Page:Friendship, love & marriage (1910) Thoreau.djvu/35

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conspicuous by contrast. We have not so good a right to hate any as our Friend Branch and Flower ornament Faults are not the less faults because they are invariably balanced by corresponding virtues, and for a fault there is no excuse, though it may appear greater than it is in many ways. I have never known one who could bear criticism, who could not be flattered, who would not bribe his judge, or who was content that the truth should be loved always better than himself.

If two travelers would go their way harmoniously together, the one must take as true and just a view of things as the other, else their path will not be strewn with roses. Yet you can travel profitably and pleasantly even with a blind man, if he practises common courtesy, and when you converse about the scenery will remember that he is blind but that you can see; and you will not forget that his sense of hearing is probably quickened by his want of sight. Otherwise you will not long keep company. A blind man and a man in whose eyes there was no defect were walking together, when they came to the edge of a precipice. "Take care! my friend," said the latter; "here is a steep precipice; go no farther this way." "I know better," said the other, and stepped off.

It is impossible to say all that we think, even to our truest Friend Branch and Flower ornament "We may bid him farewell forever sooner than complain, for our complaint is too well grounded to be uttered. There is not so good an understanding between any two, but the exposure by the one of a serious fault in the other will produce a misunderstanding in proportion to its heinousness. The constitutional

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