The Courier. (Genoa, Nev.) 1899-1904, 1900-12-21
Friendship.

friend is the man who votes for Won If
you are in public life, or the man who
entertains you, or is entertained by
you, If you are in social life. Your
| friend is the man from whom, in ex-
: tremity, you could borrow money. He
again is found in two varieties; one
will hamiliate while serving you, the
other will not There is the friend
who will borrow from you, found also
In two varieties. One will pay again if
he can-the other will not There is
the friend whom you can use and
whom it is your interest TO cultivate,
and there is the friend who forms this
estimate of you. There is the friend
who gives you little prestige, and of
whom you talk with obvious satisfac-
tion; and there is the friend who was
barely introduced to you, and who,
your name being good one, describes
you, evermore, as if you and he had
grown up from childhood. There is
the friend who will do you a good turn
and say nothing about it; and there is
the friend who makes warm public
profession of his esteem for you, This
friend" when he is proceeding to
prove you blockhead or cheat.
There are the short, simple friend
ships of childhood, good as far as they
go, commonly disinterested, but oc-
casionally with the same infusion of
selfishness found in the adult attach
ment. There are the friendships of
school girls at which for many gener-
ations writers have laughed. 1t may
be confessed that they are demonstra-
tive, marked by tears and smiles, pro-
tracted embraces, and VOWS of per-
petuity that are often broken. But it
is not at all certain that they differ
materially from the experiences of
others.
There is the mature friendship formed
slowly, cemented by community of in
tarest, taste, joy, or, often enough,
care and sorrow, and declared more or
less articulately according to tempera-
ment and position. There is the
friendship of man based commonly
upon intellectual qualities and moral
considerations. There is the friendship
of man and woman based commonly
upon sympathies; and there is the
friendship of woman based commonly
upon tastes and habits of life.
Friendship has its duties. You owe
your friend sympathy in his sorrows
and his joys. You owe him confidence
and the information about yourself
: which confidence implies. Yet that in
formation is to be given with certain
reserve, so that you do not seem to
force your affairs upon him, or to make
him responsible for you.
You owe your friend fidelity. What
, he or she says to you as friend is tt
be sacred. Failure here is treachery
1t is breach of implied promise, fol-
in telling you as friend he counted or
your silence as well as sympathy. 1
is a breach of trust.
Rightly or wrongly, women arr
blamed for weakness at this point
The consciousness of power is dear tt
the weaker, and the temptation to dis
play power of influence or knowledge
is strong.
And this leads naturally to the dan
gers of friendship. One may be i'm
posed upon; sympathies may be baselI
called out; selfsbness may plot ane
! scheme under the guise of affection
: Here it is that the rich are to be at once
pitied and vindicated. "Pitied," FOL
they find so much profession that L
not disinterested that they come tt
distrust it all, and they stand in lonely
isolation. "Vindicated," for the cole
air and naughty manner are sometimes
the only defence they have against th'
obseouious and designing. Finding
, men and women cling to them as to
social ladder by which they may climb
or dog their steps that they may piei
their brains or their purses, they are
driven in self-defense, the need FOL
which is pitiable, to keep most at DIS
tance and to travel alone through lie
Where the duties of friendship are
properly performed, there are no dan
gers. The instinct of friendship, like
other instincts, is to be regulated ane
controlled. He is not properly victim
To railroads who walks off the platform
of a train and has his legs broken ht
Is victim of his own folly.
Make as many friendships as you
can consistently with comparative
duties. Be true in them. So you may
5 cain daily triumphs over native selfish
ness. and widen the range of your own
sympathies.
: Perfectly Hedtthy people have pure
rich. warm, nourishing blood, gooo
I.a.AE