Wit is the most dangerous talent we can possess. It must be guarded with
great discretion and good nature, otherwise it will create many enemies.
Wit is perfectly consistent with softness and delicacy; yet they are
seldom found united. Wit is so flattering to vanity, that they who
possess it become intoxicated, and lose all self-command.
Though it is the most captivating, yet it is the most dreaded of all
talents: the most dangerous to those who have it, and the most feared by
those who have it not. He who is grown rich without it, in safe and
sober dulness, shuns it as a disease, and looks upon poverty as its
invaluable concomitant.
The moralist declaims against it as the source of irregularity; and the
frugal citizen dreads it more than bankruptcy itself: for he considers
it as the parent of extravagance and beggary. The Cynic will ask of what
use is it? Of very little perhaps: no more is a flower garden, and yet
it is allowed, as an object of innocent amusement, and delightful
recreation.
A woman who possesses this quality has received a most dangerous
present, perhaps not less so than beauty itself; especially if it be not
sheathed in a temper peculiarly inoffensive, chastised by a most correct
judgment, and restrained by more prudence than falls to the common lot.
This talent is more likely to make a woman vain than knowledge; for
there is much more danger that folly should arise from the confederation
of what is our own, than of what we borrow. But wit, like learning, is
not near so common a thing as is imagined. For flippancy, pertness, and
impudence are often mistaken for this brilliant quality; and people
often imagine they are witty, only because they are indiscreet, and this
makes the name of wit so cheap, while its real existence is so rare.
But those who happily possess this talent, cannot be too abstinent in
the use of it. It often makes admirers, but never makes friends; and
she, who does not desire friends, has a sordid and insensible soul; but
she, who is ambitious of making every man her admirer, has an invincible
vanity and a cold heart.
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