Topic
Hostility in this collection is most instructively handled by those who have learned to use enemies rather than merely endure them. Gracián's wise-man-gets-more-use-from-enemies-than-fool-from-friends is the opening position: enemies are a resource, not a liability, for those with the discernment to use them. Napoleon on never-interrupting is the tactical complement. Wilde on always-forgiving-your-enemies-nothing-annoys-them-so-much turns hostility into a game that can only be won by refusing to play. King on the silence of friends in the end being what we remember is the social warning: hostility from known enemies is expected and manageable; the absence of support from presumed friends is not. Tocqueville on living with enemies because you cannot always live with friends is the political realist's accommodation. Chesterton on God making your next-door neighbour gives hostility a theological origin: proximity creates frictions that choice would never have selected. What the collection argues is that hostility is a feature of human social life, not a deviation from it, and the question is what to do with it.