“But you beg the question,” I said, “by saying ‘false witness.’  I quite agree that to discuss people in a malicious spirit, or in a spirit of mockery, with the intention of exaggerating their faults and making a grotesque picture of their foibles, is wrong.  But two just persons, such as you and I are, may surely talk over our friends, in what Mr. Chadband called a spirit of love?” My companion shook his head.  “No,” he said, “I think it is altogether wrong.  Our business is to see the good points of our friends, and to be blind to their faults.”  “Well,” I said, “then let us ’praise him soft and low, call him worthiest to be loved,’ like the people in ‘The Princess.’  You shall make a panegyric, and I will say ‘Hear, hear!’” “You are making a joke out of it,” said my companion, “and I shall stick to my principles—­and you won’t mind my saying,” he went on, “that I think your tendency is to criticise people much too much.  You are always discussing people’s faults, and I think it ends in your having a lower estimate of human nature than is either kind or necessary.  To-night, at dinner, it made me quite melancholy to hear the way in which you spoke of several of our best friends.”  “Not leaving Lancelot brave nor Galahad pure!” I said; “in fact you think that I behaved like the ingenious demon in the Acts, who always seems to me to have had a strong sense of humour.  It was the seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, was it not, who tried to exorcise an evil spirit?  But he ’leapt upon them and overcame them, so that they fled out of the house naked and wounded.’  You mean that I use my friends like that, strip off their reputations, belabour them, and leave them without a rag of virtue or honour?” My companion frowned, and said:  “Yes; that is more or less what I mean, though I think your illustration is needlessly profane.  My idea is that we ought to make the best of people, and try as far as possible to be blind to their faults.”  “Unless their fault happens to be criticism?” I said.  My companion turned to me very solemnly, and said:  “I think we ought not to be afraid, if necessary, of telling our friends about their faults; but that is quite a different thing from amusing oneself by discussing their faults with others.”  “Well” I said, “I believe that one is in a much better position to speak to people about their faults, if one knows them; and personally I think I arrive at a juster view both of my friends’ faults and virtues by discussing them with others.  I think one takes a much fairer view, by seeing the impression that one’s friends make on other people; and I think that I generally arrive at admiring my friends more by seeing them reflected in the mind of another, than I do when they are merely reflected in my own mind.  Besides, if one is possessed of critical faculties, it seems to me absurd to rule out one part of life, and that, perhaps, the most important—­one’s fellow-beings, I mean—­and to say that one is not to exercise the faculty of criticism there.