Destiny is determined by friendship. Fortune is made or marred when the youth selects his companions. Friendship has ever been the master-passion ruling the forum, the court, the camp. The power of love is God-breathed, and life has nothing like love for majesty and beauty. Civilization itself is more of the heart than of the mind. As an eagle cannot rise with one wing, so the soul ascends borne up equally by reason and affection. Plato found the measure of greatness in a man's capacity for exalted friendship. All the great ones of history stand forth as unique in some master passion as in their intellectual supremacy. Witness David and Jonathan, with love surpassing the love of women. Witness Socrates and his group of immortal friends. Witness Dante and his deathless love for Beatrice. Witness Tennyson and his refrain for Arthur Hallam. Witness the disciples and Christ, with "love as strong as death." Sweetness is not more truly the essence of music than is love the very soul of a deep, strong, harmonious manhood. Friendship cheers like a sunbeam; charms like a good story; inspires like a brave leader; binds like a golden chain; guides like a heavenly vision. To love alone is it given to wrestle victoriously with death. Lord Bacon said: "He who loves solitude is either a wild beast or a god." The normal man is gregarious. He wants companionship. The very cattle go in herds. The fishes go in shoals. The bees go in swarms. And men come together in families and cities. As men go up toward greatness their need of friendship increases. No mind of the first order was ever a hermit. Modern literature enshrines the friendships of the great and makes them memorable. While letters last, society will never forget Charles Lamb and his companions; Dr. Johnson and his immortal group; Petrarch and his helpless dependence upon Laura; while the letters of Abélard and Héloise enshrine them in everlasting remembrance. In all literature there is no more touching death-bed scene than that of the patriarch Jacob. Dying, the Prince forgot his gold and silver, his herds and lands. Lifted up upon his pillows, in tremulous excitement he took upon his lips two names--God and Rachel. More than a score of years had passed since her death, but in that memorable hour the great man built a monument to her who had fed his joy and deepened his life.