One may know what
another does not, but the utmost kindness cannot impart what is
requisite to make the advice useful. We must accept or refuse
one another as we are. I could tame a hyena more easily than my
Friend. He is a material which no tool of mine will work. A
naked savage will fell an oak with a firebrand, and wear a
hatchet out of a rock by friction, but I cannot hew the smallest
chip out of the character of my Friend, either to beautify or
deform it.
The lover learns at last that there is no person quite
transparent and trustworthy, but every one has a devil in him
that is capable of any crime in the long run. Yet, as an
Oriental philosopher has said, "Although Friendship between good
men is interrupted, their principles remain unaltered. The stalk
of the lotus may be broken, and the fibres remain connected."
Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill
without. There may be courtesy, there may be even temper, and
wit, and talent, and sparkling conversation, there may be
good-will even, - and yet the humanest and divinest faculties pine
for exercise. Our life without love is like coke and ashes. Men
may be pure as alabaster and Parian marble, elegant as a Tuscan
villa, sublime as Niagara, and yet if there is no milk mingled
with the wine at their entertainments, better is the hospitality
of Goths and Vandals.
My Friend is not of some other race or family of men, but flesh
of my flesh, bone of my bone. He is my real brother. I see his
nature groping yonder so like mine. We do not live far apart.
Have not the fates associated us in many ways? It says, in the
Vishnu Purana: "Seven paces together is sufficient for the
friendship of the virtuous, but thou and I have dwelt together."
Is it of no significance that we have so long partaken of the
same loaf, drank at the same fountain, breathed the same air
summer and winter, felt the same heat and cold; that the same
fruits have been pleased to refresh us both, and we have never
had a thought of different fibre the one from the other!
Nature doth have her dawn each day,
But mine are far between;
Content, I cry, for sooth to say,
Mine brightest are I ween.
For when my sun doth deign to rise,
Though it be her noontide,
Her fairest field in shadow lies,
Nor can my light abide.
Sometimes I bask me in her day,
Conversing with my mate,
But if we interchange one ray,
Forthwith her heats abate.
Through his discourse I climb and see,
As from some eastern hill,
A brighter morrow rise to me
Than lieth in her skill.
As 't were two summer days in one,
Two Sundays come together,
Our rays united make one sun,
With fairest summer weather.
As surely as the sunset in my latest November shall translate me
to the ethereal world, and remind me of the ruddy morning of
youth; as surely as the last strain of music which falls on my
decaying ear shall make age to be forgotten, or, in short, the
manifold influences of nature survive during the term of our
natural life, so surely my Friend shall forever be my Friend, and
reflect a ray of God to me, and time shall foster and adorn and
consecrate our Friendship, no less than the ruins of temples. As
I love nature, as I love singing birds, and gleaming stubble, and
flowing rivers, and morning and evening, and summer and winter, I
love thee, my Friend.
But all that can be said of Friendship, is like botany to
flowers. How can the understanding take account of its
friendliness?
Even the death of Friends will inspire us as much as their lives.
They will leave consolation to the mourners, as the rich leave
money to defray the expenses of their funerals, and their
memories will be incrusted over with sublime and pleasing
thoughts, as monuments of other men are overgrown with moss; for
our Friends have no place in the graveyard.
This to our cis-Alpine and cis-Atlantic Friends.
Also this other word of entreaty and advice to the large and
respectable nation of Acquaintances, beyond the
mountains; - Greeting.
My most serene and irresponsible neighbors, let us see that we
have the whole advantage of each other; we will be useful, at
least, if not admirable, to one another. I know that the
mountains which separate us are high, and covered with perpetual
snow, but despair not. Improve the serene winter weather to
scale them. If need be, soften the rocks with vinegar. For here
lie the verdant plains of Italy ready to receive you. Nor shall
I be slow on my side to penetrate to your Provence. Strike then
boldly at head or heart or any vital part. Depend upon it, the
timber is well seasoned and tough, and will bear rough usage; and
if it should crack, there is plenty more where it came from. I
am no piece of crockery that cannot be jostled against my
neighbor without danger of being broken by the collision, and
must needs ring false and jarringly to the end of my days, when
once I am cracked; but rather one of the old-fashioned wooden
trenchers, which one while stands at the head of the table, and
at another is a milking-stool, and at another a seat for
children, and finally goes down to its grave not unadorned with
honorable scars, and does not die till it is worn out.
