The Importance of Friendship

Hospitality is a most excellent virtue, but care must be taken that the love of company for its own sake does not become a prevailing passion. In conversation, trifling occurrences such as small disappointments, petty annoyances, and other everyday incidents should never be mentioned to your friends. The extreme injudiciousness of repeating these will be at once apparent when we reflect on the unsatisfactory discussions which they do frequently occasion. And her events, whether of joy or sorrow, should be communicated to friends and on such occasions their sympathy gratifies and comforts.