so that thus we are made at last more fit for every relation of life.  A base Friendship is of a narrowing and exclusive tendency, but a noble one is not exclusive; its very superfluity and dispersed love is the humanity which sweetens society, and sympathizes with foreign nations; for though its foundations are private, it is, in effect, a public affair and a public advantage, and the Friend, more than the father of a family, deserves well of the state.

The only danger in Friendship is that it will end.  It is a delicate plant, though a native.  The least unworthiness, even if it be unknown to one’s self, vitiates it.  Let the Friend know that those faults which he observes in his Friend his own faults attract.  There is no rule more invariable than that we are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspected.  By our narrowness and prejudices we say, I will have so much and such of you, my Friend, no more.  Perhaps there are none charitable, none disinterested, none wise, noble, and heroic enough, for a true and lasting Friendship.

I sometimes hear my Friends complain finely that I do not appreciate their fineness.  I shall not tell them whether I do or not.  As if they expected a vote of thanks for every fine thing which they uttered or did.  Who knows but it was finely appreciated.  It may be that your silence was the finest thing of the two.  There are some things which a man never speaks of, which are much finer kept silent about.  To the highest communications we only lend a silent ear.  Our finest relations are not simply kept silent about, but buried under a positive depth of silence never to be revealed.  It may be that we are not even yet acquainted.  In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood.  Then there can never be an explanation.  What avails it that another loves you, if he does not understand you?  Such love is a curse.  What sort of companions are they who are presuming always that their silence is more expressive than yours?  How foolish, and inconsiderate, and unjust, to conduct as if you were the only party aggrieved!  Has not your Friend always equal ground of complaint?  No doubt my Friends sometimes speak to me in vain, but they do not know what things I hear which they are not aware that they have spoken.  I know that I have frequently disappointed them by not giving them words when they expected them, or such as they expected.  Whenever I see my Friend I speak to him; but the expecter, the man with the ears, is not he.  They will complain too that you are hard.  O ye that would have the cocoa-nut wrong side outwards, when next I weep I will let you know.  They ask for words and deeds, when a true relation is word and deed.  If they know not of these things, how can they be informed?  We often forbear to confess our feelings, not from pride, but for fear that we could not continue to love the one who required us to give such proof of our affection.