A FEW REMARKS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 6962, 30 October 1909, Page 9

A FEW REMARKS

(By .H9)' Friendship is twin sister to love. A l . there is no true rose without.a thorn so is there no friendship without u quarrel. • Time injures most friendships. lore dies with nothing to feed on. A man loves a maid, and something disturbs the love. They drift and the wound heats. They meet again. She, formerly -a slim, beauteous creature, is a fat matron. He is a baldheaded father of children. Each wonder what either could have seen in tho other. Kacli has in the'mind's eye a picture'of the past. Friendships are strongest and remain sound in wind and limb' longest when acquaintances have'boen .formed during dangerous enterprises, when it has been nowfisarv for foiks to stick together lor mutual protection. This is tJio genesis of old soldiers' associations and the reason why thev foregather to talk over ancient "times" X attended such a gathering the other -lay. A programme had been arranged, and it was a very good programme, too. The musicians did their best;, the dancers danced, the artiats drew, and the singers sung.' lint tho ancient friends with no thought of, bedm; rudo simply grouped up m fours and lives and talked about ..the things that were responsible for tho friendships'and forgot all about the entertainment. f have known bosom pals to quarrel daily about Irish stow, or blankets, or a pound of butter, or anything. And 1. have "known one of the friends walk forty miles in order to cet some linseed to make a plaster for jhc poisoned hand of the man no quorrellel w.ilh. Seeing that I was the person with the poisoned hand knew this story to be true. And if it were not true it would still be a reasonable illustration of tho tniv things that disturb friendships Mid the' great things that friends will undertake to keep tho flag of mateship Hying. » :.-' «', ,' » ■':•.- ■••

Once there were two mates. They were camped in the backcountvy. People in line bacKcouniry quarrel about small things. This particular row began because Charlie, who had been to town, bad forgotten to brinff back a haircomb tor Joe. Joe said that Charlie was the worst blighter the worikl had ever seen, or something equally dreadful. Charlie fought Joe. Joe cleared out with his swag that evening and tool: only the barest necessities. Charlie was very - glad to - see him go, and said bo> in 'powerful ■ terms. He further added that lie hoped- he might never see- Joe any more unless lie had the- pleasure "of seeing hie name on a coffin. ' 13ut wnen Charlie had. been gone into the trackless bush for. half an hour, Joej who sat on his bunk swearing, wondered aloud if that idiot Charlie had gone away without any tobacco. And so he collected all ho could find in the camp, and lit out into the dark bush. He didn't know the way his old matehad.gone, and I really suppose that bis friendship led him. This 1 do know: lie found Charlie dead asleep under an ironbark tree, and be put the tobacco in Charlie's hat,, and a stone in it to prevent it blowing away, and returned to his camp cursing hie mate, for a pigheaded brute. Last year Charlie was Dest man at the wedding of Joo, and Mrs Joe often querulously remarks that Joo thinks more of Charlie than ho does of her. Which, of course is mere suspicion and doesn't count in the groat scheme of things. Women who. do not undertake open aar enterprises, and are content as a general thing to leave them to the coarser persons, frequently allow, their instincts to wander away with . them, muon to the disturbance of the family circle, •

'. 'Friendship: among men Is very real,, very potJtnt, and . very honest. Keal friehdsliip among women is just as much so, .but is Jess often. For instance, a man with the requisite physical qualities (which have counted for more than anything else among men for five thousand years) may have a. sort of misguided general admiration for a man. who knows all" the Latin roots and wears speotaclgs an< * carries a large black boolc with a" red edge every Sunday to a little weatherboard building with a cheap bell on the summit and some German corrugated iron. That was a very long sentence, not passable by a professor of ■English, but the point to bo perceived in my disjointed remarks is that the man who doesn't know "A" from "B" and "Does" things is,much more to the admiration of the natural person than tne man who "TELLS" and doesn't "DO,"

The friendships of earth countable in the great scheme are the » physical friendships. The fellow who tells one how to parse a',Greek verb (does one ever parse a Greek verb?) may arrest one's attention for a moment, but the rough chap in greasy molesMais who drags one out of the line of fire or the fairway of the mad steer is the person one really remembers until the doctor mentions "that "you arc going on a long journey.'"

The'reason why I so often talk about parsons is that 1 admire some parsons. The point about these people is that they would be the same kind of people if they were not parsons. I like the parson better for his wet, sack in a bush fire than for his prayer of thanksgiving afterwards. The parson who tells people what to do, and is physically unable to do it himself, lias my contempt. The clerio who can lead a forlorn hope, as so great clerics have done, has my greatest admiration. The person who.ca.n tell you how to perform a. deed is frequently a very estimable person, but if, he can, do the thing he gives so much good advice about he is the more admirable.

I remember a young parson who had all the qualifications for making st good friend. He used to meander around the Sncep and cattle stations where my young and innocent life was passed, lie arppearoci to be shocked when ho came into the hut and found the bad shearers and tho sinful rouscaboutswasting their time and money in the wicked t pastrimo of euchre. He would speak of 'the usefulness of getting , home with an unburst cheque and a full kit of clothes and a fat horse, and of the utter foolishness of arriving with a spent prad, ragged moleskins, and twopence. One day on Mucka Mucka he' arrived with a spent horse. It was a common circumstanoe, and'the "boys" sorted out a mount fox him. I remember that the man who handed him over the horse was named Hugh Price, and that when the young parson mounted, the horse gjivo six "roots" and a "pig jump," nine bucks and a twirl, and "went to market."

The parson belaboured the buck jumper -with ■ a heavy prayerbook, but I wasn't near enough to him to hear the language he used. All I know is that he jumped the horse over the home-paddock-gato, jumped him back, rode to the hut and gave Hughie a hammering ivnich made a friend of that 6hearer for the rest of the parson's life. The point is that tbo pareon lost his life- in the Barwon river trying to save the life of a. poor little kiddie who had been ewept out of his bunk by the flood. And I know th&t Hughie, the man who had been hammered by the parson, used to tell all sorts of lies to the widow of the parson, and that she didn't know until she married again to whom, she was indebted for her daily bread. Hughie know, but he didn't tell her. The world is full of the best kind of friendships: the -friendships that are based on nothing with gold in them that are the result of the finest instincts, and make the life we live livable.

My conclusion in examining these real instances of human affection is that friendship is the sweetest flower that

grows. You see women who turn up their noses at the hats of other women, who pass bitter remarks about, the ehilaren of other women, who are full of contempt for the female person over tha road. Hut wait until that despised woman needs a helping hand. Thou. U tho moment to gauge the worth of tho despiser. Have you ever been "burnt outr" Have you ever had dealth in your family, financial low, or a groat blow? And hay it not surprised you and made you feel glad when the poi>plo who pretended to despise you rolled, up and tried hard to cure your hurt in their own natural way? Generally speaking, one does not know his iroal friends until real friends aro needed, and then ono is surprised and delighted at tho discovories ho makes. And "these discoveries prove in mast cases that tho bull,- of hnmajiity are good people whom it is a, gladness 1o know. \\'o blauio peoplo luitil there is use for thorn and grow! at their trivial meannesses. Jiut nearly everyone has the genu of a great sacrifice concealed somewhere.