s lately come from a journey or designs
to go on one, and out of mere good-will and affection seems desirous of
your company, and doth not desire to carry a great many, or strangers,
but only some few friends along with him; or, besides all this, if he
designs to bring you thus invited acquainted with the principal inviter,
who is very worthy of your acquaintance, then consent and go. For as
to ill-humored persons, the more they seize and take hold of us like
thorns, we should endeavor to free ourselves from them or leap over them
the more. If he that invites is a civil and well-bred person, yet doth
not design to carry you to one of the same temper, you must refuse, lest
you should take poison in honey, that is, get the acquaintance of a bad
man by an honest friend. It is absurd to go to one you do not know, and
with whom you never had any familiarity, unless, as I said before, the
person be an extraordinary man, and, by a civil waiting, upon him at
another man's invitation, you design to begin an acquaintance with him.
And those friends you should chiefly go to as shadows, who would come to
you again in the same quality. To Philip the jester, indeed, he seemed
more ridiculous that came to a feast of his own accord than he that was
invited; but to well-bred and civil friends it is more obliging for men
of the same temper to come at the nick of time with other friends, when
uninvited and unexpected; at once pleasing both to those that invite and
those that entertain. But chiefly you must avoid going to rulers, rich
or great men, lest you incur the deserved censure of being impudent,
saucy, rude, and unseasonably ambitious.

QUESTION VII. WHETHER FLUTE-GIRLS ARE TO BE ALLOWED AT A FEAST?

DIOGENIANUS, A SOPHIST, PHILIP.

At Chaeronea, Diogenianus the Pertamenian being present, we had a long
discourse once at an entertainment about music; and we had a great deal
of trouble to hold out against a great bearded sophister of the Stoic
sect, who quoted Plato as blaming a company that admitted flute-girls
and were not able to entertain one another with discourse. And Philip
the Prusian, of the same sect, said: Those guests of Agatho, whose
discourse was more sweet than the sound of any pipe in the world, were
no good authority in this case; for it was no wonder that in their
company the flute-girl was not regarded; but it is strange that, in the
midst of the entertainment, the extreme pleasantness of the discourse
had not