THE TEST OF FRIENDSHIP.
["C.K.S.," in The Sphere, describing his numerous visits to GEORGE MEREDITH at Box Hill, tells us that in no real sense can he claim to have been an intimate friend; "but then," he adds, "I always make the test of intimate friendship when people call one another by their Christian names.">[
The use of Christian names, says "C.K.S."
Is intimacy's truest test; but "George,"
When he was down at Dorking, (as you guess)
Stuck quite inextricably in his gorge;
And to the end he never got beyond
The Mister, though a faithful friend and fond.
How sad to think this barrier was never
Demolished, broken down and swept away,
But still remained to sunder and to sever
Two of the choicest spirits of our day!
For MEREDITH, though radiant, genial, kind,
On this one point showed an inclement mind.
The case was simplified in days of eld;
HOMER, for instance, had no Christian name,
And an Athenian bookman, if impelled
To visit him at Chios, when he came
Across the blind old poet and beach-comber,
Addressed him probably tout court as HOMER.
PYTHAGORAS was never Jack or Jim—
Names all unknown in ages pre-Socratic;
And SHORTER could not have accosted him
By sobriquets endearing or ecstatic;
It would have certainly provoked a scene,
For instance, to have hailed him as "Old bean."
Then at the "Mermaid," had he been invited
As an illustrious brother of the quill,
Would "C.K.S.," I wonder, have delighted
To honour WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE as "Old Bill,"
And in the small uproarious hours A.M.
Have been in turn acclaimed as "Bully CLEM"?
Perchance; who knows? The mystery is sealed;
Hypothesis, though plausible, is vain;
What might have been can never be revealed,
But one momentous fact at least is plain:
We know from an authoritative quarter
That MEREDITH was never "George" to SHORTER.