Many years ago the author of The Four Feathers wrote of such a friendship between two men:
"It was a helpful instrument, which would not wear out, put into their hands for a hard, lifelong use, but it was not and never had been spoken of between them. Both men were grateful for it, as for a rare and undeserved gift; yet both knew that it might entail an obligation of sacrifice. But the sacrifices, were they needful, would be made, and they would not be mentioned."
It has been well said that "Love gives and receives, and keeps no account on either side," but that is very different from deliberately using friendship for selfish ends.
II
SUCCESSFUL COMRADES
For days two men had been together, tramping, driving, boating, eating, sleeping, talking. And when the time for separation came, one said to the other: "Will you please give a message to your wife? Tell her for me, if you will, that she has made her husband into a real comrade."
That man would have been at a loss to tell what are the elements that go to the making up of a good comrade. In fact, he intimated as much on the last day of the excursion. "You can no more tell the things that go to make up a real comrade than you can explain the things that make a landscape beautiful; you can only see and rejoice."
Just so, it is possible to see instances of good comradeship and rejoice.
In order that there may be real comradeship between two individuals it is not at all necessary that they shall belong to the same station in life. One of those to whom John Muir, the great naturalist, proved himself a true comrade was a guide who many times went with him into the fastnesses of the high Sierras of California. "It was great to hear him talk," the guide has said. "Often we sat together like two men who had always known each other. It wasn't always necessary to talk; often there would be no word said for half an hour. But we understood each other in the silence."
Nor is it essential that people shall be much together before they can be real comrades. Theodore Roosevelt and Joel Chandler Harris knew one another by reputation only until the red letter day when Uncle Remus entered the door of the White House, in response to an urgent letter of invitation in which the President wrote: "Presidents may come and presidents may go, but Uncle Remus stays put. Georgia has done a great many things for the Union, but she has never done more than when she gave Joel Chandler Harris to American literature." When the two animal-lovers finally came together there was real comradeship. That the reporters understood this was evident from the wire one of them sent to his paper: "Midnight—Mr. Harris has not returned to his hotel. The White House is ablaze with light. It is said that Mr. Harris is telling the story of Br'er Rabbit and the Tar Baby." But the Georgian's own colloquial account of the memorable session with his comrade at Washington was more explicit:
"There are things about the White House that'll astonish you ef ever you git there while Teddy is on hand. It's a home; it'll come over you like a sweet dream the minnit you git in the door. . . . It's a kind of feelin' that you kin have in your own house, if you've lived right, but it's the rarest thing in the world that you kin find it in anybody else's house. . . . We mostly talked of little children an' all the pranks they're up to from mornin' till night, an' how they draw old folks into all sorts of traps, and make 'em play tricks on themselves. That's the kinder talk I like, an' I could set up long past my bedtime an' listen to it. Jest at the right time, the President would chip in wi' some of his adventures wi' the children. . . . I felt just like I had been on a visit to some old friend that I hadn't seen in years."