Amiable

“ The amiable is the voluptuous in expression or manner. The sense of pleasure in ourselves is that which excites it in others; or, the art of pleasing is to seem pleased. ”

“ He may live in my memory as the most amiable man of my acquaintance, but that is all. ”

“ I think him every thing that is worthy and amiable." ”

“ In person he was tall and slender, prepossessing in appearance and manners, unreserved in disposition, of an amiable temper, and disposed, from the ingenuous sincerity of his heart, to regard every one as his friend who courted his society. ”

“ Chapter V. makes an application of these remarks to explain the difference between the Amiable and the Respectable Virtues. The soft, the gentle, and the amiable qualities are manifested when, as sympathizers, we enter fully into the expressed sentiments of another; the great, the awful and respectable virtues of self-denial, are shown when the principal person concerned brings down his own case to the level that the most ordinary sympathy can easily attain to. ”

“ I who alone am, I who see nothing in nature whose existence I can affirm with equal evidence to my own, behold now the semblance of my being, in all its height, variety, and curiosity, reiterated in a foreign form; so that a friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.
The other element of friendship is tenderness. We are holden to men by every sort of tie, by blood, by pride, by fear, by hope, by lucre, by lust, by hate, by admiration, by every circumstance and badge and trifle, but we can scarce believe that so much character can subsist in another as to draw us by love. ”

“ You are now candidates for my friendship, and on your advancement in virtue my regard will in future depend. Write often to me, I will punctually answer your letters; but let me have the genuine sentiments of your hearts. In expressions of affection and respect, do not deviate from truth to gain what you wish for, or to turn a period prettily.
Adieu! when you think of your friend, observe her precepts; and let the recollection of my affection give additional weight to the truths which I have endeavoured to instill; and, to reward my care, let me hear that you love and practise virtue. ”

“ Treat your sweetheart always as a friend; let him know of the great love that is at your heart, and let it find expression in words once and a while, but remember that a continued expression of it is like the giving of many teaspoonfuls of marmalade—the hungry one will tire of it, and yearn for plain bread and butter. Give plenty of the bread and butter of affectionate friendship, and every now and then add to it a spoonful of marmalade of love. ”

“ Continue, my dear, continue to be what you have been hitherto, my first and dearest friend; and let us be, all by ourselves, an example of pure friendship. We will make each other better and nobler. By mutual sympathy and the delicate tie of beautiful emotions we will exhaust the joys of this life and at the last be proud of this our blameless league. Take no other friend into your heart. ”

“ On this refined affection, love, which is but a more interesting and tender kind of friendship, ought to be founded. The same virtues, the same dispositions and qualities which are necessary in a friend, are still more requisite in a companion for life. ”

“ From thy false friendship, to her arms I'll fly;
"There, if in any pause of love I rest,
"Breathless with bliss, upon her panting breast,
"In broken, melting accents, I will swear, 56
"Henceforth to trust my heart with none but her;"
Then own, the joys which on her charms attend,
Have more than paid me for my faithless friend. ”

“ You have made our friend a splendid present in exchange for the one he made you when he did not object to his M—— M—— bestowing her heart upon you. You possess that heart entirely, dearest, and you would possess it under all circumstances, but how sweet it is to flavour the pleasures of love with the charms of friendship! I was sorry not to see you, but I knew that if you had come we would not have had much enjoyment; for our friend, notwithstanding all his wit, is not exempt from some natural prejudices. ”

“ You are charming—you are sympathetic—- but, like many others, you place too great a value upon those words 'love' and 'friendship.' It is like this! If I quarrel with my friend it is doubtless sad, but it only affects myself ”

“ The warm sympathy which appears in all these inquiries, the delightful kindness you have shown me on all occasions, the rapture which I feel when I know that I am not indifferent to such a person,—these, dearest, deserve that I should say nothing to you which is profaned by flattery, and that he whom you consider worthy of your friendship should not debase himself by a false modesty. ”

“ Our intellectual and active powers increase with our affection. The scholar sits down to write, and all his years of meditation do not furnish him with one good thought or happy expression; but it is necessary to write a letter to a friend, — and, forthwith, troops of gentle thoughts invest themselves, on every hand, with chosen words. See, in any house where virtue and self-respect abide, the palpitation which the approach of a stranger causes. A commended stranger is expected and announced, and an uneasiness betwixt pleasure and pain invades all the hearts of a household. ”

“ But the immediate gratification which friendship affords to a warm, open, and ingenuous heart, is of itself sufficient motive to court it.
In the choice of your friends, have your principal regard to goodness of heart and fidelity. If they also possess taste and genius, that will still make them more agreeable and useful companions. You have particular reason to place confidence in those who have shown affection for you in your early days, when you were incapable of making them any return. ”

“ It is very interesting, its illustration of Love and Friendship, as showing how much we can know of each other through sympathy merely, without any of the ordinary information. You know about a person who deeply interests you more than you can be told. A look, a gesture, an act, which to everybody else is insignificant, tells you more about that one than words can. ”

“ I pass by connubial love, wherein affection and passion blend each its several bloom, and there are still two other forms of conscious love. One is friendship, the other philanthropy.
In friendship I love a man for his good and mine too. There is action on both sides; I take delight in him, but only on condition that he takes delight in me. I ask much of my friend, not only gratitude and justice, but forbear- ance and patience towards me;—yes, sacrifice of himself. ”

“ Love too—in the ordinary sense—implies jealousy, exclusiveness, insatiable exactions; whereas friendship, sure of its inviolable roots in spiritual equality, is ready to look generously and sympathetically upon every wandering obsession or passing madness in the friend of its choice. ”

“ He was a gentleman, to begin with. The straight, sincere look of his eyes, the thousand and one acts of simple friendship that had filled those months, rose up to reproach her. No; that theory was impossible. Then could it be that she had mistaken mere friendship for love, and that he had seen the mistake and been touched to a warmer feeling from pure sympathy? ”

“ The delightful hours I have passed in your society have left an impression on my mind that is altogether indelible, and cannot be effaced even by time itself. The frequent opportunities I have possessed, of observing the thousand acts of amiability and kindness which mark the daily tenor of your life, have ripened my feelings of affectionate regard into a passion at once ardent and sincere, until I have at length associated my hopes of future happiness with the idea of you as a life partner, in them. ”

“ Thus was my fair friend obliged at last either to accept the love of one to whom she felt unable to give her whole heart, or to lose the friendship, perhaps forever, of the man she esteemed most on earth—a common but not the less an unpleasant dilemma. ”

“ You felt that it could give you the true grasp of friendship—that it had power to do more than barely cling to something—that it could both help and sustain, yet its touch would be gentleness itself beside the couch of suffering. ”

“ A smile comes to his face as he takes out an old letter and reads the last words she ever wrote to him, "Yet I stretch out my hands to you and say, again and again, Friendship is a bigger thing than Love!" ”

“ ON THE APHORISM,
"L'Amitié est l'Amour sans ailes."
Friendship, as some sage poet sings,
Is chasten'd Love, depriv'd of wings,
Without all wish or power to wander;
Less volatile, but not less tender:
Yet says the proverbs—"Sly and slow
"Love creeps, even where he cannot go;" ”

“ But sore is my hope that it may be so; for I also, though it be but scarce an hour since I set eyes on thee, have cast mine eyes on thee to have thee for my love and my darling, and my speech-friend. And this is how I wot that thou lovest me, my friend. Now is all this dear and joyful, and overflows my heart with sweetness. But now must I tell thee of the fear and the evil which lieth behind it. ”

“ But friendship differs from love in the degree of intensity of its emotion and in the extent of the tract of life covered. In these respects it more nearly resembles liking. We all know how slight a friendly feeling may be, even when entirely genuine. ”

“ Love is hidden as if it were a reproach; friendship watched, lest it express its warmth too frankly; joy and grief and doubt and anxiety repressed as much as possible. A great lid is shut down upon the human race. ”

“ If I have not saved his poor heart, and I hardly dare flatter myself that I have, I have made it better at all events, and through me it has enjoyed the sweet pleasure of friendship for a few moments. ”

“ This is that sort of passion which truly deserves the name of 'love,' and has something more generous than friendship itself; for it has a constant care of the object beloved, abstracted from its own interests in the possession of it. ”

“ He said that one friend was worth an army of lovers; that love is like wine—bright, beautiful, and intoxicating; but friendship is like the inexhaustible water of a pure fountain—clear, cool, and refreshing ”

“ So when the friendship is real the ardent expressions of affection which are uttered are only a revelation of the emotions which are experienced, but when it is only a counterfeit the words are like the silver which hides instead of revealing what is beneath it. ”

“ My author says, — "I offer myself faintly and bluntly to those whose I effectually am, and tender myself least to him to whom I am the most devoted." I wish that friendship should have feet, as well as eyes and eloquence. It must plant itself on the ground, before it vaults over the moon. ”

“ The result has been, the development of a sensitiveness so acute, that persons are enabled to penetrate the surface of both things and people, and the result of this involuntary inspection is the discovery that there is many a rotten spot in the fairest-looking fruit—many an unworthy motive underlying the fairest pretence—nothing but duplicity where friendship was thought to dwell—lust and passion, under the guise of esteem and love—and many more such unveilings of the seeming, and disclosures of the real. ”

“ Now I consider amiability on such occasions an absolute wrong to your fellow-creatures—I do, indeed. All isn’t gold that glitters, and even your virtues are not quite such unmixed blessings as I should like to find them. ”

“ A little consideration, we think, will shew us, that this, as a general principle, is really correct; and that applause, admiration, or wonder, when they are afforded without affection, do not satisfy the heart, that in the exercise of love, seeks love in return.—It is the friendship, the fellowship, the affections of those whom we aim at pleasing, that alone can approve itself to our minds as the appropriate returns for moral actions. ”

“ Those who had the privilege of his friendship remember how they were kept up in their standard and measure of duty by the consciousness of his opinion, his judgment, his eagerness to feel with them, his fearless, though it might be reluctant, expression of disagreement It was, indeed, that very marked yet most harmonious combination of severity and tenderness which gave such interest to his character. A strong love of justice, a deep and unselfish and affectionate gentleness and patience, are happily qualities not too rare. ”

“ Heard a new sweetness thrilling in the sound
Of my friend's voice knelling our parting drear,—
Since friendship turned to love would cost him dear.
A woman and unloved, a queen discrowned,
I'll seek a joyless exile for his sake. ”

“ Why should we be ashamed to admit openly our belief in this mysterious intercourse between the spirits of those who are bound to each other by the tender ties of friendship and affection, when the experience of every day proves its truth? ”

“ It is too much the slang of our day to decry forms, and to exalt the excellency of the spirit in opposition to them; but tell me, are you satisfied with friendship that has none of the outward forms of friendship, or love that has none of the outward forms of love? ”

“ Why should I forsake him for one who affects to love me to-day, and will loathe me to-morrow? He has been my only true friend. Heaven may smile on us some day, and give us enough to live a life of virtue and love. ”

“ In the long years and through the changing scenes which have passed since we first met, my love for this friend has neither wearied nor grown cold; for, aside from her beauty and unfailing cheerfulness, she has about her much that is attractive and endearing—a clear, strong intellect, an admirable taste, and an earnest truthfulness of character, on which I lean with a delicious feeling of confidence and repose. ”