cating it.

And while friendship embraces very many and great advantages, she
undoubtedly surpasses all in this, that she shines with a brilliant
hope over the future, and never suffers the spirit to be weakened or
to sink. Besides, he who looks on a true friend looks, as it were,
upon a kind of image of himself; wherefore friends, tho absent, are
still present; tho in poverty, they are rich; tho weak, yet in the
enjoyment of health; and, what is still more difficult to assert, tho
dead they are alive; so entirely does the honor, the memory, the
regret of friends attend them; from which circumstance the death of
the one seems to be happy, and the life of the other praiseworthy;
nay, should you remove from nature the cement of kind feelings,
neither a house nor a city will be able to stand; even the cultivation
of the land will not continue. If it be not clearly perceived how
great is the power of friendship and concord, it can be distinctly
inferred from quarrels and dissensions; for what house is there so
established, or what state so firmly settled, that may not utterly be
overthrown by hatred and dissension? From which it may be determined
how much advantage there is in friendship. They relate, indeed, that a
certain learned man of Agrigentum[31] promulgated in Greek verses the
doctrine that all things which cohere throughout the whole world, and
all things that are the subjects of motion, are brought together by
friendship, and are dispelled by discord; and this principle all men
understand, and illustrate by their conduct. Therefore, if at any time
any act of a friend has been exhibited, either in undergoing or in
sharing dangers, who is there that does not extol such an act with the
highest praise?...

Now if such be the influence of integrity, that we love it even in
those whom we have never seen, and, what is much more, even in an
enemy, what wonder if men's feelings are affected when they seem to
discover the goodness and virtue of those with whom they may become
connected by intercourse? altho love is confirmed by the reception of
kindness, and by the discovery of an earnest sympathy, and by close
familiarity, which things being added to the first emotion of the mind
and the affections, there is kindled a large amount of kindly feeling.
And if any imagine that this proceeds from a sense of weakness, so
that there shall be secured a friend, by whom a man may obtain that
which he wants, they leave to friendshi