On Friendship, Time and Peach Blouses

Aristotle on friendship:

"After that, the next topic is friendship; for it is a virtue, or involves virtue. Further, it is most necessary for our life. For no one would choose to live without friends even if he had all the other goods. Indeed rich people and holders of powerful positions, even more than other people, seem to need friends. For how would one benefit from such prosperity if one had no opportunity for beneficence, which is most often displayed, and most highly praised, in relation to friends? And how would one guard and protect prosperity without friends, when it is all the more precarious the greater it is? But in poverty also, and in the other misfortunes, people think friends are the only refuge. Moreover, the young need friends to keep them from error. The old need friends to care for them and support the actions that fail because of weakness. And those in their prime need friends to do fine actions, for 'when two go together...' they are more capable of understanding and acting.

It seems to me that the nicest sort of gift is one that reminds the recipient of your friendship. (In tribute to Sayers.)