matters in general are so mixed up, that the choice lies between nice
things about spoiled, and vile things that are not so bad after all, and
it is hard to tell sometimes which you like the best, or which you
loathe least.

I expect to lose every friend I have in the world by the publication of
this paper--except the dunces who are impaled in it. They will never
read it, and if they do, will never suspect I mean them; while the
sensible and true friends, who do me good and not evil all the days of
their lives, will think I am driving at their noble hearts, and will at
once fall off and leave me inconsolable. Still I am going to write it.
You must open the safety-valve once in a while, even if the steam does
whiz and shriek, or there will be an explosion, which is fatal, while
the whizzing and shrieking are only disagreeable.

Doubtless friendship has its advantages and its pleasures; doubtless
hostility has its isolations and its revenges; still, if called upon to
choose once for all between friends and foes, I think, on the whole, I
should cast my vote for the foes. Twenty enemies will not do you the
mischief of one friend. Enemies you always know where to find. They are
in fair and square perpetual hostility, and you keep your armor on and
your sentinels posted; but with friends you are inveigled into a false
security, and, before you know it, your honor, your modesty, your
delicacy are scudding before the gales. Moreover, with your friend you
can never make reprisals. If your enemy attacks you, you can always
strike back and hit hard. You are expected to defend yourself against
him to the top of your bent. He is your legal opponent in honorable
warfare. You can pour hot-shot into him with murderous vigor; and the
more he writhes, the better you feel. In fact, it is rather refreshing
to measure swords once in a while with such a one. You like to exert
your power and keep yourself in practice. You do not rejoice so much in
overcoming your enemy as in overcoming. If a marble statue could show
fight you would just as soon fight it; but as it can not, you take
something that can, and something, besides, that has had the temerity to
attack you, and so has made a lawful target of itself. But against your
friend your hands are tied. He has injured you. He has disgusted you. He
has infuriated you. But it was most Christianly done. You can not hurl a
thunderbolt, or pull a trigger, or lisp a syllable against those amiable
m