Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions and Discoveries: Interspersed with Some Particulars Respecting the AuthorGodwin, William
Philosophy
Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions and Discoveries: Interspersed with Some Particulars Respecting the Author
Godwin, William
Human beings; Psychology -- Early works to 1850
Let each man recollect the sweetness of his disposition for, as long as
he lived, he was unremitted in kindness to all. When Achilles proposes
the games at the funeral, he says, "On any other occasion my horses
should have started for the prize, but now it cannot be. They have lost
their incomparable groom, who was accustomed to refresh their limbs
with water, and anoint their flowing manes; and they are inconsolable."
Briseis also makes her appearance among the mourners, avowing that,
"when her husband had been slain in battle, and her native city laid in
ashes, this generous man prevented her tears, averring to her, that she
should be the wife of her conqueror, and that he would himself spread
the nuptial banquet for her in the hero's native kingdom of Phthia."
The reciprocity which belongs to a friendship between unequals may
well be expected to give a higher zest to their union. Each party is
necessary to the other. The superior considers him towards whom he pours
out his affection, as a part of himself.
The head is not more native to the heart,
The hand more instrumental to the mouth.
He cannot separate himself from him, but at the cost of a fearful maim.
When the world is shut out by him, when he retires into solitude, and
falls back upon himself, then his unpretending friend is most of all
necessary to him. He is his consolation and his pleasure, the safe
coffer in which he reposits all his anxieties and sorrows. If the
principal, instead of being a public man, is a man of science, this kind
of unbending becomes certainly not the less welcome to him. He wishes
occasionally to forget the severity of his investigations, neither
to have his mind any longer wound up and stretched to the height of
meditation, nor to feel that he needs to be any way on his guard, or not
completely to give the rein to all his sallies and the sportiveness of
his soul. Having been for a considerable time shut up in sequestered
reflection, he wishes, it may be, to have the world, the busy
impassioned world, brought to his ears, without his being obliged to
enter into its formalities and mummeries. If he desires to speak of the
topics which had so deeply engaged him, he can keep as near the edge
as he pleases, and drop or resume them as his fancy may prompt. And it
seems useless to say, how much his modest and unassuming friend will be
gratified in being instrumental to relieve the labours of his principal,
in feeling that he is necessary to him, and in meditating on the delight
he receives in being made the chosen companion and confident of him
whom he so ardently admires. It was precisely in this spirit, that Fulke
Greville, two hundred years ago, directed that it should be inscribed on
his tomb, "Here lies the friend of Sir Philip Sidney." Tenderness on the
one part, and a deep feeling of honour and respect on the other, give a
completeness to the union which it must otherwise for ever want. "There
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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