ts; yet most of us tend to make fewer friends as time goes
on, partly because we have not so much emotional activity to spare,
partly because we become more cautious and discreet; and partly, too,
because we become more aware of the responsibilities which lie in
the background of a friendship, and because we tend to be more shy of
responsibility. Some of us become less romantic and more comfortable;
some of us become more diffident about what we have to give in return;
some of us begin to feel that we cannot take up new ideas--none of
them very good reasons perhaps; but still, for whatever reason, we make
friends less easily. The main reason probably is that we acquire a
point of view, and it is easier to keep to that, and fit people in who
accommodate themselves to it, than to modify the point of view with
reference to the new personalities. People who deal with life generously
and large-heartedly go on multiplying relationships to the end.

Of course, as I have said, there are infinite grades of friendship,
beginning with the friendship which is a mere camaraderie arising out of
habit and proximity; and every one ought to be capable of 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