My heart, indeed, acquits me of deliberate malignity, or interested
insidiousness. I had no other purpose than to heighten the pleasure of
laughter by communication, nor ever raised any pecuniary advantage from
the calamities of others. I led weakness and negligence into
difficulties, only that I might divert myself with their perplexities
and distresses; and violated every law of friendship, with no other hope
than that of gaining the reputation of smartness and waggery.
I would not be understood to charge myself with any crimes of the
atrocious or destructive kind. I never betrayed an heir to gamesters, or
a girl to bebauchees; [Transcriber's note: sic] never intercepted the
kindness of a patron, or sported away the reputation of innocence. My
delight was only in petty mischief, and momentary vexations, and my
acuteness was employed not upon fraud and oppression, which it had been
meritorious to detect, but upon harmless ignorance or absurdity,
prejudice or mistake.
This inquiry I pursued with so much diligence and sagacity, that I was
able to relate, of every man whom I knew, some blunder or miscarriage;
to betray the most circumspect of my friends into follies, by a
judicious flattery of his predominant passion; or expose him to
contempt, by placing him in circumstances which put his prejudices into
action, brought to view his natural defects, or drew the attention of
the company on his airs of affectation.
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