many
would understand the sense of his best work, or that any could be
exhilarated by the dreary chronicling of his worst. "But," as he says,
"the gods do not hear any rude or discordant sound, as we learn from the
echo; and I know that the nature towards which I launch these sounds is
so rich that it will modulate anew and wonderfully improve my rudest
strain."

IV

"What means the fact," he cries, "that a soul which has lost all hope
for itself can inspire in another listening soul such an infinite
confidence in it, even while it is expressing its despair?" The question
is an echo and an illustration of the words last quoted; and it forms
the key-note of his thoughts on friendship. No one else, to my
knowledge, has spoken in so high and just a spirit of the kindly
relations; and I doubt whether it be a drawback that these lessons
should come from one in many ways so unfitted to be a teacher in this
branch. The very coldness and egoism of his own intercourse gave him a
clearer insight into the intellectual basis of our warm, mutual
tolerations; and testimony to their worth comes with added force from
one who was solitary and disobliging, and of whom a friend remarked,
with equal wit and wisdom, "I love Henry, but I cannot like him."

He can hardly be persuaded to make any distinction between love and
friendship; in such rarefied and freezing air, upon the mountain-tops of
meditation, had he taught himself to breathe. He was, indeed, too
accurate an observer not to have remarked that "there exists already a
natural disinterestedness and liberality" between men and women; yet, he
thought, "friendship is no respecter of sex." Perhaps there is a sense
in which the words are true; but they were spoken in ignorance; and
perhaps we shall have put the matter most correctly, if we call love a
foundation for a nearer and freer degree of friendship than can be
possible without it. For there are delicacies, eternal between persons
of the same sex, which are melted and disappear in the warmth of love.

To both, if they are to be right, he attributes the same nature and
condition. "We are not what we are," says he, "nor do we treat or esteem
each other for such, but for what we are capable of being." "A friend is
one who incessantly pays us the compliment of expecting all the virtues
from us, and who can appreciate them in us." "The friend asks no return
but that his friend will religiously accept and wear and not disgrace