the result of personality. Each
partner is after all a distinct individual, with will, and conscience,
and life apart, with a personal responsibility which none can take from
him, and with an individual bias of mind and heart which can never be
left out of account.

As is to be expected, some of the limits of friendship are not
essential to the relation, but are due to a _defect_ in the relation,
perhaps an idiosyncrasy of character or a peculiarity of temper. Some
of the limits are self-imposed, and arise from mistake of folly. A
friend may be too exacting, and may make excessive demands, which
strain the bond to the breaking point. There is often a good deal of
selfishness in the affection, which asks for absorption, and is jealous
of other interests. Jealousy is usually the fruit, not of love, but of
self-love. Life is bigger than any relationship, and covers more
ground. The circles of life may intersect, and part of each be common
to the other, but there will be an area on both sides exclusive to
each; and even if it were possible for the circles to be concentric, it
could hardly be that the circumference of the two could be the same;
one would be, almost without a doubt, of larger radius than the other.
It is not identity which is the aim and the glory of friendship, but
unity in the midst of difference. To strive at identity is to be
certain of failure, and it deserves failure; for it is the outcome of
selfishness. A man's friend is not his property, to be claimed as his
exclusive possession. Jealousy is an ignoble vice, because it has its
roots in egotism. It also destroys affection, since it is an evidence
of want of trust, and trust is essential to friendship.

There are physical limits to friendship, if nothing else. There are
material barriers to be surmounted, before human beings really get into
touch with each other, even in the slightest degree. The bodily
organs, through which alone we can enter into communication, carry with
them their own disabilities. The senses are at the best limited in
their range, and are ever exposed to error. Flesh stands in the way of
a complete revelation of soul. Human feet cannot enter past the
threshold of the soul's abode. The very means of self-revelation is a
self-concealment. The medium, by which alone we know, darkens, if it
does not distort, the object. Words obscure thought, by the very
process through which alone thought is possible for us; and t