THE presentation of the friendships of women in distinct classes will
add clearness to the treatment, and will also make it easier to
suggest, with some approach to adequacy, the wealth of the topic. It
is natural to begin with instances within the limits of blood
relationship, and between persons of opposite sex. The relations of
conscious affection among those of near kindred are but too apt, from
the blunting influence of custom, to have a character of tameness,
lukewarm routine. The members of the family, in their commonplace
familiarity, cherish a quiet goodwill and fidelity, without any
relishing surprise, romantic hues, or mystery. Calmly affectionate,
or perhaps listless, towards all within the domestic circle, they
look outside for inspiring intercourse and thrilling attachments, and
for calls to lofty sacrifice and delight. This is too often the case.
Identity of inheritance and situation, sameness of idiosyncrasy, and
habitude of union, squeeze poppies into the household cup, and clothe
in dull gray the familiar landscape around; and yet, happily, in
numerous instances it is not so. The confidential intimacies, the
incessant dependencies, duties, and favors of near relatives, instead
of engendering a consciousness of vapid usage, sprinkle electric
stimulants on their mutual feelings and intercommunications.
Their affictions towards each other keep fresh and grow deeper, and
the homestead stands in a landscape tinged with faith and romance.
The imagination, undeadened by custom, goes with their eyes and
hands, exerts its beautifying magic, and idealizes or glorifies their
images in each other's souls.
Then kinship becomes friendship. Upon the material consanguinity is
superinduced a spiritual consanguinity; the legal and customary bonds
of descent, association, and duty are brightened and exalted into
delightful relations of intelligence and sympathy, a choice community
of character, purposes, and experience. The relative is then hidden
in the friend. Innumerable aunts and nephews, nieces and uncles,
cousins, and other branches of kindred, have found in their
relationship, with the common interests and the consequent meetings,
a fortunate occasion for forming close and blessed friendships.
The biblical instance of Esther and Mordecai is very charming.
Esther, left an orphan, was adopted and brought up by her uncle,
Mordeoi. When the beautiful Jewish maiden was taken into the palace,
among those from whom Ahasuerus was to choose his queen, "Mordecai
walked every day before the court of the women's house, to know how
Esther did and what should become of her." And when she had been made
queen, "she did still the commandment of Mordecai, like as when she
was brought up with him." In the threatened calamity of the Jews,
Mordecai rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and wept.
Esther's maids told her of it. "Then was the queen exceedingly
grieved; and she sent raiment to clothe Mordecai." In all the sequel
of the well-known tale, it is easy to see that the niece's friendship
for her uncle was at least as important a sentiment as the wife's
love for her husband. Beranger caused to be placed on the tomb of his
aunt this touching inscription: She was never a mother, yet sons
mourned for her. It is a striking fact that the strength of the tie
of blood is in an historic process of decrease, while, parallel with
it, the strength of the tie of moral sympathy is in an historic
process of increase. In primitive ages, when barbaric force
prevailed, and life was full of exposures, and redress was uncertain,
the family was the unit of society. All within the bond of the family
stood compactly together in the most sacred and intense of leagues
against every hostile approach from without. But as law and order
became consolidated, and their sanctions diffused, and adequate
general tribunals were set up, and public considerations encroached
on private, the tie of physical kindred grew less, that of moral
fellowship more. The bloody feuds of old times, which ran down the
veins of successive generations like streams of fire, have become
nearly obsolete. The hates transmitted with such wild ferocity, the
friendships handed down with such burning loyalty, among the ancient
Scottish clans, are phenomena not possible in the cultured circles of
Berlin, London, Paris, or New York. This relative decay of the energy
of the sentiment of material relationship is not to be regretted; for
it is a sign of progress, when we see its connection with the
corresponding development of the force of free spiritual affinity. It
looks towards the end contemplated by Jesus when he said. "Whosoever
doeth the will of my Father in heaven, the same is my mother, and my
brother, and my sister."
Once the merit or demerit of the individual had comparatively little
to do with the regards which the other members of the family
cherished towards him. Now it goes far towards a total determination
of those regards. Multitudes of the nearest relatives are utterly
indifferent to each other; multitudes of them hate each other. Where
no fitness for a genuine union of mind and heart exists in the
parties, all the forensic ties and all the conjoining memories in the
world go for nothing. A horrid illustration of this truth is given by
the conduct of Tullia, the Lady Macbeth of antiquity, who drove her
chariot over the body of her murdered father lying in the "Wicked
Street," and smiled as his blood spattered her dress. But truly it is
a happy thing when those naturally associated in birth, position, and
circumstances of life, become by sympathy inwardly united in mutual
appreciation and will. It is like adding the spirit of music to the
material conditions of music.