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AS for the number which this society admits, it is at any rate to be begun with one, the noblest and greatest that we know, and whether the world will ever carry it further, whether, as Chaucer affirms, "There be mo sterres in the skie than a pair," remains to be proved;
"And certaine he is well begone,
Among a thousand that findeth one."
We shall not surrender ourselves heartily to any while we are conscious that another is more
deserving of our love. Yet Friendship does not
stand for numbers ; the Friend does not count his
Friends on his fingers; they are not numerable.
The more there are included by this bond, if
they are indeed included, the rarer and diviner
the quality of the love that binds them 
I am
ready to believe that as private and intimate a
relation may exist by which three are embraced,
as between two. Indeed, we can not have too
many Friends; the virtue which we appreciate
we to some extent appropriate, so that thus we
are made at last fit for every relation of life. A
base Friendship is always of a narrowing and
exclusive tendency, but a noble one is never
exclusive; its very superfluity and dispersed
love is the humanity which sweetens society,
and sympathizes with foreign nations ; for though
its foundations are private, it is in effect a public
affair and a public advantage, and the Friend,
more than the father of a family, deserves well
