The Sacred Art of True Friendship — Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson opens where Self-Reliance left off: the commended stranger arrives, the house is dusted, and conversation soars while he still stands for humanity itself. We talk better than we are wont, our dumb devil takes leave, and kinsfolk marvel at our unusual powers. The moment he intrudes his partialities and defects into the talk, it is over. He is no stranger now; vulgarity and misapprehension are old acquaintances. He may still get the dinner, but not the throbbing of the heart. The same pattern runs through affection at large: we weave friendships from wine and dreams, then wonder why they hurry to short and poor conclusions when reality enters.

Emerson confesses the ebb and flow of love. In golden hours we project virtues onto friends, then suspect the form we worshiped. He writes the letter every candidate for love might receive: a delicious torment because perfect intelligence of another is impossible. Yet these fine pains are for curiosity, not life. We snatch sudden sweetness instead of the tough fiber friendship requires. Almost all people descend to meet; the aroma of beautiful natures disappears as they approach. After long foresight, interviews end in baffled blows and both parties are relieved by solitude.

Then Emerson names the two elements of real friendship: Truth and Tenderness. A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere; before him I may think aloud. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins, yet friendship demands dropping even courtesy's undermost garments. Tenderness must have feet before it vaults over the moon: pity at the funeral, justice, punctuality, shipwreck and persecution, not rides in a curricle. Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo. The law of one to one is peremptory: two may talk, but three cannot take part in the most sincere conversation. Treat your friend as a spectacle; let his merits have room to expand.

Friendship requires ability to do without it. We must be our own before we can be another's; there can be no deep peace until each stands for the whole world in dialogue. Wait, and thy heart shall speak. The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one. You shall not come nearer by getting into his house if unlike souls flee each other. Emerson treats books as he treats friends: evanescent intercourse on his own terms. True love transcends the unworthy object. The essay closes by turning toward Heroism under the shadow of swords, where noble behavior is as plainly marked as color in a crowd.