John Macy says in _The Atlantic Monthly_:
Poe lived, worked, and died in such intellectual solitude that
Griswold could write immediately after his death that he left
few friends. Tho at the height of his career in New York,
“between the appearance of ‘The Raven’ and the time when poverty
and illness claimed him irrevocably, he appears as a lion in
gatherings of the literati, yet it is asserted that among them
his only affectionate friends were two or three women.”
No brilliant fame can atone for the lack of true friendships.
(1162)
* * * * *
A young man who had left home to enter business, and who had
only a single acquaintance in the town where he was newly
employed, was arrested upon the charge of stealing a pocketbook
containing $1,000 from the desk of a man whom he had called
upon in a business way the previous day. He was in a desperate
plight, for circumstances were strongly against him. The man
stated that he had the pocketbook just a few minutes before
the young man came in, and upon looking for it immediately
afterward, it was gone, and nobody else had been in the room.
The young man’s only hope was in the establishment of a
previous good character, and he had no one to whom he could
at the moment apply. Not knowing what to do he sent for his
single acquaintance, and told him of his predicament and the
circumstances of the whole affair, and said, “Of course, you
have only my word that I did not take the pocketbook, but it
is the truth.” His acquaintance looked at him critically for a
few minutes, and then said, “No, I don’t believe you did take
it, and I am going to stand by you in this, and see that you
are cleared.” The new acquaintance immediately gave bail, and
told him to go back to work, and say nothing. Then he sent to
the home of the boy, and arranged to have some influential
men of the place come on at his own expense to testify to the
character of his friend, and upon the day of trial, secured his
honorable discharge. When asked why he did all this he replied,
“Why, I am your friend.” This was his idea of the meaning of a
friend.--JAMES T. WHITE, “Character Lessons.”
(1163)
See KINDNESS.
=Friendship and Peace=--See PEACE PACT.