IVON FRIENDS
Who shall estimate the value of a cheery, breezy, hopeful friend? Nobody can get along without her. She keeps us in good humor, she switches off the bores, she lights us up and keeps things in motion; in her company our spirits rise, our wits grow bright and our tongues loosen, so that we really believe after half an hour’s contact with her that we are in ourselves as brilliant and as happy as she makes us. A friend that can raise everybody around her from a state of practical imbecility to that of a brilliant and beautiful song bird is a being we may all envy. If we would be such a friend ourselves, there is but one way: we must be agreeable at all times, kindly serviceable to every outward call, never see a slight or notice a snub, and never allow ourselves to get into the dumps. “To be warpedunconsciously under the magnetic influence of all around is the destiny to a certain extent of even the greatest souls.” We cannot be too careful of our friendships, nor value too highly the love of the good women whom we meet in life.
The late “Jennie June,” Mrs. Croly, said at one of the celebrations in honor of her seventieth birthday: “I am glad to have lived so many years because I have come to know that most beautiful thing on earth, the love of one woman for another—the love of good women for one another.” And truly, if any woman on earth has reason to know it, this “mother of clubs,” who did more than any other one woman to introduce women to one another, ought to from long and intimate experience. Through her pen, that of the first regular, trained woman-journalist in the world, and through her long, active experience as president of the foremost woman’s club in the country, Mrs. Croly did more, perhaps, for the emancipation of women in a social way than almost any other woman of her age, and we may well pause to consider her words for a moment.
It has long been the custom, even among women, to sneer at the love of woman forwoman; to say that women cannot be true, cannot overlook peculiarities in other women, have not charity for one another’s shortcomings. But the women who say this to-day are not trained thinkers and observers. The more we associate with other women along any definite line, the broader grows the individual outlook, the more charitable the mental attitude. It is the beginner who believes women are not true to each other, mainly because she hasn’t it in her own heart to be true to others. It is a case where the verdict of the immortal bard is illustrated:
“To thine own self be true;And it must follow, as the night the day,Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
“To thine own self be true;And it must follow, as the night the day,Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
“To thine own self be true;And it must follow, as the night the day,Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
“To thine own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
The modern “passion for organization” has done more for the friendships of women than anything else has ever done. It has lifted the ordinary woman from the plane of petty gossip and trivial interest in each other’s every-day affairs, and it has, in part at least, killed out that love of gossip which in times past men have delighted to ascribe to women as their especial prerogative; although for that matter some ofthe worst gossips I have ever known are men. Long ago, when clubs and societies were first started, the club may have been a promoter of gossip just the same as the sewing bee and the church social were in earlier days. Women were not trained then to think great thoughts, to live on a plane where the comings and goings of their neighbors are beneath them, to take so broad and lofty an outlook upon affairs in general as to be incapable of scrutiny of the insignificant motives of their friends.
After working together for others, women begin to recognize in one another the loftier ideals and higher ambitions. When we are lifted upon the peak of high living ourselves, we are not so isolated as perhaps we once thought we should be; on the contrary, we are able to see many others who are striving to reach the summit of high thinking and worthy endeavor. Women have needed this outlook in ages past, while they are but just coming to their own, and although we may have reached the state where we are able to endure our own company, and to find comfort in the inner life, we need the friendship of others; we need the sunshine of good company to bring out the best that is in ourselves.
We may think we can do without other people, or that we do not care what other women think of us, but we all know that we do and that we depend on one another for help and for comfort. If we are inclined to too much introspection or to looking upon the dark side of things it is well to take pattern after Dr. Johnson and “live in a crowd of jollity,” at least so far as to get out of our own solitary chambers and fling ourselves into something which is their polar opposite. The ordinary woman needs contact with her intellectual mates in order that she may get out of the small round of her daily sympathies and interests. Dr. Johnson was the greatest hypochondriac in the world, but when once aroused by stimulating contact with the wise and the erudite, the change was like that in the forlorn, drooping eagle in a cage to the same bird when free to soar into the limitless space above.
It is this need that is bringing the rich woman into closer association with her poorer sister. This mutual contact is helpful. The one learns that riches do not buy brains and refinement; the other finds out that poverty does not preclude the possibility of richness of intellect and gentle manners. If one wears Paris gowns and anotheris severely plain in her costumes, there need not be any difference in the attire of their ideas. The one sees that an unfashionable garment may clothe a body containing a mind that is above rubies, that “the rank is but the guinea’s stamp—the man’s a man for a’ that.” The other discovers that her next neighbor, whom she considered a toy of fashion, has a soul and some lofty aspirations. Companionship with other women renders a woman more lenient, more sincere and more sympathetic. The pettiness of personal aims is dying out in the presence of humanity’s needs.
We should not forget that a barbed wire fence shuts out more than it shuts in. Social barriers cannot set aside mental and spiritual harmonies, for the force of personality is becoming the supreme force, before which custom and conservatism must yield. The standard by which all must judge each other is high, unselfish womanhood. The result of woman’s individual growth is nowhere more apparent than in the home, the corner-stone of civilization, and in her friendships.
Mrs. Croly declared that the passion for associated effort was far greater than any onewoman, and that no woman who sought only her own personal aggrandizement could possibly have more than a transitory, fleeting fame. How true her words have proved can easily be computed by any of us. We all know women who, through personal machination or what is even more contemptible, the unscrupulous use of their friends, have risen to high positions; but who let ambition get the better of their judgment, and consequently, though clinging tenaciously to place and grasping violently at position, were finally engulfed in the sea of oblivion.
But, happily, these women are fewer and fewer as the years roll by, and consequently the limitations of self are giving way to the largeness of a universal idea.
To enter upon any labor worthy the honest effort of any earnest woman with the selfish spirit dominant within, is not only to fail ultimately by the personal measure, but to degrade the work itself to the level of the spirit in which it was undertaken; to enter upon the most unpretending labor simply because of duty, nobly because of the possibility for others, is not only to beautify the worker, but to glorify the work.
A soul so narrow as to know no broader horizonthan is measured by its own puny pleasure or purpose, ideal or method, can never be long in the ascendant, and ultimately receives as it deserves the condemnation of the larger, better world; the life that has no definitely fixed ideal toward which it is stirring, no divinely conceived mission which it is struggling to fulfil, can expect no less than the hearty contempt of an honest humanity. Shall we not endeavor, each of us, to become the radiating centre of kindliness and good will and helpfulness? It is hard to do one’s best and then to be troubled with a haunting fear or a real consciousness that some one else would have done that particular thing better. It is harder yet to do one’s best, to work from the purest motives even, and then to feel that one’s friends are looking on with critical eye, or, at best, with cold approval. Why not say the appreciative word and give the sympathetic hand clasp wherever we can?
Harder even than death is it to find some dearly loved friend grown cold and indifferent; to find instead of the loving sympathy that has seemed a strong fortress in the past, only a distant formality, a chilling frost; or to find, worse than all, disloyalty in place of truth. Nothingis more heart-breaking than to find a love grown cold, especially if that love is one in which we have trusted and believed for years. Such things happen. We find in place of the sympathy and affection on which we have relied without question some sudden failure in time of stress. The sympathy we have accustomed ourselves to lean upon disappoints us. The hollowness of insincerity rings through the formal attempt to simulate affection that is no longer a vital thing. And when this experience befalls us—God help us.
No; death is not the worst thing that can happen to us or to our friends. I sometimes wonder if it is not the best; if we do not do wrong in wishing back those who have gone a little before us to the silent shore. Death is a mystery, but it may be the best part of life, after all. We cannot tell.
We say we believe in immortality; that we believe the future life will take us far in advance of this; that we are to be infinitely happier, infinitely better and infinitely more useful there. Why, then, are we afraid to go forward into it? Why do we grudge our friends that experience? And why—since we believe in infinite love and the life of the soul hereafter do we mourn thedeath of any human love when we are sure of God’s love and that of the friends who have gone before?
There is a poem of Edward Rowland Sill’s that has long been a favorite with me. Perhaps it may bring a comforting thought to some other who reads it here:
What if, some morning when the stars were palingAnd the dawn whitened and the east was clear,Strange peace and rest fell on me from the presenceOf a benignant spirit standing near,And I should tell him, as he stood beside me,“This is our earth, most friendly earth and fair;Daily its sea and shore, this sun and shadow,Faithful it turns, robed in its azure air?“There is best living here, loving and serving,And quest of truth and serene friendship dear;But stay not, spirit. Earth has one destroyer,His name is Death. Flee, lest he find thee here.”And what if then, while the still morning brightenedAnd freshened in the elm the summer’s breath,Should gravely smile on me the gentle angel,And take my hand and say, “My name is Death”?
What if, some morning when the stars were palingAnd the dawn whitened and the east was clear,Strange peace and rest fell on me from the presenceOf a benignant spirit standing near,And I should tell him, as he stood beside me,“This is our earth, most friendly earth and fair;Daily its sea and shore, this sun and shadow,Faithful it turns, robed in its azure air?“There is best living here, loving and serving,And quest of truth and serene friendship dear;But stay not, spirit. Earth has one destroyer,His name is Death. Flee, lest he find thee here.”And what if then, while the still morning brightenedAnd freshened in the elm the summer’s breath,Should gravely smile on me the gentle angel,And take my hand and say, “My name is Death”?
What if, some morning when the stars were palingAnd the dawn whitened and the east was clear,Strange peace and rest fell on me from the presenceOf a benignant spirit standing near,
What if, some morning when the stars were paling
And the dawn whitened and the east was clear,
Strange peace and rest fell on me from the presence
Of a benignant spirit standing near,
And I should tell him, as he stood beside me,“This is our earth, most friendly earth and fair;Daily its sea and shore, this sun and shadow,Faithful it turns, robed in its azure air?
And I should tell him, as he stood beside me,
“This is our earth, most friendly earth and fair;
Daily its sea and shore, this sun and shadow,
Faithful it turns, robed in its azure air?
“There is best living here, loving and serving,And quest of truth and serene friendship dear;But stay not, spirit. Earth has one destroyer,His name is Death. Flee, lest he find thee here.”
“There is best living here, loving and serving,
And quest of truth and serene friendship dear;
But stay not, spirit. Earth has one destroyer,
His name is Death. Flee, lest he find thee here.”
And what if then, while the still morning brightenedAnd freshened in the elm the summer’s breath,Should gravely smile on me the gentle angel,And take my hand and say, “My name is Death”?
And what if then, while the still morning brightened
And freshened in the elm the summer’s breath,
Should gravely smile on me the gentle angel,
And take my hand and say, “My name is Death”?