* I NEVER crossed your threshold with a

grief

But that I went without it, never came
Heart hungry but you fed me,

And gave

the sorrow solace and relief.

I never left you but I took away

The love that drew me to your side again,

Through the wide door that never could remain

Quite closed between us for a little day.

IF you would be loved as a companion, avoid unnecessary criticism.

-Sir Arthur Helps.

IF you have friends in adversity, stand

by them.

-Dickens.

IT is every man's duty to make himself profitable to mankind.

-Seneca.

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.

-Montaigne.

INDIFFERENT people can only wound you in heterogeneous parts, maim you in your arm or leg: but the friend can make no pass but at the heart itself.

-Steele.

TELL me, gentle traveler, who hast wandered through the world, and seen the sweetest roses blow, and brightest gliding rivers, of all thine eyes have seen, which is the fairest land? "Child, shall I tell thee where nature is more blest and fair? It is where those we love abide. Though that space be small, ample is it above kingdoms; though it be a desert, through it runs the river of Paradise, and there are the enchanted bowers."

-Unknown.

MY coat and I live comfortably together. It has assumed all my wrinkles, does not hurt me anywhere, has moulded itself on my deformities, and is complacent to all my movements, and I only feel its presence because it keeps me warm. Old coats and old friends are the same thing.

-Hugo.

JUDGE not thy friend until thou standest in his place.

-Rabbi Hillel.

LET no man think he is loved by any man when he loves no man.

-Epictetus.

MY friend peers in on me with merry
Wise face, and though the sky stay dim,

The very light of day, the very

Sun's self comes in with him.

-A. C. Swinburne.

O SWEETER than the honey well,
Deep in the sweetest rose of June,
And all sweet things the tongue can tell
On clover-scented afternoon,

Is friendship that has lived for years
Through fortune, failure, and through

tears.

Though he who wears it sacredly
Be swarted like the rafters are
That shelter him, eternity

May hold few jewels half so rare!
And God will find for such a friend
Some sweeter slumber in the end.

-Botsford.

STILL, Love a summer sunrise shines, So rich its clouds are hung,

So sweet its songs are sung.

And Friendship's but broad, common day,

With light enough to show

Where fruit with brambles grow;

With warmth enough to feed

The grain of daily need.

-Unknown.

ONLY-but this is rare

When a beloved hand is laid in ours,
When jaded with the rush and glare
Of the interminable hours,

Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear,
When our world-deafened ear

Is by the tones of a loved voice caressed—
A bolt is shot back somewhere in our
breast,

And a lost impulse of feeling stirs again.
The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies

plain,

And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know.

-Arnold.

+ YES, we must ever be friends; and of all who offer you friendship,

Let me be the first, the truest, the near