3
And first of all (to draw a parallel in other matters), if there is no small time required to select a great many persons together who can dance and sing in exact time to the same tune, manage oars with a like strength and vigor, be fit stewards of our estates or tutors of our children, certainly we must acknowledge it much more difficult to meet with a considerable number of friends, ready to enter with us the trial of all manner of fortune, of whom every one will Of his good fortune yield thy part to thee, And bear like part of thy calamity. Even a ship at sea runs not the risk of so many storms, nor are any castles, forts, and havens secured with walls, ramparts, and dams against the apprehension of so many dangers, as are the misfortunes against which a constant approved friendship mutually undertakes to afford a defence and refuge. Whoever without due trial put themselves upon us for friends we examine as bad money; and the cheat being discovered, we are glad if of their own accord they withdraw; or if they persist, at least we wish with great impatience fairly to get rid of them.Sophocles, Frag. 778. Yet we must own it is a hard and troublesome task to cast off a disagreeable acquaintance; for as unwholesome meats which nauseate the stomach can neither be retained without hazard of health, nor yet ejected sincere as they were taken, but wholly disguised and defiled with other humors; so a mistaken false friend must either be still entertained, and remain a mere vexation to us as well as uneasy to himself, or else by a kind of convulsion be thrown up like bile, leaving behind the continual torment of private grudgings and hatred.
