LONDON, October 9, O. S. 1747.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.