Excerpt from The Gift of Friendship, and Other Verses HE greatest blessing that one can give another as he travels through life is the gift of friend ship to those whom he has learned to love. To have given others the assur ance and proof of one's friendship is to have lived profitably. To have received from others the pledge and evidence of their love is to have lived richly. And the man who has both given and received this blessing is rich indeed. These occasional verses have been written during a period of nearly twenty years to say frankly to a few friends a little of what their friendship has meant to me. If they have carried my message of gratitude to the hearts of those for whom they were written, they have fulfilled their first mission. If in this collected form they serve as mes sage bearers for others, I shall be glad to have shared them. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.