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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: is at the door.
Few are qualified to shine in company; but it is in most men's
power to be agreeable. The reason, therefore, why conversation
runs so low at present, is not the defect of understanding, but
pride, vanity, ill-nature, affectation, singularity, positiveness,
or some other vice, the effect of a wrong education.
To be vain is rather a mark of humility than pride. Vain men
delight in telling what honours have been done them, what great
company they have kept, and the like, by which they plainly confess
that these honours were more than their due, and such as their
friends would not believe if they had not been told: whereas a man
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