The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover.

Addison casts friendship as the “sweetener” that makes life’s inevitable hardships and bland stretches more palatable—an everyday moral good rather than a rare heroic virtue. The second sentence suggests that friendship’s full benefits are not automatic: they require cultivation, discernment, and a certain emotional intelligence. “To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment” implies active work—choosing worthy companions, practicing constancy, and learning the arts of conversation, sympathy, and trust. The remark also reflects an early‑eighteenth‑century ideal of sociability: happiness is not merely private or material but is refined through humane relationships, and only a minority learn how to turn acquaintance into genuine, sustaining friendship.