"On Secrecy" by Sir Henry Taylor | Weekly Wisdom

A secret may be sometimes best kept by keeping the secret of its being a secret.

Taylor was son of a gentleman farmer in County Durham. After being at sea for some months and in the Naval Stores Department, he became a clerk in the Colonial Office, and remained there for 48 years, during which he exercised considerable influence on the colonial policy of the British Empire. He advocated the melioration, as opposed to the abolition, of the slave trade.

In 1872 he was made K.C.M.G. He wrote four tragedies — Isaac Comnenus (1827), Philip van Artevelde (1834), Edwin the Fair (1842), and St. Clement's Eve (1862); also a romantic comedy, The Virgin Widow, which he renamed A Sicilian Summer, The Eve of the Conquest and other Poems (1847). In prose he published The Statesman (1836), Notes from Life (1847), Notes from Books (1849), and an autobiography.

This is a reading of a short essay by Sir Henry Taylor, "Of Secrecy".
Source: The Oxford Book of Essays

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