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Title: The Three Sorts Of Friends
Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge [
More Titles by Coleridge]
Though friendships differ endless in degree,
The sorts, methinks, may be reduced to three.
Acquaintance many, and Conquaintance few;
But for Inquaintance I know only two--
The friend I've mourned with, and the maid I woo!
MY DEAR GILLMAN--The ground and _matériel_ of this division of one's friends into _ac_, _con_ and _in_quaintance, was given by Hartley Coleridge when he was scarcely five years old [1801]. On some one asking him if Anny Sealy (a little girl he went to school with) was an acquaintance of his, he replied, very fervently pressing his right hand on his heart, 'No, she is an _in_quaintance!' 'Well! 'tis a father's tale'; and the recollection soothes your old friend and _in_quaintance,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
Undated.
[The end]
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem: Three Sorts Of Friends
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