The Eagle Would Not Brook
Her Mate Thus Won,
Who Trained His Eye To Look
Beneath The Sun.
Few things are more difficult than to help a Friend in matters
which do not require the aid of Friendship, but only a cheap and
trivial service, if your Friendship wants the basis of a thorough
practical acquaintance.
I stand in the friendliest relation, on
social and spiritual grounds, to one who does not perceive what
practical skill I have, but when he seeks my assistance in such
matters, is wholly ignorant of that one with whom he deals; does
not use my skill, which in such matters is much greater than his,
but only my hands. I know another, who, on the contrary, is
remarkable for his discrimination in this respect; who knows how
to make use of the talents of others when he does not possess the
same; knows when not to look after or oversee, and stops short at
his man. It is a rare pleasure to serve him, which all laborers
know. I am not a little pained by the other kind of treatment.
It is as if, after the friendliest and most ennobling intercourse,
your Friend should use you as a hammer, and drive a nail with
your head, all in good faith; notwithstanding that you are a
tolerable carpenter, as well as his good Friend, and would use a
hammer cheerfully in his service. This want of perception is a
defect which all the virtues of the heart cannot supply: -
The Good how can we trust?
Only the Wise are just.
The Good we use,
The Wise we cannot choose.
These there are none above;
The Good they know and love,
But are not known again
By those of lesser ken.
They do not charm us with their eyes,
But they transfix with their advice;
No partial sympathy they feel,
With private woe or private weal,
But with the universe joy and sigh,
Whose knowledge is their sympathy.
Confucius said: "To contract ties of Friendship with any one, is
to contract Friendship with his virtue. There ought not to be
any other motive in Friendship." But men wish us to contract
Friendship with their vice also. I have a Friend who wishes me
to see that to be right which I know to be wrong. But if
Friendship is to rob me of my eyes, if it is to darken the day, I
will have none of it. It should be expansive and inconceivably
liberalizing in its effects. True Friendship can afford true
knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance. A want
of discernment cannot be an ingredient in it. If I can see my
Friend's virtues more distinctly than another's, his faults too
are made more conspicuous by contrast. We have not so good a
right to hate any as our Friend. Faults are not the less faults
because they are invariably balanced by corresponding virtues,
and for a fault there is no excuse, though it may appear greater
than it is in many ways.
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