Men Naturally, Though
Feebly, Seek This Alliance, And Their Actions Faintly Foretell
It.
We are inclined to lay the chief stress on likeness and not
on difference, and in foreign bodies we admit that there are many
degrees of warmth below blood heat, but none of cold above it.
Mencius says: "If one loses a fowl or a dog, he knows well how to
seek them again; if one loses the sentiments of his heart, he
does not know how to seek them again. . . . The duties of
practical philosophy consist only in seeking after those
sentiments of the heart which we have lost; that is all."
One or two persons come to my house from time to time, there
being proposed to them the faint possibility of intercourse.
They are as full as they are silent, and wait for my plectrum to
stir the strings of their lyre. If they could ever come to the
length of a sentence, or hear one, on that ground they are
dreaming of! They speak faintly, and do not obtrude themselves.
They have heard some news, which none, not even they themselves,
can impart. It is a wealth they can bear about them which can be
expended in various ways. What came they out to seek?
No word is oftener on the lips of men than Friendship, and indeed
no thought is more familiar to their aspirations. All men are
dreaming of it, and its drama, which is always a tragedy, is
enacted daily. It is the secret of the universe. You may thread
the town, you may wander the country, and none shall ever speak
of it, yet thought is everywhere busy about it, and the idea of
what is possible in this respect affects our behavior toward all
new men and women, and a great many old ones. Nevertheless, I
can remember only two or three essays on this subject in all
literature. No wonder that the Mythology, and Arabian Nights,
and Shakespeare, and Scott's novels entertain us, - we are poets
and fablers and dramatists and novelists ourselves. We are
continually acting a part in a more interesting drama than any
written. We are dreaming that our Friends are our _Friends_ ,
and that we are our Friends' _Friends_. Our actual Friends are
but distant relations of those to whom we are pledged. We never
exchange more than three words with a Friend in our lives on that
level to which our thoughts and feelings almost habitually rise.
One goes forth prepared to say, "Sweet Friends!" and the
salutation is, "Damn your eyes!" But never mind; faint heart
never won true Friend. O my Friend, may it come to pass once,
that when you are my Friend I may be yours.
Of what use the friendliest dispositions even, if there are
no hours given to Friendship, if it is forever postponed to
unimportant duties and relations? Friendship is first, Friendship
last. But it is equally impossible to forget our Friends, and to
make them answer to our ideal.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 148 of 221
Words from 77605 to 78109
of 116321
