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 th