The whole air whitens with a boundless tide
Of silver radiance, trembling round the world."
My friend, thou art not of some other race and family of men;—thou art flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone. Has not nature associated us in many ways?[501] Water from the same fountain, lime from the same quarry, grain from the same field compose our bodies. And perchance our elements but reassert their ancient kindredship. Is it of no significance that I have so long partaken of the same loaf with thee, have breathed the same air summer and winter, have felt the same heat and cold, the same fruits of summer have been pleased to refresh us both, and thou hast never had a thought of different fibre from my own?[502]
Our kindred, of one blood with us. With the favor and not the displeasure of the gods, we have partaken the same bread.
It is hard to know rocks. They are crude and inaccessible to our nature. We have not enough of the stony element in us.
It is hard to know men by rumor only. But to stand near somewhat living and conscious. Who would not sail through mutiny and storm farther than Columbus, to reach the fabulous retreating shores of some continent man?
My friend can only be in any measure my foe, because he is fundamentally my friend; for everything is after all more nearly what it should rightfully be, than that which it is simply by failing to be the other.
It [friendship] cannot be the subject of reconciliation or the theme of conversation ever between friends. The true friend must in some sense disregard all professions of friendship and forget them.
It is as far from pity as from contempt. I should hesitate even to call it the highest sympathy, since the word is of suspicious origin and suggests suffering rather than joy. It was established before religion, for men are not friends in religion, but over and through it; and it records no apostasy or repentance, but there is a certain divine and innocent and perennial health about it.
Its charity is generosity, its virtue nobleness, its religion trust. We come nearer to friendship with flowers and inanimate objects than with merely affectionate and loving men. It is not for the friend to be just even,—at least he is not to be lost in this attribute,—but to be only a large and free existence, representative of humanity, its general court. Admirable to us as the heavenly bodies, but like them affording rather a summer heat and daylight,—the light and fire of sunshine and stars,—rather than the intense heats and splendors which our weakness and appetite require.