CHAPTER III .-- COMPANIONSHIP AND EXAMPLES.
"Keep good company, and you shall be of the number." -- GEORGE HERBERT.
"For mine own part, I Shall be glad to learn of noble men."-- SHAKSPEARE "Examples preach to th' eye--Care then, mine says, Not how you end but how you spend your days." HENRY MARTEN--'LAST THOUGHTS.' "Dis moi qui t'admire, et je dirai qui tu es."-- SAINTE-BEUVE "He that means to be a good limner will be sure to draw after the most excellent copies and guide every stroke of his pencil by the better pattern that lays before him; so he that desires that the table of his life may be fair, will be careful to propose the best examples, and will never be content till he equals or excels them."-- OWEN FELTHAM The natural education of the Home is prolonged far into life--indeed, it never entirely ceases.

But the time arrives, in the progress of years, when the Home ceases to exercise an exclusive influence on the formation of character; and it is succeeded by the more artificial education of the school and the companionship of friends and comrades, which continue to mould the character by the powerful influence of example.
Men, young and old--but the young more than the old--cannot help imitating those with whom they associate.

It was a saying of George Herbert's mother, intended for the guidance of her sons, "that as our bodies take a nourishment suitable to the meat on which we feed, so do our souls as insensibly take in virtue or vice by the example or conversation of good or bad company." Indeed, it is impossible that association with those about us should not produce a powerful influence in the formation of character.

For men are by nature imitators, and all persons are more or less impressed by the speech, the manners, the gait, the gestures, and the very habits of thinking of their companions.

"Is example nothing ?" said Burke.