---
title: Friendship
---

[Montaigne](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3600/3600.txt) (square brackets in translation, not me):

> For the rest, what we commonly call friends and friendships, are
> nothing but acquaintance and familiarities, either occasionally
> contracted, or upon some design, by means of which there happens some
> little intercourse betwixt our souls.  But in the friendship I speak
> of, they mix and work themselves into one piece, with so universal a
> mixture, that there is no more sign of the seam by which they were
> first conjoined.  If a man should importune me to give a reason why I
> loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making
> answer: because it was he, because it was I.  There is, beyond all
> that I am able to say, I know not what inexplicable and fated power
> that brought on this union.  We sought one another long before we met,
> and by the characters we heard of one another, which wrought upon our
> affections more than, in reason, mere reports should do; I think 'twas
> by some secret appointment of heaven.  We embraced in our names; and
> at our first meeting, which was accidentally at a great city
> entertainment, we found ourselves so mutually taken with one another,
> so acquainted, and so endeared betwixt ourselves, that from
> thenceforward nothing was so near to us as one another.  He wrote an
> excellent Latin satire, since printed, wherein he excuses the
> precipitation of our intelligence, so suddenly come to perfection,
> saying, that destined to have so short a continuance, as begun so late
> (for we were both full-grown men, and he some years the older), there
> was no time to lose, nor were we tied to conform to the example of
> those slow and regular friendships, that require so many precautions
> of long preliminary conversation: This has no other idea than that of
> itself, and can only refer to itself: this is no one special
> consideration, nor two, nor three, nor four, nor a thousand; 'tis I
> know not what quintessence of all this mixture, which, seizing my
> whole will, carried it to plunge and lose itself in his, and that
> having seized his whole will, brought it back with equal concurrence
> and appetite to plunge and lose itself in mine.  I may truly say lose,
> reserving nothing to ourselves that was either his or mine.--[All this
> relates to Estienne de la Boetie.]