Friendship

Friendship, by Hugh Black

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Title: Friendship
Author: Hugh Black
Release Date: March 20, 2007 [EBook #20861]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK
FRIENDSHIP ***

Produced by Al Haines

FRIENDSHIP
By HUGH BLACK

With an Introductory Note by

W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, D.D.

Chicago--New York--Toronto
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
London--Edinburgh

Copyright, 1898, 1903, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

To MY FRIEND
HECTOR MUNRO FERGUSON
AND TO MANY OTHER FRIENDS WHO HAVE MADE LIFE
RICH

Equidem, ex omnibus rebus, quas mihi aut Fortuna aut Natura tribuit,
nihil habeo quod cum amicitia Scipionis possum, comparare.
CICERO.

Intreat me not to leave thee, And to return from following after thee:
For whither thou guest, I will go; And where thou lodgest, I will lodge;
Thy people shall be my people, And thy God my God: Where thou diest,
will I die, And there will I be buried: The Lord do so to me, and more
also, If aught but death part thee and me.
BOOK OF RUTH.

APPRECIATION
BY SIR WM. ROBERTSON NICOLL, D.D.
Mr. Hugh Black's wise and charming little book on Friendship is full of
good things winningly expressed, and, though very simply written, is
the result of real thought and experience. Mr. Black's is the art that
conceals art. For young men, especially, this volume will be a golden
possession, and it can hardly fail to affect their after lives. Mr. Black
says well that the subject of friendship is less thought of among us now
than it was in the old world. Marriage has come to mean infinitely more.
Communion with God in Christ has become to multitudes the primal
fact of life. Nevertheless the need for friendship remains.--"British
Weekly."

Friendship is to be valued for what there is in it, not for what can be
gotten out of it. When two people appreciate each other because each
has found the other convenient to have around, they are not friends,
they are simply acquaintances with a business understanding. To seek
friendship for its utility is as futile as to seek the end of a rainbow for
its bag of gold. A true friend is always useful in the highest sense; but
we should beware of thinking of our friends as brother members of a
mutual-benefit association, with its periodical demands and threats of
suspension for non-payment of dues.
TRUMBULL.

Contents
I
THE MIRACLE OF FRIENDSHIP
II

THE CULTURE OF FRIENDSHIP
III
THE FRUITS OF FRIENDSHIP
IV
THE CHOICE OF FRIENDSHIP
V
THE ECLIPSE OF FRIENDSHIP
VI
THE WRECK OF FRIENDSHIP
VII
THE RENEWING OF FRIENDSHIP
VIII
THE LIMITS OF FRIENDSHIP
IX
THE HIGHER FRIENDSHIP

The Miracle of Friendship
But, far away from these, another sort Of lovers linkëd in true heart's
consent; Which lovëd not as these for like intent, But on chaste virtue
grounded their desire, Far from all fraud or feignëd blandishment;
Which, in their spirits kindling zealous fire, Brave thoughts and noble
deeds did evermore aspire.

Such were great Hercules and Hylas dear, True Jonathan and David
trusty tried; Stout Theseus and Pirithöus his fere; Pylades and Orestes
by his side; Mild Titus and Gesippus without pride; Damon and Pythias,
whom death could not sever; All these, and all that ever had been tied
In bands of friendship, there did live forever; Whose lives although
decay'd, yet loves decayëd never.
SPENSER, The Faerie Queene.

The Miracle of Friendship
The idea, so common in the ancient writers, is not all a poetic conceit,
that the soul of a man is only a fragment of a larger whole, and goes out
in search of other souls in which it will find its true completion. We
walk among worlds unrealized, until we have learned the secret of love.
We know this, and in our sincerest moments admit this, even though
we are seeking to fill up our lives with other ambitions and other hopes.
It is more than a dream of youth that there may be here a satisfaction of
the heart, without which, and in comparison with which, all worldly
success is failure. In spite of the selfishness which seems to blight all
life, our hearts tell us that there is possible a nobler relationship of
disinterestedness and devotion. Friendship in its accepted sense is not
the highest of the different grades in that relationship, but it has its
place in the kingdom of love, and through it we bring ourselves