Friends
should love not merely for the absolute worth of each to the
other, but on account of a mutual fitness of character. They
are not merely one another's priests or gods, but ministering
angels, exercising in their part the same function as the
Great Soul does in the whole,--of seeing the perfect through
the imperfect, nay, creating it there. Why am I to love my
friend the less for any obstruction in his life? Is not that
the very time for me to love most tenderly, when I must see
his life in despite of seeming? When he shows it to me I can
only admire; I do not give myself, I am taken captive.
'But how shall I express my meaning? Perhaps I can do so from
the tales of chivalry, where I find what corresponds far more
thoroughly with my nature, than in these stoical statements.
The friend of Amadis expects to hear prodigies of valor of
the absent Preux, but if he be mutilated in one of his first
battles, shall he be mistrusted by the brother of his soul,
more than if he had been tested in a hundred? If Britomart
finds Artegall bound in the enchanter's spell, can she
doubt therefore him whom she has seen in the magic glass? A
Britomart does battle in his cause, and frees him from the
evil power, while a dame of less nobleness might sit and watch
the enchanted sleep, weeping night and day, or spur on her
white palfrey to find some one more helpful than herself.
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