kness, and
to beguile its tedious and its painful moments! to share our bread with
one to whom misfortune has left none! This world abounds indeed with
misery: to lighten its burthen, we must divide it with one another. But
let us now try the virtue of your mathematical balance, and as you have
put into one scale the burthens of friendship, let me put its comforts
into the other. When languishing then under disease, how grateful is the
solace of our friends! how are we penetrated with their assiduities and
attentions! how much are we supported by their encouragements and kind
offices! When Heaven has taken from us some object of our love, how
sweet is it to have a bosom whereon to recline our heads, and into which
we may pour the torrent of our tears! Grief, with such a comfort, is
almost a luxury! In a life where we are perpetually exposed to want and
accident, yours is a wonderful proposition, to insulate ourselves,
to retire from all aid, and to wrap ourselves in the mantle of
self-sufficiency! For assuredly nobody will care for him, who cares for
nobody. But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the
sunshine of life: and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the
greater part of life is sunshine. I will recur for proof to the days we
have lately passed. On these, indeed, the sun shone brightly! How
gay did the face of nature appear! Hills, valleys, chateaux, gardens,
rivers, every object wore its liveliest hue! Whence did they borrow it?
From the presence of our charming companion. They were pleasing, because
she seemed pleased. Alone, the scene would have been dull and insipid:
the participation of it with her gave it relish. Let the gloomy monk,
sequestered from the world, seek unsocial pleasures in the bottom of his
cell! Let the sublimated philosopher grasp visionary happiness, while
pursuing phantoms dressed in the garb of truth! Their supreme wisdom is
supreme folly: and they mistake for happiness the mere absence of pain.
Had they ever felt the solid pleasure of one generous spasm of the
heart, they would exchange for it all the frigid speculations of their
lives, which you have been vaunting in such elevated terms. Believe
me, then, my friend, that that is a miserable arithmetic, which could
estimate friendship at nothing, or at less than nothing. Respect for
you has induced me to enter into this discussion, and to hear principles
uttered, which I detest and abjure. Respect for myself no