230 A GARDEN DIARY 
thing that can differentiate one human being from 
another. By the tenour of their thoughts; by 
the circumstances of their lives; by the very 
texture of their brains, their souls, their hearts, 
their entire natures. Friendship makes light of 
such little discrepancies as these. Its roots push 
down to a stratum where even the largest of them 
become mere accidents, and at that serene depth 
they meet and lock securely under them all. 
To say that such a tie is the great ameliorator 
of life, the soother of its sorrows, the encourager 
of its brighter moments, is to say ridiculously 
little. To say that it is one that we could hardly 
endure to think of existing without, is to say 
almost less. The very notion of such a depri- 
vation produces a sort of vertigo; a species of 
mental confusion, akin to the thought of losing 
identity itself. Worse, indeed, for it is not merely 
the everyday, the vulgar self, that such a loss— 
supposing it to be complete—would deprive one 
of. It is that other, better, and more shining 
self, which only really exists inside the enchanted 
walls of a loving, sympathetic friendship. Within 
those fostering walls it grows, expands, and 
flourishes, but outside of them it sickens, pines 
away, and dies. 
It is a very singular tie, when one reflects 
a little upon it; so close often that no nearness 
of blood, no identity of name, could, so far as 
one can see, make it any closer. It seems to 
