my advice in a certain crisis of your life; I will not give it;

hereafter, if the thing turns out wrong, you will reflect on me,
and say that it was at my suggestion that you were involved in

calamity." This is a dastardly excuse, and shews a pitiful
selfishness in the man that urges it.

It is true, that we ought ever to be on the alert, that we may
not induce our friend into evil. We should be upon our guard,

that we may not from overweening arrogance and self-conceit
dictate to another, overpower his more sober judgment, and assume

a rashness for him, in which perhaps we would not dare to indulge
for ourselves. We should be modest in our suggestions, and

rather supply him with materials for decision, than with a
decision absolutely" target="_blank" title="ad.绝对地；确实">absolutely made. There may however be cases where an

opposite proceeding is necessary. We must arrest our friend,
nay, even him who is merely our fellow-creature, with a strong

arm, when we see him hovering on the brink of a precipice, or the
danger is so obvious, that nothing but absoluteblindness could

conceal it from an impartial bystander.
But in all cases our best judgment should always be at the

service of our brethren of mankind. "Give to him that asketh
thee; and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away."

This may not always be practicable or just, when applied to the
goods of fortune: but the case of advice, information, and laws

of conduct, comes within that of Ennius, to suffer our neighbour
to light his candle at our lamp. To do so will enrich him,

without making us a jot the poorer. We should indeed respect the
right of private judgment, and scarcely in any case allow our

will to supersede his will in his own proper province. But we
should on no account suffer any cowardly fears for ourselves, to

induce us to withhold from him any assistance that our wider
information or our sounder judgment might supply to him.

The next consideration by which we should be directed in the
exercise of the faculty of speech, is that we should employ it so

as should best conduce to the pleasure of our neighbour. Man is
a different creature in the savage and the civilised state. It

has been affirmed, and it may be true, that the savage man is a
stranger to that agreeable" target="_blank" title="a.令人不悦的">disagreeable frame of mind, known by the name of

ennui. He can pore upon the babbling stream, or stretch himself
upon a sunny bank, from the rising to the setting of the sun, and

be satisfied. He is scarcely roused from this torpid state but
by the cravings of nature. If they can be supplied without

effort, he immediately relapses into his former supineness; and,
if it requires search, industry and exertion to procure their

gratification, he still more eagerly embraces the repose, which
previous fatigue renders doublywelcome.

But, when the mind has once been wakened up from its original
lethargy, when we have overstepped the boundary which divides the

man from the beast, and are made desirous of improvement, while
at the same moment the tumultuous passions that draw us in

infinitely diversified directions are called into act, the case
becomes exceedinglydifferent. It might be difficult at first to

rouse man from his original lethargy: it is next to impossible
that he should ever again be restored to it. The appetite of the

mind being once thoroughly awakened in society, the human species
are found to be perpetually craving after new intellectual food.

We read, we write, we discourse, we ford rivers, and scale
mountains, and engage in various pursuits, for the pure pleasure

that the activity and earnestness of the pursuit afford us. The
day of the savage and the civilised man are still called by the

same name. They may be measured by a pendulum, and will be found
to be of the same duration. But in all other points of view they

are inexpressibly different.
Hence therefore arises another duty that is incumbent upon us as

to the exercise of the faculty of speech. This duty will be more
or less urgent according to the situation in which we are placed.

If I sit down in a numerous assembly, if I become one of a
convivial party of ten or twelve persons, I may unblamed be for

the greater part, or entirely silent, if I please. I must appear
to enter into their sentiments and pleasures, or, if I do not, I

shall be an welcome" target="_blank" title="a.不受欢迎的 n.冷淡">unwelcome guest; but it may scarcely be required for
me to clothe my feelings with articulate speech.

But, when my society shall be that of a few friends only, and
still more if the question is of spending hours or days in the

society of a single friend, my duty becomes altered, and a
greater degree of activity will be required from me. There are

cases, where the minor morals of the species will be of more
importance than those which in their own nature are cardinal.

Duties of the highest magnitude will perhaps only be brought into
requisition upon extraordinary occasions; but the opportunities

we have of lessening the inconveniences of our neighbour, or of
adding to his accommodations and the amount of his agreeable

feelings, are innumerable. An acceptable and welcome member of
society therefore will not talk, only when he has something

important to communicate. He will also study how he may amuse
his friend with agreeable narratives, lively remarks, sallies of

wit, or any of those thousand nothings, which' set off with a
wish to please and a benevolenttemper, will often entertain more

and win the entire good will of the person to whom they are
addressed, than the wisest discourse, or the vein of conversation

which may exhibit the powers and genius of the speaker to the
greatest advantage.

Men of a dull and saturnine complexion will soon get to an end of
all they felt it incumbent on them to say to their comrades. But

the same thing will probably happen, though at a much later
period, between friends of an active mind, of the largest stores

of information, and whose powers have been exercised upon the
greatest variety of sentiments, principles, and original veins of

thinking. When two such men first fall into society, each will
feel as if he had found a treasure. Their communications are

without end; their garrulity is excited, and converts into a
perennial spring. The topics upon which they are prompted to

converse are so numerous, that one seems to jostle out the other.
It may proceed thus from day to day, from month to month, and

perhaps from year to year. But, according to the old proverb,
"It is a long lane that has no turning." The persons here

described will have a vast variety of topics upon which they are
incited to compare their opinions, and will lay down these topics

and take them up again times without number. Upon some, one of
the parties will feel himself entirely at home while the other is

comparatively a novice, and, in others, the advantage will be
with the other; so that the gain of both, in this free and

unrestrained opening of the soul, will be incalculable. But the
time will come, like as in perusing an author of the most

extraordinarygenius and the most versatile powers, that the
reading of each other's minds will be exhausted. They know so

much of each other's tone of thinking, that all that can be said
will be anticipated. The living voice, the sparkling eye, and

the beamingcountenance will do much to put off the evil day,
when we shall say, I have had enough. But the time will come in

which we shall feel that this after all is but little, and we
shall become sluggish, ourselves to communicate, or to excite the

dormant faculties of our friend, when the spring, the waters of
which so long afforded us the most exquisite delight, is at

length drawn dry.
I remember in my childish years being greatly struck with that

passage in the Bible, where it is written, "But I say unto you,
that, for every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give

an account in the day of judgment:" and, as I was very desirous
of conforming myself to the directions of the sacredvolume, I

was upon the point of forming a sort of resolution, that I would
on no account open my mouth to speak, without having a weighty

reason for uttering the thing I felt myself prompted to say.
But practical directions of this sort are almost in all cases of

ambiguous interpretation. From the context of this passage it is
clear, that by "idle words" we are to understand vicious words,

words tending to instil into the mind unauthorised impulses, that
shew in the man who speaks "a will most rank, foul disproportion,

thoughts unnatural,' and are calculated to render him by whom
they are listened to, light and frivolous of temper, and unstrung

for the graver duties of human life.
But idle words, in the sense of innocentamusement, are not

vicious. "There is a time for all things." Amusement must not
encroach upon or thrust aside the real business, the important