Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast.

Today's podcast has been edited and adapted from the book Friendship by Hugh Black, published in 1898.

Friendship at its very best and purest has limits. At its beginning, it seems to have no conditions and to be capable of

endless development. In the first flush of a newborn friendship, it seems almost an insult to question

its absolute power to meet every demand made upon it. The exquisite joy of understanding and being understood

is too keen to let us believe that there may be a terminal line beyond which we may not pass.

Friendship comes as a mystery, formless, undefined, without set bounds, and it is often a sore experience to discover that it is

circumscribed and limited like everything human. Yet the discovery is not all a loss. The limitless

is also the vague, and it is well to know the exact terms implied in a relationship.

We learn through experience the restrictions on all intimacy,

and if we are wise, we learn to keep well within the margin.

But many a disappointment might have been saved if we had understood the inherent limitations of the relationship.

These are the result of personality.

Each friend is, after all, a distinct individual, with will and conscience and a life apart,

with a personal responsibility which none can take from them,

and with an individual bias of mind and heart

which can never be left out of account. As is to be expected, some of the limits of friendship

are not essential to the relationship, but are due to a defect in the relationship, perhaps

a idiosyncrasy of character, or a peculiarity of temper.

Some of the limits are self-imposed and arise from mistake of folly. A friend may be too

exacting and may make excessive demands which strain the bond to the breaking point.

There is often a good deal of selfishness in the affection, which asks for absorption

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