2
Wherefore, in this affair,—to begin at the beginning (at the domestic altar, as the saying is),—let us ask the opinion and counsel of our forefathers, and consider what report the records of antiquity make concerning true friends. They are, we find, always reckoned in pairs; as Theseus and Pirithous, Achilles and Patroclus, Orestes and Pylades, Phintias and Damon, Epaminondas and Pelopidas. Friendship (so to speak) is a creature sociable, but affects not a herd or a flock; and that we usually esteem a friend another self, and call him ἑταῖρος (companion) as much as to say ἕτερος (the other one), is a convincing argument that the number two is the adequate and complete measure of friendship. And in truth, a great number of friends or servants is not to be purchased at an easy rate. That which procures love and friendship in the world is a sweet and obliging temper of mind, a lively readiness in doing good offices, together with a constant habit of virtue; than which qualifications nothing is more rarely found in nature. Therefore to love and to be beloved much can have no place in a multitude; but the most eager affection, if divided among numerous objects, like a river divided into several channels, must needs flow at length very weak and languid. Upon this score, those animals love their young most which generate but one; and Homer, describing a beloved child, calls it the only-begotten and born in old age,—that is, at such a time when the parents neither have nor hope for another.Il. IX. 482.
