American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1875-05-22
Old Friends.

There are old friends who make the
| fact of old friendship basis for every
kind of unpleasantness. Their opinion
is not asked but they volunteer it on all
occasions, and are sure to give it in the
manner which gals you most, and which
you can least resent. They snub you be-
| fore your latest observation-disclosures
| ing people of good status, with whom
you especially desire to stand well; and
break up your pretensions of present SUI
periority by that sledge-hammer of old
friendship which knocks you down to
the ground and will stand no nonsense
The mere formal and fastidious your
company the more they will rasp your
nerves by the coarse familiarity of their
address; and they know no greater pleas
ure than to put you in an entirely false
position by pretending to keep you in
your true place. They run in on you at
all times, and you have neither an hour
undlsturbed nor pursuit uninterrupted,
still less a circumstance of your life kept
sacred from them. The strictest orders
to your servants are ignored, and they
push past any amount of verbal barriers
with the irresistible force of old friend
ship to which nothing can be denied.
Whatever you are doing you can just
see them, they say, smilingly; and they
have neither conscience nor compassion
when they come and eat up your time,
which is your money, for the qualification
of hearing themselves talk, and of learn
ing how you are getting on. They do
not scruple to ask about your affairs d.
rect questions to which you must per-
force give an answer, silence or evasion
betraying the truth as much as assent !;
and they will make you present of their
mind on the matter, which, though high
ly uncOmplimentary, you are expected to
wit rnf nd md
humility. If you have known them in
your early boyhood, when you were all
uncivilized hail fellows together, they re-
fuse to respect your maturer dignity, and
will Tom, Dick and Harry you to the
end, though you sit in horsehair wig on
the bench, while your classnate of the
country grammar school, where you both
got your rudiments, is only a city clerk,
badly paid, and married to his landlady's
daughter. To women this kind of re-
turn to the grave of the past is Il dread
playfellows of the romping, hoyden-
ish days dash home, bearded and
bronzed, from Australia or California;
stride into the refined circle of calm
matronhoOd with the old familiar
manner and the old familiar terms; ask
ing Fan or Nell if she remembers this or
that adventure on the mountain side, by
the lake, in the Wood-topplng their
query by meaning laugh, as if more re-
manned behind than it was eXpedient to
declare. The wife is on thorns all the
time these hateful visits last; she won
dcrs how she could ever have been
on romping terms with such a horror
even in her youngest days, and feels that
she shall hate her own name after hear
ing it mouthed and bawlcd by her old
friend with such aggressive familiarity.
The husband, if jealous by nature, begins
to look sullen and suspicious. Even if
he is not jealous, but only reserved and
conventional, he does not like what he
sees, still less what he hears; and is
more than half-inclined to think that he
has made Ii mistake, or that Fan or Nell
of his bosom would have been better
mated with the old friend from the back
woods than with him.
The old friends who turn up in this
way at all corners of your life are sure to
lie needy, and to hold their old friend
ship as per sc claim on your balance at
the bank. They stick closer to you
than brother, and you are expected to
stick close to them; and as sign there
of, to provide for their necessities as so
much interest ON the old account of at
lection still running If you shrink
from them and try to shun them quietly
they go about the world proclaiming
your ingratitude and tlumpeting both
their claims and Their deserts They
deride your present euCIes', which they
call stuCk-up and mushf.om, telling all