Chambers Edinburgh Journal, Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. | Page 7

son of thy servant Jesse the
Bethlehemite. And it came to pass, when he had made an end of
speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of
David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul."
'_Elles._ Now that men are more complex, they would require so much.
For instance, if I were to have a friend, he must be an uncommunicative
man: that limits me to about thirteen or fourteen people in the world. It
is only with a man of perfect reticence that you can speak completely
without reserve. We talk together far more openly than most people;
but there is a skilful fencing even in our talk. We are not inclined to say
the whole of what we think.

'_Mil._. What I should need in a friend would be a certain breadth of
nature: I have no sympathy with people who can disturb themselves
about small things; who crave the world's good opinion; are anxious to
prove themselves always in the right; can be immersed in personal talk
or devoted to self-advancement; who seem to have grown up entirely
from the _earth_, whereas even the plants draw most of their
sustenance from the air of heaven.
'_Elles._ That is a high flight. I am not prepared to say all that. I do not
object to a little earthiness. What I should fear in friendship is the
comment, and interference, and talebearing, I often see connected with
it.
'_Mil._ That does not particularly belong to friendship, but comes
under the general head of injudicious comment on the part of those who
live with us. Divines often remind us, that in forming our ideas of the
government of Providence, we should recollect that we see only a
fragment. The same observation, in its degree, is true too as regards
human conduct. We see a little bit here and there, and assume the
nature of the whole. Even a very silly man's actions are often more to
the purpose than his friend's comments upon them.
'_Elles._ True! Then I should not like to have a man for a friend who
would bind me down to be consistent, who would form a minute theory
of me which was not to be contradicted.
'_Mil._ If he loved you as his own soul, and his soul were knit with
yours--to use the words of Scripture--he would not demand this
consistency, because each man must know and feel his own
immeasurable vacillation and inconsistency; and if he had complete
sympathy with another, he would not be greatly surprised or vexed at
that other's inconsistencies.
'_Duns._ There always seems to me a want of tenderness in what are
called friendships in the present day. Now, for instance, I don't
understand a man ridiculing his friend. The joking of intimates often
appears to me coarse and harsh. You will laugh at this in me, and think
it rather effeminate, I am afraid.
'_Mil._ No; I do not. I think a great deal of jocose raillery may pass
between intimates without the requisite tenderness being infringed
upon. If any friend had been in a painful and ludicrous position (such as
when Cardinal Balue in full dress is run away with on horseback,

which Scott comments upon as one of a class of situations combining
"pain, peril, and absurdity"), I would not remind him of it. Why should
I bring back a disagreeable impression to his mind? Besides, it would
be more painful than ludicrous to me. I should enter into his feelings
rather than into those of the ordinary spectator.
'_Duns._ I am glad we are of the same mind in this.
'_Mil._ I have also a notion that, even in the common friendships of the
world, we should be very stanch defenders of our absent friends.
Supposing that our friend's character or conduct is justly attacked in our
hearing upon some point, we should be careful to let the light and
worth of the rest of his character in upon the company, so that they
should go away with something of the impression that we have of him;
instead of suffering them to dwell only upon this fault or foible that
was commented upon, which was as nothing against him in our
hearts--mere fringe to the character, which we were accustomed to, and
rather liked than otherwise, if the truth must be told.
'_Elles._ I declare we have made out amongst us an essay on friendship,
without the fuss of writing one. I always told you our talk was better
than your writing, Milverton. Now, we only want a beginning and
ending to this peripatetic essay. What would you say to this as a
beginning?--it is to be a stately, pompous plunge into the subject, after
the Milverton fashion:--"Friendship and the Phoenix,