love", as evidence of a platonic interpretation. In his discussion of Bush's contention that the sonnets are an expression of intense, idealised, non-sexual friendship, what he calls the "Renaissance cult of [male] friendship", Crompton, in Homosexuality and Civilization, points to the sonnets' complaints of "sleepless nights", "sharp anguish", and "fearful jealousy" arising from love of the fair youth. Crompton concludes these are "torments" such that "friendship hardly could" cause. He notes also that the writer C. S. Lewis, despite not being a proponent of a homosexual interpretation, found the sonnets' language "too lover-like for ordinary male friendship" and declared himself unable to find any comparable language used between friends in 16th-century literature. Montaigne and Etienne de La Boétie The French philosopher Montaigne described the concept of romantic friendship (without using this English term) in his essay "On Friendship". In addition to distinguishing this type of love from homosexuality ("this other Greek licence"), another way in which Montaigne differed from the modern view was that he felt that friendship and platonic emotion were a primarily masculine capacity (apparently unaware of the custom of female romantic friendship which also existed): Lesbian-feminist historian Lillian Faderman cites Montaigne, using "On Friendship" as evidence that romantic friendship was distinct from homosexuality, since the former could be extolled by famous and respected writers, who simultaneously disparaged homosexuality. (The quotation also furthers Faderman's beliefs that gender and sexuality are socially constructed, since they indicate that each sex has been thought of as "better" at intense friendship in one or another period of history.) Alexander Hamilton and John Laurens Shortly after his marriage, while in George Washington's camp during the American Revolutionary Era, John Laurens met and became extremely close friends with Alexander Hamilton. They exchanged many letters during the several years when different assignments and Laurens' capture by the British kept them apart; for example, when the terms of Laurens' parole prevented him from being present at Hamilton's wedding to Elizabeth Schuyler in December 1780, even though Hamilton had invited him. While emotional language was not uncommon in romantic friendships among those of the same gender in this historical period, Hamilton biographer James Thomas Flexner stated that the intensely expressive language contained in the Hamilton-Laurens letters "raises questions concerning homosexuality" that "cannot be categorically answered". Stating that "one must tread gingerly in approaching this matter," Hamilton biographer Ron Chernow wrote that it is impossible to say "with