IV ON THE ACQUISITION OF FRIENDS

HENRY MACKENZIE

 

 

ON THE ACQUISITION OF
FRIENDS

Ruined by friends

THE praises of friendship, and descriptions of the happiness arising from it, I remember to have met with in almost every book and poem since first I could read. I was never much addicted to reading: and, in this instance, I think, I have little reason to put confidence in authors. How it may be in their experience, I know not; but in mine, this same virtue of friendship has tended very little to my happiness; on the contrary, when I tell you my situation, you will find that I am almost ruined by my friends.

From my earliest days I was reckoned one of the best-natured fellows in the world; and at school, though I must

Friends acquired at some expense

confess I did not acquire so much learning as many of my companions, yet, even there, I was remarkable for the acquisition of friends. Even there, too, I acquired them at some expense; I was flogged, I dare say, a hundred times for the faults of others, but was too generous ever to peach; my companions were generous fellows too; but it always happened, I don’t know how, that my generosity was on the losing side of the adventure.

I had not been above three years at college, when the death of an uncle put me in possession of a very considerable estate. As I was not violently inclined towards literature, I soon took the opportunity, which this presented me, of leaving the university and entering upon the world. I put myself under the tuition

London friends

of one of my companions, who generally spent the vacations, and indeed some of the terms too, in London; and took up my residence in that city. There I needed not that propensity, which I have told you I always possessed, to acquire a multitude of friends. I found myself surrounded by them in every tavern and coffee-house about town. But I soon experienced, that though the commodity was plenty, the price was high. Besides a considerable mortgage on my estate, of which one of my best friends contrived to possess himself, I was obliged to expose my life to a couple of duels, and had very near lost it.

. . . . .

From this sort of bondage I contrived to emancipate myself by matrimony. I married the sister of one of my friends,

The country life

a girl good-natured and thoughtless like myself, with whom I soon retired into the country, and set out upon what we thought a sober, well-regulated plan. The situation was so distant as to be quite out of reach of my former town-companions; provisions were cheap and servants faithful; in short, everything so circumstanced that we made no doubt of living considerably within our income. Our manner of life, however, was to be happy and prudent. By the improvement of my estate, I was to be equally amused and enriched; my skill in sportsmanship (for I had acquired that science to great perfection at the university) was to procure vigour to my constitution, and dainties to my table; and, against the long nights of winter, we were provided with an excellent neighbourhood.

A talent for friend-making

This last-mentioned article is the only one which we have found come up entirely to our expectations. My talent for friend-making has indeed extended the limits of neighbourhood a good deal farther than the word is commonly understood to reach. The parish, which is not a small one—the county, which is proportionally extensive, comes within the denomination of neighbourhood with us; and my neighbour Goostry, who pays me an annual sporting visit of several weeks, lives at least fifty miles off.

Some of these neighbours, who always become friends at my house, have endeavoured to pay me for their entertainment with their advice as to the cultivation of my farm, or the management of my estate; but I have generally found their counsel, like other friendly exertions, put

Our friends’ attentions

me out of pocket in the end. Their theories of agriculture failed in my practice of them; and the ingenious men they recommended to me for tenants, seldom paid their rent by their ingenuity.

The attentions of our friends are sometimes carried farther than mere words or visits of compliment; yet, even then, unfortunately, their favours are just so many taxes upon us. When I receive a present of a delicate salmon, or a nice haunch of venison, it is but a signal for all my good neighbours to come and eat at my expense; and some time ago, when a nephew of my wife, settled abroad, sent me a hogshead of excellent claret, it cost me, in entertainments for the honour of the liquor, what might have purchased a tun from the wine-merchant.

After so many instances in which my

Disappointed expectations

friendships were hurtful to my fortune, I wished to hit on the way to making some of them beneficial to it. For this purpose, my wife and I have, for a good while past, been employed in looking out for some snug office, or reversion, to which my interest with several powerful friends might recommend me. But, somehow or other, our expectations have been always disappointed; not from any want of inclination in our friends to serve us, as we have been repeatedly assured, but from various unforeseen accidents, to which expectations of that sort are particularly liable. In the course of these solicitations I was lead to engage in the political interests of a gentleman on whose influence I built the strongest hopes of success in my own schemes; and I flattered myself that, from the friendly footing

A resolution

on which I stood with my neighbours, I might be of considerable service to him. This, indeed, he is extremely ready to acknowledge, though he has yet found no opportunity of returning the favour; but, in the meantime, it kept my table open to all his friends, as well as my own, and cost me, besides, a headache twice a week during the whole period of the canvass.

In short, I find I can afford to keep myself in friends no longer. I mean to give them warning of this my resolution as speedily as possible.... I have shut my gates, locked my cellar, turned off my cook, disposed of my dogs, forgot my acquaintance, and am resolved henceforward, let people say of me what they will, to be no one’s friend but my own.