Page:On Friendship (Howe, 1915).pdf/39

 to particularize, I know not what inexplicable and fatal force, the mediator of this union. We sought before we saw each other, by reason of reports we heard, which had more influence on our affections than reports should reasonably have; I believe ’t was by some divine ordinance. We embraced with our names: and at our first meeting, which was by chance at a great city feast, we found ourselves so captivated, so understood, so obliged by each other, that nothing from then on was so near to either of us as was the other. He wrote an excellent Latin satire, which is published, wherein he excuses and ex- plains the precipitancy of our mutual intelligence thus promptly arrived at perfection. Having so short a while to last, and having begun so late (for we were both grown men and he some years the elder), it had no time to lose; and needed not to conform itself to the pattern of the usual lax friendships, which require so many precautions of long preliminary conversation. This sort has no idea but of itself, and cannot be gauged elsewhere: it was not one especial consideration, or two, or three, or four, or a thousand : ’t was I know not what quintessence