3. Fill again to the brim, again to the brim! 4. When over the hills, like a gladsome bride, cloud. 5. But when evening has quitted her sheltering yew, Her dusky meshes o'er land and sea, How gently, O sleep, fall thy poppies on me! And my dreams are of heaven the livelong night. LESSON CXLV. FRIENDSHIP. BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON. He 1. HAPPY is the house that shelters a friend! It might well be built, like a festal bower or arch, to entertain him a single day. Happier, if he know the solemnity of that relation and honor its law! It is no idle bond, no holiday engagement. who offers himself a candidate for that covenant comes up, like an Olympean, to the great games where the first-born of the world are the competitors. He proposes himself for contests where Time, Want, Danger are in the lists; and he alone is victor who has truth enough in his constitution to preserve the delicacy of his beauty from the wear and tear of all these. The gifts of fortune may be present or absent; but all the hope in that contest depends on intrinsic nobleness, and the contempt of trifles. 2. There are two elements that go to the composition of friendship, each so sovereign that I can detect no superiority in either, no reason why either should be named first. One is truth. A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness, with which one chemical atom meets another. Sincerity is the luxury allowed, like diadems and authority, only to the highest rank, which is permitted to speak truth, because it has none above it to court or conform unto. 3. Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins. We parry and fend the approach of our fellow-man by compliments, by gossip, by amusements, by affairs. We cover up our thought from him under a hundred folds. I knew a man who, under a certain religious frenzy, cast off his drapery, and omitting all compliment and commonplace, spoke to the conscience of every person he encountered, and that with great insight and beauty. At first he was resisted, and all men agreed he was mad. But persisting—as indeed he could not help doing for some time in this course, he attained to the advantage of bringing every man of his acquaintance into true relations with him. No man would think of speaking falsely with him, or of putting him off with any chat of markets or reading-rooms. But every man was constrained by só much sincerity to face him, and what love of nature, what poetry, what symbol of truth, he had, he did certainly show him. 4. But to most of us society shows not its face and eye, but its side and its back. We can seldom go erect. Almost every man we meet requires some civility, requires to be humored: he has some fame, some talent, some whim of philanthropy in his head that is not to be questioned, and so spoils all conversation with him. But a friend is a sane man who exercises not my ingenuity, but me. My friend gives me entertainment without requiring me to stoop, or to lisp, or to mask myself. We are 5. The other element of friendship is tenderness. holden to men by every sort of tie,-by blood, by pride, by fear, by hope, by lucre, by lust, by hate, by admiration, by every circumstance and badge and trifle; but we can scarce believe that so much character can subsist in another as to draw us by love. Can another be so blessed, and we so pure, that we can offer him tenderness? When a man becomes dear to me, I have touched the goal of fortune. I find very little, written directly to the heart, of this matter in books. And yet I have one text which I cannot choose but remember. My author says, "I offer myself faintly and bluntly to those whose I effectually am, and tender myself least to him to whom I am the most devoted." 6. I wish that friendship should have feet, as well as eyes and eloquence. It must plant itself on the ground, before it walks over the moon. I wish it to be a little citizen, before it is quite a cherub. We chide the citizen because he makes love a commodity. It is an exchange of gifts, of useful loans; it is good neighborhood; it watches with the sick, it holds the pall at the funeral, and quite loses sight of the delicacies and nobility of the relation. But though we cannot find the god under this disguise of a sutler, yet, on the other hand, we cannot forgive the poet if he spins his thread too fine, and does not substantiate his romance by the municipal virtues of justice, punctuality, fidelity, and pity. The 7. I hate the prostitution of the name of friendship to signify modish and worldly alliances. I much prefer the company of plow-boys and tin-peddlers, to the silken and perfumed amity which only celebrates its day of encounter by a frivolous display, by rides in a curricle, and dinners at the best taverns. end of friendship is a commerce the most strict and homely that can be joined,―more strict than any of which we have experience. It is for aid and comfort through all the relations and passages of life and death. It is fit for serene days, and graceful gifts, and country rambles, but also for rough roads and hard fare, shipwreck, poverty, and persecution. It keeps company with the sallies of the wit and the trances of religion. We are to dignify to each other the daily needs and offices of man's life, and embellish it by courage, wisdom, and unity. It should never fall into something usual and settled, but should be alert and inventive, and add rhyme and reason to what was drudgery. . LESSON CXLVI. KING JOHN TEMPTING HUBERT TO MURDER PRINCE ARTHUR, FROM SHAKSPEARE. NOTE.-Observe the character of this selection, and read accordingly. What King John says must be read in a low key,---as low as possible without sacrificing distinctness of utterance. King John. COME hither, Hubert. O my gentle Hubert! We owe thee much; within this wall of flesh There is a soul counts thee her creditor, To say what good respect I have for thee. Hubert. I am much bounden to your majesty. K. John. Good friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet; I had a thing to say,—but let it go; Had baked thy blood and made it heavy, thick, Without eyes, ears, and harmful sound of words;- But ah, I will not:-Yet I love thee well; K. John. Do not I know thou wouldst ? And, wheresoe'er this foot of mine doth tread, He lies before me. Thou art his keeper. Dost thou understand me? Hub. And I will keep him so, That he shall not offend your majesty. K. John. Death. Hub. My lord? K. John. A grave. Hub. He shall not live. K. John. Enough. I could be merry now. Hubert, I love thee: LESSON CXLVII. HUBERT'S INTERVIEW WITH PRINCE ARTHUR. FROM SHAKSPEARE. NOTE. This dialogue affords a number of passages to which the plaintive tremor may be applied with excellent effect. Prince Arthur-Hubert-Attendants. Hub. HEAT me these irons hot; and, look thou, stand Within the arras. Upon the bosom of the ground, rush forth, Young lad, come forth; I have to say with you. Enter ARTHUR. |