TALKS WITH A KID BROTHER
A disquieting story, I admit, and an extreme case, but it illustrates what I mean by the mawkish, maudlin thing in friendship, as it is sometimes depicted in books—often by men who know better but who want to make us see how lofty their ideals are. There are times when good old human nature is a better guide for our actions than the unnatural humanity of novels.
I don't see how there can be much of the real thing there when a man has to poke himself, and say, "Now, then, let's see: what is my duty as a friend?"
It would be as bad as a man's asking himself, "How ought a gentleman to act?" You ought to want to do it; your heart ought to make you jump at it without submitting the matter to your head at all. If you hesitate you are lost, as a friend.
How much ought you to want to do for a friend? Well, that depends. It may be that the poor devil I told you about ought in the first place to have yearned to have Charlie beat him in the contest for which they were both supposed to be
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