Of Large Acquaintance: or, an Essay to Prove the Folly of Seeking Many Friends (6-9)

However, suppose by great chance all should agree to crave assistance in the same affair, whether at a consult, exercise of a public trust in the government, canvassing for preferment, entertaining guests, or the like; yet it is exceeding hard to satisfy all. But now if they are engaged in diverse concerns at the very same moment of time, and

every one should make his particular request to you, one to take a voyage with him, another to assist in pleading his cause, a third to prosecute a criminal, a fourth to help in managing his trade, another to celebrate his wedding, and another to attend a funeral,—

And the whole city’s filled with incense smoke,

And songs of triumph mixt with groans resound;[*]

I say, in this case, it is utterly impossible to answer the requests of all, to gratify none is absurd, and to serve only one and disoblige the rest is a thing grievous and intolerably rude;—for no one, when he loves a friend, will bear to be neglected. [*] If indeed you could persuade that inadvertency was the cause of the omission, you might more easily hope a pardon; and to plead forgetfulness is a sort of excuse which perhaps might pass without much angering your friend; but to allege I could not be advocate in your cause, being of counsel for another, or I could not visit you in a fever, because I was invited to a feast elsewhere, while it is thus confessed that we neglect one friend to pay our respects to another, is so far from extenuating the offence, that it highly aggravates it, and adds all the jealousies of rivalry.

But commonly men overlook these and such like inconveniences of a numerous acquaintance, and take only a prospect of its advantages, not in the least reflecting that whoever employs many assistants in his affairs must in gratitude repay his service to as many when they need it; and as Briareus, who with his hundred hands was daily obliged for his bare subsistence to feed fifty stomachs, could thrive no better than ourselves, who supply a single one with two hands, so a man of many friends cannot boast any other privilege but that of being a slave to many, and of sharing in all the business, cares, and disquiet that may befall them. Nor can Euripides help him by advising that

Best suited to the state

Of mortal life are mutual friendships formed

With moderation, such as take not root

Deep in the soul, affections that with ease

May be relaxed, or closer bound at will,[*]

that is, we may pull in and let out our friendships like a sail, as the wind happens to blow. Let us rather, good Euripides, turn this saying of yours to enmity; for heats and animosities ought to be moderate, and never reach the inmost recesses of the soul; hatred, anger, complaints, and jealousies may with good reason be readily appeased and forgotten. Therefore it is far more advisable, as Pythagoras directs, not to shake hands with too many,—that is, not to make many friends,—nor to affect that popular kind of easiness which courts and embraces every acquaintance that occurs, but carries with it on the reverse a thousand mischiefs; among which (as was before hinted) to bear part of the same cares, to be affected with the same sorrows, and to be embroiled in the same enterprises and dangers with any great number of friends will be a sort of life hardly tolerable even to the most ingenuous and generous tempers. What Chilon the wise man remarked to one who said he had no enemies, namely, Thou seemest rather to have no friends, has a great deal of truth; for enmities always keep pace and are interwoven with friendships.

And it is impossible any should be friends that resent not mutually the affronts and injuries offered unto either, and that do not hate alike and in common. They also who are enemies to yourself will presently suspect and hate your friend; nay, your other friends too will often envy, calumniate, and undermine him. Wherefore what the oracle foretold Timesias concerning his planting a colony, that an hive of bees should be changed into a nest of wasps, may not impertinently be applied to those who seek after a hive of friends, but light before they know it upon a wasps-nest of enemies.

Besides, we should do well to consider that the kindest affections of friends seldom compensate for the misfortunes that befall us from the malice of enemies. It is well known how Alexander treated the familiars of Philotas and Parmenio; Dionysius, those of Dion; Nero, those of Plautus; and Tiberius, those of Sejanus; all shared the same hard fate of being racked and tortured to death. For as the gold and riches Creon’s daughter was adorned with could not secure the good old father from being consumed in her flames, endeavoring too officiously to rescue her; so not a few partake of the calamities and ruin of their friends, before they have reaped the least advantage from their prosperity; a misfortune to which philosophers and the bestnatured men are the most liable. This was the case of Theseus, who for the sake of his dear Pirithous shared his punishment, and was bound with him in the same eternal chains.[*] Thus in the plague of Athens, says Thucydides,[*] the most generous and virtuous citizens, while without regard to their own safety they visited their sick, frequently perished with their friends.

Such accidents as these ought to admonish us not to be too prodigal of our virtue, nor inconsiderately to prostitute our perfections to the enjoyment of every little thing that pretends to be our humble admirer; rather let us reserve them for the worthy, for those who can love and share another’s joys and sorrows like ourselves. And truly, this alone renders it most unlikely that many men should remain friends, that real friendship has always its origin from likeness. For, we may observe, even brute and inanimate beings affect their like, very readily mixing and uniting with those of their own nature; while with great reluctance and a kind of indignation they shrink from and avoid whatever differs from themselves, and force can scarce oblige them to the loathed embraces. By what motive then can

we imagine any league of amity can be kept inviolable amidst a multitude, where manners admit of so much variety, where desires and humors will be perpetually jarring, where the several courses of life must needs be almost as unlike as constitutions and faces? A musical concord consists of contrary sounds, and a due composition of flat and sharp notes makes a delightful tune; but as for friendship, that is a sort of harmony all of a piece, and admits not the least inequality, unlikeness, or discords of parts, but here all discourses, opinions, inclinations, and designs serve one common interest, as if several bodies were acted and informed by the same soul.

Now is there any person living of that industrious, pliant, and universal humor, who can take the pains exactly to imitate all shapes, and will not rather deride the advice of Theognis[*] as absurd and impossible, namely, to learn the craft of the polypus, which puts on the hue of every stone it sticks to? However, the changes of this fish are only superficial, and the colors are produced in the skin, which by its closeness or its laxity receives various impressions from neighboring objects; whereas the resemblance betwixt friends must be far more than skin-deep, must be substantial, such as may be traced in every action of their lives, in all their affections, dispositions, words and purposes, even to their most retired thoughts. To follow the advice of Theognis would be a task worthy of a Proteus, who was neither very fortunate nor very honest, but could by enchantment transform himself in an instant from one shape to another. Even so, he that entertains many friends must be learned and bookish among the learned, go into the arena with wrestlers, drudge cheerfully after a pack of hounds with gentlemen that love hunting, drink with debauchees, and sue for office with politicians; in fine, he must have no proper principles of actions and tumors of

his own, but those of the present company he converses with. Thus, as the first matter of the philosophers is originally without shape or color, yet being the subject of all natural changes takes by its own inherent forces the forms of fire, water, air, and solid earth; so a person that affects a numerous friendship must possess a mind full of folds and windings, subject to many passions, inconstant as water, and easy to be transformed into an infinite variety of shapes. But real friendship requires a sedate, stable, and unalterable temper; so that it is a rare thing and next a miracle to find a constant and sure friend.