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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Works of Samuel Johnson by Samuel Johnson: man has a desire to appear superior to others, though
it were only in having seen what they have not seen."
Such an accidental advantage, since it neither
implies merit, nor confers dignity, one would think
should not be desired so much as to be counterfeited:
yet even this vanity, trifling as it is, produces
innumerable narratives, all equally false; but more or
less credible in proportion to the skill or confidence
of the relater. How many may a man of diffusive
conversation count among his acquaintances, whose
lives have been signalized by numberless escapes;
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