on which I stood with my neighbours, I might be of considerable service to him. This, indeed, he is extremely ready to acknowledge, though he has yet found no opportunity of returning the favour; but, in the meantime, it kept my table open to all his _friends_, as well as my own, and cost me, besides, a headache twice a week during the whole period of the canvass.
In short, I find I can afford to keep myself in friends no longer. I mean to give them warning of this my resolution as speedily as possible.... I have shut my gates, locked my cellar, turned off my cook, disposed of my dogs, forgot my acquaintance, and am resolved henceforward, let people say of me what they will, to be _no one’s friend but my own_.
There are few subjects which have been more written upon and less understood than that of Friendship: to follow the dictates of some, this virtue, instead of being the assuager of pain, becomes the source of every inconvenience. Such speculatists, by expecting too much from friendship, dissolve the connection, and by drawing the bonds too closely, at length break them.
Almost all our romance and novel writers are of this kind: they persuade us to friendships which we find it impossible to sustain to the last; so that this sweetener of life, under proper regulations, is by their means rendered inaccessible or uneasy. It is certain, the best method to cultivate this virtue is by letting it in some measure make itself; a similitude of minds or studies, and even sometimes a diversity of pursuits, will produce all the pleasures that arise from it. The current of tenderness widens as it proceeds; and two men imperceptibly find their hearts warm with good-nature for each other when they were at first in pursuit only of mirth or relaxation.
Friendship is like a debt of honour; the moment it is talked of it loses its real name, and assumes the more ungrateful form of obligation. From hence we find, that those who regularly undertake to cultivate friendship, find ingratitude generally repays their endeavours. That circle of beings which dependence gathers round us, is almost ever unfriendly; they secretly wish the term of their connection
more nearly equal; and when they even have the most virtue, are prepared to reserve all their affections for their patron only in the hour of his decline. Increasing the obligations which are laid upon such minds only increases their burden; they feel themselves unable to repay the immensity of their debt, and their bankrupt hearts are taught a latent resentment at the hand that is stretched out with offers of service and relief.