THE INTIMATE FRIEND.

Waikato Independent, Volume VI, Issue 383, 8 June 1907, Page 3

THE INTIMATE FRIEND.

■lt is a pleasure to have a familiar friend—one who is near to the heari, and always close at hand. Yet I think -there is danger in having too dose a companion. Undoubtedly there is great comfort in telling another woman all the worries o;' your life, but if you happen, to be sensative you exaggerate the worries, and your story, when told to a close friend, makes you a martyr, and everyone who has offended you either by word or deed, a sinner of the deepest dye.

Thus, while there is pleasure there is danger in the close companion. There is a certain morbid delight, too. in telling her of the intimacies of your home life, and in this life you appear the only, one worth considering, while you picture every one else as being iiitellectuallv weaker-,, and 'lacking in consideration towards you. Now, will you take a little advice from' me ? One can never be too careful in the confidences which you make aboui. I'our home life to a familiar fiiend. You may love her. she may love you, but, after all. there is no tie so strong as that of blood, and the day will come when you will regret having underrated any one of your own kin. I like a woman to have a woman friend, and I think it good for her to share her pleasures, ho!interests in books and pictures, ever; her opinion of a bonnet with this friend, but .1 would advise her to forget the unpleasant happenings of her own home, and not even to whisper them to her close companion who. while she may love her. may not be able to control her tongue and so the stories will bo repeated—these stories about family life—and some day they will come back dressed so that 'you will scarcely reeogn* ise them. Enjoy your friend, but have it understood between you that home affairs are not to be discussed, and that' each of yo t u is to try to get the hotter of the somewhat morbid sensitiveness which is too often pari of the feminine character. She is apt to think that nobody at home appreciates her. and she is only too apt. to repeat this opinion .until the world at large believes that she is treated in the most unkind manner, 'Very often in home life no unkindness is meant, but where there are so many the peculiarities of-one are apt to be overlooked. !Muke up your mind resolutely in the very beginning of your friendship that, even to your dearest friend, nothing except that which is pleasant shall be said a* bout the home or its inmates. Having the close companion for whom you care, remember, if you wish to keep her, that it is the little things and not the great actions in life that count.

Between frit uds there must bo close sympathy, and one must bo able to ,uive the other \vhat sho lacks : but even between tbo.se friends who are nearest and dearest it is not necessary to lay bare ou"'s heart. Such confidence, is too apt to'bo greeted with a curious satisfaction, and even from a friend this gratification makes one feel -as if "one's bruises had boon 'touched with vitriol. A real friend asks no questions. She takes the best that comes, the best that is in you, the best that you care to oiVir, ami demands nothing more. She has lonjj ap) learned, being wise, that, to all of us there comes a time when nothing should be said, but there is Never a iim-' when everything should lip said. There is very often a silence between two women friends where their thoughts (low in unison and words are This means rest, and she is unwise who breaks that silence.—" Mutual Monthly."