Such were great Hercules and Hylas dear, True Jonathan and David trusty tried; Stout Theseus and Pirithoeus his fere; Pylades and Orestes by his side; Mild Titus and Gesippus without pride; Damon and Pythias, whom death could not sever; All these, and all that ever had been tied In bands of friendship, there did live forever; Whose lives although decay'd, yet loves decayed never. SPENSER, The Faerie Queene. The Miracle of Friendship The idea, so common in the ancient writers, is not all a poetic conceit, that the soul of a man is only a fragment of a larger whole, and goes out in search of other souls in which it will find its true completion. We walk among worlds unrealized, until we have learned the secret of love. We know this, and in our sincerest moments admit this, even though we are seeking to fill up our lives with other ambitions and other hopes. It is more than a dream of youth that there may be here a satisfaction of the heart, without which, and in comparison with which, all worldly success is failure. In spite of the selfishness which seems to blight all life, our hearts tell us that there is possible a nobler relationship of disinterestedness and devotion. Friendship in its accepted sense is not the highest of the different grades in that relationship, but it has its place in the kingdom of love, and through it we bring ourselves into training for a still larger love. The natural man may be self-absorbed and self-centred, but in a truer sense it is natural for him to give up self and link his life on to others. Hence the joy with which he makes the great discovery, that he is something to another and another is everything to him. It is the higher-natural for which he has hitherto existed. It is a miracle, but it happens.