Excerpt from Unseen FriendsI think we all have friends in the past, whom we have not met in the esh, but who are perhaps better known to us than many men and women whom we come across in everyday life - friends who have encouraged us in dark hours, who have cheered us in times of depression, have helped to shape our lives as truly as if the words, that made an impression on our minds, had been heard from their lips instead of coming to us through the medium of print.These unseen friends are usually literary friends, as it is their writings that attract us, or saints, whose lives and sayings have stirred our hearts and made us wish to make a new start and follow at an infinite dis tance in their footsteps.Of the saints we each have our individual choice, as we have among living people. If my heart goes out most warmly to St. Catherine of Siena, St. Teresa, St. Francis of Assisi, or St. Clare, St.

Philip N eri, St. Francis de Sales and also Madame Chantal, I am quite ready to admire other saints and acknowledge their greatness, but I go to my own friends in my hours of doubt or anguish, knowing that I will find something to console or encourage me in their lives.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis 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.