between private men

It is a strange thing to observe, how high a rate great kings and monarchs do set upon this fruit of friendship, whereof we speak: so great, as they purchase it, many times, at the hazard of their own safety and greatness. For princes, in regard of the distance of their fortune from that of their subjects and servants, cannot gather this fruit, except (to make themselves capable thereof) they raise some persons to be, as it were, companions and almost equals to themselves, which many times sorteth to inconvenience. The modern languages give unto such persons the name of favorites, or privadoes; as if it were matter of grace, or conversation. But the Roman name attaineth the true use and cause thereof, naming them participes curarum; for it is that which tieth the knot. And we see plainly that this hath been done, not by weak and passionate princes only, but by the wisest and most politic that ever reigned; who have oftentimes joined to themselves some of their servants; whom both themselves have called friends, and allowed other likewise to call them in the same manner; using the word which is received between private men.

quit the stage

After these two noble fruits of friendship (peace in the affections, and support of the
judgment), followeth the last fruit; which is like the pomegranate, full of many kernels; I
mean aid, and bearing a part, in all actions and occasions. Here the best way to represent
to life the manifold use of friendship, is to cast and see how many things there are, which
a man cannot do himself; and then it will appear, that it was a sparing speech of the
ancients, to say, that a friend is another himself; for that a friend is far more than
himself. Men have their time, and die many times, in desire of some things which they
principally take to heart; the bestowing of a child, the finishing of a work, or the like.
If a man have a true friend, he may rest almost secure that the care of those things will
continue after him. So that a man hath, as it were, two lives in his desires. A man hath a
body, and that body is confined to a place; but where friendship is, all offices of life are
as it were granted to him, and his deputy. For he may exercise them by his friend. How many
things are there which a man cannot, with any face or comeliness, say or do himself? A man
can scarce allege his own merits with modesty, much less extol them; a man cannot sometimes
brook to supplicate or beg; and a number of the like. But all these things are graceful, in
a friend’s mouth, which are blushing in a man’s own. So again, a man’s person hath many
proper relations, which he cannot put off. A man cannot speak to his son but as a father; to
his wife but as a husband; to his enemy but upon terms: whereas a friend may speak as the
case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person. But to enumerate these things were
endless; I have given the rule, where a man cannot fitly play his own part; if he have not a
friend, he may quit the stage.

this weakness appear

Neither doth this weakness appear to others only, and not to the party loved, but to he loved most of all; except the love be reciprocal. For it is a true rule, that love is ever rewarded either with the reciprocal, or with an inward and secret contempt: by how much the more men ought to beware of this passion, which loseth not only other things but itself. As for the other losses, the poet's relation doth well figure them; that he that preferred Helena, quitted the gifts of Juno and Pallas: for whosoever esteemeth too much of amourous affection, quitteth both riches and wisdom. This passion hath his floods in the very times of weakness, which are, great prosperity and great adversity; though this latter hath been less observed: both which times kindle love, and make it more frequent, and therefore, show it to be the child of folly. They do best, who, if they cannot but admit love, yet make it keep quarter; and sever it wholly from their serious affairs and actions of life: for if it check once with business, it troubleth men's fortunes, and maketh men that they can no ways be true to their own ends. I know not how, but martial men are given to love: I think it is, but as they are given to wine; for perils commonly ask to be paid in pleasures. There is in man's nature a secret inclination and motion toward love of others, which, if it be not spent upon some one or a few, doth naturally spread itself toward many, and maketh men to become humane and charitable; as it is seen sometimes in friars. Nuptial love maketh mankind; friendly love perfecteth it; but wanton love corrupteth and embaseth it.

to be wise

The stage is more beholding to love, than the life of man. For as to the stage, love is even matter of comedies, and now and then of tragedies; but in life it doth much mischief, sometimes like a siren, sometimes like a fury. You may observe, that amongst all the great and worthy persons, (whereof the memory remaineth, either ancient or recent,) there is not one that hath been transported to the mad degree of love; which shows, that great spirits and great business do keep out this weak passion. You must except, nevertheless, Marcus Antonius the half partner of the Empire of Rome, and Appius Claudius the Decemvir and lawgiver; whereof the former was indeed a voluptuous man and inordinate; but the latter was an austere and wise man: and therefore it seems (though rarely,) that love can find entrance, not only into an open heart, but also into a heart well fortified, if watch be not well kept. It is a poor saying of Epicurus: Satis magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus; as if man, made for the contemplation of heaven, and all noble objects, should do nothing but kneel before a little idol, and make himself a subject, though not of the mouth (as beasts are,) yet of the eye, which was given him for higher purposes. It is a strange thing to note the excess of this passion; and how it braves the nature and value of things by this, that the speaking in a perpetual hyperbole is comely in nothing but in love. Neither is it merely in the phrase; for whereas it has been well said, that the arch-flatterer, with whom all the petty flatters have intelligence, is a man's self; certainly the lover is more; for there was never proud man thought so absurdly well of himself as the lover doth of the person loved; and therefore it was well said, that it is impossible to love, and to be wise.

lovers of themselves

L. Sylla, when he commanded Rome, raised Pompey (after surnamed the Great) to that height,

that Pompey vaunted himself for Sylla’s overmatch. For when he had carried the consulship

for a friend of his, against the pursuit of Sylla, and that Sylla did a little resent

thereat, and began to speak great, Pompey turned upon him again, and in effect bade him be

quiet; for that more men adored the sun rising, than the sun setting. With Julius Caesar,

Decimus Brutus had obtained that interest, as he set him down, in his testament, for heir in

remainder, after his nephew. And this was the man that had power with him, to draw him forth

to his death. For when Caesar would have discharged the senate, in regard of some ill

presages, and specially a dream of Calpurnia; this man lifted him gently by the arm out of

his chair, telling him he hoped he would not dismiss the senate, till his wife had dreamt a

better dream. And it seemeth his favor was so great, as Antonius, in a letter which is

recited verbatim in one of Cicero’s Philippics, calleth him venefica, witch; as if he had

enchanted Caesar. Augustus raised Agrippa (though of mean birth) to that height, as when he

consulted with Maecenas, about the marriage of his daughter Julia, Maecenas took the liberty

to tell him, that he must either marry his daughter to Agrippa, or take away his life; there

was no third war, he had made him so great. With Tiberius Caesar, Sejanus had ascended to

that height, as they two were termed, and reckoned, as a pair of friends. Tiberius in a

letter to him saith, Haec pro amicitia nostra non occultavi; and the whole senate dedicated

an altar to Friendship, as to a goddess, in respect of the great dearness of friendship,

between them two. The like, or more, was between Septimius Severus and Plautianus. For he

forced his eldest son to marry the daughter of Plautianus; and would often maintain

Plautianus, in doing affronts to his son; and did write also in a letter to the senate, by

these words: I love the man so well, as I wish he may over–live me. Now if these princes

had been as a Trajan, or a Marcus Aurelius, a man might have thought that this had proceeded

of an abundant goodness of nature; but being men so wise, of such strength and severity of

mind, and so extreme lovers of themselves, as all these were, it proveth most plainly that

they found their own felicity (though as great as ever happened to mortal men) but as an

half piece, except they mought have a friend, to make it entire; and yet, which is more,

they were princes that had wives, sons, nephews; and yet all these could not supply the

comfort of friendship.

this was difficult

Ten years ago, I think, or perhaps a little less or perhaps a little more, I came in the Euston Road - that thoroughfare of Empire - upon a young man a little younger than myself whom I knew, though I did not know him very well. It was drizzling and the second-hand booksellers (who are rare in this thoroughfare) were beginning to put out the waterproof covers over their wares. This disturbed my acquaintance, because he was engaged upon buying a cheap book that should really satisfy him.
Now this was difficult, for he had no hobby, and the book which should satisfy him must be one that should describe or summon up, or, it is better to say, hint at - or, the theologians would say, reveal, or the Platonists would say recall - the Unknown Country, which he thought was his very home.

found a book

I had know his habit of seeking such books for two years, and had half wondered at it and half sympathised. It was an appetite partly satisfied by almost any work that brought to him the vision of a place in the mind which he had always intensely desired, but to which, as he had then long guessed, and as he is now quite certain, no human paths directly lead. He would buy with avidity travels to the moon and to the planets, from the most worthless to the best. He loved Utopias and did not disregard even so prosaic a category as books of real travel, so long as by exaggeration or by a glamour in the style they gave him a full draught of that drug which he desired. Whether this satisfaction the young man sought was a satisfaction in illusion (I have used the word "drug" with hesitation), or whether it was, as he persistently maintained, the satisfaction of a memory, or whether it was, as I am often tempted to think, the satisfaction of a thirst which will ultimately be quenched in every human soul I cannot tell. Whatever it was, he sought it with more than the appetite with which a hungry man seeks food. He sought it with something that was not hunger but passion.
That evening he found a book.

thoughts to pass in smother

The second fruit of friendship, is healthful and sovereign for the understanding, as the
first is for the affections. For friendship maketh indeed a fair day in the affections, from
storm and tempests; but it maketh daylight in the understanding, out of darkness, and
confusion of thoughts. Neither is this to be understood only of faithful counsel, which a
man receiveth from his friend; but before you come to that, certain it is, that whosoever
hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break
up, in the communicating and discoursing with another; he tosseth his thoughts more easily;
he marshalleth them more orderly, he seeth how they look when they are turned into words:
finally, he waxeth wiser than himself; and that more by an hour’s discourse, than by a day
’s meditation. It was well said by Themistocles, to the king of Persia, That speech was
like cloth of Arras, opened and put abroad; whereby the imagery doth appear in figure;
whereas in thoughts they lie but as in packs. Neither is this second fruit of friendship, in
opening the understanding, restrained only to such friends as are able to give a man
counsel; (they indeed are best;) but even without that, a man learneth of himself, and
bringeth his own thoughts to light, and whetteth his wits as against a stone, which itself
cuts not. In a word, a man were better relate himself to a statua, or picture, than to
suffer his thoughts to pass in smother.

best be expressed

It is well known that men purchase with difficulty second-hand books upon the stalls, and that in some mysterious way the sellers of these books are content to provide a kind of library for the poorer and more eager of the public, and a library admirable in this, that it is accessible upon every shelf and exposes a man to no control, except that he must not steal, and even in this it is nothing but the force of public law that interferes. My friend therefore would in the natural course of things have dipped into the book and left it there; but a better luck persuaded him. Whether it was the beginning of the rain or a sudden loneliness in such terrible weather and in such a terrible town, compelling him to seek a more permanent companionship with another mind, or whether it was my sudden arrival and shame lest his poverty should appear in his refusing to buy the book - whatever it was, he bought that same. And since he bought the book I also have known it and have found in it, as he did, the most complete expression that I know of the Unknown Country, of which he was a citizen - oddly a citizen, as I then thought, wisely as I now conceive.
All that can best be expressed in words should be expressed in verse, but verse is a slow thing to create; nay, it is not really created: it is a secretion of the mind, it is a pearl that gathers round some irritant and slowly expresses the very essence of beauty and of desire that has lain long, potential and unexpressed, in the mind of the man who secretes it. God knows that this Unknown Country has been hit off in verse a hundred times. If I were perfectly sure of my accents I would quote two lines from the Odyssey in which the Unknown Country stands out as clear as does a sudden vision from a mountain ridge when the mist lifts after a long climb and one sees beneath one an unexpected and glorious land; such a vision as greets a man when he comes over the Saldeu into the simple and secluded Republic of the Andorrans. Then, again, the Germans in their idioms have flashed it out, I am assured, for I remember a woman telling me that there was a song by Schiller which exactly gave the revelation of which I speak. In English, thank Heaven, emotion of this kind, emotion necessary to the life of the soul, is very abundantly furnished. As, who does not know the lines.

top of the wave

Blessed with that which is not in the wordOf man or his conception: Blessed land!
Then there is also the whole group of glimpses which Shakespeare amused himself by scattering as might a man who had a great oak chest full of jewels and who now and then, out of kindly fun, poured out a handful and gave them to his guests. I quote from memory, but I think certain of the lines run more or less like this:
Look how the dawn in russet mantle clad,Stands on the steep of yon high eastern hill.
And again:
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund dayStands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
Which moves me to digress. ... How on earth did any living man pull it off as well as that? I remember arguing with a man who very genuinely thought the talent of Shakespeare was exaggerated in public opinion, and discovering at the end of a long wrangle that he was not considering Shakespeare as a poet. But as a poet, then, how on earth did he manage it?Keats did it continually, especially in the Hyperion. Milton does it so well in the Fourth Book of Paradise Lost that I defy any man of a sane understanding to read the whole of that book before going to bed and not to wake up next morning as though he had been on a journey. William Morris does it, especially in the verses about a prayer over the corn; and as for Virgil, the poet Virgil, he does it continually like a man whose very trade it is. Who does not remember the swimmer who saw Italy from the top of the wave?

be forgotten

It is not to be forgotten, what Comineus observeth of his first master, Duke Charles the
Hardy, namely, that he would communicate his secrets with none; and least of all, those
secrets which troubled him most. Whereupon he goeth on, and saith that towards his latter
time, that closeness did impair, and a little perish his understanding. Surely Comineus
mought have made the same judgment also, if it had pleased him, of his second master, Lewis
the Eleventh, whose closeness was indeed his tormentor. The parable of Pythagoras is dark,
but true; Cor ne edito; Eat not the heart. Certainly if a man would give it a hard phrase,
those that want friends, to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts. But one
thing is most admirable (wherewith I will conclude this first fruit of friendship), which
is, that this communicating of a man’s self to his friend, works two contrary effects; for
it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in halves. For there is no man, that imparteth his
joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his griefs to his
friend, but he grieveth the less. So that it is in truth, of operation upon a man’s mind,
of like virtue as the alchemists use to attribute to their stone, for man’s body; that it
worketh all contrary effects, but still to the good and benefit of nature. But yet without
praying in aid of alchemists, there is a manifest image of this, in the ordinary course of
nature. For in bodies, union strengtheneth and cherisheth any natural action; and on the
other side, weakeneth and dulleth any violent impression: and even so it is of minds.

scattered counsels

Add now, to make this second fruit of friendship complete, that other point, which lieth
more open, and falleth within vulgar observation; which is faithful counsel from a friend.
Heraclitus saith well in one of his enigmas, Dry light is ever the best. And certain it is,
that the light that a man receiveth by counsel from another, is drier and purer, than that
which cometh from his own understanding and judgment; which is ever infused, and drenched,
in his affections and customs. So as there is as much difference between the counsel, that a
friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend,
and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man’s self; and there is no such
remedy against flattery of a man’s self, as the liberty of a friend. Counsel is of two
sorts: the one concerning manners, the other concerning business. For the first, the best
preservative to keep the mind in health, is the faithful admonition of a friend. The calling
of a man’s self to a strict account, is a medicine, sometime too piercing and corrosive.
Reading good books of morality, is a little flat and dead. Observing our faults in others,
is sometimes improper for our case. But the best receipt (best, I say, to work, and best to
take) is the admonition of a friend. It is a strange thing to behold, what gross errors and
extreme absurdities many (especially of the greater sort) do commit, for want of a friend to
tell them of them; to the great damage both of their fame and fortune: for, as St. James
saith, they are as men that look sometimes into a glass, and presently forget their own
shape and favor. As for business, a man may think, if he will, that two eyes see no more
than one; or that a gamester seeth always more than a looker–on; or that a man in anger, is
as wise as he that hath said over the four and twenty letters; or that a musket may be shot
off as well upon the arm, as upon a rest; and such other fond and high imaginations, to
think himself all in all. But when all is done, the help of good counsel is that which
setteth business straight. And if any man think that he will take counsel, but it shall be
by pieces; asking counsel in one business, of one man, and in another business, of another
man; it is well (that is to say, better, perhaps, than if he asked none at all); but he
runneth two dangers: one, that he shall not be faithfully counselled; for it is a rare
thing, except it be from a perfect and entire friend, to have counsel given, but such as
shall be bowed and crooked to some ends, which he hath, that giveth it. The other, that he
shall have counsel given, hurtful and unsafe (though with good meaning), and mixed partly of
mischief and partly of remedy; even as if you would call a physician, that is thought good
for the cure of the disease you complain of, but is unacquainted with your body; and
therefore may put you in way for a present cure, but overthroweth your health in some other
kind; and so cure the disease, and kill the patient. But a friend that is wholly acquainted
with a man’s estate, will beware, by furthering any present business, how he dasheth upon
other inconvenience. And therefore rest not upon scattered counsels; they will rather
distract and mislead, than settle and direct.

nameless translator

Here also let me digress. How do the poets do it? (I do not mean where do they get their power, as I was asking just now of Shakespeare, but how do the words, simple or complex, produce that effect?) Very often there is not any adjective, sometimes not any qualification at all: often only one subject with its predicate and its statement and its object. There is never any detail of description, but the scene rises, more vivid in colour, more exact in outline, more wonderful in influence, than anything we can see with our eyes, except perhaps those things we see in the few moments of intense emotion which come to us, we know not whence, and expand out into completion and into manhood.
Catullus does it. He does it so powerfully in the opening lines of
Vesper adest...
that a man reads the first couplet of that Hymeneal, and immediately perceives the Apennines.The nameless translator of the Highland song does it, especially when he advances that battering line -
And we in dreams behold the Hebrides.
They all do it, bless their hearts, the poets, which leads me back again to the mournful reflection that it cannot be done in prose ...Little friends, my readers, I wish it could be done in prose, for if it could, and if I knew how to do it, I would here present to you that Unknown Country in such a fashion that every landscape which you should see henceforth would be transformed, by the appearing through it, the shining and uplifting through it, of the Unknown Country upon which reposes this tedious and repetitive world.

difficult to say

Now you may say to be that prose can do it, and you may quote to me the end of the Pilgrim's Progress, a very remarkable piece of writing. Or, better still, as we shall be more agreed upon it, the general impression left upon the mind by the book which set me writing - Mr. Hudson's Crystal Age. I do not deny that prose can do it, but when it does it, it is hardly to be called prose, for it is inspired. Note carefully the passages in which the trick is worked in prose (for instance, in the story of Ruth in the Bible, where it is done with complete success), you still perceive an incantation and a spell. Indeed this same episode of Ruth in exile has inspired two splendid passages of European verse, of which it is difficult to say which is the more national, and therefore the greatest, Victor Hugo's in the Legende des Siecles or Keats's astounding four lines.

nature and affections

It had been hard for him that spake it to have put more truth and untruth together in few words, than in that speech. Whatsoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god. For it is most true, that a natural and secret hatred, and aversation towards society, in any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast; but it is most untrue, that it should have any character at all, of the divine nature; except it proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and desire to sequester a man’s self, for a higher conversation: such as is found to have been falsely and feignedly in some of the heathen; as Epimenides the Candian, Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana; and truly and really, in divers of the ancient hermits and holy fathers of the church. But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. The Latin adage meeteth with it a little: Magna civitas, magna solitudo; because in a great town friends are scattered; so that there is not that fellowship, for the most part, which is in less neighborhoods. But we may go further, and affirm most truly, that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends; without which the world is but a wilderness; and even in this sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections, is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity.

A principal fruit of friendship, is the ease and discharge of the fulness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce. We know diseases of stoppings, and suffocations, are the most dangerous in the body; and it is not much otherwise in the mind; you may take sarza to open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flowers of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain; but no receipt openeth the heart, but a true friend; to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession.

Patrick"s voice

　"I was wondering if Patrick would sing a verse of "Away in a Manger" during the service on Christmas Eve," the church youth director asked in a message left on our answering machine.

　　My wife, Catherine, and I struggled to contain our excitement. Our son"s first solo.

　　Catherine delicately broached the possibility, reminding Patrick how beautifully he sang, telling him how much fun it would be. Patrick himself seemed less convinced and frowned. "You know, Mom," he said, "sometimes when I have to do something important, I get kind of scared."

　　Grownups feel that way too, he was assured, but the decision was left to him. His deliberations took only a few minutes.

　　"Okay," Patrick said. "I"ll do it."

　　From the time he was an infant, Patrick has enjoyed an unusual passion for music. By age four he could pound out several bars of Wagner"s Ride of the Valkyries on the piano.

　　For the next week Patrick practiced his stanza several times with his mother. A rehearsal at the church went well. Still, I could only envision myself at age five, singing into a microphone before hundreds of people. When Christmas Eve arrived, my expectations were limited.

　　Catherine, our daughter Melanie and I sat with the conGREgation in darkness as a spotlight found my son, standing alone at the microphone. He was dressed in white, with a pair of angel wings.

　　Slowly, confidently, Patrick hit every note. As his voice washed over the people, he seemed a true angel, a true bestower of Christmas miracles.

　　There was eternity in Patrick"s voice that night, a beauty rich enough to penetrate any reserve. At the sound of my son, heavy tears welled at the corners of my eyes.

　　His song was soon over, and the conGREgation applauded. Catherine brushed away tears. Melanie sobbed next to me.

　　After the service, I moved to congratulate Patrick, but he had more urgent priorities. "Mom," he said as his costume was stripped away, "I have to go to the bathroom."

　　As Patrick disappeared, the pastor wished me a Merry Christmas, but emotion choked off my reply. Outside the sanctuary I received congratulations from fellow church members.