each other everything," they are hiking for senility.
There must be a bit of well-defined reserve. We are told that in
matter--solid steel for instance--the molecules never touch. They never
surrender their individuality. We are all molecules of Divinity, and our
personality should not be abandoned. Be yourself, let no man be
necessary to you--your friend will think more of you if you keep him at
a little distance. Friendship, like credit, is highest where it is
not used.

I can understand how a strong man can have a great and abiding affection
for a thousand other men, and call them all by name, but how he can
regard any one of these men much higher than another and preserve his
mental balance, I do not know.

Let a man come close enough and he'll clutch you like a drowning person,
and down you both go. In a close and exclusive friendship men partake of
others' weaknesses.

In shops and factories it happens constantly that men will have their
chums. These men relate to each other their troubles--they keep nothing
back--they sympathize with each other, they mutually condole.

They combine and stand by each other. Their friendship is exclusive and
others see that it is. Jealousy creeps in, suspicion awakens, hate
crouches around the corner, and these men combine in mutual dislike for
certain things and persons. They foment each other, and their sympathy
dilutes sanity--by recognizing their troubles men make them real. Things
get out of focus, and the sense of values is lost. By thinking some one
is an enemy you evolve him into one.

Soon others are involved and we have a clique. A clique is a friendship
gone to seed.

A clique develops into a faction, and a faction into a feud, and soon we
have a mob, which is a blind, stupid, insane, crazy, ramping and roaring
mass that has lost the rudder. In a mob there are no individuals--all
are of one mind, and independent thought is gone.

A feud is founded on nothing--it is a mistake--a fool idea fanned into
flame by a fool friend! And it may become a mob.

Every man who has had anything to do with communal life has noticed
that the clique is the disintegrating bacillus--and the clique has its
rise always in the exclusive friendship of two persons of the same sex,
who tell each other all unkind things that are said of each other--"so
be on your guard." Beware of the exclusive friendship! Respect all men
and try to find the good in all. To associate only with the sociable