Friendship is never established as an understood relation.  Do you demand that I be less your Friend that you may know it?  Yet what right have I to think that another cherishes so rare a sentiment for me?  It is a miracle which requires constant proofs.  It is an exercise of the purest imagination and the rarest faith.  It says by a silent but eloquent behavior,—­“I will be so related to thee as thou canst imagine; even so thou mayest believe.  I will spend truth,—­all my wealth on thee,”—­and the Friend responds silently through his nature and life, and treats his Friend with the same divine courtesy.  He knows us literally through thick and thin.  He never asks for a sign of love, but can distinguish it by the features which it naturally wears.  We never need to stand upon ceremony with him with regard to his visits.  Wait not till I invite thee, but observe that I am glad to see thee when thou comest.  It would be paying too dear for thy visit to ask for it.  Where my Friend lives there are all riches and every attraction, and no slight obstacle can keep me from him.  Let me never have to tell thee what I have not to tell.  Let our intercourse be wholly above ourselves, and draw us up to it.

The language of Friendship is not words, but meanings.  It is an intelligence above language.  One imagines endless conversations with his Friend, in which the tongue shall be loosed, and thoughts be spoken without hesitancy or end; but the experience is commonly far otherwise.  Acquaintances may come and go, and have a word ready for every occasion; but what puny word shall he utter whose very breath is thought and meaning?  Suppose you go to bid farewell to your Friend who is setting out on a journey; what other outward sign do you know than to shake his hand?  Have you any palaver ready for him then? any box of salve to commit to his pocket? any particular message to send by him? any statement which you had forgotten to make?—­as if you could forget anything.—­No, it is much that you take his hand and say Farewell; that you could easily omit; so far custom has prevailed.  It is even painful, if he is to go, that he should linger so long.  If he must go, let him go quickly.  Have you any last words?  Alas, it is only the word of words, which you have so long sought and found not; you have not a first word yet.  There are few even whom I should venture to call earnestly by their most proper names.  A name pronounced is the recognition of the individual to whom it belongs.  He who can pronounce my name aright, he can call me, and is entitled to my love and service.  Yet reserve is the freedom and abandonment of lovers.  It is the reserve of what is hostile or indifferent in their natures, to give place to what is kindred and harmonious.