Chapter XIV: Aristotle (2)

end; but the experience is commonly far otherwise. Acquaintances may come and go, and have a word ready for every occasion; but what puny word shall he utter whose very breath is thought and meaning? Suppose you go to bid farewell to your Friend who is setting out on a journey; what other outward sign do you know than to shake his hand? Have you any palaver ready for him then? any box of salve to commit to his pocket? any particular message to send by him? any statement which you had forgotten to make?--as if you could forget anything. No; it is much that you take his hand and say Farewell; that you could easily omit; so far custom has prevailed. It is even painful, if he is to go, that he should linger so long. If he must go, let him go quickly. Have you any _last_ words?

[Sidenote: The word of words]

Alas, it is only the word of words which _you_ have so long sought and found not; you have not a _first_ word yet. There are few even whom I should venture to call earnestly by their most proper names. A name pronounced is the recognition of the individual to whom it belongs. He who can pronounce my name aright, he can call me, and is entitled to my love and service. Yet reserve is the freedom and abandonment of lovers. It is the reserve of what is hostile or indifferent in their natures to give place to what is kindred and harmonious.

The violence of love is as much to be dreaded as that of hate. When it is durable it is serene and equable. Even its famous pains begin only with the ebb of love, for few are indeed lovers, though all would fain be. It is one proof of a man’s

[Sidenote: Man’s fitness for friendship]

fitness for Friendship that he is able to do without that which is cheap and passionate. A true Friendship is as wise as it is tender. The parties to it yield implicitly to the guidance of their love, and know no other law nor kindness. It is not extravagant and insane, but what it says is something established henceforth, and will bear to be stereotyped. It is a truer truth, it is better and fairer news, and no time will ever shame it, or prove it false. This is a plant which thrives best in a temperate zone, where summer and winter alternate with one another. The Friend is a _necessarius_, and meets his Friend on homely ground; not on carpets and cushions, but on the ground and on rocks they will sit, obeying the natural and primitive laws. They will meet without any outcry, and part without loud

[Sidenote: Friendship not an idle sympathy]

sorrow. Their relation implies such qualities as the warrior prizes; for it takes a valour to open the hearts of men as well as the gates of castles. It is not an idle sympathy and mutual consolation merely, but a heroic sympathy of aspiration and endeavour.

* * * * *

Friendship is not so kind as is imagined; it has not much human blood in it, but consists with a certain disregard for men and their erections, the Christian duties and humanities, while it purifies the air like electricity. There may be the sternest tragedy in the relation of two more than usually innocent and true to their highest instincts. We may call it an essentially heathenish intercourse, free and irresponsible in its nature, and practising all the virtues gratuitously. It is

[Sidenote: Godlike intercourse]

not the highest sympathy merely, but a pure and lofty society, a fragmentary and godlike intercourse of ancient date, still kept up at intervals, which, remembering itself, does not hesitate to disregard the humbler rights and duties of humanity. It requires immaculate and godlike qualities full-grown, and exists at all only by condescension and anticipation of the remotest future. We love nothing which is merely good and not fair, if such a thing is possible. Nature puts some kind of blossom before every fruit, not simply a calyx behind it. When the Friend comes out of his heathenism and superstition, and breaks his idols, being converted by the precepts of a newer testament; when he forgets his mythology, and treats his Friend like a Christian, or as he can afford; then Friendship ceases to be Friendship,

[Sidenote: The cessation of friendship]

and becomes charity; that principle which established the almshouse is now beginning with its charity at home, and establishing an almshouse and pauper relations there.

As for the number which this society admits, it is at any rate to be begun with one, the noblest and greatest that we know, and whether the world will ever carry it further, whether, as Chaucer affirms,

‘There be mo sterres in the skie than a pair,’

remains to be proved;

‘And certaine he is well begone
Among a thousand that findeth one.’

We shall not surrender ourselves heartily to any, while we are conscious that another is more deserving of our love. Yet Friendship does not stand for numbers; the Friend does not count his

[Sidenote: We cannot have too many friends]

Friends on his fingers; they are not numerable. The more there are included by this bond, if they are indeed included, the rarer and diviner the quality of the love that binds them. I am ready to believe that as private and intimate a relation may exist by which three are embraced as between two. Indeed, we cannot have too many friends; the virtue which we appreciate we to some extent appropriate, so that thus we are made at last more fit for every relation of life. A base Friendship is of a narrowing and exclusive tendency, but a noble one is not exclusive; its very superfluity and dispersed love is the humanity which sweetens society, and sympathises with foreign nations; for though its foundations are private, it is, in effect, a public affair and a public advantage, and the Friend more

[Sidenote: Faults attract faults]

than the father of a family deserves well of the state.

The only danger in Friendship is that it will end. It is a delicate plant, though a native. The least unworthiness, even if it be unknown to one’s self, vitiates it. Let the Friend know that those faults which he observes in his Friend his own faults attract. There is no rule more invariable than that we are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspected. By our narrowness and prejudices we say, I will have so much and such of you, my Friend, no more. Perhaps there are none charitable, none disinterested, none wise, noble, and heroic enough for a true and lasting Friendship.

I sometimes hear my Friends complain finely that I do not appreciate their fineness. I shall not tell them whether I do

[Sidenote: Silence is better than speech]

or not. As if they expected a vote of thanks for every fine thing which they uttered or did. Who knows but it was finely appreciated. It may be that your silence was the finest thing of the two. There are some things which a man never speaks of which are much finer kept silent about. To the highest communications we only lend a silent ear. Our finest relations are not simply kept silent about, but buried under a positive depth of silence never to be revealed. It may be that we are not even yet acquainted. In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood. Then there can never be an explanation. What avails it that another loves you if he does not understand you? Such love is a curse. What sort of

[Sidenote: The man with the ears]

companions are they who are presuming always that their silence is more expressive than yours? How foolish, and inconsiderate, and unjust, to conduct as if you were the only party aggrieved! Has not your Friend always equal ground of complaint? No doubt my friends sometimes speak to me in vain, but they do not know what things I hear which they are not aware that they have spoken. I know that I have frequently disappointed them by not giving them words when they expected them, or such as they expected. Whenever I see my Friend I speak to him; but the expecter, the man with the ears, is not he. They will complain too that you are hard. O ye that would have the cocoa-nut wrong side outwards, when next I weep I will let you know. They ask for words and deeds, when a

[Sidenote: My friend is my real brother]

true relation is word and deed. If they know not of these things, how can they be informed? We often forbear to confess our feelings, not from pride, but for fear that we could not continue to love the one who required us to give such proof of our affection.

* * * * *

My Friend is not of some other race or family of men, but flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone. He is my real brother. I see his nature groping yonder so like mine. We do not live far apart. Have not the fates associated us in many ways? It says in the Vishnu Purana: ‘Seven paces together is sufficient for the friendship of the virtuous, but thou and I have dwelt together.’ Is it of no significance that we have so long partaken of the

[Sidenote: Friendship consecrated by time]

same loaf, drank at the same fountain, breathed the same air summer and winter, felt the same heat and cold; that the same fruits have been pleased to refresh us both, and we have never had a thought of different fibre the one from the other!

* * * * *

As surely as the sunset in my latest November shall translate me to the ethereal world, and remind me of the ruddy morning of youth; as surely as the last strain of music which falls on my decaying ear shall make age to be forgotten, or, in short, the manifold influences of Nature survive during the term of our natural life, so surely my Friend shall for ever be my Friend, and reflect a ray of God to me, and time shall foster and adorn and consecrate our Friendship, no

[Sidenote: Love for a friend]

less than the ruins of temples. As I love Nature, as I love singing birds, and gleaming stubble, and flowing rivers, and morning and evening, and summer and winter, I love thee, my Friend.

III

THE SENTIMENT OF FRIENDSHIP

THOMAS CARLYLE

THE SENTIMENT OF FRIENDSHIP

[Sidenote: A university friend]

Let us present the following small thread of Moral relation; and therewith, the reader for himself weaving it in at the right place, conclude our dim arras-picture of these University years.

Here also it was that I formed acquaintance with Herr Towgood, or, as it is perhaps better written, Herr Toughgut; a young person of quality (_von Adel_), from the interior parts of England. He stood connected, by blood and hospitality, with the Counts von Zähdarm, in this quarter of Germany; to which noble Family I likewise was, by

[Sidenote: A character sketch]

his means, with all friendliness, brought near. Towgood had a fair talent, unspeakably ill-cultivated; with considerable humour of character: and, bating his total ignorance, for he knew nothing except Boxing and a little Grammar, showed less of that aristocratic impassivity, and silent fury, than for most part belongs to Travellers of his nation. To him I owe my first practical knowledge of the English and their ways; perhaps also something of the partiality with which I have ever since regarded that singular people. Towgood was not without an eye, could he have come at any light. Invited doubtless by the presence of the Zähdarm Family, he had travelled hither, in the almost frantic hope of perfecting his studies; he, whose studies had as yet been those of infancy,

[Sidenote: Great and small cost]

hither to a University where so much as the notion of perfection, not to say the effort after it, no longer existed! Often we would condole over the hard destiny of the Young in this era: how, after all our toil, we were to be turned-out into the world, with beards on our chins indeed, but with few other attributes of manhood; no existing thing that we were trained to Act on, nothing that we could so much as Believe. ‘How has our head on the outside a polished Hat,’ would Towgood exclaim, ‘and in the inside Vacancy, or a froth of Vocables and Attorney-Logic! At a small cost men are educated to make leather into shoes; but at a great cost, what am I educated to make? By Heaven, Brother! what I have already eaten and worn, as I came thus far, would endow a considerable

[Sidenote: Looking bravely on life]

Hospital of Incurables.’--‘Man, indeed,’ I would answer, ‘has a Digestive Faculty, which must be kept working, were it even partly by stealth. But as for our Miseducation, make not bad worse; waste not the time yet ours, in trampling on thistles because they have yielded us no figs. _Frisch zu, Bruder!_ Here are Books, and we have brains to read them; here is a whole Earth and a whole Heaven, and we have eyes to look on them: _Frisch zu!_’

Often also our talk was gay; not without brilliancy, and even fire. We looked out on Life, with its strange scaffolding, where all at once harlequins dance, and men are beheaded and quartered: motley, not unterrific was the aspect; but we looked on it like brave youths. For myself, these were perhaps my

[Sidenote: Spiritual union]

most genial hours. Towards this young warmhearted, strongheaded and wrongheaded Herr Towgood I was even near experiencing the now obsolete sentiment of Friendship. Yes, foolish Heathen that I was, I felt that, under certain conditions, I could have loved this man, and taken him to my bosom, and been his brother once and always. By degrees, however, I understood the new time, and its wants. If man’s _Soul_ is indeed, as in the Finnish Language, and Utilitarian Philosophy, a kind of _Stomach_, what else is the true meaning of Spiritual Union but an Eating together? Thus we, instead of Friends, are Dinner-guests; and here as elsewhere have cast away chimeras.

* * * * *

Hast thou a certain Faculty, a certain

[Sidenote: A fearful unbelief]

Worth, such even as the most have not; or art thou the completest Dullard of these modern times? Alas! the fearful Unbelief is unbelief in yourself; and how could I believe? Had not my first, last Faith in myself, when even to me the Heavens seemed laid open, and I dared to love, been all-too cruelly belied? The speculative Mystery of Life grew ever more mysterious to me: neither in the practical Mystery had I made the slightest progress, but been everywhere buffeted, foiled, and contemptuously cast-out. A feeble unit in the middle of a threatening Infinitude, I seemed to have nothing given me but eyes, whereby to discern my own wretchedness. Invisible yet impenetrable walls, as of Enchantment, divided me from all living: was there, in the wide world, any true bosom I could press

[Sidenote: A man is sufficient for himself]

trustfully to mine? O Heaven, No, there was none! I kept a lock upon my lips: why should I speak much with that shifting variety of so-called Friends, in whose withered, vain and too-hungry souls Friendship was but an incredible tradition? In such cases, your resource is to talk little, and that little mostly from the Newspapers. Now when I look back, it was a strange isolation I then lived in. The men and women around me, even speaking with me, were but Figures; I had, practically, forgotten that they were alive, that they were not merely automatic. In midst of their crowded streets and assemblages, I walked solitary; and (except as it was my own heart, not another’s, that I kept devouring) savage also, as the tiger in his jungle.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Two phantoms]

How were Friendship possible? ‘In mutual devotedness to the Good and True: otherwise impossible; except as Armed Neutrality, or hollow Commercial League. A man, be the Heavens ever praised, is sufficient for himself; yet were ten men, united in Love, capable of being and of doing what ten thousand singly would fail in. Infinite is the help man can yield to man.’ And now in conjunction therewith consider this other: ‘It is the Night of the World, and still long till it be Day: we wander amid the glimmer of smoking ruins, and the Sun and the Stars of Heaven are as if blotted out for a season; and two immeasurable Phantoms, HYPOCRISY and ATHEISM, with the Ghoul, SENSUALITY, stalk abroad over the Earth, and call it theirs: well at ease are the sleepers for whom Existence is a shallow Dream.’

IV

ON THE ACQUISITION OF FRIENDS

HENRY MACKENZIE

ON THE ACQUISITION OF FRIENDS

[Sidenote: Ruined by friends]

The praises of friendship, and descriptions of the happiness arising from it, I remember to have met with in almost every book and poem since first I could read. I was never much addicted to reading: and, in this instance, I think, I have little reason to put confidence in authors. How it may be in their experience, I know not; but in mine, this same virtue of friendship has tended very little to my happiness; on the contrary, when I tell you my situation, you will find that I am almost ruined by my friends.

From my earliest days I was reckoned one of the best-natured fellows in the world; and at school, though I must

[Sidenote: Friends acquired at some expense]

confess I did not acquire so much learning as many of my companions, yet, even there, I was remarkable for the acquisition of friends. Even there, too, I acquired them at some expense; I was flogged, I dare say, a hundred times for the faults of others, but was too generous ever to _peach_; my companions were generous fellows too; but it always happened, I don’t know how, that my generosity was on the losing side of the adventure.

I had not been above three years at college, when the death of an uncle put me in possession of a very considerable estate. As I was not violently inclined towards literature, I soon took the opportunity, which this presented me, of leaving the university and entering upon the world. I put myself under the tuition

[Sidenote: London friends]

of one of my companions, who generally spent the vacations, and indeed some of the terms too, in London; and took up my residence in that city. There I needed not that propensity, which I have told you I always possessed, to acquire a multitude of friends. I found myself surrounded by them in every tavern and coffee-house about town. But I soon experienced, that though the commodity was plenty, the price was high. Besides a considerable mortgage on my estate, of which one of my best friends contrived to possess himself, I was obliged to expose my life to a couple of duels, and had very near lost it.

* * * * *

From this sort of bondage I contrived to emancipate myself by matrimony. I married the sister of one of my friends,

[Sidenote: The country life]

a girl good-natured and thoughtless like myself, with whom I soon retired into the country, and set out upon what we thought a sober, well-regulated plan. The situation was so distant as to be quite out of reach of my former town-companions; provisions were cheap and servants faithful; in short, everything so circumstanced that we made no doubt of living considerably within our income. Our manner of life, however, was to be happy and prudent. By the improvement of my estate, I was to be equally amused and enriched; my skill in sportsmanship (for I had acquired that science to great perfection at the university) was to procure vigour to my constitution, and dainties to my table; and, against the long nights of winter, we were provided with an excellent _neighbourhood_.

[Sidenote: A talent for friend-making]

This last-mentioned article is the only one which we have found come up entirely to our expectations. My talent for friend-making has indeed extended the limits of _neighbourhood_ a good deal farther than the word is commonly understood to reach. The parish, which is not a small one--the county, which is proportionally extensive, comes within the denomination of neighbourhood with us; and my neighbour Goostry, who pays me an annual sporting visit of several weeks, lives at least fifty miles off.

Some of these _neighbours_, who always become _friends_ at my house, have endeavoured to pay me for their entertainment with their advice as to the cultivation of my farm, or the management of my estate; but I have generally found their counsel, like other friendly exertions, put

[Sidenote: Our friends’ attentions]

me out of pocket in the end. Their theories of agriculture failed in my practice of them; and the ingenious men they recommended to me for tenants, seldom paid their rent by their ingenuity.

The attentions of our friends are sometimes carried farther than mere words or visits of compliment; yet, even then, unfortunately, their favours are just so many taxes upon us. When I receive a present of a delicate salmon, or a nice haunch of venison, it is but a signal for all my good neighbours to come and eat at my expense; and some time ago, when a nephew of my wife, settled abroad, sent me a hogshead of excellent claret, it cost me, in entertainments for the honour of the liquor, what might have purchased a tun from the wine-merchant.

After so many instances in which my

[Sidenote: Disappointed expectations]

friendships were hurtful to my fortune, I wished to hit on the way to making some of them beneficial to it. For this purpose, my wife and I have, for a good while past, been employed in looking out for some snug office, or reversion, to which my interest with several powerful friends might recommend me. But, somehow or other, our expectations have been always disappointed; not from any want of inclination in our friends to serve us, as we have been repeatedly assured, but from various unforeseen accidents, to which expectations of that sort are particularly liable. In the course of these solicitations I was lead to engage in the political interests of a gentleman on whose influence I built the strongest hopes of success in my own schemes; and I flattered myself that, from the friendly footing

[Sidenote: A resolution]

on which I stood with my neighbours, I might be of considerable service to him. This, indeed, he is extremely ready to acknowledge, though he has yet found no opportunity of returning the favour; but, in the meantime, it kept my table open to all his _friends_, as well as my own, and cost me, besides, a headache twice a week during the whole period of the canvass.

In short, I find I can afford to keep myself in friends no longer. I mean to give them warning of this my resolution as speedily as possible.... I have shut my gates, locked my cellar, turned off my cook, disposed of my dogs, forgot my acquaintance, and am resolved henceforward, let people say of me what they will, to be _no one’s friend but my own_.

V

ON FRIENDSHIP

OLIVER GOLDSMITH

ON FRIENDSHIP

[Sidenote: The virtue of friendship]

There are few subjects which have been more written upon and less understood than that of Friendship: to follow the dictates of some, this virtue, instead of being the assuager of pain, becomes the source of every inconvenience. Such speculatists, by expecting too much from friendship, dissolve the connection, and by drawing the bonds too closely, at length break them.

Almost all our romance and novel writers are of this kind: they persuade us to friendships which we find it impossible to sustain to the last; so that this sweetener of life, under proper regulations, is by their means rendered inaccessible or uneasy. It is certain, the best method to cultivate this virtue is by letting it in some measure make itself; a similitude of minds or studies, and even sometimes a diversity of pursuits, will produce all the pleasures that arise from it. The current of tenderness widens as it proceeds; and two men imperceptibly find their hearts warm with good-nature for each other when they were at first in pursuit only of mirth or relaxation.

[Sidenote: Friendship a debt of honour]

Friendship is like a debt of honour; the moment it is talked of it loses its real name, and assumes the more ungrateful form of obligation. From hence we find, that those who regularly undertake to cultivate friendship, find ingratitude generally repays their endeavours. That circle of beings which dependence gathers round us, is almost ever unfriendly; they secretly wish the term of their connection

[Sidenote: Bankrupt hearts]

more nearly equal; and when they even have the most virtue, are prepared to reserve all their affections for their patron only in the hour of his decline. Increasing the obligations which are laid upon such minds only increases their burden; they feel themselves unable to repay the immensity of their debt, and their bankrupt hearts are taught a latent resentment at the hand that is stretched out with offers of service and relief.

Plautinus was a man who thought that every good was to be bought by riches; and as he was possessed of great wealth, and a mind naturally formed for virtue, he resolved to gather a circle of the best men around him. Among the number of his dependants was Musidorus, with a mind just as fond of virtue, yet not less proud than his patron. His circumstances,

[Sidenote: Plautinus and Musidorus]

however, were such as forced him to stoop to the good offices of his superior, and he saw himself daily, among a number of others, loaded with benefits and protestations of friendship. These, in the usual course of the world, he thought it prudent to accept; but while he gave his esteem, he could not give his heart. A want of affection breaks out in the most trifling instances, and Plautinus had skill enough to observe the minutest actions of the man he wished to make his friend. In these he ever found his aim disappointed; for Musidorus claimed an exchange of hearts, which Plautinus, solicited by a variety of claims, would never think of bestowing.

It may easily be supposed, that the reserve of our poor proud man was soon construed into ingratitude; and such, indeed,

[Sidenote: Fallen fortune]

in the common acceptation of the word, it was. Whenever Musidorus appeared, he was remarked as the ungrateful man; he had accepted favours, it was said, and still had the insolence to pretend to independence. The event, however, justified his conduct. Plautinus, by misguided liberality, at length became poor, and it was then that Musidorus first thought of making a friend of him. He flew to the man of fallen fortune with an offer of all he had; wrought under his direction with assiduity; and by uniting their talents, both were at length placed in that state of life from which one of them had formerly fallen.

To this story, taken from modern life, I shall add one more, taken from a Greek writer of antiquity. ‘Two Jewish soldiers, in the time of Vespasian, had made many

[Sidenote: A story from the antique]

campaigns together, and a participation of dangers at length bred an union of hearts. They were marked throughout the whole army as the two friendly brothers; they felt and fought for each other. Their friendship might have continued without interruption till death, had not the good fortune of the one alarmed the pride of the other, which was in his promotion to be a centurion, under the famous John, who headed a particular party of Jewish malcontents.

‘From this moment their former love was converted into the most inveterate enmity. They attached themselves to opposite factions, and sought each other’s lives in the conflict of adverse party. In this manner they continued for more than two years, vowing mutual revenge and animated with an unconquerable spirit

[Sidenote: Jews and Romans]

of aversion. At length, however, that party of the Jews to which the mean soldier belonged, joining with the Romans, it became victorious, and drove John with all his adherents into the Temple. History has given us more than one picture of the dreadful conflagration of that superb edifice. The Roman soldiers were gathered round it; the whole temple was in flames, and thousands were seen amidst them within its sacred circuit. It was in this situation of things that the now successful soldier saw his former friend upon the battlements of the highest tower looking round with horror, and just ready to be consumed with flames. All his former tenderness now returned; he saw the man of his bosom just going to perish; and unable to withstand the impulse, he ran, spreading his arms and

[Sidenote: A dramatic episode]

crying out to his friend to leap down from the top and find safety with him. The centurion from above heard and obeyed, and casting himself from the top of the tower into his fellow-soldier’s arms, both fell a sacrifice on the spot; one being crushed to death by the weight of his companion, and the other dashed to pieces by the greatness of his fall.’

VI

THE PLEASURES OF FRIENDSHIP

SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.

THE PLEASURES OF FRIENDSHIP

[Sidenote: Life’s noblest pleasure]

Life has no pleasure higher or nobler than that of friendship. It is painful to consider that this sublime enjoyment may be impaired or destroyed by innumerable causes, and that there is no human possession of which the duration is less certain.

Many have talked, in very exalted language, of the perpetuity of friendship, of invincible constancy, and unalienable kindness; and some examples have been seen of men who have continued faithful to their earliest choice, and whose affection has predominated over changes of fortune, and contrariety of opinion.

[Sidenote: Long absence destroys friendship]

But these instances are memorable, because they are rare. The friendship which is practised or expected by common mortals must take its rise from mutual pleasure, and must end when the power ceases of delighting each other.

Many accidents therefore may happen by which the ardour of kindness will be abated, without criminal baseness or contemptible inconstancy on either part.

To give pleasure is not always in our power; and little does he know himself, who believes that he can be always able to receive it.

Those who would gladly pass their days together may be separated by the different course of their affairs; and friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions. What we have

[Sidenote: Necessity produces expedients]

missed long enough to want it, we value more when it is regained; but that which has been lost till it is forgotten, will be found at last with little gladness, and with still less, if a substitute has supplied the place. A man deprived of the companion to whom he used to open his bosom, and with whom he shared the hours of leisure and merriment, feels the day at first hanging heavy upon him; his difficulties oppress, and his doubts distract him; he sees time come and go without his wonted gratification, and all is sadness within, and solitude about him. But this uneasiness never lasts long; necessity produces expedients, new amusements are discovered and new conversation is admitted.

No expectation is more frequently disappointed than that which naturally

[Sidenote: Friendship after separation]

arises in the mind from the prospect of meeting an old friend after long separation. We expect the attraction to be revived, and the coalition to be renewed; no man considers how much alteration time has made in himself, and very few inquire what effect it has had upon others. The first hour convinces them that the pleasure which they had formerly enjoyed, is for ever at an end; the opinions of both are changed; and that similitude of manners and sentiment is lost which confirmed them both in the approbation of themselves.

Friendship is often destroyed by opposition of interest, not only by the ponderous and visible interest which the desire of wealth and greatness forms and maintains, but by a thousand secret and slight competitions, scarcely known

[Sidenote: Minute ambition]

to the mind upon which they operate. There is scarcely any man without some favourite trifle which he values above greater attainments, some desire of petty praise which he cannot patiently suffer to be frustrated. This minute ambition is sometimes crossed before it is known, and sometimes defeated by wanton petulance; but such attacks are seldom made without the loss of friendship; for whoever has once found the vulnerable part will be always feared, and the resentment will burn on in secret, of which shame hinders the discovery.

This, however, is a slow malignity, which a wise man will obviate as inconsistent with quiet, and a good man will repress as contrary to virtue; but human happiness is sometimes violated by some more sudden strokes.

[Sidenote: The enemies of friendship]

A dispute begun in jest upon a subject which a moment before was on both parts regarded with careless indifference, is continued by the desire of conquest, till vanity kindles into rage, and opposition rankles into enmity. Against this hasty mischief, I know not what security can be obtained; men will sometimes be surprised into quarrels; and though they might both hasten to reconciliation, as soon as their tumult had subsided, yet two minds will seldom be found together which can at once subdue their discontent or immediately enjoy the sweets of peace without remembering the wounds of the conflict. Friendship has other enemies. Suspicion is always hardening the cautious, and disgust repelling the delicate. Very slender differences will sometimes part those whom long reciprocation of

[Sidenote: Friendship’s fatal disease]

civility or beneficence has united. Lonelove and Ranger retired into the country to enjoy the company of each other, and returned in six weeks cold and petulant; Ranger’s pleasure was to walk in the fields, and Lonelove’s to sit in a bower; each had complied with the other in his turn, and each was angry that compliance had been exacted.

The most fatal disease of friendship is gradual decay, or dislike hourly increased by causes too slender for complaint and too numerous for removal. Those who are angry may be reconciled; those who have been injured may receive a recompence; but when the decay of pleasing and willingness to be pleased is silently diminished, the renovation of friendship is hopeless; as, when the vital powers sink into languor, there is no longer any use of the physician.

VII

THE TRUE ART OF FRIENDSHIP

SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.

‘_Idem velle, et idem nolle, ea demum firma amicitia est._’--SALLUST.

To live in friendship is to have the same desires and the same aversions.

THE TRUE ART OF FRIENDSHIP

[Sidenote: Naturally enraged]

The fondest and firmest friendships are dissolved by such openness and sincerity as interrupt our enjoyment of our own approbation, or recall us to the remembrance of these failings which we are more willing to indulge than correct.

It is by no means necessary to imagine that he who is offended at advice was ignorant of the fault, and resents the admonition as a false charge; for perhaps it is most natural to be enraged when there is the strongest conviction of our own guilt. While we can easily defend our character, we are no more disturbed at an accusation than we are alarmed by

[Sidenote: A friend’s reprehension]

an enemy whom we are sure to conquer; and whose attack, therefore, will bring us honour without danger. But when a man feels the reprehension of a friend seconded by his own heart, he is easily heated into resentment and revenge, either because he hoped that the fault of which he was conscious had escaped the notice of others; or that his friend had looked upon it with tenderness and extenuation, and excused it for the sake of his other virtues; or had considered him as too wise to need advice, or, too delicate to be shocked with reproach: or, because we cannot feel without pain those reflections round which we have been endeavouring to lay asleep; and when pain has produced anger, who would not willingly believe, that it ought to be discharged on others rather than on himself?

[Sidenote: Virtue may be encouraged]

The resentment produced by sincerity, whatever be its immediate cause, is so certain, and generally so keen, that very few have magnanimity sufficient for the practice of a duty which, above most others, exposes its votaries to hardships and persecutions; yet friendship without it is of very little value, since the great use of so close an intimacy is, that our virtues may be guarded and encouraged, and our vices repressed in their first appearance by timely detection and salutary remonstrances.

It is decreed by Providence, that nothing truly valuable shall be obtained in our present state, but with difficulty and danger. He that hopes for that advantage which is to be gained from unrestrained communication must sometimes hazard, by unpleasing truths, that friendship

[Sidenote: Our failings]

which he aspires to merit. The chief rule to be observed in the exercise of this dangerous office, is to preserve it pure from all mixture of interest or vanity; to forbear admonition or reproof, when our consciences tell us that they are incited, not by the hopes of reforming faults, but the desire of showing our discernment, or gratifying our own pride by the mortification of another. It is not indeed certain, that the most refined caution will find a proper time for bringing a man to the knowledge of his own failings, or the most zealous benevolence reconcile him to that judgment by which they are detected; but he who endeavours only the happiness of him whom he reproves will always have either the satisfaction of obtaining or deserving kindness; if he succeeds, he benefits his friend; and if he

[Sidenote: Socrates’ opinion]

fails, he has at least the consciousness that he suffers for only doing well.

* * * * *

When Socrates was building himself a house at Athens, being asked by one that observed the littleness of the design, why a man so eminent would not have an abode more suitable to his dignity? he replied, that he should think himself sufficiently accommodated, if he could see that narrow habitation filled with real friends. Such was the opinion of this great master of human life, concerning the infrequency of such a union of minds as might deserve the name of friendship; that among the multitudes whom vanity or curiosity, civility or veneration crowded about him, he did not expect that very spacious apartments would be necessary to contain all that should regard him

[Sidenote: Friendship requires many qualities]

with sincere kindness, or adhere to him with steady fidelity.

So many qualities are indeed requisite to the possibility of friendship, and so many accidents must concur to its rise and its continuance, that the greatest part of mankind content themselves without it, and supply its place as they can, with interest and independence.

Multitudes are unqualified for a constant and warm reciprocation of benevolence, as they are incapacitated for any other elevated excellence, by perpetual attention to their interest, and unresisting subjection to their passions. Long habits may superinduce inability to deny any desire, or repress, by superior motives, the importunities of any immediate gratification, and an inveterate selfishness will imagine all advantages diminished

[Sidenote: Varieties of dispositions]

in proportion as they are communicated.

But not only this hateful and confirmed corruption, but many varieties of disposition, not inconsistent with common degrees of virtue, may exclude friendship from the heart. Some, ardent enough in their benevolence, and defective neither in officiousness nor liberality, are mutable and uncertain, soon attracted by new objects, disgusted without offence, and alienated without enmity. Others are soft and flexible, easily influenced by reports or whispers, ready to catch alarms from every dubious circumstance, and to listen to every suspicion which envy and flattery shall suggest, to follow the opinion of every confident adviser, and move by the impulse of the last breath. Some are impatient

[Sidenote: Varieties of dispositions]

of contradiction, more willing to go wrong by their own judgment than may be indebted for a better or a safer way to the sagacity of another, inclined to consider counsel as insult, and inquiry as want of confidence, and to confer their regard on no other terms than unreserved submission and implicit compliance.--Some are dark and involved, equally careful to conceal good and bad purposes; and pleased with producing effects by invisible means, and showing their design only in its execution. Others are universally communicative, alike open to every eye, and equally profuse of their own secrets and those of others, without the necessary vigilance of caution, or the honest arts of prudent integrity, ready to accuse without malice, and to betray without treachery. Any of these may be useful

[Sidenote: Varieties of dispositions]

to the community, and pass through the world with the reputation of good purpose and uncorrupted morals, but they are unfit for close and tender intimacies. He cannot properly be chosen for a friend, whose kindness is exhaled by his own warmth, or frozen by the first blast of slander; he cannot be a useful counsellor, who will hear no opinion but his own; he will not much invite confidence whose principal maxim is to suspect; nor can candour and frankness of that man be much esteemed, who spreads his arms to humankind, and makes every man, without distinction, a denizen of his bosom.

That friendship may be at once fond and lasting, there must not only be equal virtue on each part, but virtue of the same kind; not only the same end must be proposed, but the same means must be

[Sidenote: Candidates for friendship]

approved by both. We are often, by superficial accomplishments and accidental endearments, induced to love those whom we cannot esteem; we are sometimes, by great abilities, and incontestable evidences of virtue, compelled to esteem those whom we cannot love. But friendship, compounded of esteem and love, derives from one its tenderness, and its permanence from the other; and therefore, requires not only that its candidates should gain the judgment, but that they should attract the affections; that they should not only be firm in the day of distress, but gay in the hour of jollity; not only useful in exigencies, but pleasing in familiar life; their presence should give cheerfulness as well as courage, and dispel alike the gloom of fear and of melancholy.

[Sidenote: Mutual complacency]

To this mutual complacency is generally requisite a uniformity of opinions, at least of those active and conspicuous principles which discriminate parties in government and sects in religion, and which every day operate more or less on the common business of life. For though great tenderness has, perhaps, been sometimes known to continue between men eminently in contrary factions; yet such friends are to be shown rather as prodigies than examples; and it is no more proper to regulate our conduct by such instances than to leap a precipice, because some have fallen from it and escaped with life.

It cannot but be extremely difficult to preserve private kindness in the midst of public opposition, in which will necessarily be involved a thousand incidents, extending their influence to conversation

[Sidenote: Private kindness]

and privacy. Men engaged, by moral or religious motives, in contrary parties will generally look with different eyes upon every man, and decide almost every question upon different principles. When such occasions of dispute happen, to comply is to betray our cause, and to maintain friendship, by ceasing to deserve it; to be silent is to lose the happiness and dignity of independence, to live in perpetual constraint, and to desert if not to betray; and who shall determine which of two friends shall yield, where neither believes himself mistaken, and both confess the importance of the question? What then remains but contradiction and debate? and from these what can be expected but acrimony and vehemence, the insolence of triumph, the vexation of defeat, and, in time, a weariness of contest,

[Sidenote: The pleasures and cares of friends]

and an extinction of benevolence? Exchange of endearments and intercourse of civility may continue, indeed, as boughs may for a while be verdant when the root is wounded; but the poison of discord is infused, and though the countenance may preserve its smile, the heart is hardening and contracting.

That man will not be long agreeable whom we see only in times of seriousness and severity; and, therefore, to maintain the softness and serenity of benevolence, it is necessary that friends partake each other’s pleasures as well as cares, and be led to the same diversions by similitude of taste. This is, however, not to be considered as equally indispensable with conformity of principles, because any man may honestly, according to Horace, resign the gratifications of taste to the

[Sidenote: The flame of friendship]

humour of another, and friendship may well deserve the sacrifice of pleasure, though not of conscience.

It was once confessed to me, by a painter, that no professor of his art ever loved another. This declaration is so far justified by the knowledge of life as to damp the hopes of warm and constant friendship between men whom their studies have made competitors, and whom every favourer and every censurer are hourly inciting against each other. The utmost expectation that experience can warrant us, is, that they should forbear open hostilities and secret machinations, and when the whole fraternity is attacked, be able to unite against a common foe. Some, however, though few, may perhaps be found in whom emulation has not been able to overpower generosity,

[Sidenote: Imperfect earthly blessings]

who are distinguished from lower beings by nobler motives than the love of fame, and can preserve the sacred flame of friendship from the gusts of pride and the rubbish of interest.

Friendship is seldom lasting but between equals, or where the superiority on one side is reduced by some equivalent advantage on the other. Benefits which cannot be repaid, and obligations which cannot be discharged, are not commonly found to increase affection; they excite gratitude indeed, and heighten veneration, but commonly take away that easy freedom and familiarity of intercourse, without which, though there may be fidelity and zeal and admiration, there cannot be friendship.

Thus imperfect are all earthly blessings; the great effect of friendship is

[Sidenote: Duty before convenience]

beneficence, yet by the first act of uncommon kindness it is endangered, like plants that bear fruit and die. Yet this consideration ought not to restrain bounty or repress compassion; for duty is to be preferred before convenience, and he that loses part of the pleasures of friendship by his generosity, gains in its place the gratulation of his conscience.

VIII

THE VIRTUE OF FRIENDSHIP

GEORGE BERKELEY

THE VIRTUE OF FRIENDSHIP

[Sidenote: The universe]

If we consider the whole scope of the creation that lies within our view, the moral and intellectual, as well as the natural and corporeal, we shall perceive throughout, a certain correspondence of the parts, a similitude of operation, and unity of design, which plainly demonstrate the universe to be the work of one infinitely good and wise being; and that the system of thinking beings is actuated by laws derived from the same divine power which ordained those by which the corporeal system is upheld.

From the contemplation of the order, motion, and cohesion of natural bodies, philosophers are now agreed, that there is a mutual attraction between the most

[Sidenote: Mutual attraction]

distant parts at least of this solar system. All those bodies that revolve round the sun are drawn towards each other, and towards the sun, by some secret, uniform, and never-ceasing principle. Hence it is that the earth (as well as the other planets), without flying off in a tangent line, constantly rolls about the sun, and the moon about the earth, without deserting her companion in so many thousand years. And as the larger systems of the universe are held together by this cause, so likewise the particular globes derive their cohesion and consistence from it.

Now if we carry our thoughts from the corporeal to the moral world, we may observe in the spirits or minds of men, a like principle of attraction, whereby they are drawn together in communities, clubs, families, friendships, and all the

[Sidenote: Mutual attraction]

various species of society. As in bodies, where the quantity is the same, the attraction is strongest between those which are placed nearest to each other; so it is likewise in the minds of men, _cæteris paribus_, between those which are most nearly related. Bodies that are placed at the distance of many millions of miles, may nevertheless attract and constantly operate on each other, although this action do not show itself by a union or approach of those distant bodies so long as they are withheld by the contrary forces of other bodies, which, at the same time, attract them different ways; but would, on the supposed removal of all other bodies, mutually approach and unite with each other. The like holds with regard to the human soul, whose affection towards the individuals of the same species,

[Sidenote: The soul’s affection]

who are distantly related to it, is rendered inconspicuous by its more powerful attraction towards those who have a nearer relation to it. But as those are removed, the tendency which before lay concealed, doth gradually disclose itself.

A man who has no family is more strongly attracted towards his friends and neighbours; and if absent from these, he naturally falls into an acquaintance with those of his own city or country who chance to be in the same place. Two Englishmen meeting at Rome or Constantinople, soon run into familiarity. And in China or Japan, Europeans would think their being so a good reason for their uniting in particular converse. Farther, in case we suppose ourselves translated into Jupiter or Saturn, and there to meet a Chinese or other more distant

[Sidenote: Natural reflections]

native of our own planet, we should look on him as a near relation, and readily commence a friendship with him. These are natural reflections, and such as may convince us that we are linked by an imperceptible chain to every individual of the human race.

The several great bodies which compose the solar system are kept from joining together at the common centre of gravity by the rectilinear motions the author of nature has impressed on each of them; which, concurring with the attractive principle, form their respective orbits round the sun; upon the ceasing of which motions, the general law of gravitation that is now thwarted, would show itself by drawing them all into one mass. After the same manner, in the parallel case of society, private passions

[Sidenote: Mutual gravitation]

and motions of the soul do often obstruct the operation of that benevolent uniting instinct implanted in human nature; which, notwithstanding, doth still exert, and will not fail to show itself when those obstructions are taken away.

The mutual gravitation of bodies cannot be explained any other way than by resolving it into the immediate operation of God, who never ceases to dispose and actuate his creatures in a manner suitable to their respective beings. So neither can that reciprocal attraction in the minds of men be accounted for by any other cause. It is not the result of education, law, or fashion; but is a principle originally ingrafted in the very first formation of the soul by the author of our nature.

And as the attractive power in bodies

[Sidenote: Sympathy in our nature]

is the most universal principle which produceth innumerable effects, and is a key to explain the various phenomena of nature; so the corresponding social appetite in human souls is the great spring and source of moral actions. This it is that inclines each individual to an intercourse with his species, and models every one to that behaviour which best suits with the common well-being. Hence that sympathy in our nature, whereby we feel the pains and joys of our fellow creatures. Hence that prevalent love in parents towards their children, which is neither founded on the merit of the object, nor yet on self-interest. It is this that makes us inquisitive concerning the affairs of distant nations, which can have no influence on our own. It is this that extends our care to future generations,

[Sidenote: The duty of mankind]

and excites us to acts of beneficence towards those who are not yet in being, and consequently from whom we can expect no recompence. In a word, hence arises that diffusive sense of humanity so unaccountable to the selfish man who is untouched with it, and is indeed a sort of monster, or anomalous production.