alienation of friends, like many other human evils, is commonly due to a
want of tact and insight. There is not enough of the Scimus et hanc veniam
petimusque damusque vicissim. The sweet draught of sympathy is not
inexhaustible; and it tends to weaken the person who too freely partakes of
it. Thus we see that there are many causes which impair the happiness of
friends.

We may expect a friendship almost divine, such as philosophers have
sometimes dreamed of: we find what is human. The good of it is
necessarily limited; it does not take the place of marriage; it affords
rather a solace than an arm of support. It had better not be based on
pecuniary obligations; these more often mar than make a friendship. It is
most likely to be permanent when the two friends are equal and independent,
or when they are engaged together in some common work or have some public
interest in common. It exists among the bad or inferior sort of men almost
as much as among the good; the bad and good, and 'the neither bad nor
good,' are drawn together in a strange manner by personal attachment. The
essence of it is loyalty, without which it would cease to be friendship.

Another question 9) may be raised, whether friendship can safely exist
between young persons of different sexes, not connected by ties of
relationship, and without the thought of love or marriage; whether, again,
a wife or a husband should have any intimate friend, besides his or her
partner in marriage. The answer to this latter question is rather
perplexing, and would probably be different in different countries (compare
Sympos.). While we do not deny that great good may result from such
attachments, for the mind may be drawn out and the character enlarged by
them; yet we feel also that they are attended with many dangers, and that
this Romance of Heavenly Love requires a strength, a freedom from passion,
a self-control, which, in youth especially, are rarely to be found. The