“Friends are each other's mirrors, and should be clearer than crystal or the mountain springs, and free from clouds, design, or flattery."
"Lincoln has nothing only plenty of friends," was often said of the young Illinois lawyer. Poor in purse as he was, he was rich in his friendships, and he rose largely by their aid. “Win hearts, and you have hands and purses," said Lord Burleigh, cynically phrasing a great social principle.
No young man starting in life could have better capital than plenty of friends. They will strengthen his credit, support him in every great effort, and make him what, unaided, he could never be. Friends of the right sort will help him more — to be happy and successful — than much money or great learning.
When Garfield entered Williams College he won the friendship of its president, Mark Hopkins. Years afterwards, when President of the United States, he said: "If I could be taken back into boyhood today, and have all the libraries and apparatus of a university with ordinary routine professors offered me on the one hand, and on the other a great, luminous, rich-souled man, such as Dr. Hopkins was twenty years ago, in a tent in the woods alone, I should say, ‘Give me Dr. Hopkins for my college course, rather than any university with only routine professors.'"
Charles James Fox, unfortunate in his home training, had many defects remedied through association with Edmund Burke.
History, both sacred and profane, is full of examples of the effects of friendship on character.
"What is the secret of your life?'' asked Elizabeth Barrett Browning of Charles Kingsley; "Tell me that I may make mine beautiful, too." "I had a friend," was the reply. This is the secret of great and successful lives. Many a man would have lain down disheartened, long before he reached his goal, but for the stimulus and encouragement of some friend whose name the world has never heard. Hundreds who are lauded in the press, and honored all over the world for their achievements, owe their success largely to the encouragement of wives, mothers, sisters, or other intimate friends.
The average man little realizes how great a part even of his material success he owes to his friends; he takes to himself the entire credit of every achievement, boasting of his own marvelous insight, judgment, and hard work. If, however, we should take out of our lives everything contributed, directly or indirectly, by friends, — if we should eliminate the inspiration and practical helpfulness they have given us, — if we should deduct from our popularity the percentage due to their good words, and give up situations they helped us to gain, the majority of us would find a great shrinkage in what we thought our own achievement.
A young lawyer starting in practice often has plenty of time to cultivate friends, and that is the wisest thing he can do — everyone who knows him is trying to help him to success. His friends tell others that he will be sure to make his mark; that they would not be surprised to see him in the legislature, in Congress, or, perhaps, on the supreme court bench. No matter how able or how brilliant he may be, or how well versed in the niceties of the law, very few will be willing to intrust cases to an inexperienced young man if he is not supported by this mouth to mouth recommendation of friends.