This is the best and most loyal way of making
friends; and, if this be called choice, indulge in it, though not from
any material profit you are to get, but simply because you are fond
of one who is worthy of the best you can give her.
Then you will see that, if a girl and her traits were lovable when
she and you were school-mates, they deserve to be loved still: then
a year after graduation you will know the girl when you meet her on
the street, and recognize her as you did in school. Girls and boys
do not change so completely after leaving school. Eleanor, though in
plain clothes washing up the kitchen-floor, is Eleanor still; and Frank,
though only patching fences, is still Frank. Changes in circumstances
and in ourselves sometimes prevent the keeping of a friend, and we
no longer find friendship in the places where we used to seek for it;
but inconstancy in ourselves is a greater enemy to the holding of a
friendship than any external circumstance.
One great reason why certain girls of good parts remain in the same
position in which their ancestors had lived--struggling with poverty,
with bad tempers, with an indifferent lot, and wrestling with a savage
discontent--is because they are not encouraged to any thing better
when they get out of school. The free institutions of learning in the
United States begin a noble work of co-education and co-friendship;
but, when these are passed, there remains nothing to continue the work.
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