“‘That,’ said Menexenus, ‘is a matter of dispute between us.’

“‘And which is the nobler?  Is that also a matter of dispute?’

“‘Yes, certainly.’

“‘And another disputed point is which is the fairer?’

“The two boys laughed.

“’I shall not ask which is the richer, for you are friends, are you not?’

“‘We are friends.’

“’And friends have all things in common, so that one of you can be no richer than the other, if you say truly that you are friends.’

“They assented, and at that moment Menexenus was called away by some one who came and said that the master of the gymnasia wanted him."[1]

[Footnote 1:  Lysis.  Translated by Jowett.]

This is all.  To Plato’s way of thinking, the situation explained itself.  The two boys could not share their beauty nor their strength, but money was a thing to pass from hand to hand.  It was not, and it never could be, a matter for competition.  The last lesson taught an Athenian youth was the duty of outstripping his neighbour in the hard race for wealth.

And where shall we turn for a practical illustration of friendship, as conceived by Emerson and Plato?  Where shall we see the level waters, the “mine is thine” which we think too exalted for plain living?  No need to search far, and no need to search amid the good and great.  It is a pleasure to find what we seek in the annals of the flagrantly sinful, of that notorious Duke of Queensberry, “Old Q,” who has been so liberally and justly censured by Wordsworth and Burns, by Leigh Hunt and Sir George Trevelyan, and who was, in truth, gamester, roue,—­and friend.  In the last capacity he was called upon to listen to the woes of George Selwyn, who, having lost at Newmarket more money than he could possibly hope to pay, saw ruin staring him in the face.  There is in Selwyn’s letter a note of eloquent misery.  He was, save when lulled to sleep in Parliament, a man of many words.  There is in the letter of Lord March (he had not yet succeeded to the Queensberry title and estates) nothing but a quiet exposition of Plato’s theory of friendship.  Selwyn’s debts and his friend’s money are intercommunicable.  The amount required has been placed that morning at the banker’s.  “I depend more,” writes Lord March, “upon the continuance of our friendship than upon anything else in the world, because I have so many reasons to know you, and I am sure I know myself. There will be no bankruptcy without we are bankrupt together.”

Here are the waters flowing on a level, flowing between two men of the world; one of them great enough to give, without deeming himself a benefactor, and the other good enough to receive a gift well.

The Condescension of Borrowers

“Il n’est si riche qui quelquefois ne doibve.  Il n’est si pauvre de qui quelquefois on ne puisse emprunter.”—­Pantagruel.