(54.) He who is of so lofty a rank as to be above repartee, ought never to joke in a racy kind of way. (55.) There are some little failings which we freely abandon to censure, and about which we do not dislike being bantered; when we banter others we should select failings of the same kind. (56.) It is a foolʼs privilege to laugh at an intelligent man; he is in society what a jester is at court—of no consequence whatever. (57.) Banter is often a proof of want of intelligence. (58.) You fancy a man your dupe, but if he only pretends to be so, who is the greatest dupe, you or he? (59.) If you observe carefully those people who praise nobody, who are always finding fault, and are never satisfied with any one, you will discover them to be persons with whom nobody is satisfied. (60.) The proud and disdainful will find precisely in society the contrary of what they expect, which is to be esteemed. (61.) The pleasure of social intercourse amongst friends is kept up by a similarity of morals and manners, and by slender differences in opinion about science; this confirms us in our sentiments, exercises our faculties or instructs us through arguments. (62.) Two persons will not be friends long if they are not inclined to pardon each otherʼs little failings. (63.) How many fine and useless arguments are laid before a person in great affliction to attempt to soothe him! Things from without which we call events are sometimes too strong for arguments and nature. Eat, drink, do not kill yourself with grief, think only to live, are magnificent admonitions, and impracticable as well. If we say to a man that it is not wise to unsettle his mind so much, do we not tell him in reality that he is a fool for being so unfortunate? (64.) Advice which is necessary in all matters of business, is sometimes hurtful in social affairs to those who give it, and useless to the persons to whom it is given. You observe, perhaps, faults in manners and morals which are either not acknowledged, or, perhaps, considered virtues; you blot out some passages in a composition which please the author the most, and in which he thinks he has surpassed himself. By those means you lose the confidence of your friend without making him better or wiser.