As our latter end comes about, we reason on and take stock of our
friendships, chiefly those of our youth. Our statistics, accumulating
with time, enable us to grasp the subject in its fulness.
People are apt to call their acquaintances their friends because it
sounds more important, but this is a mistake; if I am known to have been
on intimate terms with a man for twenty or thirty years and I speak of
him as an old acquaintance, I have at least the satisfaction of telling
the truth.
A community of interests may last a lifetime, and it may be as strong as
that of the banks, which would argue efficiency. Such is the friendship
of circumstance, but should the conditions change it would vanish.
It seems to be a moral law of our species that new friends, however
gratefully they accept one’s services, so long as they are needed, have
a disposition to drop off when they can no longer profit by them. Such
friendships are like a fever which runs its course; a fever sometimes
affecting a whole family, and then not leaving a symptom behind.
Nevertheless, a good acquaintance is a very pleasant thing, even though
its benefits on both sides may balance and explain each other.
There are some who practice friendship quite naturally, others who are
only skilled in it as a game. It would prove amusing to make a good
classification of one’s friends, as is done of the animal kingdom, by
dividing them into warm-blooded, (hæmatotherma) and cold-blooded friends
(hæmatocrya). We are all too fond of forming friendships. I have often
observed that nothing is more fatiguing than what is generally called a
night’s rest, unless it be the dream and its final result, that we have
made friends! Dreams are as laborious and realistic as realities; the
nervous powers are put through walks and conversings with strangers,
as well as acquaintances, some dead long ago. One has introductions,
dialogues as with the living; but what is so amusing and ludicrous, many
dream that they have made new friends, to find it was in their sleep!
Regarding friendship, how often it is only theoretic; intimacy without
intercourse; instead of active only passive sympathy, the philosophical
equivalent of cement, such as isinglass or glue! When friends have a
common interest, how they stick to each other! There is still another
kind of friendship of an agueish type, which one might call intermittent.
It has some foundation in a community of nature, but is unable to sustain
itself continuously, showing itself in fits. It is the most aggravating
of all social alliances, and would be better extinct.
At Brighton I enjoyed the inestimable friendship of Sir David Scott,
a leading magistrate there, of very high social rank—in fact, the
most important personage of the place at a time when it needed men of
influence to direct it towards its present unrivalled position.
As a young man, Sir David Scott succeeded to the baronetcy of Sir James
Sibbald, of Sillwood Park, and he bore the addition of K.H.G., an order
that was extinguished with the severance of Hanover from our ruling
sovereigns, on the accession of Victoria. This order, the use of which
has been very much replaced by that of the Bath, was conferred on Sir
David by George the Fourth, whose life he probably saved by having a
madman arrested at Brighton, who was provided with pistols to shoot the
king. Sir David, a true gentleman without being a courtier, and therefore
at home in all that related to good breeding, once gave me an amusing
account of his interview with the “first gentleman in Europe,” telling
with much gusto an anecdote of the king’s studied elegance even in taking
a pinch of snuff. “I perceive, Sir David,” he said, “that you take snuff;
allow me to offer you a pinch from my box.” This Sir David took, shaking
his thumb and finger over the box, as one ordinarily does, not to waste
any of the precious powder on withdrawing the hand.
This was the king’s opportunity of showing himself more advanced in
gentility than his subject. He said, “Now, Sir David, permit me to try a
pinch from your box.” The baronet drew forth his box and presented it to
the king, who, having secured his pinch, withdrew his thumb and finger
with careful rapidity, evidently lest any particles that had been touched
should fall back into the box, and so render the remainder unfit for use.
Sir David gave me an amusing account of how the official who received him
at court and introduced him to the king’s presence became the great man
that he was. It was Sir William Knighton, who had accompanied the Marquis
of Wellesley as his physician to Spain. It was said that Dr. Knighton
would never draw his salary, which he evidently did not wish to be paid
in money. So at the conclusion of his service the marquis sent him to the
king with important documents, which exactly suited him for the exercise
of his effrontery and self-assurance. The gentleman-in-waiting, having an
appreciative and loyal mind, said, “You will be very much surprised when
you come to see the king.” Dr. Knighton replied, “He will be very much
surprised when he comes to see me!”
So it turned out. The king was very much struck with the physician’s
manner and aptitude for affairs, and before long made him his “Privy
Purse.”
At a time when the now proud town of Brighton was only half built, Sir
David purchased the estate of an Oriental Company on the west cliff,
facing the sea. A building that was already erected on it before the
project failed, he converted into a mansion, which he called Sillwood
House: this he occupied himself, with his family. On the ground in front
were built two elegant streets, called Sillwood and Oriental Places.
Later, on a portion of the ground, he erected for himself a villa with
an entrance on the Western Road, and laid out a charming garden and
shrubbery there, where he lived for many years, making his home the
resort of a fashionable and cultured circle. He was often spoken of as
the “King of Brighton,” and he certainly exercised great influence there
as a Conservative leader. At the same time, he supported every charity
in the place, and materially assisted the Rev. H. M. Wagner, the then
all-powerful vicar, in planting the town with churches.
Sir David Scott had a pension given him by the Government for saving
the king’s life; this the Liberal Parliament, on coming into power,
withdrew—sorry, perhaps, that such a life had been saved.