variety in wit. Those who have only one kind of
wit cannot please for long unless they can take different roads, and not
both use the same talents, thus adding to the pleasure of society, and
keeping the same harmony that different voices and different instruments
should observe in music; and as it is detrimental to the quiet of
society, that many persons should have the same interests, it is yet as
necessary for it that their interests should not be different.

We should anticipate what can please our friends, find out how to be
useful to them so as to exempt them from annoyance, and when we cannot
avert evils, seem to participate in them, insensibly obliterate without
attempting to destroy them at a blow, and place agreeable objects in
their place, or at least such as will interest them. We should talk of
subjects that concern them, but only so far as they like, and we
should take great care where we draw the line. There is a species of
politeness, and we may say a similar species of humanity, which does not
enter too quickly into the recesses of the heart. It often takes pains
to allow us to see all that our friends know, while they have still the
advantage of not knowing to the full when we have penetrated the depth
of the heart.

Thus the intercourse between gentlemen at once gives them familiarity
and furnishes them with an infinite number of subjects on which to talk
freely.

Few persons have sufficient tact and good sense fairly to appreciate
many matters that are essential to maintain society. We desire to
turn away at a certain point, but we do not want to be mixed up in
everything, and we fear to know all kinds of truth.

As we should stand at a certain distance to view objects, so we should
also stand at a distance to observe society; each has its proper point
of view from which it should be regarded. It is quite right that it
should not be looked at too closely, for there is hardly a man who in
all matters allows himself to be seen as he really is.

V. On Conversation.

The reason why so few persons are agreeable in conversation is that each
thinks more of what he desires to say, than of what the others say, and
that we make bad listeners when we want to speak.

Yet it is necessary to listen to those who talk, we should give them the
time they want, and let them say even senseless things; never contradict
or interrupt them; on the contrary, we should enter into their mind and
taste, illustrate thei