Friendship--and Trust and Confidence

We all have to trust others in many matters. We are neither qualified nor able to do all things always for ourselves. We trust other men, because we must.
We trust the men who service mechanical things upon which our lives are at times completely dependent. We are not qualified always to be our own doctors, our own lawyers, our own builders, or even always to be the teachers of our own children.
We have to trust others. Sometimes⎯indeed often⎯we have to trust the laws, the codes, and the enforcing agencies of society. But the kind of trust that makes life much richer than reliance on the law is the trust of trusted friends⎯the trust that needs no enforcement⎯the trust of one who represents us as fairly and full in our absence as if we ourselves were there.
As Aristotle observed: “When men are friends, justice is unnecessary” ⎯meaning that fairness and justice are an indispensable part of friendship. None of us can be everywhere at once. Our reputation, our motives, and our character are often talked of in our absence, as we ourselves talk of others in their absence. And one real test of friendship would be the test of being able to trust our reputation, our interests, and our good name with others in our presence.
We cannot always represent ourselves at all times. We cannot always do everything for ourselves. We all have to talk things out with other people at times. We all have to confide. We have to confer with others professionally. We have to trust others in many matters⎯ all of us⎯for none of us is self-sufficient; none of us can do everything for himself. And to know that someone will honestly represent us, will keep our confidences, will look to our interests, will consider our safety, will treat our good name as if it were his own, as it if were a priceless possession, which it is: all of this is included in the meaning of friendship.
Emerson said it in this sentence: “I know nothing which life has to offer so satisfying as the profound good understanding,… between two virtuous men, each of whom is sure of himself, and sure of his friend.”
The assurance that someone can be trusted is one of the greatest assurances in the world, and one of the greatest factors of friendship, and of all the relationships of life; for without trust and confidence there would be an emptiness in this world for all of us.