society should be sought and valued, your opinion respected, your
example followed, by those whom you really love and admire, by the wise
and good, by those whose society you can yourself in your turn enjoy.
You must not expect that at the same time you should be the favourite
and chosen companion of the worthless, the frivolous, the uneducated;
you ought not, indeed, to desire it. Crush in its very birth that mean
ambition for popularity which might lead you on to sacrifice time and
tastes, alas! sometimes even principles, to gain the favour and applause
of those whose society ought to be a weariness to you. Nothing, besides,
is more injurious to the mind than a studied sympathy with mediocrity:
nay, without any "study," any conscious effort to bring yourself down to
their level, your mind must insensibly become weakened and tainted by a
surrounding atmosphere of ignorance and stupidity, so that you would
gradually become unfitted for that superior society which you are formed
to love and appreciate. It is quite a different case when the
dispensations of Providence and the exercise of social duties bring you
into contact with uncongenial minds. Whatever is a duty will be made
safe to you: it can only be from your own voluntary selection that any
unsuitable association becomes injurious and dangerous. Notwithstanding,
however, that it may be laid down as a general rule that the wise will
prefer the society of the wise, the educated that of the educated, it
sometimes happens that highly intellectual and cultivated persons
select, absolutely by their own choice, the frivolous and the ignorant
for their constant companions, though at the same time they may refer to
others for counsel, and direction, and sympathy. Is this choice,
however, made on account of the frivolity and ignorance of the persons
so selected? I am sure it is not. I am sure, if you inquire into every
case of this kind, you will see for yourself that it is not. Such
persons are thus preferred, sometimes on account of the fairness of
their features, sometimes on account of the sweetness of their temper,
sometimes for the lightheartedness which creates an atmosphere of
joyousness around them, and insures their never officiously obtruding
the cares and anxieties of this life upon their companions. Do not,
then, attribute to want of intellect those attractions which only need
to be combined with intellect to become altogether irresistible, but
which, however, I