The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-05-26

no matter how heavy our investment, why should we not hold on to our deprecated and uDpaying stock of friendship2 We are glad enough to be able to proclaim ourselves owners of long discredited stock when it rises away above par. Do we behave in the same way about friendship?
 "No, not generally. And yet have found that, in some instances, where l have been brought into quarrel with 8 man, so that he and I were on terms of what is usually called "hate"- although I felt no hate at alive have subsequently, come into relations of the greatest kindliness and tenderness. Now, that is a curious state of things, is it not?-that men who are supposed to hate each other, turn out to be the most considerate and gentle sort of friends? But we see it every day in the case of politicians in opposed par ties, who excoriate one another in their public speeches while hob- nobbing to- gether at private dinner tables.
 Our belief in our friends is the meas ure of our own trustworthiness and our own capacity for friendship. But when that belief is disappointed, it is frequently the fault of the other part ner in the alliance. In that event, let us accept the failure of the other part ner, and pay his notes which we have endorsed. Roscoe Conkling, meeting commercial liabilities of endorsements for friend, said: "He would have done the same for me-" We'll, we do not know whether "he" would have done the same or not. But it is always an honor and glory to man to have behaved towards friend as he would wish that friend to have behaved towards him.
 There are, of course, friends who value us simply in proportion as we are able to minister to their personal vanity. These will drop us, or quar- rel with us, the instant that they think we have presumed to attend to our own affairs instead of ministering to their whims. But to these, also, we must extend charity, even though they do not deserve the name of friendship at all. We must look upon them as people beyond the grave, and ask no more from them than a pinch of dust. Balzac indicated their quality in "The Search for the Absolute" !" where, speaking of lfme. Claes, he said: "Her friends cast few flowers upon her memory, in the intervals of their games of whist, doing homage to her noble qualities as they sorted their hearts and spades" Lafcadio Hearn, in Haype,'s Monthly for April, de- scribed the same sort in his story of "Chita," where he depicted the return to life of man who was supposed to have been drowned "So long as he had moved amoug them, all he knew for friends had performed their petty altruistic roles-had discharged their small human obligations-had kept turned toward him the least selfish side of their natures-had made with him tolerably equitable exchange of ideas and of favors; and they had duly mourned for his loss."
 Here we have it, pretty plain. After death, we come in only for mention between the sorting of whist cards. Even in life, most of our friendships amount only to "turning the least selfish side of our natures" toward one another, and effecting an"equitable ex- change of ideas and of favors." Still, this is good deal. Let us keep in mind the exchange of ideas" of Arthur Hallam and Alfred Tennvson. made memorable in the laureate's mourning of many years. Great friendships are still possible, and may become immor- tai. When shallowness, selfishness and hatred intervene, we may reasona- ply regard them simply as "rests" be- tween the bars of continuous melody. After all, when mortal enemies get through their little artificial picker ings here, do they not still cling to the notion of being, somehow or other, in the next world, Friends.-Amertca.