NEW FRIENDS OR OLD?

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19269, 5 January 1931, Page 10

NEW FRIENDS OR OLD?

“ Make new friends, but keep the old, For one is silver, and the other gold.” Please do not put off an appointment with a tried old friend in order to go out with a new and perhaps more influential acquaintance. Remember that the old friend has stuck to you through thick and thin, maybe for years, and that j 7 ou know very.little so far about the new friend. My definition of an old friend is one who always greets you with a smile of welcome, and who is never too proud to introduce you to any of her acquaintances. The prbationary period of friendship I place at one year. It takes at least a year to prove that a person spends time in your company because she likes you, rather than because she likes what you are able to do for her. When a person acquires sudden wealth, that person makes a host cf friends almost at once. But history has seldom show 7 n that a single one of a rich man’s friends remained staunch when wealth was lost as suddenly as it was acquired. Make as many new friends as you can, for that is the only way to enjoy life. But do everything in your power to keep the old friends. You can never tell when you may be in desperate need of someone to whom you can pour cut your troubles, with the certain knowledge that you will obtain sympathy. Old friends know you, and that knowledge enables them to help wisely; new friends, how’ever effusive know nothing about you, and cannot, therefore, give any assistance that is worth receiving. Silver is valuable, particularly if you have it in large quantities; but golcs is still more precious.