ture is stronger than efforts to explain it. He concludes at the end of his analysis,
But all that can be said of Friendship is like botany to flowers. How can the understanding take account of its friendliness? (146).
1. "After years of vain familiarity, some distant gesture or unconscious behavior, which we remember, speaks to us with more emphasis than the wisest or kindest words" (142). Thoreau begins by considering how small a gesture leading to Friendship might be.
2. "Friendship is evanescent in every man's experience, and remembered like heat lightning in past summers" (142). Thoreau expands on the same idea, leading to a consideration of the nature of the Friend.
3. "[Friendship] is the secret of the universe" (142). Thoreau heightens the importance of his subject.
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