A FRIENDSHIP
Emerson has written a discourse on friendship. It is beautifully worded,
truly; it is full of a noble and high-minded philosophy. Doubtless it
will appeal quite distinctly to those souls who, although yet on this
earth-plane, have already partly cast off the mantle of flesh, and have
found their paths to lie in the realm of spirit. Even to those, and it is
by far the greater majority, who yet walk humdrumly along the world's
great highway, the kingdom of the spirit perceived by them as in a glass
darkly rather than by actual light shed upon them from its realm, it may
bring some consolation during the absence of a friend. But for the
general run of mankind it is set on too lofty a level. It lacks the
warmth for which they crave, the personality and intercourse.
"I do then, with my friends as I do with my books," he says. "I would
have them where I can find them, but I seldom use them."
Now, it is very certain that, for the majority of human beings, the
friendliest books are worn with much handling. If we picture for a moment
the bookshelves belonging to our childish days, we shall at once mentally
discover our old favourites. They have been used so often. They have been
worn in our service. No matter how well we know the contents, we turn to
them again and again; there is a very joy in knowing what to expect. Time
does not age nor custom stale the infinite variety.
Thus it is in our childish days. And are not the majority of us still
children? Should our favourite books be placed out of our reach, should
it be impossible for us to turn their pages, it is certain that we would
feel a loss, a gap. Were we old enough to comprehend Emerson's
philosophy, we might endeavour to buoy ourselves up with the thought that
thus we were at one with him in his nobility and loftiness of sentiment.
And yet there would be something childish and pathetic in the endeavour,
by reason of its very unreality. Certainly if Providence should, either
directly or indirectly, separate us from our friends, by all means let us
accept the separation bravely. It cannot destroy our friendship. But
seldom to use our friends, from the apparently epicurean point of view of
Emerson, would be a forced and unnatural doctrine to the majority, as
unnatural as if a child should bury Hans Andersen's fairy tales for fear
of tiring of them. It would savour more of present and actual distaste,
than the love which fears its approach. There is the familiarity which
breeds contempt, truly; but there is also the familiarity which daily
ties closer bonds, draws to closer union.
Antony had established a friendship with the lady of the blue book. The
book had been responsible for its beginning. With Emerson's definition of
friendship he would probably have been largely in harmony; not so in his
treatment of it. With the following, he would have been at one, with the
exception of a word or so:--"I must feel pride in my friend's
accomplishments as if they were mine,--wild, delicate, throbbing property
in his virtues. I feel as warmly when he is praised, as the lover when he
hears applause of his engaged maiden. We over-estimate the conscience of
our friend. His goodness seems better than our goodness, his nature
finer, his temptations less. Everything that is his, his name, his form,
his dress, books, and instruments, fancy enhances. Our own thought sounds
new and larger from his mouth."
Most true, Antony would have declared, if you will eliminate
"over-estimate," and substitute "is" for "seems."
Unlike Emerson, he made no attempt to analyse his friendship. He accepted
it as a gift from the gods. Maybe somewhere in his inner consciousness,
barely articulate even to his own heart, he dreamt of it as a foundation
to something further. Yet for the present, the foundation sufficed.
Death-letters--he laughed joyously at the coincidence--had laid the first
stone, and each day placed others in firm and secure position round it.
The building was largely unconscious. It is the way with true friendship.
The life, also, conduced to it. There are fewer barriers of convention on
board ship than in any other mode of living. Mrs. Grundy, it is to be
supposed, suffers from sea-sickness, and does not care for this method of
travelling. In fact, it would appear that she seldom does travel, but
chooses by preference small country towns, mainly English ones, for her
place of residence.
The days were days of sunshine and colour, the changing colour of sea
and sky; the nights were nights of mystery, veiled in purple,
star-embroidered.
One day Pia made clear to him the explanation of her Irish colouring and
her Italian surname. Her mother, she told him, was Irish; her father,
English. Her baptismal name had been chosen by an Italian godmother. She
was eighteen when she married the Duc di Donatello. On their wedding day,
when driving from the church, the horses had bolted. She had been
uninjured; he had received serious injuries to his head and spine. He had
lived for seven years as a complete invalid, totally paralysed, but fully
conscious. During those seven years, she had never left him. Two years
previously he had died, and she had gone to live at her old home in
England,--the Manor House, Woodleigh, which had been in the hands of
caretakers since her parents' death. Her husband's property had passed to
his brother. The last six months she had been staying with a friend at
Wynberg.
She told the little tale extremely simply. It never occurred to her to
expect sympathy on account of the tragedy which had marred her youth, and
by reason of which she had spent seven years of her life in almost utter
seclusion. The fact was merely mentioned in necessary explanation of her
story. Antony, too, had held silence. Sympathy on his part would have
been somehow an intrusion, an impertinence. But he understood now, in
part at least, the steady gravity, the hint of sadness in her eyes.
The name of Woodleigh awoke vague memories in his mind, but they were too
vague to be noteworthy. Possibly, most probably, he told himself, he had
merely read of the place at some time. She mentioned that it was in
Devonshire, but curiously enough, and this was an omission which he noted
later with some surprise, he never questioned her as to its exact
locality.
On his side, he told her of his life on the veldt, and mentioned that he
was returning to England on business. On the outcome of that same
business would depend the question whether he remained in England, or
whether he returned to the veldt. Having the solicitor's injunction in
view, he naturally did not volunteer further information. Such details,
too, sank into insignificance before the more absorbing interest of
personality. They are, after all, in a sense, mere accidents, and have no
more to do with the real man than the clothes he wears. True, the manner
in which one dons one's clothes, as the manner in which one deals with
the accidental facts of life, affords a certain index to the true man;
but the clothes themselves, and the accidental facts, appear, at all
events, to be matters of fate. And if you can obtain knowledge of a man
through actual contact with his personality, you do not trouble to draw
conclusions from his method of donning his clothes. You may speculate in
this fashion with regard to strangers, or mere acquaintances. You have a
surer, and infinitely more interesting, fashion with your friends.
Life around them moved on in the leisurely, almost indolent manner in
which it does move on board a passenger ship. The younger members played
quoits, cricket on the lower deck, and inaugurated concerts, supported by
a gramaphone, the property of the chief officer, and banjo solos by the
captain. The older members read magazines, played bridge, or knitted
woollen articles, according to the promptings of their sex and their
various natures, and formed audiences at the aforementioned concerts.
Antony and the Duchessa di Donatello alone seemed somewhat aloof from
them. They formed part of the concert audiences, it is true; but they
neither played bridge, quoits, nor cricket, nor knitted woollen articles,
nor read magazines. The Duchessa employed her time with a piece of fine
lace work, when she was not merely luxuriating in the sunshine, or
conversing with Antony. Antony either conversed with the Duchessa, or sat
in his deck chair, smoking and thinking about her. There was certainly a
distinct sameness about the young man's occupation, which, however, he
found not in the smallest degree boring. On the contrary, it was
all-absorbing and fascinating. The very hours of the day were timed by
the Duchessa's movements, rather than by the mere minute portions of
steel attached to the face of a commonplace watch. Thus:--
Dawn. He realizes the Duchessa's existence when he wakes. (His dreams had
been coloured by her, but that's beside the mark.)
Daybreak. The Duchessa ascends on deck and smiles at him.
Breakfast time. The Duchessa sits opposite to him.
The sunny morning hours. The Duchessa sews fine lace; she talks, she
smiles,--the smile that radiates through the sadness of her eyes.
And so on, throughout the day, till the evening gloaming brings a hint of
further intimacy into their conversation, and night falls as she wishes
him pleasant dreams before descending to her cabin.
He dwelt then, for the moment, solely in her friendship, but vaguely the
half articulate thought of the future began to stir within him, pulsing
with a secret possibility of joy he barely dared to contemplate.