Friend

“ 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. ”

“ Friend! I shrink to say
Farewell to thee. In youth's unclouded morn
We gaze on friendship as a graceful flower,
And win it for our pleasure, or our pride.
But when the stern realities of life
Do clip the wings of fancy, and cold storms
Rack the worn cordage of the heart, it breathes
A healing essence, and a strengthening charm,
Next to the hope of heaven. ”

“ In a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends,
(For indeed I do not love it . . . you knew? you are not blind!
How keen you are!)
To find a friend who has these qualities,
Who has, and gives
Those qualities upon which friendship lives.
How much it means that I say this to you—
Without these friendships—life, what cauchemar! ”

“ 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. ”

“ When that my friend pretendeth to a place,
I quit my interest, and leave it free:
But when thy grace
Sues for my heart, I thee displace;
Nor would I use a friend, as I use Thee.
Yet can a friend what thou hast done fulfill? ”

“ My careful heart was free again, — O friend, my bosom said, Through thee alone the sky is arched, Through thee the rose is red, All things through thee take nobler form, And look beyond the earth, And is the mill-round of our fate A sun-path in thy worth. Me too thy nobleness has taught To master my despair; The fountains of my hidden life Are through thy friendship fair. ”

“ The friend may be an orator meditating his speech, a poet his verses, a lawyer a difficult case, a physician an intricate malady. If you have such a friend, and you observe him thus away from his home, his face will seem to you older and graver. He is absorbed in the care that weighs on him. When you see him in a holiday moment at his own fireside, the care is thrown aside; perhaps he mastered while abroad the difficulty that had troubled him; he is cheerful, pleasant, sunny. This appears to be very much the case with persons of genius. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Have you never felt the need of having near you a friend to whom you could confide your troubles, a friend who would never speak to you again as he once dared to do, but who would be content to breathe the same air as yourself, and to share your joys and sorrows—a friend on whom you could rely, whom you could take or leave at your sweet will—in a word, a thing of your own, whose very thoughts would be yours? ”

“ No longer do I dread Life’s bitter rue
Which Friendship’s lips have touched and rendered sweet,
Still rough the paths that I must journey through,
But what care I tho’ tempests ’round me beat,
I have a friend. ”

“ Gifts the most precious, and gold cannot pay
For friendship once broken.
It’s vanished for aye!—
Keep clear the path to your friend’s heart, I pray!
Weeds of forgetfulness soon choke the way;
Pass that way often; keep polished, I pray,
The flagstones that guide you down friendship’s own way! ”

“ But one hath loved me still: the friend who sleeps
Where the long herbage sighs and where remembrance weeps.
When Friendship's alter'd brow withheld its smile,
When cold and stern, her cordial welcome fled ”

“ A friend whose heart has eyes to see The stars shine out o'er the darkening lea, And the quiet rest at the end o' the day,— A friend who knows, and dares to say, The brave, sweet words that cheer the way Where he walks a mile with me. ”

“ In actual life you see your friend to-day, and will see him again to-morrow or next year; but in the dear book, you have your friend and all his experiences at once and ever. He is with you wholly, and may be with you at any time. He lives for you, and has already died for you, to give finish to the meaning, fulness, and sanctity, to the comfort of his days. ”

“ O’er putrid earth to scratch a little dust,
And save the world a nuisance.
Young.
Heaven gives us friends to bless the present scene;
Resumes them to prepare us for the next.
Young.
Celestial happiness! Whene’er she stoops
To visit earth, one shrine the goddess finds,
And one alone, to make her sweet amends
For absent heaven,—the bosom of a friend,
Where heart meets heart, reciprocally soft,
Each other’s pillow to repose divine.
Young.
[241]
A friend is worth all hazards we can run,
Poor is the friendless master of a world;
A world in purchase of a friend is gain. ”

“ You have indeed shown yourself the true friend by your benevolent proposition; what more could a friend do for another? But delightful as is the thought that any of my children could have such a home in the heart of one I so truly love, I dare not lift a finger, or say a word, which would decide such a question. ”

“ Settled upon my mind.
Ah, friend, my friend! one true heart, fond and tender,
That understands our troubles and our needs,
Brings us more near to God than all the splendour
And pomp of seeming worship and vain creeds. ”

“ The fountains of my hidden life, Are through thy friendship fair."
How handsome our friends are! Say they were not moulded at the celestial potteries, we paint them fair behind the plain exterior they wear to indifferent eyes, and as they appear in our gallery of enamels. For who has not seen the plainest features light with a beauty the eyes had not conceived at the rise of a tender sentiment? a lively thought, the recollection of a noble deed, effacing every trace of ancestral meanness; the friend we love all there without blemish or spot, the image we clasp to our breast and cannot forget. ”

“ We may come to look at some of the uses and the delights of friendship. "As in water face answers to face, so in the heart man answers to man." [477] In the heart of our friend we see our own character reflected just as gazing into a still pool we see the reflection of our own face. ”

“ Never, even in antiquity, have the claims of friendship been urged with such a passionate emphasis. The very resemblance of the two heroes is symbolic of their similarity of character; the very name of one of them is Friend pure and simple. The world is well lost for friendship’s sake on the one side, on the other nearest and dearest are willingly and literally sacrificed on the altar of friendship. ”

“ Are you the friend of your friend's buttons, or of his thought? To a great heart he will still be a stranger in a thousand particulars, that he may come near in the holiest ground. Leave it to girls and boys to regard a friend as property, and to suck a short and all-confounding pleasure, instead of the noblest benefit. ”

“ Your friend is your needs answered. He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving. And he is your board and your fireside. For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace. ”

“ Than a spring in the desert sand,
Is a love that will last, with toil, and danger,
And strife on every hand.
Once in a while we find a friend
That will cling through good or ill,
Whose friendship follows us e'en to the end,
Be it up or adown the hill,
But the heart so true, and the love so tender,
And friendship's faithful smile,
Whether we dwell in squalor or splendor,
We find but "once in a while." ”

“ To friendship next I steer’d my course,
and laugh’d at lovers’ pain:
A friend I got by lucky chance,
’twas something like divine,
An honest friend’s a precious gift,
and such a gift was mine ”

“ my Friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?
Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books,
Or surely you'll grow double. ”

“ How has it comforted me, in thinking of leaving such dearly-loved ones behind, to feel that one Friend above all others, whose love has been the most precious joy of my life, will go with me, and be with me forever, and, I trust, bind in that bond of heavenly love, even more and more closely, the spirits He, I trust, has brought together, and make us one another's joy in Him! ”

“ Your dear friend amused me and amused himself as long as it suited his inclinations; and then reminded me that we were both people of the world, that we both understood mankind, that we both knew there was no such thing as romance, that we were both prepared for going different ways to seek our fortunes like people of sense, and that we both foresaw that whenever we encountered one another again we should meet as the best friends on earth. ”

“ Few moments in life are so interesting as those of our affectionate reception from a stranger who is the dear friend of your dear friend! How often you have been the subject of conversation, and how affectionately! ”

“ Canst thou tell me dear friend of the other side?
Of thy beautiful home over there.
Dost thou love us the same as when here on earth?
Canst thou help us our burdens to bear?
And is heaven the same thou once thought it was?
Hast thou met thy dear friends gone before?
Wouldst thou wish to come back to this earth again? ”

“ A friend, who would have paid me in my own coin, who requited what I desired to give him, - as, faithful, as devoted, as passionate, as self-sacrificing, as attentive and solicitous as it was my nature to understand and prove friendship - such a one I never found. ”

“ Adieu, gentle correspondence, kindly conveyance of soul, interchange of love, of opinions, of puns and what not! Henceforth a friend that does not stand in visible or palpable distance to me, is nothing to me. They have not left to the bosom of friendship even that cheap intercourse of sentiment the twopenny medium. ”

“ Long, long shall they remember the playful fancy, the rich humor, the warm, genial heart of their friend. His simple, open frankness endeared him to every one, though his retiring disposition prevented him from making many intimate friendships. ”

“ The friend who talks the night through with his friend, till the dawn climbs in like a pallid rose at the window; the lovers who, while the sun is setting, sit in the greenwood and say, 'Is it thou? It is I!' in awestruck antiphony, till the stars appear ”

“ Did he inspire such a leal souvenir,
⁠All those years back on the banks of the Lesse?
Was he a friend as a friend should be,
⁠Loyal alike in praise, and in blame;
Prone to be silent, yet prompt to foresee
⁠Every call upon friendship's name? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I will spend truth—all my wealth on thee,’—and the Friend responds silently through his nature and life, and treats his Friend with the same divine courtesy. He knows us literally through thick and thin. ”

“ I hope, my dear, you in your turn will be this useful and engaging friend to your younger companions, particularly to your sisters and brothers, who ought ever—unless they should prove unworthy—to be your nearest and dearest friends, whose interest and welfare you are bound to desire as much as your own. If you are wanting here, do not fancy yourself qualified for friendship with others, but, be assured, your heart is too narrow and selfish for so generous an affection. ”

“ But never mind; faint heart never won true Friend. O my Friend, may it come to pass once, that when you are my Friend I may be yours. ”

“ The perfect friend giveth not up the friend of his heart even though he hath been the cause of his ruin.
807. Behold the man who hath loved dearly and long: he bateth not in his affection for his friend even though he cause him damage frequently.
808. Behold the men who refuse to listen to any imputations against the friend of their bosom: the day that he doth them an injury is a feast-day unto them. ”

“ Leave this touching and clawing. Let him be to me a spirit. A message, a thought, a sincerity, a glance from him, I want, but not news, nor pottage. I can get politics, and chat, and neighbourly conveniences from cheaper companions. Should not the society of my friend be to me poetic, pure, universal, and great as nature itself? Ought I to feel that our tie is profane in comparison with yonder bar of cloud that sleeps on the horizon, or that clump of waving grass that divides the brook? Let us not vilify, but raise it to that standard. ”