It may proceed thus from day to day, from month to month, and perhaps from year to year. But, according to the old proverb, "It is a long lane that has no turning." The persons here described will have a vast variety of topics upon which they are incited to compare their opinions, and will lay down these topics and take them up again times without number. Upon some, one of the parties will feel himself entirely at home while the other is comparatively a novice, and, in others, the advantage will be with the other; so that the gain of both, in this free and unrestrained opening of the soul, will be incalculable. But the time will come, like as in perusing an author of the most extraordinary genius and the most versatile powers, that the reading of each other's minds will be exhausted. They know so much of each other's tone of thinking, that all that can be said will be anticipated. The living voice, the sparkling eye, and the beaming countenance will do much to put off the evil day, when we shall say, I have had enough. But the time will come in which we shall feel that this after all is but little, and we shall become sluggish, ourselves to communicate, or to excite the dormant faculties of our friend, when the spring, the waters of which so long afforded us the most exquisite delight, is at length drawn dry.
I remember in my childish years being greatly struck with that passage in the Bible, where it is written, "But I say unto you, that, for every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account in the day of judgment:" and, as I was very desirous of conforming myself to the directions of the sacred volume, I was upon the point of forming a sort of resolution, that I would on no account open my mouth to speak, without having a weighty reason for uttering the thing I felt myself prompted to say.
But practical directions of this sort are almost in all cases of ambiguous interpretation. From the context of this passage it is clear, that by "idle words" we are to understand vicious words, words tending to instil into the mind unauthorised impulses, that shew in the man who speaks "a will most rank, foul disproportion, thoughts unnatural,' and are calculated to render him by whom they are listened to, light and frivolous of temper, and unstrung for the graver duties of human life.
But idle words, in the sense of innocent amusement, are not vicious. "There is a time for all things." Amusement must not encroach upon or thrust aside the real business, the important engagements, and the animated pursuits of man. But it is entitled to take its turn unreproved. Human life is so various, and the disposition and temper of the mind of so different tones and capacity, that a wise man will "frame his face to all occasions." Playfulness, if not carried to too great an extreme, is an additional perfection in human nature. We become relieved from our more serious cares, and better fitted to enter on them again after an interval. To fill up the days of our lives with various engagements, to make one occupation succeed to another, so as to liberate us from the pains of ennui, and the dangers of what may in an emphatical sense be called idleness, is no small desideratum. That king may in this sense be admitted to have formed no superficial estimate of our common nature, who is said to have proclaimed a reward to the individual that should invent a new amusement.
And, to consider the question as it stands in relation to the subject of the present Essay, a perpetual gravity and a vigilant watch to be placed on the door of our lips, would be eminently hostile to that frankness which is to be regarded as one of the greatest ornaments of our nature. "It is meet, that we should make merry and be glad." A formal countenance, a demure, careful and unaltered cast of features, is one of the most disadvantageous aspects under which human nature can exhibit itself. The temper must be enterprising and fearless, the manner firm and assured, and the correspondence between the heart and the tongue prompt and instantaneous, if we desire to have that view of man that shall do him the most credit, and induce us to form the most honourable opinion respecting him. On our front should sit fearless confidence and unsubdued hilarity. Our limbs should be free and unfettered, a state of the animal which imparts a grace infinitely more winning than that of the most skilful dancer. The very sound of our voice should be full, firm, mellow, and fraught with life and sensibility; of that nature, at the hearing of which every bosom rises, and every eye is lighted up. It is thus that men come to understand and confide in each other. This is the only frame that can perfectly conduce to our moral improvement, the awakening of our faculties, the diffusion of science, and the establishment of the purest notions and principles of civil and political liberty.