All who share it will be our companions; but one or two or three who
share something more will be our Friends. In this kind of love, as
Emerson said, Do you love me? means Do you see the same truth?—Or at
least, “Do you care about the same truth?” The man who agrees with us
that some question, little regarded by others, is of great importance
can be our Friend. He need not agree with us about the answer. Notice
that Friendship thus repeats on a more individual and less socially
necessary level the character of the Companionship which was its matrix.
The Companionship was between people who were doing something
together—hunting, studying, painting or what you will. The Friends will
still be doing something together, but something more inward, less
widely shared and less easily defined; still hunters, but of some
immaterial quarry; still collaborating, but in some work the world does
not, or not yet, take account of; still travelling companions, but on a
different kind of journey. Hence we picture lovers face to face but
Friends side by side; their eyes look ahead.
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丽媛