July 23: Friendship Above Love? (Vol. 3, pp. 65-72)

Sir Francis Bacon was knighted this day, so we get this meditation on friendship and what is the true test of a friend.

In Bacon's view, "How many things are there which a man cannot, with any face or comeliness, say or do himself? A man can scarce allege his own merits with modesty, much less extol them; a man cannot sometimes brook to supplicate or beg; and a number of the like. But all these things are graceful in a friend’s mouth, which are blushing in a man’s own."