It would be hard to describe the friend, whom Aristotle and Menander had in mind. Cicero has employed twenty-seven sections, and given us an imperfect definition after all. Such a friend comes not, within any one of the categories I have named.
Friends, in the common acceptation of that word, may be readily lost and won. The direction, ascribed to Rochefoucault, seems less revolting, when applied to such friends as these—to treat all one’s friends, as if, one day, they might be foes, and all one’s foes, as if, one day, they might be friend. This cold-blooded axiom is Rochefoucault’s, only by adoption. Aristotle, in his Rhetoric, lib. ii. cap. 13, and Diogenes Laertius, in his life of Bias, lib. i. sec. 7, ascribe something like this saying to him. Cicero, in the sixteenth section of the Dialogus de Amicitia, after referring to the opinion—“ita amare oportere, ut si aliquando esset ossurus,” and stating Scipio’s abhorrence of the sentiment, expresses his belief, that it never proceeded from so good and wise a man, as Bias. Aulus Gellius, lib. i. cap. 3, imputes to Chilon, one of the seven wise men of Greece, substantially, the same sentiment—“Love him, as if you were one day to hate him, and hate him, as if you were one day to love him.” Poor Rochefoucault, who had sins enough to answer for, is as unjustly held to be author of this infernal sentiment, as was Dr. Guillotin of the instrument, that bears his ill-fated name.
Boccacio was in the right—there is a skeleton in every house. We have, all of us, our crosses to carry; and should strive to bear them as gracefully, as comports with the infirmity of human nature; and among the most severe is the loss of an old friend. Aristotle was mistaken—there is such a thing as a friend. Some fifty years ago, I began to have a friend—our professions and pursuits were similar. For some fifty years, we have cherished a feeling of mutual affection and respect; and, now that we have retired from the active exercise of our craft, we daily meet together, and, like a brace of veteran grasshoppers, chirp over days bygone. I believe I never asked of my friend an unreasonable or unseemly thing. God knows he never did of me. Thus we have obeyed Cicero’s first law of friendship—Hæc igitur prima lex in amicitia sanciatur, ut neque rogemus res turpes, nec faciamus, rogati.
We are most happily adapted to each other. I have always taken pleasure in regurgitating, from the fourth stomach of the mind, some tale or anecdote, and chewing over the cud of pleasant fancy. No man ever had a friend with a more willing ear, or a shorter memory. But for this, which I have always accounted a Providence, my stock would have been exhausted, long ago. After lying fallow, for two or three months, every tale is as good as new.
God bless my friend, and compensate the shortness of his memory, by giving him length of days, and every good thing, in this and a better world.
No. LX.
Much has been said and written, of late, here and elsewhere, on the subject of intra mural interment—burial within the walls or confines of cities. This term, though commonly employed by British writers, is wholly inapplicable, in all those rural cities, which have recently sprung up among us, and in which there are still many broad acres of meadow and pasture, plough-land and forest. In these almost nominal cities, the question must be, in relation to the propriety of burying the dead, not within the confines, but in the more densely peopled portions—in the very midst of the living.
I have an opinion, firmly fixed, and long cherished, upon this important subject; and, considering myself, professionally, an expert, in these matters, I shall devote the present article to their consideration.