The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1888-09-26

ana duties Oh
Friendship is generally cruelty
abused by those who profess it, he
had written with much truth. at is often
supposed, like love, to carry with it an
official right to that kind of candor which
is always insolence. There can be no
greater mistake. The more intimate our
relations are with any one, be it in friend
ship or in love, the less should we strain
the opportunity to say impertinent and
disagreeable things. Intimacy does not
absolve from courtesy, though it is often
so separated from it by the I'M
wisdom and the impetuousity OF hu-
man nature. Indeed, there is even
a kind of meanness in taking advan-
tage of our entry into the inner temple OF
the soul to leave good manners outside OF
the threshold. Abuse of all priv ileges is
vulgar, and the privileges of friendship, as
they are without prescription and left
solely to our own judgment, demand an
infinite delicacy and forbearance in their
exercise There are many moWents in
friendship, as IN love, when silence is
beyond words. The faults of our friend
NAV be clear to US, but it is well to seem
to shut our eyes to them. 1t is doubtful
If fauIt-inding ev did any good yet, or
served to eradicate any fault against which
it is directed. Friendship is usually
treated by the majority of mankind as a
tough and everlasting thing which will
survive all manner of bad treatment. But
this is an exceedingly great and foolish
error. Friendship may be killed, like
love, by bad treatment; it may
even die in an hour of single unwise
word; its conditions of existence are that
it should be dealt with delicately and ten
derby, being as it is a sensitive plant, and
not a roadside thistle. We must not ex-
pect our friend to be above humanity.
We need not love his defects, but we
should forbear to dwell upon them even
in our meditations. We should not de-
mand from him what it is impossible he
should give. A character can only bestow
that which it possesses. Time and alb
sence are the enemies of friendship, as of
love; but they need not necessarily de-
stroy it, as they must destroy love. For
love is so intimately interviewer with
physical joys that without these it cannot
exist eternally; but friendship, being an
ought to be able to endure without per-
sonal contact, and to outlast even the total
separation of two lives"
Having written thus he rose, and paced
to and fro his library.
''That is not in the least true" he re-
fected. ut ought to be, but it is not. Be-
tween the best friends long absence raises
mist like that which the Braham magi-
clan calls uD to conceal himself. Behind
the mist the features that we once knew
50 well grow vague and unfamiliar. Ere
quent contact is necessary to sustain all
sympathy. II is no fault of ours; it is due
to our imperfect memories. and the change
which comes over our minds as well as
our bodies with years"
He did not 90 back TO his writing-table.
The glass doors of his library stood open
and he walked straight through them.
The gardens stretched before them, half in
sunshine, half in shadow-broad lawns,
clumps OF rare evergreens, stately trees,
beds of flowers which had something an
old-fashioned carelessness and naturalness
in their arrangement. The distance was
closed in by high, close-clipped box
hedges, relic of the DAYS of Queen Anne.
He strOlled out into the warm, moist air
along the terrace of roses which stretched
before the wing of the house The roses
rooted and inclosed with them; q few
. broad stone steps led from it to the garden
! below; at either end of it was a great
cedar. 1t was a dreamy, pleasant, poetic
place. The house had more stately
facades than this; some OF it was regal and
very imposing in its dimensions and its
decorations, but this side of it was simple,
old-fashioned and charming in its simplic-
ity. 1t was the part of the house which
he always used by preference himself
Ladysrood had been so called in very
(distant days Of early British christianity
srQm some miracle of which the memories
we're lost under the mist of many CEN
turtles. 1t had been the site OF a monastery
in the days OF Augustine and of Bede, and
then the stronghold of the race Of which
its present lord was the sole male repre-
sentative. The house, as it now stood, had
been built in Tudor days. and had had adj
ditions made To it under architects of the
renaissance. The Tudor section OF il was
that which GuilderOy loved and made
especially his own; the renaissance part
of il was left for purposes of stately hos
pitality and ceremonial entertainment: it
was also in its way beautiful, but he dis
liked it. He had lived much in Italy, and
In these great rooms with their frescoed
ceilings, their sculptured cornices,
their marble columns, tnelr seem
iDgly endless coup d'eil, he missed
the Italian sun; they made him
y shiver in the grey, damp, gusty English
weather. Everyone else, however, adj
mired them immensely, and they helped
to make Ladysrood very noble house,
though its master seemed a dull one. The
gardens were charming the park was
large and undulating, the timber was SUI
perb, and beyond the park was wide,
heathery, breezy moorland.
He walked along the terrace without
sSy special aim or object in doing so.
The day was late in September, but the
air was still warm. The dahlias and
china-asters were glowing in their beds
and the salvias. blue and red, made strong
bands of color where the suns rays
caught them. There was fresh homely
scent of damp grass and fallen leaves, and
now and then a scent from the sea, which
was but few miles off beyond the woods
OF the home park.
'It is dear place" he thought. He al
ways thought so when he freshly re-
turned to IL; when he had been in it a few
r0peks i grew tiresome, dull, provincial
ne loved it always. At times it wore
I$hte reproach 10 him for leaving it so
often alone there in its stateliness and
silence. abandoned 10 the old servants
who had known it in his grandfather's
|. time. and to whom every nook and cor
er of it. every cup and saucer on the