^ Henry David Thoreau, 113.
' S. A. Brooke, Life and Letters of Frederick W, Eoberlsoji, 187.
2 SAMUEL I. 26 297
He that wrongs his friend Wrongs himself more, and ever bears about A silent court of justice in his breast, Himself the judge and jury, and himself The prisoner at the bar, ever condemned.*
^ Eobertson of Brighton in one of his letters {Life and Letters, 447) tells how a friend of his had, through cowardice or care- lessness, missed an opportunity of putting him right on a point with which he was charged, and so left him defenceless against a slander. With his native sweetness of soul, he contents himself with the exclamation, " How rare is it to have a friend who will defend you thoroughly and boldly ! " Yet that is just one of the loyal things a friend can do, sometimes when it would be impossible for a man himself to do himself justice with others. Some things, needful to be said or done under certain circumstances, cannot be undertaken without indelicacy by the person concerned, and the keen instinct of a friend should tell him that he is needed. A little thoughtfulness would often suggest things that could be done for our friends, that would make them feel that the tie which binds us to them is a real one.*
Brother and friend, the world is wide,
But I care not whether there be The soothing song of a summer tide
Or the thrash of a wintry sea. If but through shimmer and storm you bide
Brother and friend to me.
Brother and friend, the dear home days
Lie low on a fading shore ; But with buiied fault and garnered praise
We look to the days before, And bear in our hands o'er all life's ways
The best of the fruit they bore.
And never alone have I had to stand
To face what the fates might send, Nor leaned for help in a weary land
On a reed that the winds might bend ; For my hand reached out till it grasped your hand
And held it — brother and friend.
So, as we tread life's hills of pain, Its levels of common need,
^ Tennyson. * Hugh Black, Friendship, 66.
298 FRIENDSHIP
Face its worst and best, find its loss and gain,
Let this stand in our creed: We are each the other's — heart, hand, and brain-
B7 the love that is love indeed.
Brother and friend, the world is wide,
But I care not whether there be The soothing song of a summer tide
Or the thrash of a wintry sea. If but through shimmer and storm you bide
Brother and friend to me.^
II.
The Value of Friendship.
Lord Bacon reckons up the value of friendship in this way.
(1) It brings Comfort. — A friend may play the part of a confessor and bring the relief and moral strength which belong to that character. "No receipt openeth the heart but a true friend; to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart, to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession."
And then, dear friend, I thought of thee so lowly,
So unassuming, and so gently kind, And lo ! a peace, a calm serene and holy
Settled upon my mind.
Ah, friend, my friend ! one true heart fond and tender. That understands our troubles and our needs.
Brings us more near to God than all the splendour And pomp of seeming worship and vain creeds.^
(2) It gives Counsel. — While friendship is balm to the wounded heart, it may also be light to the darkened understand- ing, and that not merely because a friend can give honest and wise counsel, but also because the mere act of talking to him clears up mental confusions, and gives clearness and consistence to thought. Friendship is the best antidote for self-conceit; for
* Percy C. Ainsworth, Poems and Sonnets, 26. ' Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
2 SAMUEL I. 26 299
"there is no such flatterer as is a man's self; and there is no such remedy against flattery of a man's self, as the liberty of a friend."
^ The candid friend has a proverbially evil name. But in such cases there is perhaps more candour than friendship. A true friend will not, if necessary, shrink from warning. "Any man," said Gladstone, " can stand up to his opponents : give me the man who can stand up to his friends." Such occasions, however, are happily rare. But friendship should certainly be a support to virtue, not an encouragement to vice.^
•[{ It was Mr. Hamerton who said that the great loss of women is that they never hear the truth from men. Sir Arthur Helps has a passage to the same effect in his essay on " The Art of Living with Others." He comments on the evils caused by chivalry. He says that, however great the unreason which women talk out of doors, nobody could be brutal enough to tell them, that it is nonsense. He thinks the intellect of women has been injured because it has been " petted." And he adds that if you put people on a pedestal and do a great deal of worship around them, the atmosphere is of insincerity and unreality. Now there is, undoubtedly, a large measure of truth in this ; and we have to add that most women have come to demand admira- tion, not to say adulation, and that sort of artificial regard and deference which becomes an atmosphere in which the truth cannot live. I should be the last to deny the faults on the other side. Men too often regard the society of ladies as simply the opportunity for those light and graceful insincerities which cannot by any abuse of language be held to represent their real opinions. The idea seems to be that it would not be chivalrous to offend delicate sensibilities, and that to contradict a lady would be an offence against good form. Hence this species of feigned agreement — no genuine homage of the truth, but a very unworthy condescension to untruth. In this respect I do venture to think that we are mending our ways ; and I suggest to you young men and women that you will be doing something well worth the doing if the men among you make a point of treating the intelligence of women with equal respect, and if the women among you take care to let it be known that you value friendship as an opportunity for an exchange of real thoughts and sincere sentiments, and that you demand no judgment for your own opinions but the honest, candid, open judgment of clear intelligence.^