This friendship is perfect both in respect of the time and in all other points; and exactly the same and similar results accrue to each party from the other, which ought to be the case between friends.
The friendship based upon the pleasurable is, so to say, a copy of this, since the
The most permanent friendships
good are sources of pleasure to one another; that based on utility likewise, the good being also useful to one another. Between men thus connected, friendships are most permanent when the same result accrues to both from one another, pleasure for instance. And not merely so, but from the same source, as in the case of two men of easy pleasantry; and not as it is in that of a lover and the object of his affection, these not deriving their pleasure from the same causes, but the former from seeing the latter, and the latter from receiving the attentions of the former. When the bloom of youth fades the friendship sometimes ceases also, because the lover derives no pleasure from seeing, and the object of his affection ceases to receive the attentions which were paid before. In many cases people
The good alone can be friends
so connected continue friends, if being of similar tempers they have come from custom to like one another’s dispositions.
The good alone can be friends. The friendship of the good is alone superior to calumny; it not being easy for men to believe a third person respecting one whom they have long tried and proved. There is between good men mutual confidence, and the feeling that one’s friend would never have done one wrong, and all other such things as are expected in friendship really worthy the name; but in the other kinds there is nothing to prevent all such suspicions.
Distance has in itself no direct effect upon friendship, but only prevents the acting it out. If the absence be protracted, it is thought to cause a forgetfulness even of the friendship; and hence
Mutual pleasures of friends
it has been said, ‘Many and many a friendship hath want of intercourse destroyed.’