to each new candidate for his love:--

DEAR FRIEND:--

If I was sure of thee, sure of thy capacity, sure to match
my mood with thine, I should never think again of trifles,
in relation to thy comings and goings. I am not very wise;
my moods are quite attainable; and I respect thy genius; it
is to me as yet unfathomed; yet dare I not presume in thee a
perfect intelligence of me, and so thou art to me a
delicious torment. Thine ever, or never.

8. Yet these uneasy pleasures and fine pains are for curiosity, and
not for life. They are not to be indulged. This is to weave cobweb,
and not cloth. Our friendships hurry to short and poor conclusions,
because we have made them a texture of wine and dreams,[294] instead
of the tough fiber of the human heart. The laws of friendship are
great, austere, and eternal, of one web with the laws of nature and of
morals. But we have aimed at a swift and petty benefit, to suck a
sudden sweetness. We snatch at the slowest fruit in the whole garden
of God, which many summers and many winters must ripen. We seek our
friend not sacredly but with an adulterate passion which would
appropriate him to ourselves. In vain. We are armed all over with
subtle antagonisms, which, as soon as we meet, begin to play, and
translate all poetry into stale prose. Almost all people descend to
meet. All association must be a compromise, and, what is worst, the
very flower and aroma of the flower of each of the beautiful natures
disappears as they approach each other. What a perpetual
disappointment is actual society, even of the virtuous and gifted!
After interviews have been compassed with long foresight, we must be