the ladder, the circle, and the rest

The talent for friendship. - Among men who possess a particular gift for friendship, two types predominate. One is in a continual state of ascent and for each phase of his development finds a friend precisely appropriate to it. The succession of friends he acquires in this way are seldom at one with one another and sometimes in dissonance and discord: which is quite in accord with the fact that the later phases of his development abolish or infringe upon the earlier. Such a man may be jocularly called a ladder. - The other type is represented by him who exercises an attraction on very various characters and talents, so that he gains a whole circle of friends; they, however, establish friendly relations between one another, their differences notwithstanding, on account of being his friend. One can call such a man a circle: for in him this solidarity between such different natures and dispositions must in some way be prefigured. - For the rest, the gift of having good friends is in many men much greater than the gift of being a good friend. -Nietzsche (HAH I, §368)