Ridicule and practical joking are both marks of a vulgar mind and low breeding.
Avoid flattery. A delicate compliment is permissible in conversation, but flattery is broad, coarse, and to sensible people, disgusting. If you flatter your superiors, they will distrust you, thinking you have some selfish end; if you flatter ladies, they will despise you, thinking you have no other conversation.
A lady of sense will feel more complimented if you converse with her upon instructive, high subjects, than if you address to her only the language of compliment. In the latter case she will conclude that you consider her incapable of discussing higher subjects, and you cannot expect her to be pleased at being considered merely a silly, vain person, who must be flattered into good humor.
Avoid the evil of giving utterance to inflated expressions and remarks in common conversation.
It is a somewhat ungrateful task to tell those who would shrink from the imputation of a falsehood that they are in the daily habit of uttering untruths; and yet, if I proceed, no other course than this can be taken by me. It is of no use to adopt half measures; plain speaking saves a deal of trouble.
The examples about to be given by me of exaggerated expressions, are only a few of the many that are constantly in use. Whether you can acquit yourselves of the charge of occasionally using them, I cannot tell; but I dare not affirm for myself that I am altogether guiltless.
“I was caught in the wet last night, the rain came down in torrents.” Most of us have been out in heavy rains; but a torrent of water pouring down from the skies would a little surprise us, after all.
“I am wet to the skin, and have not a dry thread upon me.” Where these expressions are once used correctly, they are used twenty times in opposition to the truth.
“I tried to overtake him, but in vain; for he ran like lightning.” The celebrated racehorse Eclipse is said to have run a mile in a minute, but poor Eclipse is left sadly behind by this expression.
“He kept me standing out in the cold so long, I thought I should have waited for ever.” There is not a particle of probability that such a thought could have been for one moment entertained.