The Result of the Competition

The Editor offered a prize of £5 for an essay in prose or verse on The Character of an Ideal Friend.

WHAT a quarrel of opinions this competition produced Some demanded great gentleness in their friends : some even wished for a little inferiority. It was this attitude which Miss Jocelyn C. Lea so neatly hit off in her verses :- " At tennis, golf, and billiards he Is good, but not so good as me ;

At cards he's usually my debtor ; He plays quite well, but I play better.

His income's large, his troubles nil ; He brings me grapes when I am ill ; And never asks me to restore

The books he lent in nineteen-four.

I sing his praises to the end— He's my Ideal.of a Friend ; The only doubt that haunts me, is— I'm not so sure that I am his."

Others demanded an auiterer, more heroic kind of friend- ship ; and, on the whole, these competitors seemed to be the most acute-minded, the most alert to quality and nuance.

There was difference, too, as to whether friends should be similar and dissimilar in character. But perhaps the opposing views can be reconciled. There can be no doubt thUt an essential of friendship is referred to when Mrs. Milne writes of the necessity of " a certain intangible sympathy of spirit " or when Mrs. Aldersey gave as her final definition of a friend " one who speaki the 'same language." Yet equally. there is necessary a kind of equipoise; or coniplementary wholenesg, in two friends, "each one having the qualities which the other

feels to be lacking' in himself; The chief Principle of friendship, in most estimations, was

loyalty or entire sympathetic understanding. The chief joy of friendship was to possess the freedom to " be what one is," to think, talk, and- act spontaneously without the perpetual

fear of being misjudged or criticized. - • There was an exceptional number of good entries for this competition. The most original was from Mr. L. R.

Chambers, who sent a vigorous portrait of two pot-house friends, in rough, forcible blank verse. It is hard to say

whether the entries in verse or in prose were better. Mr. C. R. Haines and Miss May Kendal sent an entry in each kind': all four were excellent. " Jasper's " verses were beautifully clear and pleasantly mannered : Miss Phyllis Procter's caught a seventeenth-century accent with grace and ability. - To counterbalance these triumphs, there were a few essays in an archaic and well-trimmed prose, 'very sensitive reproductions of the style of the " Character Writers "

or early essayists. Among the best were Miss Lois Campbell's, Mr. A. A. Le M. Simpson's, Mrs. Shrofrs, and Miss A. W.

Knight's.

In addition we thank R. Macdonald Watson, T. S. Attlee, E. Emkay, Marion Buchanan, and " Margaret." The prize is awarded to Mr. H. C. Dent (42 Cromwell Road, Hove) for an essay in the most heroic strain of all :-

AN IDEAL FRIEND.

Not what my friend can give me but what I can offer my friend must I first decide. - For friendship is equality, and herein it differs from love, which is dependence ;. love evokes the impulses both of surrender and of protection, but friendship evokes neither. I should not surrender myself to my friend, for from the moment that I did'he could be my -friend no longer ; nor shciuld I yearn to protect him, for, being independent, he would not need my protection. My advice, my assistance, my purse would be his to call upon at any • tune--they 'would be at his service ere he asked—but in all crises of life both he and I must at the end stand alone, and decide each for ourselves. I must not be his intellectual superior, for I should then despise him) I cannot be his inferior, for then I should envy him, and envy, though it may tolerate

love; kills friendship. My personality mast not absorb nor must his. overpower _mine, for then there` would -remain not two

friends but only one substance and one wraith. We must be equal, in mind, in heart, in understanding ; fundamentally equal, however diriparate in character.

Equal, but not similar. For the friendship of similars can be but a friendship in blinkers, a narrow, one-viewed, restricted friendship. In the petty inessentials, yes, we may resemble one another ; convention, out of whose bonds none of us can over break, no matter how we struggle, will indeed compel us to a likeness in externals, but in the life forces, whose current convention dams no more effectively than a straw floating on the surface dams a river, we shall be radically and utterly different.. How else should each serve the other ? If I lack courage, then must my friend possess it in abundant measure ; so, between the two of us, shall even weight be given. In return, if he be over-sanguine, then must I counter him with excess of prudence. What I have he must lack, what I lack he must have. Friendship is a treaty, an alliance for offence and for defence, not, as love, an uncon- ditional capitulation.

Many false sayings have been made about friendship. Shake- speare even, being himself so utterly a lover, could not comprehend friendship. " A friend should boar a friend's infirmities," said he ; but it is not so. I should think scorn to allow my 'friend to bear my infirmities, and I should 1083 my friend if I bore his. His strength is mine, and mine is his ' • but our weaknesses are for our own bearing. A friend should hate a friend's infirmities. Only thus can he be of service to him, and give him strength to bear them. For friendship is for the strengthening of character, not for its weakening.

Most so-called friends are not friends at all ; they are acquaint- ances or, more rarely, lovers. Acquaintances no one save an anchorite can avoid ; for all but the shallowest. natures, to love is easy. To be a friend is the most difficult thing in the world. A true friend would wound me deeply, and frequently ' • and I him ; and our friendship would thrive because of our scars. An acquaint- ance one dares not wound ; a lover one cannot. To hurt is the grandest privilege of friendship. My friend would leave me when most I thought I wanted him, and in my agony of soul I would understand why, and bless him. I, for my part, would have to stand by and see my friend suffer, without lifting one finger to assist him ; ho could not be my friend were I driven by my feelings to his aid.

For friendship is restrained and austere ; my friend may sym- pathize with me, but he will never pity me. Pity destroys equality, but sympathy confirms it. Friendship is nevertheless catholic ; for while acquaintanceship is primarily intellectual and love is primarily emotional, friendship is both, yet neither to excess. My friend would be devoted, but he would never adore me ; he would be full of sentiment., but never sentimental ; he would, be sincere, but he would never be polite. My friend would be critical ; he would know my worth to a hair, and knowing it would know his own. Ho would know my faults, and detest them, and my virtues, and applaud them. Ho would be blind in neither eye ; nor mote nor beam would obscure his vision.

In sickness and in health, in riches and in poverty, he would remain—my friend ; something less than a lover, and something more. Love influences both being and action ; friendship should influence being but not action. Love is, ideally, the fusing of two souls - friendship is the result of their conflict. Thus is a friend less than a lover. But friendship ever seeks truth to possess it, and hungers after right-doing ; love in its charity sacrifices truth for peace. Love represses and inhibits.; friendship exposes and lays bare. Thus is friendship greater than love.

So for one friend I would give all--save love. ..

H. C. DENT.