The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1896-05-28

cause he had handsome nose; nay, the
officer picked quarrel with him, man.
aged to get challenged, fixed upon
broadsWords as the weapons, and cut
off the nose of his adversary.
Ostracism, as above referred to, Plu-
tarch defines as "a mild qualification of
envy, not a punishment for crimes and
misdemeanors, but very decently called
an humbling and lessening of some ex-
cessive influence and power. BY this
means whoever was offended at the
growing greatness of another, dis
charged his spleen, not in anything
cruel and inhuman, but only in voting
a ten years Punishment" Considering
the working years of a great man are
seldom more than twenty, surely this
was cruel enough. Nowadays we don't
ostracize, we criticise, and many critics
are just as ignorant as the Athenian
burgher.
But enemies are of this good to us,
that they make us friends. Antago-
nism is general law, and does not act
only in one direction. If A hate us as
poison, the chances are that B will love
us as sugar. And if enemies beworth-
less, friends surely are not.
One good friend is worth at least
dozen staunch enemies; and, in talk
ing about friends, we do not mean that
spurious article about which so much
nonsense is written. The commonplace
book made some years ago, into which
we packed much that we had read, is
full of extracts about friends.
Some say that friends are like swal-
lows, and fly away with the summer;
others, that they are the thermometers
by which we tell the temperature of
our fortunes; others that, like insects
on summers day, they bask in the
sunshine, but avoid the shower. But
of such friends it is just as we'll to be
quit. The true friend is not one who
is to be weighed.
La Fontaine makes a very shrewd re-
mark about the relative value of ene-
mics and friends, in which he places the
first in novel but strange position,
quite at variance, indeed, with that
other Frenchman, who would buy his
opponents.
GA foolish FRIEND" says the fabulist,
"is great evil to man; even pru-
dent enemy is better A prudent en-
emy! that is, one who, for his own sake,
will not take mean advantage. Well,
he may do some good; he may make us
look into ourselves; cause us to weigh
and consider our own hearts; be wise
in time, and careful to avoid follies and
Stiffness. A prudent enemy is better
than a foolish friend. "Save me from
my friends" is an old saying. true and
necessary enough; but foolish parti-
san, who gets one into trouble, and who
loads us often with folly, cannot be
called a friend.
When man has found one or two
true friends he may rest satisfied. He
cannot be friends to many, nor have
many. His wife, let us say, is one; he
has one who loves them both, and one
for himself, and that is enough. If
these be good friends they will urge him
on to noble deeds, and look to his in
terest more than he will himself. They
will be gauges by which he can sound
the world and sound himself. He will
find his heart cheered up, his counte
nance sharpened, and his eyes made
bright by the presence of his friend.
There is no applause so sweet as that
of true friend, because he alone knows
the tolls and the dangers, the trouble:
and the difficulties, which he whom he
loves has gone through; no applause Sc
sweet, no praise so cheering, save thai
of our own hearts; and these, beyond
and above those of whom we have
spoken, are truly our best friends and
alas! that it should be so, too often ou
worst enemies es.-Philadelphia Pa Sat
urday Eve. Post.