an indescribably sweet breeze blows over the friendships of childhood. they are tender, delicate, pale blue petals that tremble with each stir of the childish soul and whose roots even then already penetrate down to the deep layers in which inherited instincts and tempting desires fertilise the soil of the passions. its first friendship is a revelation for the child. till then it loved its parents, its surroundings, its teacher. but behind this love the educational tendency was always in evidence. “you must love your parents because they are so good to you. you must respect your teacher because from him you get the knowledge that is indispensable to you in your life.” thus we make that love a duty for the child which ought, on the contrary, to make it conscious of its duties.
how different it all is in the case of friendship. here the child can follow its natural inclinations. here it can choose according to its own standards without having to listen to the dictates of its educators. and indeed one has thousands of opportunities to observe that a child is much more cautious than adults in the selection of its friends, that it will not accept a friend assigned it by its parents unless he meets with its approval, [pg 74]unless an unconscious urge pleads in his behalf.
how peculiar children are in their choice of a friend! either he is the nicest or the finest, the quietest or the noisiest, the best or the worst, the strongest or the weakest. they prefer one whose traits are clearly and sharply defined, rather than one who is neither one thing nor the other. there must be something about the friend that they can admire; he must excel them in something. but it is not a bar to friendship that they excel the other in something.
let no one say that it is an easy matter to read the souls of children! that their emotions are simple, that their soul’s an open book! we can discover all the puzzling roots of love, even in the friendships of children, e.g., sympathy, cruelty, desire, humility, and subjection.
it is my belief that we adults cannot love with the love we were capable of in childhood. we cannot hate so, cannot be so resentful, and cannot be so self-sacrificing. alas! even our emotions become pallid with the years and can make a show of colour only with the aid of memory.
let us watch a child that has entered into a close friendship. is it not playing the same game that we adults later on designate as love? have we forgotten the feverish impatience with which we awaited the hour of the friend’s coming and how jealous we were if he stopped to converse with another? how we hated him then and how terribly unhappy we were? how we would have loved to cry aloud, if we [pg 75]had not been ashamed to betray such weakness. have we forgotten how the hours flew when we were playing together, how we whispered dreadful and mysterious things to each other in the twilight, how passionately we embraced each other, and kissed, and how ready we were to give up our little treasures to our friends? there is but one time that resembles this friendship:—the time when a happy love makes a wooer a sweet child again.
even in a child’s soul the hunger for love cries aloud and will not be stilled. for a love that is more than a love of parents, for a love that is touched with that dark power which at a later period shapes the life of man to its will.
oh! blessed time, in which our yearning for a second human being is so easily gratified! blessed time, in which we do not yet feel the hot breath of burning desires when the arm of a beloved being entwines us, in which the threatening fist of destiny does not pin us to the ground at the moment when we think we are plucking down the sky! the mirror of our soul still reflects pure innocence; we do not yet suspect that the passions that set the waters in motion must also stir up the muddy ooze that lies at the bottom.
childhood friendship is the school of love. without such friendship the child is impoverished and forever loses the power to love. look at the mothers’ darlings whose mothers took the place of friends! see how they are bound to [pg 76]their mothers by all their emotions, by all the bonds of their souls, incapable of breaking loose from the love for the mother and founding another generation. the stupidest dream of parents is the wish to be the friends of their children. but are we not deceiving ourselves? is such a thing possible? is there not between ourselves and our children a world of disappointments and buried hopes? are there not here yawning chasms in whose depths wild torrents carry away the residue of past years, chasms which cannot be bridged? say what we will, only a child can be a child’s friend!
and there is much food for reflection in this. the child is surrounded by so much authority, so much school, so much dignity, so much law, that it would have to break down under the weight of all these restraints if it were not saved from such a fate by meeting with a friend. in secret conferences, at first in whispers and only in hints, but subsequently more and more clearly and distinctly, the road to life is outlined. the gods are dethroned, or, at any rate, are not feared so much; little jokes about the teacher are the beginning, and gradually the excess of parental authority goes tumbling till it assumes just proportions. the way to freedom of thought, the way to independence, the way to individuality is opened. what the child could not have accomplished alone was a mere toy with the help of another. and the friendship grows ever prouder and more intimate the [pg 77]more the child loses the feelings enforced upon it.
one great mystery, the child’s eternal question, occupies its mind more than most parents, most persons, will believe: the question about the origin of man, the question which is customarily answered with a childish tale about a stork (or a big tree in heaven, a large cabbage, or a department store), a tale with which the clever little ones make fools of their elders who go on repeating for many years a story they had long ago ceased to believe. behind all the child’s curiosity there lurks the one great question: “where do children come from?” one will never go wrong in concluding that a child who is plaguing his elders with a thousand stupid and clever questions is suffering from a kind of obsession, an obsessive questioning, behind which lies the one great and important question that troubles all children. on this subject the child cannot speak with its parents. instinctively it feels that here is a great mystery that is being withheld from it and whose solution the parents have put off for a future time. it is during childhood friendship and in connection with this question that sexuality plays its first trump. it is a pity that human beings so easily forget their own childhood, else parents would not be so blind in this regard. in the northern psychologist’s, arne gaborg’s, best work “by mama” there is a wonderful scene copied direct from nature: two little girls are sitting on the basement [pg 78]stairs whispering to each other their latest bit of information about the great mystery; gradually it grows dark and an inexplicable dread of something great, threatening, mysterious, fills their trembling souls; it is that fear which faithfully accompanies love throughout life and whose dark wing has just barely brushed their innocent childhood.
the child gets older and friendship changes its nature. life and its claims interpose their authority. into the quiet and unselfish friendship of childhood, into the pure and simple childish harmonies there penetrate various over- and under-tones whose inharmonious character is not discovered until long after. envy, egoism, covetousness, cunning, distrust,—all these feelings steal their way into the childhood friendship, and finally friendship degenerates into what moebius has so aptly named phantom-practice. young obstetricians train their unskilled hands on “phantoms” (or mannikins) to fit them for the serious requirements of their art. something exactly like this is the conduct of young adolescents, especially girls, who are still half-child and already half-woman. to a girl the admiration of a girl friend takes the place of a lover’s wooing; to be kissed by her results in a dream of being kissed by a man. recently biology has developed the idea, erroneously attributed to otto weininger, that every human being is a mixture of both sexes. before puberty the two elements [pg 79]m. and f., male and female, must balance. the child is bisexually constituted, and therefore every friendship is in a certain sense a love affair. about the time of sexual maturity the sexuality of every individual triumphantly asserts itself. this is the great moment when childhood friendship has fulfilled its mission. it is as if the child were now freeing itself from the yoke of its own sex and entering the arena equipped for the battle of love.
this also explains why childhood friendships so seldom are preserved and carried over into adult life. the friendships of adults are based upon different foundations. now it is the thinking, reflecting, conscious being who seeks a fellow combatant who he hopes will fully understand (and sympathise with) him. higher interests determine their friendships. but it is no longer so deeply rooted as childhood friendship. it no longer requires the co-operation of the instinctive emotions.
now and then one comes across persons who are always children, whom not even the bitterest experiences can strip off the pollen linked with their emotions. they are the only ones capable of true friendship even in their old age. they spread friendship with the sweet smile of the child; they do not love for the sake of the advantages to be derived; they do not even ask whether they are their friends’ friend. ah! if we could be such a child again! or if we could but find it!
