I do but languish, I do but sorrow: and even those pleasures, all things present me with, instead of yielding me comfort, do but redouble the grief of his loss. We were co-partners in all things. All things were with us at half: methinks I have stolen his part from him.
‘—Nec fas esse ulla me voluptate hîc frui
Decrevi, tantisper dum ille abest meus particeps.’
Ter., Heau. Act i. Scen. i. 97.
I have set down, no joy enjoy I may,
As long as he my partner is away.
I was so accustomed to be ever two,
Montaigne’s friend
and so enured to be never single, that methinks I am but half myself.
‘Illam meæ si partem animæ tulit,
Maturior vis, quid moror altera,
Nec charus æque nec superstes,
Integer? Ille dies utramque
Duxit ruinam.’—Hor., ii. Od. xvii. 5.
Since that part of my soul riper fate reft me,
Why stay I here the other part he left me?
Nor so dear, nor entire, while here I rest:
That day hath in one ruin both opprest.
There is no action can betide me, or imagination possess me, but I hear him saying, as indeed he would have done to me: for even as he did excel me by an infinite distance in all other sufficiencies and virtues, so did he in all offices and duties of friendship.
‘Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus,
Tam chari capitis?’—i. Od. xxiv. 1.