This remark, expressed too tersely and intelligibly to be considered ‘poetry’ now-a-days, must apply to the nobler sex. Few observant persons will allege against ours, that even in its lowest form our friendship is deceitful. Fickle it may be, weak, exaggerated, sentimental – the mere lath-and-plaster imitation of a palace great enough for a demigod to dwell in – but it is rarely false, parasitical, or diplomatic. The countless secondary motives which many men are mean enough to have – nay, to own – are all but impossible to us; impossible from the very faults of our nature – our frivolity, irrationality, and incapacity to seize on more than one idea at the same time. In truth, a sad proportion of us are too empty-headed to be double-minded, too shallow to be insincere. Nay, even the worst of us being more direct and simple of character than men are, our lightest friendship – the merest passing liking that we decorate with that name – is, while it lasts, more true than the generality of the so-called ‘friendships’ of mankind.