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.
It may be laid down as a general rule, that no woman who hath any great pretensions to admiration is ever well pleased in a company where she perceives herself to fill only the second place.
There are two considerations which always imbitter the heart of an avaricious man–the one is a perpetual thirst after more riches, the other the prospect of leaving what he has already acquired.
