usiness for people who only look at one side of the medal,
and who brood over the fact that they have been disappointed and have
failed. For such as these, there follow the faded years of cynicism and
dreariness. But that disillusionment, that humiliation, are the freshest
and most beautiful things in the world, for people who have real
generosity of spirit, and whose vanity has been of a superficial kind;
because they thus realise that these great gifts are real and true
things, but that they must be deserved and not captured; and then
perhaps such people begin their life-work afresh, in a humble and
hopeful spirit; and if it be too late for them to do what they might
have once done, they do not waste time in futile regret, but are
grateful for ever so little love and tenderness. After all, they have
lived, they have learnt by experience; and it does not yet appear what
we shall be. Somewhere, far hence--who knows?--we shall make a better
start.

Some philosophers have devoted time and thought to tracing backwards all
our emotions to their primal origin; and it is undoubtedly true that in
the intensest and most passionate relationships of life--the love of a
man for a woman, or a mother for a child--there is a large admixture of
something physical, instinctive, and primal. But the fact also remains
that there are unnumbered relationships between all sorts of apparently
incongruous persons, of which the basis is not physical desire, or the
protective instinct, and is not built up upon any hope of gain or profit
whatsoever. All sorts of qualities may lend a hand to strengthen and
increase and confirm these bonds; but what lies at the base of all is
simply a sort of vital congeniality. The friend is the person whom one
is in need of, and by whom one is needed. Life is a sweeter, stronger,
fuller, more gracious thing for the friend's existence, whether he be
near or far: if the friend is close at hand, that is best; but if he is
far away, he is still there, to think of, to wonder about, to hear from,
to write to, to share life and experience with, to serve, to honour,
to admire, to love. But again it is a mistake to think that one makes
a friend because of his or her qualities; it has nothing to do with
qualities at all. If the friend has noble qualities, we admire them
because they are his; if he has obviously bad and even noxious faults,
how readily we condone them or overlook them! It is the person that we
want, not wha