and even place it on a firmer basis than at first; but secret discontent must always end badly."
Let us love our friends for what they are to-day—not for what they will be when we come to make unreasonable demands on them. The sun is beautiful and delightful. It will not shine for us in the night nor, in the daytime shine for us alone. We were bereft of our minds did we, therefore, enter a cave and forswear all further pleasure in its genial rays.
IT IS EASIER TO RAIL
against friendship than to enact our parts in that drama of life which is to elevate the term. Thus we hear Goldsmith cry—
What is friendship but a name,
A charm that lulls to sleep,
A shade that follows wealth or fame,
And leaves the wretch to weep.
Yet this same Goldsmith was a burden on his friends. He did his duty to posterity, in leaving them beautiful literature and song, but to his own associates he was unsparing in his good-natured demands. It is safe to say that he who tries to ennoble friendship is best worthy of the name of friend, and he who belittles it, has fewer claims to man's humanity. Everytime we deny the existence of a satisfying, friendship, we proclaim aloud our own baseness. Let us avoid it.
Envy will merit as its shade pursue,
But, like a shadow, proves the substance true.