OUR HAPPINESS DEPENDS IN A GREAT MEASURE UPON THE CHOICE OF OUR COMPANY.
The comfort of life depends upon conversation. Good offices, and
concord, and human society, is like the working of an arch of stone;
all would fall to the ground if one piece did not support another.
Above all things let us have a tenderness for blood; and it is yet too
little not to hurt, unless we profit one another. We are to relieve
the distressed; to put the wanderer into his way; and to divide our
bread with the hungry: which is but the doing of good to ourselves;
for we are only several members of one great body. Nay, we are all of
a consanguinity; formed of the same materials, and designed to the
same end; this obliges us to a mutual tenderness and converse; and
the other, to live with a regard to equity and justice. The love of
society is natural; but the choice of our company is matter of virtue
and prudence. Noble examples stir us up to noble actions; and the
very history of large and public souls, inspires a man with generous
thoughts. It makes a man long to be in action, and doing something that
the world may be the better for; as protecting the weak, delivering
the oppressed, punishing the insolent. It is a great blessing the very
conscience of giving a good example; beside, that it is the greatest
obligation any man can lay upon the age he lives in.
He that converses with the proud shall be puffed up; a lustful
acquaintance makes a man lascivious; and the way to secure a man from
wickedness is to withdraw from the examples of it. It is too much to
have them _near_ us, but more to have them _within_ us—ill examples,
pleasure and ease, are, no doubt of it, great corrupters of manners.
A rocky ground hardens the horse’s hoof; the mountaineer makes the best
soldier; the miner makes the best pioneer, and severity of discipline
fortifies the mind. In all excesses and extremities of good and of ill
fortune, let us have recourse to great examples that have contemned
both. “These are the best instructors that teach in their lives, and
prove their words by their actions.”
As an ill air may endanger a good constitution, so may a place of ill
example endanger a good man, nay, there are some places that have a
kind of privilege to be licentious, and where luxury and dissolution
of manners seem to be lawful; for great examples give both authority
and excuse to wickedness. Those places are to be avoided as dangerous
to our manners. Hannibal himself was unmanned by the looseness of
Campania, and though a conqueror by his arms, he was overcome by his
pleasures. I would as soon live among butchers as among cooks—not but a
man may be temperate in any place—but to see drunken men staggering up
and down everywhere, and only the spectacle of lust, luxury and excess
before our eyes, it is not safe to expose ourselves to the temptation.
If the victorious Hannibal himself could not resist it, what shall
become of us then that are subdued, and give ground to our lusts
already? He that has to do with an enemy in his breast, has a harder
task upon him than he that is to encounter one in the field; his hazard
is greater if he loses ground, and his duty is perpetual, for he has no
place or time for rest. If I give way to pleasure, I must also yield to
grief, to poverty, to labor, ambition, anger, until I am torn to pieces
by my misfortunes and lusts. But against all this philosophy propounds
a liberty, that is to say, a liberty from the service of accidents and
fortune. There is not anything that does more mischief to mankind than
mercenary masters and philosophy, that do not live as they teach—they
give a scandal to virtue. How can any man expect that a ship should
steer a fortunate course, when the pilot lies wallowing in his own
vomit? It is a usual thing first to learn to do ill ourselves, and then
to instruct others to do so: but that man must needs be very wicked
that has gathered into himself the wickedness of other people.
The best conversation is with the philosophers—that is to say, with
such of them as teach us matter, not words—that preach to us things
necessary and keep us to the practice of them. There can be no peace in
human life without the contempt of all events. There is nothing that
either puts better thoughts into a man, or sooner sets him right that
is out of the way, than a good companion, for the example has the force
of a precept, and touches the heart with an affection to goodness; and
not only the frequent hearing and seeing of a wise man delights us, but
the very encounter of him suggests profitable contemplation such as a
man finds himself moved with when he goes into a holy place. I will
take more care with _whom_ I eat and drink than _what_, for without a
friend the table is a manger.
Writing does well, but personal discourse and conversation does better;
for men give great credit to their ears, and take stronger impressions
from example than precept. Cleanthes had never hit Zeno so to the life
if he had not been in with him at all his privacies, if he had not
watched and observed him whether or not he practised as he taught.
Plato got more from Socrates’ _manners_ than from his _words_, and it
was not the _school_, but the company and _familiarity_ of Epicurus
that made Metrodorus, Hermachus and Polyænus so famous.
Now, though it be by instinct that we covet society, and avoid
solitude, we should yet take this along with us, that the more
acquaintance the more danger: nay, there is not one man of a hundred
that is to be trusted with himself. If company cannot alter us, it may
interrupt us, and he that so much as stops upon the way loses a great
deal of a short life, which we yet make shorter by our inconstancy. If
an enemy were at our heels, what haste should we make!—but death is
so, and yet we never mind it. There is no venturing of tender and easy
natures among the people, for it is odds that they will go over to the
major party. It would, perhaps, shake the constancy of Socrates, Cato,
Lælius, or any of us all, even when our resolutions are at the height,
to stand the shock of vice that presses upon us with a kind of public
authority.
It is a world of mischief that may be done by one single example of
avarice or luxury. One voluptuous palate makes a great many. A wealthy
neighbor stirs up envy, and a fleering companion moves ill-nature
wherever he comes. What will become of those people then that expose
themselves to a popular violence? which is ill both ways; either if
they comply with the wicked, because they are many, or quarrel with
the multitude because they are not principled alike. The best way is
to retire, and associate only with those that may be the better for
us, and we for them. These respects are mutual; for while we teach, we
learn. To deal freely, I dare not trust myself in the hands of much
company: I never go abroad that I come home again the same man I went
out. Something or other that I had put in order is discomposed; some
passion that I had subdued gets head again; and it is just with our
minds as it is after a long indisposition with our bodies; we are grown
so tender, that the least breath of air exposes us to a relapse. And it
is no wonder if a numerous conversation be dangerous, where there is
scarce any single man but by his discourse, example, or behavior, does
either recommend to us, or imprint in us, or, by a kind of contagion,
insensibly infect us with one vice or other; and the more people
the greater is the peril. Especially let us have a care of public
spectacles where wickedness insinuates itself with pleasure; and, above
all others, let us avoid spectacles of cruelty and blood; and have
nothing to do with those that are perpetually whining and complaining;
there may be faith and kindness there, but no peace. People that are
either sad or fearful, we do commonly, for their own sakes, set a
guard upon them, for fear they should make an ill use of being alone;
especially the imprudent, who are still contriving of mischief, either
for others or for themselves, in cherishing their lusts, or forming
their designs. So much for the choice of a _companion_; we shall now
proceed to that of a _friend_.