Excerpt from Selections From the Letters of Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury to Jane Welsh Carlyle Friendships between women have occasionally furnished material for ignorant sneers. 'A sudden thought strikes me. Let us swear an eternal friendship!' was not a kind hit, though it bore within it a grain of truth. Women are impulsive, and must have some object for their love. Even school-girls conceive almost a passion one for another, until 'deep calls unto deep, ' and they learn life's truest need. The memorable and touching friendships of mature women for each other are too well known to need proof of their existence. If they are, in a sense, a compromise, what then? In these undying, clinging attachments, it may sometimes be noted that one of the women is masculine in her very womanhood, dominating in intellect or will, or possessed of some subtle force of which we know nothing, and the other is 'a woman indeed' - defenceless, tender, instinctively craving after that 'shadow of the substance' for which she was made to long. At times, two women, each isolated as to the natural relation with the other sex, will turn blindly to each other, and fling their lavish and uncared-for wealth of love into each other's hearts. The bosom where no child ever nestled will draw unto itself some nature where a heart-hunger has been left unfed, and clasp it close. 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.