TRUE FRIENDSHIP.

Evening Post, Volume XLI, Issue 138, 13 June 1891, Page 1 (Supplement)

TRUE FRIENDSHIP.

Of all the felicities the most charming is that of firm and gentle friendship. It sweetens all our cares, dispels our sorrows, and counsels us in all extremities. .Nay, if there were no other comforts in it than tho bare exercise of so generous a virtue, even for that single reason a man would not be without it. Some people make it a question whether it is the greater delight — the enjoying of an old friendship, or acquiring a new one ; but it is in the preparing of a friendship, and in the possession of it, as it is with a husbandman in sowing and reaping. His delight is the hope of his labour in the one case, and the fruit of it in the other. My conversation lies among my books, but yet, In the letters of a friend, methinks I have his company ; and when I answer them I do not only write, but speak; and, in effect, a friend is an eye, a heart, a tongue, a hand, at all distances. True friends are tho whole world to one another ; and he that is a friend to himself is also a friend to mankind. Even in my very studies the greatest delight I take in what I learn is the teaching of it to others, for there is no relish, methiukß, in the possession of anything without a partner ; nay, if wisdom itself were offered me, upon condition only of keeping it to myself, I should undoubtedly refuse it. — Seneca.