Which case, and why?

Is there any one of my brothers willing to lend me of his hearing just long enough for me to confide to him some part of my sorrows, so that, by sharing them, he might perhaps bear some of their burdens for me? A friend will never purify his brother of admixture unless he keeps his own clarity free of turbidity, in your joys and in your hardships alike. Yet how can you come by a sincere friend, when you have made friendship a trade? One hastens to it when some call of need summons one to the friend, and one casts off all regard for it when self-sufficiency comes along. A companion is visited only when some passing occasion comes visiting, and a friend is remembered only when some want is remembered. Save only, O God, those brothers whom divine kinship has brought together and whom the neighborliness of the higher realm has united in fellowship. They have contemplated the realities with the eye of inner insight, and have loosed the filth and the rust of doubt from the inmost heart. None shall gather them but the herald of God.