reed upon. We will not only live
together, but we will work and act in fraternal unison. He is rough
and uncouth, his virtue is strong rather than sensitive. But he has a
great manly heart, and in better times than ours he would have been, I
say it boldly, a hero.

II

It is no doubt well that we have at last talked with each other again.
I am quite content, too, that you did not wish to write, and that you
spoke slightingly of poor innocent letters because you really have
more genius for talking. But I have in my heart one or two things more
that I could not say to you, and will now endeavor to intimate with
the pen.

But why in this way? Oh, my friend, if I only knew of a more refined
and subtle mode of communicating my thoughts from afar in some
exquisite form! To me conversation is too loud, too near, and also too
disconnected. These separate words always present one side only, a
part of the connected, coherent whole, which I should like to intimate
in its complete harmony.

And can men who are going to live together be too tender toward each
other in their intercourse? It is not as if I were afraid of saying
something too strong, and for that reason avoided speaking of certain
persons and certain affairs. So far as that is concerned, I think that
the boundary line between us is forever destroyed.

What I still had to say to you is something very general, and yet I
prefer to choose this roundabout way. I do not know whether it is
false or true delicacy, but I should find it very hard to talk with
you, face to face, about friendship. And yet it is thoughts on that
subject that I wish to convey to you. The application--and it is about
that I am most concerned--you will yourself easily be able to make.

To my mind there are two kinds of friendship. The first is entirely
external. Insatiably it rushes from deed to deed, receives every
worthy man into the great alliance of united heroes, ties the old knot
tighter by means of every virtue, and ever aspires to win new
brothers; the more it has, the more it wants. Call to mind the antique
world and you will find this friendship, which wages honest war
against all that is bad, even were it in ourselves or in the beloved
friend--you will find this friendship everywhere, where noble strength
exerts influence on great masses, and creates or governs worlds. Now
times are different; but the ideal of this friendship will stay with
me as long as I live.

The other friends