ends that it may enter into a grander
self-acquaintance or solitude; and it goes alone for a season, that it
may exalt its conversation or society. This method betrays itself along
the whole history of our personal relations. The instinct of affection
revives the hope of union with our mates, and the returning sense of
insulation recalls us from the chase. Thus every man passes his life in
the search after friendship, and if he should record his true sentiment,
he might write a letter like this to each new candidate for his love:--

DEAR FRIEND,

If I was sure of thee, sure of thy capacity, sure to match my mood with
thine, I should never think again of trifles in relation to thy comings
and goings. I am not very wise; my moods are quite attainable, and
I respect thy genius; it is to me as yet unfathomed; yet dare I not
presume in thee a perfect intelligence of me, and so thou art to me a
delicious torment. Thine ever, or never.

Yet these uneasy pleasures and fine pains are for curiosity and not
for life. They are not to be indulged. This is to weave cobweb, and not
cloth. Our friendships hurry to short and poor conclusions, because we
have made them a texture of wine and dreams, instead of the tough fibre
of the human heart. The laws of friendship are austere and eternal, of
one web with the laws of nature and of morals. But we have aimed at a
swift and petty benefit, to suck a sudden sweetness. We snatch at the
slowest fruit in the whole garden of God, which many summers and
many winters must ripen. We seek our friend not sacredly, but with an
adulterate passion which would appropriate him to ourselves. In vain. We
are armed all over with subtle antagonisms, which, as soon as we meet,
begin to play, and translate all poetry into stale prose. Almost all
people descend to meet. All association must be a compromise, and,
what is worst, the very flower and aroma of the flower of each of
the beautiful natures disappears as they approach each other. What a
perpetual disappointment is actual society, even of the virtuous and
gifted! After interviews have been compassed with long foresight we
must be tormented presently by baffled blows, by sudden, unseasonable
apathies, by epilepsies of wit and of animal spirits, in the heyday
of friendship and thought. Our faculties do not play us true, and both
parties are relieved by solitude.

I ought to be equal to every relation. It makes no difference how many
friends I have and