God’s Apology

Until recently I took pride in making inferiors feel comfortable. Sometimes I failed. Hordes of people simply are not up to Spode and artichokes. The taproots of serfs, Goths, and Scots run so deep beneath the upper crust they are immune to the effects of cultural and high educational manuré. Nevertheless I almost perspired trying to help such unfortunates. Because I ardently preached the gospel of propriety, country clubbers dubbed me a social Christian. In condescending to lend the underbred a helping hand, albeit a gloved hand, I never imagined myself a snob. But then I read Joseph Epstein’s Snobbery. The book, alas, convinced me that a tincture of snobbery tainted my behavior. After finishing Epstein’s book, I tried to purge snobbery from my cardiovascular system, forswearing all intercourse with the lower orders, except, of course, that based upon “life-enhancing” exploitation.

Now Epstein’s new book, Friendship, has depressed me. In comparison to Epstein I am a poor friendless creature. In a typical week Epstein has three or four dates for lunch, “an equal number of meetings for coffee, and a night or two out for dinner during the middle of the week.” Additionally he receives letters, telephone calls, and seven to ten e-mails from friends every day. During the past academic year I ate lunch with a colleague once. I did not meet anyone other than Vicki for coffee. Aside from bills I receive one personal letter a month. For me the phone does not ring, and in a batch of 150 e-mails, typically only one is from an acquaintance, invariably distant, a reader of one of my books whom I have not and will not ever meet. This is not to say, however, that my e-mail is dull. During the past ten months, I have won 306 million dollars in lotteries, none of which I had entered. Because I would have donated the winnings to charity, in the process becoming liable to be damned as a paternalistic snob, I have not collected any of the money.

Friendship is a marvelous book, consisting of nineteen short essays or chapters with such titles as “Best Friends,” “The Quickest Way to Kill Friendships,” and “Reciprocity or Is It Obligation?” Joe Epstein is always thoughtful and articulate. Defining friendship is difficult, for genres of friendships exist, for example, among old friends and out-of-town friends. Eventually Epstein offers what he calls a baggy-pants definition. “Friendship is affection, variously based on common interests, a common past, common values, and, alas, sometimes common enemies, in each case leading to delight and contentment in one another’s company.” The trouble with baggy-pants definitions is that they are so loose that they fall out of memory, tumble to the ankles, and become nuisances that one kicks aside for tighter and sprightlier words. For me a friend is someone whose last rites I must attend, be these rites funereal or celebratory, this last a final burst of praise before the honoree begins to masticate dandelion roots.

Years ago Epstein said he was quotatious—that is, addicted to seasoning his writing with quotations. The quotations in Friendship are apt and startling and turn paragraphs into haute literary cuisine. In an essay Hugh Kingsmill calls friends “God’s apology,” His way of making amends to us for the burdens of family. Of course, friends also become burdens, particularly as age strips away the capacity for “youth’s easy intimacy.” Keeping up with friends eventually becomes more duty than pleasure. Indeed I suspect that the reason the middle-aged purchase summer places in barren locales far from telephone poles and indoor plumbing is not...