"This supplying a story by invention," he says, "is certainly a most scandalous crime, and yet very little regarded in that part.

It is a sort of lying that makes a great hole in the heart, in which by degrees a habit of lying enters in.

Such a man comes quickly up to a total disregarding the truth of what he says, looking upon it as a trifle, a thing of no import, whether any story he tells be true or not." How empty a satisfaction is this "purchased at so great an expense as that of conscience, and of a dishonour done to truth!" And the crime is so entirely objectless.

A man who tells a lie, properly so called, has some hope of reward by it.

But to lie for sport is to play at shuttlecock with your soul, and load your conscience for the mere sake of being a fool.