Digital Donne: the Online Variorum
The 1654 Prose Letters Letter 22 (p.65) |
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sir, Though my friendship be good for nothing else, it may give you the pro- fit of a tentation, or of an affliction: It may excuse your patience; and though it can- not allure, it shall importune you. Though I know you have many worthy friends of all rankes, yet I adde something, since I which am of none, would fain be your friend too. There is some of the honour and some of the degrees of a Creation, to make a friendship of nothing. Yet, not to annihilate my self utterly (for though it seem humblenesse, yet it is a work of as much almightinesse, to bring a thing to nothing, as from nothing) though I be not of the best stuffe for friendship, which men of warm and durable fortunes only are, I cannot say, that I am not of the best fashion, if truth and honesty be that; which I must ever exercise, towards you, because I learned it of you: for the conversation with wor- thy men, and of good example, (though it [CW: sow] |
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