ther passion, where there are legal or
moral duties forbidding it, the true course is not to dismiss and
denounce the friendship, but to preserve it in its undegenerate
integrity, by strengthening the sanctions, restraints, and
obligations that should properly guide and guard it. The element of
sense and sex sometimes breaks out with horrible fury in the closest
relations. The cruel crime of Hebrew Amnon, the dark tale of Italian
Cenci, numerous Greek tragedies, many of the terrible English
tragedies of Massinger, Ford, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Beddoes,
furnish harrowing examples. The amours of the unworthy yield no
better argument against profound and earnest friendships between men
and women than the morbid cases referred to yield against the proper
affection of parent and child, brother and sister. One does not
refuse to exercise his mind for fear it will lead to insanity; but he
takes care to exercise it healthily. So he should not repudiate the
friendship of a woman, because it may lead to harm; he should cherish
the friendship, and beware of the harm. It is a profanation to judge
of the natural effect of intimacy with the innocent or the wise and
virtuous from the effects of intimacy with the depraved and guileful.
Poor, sinful Tannhauser, long enslaved in the Venusberg, yearned to
be free from the degrading bonds of sensuality. Utterly vain were his
agonizing prayers to Venus to release him. But when, with a sudden
ardor of faith and resolve, he cried to the Virgin Mary, the grotto
in which he was confined instantly faded away, with all its
unhallowed seductions.

The degree of danger in these connections will always depend on the
characters of the parties. We cannot lay down, as tests, general
rules which have much value irrespective of particular persons. Jean
Paul, at twenty-six, wrote a prize-essay on "How far Friendship may
proceed with the other sex without Love, and the Difference between
it and Love." The essay won the prize; but, if ever published, it is
not contained in his collected writings. Probably the author's
maturer judgment pronounced it of but little value. In one of the
volumes of the "Southern Literary Messenger" there is a very pleasing
tale, entitled "How far Friendship may go with a Woman;" arguing that
it is sure to end in love. The same conclusion is also advocated with
much spirit in "A Debate on Friendship," in the thirty-fourth volume
of "Knickerbocker." The opposite and better vie