The Gift of Friendship — Henry David Thoreau
You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title : The gift of friendship Compiler : Alfred H. Hyatt Contributor : Joseph Addison Anthusa Aristotle Francis Bacon George Berkeley Thomas Carlyle Ralph Waldo Emerson Oliver Goldsmith Samuel Johnson Henry Mackenzie Michel de Montaigne Sir Richard Steele Henry David Thoreau Illustrator : H. C. Preston MacGoun Release date : September 2, 2018 [eBook #57837] Most recently updated: January 24, 2021 Language : English Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/57837 Credits : Produced by Turgut Dincer, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.) *** START OF and A. Constable , Printers to His Majesty CONTENTS I R. W. Emerson PAGE Friendship 1 II H. D. Thoreau Friends and Friendship 45 III Thomas Carlyle The Sentiment of Friendship 79 IV Henry Mackenzie On the Acquisition of Friends 89 V Oliver Goldsmith On Friendship 99 VI Dr. Johnson The Pleasures of Friendship 109 VII Dr. Johnson The True Art of Friendship 119 VIII George Berkeley The Virtue of Friendship 137 IX Sir Richard Steele On the Choice of Friends 151 X Joseph Addison The Qualifications of Friendship 161 XI Francis Bacon Of Friendship 173 XII Montaigne Of Friendship 193 XIII Anthusa to St. John Ideal Friendship 231 XIV Aristotle The Blessings of Friendship 247 ILLUSTRATIONS From Water-Colour Drawings by H. C. Preston Macgoun , R.S.W. ‘We snatch at the slowest fruit in the whole garden of God’ Frontispiece Facing page ‘My friends have come to me unsought. The great God gave them to me’ 56 ‘It is a spiritual gift, worthy of him to give and of me to receive’ 136 ‘Then shall we meet ... as water with water’ 216 SELECTED AND EDITED BY ALFRED H. HYATT TO MY FRIEND FRED. G. BOWLES I FRIENDSHIP RALPH WALDO EMERSON FRIENDSHIP An element of love W E have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. Maugre all the selfishness that chills like east winds the world, the whole human family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether. How many persons we meet in houses whom we scarcely speak to, whom yet we honour, and who honour us; how many we see in the street, or sit with in church, whom, though silently, we warmly rejoice to be with! Read the language of these wandering eye-beams. The heart knoweth. The effect of the indulgence of this human affection is a certain cordial exhilaration. In poetry, and in common Affection the sweetness of life speech, the emotions of benevolence and complacency which are felt towards others are likened to the material effects of fire; so swift or much more swift, more active more cheering are these fine inward irradiations. From the highest degree of passionate love, to the lowest degree of goodwill, they make the sweetness of life. Our intellectual and active powers increase with our affection. The scholar sits down to write, and all his years of meditation do not furnish him with one good thought or happy expression; but it is necessary to write a letter to a friend—and, forthwith, troops of gentle thoughts invest themselves on every hand with chosen words. See, in any house where virtue and self-respect abide, the palpitation which the approach of a stranger causes. A commended stranger is expect ed A stranger’s arrival and announced, and an uneasiness betwixt pleasure and pain invades all the hearts of a household. His arrival almost brings fear to the good hearts that would welcome him. The house is dusted, all things fly into their places, the old coat is exchanged for the new, and they must get up a dinner if they can. Of a commended stranger, only the good report is told by others, only the good and new is heard by us. He stands to us for humanity. He is what we wish. Having imagined and invested him, we ask how we should stand related in conversation and action with such a man, and are uneasy with fear. The same idea exalts conversation with him. We talk better than we are wont. We have the nimblest fancy, a richer memory, and our dumb devil has taken leave for the time. For long hours we Rich communications can continue a series of sincere, graceful, rich communications, drawn from the oldest, secretest experience, so that they who sit by, of our own kinsfolk and acquaintance, shall feel a lively surprise at our unusual powers. But as soon as the stranger begins to intrude his partialities, his definitions, his defects, into the conversation, it is all over. He has heard the first, the last, and best he will ever hear from us. He is no stranger now. Vulgarity, ignorance, misapprehension are old acquaintances. Now, when he comes, he may get the order, the dress, and the dinner—but the throbbing of the heart, and the communications of the soul, no more. What is so pleasant as these jets of affection which make a young world for me again? What so delicious as a just and firm encounter of two, in a thought, A thanksgiving for friends in a feeling? How beautiful, on their approach to this beating heart, the steps and forms of the gifted and the true! The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed; there is no winter, and no night; all tragedies, all ennuis, vanish—all duties even; nothing fills the proceeding eternity but the forms all radiant of beloved persons. Let the soul be assured that somewhere in the universe it should rejoin its friend, and it would be content and cheerful alone for a thousand years. I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new. Shall I not call God the Beautiful, who daily showeth himself so to me in his gifts? I chide society, I embrace solitude, and yet I am not so ungrateful as not to see th