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<h2> LETTER XVI </h2>
<h3> LONDON, October 9, O. S. 1747. </h3>
<p>DEAR BOY: People of your age have, commonly, an unguarded frankness about
them; which makes them the easy prey and bubbles of the artful and the
experienced; they look upon every knave or fool, who tells them that he is
their friend, to be really so; and pay that profession of simulated
friendship, with an indiscreet and unbounded confidence, always to their
loss, often to their ruin. Beware, therefore, now that you are coming into
the world, of these preferred friendships. Receive them with great
civility, but with great incredulity too; and pay them with compliments,
but not with confidence. Do not let your vanity and self-love make you
suppose that people become your friends at first sight, or even upon a
short acquaintance. Real friendship is a slow grower and never thrives
unless engrafted upon a stock of known and reciprocal merit. There is
another kind of nominal friendship among young people, which is warm for
the time, but by good luck, of short duration. This friendship is hastily
produced, by their being accidentally thrown together, and pursuing the
course of riot and debauchery. A fine friendship, truly; and well cemented
by drunkenness and lewdness. It should rather be called a conspiracy
against morals and good manners, and be punished as such by the civil
magistrate. However, they have the impudence and folly to call this
confederacy a friendship. They lend one another money, for bad purposes;
they engage in quarrels, offensive and defensive for their accomplices;
they tell one another all they know, and often more too, when, of a
sudden, some accident disperses them, and they think no more of each
other, unless it be to betray and laugh, at their imprudent confidence.
Remember to make a great difference between companions and friends; for a
very complaisant and agreeable companion may, and often does, prove a very
improper and a very dangerous friend. People will, in a great degree, and
not without reason, form their opinion of you, upon that which they have
of your friends; and there is a Spanish proverb, which says very justly,
TELL ME WHO YOU LIVE WITH AND I WILL TELL YOU WHO YOU ARE. One may fairly
suppose, that the man who makes a knave or a fool his friend, has
something very bad to do or to conceal. But, at the same time that you
carefully decline the friendship of knaves and fools, if it can be called
friendship, there is no occasion to make either of them your enemies,
wantonly and unprovoked; for they are numerous bodies: and I, would rather
choose a secure neutrality, than alliance, or war with either of them. You
may be a declared enemy to their vices and follies, without being marked
out by them as a personal one. Their enmity is the next dangerous thing to
their friendship. Have a real reserve with almost everybody; and have a
seeming reserve with almost nobody; for it is very disagreeable to seem
reserved, and very dangerous not to be so. Few people find the true
medium; many are ridiculously mysterious and reserved upon trifles; and
many imprudently communicative of all they know.</p>
<p>The next thing to the choice of your friends, is the choice of your
company. Endeavor, as much as you can, to keep company with people above
you: there you rise, as much as you sink with people below you; for (as I
have mentioned before) you are whatever the company you keep is. Do not
mistake, when I say company above you, and think that I mean with regard
to, their birth: that is the least consideration; but I mean with regard
to their merit, and the light in which the world considers them.</p>
<p>There are two sorts of good company; one, which is called the beau monde,
and consists of the people who have the lead in courts, and in the gay
parts of life; the other consists of those who are distinguished by some
peculiar merit, or who excel in some particular and valuable art or
science. For my own part, I used to think myself in company as, much above
me, when I was with Mr. Addison and Mr. Pope, as if I had been with all
the princes in Europe. What I mean by low company, which should by all
means be avoided, is the company of those, who, absolutely insignificant
and contemptible in themselves, think they are honored by being in your
company; and who flatter every vice and every folly you have, in order to
engage you to converse with them. The pride of being the first of the
company is but too common; but it is very silly, and very prejudicial.
Nothing in the world lets down a character quicker than that wrong turn.</p>
<p>You may possibly ask me, whether a man has it always in his power to get
the best company? and how? I say, Yes, he has, by deserving it; providing
he is but in circumstances which enable him to appear upon the footing of
a gentleman. Merit and good-breeding will make their way everywhere.
Knowledge will introduce him, and good-breeding will endear him to the
best companies: for, as I have often told you, politeness and
good-breeding are absolutely necessary to adorn any, or all other good
qualities or talents. Without them, no knowledge, no perfection whatever,
is seen in its best light. The scholar, without good-breeding, is a
pedant; the philosopher, a cynic; the soldier, a brute; and every man
disagreeable.</p>
<p>I long to hear, from my several correspondents at Leipsig, of your arrival
there, and what impression you make on them at first; for I have Arguses,
with an hundred eyes each, who will watch you narrowly, and relate to me
faithfully. My accounts will certainly be true; it depends upon you,
entirely, of what kind they shall be. Adieu.</p>
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