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you have, is that nothing needs to be explained. You don't have to have an intellectual argument. You have somebody with you and you're walking through the woods, or paddling your cance down the stream, and everything's all right. Nobody's criticizing you. Nobody wants you to be something you aren't. If you've lost the strength of the left arm and your bow paddling isn't as good as it used to be, nobody cares. You're not going to be taken to pieces for what you do. You aren't observing anybody else's weaknesses. You aren't registering, “Oh, I wish she'd look like something. I wish she wouldn't dress like that and make herself look like a clown. I wish she wouldn't be so terribly reactionary.”

This close friend of mine is a reactionary Republican. I don't even give a thought to the fact that she says the most ridiculous things. It doesn't trouble me at all. That's what a close friend is.

That's what Johnny Gilchrist was to Al, and some of the other old-timers that he knew. I've come to this view of friendship through observation, but I'm not the only person who has recognized this. After all, Cicero wrote an essay on friendship, if I remember, not so far different. Henry Van Dyke wrote a small book, which he entitled Friendship. Although I think he laid greater emphasis