No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other's worth.

Southey’s sentence argues that true friendship rests on a settled moral and intellectual esteem—being “thoroughly persuaded” of another’s “worth”—rather than on proximity, convenience, or constant contact. Distance and time normally erode relationships by thinning shared experience, but Southey suggests that when friendship is grounded in a clear judgment of character, it becomes resilient: absence cannot overturn what one knows to be true of the other. The emphasis on “worth” reflects a Romantic-era concern with sincerity and character, treating friendship as an ethical bond. The line also implies a standard for friendship: it is tested not by intensity in the moment but by durability across separation and change.