42 



or bitter word. Such a character was, as might be ex- 

 pected, remarkable for 



THE FIDELITY AND PERMANENCE OF HIS FRIENDSHIP. 



A secret confided to Doctor Cook's ear was as safe as 

 if hidden behind the impenetrable veil of the Egyptian 

 Isis forever. Prudent in advice, he sought to promote 

 only our truest relations and welfare. If sometimes he 

 were indirect in his ways, if in a crisis of excitement and 

 incipient hostility between you and another he hesitated 

 and did not stand up quite so openly and emphatically as 

 you could have wished; if, in short, he were exasperat- 

 ingly cool-headed and noncommittal, you realized, after 

 it was all over, that he had not been actuated by any dis- 

 loyalty, but only by the habitual caution and self-restraint 

 to which he had schooled himself. Besides it was his 

 instinctive policy never to widen but rather to bridge the 

 chasm that divided friends, and a bridge must, from the 

 nature of the case, touch both sides of the opposing 

 banks. 



His own resentments quickly vanished into charity and 

 good will. I was one day walking with him when he saw 

 a graduate on the opposite side of the street, looking 

 somewhat perversely in the wrong direction. Doctor 

 Cook said: "Do you notice that the gentleman over there 

 does not want to see me? He did not behave quite as he 

 ought to have done in college. Never mind. Let's go 

 over and pass the time of day with him, just to show him 

 that we wish him well ! " Yes, O thou model of a peace- 

 lover and peacemaker, thou didst unfailingly wish every- 

 body well, and didst go out of the way, and how often 

 at the sacrifice of personal pride, to disarm and win back 

 the disaffected; yet never in a cringing spirit, nor with 

 the patronizing air that is so offensive, but with a frank 



