The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV | Page 8

of friction there is, and the more
carefully should people guard against it. If you see a man only once a
month, it is not of so vital importance that you do not trench on his
rights, tastes, or whims. He can bear to be crossed or annoyed
occasionally. If he does not have a very high regard for you, it is
comparatively unimportant, because your paths are generally so diverse.
But you and the man with whom you dine every day have it in your
power to make each other exceedingly uncomfortable. A very little
dropping will wear away rock, if it only keep at it. The thing that you
would not think of, if it occurred only twice a year, becomes an
intolerable burden when it happens twice a day. This is where husbands
and wives run aground. They take too much for granted. If they would
but see that they have something to gain, something to save, as well as
something to enjoy, it would be better for them; but they proceed on the
assumption that their love is an inexhaustible tank, and not a fountain
depending for its supply on the stream that trickles into it. So, for every
little annoying habit, or weakness, or fault, they draw on the tank,
without being careful to keep the supply open, till they awake one
morning to find the pump dry, and, instead of love, at best, nothing but
a cold habit of complacence. On the contrary, the more intimate friends
become, whether married or unmarried, the more scrupulously should
they strive to repress in themselves everything annoying, and to cherish
both in themselves and each other everything pleasing. While each
should draw on his love to neutralize the faults of his friend, it is
suicidal to draw on his friend's love to neutralize his own faults. Love
should be cumulative, since it can not be stationary. If it does not

increase, it decreases. Love, like confidence, is a plant of slow growth,
and of most exotic fragility. It must be constantly and tenderly
cherished. Every noxious and foreign element must be carefully
removed from it. All sunshine, and sweet airs, and morning dews, and
evening showers must breathe upon it perpetual fragrance, or it dies
into a hideous and repulsive deformity, fit only to be cast out and
trodden under foot of men, while, properly cultivated, it is a Tree of
Life.
Your enemy keeps clear of you, not only in business, but in society. If
circumstances thrust him into contact with you, he is curt and
centrifugal. But your friend breaks in upon your "saintly solitude" with
perfect equanimity. He never for a moment harbors a suspicion that he
can intrude, "because he is your friend." So he drops in on his way to
the office to chat half an hour over the latest news. The half-hour isn't
much in itself. If it were after dinner, you wouldn't mind it; but after
breakfast every moment "runs itself in golden sands," and the break in
your time crashes a worse break in your temper. "Are you busy?" asks
the considerate wretch, adding insult to injury. What can you do? Say
yes, and wound his self-love forever? But he has a wife and family.
You respect their feelings, smile and smile, and are villain enough to be
civil with your lips, and hide the poison of asps under your tongue, till
you have a chance to relieve your o'ercharged heart by shaking your fist
in impotent wrath at his retreating form. You will receive the reward of
your hypocrisy, as you richly deserve, for ten to one he will drop in
again when he comes back from his office, and arrest you wandering in
Dreamland in the beautiful twilight. Delighted to find that you are
neither reading nor writing,--the absurd dolt! as if a man weren't at
work unless he be wielding a sledge-hammer!--he will preach out, and
prose out, and twaddle out another hour of your golden eventide,
"because he is your friend." You don't care whether he is judge or
jury,--whether he talks sense or nonsense; you don't want him to talk at
all. You don't want him there anyway. You want to be alone. If you
don't, why are you sitting there in the deepening twilight? If you
wanted him, couldn't you send for him? Why don't you go out into the
drawing-room, where are music and lights, and gay people? What right
have I to suppose, that, because you are not using your eyes, you are

not using your brain? What right have I to set myself up as a judge of
the value of your time, and so rob you of perhaps the most delicious
hour in all your day, on pretense that it is