The Essays, vol 6 | Page 7

and divine, and conceive that nothing but the violence of tyrants
and the baseness of the common people are inimical to it. Finally, all
that can be said in favour of the Academy is, that it was a love which
ended in friendship, which well enough agrees with the Stoical
definition of love:
"Amorem conatum esse amicitiae faciendae ex pulchritudinis specie."
["Love is a desire of contracting friendship arising from the beauty of
the object."--Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., vi. 34.]
I return to my own more just and true description:
"Omnino amicitiae, corroboratis jam confirmatisque, et ingeniis, et
aetatibus, judicandae sunt."
["Those are only to be reputed friendships that are fortified and
confirmed by judgement and the length of time." --Cicero, De Amicit.,
c. 20.]
For the rest, what we commonly call friends and friendships, are
nothing but acquaintance and familiarities, either occasionally
contracted, or upon some design, by means of which there happens
some little intercourse betwixt our souls. But in the friendship I speak
of, they mix and work themselves into one piece, with so universal a
mixture, that there is no more sign of the seam by which they were first
conjoined. If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved
him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer:
because it was he, because it was I. There is, beyond all that I am able

to say, I know not what inexplicable and fated power that brought on
this union. We sought one another long before we met, and by the
characters we heard of one another, which wrought upon our affections
more than, in reason, mere reports should do; I think 'twas by some
secret appointment of heaven. We embraced in our names; and at our
first meeting, which was accidentally at a great city entertainment, we
found ourselves so mutually taken with one another, so acquainted, and
so endeared betwixt ourselves, that from thenceforward nothing was so
near to us as one another. He wrote an excellent Latin satire, since
printed, wherein he excuses the precipitation of our intelligence, so
suddenly come to perfection, saying, that destined to have so short a
continuance, as begun so late (for we were both full-grown men, and he
some years the older), there was no time to lose, nor were we tied to
conform to the example of those slow and regular friendships, that
require so many precautions of long preliminary conversation: This has
no other idea than that of itself, and can only refer to itself: this is no
one special consideration, nor two, nor three, nor four, nor a thousand;
'tis I know not what quintessence of all this mixture, which, seizing my
whole will, carried it to plunge and lose itself in his, and that having
seized his whole will, brought it back with equal concurrence and
appetite to plunge and lose itself in mine. I may truly say lose,
reserving nothing to ourselves that was either his or mine.--[All this
relates to Estienne de la Boetie.]
When Laelius,--[Cicero, De Amicit., c. II.]--in the presence of the
Roman consuls, who after thay had sentenced Tiberius Gracchus,
prosecuted all those who had had any familiarity with him also; came
to ask Caius Blosius, who was his chiefest friend, how much he would
have done for him, and that he made answer: "All things."--"How! All
things!" said Laelius. "And what if he had commanded you to fire our
temples?"--"He would never have commanded me that," replied
Blosius.--"But what if he had?" said Laelius.--"I would have obeyed
him," said the other. If he was so perfect a friend to Gracchus as the
histories report him to have been, there was yet no necessity of
offending the consuls by such a bold confession, though he might still
have retained the assurance he had of Gracchus' disposition. However,
those who accuse this answer as seditious, do not well understand the

mystery; nor presuppose, as it was true, that he had Gracchus' will in
his sleeve, both by the power of a friend, and the perfect knowledge he
had of the man: they were more friends than citizens, more friends to
one another than either enemies or friends to their country, or than
friends to ambition and innovation; having absolutely given up
themselves to one another, either held absolutely the reins of the other's
inclination; and suppose all this guided by virtue, and all this by the
conduct of reason, which also without these it had not been possible to
do, Blosius' answer was such as it ought to be. If any of their actions
flew out of the handle, they were neither (according to my measure of
friendship) friends to one another, nor to themselves. As to the rest, this
answer carries no worse