where. But supposing the man to be without such a helpmate,
female friendship he must have, or his intellect will be without a
garden, and there will be many an unheeded gap even in its strongest
fence.

"Better and safer, of course, are such friendships, where disparities
of years or circumstances put the idea of love out of the question.
Middle life has rarely the advantage youth and age have. Moliere's
old housekeeper was a great help to his genius; and Monaigne's
philosophy takes both a gentler and loftier character of wisdom from
the date in which he finds, in Marie de Gournay, an adopted daughter,
'certainly beloved by me,' says the Horace of essayists, with more
than paternal love, and involved in my solitude of retirement, as one
of the best parts of my being. Female friendship, indeed, is to a man
the bulwark, sweetener, ornament, of his existence. To his mental
culture it is invaluable; without it, all his knowledge of books will
never give him knowledge of the world."

Mrs. Jameson quotes the opinion of Auguste Comte, that "the only true
and firm friendship is that between man and woman, because it is the
only one free from all possible competition." And she adds, "In this
I am inclined to agree with him, and to regret that our conventional
morality, or immorality, places men and women in such a relation
socially as to render such friendships difficult and rare." Sydney
Smith said, and the remark applies as forcibly to America as to
England, "It is a great happiness to form a sincere friendship with a
woman; but a friendship among persons of different sexes rarely or
never takes place in this country." The strong jealousy felt in these
countries for any intimate relations of affection between men and
women other than fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, brothers
and sisters, husbands and wives; the readiness to cast coarse
insinuations on them, is more discreditable to our hearts than it is
creditable to our morals. It implies the belief that they cannot be
attached as spirits without becoming entangled as animals. It is
absurd to pretend that the multiplication of virtuous friendships
between the sexes would foster licentiousness. Their flourishes best
in their absence. Their lifeelement, esteem, is death to
licentiousness. A holy thought, with its train of vestal emotions,
like Diana and her nymphs, hunts impure desire out of the blood. One
of the most known and remarkable friendships of woman and man