The Continental Monthly | Page 7

been
chased away, he would have that day daintily lunched--and there would
have been one songster less to join in that evening's vespers.
False----s there are--I will not call them false _friends_--this noun
should never follow that adjective. To what shall I liken them--to the
young gorilla, that even while its master is feeding it, looks trustingly
in his face and thrusts forth its paw to tear him? Who blames the gorilla?
Torn from its dam, caged or chained, it owes its captor a grudge. To the
serpent? The story of the warming of the serpent in the man's bosom, is
a mere fable. No man was ever fool enough to warm a serpent in his
bosom. And the serpent never crosses the path of man if he can help it.
The most deadly is that which is too sluggish to get out of his
way--therefore bites in self-defense. And the serpent generally gives
some warning hiss, or a rattle. Indeed, almost every animal gives
warning of its foul intent. The shark turns over before seizing its prey.
But the false friend (I am obliged to couple these words) takes you in
without changing his side.... In truth, a man, if he has a vice, be it
treachery or any other, goes a little beyond the other animals, even
those of which it is characteristic. We say, for instance, of a treacherous
man, _He is a serpent_; but it would be hyperbole to call a serpent a

treacherous man.
But these false friends, who deceive you out of pure malignity, who
would rather injure you than not, who, perhaps, have an old, by you
long-forgotten, grudge, and become your apparent friends to pay you
back--these are few. Human nature, with all its depravity, is seldom so
completely debased. But there are many who are only selfishly your
friends. When you most need their friendship, where is it? When some
great calamity sweeps over you, and, bowed and weakened, you would
lean on this friendship, though it were but a 'broken reed,' you stretch
forth your hand--feel but empty space.
Then there are some who let go the hand of a friend because they feel
sure of him, to grasp the extended hand of a former enemy. Politicians,
especially, do this. An enemy can not so easily be transformed into a
friend. As in those paintings of George III., on tavern-signs, after the
Revolution changed to George Washington, there will still be the same
old features.... The opposite of this is what every generous nature has
tried. To revive a dying friendship, this is impossible. If you find
yourself losing your friendship for a person, there must be some reason
for it. If the former dear name is becoming indistinct on the tablet of
your heart, the attempt to re-write it will entirely obliterate it. It is said
that a sure way to obliterate any writing, is to attempt to re-write it....
But it is not true that 'hot love soon cools.' With all my faults--and to
say that I am an O'Molly is to admit that I have faults, and I am not sure
that I would wish to be without them. To speak paradoxically, a fault in
some cases does better than a virtue--as on some organs 'the wrong note
in certain passages has a better effect than the right.' But, as I was
saying, with all my faults, I have never yet changed toward a friend; I
will not admit even to the ante-chamber of my heart a single thought
untrue to my friend. Though it is true my friends are so few that I could
more than count them on my fingers, had I but one hand.... And these
few friends--what shall I say of them? They have become so a part of
my constant thoughts and feelings, so a part of myself, that I can not
project them--if I may so speak--from my own interior self, so as to
portray them. Have you not such friends? Are there none whom to love
has become so a habit of your life that you are almost unconscious of

it--that you hardly think of it, any more than you think--_'I breathe'_?
There is probably no one who has not some time in his or her life felt
the dreariness of fancied friendliness. I can recall in my own experience
at least one time when this dreary feeling came over me. It was during a
twilight walk home from a visit. I can convey to you no idea of the
utter loneliness of the unloved feeling; it seemed that not even the love
of God was mine, or if it was, there was not individuality enough in it;
it was so diffused; this one, whom I disliked--that insignificant person,
might share in