When Robert Louis Stevenson and Edward Livingston Trudeau spent days together at Dr. Trudeau's Adirondack sanitarium—the one as patient, the other as physician—they proved that true comradeship is possible even when men's tastes are most unlike. It was possible because they knew how to ignore differences and to find common ground in the worth-while things. "My life interests were bound up in the study of facts, and in the laboratory I bowed duly to the majesty of fact, wherever it might lead," Dr. Trudeau wrote. "Mr. Stevenson's view was to ignore or avoid as much as possible unpleasant facts, and live in a beautiful, extraneous and ideal world of fancy. I got him one day into the laboratory, from which he escaped at the first opportunity. . . . On the other hand, I knew well I could not discuss intelligently with him the things he lived among and the masterly work he produced, because I was incompetent to appreciate to the full the wonderful situations his brilliant mind evolved and the high literary merit of the work in which he described the flights of his great genius."
Yet these two men were great companions, for in spite of differences as to details, their hopes and ambitions and ideals all pointed to the best things in life. After the author's departure, he sent to the doctor a splendidly bound set of his works, first writing in each volume a whimsical bit of rhyme, composed for the occasion.
Though all of these men were real comrades, there is a higher manifestation of comradeship than this. This was shown in the relation of Daniel Coit Gilman, later President of Johns Hopkins University, when he wrote to a fellow student of the deepest things in his life:
"I don't wish merely to thank you in a general way for writing as you did an expression of sympathy, but more especially to respond to the sentiments on Christian acquaintance which you there bring out. I agree with you most fully and only regret that I did not know at an earlier time upon our journey what were your feelings upon a few such topics. I tell you, Brace, that I hate cant and all that sort of thing as much as you or anyone else can do. It is not with everyone that I would enjoy a talk upon religious subjects. I hardly ever wrote a letter on them to those I know best. But when anyone believes in an inner life of faith and joy, and is willing to talk about it in an earnest, everyday style and tone, I do enjoy it most exceedingly."
Theodore Storrs Lee cultivated the relation of a comrade with his fellow students that he might talk to them, without cant, on the deepest things of life. His biographer says: "Many a time did he seek out men in lonely rooms, bewildered or weakened by the college struggles. Many a quiet talk did he have as he and his selected companion trod his favorite walk. No one else in college had so many intimate talks with so many men. . . . On one occasion, when he was urging a friend to give his life to Christian service, he seemed to be unsuccessful—until, on leaving the man at the close of the walk, he made a genial, large-minded remark that opened the way to the heart of his friend." . . . "It was only natural that I should try to meet him half-way," the friend said later, in explanation of his own changed attitude. He had been won by real comradeliness. "It was this devotion to the men in college that led him into the holy of holies of many a man's heart," wrote a friend, "causing many of us to feel in a very real way the sentiment expressed by Mrs. Browning:
"The face of all the world is changed, I think
Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul."
III
COMPANIONSHIP WITH THE PAST
What, courage from companionship with the past? The pessimist says, "Impossible! The past was so much better than the present. See how the country is going to the dogs!" and they point to the revelations of dishonesty in high places. "There were no such blots on our records when the country was young."
A public man gave an effective answer to such croakers when he said: