WISDOM EXALTETH HER SONS, AND TAKETH HOLD ON THEM THAT LOVE HER: HE THAT LOVETH HER LOVETH LIFE.
AND THEY THAT SEEK HER EARLY SHALL BE FILLED WITH GLADNESS:
HE THAT HOLDETH HER FAST SHALL INHERIT GLORY (E. 411, 12).
But Wisdom will brook nothing less than the full purport of those words—a diligent search, a genuine love, and an unrelaxing grasp—in exchange for her high rewards. And though it is better to find her late than not at all, as a rule it is true that only the life she has entered early is likely to know great happiness. Yet Wisdom makes no mystery of her treasures, nor hides them willingly.
Here are some of her most precious truths.
How simply told! How hard to make our very own!
As iron sharpeneth iron,
So man sharpeneth man.[112]
Faithful are the wounds of a friend.[113]
Who is ignorant of it? As Bacon says in his essay on Friendship, “There is no such flatterer as is a man’s self; and there is no such remedy against flattery as the liberty of a friend.” And yet how rarely, in actual experience,{246} have men the grace to appreciate, or tolerate, even the kindliest of their critics.
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A soft answer turneth away wrath.[114]
Have you tested the matter yet?
He whose spirit is without restraint is lik............