Those who are apt to deify friendship have need to remember the warning Ne nimis. The world is passing away and so are its friendships, however interesting, engaging, and romantic. They are like the gorgeous sunsets, or the many-tinted leaves of autumn, they will not stay with us. Then use your friends well while you have them. The heart may soon be inlaid with tablets sacred to the memory of these departed ones.

CHAPTER XXVI.

DUTIES OF NEIGHBOURHOOD.

IN most questions place is an important element; in many cases it is one of the most determining influences. It makes the greatest difference whether a man is born in England or in Patagonia, whether he is born in a palace or a prison, whether he lives in a mansion or in the hollow trunk of a tree, whether he breathes a balmy atmosphere or shivers in a bleak and icy climate, whether he is educated in a civilised school or grows up amidst barbarous customs. Buckle has endeavoured to show that the character of a people is dependent on material circumstances, such as soil, climate, food, aspect of nature, and the like.

The large number of independent states in Greece was very remarkable, and may be accounted for by this theory. Each of them was founded in a plain surrounded by mountains high and rugged, and therefore grew up in solitude and independence, forming an isolated character, and unaffected by external influences. The spirit of the people was formed by the physical situation.

On the other hand the tastes, prejudices, and opinions of people are moulded by the customs of the country

where they are born and bred. If we had first seen the light in some districts of Africa we should have eaten rats, moles, squirrels, snakes, and locusts, like the other natives. We should have acquiesced in the custom without thinking it extraordinary that no woman is allowed to eat an egg.* *

It is a beautiful arrangement of Providence that we all love our native country, however bleak and barren it may be. Tacitus noticed that characteristic in the ancient Germans, and describes their fatherland as rude in its surface, rigorous in its climate, cheerless to every beholder, except a native.†

Those into whose hands this book may come have probably cause to be thankful for the place in which they find themselves. Their lot has fallen not only in pleasant, but in prosperous, enlightened, and healthy places; and they could easily make a large list of advantages they derive from the neighbourhood in which they live; and they would appreciate these more keenly if they were called to reside in an inferior locality. The exile who is banished and forbidden to set foot on his native land pines for his country with a new or intensified love.

Now our responsibilities are always in proportion to our advantages, and therefore as there are privileges of neighbourhood, there are also duties of neighbourhood.

People are so apt to be ungrateful and discontented that they are insensible of many blessings which they possess. The monk who walked for a whole day by the

* Mungo Park's “Travels,” pp. 62, 63.

+ "(Germaniam) informem terris, asperam cœlo, tristem cultu aspectuque, nisi si patria sit."-Tacit. Germ., 2.

beautiful lake of Geneva, and would not look at that incomparable landscape, is a type of thousands who will not recognise the good things around them.

No doubt there are disadvantageous neighbourhoods; and sometimes a young man leaving the university is ordained to some remote sphere without society or books, and in his mind he may compare it to a beehive set down in a neighbourhood destitute of flowers; but generally speaking civilisation has ramified its blessings everywhere, and made the remote near at hand.

Some people, especially those who have travelled, whether from affectation or the acquisition of unsettled habits, always depreciate the present place. Leo Pilatus, the first Greek professor at Florence, may be taken as a type. In Italy he was a Thessalian; in Greece a native of Calabria; in the company of the Latins he disdained their language, religion, and manners; no sooner was he landed at Constantinople than he again sighed for the wealth of Venice and the elegance of Florence.*

It is this restlessness which leads men to make frequent change, and at more cost than they suppose, for it is not merely the expense of removal, but the loss of influence, which is to be calculated. Even a tree cannot be transplanted in summer without a temporary suspension of its circulation. Leaving the old house and the old neighbours is a sort of uprooting, and therefore it has been well said:

"I never saw an oft-removed tree,

Nor yet an oft-removed family,

That throve so well as those that settled be."

* Gibbon's "History," vii. 248.

One more disadvantage of removal ought not to be overlooked. When one leaves a neighbourhood local enemies wax bold, but they are kept in check by one's presence. Men are impelled by delusive hopes of change. It is true that residence in another climate may, to a certain extent, improve health, and therewith tone and temper; but no radical improvement dare be expected from mere local change. Horace has as much as any one dispelled this delusion by the famous line where he says that "those who run across the sea change their climate, not their disposition."* Farther on he gives the explanation: "The mind is at fault which never escapes from itself.”+

He who is keenly sensitive of his local advantages will gratefully acknowledge his obligations. He sees that much of his comfort is owing to his neighbours, and therefore he will do something for them. One's nextdoor neighbour may never have done you a positive kindness, but if he has been only careful and kept his house from fire, that is no small advantage, for your interest is concerned when your neighbour's house is on fire.‡ Probably, in turn, he appreciates your character for carefulness, and so dwells securely by thee. Owing to this proximity, and being ready to help at midnight, or at some critical moment, it comes to pass that better is a neighbour that is near than a brother far off. It is one of the innocent delusions of Nature that we often think our

*Hor. Ep., i. 11, 27.

+ "In culpa est animus, qui se non effugit unquam."—Ibid., i.

14, 12.

"Nam tua res agitur paries quum proximus ardet."