Michael de Mont aigne on "Friendship" R. Barnfield James Russell Lowell Latin Proverb Shake speare What we commonly call friends and friendships are nothing but acquaintance and connection, contracted either by accident or upon some design, by means of which there happens some little intercourse betwixt our souls: but, in the friendship I speak of, they mingle and melt into one piece, with so universal a mixture that there is left no more sign of the seam by which they were first conjoined. He that is thy friend indeed My friend, adown Life's valley, hand in hand, And when stern Death shall loose that loving Taking in his cold hand a hand of ours, The one shall strew the other's grave with flowers, Yea, when my heart seems happy causelessly I spare no cost so long as I serve my friend. I weigh my friend's affection with mine own. A fellow feeling makes one wondrous kind. Friendship is the simple reflection of souls by each other. Statesman, yet friend to truth! of soul serene, For when did friendship take A breed for barren metal of his friend. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Absent or present, still to thee My friend, what magic spells belong. What do we live for if not to make life less difficult to each other. Man looks for man-not any man, but the friend-man, That he had "a genius for friendship" goes without saying, for he was rich in the humility, the patience and the powers of trust, which such a genius implies. Yet his love had, too, the rarer and more strenuous temper which requires "the common aspiration," is jealous for a friend's growth, and has the nerve to criticise. It is the measure of what he felt friendship to be, that he has defined religion in the terms of it. David William Alexander Pope Shake speare Book of John Lord Byron George Eliot Parker George Henry Drum mond |