_Nos duo turba sumus_.
OVID, _Met._ i. 355.
We two are a multitude.
One would think that the larger the company is, in which we are engaged,
the greater variety of thoughts and subjects would be started in
discourse; but instead of this, we find that conversation is never so
much straitened and confined as in numerous assemblies. When a multitude
meet together upon any subject of discourse, their debates are taken up
chiefly with forms and general positions; nay, if we come into a more
contracted assembly of men and women, the talk generally runs upon the
weather, fashions, news, and the like public topics. In proportion as
conversation gets into clubs and knots of friends, it descends into
particulars, and grows more free and communicative: but the most open,
instructive, and unreserved discourse is that which passes between two
persons who are familiar and intimate friends. On these occasions, a man
gives a loose to every passion and every thought that is uppermost,
discovers his most retired opinions of persons and things, tries the
beauty and strength of his sentiments, and exposes his whole soul to the
examination of his friend.
Tully was the first who observed that friendship improves happiness and
abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and dividing of our grief; a
thought in which he hath been followed by all the essayists upon
friendship that have written since his time. Sir Francis Bacon has
finely described other advantages, or, as he calls them, fruits of
friendship; and, indeed, there is no subject of morality which has been
better handled and more exhausted than this. Among the several fine
things which have been spoken of it, I shall beg leave to quote some out
of a very ancient author, whose book would be regarded by our modern wits
as one of the most shining tracts of morality that is extant, if it
appeared under the name of a Confucius, or of any celebrated Grecian
philosopher; I mean the little apocryphal treatise entitled The Wisdom of
the Son of Sirach. How finely has he described the art of making friends
by an obliging and affable behaviour; and laid down that precept, which a
late excellent author has delivered as his own, That we should have many
well-wishers, but few friends. "Sweet language will multiply friends;
and a fair-speaking tongue will increase kind greetings. Be in peace
with many, nevertheless have but one counsellor of a thousand." With
what prudence does he caution us in the choice of our friends! And with
what strokes of nature, I could almost say of humour, has he described
the behaviour of a treacherous and self-interested friend! "If thou
wouldest get a friend, prove him first, and be not hasty to credit him:
for some man is a friend for his own occasion, and will not abide in the
day of thy trouble. And there is a friend who, being turned to enmity
and strife, will discover thy reproach." Again, "Some friend is a
companion at the table, and will not continue in the day of thy
affliction: but in thy prosperity he will be as thyself, and will be bold
over thy servants. If thou be brought low, he will be against thee, and
hide himself from thy face." What can be more strong and pointed than
the following verse?--"Separate thyself from thine enemies, and take heed
of thy friends." In the next words he particularises one of those fruits
of friendship which is described at length by the two famous authors
above-mentioned, and falls into a general eulogium of friendship, which
is very just as well as very sublime. "A faithful friend is a strong
defence; and he that hath found such an one hath found a treasure.
Nothing doth countervail a faithful friend, and his excellency is
unvaluable. A faithful friend is the medicine of life; and they that
fear the Lord shall find him. Whose feareth the Lord shall direct his
friendship aright; for as he is, so shall his neighbour, that is his
friend, be also." I do not remember to have met with any saying that has
pleased me more than that of a friend's being the medicine of life, to
express the efficacy of friendship in healing the pains and anguish which
naturally cleave to our existence in this world; and am wonderfully
pleased with the turn in the last sentence, that a virtuous man shall as
a blessing meet with a friend who is as virtuous as himself. There is
another saying in the same author, which would have been very much
admired in a heathen writer: "Forsake not an old friend, for the new is
not comparable to him: a new friend is as new wine; when it is old thou
shalt drink it with pleasure." With what strength of allusion and force
of thought has he described the breaches and violations of
friendship!--"Whoso casteth a stone at the birds, frayeth them away; and
he that upbraideth his friend, breaketh friendship. Though thou drawest
a sword at a friend, yet despair not, for there may be a returning to
favour. If thou hast opened thy mouth against thy friend, fear not, for
there may be a reconciliation: except for upbraiding, or pride, or
disclosing of secrets, or a treacherous wound; for, for these things
every friend will depart." We may observe in this, and several other
precepts in this author, those little familiar instances and
illustrations which are so much admired in the moral writings of Horace
and Epictetus. There are very beautiful instances of this nature in the
following passages, which are likewise written upon the same subject:
"Whose discovereth secrets, loseth his credit, and shall never find a
friend to his mind. Love thy friend, and be faithful unto him; but if
thou bewrayeth his secrets, follow no more after him: for as a man hath
destroyed his enemy, so hast thou lost the love of thy friend; as one
that letteth a bird go out of his hand, so hast thou let thy friend go,
and shall not get him again: follow after him no more, for he is too far
off; he is as a roe escaped out of the snare. As for a wound it may be
bound up, and after reviling there may be reconciliation; but he that
bewrayeth secrets, is without hope."
Among the several qualifications of a good friend, this wise man has very
justly singled out constancy and faithfulness as the principal: to these,
others have added virtue, knowledge, discretion, equality in age and
fortune, and, as Cicero calls it, _Morum comitas_, "a pleasantness of
temper." If I were to give my opinion upon such an exhausted subject, I
should join to these other qualifications a certain equability or
evenness of behaviour. A man often contracts a friendship with one whom
perhaps he does not find out till after a year's conversation; when on a
sudden some latent ill-humour breaks out upon him, which he never
discovered or suspected at his first entering into an intimacy with him.
There are several persons who in some certain periods of their lives are
inexpressibly agreeable, and in others as odious and detestable. Martial
has given us a very pretty picture of one of this species, in the
following epigram:
_Difficilis_, _facilis_, _jucundus_, _acerbus es idem_,
_Nec tecum possum vivere_, _nec sine te_.
_Ep._ xii. 47.
In all thy humours, whether grave or mellow,
Thou'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow;
Hast so much wit, and mirth, and spleen about thee,
There is no living with thee, nor without thee.
It is very unlucky for a man to be entangled in a friendship with one
who, by these changes and vicissitudes of humour, is sometimes amiable
and sometimes odious: and as most men are at some times in admirable
frame and disposition of mind, it should be one of the greatest tasks of
wisdom to keep ourselves well when we are so, and never to go out of that
which is the agreeable part of our character.