the very deepest philosophers grow sad when they touch the question of
friendship. The problem is itself the saddest of commentaries upon the
weakness of our higher faculties. Separate man from his wife and family
and view him in his relations to other persons similarly placed, and the
result is not only unsatisfactory, but distressing to a mind anxious to
hold to a good opinion of humanity. Put to the right test the quality of
human friendship is found to be highly strained--to be liable to curdle
in the first thundershower--to sour upon the sensitive stomach. We at
once behold mankind forced to flee to God's kind institution of the
family and the home to escape a desolation of the heart which follows
fruitless efforts to kindle a blaze out of the damp driftwood of life's
general associations.
Now, what is possible? Spot friendship is possible, and delightful.
"To-morrow do thy worst, for I have lived to-day." Man is a social
animal. He "gregates," he flocks. Of nothing am I fonder than the
sparkle of a friend's eye, and the gabble of half an hour, or three
hours. But I ought not to build on any future gabbles, for, to-morrow,
lo! my friend may have discovered my ignoble reality, whereas he has
heretofore been shaking hands with my noble ideality.