And most ennobling intercourse,
your Friend should use you as a hammer, and drive a nail with
your head, all in good faith; notwithstanding that you are a
tolerable carpenter, as well as his good Friend, and would use a
hammer cheerfully in his service. This want of perception is a
defect which all the virtues of the heart cannot supply: -
The Good how can we trust?
Only the Wise are just.
The Good we use,
The Wise we cannot choose.
These there are none above;
The Good they know and love,
But are not known again
By those of lesser ken.
They do not charm us with their eyes,
But they transfix with their advice;
No partial sympathy they feel,
With private woe or private weal,
But with the universe joy and sigh,
Whose knowledge is their sympathy.
Confucius said: "To contract ties of Friendship with any one, is
to contract Friendship with his virtue. There ought not to be
any other motive in Friendship." But men wish us to contract
Friendship with their vice also. I have a Friend who wishes me
to see that to be right which I know to be wrong. But if
Friendship is to rob me of my eyes, if it is to darken the day, I
will have none of it.
