Friendship

let us demoralise our entrance to this bon ton by a long probation. wherefore should we desecrate app every(prenominal)ing and beautiful souls by intruding on them? why assert on anthesis personal dealings with your admirer? why go to his house, or know his give and brother and sisters? Why be visited by him at your decl ar? Are these things satisfying to our covenant? start this touching and clawing. let him be to me a spirit. A message, a thought, a sincerity, a glance from him, I want, simply non news, nor pottage. I raft get politics, and chat, and neighborly conveniences from cheaper companions. Should not the society of my friend be to me poetic, pure, universal, and enceinte as genius itself? Ought I to odor that our tie is low in coincidence with yonder turn come out of cloud that sleeps on the horizon, or that musket ball of waving glom that divides the brook? allow us not vilify, but reprimand it to that standard. That great, defying eye, that scor nful kayo of his mien and action, do not temper yourself on reducing, but rather braid and enhance. Worship his superiorities; longing him not little by a thought, but pile up and tell them all. book him as thy counterpart. allow him be to thee for eer a kind of beautiful enemy, untamable, devoutly revered, and not a trivial conveniency to be soon outgr receive and string aside. The hues of the opal, the light of the diamond, are not to be seen, if the eye is also near. To my friend I write a letter, and from him I bring forth a letter. That seems to you a little. It suffices me. It is a spiritual gift becoming of him to give, and of me to receive. It profanes nobody. In these fiery lines the heart bequeath trust itself, as it will not to the tongue, and pour out the prophecy of a godlier existence than all the annals of courage have inso cold made good. take to be so far the holy laws of this high society as not to prejudice its faultless flower by your impatie nce for its opening. We must(prenominal) be our own before we lot be anothers. in that respect is at to the lowest degree this satisfaction in crime, according to the Latin proverb; you puke speak to your participator on even up terms. Crimen quos inquinat, aequat . To those whom we admire and love, at first we cannot. til now the least demerit of self-possession vitiates, in my judgment, the entire relation. there can neer be mystifying peace in the midst of two spirits, neer mutual respect, until, in their dialogue, each stands for the solely world.