The truth is,--my philosophical correspondent--I cannot formulate any
theory of friendship which will cover all the conditions. I know a few
things that friendship is not, and a few things that it is, but when I
come to generalize upon the abstract quality I am quite at a loss for
adequate language.
Friendship, it seems to me, is like happiness. She flies pursuit, she is
shy, and wild, and timid, and will be best wooed by indirection. Quite
unexpectedly, sometimes, as we pass in the open road, she puts her hand
in ours, like a child. Friendship is neither a formality nor a mode: it
is rather a life. Many and many a time I have seen Charles Baxter at
work in his carpentry-shop--just working, or talking in his quiet voice,
or looking around occasionally through his steel-bowed spectacles, and I
have had the feeling that I should like to go over and sit on the bench
near him. He literally talks me over! I even want to touch him!
It is not the substance of what we say to one another that makes us
friends, nor yet the manner of saying it, nor is it what you do or I do,
nor is it what I give you, or you give me, nor is it because we chance
to belong to the same church, or society or party that makes us
friendly.
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