A man should be a friend with his friend, and pay back gift with
    gift; give back laughter for laughter (to his enemies), and lesing
    for lies.

    Give and give back makes the longest friend.  Give not overmuch at
    one time.  Gift always looks for return.

The poet also tells us how trifling gifts are quite sufficient to make friends and to keep them, if wisely given.  A costly gift may seem like a bribe; a little gift is only the sign of kindly feeling.  And as a mere matter of justice, a costly gift may be unkind, for it puts the friend under an obligation which he may not be rich enough to repay.  Repeatedly we are told also that too much should not be expected of friendship.  The value of a friend is his affection, his sympathy; but favours that cost must always be returned.

    I never met a man so open-hearted and free with his food, but that
    boon was boon to him—­nor so generous as not to look for return if
    he had a chance.

Emerson says almost precisely the same thing in his essay on friendship—­showing how little human wisdom has changed in all the centuries.  Here is another good bit of advice concerning visits: 

    It is far away to an ill friend, even though he live on one’s
    road; but to a good friend there is a short cut, even though he
    live far out.

    Go on, be not a guest ever in the same house.  The welcome becomes
    wearisome if he sits too long at another’s table.

This means that we must not impose on our friends; but there is a further caution on the subject of eating at a friend’s house.  You must not go to your friend’s house hungry, when you can help it.

    A man should take his meal betimes, before he goes to his
    neighbour—­or he will sit and seem hungered like one starving, and
    have no power to talk.

That is the main point to remember in dining at another’s house, that you are not there only for your own pleasure, but for that of other people.  You are expected to talk; and you can not talk if you are very hungry.  At this very day a gentleman makes it the rule to do the same thing.  Accordingly we see that these rough men of the North must have had a good deal of social refinement—­refinement not of dress or of speech, but of feeling.  Still, says the poet, one’s own home is the best, though it be but a cottage.  “A man is a man in his own house.”

Now we come to some sentences teaching caution, which are noteworthy in a certain way: 

    Tell one man thy secret, but not two.  What three men know, all the
    world knows.

    Never let a bad man know thy mishaps; for from a bad man thou
    shalt never get reward for thy sincerity.

I shall presently give you some modern examples in regard to the advice concerning bad men.  Another thing to be cautious about is praise.  If you have to be careful about blame, you must be very cautious also about praise.