The world will always form an idea of the character of every man from his associates. Nor is this rule founded on wrong principles; for, generally speaking, those who are constant companions are either drawn together from a similitude of manners, or from such a similitude to each other by daily commerce and continual conversation.
If bad company had nothing else to make us shun and avoid it, this, methinks, might be sufficient, that it infects and taints a man’s reputation to as great a degree as if he were thoroughly versed in the wickedness of the whole gang. What is it to me if the thief who robs me of my money gives part of it to build a church? Is he ever the less a thief? Shall a woman’s going to prayers twice a day, save her reputation, if she is known to be a malicious lying gossip? No; such mixtures of religion and sin make the offence but the more flagrant, as they convince us that it was not committed out of ignorance. Indeed, there is no living without being guilty of some faults, more or less; which the world ought to be good-natured enough to overlook, in consideration of the general frailty of mankind, when they are not too gross and too abundant. But, when we are so abandoned to stupidity, and a neglect of our reputation, as to keep bad company, however little we may be criminal in reality, we must expect the same censure and punishment as is due to the most notorious of our companions.
Fable IX.
The Dog and the Shadow.
A Dog, crossing a little rivulet with a piece of flesh in his mouth, saw his own shadow represented in the clear mirror of the limpid stream; and believing it to be another Dog who was carrying another piece of flesh, he could not forbear catching at it; but was so far from getting anything by his greedy design, that he dropt the piece he had in his mouth, which immediately sunk to the bottom, and was irrecoverably lost.
Morals.
Excessive greediness mostly in the end misses what it aims at; disorderly appetites seldom obtain what they would have; passions mislead men, and often bring them into great straits and inconveniences, through heedlessness and negligence.
Base is the man who pines amidst his store,