olutions. Yet--our friends have
passed it over, have shown their willingness to take us as we are. Can
we do less than hope to deserve their generous tenderness, granted
before it was earned?

The problem of education, said R. L. S., is two-fold--"first to know,
then to utter." Every man knows what friendship means, but few can utter
that complete frankness of communion, based upon full comprehension of
mutual weakness, enlivened by a happy understanding of honourable
intentions generously shared. When we first met our friends we met with
bandaged eyes. We did not know what journeys they had been on, what
winding roads their spirits had travelled, what ingenious shifts they
had devised to circumvent the walls and barriers of the world. We know
these now, for some of them they have told us; others we have guessed.
We have watched them when they little dreamed it; just as they (we
suppose) have done with us. Every gesture and method of their daily
movement have become part of our enjoyment of life. Not until a time
comes for saying good-bye will we ever know how much we would like to
have said. At those times one has to fall back on shrewder tongues. You
remember Hilaire Belloc:

From quiet homes and first beginning
Out to the undiscovered ends,
There's nothing worth the wear of winning
But laughter, and the love of friends.

THOUGHTS ON CIDER

[Illustration]

Our friend Dove Dulcet, the poet, came into our kennel and found
us arm in arm with a deep demijohn of Chester County cider. We
poured him out a beaker of the cloudy amber juice. It was just in
prime condition, sharpened with a blithe tingle, beaded with a
pleasing bubble of froth. Dove looked upon it with a kindled eye.
His arm raised the tumbler in a manner that showed this gesture
to be one that he had compassed before. The orchard nectar began
to sluice down his throat.

Dove is one who has faced many and grievous woes. His Celtic
soul peers from behind cloudy curtains of alarm. Old unhappy
far-off things and battles long ago fume in the smoke of his
pipe. His girded spirit sees agrarian unrest in the daffodil and
industrial riot in a tin of preserved prunes. He sees the world
moving on the brink of horror and despair. Sweet dalliance with a
baked bloater on a restaurant platter moves him to grief over the
hard lot of the Newfoundland fishing fleet. Six cups of tea warm
him to anguish over the peonage of Sir Thomas Lipton's