The Essays, vol 6 | Page 8

sound, than mine would do to one that should
ask me: "If your will should command you to kill your daughter, would
you do it?" and that I should make answer, that I would; for this
expresses no consent to such an act, forasmuch as I do not in the least
suspect my own will, and as little that of such a friend. 'Tis not in the
power of all the eloquence in the world, to dispossess me of the
certainty I have of the intentions and resolutions of my friend; nay, no
one action of his, what face soever it might bear, could be presented to
me, of which I could not presently, and at first sight, find out the
moving cause. Our souls had drawn so unanimously together, they had
considered each other with so ardent an affection, and with the like
affection laid open the very bottom of our hearts to one another's view,
that I not only knew his as well as my own; but should certainly in any
concern of mine have trusted my interest much more willingly with
him, than with myself.
Let no one, therefore, rank other common friendships with such a one
as this. I have had as much experience of these as another, and of the
most perfect of their kind: but I do not advise that any should confound
the rules of the one and the other, for they would find themselves much
deceived. In those other ordinary friendships, you are to walk with
bridle in your hand, with prudence and circumspection, for in them the
knot is not so sure that a man may not half suspect it will slip. "Love
him," said Chilo,--[Aulus Gellius, i. 3.]--"so as if you were one day to
hate him; and hate him so as you were one day to love him." This
precept, though abominable in the sovereign and perfect friendship I

speak of, is nevertheless very sound as to the practice of the ordinary
and customary ones, and to which the saying that Aristotle had so
frequent in his mouth, "O my friends, there is no friend," may very fitly
be applied. In this noble commerce, good offices, presents, and benefits,
by which other friendships are supported and maintained, do not
deserve so much as to be mentioned; and the reason is the concurrence
of our wills; for, as the kindness I have for myself receives no increase,
for anything I relieve myself withal in time of need (whatever the
Stoics say), and as I do not find myself obliged to myself for any
service I do myself: so the union of such friends, being truly perfect,
deprives them of all idea of such duties, and makes them loathe and
banish from their conversation these words of division and distinction,
benefits, obligation, acknowledgment, entreaty, thanks, and the like.
All things, wills, thoughts, opinions, goods, wives, children, honours,
and lives, being in effect common betwixt them, and that absolute
concurrence of affections being no other than one soul in two bodies
(according to that very proper definition of Aristotle), they can neither
lend nor give anything to one another. This is the reason why the
lawgivers, to honour marriage with some resemblance of this divine
alliance, interdict all gifts betwixt man and wife; inferring by that, that
all should belong to each of them, and that they have nothing to divide
or to give to each other.
If, in the friendship of which I speak, one could give to the other, the
receiver of the benefit would be the man that obliged his friend; for
each of them contending and above all things studying how to be useful
to the other, he that administers the occasion is the liberal man, in
giving his friend the satisfaction of doing that towards him which
above all things he most desires. When the philosopher Diogenes
wanted money, he used to say, that he redemanded it of his friends, not
that he demanded it. And to let you see the practical working of this, I
will here produce an ancient and singular example. Eudamidas, a
Corinthian, had two friends, Charixenus a Sicyonian and Areteus a
Corinthian; this man coming to die, being poor, and his two friends rich,
he made his will after this manner. "I bequeath to Areteus the
maintenance of my mother, to support and provide for her in her old
age; and to Charixenus I bequeath the care of marrying my daughter,

and to give her as good a portion as he is able; and in case one of these
chance to die, I hereby substitute the survivor in his place." They who
first saw this will made themselves very merry at the contents: but the
legatees, being made acquainted with it, accepted it with