There Is Perhaps No Surer Mark Of

Giving Comfort Under Affliction Requires That Penetration Into The Human Mind, Joined To That Experience Which Knows How To Soothe, How To Reason, And How To Ridicule; Taking The Utmost Care Never To Apply Those Arts Improperly.

Good-nature Is That Benevolent And Amiable Temper Of Mind Which Disposes Us To Feel The Misfortunes And Enjoy The Happiness Of Others, And, Consequently, Pushes Us On To Promote The Latter And Prevent The Former; And That Without Any Abstract Contemplation On The Beauty Of Virtue, And Without The Allurements Or Terrors Of Religion.

A Comic Writer Should Of All Others Be The Least Excused For Deviating From Nature, Since It May Not Be Always So Easy For A Serious Poet To Meet With The Great And The Admirable; But Life Every Where Furnishes An Accurate Observer With The Ridiculous.

The Devil Take Me, If I Think Anything But Love To Be The Object Of Love.

It Is Not From Nature, But From Education And Habits, That Our Wants Are Chiefly Derived.