No one else, to my
knowledge, has spoken in so high and just a spirit of the
kindly relations; and I doubt whether it be a drawback that
these lessons should come from one in many ways so unfitted
to be a teacher in this branch. The very coldness and egoism
of his own intercourse gave him a clearer insight into the
intellectual basis of our warm, mutual tolerations; and
testimony to their worth comes with added force from one who
was solitary and obliging, and of whom a friend remarked,
with equal wit and wisdom, "I love Henry, but I cannot like
him."
He can hardly be persuaded to make any distinction between
love and friendship; in such rarefied and freezing air, upon
the mountain-tops of meditation, had he taught himself to
breathe. He was, indeed, too accurate an observer not to
have remarked that "there exists already a natural
disinterestedness and liberality" between men and women; yet,
he thought, "friendship is no respecter of sex." Perhaps
there is a sense in which the words are true; but they were
spoken in ignorance; and perhaps we shall have put the matter
most correctly, if we call love a foundation for a nearer and
freer degree of friendship than can be possible without it.
For there are delicacies, eternal between persons of the same
sex, which are melted and disappear in the warmth of love.
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