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S for the number which this society admits, it is at any rate to be begun with one, the noblest and greatest that we know, and whether the world will ever carry it further, whether, as Chaucer affirms, "There be mo sterres in the skie than a pair," remains to be proved;

We shall not surrender ourselves heartily to any while we are conscious that another is more deserving of our love. Yet Friendship does not stand for numbers ; the Friend does not count his Friends on his fingers; they are not numerable. The more there are included by this bond, if they are indeed included, the rarer and diviner the quality of the love that binds them I am ready to believe that as private and intimate a relation may exist by which three are embraced, as between two. Indeed, we can not have too many Friends; the virtue which we appreciate we to some extent appropriate, so that thus we are made at last fit for every relation of life. A base Friendship is always of a narrowing and exclusive tendency, but a noble one is never exclusive; its very superfluity and dispersed love is the humanity which sweetens society, and sympathizes with foreign nations ; for though its foundations are private, it is in effect a public affair and a public advantage, and the Friend, more than the father of a family, deserves well 23