Part 31

My coat and I live comfortably together. It has assumed all my wrinkles, does not hurt me anywhere, has moulded itself on my deformities, and is complacent to all my movements, and I only feel its presence because it keeps me warm. Old coats and old friends are the same thing.

--Hugo.

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Judge not thy friend until thou standest in his place.

--Rabbi Hillel.

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Let no man think he is loved by any man when he loves no man.

--Epictetus.

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My friend peers in on me with merry Wise face, and though the sky stay dim, The very light of day, the very Sun's self comes in with him.

--A. C. Swinburne.

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O sweeter than the honey well, Deep in the sweetest rose of June, And all sweet things the tongue can tell On clover-scented afternoon, Is friendship that has lived for years Through fortune, failure, and through tears.

Though he who wears it sacredly Be swarted like the rafters are That shelter him, eternity May hold few jewels half so rare! And God will find for such a friend Some sweeter slumber in the end.

--Botsford.

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Still, Love a summer sunrise shines, So rich its clouds are hung, So sweet its songs are sung. And Friendship's but broad, common day, With light enough to show Where fruit with brambles grow; With warmth enough to feed The grain of daily need.

--Unknown.

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Only--but this is rare-- When a beloved hand is laid in ours, When jaded with the rush and glare Of the interminable hours, Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear, When our world-deafened ear Is by the tones of a loved voice caressed-- A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast, And a lost impulse of feeling stirs again. The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain, And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know.

--Arnold.

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Yes, we must ever be friends; and of all who offer you friendship, Let me be the first, the truest, the nearest, the dearest.

--Longfellow.

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The only danger in friendship is that it may end.

--Thoreau.

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