The common disappointments which we are liable to through life,
do not bring with them any thing to be compared to the bitterness
we experience from the perfidy of those we esteemed and trusted
as friends: an open enemy we can guard against, and we look upon
him when he is at rest, as we do at the sword within its scabbard;
but the man who betrays his trust, masked under the appearance of
friendship, wounds us in the tenderest part, and involves us in a
cruelly complicated grief, which frets the mind and heightens the sum
of our infelicity. Friendship is the cordial of human life, the balm
of society; and he who violates its laws, by treachery and deceit,
converts it into the deadliest poison, and renders that which ought to
be the defence and support of our steps, our greatest snare and danger.
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