'_Duns._ There always seems to me a want of tenderness in what are
called friendships in the present day. Now, for instance, I don't
understand a man ridiculing his friend. The joking of intimates often
appears to me coarse and harsh. You will laugh at this in me, and
think it rather effeminate, I am afraid.
'_Mil._ No; I do not. I think a great deal of jocose raillery may pass
between intimates without the requisite tenderness being infringed
upon. If any friend had been in a painful and ludicrous position (such
as when Cardinal Balue in full dress is run away with on horseback,
which Scott comments upon as one of a class of situations combining
"pain, peril, and absurdity"), I would not remind him of it. Why
should I bring back a disagreeable impression to his mind? Besides, it
would be more painful than ludicrous to me. I should enter into his
feelings rather than into those of the ordinary spectator.
'_Duns._ I am glad we are of the same mind in this.
'_Mil._ I have also a notion that, even in the common friendships of
the world, we should be very stanch defenders of our absent friends.
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