Me, too, thy nobleness has taught
To master my despair;
The fountains of my hidden life
Are through thy friendship fair.
—Emerson.
New friends can never take the same place in our lives as the old. The former may be better liked for the time, their society may even have more attractions, but in a way they are strangers. If through change of circumstances they go out of our lives, they go out of it altogether. These latter-day friendships have no root, as it were. Their growth is as Jonah’s gourd—overshadowing, perhaps, and expansive, but all on the surface; whereas an old friend remains an old friend forever. Although separated for an indefinite period and not seen for years, if a chance happening brings old comrades together they resume the old relations in the most natural manner, and take up the former lines as easily as if there had been no break or interruption of the intermediate intercourse of auld lang syne.
—Unknown.