Friendship
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8 FRIENDSHIP
_By_ HUGH BLACK
_With an Introductory Note by_
W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, D.D.
Chicago--New York--Toronto
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
London--Edinburgh
Copyright, 1898, 1903, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
To MY FRIEND
HECTOR MUNRO FERGUSON
AND TO MANY OTHER FRIENDS WHO HAVE MADE LIFE RICH
_Equidem, ex omnibus rebus, quas mihi aut Fortuna aut Natura tribuit,
nihil habeo quod cum amicitia Scipionis possum, comparare._
CICERO.
_Intreat me not to leave thee,
And to return from following after thee:
For whither thou guest, I will go;
And where thou lodgest, I will lodge;
Thy people shall be my people,
And thy God my God:
Where thou diest, will I die,
And there will I be buried:
The Lord do so to me, and more also,
If aught but death part thee and me._
BOOK OF RUTH.
APPRECIATION
BY SIR WM. ROBERTSON NICOLL, D.D.
Mr. Hugh Black's wise and charming little book on Friendship is full of
good things winningly expressed, and, though very simply written, is
the result of real thought and experience. Mr. Black's is the art that
conceals art. For young men, especially, this volume will be a golden
possession, and it can hardly fail to affect their after lives. Mr.
Black says well that the subject of friendship is less thought of among
us now than it was in the old world. Marriage has come to mean
infinitely more. Communion with God in Christ has become to multitudes
the primal fact of life. Nevertheless the need for friendship
remains.--"British Weekly."
_Friendship is to be valued for what there is in it, not for what can
be gotten out of it. When two people appreciate each other because
each has found the other convenient to have around, they are not
friends, they are simply acquaintances with a business understanding.
To seek friendship for its utility is as futile as to seek the end of a
rainbow for its bag of gold. A true friend is always useful in the
highest sense; but we should beware of thinking of our friends as
brother members of a mutual-benefit association, with its periodical
demands and threats of suspension for non-payment of dues._
TRUMBULL.
Contents
I
THE MIRACLE OF FRIENDSHIP
II
THE CULTURE OF FRIENDSHIP
III
THE FRUITS OF FRIENDSHIP
IV
THE CHOICE OF FRIENDSHIP
V
THE ECLIPSE OF FRIENDSHIP
VI
THE WRECK OF FRIENDSHIP
VII
THE RENEWING OF FRIENDSHIP
VIII
THE LIMITS OF FRIENDSHIP
IX
THE HIGHER FRIENDSHIP
The Miracle of Friendship
But, far away from these, another sort
Of lovers linked in true heart's consent;
Which loved not as these for like intent,
But on chaste virtue grounded their desire,
Far from all fraud or feigned blandishment;
Which, in their spirits kindling zealous fire,
Brave thoughts and noble deeds did evermore aspire.
Such were great Hercules and Hylas dear,
True Jonathan and David trusty tried;
Stout Theseus and Pirithoeus his fere;
Pylades and Orestes by his side;
Mild Titus and Gesippus without pride;
Damon and Pythias, whom death could not sever;
All these, and all that ever had been tied
In bands of friendship, there did live forever;
Whose lives although decay'd, yet loves decayed never.
SPENSER, The Faerie Queene.
The Miracle of Friendship
The idea, so common in the ancient writers, is not all a poetic
conceit, that the soul of a man is only a fragment of a larger whole,
and goes out in search of other souls in which it will find its true
completion. We walk among worlds unrealized, until we have learned the
secret of love. We know this, and in our sincerest moments admit this,
even though we are seeking to fill up our lives with other ambitions
and other hopes.
It is more than a dream of youth that there may be here a satisfaction
of the heart, without which, and in comparison with which, all worldly
success is failure. In spite of the selfishness which seems to blight
all life, our hearts tell us that there is possible a nobler
relationship of disinterestedness and devotion. Friendship in its
accepted sense is not the highest of the different grades in that
relationship, but it has its place in the kingdom of love, and through
it we bring ourselves into training for a still larger love. The
natural man may be self-absorbed and self-centred, but in a truer sense
it is natural for him to give up self and link his life on to others.
Hence the joy with which he makes the great discovery, that he is
something to another and another is everything to him. It is the
higher-natural for which he has hitherto existed. It is a miracle, but
it happens.
The cynic may speak of the now obsolete sentiment of friendship, and he
can find much to justify his cynicism. Indeed, on the first blush, if
we look at the relative place the subject holds in ancient as compared
with modern literature, we might say that friendship is a sentiment
that is rapidly becoming obsolete. In Pagan writers friendship takes a
much larger place than it now receives. The subject bulks largely in
the works of Plato, Aristotle, Epictetus, Cicero. And among modern
writers it gets most importance in the writings of the more
Pagan-spirited, such as Montaigne. In all the ancient systems of
philosophy, friendship was treated as an integral part of the system.
To the Stoic it was a blessed occasion for the display of nobility and
the native virtues of the human mind. To the Epicurean it was the most
refined of the pleasures which made life worth living. In the
Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle makes it the culminating point, and out
of ten books gives two to the discussion of Friendship. He makes it
even the link of connection between his treatise on Ethics and his
companion treatise on Politics. It is to him both the perfection of
the individual life, and the bond that holds states together.
Friendship is not only a beautiful and noble thing for a man, but the
realization of it is also the ideal for the state; for if citizens be
friends, then justice, which is the great concern of all organized
societies, is more than secured. Friendship is thus made the flower of
Ethics, and the root of Politics.
Plato also makes friendship the ideal of the state, where all have
common interests and mutual confidence. And apart from its place of
prominence in systems of thought, perhaps a finer list of beautiful
sayings about friendship could be culled from ancient writers than from
modern. Classical mythology also is full of instances of great
friendship, which almost assumed the place of a religion itself.
It is not easy to explain why its part in Christian ethics is so small
in comparison. The change is due to an enlarging of the thought and
life of man. Modern ideals are wider and more impersonal, just as the
modern conception of the state is wider. The Christian ideal of love
even for enemies has swallowed up the narrower ideal of philosophic
friendship. Then possibly also the instinct finds satisfaction
elsewhere in the modern man. For example, marriage, in more cases now
than ever before, supplies the need of friendship. Men and women are
nearer in intellectual pursuits and in common tastes than they have
ever been, and can be in a truer sense companions. And the deepest
explanation of all is that the heart of man receives a religious
satisfaction impossible before. Spiritual communion makes a man less
dependent on human intercourse. When the heaven is as brass and makes
no sign, men are thrown back on themselves to eke out their small
stores of love.
At the same time friendship is not an obsolete sentiment. It is as
true now as in Aristotle's time that no one would care to live without
friends, though he had all other good things. It is still necessary to
our life in its largest sense. The danger of sneering at friendship is
that it may be discarded or neglected, not in the interests of a more
spiritual affection, but to minister to a debased cynical
self-indulgence. There is possible to-day, as ever, a generous
friendship which forgets self. The history of the heart-life of man
proves this. What records we have of such in the literature of every
country! Peradventure for a good man men have even dared to die.
Mankind has been glorified by countless silent heroisms, by unselfish
service, and sacrificing love. Christ, who always took the highest
ground in His estimate of men and never once put man's capacity for the
noble on a low level, made the high-water mark of human friendship the
standard of His own great action, "Greater love hath no man than this,
that a man lay down his life for his friends." This high-water mark
has often been reached. Men have given themselves to each other, with
nothing to gain, with no self-interest to serve, and with no keeping
back part of the price. It is false to history to base life on
selfishness, to leave out of the list of human motives the highest of
all. The miracle of friendship has been too often enacted on this dull
earth of ours, to suffer us to doubt either its possibility or its
wondrous beauty.
The classic instance of David and Jonathan represents the typical
friendship. They met, and at the meeting knew each other to be nearer
than kindred. By subtle elective affinity they felt that they belonged
to each other. Out of all the chaos of the time and the disorder of
their lives, there arose for these two souls a new and beautiful world,
where there reigned peace, and love, and sweet content. It was the
miracle of the death of self. Jonathan forgot his pride, and David his
ambition. It was as the smile of God which changed the world to them.
One of them it saved from the temptations of a squalid court, and the
other from the sourness of an exile's life. Jonathan's princely soul
had no room for envy or jealousy. David's frank nature rose to meet
the magnanimity of his friend.
In the kingdom of love there was no disparity between the king's son
and the shepherd boy. Such a gift as each gave and received is not to
be bought or sold. It was the fruit of the innate nobility of both: it
softened and tempered a very trying time for both. Jonathan withstood
his father's anger to shield his friend: David was patient with Saul
for his son's sake. They agreed to be true to each other in their
difficult position. Close and tender must have been the bond, which
had such fruit in princely generosity and mutual loyalty of soul.
Fitting was the beautiful lament, when David's heart was bereaved at
tragic Gilboa, "I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very
pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing
the love of women." Love is always wonderful, a new creation, fair and
fresh to every loving soul. It is the miracle of spring to the cold
dull earth.
When Montaigne wrote his essay on Friendship, he could do little but
tell the story of his friend. The essay continually reverts to this,
with joy that he had been privileged to have such a friend, with sorrow
at his loss. It is a chapter of his heart. There was an element of
necessity about it, as there is about all the great things of life. He
could not account for it. It came to him without effort or choice. It
was a miracle, but it happened. "If a man should importune me to give
a reason why I loved him, I can only answer, because it was he, because
it was I." It was as some secret appointment of heaven. They were
both grown men when they first met, and death separated them soon. "If
I should compare all my life with the four years I had the happiness to
enjoy the sweet society of this excellent man, it is nothing but smoke;
an obscure and tedious night from the day that I lost him. I have led
a sorrowful and languishing life ever since. I was so accustomed to be
always his second in all places and in all interests, that methinks I
am now no more than half a man, and have but half a being." We would
hardly expect such passion of love and regret from the easy-going,
genial, garrulous essayist.
The joy that comes from a true communion of heart with another is
perhaps one of the purest and greatest in the world, but its function
is not exhausted by merely giving pleasure. Though we may not be
conscious of it, there is a deeper purpose in it, an education in the
highest arts of living. We may be enticed by the pleasure it affords,
but its greatest good is got by the way. Even intellectually it means
the opening of a door into the mystery of life. Only love
_understands_ after all. It gives insight. We cannot truly know
anything without sympathy, without getting out of self and entering
into others. A man cannot be a true naturalist, and observe the ways
of birds and insects accurately, unless he can watch long and lovingly.
We can never know children, unless we love them. Many of the chambers
of the house of life are forever locked to us, until love gives us the
key.
To learn to love all kinds of nobleness gives insight into the true
significance of things, and gives a standard to settle their relative
importance. An uninterested spectator sees nothing; or, what is worse,
sees wrongly. Most of our mean estimates of human nature in 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
brought about differs very much, and depends largely on temperament.
Some friendships grow, and ripen slowly and steadily with the years.
We cannot tell where they began, or how. They have become part of our
lives, and we just accept them with sweet content and glad confidence.
We have discovered that somehow we are rested, and inspired, by a
certain companionship; that we understand and are understood easily.
Or it may come like love at first sight, by the thrill of elective
affinity. This latter is the more uncertain, and needs to be tested
and corrected by the trial of the years that follow. It has to be
found out whether it is really spiritual kinship, or mere emotional
impulse. It is a matter of temper and character. A naturally reserved
person finds it hard to open his heart, even when his instinct prompts
him; while a sociable, responsive nature is easily companionable. It
is not always this quick attachment, however, which wears best, and
that is the reason why youthful friendships have the character of being
so fickle. They are due to a natural instinctive delight in society.
Most young people find it easy to be agreeable, and are ready to place
themselves under new influences.
But whatever be the method by which a true friendship is formed,
whether the growth of time or the birth of sudden sympathy, there
seems, on looking back, to have been an element of necessity. It is a
sort of predestined spiritual relationship. We speak of a man meeting
his fate, and we speak truly. When we look back we see it to be like
destiny; life converged to life, and there was no getting out of it
even if we wished it. It is not that we made a choice, but that the
choice made us. If it has come gradually, we waken to the presence of
the force which has been in our lives, and has come into them never
hasting but never resting, till now we know it to be an eternal
possession. Or, as we are going about other business, never dreaming
of the thing which occurs, the unexpected happens; on the road a light
shines on us, and life is never the same again.
In one of its aspects, faith is the recognition of the inevitableness
of providence; and when it is understood and accepted, it brings a
great consoling power into the life. We feel that we are in the hands
of a Love that orders our ways, and the knowledge means serenity and
peace. The fatality of friendship is gratefully accepted, as the
fatality of birth. To the faith which sees love in all creation, all
life becomes harmony, and all sorts of loving relationships among men
seem to be part of the natural order of the world. Indeed, such
miracles are only to be looked for, and if absent from the life of man
would make it hard to believe in the love of God.
The world thinks we idealize our friend, and tells us that love is
proverbially blind. Not so: it is only love that sees, and thus can
"win the secret of a weed's plain heart." We only see what dull eyes
never see at all. If we wonder what another man sees in his friend, it
should be the wonder of humility, not the supercilious wonder of pride.
He sees something which we are not permitted to witness. Beneath and
amongst what looks only like worthless slag, there may glitter the pure
gold of a fair character. That anybody in the world should be got to
love us, and to see in us not what colder eyes see, not even what we
are but what we may be, should of itself make us humble and gentle in
our criticism of others' friendships. Our friends see the best in us,
and by that very fact call forth the best from us.
The great difficulty in this whole subject is that the relationship of
friendship should so often be one-sided. It seems strange that there
should be so much unrequited affection in the world. It seems almost
impossible to get a completely balanced union. One gives so much more,
and has to be content to get so much less. One of the most humiliating
things in life is when another seems to offer his friendship lavishly,
and we are unable to respond. So much love seems to go a-begging. So
few attachments seem complete. So much affection seems unrequited.
But are we sure it is unrequited? The difficulty is caused by our
common selfish standards. Most people, if they had their choice, would
prefer to be loved rather than to love, if only one of the alternatives
were permitted. That springs from the root of selfishness in human
nature, which makes us think that possession brings happiness. But the
glory of life is to love, not to be loved; to give, not to get; to
serve, not to be served. It may not be our fault that we cannot
respond to the offer of friendship or love, but it is our misfortune.
The secret is revealed to the other, and hid from us. The gain is to
the other, and the loss is to us. The miracle is the love, and to the
lover comes the wonder of it, and the joy.
The Culture of Friendship
How were Friendship possible? In mutual devotedness to the Good and
True: otherwise impossible, except as Armed Neutrality, or hollow
Commercial League. A man, be the Heavens ever praised, is sufficient
for himself; yet were ten men, united in Love, capable of being and of
doing what ten thousand singly would fail in. Infinite is the help man
can yield to man.
CARLYLE, Sartor Resartus.
The Culture of Friendship
The Book of Proverbs might almost be called a treatise on Friendship,
so full is it of advice about the sort of person a young man should
consort with, and the sort of person he should avoid. It is full of
shrewd, and prudent, and wise, sometimes almost worldly-wise, counsel.
It is caustic in its satire about false friends, and about the way in
which friendships are broken. "The rich hath many friends," with an
easily understood implication concerning their quality. "Every man is
a friend to him that giveth gifts," is its sarcastic comment on the
ordinary motives of mean men. Its picture of the plausible, fickle,
lip-praising, and time-serving man, who blesseth his friend with a loud
voice, rising early in the morning, is a delicate piece of satire. The
fragile connections among men, as easily broken as mended pottery, get
illustration in the mischief-maker who loves to divide men. "A
whisperer separateth chief friends." There is keen irony here over the
quality of ordinary friendship, as well as condemnation of the
tale-bearer and his sordid soul.
This cynical attitude is so common that we hardly expect such a shrewd
book to speak heartily of the possibilities of human friendship. Its
object rather is to put youth on its guard against the dangers and
pitfalls of social life. It gives sound commercial advice about
avoiding becoming surety for a friend. It warms [Transcriber's note:
warns?] against the tricks, and cheats, and bad faith, which swarmed in
the streets of a city then, as they do still. It laughs, a little
bitterly, at the thought that friendship can be as common as the eager,
generous heart of youth imagines. It almost sneers at the gullibility
of men in this whole matter. "He that maketh many friends doeth it to
his own destruction."
And yet there is no book, even in classical literature, which so exalts
the idea of friendship, and is so anxious to have it truly valued, and
carefully kept. The worldly-wise warnings are after all in the
interests of true friendship. To condemn hypocrisy is not, as is so
often imagined, to condemn religion. To spurn the spurious is not to
reject the true. A sneer at folly may be only a covert argument for
wisdom. Satire is negative truth. The unfortunate thing is that most
men, who begin with the prudential worldly-wise philosophy, end there.
They never get past the sneer. Not so this wise book. In spite of its
insight into the weakness of man, in spite of its frank denunciation of
the common masquerade of friendship, it speaks of the true kind in
words of beauty that have never been surpassed in all the many
appraisements of this subject. "A friend loveth at all times, and is a
brother born for adversity. Faithful are the wounds of a friend.
Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart, so doth the sweetness of a
man's friend by hearty counsel. Thine own friend and thy father's
friend forsake not." These are not the words of a cynic, who has lost
faith in man.
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