now to converse with you. So I will owe to my
friends this evanescent intercourse. I will receive from them not what
they have but what they are. They shall give me that which properly they
cannot give, but which emanates from them. But they shall not hold me by
any relations less subtile and pure. We will meet as though we met not,
and part as though we parted not.

It has seemed to me lately more possible than I knew, to carry a
friendship greatly, on one side, without due correspondence on the
other. Why should I cumber myself with regrets that the receiver is not
capacious? It never troubles the sun that some of his rays fall wide
and vain into ungrateful space, and only a small part on the reflecting
planet. Let your greatness educate the crude and cold companion. If he
is unequal he will presently pass away; but thou art enlarged by thy own
shining, and no longer a mate for frogs and worms, dost soar and
burn with the gods of the empyrean. It is thought a disgrace to love
unrequited. But the great will see that true love cannot be unrequited.
True love transcends the unworthy object and dwells and broods on the
eternal, and when the poor interposed mask crumbles, it is not sad, but
feels rid of so much earth and feels its independency the surer. Yet
these things may hardly be said without a sort of treachery to the
relation. The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity
and trust. It must not surmise or provide for infirmity. It treats its
object as a god, that it may deify both.

*****

PRUDENCE.

THEME no poet gladly sung,
Fair to old and foul to young;
Scorn not thou the love of parts,
And the articles of arts.
Grandeur of the perfect sphere
Thanks the atoms that cohere.

VII. PRUDENCE.

What right have I to write on Prudence, whereof I have Little, and
that of the negative sort? My prudence consists in avoiding and going
without, not in the inventing of means and methods, not in adroit
steering, not in gentle repairing. I have no skill to make money spend
well, no genius in my economy, and whoever sees my garden discovers that
I must have some other garden. Yet I love facts, and hate lubricity
and people without perception. Then I have the same title to write
on prudence that I have to write on poetry or holiness. We write from
aspiration and antagonism, as well as from experience. We paint those
qualities which we do not possess. The poet a