children. It
can roll in a Christmas log for a large hearth. It can
spread happiness to the right and left. It can spend
money most beautifully and make gold to shine.
Civilization itself is of the heart."--_Swing._

VIII

THE ENTHUSIASM OF FRIENDSHIP

Destiny is determined by friendship. Fortune is made or marred when
the youth selects his companions. Friendship has ever been the
master-passion ruling the forum, the court, the camp. The power of
love is God-breathed, and life has nothing like love for majesty and
beauty. Civilization itself is more of the heart than of the mind. As
an eagle cannot rise with one wing, so the soul ascends borne up
equally by reason and affection. Plato found the measure of greatness
in a man's capacity for exalted friendship. All the great ones of
history stand forth as unique in some master passion as in their
intellectual supremacy. Witness David and Jonathan, with love
surpassing the love of women. Witness Socrates and his group of
immortal friends. Witness Dante and his deathless love for Beatrice.
Witness Tennyson and his refrain for Arthur Hallam. Witness the
disciples and Christ, with "love as strong as death."

Sweetness is not more truly the essence of music than is love the very
soul of a deep, strong, harmonious manhood. Friendship cheers like a
sunbeam; charms like a good story; inspires like a brave leader; binds
like a golden chain; guides like a heavenly vision. To love alone is
it given to wrestle victoriously with death.

Lord Bacon said: "He who loves solitude is either a wild beast or a
god." The normal man is gregarious. He wants companionship. The very
cattle go in herds. The fishes go in shoals. The bees go in swarms.
And men come together in families and cities. As men go up toward
greatness their need of friendship increases. No mind of the first
order was ever a hermit. Modern literature enshrines the friendships
of the great and makes them memorable. While letters last, society
will never forget Charles Lamb and his companions; Dr. Johnson and his
immortal group; Petrarch and his helpless dependence upon Laura; while
the letters of Abelard and Heloise enshrine them in everlasting
remembrance.

In all literature there is no more touching death-bed scene than that
of the patriarch Jacob. Dying, the Prince forgot his gold and silver,
his herds and lands. Lifted up upon his pillows, in tremulous
excitement he took upon his l