The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1903-05-21
OUR FRIENDS.

Friends may be separated for convent
ence into three grand divisions-the
friend with remedies, the friend with adj
vice and the friend with troubles of his
own There are, of course, other friends
than these. There is the friend who Dor
rows and the one who never has any
money 10 lend; the friend who drops in
TO dinner. always at the wrong time; the
friend who loves 10 make you the victim
OF practical joke; the friend who loves
an argument better than much fine gold;
the friend who tells you old stories with
perennial merriment and other friends
OF still wagner propensities. But these
three are the most persistent kinds. They
represent friendship in its more acute
and aggravated form They are incor-
rupuble. You cannot brihe them. They
are tireless; oftentirnes they leave you
for the nonce, to gather increased energy
and enthusiasm.
But they always return. Nothing daunts
them In their superb devotion, and no
matter how limited in scope your life
may be there is always some work for
them to do.
OF these three friends-the one with
remedies. the one with advice and the
one with troubles of his own-it is doubt
full IL any one takes precedence over the
other two. Kind nature in distributing
among them their peculiar and powerful
gifts was impartial. In this trinity there
is apparently no order of precedence.
They are all equally deadly.
Emerson has said that the man who
does not take care of himself is a villain.
but this cannot be. In reality he is a
benefactor for ne offers the friend with
remedies full scope for his powers. How
should we be able to know some of our
friends if we had not swallowed the cures
that they have forced down our threats?
ter when compared with the full appre-
citation of that sentiment which makes
orr friend devote himself. tooth and nail,
10 our peritoneum, our duodenum, our
bronchial tubes, even though death may
be the result? As a matter of fact.
death itself is a mere bagatelle compared
with the Importance of knowing who are
our real friends.
The friend with the remedy is ever at
our elbow. He notes our symptoms with
mingled sympathy and a lofty wisdom
that is indeed the very acme of supercil-
iouS confidence. Your family physician,
whom you have always supposed to have
a somewhat specialized knowledge of your
peculiar anatomy, becomes in an instant
a mere pygmy. Your own experience,
useful as it has always seemed to you,
melts away like a fog.
'Ooi Ho,' says your friend. 80 old
Probe has been pulling your leg. has
he? And you have been taking thus and
so. Poor fellow No wonder you suffer.
No wonder you are running down hill.
You don't want TO be cured, do you?
You would rather pay money all the time
without results, when a simple little thing
such as 1 know about will do the bust
ness for you in no time"
BY and by, as you yourself grow older
and wiser. you learn to temporize with
your friend TO an extent. You take his
remedy with tears of gratitude. and quiz
city empty the bottle at the first oppor-
tunity. Next time you meet him you
tell him what it has done for you. thus
fixing more firmly his own malady. He
quotes you to his other friends. Hence
forth, with a secret sense that you are
both a coward and a liar, you greet him
with an enforced gayety. leading a
double life, and though you might be
suffering the fortunes of the damned you
laugh an abandoned laugh. All this gives
him a specific pride in you. You are
creature of his own upbuilding, and thus
you go on from bad to worse.
or else you may possess that rare cour-
age to resist him. to scott at him. You
guy his remedies. thinking thus to thwart
him. But there seems to be a special
ruling of Providence that guards the
friend with a remedy from attacks of this
kind. His sense of humor, keen in other
matters. is here wholly suspended. And
your very scepticism but arouses in him
the missionary spirit. You are a body
to be saved. He is the servant to
do it.
He notes that you are worse this morn
ing and says that It was to be expected.
He cites a hundred modern instances 10
prove his case. And If the worst should
really come, and you should shuttle off
this mortal coil, only the law would pre-
vent him from writing on your tomb
stone: