Friendship | Page 3

false to history to base life on
selfishness, to leave out of the list of human motives the highest of all.
The miracle of friendship has been too often enacted on this dull earth
of ours, to suffer us to doubt either its possibility or its wondrous
beauty.
The classic instance of David and Jonathan represents the typical
friendship. They met, and at the meeting knew each other to be nearer
than kindred. By subtle elective affinity they felt that they belonged to
each other. Out of all the chaos of the time and the disorder of their
lives, there arose for these two souls a new and beautiful world, where
there reigned peace, and love, and sweet content. It was the miracle of
the death of self. Jonathan forgot his pride, and David his ambition. It
was as the smile of God which changed the world to them. One of them
it saved from the temptations of a squalid court, and the other from the
sourness of an exile's life. Jonathan's princely soul had no room for

envy or jealousy. David's frank nature rose to meet the magnanimity of
his friend.
In the kingdom of love there was no disparity between the king's son
and the shepherd boy. Such a gift as each gave and received is not to be
bought or sold. It was the fruit of the innate nobility of both: it softened
and tempered a very trying time for both. Jonathan withstood his
father's anger to shield his friend: David was patient with Saul for his
son's sake. They agreed to be true to each other in their difficult
position. Close and tender must have been the bond, which had such
fruit in princely generosity and mutual loyalty of soul. Fitting was the
beautiful lament, when David's heart was bereaved at tragic Gilboa, "I
am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou
been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of
women." Love is always wonderful, a new creation, fair and fresh to
every loving soul. It is the miracle of spring to the cold dull earth.
When Montaigne wrote his essay on Friendship, he could do little but
tell the story of his friend. The essay continually reverts to this, with
joy that he had been privileged to have such a friend, with sorrow at his
loss. It is a chapter of his heart. There was an element of necessity
about it, as there is about all the great things of life. He could not
account for it. It came to him without effort or choice. It was a miracle,
but it happened. "If a man should importune me to give a reason why I
loved him, I can only answer, because it was he, because it was I." It
was as some secret appointment of heaven. They were both grown men
when they first met, and death separated them soon. "If I should
compare all my life with the four years I had the happiness to enjoy the
sweet society of this excellent man, it is nothing but smoke; an obscure
and tedious night from the day that I lost him. I have led a sorrowful
and languishing life ever since. I was so accustomed to be always his
second in all places and in all interests, that methinks I am now no
more than half a man, and have but half a being." We would hardly
expect such passion of love and regret from the easy-going, genial,
garrulous essayist.
The joy that comes from a true communion of heart with another is

perhaps one of the purest and greatest in the world, but its function is
not exhausted by merely giving pleasure. Though we may not be
conscious of it, there is a deeper purpose in it, an education in the
highest arts of living. We may be enticed by the pleasure it affords, but
its greatest good is got by the way. Even intellectually it means the
opening of a door into the mystery of life. Only love understands after
all. It gives insight. We cannot truly know anything without sympathy,
without getting out of self and entering into others. A man cannot be a
true naturalist, and observe the ways of birds and insects accurately,
unless he can watch long and lovingly. We can never know children,
unless we love them. Many of the chambers of the house of life are
forever locked to us, until love gives us the key.
To learn to love all kinds of nobleness gives insight into the true
significance of things, and gives a standard to settle their relative
importance. An uninterested spectator sees nothing; or, what is worse,
sees wrongly. Most of our mean estimates of human nature in