The Rays Of
Light Come To Us In Such A Curve That Every Man Whom We Meet
Appears To Be Taller Than He Actually Is.
Such foundation has
civility.
My Friend is that one whom I can associate with my
choicest thought. I always assign to him a nobler employment in
my absence than I ever find him engaged in; and I imagine that
the hours which he devotes to me were snatched from a higher
society. The sorest insult which I ever received from a Friend
was, when he behaved with the license which only long and cheap
acquaintance allows to one's faults, in my presence, without
shame, and still addressed me in friendly accents. Beware, lest
thy Friend learn at last to tolerate one frailty of thine, and so
an obstacle be raised to the progress of thy love. There are
times when we have had enough even of our Friends, when we begin
inevitably to profane one another, and must withdraw religiously
into solitude and silence, the better to prepare ourselves for a
loftier intimacy. Silence is the ambrosial night in the
intercourse of Friends, in which their sincerity is recruited and
takes deeper root.
Friendship is never established as an understood relation. Do
you demand that I be less your Friend that you may know it? Yet
what right have I to think that another cherishes so rare a
sentiment for me? It is a miracle which requires constant
proofs. It is an exercise of the purest imagination and the
rarest faith.
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