It had been hard for him that spake it to have put more truth and
untruth together in few words than in that speech, "Whosoever is
delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god." For it is most
true that a natural and secret hatred and aversion toward society in any
man hath somewhat of the savage beast; but it is most untrue that it
should have any character at all of the divine nature, except it
proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and desire
to sequester a man's self for a higher conversation: such as is found to
have been falsely and feignedly in some of the heathen, as Epimenides
the Candian, Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and Apollonius of
Tyana; and truly and really in divers of the ancient hermits and holy
fathers of the Church. But little do men perceive what solitude is, and
how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a
gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no
love. The Latin adage meeteth with it a little: "Magna civitas, magna
solitudo;" because in a great town friends are scattered, so that there
is not that fellowship, for the most part, which is in less
neighborhoods. But we may go further, and affirm most truly that it is a
mere and miserable solitude to want true friends, without which the
world is but a wilderness; and even in this sense also of solitude,
whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections is unfit for
friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity.
A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and discharge of the
fullness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do
cause and induce. We know diseases of stoppings and suffocations are the
most dangerous in the body; and it is not much otherwise in the mind.
You may take sarza to open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flower
of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain: but no receipt
openeth the heart but a true friend; to whom you may impart griefs,
joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the
heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession.
It is a strange thing to observe how high a rate great kings and
monarchs do set upon this fruit of friendship whereof we speak; so
great, as they purchase it many times at the hazard of their own safety
and greatness. For princes, in regard of the distance of their fortune
from that of their subjects and servants, cannot gather this fruit,
except (to make themselves capable thereof) they raise some persons to
be as it were companions and almost equals to themselves; which many
times sorteth to inconvenience. The modern languages give unto such
persons the name of favorites, or privadoes; as if it were matter of
grace or conversation. But the Roman name attaineth the true use and
cause thereof, naming them "participes curarum"; for it is that which
tieth the knot. And we see plainly that this hath been done, not by weak
and passionate princes only, but by the wisest and most politic that
ever reigned; who have oftentimes joined to themselves some of their
servants, whom both themselves have called friends, and allowed others
likewise to call them in the same manner, using the word which is
received between private men.
L. Sylla, when he commanded Rome, raised Pompey (after surnamed the
Great) to that height that Pompey vaunted himself for Sylla's overmatch.
For when he had carried the consulship for a friend of his against the
pursuit of Sylla, and that Sylla did a little resent thereat, and began
to speak great, Pompey turned upon him again, and in effect bade him be
quiet; "for that more men adored the sun rising than the sun setting."
With Julius Caesar, Decimus Brutus had obtained that interest, as he set
him down in his testament for heir in remainder after his nephew; and
this was the man that had power with him to draw him forth to his death.
For when Caesar would have discharged the Senate in regard of some ill
presages, and specially a dream of Calpurnia, this man lifted him gently
by the arm out of his chair, telling him he hoped he would not dismiss
the Senate till his wife had dreamt a better dream. And it seemeth his
favor was so great as Antonius, in a letter which is recited verbatim in
one of Cicero's Philippics, calleth him "venefica"--"witch"; as if he
had enchanted Caesar. Augustus raised Agrippa (though of mean birth) to
that height as, when he consulted with Maecenas about the marriage of
his daughter Julia, Maecenas took the liberty to tell him, "that he must
either marry his daughter to Agrippa or take away his life: there was no
third way, he had made him so great." With Tiberius Caesar, Sejanus had
ascended to that height as they two were termed and reckoned as a pair
of friends. Tiberius in a letter to him saith, "Haec pro amicitia nostra
non occultavi" [these things, from our friendship, I have not concealed
from you]; and the whole Senate dedicated an altar to Friendship, as to
a goddess, in respect of the great dearness of friendship between them
two. The like, or more, was between Septimius Severus and Plautianus.
For he forced his eldest son to marry the daughter of Plautianus; and
would often maintain Plautianus in doing affronts to his son; and did
write also, in a letter to the Senate, by these words: "I love the man
so well, as I wish he may over-live me." Now, if these princes had been
as a Trajan or a Marcus Aurelius, a man might have thought that this had
proceeded of an abundant goodness of nature; but being men so wise, of
such strength and severity of mind, and so extreme lovers of themselves,
as all these were, it proveth most plainly that they found their own
felicity (though as great as ever happened to mortal men) but as an
half-piece, except they might have a friend to make it entire: and yet,
which is more, they were princes that had wives, sons, nephews; and yet
all these could not supply the comfort of friendship.
It is not to be forgotten what Comineus observeth of his first master,
Duke Charles the Hardy; namely, that he would communicate his secrets
with none, and least of all those secrets which troubled him most.
Whereupon he goeth on and saith, that toward his latter time "that
closeness did impair and a little perish his understanding." Surely
Comineus mought have made the same judgment also, if it had pleased him,
of his second master Louis the Eleventh, whose closeness was indeed his
tormentor. The parable of Pythagoras is dark, but true: "Cor ne
edito,"--"Eat not the heart." Certainly, if a man would give it a hard
phrase, those that want friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of
their own hearts. But one thing is most admirable (wherewith I will
conclude this first fruit of friendship), which is, that this
communicating of a man's self to his friend works two contrary effects;
for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in halves. For there is no
man that imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more; and
no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the
less. So that it is, in truth, of operation upon a man's mind of like
virtue as the alchymists use to attribute to their stone for man's body;
that it worketh all contrary effects, but still to the good and benefit
of nature. But yet without praying in aid of alchymists, there is a
manifest image of this in the ordinary course of nature: for in bodies,
union strengtheneth and cherisheth any natural action, and on the other
side, weakeneth and dulleth any violent impression; and even so it is
of minds.
The second fruit of friendship is healthful and sovereign for the
understanding, as the first is for the affections. For friendship maketh
indeed a fair day in the affections, from storm and tempests, but it
maketh daylight in the understanding, out of darkness and confusion of
thoughts. Neither is this to be understood only of faithful counsel,
which a man receiveth from his friend; but before you come to that,
certain it is that whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts,
his wits and understanding do clarify and break up in the communicating
and discoursing with another; he tosseth his thoughts more easily; he
marshaleth them more orderly; he seeth how they look when they are
turned into words; finally, he waxeth wiser than himself; and that more
by an hour's discourse than by a day's meditation. It was well said by
Themistocles to the King of Persia, "That speech was like cloth of
Arras, opened and put abroad; whereby the imagery doth appear in figure:
whereas in thoughts they lie but as in packs." Neither is this second
fruit of friendship, in opening the understanding, restrained only to
such friends as are able to give a man counsel (they indeed are best);
but even without that, a man learneth of himself, and bringeth his own
thoughts to light, and whetteth his wits as against a stone, which
itself cuts not. In a word, a man were better relate himself to a statue
or picture, than to suffer his thoughts to pass in smother.
Add now, to make this second fruit of friendship complete, that other
point which lieth more open, and falleth within vulgar observation;
which is faithful counsel from a friend. Heraclitus saith well in one of
his enigmas, "Dry light is ever the best;" and certain it is, that the
light that a man receiveth by counsel from another, is drier and purer
than that which cometh from his own understanding and judgment; which is
ever infused and drenched in his affections and customs. So as there is
as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a
man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a
flatterer; for there is no such flatterer as is a man's self, and there
is no such remedy against flattery of a man's self as the liberty of a
friend. Counsel is of two sorts: the one concerning manners, the other
concerning business. For the first, the best preservative to keep the
mind in health is the faithful admonition of a friend. The calling of a
man's self to a strict account is a medicine sometimes too piercing and
corrosive; reading good books of morality is a little flat and dead;
observing our faults in others is sometimes improper for our case: but
the best receipt (best I say to work and best to take) is the admonition
of a friend. It is a strange thing to behold what gross errors and
extreme absurdities many (especially of the greater sort) do commit for
want of a friend to tell them of them, to the great damage both of their
fame and fortune: for, as St. James saith, they are as men "that look
sometimes into a glass, and presently forget their own shape and favor."
As for business, a man may think, if he will, that two eyes see no more
than one; or, that a gamester seeth always more than a looker-on; or,
that a man in anger is as wise as he that hath said over the
four-and-twenty letters; or, that a musket may be shot off as well upon
the arm as upon a rest; and such other fond and high imaginations, to
think himself all in all: but when all is done, the help of good counsel
is that which setteth business straight: and if any man think that he
will take counsel, but it shall be by pieces; asking counsel in one
business of one man, and in another business of another man, it is well
(that is to say, better, perhaps, than if he asked none at all); but he
runneth two dangers: one, that he shall not be faithfully counseled; for
it is a rare thing, except it be from a perfect and entire friend, to
have counsel given, but such as shall be bowed and crooked to some ends
which he hath that giveth it: the other, that he shall have counsel
given, hurtful and unsafe (though with good meaning), and mixed partly
of mischief, and partly of remedy; even as if you would call a
physician, that is thought good for the cure of the disease you complain
of, but is unacquainted with your body; and therefore may put you in a
way for a present cure, but overthroweth your health in some other kind,
and so cure the disease and kill the patient: but a friend that is
wholly acquainted with a man's estate will beware, by furthering any
present business, how he dasheth upon the other inconvenience. And
therefore, rest not upon scattered counsels: they will rather distract
and mislead, than settle and direct.
After these two noble fruits of friendship (peace in the affections, and
support of the judgment), followeth the last fruit, which is like the
pomegranate, full of many kernels; I mean aid, and bearing a part in all
actions and occasions. Here the best way to represent to life the
manifold use of friendship, is to cast and see how many things there are
which a man cannot do himself: and then it will appear that it was a
sparing speech of the ancients to say, "that a friend is another
himself;" for that a friend is far more than himself. Men have their
time, and die many times in desire of some things which they principally
take to heart; the bestowing of a child, the finishing of a work, or the
like. If a man have a true friend, he may rest almost secure that the
care of those things will continue after him; so that a man hath, as it
were, two lives in his desires. A man hath a body, and that body is
confined to a place; but where friendship is, all offices of life are,
as it were, granted to him and his deputy; for he may exercise them by
his friend. How many things are there, which a man cannot, with any face
or comeliness, say or do himself; A man can scarce allege his own
merits with modesty, much less extol them; a man cannot sometimes brook
to supplicate, or beg, and a number of the like: but all these things
are graceful in a friend's mouth, which are blushing in a man's own. So
again, a man's person hath many proper relations which he cannot put
off. A man cannot speak to his son but as a father; to his wife but as a
husband; to his enemy but upon terms: whereas a friend may speak as the
case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person: but to enumerate
these things were endless; I have given the rule, where a man cannot
fitly play his own part, if he have not a friend he may quit the stage.