THE DEATH OF FRIENDSHIP.

A sad subject, but worth analysis; for if friendship is of any value to us whilst it is alive, is it not worth while to inquire if there are any means of keeping it alive?

The word “death” is correctly employed here, for nobody has discovered the means by which a dead friendship can be resuscitated. To hope for that would be vain indeed, and idle the waste of thought in such a bootless quest.

Shall we mourn over this death without hope, this blank annihilation, this finis of intercourse once so sweet, this dreary and ultimate conclusion?

The death of a friendship is not the death of a person; we do not mourn for the absence of some beloved person from the world. It is simply the termination of a certain degree and kind of intercourse, not of necessity the termination of all intercourse. We may be grieved that the change has come; we may be remorseful if it has come through a fault of our own; but if it is due simply to natural causes there is small place for any reasonable sorrow.

Friendship is a certain rapport between two minds during one or more phases of their existence, and the perfection of it is quite as dependent upon what is not in the two minds as upon their positive acquirements and possessions. Hence the extreme facility with which schoolboys form friendships which, for the time, are real, true, and delightful. School friendships are formed so easily because boys in the same class know the same things; and it rarely happens that in addition to what they have in common either one party or the other has any knowledge of importance that is not in common.

Later in life the pair of friends who were once comrades go into different professions that fill the mind with special professional ideas and induce different habits of thought. Each will be conscious, when they meet, that there is a great range of ideas in the other’s mind from which he is excluded, and each will have a difficulty in keeping within the smaller range of ideas that they have now in common; so that they will no longer be able to let their whole minds play together as they used to do, and they will probably feel more at ease with mere acquaintances who have what is now their knowledge, what are now their mental habits, than with the friend of their boyhood who is without them.

This is strongly felt by men who go through a large experience at a distance from their early home and then return for a while to the old place and old associates, and find that it is only a part of themselves that is acceptable. New growths of self have taken place in distant regions, by travel, by study, by intercourse with mankind; and these new growths, though they may be more valuable than any others, are of no practical use, of no social availableness, in the little circle that has remained in the old ways.

Then there are changes of temper that result from the fixing of the character by time. We think we remain the same, but that is one of our many illusions. We change, and we do not always change in the same way. One man becomes mellowed by advancing years, but another is hardened by them; one man’s temper gains in sweetness and serenity as his intellect gains in light, another becomes dogmatic, peremptory, and bitter. Even when the change is the same for both, it may be unfavorable to their intercourse. Two merry young hearts may enjoy each other’s company, when they would find each other dull and flat if the sparkle of the early effervescence were all spent.

I have not yet touched upon change of opinion as a cause of the death of friendship, but it is one of the most common causes. It would be a calumny on the intelligence of the better part of mankind to say that they always desire to hear repeated exactly what they say themselves, though that is really the desire of the unintelligent; but the cleverest people like to hear new and additional reasons in support of the opinions they hold already; and they do not like to hear reasons, hitherto unsuspected, that go to the support of opinions different from their own. Therefore a slow divergence of opinion may carry two friends farther and farther apart by narrowing the subjects of their intercourse, or a sudden intellectual revolution in one of them may effect an immediate and irreparable breach.

“If the character is formed,” says Stuart Mill, “and the mind made up on the few cardinal points of human opinion, agreement of conviction and feeling on these has been felt at all times to be an essential requisite of anything worthy the name of friendship in a really earnest mind.” I do not quote this in the belief that it is absolutely true, but it expresses a general sentiment. We can only be guided by our own experience in these matters. Mine has been that friendship is possible with those whom I respect, however widely they differ from me, and not possible with those whom I am unable to respect, even when on the great matters of opinion their views are identical with my own.

It is certain, however, that the change of opinion itself has a tendency to separate men, even though the difference would not have made friendship impossible if it had existed from the first. Instances of this are often found in biographies, especially in religious biographies, because religious people are more “pained” and “wounded” by difference of opinion than others. We read in such books of the profound distress with which the hero found himself separated from his early friends by his new conviction on this or that point of theology. Political divergence produces the same effect in a minor degree, and with more of irritation than distress. Even divergence of opinion on artistic subjects is enough to produce coolness. Artists and men of letters become estranged from each other by modifications of their critical doctrines.

Differences of prosperity do not prevent the formation of friendship if they have existed previously, and can be taken as established facts; but if they widen afterwards they have a tendency to diminish it. They do so by altering the views of one of the parties about ways of living and about the multitude of things involving questions of expense. If the enriched man lives on a scale corresponding to his newly acquired wealth, he may be regarded by the other as pretentious beyond his station, whilst if he keeps to his old style he may be thought parsimonious. From delicacy he will cease to talk to the other about his money matters, which he spoke of with frankness when he was not so rich. If he has social ambition he will form new alliances with richer men, and the old friend may regard these with a little unconscious jealousy.

It has been observed that young artists often have a great esteem for the work of one of their number so long as its qualities are not recognized and rewarded by the public, but that so soon as the clever young man wins the natural meed of industry and ability his early friendships die. They were often the result of a generous indignation against public injustice, so when that injustice came to an end the kindness that was a protest against it ceased at the same time. In jealous natures it would no doubt be replaced by the conviction that public favor had rewarded merit far beyond its deserts.

In the political life of democracies we see men enthusiastically supported and really admired with sincerity so long as they remain in opposition, and their friends indulge the most favorable anticipations about what they would do if they came to power; but when they accept office they soon lose many of these friends, who are quite sure to be disappointed with the small degree in which their excessive hopes have been realized. There is no country where this is seen more frequently than in France, where Ministers are often criticised with the most unrelenting and uncharitable acerbity by the men and newspapers that helped to raise them.

Changes of physical constitution may be the death of friendship in this way. A friendship may be founded upon some sport that one of the parties becomes unable to follow. After that the two men cease to meet on the particularly pleasant occasions that every sport affords for its real votaries, and they only meet on common occasions, which are not the same because there is not the same jovial and hearty temper. In like manner a friendship may be weakened if one of the parties gives up some indulgence that both used to enjoy together. Many a friendship has been cemented by the habit of smoking, and weakened afterwards when one friend gave up the habit, declined the cigars that the other offered, and either did not accompany him to the smoking-room or sat there in open and vexatious nonconformity.

It is well known, so well known indeed as scarcely to require mention here, that one of the most frequent and powerful causes of the death of bachelor friendships is marriage. One of the two friends takes a wife, and the friendship is at once in peril. The maintenance of it depends upon the lady’s taste and temper. If not quite approved by her, it will languish for a little while and then die, in spite of all painful and visible efforts on the husband’s part to compensate, by extra attention, for the coolness of his wife. I have visited a Continental city where it is always understood that all bachelor friendships are broken off by marriage. This rule has at least the advantage of settling the question unequivocally.

Simple neglect is probably the most common of all causes deadly to friendship,—neglect arising either from real indifference, from constitutional indolence, or from excessive devotion to business. Friendly feelings must be either of extraordinary sincerity, or else strengthened by some extraneous motive of self-interest, to surmount petty inconveniences. The very slightest difficulty in maintaining intercourse is sufficient in most cases to insure its total cessation in a short time. Your house is somewhat difficult of access,—it is on a hill-side or at a little distance from a railway station: only the most sincere friends will be at the trouble to find you unless your rank is so high that it is a glory to visit you.

Poor friends often keep up intercourse with rich ones by sheer force of determination long after it ought to have been allowed to die its own natural death. When they do this without having the courage to require some approach to reciprocity they sink into the condition of mere clients, whom the patron may indeed treat with apparent kindness, but whom he regards with real indifference, taking no trouble whatever to maintain the old connection between them.

Equality of rank and fortune is not at all necessary to friendship, but a certain other kind of equality is. A real friendship can never be maintained unless there is an equal readiness on both sides to be at some pains and trouble for its maintenance; so if you perceive that a person whom you once supposed to be your friend will not put himself to any trouble on your account, the only course consistent with your dignity is to take exactly the same amount of pains to make yourself agreeable to him. After you have done this for a little time you will soon know if the friendship is really dead; for he is sure to perceive your neglect if he does not perceive his own, and he will either renew the intercourse with some empressement or else cease from it altogether.

In early life the right rule is to accept kindness gratefully from one’s elders and not to be sensitive about omissions, because such omissions are then often consistent with the most real and affectionate regard; but as a man advances towards middle-age it is right for him to be somewhat careful of his dignity and to require from friends, whatever may be their station, a certain general reciprocity. This should always be understood in rather a large sense, and not exacted in trifles. If he perceives that there is no reciprocity he cannot do better than drop an acquaintance that is but the phantom and simulacrum of Friendship’s living reality.

It is as natural that many friendships should die and be replaced by others as that our old selves should be replaced by our present selves. The fact seems melancholy when first perceived, but is afterwards accepted as inevitable. There is, however, a death of friendship which is so truly sad and sorrowful as to cast its gloomy shadow on all the years that remain to us. It is when we ourselves, by some unhappy fault of temper that might have been easily avoided, have wounded the kind breast of our friend, and killed the gentle sentiment that was dwelling happily within. The only way to be quite sure of avoiding this great and irretrievable calamity is to remember how very delicate friendly sentiments are and how easy it is to destroy them by an inconsiderate or an ungentle word.