forming this last relationship. The modest man, said Stevenson,
finds his friendships ready-made; by which he meant that if one is
generous, tolerant, and ungrudging, then, instead of thinking the
circle in which one lives inadequate, confined, and unsympathetic,
one gets the best out of it, and sees the lovable side of ordinary
human beings. Such friendships as these can evoke perhaps the best
and simplest kind of loyalty. It is said that in countries where
oxen are used for ploughing in double harness, there are touching
instances of an ox pining away, and even dying, if he loses his
accustomed yoke-fellow. There are such human friendships, sometimes
formed on a blood relationship, such as the friendship of a brother
and a sister; and sometimes a marriage transforms itself into this
kind of camaraderie, and is a very blessed, quiet, beautiful thing.

And then there are infinite gradations, such as the friendships of
old and young, pupils and masters, parents and children, nurses and
nurslings, employers and servants, all of them in a way unequal
friendships, but capable of evoking the deepest and purest kinds of
devotion: such famous friendships have been Carlyle's devotion to
his parents, Boswell's to Johnson, Stanley's to Arnold; till at
last one comes to the typical and essential thing known specially
as friendship--the passionate, devoted, equal bond which exists
between two people of the same age and sex; many of which
friendships are formed at school and college, and which often fade
away in a sort of cordial glow, implying no particular communion of
life and thought. Marriage is often the great divorcer of such
friendships, and circumstances generally, which sever and estrange;
because, unless there is a constant interchange of thought and
ideas, increasing age tends to emphasise differences. But there are
instances of men, like Newman and FitzGerald, who kept up a sort of