Fable VIII An Husbandman and Stork
A poor innocent Stork had the ill hap to be taken in a net that was laid for geese and cranes. The Stork’s plea for herself was simplicity and piety, the love she bore to mankind, her duty to her parents, and the service she did in picking up venomous creatures. This may be all true, says the Husbandman, for what I know; but as you have been taken with ill company, you must expect to suffer with it.
Morals
Our fortune and reputation require us to keep good company; for as we may be easily perverted by the force of bad examples, wise men will judge of us by the company we keep. What says the proverb? Birds of a feather will flock together.
The youth to temperance in vain pretends,
Who goes to taverns, and makes rakes his friends:
As maidens, who would live without a stain,
Should never choose to lodge in Drury-Lane.
Reflection
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.