contrary, travel very much sated with our own fashions; I do not look for
Gascons in Sicily; I have left enough of them at home; I rather seek for
Greeks and Persians; they are the men I endeavour to be acquainted with
and the men I study; 'tis there that I bestow and employ myself. And
which is more, I fancy that I have met but with few customs that are not
as good as our own; I have not, I confess, travelled very far; scarce out
of the sight of the vanes of my own house.

As to the rest, most of the accidental company a man falls into upon the
road beget him more trouble than pleasure; I waive them as much as I
civilly can, especially now that age seems in some sort to privilege and
sequester me from the common forms. You suffer for others or others
suffer for you; both of them inconveniences of importance enough, but the
latter appears to me the greater. 'Tis a rare fortune, but of
inestimable solace; to have a worthy man, one of a sound judgment and of
manners conformable to your own, who takes a delight to bear you company.
I have been at an infinite loss for such upon my travels. But such a
companion should be chosen and acquired from your first setting out.
There can be no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so
much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind, that it does not grieve
me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to communicate it to:

"Si cum hac exceptione detur sapientia,
ut illam inclusam teneam, nec enuntiem, rejiciam."

["If wisdom be conferred with this reservation, that I must keep it
to myself, and not communicate it to others, I would none of it."
--Seneca, Ep., 6.]

This other has strained it one note higher: