Friendship Is Too Valuable To Let Anything Sever It

The article below was first published in 1943 by Dale Carnegie.

Have you broken off your friendship with some old friend? Is there something that is keeping you two from coming together? Well, let me tell you something that a very great American said about that very subject - and that great American was Thomas Jefferson who wrote the Declaration of Independence. This is what he said:

“I find that friendship is like wine. It is raw when new. When riped with age it is the true old man's restorative cordial.”

He wrote this from the bottom of his heart, for he once lost his most precious friend - John Adams. They had been friends, and then, suddenly, over a very trivial thing, they were cut asunder. The breach came chiefly because Jefferson refused to make promises to the federalist, before his election to the presidency. He believed that his old friend John Adams should have more faith in his commonsense than to listen to all sorts of wild tales that were floating about him.

From almost nothing this breach grew into a great chasm. It required the best efforts of a friend of both of them for the period of one whole year to bring them to the point where they would even write letters to each other. After they began to correspond with each other again Adams was so delighted that he poured out on paper his warmest and deepest thoughts, and his most profound convictions on religion, politics and books. And these are now a part of our literary sub-treasury.

Both men became afflicted. Jefferson broke both of his wrists. They did not heal properly, but this did not keep him from writing to his old friend. John Adams became so afflicted with palsy that he had to place his right hand in a frame to keep it from shaking, but he still managed to write frequent letters to Jefferson.

The two old friends - who had once quarreled - died on the same day - the Fourth of July, 1826. One had written the Declaration of Independence; the other had been chiefly instrumental in bringing about its adoption; and both of them died exactly 50 years after this most important document was signed.

Toward the end of his life, Adams said: “When I think of the great moments that I could have had with Jefferson, but was led away from his because of a small quarrel, I feel a break in my heart. Friendship is too valuable to let anything sever it.”

And how very true that is. Both Jefferson and Adams recognized it, but it took them many years to do so; and both regretted they had ever let a break come in their feeling for each other.

So if you are losing the friendship of a once valued friend, why don't you do something about mending it? Make the advances. If it tends to humiliate you a little for the time being, look beyond the moment to the resulting rewards which you will find tremendously gratifying.

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