On this single point, antiquity itself had been surpassed;
the discourses it had left upon friendship seeming to him "poor and
flat in comparison of the sense he had of it." For once, his
sleepless habit of analysis had been checked by the inexplicable, the
absolute; [99] amid his jealously guarded indifference of soul he had
been summoned to yield, and had yielded, to the magnetic power of
another. "We were halves throughout, so that methinks by outliving
him I defraud him of his part. I was so grown to be always his
double in all things that methinks I am no more than half of myself.
There is no action or thought of mine wherein I do not miss him, as I
know that he would have missed me." Tender yet heroic, impulsive yet
so wise, he might have done what the survivor (so it seemed to
himself) was but vainly trying to do. It was worth his while to
become famous, if that hapless memory might but be embalmed in one's
fame. It had been better than love,--that friendship! to the
building of which so much "concurrence" had been requisite, that
"'twas much if fortune brought the like to pass once in three ages.
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