To the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue. The modern world, in comparison, ignores it. We admit of course that besides a wife and family a man needs a few “friends.” But the very tone of the admission, and the sort of acquaintanceships which those who make it would describe as “friendships,” show clearly that what they are talking about has very little to do with that Philia [the Greek word for friendship] which Aristotle classified among the virtues or that Amicitia [the Latin word for friendship] on which
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