Is the first draught of a friend, whom we must lay down oft thus, as the
foul copy, before we can write him perfect and true: for from hence, as
from a probation, men take a degree in our respect, till at last they
wholly possess us: for acquaintance is the hoard, and friendship the
pair chosen out of it; by which at last we begin to impropriate and
inclose to ourselves what before lay in common with others. And commonly
where it grows not up to this, it falls as low as may be; and no poorer
relation than old acquaintance, of whom we only ask how they do for
fashion's sake, and care not. The ordinary use of acquaintance is but
somewhat a more boldness of society, a sharing of talk, news, drink,
mirth together; but sorrow is the right of a friend, as a thing nearer
our heart, and to be delivered with it. Nothing easier than to create
acquaintance, the mere being in company once does it; whereas
friendship, like children, is engendered by a more inward mixture and
coupling together; when we are acquainted not with their virtues only,
but their faults, their passions, their fears, their shame.--and are
bold on both sides to make their discovery. And as it is in the love of
the body, which is then at the height and full when it has power and
admittance into the hidden and worst parts of it; so it is in friendship
with the mind, when those _verenda_ of the soul, and those things which
we dare not shew the world, are bare and detected one to another.
Some men are familiar with all, and those commonly friends to none; for
friendship is a sullener thing, is a contractor and taker up of our
affections to some few, and suffers them not loosely to be scattered on
all men. The poorest tie of acquaintance is that of place and country,
which are shifted as the place, and missed but while the fancy of that
continues. These are only then gladdest of other, when they meet in some
foreign region, where the encompassing of strangers unites them closer,
till at last they get new, and throw off one another. Men of parts and
eminency, as their acquaintance is more sought for, so they are
generally more staunch of it, not out of pride only, but fear to let too
many in too near them: for it is with men as with pictures, the best
show better afar off and at distance, and the closer you come to them
the coarser they are. The best judgment of a man is taken from his
acquaintance, for friends and enemies are both partial; whereas these
see him truest because calmest, and are no way so engaged to lie for
him. And men that grow strange after acquaintance seldom piece together
again, as those that have tasted meat and dislike it, out of a mutual
experience disrelishing one another.