I am going through a "Montaigne" phase; all I think of now is his splendid essay on friendship:
I return to the more just and true description taken from Cicero, which I use myself: “Those are only to be reputed friendships that are fortified and confirmed by judgment and length of time.” For the rest, what we commonly call friends and friendships are nothing but acquaintances and connections, contracted either by accident or upon some motive, by means of which there happens some small interchange between our minds. But, in the friendship I speak of, they min gle and melt into one piece, with so universal a mixture that there is left no more sign of the seam by which they were first put together. If any one should demand that I give a reason why I loved someone, I feel it could no otherwise be expressed than by the answer, “Because he was he; because I was I”.
I return to the more just and true description taken from Cicero, which I use myself: “Those are only to be reputed friendships that are fortified and confirmed by judgment and length of time.” For the rest, what we commonly call friends and friendships are nothing but acquaintances and connections, contracted either by accident or upon some motive, by means of which there happens some small interchange between our minds. But, in the friendship I speak of, they min gle and melt into one piece, with so universal a mixture that there is left no more sign of the seam by which they were first put together. If any one should demand that I give a reason why I loved someone, I feel it could no otherwise be expressed than by the answer, “Because he was he; because I was I”.
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