Enemies and false friends [ Antagonism & Resistance ]
… enmity, but it was always a central feature of the literature on friendship from this period, which contained abundant warnings about the perils of false friendship. The deepest enmities resulted from the closest friendships. Yet the … writers spoke of both the benefits and potential dangers of friendship throughout the long-eighteenth century, acutely aware of the ease with which an intimate relationship might tip over into an enmity. It is noteworthy that few printed … who were singled out by many writers as particularly susceptible to the dangers of false friendship. Lord Chesterfield warned his son Philip in his widely successful Letters about the dangers of ‘incontinency of friendship’ among one’s …
Antagonism | Civility | Enmity | Falsehood | Friendship | Gender | Politeness | Women
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