<'"'il"* M -•■( «iii' iM :ill 1 I UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES / UWtVEKSirY of CALIPORNU LOSifVNGELES LIBRARY THE BOOK OF FRIENDSHIP •Tl ^^y^ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY - CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO OF FRIENDSHIP WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY SAMUEL N^ CHORD CROTHERS AND WITH DRAWINGS BY WLADYSLAWTBENDA TfHEHACfllLLAN COMBANYif 153018 PRIHTKD IK TBI VNITBI) BTATKS OF AMKRIOA Copyright, 1910, By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 191a Holiday edition. Published October, 1910. J. i3. Gushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. /(fas INTRODUCTION o ^ OHAKESPEARE describes the way in which the 4 essence of fleeting beauty is preserved. ^ "For never-resting time leads summer on ^ To hideous winter, and confounds him there : , > Sap checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone, ^ Beauty o'ersnowed and bareness everywhere : Then were not summer's distillation left jj A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass, _; Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft, I Now it nor no remembrance what it was, . But flowers distilled, though they with winter meet ^ Leese but their show, their substance still lives sweet." (^ ^ A Book of Friendship is an attempt to collect some of I these "flowers distilled" from the world's literature. As *^ the generations pass, friends are separated. But theirs -are expressions of feeling that are imperishable. The ["substance still lives sweet." ^ It is pleasant not only to know what wise men have o thought about friendship, but how friendly souls have -^actually felt. There must be a vast variety in the in- cidents of friendships and a unity in its essential nature. No abstract or philosophical description can satisfy us in regard to an intimate personal experience which we all have felt. I can imagine a warm-hearted friend reading Emerson's Essay on Friendship, and wondering what it is all about. "Why should we desecrate noble and beautiful souls V Introduction by intruding on them? Why insist on rash personal relations with your friend? Why go to his house and know his mother or brother or sisters ? Why be visited by him at your own ? Are these material to our cove- nant ? Leave this touching and clawing. Let him be to me a spirit." ... " The hues of the opal, the light of the diamond, are not to be seen if the eye is too near. To my friend I write a letter and receive a letter. That seems to you a letter. It suffices me. It is a spiritual gift worthy of him to give and of me to receive. It profanes nobody." ... "I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them where I can find them, but I seldom use them. We must have society on our own terms and admit or exclude on the slightest cause. I cannot afford to speak much with my friends." To the ordinary person there is something chilly in all this. But if we cannot feel, or desire to feel in just this way toward those whom we call our friends, we can at least try to understand what Emerson meant. To him friendship was something sacred. The friend was the elect soul who stood always for the ideal best. For him to fall short of the ideal was to forfeit his sacred office. Friendship and Duty were from this point of view identical; for it is the friend who points the way and keeps us in it. "O friend, my bosom said Through thee alone the sky is arched. Through thee the rose is red. All things through thee take nobler form And look beyond the earth, The mill roimd of our fate appears vi Introduction A sun-path in thy worth. Me, too, thy nobleness has taught To master my despair ; The fountains of my hidden life Are through thy friendship fair." It is a far cry from Emerson's ethereal friendship with its fastidious withdrawal from all personal contact, to the friendship of Huckleberry Finn and Negro Jim as they lie sprawling on the raft in the middle of the Mississippi. Neither of them would have understood the high moods of the spirit. Neither of them illustrated the dignity of human nature. One was a specimen of the ' ' poor white trash "as it existed on the great river, and the other was a runaway slave. They had not chosen one another; they had literally been ' ' thrown together " as by a careless Fate. They had shared the same crusts, they had smoked together and fished off the same log, and lied and stolen in the common cause of self-preservation. In all this there was nothing consciously ethical or inspiring. When Huckleberry Finn's conscience did assert itself, it was by way of protest against this friendship. His con- science was vague on most points, but one thing he knew to be wrong. Whatever other form of stealing might be condoned, he was clear in regard to the hcinousness of the sin of stealing a slave from his lawful owner. When he slipped off the raft determined to give the in- formation that would send Jim back to slavery, he felt that he was about to do a noble act. Then he lost his nerve. He refused to obey his in- ward monitor and sneaked back to his companion. "I got aboard the raft feehng bad and low, because I knowed very well I had done wrong, and I see it wam't no use vii Introduction for me to learn to do right : a body that don't get started right when he's little ain't got no show — when the pinch comes, there ain't nothing to back him up and keep him to his work, and so he gets beat. Then I thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on, s'pose you'd a done right and give Jim up, would you have felt better than what you do now ? No, says I, I'd feel bad — I'd feel just the same way I do now. Well, then, says I, what's the use you learning to do right when it's troublesome to do right and ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same? I was stuck. I couldn't answer that. So I reckoned I wouldn't bother no more about it, but after this always do which- ever come handiest at the time." Huckleberry Finn was unable to apologize for the im- pulse upon which he acted. It seemed to him a weak- ness — which he accepted just as he accepted his other manifold weaknesses. He was used to yielding to temptation, and here was another. He was aware that he ought to give Jim up, and he would have done it if he hadn't known him so well, and if Jim hadn't trusted him. He couldn't quite make up his mind to go back on his friend. Better heads than Huckleberry Finn's have been puzzled over the problems of friendship and have failed as ignominiously when they have attempted a formal solution. For a friend is always an exception to the abstract laws which our reason accepts. We confess this when we say that we are "partial" to certain per- sons. We are not willing to hand them over to the tender mercies of universal law. We want to shield them, and to give them a little better chance, viii Introduction It is not that our friends are wiser and better than other people, but that we know them better. The accident of contiguity may have first given them a place in our affections, but now they cannot be removed from that place without causing us pain. They make our familiar world. They are a part of our environment to which we have become happily wonted. We take them as they are, with the frank acknowledgment that to us they are not as other men are, but form a privileged class. We find it easy to forgive their shortcomings, and their good points are all the better because they belong to them. Nor are we satisfied with thinking of them as unrelated personahties. We take them into our hearts with all their natural belongings. We want to know their brothers and their sisters, and to have them drop in to see us. But after all, Emerson's idea of friendship and Huckle- berry Finn's meet at the essential point. Friendship is "attachment" and not detachment. A friend is one to whom we are pleasantly drawn. "It wasn't any trouble" to have old Jim on the raft, and it would have been very lonesome to have him taken away. A friend is one whom you like to have with you when you are doing what you most like to do. If what you most hke to do is to dwell upon the ideally perfect, your friend is the one who meets you in these rare moments. The vision of spiritual beauty is not more than half real till it is shared with him. In the consciousness that another mind reflects your thought, you find the keenest satisfaction. Here is the high office of a friend, and in these high experiences is the point of attachment. But because thou art virtuous, shall Friendship have Introduction no cakes and ale for those less highly endowed ? Happily, Friendship is the most accommodating of all the virtues. She is easy to be entreated and has something for all sorts and conditions of men. Personal attachments are within the reach of the humblest. If our idea of per- fect bliss is to go fishing, and loaf in the woods, and float down a river on a raft, we may still have a friend. He is the one whose presence is no intrusion, and whose con- versation conveys no reproach. Are we lazy, so is he; are we himgry, he also enjoys his victuals. If the world be against us, aU the more do we draw together. To hate the same people and to reject their advice is a real bond. Friendship rises into the heights of disinterested virtue, but it begins where life begins. It is mingled with the earUest experience, and it exists among the ferocities of the primitive struggle for existence. St. Augustine, referring to Virgil's story of the unsocial giant Cacus dwelling in his dreary cavern without wife or child or friend, said: "It is better to believe that such a man, or semi-man, never existed, and tliat this in com- mon with many other fancies of the poets is a mere fiction. For the most savage animals encompass their own species with a ring of protecting peace." . . . What tigress does not gently purr over her cubs and lay aside her ferocity to fondle them. What kite, solitary as he is when circling over his prey, does not seek a mate to build the nest and maintain peace. Friendships have been formed not alone by the fire- side of the home or in some sacred place, but by soldiers on the march, by wanderers on the highways, by boys roving the streets in gangs, by pirates upon the high X Introduction seas, by scholars, and by men of affairs. Wherever there is "something doing," the law of friendship asserts itself. The laws of evolutionary progress favor it. The unfriendly deed is barren. Friendly cooperation multipUes power. A company of friends conscious of a common purpose, trusting each other, and subordinat- ing individual preferences can achieve success. In the third and fourth centuries, piety took an un- social, not to say a morose, form. The idea was to get away from the wicked world and renounce one's natural relations. Hundreds of ascetics fled from their homes to the deserts of Egypt in search of a sohtary goodness. The sand hills were honeycombed with the cells of these hermits. But by and by human nature asserted itself. The anchorite who had fled from his neighbors couldn't prevent them from following his example. The desert began to be populous. It was a great experience for the unsocial saint when he discovered that the other saint whom he met every morning at the well was not such a bad fellow after all. So after a while all the cells came to be under one roof, and spiritual isolation gave way to the organized friendliness of the monasteries. Human life, like all other life, has from some stand- points a sinister aspect. There seems to be a natural hostihty between all living creatures. Their interests seem necessarily to conflict. One species devours an- other. One individual of the species crowds out others who are less fit for the struggle. Friendship at first seems but a feeble and futile protest against a grim reality. It is the expression of a personal preference. Before the bar of Necessity it pleads for tender treat- ment for a few whom we may have happened to know xi Introduction intimately. "These are my friends, deal gently with them." As if it mattered. But the wonderful thing is that it does matter. Friend- ship, at the beginning so narrow in its scope and so fitful in its action, grows at last into a world power. If conditions are hard, it creates new conditions. It becomes a creative force. What are we working for but to make the world a better place for our friends to live in? "Love from its awful throne of patient power In the wise heart," is all the time working toward this end. Already human institutions have a more friendly aspect. There is a world-wide conspiracy against those cruel powers which have for ages held sway. We are coming to believe that the friendly way is also the strong and wise way. It is because of this that a Book of Friendship is a Primer of Civilization. It contains the first lessons which must be learned by those who would work for a better social order. All the high loyalties rest on one dis- covery — the discovery of the worth of a friend. It is surely worth our while to learn as much as possible of the lore of the heart. Samuel McChord Crothers xu CONTENTS Introduction PAGE Samuel Mc Chord Crothers v CHILDHOOD FRIENDSHIPS To Alison Cunningham Braddan Vicarage The French Tambour In School Days . In a Garden Sir Walter Scott and Marjor Sunshine Enoch Arden We once were Children Leolin and Edith The Little Veronica The Unseen Playmate The Lost Friend Robert Louis Stevenson 5 . T. E. Brown 5 Heinrich Heine 7 John G. Whittier 8 A. C. Swinburne lO ie Fleming Dr. John Brown 11 A. C. Swinburne 17 Alfred Tennyson 18 Heinrich Heine 1 9 Alfred Tennyson 20 Heinrich Heine 22 Kobert Louis Stevenson 23 . Norman Gale 24 II INARTICULATE FRIENDSHIPS The Bluefinch The Faithful Bird Poor Dog Tray . Rab and His Friends . For the Love of a Man The Blood Horse Modestine William Cowper Thomas Campbell Dr. John Brown Jack London Barry Cornwall Robert Louis Stevenson 29 30 31 32 39 46 47 Contents A Night with a Wolf . Friends in Prison Epitaph on a Hare The Friendship of Books PAGE Bayard Taylor 52 Silvio Pellico William Cow per Frederick Denison Maurice The Hills of the South Country Hilaire Belloc III IN SCHOOL AND Dear Old Yale . The Orange and the Black In Arcadie Trinity College, Cambridge Friends of Youth Christ's Hospital Boys A Father's Caution to His Son A Test of Friendship , Our Oldest Friend Tom Brown's First Grief . COLLEGE YEARS . //. S. Durand Clarence B. Mitchell Josephine A. Cass Alfred Tennyson Aubrey Thomas de Vere , Charles Lamb . E. L. Voynich , Cornhill Magazine Oliver Wendell Holmes . Thomas Hughes IV 65 66 67 68 70 71 74 75 79 80 NEIGHBORS Our Village ' Mary Mitford 91 Friendship Village Zona Gale 100 Our Village Thomas Hood 106 England to America ..... Alfred Austin no Charles Lamb's Nearest Neighbor " By a friend of the late Eli a " ill Who is My Neighbor ? . . The Gospel of St. Luke 1 1 3 A Modern Version .... Mary Conyngton 1 14 FRIENDS IN NEED A Friend in Need .... Thomas de Quincey 119 Two Gentlemen of Kentucky . . James Lane Allen 121 xiv Contents Martha A Merchant of Venice Sanctuary in Alsatia . The War Correspondents PAGE . Mrs. Gaskell 125 William Shakespeare 131 Sir Walter Scott 135 Rudyard Kipling 140 VI BROTHERS IN ARMS Castor and Polydeukes . . , Odes of Pindar 149 Damon and Pythias .... Charlotte Yonge 151 The Covenant of David and Jonathan Book of Judges 153 Ossian's " Song of Sorrow " . . James Macpherson 157 A Reconciliation . . . Robert Louis Stevenson 158 As Toilsome I wandered . . . Walt Whitman 164 Poets as Friends J. A. Taylor 164 Song of a Fellow Worker . . .A. C Shaughnessey 166 D'Artagnan joins the Musketeers . Alexandre Dumas 169 Amis and Amile . . . Old French Romance 176 VII ODD COMPANIONS Don Quixote and Sancho Panza Jennie Wren and Riah the Jew A Genius for Friendship The Rommany Rye and the Gypsy Lad Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim Cervantes 183 Charles Dickens 187 C. T. Winchester 191 George Borrow 194 Laurence Sterne 200 VIII BOON COMPANIONS Colonel Newcome in the Cave of Harmony William M. Thackeray 211 The Reel of TuUochgorum . . . John Skinner 222 XV Contents The Men of Gotham . A Wayfaring Song Sarah Gamp and Betsey Prig The Club .... Auld Lang Syne FAGB . fV, E. Henley 223 Henry van Dyke 224 Charles Dickens 225 Washington Irving 230 . Robert Burns 236 IX FRIENDSHIPS BETWEEN WOMEN Friendship between Women The Greek Gossips Hermia and Helena . Sophie and Roxandra William R. Alger 241 Theocritus 243 William Shakespeare 245 William R. Alger 246 Mme. de Stael and Mme, de Recamier William R. Alger 249 The Portrait of a Friend . Elizabeth Barrett Browning 251 Fanny Squeers and Matilda Price . Charles Dickens 253 PLATONIC FRIENDSHIP Platonic Friendship . Madame Recamier and Ballanche To the Countess of Abingdon . William Cowper and Mary Unwin Platonic Love .... Rahel Levin .... To Lucy, Countess of Bedford . . /. G. L. 261 William R. Alger 262 John Dryden 266 Collated 267 Coventry Patmore 270 Varnhagen von Ense 27 1 Ben Jonson 272 From a Letter to William EUery Channing Lucy Aikin 272 To a Portrait of Isabel Fenwick William Wordsworth 273 From Two Famous Letters . . Goethe and Bettine 274 To Vittoria Colonna .... Michael Angelo 274 The Value of a Woman's Friendship Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton 275 Pelisson and Mile, de Scudery . . William R. Alger 276 xvi Contents XI WHEN FRIENDS ARE PARTED PAGB A Bachelor's Complaint of the Behavior of Married People Charles Lamb 281 Qua Cursum Ventus Friends , . . Old Friends . The Two Friends Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale The Materials for a Violent Quarrel The Lost Leader False Friends .... The Death of Friends The Pleasures of Memory . David's Lament-for Jonathan Lycidas Musing on Q>mpanions gone Losses restored .... Thyrsis ..... In Memoriam .... Experto Crede .... The Old Familiar Faces Arthur Hugh Clough 284 . W. E. Henley 285 Samuel Taylor Coleridge 287 . Austin Dobson 287 . Alfred Ainger 292 Robert Bro^vning 293 Edmund Spenser 295 Edward Young 299 Samuel Rogers 3CX) The Book of Judges 301 John Milton 302 Sir Walter Scott 304 William Shakespeare 304 Matthew Arnold 305 Alfred Tennyson 306 E. H. Coleridge 307 . Charles Lamb 308 XII FRIENDSHIP Friendship The Hare with Many Friends Two Views of Friendship . On Friendship . A Friend .... The Memory of the Heart . The Limitations of Friendship In Haste .... Montaigne 313 John Gay 314 . John Wilson 316 Allan Ramsay 318 Nicholas Grimoald 318 Daniel Webster 319 Hugh Black 319 A. E. Housman 322 XVU Contents The Basis of Friendship Kindred Hearts Friends and Enemies True Love is Blind The Masterpiece of Nature PAGB William De Witt Hyde 323 Felicia Hemans 326 . Owen Felthatn 327 Horace 328 Ralph Waldo Emerson 329 I CHILDHOOD FRIENDSHIPS CHILDHOOD FRIENDSHIPS To Alison Cunningham Braddan Vicarage The French Tambour In School Days In a Garden Sir Walter Scott and Marjorie Fleming Sunshine Enoch Arden We once were Children Leolin and Edith The Little Veronica The Unseen Playmate The Lost friend ,ir*;.,'^ .;:>.:,■,'. V, y ^^'"^ r x~^ "No fame, were the best less brittle, No praise, were it wide as earth, Is worth so much as a little Child's love may be worth." A. C. Swinburne To Alison Cunningham ^;iy -v> -ov ^v> -ciy From her Boy "POR the long nights you lay awake ■■■ And watched for my unworthy sake : For your most comfortable hand That led me through the uneven land : For all the story-books you read : For all the pains you comforted : For all you pitied, all you bore, In sad and happy days of yore : — My second Mother, my first Wife, The angel of my infant life — From the sick child, now well and old, Take, nvurse, the little book you hold ! And grant it, Heaven, that all who read May find as dear a nurse at need, And every child who lists my rhyme, In the bright, fireside, nursery cUme, May hear it in as kind a voice As made my childish days rejoice ! Robert Louis Stevenson Braddan Vicarage ^oy <:i>' ^;i>' <:> "Cy <2y T WONDER if in that far isle, ■*- Some child is growing now, like me When I was child : care-pricked, yet healed the while With balm of rock and sea. 5 The Book of Friendship I wonder if the purple ring That rises on a belt of blue Provokes the little bashful thing To guess what may ensue, When he has pierced the screen, and holds the fxirther clue. I wonder if the hills are long and lonely That North from South divide ; I wonder if he thinks that it is only The hither slope where men abide. Unto aU mortal homes refused the other side. I wonder if to him "the Boat," descending From the proud East, his spirit fills With a strange joy, adventurous ardor lending To the mute soul that thrills As booms the herald gun, and westward wakes the hills. I wonder if he loves that Captain bold Who has the horny hand. Who swears the mighty oath, who well can hold, Half-drunk, serene command. And guide his straining bark to refuge of the land. I wonder if he thinks the world has aught Of strong, or nobly wise. Like him by whom the invisible land is caught With instinct true, nor storms, nor midnight skies Avert the settled aim, or daunt the keen emprise. T. E. Brown 6 Childhood Friendships The French Tambour <^ y -cry TDARBLEU ! how much I owe the French tambour ■^ who was so long billeted on us, looked like a very devil, and yet was such an angelic character, and such an incomparable drummer. A little nervous figure, never still for an instant ; a fierce black mustache, beneath which the red lips curled defiantly ; fiery eyes which glanced hither and thither. With all a small boy's devotion I stuck to him like a burr, helped him to poUsh his buttons till they shone like mirrors, and to pipeclay his waistcoat, for Monsieur Le Grand was somewhat of a dandy, and I followed him, hke a dog, on guard, to the roll-call, to parade — all, then, was glitter and gladness, now, les jours de fete sont passis I Monsieur Le Grand only knew a little broken German — only the indispensable phrases, Brot, Kuss, Ehre — but he could make himself perfectly understood on the drum. For instance, when I did not know the meaning of liberty, he would beat the Marseillaise, and I understood him. If I did not know what igalilS meant, he played the march (^a ira, qa ira . . . les aristocrats d, la lanterne! and I understood him. If I did not know the German for bUise, he beat the Des- sau March, which we Germans, as even Goethe allows, beat in Champagne, and I understood him. Once he wanted to explain to me the word Allemagne, and he beat a very primitive simple measure which is often played at fairs for dogs to dance to, the tune of dutn, dum, dum; I was very angry, but still I under- stood him. Heinrich Heine 7 The Book of Friendship In School Days <::> -^^^^ -os. -<;i^ -^iy -Qy OTILL sits the schoolhouse by the road, ^ A ragged beggar sunning ; Around it still the sumachs grow, And blackberry- vines are running. Within, the master's desk is seen, Deep scarred by raps official ; The warping floor, the battered seats, The jack-knife's carved initial ; The charcoal frescoes on its wall ; Its door's worn sill, betraying The feet that, creeping slow to school, Went storming out to playing! Long years ago a winter sun Shone over it at setting ; Lit up its western window-panes. And low eaves' icy fretting. It touched the tangled golden curls. And brown eyes full of grieving, Of one who still her steps delayed When all the school were leaving. For near her stood the little boy Her childish favor singled ; His cap pulled low upon a face Where pride and .shame were mingled. 8 Childhood Friendships Pushing with restless feet the snow To right and left, he lingered; — As restlessly her tiny hands The blue-checked apron fingered. He saw her lift her eyes ; he felt The soft hand's light caressing, And heard the tremble of her voice, As if a fault confessing. "I'm sorry that I spelt the word: I hate to go above you, Because," — the brown eyes lower fell, — "Because, you see, I love you!" Still memory to a gray-haired man That sweet child-face is showing. Dear girl! the grasses on her grave Have forty years been growing! He Uves to learn, in life's hard school. How few who pass above him Lament their triumph and his loss. Like her, — because they love him. John G. Whittiei nPHE child alone is the true democrat ; ^ to him only is every one he meets a friend. Anonymous. 9 The Book of Friendship In a Garden "^^ "^^y -^o 'Ci' -oy -^si.. I HEAR of two far hence In a garden met, And the fragrance blown from thence Fades not yet. The one is seven years old, And my friend is he : But the years of the other have told Eighty-three. To hear these twain converse Or to see them greet Were sweeter than softest verse May be sweet. The hoar old gardener there With an eye more mild Perchance than his mild white hair Meets the child. I had rather hear the words That the twain exchange Than the songs of all the birds There that range, Call, chirp, and twitter there Through the garden-beds Where the sun alike sees fair Those two heads — lo Childhood Friendships And which may hoKer be Held in heaven of those Or more worth heart's thanks to see No man knows. 1881. A. C. Swinburne Sir Walter Scott and Marjorie Fleming <:> <:> OIR WALTER sat down in his large green morocco *^ elbow-chair, drew himself close to his table, and glowered and gloomed at his writing apparatus, "a very handsome old box, richly carved, Uned with crimson velvet, and containing ink-bottles, taper-stand, etc., in silver, the whole in such order, that it might have come from the silversmith's window half an hour before." He took out his paper, then starting up angrily, said, " ' Go spin, you jade, go spin.' No, d — it, it won't do, — "'My spinnin' wheel is auld and stiff, The rock o't wunna stand, sir, To keep the temper-pin in tiff Employs ower aft my hand, sir.' I am off the fang. I can make nothing of Waverley to-day; I'll awa' to Marjorie. Come wi' me, Maida, you thief." The great creature rose slowly, and the pair were off, Scott taking a maud (a plaid) with him. " White as a frosted plum-cake, by jingo!" said he, when he got to the street. Maida gamboled and whisked among the snow, and her master strode across to Young Street, and through it to i North Charlotte Street, to the house of his dear friend, Mrs. William Keith, of Corstorphine Hill, niece of Mrs. Keith, of Ravelston, of whom he said IX The Book of Friendship at her death, eight years after, "Much tradition, and that of the best, has died with this excellent old lady, one of the few persons whose spirit and cleanliness and fresh- ness of mind and body made old age lovely and desirable." Sir Walter was in that house almost every day, and had a key, so in he and the hound went, shaking them- selves in the lobby. "Marjorie! Marjorie!" shouted her friend, "where are ye, my bonnie wee croodUn doo ?" In a moment a bright, eager child of seven was in his arms, and he was kissing her all over. Out came Mrs. Keith. "Come yer ways in, Wattie." "No, not now. I am going to take Marjorie wi' me, and you may come to your tea in Duncan Roy's sedan, and bring the bairn home in your lap." "Tak' Marjorie, and it on-ding o' snaw!" said Mrs. Keith. He said to himself, "On- ding, — that's odd, — that is the very word." "Hoot, awa! look here," and he displayed the corner of his plaid, made to hold lambs (the true shepherd's plaid, consisting of two breadths sewed together, and uncut at one end, making a poke or cul de sac). "Tak' yer lamb," said she, laughing at the contrivance, and so the Pet was first well happit up, and then put up, laughing silently, into the plaid neuk, and the shepherd strode off with his lamb, — Maida gamboling through the snow, and running races in her mirth. Didn't he face "the angry airt," and make her bield his bosom, and into his own room with her, and lock the door, and out with the warm, rosy, little wifie, who took it all with great composure! There the two remained for three or more hours, making the house ring with their laughter ; you can fancy the big man's and Maidie's laugh. Having made the fire cheery, he set her down 12 Childhood Friendships in his ample chair, and standing sheepishly before her, began to say his lesson, which happened to be, — "Zic- cotty, diccotty, dock, the mouse ran up the clock, the clock struck wan, down the mouse ran, ziccotty, diccotty, dock." This done repeatedly till she was pleased, she gave him his new lesson, gravely and slowly, timing it upon her small fingers, — he saying it after her, — "Wonery, twoery, tickery, seven; Alibi, crackaby, ten, and eleven ; Pin, pan, musky, dan; Tweedle-um, twoddle-um. Twenty -wan ; eerie, one, ourie, You, are, out." He pretended to great difficulty, and she rebuked him with most comical gravity, treating him as a child. He used to say that when he came to AJibi Crackaby he broke down, and Pin-Pan, Musky-Dan, Tweedle-um, Twoddle-um made him roar with laughter. He said Musky-Dan especially was beyond endurance, bringing up an Irishman and his hat fresh from the Spice Islands and odoriferous Ind ; she getting quite bitter in her dis- pleasure at his ill-behavior and stupidness. Then he would read ballads to her in his own glorious way, the two getting wild with excitement over Gil Morrice or the Baron of Smailholm; and he would take her on his knee, and make her repeat Constance's speeches in King John, till he swayed to and fro, sobbing his fill. Fancy the gifted little creature, like one p)0ssessed, repeating, — "For I am sick, and capable of fears, Oppressed with wrong, and therefore full of fears; A widow, husbandless, subject to fears; A woman, naturally born to fears. 13 The Book of Friendship "If thou that bidst me be content, wert grim, Ugly and slanderous to thy mother's womb. Lame, fooUsh, crooked, swart, prodigious" — Or drawing herself up "to the height of her great argument," — "I will instruct my sorrows to be proud, For grief is proud, and makes his owner stout. Here I and sorrow sit." Scott used to say that he was amazed at her power over him, saying to Mrs. Keith, "She's the most extraor- dinary creature I ever met with, and her repeating of Shakespeare overpowers me as nothing else does." . . . Here is Maidie's first letter before she was six, the spelling unaltered, and there are no "commoes." " My dear Isa, — I now sit down to answer all your kind and beloved letters which you was so good as to write to me. This is the first time I ever wrote a letter in my Life. There are a great many Girls in the Square and they cry just like a pig when we are under the painful necessity of putting it to Death. Miss Potune a Lady of my acquaintance praises me dreadfully. I repeated something out of Dean Swift, and she said I was fit for the stage, and you may think I was primmed up with majestick Pride, but upon my word I felt myselfe turn a little birsay — birsay is a word which is a word that William composed which is as you may suppose a little enraged. This horrid fat simpliton says that my Aunt is beautifull which is intirely impossible for that is not her nature." . . . . . . Here are bits from her Diary at Braehead : — "The day of my existence here has been delightful and 14 Childhood Friendships enchanting. On Saturday I expected no less than three well-made Bucks the names of whom is here advertised. Mr. Geo. Crakey (Craigie), and Wm. Keith and Jn. Keith — the first is the funniest of every one of them. Mr. Crakey and (I) walked to Crakyhall (Craigiehall) hand in hand in Innocence and matitation (meditation) sweet thinking on the kind love which flows in our tender hearted mind which is overflowing with majestic pleasure no one was ever so polite to me in the hole state of my existence. Mr. Craky you must know is a great Buck and pretty good-looking. "I am at Ravelston enjoying nature's fresh air. The birds are singing sweetly — the calf doth frisk and nature shows her glorious face." Here is a confession: — "I confess I have been very more like a httle young divil than a creature for when Isabella went up stairs to teach me religion and my multiplication and to be good and all my other lessons I stamped with my foot and threw my new hat which she had made on the ground and was sulky and was dreadfully passionate, but she never whiped me but said Marjory go into another room and think what a great crime you are committing letting your temper git the better of you. But I went so sulkily that the Devil got the better of me but she never never whips me so that I think I would be the better of it and the next time that I behave ill I think she should do it for she never does it. ... • Isabella has given me praise for checking my temper for I was sulky even when she was kneeling an hole hour teaching me to write." Our poor little wifie, she has no doubts of the personality of the Devil! "Yesterday I behave extremely ill in IS The Book of Friendship God's most holy church for I would never attend myself nor let Isabella attend which was a great crime for she often tells me that when to or three are geathered to- gether God is in the midst of them, and it was the very same Divil that tempted Job that tempted me I am sure ; but he resisted Satan though he had boils and many many other misfortunes which I have escaped. . . . I am now going to tell you the horible and wretched plaege (plague) that my multipUcation gives me you can't conceive it the most Devilish thing is 8 times 8 and 7 times 7 it is what nature itself cant endure." This is delicious; and what harm is there in her "Devilish"? it is strong language merely; even old Rowland Hill used to say "he grudged the Devil those rough and ready words." . . . . . . She seems now, when still about six, to have broken out into song : — "Ephibol (Epigram or Epitaph — Who Knows Which) on MY Dear Love Isabella "Here lies sweet Isabell in bed, With a night-cap on her head ; Her skin is soft, her face is fair, And she has very pretty hair; She and I in bed lies nice. And undisturbed by rats or mice ; She is disgusted with Mr. Worgan, Though he plays upon the organ. Her nails are neat, her teeth' are white, Her eyes are very, very bright, In a conspicuous town she lives. And to the poor her money gives : Here ends sweet Isabella's story. And may it be much to her glory." 16 Childhood Friendships Here are some bits at random : — "Of summer I am very fond, And love to bathe into a pond ; The look of sunshine dies away, And will not let me out to play ; I love the morning's sun to spy Glittering through the casement's eye, The rays of light are very sweet, And puts away the taste of meat ; The balmy breeze comes down from heaven. And makes us like for to be living. "The casawary is an curious bird, and so is the gigantic crane, and the pehcan of the wilderness, whose mouth holds a bucket of fish and water. Fighting is what ladies is not qualyfied for, they would not make a good figure in battle or in a duel. Alas! we females are of little use to our country." . . . . . . Do we make too much of this little child, who has been in her grave in Abbotshall Kirkyard these fifty and more years ? We may of her cleverness, — not of her affectionateness, her nature. What a picture the anitnosa infans gives us of herself ! . . . We don't wonder Walter Scott carried her off in the neuk of his plaid, and played himself with her for hours. Dr. John Brown Sunshine <^ <^ ^^^ <^ "^^ -"^^ ^^^ TV /TY friend p)eers in on me with merry iVl Wise face, and though the sky stay dim, The very light of day, the very Sun's self comes in with him. A . C. Swinburne c 17 The Book of Friendship Enoch Arden -^s*- ^^^ <::> ^o -cs^ ^ci> T ONG lines of cliflf breaking have left a chasm ; -■— ' And in the chasm are foam and yellow sands ; Beyond, red roofs about a narrow wharf In cluster ; then a moulder'd church ; and higher A long street climbs to one tall-tower'd mill ; And high in heaven behind it a gray down With Danish barrows ; and a hazelwood, By autumn nutters haunted, flourishes Green in a cupUke hollow of the down. Here on this beach a hundred years ago, Three children of three houses, Annie Lee, The prettiest damsel in the port. And Philip Ray the miller's only son. And Encch Arden, a rough sailor's lad, Made orphan by a winter shipwreck, play'd Among the waste and lumber of the shore, Hard coils of cordage, swarthy fishing-nets, Anchors of rusty fluke, and boats updrawn ; And built their castles in dissolving sand To watch them overflow'd, or following up And flying the white breaker, daily left The little footprint daily wash'd away. A narrow cave ran in beneath the cliff: In this the children play'd at keeping house. Enoch was host one day, Phihp the next. While Annie still was mistress ; but at times Enoch would hold possession for a week : " This is my house and this my httle wife." " Mine too," said Phihp, " turn and turn about : " i8 Childhood Friendships When, if they quarrell'd, Enoch stronger-made Was master : then would PhiHp, his blue eyes Al! flooded with the helpless wrath of tears, Shriek out, " I hate you, Enoch," and at this The httle wife would weep for company, And pray them not to quarrel for her sake, And say she would be httle wife to both. Alfred Tennyson W We once were Children ^i,. <>y ^cy -v:^. [Y child, we once were children, Two children, little and gay ; We crawl'd inside the henhouse, And hid in the straw in play. We crow'd as the cocks are accustom'd, And when the people came by, " Cock-a-doodle-doo! " — and they fancied 'Twas really the cock's shrill cry. The chests within our courtyard With paper we nicely lined. And in them hved together. In a dwelling quite to our mind. The aged cat of our neighbor Came oft to visit us there; We made her our bows and our curtsies. And plenty of compliments fair. For her health we used to inquire In language friendly and soft ; Since then we have ask'd the same question Of many old cats full oft. 19 The Book of Friendship We used to sit, while we wisely Discoursed, in the way of old men, And lamented that all was better In the olden days than then ; How love and truth and religion From out of the world had fled, How very dear was the coffee, How scarce was the gold, we said. Those childish sports have vanish'd, And all is fast roUing away ; The world, and the times, and religion, And gold, love, and truth aU decay. Eeinrich Heine Leolin and Edith