Yes, where can it be found? All mankind seek for it; everyone wishes to have a friend. Most people believe, for a time, that they have found one; but when the friendship comes to be tested, it disappears, and they discover their mistake. Why does it disappear? Who knows why? But that it does most frequently disappear is quite certain.
Formerly, even in the grey olden times, long before anybody thought about friendship being violated, they must have had hard work enough to find the genuine article, else there would not surely have been such a fuss made about the three classical pairs of friends whose names we have all learned by heart--Damon and Pythias, Orestes and Pylades, Euryalus and Nisus--all of whom were never distinguished for anything, as far as I have been able to discover, except that they lived as friends, and ultimately died as friends.
It is surprising enough that, whilst everyone understands the words a friend in a good sense, there should be some little hesitation about the exact meaning of a good friend, and that the more eulogizing and confirmatory adjectives are added to it, the less respect it should inspire, until a real good old friend has become almost synonymous with a stupid old blockhead, or a cunning old rogue. If one were only to hear the following disjointed words of a conversation, 'Oh, yes, he is a good friend enough,' nine out of ten would indubitably fancy that the speakers were alluding to some matter in which one party had been taken in, and would think that what had happened manifested the credulity of that saying, in which all the ten firmly believe, 'Save me from my friends, and I will save myself from my enemies!' Undeniably, there is some truth in this sentence, and however little there may be, it is sad that one must admit there is any at all.
One of my--but I may be misconstrued myself if I say one of my good friends; I shall therefore, for the present, confine myself to calling him a worthy acquaintance of mine--had, from his earliest childhood, been an enthusiastic worshipper of friendship. Nothing more natural, for friendship is so inherent a feeling in the breast of every human being, of either sex, that it is a desire of the soul, which it strives to realize even before it thinks of love. His predilection for friendship was, it may be said, born with him, as people may be born with a propensity for stealing or drunkenness; and when he was not more than four years of age, and his grown-up relatives would have it that his little cousin should be his 'little wife'--for big people are always too ready to begin putting nonsense into the heads of children, he used to get angry, and declare that she should not be his wife, but his friend.
And when he had grown older, and had commenced his classical studies, he raved about being a Damon to some Pythias. He was an excellent lad, cheerful, good-natured, good-looking, and by no means deficient in talent; in short, he was in all respects a steady schoolboy, but perhaps he carried a little too far his ideas about friendship. He had not, however, then attached himself to any one individual among his companions; he was on good terms with them all, while he thirsted after one, only one true friend, as a celebrated author is known to have wished but one reader, but that one to be capable of understanding him thoroughly.
I withhold his name, for he is now in so conspicuous a station that many of my readers must know him, and it would, perhaps, annoy him to see his name in print, for he is one of those folks who have an old-fashioned dislike to what they call 'appearing in print;' that is to say, being named publicly. I shall designate him by one of his first names, which he used in his boyish years--viz. Mikkel; it is an ugly name, but he is not to blame for that, since his opinion about it was not asked. When he was christened, his parents had called him after a rich old uncle, who, the good people thought, might, on that account, at a future day, leave him a large legacy. It is a bad custom to make innocent children suffer for their parents' bad taste in choosing names, and to inflict on them ill-sounding family names, either because these had been chosen by a generation who had queer notions, or from selfishness and from speculation, as in the case in question. Mikkel was grown up, and had undergone much jeering on account of his frightful name, but his uncle did not leave him a stiver! It was a shameful trick--a positive fraud, the parents naturally thought. No one can blame Mikkel because he would no longer put up with the disagreeable appellation, especially as it had come to his ears that a young girl had given her suitor a basket solely on account of his name. She said, 'he had such a shockingly ugly name, that she never could bring herself to say, my sweet Morten. Dear no! the sound made her shudder, and one really must be able to say sweet to one's lover.' Morten and Mikkel are much on a par. He renounced, therefore, the name of the ungrateful uncle, and selected for the future one of the high-sounding names which had also been bestowed on him at his baptism, like that shoemaker's son who was christened Jens Napoleon Petersen. Nevertheless, I should prefer to call him Damon, that savouring more of the anonymous, and this I will do with the permission of my kind readers. When he and I went to school together, we got on very well, and were on good terms; but no sworn and patented friendship took place between us. It happened one day, as we were walking together outside of one of the gates of the town, on a Friday, and he was lost in his Damon-Pythias dreams, which went in at one of my ears and out at the other, we met a school companion, who was crying as he came out of a house. The good-hearted Damon stopped him, and asked what was the cause of his distress, and we were informed that our comrade had been visiting a good friend. Damon could not see that there was any cause for howling about this; he would have been glad enough to have been in his place. Yes, but our unlucky school companion had received a sound drubbing from his good friend, and from some of the latter's good friends, because he would not be always their horse, and drag them in the little carriage; he wished to take his turn to go inside of it, at least for once, but they abused him like a pickpocket, and beat him; this was always the way he was served, and it was a great shame, for he had liked his friend so much; but now he would have nothing more to do with him. And when he had told him that he was going to break with him, the fellow had thumped him well, and turned him out of doors, and it was almost dinner-time, and now he had no friend--and he would get no dinner!
The soft-hearted Damon offered him forthwith his friendship and a dinner; the boy went home with him to his parents' house, where he dined, and immediately afterwards staunch brotherhood was sworn, and the empty place in Damon's heart was filled up! Fate had granted his wish, and he had providentially found a friend!
Mikkel was a happy boy; he had now truly become Damon, and the other was Pythias. It was a strong friendship, whose not few thorns seemed to Damon like so many roses. He had to thrash his companion's former friend, and fight all that friend's chums, in order to revenge his Pythias, and prove their misconduct to him; and he got many a bruise, and many a torn jacket in these battles, which merged into a long, lasting war--a war he had to sustain alone, for Pythias stood aloof. He had to write all his friend's exercises, and prompt him every day in his lessons, which Pythias, trusting to Damon's friendship, had neglected to learn, and this cost the latter many a scold from the master, who had observed it. But if ever he happened to require the least help himself, he got none, for Pythias was incapable of giving it. Damon not only shared all the nice things he had with his friend, but he often gave him the largest portion, and, indeed, sometimes the whole; but he never got anything in return. Pythias took care to eat all his good things by himself; but Damon never dreamed of finding fault with this; he was pleased and proud of being able to make various useful presents to his friend, and loved him the better for it. Thus passed the whole of his school-days; and in consequence of this sworn friendship the two were called by all the boys Damon and Pythias.
They were at length to separate, and each to go his own way. 'I am sorry I am obliged to part with you, I shall miss you very much,' said Pythias, when the farewell moment came.
'I don't know how I shall exist without you,' said Damon. 'I am truly wretched!'