It is owing to the fact that we cannot enjoy anything to the fullest extent alone, since our nature is so constituted that we must have company in our pleasures, that friends are indispensable. Cicero realized this over two thousand years ago when he said that, "The fruit of talent, and worth, and every excellence, is gathered most fully when it is bestowed upon every one most nearly connected with us." Appreciating this, nature has given us the love and friendship of parents in our childhood; of the companions of our youth as we grow older; of our life-partner at a later period, and last, the love of our children and grandchildren, so that, by an interest in their lives, we may become ourselves rejuvenated. In this, as in everything else of a physical or mental character, we start at the bottom, and, by a crescendo movement, reach the acme of the condition which with age diminishes, but in this instance the quality does not deteriorate. Our likelihood of forming acquaintances and friends in later years is very much less than in youth, and, certainly, with our habits and idiosyncrasies established, as they are after middle age, the possibility of forming intimate friendships is very much decreased. In childhood and youth, we are more imaginative and less practical, and, consequently, our inclinations in the line of friendships will be more natural and less influenced by considerations alien to friendship itself. Nothing can be more true than the axiom of Cicero, "Friendship does not follow upon advantage, but advantage upon friendship." Clearly demonstrated as this is, but few people seem to realize it. For the fundamental truth at the bottom of this matter is, as he further states, "the basis of that steadfastness and constancy which we seek in friendship is sincerity. For nothing is enduring which is insincere." Of all virtues, sincerity is the greatest, yet, broadly speaking, how extremely rare! There is almost no trouble and pains which people will not take to make the world think that they are something other than they really are, when but a fraction of the cost might make them what they are trying to seem to be. The reciprocal relation of friendship demands sincerity, just in proportion as it becomes intimate, and this applies to all friendships, of whatsoever character.