expert in twining himself around us, but after testing them to attach ourselves to those who are worthy of our affection and likely to be serviceable to us.
§ v. As therefore Zeuxis, when some people accused him of painting slowly, replied, "I admit that I do, but then I paint to last," so ought we to test for a long time the friendship and intimacy that we take up and mean to keep. Is it not easy then to put to the test many friends, and to associate with many friends at the same time, or is this impossible? For intimacy is the full enjoyment of friendship, and most pleasant is companying with and spending the day with a friend. "Never again shall we alive, apart from dear friends, sit and take counsel alone together."11 And Menelaus said about Odysseus, "Nor did anything ever divide or separate us, who loved and delighted in one another, till death's black cloud overshadowed us."12 The contrary effect seems to be produced by abundance of friends. For the friendship of a pair of friends draws them together and puts them together and holds them together, and is heightened by intercourse and kindliness, "as when the juice of the fig curdles and binds the white milk,"13 as Empedocles says, such unity and complete union will such a friendship produce. Whereas having many friends puts people apart and severs and disunites them, by transferring and shifting the tie of friendship too frequently, and does not admit of a mixture and welding of goodwill by the diffusing and compacting of intimacy. And this causes at once an inequality and difficulty in respect of acts of kindness, for the uses of friendship become inoperative by being dispersed over too wide an area. "One man is acted upon by his character, another by his reflection."14 For neither do our natures and impulses always incline in the same directions, nor are our fortunes in life identical, for opportunities of action are, like the winds, favourable to some, unfavourable to others.
§ vi. Moreover, if all our friends want to do the same things at the same time, it will be difficult to satisfy them all, whether they desire to