distance."

[12] "Though leagues separate them."


IV

I have at another time heard him discourse on the kindred theme of
friendship in language well calculated, as it seemed to me, to help a
man to choose and also to use his friends aright.

He (Socrates) had often heard the remark made that of all possessions
there is none equal to that of a good and sincere friend; but, in
spite of this assertion, the mass of people, as far as he could see,
concerned themselves about nothing so little as the acquisition of
friends. Houses, and fields, and slaves, and cattle, and furniture of
all sorts (he said) they were at pains to acquire, and they strove
hard to keep what they had got; but to procure for themselves this
greatest of all blessings, as they admitted a friend to be, or to keep
the friends whom they already possessed, not one man in a hundred ever
gave himself a thought. It was noticeable, in the case of a sickness
befalling a man's friend and one of his own household simultaneously,
the promptness with which the master would fetch the doctor to his
domestic, and take every precaution necessary for his recovery, with
much expenditure of pains; but meanwhile little account would be taken
of the friend in like condition, and if both should die, he will show
signs of deep annoyance at the death of his domestic, which, as he
reflects, is a positive loss to him; but as regards his friend his
position is in no wise materially affected, and thus, though he would
never dream of leaving his other possessions disregarded and ill cared