Of Large Acquaintance: or, an Essay to Prove the Folly of Seeking Many Friends (5)

Therefore, as Zeuxis replied to some who blamed the slowness of his pencil,—that he therefore spent a long time in painting, because he designed his work should last for a long eternity,—so he that would secure a lasting friendship and acquaintance must first deliberately judge and thoroughly try its worth, before he settles it. Suppose then it is hard to make a right judgment in choosing many friends together, it may still be asked whether we may not maintain a familiarity with many persons, or whether that too is impossible. Now familiarity and converse are the genuine products and enjoyments of true friendship, and the highest pleasure the best friends aim at is continual intercourse and the daily frequenting one another’s company.

No more shall meet Achilles and his friend;

No more our thoughts to those we loved make known,

Or quit the dearest, to converse alone.[*]

And, as Menelaus says of Ulysses:—

There with commutual zeal we both had strove

In acts of dear benevolence and love,—

Brothers in peace, not rivals in command,—

And death alone dissolved the friendly band.[*]

Now much acquaintance has a clear contrary effect; and whereas single friendship by kind discourses and good offices cements, unites, and condenses as it were two par ties,—

As when the fig-tree’s juice curdles and binds white milk,[*]

as Empedocles says; this on the other hand unties, rends, and breaks the bond, distracts our inclinations with too much variety; and the agreeable just mixture of affection, the very cement of true friends, is wholly lost in so loose and confused a conversation. Hence at once arises great inequality with respect to the services of friendship, and a foolish diffidence in the performance of them. For multiplicity of friends renders those very parts of friendship vain and useless whence advantage was most expected; neither can we hope it should be otherwise, if we consider how one man is acted upon by his nature and another by his cares and anxieties. Nature hath not bestowed the same inclinations on all, nor are we all born to the same fortune; and the occasions of our actions, like the wind, may often favor one of our acquaintance while they stand cross to another.