Page:Aristotle - Rhetoric, translator Crimmin, 1811.djvu/210

206 We must likewise have an affection for those to whom we lend a helping hand in showing what advantages they should pursue, provided that, in so doing, there shall not accrue to ourselves a loss or damage greater than the good which we would procure for them.

Our affections are inclined in like manner towards those whose love of their friends is the same in absence as in presence. Hence the world particularly esteems those persons whose affections are not entombed with the bodies of their friends. And we likewise cherish those who are so ardently attached by the ties of friendship, as not to abandon a friend upon any occasion. The most incomparable of all worldly possessions is a perfect friend.

We also love those who are not dissemblers: such as persons who are candid enough not to conceal any thing from a friend, even their very imperfections: for, as was before observed, we never feel ashamed to tell those things to our friends, which are not censurable except in vulgar opinion.

Upon this head, and arguing by contraries, we may establish the following maxim:

"That if it be true, that he who is ashamed to discover certain things to another, cannot be accounted his friend, it will follow, that he who frankly discovers them, gives a proof of his affection."