OF FRIENDSHIP 67 



easily; he marshalleth them more orderly; he seeth how 

 they look when they are turned into words : finally, he 

 waxeth wiser than himself; and that more by an hour's 

 discourse than by a day's meditation. It was well said by 

 Themistocles to the king of Persia, 'That speech was like 

 cloth of Arras, opened and put abroad ; whereby the 

 imagery doth appear in figure ; whereas in thoughts they 

 lie but as in packs.' Neither is this second fruit of friend- 

 ship, in opening the understanding, restrained only to such 

 friends as are able to give a man counsel ; (they indeed are 

 best ;) but even without that, a man learneth of himself, 

 and bringeth his own thoughts to light, and whetteth his 

 wits as against a stone, which itself cuts not. In a word, a 

 man were better relate himself to a statua or picture, than 

 to suffer his thoughts to pass in smother. 



Add now, to make this second fruit of friendship com- 

 plete, that other point which lieth more open and falleth 

 within vulgar observation ; which is fjiithful counsel from a 

 friend. Heraclitus saith well in one of his enigmas, TDry 

 light is ever the best.' And certain it is, that the light 

 that a man receiveth by counsel from another, is drier and 

 purer than that which cometh from his own understanding 

 and judgment ; which is ever infused and drenched in his 

 affections and customs. So as there is as much difference 

 between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man 

 giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend 

 and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a 

 man's self; and there is no such remedy against flattery of 

 a man's self, as the liberty of a friend. H Counsel is of two 

 sorts ; the one concerning manners, the other concerning 

 business. For the first, the best preservative to keep the 

 mind in health is the faithful admonition of a friend. The 

 calling of a man's self to a strict account is a medicine, 

 sometime, too piercing and corrosive. Reading good books 

 of morality is a little flat and dead. Observing our faults 

 in others is sometimes improper for our case. But the 

 best receipt (best, I say, to work, and best to take) is 

 the admonition of a friend 



It is a strange thing to behold what gross errors and 



