aids him to compel; in prosperity he heightens his delight by rejoicing with him; in adversity he diminisheth his sorrows by bearing a share of them. The use a man may make of his hands, his eyes, his ears, his feet, is nothing at all when compared with the service one friend may render another. For often what we cannot do for our own advantage, what we have not seen, nor thought, nor heard of, when our own interests were concerned, what we have not pursued for ourselves, a friend has done for his friend. How foolish were it to be at so much trouble in cultivating a small orchard of trees, because we expect some fruit from it, and yet be at no pains to cultivate that which is instead of a whole estate--I mean Friendship--a soil the most glorious and fertile where we are sure to gather the fairest and best of fruit!" CHAPTER V. OF THE WORTH AND VALUE OF FRIENDS. To what I have advanced above I shall here relate another discourse of his, as far as I can remember, in which he exhorted his hearers to examine themselves, that they might know what value their friends might set upon them; for seeing a man who had abandoned his friend in extreme poverty, he asked Antisthenes this question in presence of that very man and several others: "Can we set a price upon friends as we do upon slaves? One slave may be worth twenty crowns, another not worth five; such a one will cost fifty crowns, another will yield a hundred. Nay, I am told that Nicias, the son of Niceratus, gave even six hundred crowns for one slave to be inspector of his silver mines. Do you think we might likewise set prices upon friends?" "I believe we may," answered Antisthenes; "for there are some men by whom I would rather choose to be loved than to have twenty crowns; others for whose affection I would not spend five. I know some, too, for whose friendship I would give all I am worth." "If it be so," said Socrates, "it would be well that each man should consider how much he can be worth to his friends, and that he should endeavour to render himself as valuable as he can in their regard, to the end they might not abandon him; for when I hear one complain that his friend has betrayed him; another that he, whom he thought faithful, has preferred a small gain to the preservation of his friendship, I reflect on these stories, and ask whether, as we sell a good-for-nothing slave for what we can get for him, we are not likewise tempted to get rid of an ill-friend when we are offered more for him than he is worth? because I do not see men part with their slaves if they be good, nor abandon their friends if they be faithful." CHAPTER VI. OF THE CHOICE OF FRIENDS.