Friends, this introductory fragment from a book I long intended to write but perhaps will never get to do, for your edification.
Thoreau and Mr. Emerson: A friendship
Friendship, like marriage or any other relationship, offers plenty of room for misunderstanding and irritation. Your best friend isn’t necessarily the person you would choose to deliver your eulogy. That doesn’t make the friendship any less precious.
It was like that for Emerson and Thoreau. Their friendship had plenty of obstacles, not least the personalities of the two. Over the years, each man’s journal from time to time reproaches the other for his insufficiencies, or finds the other wrong-headed.