this kind of unbending becomes certainly not the less welcome to him. He wishes occasionally to forget th^ severity of his investigations, neither to have his mind any longer wound up and stretched to the height of meditation, nor to feel that he needs to be any way on his guard, or not completely to give the rein to all his sallies and the sportiveness of his soul. Having been for a considerable time shut up in sequestered reflection, he wishes, it may be, to have the world, the busy impassioned world, brought tp his ears, without his being obliged to enter into its formalities and mummeries. If he desires to i^peak of the topics which had so deeply engaged him, he can keep as near the edge as he pleases, and drop or resume them as his fancy may prompt. And it seems useless to say, how much his modest and unassuming friend will be gratified in being instrumental to relieve the labours of his principal, in feeling that he is necessary to him, and in medi- tating on the delight he receives in being made the chosen companion and confident of him whom he so ardently admires. It was precisely in this spirit, thf^t Fulke GreviUe, two hundred years ago, directed that it should be inscribed on his tomb, *^ Here lies the friend of Sir Philip Sidney.'* Tenderness on the one part, and a deep feeling of honour and rer spect on the other, give a completeness to the union which it must otherwise for ever want. ^^ There is no limit, none/' to the fervour with which the stronger goes forward to protect the weak; while XV.] OF LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP. 291 in return the less powerful would encounter a thou- sand deaths rather than injury should befall the being to whom in generosity and affection he owesi so much.
In the mean time, though inequality is necessary to give this completeness to friendship, the inequal- ity must not be too great. The inferior party must be able to understand and appreciate the sense and the merits of him to whom he is thus bound. There must be no impediment to hinder the communica- tions of the principal from being fully compre^ bended, and his sentiments entirely participated. There must be a boundless confidence, without ap- prehension that the power of the stronger party can by the remotest possibility be put forth unge- nerously. ^^ Perfect love casteth out fear.*' The evangelist applies this aphorism even to the love of the creature to his creator. ^^ The Lord spake unto Moses, face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.** In the union of which I am treating the demonstrative and ordinary appearance will be that of entire equality, which is heightened by the inner, and for the greater part unexplained and undeve- loped, impression of a contrary nature. There is in either party a perfect reliance, an idea of inequality with the most entire assurance that it can never operate unworthily in the stronger party, or produce insincerity or servility in the weaker. There will in reality always be some reserve, some shadow of fear between equals, which in the friendship of uriu2 292 OF LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP. [eSSAY equals^ if happily assorted, can find no place. There is a pouring out of the heart on the one side, and a cordial acceptance on the other, which words are inadequate to describe.
To proceed. If from friendship we go forward to that which in all languages is emphatically called love, we shall still find ourselves dogged and at- tended by inequality. Nothing can be more cer- tain, however we may seek to modify and abate it, than the inequality of the sexes. Let us attend to it as it stands in Milton: For contemplation he and valour formed. For softness she and sweet attractive grace 3 He for God only, she for God in him.
Thus it is painted to us as having been in Paradise; and with similar inequality have the sexes subsisted in all ages and nations since. If it were possible to take from the fair sex its softness and attractive grace, and endow it instead with audacious, mascu- line and military qualities, there is scarcely any one that does not perceive, with whatever advantages it might be attended in other respects, that it would be far from tending to cherish and increase the passion of love.
It is in reality obvious, that man and woman, as they come from the hands of nature, are so much upon a par with each other, as not to afford the best subjects between whom to graft a habit of entire, unalterable affection. In the scenes of vidgar and ordinary society, a permanent connection between XV.] OF LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP. 293 persons of opposite sexes is too apt to degenerate into a scene of warfare^ where each party is for ever engaged in a struggle for superiority, and neither will give way. A penetrating observer, with whom in former days I used intimately to converse, was accustomed to say, that there was generally more jarring and ill blood between the two parties, in the first year of their marriage, than during all the re- mainder of their lives. It is at length. found necessary, as between equally matched belligerents on the theatre of history, that they should come to terms, make a treaty of peace, or at least settle cer- tain laws of warfare, that they may not waste their strength in idle hostilities.
The nations of antiquity had a way of settling this question in a very summary mode. As certain Oriental tribes have determined that women have no souls, and that nothing can be more proper than to shut them up, like singing birds in cages, so the Greeks and Romans for the most part excluded their females from the society of the more martial sex. Marriage with them was a convenience mere- ly; and the husband and wife were in reality no- thing more than the master and the slave. This point once settled as a matter of national law, there was certainly in most cases little danger of any vexatious rivalship and struggle for power.
But there is nothing in which the superiority of modern times over the ancient has been more con- spicuous, than in our sentiments and practices on 294 PF |4QV£ AND FRIENDSHIP. [ESSAY this subject This superiority^ as well as several other of our most valuable acquisitions, took its rise in what we call the dark ages. Chivalry waa for the most part the invention of the eleventh cen- tury. Its principle was built upon a theory of the sexes^ giving to each a relative importance, and as- signing to both functions full of honour and grace. The knights (and every gentleman during that pe** riod in due time became a knight) were taught, as the main features of their vocation, the " love of God and the ladies.** The ladies in return were regarded as the genuine censors of the deeds of knighthood. From these principles arose a thousand lessons of humanity. The ladies regarded it as their glory to assist their champions to arm and to disarm, to perform for them even menial services, to attend them in sickness, and to dress their wounds. They bestowed on them their colours, and sent them forth to the field hallowed with their benedictions. The knights on the other hand considered any slight towards the fair sex as an indelible stain to their order; they contemplated the graceful pa- tronesses of their valour with a feeling that partook of religious homage and veneration, and esteemed it as perhaps the first duty of their profession, to relieve the wrongs, and avenge the injuries of the less powerful sex.
This simple outline as to the relative position of the one sex and the other, gave a new face to the whole scheme and arrangements of civil society.
XVO OF LOVE AND FRIENDSlAtm 295 It is like those admirable principles in the ordeir of the material miiverse, or those grand di^coreries brought to light from time td time by superior genius, so obvious and simple, that vre wonder the most common understanding could have missed them, yet do pregnant with results, that they seem at once to put a new life and inspire a new charac-. ter into every part of a mighty and all-comprehen- sive mass.
The passion between the sexes, in its grossed sense, is a momentary impulse merely; and there was dangei; that, when the fit and violence of the passion was over, the whole would subside into inconstancy and a roving disposition, or at least into indifference and almost brutal neglect. But the institutions of chivalry immediately gave a new face to this. Either sex conceived a deep and per-^ manent interest in the other. In the unsettled state of society which characterised the period when these institutions arose, the disfenceless were liablel to assaults of multiplied kinds, alld the fair perpe- tually stood in need of a protector and a champion^ The knights on the other hand were taught to de- rive their fame and their honour from the sufirages of the ladies: Each sex stood in need of the other; and the basis of their union was mutual esteem.
The effect of this was to give a hue of imagi- nation to all their intercoujrse. A man was no longer merely a man, nor a womin merely a womih. They were taught mutual deference. The woman '396 OF I^V£ AND FRI£NUfSHiP. [bssAT regarded her protector as something illustrioiiis and admirable; and the man considered the smiles and approbation of beauty as the adequate reward of his toils and his dangers. These modes of thinking introduced a nameless grace into all the commerce of society. It was the poetry of life. Hence ori- ginated the delightM narratives and fictions of romance; and human existence was no longer the bare, naked train of vulgar incidents, which for so many ages of the world it had been accustomed to he. It was clothed in resplendent hues, and wore all the tints of the rainbow. Equality fled and was no more; and love, almighty, perdurable love, came to supply its place.
By means of this state of things the vulgar im- pulse of the sexes towards each other, which alone was known to the former ages of the world, was transformed into somewhat of a totally different nature. It became a kind of worship. The fair sex looked upon their protectors, their fathers, their husbands, and the whole train of their chivalry, as something more than human. There was a gi^ce in their motions, a gallantry in their bearing, and a generosity in their spirit of enterprise, that the soft- ness of the female heart found irresistible. Nor less on the other hand did the knights^ regard *the sex to whose service and defence they were sworn, as the objects of their perpetual deference. They approached them with a sort of gallant timidity, listened to their behe«ts with submission, and XV.] OF LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP. 297.
thought the longest courtship and devotion noblj recompensed by the final acceptance of the fair.
The romance and exaggeration characteristic of these modes of thinking have gradually worn away in modem times; but much of what was most va- luable in them has remained. Love has in later ages never been divested of the tenderness and conside- ration^ which were thus rendered some of its most estimable features. A certain desire in each party to exalt the other, and regard it as worthy of admi- ration, became inextricably interwoven with the simple passion. A sense of the honour that waa borne by the one to the other, had the happiest effect in qualifying the familiarity and unreserve in the communion of feelings and sentiments, without which the attachment of the sexes cannot subsist. It is something like what the mystic divines de- scribe of the beatific vision, where entire wonder and adoration are not judged to be incompatible with the most ardent affection, and all meaner and selfish regards are annihilated.
From what has been thus drawn together and recapitulated it seems clearly to follow, as was stated in the beginning, that love cannot exist in its purest form and with a genuine ardour, where the parties are, and are felt by each other to be, on an equality; but that in all cases it is requisite there should be a mutual deference and submission, agreeably to the apostolic precept, " Likewise all of you be subject one to the other.'* There must be 298 or LOVE and friendship. [i^ssat room for the imagination to exercise its powers; we must conceive and apprehend a thousand things which we do not actually witness; each party must feel that it stands in need of the other^ and without the other cannot he complete; each party must be alike conscious of the power of receiving and con- ferring benefit; and there must be the anticipation of a distant future^ that may every day enhance the good to be imparted and enjoyed, and cause the individuals thus united perpetually to become more sensible of the fortunate event which gave them to each other, and has thus entailed upon each a thousand advantages in which they could otherwise never have shared.
ESSAY XVL OF FRANKNESS AND R£S£RV£.
Animals are divided into the solitary and the gre- garious: the former heing only occasionally asso- ciated with its mate^ wd perhaps engaged in the care of its offspring; the latter spending their lives in herds and communities. Man is of this last class or division.
Where the animals of any particular species live much in society^ it seems requisite that in some degree they should be able to understand each other's purposes^ and to act with a certain portion of concert.
All other animals are exceedingly limited in their powers of communication. But speech renders that being whom we justly entitle the lord of the crea- tion^ capable of a boundless interchange of ideas and intentions. Not only can we communicate to each other substantively our elections and prefe- rences: we can also exhort and persuade^ and em- ploy reasons and arguments to convince our fellows^ that the choice we have made is also worthy of their adoption. We can express our thoughts^ and the various lights and shades, the blendings, of our thoughts. Language is an instrument capable of 300 OF FRANKNESS AND RESERVE. [ESSAY being perpetually advanced in copiousness^ perspi- cuity and power.
No principle of morality can be more just, than that which teaches us to regard every faculty we possess as a power intrusted to us for the benefit of others as well as of ourselves, and which therefore we are bound to employ in the way which shall best conduce to the general advantage.
• " Speech was given us, that by it we might ex- press our thoughts*;'* in other words, our impres- sions, ideas and conceptions. We then therefore best fulfil the scope of our nature, when we sin- cerely and unreservedly communicate to each other our feelings and apprehensions. Speech should be to man in the nature of a fair complexion, the transparent medium through which the workings of the mind should be made legible.
' I think I have somewhere read of Socrates, that certain of his friends expostulated with him, that the windows of his house were so constructed that every one who went by could discover all that pass- ed within. *^ And wherefore not?'* said the sage. " I do nothing that I would wish to have concealed fipom any human eye. If I knew that all the world observed every thing I did, I should feel no in- ducement to change my conduct in the minutest particular.** • It is not however practicable that frankness * Moliere.
XVI.] OF FRANKNESS AND RESERVE. 301 should be carried to the extent above mentioned. It has been calculated that the human mind. is ca- pable of being impressed with three hundred and twenty sensations in a second of time^. At all events we well know that, even "while I am: speak* ing, a variety of sensations are experienced by me, without so much as interrupting, that is, without materially diverting, the train of my ideas. My eye successively remarks a thousand objects that pre- sent themselves, and my mind wanders to the dif- ferent parts of my body, without occasioning the minutest obstacle to my discourse, or my being in any degree distracted by the multiplicity of these objects^." It is therefore beyond the reach of the faculty of speech, for me to communicate all the sensations I experience; and I am of necessity re- duced to a selection.
Nor is, this the whole. We do not communicate all that we feel, and all that we think; for this would be impertinent. We owe a certain deference and consideration to our fellow-men; we owe it in reality to ourselves. We do not communicate in- discriminately all that passes within us. The time would fail us; and *^ the world would not contain the books that might be written." We do not speak merely for the sake of speaking; otherwise the communication of man with his fellow would be but one eternal babble. Speech is to be employed for some useful purpose; nor ought we to give 302. OF FRANKNESS AND RESBKVX. [ESSAY utterance to any thing that shaU not promise to be in some way productive of benefit or amusement.
Frankness has its limits, beyond which it would cease to be either advantageous or virtuous. We are not to tell every thing: but we are not to con- ceal any thing, that it would be useful or becoming in us to utter. Our first duty regarding the faculty of speech is, not to keep back what it would be beneficial to our neighbour to know. But this is a negative sincerity only. If we would acquire a character for frankness, we must be careful that our conversation is such, as to excite in him the idea that we are open, ingenuous and fearless. We must appear forward to speak all that will give him pleasure, and contribute to maintain in him an agreeable state of being. I^r must be obvious that we are not artificial and on our guard^-«-After all, it is difficult to lay down rules on this subject: the spring of whatever is desirable respecting it, must hf^ m the temper of the man with whom others have intercourse. He must be benevolent, sympathetic aad afiectionate. His heart must overflow with good-will; and he must be anxious to relieve every little pain, and to contribute to the enjoyment and complacent feelings, of those with whom he is per- manently or accidentally connected. " Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.'* There are two considerations by which we ought to be directed in the exercise of the faculty of speech.
XViJ OF FRANKNESS AND RB9BRVK. 303 The i^st is> that we should tell our neighbour all that it would be useful to him to know. We must have no sinister or bye ends. " No man liveth to himself.'* We are all of Ui3 members of the great congregation of mankind. The same blood should circulate through every limb and every muscle. Our pulses should beat time to each other; and we should have one common sensorium^ vibrating throughout^ upon every material accident that oc-« curs^ and when any object is at stake essentially affecting the welfare of our fellow-beings* We should forget ourselves in the interest that we feel fqr the happiness of others; and, if this were uni- versal^ each man would be a gainer, inasmuch as he lost himself, and was cared and watched for by many.
In all these respects we must have no reserve. We ^ould only consider what it is that it would be beneficial to have declared. We must not look back to ourselves, and consult the dictates of a narrow and self-*interested prudence. The whole essence: of communication is adulterated, if, instead of at- tending to the direct effects of what suggests itself to our tongue, we are to consider how by a circu-^ items route it may react upon our own pleasures and advantage.
Nor only are we bound to communicate to our neighbour all that it will be useful to him to know. We have many neighbours, beside those to whom we immediately address ourselves. To these our 304 OF FRA1<1KN£SS AND RESERVE. [ESSAY absent fellow-beings^ we owe a thousand duties. We are bound to defend those whom we hear as- persed, and who are spoken unworthily of by the persons whom we incidentally encounter. We should be the forward and spontaneous advocates of merit in every shape and in every individual in whom we know it to exist. What a character would that man make for himself, of whom it was notorious that he consecrated his faculty of speech to the refuting un- just imputations against whomsoever they were di- rected, to the contradicting all false and malicious reports, and to the bringing forth obscure and unre- cognised worth from the shades in which it lay hid! What a world should we live in, if all men were thus prompt and fearless to do justice to all the worth they knew or apprehended to exist! Justice, simple justice, if it extended no farther than barely to the faculty of speech, would in no long time put down all misrepresentation and calumny, bring all that is good and meritorious into honour, and, so to speak, set every man in his true and rightful position. But whoever would attempt this, must do it in all ho- nour, without parade, and with no ever-and-anon looking back upon his achievement, and saying. See to how much credit I am entitled! — as if he laid more stress upon himself, the doer of this jus- tice, than upon justice in its intrinsic nature and claims.
But we not only owe something to the advantage and interest of our neighbours, but something also XVI.] OF FRANKNESS AND RESERVE. 305 to the sacred divinity of Truth. I am not only to tell my neighbour whatever I know that may be bene- ficial to him, respecting his position in society, his faults, what other men appear to contemplate that may conduce to his advantage or injury, and to ad- vise him how the one may best be forwarded, or the other defeated and brought to nothing: I am bound also to consider in what way it may be in my power so to act on his mind, as shall most enlarge his views, confirm and animate his good resolutions, and meliorate his dispositions and temper. We are all members of one great community: and we shall never sufficiently discharge our duty in that respect, till, like the ancient Spartans, the love of the whole becomes our predominant passion, and we cease to imagine that we belong to ourselves, so much as to the entire body of which we are a part. There are certain views in morality, in politics, and various other important subjects, the general prevalence of which will be of the highest benefit to the society of which we are members; and it becomes us in this respect, with proper temperance and modera- tion, to conform ourselves to the zealous and fer- vent precept of the apostle, to ^^ promulgate the truth and be instant, in season and out of season," that we may by all means leave some monument of our good intentions behind. us, and feel that we have not lived in vain.
There is a maxim extremely in vogue in the or- dinary intercourses of society, which deserves to be 306 OF FRANKNESS AND RESERVE. [ESSAY noticed here, for the purpose of exposing it to me- rited condemnation. It is very common between friends, or persons calling themselves such, to say, " Do not ask my advice in a certain crisis of your life; I will not give it; hereafter, if the thing turns out wrong, you will reflect on me, and say that it was at my suggestion that you were involved in ca- lamity." This is a dastardly excuse, and shews a pitiful selfishness in the man that urges it.
It is true, that we ought ever to be on the alert, that we may not induce our friend into evil. We should be upon our guard, that we may not from overweening arrogance and self-conceit dictate to another, overpower his more sober judgment, and assume a rashness for him, in which perhaps we would not dare to indulge for ourselves. We should be modest in our suggestions, and rather supply him with materials for decision, than with a deci- sion absolutely made. There may however be cases where an opposite proceeding is necessary. We must arrest our friend, nay, even him who is merely our fellow-creature, with a strong arm, when we see him hovering on the brink of a precipice, or the danger is so obvious, that nothing but absolute blindness could conceal it from an impartial by- stander.
But in all cases our best judgment should always be at the service of our brethren of mankind. *'Give to him that asketh thee; and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away." This may not XVI J OF FRANKNESS AND RESERVE. 3P7 always be practicable or just, when applied to the goods of fortune: but the case of advice, informa- tion, and laws of conduct, comes within that of Ennius, to suiFer our neighbour to light his candle at our lamp. To do so will enrich him, without making us a jot the poorer. We should indeed respect the right of private judgment, and scarcely in any case allow our will to supersede his will in his own proper province. But we should on no account suffer any cowardly fears for ourselves, to induce us to withhold from him any assistance that our wider information or our sounder judgment might supply to him.
The next consideration by which we should be directed in the exercise of the faculty of speech, is that we should employ it so as should best conduce to the pleasure of our neighbour. Man is a diffe* rent creature in the savage and the civilised state. It has been affirmed, and it may be true, that the ravage man is a stranger to that disagreeable frame of mind, known by the name of ennm. He can pore upon the babbling stream, or stretch himself upon a sunny bank, from the rising to the setting of the sun, and be satisfied. He is scarcely roused from this torpid state but by the cravings of nature. If they can be supplied without effort, he imme- diately relapses into his former supineness; and, if it requires search, industry and exertion to procure jtheir gratification, he still more eagerly embraces X 2 308 OF FRANKNESS AND RESERVE. [essAY the repose, which previous fatigue renders doubly welcome.
But, when the mind has once been wakened up from its original lethargy, when we have overstepped the boundary which divides the man from the beast, and are made desirous of improvement, while at the same moment the tumultuous passions that draw us in infinitely diversified directions are called into act, the case becomes exceedingly different. It might be difficult at first to rouse man from his original lethargy: it is next to impossible that he should ever again be restored to it. The appetite of the mind being once thoroughly awakened in society, the human species are found to be perpe- tually craving after new intellectual food. We read, we write, we discourse, we ford rivers, and scale mountains, and engage in various pursuits, for the pure pleasure that the activity and earnestness of the pursuit afford us. The day of the savage and the civilised man are still called by the same name. They may be measured by a pendulum, and will be found to be of the same duration. But in all other points of view they are inexpressibly different.
Hence therefore arises another duty that is in- cumbent upon us as to the exercise of the faculty of speech. This duty will be more or less urgent according to the situation in which we are placed. If I sit down in a numerous assembly, if I become one of a convivial party of ten or twelve persons, I XVI.] OF FRANKNESS AND RESERVE. 309 may unbiamed be for the greater part, or entirely silent, if I please. I must appear to enter into their sentiments and pleasures, or/ if I do not, I shall be an unwelcome guest; but it may scarcely be required for me to clothe my feelings with articulate speech. But, when my society shall be that of a few friends only, and still more if the question is of spending hours or days in the society of a single friend, my duty becomes altered, and a greater de- gree of activity will be required from me. There are cases, where the minor morals of the species will be of more importance than those which in their own nature are cardinal. Duties of the highest magnitude will perhaps only be brought into requi- sition upon extraordinary occasions; but the oppor- tunities we have of lessening the inconveniences of our neighbour, or of adding to his accommodations and the amount of his agreeable feelings, are innu- merable. An acceptable and welcome member of society therefore will hot talk, only when he has something important to communicate. He will also study how he may amuse his friend with agreeable narratives, lively remarks, sallies of wit, or any of those thousand nothings, which, set off with a wish to please and a benevolent temper, will often enter- tain more and win the entire good will of the per- son to whom they are addressed, than the wisest discourse, or the vein of conversation which may exhibit the powers and genius of the speaker to the greatest advantage.