It needs a noble nature to be capable of friendship, or rather a nature which has carefully trained itself by discipline and self-denial, so as to develop all the possibilities of nobleness which were latent in it.

God gives each of us a nature with “pulses of nobleness,” and it rests with us whether this shall grow, or be choked by the commonplace part of us.  To be noble does not come without trouble.  Good things are hard, and “noble growths are slow."[7]

He who would be noble must go through life like Hercules and the old heroes, working hard for others; not troubling about personal comfort and amusement, but practised in going without when he could have,—­for the sake of better things.

To be noble means having your impulses under control, and this most especially where your affections are concerned.

Do you want to help others to go right in life?  I need not ask, for every generous nature would care to do that, even if she did not care much about her own soul.

Now, you will not do much by direct effort, but you will do an immense deal by conquering your own besetting sin.  In the “Hallowing of Work,” Bishop Paget says, “Increased skill and experience and ability are great gifts in working for others, but they do not compare with the power gained by conquering one fault of our own.”

Friendship can be the most beautiful thing in the world:  it can be the silliest thing in the world.  It can be the most lowering:  it can be the most ennobling.  Nothing excites so much laughter and hard speaking in the world as “schoolgirl friendships;” as often as not they are found among older people, but schoolgirls have given a name to this particular kind of folly, so it behooves schoolgirls to keep clear of it, and to deprive the name of its point.

But can you help being sentimental if you are made like that?  Some are of good wholesome stuff, with an innate distaste for everything of the kind, while to some it is their besetting sin.

You can at least take precautions; for instance, do not day-dream about your friend,—­brooding over the thought of her weakens your fibre more than being with her.

Make a rule of life for yourself about your intercourse; walk and talk with her more than with others, but at the same time sandwich those walks and talks by going with other friends,—­it is a great pity to narrow your circle of possible friends by being absorbed in one person.

Do not write sentimental letters, and, finally, do not sit in your friend’s pocket and say “Darling.” (If you wish to know how it sounds, read “A Bad Habit,” by Mrs. Ewing.)

I must confess that I believe in what is so often jeered at as “kindred souls.”  Love is not measured by time; often we are truer friends through some half-hour’s talk, in which we saw another’s real self, than through years of ordinary meeting.  But this is so different from the folly I speak of, that I need not dwell on it; except to say that you will be spared many disappointments if you are content with the fact that such moments of sympathy have been, and do not look to have a permanent friendship on that basis.  When people draw the veil aside for a minute they generally put it back closer than ever, and do not like to be reminded of the self-revelation.