Man is slow to understand how human he is. He thinks he can measure himself by other standards than himself, but all his circuits lead him home again; his most positive knowledge is of himself, and by analogy of his own kind. With a wise recognition of the limits of his own nature he should seek happiness in the conditions of existence known to him and especially among his own species, where alone he can find beings whose endowments are the same, and whose affinities and sympathies respond to his own.
Society, as I have said, is the common field of intercourse in civilized life, and it makes for itself its own various limitations and restrictions. Other methods of Association are based on quite different principles, but have all been organized with the aim of increasing happiness, and all therefore deserve the cultivation of him who is sedulous about his own. The two motives which give them origin are, the one, Interest; the other, Sympathy. The former I may call Fellowships; the latter, Comradeships.
Fellowships, composed of those who follow the same business, trade, or profession, and thus have an interest in common,—this is what the word means. They are the guilds, unions, lodges, clubs, societies, associations, companies, which swarm so in our day, whose members are held together by a desire of mutual assistance in making money, or raising wages, or providing against misfortune, or maintaining privileges, or buying cheap, or paying each other’s funeral expenses, or in a thousand other ways advancing the interests, and thus relieving the burdens and increasing the enjoyment, of their members. I knew a man who belonged to over three hundred such associations, and as he was in other respects a sensible person, he probably found a profit in this multiplication of ties.
It is a discovery of modern times of no mean importance that after several thousand years of open trial, government and religion and friendship and love have all failed in relieving the misery of human life, but that the intelligent recognition of the mutuality of interests does not fail; and, when properly organized, may be counted on with utmost confidence to prevent most of the disasters and to secure most of the essential material blessings of life,—far beyond the dreams of the most sanguine reformers of earlier generations. There is no reason why we should have the poor always with us, except the ignorance of men as to their own material interests or their indifference to them; and these difficulties must in time diminish, if not disappear. Through association for mutual aid in buying and selling, in labor and investment, in defense and assistance, in credit and insurance, and the like, the date is almost calculable when the deserving poor will as a class no longer exist, and extreme indigence will mean either idleness or crime.
The rock on which most such schemes have shattered has been that in their blind effort at mutuality they have overlooked the prime import of individuality—the freedom and autonomy of each member. It should never be forgotten that the only value of any scheme of association is the development of the individual. Any society which does not make this its first and clearly announced purpose is doomed to a deserved failure. There is no sentiment in such associations. They classify men like bricks or boxes, according to the externals or accidents of their professions or places. They pay no heed to personality beyond the one element in it which they are formed to take cognizance of. For that very reason they are apt to demand disproportionate sacrifices for this, and to encroach on liberty by unjust demands on the member’s time, labor, leisure, or money. They are liable to reach a point where the benefits they confer are not worth the sacrifices they require. This is the history of many labor unions in the United States, and it is the characteristic of all the so-called socialistic schemes for improving society. In all of them society is looked upon as paramount to the individual, instead of the individual as paramount to society; whereas, his development is that alone for which society has any right to exist.
Comradeship differs from Fellowship as social does from business life. In it there is no question of interests in common, but only of tastes in common—a mutuality which exists often to the sad injury of interests. Comrades are birds of a feather, who assemble because they resemble—in accordance with the French proverb, Qui se rassemblent, s’assemblent. They all like dogs, or whist, or yachts, or music, or old books, or four-in-hands, or spectral analysis,—any of the occupations of choice which are pursued for the pleasure they yield.
In modern life this form of Association has largely taken the place of Friendship as it was understood by the ancients. It is better adapted to the bustle and scurry of these days, when the busy worker has not time to cultivate the amenities of sentiment, but desires to find others who share his favorite tastes, and a ready-made sympathy which he need not be at the trouble of looking after, but which is always at hand when he wants it. This he finds in such comradeships, where each comes because he has likings similar to the others, and is therefore sure to be a pleasant arrival. Each thus gratifies his own taste and increases its capacity for gratification; for tastes are like magnets,—the more they are used the stronger becomes their power of attraction.
The higher grades of comradeship are seen in artistic, literary, and scientific societies, which pursue their objects for the love of the subject, and not for commercial or other material ends. The intellectual communion which they yield to their members is a pleasure of a very high order, and an additional and valuable advantage which they possess is that they bring workers in the same fields of unselfish pursuits together, soften the asperities which ignorance of each other’s personalities might allow to remain, and often pave the way for warm and abiding friendships. Those men of science or artists who hold themselves aloof from such reunions usually do so through self-distrust or undue sensitiveness, and sin both against their own happiness and the prosperity of their favorite employment.
Both the religious and the moral life—they are not the same—should find their chief activity in the sphere of comradeship. It was the beautiful ideal of George Fox that the Church of the future should be a Society of Friends. The ideal is too lofty for human nature; but it is quite possible and should be a daily occurrence that the members of a church or a society united for the development of the benevolent or religious sentiments should display as much mutual good feeling and as warm a personal interest in the common purpose, as, say, dog-fanciers who belong to the same kennel club.
Friendship is far rarer than Comradeship, because it is more delicate and requires a higher type of character. Most men are incapable of it, and therefore cannot distinguish it from a mere community of tastes. It goes much farther, embracing the whole nature, and lifting the relation out of the plane of interests or tastes into that of sentiment and spiritual sympathy. No one is capable of friendship who thinks what use he can make of it. Friendship is free trade, and knows neither charity, robbery, nor reciprocity. It keeps neither a debit nor a credit account, and it leaves no room for ingratitude, because the credit of each party is unlimited.
The completest friendship is that in which the utmost sympathy is united with the utmost independence. The differences must not be so great as to prevent a thorough understanding, nor so small as to do away with admiration for the personal qualities of each other, and some desire to emulate them.
These phrases do not mean that we should look for perfection in friends. Quite the contrary. What could be more fatiguing than perfection? Its monotony would be unendurable. The affection for friends is not a tribute paid to their merits. Their very faults often endear them. We do not wish them removed. For ourselves, it may be well to retain some of those defects which give our friends pleasure; though this is to be taken with reserve; for, on the other hand, a great charm in a friend is that he brings us not what we expected, but something equally pleasant which we did not expect.
Friendship is strengthened by a certain amount of reserve. Few persons, to use the slang of the studio, “strip well.” Every one gains by veiling some of his parts. For the same reason we should not ask nor desire complete confidence from a friend. There are always secrets which it is better not to know. We may inquire the cause of his despondency, for sympathy and aid are natural to the sentiment of friendship; but should wait to be told the sources of his elation.
In a similar manner absence for not too long a time strengthens friendship by allowing its value to be felt, and the imagination to clothe the absent in some of the fanciful and beautiful garbs of the ideal. But too prolonged a stay leaves friendship a memory rather than a passion.
“But what!” some one will exclaim. “Are we to set about making and keeping friends with the same attention as if we were raising hot-house fruit?” Yes, precisely so; but if a friend is not in your estimation worth as much as a bunch of Hamburg grapes, I assure you it will be time wasted for you to try. When people complain that they have no friends, inquire what efforts they have made to get and keep them. True friendship is rare because it is rarely sought for. When Lord Bacon wrote, “There is little friendship in the world, and least of all between equals,” the great Chancellor unwittingly testified to the truth of those charges of perfidy which posterity has brought against his name. Friends must be diligently sought for, and when found must be sedulously cherished. Dr. Johnson never said a wiser word than when he gave the advice, directed especially to those who are advancing in years, “to keep our friendships in constant repair.”
Such a relation of sentiment between men can scarcely be formed in later life. As trees grow old their fibres become rigid, and their branches cannot be interlocked to arch a bower. But, by a delightful compensation of nature, it is precisely at this period of life that the sweetest friendships of all are formed—those between men and women. Some have doubted these, and I grant you most are incapable of them; but in facts and friendships there is no such thing as gender. There are too many beautiful examples in history to allow room for scepticism here.
Need I count them? Need I refer to the friendship between Chateaubriand and Madame Recamier, extending over thirty years, during which she was the guide, consoler, and confidante of the great statesman and author; not as a learned woman,—for that she was not,—but as a truly sympathetic soul? Need I quote from that charming volume of letters, the Briefe an eine Freundin, which testify to the long, the loving, and the pure bond that united Wilhelm von Humboldt to Charlotte Diede?
Or is there occasion to dwell on that instance which enshrines elements of sweetness even beyond these, the friendship between Michael Angelo and Vittoria Colonna? Think of the inspired and self-centred artist, living alone with his dreams of matchless beauty, meeting no man worthy of admittance even to the threshold of his affections, he who could write from Rome to his nephew in Florence, “I have no friends; I need none and wish none;” finding at last in the noble and tender soul of this distinguished woman the sentiments and sympathy for which he had been unconsciously longing, and which were necessary to complete the symmetry of both his own life and hers!
The burden laid on Beauty is, that it can have many lovers but no friends.
A very positive character is at first pleasing. We ourselves are troubled by so many problems that it is a relief to think,—“Here is one who has solved them all.” But we soon find that such characters merely slam the door in the face of importunate inquiries.
Men’s characters are polar forces; the stronger they repel some, the stronger they attract others.
The society of those who enjoy is alone enjoyable.
Be select in your friends, but miscellaneous in your acquaintances. Ask not sympathy from the latter nor assistance from the former.
If you would keep friends, shun explanations.
If you doubt the persistence in adversity of what is called friendship, make friends with an impecunious debtor.
Men admire women who try to please them; women admire men who, they believe, have qualities worthy of admiration.
We like those who can be useful to us, and love those to whom we can be useful.
The secret of gaining friends is to cultivate within ourselves the capacity for friendship.
New acquaintances cannot take the place of old friends; but when your teeth wear out, an artificial denture is a vast advantage over bare gums.
Be sure that the man who boasts of a hundred friends, has none.