It is well enough for those who think that ‘life is a jest,’ (and a bitter, sarcastic one it must be to them,) to mock at all nobler feelings and sentiments of the heart.  None do they more contemn than friendship.  I would not ‘sit in the seat’ of these ‘scornful,’ however they may have found false friends.  Yet every man capable of a genuine friendship himself, will in this world find at least one true friend.  Oxygen, which comprises one fifth of the atmosphere, is said to be highly magnetic; and any ordinary, healthy soul can extract magnetism enough from the very air he breathes to draw at least one other soul.  Some people have an amazing power of absorption and retention of this magnetism.  You feel irresistibly drawn toward them—­and it is all right, for they are noble, true souls.  There is a great difference between their attractive force and that kind of ‘power of charming’ innocence that villainy often has—­just as I once saw a cat charm a bird, which circled nearer and nearer till it almost brushed the cat’s whiskers—­and had he not 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.