Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 14.djvu/39

Rh farther than personal friendships interest me in the affairs of it, and this principle extends my cares but a little way. Perfect tranquillity is the general tenour of my life: good digestions, serene weather, and some other mechanick springs, wind me above it now and then, but I never fall below it; I am sometimes gay, but I am never sad; I have gained new friends, and have lost some old ones; my acquisitions of this kind give me a good deal of pleasure, because they have not been made lightly. I know no vows so solemn as those of friendship, and therefore a pretty long noviciate of acquaintance should methinks precede them; my losses of this kind give me but little trouble, I contributed nothing to them, and a friend who breaks with me unjustly, is not worth preserving. As soon as I leave this town (which will be in a few days) I shall fall back into that course of life, which keeps knaves and fools at a great distance from me: I have an aversion to them both, but in the ordinary course of life, I think I can bear the sensible knave, better than the fool: One must, indeed, with the former, be in some or other of the attitudes of those wooden men whom I have seen before a sword cutler's shop in Germany; but even in these constrained postures, the witty rascal will divert me: and he that diverts me does me a great deal of good, and lays me under an obligation to him, which I am not obliged to pay in another coin: the fool obliges me to be almost as much upon my guard as the knave, and he makes me no amends; he numbs me like the torpor, or he teases me like the fly. This is the picture of an old friend, and more like him than that will be which you once asked, and which he will send you, if you continue still to desire it Adieu, dear Swift, with