Nothing is so unpredictable as a throw of the dice, and yet every man who plays often will at some time or other make a Venus-cast: now and then he indeed will make it twice and even thrice in succession. Are we going to be so feebleminded then as to aver that such a thing happened by the personal intervention of Venus rather than by pure luck?
All I can do is to urge on you to regard friendship as the greatest thing in the world; for there is nothing which so fits in with our nature, or is so exactly what we want in prosperity or adversity.