It will make a man honest; it will make him a hero; it will make
him a saint. It is the state of the just dealing with the just,
the magnanimous with the magnanimous, the sincere with the
sincere, man with man.
And it is well said by another poet,
"Why love among the virtues is not known,
Is that love is them all contract in one."
All the abuses which are the object of reform with the philanthropist,
the statesman, and the housekeeper are unconsciously amended in
the intercourse of Friends. A Friend is one who incessantly pays
us the compliment of expecting from us all the virtues, and who
can appreciate them in us. It takes two to speak the truth, - one
to speak, and another to hear. How can one treat with
magnanimity mere wood and stone? If we dealt only with the false
and dishonest, we should at last forget how to speak truth. Only
lovers know the value and magnanimity of truth, while traders
prize a cheap honesty, and neighbors and acquaintance a cheap
civility. In our daily intercourse with men, our nobler
faculties are dormant and suffered to rust. None will pay us the
compliment to expect nobleness from us. Though we have gold to
give, they demand only copper. We ask our neighbor to suffer
himself to be dealt with truly, sincerely, nobly; but he answers
no by his deafness. He does not even hear this prayer. He says
practically, I will be content if you treat me as "no better than
I should be," as deceitful, mean, dishonest, and selfish. For
the most part, we are contented so to deal and to be dealt with,
and we do not think that for the mass of men there is any truer
and nobler relation possible. A man may have _good_ neighbors,
so called, and acquaintances, and even companions, wife, parents,
brothers, sisters, children, who meet himself and one another on
this ground only. The State does not demand justice of its
members, but thinks that it succeeds very well with the least
degree of it, hardly more than rogues practise; and so do the
neighborhood and the family. What is commonly called Friendship
even is only a little more honor among rogues.
But sometimes we are said to _love_ another, that is, to stand in
a true relation to him, so that we give the best to, and receive
the best from, him. Between whom there is hearty truth, there is
love; and in proportion to our truthfulness and confidence in one
another, our lives are divine and miraculous, and answer to our
ideal. There are passages of affection in our intercourse with
mortal men and women, such as no prophecy had taught us to
expect, which transcend our earthly life, and anticipate Heaven
for us. What is this Love that may come right into the middle of
a prosaic Goffstown day, equal to any of the gods? that discovers
a new world, fair and fresh and eternal, occupying the place of
the old one, when to the common eye a dust has settled on the
universe? which world cannot else be reached, and does not exist.
What other words, we may almost ask, are memorable and worthy to
be repeated than those which love has inspired? It is wonderful
that they were ever uttered. They are few and rare, indeed, but,
like a strain of music, they are incessantly repeated and
modulated by the memory. All other words crumble off with the
stucco which overlies the heart. We should not dare to repeat
these now aloud. We are not competent to hear them at all times.
The books for young people say a great deal about the _selection_
of Friends; it is because they really have nothing to say about
_Friends_. They mean associates and confidants merely. "Know
that the contrariety of foe and Friend proceeds from God."
Friendship takes place between those who have an affinity for one
another, and is a perfectly natural and inevitable result. No
professions nor advances will avail. Even speech, at first,
necessarily has nothing to do with it; but it follows after
silence, as the buds in the graft do not put forth into leaves
till long after the graft has taken. It is a drama in which the
parties have no part to act. We are all Mussulmen and fatalists
in this respect. Impatient and uncertain lovers think that they
must say or do something kind whenever they meet; they must never
be cold. But they who are Friends do not do what they _think_
they must, but what they _must_. Even their Friendship is to
some extent but a sublime phenomenon to them.
The true and not despairing Friend will address his Friend in
some such terms as these.
"I never asked thy leave to let me love thee, - I have a right. I
love thee not as something private and personal, which is _your
own_, but as something universal and worthy of love, _which I
have found_. O, how I think of you! You are purely good, - you
are infinitely good. I can trust you forever. I did not think
that humanity was so rich. Give me an opportunity to live."
"You are the fact in a fiction, - you are the truth more strange
and admirable than fiction. Consent only to be what you are. I
alone will never stand in your way."
"This is what I would like, - to be as intimate with you as our
spirits are intimate, - respecting you as I respect my ideal.
Never to profane one another by word or action, even by a
thought. Between us, if necessary, let there be no
acquaintance."
"I have discovered you; how can you be concealed from me?"
The Friend asks no return but that his Friend will religiously
accept and wear and not disgrace his apotheosis of him.
