Page:On Friendship (Howe, 1915).pdf/35

 sufficient for that confidence and self-disclosure which is the nurse of this sacred bond; and their souls seem not strong enough to sustain the pressure of a knot so tight and so lasting. And surely, except for that, if there might arise a free and voluntary relation, wherein not only the soul should have her entire enjoyment, but the body too have a share in the partnership, so that the whole man was engaged, it is certain that the friendship would be all the more full and complete; but the other sex has no example to show that it was ever able to attain to this, and is by the common consent of the ancient schools, rejected.

And that other Greek license is justly abhorrent to our customs: the which, moreover, since, by their practice, it required a so necessary disparity of age and difference of vocation between the lovers, also did not quite respond to the perfect union and agreement that we are here demanding: ''Quis est enim iste amor amicitia? Cur neque deformem adolescentem quisquam amat, neque formosum senem?'' (What then is this love in friendship? Why does nobody ever love an ill-favoured youth or a handsome old man?) For the picture the Academy itself gives will not, I