than originate subjects, I knew that he wrenched the weakest part of our dispositions out of us. For myself, I found that I was expressing my tendency to lavish expenditure, and to patronize Herbert, and to boast of my great prospects, before I quite knew that I had opened my lips.
– Charles Dickens
Great Expectations, Chapter 26. At a dinner party in Mr. Jaggers’s house, Pip’s guardian manipulates the conversation to bring out the worst qualities in the guests. In Pip’s case these weaknesses are his lavish spending, treating his friend Herbert as an inferior, and boasting of how wealthy he will be.