ith the presence of power and of consent
in the other party. Let me be alone to the end of the world, rather
than that my friend should overstep by a word or a look his real
sympathy. I am equally balked by antagonism and by compliance. Let him
not cease an instant to be himself. The only joy I have in his being
mine, is that the _not mine_ is _mine_. I hate, where I looked for a
manly furtherance, or at least a manly resistance, to find a mush of
concession. Better be a nettle in the side of your friend, than his
echo. The condition which high friendship demands is ability to do
without it. That high office requires great and sublime parts. There
must be very two before there can be very one. Let it be an alliance
of two large formidable natures, mutually beheld, mutually feared,
before yet they recognize the deep identity which beneath these
disparities unites them.

17. He only is fit for this society who is magnanimous; who is sure
that greatness and goodness are always economy; who is not swift to
intermeddle with his fortunes. Let him not intermeddle with this.
Leave to the diamond its ages to grow, nor expect to accelerate the
births of the eternal. Friendship demands a religious treatment. We
talk of choosing our friends, but friends are self-elected. Reverence
is a great part of it. Treat your friend as a spectacle. Of course he
has merits that are not yours, and that you cannot honor, if you must
needs hold him close to your person. Stand aside; give those merits
room; let them mount and expand. Are you the friend of your friend's
buttons, or of his thought? To a great heart he will still be a
stranger in a thousand particulars, that he may come near in the
holiest ground. Leave it to girls and boys to regard a friend as
property, and to suck a short and all-confounding pleasure instead of
the noblest benefits.

18. Let us buy our entrance to this guild by a long probation. Why
should we desecrate noble and beautiful souls by intruding on them?
Why insist on rash personal relations with your friend? Why go to his
house, or know his mother and brother and sisters? Why be visited by
him at your own? Are these things material to our covenant? Leave this
touching and clawing. Let him be to me a spirit. A message, a thought,
a sincerity, a glance from him I want, but not news, nor pottage. I
can get politics, and chat, and neighborly conveniences, from cheaper
companions. Should not the society of my friend be to