Friendship | Page 4

modern
literature, and our false realisms in art, and our stupid pessimisms in
philosophy, are due to an unintelligent reading of surface facts. Men set
out to note and collate impressions, and make perhaps a scientific study
of slumdom, without genuine interest in the lives they see, and
therefore without true insight into them. They miss the inwardness,
which love alone can supply. If we look without love we can only see
the outside, the mere form and expression of the subject studied. Only
with tender compassion and loving sympathy can we see the beauty
even in the eye dull with weeping and in the fixed face pale with care.
We will often see noble patience shining through them, and loyalty to
duty, and virtues and graces unsuspected by others.
The divine meaning of a true friendship is that it is often the first
unveiling of the secret of love. It is not an end in itself, but has most of
its worth in what it leads to, the priceless gift of seeing with the heart
rather than with the eyes. To love one soul for its beauty and grace and
truth is to open the way to appreciate all beautiful and true and gracious
souls, and to recognize spiritual beauty wherever it is seen.
The possibility at least of friendship must be a faith with us. The

cynical attitude is an offence. It is possible to find in the world
true-hearted, leal, and faithful dealing between man and man. To doubt
this is to doubt the divine in life. Faith in man is essential to faith in
God. In spite of all deceptions and disillusionments, in spite of all the
sham fellowships, in spite of the flagrant cases of self-interest and
callous cruelty, we must keep clear and bright our faith in the
possibilities of our nature. The man who hardens his heart because he
has been imposed on has no real belief in virtue, and with suitable
circumstances could become the deceiver instead of the deceived. The
great miracle of friendship with its infinite wonder and beauty may be
denied to us, and yet we may believe in it. To believe that it is possible
is enough, even though in its superbest form it has never come to us. To
possess it, is to have one of the world's sweetest gifts.
Aristotle defines friendship as one soul abiding in two bodies. There is
no explaining such a relationship, but there is no denying it. It has not
deserted the world since Aristotle's time. Some of our modern poets
have sung of it with as brave a faith as ever poet of old. What splendid
monuments to friendship we possess in Milton's Lycidas and
Tennyson's In Memoriam! In both there is the recognition of the
spiritual power of it, as well as the joy and comfort it brought. The grief
is tempered by an awed wonder and a glad memory.
The finest feature of Rudyard Kipling's work and it is a constant feature
of it, is the comradeship between commonplace soldiers of no high
moral or spiritual attainment, and yet it is the strongest force in their
lives, and on occasion makes heroes of them. We feel that their
faithfulness to each other is almost the only point at which their souls
are reached. The threefold cord of his soldiers, vulgar in mind and
common in thought as they are, is a cord which we feel is not easily
broken, and it is their friendship and loyalty to each other which save
them from utter vulgarity.
In Walt Whitman there is the same insight into the force of friendship
in ordinary life, with added wonder at the miracle of it. He is the poet
of comrades, and sings the song of companionship more than any other
theme. He ever comes back to the lifelong love of comrades. The

mystery and the beauty of it impressed him.
O tan-faced prairie-boy, Before you came to camp came many a
welcome gift, Praises and presents came and nourishing food, till at last
among the recruits You came, taciturn, with nothing to give--we but
looked on each other, When lo! more than all the gifts of the world you
gave me.
After all, in spite of the vulgar materialism of our day, we do feel that
the spiritual side of life is the most important, and brings the only true
joy. And friendship in its essence is spiritual. It is the free, spontaneous
outflow of the heart, and is a gift from the great Giver.
Friends are born, not made. At least it is so with the higher sort. The
marriage of souls is a heavenly mystery, which we cannot explain, and
which we need not try to explain. The method by which it is