Says I, “Friendship, Josiah Allen, is a great word. True friendship is the most beautiful thing on earth; it is love without passion, tenderness without alloy. And,” says I, soarin’ up into the realm of allegory, where, on the feathery wings of pure eloquence, I fly frequent, “Intimacy hain’t friendship. Two men may sleep together, year after year, on the same feather-bed, and wake up in the mornin’, and shake hands with each other, perfect strangers, made so unbeknown to them. And feather-beds, nor pillers, nor nothin’ can’t bring ’em no nigher to each other. And they can keep it up from year to year, and lock arms and prominade together through the day, and not get a mite closer to each other. They can keep their bodies side by side, but their souls, who can tackle ’em together, unless nature tackled ’em, unbeknown to them? Nobody. And then, agin, two persons may meet, comin’ from each side of the world; and they will look right through each other’s eyes down into their souls, and see each other’s image there; born so, born friends, entirely unbeknown to them. Thousands of milds apart, and all the insperations of heaven and earth; all the influences of life, education, joy, and sorrow, has been fitting them for each other (unbeknown to them): twin souls, and they not knowin’ of it.”
YOKED BUT NOT MATED.
“Speakin’ of twin—” says Josiah.
But I was soarin’ too high to light down that minute. So I kep’ on, though his interruption was a-lowerin’ me down gradual.
“There is a great filisofical fact right here, Josiah Allen,” says I, tryin’ to bring down and fit the idee to my pardner’s comprehension, for it is ever my way to try to convince, as well as to soar in oritory. “You may yoke up the old mare and the brindle cow together and drive ’em year after year in a buggy. But you can’t make that horse into a cow, or make that old cow whinner. It can’t be done. And two wimmen may each of ’em have half a shear, and think they will screw ’em together and save property, and cut some with ’em. But if one of them halves is 2 or 3 inches shorter than the other, and narrower, how be they goin’ to cut with ’em? All the screws and wrenches in creation can’t do no more than hold ’em together. It hain’t no use if they wuzn’t made to fit each other in the first place, unbeknown to them.” Says I, “Some folks are j’ined together for life in jest that way, drawn together by some sort of influence, worldly considerations, blind fancy, thoughtlessness, and the minister’s words fasten ’em, jest as these shears was. But good land! after the vapory, dreamy time of the honeymoon is passed through, and the heavy, solid warp and woof of life lays before ’em for them to cut a path through it, they’ll find out whether they fit each other or not. And if they don’t, it is tejus business for ’em, extremely tejus, and they’ll find it out so.”—“Speakin’ of twin—” says Josiah.
JOSIAH NEIGHBORS.
His persistent and stiddy follerin’ up of his own train of thought, and the twin, was lowerin’ me down now awful fast, and says I, sort o’ concludin’ up, “Be good and kind to everybody, and Mr. Spinks’es folks, as you have opportunity; but before you make bosom friends of ’em, wait and see if your soul speaks.” Says I, firmly, “Mine don’t, in this case.”
“Speakin’ of twin,” says Josiah agin, “Did you ever see so beautiful a twin as Mr. Spinks’es twin is? What a pity they lost the mate to it! Their ma says it is perfectly wonderful the way that babe takes to me. I held it all the while she was ironin’, this forenoon. And the two boys foller me round all day, tight to my heels, instead of their father. Spink says they think I am the prettiest man they ever see, almost perfectly beautiful.”