text:  From the system of study no less than from the peculiar social character if we may so express it which has always prevailed in the Lyceum of Tsarskoe Selo we must deduce the cause of the peculiar intensity and durability of the friendships contracted within its bosom--a circumstance which still continues to distinguish it to a higher degree than can be predicated of any other institution with which we are acquainted; and we allude to this more pointedly from the conviction that it would be absolutely impossible to form a true idea of Pushkin--not only as man but even as a poet--were we to leave out of our portrait the immense influence exerted on the whole of his career both in the world of reality and in the regions of art by the close and intimate friendships he formed in the Lyceum particularly that with Delvig