The Project Gutenberg EBook of Friendship, by Hugh Black

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Title: Friendship

Author: Hugh Black

Release Date: March 20, 2007 [EBook #20861]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRIENDSHIP ***

Produced by Al Haines

FRIENDSHIP

By HUGH BLACK

With an Introductory Note by

W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, D.D.

Chicago—New York—Toronto

FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

London—Edinburgh

Copyright, 1898, 1903, by

FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

To MY FRIEND

HECTOR MUNRO FERGUSON

AND TO MANY OTHER FRIENDS WHO HAVE MADE LIFE RICH

Equidem, ex omnibus rebus, quas mihi aut Fortuna aut Natura tribuit, nihil habeo quod cum amicitia Scipionis possum, comparare.

CICERO.

  Intreat me not to leave thee,
  And to return from following after thee:
  For whither thou guest, I will go;
  And where thou lodgest, I will lodge;
  Thy people shall be my people,
  And thy God my God:
  Where thou diest, will I die,
  And there will I be buried:
  The Lord do so to me, and more also,
  If aught but death part thee and me.

BOOK OF RUTH.

APPRECIATION

BY SIR WM. ROBERTSON NICOLL, D.D.

Mr. Hugh Black's wise and charming little book on Friendship is full of good things winningly expressed, and, though very simply written, is the result of real thought and experience. Mr. Black's is the art that conceals art. For young men, especially, this volume will be a golden possession, and it can hardly fail to affect their after lives. Mr. Black says well that the subject of friendship is less thought of among us now than it was in the old world. Marriage has come to mean infinitely more. Communion with God in Christ has become to multitudes the primal fact of life. Nevertheless the need for friendship remains.—"British Weekly."

Friendship is to be valued for what there is in it, not for what can be gotten out of it. When two people appreciate each other because each has found the other convenient to have around, they are not friends, they are simply acquaintances with a business understanding. To seek friendship for its utility is as futile as to seek the end of a rainbow for its bag of gold. A true friend is always useful in the highest sense; but we should beware of thinking of our friends as brother members of a mutual-benefit association, with its periodical demands and threats of suspension for non-payment of dues.

TRUMBULL.

Contents

I

THE MIRACLE OF FRIENDSHIP

II

THE CULTURE OF FRIENDSHIP

III

THE FRUITS OF FRIENDSHIP

IV

THE CHOICE OF FRIENDSHIP

V

THE ECLIPSE OF FRIENDSHIP

VI

THE WRECK OF FRIENDSHIP

VII

THE RENEWING OF FRIENDSHIP

VIII

THE LIMITS OF FRIENDSHIP

IX

THE HIGHER FRIENDSHIP

The Miracle of Friendship

  But, far away from these, another sort
  Of lovers linkëd in true heart's consent;
  Which lovëd not as these for like intent,
  But on chaste virtue grounded their desire,
  Far from all fraud or feignëd blandishment;
  Which, in their spirits kindling zealous fire,
  Brave thoughts and noble deeds did evermore aspire.

  Such were great Hercules and Hylas dear,
  True Jonathan and David trusty tried;
  Stout Theseus and Pirithöus his fere;
  Pylades and Orestes by his side;
  Mild Titus and Gesippus without pride;
  Damon and Pythias, whom death could not sever;
  All these, and all that ever had been tied
  In bands of friendship, there did live forever;
  Whose lives although decay'd, yet loves decayëd never.

SPENSER, The Faerie Queene.

The Miracle of Friendship

The idea, so common in the ancient writers, is not all a poetic conceit, that the soul of a man is only a fragment of a larger whole, and goes out in search of other souls in which it will find its true completion. We walk among worlds unrealized, until we have learned the secret of love. We know this, and in our sincerest moments admit this, even though we are seeking to fill up our lives with other ambitions and other hopes.

It is more than a dream of youth that there may be here a satisfaction of the heart, without which, and in comparison with which, all worldly success is failure. In spite of the selfishness which seems to blight all life, our hearts tell us that there is possible a nobler relationship of disinterestedness and devotion. Friendship in its accepted sense is not the highest of the different grades in that relationship, but it has its place in the kingdom of love, and through it we bring ourselves into training for a still larger love. The natural man may be self-absorbed and self-centred, but in a truer sense it is natural for him to give up self and link his life on to others. Hence the joy with which he makes the great discovery, that he is something to another and another is everything to him. It is the higher-natural for which he has hitherto existed. It is a miracle, but it happens.

The cynic may speak of the now obsolete sentiment of friendship, and he can find much to justify his cynicism. Indeed, on the first blush, if we look at the relative place the subject holds in ancient as compared with modern literature, we might say that friendship is a sentiment that is rapidly becoming obsolete. In Pagan writers friendship takes a much larger place than it now receives. The subject bulks largely in the works of Plato, Aristotle, Epictetus, Cicero. And among modern writers it gets most importance in the writings of the more Pagan-spirited, such as Montaigne. In all the ancient systems of philosophy, friendship was treated as an integral part of the system. To the Stoic it was a blessed occasion for the display of nobility and the native virtues of the human mind. To the Epicurean it was the most refined of the pleasures which made life worth living. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle makes it the culminating point, and out of ten books gives two to the discussion of Friendship. He makes it even the link of connection between his treatise on Ethics and his companion