comradeship which the
healthy-minded seek. The friendship between a man and a woman which
does not lead to marriage or desire for marriage may be a life-long
experience of the greatest value to themselves and to all their circle
of acquaintance and of activity; but for this type of friendship both
a rare man and a rare woman are needed. Perhaps it should be added
that either the man or the woman thus deeply bound in life-long
friendship who seeks marriage must find a still rarer man or woman to
wed, to make such a three-cornered comradeship a permanent success.
Friendship at its best is a task as well as a gratification. Nothing
in this world can be had for nothing. "Earth gets its price for what
earth gives us." A really great friendship is a test and a challenge
and a "time-consumer," as Emerson says. It is, next to marriage and
parenthood, the most exacting of human relationships. For this reason
few men and women can have a great friendship that does not lead to
marriage, and at the same time have a complete marriage with another.
For this reason again, the great friendships are generally between two
unmarried men or two unmarried women.

=The Newly Wed and Old Friends.=--Much is written of the sad
disillusion experienced by the newly wedded man when he finds his
friends are not as welcome at his new fireside as he had expected.
These friends of his are not of the sort prophesied by the love of
David and Jonathan, but they are valued comrades and he has
anticipated sharing the delights of his new home with them. Many a
woman in her desire to be all in all to her husband and in the selfish
absorption of an undisciplined affection, starts married life the
wrong way by making no place in the home life for these old friends of
her husband's bachelor life. That reacts often in the worst possible
manner upon his affection for her. She forgets too often that she is
not called upon to give up her friends. They can come, and do come,
when her husband is away at his work, while his friends, if they come
at all, must come in his leisure hours which she often wishes to
preempt for herself alone. It is the most short-sighted of follies for
a woman to try to sweep clean of all former interests and friendships
the life of the man with whom she is to try the great adventure of
marriage.

The most a wife can accomplish by selfish denial to her husband of his
right to keep his friends and enjoy the old as well as the new
companio