For the very presence
of friends is pleasant both in good fortune and also in bad, since
grief is lightened when friends sorrow with us. Hence one might ask
whether they share as it were our burden, or-without that
happening-their presence by its pleasantness, and the thought of their
grieving with us, make our pain less. Whether it is for these
reasons or for some other that our grief is lightened, is a question
that may be dismissed; at all events what we have described appears to
take place.
But their presence seems to contain a mixture of various factors.
The very seeing of one's friends is pleasant, especially if one is
in adversity, and becomes a safeguard against grief (for a friend
tends to comfort us both by the sight of him and by his words, if he
is tactful, since he knows our character and the things that please or
pain us); but to see him pained at our misfortunes is painful; for
every one shuns being a cause of pain to his friends. For this
reason people of a manly nature guard against making their friends
grieve with them, and, unless he be exceptionally insensible to
pain, such a man cannot stand the pain that ensues for his friends,
and in general does not admit fellow-mourners because he is not
himself given to mourning; but women and womanly men enjoy
sympathisers in their grief, and love them as friends and companions
in sorrow.
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