’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.  Supposing that our friend’s character or conduct is justly attacked in our hearing upon some point, we should be careful to let the light and worth of the rest of his character in upon the company, so that they should go away with something of the impression that we have of him; instead of suffering them to dwell only upon this fault or foible that was commented upon, which was as nothing against him in our hearts—­mere fringe to the character, which we were accustomed to, and rather liked than otherwise, if the truth must be told.

’Elles. I declare we have made out amongst us an essay on friendship, without the fuss of writing one.  I always told you our talk was better than your writing, Milverton.  Now, we only want a beginning and ending to this peripatetic essay.  What would you say to this as a beginning?—­it is to be a stately, pompous plunge into the subject, after the Milverton fashion:—­“Friendship and the Phoenix, taking into due account the fire-office of that name, have been found upon the earth in not unsimilar abundance.”  I flatter myself that “not unsimilar abundance” is eminently Milvertonian.

’Mil. Now observe, Dunsford, you were speaking sometime ago about the joking of intimates being frequently unkind.  This is just an instance to the contrary.  Ellesmere, who is not a bad fellow—­at least not so bad as he seems—­knows that he can say anything he pleases about my style of writing without much annoying me.  I am not very vulnerable on these points; but all the while there is a titillating pleasure to him in being all but impertinent and vexatious to a friend.  And he enjoys that.  So do I.’

This certainly reads like free and natural conversation, besides being noteworthy for the suggestions it contains.