This will be the more requisite, if the
number still retained be quite equal to her means and opportunities.
9. IN CONVERSATION, TRIFLING OCCURRENCES, such as small disappointments,
petty annoyances, and other every-day 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 too frequently occasion, and on the load of
advice which they are the cause of being tendered, and which is, too
often, of a kind neither to be useful nor agreeable. Greater events,
whether of joy or sorrow, should be communicated to friends; and, on
such occasions, their sympathy gratifies and comforts. If the mistress
be a wife, never let an account of her husband's failings pass her lips;
and in cultivating the power of conversation, she should keep the
versified advice of Cowper continually in her memory, that it
"Should flow like water after summer showers,
Not as if raised by mere mechanic powers."
In reference to its style, Dr.
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