Friendship Essay By Ralph Waldo Emerson Summary

Thus every man passes his life in the search after friendship, and if he should record his true sentiment, he might write a letter like this, to each new candidate for his love: Dear Friend:— If I was sure of thee, sure of thy capacity, sure to match my mood with thine, I should never think again of trifles, in relation to thy comings and goings.I am not very wise; my moods are quite attainable; and I respect thy genius; it is to me as yet unfathomed; yet dare I not presume in thee a perfect intelligence of me, and so thou art to me a delicious torment. Our friendships hurry to short and poor conclusions, because we have made them a texture of wine and dreams, instead of the tough fiber of the human heart.

Thus every man passes his life in the search after friendship, and if he should record his true sentiment, he might write a letter like this, to each new candidate for his love: Dear Friend:— If I was sure of thee, sure of thy capacity, sure to match my mood with thine, I should never think again of trifles, in relation to thy comings and goings.I am not very wise; my moods are quite attainable; and I respect thy genius; it is to me as yet unfathomed; yet dare I not presume in thee a perfect intelligence of me, and so thou art to me a delicious torment. Our friendships hurry to short and poor conclusions, because we have made them a texture of wine and dreams, instead of the tough fiber of the human heart.

The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed; there is no winter, and no night; all tragedies, all ennuis vanish; all duties even; nothing fills the proceeding eternity but the forms all radiant of beloved persons.

Let the soul be assured that somewhere in the universe it should rejoin its friend, and it would be content and cheerful alone for a thousand years.

With the inclusion of a letter written to a hypothetical friend, Emerson suggests that friendship is a fallacy that can only be realized when the bond between two individuals transcends earthly ties.

In Emerson’s opinion, friends must treat one another with both a sense of detachment and closeness, such that each individual may maintain their oneness while simultaneously revering the other as spiritual partners.

In a sentiment that John Steinbeck would come to echo a century later in the context of love, writing to his teenage son that “the main thing is not to hurry [for] nothing good gets away,” Emerson argues that to be impatient in friendship is to mistrust the depth of the relationship and to deny the resilience and immutability of the friend’s affections: Our impatience is thus sharply rebuked.

Bashfulness and apathy are a tough husk in which a delicate organization is protected from premature ripening.Although originally intended as a lecture, “Friendship” was never delivered before a public audience.Instead, it remains one of Emerson’s most notable published essays.How many persons we meet in houses, whom we scarcely speak to, whom yet we honor, and who honor us! Our intellectual and active powers increase with our affection.How many we see in the street, or sit with in church, whom, though silently, we warmly rejoice to be with! The scholar sits down to write, and all his years of meditation do not furnish him with one good thought or happy expression; but it is necessary to write a letter to a friend, and, forthwith, troops of gentle thoughts invest themselves, on every hand, with chosen words.The laws of friendship are great, austere, and eternal, of one web with the laws of nature and of morals.But we have aimed at a swift and petty benefit, to suck a sudden sweetness.Here are five steps to write about friendship easily and one can follow them easily. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Friendship”—along with others such as “History,” “Self-Reliance,” and “Circles,” was published in Essays: First Series in 1841.All crazy things we do,our fighting, and all we can add up.5.This is what I do whenever I think to write about friendship,a beautiful relation.