Adventure and adventurers > New Cyropaedia, or The travels of Cyrus

THE TRAVELS OF CYRUS. 139
the reafon. Arafpes anfwer’d. You are a Prince,
I dare not fpeak my mind to you. Let us forget the
Prince,hidCyrus,cr converfe like Friends. Well then,
faid Arafpes, 1 obey. That which Amenophis has
faid upon the inftability of the heart of Man in
friendship, terrifies me. I often feel thofe contra¬
rieties he has fpoken of. Your manners, too averfe
to pleafure, fometimes offend me; &•, without doubt,
my imperfe&ions make you uneafy in their turn .
How unhappy should I be , if this difl'erence of
charafters should alter our friendship!
All Men have their frailties , reply d Cyrus.
Whoever looks for a Friend without imperfections,
will- never find what he feeks. We are not always
equally content with ourfelves, how should we be
fo with our Friend; [We love ourfelves neverthelefs,
with all our faults, & we ought to love our Friend
in like manner.] You have your weakneffes, & I
have mine; but our franknefs in confeffing our er-
'rors, and our indulgence in excufing each other,
ought to be the bond of our friendship. It is treating
one’s Friend like another felf, thus to shew him
our foul quite naked; & this ingenuity makes all
its imperfections vanish. With other Men it is fuf-
ficient to be fincere, by never affecting to appear
what we are not; but with a Friend we mult be
plain & fimple, fo as to shew omfelves juit fuch
as we are.
In this manner they difcours’d togethen,’till they
arriv'd upon the shore of the Arabian Gulf, where
they embark'd for F.gypt.
Cyrus was furpriz'd to find in Egypt a new kind
of beauty,- which he had not feen in Arabia Felix.
There, all was the effectof fimple nature; but here,
every thing was improv'd by art.
It