THE BLESSINGS OF FRIENDSHIP.
Of all felicities, the most charming is that of a _firm_ and _gentle
friendship_. It sweetens all our cares, dispels our sorrows, and
counsels us in all extremities. Nay, if there were no other comfort in
it than the bare exercise of so generous a virtue, even for that single
reason, a man would not be without it. Beside, that it is a sovereign
antidote against all calamities, even against the fear of death itself.
But we are not to number our friends by the _visits_ that are made us;
and to confound the decencies of _ceremony_ and _commerce_ with the
offices of _united affections_. Caius Gracchus, and after him Livius
Drusus, were the men that introduced among the Romans the fashion of
separating their visitants; some were taken into their _closet,_ others
were only admitted into the _antechamber_: and some, again, were fain
to wait in the _hall_ perhaps, or in the _court_. So that they had
their _first_, their _second,_ and their _third_ rate friends; but none
of them true: only they are called so in course, as we salute strangers
with some title or other of respect at a venture. There is no depending
upon those men that only take their compliment in their turn, and
rather slip through the door than enter at it. He will find himself in
a great mistake, that either seeks for a friend in a palace, or tries
him at a feast.
The great difficulty rests in the choice of him; that is to say, in the
first place, let him be virtuous, for vice is contagious, and there
is no trusting the sound and the sick together; and he ought to be a
wise man too, if a body knew where to find him; but in this case, he
that is least ill is best, and the highest degree of human prudence is
only the most venial folly. That friendship where men’s affections are
cemented by an equal and by a common love of goodness, it is not either
hope or fear, or any private interest, that can ever dissolve it: but
we carry it with us to our graves, and lay down our lives for it with
satisfaction. Paulina’s good and mine (says our author) were so wrapped
up together, that in consulting her comfort I provided for my own;
and when I could not prevail upon her to take less care for me, she
prevailed upon me to take more care for myself.
Some people make it a question, whether is the greatest delight, the
enjoying of an old friendship, or the acquiring of a new one? but it
is in the preparing of a friendship, and in the possession of it,
as it is with the husbandman in sowing and reaping; his delight is
the hope of his labor in the one case, and the fruit of it in the
other. My conversation lies among my books, but yet in the letters
of a friend, methinks I have his company; and when I answer them, I
do not only write, but speak: and, in effect, a friend is an eye,
a heart, a tongue, a hand, at all distances. When friends see one
another personally, they do not see one another as they do when they
are divided, where the meditation dignifies the prospect; but they are
effectually in a great measure absent even when they are present.
Consider their nights apart, their private studies, their separate
employments, and necessary visits; and they are almost as much together
divided as present. True friends are the whole world to one another;
and he that is a friend to himself is also a friend to mankind. Even
in my very studies, the greatest delight I take in what I learn is
the teaching of it to others; for there is no relish, methinks, in
the possession of anything without a partner; nay, if wisdom itself
were offered me upon condition only of keeping it to myself, I should
undoubtedly refuse it.
Lucilius tells me, that he was written to by a friend, but cautions
me withal not to say anything to him of the affair in question; for
he himself stands upon the same guard. What is this but to affirm and
to deny the same thing in the same breath, in calling a man a friend,
whom we dare not trust as our own soul? For there must be no reserves
in friendship: as much deliberation as you please before the league
is struck, but no doubtings or jealousies after. It is a preposterous
weakness to love a man before we know him, and not to care for him
after. It requires time to consider of a friendship, but the resolution
once taken, entitles him to my very heart. I look upon my thoughts to
be as safe in his breast as in my own: I shall, without any scruple,
make him the confidant of my most secret cares and counsels.
It goes a great way toward the making of a man faithful, to let him
understand that you think him so: and he that does but so much as
suspect that I will deceive him gives me a kind of right to cozen him.
When I am with my friend, methinks I am alone, and as much at liberty
to speak anything as to think it, and as our hearts are one, so must be
our interest and convenience; for friendship lays all things in common,
and nothing can be good to the one that is ill to the other. I do not
speak of such a community as to destroy one another’s propriety; but as
the father and the mother have two children, not one apiece, but each
of them two.
But let us have a care, above all things, that our kindness be
rightfully founded; for where there is any other invitation to
friendship than the friendship itself, that friendship will be bought
and sold. He derogates upon the majesty of it that makes it only
dependent upon good fortune. It is a narrow consideration for a man
to please himself in the thought of a friend, “because,” says he, “I
shall have one to help me when I am sick, in prison, or in want.” A
brave man should rather take delight in the contemplation of doing
the same offices for another. He that loves a man for his own sake is
in an error. A friendship of interest cannot last any longer than the
interest itself, and this is the reason that men in prosperity are so
much followed, and when a man goes down the wind, nobody comes near him.
Temporary friends will never stand the test. One man is forsaken
for fear of profit, another is betrayed. It is a negotiation, not a
friendship, that has an eye to advantages; only, through the corruption
of times, that which was formerly a friendship is now become a design
upon a booty: alter your testament, and you lose your friend. But my
end of friendship is to have one dearer to me than myself, and for
the saving of whose life I would cheerfully lay down my own; taking
this along with me, that only wise men can be friends, others are but
companions; and that there is a great difference also betwixt love and
friendship; the one may sometimes do us hurt, the other always does us
good, for the one friend is hopeful to another in all cases, as well in
prosperity as in affliction. We receive comfort, even at a distance,
from those we love, but then it is light and faint; whereas, presence
and conversation touch us to the quick, especially if we find the man
we love to be such a person as we wish.
It is usual with princes to reproach the living by commending the dead,
and to praise those people for speaking truth from whom there is no
longer any danger of hearing it. This is Augustus’s case: he was forced
to banish his daughter Julia for her common and prostituted impudence;
and still upon fresh informations, he was often heard to say, “If
Agrippa or Mecenas had been now alive, this would never have been.” But
yet where the fault lay may be a question; for perchance it was his
own, that had rather complain for the want of them than seek for others
as good. The Roman losses by war and by fire, Augustus could quickly
supply and repair; but for the loss of two friends he lamented his
whole life after.
Xerxes, (a vain and a foolish prince) when he made war upon Greece, one
told him, “It would never come to a battle”;another, “That he would
find only empty cities and countries, for they would not so much as
stand the very fame of his coming;” others soothed him in the opinion
of his _prodigious numbers_; and they all concurred to puff him up to
his destruction; only Damaratus advised him not to depend too much upon
his numbers, for he would rather find them a burden to him than an
advantage: and that three hundred men in the straits of the mountains
would be sufficient to give a check to his whole army; and that such an
accident would undoubtedly turn his vast numbers to his confusion. It
fell out afterward as he foretold, and he had thanks for his fidelity.
A miserable prince, that among so many thousand subjects had but one
servant to tell him the truth!