28/100 Friends

28. Friends

"There are a thousand nameless ties,

Which only such as feel them know,

Of kindred thoughts, deep sympathies,

And untold fancy spells, which throw

O'er ardent minds and faithful hearts

A chain whose charmed links so blend

That the bright circlet but imparts

Its force in these fond words—'My Friend!'"

Friendship is the sweetest and most satisfactory connection in life. It has notable effect upon all states and conditions. It relieves our cares, raises our hopes, and abates our fears. A friend who relates his successes talks himself into a new pleasure, and by opening his misfortunes leaves a part of them behind him. Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by doubling our joys and dividing our griefs. Charity is friendship in common, and friendship is charity inclosed. It is a sweet attraction of the heart towards the merit we esteem or the perfection we admire, and produces a mutual inclination between two or more persons to promote each others' interests, knowledge, virtue, and happiness.

The language of friendship is as varied as the wants and weaknesses of humanity. To the timid and cautious it speaks words of encouragement. To the weak it is ready to extend a helping hand. To the bold and venturesome it whispers words of caution. It is ready to sympathize with the sorrowing one, and to rejoice with those of good cheer. Friendship is not confined to any particular class of society or any particular geographical locality. No surveyed chart, no natural boundary line, no rugged mountain or steep declining vale puts a limit to its growth. Wherever it is watered with the dews of kindness and affection, there you may be sure to find it. Allied in closest companionship with its twin sister, Charity, it enters the abode of sorrow and wretchedness, and causes happiness and peace. Its influence dispels every poisoned thought of envy, and spreads abroad in the mind a contentment which all the powers of the mind could not otherwise bestow. True friendship will bloom only in the soil of a noble and self-sacrificing heart. There it enjoys perpetual Summer, diffusing a sweet atmosphere of love, peace, and joy to all around.

No man can go very far with strength and courage, if he goes alone through the weary struggles of life. We are made to be happier and better by each other's notice and appreciation, and the hearts that are debarred from those influences invariably contract and harden. Here and there we find persons who, from pride or singularity of disposition, affect to be altogether independent of the notice or regard of their fellow-beings; but never yet was there constituted a human heart that did not at some time, in some tender and yearning hour, long for the sympathy of other hearts. Instead of striving to conceal this feeling, it should be regarded as one possessing true nobility. True friendship can only be molded by the experience of time. The attractive face, the winning tongue, or the strong need of some passer-by, is not the permanent test of the union of hearts. We want a more substantial proof than any of these. A thousand transitory friends meet us along the crowded thoroughfares of life; but when we come to try their durability in the sieve of experience, alas, how many fall through! There have been times in the life of every man when he has been willing to stake reputation, credit, all, on the true friendship of some companion; but he turns to find his idol clay, the gold but dross. Few persons are so fortunate as to secure in the course of life the happiness and advantages of one efficient and devoted friend. It is all that many aim at, seek, and ask to have, and is worth a whole caravan of those lukewarm and treacherous souls who, indeed, profess to be attached to us, but whose affection is so uncertain and unstable that we fear to put it to the test of trial lest we lose it forever.

Concerning the one you call your friend, tell us, will he weep with you in your hours of distress? Will he faithfully reprove you to your face for actions for which others are ridiculing and censuring you behind your back? Will he dare to stand forth in your defense when detraction is secretly aiming its weapon at your reputation? Will he acknowledge you with the same cordiality and behave to you with the same friendly attention in the company of your superiors in rank and fortune as when the claims of pride do not interfere with those of friendship? If misfortune and loss should oblige you to retire into a walk of life in which you can not appear with the same liberality as formerly, will he still think himself happy in your society, and instead of withdrawing himself from an unprofitable connection, take pleasure in professing himself your friend, and cheerfully assist you to support the burden of your afflictions? When sickness shall call you to retire from the busy world, will he follow you to your gloomy retreat, listen with attention to your tale of suffering, and administer the balm of consolation to your fainting spirit? And, lastly, when death shall burst asunder every earthly tie, will he shed a tear upon your grave, and lodge the dear remembrance of your mutual friendship in his heart? If so, then grapple him to your heart with hooks of steel; and you shall know the privilege of having one true friend.

Friendship is a vase which, when it is flawed by violence or accident, may as well be broken at once; it never can be trusted after. The more graceful and ornamental it was, the more clearly do we discern the hopelessness of restoring it to its former state. Coarse stones, if they are fractured, may be cemented again; precious ones never. It is a great thing to cover the blemishes and to excuse the faults of a friend; to draw a curtain before his stains; to bury his weakness in silence, but to proclaim his virtues upon the housetop. Prosperity is no just scale; adversity is the only true balance to weigh friends in. True friendship must withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the name, since friendships which are born in adversity are more firm and lasting than those formed in happiness, as iron is more strongly united the fiercer the flames. One has never the least difficulty in finding a devoted friend except when he needs one. Real friends are wont to visit us in prosperity only when invited, but in adversity they come of their own accord. A friend is not known in prosperity, but can not be hidden in adversity. If we lack the sagacity to discriminate wisely between our acquaintances and our friends, misfortune will readily do it for us. Prosperity gains friends, and adversity tries them. False friends are like our shadows—keeping close to us while we walk in the sunshine, but leaving us the instant we cross into the shade. False friendship, like the ivy, decays and ruins the walls it embraces; but true friendship gives new life and animation to the object it supports.

The hardest trials of those who fall from affluence to poverty and obscurity is the discovery that the attachment of so many in whom they confided was a pretense, a mask to gain their own ends, or was a miserable shallowness. Sometimes, doubtless, it is with regret that these frivolous followers of the world desert those upon whom they have fawned; but they soon forget them. Flies leave the kitchen when the dishes are empty. The parasites that cluster about the favorites of fortune to gather his gifts and climb by his aid, linger with the sunshine, but scatter at the approach of a storm, as the leaves cling to a tree in Summer weather, but drop off at the breath of Winter. Like ravens settled down for a banquet and suddenly scared away by a noise, how quickly at the first sound of calamity the superficial friends are up and away. Cling to your friends after having chosen them with proper caution. If they reprove you, thank them; if they grieve you, forgive them; if circumstances have torn them from you, circumstances may change and make them yours again. Be very slow to give up an old and tried friend. A true friend is such a rare thing to have that you are blessed beyond the majority of men if you possess but one such. The first law of friendship is sincerity, and he who violates this law will soon find himself destitute of that which he sought.

The death of a friendship is always a tragical affair. Sometimes it cools from day to day, warm confidence gradually giving place to cold civility, and these in turn swiftly becoming icy husks of neglect and repugnance. Sometimes its remembrances touch us with a pang, or we stand at its grave sobbing, wounded with a grief whose balsam never grew. The hardest draught in the cup of life is wrung from betrayed affection, when the guiding light of friendship is quenched in deception, and the gloom that surrounds our path grows palpable. Let one find cold repulse or mocking treachery where he expected the greeting of friendship, and it is not strange that he feels crushed with the discovery.

Old friends! What a multitude of deep and varied emotions are called up from the soul by the utterance of these two words! What thronging memories of other days crowd the brain when they are spoken! Oh, there is magic in their sound, and the spell it evokes is both sad and pleasing. When reverie brings before us in quick succession the scenes of by-gone years, how do the features of olden friends, dim and shadowy as the grave in which many of them are laid, flit before us! How they carry us to other scenes and other places! The thoughts which fill the mind when thus musing on the past are always of a chastened kind. In the scenes of the past we behold a type of the future. The fate of our friends shadows forth our own, and we are indeed dull if we fail to arise from fancied communication with old friends wiser and better men and women.