s need one another, as truly
as the child needs its mother, or the mother her child. Is one tempted
to commit a wrong in thought or action, his friend, though absent,
appears at his side and begs him not to do it. If one is in doubt or
uncertainty, he summons his friend, who become a patient reasoner, and
an impartial judge. Who does not find himself, daily, looking through
other people's glasses, weighing on other people's scales, sounding
other people's voices? It is a habit that friends have with one another.
You can not deprive friends of one another, any more than you can
lovers. Ah, true friends are lovers of the heaven-born sort; for
their agreement is grounded in nature. They are not chosen, they are
discovered. Or, as Emerson says, they are "self-elected."

"Friendship's an abstract of love's noble flame,
'Tis love refined, and purged from all its dross,
'Tis next to angel's love, if not the same,
As strong as passion in, though not so gross."

Thus writes Catherine Phillips.

FRUITS OF FRIENDSHIP.

True friendship gives ease to the heart, light to the mind, and aid to
the carrying out of one's life-purposes. First, ease to the heart. The
presence of a friend is a beam of genial sunshine which lights up the
house by his very appearance. He warms the atmosphere and dispels the
gloom. The presence of a true friend for a day, a night, a week, lifts
one out of himself, links him with new purposes, and immerses him in
new joys. Friends breathe free with one another. They inspire sighs of
relief. Embarrassment disappears; liberty reigns supreme. Hearts are
like steam boilers, occasionally, they must give vent to what is in
them, or they will burst. This is the true mission of friends, to
become to one another reserve reservoirs of "griefs, joys, fears, hopes,
suspicions, counsels, and whatever lieth upon the heart to oppress
it," or elate it. You recall those familiar lines of Bacon: "This
communicating of a man's self to his friends works two contrary effects;
for it redoubles joys and cutteth griefs in halves; for there is no man
that imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more; and no
man that imparteth his griefs to his friends, but he grieveth the less."
The following selected lines, slightly changed, set forth this first
fruit of friendship.

"A true friend is an atmosphere
Warm with all inspirations dear,
Wherein we breathe the large free bre