“I

me.

OWE more to you, Nancy, than I shall ever be able to repay."

It was Helen Hoffmann who said this to She was not usually very demonstrative, or prodigal of her words, and I was touched and startled by the fervour of her utterance.

She and I were sitting together a little way up the side of a heathery, rock-strewn hill. Below us gleamed the steely waters of a loch, guarded by a ring of mountains; a ring broken in one place only by the glen through which we had ascended.

"You are quite mistaken," I answered with truth. “It is I who am in debt to you."

"Nonsense! Who was it who brought me out of London, all the way up here, to scenery such as I never hoped to behold-except in my dreamworld," she added, clinging to her favourite conceit. "Who has tended me as a guest, given me health and strength that will endure through the winter to come, besides days of delight and restful nights? Who---"

She

"Oh, Helen, don't!" I exclaimed, feeling contrite at the difference between her estimate of me and the reality. It was the day among the landscapes at the Academy that made me think of bringing the poor lame artist with us to Scotland: but why had I not done something of the kind long before? Why had I been so selfishly neglectful of my fellow-student at the Art School? and had she not in sooth, by the charm of her society, given me far more than I had given her? was a girl of keen perception and powers of thought that often astonished all of us in the "Symposium." Stella and Mabel, who took kindly to her, nevertheless declared that she made them feel "fearfully stupid." My Aunt Hester regarded her with a mixture of compassionate kindness and gentle dubiousness, as towards some one "not of her world." Yet I knew Helen's fortitude, courage and resignation had a Christian source. Mr. and Mrs. Beauchamp showed her a tender consideration that never failed.

"Not the least delightful part of this ever-tobe-remembered holiday," she continued, "is the association with others. You can't understand that, quite; to talk as we do in our 'Symposium' with people who are not intent or hurried or cross, not absorbed in studying anything, or trying to make money, or anxious, or worried, but who have leisure to exchange ideas for the mere interest of it, is something quite new to me, and most charming. Only I don't know how I shall go back to the old lonely life-the delight of friendship is so exhilarating! That is ungrateful of me, I know. Well, I will enjoy their society while I can."

"Even the Philosopher's?" I suggested mischievously.

"Yes, even the Philosopher's!" echoed Helen. "I don't know why we call him the Philosopher, by-the-by, for he is not always very like one-at least in the ordinary sense. Dear me, I believe he is coming up to us!"

We had left our party on the pebbly margin of the loch; but it soon became apparent that not only the Philosopher but all the members of the "Symposium," had been stirred by ambition to desert the shore and scramble up towards us on the hillside.

66 Here we are!" exclaimed Mr. Arnold, dropping upon the heather. "Here are seats for all of you, on the rocks or on the ground; here is delicious air, a glorious view, and enough sun to be agreeable. The breeze is fresh enough at this height to be just right."

66

And what, may I ask, were you two young ladies discoursing upon so earnestly?" inquired the Philosopher in a condescending tone, which never failed to exasperate Helen. "I said to the others, Let us go and have the advantage of their sapience.' So may we be enlightened?" To humour him I replied briefly :

"I think we were talking about friendship." "Rather a time-worn theme," he remarked. "Time-worn or not," said Aunt Hester seriously, "it is a subject of very great importance."

She paused, to regain her breath after the little effort of climbing and then, finding that nobody said anything, continued :

"It is a matter of untold moment, especially for the young, to make a right selection of their friends. It may affect the whole of their future life."

"Selection of their friends?" said Mr. Beauchamp courteously but doubtfully. "Can we select our friends? Are they not selected for us by a force largely outside our own control?" Aunt Hester looked nonplussed.

more

'Certainly they are!" declared the Musician, throwing back his hair. "We can no compel friendship with such and such a person, than we can compel discords to be harmony. They won't harmonise; there is an end of it."

I remembered vividly an illustration from my own entrance upon school-life, when I was confidently expected to "make a friend" of a daughter of one of my mother's acquaintances-a girl who had preceded me. She was a highly desirable companion, but we never "took to" each other in the very least, and to the end of our life together remained virtual strangers, rather to the disappointment of our several relations. On my mentioning this, nearly every one brought forward some instance of the same kind, the elder ladies eagerly recalling like experiences in their girlish days, and the men recollecting that their chums at school were not always those whom their parents desired them to cultivate.

"Oh, of course, that is not true," replied Mr, Arnold. "I should be inclined to say this-that it is possible, even in youth, to check but not to force friendship. One's own power in the matter seems to me to be negative rather than positive, and I certainly agree with you, Beauchamp, that it is impossible to choose friends as one would choose a picture or a horse."

66

6

Apropos of early friendships," said Mrs. Beauchamp, "is it not wonderful how they endure? They survive time and change. I have recently been brought into contact with such a friend, after twenty years' interval. Life had whirled us far asunder and then thrown us together again. We began' just 'where we had left off,' and, though no letter had passed for so long, we felt we were friends for ever. Such friendships are very different from those contracted later, and as you grow older, I can tell you children" (this to Helen, my sisters and myself), "you will recognise more and more the truth of the sayings about old friends. Those whose characters have been formed side by side seem united by a mysterious link."

"How terribly pathetic is the lot of those who are really lonely!" remarked Mrs. Arnold, " people who have outlived their relatives and early friends -or even the young who, by circumstances, are set alone."

"Magna civitas, magna solitudo," murmured the Philosopher; afterwards translating it for our benefit, "A great city, a great solitude."

"I knew the meaning of that until lately," said Helen, with a glance at me.

"And yet, in spite of what you say about early friendships," observed the Musician, "there are instances where an affinity between grown persons seems to assert itself more suddenly, more powerfully, than the intimacy of early youth. For, after all, those who are undeveloped may find themselves, in spite of an early alliance, grow far apart, while the man or woman whose character is formed can hardly run this risk "

"It is a frightful thing not to be able to make friends," said Mrs. Beauchamp. "I really believe some people cannot. They are encased in a sort of ice-armour of reserve which never thaws. How they must suffer! "

Yes," said her husband, "we have Aristotle's authority for saying, Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.'"

friendship, and Mrs. Beauchamp quoted the lines from Keats:

"But there are

Richer entanglements, enthralments far
More self-destroying, leading, by degrees,
To the chief intensity: the crown of these
Is made of love and friendship, and sits high
Upon the forehead of humanity.

All its more ponderous and bulky worth
Is Friendship, whence there ever issues forth
A steady splendour; but at the tip-top
There hangs, by unseen film, an orbéd drop
Of light, and that is Love."

"Yet love is an integral part of friendship," said Helen.

"Well, time-worn though the whole subject may be," remarked Mr. Beauchamp, "I rather suspect we should have to confess that friendship, like memory, is largely beyond our comprehension in its ways of working. It is a very odd thing, for instance, that out of all the people who are our housemates yonder we know instinctively that there are many with whom intimacy would be impossible; with others we feel that were there time and opportunity, acquaintance would ripen into friendship."

"Why, naturally!" said the Philosopher rather sharply, "because some people, you perceive, have kindred tastes with yourself, others have not. That seems to me simple enough, and it explains all that you have been saying about school friendships and so on.'

"Excuse me," returned Mr. Beauchamp, "but you cannot account for it so easily as that. It doesn't follow that similarity of tastes means friendship, dissimilarity precludes it!"

"Friendship requires a mean between likeness and unlikeness," remarked the youth who had quoted Emerson on a recent picnic. "I think the charm of it lies partly in the fact that a nature unlike ours is yet ours through affection."

"Yes!" said Mr. Beauchamp. "Nothing is worse than for my friend to be my echo! He and I must be two separate individualities, distinct, diverse, and yet with a deep identity underlying all difference. If there is too much likeness the charm of this identity, existing under difference, is lost. We must be two before we can be

"Not like to like, but like in difference,'"' quoted the Musician, from the Princess.

Each member of the Symposium, from his own observation, could adduce some instance of close friendship between those who appeared diverse in character, who held different political views, who varied as to tastes, pursuits, and general conceptions of life.

"Shakespeare understood this apparent anomaly;" quoth Mr. Beauchamp, "for instance, Antonio steadfast, melancholy, constant, philo sophical is the friend of the gay careless spend

thrift Bassanio."

"Hamlet and Horatio are different enough, in all conscience," observed Mr. Arnold, "so were Brutus and Cassius."

Other characters from Shakespeare were instanced. Some one remarked that the modern novelist devotes little attention to friendship in comparison with love, and Helen suggested that the sacrifice of Sydney Carton in place of his friend is one of the most beautiful instances in fiction of friendship carried to its highest consummation.

"Even better than the characteristics of your 'trusty chum' described in the soldier song in Rudyard Kipling's story, who will write them at 'Ome when you are dead,'" said the Youth. But it is a query whether Carton's sacrifice was not due to his love of Lucie."

We discussed this, and then agreed that what the affinity may be which draws two natures together in the bonds of friendship-taking friendship in the highest and sacred sense-it is impossible to exactly define, or to judge, or to prognosticate; but its existence and its working are among the treasures of humanity. We fell a-talking on the advantages of friendship of this old true sort.

Mr. Beauchamp insisted that it was only in the possession of, and intercourse with, a kindred soul, that the soul fully knew itself.

"We complete ourselves in our friendships," he said.

"I never know," said Mrs. Beauchamp shyly, "of what thoughts I am capable till I am writing a long letter to a friend in Australia, with whom I discuss any subject, social or literary, that interests us both, from time to time. Then my thoughts seem to flow forth and to invest themselves in words till I am amazed at seeing what I have written. If I had tried to write an essay on the same subject it would have been stupid and dull, but my friendship stimulates me to give forth something that no other power could evoke. friend's letters to me are so aptly expressed, so rich in thought, that I have often urged her to write for the public. This she thinks she cannot do; but her letters are wonderful!"

My

Her face glowed with sympathetic appreciation. "I can testify to the truth of that," said her husband, "for sometimes I am allowed to read these letters. But once this lady-you do not know her name, so there is no breach of confidence-yielded to my wife's entreaties, and sent us an article for a magazine. She told us it was not good; and it was altogether a different production from the letters. The magic Open Sesame' had been lacking; the treasures were locked from sight."

"It is only fair, however," said Mr. Arnold, "to point out that authors of power do not invariably write good letters. George Eliot's letters, for example, always strike me as singularly ponderous and commonplace."

"But, as a rule, " our intellectual and active powers increase with our affection,'" quoted the student of Emerson.

"And there is a wonderful saying, far older and greater, to the same effect," remarked Mr. Arnold. "It is from the Book of Proverbs. Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.'"

"Ah! how beautiful beyond all others is the picture of David and Jonathan's friendship!" said Aunt Hester quietly. "Very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.'

"Are women capable of such strong friendships one to another as men?" asked the Philosopher. "I should be inclined to say not."

A storm of wrath from the maligned sex burst upon Mr. Scrymgeour's devoted head.

"I do not know why that idea finds favour in certain quarters," said Mr. Beauchamp.

With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs, ere
With spur we heat an acre.'”

"All the same, you are doing yourself injustice, Helen!" I declared.

Egotism is a severe test of friendship, isn't it?" asked Mr. Arnold. "When a man is always full of his own affairs, and impressed with a sense of his own importance, it is hard to make a friend of him."

"That is a great foe to intimate friendship among girls!" said Stella. "Some girls only

care to talk of their own successes and won't listen to yours! Isn't that so, Mabel?"

We were all obliged to admit that this is a decided drawback to the pleasures of feminine intercourse.

"Talking about tests of friendship," interposed the Frivolous Youth, he who by a strange incongruity studied Emerson, "what should you say is the severest strain friendship can be put to?"

Sundry suggestions were made, such as sickness, poverty, and so forth.

"No! he declared. "The severest strain of all is a foreign tour! If you can travel with your friend he is a friend indeed! If he can never say, 'I told you so,' when things go wrong, nor reflect on your French or German; if he can always cheerfully accommodate himself to circumstances and never be 'put out ;' if you can get on together day after day and be happy, whate'er betide, in each other's society-then you may be entitled to call yourself friends, and no doubt about it!"

There was a general laugh, and one or two instances were quoted by the elder members of the party, in which the friction of a joint tour had produced discomfort and estrangement.

"It is certainly most extraordinary to overhear the way in which apparently well-meaning people will snap at each other while travelling Continent," said Mr. Arnold.

"One can only

suppose that the excitement has temporarily unhinged them."

The Philosopher had been fidgetting about for some time, looking at the mountains through his field-glass, tugging at heather, and so on. He now took up the tale, and remarked pompously"I presume every one here is familiar with Lord Bacon's Essay on Friendship."

Only one or two of his hearers confessed any acquaintance with it.

"I am surprised to hear that," said the Philosopher severely. "However, I will give you one or two of his ideas. I think, indeed, I can quote some of his words by heart. He says that the chief fruit of friendship is the power of unburdening the heart; and adds something like this: The communicating of a man's self to his friend works two contrary effects, for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in half; for there is no man that imparteth his joys to his friend but he joyeth the more, and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend but he grieveth the less.""

"The same thing is usually said about matrimony; with what truth I am unable to judge,” remarked the Youth with levity.

"Ah, and there must be true friendship in marriage if it is to be happy when youth is over," said Mr. Arnold. "In fact, in all the relationships of life—”

"We are wandering off the track again," cried the Philosopher irritably. "I was going to tell you the second fruit of friendship according to Lord Bacon: Friendship maketh, indeed, a fair day in the affections from storm and tempest, but it maketh daylight in the understanding, out of darkness and confusion of thoughts. Whosoever

hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break up in the communicating and discoursing with another; he tosseth his thoughts more easily, he marshalleth them more orderly, he seeth how they look when they are turned into words: finally, he waxeth wiser than himself, and that more by an hour's discourse than by a day's meditation.'"

"That was my point-only in reference to letterwriting," murmured Mrs. Beauchamp.

"Add now,'" continued the Philosopher, with an angry glance in her direction, "to make this second fruit of friendship complete, that other point, faithful counsel from a friend. There is no such flatterer as is a man's self, and there is no such remedy against flattery of a man's self as the liberty of a friend. After these two noble fruits of friendship, peace in the affections and support of the judgment, followeth the last fruit-I mean aid, and bearing a part in all actions and occasions.'"

The Philosopher had quoted the latter words with a strained expression on his face, and his eyes shut. He now unclosed them and beamed around with a complacent expression.

"It is an admirable thing," he observed, "to store one's mind with such utterances as these; one can thus distribute thought at will. I cannot help congratulating myself on the power to do so. Lord Bacon has, of course, much more to say as to the advantage of a friend who can do for you what you cannot do for yourself—”

"For instance, sound your praises," remarked the Frivolous Youth, "hence comes the popular query, When did your trumpeter expire?""

There was a "malice aforethought "in the way he spoke, and it seemed as though our conversation on friendship might become rather incongruous with its theme, or in plain English, degenerate into a quarrel, when Mr. Beauchamp came to the rescue by hastening to express his obligation to the Philosopher for so apt a quotation. "I always wonder why we do not read Bacon's Essays' more," he said, "for they are not only full of wisdom, but bright, and easy to understand."

I always thought they were fearfully dry and hard," confessed Mabel.

The Philosopher, restored to high good-humour, proceeded to favour my sister with a harangue in which he mentioned the essays he would advise her to begin with.

The Frivolous Youth, not to be outdone by his antagonist, now urged the claims of his beloved Emerson's essay on Friendship-one, he said, of the most beautiful treatises on the subject that could be found in ancient or modern literature. He mentioned Emerson's insistence on the charm of reserve in friendship; and we all declared that we knew the delight of being sufficiently intimate with people to be silent in their company. Then he told us that Emerson dwelt on truth and tenderness as the two elements of the composition of friendship. And we acknowledged that with a friend, we may think aloud; and that the tenderness of friendship makes the joy of life.

"It is too lightly foregone, and too little sought after in our modern existence," said Mr. Beauchamp. "I do not believe any man or woman has any right to live so much in public that time or leisure cannot be spared for the cultivation of private friendship. It is an incalculable loss not only for the busy man or woman, but for the public. Those who work need the quiet unfettered intercourse with a true friend as refreshment to the mind.; without it they cannot, as we have been saying, become their best selves or do their best work; they cannot complete their natures as they should. Yet how many so-called 'public characters' in the headlong rush of life only see their friends in crowded assemblies! There is no quiet for the real enjoyment of heartto-heart intercourse. It is a familiar regret, 'Oh, if I only could see more of So-and-so! but we are both such busy people.' Well, why be so busy? or rather why not make a greater effort to include such friendly opportunities among the necessary things of life? No sane man would explain that he was so busy as not to be able to eat or sleep; yet food and rest are as essential for the mind and the affections as for the physical frame."

"That is very true," rejoined Mr. Arnold," and it leads us to another point-that it is a great pity we can't get at' people more easily. What a long process has to be gone through before the veneer of our modern civilisation is penetrated, or to use a better simile from that church we saw the other day before the whitewash is removed and the precious marble is discovered underneath! Could not much be done in the way of simplifying